Silent Hill Downpour
Senior Games Contributor, Lorenz Kindt
01/04/12
Lord Almighty... I go on vacation for three weeks to recharge my batteries in the peace and quiet of total isolation, and suddenly the internet tears itself apart in a bitchfest of unprecedented scale – over a damn video game ending.
I guess the inkling I had years ago about staying away from the franchise in question proved correct, and thus my sanity remains preserved for the time being; a good thing, to be sure, because I require said sanity (or semblance thereof) to write about games that actually interest me. So, dear readers – have you all gotten over your “Mass Effect 3” hissy fits? Yes? Good, then feel free to join me as I venture into a genre I've neglected for the past few years: survival horror.
I suppose it's a homecoming of sorts... I've trodden the foggy streets and paths of this little town back in the glory days of the PS2, but for some reason I've been deaf to its call for a long, long time. Then, a few days ago, my radio broke and assaulted me with an unnerving shrieking and buzzing, and suddenly I caught myself listening for the foreboding wail of an old air raid siren. As luck would have it, Konami just released its latest story about some unlucky sod stumbling into the idyllic resort town by Toluca Lake, so I guess it's catharsis time! Everyone, bring your flashlights, pocket radios and monster repellent and accompany me on my trip to Silent Hill.
Story
“Downpour” tells the story of Murphy Pendleton, a gloomy jailbird with a haunted past and a metric crapton of psychological baggage; a perfect candidate for the tender ministrations of Silent Hill, as you can see – the guy's already a prisoner, so his obvious need for atonement alone should suffice to make the town break out the torture kit.
Anyway, we join Mr Pendleton on his transfer from Ryall State Prison to a maximum security facility, and just as some of the inmates trade barbs with a correctional officer who must've been born with a bug up her pretty rear, the bus veers off the road and tumbles down a muddy hillside. Upon regaining consciousness after the crash, Murphy finds himself alone and resolves to put as much distance between himself and anything remotely resembling law enforcement; little does he know that even something as simple as finding a new set of clothes will be hell on Earth.
Silent Hill has a habit of making people confront their demons one way or another, and now that it has its eyes on Murphy it'll rake its grubby, blood-encrusted claws through his heart, mind and soul until he understands that there are some things in this world you can't run from.
Silent Hill games have always been about story and atmosphere, which is probably the reason for my continued attraction to the franchise; that said, they're certainly not all winners, and especially all the 'evil cult' business in several of the entries got tired fast.
“Downpour” takes a step in the right direction by building on the premise of the magnificent “Silent Hill 2”: rather than some nutty sect pulling the strings, the town itself is the puppeteer, a disembodied malevolence that ensnares those it deems guilty and damaged and puts them through its personal brand of nightmarish punishment, making them face up to their sins in a trial by fire and blood – lots of blood. The story told (mostly) through the cut scenes is quite compelling due to both good writing and excellent delivery from the voice-acting cast, and it's complemented by a multitude of documents waiting to be found throughout the game, helping the player to put together the pieces of the puzzle.
My one complaint is that some of the minor characters are, well, too minor. Some of them seem thrown in as an afterthought or included merely to justify making Murphy traipse through yet another critter-infested hellhole; particularly the fellows in Devil's Pit and the accursed Centennial Building.
Aside from Murphy himself, it's difficult to care about anyone you meet throughout the game, even that somewhat important sourpuss of a prison guard... well, perhaps I cared about the awesome black mailman with his cryptic comments. Yeah, that guy was cool.
Presentation
As I said, I haven't played any of the “Silent Hill” games released during the current console cycle, so I was pretty impressed by the sight of my favourite little horror town clad in current-gen graphics. It's funny, really – the dense fog that has become one of Silent Hill's trademarks looks better than ever, and yet it originally came about through graphics limitations imposed by PS1 hardware.
The amount of detail afforded by the Unreal Engine provides us with crisply detailed features on characters and animation, and it does wonders for weather and environmental effects; in short, Silent Hill looks like it's supposed to – beautifully filthy, dilapidated and eerie. Furthermore, strategically chosen camera angles, lighting and spacing methods serve to play on basic human fears, combining with a well-crafted soundscape to create that constant underlying sense of dread I so love about this franchise, even though it's not quite as dense this time around as I would have hoped. Oh, and speaking of sound, people's whining about the absence of long-time soundtrack composer Akira Yamaoka turned out to be predictably unjustified; Daniel Licht took the reins on the game's entire soundscape, and just like his work on the hit TV show “Dexter” it turned out nine flavours of marvellous.
What I'm less enthused by is the enemy design of “Downpour”; not only is it weak in variation, it's also much less subtle in terms of psychological depth, to the point of downright senselessness. I can appreciate the muscled brutes with shivs and the blood-spewing, wall-mounted torsos as references to Murphy's prison life, but the screaming female zombies, murderous mannequins and the gangly freaks crawling along the ceiling just seem token - and the Bogeyman character is a laughably transparent attempt at recreating the impact of the Pyramid Head.
Also, as great as it may look, the Otherworld feels less like an integral part of the experience and more like a sightseeing tour through an architectural exhibit by Clive Barker and Sigmund Freud.
Gameplay
Basically, “Silent Hill” (as I know it) is about exploration, puzzles and fight-or-flight situations, and “Downpour” is no exception. On his way through the town and its outlying regions, Murphy can find and collect scraps of backstory, strange puzzle items, weaponry and ammo; instructions, maps, objectives and puzzle hints are all collected in a handy journal you'll come to appreciate.
You also quickly gain access to two of your most basic pieces of equipment, the flashlight and pocket radio (this time in the form of a police walkie-talkie), the latter of which alerts you to the presence of nearby enemies by blurting out bursts of static. A decidedly new element of “Downpour” is the inclusion of puzzle-heavy optional side quests, inviting the player to explore all of the town instead of just trekking between story hotspots; they're certainly not vital to the story, but they do offer some of the appealingly creepy surrealism the franchise is famous for. Just make sure you don't spend too much time outdoors – the town can sense you, and after a while a wicked thunderstorm will set in, bringing with it endlessly spawning mobs of belligerent creatures intent on re-purposing your skin as a picnic blanket.
The melee-focussed combat mechanics aren't exactly bad, but it's also clear that Murphy isn't a trained soldier, hitman or robot ninja, so you'll want to avoid battle whenever you can, if only to preserve precious med-kits. By the way, “Downpour” unfortunately utilizes a weapon degradation system; you can pick up just about anything to use as a weapon, but depending on its material and quality it will eventually break, usually mid-combat, leaving you to run around frantically looking for another means to stave off death by claw-to-the-face, and while shooting enemies may be more convenient, ammo is so rare you'll end up treating every single bullet like a Fabergé egg. Other weaknesses in gameplay include some seriously badly spaced auto-save checkpoints, a number of cheap deaths during chase sequences and what I like to call the Waterslide of Doom, and a few unbearably ham-fisted moral choices.
Final Verdict
“Silent Hill: Downpour” may not be perfect, but I do feel it's worth the price of admission; I got through the story in about 10 hours, and the side quests should yield at least another 4 or 5. Yes, you'll encounter some aggravating gameplay elements, the odd frame rate hiccup, and you'll probably wonder why the lovingly crafted Otherworld is abused for extended chase sequences, but these shortcomings shouldn't detract too much from what is otherwise a remarkably enjoyable and well-told story about guilt, shame and human suffering.
What's more, in a time where titles like “Dead Space” that offer nothing but jump scares are unironically lauded as the pinnacle of the survival horror genre, I feel it necessary to extol the virtues of mind games, surrealism and good old-fashioned dread over the crude approach of shock-and-awe. At the very least you should consider renting this one if you're not averse to the trade in deals.
Pro-tip: Be sure to keep reality and fiction firmly separated, lest you develop a phobia of fire alarms and wheelchairs. I, for one, still feel the need to hide when I hear an air raid siren.
Mass Effect 3
Games & Entertainment Editor, Ben Shipway
12.03.12
5/5 Pies, “Glorious”
Bioware has finally finished it’s highly acclaimed Mass Effect trilogy, but has the final instalment lived up to the good name laid down by the first two?
Mass Effect 3 is truly a shining example of both 3rd person shooters and role playing games. Bioware have taken the best elements from previous Mass Effect games and combined them into a greatly improved playing experience, finely tuned to just how you want.
For people who want to just experience a story there is a new ‘narrative’ mode that makes the game incredibly easy to play – too easy. And if you didn’t like the dialogue scenes last time and would rather jump straight into the action there is an option that auto selects your reactions, saving time in the dialogue sequences! On top of this a range of new weapons and enemies have also been included in the package, keeping the game feeling fresh and original, even with a remaining cover-based combat mechanic. An online mode has also been added to the mix but this is an unnecessary addition; it’s essentially a copy and paste of the Gears of War horde mode that is even less enjoyable.
Visually the game is stunning. Massive reapers dominate the horizon in large scale battles, ships fly through the air desperately fighting for their lives and, when you take a break from the action, the wonderfully designed populated areas look and feel as if they are real.
This atmosphere of the world adds to the beautifully told story that left me questioning if I had made the right decision at every turn. Unlike the other two mass effects this game does not have a black and white morality for the major decisions, instead it leaves it up to you who lives and who dies. I personally found it very effective and it even made me feel guilty about some of the decisions I made! Along with the amazing story is the wonderful host of relatable characters brought to life by the superb voice acting.
Despite this the game is not perfect; in the dialogue sequences characters would snap from one position to another or would completely vanish – and at one point the game bugged out forcing me to restart the mission. Essentially though, this is forgivable because it does little to draw me out of the story and the rest of the game is to such a high standard it can be overlooked.
What cannot be overlooked is the ending. I’ll try not to spoil anything but you get given a choice between two virtually identical endings that reveal nothing of the consequences of your actions throughout the trilogy. This was disappointing because aside from that the story is superb. I even quite liked both ending sequences, but the way you choose the ending and the lack of knowledge of the consequences of all your other decisions just ruined it. Gutted.
Aside from tripping up at the last hurdle however, Mass Effect 3, and indeed the entire trilogy, is a superb example of gaming and if you let yourself get sucked into the universe it’s hard to tear yourself away again. I recommend this game to anyone who likes gaming.
The Darkness 2
Senior Games Contributor, Lorenz Kindt
20.02.12
Here we go again. I guess with the popularity of comic book adaptations over the past decade it was inevitable that yet another one would plop into my lap not long after “Arkham City”, but hey, seeing how I've been reading comics for over 20 years now I won't complain.
If you've been following my reviews at Pie Magazine, you'll have figured out by now I don't give the time of day to cheap license trash like movie tie-ins, meaning that developer Digital Extremes have thrown their lot in with publisher 2K Games to bring us a comic book game intended to play in the big leagues; maybe it's because there are so precious few anti-heroes at large in this specific category of video games that I was especially tickled to get my hands on “The Darkness 2”. Aside from a few minor issues, its predecessor from 2007 was money well spent (hint hint), but I resolved not to let my guard down nonetheless... quality is a fickle mistress, and I've been hurt by shoddy sequels before.
Fair warning, folks – this game is not for the squeamish. If you think yourself hardened to graphic violence after pulping locust brains in Gears of War or knifing some unlucky sods in Call of Duty, think again. Using some of the most delightfully horrifying executions I've witnessed in games, I spilled enough blood and giblets to fill a swimming pool fit for the Olympics; let's dive in together and see what we can find!
Story
Alright, let's start with some background info – after all, for those of you not versed in comic book trivia, The Darkness might be a smidge obscure.
The story follows Jackie Estacado, a young hitman for one of New York's mafia families; he's pretty damn good at his job as is, but on his 21st birthday a rather special genetic trait changes Jackie into a nigh-unstoppable murderiser, as a primordial entity attached to his bloodline violently manifests and bestows upon him the powers of a dark god. A sweet deal, granted, but the Darkness is also malevolence incarnate that literally lives off suffering, and it will stop at nothing to force its host into submission and use him to create chaos and carnage of epic proportions.
Two years on from the last game, Jackie has somehow learned to keep the Darkness suppressed and enjoys the good life as Don of the Franchetti crime family. As we all know, fate has a tendency to stop smiling on individuals like these, and just as Jackie is sitting down for dinner at a fancy restaurant a car plows through the window and straight into him, saddling him with the two-fold problem of defending himself against an assassination attempt while bleeding to death. Left without any alternatives, Jackie acquiesces to the mocking voice in his head and releases the Darkness to save his life; once the starved parasite is done tearing the crew of assailants to shreds, its reluctant host moves to find out who's targeting him and why – a job that would be considerably easier without the Darkness slowly eroding his soul and sanity.
I know it doesn't sound like much so far, but my reason for not delving deeper into the plot at this point is quite simple: I don't want to spoil your fun. To utterly misquote Ben Parker, “With great linearity comes great story focus”, and “The Darkness 2” certainly puts a lot of weight on the story element; believe me, it's worth it, and the somewhat tragic tale really comes alive through the performances of its characters.
Also, players inclined to sit through a bit of exposition will find their story experience enhanced by detailed background information on in-game collectibles. Who would've guessed Moses spent his time in the wilderness fighting the embodiment of evil? No cookies for guessing who won, by the way.
Presentation
To those who played “The Darkness” back in '07, this aspect probably represents the biggest, most obvious change. Whereas the first game appeared largely grounded in reality in terms of environment, plot and graphics (aside from the whole Darkness thing, of course), “The Darkness 2” feels more like a comic book come to life.
The graphics have changed from realistic rendering to cell-shading, and accordingly the game, while still generally dark, favours a more vibrant palette of colours instead of the cold and gritty 'film noir' style; what sets this particular case of cell-shading apart from other members of the genre is the fact that most characters and locations in the game were actually hand-drawn and painted instead of assembled entirely on the computer, and it shows – the results look most impressive. Of course, there's the obvious drawback of combining a static template with motion capture tech for the purposes of displaying extremely nuanced movement. To make a long story short, some of the facial animations and especially the lip-syncing during conversations can be downright scary at times. Jackie's elderly aunt Sarah frequently reminded me of an origami prune while imparting her foul-mouthed brand of wisdom to me.
Sadly, the soundtrack is largely forgettable; I remember it complementing certain moments in the story quite nicely, but a few days after beating the game I honestly couldn't hum a single melody if I tried. This shortcoming is balanced by superb voice-acting from the entire cast, right down to the most insignificant little thug; while I would have preferred Kirk Acevedo returning as the voice of Jackie Estacado, Brian Bloom does a commendable job, and just like in the first instalment, rock singer Mike Patton (of “Faith No More” fame) steals the show as the Darkness – just remembering some of his screeching and growling lines makes cold ripples run down my spine, and I love it.
Gameplay
Judging from a cursory glance, not much has changed since the first game: we're still controlling Jackie from the first-person perspective, we're still using assorted projectile weapons to corpsify rude people, and we still have the serpentine Darkness arms looming over our shoulders like demonic liquorice twizzlers with glowing eyes and rows of serrated teeth; however, Digital Extremes added a slew of new bits and pieces – it's just that the devil is in the details, so to speak.
First of all, the 'quad wielding' feature enables full simultaneous control over all of Jackie's combat-relevant appendages, meaning that, depending on manual dexterity, it is now quite possible to use twin pistols to stun one goon while throwing another at his mates, then reload while messily bisecting another attacker and ripping out and devouring a dead guy's heart.
Also joining the fray is one of your Darklings, a nasty, belligerent imp with sharp claws and a posh British accent, and his role in combat only gets more hilarious once you learn how to throw him at your enemies; you also get to remotely pilot the little guy for a couple of short stealth sections. Furthermore, you can now use your environment to your advantage: picking up car doors provides Jackie with a disposable shield, metal rods and fan blades are useful tools for impaling or slicing apart opponents at range, and virtually anything can be thrown at enemies to stun them and make them susceptible to a grab attack.
On the metagame level, an upgrade system has been added to allow for customisation; by interacting with dark shrines, the player has access to four separate skill trees, offering a wide range of minor and major skills and improvements in the areas of magic, execution moves, gunplay and passive benefits. The currency required to pay for these upgrades is generated by killing enemies, consuming hearts and finding collectibles, so don't let any bodies go to waste and keep your eyes open; fortunately, hunting for hidden goodies doesn't break flow due to the game's streamlined, linear progression.
Keeping in mind that this is supposed to be a game, not a leisurely skip through the tulips, the developers also spruced up the roster of bad guys and their abilities. While you may not get to disembowel German zombie soldiers this time around – seriously, this was a thing in the last game – the majority of your opponents are now endowed with supernatural armour, and some of the support troopers carry huge flashlights into battle to deprive you of your Darkness powers. Personally, I found the shotgun-wielding teleporters annoying enough, but the guys equipped with glowing chains specifically intended to disarm you were the prime source of my frustration in protracted shoot-outs, and I took immense pleasure in popping their heads off, snapping them apart like wishbones or dangling them upside down and tearing their spinal columns out through their rectum. Never gets old, that one.
Final Verdict
Here's the catch: Depending on game prices in your area, I cannot in good conscience advise you to buy “The Darkness 2” at this time. Why? Because it's too damn short! I know shooter campaigns have been getting ever shorter with the rise of modern military titles, a development I will lament until the cows come home, but aside from a few snappy co-op side missions, this otherwise excellent game has nothing to make up for the fact that you can blaze through the story in about six or seven hours! This thing is a well-crafted, story-heavy must-have for shooter fans who like it gory – and in keeping with its predominant theme of maiming and mauling, do yourselves a favour and wait until the price tag gets slashed a bit.
Pie Brings You
Game of the Week
GOTW Contributor, Sean Hughes
09.02.12
Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Developer: BioWare.
Publisher: Electronic Arts LucasArts.
Series: Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic.
Platform: Microsoft Windows.
Star Wars: The Old Republic is a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) based in the Star Wars universe.
The game was first announced on October 21, 2008, at an invitation-only press event. The video game was then released for the Microsoft Windows platform on December 20, 2011 in North America and part of Europe.
Upon the title's launch, the game had 1 million subscribers within three days making it the world's 'Fastest-Growing MMO Ever' going up against other rivals such as World Of WarCraft.
It goes without saying that this is a must-buy for all Star Wars fans. Although it can feel long-winded at times and carries the prequel-Star Wars trilogy’s flashy-flashy kind of themes, it’s certainly a good-fun game.
4/5 Pies
Sonic Generations
Senior Games Contributor, Lorenz Kindt
02.02.12
Alright, the first thing readers of this article – and especially rabid supporters of this long-running (Look, I made a funny!) franchise – need to understand is this: I'm not a Sonic fan. The twitchy rodent will not get a free ride from me simply for the sake of him being Sonic.
Especially during my early years, mine was a Nintendo household, but the blue blur has always held a certain appeal for me in the way those old pinball machines have – brightly-coloured, lightning-fast movement and a cool soundscape with a plethora of pleasing bells and whistles. It's good, simple fun for the whole family, and I've played my share of Sonic games, but certainly not all of them; therefore, weighing in on the quality of a game basically intended as a nostalgic cross-section of Sega's lead franchise feels a bit weird.
Maybe that's not a bad thing, though – instead of perceiving “Sonic Generations” through the rose-tinted shades of nostalgia, I can judge most of it on its own merits. Is this anniversary game a high-speed hit or a third-class carnival ride not worth the price of admission? Read on to find out!
Story
I guess some things will never change. Traditionally, the story of any Sonic game tends to be its weakest part, be it for reasons of shoddy quality, cringe-worthy dialogue or outright absurdity, and “Sonic Generations” is no exception.
Fitting with the anniversary theme, it's Sonic's birthday, and the weird menagerie of anthropomorphic woodland creatures that is his circle of closest friends throws him a party in the park. Moments later the picturesque get-together is interrupted by a huge monster appearing out of nowhere, which sucks everyone into some kind of limbo outside of time; there Sonic meets the 80s-version of himself, impressively taking the utter mindf*** of the situation in stride, and together the two hedgehogs set out to save their friends and fix the space-time continuum.
I know the Sonic brand wasn't created to convey stories of any particular brilliance, but I really wish they'd make some kind of attempt to ramp up the quality a bit if they do insist on shoving this garbage down our throats. The matter is not helped at all by the spiffed-up personalities of every single character on display; maybe it's not as grating to kids, but the forcibly exaggerated perkiness of the cast made me consider pouring a bottle of chlorine down each ear. On a side note, Sonic must either be a man of astoundingly simple pleasures, or the best damn actor in the entire world. I ask you – would you honestly be psyched if your best friend, a guy with access to the very cutting edge of technology, turned up at your 20th birthday and presented you with a gift-wrapped chili dog?
Presentation
In sharp contrast to the story element, I've always enjoyed the aspect of audio-visual presentation in Sonic's adventures (aside from the aforementioned god-awful dialogue). As befits a company figurehead, the franchise started out with a look that worked for it and then stuck with the formula forever after. If you've played any of the previous games, you'll feel right at home in “Sonic Generations” from the very first high-speed dash. Slightly exaggerated cartoonish environments stretch out before you, cluttered with moving platforms, boost panels, bumper springs, grind rails, loop-de-loops and a host of other features enabling crazy mach-speed stunts, and everything is displayed in strong, vibrant colours.
The appealing visual design is complemented by a high-energy soundtrack combining elements of techno and rock music, varying in style depending on which Sonic you're blazing through a level with. Sega worked a major hook for nostalgia buffs in here: Each of the nine big stages is modelled after an iconic stage from a previous game - and in accordance with this, every track you'll hear over the course of the story campaign is a modernized version of that level's soundscape.
Speaking as someone who was fully introduced to the franchise with “Sonic Heroes”, I couldn't help but smile at the familiar sound of Seaside Hill from the very first chord; some of Jun Senoue's theme tracks from previous games also made the cut, and his mish-mash of rock, punk and alternative styles fits the on-screen action incredibly well.
Gameplay
Dress it up any way you like – the meat and potatoes of a game is still the gameplay, especially if it's built around a central concept. Sonic's stance is clear: super speed is where it's at, and most of what you do while playing “Sonic Generations” accommodates for that. The game's structure is a basic affair:
Each of the nine levels, accessed via the eye-wateringly bright level hub, consists of two sections, one for classic and modern Sonic respectively, and after every third level a boss battle awaits; upon completion of an additional set of surprisingly varied challenges and rival battles, our heroes get to tackle the freakish creature responsible for this whole mess – a creature I just can't take seriously as an opponent because it looks like an overgrown ghost-type pokémon.
Every previous Sonic game I played had at least something I enjoyed about it, but like finding a severed finger in a bag of perfectly fine crushed ice on cocktail night, there was always some fundamental flaw marring the experience; “Sonic Heroes” suffered from randomly unresponsive controls, “Sonic the Hedgehog” (2006) had lock-on and hit detection issues galore, and “Sonic Unleashed” featured the drawn-out 'werehog' sections that played like an arcade beat-em-up programmed by a drunk four-year-old. Meanwhile, “Sonic Generations” boils its gameplay down to the basic jump-and-run set, and for all its simplicity it works splendidly.
Classic Sonic navigates his way through nicely polished 2D environments the way he did during his earliest days, with a bigger emphasis on avoiding traps and enemies, but despite the slower pace it's genuinely fun. Modern Sonic almost constantly breezes through his level sections at breakneck speed, occasionally switching between 3D and 2D camera angles, and even encountering a pack of enemies doesn't break the flow because the spin-dash move disposes of them quickly and elegantly; it was especially these modern stages I got a real rush out of, and even though there were a few instances of control issues, handling Sonic felt a lot tighter and better adjusted than ever before.
I will point out, however, that there's one part of the game that made me rage-quit once: the final boss. Like in “Shadow the Hedgehog” (and probably a few other games, I wouldn't know), after gathering a set of seven magical gemstones the Sonic duo undergo a transformation that would give the creator of “Dragonball Z” legitimate reason for a copyright infringement suit, and together they fly down an endless timewarp tunnel, chasing the giant monster which constantly chucks debris, lasers and homing missiles at them; to catch up to the damn thing you not only have to dodge all of its attacks, you also need to keep up an insane speed level (which somehow still feels strangely slow).
Here's the kicker: Maintaining their glowing super-saiyan form makes the hedgehogs burn through rings, so if you don't want to revert back to normal and suffer insta-death you'll have to collect more during the fight; sadly, those rare and precious rings don't stand out against the LSD-trip miasma of colours swirling all around you, and even if you do manage to spot some, chances are you won't be able to collect them because your protagonists suddenly handle like a narcoleptic sloth hurtling downhill on a skateboard. In short, being able to keep up your powers depends largely on luck, not skill, which in my book constitutes a broken gameplay mechanic - and to add insult to injury your pesky friends keep prattling away in your ears for the entire fight.
Final Verdict
“Sonic Generations” is far from flawless, but aside from the finale I had a great time with it. You'll want to mentally tune out every scrap of spoken dialogue, and occasionally the game will annoy you with a cheap death trap, but overall the fun and fast-flowing gameplay and the appealing presentation will probably mellow you out enough to forgive those shortcomings. The title's already experienced major price cuts, so even for those of you who don't instantly squeal like Justin Bieber fangirls at the prospect of a new Sonic game, this one should be a safe purchase.
Just make sure to enable your content filters, should you decide to google anything Sonic-related. There are artistic deviants out there, I tell you, and more often than not the fruits of their labours will make you wish you'd been born blind, deaf and dumb. In the words of the great Maurice LaMarche: “You watched it. You can't un-watch it.”
Pie Brings You
GAME OF THE WEEK
GOTW Contributor, Sean Hughes
24.01.12
X-Men: Destiny
This product is available on Playstation3, Wii, Xbox 360, and Nintendo DS consoles.
Based on the X-Men comic series comes the all-fun video-game, released by Activision on September 27 2011. Developed by Silicon Knights, the game seems you put in the role of new mutants. You can decide to join either the X-Men or the Brotherhood of mutants and your choice will ultimately decide the destiny of their character. It is written by Mike Carey, the same man who wrote the comic series, making it a must-have for any Marvel fan.
4/5 Pies
Serious Sam 3: BFE
Senior Games Contributor, Lorenz Kindt
10.01.2012
You know, as much as I love modern technology and the staggering rate of its development, I can't help but feel it's turning me into an old man before my time.
Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with being a cantankerous old pleb – in fact, I play the role with gusto; but here I am, taking my first steps into the second half of my twenties, and barely a day goes by where I'm not wistfully reminiscing about how things used to be in the 'good old days'.
For example: Shooter games used to be wacky, mindless fun. They didn't aspire to the telling of monumental stories of laughable quality, they didn't beat me over the head with ethical quandaries about sending thousands of young people overseas to get their legs blown off in Baghdad, and most importantly they didn't limit my carrying capacity to a pitiful total of two weapons. Luckily there are still developers like Croteam, who are willing dust off their old franchises and remind calcified old farts like me that the old ways haven't been completely forgotten; so let the youngins have their “Call of Duty” and their “Battlefield” and whatnot – I'm going on a rampage with my good old buddy Sam Stone.
“Serious Sam 3: BFE” is yet another drop in the vast sea of prequels cluttering up the games industry nowadays, but don't worry – even though the first entry in the franchise was released over a decade ago you can jump right in, seeing how the “Serious Sam” games were never particularly bothered with the story element.
It's the 22nd century, and there's this alien overlord called Mental who tries to conquer Earth (and the entire rest of the universe) with his armies of freakish minions; just as the invaders are busy mopping the floor with the sorry remainders of Earth's armed forces, one-man army Sam Stone is dropped into Egypt to activate an ancient time machine so he can travel back to 3000 BC and throw a monkey wrench into Mental's business during his first visit to our lovely planet. As you can plainly see the story sits in the campy corner of the 'horribad' spectrum, but it gets its job done, i.e. it provides a setting, allows for the inclusion of a few cutscenes and doesn't make the mistake of taking itself seriously like that literary abortion they crammed into “Painkiller” back in 2004.
As for the presentation... well, there's not much to say, really. Aside from all the twisted creatures on display, “Serious Sam 3” opts for the realistic look, but while the graphics aren't bad for today's standards they're certainly not cutting-edge either, especially the unfocussed, grainy textures; I guess the gore effects are nice at least, which is kind of important in a game like this one, and overall it's very stable. The soundtrack is rather helpful, as the level of its intensity alerts the player to the presence of nearby enemies, and a few big encounters employ kickass heavy metal in the background.
Unlike with most old franchises revived for a current-day instalment, “Serious Sam” doesn't try reinventing the wheel for the hell of it. Just as before, you control Sam from the first-person perspective, your average movement speed would make the likes of Soap MacTavish blush with jealousy, and you use a gratifyingly large arsenal of increasingly heavy ordnance – all carried simultaneously, of course – to turn every last alien invader into a pile of chunky fertilizer. No annoyingly long reload animations, no recoil penalties, no fancy realistic ballistics – just point your crosshairs at whatever you want pulverized and pull the trigger. Simplicity itself. On rare occasions the game will send you on a key hunt or make you fight your way through Egyptian tombs darker than the devil's hairy no-go, but mostly you'll advance through vast open areas and stretches of desert, fending off ludicrously huge hordes of nicely varied enemies; if you feel like it, most of the smaller opponents can be dispatched using pre-rendered melee insta-kills, but turning them into mulch with a rocket launcher or a minigun is more fun, and most of the time there'll be far too many threats to deal with to make this method viable. Items are conveniently colour-coded: red for health, blue for armour, green for weapons, yellow for ammo and purple for mission-related stuff like keys and artifacts; it may sound a bit silly, but when roughly half the known universe is bearing down on you with the intent of tearing you a new poop chute, the ability to find supplies in a split-second is paramount.
I know, I know – I sound like a hypocrite. I'm usually one of the first folks to cry foul when developers don't innovate in the gameplay department, and yet here I'm lauding a game for deliberately sticking to a formula that was already a fossil at the turn of the millennium. Maybe it's something to do with the fact that I'm sick of crouching behind cover and taking timid potshots at a few enemy soldiers, but I think the crux of the matter is the desire to feel like a badass. When a game presents me with a gun I don't want to skulk around the battlefield like a frightened, insignificant little bunny for ten hours – I want to wreak havoc like a boss!
“Serious Sam 3: BFE” gets that; it puts you in the shoes of a protagonist who's basically Chuck Norris and Duke Nukem rolled into one character, minus the bullshit, hands you a box of toys that go 'boom' and lets you loose against several armies' worth of enemies. If you're in the mood for a nice, old school bulletfest (one that offers a multiplayer co-op campaign, no less), you'll most assuredly have a blast confidently swaggering into battle with Mr Stone...
Battlefield 3
Films & Entertainment Editor, Sam Weeks
4/5 Pies
“Best multiplayer experience in the long haul”
Developer: DICE
Publisher: EA
Available on: PC Xbox 360 PS3
Version tested: Xbox 360
Battlefield 3 is here. EA’s big push at toppling the behemoth that is Call of Duty finally arrived and is selling like the proverbial hot-cake, but was it successful? Is this the end of Call of Duty’s tyrannical reign over the Christmas release period? No, of course not, COD has and was always going to sell better that BF3 - no matter how awesome the former would be. But is it worth your money? Absolutely.
Before we dig into game play, let’s talk graphics; DICE’s Frostbite 2 engine is a marvel to simply look at. Even on the scaled back 360 version, the level of detail is amazing, especially given the size of some of the multilayer maps. The animation is superb and very flexible, a character can be sprinting, go prone, crawl for a few seconds and get up into a standing stance so fluidly it looks like a single animation. There is little aliasing or texture pop-in (as long as you play multiplayer) and it scales really well; taking off in a jet from ground level, climbing to a few thousand feet and looking out across the battlefield is all at a consistent 30 frames a second without a hitch.
While the Graphics might be amazing the Sound Design is, somehow, even better; the guns all have a satisfying kick to them, even relatively lightweight carbines and the vehicles all sound brilliant. Tanks trundle, and the helicopters buzz, although the fantastic Doppler effect you get as a jet passes by is a stand-out. My favourite noises however come in the heat of the battle: Explosions, the whizz and thud of bullets finding their target and the rattle-pause-rattle of near-by gunfire put you right in the middle of the game. Remember the Omaha Beach scene from Saving Private Ryan? That’s what BF3 sounds like.
Unfortunately these achievements are overshadowed by the atrocious single-player campaign. DICE has done away with the open-ended level design and amusing characters of Bad Company 2 and instead plumbed for a linear, serious military shooter with set-pieces galore. While a very linear design can bring forward some very tight, fun gameplay, (eg. Dead Space 1+2) Battlefield 3’s campaign is let down by some appalling AI. It almost always runs directly towards to the piece of cover that it has been assigned and won’t budge, even when the Player retreats behind cover. There might be a few grenades thrown towards your general direction, but no more initiative is shown by them. The AI also has a tendency to flit from being unable to place a single hit on you for minutes on end to killing you almost instantly without warning within the same level, causing a confusing rollercoaster of a difficulty curve. EA’s wish for Battlefield to overcome Call of Duty is most apparent in the single-player campaign; the story feels beat for beat like a Modern Warfare game; so here’s the part where a horrible man-made disaster befalls innocent people in a spectacular way, look at all the lovely devastation! Aren’t you horrified? And here’s the part where one of the characters you’ve been playing for about a half-hour cops it! What do you mean it’s become so predictable that you no longer care? We demand you feel something! The whole thing does seem very rushed, put together by a team that isn’t very good at making single-player games.
However Battlefield arms itself with one of the best multiplayer experiences in gaming, more than overcoming its single-player flaw. The emphasis on objective based gameplay is refreshing, as is the focus on co-operative team based gameplay that creates some beautiful moments. Almost every action you can take is rewarded by points, from the usual kills and assists through to reviving someone with the use of a defibrillator kit and disabling vehicles through the use of explosives. Even the simple act of spotting (pressing the back button while an enemy passes through your reticule, which puts an arrow above their head and marks them on your team’s mini-maps, making it a lot easier to find and kill them) will bag you points. The amount of rewards that a good team player earns almost forces the level of co-operation vital to making this game so much fun. The other crucial piece of the puzzle is the sheer breadth of options that are available to you to take the fight to the enemy. The classes all offer a very different play-style and interact really well, with equipment that mixes up the stereotypical play. Recon (Snipers) for example, are encouraged not to camp but move around into different points that the whole team needs to be in through the use of mobile spawn points.
On top of all the depth offered by the classes you have the different vehicle classes all of which are brilliant and proper use of them can turn the tide of the battle incredibly quickly. With all this variety and the huge scale of the maps (even the lesser console versions support up to 32 players and the maps are accordingly shorter, meaning they never feel sparse) cool, memorable little moments are created, often out of random events. Destroying a tank with a single hit from a missile launcher while riding shotgun on a chopper is immediately satisfying, as is single-handedly reviving several teammates and together taking an objective that the other team had thought was relatively safe. You get the idea.
The maps are designed brilliantly, (a personal favourite being Siene Crossing) with nasty chokepoints , blind spots and short-cuts galore, along with a great scalability going from expansive fields to tight corridors with hidden alcoves and corners around which could be a buckshot fuelled death. That’s not to say the multi-player isn’t without faults. Some of the maps only work in a particular mode (Operation Metro, for example, is a great conquest map that is focused on a group of escalators, a killing field that both teams must try and push against in order to capture flags; Rush however, a mode in which only one team is attacking at any one time, it becomes a horrendous meat-grinder) and there are plenty of balancing issues that need addressing. The most famous of which, the flash-light that will blind someone in the middle of the day, stopping them from aiming accurately, has become the stuff of internet meme-dom. That said these issues are either minor enough not to matter or are easily fixed with the odd touch of nerfing.
So while Battlefield 3 is not the COD-killer EA wanted it to be, and it’s single-player campaign leaves a lot to be desired, it does have one of, if not the best, multi-player experience of any game - including Call of Duty. This is well worth your money and time.
New n' Old
STOCKING STUFFERS
The Best Games to Buy this Chrimbo!
Games Editor, Ben Shipway
New
- Skyrim:
PC, Xbox 360, PS3, (RRP) £25-£40.
This epic free roam game is the latest in a long line of beautifully-crafted games known as the Elder Scrolls franchise. It includes a massive open world, almost limitless freedom and stunning design. It’s a sure bet that Father Christmas will get a few thank you’s for this one.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
PC, Xbox 360, PS3, (RRP) £30-£45.
The latest of a series of record-breaking games; the setting returns to the story that first launched the franchise into the big leagues, with near perfect gameplay, a host of features and its famous multiplayer making it’s annual comeback. Call of Duty looks set to blow millions of players away once again.
- Assassin’s Creed Revelations:
PC, Xbox 360, PS3, (RRP) £25-£40.
Another addition to a franchise, Assassin’s Creed has blown away audiences in previous years with it’s unique gameplay, beautiful cities and brilliant concept, with this latest version, which seems ready to take the world by storm once again.
- Rage:
PC, Xbox 360, PS3, (RRP) £20-£40.
As the only new franchise this year, Rage deserves a place on this list simply for having the essence of originality - although calling the gameplay original would be like saying the use of guns was a new idea, because Rage takes us back to the 90’s with it’s fast, furious and fun gameplay that combined with top range graphics provides an experience found in few action games today.
- Batman Arkham City:
PC, Xbox 360 PS3, £25-£40.
The sequel to the best super hero game of all time, Batman finds himself in a more sandbox like world with every aspect of the first game greatly expanded upon to provide a truly stellar experience. This will be perfect for all you comic book fans out there and even those who like hard core action titles.
Old
- The Orange Box:
PC, Xbox 360, PS3, (RRP) £10-£20.
This bundle contains 5 games for the price of one, including IGN’s game of the decade and it’s two expansion packs, Team Fortress 2; a multiplayer game that has a beautiful art style and gameplay. Finally Portal, considered by many (including myself) to be the best game of this generation.
- Lego Movie games:
Wii, PC Xbox 360, PS3, (RRP) £5- £30.
While not choosing to focus on one specific version, the lego games have always been a good source of humour not usually found in high budget games, allowing for a break from all the serious, sometimes depressing atmosphere of most mainstream games. This will be a great game for those who enjoy seeing family friendly parodies of their favourite movies. It is also a great stocking filler for younger audiences.
- Mario:
All Nintendo consoles, (RRP) £5-£35.
As the most recognisable figure in gaming, Mario has left his impact on the world with excellent platforming in 2D and 3D and with a variety of different gaming styles. These games are suitable for all ages and will be sure to make a great gift for anyone, any Christmas.
- Resident Evil 4:
Game cube, PS2, Wii, Xbox 360, PS3, PC, (RRP) £3-£15.
Being the best game in the popular franchise and on every console ever you really have no excuse not to buy this to treat yourself this Christmas or as a gift for anyone who calls themselves a gamer. This will hold a special place in any horror fans out there.
- Red Dead Redemption:
Xbox 360, PS3, (RRP) £15-£25.
Expanding on the latest GTA game, Red Dead takes us to the old west to tell the story of a former outlaw trying to go straight in the fall of the wild west. With a brilliant story, and the tight controls of GTA, Red Dead provides an experience rarely found in games. This will be one for the western and action fans.
Assassin's Creed
REVELATIONS
Lorenz Kindt, 21:05 - 20/11/11
I'm a single player type of guy.
I realise that with the ongoing trend towards online multiplayer gaming – presumably intended to force us apathetic couch potatoes into having some kind of social life – I may be part of a dying breed, but seeing how I spend most of my time in the real world with its daily nightmarish tidal wave of real demands imposed on me by real people, there's something very appealing about the escapism offered by a finite piece of fiction - and for me to experience in the comforting solitary quiet of my own four walls.
That said, I like my games to keep things fresh, especially in franchises built around the concept of a single, overarching story spanning several titles; the status quo needs to be challenged on a regular basis, lest a great thing start wallowing in its greatness and fall victim to stagnation.
What's the point of this rant, you ask? Well, I've just finished playing “Assassin's Creed: Revelations”, and those of you who've been keeping up with the franchise will no doubt have heard that, for the third bloody time in a row, the protagonist is Ezio Auditore da Firenze. I won't hesitate to admit I enjoy good character development, as it can help shape a narrative into something truly magnificent; but in a franchise built around personally exploring key points in history, why is it we're still bogged down in the life of a mass-murdering Renaissance-age Italian?
At least Ezio's still pretty spry for a guy in his fifties – but will it be enough to carry yet another game? Read on to find out if it's possible to still teach an old dog some new tricks.
Story
Well, the correct term would be 'stories' in this case, if one were inclined toward pedantry. Which I'm totally not. Anyway, you know the routine – if you don't want any spoilers whatsoever, immerse yourself in something that blocks out all sight and sound for the duration of this next section; maybe you could stick your head in the toilet, or something like that.
After the last game, “Brotherhood”, felt like more of a relevant plot update for future-guy Desmond Miles rather than Ezio, “Revelations” puts Desmond into a bit of a bind – and by that I mean it has him in a coma, with the Animus acting as mental life support, i.e. the only thing keeping him from turning into a mindless stalk of celery. Locked in some kind of Animus sub-routine, he must rifle through Ezio's remaining memories in order to claw his way back to consciousness and gain more insight into the looming apocalypse foreshadowed back in “Assassin's Creed 2”.
Meanwhile, Ezio's driving motivation has degraded from lofty goals like “Beat up the Pope” and “Reclaim Rome from the Borgia” to “Hunt some McGuffins”. The Templars are still hell-bent on finding ways to turn humanity into a flock of docile sheep, and they're rooting around Constantinople in search of artefacts that will grant them access to Altair's library in Masyaf, which is said to contain a source of immense power; naturally, Ezio won't have this, and so he takes charge of the city's Assassins, befriending a cheeky sidekick, a charismatic prince and a dashing young lass in the process, and sets out to beat the Templars to the prize.
As you may have grasped already, the story is all over the place in this one. The perspective keeps jumping back and forth between Desmond, Ezio and Altair, throughout various points in time, and it's easy to feel a bit lost, made worse by the fact that the player is not provided with a clear antagonist for the majority of the game; also, if you haven't played the three games leading up to “Revelations”, chances are you won't make much sense of this one at all.
On the 'plus' side of things we have the aforementioned benefits of storytelling centred on a single character: Ezio, who is probably the most likeable version of himself in this game, taking the role of the wise mentor – not to mention the old coot is still a big hit with the ladies. What's more, Altair gets a lot of extra character development in playable expository interludes, making a previously uninteresting central figure at least relatable, and the chemistry between Ezio and his love interest is almost palpable in its intensity. What I'm trying to say is that, while the story itself is nothing to write home about, the players in it most certainly are.
Presentation
I'll be honest with you – in terms of visual design, nothing of relevance has changed since “Brotherhood”; someone hung new wallpaper over the menu and loading screens, but in the end that's all that really changed.
What genuinely surprised me, though, was the fact that the graphics got a boost since the last game, considering that a lot of people (me included) basically expected this instalment to be “Assassin's Creed 2.2”. During active gameplay the devil is in the details, and you have to look hard to spot improvements in the environment engine, but the character models got a visible makeover, especially in regard to facial expressions and animations; people come across as more realistic in conversations, and somehow the developers managed this extra notch in quality without simultaneously amping up the dreaded 'Uncanny Valley effect'.
Don't get me wrong, the graphics aren't perfect by any standards – there's some tearing here and there, occasionally a graphical glitch will cause objects to float in mid-air, and a lot of female characters sport hairdos that look like someone cross-bred a brain slug with a bowl of Chinese takeout, but ultimately these flaws are negligible.
It's also worth mentioning I rejoiced at the change in scenery; I was starting to get sick of all the Italian architecture and the look of 16th-century Constantinople (and its citizens) was just what the series needed to liven things up. Oh, and speaking of livening things up – the big set pieces in this game will rock your world. Seriously, get ready to gawk at some truly impressive on-screen action.
Jesper Kyd returns for the soundtrack, and I'm happy to say it's just as wonderful as his previous work on the series. You'll hear influences of Middle Eastern, Greek and Renaissance music as you stalk your victims throughout Constantinople, providing a rich and beautiful aural experience as diverse as the city's tapestry of ethnicities. This is the kind of music you can have quietly running in the background all day long as you go about your business or relax with a bath and a good book.
Gameplay
Seeing how it's worked splendidly for them so far, it's understandable that Ubisoft are sticking to their usual MO of adding new gameplay elements while ironing out old kinks.
All the things you remember from “Brotherhood” carry over into “Revelations”: the free-running control system, the quick-select wheel for handling equipment, the aspect of renovating the city to increase your regular income, the recruitment and training of new disciples, the assortment of special moves and assassination manoeuvres – all that and more is still in the game, sometimes with an extended repertoire; for example, the new 'hook blade' allows for easier and faster climbing and free-running as well as new killing techniques, such as the zipline assassination. This time you also have access to a crafting system, allowing Ezio to manufacture a variety of bombs (lethal, tactical or diversionary) from ingredients found and/or purchased around town. There probably should be a law against having such impish fun in luring a gaggle of guards to one spot with a noisy cherry bomb and then watching them expire in a fit of horrid spasms and cramps, courtesy of a follow-up cloud of neurotoxin, but there isn't, so I'll just keep gassing the poor twits from my perch in the rafters.
There are, however, two gameplay aspects that didn't work too well for me, but fortunately they only take up very little of the game. The first is an addition to the area control mechanic; while liberating an area from the Borgia in the last game meant you were the undisputed master of that particular patch of dirt, now the Templars can come in and try taking it back from you, which plays out in a rather hectic and cluttered 'tower defense'-type minigame. The second is entirely optional, but it's the only way to unlock character background for Desmond; in the most radical, out-of-place design choice I've witnessed in this franchise to date, the player is put into the first-person perspective and set loose in a series of challenge rooms with very limited controls and armed only with the ability to spawn two kinds of basic geometrical objects. That's right, folks – Desmond's walk down memory lane is a first-person physics puzzle platformer. Think “Portal”, but with worse controls, an underwhelming method of obstacle negotiation and a complete lack of hilariously psychotic artificial intelligences trying to murder you.
Final Verdict
“Assassin's Creed: Revelations” marks the final chapter in the story arc around Ezio Auditore da Firenze and Altair Ibn La-Ahad, and in the name of tap-dancing pony-fairies, it was about time this affair got wrapped up. It's totally worth buying, I'll give it that; minor grievances such as the occasional graphical glitch or quest bug pale when measured against the entirety of a game that looks, sounds and plays this gorgeous.
If I had to cite one big gripe with it, it's that for a game which tries to sell itself on the story element (and as the grand conclusion to a trilogy, no less), “Revelations” falls a bit flat, despite its excellent leading characters. Maybe now we can finally get to the game built around Desmond; it would certainly be appropriate, considering that he's tasked with preventing doomsday and the next instalment is slated for a 2012 release.
Fans of the franchise needn't worry, “Revelations” is a safe purchase; everyone else should probably play the previous games first to be able to understand what's going on. You know, once “Skyrim” releases you from its clutches a few months down the line.
INDIE
Cthulhu Saves the World!
Miloslav 'Miki' Milenkov - DEBUT
16/11/11 - 22:54 GMT
Hello, Hello and good day! Welcome to the newest sub-section in the gaming world of Pie; INDIE Games.
I will be your reviewer today and I hope you enjoy it, because I myself sure enjoy indie games and it brings me great pleasure to review them. Let's start by looking at what an Indie game is. They are games created and nurtured to life by a single developer or a non-sponsored small company; so easily said they are people who do this for fun. A very well-known example for such a game is Minecraft believe it or not, but I myself will only go into much smaller, more unknown games.
The first game I am proud to present is Cthulhu Saves the World.
This game was developed by a small company called Zeboyd Games. They are a fairly unknown developer. The game is an old-fashioned RPG like Final Fantasy 1 and 2, which I am sure most if not all of you have never played. If I could describe it in two words they would be – ABSOLTELY BRILLIANT! This game is nothing like what people play now and, I have to say, I am liking what I have seen in it up until now – maybe even a little too much.
As a start I would like to mention that this is an old-school RPG game; so don't expect any button mashing and actual attacking in it. The attacking in this game is made by selecting an attack and then selecting an attack target, but that is what it was like way back in the stone-age of gaming. This game is not only retro, but a paradise for people who are looking for a cheap laugh. If you want to know more then continue reading onwards - for this is only the beginning!
Story
You take on the role of the mighty evil god Cthulhu, who seeks the destruction of the world. After thousands of years of sleep the mighty creature finally awakens to begin its evil ventures, but as always things don't go according to plan and someone seals his powers almost completely - saving the world or at least they think they do so.
Cthulhu is washed out on the shores absolutely powerless. From here on it only gets funnier and funnier, because after all it wouldn't be as good of a game as it is if it didn't. The only way for the evil god to regain his powers is to become a true hero, which he finds out from the narrator, and so the evil creature sets out on a journey to become a true hero. Enticing stuff, eh? I’d reveal more, but I’m not one to ruin it for my dear readers.
Gameplay
As I mentioned before this is a 2D old-school Final Fantasy-like RPG game complete with elements of humour – the game even willingly makes fun of itself. You control a group of up to four party members, one of which being Cthulhu himself.
There is a levelling system, where you increase the attributes of your characters as well as choose between two paths for each one of them; for Cthulhu that would mean a choice between being a mage or a warrior. The classic select attack and select target is once again back in this absolutely amazing game and it feels so nostalgic once you get into it if you used to play similar games like I did all those years ago. Here is an example of a simple fight:
At the top you have the names of your characters their health and their ‘mana’ as well as the combo meter, which increases as you attack, allowing you to unleash a devastating blow. And then you just continue by selecting an attack and then a target. The controls are rather simple as well - the arrow keys to select your target, action, move and the Enter key to perform that action. It runs smoothly on any machine, because after all the game is around 10 years back in graphics quality.
Verdict
I can only say one thing… Buy this game! I absolutely mean it this game is amazing!
I got it around a few months ago along with another game by the same developer on Steam for £2; you can't even get a proper movie for that amount of money and these games give you around 20 hours of play time. They are extremely funny at times and you can often end up laughing your ass off with a tear streaming down your face, I guarantee it.
You can also get the game on Xbox Arcade, but I am not quite sure how much it costs there, but I would say not a lot, considering the PC price. This is Miki over and out. I hope to “see” you again!
Gears of War 3
Ryan Thickett, 09/11/11 - 22:49 GMT
Do you like insane amounts of blood, gore and killing? Cool, so do I and I believe I have finally found a decent game that brings all of those delicious features together – and does it well. That game is Gears of War 3.
You’re probably saying what’s so good about this “Gears of War” game then? Well let me introduce you to the back story, Gears of War 3 brings you into a world on the verge of a complete invasion by the locust horde. After 79 years of human fighting among themselves, the locust crawled out from the planets crust all guns blazing so they could take over the earth and win their place on the surface. But the C.O.G (coalition of organised governments) forms an army that mounts a courageous defence against the locust horde, it isn’t enough however and the “Gears” (an elite unit of soldiers in the C.O.G) have to retreat to Jacinto, man’s last safe stronghold.
In a truly epic battle to defend the world, the Gears are forced to use the Hammer of Dawn to destroy 90% of the earth just to save the last 10% and give them a chance. One of the Gears however decides to try save his father who is trapped between the locust and the C.O.G; unfortunately he was considered a deserter and sentenced to 40 years in prison, 14 years into this sentence he was let out - which is where Gears of War 3 picks up.
Story sounds awesome as hell right? Well hold on before you get too excited, it also has other features that make it incredible besides the storyline - trust me.
The game also features an amazing multiplayer mode which is extremely gory, frustrating and most of all, exhilarating; the multiplayer isn’t just teams of people fighting against each other though, there are many different multiplayer game modes - wingman is a very unique game mode where 4 teams of 2 are formed and then it’s just a huge brawl of pairs of blood thirsty soldiers and locusts destroying each other. But apart from a few unique and interesting versus multiplayer modes, there is also 3 cooperative game modes which are: Beast mode, this is a first for Gears and involves players each choosing a locust and then going out and killing as many humans as possible, each kill gets you cash that can be used to buy better locusts; Horde, Gears have done this before but not nearly as well, this game mode consists of 5 players in an online co-op (making up your team) vs. wave upon wave of terrible locust or lambent freaks that are out to kill each and every one of you, this game mode is definitely one of my favourites and should be played 75% of the time when you are online! And the last co-op game mode is just the campaign but up to 4 players online, this is obviously much more fun because you can chat with mates or just get help with the story if you’re stuck.
So graphically is Gears of War 3 good? Yes, of course it is. Gears of War games use unreal engines for almost everything and they have a very distinctive look about them, the artists really do go over the top of the muscles to be honest. I mean when your biceps are bigger than your head and you’re not the biggest guy in your squad you don’t really want to get on the wrong side of the bigger guys. It all fits quite nicely though - and the size of them make even James Bond look pathetic in comparison. The lighting for this game especially is stunning, just add some golden sunshine onto a freshly sliced up carcass of a locust drone and you know you have made a good looking game.
The gameplay you say? Okay well this game is also very different to most games involving guns because it is a 3rd person, cover based shooter - get out of cover and you will be punished. There isn’t much to say about this game other than it is fast paced and gory, usually involving a lot of rolling around and shaky roadie running. I know some people will say Call of Duty is a much cleaner war game but who cares? In Gears there are 40 ft. tall Brumaks that have rocket launchers on their backs and mini-guns on their arms. Cool, eh?
Overall?
This game is absolutely quality and a must buy if you haven’t already; I haven’t even covered half of the things that I love about this game but there is just too much, if you want to find the rest out. BUY THE GAME.
5/5 Pies
– oh yeah, and over a million people pre-ordered it… to give you some indication of its popularity.
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Call of Decline
Article by Ben Shipway, 06/11/11 - 17:54 GMT
Prepare for another 6 hours of running, shooting, exploding and just generally being confused as the latest annual addition of the hit franchise Call of Duty is just round the corner for a RRP of just £55.
Yes your monitor is working correctly; £55 is now what retailers should charge for a game that in my opinion is likely to be a rushed out piece of garbage. Now don’t get me wrong there was a time that I sang in tune with the praise for the CoD franchise. This was the Call of Duty 4 era when the story was great (never mind understandable), graphics outstanding, and the campaign actually felt longer than 5 minuets.
Unfortunately since the most popular part of CoD 4 was its multi-player aspect the developers of this franchise decided to sacrifice the campaign with the idea that such a game mode didn’t matter - as long as the guns looked good and a second didn’t pass without several large explosions; except maybe when the game was loading. I enjoy online but it should never take over from the single player aspect of the game, every other franchise realises this, why can’t CoD?
Now I do admit that the two new additions to the franchise since CoD 4 do have a certain aspect about them that sort of makes up for this. Nazi Zombies was a fun experience which can be enjoyed alone or with 4 friends; and actually made the game fun… until activation made us pay £10 more for the good maps. Spec Ops was also a very fun experience that I found myself heartily enjoying, but pointless as a co-op campaign would have been just as well received and would’ve distracted us from the loopy plot.
Ultimately the series, although declining, didn’t die for me until Black ops. A game so insultingly safe that they recycled Nazi zombies with a new map or two and that was it. Actually there was a new feature that allowed a jump and dive, well with innovation like this who needs Valve? CoD has begun to Stagnate and become dull, if MW3 proves otherwise I will be the first to jump with glee but if not I would whole heartedly recommend Battlefield 3 over this washed up franchise that has become the glacier of the gaming industry.
Arkham City:
Rocksteady's Masterpiece was no Fluke
Lorenz Kindt, 03/11/2011 - 15:02 GMT
Riddle me this: What's the best new game to enjoy for people who can do without excited 12-year-olds screaming obscenities down their headsets over spawnkills and noobtubes?
Why yes, you guessed right, it IS “Batman: Arkham City”!
After “Arkham Asylum” was deservedly inundated with praise and awards shortly after hitting the market two years ago, Rocksteady's second foray into the grim world of the Dark Knight has been eagerly anticipated by many – especially folks like me who think the rising trend towards online multiplayer gaming can go suck on a bag of rusty nails. I'll admit I was a bit wary; early coverage of the game spoke of an open-world structure and the inclusion of side quests, both of which are usually clear signs of loose story cohesion.
However, after “Arkham Asylum” (a game I replayed about 6 times) I resolved to give developer Rocksteady the benefit of the doubt and dive into the experience with a positive outlook, fully aware that my uncharacteristically benevolent inclination might well be rewarded with a flaming piece of dog poop to the face - instead of an early bag of Halloween candy; luckily, the latter was the case.
Story
Since “Arkham City” is a sequel to “Arkham Asylum”, it follows that a story synopsis of the new game will inevitably contain spoilers for the old one, so if for some incomprehensible reason you haven't played that gem yet, feel free to skip the following paragraph.
Remember how last time around Arkham Island got the royal FUBAR treatment? Sure, that kind of scenario is par for the course in comic-related media, but it also left the schizophrenic warden with the small problem of needing a new place to lock up all the inmates of his freshly wrecked loony bin. Fortunately, famous psychiatrist Dr Hugo Strange came prepared for just this kind of situation, and before long the folks on the Gotham City board approved the plans for Arkham City; basically, a somewhat rundown part of Gotham was cordoned off, and every nutter and criminal the city had to offer (including the super-powered ones) was thrown inside and then left to their own devices. Unsurprisingly, the big fish of Gotham's underworld each nabbed a sizeable chunk of terrain for themselves, and now Arkham City is in a state of constant turf war. Oh yeah, and quite a few inmates are equipped with assault rifles... pretty swanky, these new prisons. Anyway, a few months down the line Bruce Wayne basically gets abducted and put into the big house for publicly campaigning against Arkham City, where he takes all of ten minutes to break loose, don his cape and spandex and proceed to smack some sense into the nearest villain in order to get intel on something called 'Protocol 10'; also, there's the small matter of throwing a monkey wrench into the collective affairs of the prison's most notorious pests, such as Two-Face, Riddler, Penguin and, of course, the Joker, who's seen decidedly better days.
The main story isn't bad, but seeing how I'm spoiled rotten by comic book writing from the likes of Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman, it's not exactly a candidate for an academy award either. Luckily the somewhat anaemic premise of the story is spiced up by the behaviour and actions of its A-list movers and shakers, the sheer twistedness and malevolence of which is an absolute joy to experience. Needless to say, the voice-acting is top notch on all counts; aside an excellent supporting cast, Kevin Conroy resumes his role as the iconic voice of Batman, and Mark Hamill steps into the clown shoes of the Joker for the very last time, ending his run as the Clown Prince of Crime on a high note.
Presentation
When I read that “Arkham City” would be built with the Unreal Engine 3, I was somewhat reluctant to break into a celebratory tap dance; it's a good engine, but it's really starting to show its age by now, as several of this year's releases have proven. What I'd forgotten to account for was the engine's recent graphical upgrade, and when I popped the game into my PS3 I quickly realised I'd have to eat my ignorant words with an extra helping of hot sauce.
Folks, this game looks drop-dead gorgeous; crisp and clean visuals all around, with small texture pop-ins far in between and no slowdown or collision detection difficulties whatsoever (at least none I could detect). Everything looks absolutely stunning down to the smallest, lovingly rendered detail, no matter whether you're perceiving the environments of Arkham City as they are or through your Detective Vision (you know, that glorified x-ray built into the cowl). Also, it's delightful to see a game use its lighting effects responsibly and not make my eyeballs burst by leaning too hard on the bloom button.
As for the aesthetics, they suit the setting perfectly. The dilapidated cityscape of Arkham City, set against the backdrop of a partially overcast winter night, comes across as appropriately desolate and dangerous, with mobs of inmates roaming the trash-strewn streets, willing to sell or kill their own grandmas for a few tins of dog food; burning barrels light up dark alleyways, and landmarks such as the old GCPD building, Wonder Tower and the mob bosses' respective fortresses (like the Iceberg Lounge or Joker's Funland) are illuminated in bright, contrasting colours, casting ever longer shadows over the cold, ravaged prison complex. In short, “Arkham City” gets the atmosphere right; everything down to the last note of the background score all but spells it out for you: You've descended into a dark and unforgiving place. You screw up, you die.
Gameplay
“Arkham Asylum”, while leaving you room to move and backtrack freely within its set confines (mostly to kick Riddler's ass in a scavenger hunt), was basically a well-structured and well-paced linear experience, and despite providing us with a decidedly bigger playground this time around, “Arkham City” expands on the concept behind its predecessor instead of ditching it in favour of a GTA-style sandbox world.
Arkham City serves as a sort of mission hub from which to access the various successive parts of the main story, which almost always take place in sprawling, multi-layered interior settings, such as a police department, a subway system, a museum or a steel mill; if simply speeding through the story isn't to your liking, you can engage in various side quests (usually unfolding in stages) and meet more members of Batman's Rogues Gallery to foil. Also, Riddler is as sore a loser as ever and, in a bid to outsmart and humiliate Batman after what happened back on Arkham Island, has scattered a ridiculous number of collectibles, riddles and whatnot throughout the area, some of which are rather difficult to acquire or solve; getting them all takes a lot of time, but I personally refused to let a smug little runt in a green suit lord it over me... and I wanted the extra XP to unlock more gadgets and combat upgrades, of course.
The controls take a few minutes of getting used to, but after that navigating the maze of Arkham City quickly becomes second nature; there's no response delays, the camera controls well and doesn't get in the way (even in tight spots), and pummelling bad guys is every bit as intuitive as it was last time. If I had to pick a point of criticism, I'd say that switching between the Bat's multitude of gadgets on the fly can get a bit confusing, as they're all clustered around the d-pad, but with a bit of practice that, too, can be mastered.
My favourite part of gameplay by far is the combat; the use of gadgets can make it as complex as you want it to be, but at its core the Free Flow combat system controls incredibly simply and at the same time provides a degree of fluidity in motion animation I haven't witnessed in any other franchise in two full decades of gaming. And by the way, if full-on combat is not your preference, “Arkham City” (like the previous instalment) brings a stealth component to the table and often lets you jump around in the rafters, picking off clueless and nervous henchmen one by one like the caped jackboot ninja you are.
Final Verdict
Seeing how hero games tend to be hit-and-miss, it's nice to see the level of skill displayed by Rocksteady in their previous Batman game wasn't just a fluke. The Caped Crusader's new title is appealingly dark without being dull or drab, controls and plays insanely well, features damn fine acting from everyone involved, and looks awesome to boot; the presence of side quests can sometimes detract from the sense of immediate danger posed by the machinations of the main antagonists, but we need to remind ourselves that juggling multiple high-profile threats before breakfast is all in a day's work for the world's greatest detective. If you're looking for an entertaining diversion from the on-going Autumn Shootapalooza of more-or-less realistic military fetishism, “Arkham City” should be your first port of call.
Bioware Gaming
Ben Shipway, 29/10/11, 00:38 GMT
Over the past 13 years Bioware has continually impressed us with its excellent games and intriguing stories, from early successes such as Baldur’s Gate to more recent hits, such as Dragon Age: Origins. But the franchise that has proved to be its defining feature in later years has been Mass Effect, a series whose amazing story and Gears of War style cover-based shooting have proved a lucrative combination.
But the studio started with advanced dungeons and dragons, real time combat; while this was by far not perfect, these rules did improve on the conventional, turn based approach used by games such as Fallout, which I found clunky and unnatural to say the least. But with these real time fights Bioware has created some of the most beloved RPGs on the market.
The trademark of Bioware however has not been its so-so game play buts its stellar stories which create worlds that you could mistake for real. The complex decisions that can challenge your perceptions of morality and ask how you would react to each horrifying decision you may be forced to make are both forever enticing and entertaining.
Mass Effect continued this trend of story telling but combined cover based shooting; a mix which proved to be incredible. However the game still had flaws - slow loading textures, bad vehicle sections, and a shorter campaign than its predecessors.
However all these problems were fixed in Mass Effect 2 with some of the best graphics I have seen in a game, no driving sections and a story line that can last up to thirty odd hours of game play. Despite these improvements the story, while being of high standard, is said to be weaker than the first’s but still miles ahead of what ever is called average by today’s video game standards.
After the release of Mass Effect, Bioware made a game that went back to their original formula of advanced D&D rules with Dragon Age: Origins, an epic fantasy that lasted tens of hours and provided the player with complex decisions and a spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate. This epic was followed up with the disappointing Dragon Age II, which unfortunately fell below standard is story and even its already unimpressive game play.
With such successes under its belt, I hope Bioware’s next two games Mass Effect 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic will see a return to form for the developer after the disappointing Dragon Age II.
Battlefield 3: BETA & A Look to the New Release
Ryan Thickett, 24/10/11 - 21:43 GMT
Graphics - 4.5 Pies
Gameplay - 4 Pies
Overall: 4/5 Pies
As most of you hard core Battlefield fans already know, it is currently in an Open Beta; so if you couldn’t afford to pre-order this game then it’s fine because right now you can go on to your desired console and play for free!
At the moment there is only one map, which isn’t great but as the map is a million miles long, well not quite it’s still like 10 times bigger than the biggest Call of Duty map, the gameplay makes up for it.
Anyway it’s an open Beta, and for those who don’t know what Beta means, it’s just the game but not quite finished yet. Unfortunately that means there will be loads of bugs and glitches that (hopefully) in the final game won’t be there anymore. Developers release the Beta because it is sometimes a reward for pre-ordering the game but also to have the players report bugs or suggest improvements to the game.
How the game looks is something that EA must value a lot because visually Battlefield is exceptional; they pay more attention to detail than almost any other games when it comes to guns in particular – and the feel of the guns, especially rockets, are so much more realistic than COD games.
Another thing definitely worth a mention is the lighting; when you are in the dark subway, it really is dark but it’s not just black like most games, there are fading blue glows from the light just outside - and when you fire rockets in the tunnel the sound effects are amazing! The light travels down the tunnel with the rocket and the sound very clearly portrays the Doppler Effect. (Feel free to look that up)
So I here you like camping? Not in this game, almost everything is breakable with sufficient force, so that means no hiding behind thin signs or walls, someone with an RPG will blow the wall into tiny pieces. And this is all possible because of Frostbite 2.
Frostbite 2 is the brand spanking new engine developed just recently and is being used in Battlefield 3; it has made things such as macro and micro damage possible that adds a level of realism games haven’t really captured before. For more info on frostbite 2 visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostbite_(game_engine).
So there are some new features since the last Battlefield, but it’s hard to tell how many there are because there is currently only one map, which wields no vehicles. But from what I have gathered, there will be fighter jets, prone position! (Sorry I really like this one), 64 player battles but only on PC (this is sad news for Xbox/Ps3 owners because the ground area is also going to be limited for the consoles other than PC.), they also have a new sprinting system that lets you vault things and move more fluidly which is nice because it means rushing is sort of possible in this Battlefield game.
Another new feature that BF3 includes is ANT. ANT is a new character animations technology seen in some EA Sports games like FIFA, this is good because it makes a much more realistic looking soldier and also how they run and lay down is ticking boxes for realism too. Oh, for anyone who criticized BF games because you couldn’t see the legs of the soldiers, guess what? Yeah that’s right; you can see your legs. Now you can look down at your thighs and think “damn I have some sexy thighs”… while getting shot in the face might I add.
Changing layouts mid game is another delicious feature that means that you can nicely choose whatever weapons you want, this is so much better than going into a match and have a set limit of layouts that you might have not had time to customise before the game starts and then you can’t play effectively. The best thing about this is that if someone is camping in the dark and you can’t see them and they repetitively kill you, you always have the opportunity to whack out a nice RPG and destroy them.
So overall, just from playing the Beta I think this game is exceptional! It is definitely worth buying on the 25TH of October.
Portal 2: A Different Kind of Game
Ryan Thickett, 11/10/11 - 22:20 GMT
Portal 2 is a game for all the people out there who are tired of shoot ‘em ups, racing games or football games. It’s a unique game that really tests your mind in ways often infuriating and frustrating but ultimately satisfying once you triumph – you get that sense of accomplishment most games fail to ever give us recently.
Portal 2 is the sequel of Portal, which was released in 2007 by a team called Valve. It is basically a series of puzzles growing more and more elaborate as the game goes on, starting off with simple tasks like shooting a portal and walking through it to a linked portal in another location (easy enough) but later on gets you involved in using or creating light bridges, gravity vortex’s, companion cubes and other marvellous things that make Portal 2 one of the best puzzle games ever made.
The game is set in a huge facility known as aperture laboratories that is currently broken, due to the ending of Portal 1, and you play a “test subject” - or prisoner would be a more fitting term - which is trying to escape from the lab and into the outside world. Although in your escape something happens because of your actions, causing the start of a repair of the lab and then inadvertently sending a killer robot after you. (Seems legit right?)
Now on to the basic requirements that all games need to be good at, unfortunately a good idea just isn’t enough in our current performance and graphic crazed society.
1. Graphics
Okay well Portal 2 is a vastly more graphically challenging game than Portal 1 for the artists because they not only had to improve the clean look of the test chambers, they also had to expand into the much more colourful world forming the outside of the aperture laboratories. In my opinion they really captured the desecrated ruin-look for the once splendid uniform laboratory. With broken panels, overgrown vines, muddy water and graffiti all graphically splendid to look at, overall I’d say portal 2’s graphic rating would have to be 9/10.
2. Gameplay
Where to start? Well the gameplay for portal 2 is a thing of beauty really, combining the feel of a regular first person shooter (which is a very good thing because it’s familiar) with a very unique much slower-paced puzzle game that manages to be both rather frustrating and very rewarding - if you have the patience. The combination of force field like walkways with gravity fuelled propulsion through the air and split second timing, portal really mixes its FPS style with the brain teasing challenges well. If I had to rate Portal’s gameplay it would definitely be a 9/10 simply because it is 100% unique and combines a very rewarding style of puzzle solving with quick-paced, adrenaline-pumped storyline that never fails to impress.
3. Storyline
This is a hard one to write about I must admit because the storyline is very good although a lot remains kind of obvious; this usually suggests it will be predictable and rather dull, however there is more to it than that. The predictions that the game lets you make only seem to build tension before a dramatic twist in the opposite direction while seemingly remaining plausible. They have the constant challenges that really do test your ability to problem solve during the game while structuring the storyline because everything you do is leading up to one point. Overall storyline is an 8/10.
Okay now to sum up this wonderful game:
It has a very fluid and colourful storyline that really involves the player and is amazing to play, the whole game overall is very engaging and has a lot of little secrets to tease you throughout the whole experience, such as writing on the wall suggesting other people have previously tried to escape… They also have some very iconic, unique and memorable objects in the game that have inspired a cult following of millions across the internet. Such objects would be the famous companion cube; which for some reason you feel a rather large attachment to during the game because it helps you in so many occasions.
This game is famous for some quotes that have spread like wildfire across the internet such as Wheatley’s “Aaah! Bird! Bird! Bird! Bird!" - Or “hello, this is the part where I kill you”.
Another very popular internet meme would be “the cake is a lie” which originates from the first Portal game where Glados promises to give you cake at the end of the tests but instead tries to kill you. Sad times.
So graphically superb, gameplay is stunning and the storyline is mind blowing. Overall this game is fantastic and is definitely a must buy for people that don’t want generic samey games all the time.
Senor Cube fan art by Sarah Merritt, more at http://spottedfire94.deviantart.com/
The Fathers of the First Person Shooter:
Id Software
Ben Shipway, 30/9/11 - 10:56 GMT
Most readers of this irreverent magazine will ask, “Who is Id?”
I wouldn’t blame them; especially since they have produced a real lack of games over the last decade. But if you happen to know of a genre called the first person shooter, then you have Id to thank for literally inventing it around 20 years ago. They are also responsible for smash hits like Doom and Quake, and the people behind the creation of the gaming engines that power immensely popular FPS franchises such as Call of duty and Half-Life.
Quake 4 came out six years ago; yes, that long ago. Finally they are on the Verge of releasing what is hoped to be one of the games of the year, Rage. A game seeking to combine the FPS genre with the RPG genre – and no I don’t mean the rocket launcher!
Now if this sounds familiar to games like Fallout 3, that’s probably because it is. But Id is owned by the creators of the game Bethesda, and appears to have one upped it in every way - they have improved combat to make it more interesting and varied, hired a larger amount of voice talent and gone for a more stylised approach to the scenery and characters.
However, those expecting an improved fallout clone will be disappointed as Id has promised to make it an FPS with RPG elements rather than an RPG with FPS elements and potentially failing in the latter. Hopefully if Id makes the RPG elements easy to use and still balanced, this will no-doubt be a near perfect game.
I am hoping for something great from Id and judging by its record it won’t disappoint me. Keep an eye on this page for a review of the game once I have played it and submitted a review to the editor.
Coming Soon Gaming
5 Reasons to Look Forward to SKYRIM
Ryan Thickett, 15/9/11 - 14:32 GMT
Okay, let’s not beat around the bush, there are at least 100 reasons to be excited about Skyrim but I have been scraping every little detail about the game I can from the internet and other sources so I can share with you the highlights of this amazing game to be.
First of all not everyone is going to know what Skyrim is and that needs to be addressed right now. Skyrim is the fifth instalment in the Elder Scrolls series of games which has been hand crafted by a team of the best game designers in the world named Bethesda; Bethesda have also created other titles you may have heard of such as the Fallout series of games, and more recently Brink. The Elder Scrolls series are fantasy, role-playing games where you can do and be what/whoever you want to.
Now, swiftly moving on here are the reasons! (Not in any particular order by the way)
Number one - The Graphics
Anyone that’s ever played an elder scrolls game previous to this (even the fanatics) will probably admit the graphics seemed a little dated and shabby. However in Skyrim, Bethesda has a whole new graphics engine and more time to make this game. This entails months of arduous tinkering and concept art all being woven seamlessly together into a masterpiece of extreme graphics from the smallest flower to the largest mountain.
Number two – Animation Engine
...in Skyrim there is a whole new animation engine that Bethesda has used called “the creative engine”, which has not only improved the graphics as a whole but also re-done shadows and also character animation. This has helped the game look a lot better in both third person and first person views. Before in oblivion the 3rd person view was pretty much like the image on the left
Whereas in Skyrim it’s more like this image to the right
As you can clearly see this new engine has done wonders for the characters and the scenery. They have been able to add new layers of detail and, with almost 7 years since making oblivion, plenty of time to make things look stunning, see!
Number three – The New Questing System
At last Skyrim has done it! They have created a dynamic questing system most free roaming games haven’t been able to do before. In Oblivion (Skyrim’s predecessor) the quests were good but often something would happen that would break the quest. For example accidentally killing someone who was essential to a particular quest meant that you can’t finish the quest, this was rather annoying to people who like me want to complete everything to its fullest. Skyrim’s unique way of handling this problem is to have a dynamic questing system that allows other NPC’s to be backups for ones that died or that glitched out. The quests can also change depending on what kind of player you are so the game is very much directed at individual players, this is very unique as well because in some games they have tried allowing players to choose certain routes to take along the quest line that helps them decide what kind of quest it would be.
One thing though, if you get stuck on a quest the internet isn’t going to be of much help anymore as no one person is going to get exactly the same quest as you. To help people that get stuck though I believe there is a spell to guide you through quests like the golden line in fable or the blue line in dead space. (Very good games, might I add)
Number four – Micro-Economies
This is a very interesting feature Skyrim has introduced to the gaming world that has added a whole new level of realism to an already incredibly realistic world, this whole system would have impacts like if you decide to kill the blacksmith in a certain town. Then the price of swords and armour would increase as well as having less of those items being sold around that town. This may be an incentive for people not to go on mad rampages and kill the entire population of Skyrim before they complete the game. (Like people seemed to do a lot in oblivion) The new economies also could be very profitable in some ways, I don’t fully know how it works as of yet but to my understanding, you could kill the blacksmith in one town and sword prices skyrocket and then buy swords from one town and sell to the town where they are mega expensive? I don’t know, but just a theory if anyone wants to try it out.
Number five – DRAGONS!
Okay now this is something that every fantasy role-playing game ever has tried and well, failed to do. However in Skyrim I think they might just have cracked it, they decided that after they had designed the appearance, movements and characteristics of the dragons they would leave them completely unscripted. Yes that’s right, absolutely unscripted AI, for those who don’t understand the implications of this it pretty much means they can do what they want and go where they want. (Within reason, you won’t find dragons in houses etc…) The dragons so far from the gameplay footage released and the trailer look visually incredible and epic to fight. In the game you play dragon born who can use the dragon’s language and use a whole new type of magic that allows you to do “shouts” which can only be learned by absorbing the souls of dragons, pretty cool right? Well anyway this is going to mean that you can now have magic in one hand, a sword in the other and a bad ass spell stored up in your mouth to shout out at any time!
So anyway, to round up this game in a few words… nope can’t possibly do it. But one thing I could say is that it is definitely a must buy this year. It has magic, dragons, epic fight scenes, mini-economies, fully customisable characters, insanely detailed hand crafted worlds that are so in depth that you can pretty much have a second life, but I wouldn’t or you will lose all of your friends and family and then have no life! Err… just remember that it will be mind-blowingly good, enjoy!
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Lorenz Kindt, 04/9/11 20:30 GMT
5/5 PIES
"A MASTERPIECE"
You know that awkward feeling when someone tells a joke and everyone laughs but you? It wasn't even a bad joke, you just didn't get it, and you know it's because you're out of the loop on something as relevant and popular as a Star Wars movie in the time before George Lucas tragically contracted an incurable strain of stupidity.
That's pretty much my jumping-off point into “Deus Ex: Human Revolution”. When the first game in the franchise hit the market back in 2000, it managed to fly under my radar because most of the time I was busy obsessing over the important questions in life, such as “Why can't I get my parents to raise my allowance?”, “How do I sneak into R-rated movies?” or something, and in doing so I apparently missed the Second Coming of Jesus in the gaming world.
When I finally conceded my ignorance and got a copy a while back, I was a bit put off by the 'origami spaz' look of early 3D and the fact that after my first death about five hours into the game I had to start over because back in the olden days video games didn't have a damn autosave function. After uninstalling this little gem and biting clean through my dinner table in frustration, I resolved to wait for “Human Revolution” to come out in August, so that I might enjoy the crapsack dystopia of “Deus Ex” without the annoyances of decades past; now that the wait is over, let me state without ambiguity or the influence of the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia and fandom that “Human Revolution” is awesome.
Story
It is the year of our Lord 2027, and the world is in deep trouble. Legions of hobos and street gangsters populate the back alleys, gunrunners operate in plain sight, the social inequalities of yesteryear have grown out of proportion and global warming has stepped up its game from 'vague threat' to 'certified disaster in the making'; oh yes, and there's the small problem of the world being split down the middle by the controversial practice of human augmentation.
Independent nations are still of some importance, but their standing armies are a poor joke in comparison to the armed forces of private corporations – corporations such as biotech giant Sarif Industries, workplace of Adam Jensen, the player character. Left for dead during a raid on Sarif's corporate headquarters, Adam is heavily augmented without his consent in a bid to save his life, making him half man, half Swiss army knife; back from sick leave, he has to contend with current affairs involving various stripes of organized crime, the machinations of corporate rivals and the PMCs in their employ, and the more violent aspects of a political anti-augmentation movement, all the while delving into the mystery behind the raid and following a trail of breadcrumbs to a global conspiracy.
The story of “Human Revolution” can get a bit convoluted at times, but ancillary information provided through PDA entries and the omnipresent news reports helps bridge most of the resulting gaps – if one cares to read and listen, that is. It's a nice effort to flesh out the plot and create an absorbing atmosphere, but I don't know if I'm really that thrilled about the text-log habit, and there will be thousands of gamers out there who are even less inclined than me to read through all that stuff.
Also, for what it's worth (and without spoiling the twist), I think the way the final level plays out was unnecessary, and not only did it feel like a desperate attempt at upping the ante, the shift in tone was so jarring: it was akin to slicing five minutes of adult-torture into an episode of “My Little Pony”.
What does deserve lauding, though, is the work that's gone into the writing of both major and minor characters; none of them are one-sided clichés (quite the opposite, in fact), and I actually found myself caring about the ones Adam has close ties with, which is something that's truly rare for me. The excellent voice-acting helps deepen the immersion even further, though I wonder just how many packs a day you'd have to smoke to get a voice like Mr Jensen.
Presentation
While graphics quality is usually the least important aspect for me in a game (as long as the rest is up to par), I have no problem admitting that from what I'm used to nowadays, games with 'realistic graphics', from around the time when the PS2 first saw the light of day, look like absolute arse, which, as I mentioned before, may have been a big part of why it was difficult for me to get into the first “Deus Ex”.
This new instalment, however, is simply dazzling in terms of both graphics and aesthetics. “Human Revolution” relies on stark contrasts between dark gloom and brightly lit venues, making heavy use of black and gold throughout; the future looks glorious, and yet you instantly get the sensation of skin-deep beauty glossing over a rotten core. True, I've seen smoother textures and character animations in games before, but the overall quality is far from bad, or even average. I guess the worst I can point out are hairdos that look like they're carved from wood, questionable lip-syncing and the fact that, during conversations, characters are so overly animated you get the impression their skeletons are comprised of slinkies and bobblehead dolls. Seriously, it's hilarious sometimes, seeing folks flail around like someone's trying to work a trumpet up their bum while discussing morality or business ethics with Jensen.
The score deserves special mention. Michael McCann has outdone himself in creating this wonderful ambient music, and it amazes me how it is so quiet and yet so powerful. I remember emerging from deep thought and staring at the menu screen; its music had lulled me into a pleasant daze with its deep, warm tones. I doubt I'll stop listening to this soundtrack anytime soon.
Gameplay
At its core, “Human Revolution” is a hybrid of first-person shooter and roleplaying game, or in short, an FPSRPG. For the most part you'll spend this game in the first-person perspective, interacting with the world and its people in either fixed missions or the sprawling city hubs of Detroit and Hengsha; you'll also frequently switch to a close third-person view when Adam takes cover behind something, a useful feature added to allow the player a partial overview over the environment in firefights or stealth sections.
In ranged combat, Adam has access to a wide range of upgradable weapons (to be acquired from caches, fallen enemies or arms dealers), some of which are familiar, while others are pure science-fiction; once a skirmish is over, bodies can be looted for ammo, cash and information such as computer passwords and key codes. Also, by gaining experience points and finding or purchasing special items, Adam may unlock the function of various augmentations that will, most likely, hugely affect the way you think and play.
This is where it's at, people. This is what'll have you replaying “Human Revolution” again and again: The matter of choice. Do you want subdermal armour plating to give you an edge in firefights, or will it be an upgrade in arm strength to reduce recoil? How about extra inventory space to carry more weapons, ammo and support items? Perhaps you'd like to avoid combat altogether and opt for enhanced bioelectric energy reserves and the stealth augmetic, coupled with the ability to dampen the sound of your footsteps. Do you want to mow down the gang lord of the Hengsha Triad with your guns, or verbally convince him to call off his henchmen and assist you? Moving about more or less openly through hallways, or hacking computers and keypads for passwords and alternate routes through sewers, service ducts or air vents? Will you help acquaintances and strangers in side missions or not, and if you do, will it be out of kindness or for gain, will you handle them with silk gloves, reason with or browbeat them? Hell, the very first explicit choice you make in the game (which you are then, of course, free to renege on) comes down to lethal or non-lethal. That's right – apart from the handful of (sadly unavoidable) boss battles, this game can be beaten without killing a single soul. All four pillars of gameplay – combat, stealth, hacking and social interaction – are equally viable, and if that doesn't merit your consideration, I don't know what does.
Final Verdict
The cynic in me rages and rants in opposition to this evaluation, but there's no getting around it – this game is a masterpiece, right down to its final moment. What little fair criticism I can come up with shrivels pathetically in the face of its fantastic audio-visual presentation, its beautifully dark atmosphere, the level of depth in both plot and characterization and, above all, the freedom to choose who Adam Jensen really is.
Even with a game my inner fanboy has been anticipating for the past two years right around the corner now, I'll be open and honest with you when I say I don't think it'll measure up to the 25-hour brilliance I've just enjoyed, and I'll gladly put down money on “Deus Ex: Human Revolution” as the superior contender for Game of the Year.
COMING SOON GAMING:
THE BATTLEFIELD 3 VS MODERN WARFARE 3 DEBATE
BEN FRANKS
29/8/11, 20:00 GMT
US Gamers have called it “The Question of This Fall for Gamers”, whilst UK Gamers seem to have called a definite winner. The coming of another Infinity Ward-produced Call of Duty to turn their popular return to Modern Warfare gaming into a trilogy with Modern Warfare 3 and the long awaited third edition in the hugely popular game franchise Battlefield, whose sequel (BF2) took the PC-gaming world by storm, have caused a dogfight between COD-loyalists and BF-loyalists as to what game will trump this Autumn.
In the past few years it has been the Call of Duty franchise who’ve monopolised the market of warfare gaming. Ever since the release of Call of Duty 4, Microsoft’s Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network on PS3 have boomed with millions of gamers logging on to bump their statistics in some bloody online warfare. Despite how repetitive these game modes got – with COD’s notoriously small maps – the lust to prestige and “pwn” kept users coming.
However, it is Battlefield 2 which many gamers will remember for the freedoms of huge scale maps, vehicle warfare and realistic first person combat. Though gameplay sometimes seems less high-octane than the Call of Duty franchise, Battlefield 2 remains a vastly popular game and has perhaps dominated warfare gaming on the PC. Not to mention, judging by the trailers for BF3’s release, the guys behind the third instalment seem to have made gameplay far more exhilarating. For gamers in the UK, many see BF3 as a winner hands down; Call of Duty MW3 is perhaps putting across the idea of “Oh, here’s just another COD game” – not to mention the Brits’ love for a more down-to-earth bit of entertainment.
Battlefield’s release date also trumps Modern Warfare’s; with a release date for 28th October 2011, Battlefield 3 will be out for 11 days before Modern Warfare 3 is released on 8th November 2011. So, those who are eager for either or may well jump straight for the first released. Also on the marketing lines, BF3’s price tag stands at the steady, rather normal release RRP of around £45, whereas the new edition to the hugely rich COD franchise are setting the RRP for around £55. Infinity Ward know very well how popular COD is, but perhaps with such steep competition, this price gap is going to be a touch suicidal for those buyers who are still on the fence.
Gameplay-wise, the Battlefield 3 game seems to have bumped up its game with cinematic visuals, very impressive sound and a new online set-up. Modern Warfare 3, as always, has bumped up its graphics once more for a newer release – with even smaller polygons in their visuals and better artists – but it’s still seemingly much the same as its predecessors. Depending on whether or not buyers will be happy with just another “updated” COD or they fancy a change of style could be the turning point for the COD-franchise. Could we see Battlefield replace COD in monopolising the warfare-market – like COD essentially did to Medal of Honour in the 2nd Gen console days? I doubt it, but it could very well take a bashing this year.
In terms of online gameplay, Battlefield 3 will have much larger maps – sometimes with over sixty players – like in their classic predecessors whereas Modern Warfare 3, once more, will stick with the smaller styled warfare games. Essentially, BF3 will be trumping the realism card this year but MW3 looks set to be – as long as you can get over the repetitive state – the more fast-paced online gameplay.
Campaign? It’s a close-call. With MW3 continuing on their story, many loyalists may jump for this game over BF3’s new storyline. However, with MW2’s fairly destructive tale of events in its campaign mode, I wonder just how many fans of Infinity Ward’s storylines in the COD-franchise there are. For campaign modes it’s best to have a browse around the net, getting quick previews on the game premier trailers at E3, etc.
For now, the question is still debateable, but Pie Magazine wants to know your thoughts. Click here to vote for your favourite warfare-game from this debate. Will it be undoubtedly popular Modern Warfare 3 or the long-awaited Battlefield 3? Please tell us why with your chance for your views to be published right here in our Games section.
Hang tight, ladies and gents. The Autumn is coming and our question will soon be answered.
L.A. Noire
By Joe Harker.
BBFC Rating: 18
Platform: Xbox 360, PS3.
Released: May 2011.
Genre: Open World.
Developer: Team Bondi.
Publisher: Rockstar.
Score: 5/5 Absolutely Magnificent.
Remember the last two games Rockstar came out with? Grand Theft Auto 4 and Red Dead Redemption put you in the shoes of a man capable of committing crimes. In fact, at times the player was encouraged to put themselves on the wrong side of the law. Compare that to L.A. Noire, made by Australian company Team Bondi and published by Rockstar, where you play American war hero turned LAPD Officer Cole Phelps.
Now, I have to admit that this game really piqued my interest because of two things; one was the investigation style of gameplay and the other was the facial motion capture system used to tell if the shifty inhabitants of 1947 Los Angeles were agreeing to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I am glad to say this game has succeeded in including both features. In fact, they are central to how this game works.
Story
In L.A. Noire you play as Cole Phelps. Veteran of the Pacific campaign in World War Two and, having received the Silver Star for bravery, this man is the perfect poster boy. The story of L.A. Noire focuses on Cole’s rise through the ranks of the LAPD from a simple patrol officer who gets noticed and promoted through the Traffic, Homicide, Vice and Arson desks. As the game progresses two additional stories are told, Cole’s experiences during World War Two are shown in flashbacks that shed light on why he refuses to talk about the war, while the story of Courtney Sheldon (a major character in the game), an idealistic medical student who served with Phelps in the war, is told with newspapers that can be found during cases.
Each case is a story in its own right even as it contributes to the overarching story. Admittedly the cases on Traffic desk have little bearing on each other but the six cases of Homicide flow together to create a wonderful climax of events. The ending of the story is foreshadowed but never revealed, leaving me with the feeling there’s always more to be known than the game lets on. The episodic nature of the game makes it feel more like a TV series (this week’s episode: The Red Lipstick Murder, tune in next week for The White Shoe Slaying) than a film and that’s better in my opinion. There are cases where the main story advances and others where the game can just have fun with a standalone case.
One problem I do have is the lack of information given of Cole’s home life. We can see he has a wife and mentions he has two daughters but we see Mrs Phelps a grand total of three times throughout the game and she only speaks once, this did make it harder to see the whole of Phelps’ life. It sometimes seems that nobody could be bothered to do more than mention Cole’s family during casual banter with detective partners. I forgive this only because the character of Cole is well rounded with his own personality. I was surprised and impressed when in an early case Cole is holding a shrunken head (its part of the evidence) and jokingly recites a line from Hamlet, to have a character who can banter (albeit quite badly) with his colleagues and make the occasional joke (very occasionally, he’s not the kind of person to constantly wisecrack) really improves the whole game.
Graphics and Sound
I just want to say: This game looks beautiful.
The city of angels is shown in all its glory with surprisingly accurate landmarks (the HOLLYWOODLAND sign is an absolute treat) and a city that feels alive both by night and day. It doesn’t feel cheap either, look at a bench and it will have an advert for a product. By day the bright sun shines on the streets and by night the whole place comes alive, the streets shine with a million lights as jazz clubs and small bars open for business.
However, even more impressive than the look of the city is the look of its people. New motion capture technology is one of this game’s main selling points with 38 points on the face being monitored through every word spoken. Cole Phelps is played by Aaron Staton from TV show Mad Men (see picture) and he looks exactly like him down to the last detail. You’ll play this game paying special attention to the new animations as an integral part of gameplay is to look at the expressions and deduce if you’re being told a lie. Of course these people are actors so they’re always pretending to be someone else. Look out for Greg Grunberg (that mind reading cop from Heroes) among the cast.
The sound in this game is another area where it impresses me. Since much of the inspiration is taken from Film Noir and the game is set in 40’s LA, you can expect to find the main soundtrack to contain lots of jazz music, often subdued during the quiet moments of the game it really comes to life during chase scenes by changing into faster tempos. The songs on Phelps’ car radio are typical for the time, if you liked the songs from the radio in Fallout 3 you’ll like these ones, look out for ‘Into each life some rain must fall’ which appears in both of these games. Voice acting is mostly good with the best examples in the form of Phelps’ partners, my personal favourite being alcoholic Homicide cop Finbarr ‘Rusty’ Galloway and his approval of Cole’s sarcastic suggestion that if a crime occurs near the police station they can stop by for a quick raid on the alcohol cabinet.
Gameplay
As mentioned before, this game is centred on investigation. The typical structure of gameplay is driving to crime scenes, interviewing witnesses, chasing and shooting the occasional criminal then interrogating suspects. I’ll say now that the controls are quite similar to Red Dead Redemption but with a few significant changes.
Driving is standard fare for Rockstar games, most of the cars are quite hardy and can survive a few scratches and scrapes. Head on collisions will normally finish a car for good; luckily, if you wreck your car you can order a civilian to surrender their vehicle to the LAPD. There are 95 cars in total and each is exquisitely portrayed for the streets of LA. Phelps cannot take damage behind the wheel and damage he does only gets put down as a penalty. Driving is not always exciting so it is sometimes advisable to order your partner to drive to the next location. You are always behind the wheel for car chases while your partner tries to shoot out the tyres of the fleeing suspect. They’re not very accurate so you will get a good opportunity to race down the streets and weave through traffic.
At a crime scene you will examine bodies, find evidence, talk to panicking victims and interview witnesses. From the first crime scene you will discover more areas to explore, hopefully learning enough to catch out liars and find the culprit. If you miss something important the game will, sadly, sometimes shove the evidence in your face so you can proceed. Because Cole Phelps has to progress through the story he will always manage to resolve the current case, whether he catches the right person or not is up to you. You will investigate several different places, ranging from trainyards and suburban houses to hotel rooms and a furniture factory hiding a dark secret. Exploring these sometimes vast areas consists of you walking around to some jazzy detective music and hearing a loud chime whenever you come near potential evidence, pick it up and examine it for clues then move onto other pieces of potential evidence. Once you’ve found everything the music stops so you aren’t spending hours going over unimportant beer bottles.
Interviewing witnesses and interrogating suspects consists of Cole asking questions he has written down in his trusty notebook and deciding from their facial expressions and evidence you have gathered if they are telling the truth, holding back information or lying to your face. You need hard evidence if you accuse someone of lying, use the ‘Doubt’ option if you have no evidence.
Some people you encounter are better at lying than others, keeping their cool through the most outrageous of lies while others can’t hold your gaze and fidget constantly if they tell the tiniest little fib. This wide variation in the ways you can tell if someone isn’t telling the truth mirrors Cole’s tone through an interview; he doesn’t always say what you want him to as demonstrated when I accidentally doubted the wife of a missing man and I thought Cole would ask for more information, instead he practically accused the woman of murdering her husband and sent her into a rage at Cole. Get the interview wrong like that and you may miss out on evidence. Interrogations are more important, if you mess it up you can’t charge a suspect so it’s always a good idea to save a couple of intuition points, these little beauties can reveal all clues at a scene, remove an incorrect response to a statement or ask the community what they did (you need to be signed into the Rockstar Social Club for that). I’ll give you a little tip, if only about 60% or less get the response right after using an intuition point and Doubt and Lie are pretty evenly matched its probable they’re lying so go through the clues in your notebook for some good evidence.
Conclusion
All in all, L.A. Noire is an excellent game that introduces features of gameplay lots of people haven’t seen before. The facial animations are fantastic, hopefully a glimpse of the future. The investigation mechanics get the thumbs up from me and I really hope Team Bondi and Rockstar use this kind of game again.
Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions
Xbox 360, PlayStation3 & PC
Review by LORENZ KINDT
Let me ask you a question: Growing up, who were your heroes?
Looking back, I remember adults inside and outside my family constantly trying to instil in me the most important rules of conduct for life in modern society. I imagine it wasn't any different for most of you - after all, teaching kids how to behave is part of a grown-up's job. However, for all their effort, I'm convinced I learnt just as much - if not more - about being a decent human being from reading comic books since I was four years old. I can certainly look back fondly on the trashy, hyper-violent schlock of the mid-nineties (as the Hellspawn sigil tattooed on my right arm will plainly attest) but in this case I'm talking about good old-fashioned superheroes; fantastic beings and avatars of all things good and just, who spend their days fighting for the lives of the innocent and doling out truckloads of ass-whippings for evildoers of all stripes.
For me, my personal favourite out of the superhero crowd was Spider-Man: he was strong, fast, agile, had kick-ass web powers, always made time to throw witty insults at villains while clobbering them, and at the same time he was incredibly human - a meek little science nerd who regularly got bullied by the jocks, yelled at by his boss and could never seem to get the girl; In short, a guy a kid like me could easily identify with.
Seeing how I recently replayed "Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions", I thought I'd take the opportunity to pin the bug under my big novelty magnifying glass and tell you how his latest adventure holds up.
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Story
Anyone who knows typical Spider-Man stories is aware of the fact that minor inconveniences can morph into full-blown disasters if you become careless even for an instant... You'd think that a guy who keeps preaching that with great power comes great responsibility would remember that and put a little more effort into not botching simple matters in the first place. True to form, while attempting to foil one of Mysterio's museum heists, the web-head ends up shattering a priceless stone tablet. Luckily, he's spared the indignity of sweeping up the rubble in the wake of his blunder, as the ancient artefact is engulfed in an emerald glow and disperses over four separate dimensions; Now, all he has to do (according to Madame Web) is reassemble the damn thing before the time-space continuum begins to unravel, thus avoiding the doom of humanity and the inevitable lawsuit filed against him by whoever's in charge of the exhibit. To do so, he needs help from three of his alternate selves, residing respectively in the Ultimate, Noir and 2099 universes.
I'll gladly point out the obvious by saying that if you've come to this party looking for Shakespearean brilliance in writing in a superhero game, you might want to start saving up for brain surgery; This is as standard as it gets. However, this being a superhero game, a standard plot is sufficient, because what we're really here for is good gameplay and pummelling as many well-known supervillains as possible. The plot may not be a winner, but at least the characters that appear are true to their established personalities, and the surprisingly good level of voice-acting quickly makes you forget you're laughing about quips and banter you've heard or read a hundred times before, even as a fan.
Gameplay
As many of you will know, most of Spidey's recent forays into the video game world, such as "Ultimate Spider-Man", "Spider-Man: Web of Shadows" and the tie-in games produced for the second and third movies, were essentially modelled after the "Grand Theft Auto" approach; The player would be plonked down right in the middle of a more-or-less accurate copy of Manhattan and given a series of quest objectives to fulfil which, in most cases, would be diligently ignored while faffing about on rooftops and handing out free knuckle sandwiches to random street gangs.
"Shattered Dimensions" is not that game. The guys at Beenox apparently decided that sandbox games were out of fashion that particular season, and instead went back to the concept of mission-based design. Many fans of the previous games moaned about this, marking the loss of the ability to dig through every single Manhattan dumpster while looking for collectible goodies as a distinct flaw, but on the flipside this allowed for tighter structure and much more interesting and distinctly different levels, each themed around a specific locale and the main villain who calls it their domain.
A brief tutorial runs the player through the basic gameplay elements such as wall-crawling, web-slinging, rudimentary combat, the spider sense (which highlights collectibles and lets you see strategic points and enemies through walls), and (in the case of Noir Spidey) stealth takedowns. After that the game begins in earnest, leading you through thirteen missions over the course of three acts, resulting in three missions for each Spider-Man and a final boss fight against the walking fish bowl at the end. The controls work well for the most part, but can be a bit unresponsive at times, leading to unnecessary frustrations in precision platforming or dodging enemy attacks, especially since there's no real target lock function, meaning that you're likely to get socked more than once by some off-screen troublemaker.
Over the course of the first four missions, a few additional gameplay elements are introduced, some of which are character-exclusive. During skirmishes with a boss (which happen multiple times during each level), you occasionally switch into first-person view and use the thumbsticks to punch the living daylights out of the villains and dodge and counter their blows, bites, headbutts and whatnot; It's a nice idea, but mostly ends up feeling rather awkward and clunky, which doesn't really gel with a game that employs a fast-paced combat system. Aside from that, Spider-Man 2099 gets a bullet-time gauge, and Ultimate Spider-Man, who (to his undisguised horror) is stuck with the black suit again, has a frenzy bar, allowing him to toggle a rage mode that increases his strength and lets him go apeshit on anything unlucky enough to be within his symbiotic tentacles' reach.
Now, you might be inclined to say that even with well-designed levels, the game as a whole suffers by making it simply about chasing down a bad guy and dropping the free-roaming exploration aspect that made previous games so much fun. Fortunately, Beenox took this matter into account. Throughout the game, the player accumulates XP in a single pool, to be allocated for character upgrades, combat upgrades and bonus suits (12 in total). These XP are gained by defeating enemies, collecting tokens scattered around the environments (some of which are actually quite open in nature), and completing specific challenges; it is these challenges that considerably helped spice up the game for me. There are 15 challenges in each level, each of which yields an amount of XP in accordance with its relative difficulty; some of them are completed automatically by progressing through the level, but some can only be bested through optional measures, such as defeating X enemies during a single rage mode, defeating X enemies in a specific way, stealthily disposing of X enemies without touching the ground or triggering an alarm, or speeding through a level segment in a set amount of time. You can keep track of your challenge progression at any time via a grid map called the Web of Destiny.
Graphics
Lastly, the graphics of “Shattered Dimensions” are not the best you've ever seen by any means, but they do appear to be a notch above what's usually displayed in standard hero games. The textures are quite smooth, and in some places an enormous attention to detail is displayed, such as sprays and spurts of pressurized water, gobbets of symbiotic slime that pulse with a life of their own, or the interior design of a TV studio. What impressed me the most was the fact that each universe has its own distinct look, which is reflected in the art style; Amazing 'verse looks like you're moving through a comic book, Ultimate uses cell-shading with thick contours, 2099 has a glossy sheen that captures the aggressive neon bloom of its exteriors, and Noir is full of sepia tones and a fine filter of visual gristle reminiscent of the early days of television.
Conclusion
All in all, “Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions” is a fun experience. Despite some repeated minor annoyances resulting from controls and gameplay, beating up legions of henchmen and their respective employers in diverse and appealing environments feels as rewarding as ever, and the inclusion of optional challenges adds replay value. The game has already experienced a price drop, and even if you're not interested in a purchase it's at least a decent weekend rental.
Oh yeah, and sit through the credits, they're hilarious... if nothing else, at the end you get to see where the writers of the Simpsons movie got the inspiration for the Spider Pig joke.
Crysis 2
BBFC Rating: 18
Review by Lorenz Kindt (03/04/11, 20:28 GMT)
Platform: Xbox 360, PS3, PC
Released March 2011
Genre: Sci-fi Action Adventure Shooter
On with the Review...
...Sigh. I really am a weak-willed individual sometimes, you know? A short while ago, when various gaming forums were abuzz with the news of some pirating fool having leaked the finished build for "Crysis 2" a few weeks ahead of the game's actual release date, I declared to myself and the world I'd support developer Crytek and buy the game, but only once the price had dropped a bit; After all, the first instalment of the franchise frustrated me into not finishing it with its horrendous vehicle sections.
Well, guess what? I bought the game shortly after release. I'd seen it in action on a friend's computer, and the graphics and design alone were enough to make me go back on my word. Now that the damage to my self-respect is done and I've once again confirmed to myself I am the AAA industry's puppet, let me tell you why "Crysis 2" may possibly be worth your money.
Story
The story of "Crysis 2" takes place a few years after the first game, which is now referred to as the 'Lingshan Incident'. A mysterious and apparently incurable, fatal disease has befallen the city of New York, and biotech company Crynet is suspected to be its point of origin. The parts of the population that are not yet inhabiting sealed body bags and storage crates in the city's various warehouses are somewhat dissatisfied with being stuck under the jackboots of the PMC troops vested with the responsibility of maintaining order.
Enter: Alcatraz. No, not the prison, the game's silent protagonist. Sent to New York as part of a US Marines spec-ops team, you promptly find yourself bleeding out on the shores of Manhattan about 3 minutes into the game, and are dragged to safety by some guy in one of those fancy nanosuits. Once the charitable stranger is done dressing you up in his billion-dollar threads and blowing his own brains out, you're let loose on the actual game and find yourself pitted against a steady supply of PMC douchebags and hyper-evolved alien squids in robotic armor, all the while being ordered around by various more-or-less defined key figures, here and there catching glimpses and snippets of the underlying plot that doesn't really sensibly come together until about half-way into the game.
It's a rollercoaster thrill-ride through the industry's character clichés (chief among them the jittery scientist, the army buddy, the tough-as-nails military chick, the asshole PMC commander and the enigmatic puppet master), but in the end the plot... works. Sort of. It's basically a way of stringing different shooting galleries together and setting up another sequel, but at least it does so in a somewhat engaging way; As is so often the case, I just have difficulty relating to the personal troubles of a main character who never speaks a single word.
Graphics & Sound
Enough ragging for now. Let's take a look at one of the title's selling points – the graphics. My current computer is about 2 years old, so I figured it should have no problems running the game and bought the PC version. I've seen the PS3 version as well, and while that already looks great, playing the PC version on recommended settings is nothing short of spectacular. Textures are incredibly smooth, from the protagonist's visible features to enemies to buildings and vegetation. I remember going “Ooooohh” at the water effects, the cloaking mechanism, explosions, seismic events and more. The moments when the developers wreck parts of the city in front of your eyes really are astonishing, such as collapsing a huge building after an alien dropship crashed into it, or a stretch of FDR Drive tearing up in a small earthquake, or a scene shortly before the end of the game which I won't spoil here because it's just too awesome not to experience it for yourself.
What surprised me in a pleasant way was that the urban jungle - which I naturally judge to be inferior to an actual jungle in terms of game settings - looks so... not ordinary. When the first trailers hit the internet I thought, “Oh great, urban warfare. How original.” But "Crysis 2" drops you into the middle of an ongoing disaster, and the city's been demolished to an extent that it looks at once both reassuringly familiar and yet utterly alien, even without the blobs of liquefied bio-matter and those weird extraterrestrial techno-spikes rising out of the ground.
As long as we're with the technical aspects, the sound deserves at least a mention. While not every part of the soundtrack is a winner in my book, the main theme (the one playing during the intro video and the pause menu) just won't get out of my head, and I'm not complaining here. The in-game transitions from quiet, ambient sounds to tense and/or frantic music of both the new classical and the techno-sound variety, depending on the situation and the level of enemy alertness, really draw you into the game; As a result, one particular scene in which I needed to push into enemy territory to prime some detonators literally had me on the edge of my seat.
Needless to say, a game of this technical calibre has excellent sound effects as well. Play "Crysis 2" with a decent sound system, and prepare to be blown away. Especially when you got mortars and missile batteries raising hell around you.
Gameplay
The other reason why "Crysis 2" doesn't get boring is because it really is a tactical shooter with a variety of options for every single combat scenario. You like being a sneaky ninja? Go forth and indulge in some stealth kills – the suit's cloak function will make it a cakewalk. Want to use invisibility to flank your enemies and pick them off in a hit-and-run manoeuvre? Sure thing. Got an affinity for sniping? With the right weapon and scope, your enemies will never know what hit them. Feel like wading into the fray like Chuck Norris out of hell? Switch to armour mode, rip a heavy machine gun from its mount and get ready to dish out the pain. Not enough ammo to take on a horde of baddies? Fine then, just sneak past them. Coupled with the unique spatial setup for each scene, even the most basic gameplay elements never get old.
The Nanosuit 2.0 also offers a vision mode that detects threats, weaponry, ammunition and tactical options in a fixed diameter around the player; that way, you can mark your enemies on your HUD and don't run into unwelcome surprises. In low visibility situations, heat vision gives you the extra edge you need to stay alive.
Another tactical element to the gameplay is the fact that most of the suit's special functions draw from a single energy pool to differing extents. It's regenerative and replenishes quickly, but that won't do you much good if you run out of energy and decloak right next to an alien melee combat unit just waiting for the opportunity to catch you with your trousers down because you didn't plan ahead.
The game offers a wide variety of realistic and fictional weaponry with different stats and functions, but chances are you'll find a few types you like and stick with them throughout; I'm pretty sure I only carried and used about half of what the game presented me with. Most weapons also have different attachments you can pick up in the field, such as silencers, underslung shotguns or gauss modules, or various scopes. My personal favourite, even though it's rare to find, was the microwave gun that cooks the aliens inside their armour and makes them pop like greasy, belligerent water balloons.
Finally, the suit itself is upgradable with some passive benefit modules of differing usefulness; Threat tracers, extra armour, increased mobility, reduced energy drain in stealth mode, and more. The currency used to unlock these traits and abilities is a nano catalyst collected from dead aliens, so get to it and send those slimy calamari crying back to their motherships. Bigger aliens are harder to beat, but also yield more catalyst; You decide if it's worth the risk in situations where combat can be avoided.
Conclusion
All in all, I suppose Crysis 2 was worth the purchase for me. I had a lot of fun, and it's increasingly rare these days to find a shooter with a campaign that clearly exceeds the 8-hour mark. The enemy AI, while mostly good, frequently tends to get stuck behind chest-high walls and doorframes, the unfortunate placement of some checkpoints, especially coupled with the few appearing quick time events (watch out for those!), can be rather annoying, and the story is, as mentioned above, a mediocre affair. However, this game is still a highly polished tactical FPS with astounding graphics, solid gameplay and a lot of pulse-pounding action, so if you've got the disposable income I say give it a go – especially if you're a PC gamer with a rig that can run this bad boy.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
BBFC Rating: 12
Review by Seth R. Smith (30/03/11, 19:39 GMT)
Released: March, 2006
Platform: PC,Xbox360,PS3
Genre: WRPG
IN THE BEGINNING...
The Elder Scrolls IV is a hugely massive game that will take you days to finish due to the large amount of content in it. Yet, that’s not always a bad thing…
You start the game with creating your character and race; the game itself begins with you being a prisoner in the main city's prison, when the emperor comes and opens up your cell you will follow, and then be pulled into the story as your skills are designed during the tutorial, which will lead you to the sewers and to FREEDOM… You are free to go wherever and do whatever whether it be the story or other quests after this.
GAMEPLAY
There are 3 majors types of combat - they are: melee, magic and stealth. While creating your character early on, you will be able to choose a class or make one that specializes in one of the three; there are several archtypes, but most people make their own. The choices you make of what skills are most important to use and whether you wield light or heavy armour will ultimately have an effect on your game play later on.
Melee builds fight up close and personal, favouring hard hitting weapons and heavy armour, along with shields, and such they can take a hell beating but still keep going; all the same, they lack the ability to be effective at practically any magic.
Magic fights for the most part revolves around whether it’ll be you tossing a fireball or summoning the demon spawn of hell to fight for you. Mages can also be one of the most diverse classes you can be as they have spells you can find all over the game.
Stealth is for those thieves among you! You attack from behind mostly in this type, stick to the shadows and do greater critical damage - taking foes down in one hit rather than a repetitive slash n’ hack. They are also good for breaking and entering when you need money and are investigating throughout the game.
You don’t have to play as a pure single battle type either; you can make hybrids of them such as battle mages, which are particularly effective. It’s mostly up to what you want and how you would like to play.
You have many types of skills you can use which give great variation to the type of play you want and several race choices you can play as, each good for different things with their own pros and cons that I’ll let you discover yourselves.
The difficulty can be changed at any time by going to the slider in the options menu, so you can make it a lot harder or a lot easier. Enemies and equipment you find will be determined by your level, which is usually something a lot of people don’t like because as you level up some older foes vanish and stronger foes take their place… making some early quests practically irrelevant.
One of the biggest problems with the game is the sheer number of bugs and glitches in it. While a lot are fixed with the unofficial patch for PC, the 360 and PS3 users still have plenty to suffer from, but despite this it doesn't mess gameplay up too much and really can be enjoyable!
MUSIC & SOUNDS
The music in this game is nothing less than fantastic and it truly blends in well with the game and is really enjoyable as it shifts from calm and peaceful to a more hostile tone when foes are around.
The cast for the voice acting is over the top but this is because there are very few voices - 14 to be exact - and some are only used for single characters. This causes some major problems as you can see some people talking and they both have the same voices… it can really break the depth and immersion of the game.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The game is fantastic and it has a great sense of freedom, choice and a good OST. I’d say it was a game worth playing at least once and can still hold even years after its release.
Merits
+ Lots of freedom to play how you want
+ Can suck you in for days
+ You can be Jesus and walk on water
Demerits
- It has more bugs than garbage
- Enemy's level with you
- Poor Voice Acting
Bladestorm: The Hundred Years' War
PEGI Rating 12, Koei
Review by Alex Bentley (23/3/11, 19:59 GMT)
Platform: PS3 or Xbox 360
Rating: 4/5 Pies
Bladestorm: The Hundred Years’ War is, to say the least – underrated. I have yet to see the game receive any greater than lukewarm reviews from any popular gaming sources, and it seems to have been overlooked by the public in general, which is why I have decided to review a game which was released over three years ago that I believe to be a hidden gem.
Bladestorm is set at the time of – you guessed it – the titular “Hundred Years War”, between the English and French forces from 1337 to 1453, however the game concentrates on the final years of battle, following the career of a single mercenary until the end of the war. Despite being based on history, a large proportion of the game is fiction, the only real input being character names and reputations, locations, and the names of the battles.
At the beginning of the game, you can customise your main character to an extent, choosing their gender, how they look and their voice (which is only used for battle cries, as the hero remains silent throughout the story). This customisation and absence of a personality for the hero suggests that the mercenary is to be used as a template for the player, an avatar to portray yourself through. This is done to limited success however, due to the rather small array of faces for your character as, unless you are incredibly burly, have white hair or are for some reason, a grizzled samurai, you are unlikely to find much to relate to in the main character department.
The game is centred around a hub, a French tavern, owned by a kindly barkeep with an awful French accent who acts as a kind of agent for you, finding you jobs from both sides of the war. This tiny tavern in the middle of France is apparently a notable meeting point for mercenaries, as every mercenary you meet in the game will be in the tavern every now and then. The tavern is home to a wide range of mostly likeable characters, from the motherly Karen, to your friendly rival Magnus, all of whom can be spoken to using the tavern’s ‘gossip’ function when they are around. This is a vital way of acquiring information about upcoming battles.
All of this seems rather underwhelming and average so far, however, the real meat of the game lies in battle, where you are given an objective, which usually consists of capturing a number of bases or defending a base, for a set number of in-game days (ten minutes each).The battle system is surprisingly tactical and will, at first, feel rather familiar to fans of the Dynasty Warriors series. However, Bladestorm is largely squad based and, especially at the beginning of the game, going toe-to-toe with a group of enemies on your own is likely to end badly. Allied troops without a commander can be commandeered for your own use and will follow you, attacking on your order. You can only control one squad at a time but each squad has three useful skills available, such as using a shield if you have one, or temporarily increasing your speed.
Each class type has a number of weaknesses and strengths against other classes. These are denoted by coloured unit symbols above the head of enemy unit leaders, which lets you know which units to charge at, which to retreat against, and which to leave to your allies. Squads such as archers and cavalry can be useful in such a case, allowing you to pick off your enemies from afar or perform bombing runs on stronger opponents. The different classes are well balanced, yielding fun and varied gameplay using different classes, aside from a rare few classes, namely elephants, which can defeat almost any enemy unit by charging through them; fortunately these incidents are few and far between.
The battlefield can be on a number of different maps, all vast in scale, with multiple towns, cities and castles, ranging from the Champagne region to Île-de-France, featuring Paris, albeit with no Eiffel Tower yet. These vast maps are handled well, with a good rendering system that allows a large number of troops to be on screen at once. The downside to these large maps, however is that travelling can be a bit tedious sometime. The open countryside can stretch far into the distance and at times it’s necessary to saddle up to get where you need to be on time.
For a game released in 2007, Bladestorm is very graphically pleasing, making the characters look believable and the troops’ actions fluid. The scenery, of which you’ll be seeing a lot, is rather satisfying too, with a very detailed Notre Dame cathedral. The soundtrack is also suitably epic; however the same few songs are repeated often in battle, slightly downplaying the grandness of the circumstances.
The game certainly doesn’t remain true to the history on which it is based, after all samurai, troops using magic spells and firearms (that’s right, rudimentary rifles in 1400AD) all make an appearance, probably making Joan of Arc turn over in her grave. In this world, mercenaries are lauded as heroes and brave warriors, rather than greedy, tight-fisted soldiers–for-hire, and victories are often claimed to be “due to our mercenaries”, ignoring the vast sums of money paid to them. The accents also leave something to be desired, with the bartender in particular referring to you often as a “merthenary”, as if he believes having a lisp makes you French.
However, if you can get past the silliness of it all and the occasional traipse through the Champagne region, Bladestorm: THYW is a game with a charming tone, a deep and interesting battle system, as well as an extended roster of fleshed out characters that will hold your interest for a long time.
Black Ops: First Strike (2011)
BBFC Rating 18, Treyarch (Expansion to COD: Black Ops)
Review by David Thomas (7/3/11, 09:46 GMT)
I downloaded the First Strike map pack for Call of Duty Black Ops the other day. It’s good. In the pack you get 5 new maps: 4 new multiplayer maps and 1 new zombie map. The new multiplayer maps are: “Kowloon”, “Discovery”, “Berlin Wall” and “Stadium”.
Kowloon is a map set in Kowloon city, the area through which you go through in the game when you help Dr Clarke. You fight along rooftops, alleyways, in and around buildings, all the time trying not to fall off the edges. In this map, Treyarch have introduced a novel new concept, Zip-wiring. At first, you think, that’ll be cool… Then you get shot halfway along it by a sniper and die. Also you cannot shoot whilst on the zipline so you are a moving, albeit defenceless target. Overall, Kowloon is a brilliant map for sniping with its many narrow paths but do be careful. Not recommended for fire-fights as it quite large, with enemies spreading out all the time, with so many twists and turns, you never know, or can predict, where they’ll turn up. Overall rating 4/5 Pies.
Discovery is a German research base set in Antarctica (Who knows) and is, again, a very large level. There are buildings, gantries, mountain underpasses and a small bridge all under the Auroras and a layer of snow. This map is brilliant for domination games as it has two massive paths along each flank of the map and several paths cutting across the map. The bridge, located roughly in the centre, is perfect for standoff fire-fights, with other team members supporting from above and below the bridge itself. Like Kowloon however, Discovery is quite large and if you’re heading one way and the enemies are heading the other (a common occurrence on combat training), you end running around a lot. Overall rating 4/5 Pies.
Berlin wall is a much smaller map in comparison to the other two. Its focus is on both sides of the “no-man’s land” on the Berlin wall. Subsequently, the map is a corridor type map with 2 long sides but 2 short length ends. This map is perfect for sniping with lots of ladders and stairs and concealed windows and alcoves and this makes for exciting and infuriating games of dogged domination and team death match. Be careful of the red zone on radar though, that’s the danger zone and good luck to you if you step inside it. I won’t reveal what happens for readers who haven’t played it yet save this advice: RUN FAST! Overall rating 5/5 Pies.
Stadium is another small map given to us by Treyarch. It focuses on the surrounding plaza and part of the inside of an ice hockey stadium. The map is good for classic games of team death match and provides plenty of wall cover. Unfortunately you can only access part of the stadium with the majority of the fighting taking place outside. Whilst good, I do feel that Treyarch has missed a trick on this map as adding new levels to the fight would have been much more challenging for gamers. But still this map does provide brilliantly fast fire fights. Overall rating 4/5Pies.
The fifth map that Treyarch has given us is called “Ascension”; the new Zombies map. Ascension is set in a Soviet Rocket launch centre and has many rooms with novel features like the centrifuge chamber in which you start. There is also a much bigger open air area that is brilliant and really improves the gameplay; for instance not having to worry about thrown grenades and more room for avoiding the hordes of zombies running at you. When you start, the game is in black and white and this really adds to the atmosphere, once you turn the power on however, the game returns to full colour. An absolutely brilliant new map that improves on Kino and Five, overall rating 5/5 Pies.
Overall I feel that the new maps in “First Strike” are of a very high quality and that they add new and exciting challenges as well as radically different locals to the already highly popular online version of Black Ops. The new maps for multiplayer are brilliant and the new Zombie map is joyful to play. Watch out for the updated zombie AI however! Thank you Treyarch for these new maps at the relatively cheap price of 1200 Microsoft points (around £10), can we have some more in a couple of months please? I’m certain the popular support that the game enjoys now will still be as strong in the near and far future. Overall rating for First Strike 5/5 Pies.
Alien Vs Predator (2010)
BBFC Rating 18, Rebellion Software
Review by Samuel Weeks
In 1999 a little known developer based in England made Alien vs. Predator, a 1st person horror-shooter-come-evil-alien-simulator based on a comic book that combined two of the most famous sci-fi horror film franchises ever. The game was successful on both a critical and commercial level, and with their new-found glory, the developer, Rebellion promptly messed about for 10 years making obscure licenced games. (Largo Winch: SAR commando anyone?) Now they have returned to their last successful franchise and have made a sequel/re-make named, imaginatively enough, Alien vs. Predator.
The game includes three separate campaigns, in which you play different characters: An Alien, (Black, shiny monsters that look like a cross between several different insects, with acidic blood, from the film with the same name) a Predator (Hulking, seven foot tall humanoids with spikey labia for mouths) and a Colonial Marine (the ‘ultimate Badasses’ featured in Aliens, which are supposed to defend Earth’s colonised planets, but always end up being eaten). Each character has a different style of play, and different problems caused by the play style.
Marine Campaign
Jumping into the Marines campaign, you find yourself transported into the shoes of Rookie, a (shocking) new member of the team, mid-way through an orbital drop, where you see your ship blown to millions of pieces by a mysterious ship and you’re knocked out by a token piece of flying debris. When you awake, you quickly find out that the Alien infestation is much greater than you realise, and things quickly turn into your standard horror-shooter game; lots of jump scares and shooting frantically at enemies you can’t see... at least that’s what it should have been. In reality the tense, daunting atmosphere is spoiled somewhat by one of the most overpowered guns in videogame history.
I’m talking about the Pulse Rifle, The colonial marine’s signature weapon. It’s an assault rifle with a 99 round clip and an under slung, pump-action grenade launcher, a weapon so badly balanced it almost seems purposeful. You’d think that it would take an age to reload, but it takes about 3 seconds, you’d think that the recoil would be so bad you’d be forced to use it in small bursts, instead there almost isn’t any. This combined with an extremely aggressive aim-assist means for almost the entirety of the marine campaign you’re a walking death machine. It also means that your other weapons (a sniper rifle, a flamethrower, a shotgun and a pistol) are useless next to the god-like power of the Pulse Rifle. The only gun you could consider replacing it with is the Autogun, because it’s a pulse rifle that shoots for you!
To try and even things out between you and the Aliens the developer racked up the power of their acidic blood, to the point where scoring a head shot causes them to explode, launching molecular acid directly into your vulnerable parts, not unlike a vinegar-filled suicidal bomber. This could have been interesting if it didn’t seem to operate on a whim; sometimes it’ll kill you outright, sometimes it’ll only do a little bit of damage and occasionally they’ll pop right in front of your face and you won’t suffer a scratch. Furthermore Alien blood becomes a lot less effective when you trade the dark, dank industrial settings for an alien jungle planet (Because Turok managed it so well…) that is almost offensive in its blandness. It is also in these Jungle levels that the acid-spitting ‘Dog’ Aliens make their appearance. This type of Alien is the most ineffective enemy since the giant spiders from Resident Evil. They fire out acid like mortar rounds which travel so slowly it’s a challenge to be hit by one.
The Marine campaign is bad, but is by no means the worst. The gameplay is extremely bland and far too easy, but there is some nice atmosphere and tension in the first two levels and the sound effects provided by 20th Century Fox shine brightest here, in particular the supremely effective (and gloriously simple) Motion Detector. However the Marine’s greatest strength is that 1st-person shooters have been around for ages and other developers have had the time to perfect the controls, so the Marine may be bland, but at least he works.
Alien Campaign
That brings me neatly to the Alien campaign, which controls like a one-legged Gorilla covered in oil. The Alien has no real story, other than it was captured by humans and then branded with the letter 6. The Aliens problems are three-fold: The controls, the combat and the fact that the entire Alien campaign is based on the first two problems.
Like the Marine campaign the Alien is controlled from 1st person, only much faster. The Alien’s default running speed is about twice that of the Marine’s and it has a sprint ability on top of that. You can also climb walls and this should have been activated by holding down the Right Trigger, but in reality kicks in whenever it damn well pleases. In my playthrough the Alien would often climb the walls without me telling it to and this was a big problem when you were running around in pipes, which quickly became incredibly disorientating.
The Alien’s campaign, when it doesn’t involve getting motion sickness, is a sort of incredibly violent stealth game, despite a fairly generous health bar the Marines guns will tear through you like tissue paper, so it’s a case of hiding in the shadows until you can get close enough to leap on an unsuspecting Marine and tear his gizzards out. This would be fine, but the doughy controls and the limited number of moves available (a claw slash, and a tail whip) prevent this from being as much fun as it could be. The Fatality-style Trophy kills are extremely gruesome and well animated, but they happen far too frequently and their effect is lessened as a result.
Predator Campaign
The bugs and invisible walls seem to escalate when you hit the worst of the campaigns; the Predator’s. The Predator in the original game was the sniper class, you had the invisibility cloak, plasma caster and speargun to pick off enemies from afar, while using your claws as a last resort if the Aliens got a little too friendly. Not so much anymore. In this incarnation the Predator is severely gimped by a cloak that barely makes you translucent, let alone transparent, a plasma caster that gives away your position immediately so you never use it and having the speargun replaced by a useless energy mine and the combi-stick which (while a nice addition to your scant inventory of man-murdering tools) only becomes available 4 levels in and is useful for roughly 30 minutes.
As previously mentioned, the invisibility field works on humans sometimes, any other time they’ll attack you seemingly at random; thinking that they could see me on their Motion Detectors, I tried standing still, to no avail as they saw me anyway. You can also try to distract individual Marines and lead them away from the group, this is a good idea, and was used to great effect in Arkham Asylum, but it’s never clear how and when you can choose to distract a guy. The option pops up sometimes, but not when you’d think it would. Additionally you fight Aliens, who can see you all the time and turn the campaign from a poorly executed stealther to a very poor fighting game. As with the Alien the Predator has a light attack, a heavy attack, a block and a finishing move. The best tactic to use is to wait until an Alien attacks, block, counter and then wail on them with light attacks until they die, and this quickly gets very tiresome indeed.
Multiplayer
Having discussed the Single-player lets move onto Multiplayer. The original AvP was a finely balanced game, with opportunities for every species to get points in a variety of ways. This doesn’t transfer to the 2010 game. From what I played, only two of the classes would prevail in a vanilla death match; Alien or Marine. This often depended on whether or not the Marine players stuck together and covered each other with there portable doom dispensers or whether they ran around like headless chickens. The Predators rarely scored near the top as only one of the several maps seem tailored to the Predator’s needs while the others are far too cramped for that play style. There are a few interesting game modes (such as Predator hunt, in which one player is randomly chosen to play as a Predator for a set number of seconds while the rest play as marines, the Predator has to kill as many of the other player s as possible to score, and the Marines try to kill the Predator so that they can get a chance to score) but the biggest issue is that very few people are playing and it can take as long as 15 minutes to find a game.
Final Thoughts
Although AvP has some interesting ideas the gameplay just isn’t there. The game is buggier than Starship Troopers and there are weird design choices all over the shop. It’s a massive disappointment for me especially as I’m such a fan of both Aliens and Predator. I would recommend staying as far away from this game as possible
VANQUISH (SEGA) R:18
Review by David Thomas
RATING: FOUR PIES (DOWN-RIGHT GOOD)
For this month’s review, I will be looking at one of 2010’s last games: Vanquish. Overshadowed by the likes of Black Ops and Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, Vanquish quietly and calmly got on with being one of the funnest 3rd person shooters of the year.
You play as Sam Gideon, a college football player turned military prodigy due to an extremely advanced battlesuit developed by DARPA. Basically, along with a squad of marines and a minigun-toting Colonel, you take on wave after wave of Russian robots. Boss battles are many and each offer a new challenge. In a refreshing way, the game throws the player in at the deep end.
The second mission pits you up against a massive mech which is difficult to take down first time. The weapons are varied with usual heavy machine guns and assault rifles mixed with “disintegrator” bubble guns and laser crossbows. Over the course of the game you can choose to upgrade your weapons but you must be cautious as once the upgrade has been used, and you get to another checkpoint, that upgrade has gone.
This game has been specifically designed to force the user to use cover and conserve ammunition. If you don’t use cover you will die and if you don’t conserve ammo, you will likely find yourself against a boss when your gun runs out. One absolutely brilliant aspect is the ability to use Sam’s suit to rocket around the landscape with knee thrusters. When travelling like this you can enter Advanced Reaction (AR) mode. This is basically slow motion where you fire and move slightly slower but your enemies slow right down and you can actually watch the bullets fly past you. There is the ability to choose to enter slow motion whilst jumping over a piece of cover and shooting which looks amazing. Unfortunately the game also forces you to use this sparingly as, after a while, your suit overheats - slightly annoying when facing a tough boss, I do admit.
The points and stats system works well after every mission and encourages you to do it again to beat your score. The partly interactive credits are fun but you cannot skip them if you wish. The enemy AI is good throughout, with units often changing their positions, taking advantage of cover and using different tactics. This means that, if you die and come back, the game’s still exciting.
The game is not perfect: you lose some upgrades if you die and there is no online multiplayer. Admittedly the server would have to be brilliant to cope if everyone went slow-mo all the time but they could have taken that out for multiplayer.
Overall I would give Vanquish four Pies for brilliant graphics, masterful gameplay, exciting and diverse missions and fun characters with imaginative quirks like when behind cover, Sam can light up a cigarette and throw it to draw enemy fire. A gem of a game that is thoroughly enjoyable.
