MEMBER PROFILE FOR Roujin
Average Overall Score Given: 7.76000 / 10
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Reviews
Lords of the Fallen
There's simply no way to put it lightly; in every way that Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2 set the gold standard for modern rogue-likes on the previous generation of consoles, Bandai Namco, Deck 13 and CI Games’ Lords of the Fallen is a poorly executed imitation. It might seem unfair to make such a direct comparison; after all, every game deserves to be judged on its own merits, not just on how well it ticks all the boxes that another more successful game does. But in the case of LotF, this review will need to make an exception for two reasons: 1) LotF steals borrows so heavily from the Souls gameplay formula that avoiding the comparison is all but impossible, and 2) holding up the Souls franchise as a mirror is the most expedient way to demonstrate how LotF attempts but ultimately fails at just being an enjoyable action RPG.Things get off to an awkward start right from the beginning when the game asks players to make the all-important choice of picking their desired character class (Warrior, Cleric or Rogue), only to immediately alienate two thirds of the audience with the cinematic that immediately follows their selection. Regardless of whichever class you choose, players are treated to a CG sequence of the main character Harkyn doing battle as an overpowered, hammer-wielding cleric. No effort is made to even explain whether the sequence is a prologue meant to establish how badass he is, or an epilogue teasing his ultimate potential, but once the controls are handed over to the player and Harkyn makes a door-crashing entrance into the game world, players who choose to play as a Warrior or Rogue are bound to sense a disconnect, especially Rogues, whose pitifully small daggers could be considered Freudian in their inadequacy. A good action RPG should ensure that the player feel empowered and confident in their choice, regardless of what class they've chosen, and for CI Games and Deck 13 to not create a character-specific intro for each class once the player has made their choice smacks of laziness and suggests that one's class selection is really of little importance in the end.
In fact, it begs the question as to why players should even have to choose a class for Harkyn in the first place, as the option only affects which of Harkyn's attributes will be strongest and what weapons he will be armed and most skilled with at the outset. This can also be said of character selection in the Dark Souls games, but in those titles the classes are much more varied, the differences between each class are vast and the amount of grinding needed to close those gaps is so time-consuming that simply choosing another class closer to one’s desired play style makes more sense.
In LotF, the three classes all seem only a stone's throw away from each other, making the differences between them seem inconsequential, and no matter which way you go, you’re still stuck with the same uninteresting character and back story. Players also get to choose between three magic types, Brawling, Solace and Deception, and although they naturally align with the Warrior, Cleric and Rogue classes respectively, they can be mixed and matched--but only one magic type can be accessed for the for the first playthrough.
A second spell tree becomes accessible in “New Game+” and all three can be accessed “New Game++”, provided the player chooses to progress that far. If only three class types and ultimately three magic types sounds a bit anemic to you, then you’ll be thrilled to know that CI and Deck 13 have simplified things even further, making the first accessible spell in all three spell trees the same (an inaptly-named and largely ineffective decoy trick called “Prayer”), and that each spell tree contains only four spells maximum, so there’s very little to look forward to. Players will eventually find a magical gauntlet that adds a few more offense-based range spells to the mix, but the gauntlet is awkward to equip and use in the heat of battle, and even when its attacks manage to hit a target, their overall effect is supplementary at best. If you’re a fan of magic users, LotF is NOT your game.
Then there's the gameplay, which in so many aspects can only be described as Dark Souls "Lite". The Souls “curse” mechanic and how it is tied directly to the death and resurrection of the player character at checkpoints has been directly lifted from FROM Software's cult hit franchise with almost no effort to hide it, and supposedly there’s no need to as LotF and the Souls Games share the same publisher (Bandai Namco). What’s offensive however is that while CI and Deck 13 have blatantly stolen the mechanic, they have made next to no effort to tie it to their own game’s lore or story. In other words, there’s no explanation as to why Harkyn, a seemingly normal, “not-undead” human being is able to return from the dead in the first place, how the XP from fallen foes is lost when he dies, or why it must be recovered along with his "ghost" and "banked" at checkpoints in order to be retained. Frankly, the entire implementation feels half-assed in comparison to the Souls games, where death, resurrection and the importance of souls is intrinsic to the lore and spirit of the games themselves. LotF simply treats it as a gimmick which could have easily been swapped out for another and made very little difference to how the game would be played or the story would be told. That isn’t to say there aren’t some interesting tweaks, though.
In LotF, players don't have an infinite amount of time to return to the place of their previous death to recover their XP ghost; if they tally too long battling enemies on their way to the spot, their ghost may simply vanish, putting more pressure on the player to cut through re-spawned foes to reclaim their lost XP as expediently as possible. Checkpoints also allow players “bank” XP as either Magic or Attribute points, which then in turn can be spent to level up Harkyn's spell abilities or stats, but unlike in the Souls games, the points do not have to be spent immediately. Once banked, XP funneled into either point meter is safe from loss, even if the player doesn't have enough XP to exchange for a full point. The supposed trade-off is that players that collect more XP and go longer without banking it will get better and more frequent item drops for taking bigger risks.
In this reviewer's experience however, doing so only rewarded me with gear that was too heavy for my Rogue class character to use, meaning I would have to spend additional hours grinding to level up Harkyn’s stats so he could use it, or simply leave the equipment to take up space in my inventory. Shockingly, the game isn’t even sophisticated enough to allow players to sell or dispose of unwanted gear, but thankfully players can at least sort it and need not worry about being physically burdened if it is not equipped.
The actual combat also cribs heavily from the Souls games' notes, but fails to go far enough or add anything worthwhile. The trademark Souls riposte (parry) and back stab are both here, but without clear audio-visual cues it's much harder to tell when the player has successfully parried, and harder still to take advantage of it when it does, as Harkyn's light and heavy attacks lack the feeling of weight or heft that the Souls games do so well. A tutorial at the opening does encourage players to time attacks for best effect and hold down the attack buttons to throw more weight behind them and do more damage, but the cues to indicate success are practically nonexistent, so fighting just feels like flailing about.
Unlocked spells, even after being leveled up to the maximum, remain weak, highly undependable and prone to puttering out before hitting their target, sometimes missing it completely, and some spells, like “Mimic”, actually block the player’s vision of Harkin in addition to doing next to no significant damage. It's possible to go on for hours about the other things that don't work: the slippery, unreliable backstab; the temperamental lock-on system; the absolutely horrid camera whose haphazard angles obscure Harkin completely and make fighting in narrow corridors, tight spaces or a corner of the map a nightmare; and an abundance of invisible walls that result in countless whiffed range spells at the most inopportune moment, even when players have a direct line of sight to their target.
Worst of all, the boss fights are repetitive slogs that equate the word “difficulty” with throwing in multiple lesser enemies to harass and chip away at the player until they die or figure out the “trick” to the boss patterns, rather than challenging the player’s wits and giving them an arena to best utilize their newly acquired gear and abilities, because in the end, they only make Harkin incrementally better than he was before. Every encounter ends up being the same: Run in, jab at the boss, run away and/or dodge his big move, get his underlings off your back, wash, rinse, repeat.
Finally, there’s the presentation, which I’m sad to say is equally a mess. LotF is certainly not the first game to star a generic-looking, unlikable character (though props should be given for making him homely, bald, bearded and middle-aged instead of a typical dudebro), nor is it the first to underwhelm players with mediocre voice acting and uninspired designs for its levels, creatures and NPCs. But when these common misdemeanors are combined with erratically choppy framerates (even during load screens), dialogue audio dropouts that can only be resolved by restarting your gamesave, and amateurishly poor audio sync during in-game cutscenes, they become crimes worthy of capital punishment.
The lack of TLC given to this game extends into other areas as well. Alternate pathways frequently double back into the same areas themselves and even reuse entire sections other of levels, betraying how small they really are. Spell effects lack variety and imagination, and some (such as Stab and the aforementioned Mimic) even go as far to recycle Harkin’s regular fighting moves instead of wowing players with something new and impressive. The best thing that can be said about LotF is that it looks pretty on the surface, and the orchestral soundtrack gets the job done, but these small blessings are quickly forgotten when all the above issues begin to sink in.
There are so many other quality choices available on Xbox One this Christmas season that make Lords of the Fallen a highly questionable purchasing decision, especially at its triple-A-level, $65 CAD price tag. On the Xbox One platform alone, one can pick up the excellent Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition or Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor for the same amount of money and get far more quality entertainment, value and replayablity for the dollar, not to mention a solid action-RPG gameplay experience that actually respects its story, lore and chosen audience. And if you happen to own an Xbox 360, an even greater wealth of options in the same genre await, from the Souls games themselves to the more action-oriented Darksiders games, which not only do everything LotF does better, but can be had nowadays for a song. There’s no reason whatsoever to waste time and money on this game, given the alternatives, so do yourself a favor and don’t.
Suggestions: 1) More QA (Quality Assurance) testing. 2) More item drops that are relevant to the chosen class. 3) More powerful and effective magic! 4) Stop chasing Dark Souls' tail. The next LotF would be far more interesting and successful as a Darksiders-style action game, where the more streamlined magic system, unchangeable main-character and smaller environments would be more welcome, with much stronger gameplay mechanics, naturally.
Overall Score: 5.6 / 10
How to Survive: Storm Warning Edition
How to Survive: Storm Warning Edition may be the first game in some time that I strongly recommend players start off in Easy Mode, unless you want to end up hating it intensely early on. This is not to say that the game is impossibly difficult, but without a doubt the game is intensely is brutal to players who have just begun to learn the its systems, and understanding them is key to surviving in the game beyond the first hour, not to mention uncovering the kernel of fun that’s hidden beneath its unwelcoming exterior. Consider yourself warned.How to Survive: Storm Warning Edition is essentially a “Game of the Year” edition of last year’s Xbox 360 version of the game, containing all of its predecessor’s DLC as well as adding a new character Nina to its original roster of Kenji, Abby, and Jack. If you haven’t played the original, How to Survive can best be described as an interesting mish-mash of a trio of games, blending the top-down action, looting and fully-rendered equipment of Diablo 3 (though far more restrained given the setting and plot), as well as the crafting, day-night cycles and sleep/eat/drink concerns that players encounter (respectively) in Minecraft and Don’t Starve. The fresh new hook in this game however is that players aren’t completely dropped into the world with almost no clue as to what to do. Kovac, an NPC inhabitant of the game’s zombie infested islands and self-proclaimed survival expert has written a humorously-dark survival guide called “Kovac’s Rules” to help newcomers figure out how to stay alive, and has conspicuously left pages of his book sprinkled about for others to find.
As a shipwreck survivor that finds him/herself stranded on the doomed archipelago, players must forage for food, water and materials, craft weapons and effectively manage limited resources as they work towards finding a way off the islands and back to civilization. But the odds are greatly stacked against them. Brain-thirsty zombies roam the island at all hours of the day, far worse threats join their ranks at night, and even mother nature appears to be on their side, occasionally battering the player with torrential downpours, obscuring their vision with heavy night fog and even electrocuting the player with sadistic lighting strikes (until players can devise a way to redirect the valuable energy). Manual save points, temporary shelter and a place to sleep can only be found in Kovac’s reinforced bunkers that are also scattered across the islands, and while they are seemingly impenetrable, they must first be cleared of zombie hordes before they can be used. Sound like fun yet? Don’t worry, I’m not done.
As mentioned earlier, players must not only manage resources but also their hunger, thirst and need for sleep. When starving, players won’t have the proper strength to fight zombies, meaning that their attack strength will decrease and their melee attacks with weapons will become all but ineffective. If thirsty, the player’s vision as well as the ability to accurately aim a bow, gun or projectile will deteriorate. And when the player does not get enough sleep, his or her character’s stamina will begin to drain more quickly (limiting how often and how long they can sprint to escape attacks) and their health will gradually chip away to nothing, even if the character is standing still. Naturally, when the player runs out of health, their character will die and respawn at the last checkpoint, but with all adverse conditions of that last save retained, so if a player was sleep deprived and starving at the time that they reached the checkpoint, they will still be starving and sleep deprived when they respawn (in Normal Mode).
In this way, How to Survive is shockingly unforgiving as a game, as there is no option to reload an earlier save. This basically means players who end up respawning in a crappy situation (e.g. tired and starving in the middle of a lighting storm while besieged by night zombies – yes, this actually happened to me in Normal Mode) will quickly need to figure out a way to get out of that situation working with whatever resources or opportunities they have by trial and error, or START THE ENTIRE GAME OVER (which I ended up doing, prompting my switch to Easy Mode).
Players will quickly learn that the only way to avoid disasters like the above in How to Survive is by ensuring that they’re never without a solution to a potential problem, which means an intense focus on exploration, resource gathering, crafting and managing their physical condition whenever they’re not in combat, as well as studying the pages of Kovac’s Rules that they find scattered across the islands. Several of Kovac’s writings treat players to entertaining, cartoon cinematics that also explain the rules of the game and share valuable survival tips, but even more of the pages contain invaluable recipes and instructions.
Recipes can be used to make concoctions that temporarily enhance player abilities, heal and stave off adverse conditions (e.g. an energy drink that allows players to stay awake and alert longer without having to sleep), and instructions show players on how to construct better weapons, armor and tools. But even Kovac does not have all the answers; some discoveries can only be found by investigating, so it’s in the best interest of players not to rush to complete mission objectives but instead begin exploring, gathering and experimenting right away with the resources that they come across. By attempting to “combine” these items, players will quickly begin to understand the logic of crafting and will already have a number of tricks up their sleeve once the first day or so on the island has passed and the Eat, Drink and Sleep factors begin to take effect.
While this hint may be a slight spoiler for some, it will greatly enhance the enjoyment of the game and make the difficulty more bearable. In addition, for players who are observant, suffering often leads to enlightenment. For example, with a rainstorm often comes lighting and thus immediate danger and torment for players who are caught outside of the safety of a bunker, but should they survive, they’ll find every well they come across filled with fresh rain water, which they can then use to fill their stash of empty bottles and keep their thirst at bay while on the go, and much of the flora required for precious mixtures will have already grown back. It’s at this point when players will realize that the game isn't simply out just to frustrate them (at least, not entirely).
The game also features some light RPG elements, such as a character progression system that allows players to level up and unlock additional skills and latent abilities, such as the crafting of more durable and/or complex weapons, or slowing the degradation of the player’s hunger/thirst/sleep conditions, allowing them to go longer without eating, drinking or resting. As for the gameplay, fans of twin-stick, isometric action games like Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light/Temple of Osiris as well as Diablo 3 fanatics will find How to Survive to be very much within their wheelhouse, with solid control mechanics and gruesomely satisfying impacts when zombies are dispatched with the player’s weapon of choice, be it a bow and arrow, a machete, a custom fast-made shotgun, a makeshift chainsaw or a host of other contraptions.
In the audiovisual department, How to Survive’s port to Xbox One is surprisingly solid. To be fair, as a port the game doesn’t really do more than it has to in terms of presentation; so don’t expect any fancy CG intros or cutscenes (the Kovac’s Rules lessons more than make up for that, though). It’s not hard to tell that the game was made on a budget; the sounds of wildlife on the island and the growls of many of the zombies sound canned, and the animal sounds in particular sound like intentionally-poor, tongue-in-cheek human imitations, but in a sense they add to the humour of the game, so they get a pass this time (except for the terribly-voiced talking monkeys).
Everything else though sounds spot on, from the distant thunder of an oncoming storm to the satisfying squish that exploding zombie parts make when they make contact with the grassy floor of a clearing. The animations, while not as action-packed or FX-laden as Diablo 3, are smooth and fun to watch, particularly the fluid zombie-execution moves (not since State of Decay has body-slamming a zombie looked more fun). It’s a pretty impressive looking and sounding game for just 20 bucks.
And then there’s the value. Just like the Xbox 360 original, the game can be played solo or with a friend, online or off, and in addition to the original Campaign Mode and Challenge Mode, new modes One-Shot Escape (a no respawn, perma-death escape mission mode) and Barricade (a horde mode) have been added, so there’s still hours and hours of potential replayability on offer even after you’ve finished the story. And good luck beating the campaign in Iron Man mode (hardest difficulty). With all the other options available on Xbox One this Fall, it might seem unrealistic for the average Xbox One owner to pull his or her attention away from the marquee heavy hitters long enough to discover or revisit a game such as this, but if you’re looking for something different with a bit more teeth, and more importantly, a deep experience you can enjoy locally with a friend on the same couch as well as online, you can’t really go wrong with How to Survive, especially for the price.
Suggestions: 1) Better sound FX for the animals and better voice actors for the talking monkeys, PLEASE!
2) The ability to revert to an earlier save just in case your save file is corrupted or the respawn scenario is completely effed...asking the player to start the whole game over after investing several hours is a bit much.
Overall Score: 7.7 / 10
Alien: Isolation
Before getting started, let's first address the 1000-pound gorilla in the room: Yes, Alien: Isolation is easily a much better game than Aliens: Colonial Marines, so if that is your only barrier to purchasing, you can stop reading here and get yourself to your nearest game store to snap this game up. Of course, the above criteria likely applies to over 80 percent of all videogames ever made, so if you are interested in how Alien Isolation measures up as an "Alien" game as well as a game overall, keep reading.Taking place 15 years after the events of the original Alien film, Alien: Isolation puts players in the role of Amanda Ripley, daughter of the film's protagonist, Ellen Ripley. Hoping to uncover the answers behind her mother's disappearance, Amanda journeys as part of a five-member Weyland-Yutani crew to Sevastopol Space Station, where the flight recorder of Ellen's long lost ship, the Nostromo, has been transported after having been recovered by another passing ship in the area. What should be a simple retrieval mission for her mother's former employer as well as much-needed closure for Amanda turns into a nightmare when a freak boarding accident separates Amanda from her team and strands her onboard the now-derelict station, which has fallen into disrepair while lawlessness, chaos, and a hungry, full-sized Xenomorph Alien run rampant among the surviving inhabitants. Now Amanda's sole mission is simply to survive and get off the station by any means necessary.
On paper it’s the perfect spin-off plot for an Alien pre-sequel, and Sega's Creative Assembly has done an admirable job of weaving the concept into a functional survival horror game, at a rudimentary level at least. In keeping with the tone of the horror film genre and survival-horror game originators Resident Evil and Silent Hill, (Amanda) Ripley is not an overpowered, armed-to-the-teeth ass-kicker. Instead, she has normal human frailties and must use stealth, her wits, and her valuable skills as an engineer to survive. Thus players will be spending a good deal of time crouching and sneaking about as Ripley, sticking to cover and salvaging any materials or items and they can find in order to craft improvised medicines, weapons (e.g. pipe bombs) or tools of distraction (e.g. noise-makers, flashbangs). This doesn't mean that Ripley can't fight or wield a gun; Alien: Isolation is also part- first-person shooter and players will occasionally need to line up a headshot or ratchet-melee an attacker into submission, but every action that Ripley takes costs time and can leave her vulnerable.
For example, there's no auto reload action when Ripley empties her revolver; players must manually hold the reload-button down and watch the animation as she loads the bullets one-by-one. No regenerating health or guaranteed knockout blows either; restoring Ripley's health means stopping so she can inject herself with medicine, and attacks with her wrench can be blocked and countered, so players have to time their blows so that they cannot be anticipated (e.g. from behind or as a follow-up to a much stronger attack, such as a gunshot). On top of these risks, all of these actions make noise and can attract even greater threats, such as additional enemies or the Alien itself, making any protracted fights tantamount to suicide. Thus in almost all situations, retreating from dangerous encounters and slipping by your enemies unseen is the most effective way to survive.
Hiding and taking cheap pot-shots are the only options however; Ripley can also use her engineering know-how to make the environment work for her and against her foes. Rewire boxes allow Ripley to reallocate power to or from chosen utilities, such as alarm systems, public announcement systems, air purifiers, and door access switches, which can be used to clear a path by drawing enemies to certain areas, conceal Ripley's movement, or grant access to previously inaccessible rooms. She can also gain entry to restricted areas by hacking their terminals, or build tools to break into them by force. But before Ripley can build any tool or weapon, she must first find its blueprint, and in the case of consumable items like medkits, smoke bombs and the like, Ripley must also find and collect enough materials to craft them. This means that players must not only concern themselves with Ripley's survival but also search for required blueprints and materials whenever it is safe to do so. Thankfully, the location of blueprints as well as materials appear to randomize location as the story progresses, so as long as players make the effort to search when they can, they are eventually bound to come across all the important blueprints without having to backtrack to earlier levels (which would make very little sense in the context of the story).
That said, things quickly get turned upside-down once the Alien begins making regular appearances. Unlike the humans and humanoids that Ripley will encounter in the game, the Xenomorph cannot be killed or outrun, so the player's only hope of survival against the Alien is concealment. Ironically however, it turns out that the best way to hide from the Alien is often right under its nose (while taking cover under or behind something of course, like a table or large computer console). While doing so is risky, Ripley has far more mobility and can easily access to her diversionary bag of tricks in the open, all while keeping a constant eye on the Alien’s position. In a tight spot, players can also hide in one of Sevastopol Station's numerous lockers or storage containers to wait the Alien out, but the chance of the Alien failing to uncover them is a 60/40 proposition at best, so it’s often wiser to just keep moving. And while Ripley can also use ventilation systems to avoid enemies and find alternative routes to her objective, the Alien has its own network of vents that it can use, meaning it can show up at any time, almost anywhere.
But while Alien: Isolation is clearly a good game that all but nails the necessary tone and atmosphere, there are many problems that prevent it from being a great game. Surprisingly, one of the most frustrating ones is an unfortunate side effect of Creative Assembly's retro-inspired art design, which admirably attempts to replicate and re-envision the look of the 1971 film to a detrimental fault. While the franchise’s signature motion tracker, in-game maps, rewire boxes and several other devices capture the aesthetics of Alien to a T, the information they convey is often obtuse and hard to understand, and it becomes very easy for players to get lost, not only in some of the similar-looking environments but also on the map itself, which is often adorned with symbols that players need to decipher more than once on a legend before they can actually tell what they are looking at. Similarly, Rewire boxes do not show the player's position on their map interface, so using them effectively often requires players to jump back out of the Rewire UI, check the in-game map to find themselves, then re-interface with the Rewire box to figure out where they are in relation to the systems they want to affect, which costs players valuable time (during which the Alien may be hunting them).
Stingy on-screen button prompts make it incredibly easy for a player to miss a crucial interactive object (like a floor vent entrance) if he or she is not looking directly at it, which can result in the player wandering around aimlessly for several minutes not knowing where to go or how to advance. The occasional suggestive thought from Ripley to herself could easily put the player back on the right track when he or she has made no progress for an extended period of time, but sadly there's no such assistance.
Beyond these UI issues, there are inconsistent game behaviors as well. Sometimes an activated speaker system will make noise as expected and draw an enemy’s attention. Sometimes nothing will happen at all. Shutting down an air purifier will usually bathe the affected area with dirty, cloudy smoke. But now and again, it won't, and a well-planned distraction will fail. And more often than not, because of the strict first-person immersion of the game, players will interact with a button or device but have no idea exactly what they did, because they simply weren't looking in the right direction or weren't given a visual or audio cue to clarify what happened.
Finally, encounters with the Xenomorph soon wear out their welcome with repetition, as the creature will often show up, then exit only to reappear moments later, prolonging uncomfortable encounters indefinitely until the Alien both discovers and kills Ripley or the player manages to reach a scripted point in the game where the Alien will not follow. Throw in manual save-points that are too few and far between and a lack of an auto-checkpoint system, and you have an experience where players can expect to die and replay long sections of the game often, or even put off necessary exploration of the game because they simply want to get to the next save point and move on.
Alien Isolation can be a stressful experience, but this reviewer still recommends that players give Alien: Isolation a try, especially if you're a fan of the Alien franchise of films or have more than just a passing interest its spin-off games. Gamers have been long deserving of an Alien game that does the name justice, and despite its flaws this is the closest a modern videogame has come in a long time, especially from a visual and audio standpoint.
Just pack a good deal of patience, take the time to explore and save your game at every opportunity, and you’re likely to find the going a bit easier. But before buying, give it a rent or watch a bit of a livestream first to decide if it’s the right game for you.
Suggestions: 1) Simpler, easier to interpret UI, clearer visual cues to help players understand what is happening, and better audio clues to provide helpful hints when players are stuck.
2) Encounters with the Alien are too frequent, diminishing their impact and making them more of a chore. Less is more.
3) Implement auto-checkpoints or make save points more accessible to cut down on the amount of replaying that players have to endure after dying.
Overall Score: 7.6 / 10
Forza Horizon 2
These days, new console generations are a lot like birthdays; it takes nearly a year before you can actually tell you really are a year older, and about the same amount of time with a new console before you finally experience that special game that convinces you that a new generation of gaming has truly arrived. With Xbox One, that moment came when I played the final retail version of Forza Horizon 2 at Microsoft Canada's X14 event in Toronto earlier this month. It was the instant during the first race in which my Lamborghini Huracan LP610-4 and the rest of the pack left the road, burst through a fence, and raced through a hill-ridden wheat field for almost a solid minute, with each racer carving out their own path to the next checkpoint, including myself. Since then, I've wrecked hundreds more fences, drifted on rain-slicked mountain roads in oncoming torrential rain, gazed for minutes at a time at water beading on the surface of my car's front hood and watched as rays of sunlight broke through the clouds of early dawn while I pulled in to a coastal city, where last night's dance party was still going strong. And I've played online with fellow reviewers, jumping in and out of games while roaming the countryside without having to wait in a single matchmaking lobby. And I've experienced it all in beautiful 30 frames-per-second 1080p. There's no doubt about it for this reviewer: with Forza Horizon 2, "next-gen" has truly arrived on Xbox One, and it's quite glorious. This time around, the Forza Horizon Festival has settled in Southern Europe, swapping out the familiar rustic peaks and valleys of Colorado for the wider, more scenic backdrops of southern France and Italy. The weather's hotter, the parties livelier, the music on the radio more varied and just about everything is prohibitively expensive, from the real-life price tag of each of the game's 200+ cars you'll be able to drive to the extensive property damage that you'll be able to cause across the European countryside. Unlike the venue, the basics of the Horizon Festival haven't changed all that much though: players participate in racing and driving skill competitions in order to earn coloured wristbands, which based on the colour will grant them access to championship events of increasing challenge and difficulty. Completing 15 championship events (each one comprised of several races) will unlock the Horizon Festival Finale, where players will race to become ultimate champion.
As the saying goes however, it's about the journey, not the destination, and developer Playground Games has painstakingly designed its follow-up to Horizon 1 to encourage players to drink in the beauty of the new world they've created. For instance, each championship takes place in a different real-world city such as Nice or Sisteron, and upon completion of a championship event players are invited on a Road Trip to the next destination along with several other racers rather than having to drive their alone, but are free to go at their own pace and take in the sights as they wish. In addition, at the start of each Road Trip, players are encouraged to choose a new class of car for the trip as well as a corresponding championship to enter once they reach the destination, allowing them to mix things up a bit gameplay-wise and get a feel for their new ride before they compete in it. In keeping with this more decentralized approach, each championship-designated city in the game has its own Horizon Festival Hub where players can paint and tune their cars at the garage, sell or buy new cars at the Forza Horizon Showcase or switch their Championship selection.
Of course, there are several events and other diversions outside of the Championship events to keep players busy, including a new category called The Bucket List. Bucket List challenges task the player with completing a certain objective while driving a certain car, such as reaching a mountain destination within a certain time limit while at the wheel of the powerful and skittish McLaren P1, or hitting a speed target on an open stretch of road with the Koenigsegg Agera. These challenges are fun but are far from easy, demanding players' full attention as well as well their skill (and/or liberal use of the rewind button feature).
Among other notable improvements to the franchise is the long-awaited addition of dynamic weather and time of day to the Forza game engine, which as the intro to this review suggests is easily the best implementation of those features that this reviewer has seen in a console racer yet. Thankfully it's not just skin-deep; rain will adversely affect visibility as well as your car's handling and tire grip on the game's various types of terrain. A Project Gotham Kudos-style Perk system has also been introduced which rewards players points and/or cash for just about any skillful thing that they do, which can be respectively rolled into permanent online/offline perks of your choice or used to upgrade and purchase new cars. In addition, each time you level up you earn a spin on a lottery wheel that will reward you with cash or a sweet new ride.
Horizon's signature Showcase Events, which pit the player in a given car against other vehicles that normally would have no right to be in a road race are back and even more ludicrously awesome than before (try racing against an aerial demonstration team), and DJ Rob da Bank has also returned as the game's music curator, infusing the Horizon Festival with his eclectic musical tastes ranging from techno and rock to classical across seven different radio stations players that will unlock over the course of the game.
All the above would be enough to please most Forza Horizon fans and racing fans alike, but the real joy of and satisfaction of playing Horizon 2 however (outside of of driving ridiculously fast, powerful, and not to mention priceless cars on the open roads of Southern Europe) is the full-realization of the open-world gameplay that the original Forza Horizon promised. You can literally drive anywhere, at least, anywhere you could reasonably want to go in a game where the primary focus is racing. There is rarely a picket fence that your car can't bust through, nor a farmer's field or vineyard that you can't recklessly tear across and ravish by pulling donuts in them, leaving the harvested debris in your wake. Guardrails on overpasses and bridges are made of far stronger stuff and will still bounce you back should you attempt to recreate the climactic scene from Thelma and Louise, and the dreaded invisible walls of last generation can still be found in the occasional treeline, but you'll be much harder pressed to find them. This new freedom may seem only evolutionary for a next-gen racer, but it feels revolutionary: once you've roamed free across the vast, pastoral playground that is Horizon 2, you'll have a very difficult time even fathoming going back to the hemmed-in experience that the still excellent Horizon 1 was (by comparison).
However, it's also this near boundless freedom that exposes some of the game's rougher edges. In the original Horizon, the barriers and invisible walls may have betrayed the aging Xbox 360's hardware limitations, but they also saved you from yourself, greatly reducing the instances of getting temporarily stuck on objects in the environment, and making exploration a generally smooth experience. For example, the Horizon billboards that you could seek out and smash for extra experience were often hidden but placed in areas you could easily drive through, allowing players to keep their momentum going. In Horizon 2 however, the game's expanded scope has seemingly forced Playground Games to get craftier with their billboard placement in order to hide them better, so players must now navigate their speed machines in and out of street-side patios, stone-walled gardens and other tight spaces to get to some billboards, which can be about as tedious as parallel parking.
Another seemingly unavoidable drawback is the increased dependence on the Driving Line, the Forza franchise's optional guidance line that helps beginner and amateur drivers know when they are coming into a turn too fast so that they can brake accordingly. In Horizon 2, having this feature active is practically a must now that many of the races tend to veer off the pavement or avoid the road entirely, meaning that there will be times where the Driving Line will be the only way to know for sure where the actual "racetrack" is at all. Naturally there are red flares and floating text markers that signal where the next checkpoint is, but these are easily obscured by objects in the environment, such as the side of the mountain that you are circling, or the tall stalks of wheat you are carelessly plowing through because...well, that's where everyone else is going. It's a great deal of fun to no longer be limited to just the road or an illusion of freedom that ultimately ties you to the road, but these new navigational challenges are the cost, and players will likely find themselves relying on the Driving Line and Rewind feature more than they would like in order to stay competitive and cut down on frustration.
A final niggling concern regarding Horizon 2's truly open world is that the AI controlled Drivatars make use of it far too liberally at present, occasionally to the point where their actions border on blatant and uninspired cheating. For example, on two separate occasions against two different Drivatars (both belonging to friends of mine), I started a race that was supposed to take place across a bridge, followed by a winding country road, only to discover right off the bat that my opponent had driven under the bridge and was tunneling his way through the fields below, making a cheap and lazy beeline towards the finish. Hopefully when more players are in possession of the game and are playing it, their Drivatars will take on more of their actual driving habits, as I find it hard to believe that two of my unrelated friends would resort to the exact same cheap tactic in the exact same race.
Outside of these concerns however, there is little not to love about Forza Horizon 2. Online performance, while not completely seamless (you have to manually select one of the game's online modes from Online Freeroam or Online Road Trip) is excellent and you'll never have to sit in a lobby while you wait for your friends to show up or be connected to a game; you can just keep doing what you're doing. At present the game is still only in the hands of reviewers, so there are not as many players online yet as one would like, but one can only hope that the network will hold up as solidly as it does right now. Ben, your car benefactor and guide throughout the world of Horizon 2 is a bit of an annoyingly smug and spoiled rich kid, but you regularly get to smash his face to pieces over and over as it's plastered on a good number of the game's hidden billboards, so it all washes out in the end.
The gameplay itself still straddles the line between Forza 5 simulation and more arcade-style racers like Project Gotham, and can be tweaked to lean further in either direction by turning assists on or off, and the livery creator has been drastically improved to meet Forza 5-level complexity and is now complimented in every city by a Car Meet area where players can gather asynchronously to exchange designs and customizations. So even die-hard Forza purists, artists and tuners have plenty of reason to give this game a shot. It would have been nice if your driver avatar (not your Drivatar) in the game could be customizable however, as there are likely many male and female Forza players who would like to drive as someone that looks more like themselves, instead of the default white-male “dudebro”.
All minor gripes aside, Forza Horizon 2 should be a no-brainer, day one purchase for any racing fan who owns an Xbox One on September 30th. The game doesn't necessarily reinvent the Forza wheel, but it improves, refines and literally expands upon so many aspects of what made the original successful that it feels like the game Horizon 1 was aiming to be all along. Most importantly, with all due respect to Forza 5, it's the first next-gen racer for Xbox One that truly feels like a complete experience, and sets the bar high for every racing game to follow on the platform.
Suggestions: 1) Give us the ability to choose our own Driver Avatar; it's high time that we should be able to race as someone other than a generic white male.
2) Add an option to make other cars in races visible through objects (like in Left 4 Dead), which will help players keep abreast of where the race is headed in moments of low visibility (like driving through a cornfield).
Overall Score: 9.7 / 10
Diablo 3: Ultimate Evil Edition
Just like the old saying goes: "Good things come to those who wait." The long-awaited release of Diablo 3 on PC in 2012 was initially one marred by controversy; the new Auction House feature intended to both stem and legitimize the frowned-upon practice of auctioning off rare items to other players for personal profit was ultimately a failure, as it tied real-world monetary value to item drops and made valuable items so rare that most players were forced to rely on the game's built-in grey market to even have a hope of finding them. Likewise, the mandatory-and-still-current persistent online connection requirement, just like in every other modern videogame or videogame-related framework that attempts it (e.g. Sim City, Ubisoft's UPlay - enabled PC games) has been perceived as an affront to gamers, preventing many from playing their brand new game purchase however and whenever they want (i.e. online or offline). Now over two long years later, Diablo III finally makes its debut on Xbox One as "The Ultimate Evil Edition", arriving nearly 12 months after its solid appearance on Xbox 360, bringing in tow the previously PC-exclusive Reaper of Souls expansion as well as a host of other additions, including an all-new character class and a much-appreciated visual bump to glorious 1080p at 60 frames-per-second. As in the 360 version, long gone are the controversial Auction House and the mandatory online requirement, a move that has endeared the game much closer with the console crowd, and even encouraged several fans who already own the PC version to play it again on console.Back in September, we gave the Xbox 360 version of Diablo 3 a well-deserved 90% review score, as the game blew us away with its high-end production values, solid gameplay mechanics and one of the best translations of keyboard and mouse controls to a game controller since Bungie redefined how first-person shooters should be played on consoles with Halo: Combat Evolved for the original Xbox. So aside from the graphics and sound, what’s different?
New to Diablo 3 is the Crusader, whom at first glance will strike most of those familiar with dungeon crawlers as an even cross between a paladin and a cleric, and they would be right, except that in the Diablo franchise's tradition of keeping this simple and fun, the Crusader has been granted literally all of the benefits of those two classes and very few of their weaknesses. Capable of wielding most heavy melee weapons both blunt and sharp, Crusaders are the true tanks of the game, as once players become accustomed to their abilities they can they can wade right into the thick of battle and absorb numerous hits while dealing out immense amounts of damage, while simultaneously gaining health and wrath (the Crusader version of mana) bonuses just for using their special abilities. In addition, once players begin unlocking the corresponding runes to each one of the Crusader's abilities, the Crusader can master new powerful skills that benefit not only him or herself but also the rest of the party, such as buffs that give all party members added protection, or cast area-of-affect healing spells and even holy attacks that can freeze large groups of enemies in place or send them running in fear for a short time. In short, the Crusader can be just as effective in the back of the group as he or she is in the front, providing support for the rest of the party while using ranged and area attacks to do damage, and can easily switch up styles should his or her special brand of brute force suddenly become needed at the point of the spear. Of course, every one of Diablo 3's other character classes (Barbarian, Demon Hunter, Monk, Witch Doctor and Wizard) are all designed to be equally versatile, as the game is intended to be playable completely on one's own as well as in a party involving multiple players, but the addition of the Crusader has nonetheless brought a more "traditional" element of D&D that was noticeably absent from the earlier versions of Diablo 3.
Another subtle yet noticeable difference is how the new dynamic difficulty leveling system scales not only with the player's level but also adjusts automatically for differences between players so that all party members can enjoy playing at the same level of difficulty, yet no one is held back. Lower-level players are given temporary stat-boosts so that they are equal in level to the most powerful players in the party, and the enemy AI adjusts accordingly, allowing friends to easily play together regardless of how advanced one or more of the players may be. That said, even in a party, Diablo 3 is no cakewalk. There are five, very lengthy acts to the game, so you might want to take it easy on your first run through if you have any intention of finishing the game in a reasonable amount of time (maybe the larger part of a week if you have a job and a normal life). If you’re a glutton for punishment though, you could always enable Hardcore mode, which gives the player just one life, and when it’s over, it’s really over. Also, keep in mind, if you already have a game-save from the Xbox 360 or PS3 version of Diablo 3, it can be imported to Xbox One (instructions can be found at Battle.net), allowing you to continue where you left off with your character and not lose all the time you’ve previously invested in him or her.
The excellent multiplayer mode has also seen an enhancement in the form of "gifts", where players will randomly pick up special items and weapons among their loot that are intended for other players in their Friends Lists that are also playing Diablo 3, even if they have never actually played with those players. Players can choose to send or not send these gifts from their inventory menu; if they do, the gift will appear in the designated player's mailbox, which can be found at their base camp. More in-general, the execution of offline and online multiplayer remains just as brilliant as it was with the Xbox 360 version, allowing for offline play, online play and even a mix of the two in fully-customizable 4-player-parties, and there are even PvP Brawl rooms for players who want to duke it out without any serious consequences. The only complaint from this reviewer is that in local co-op, only one player is allowed to manage their inventory or upgrade their skills and weapons at a time, which can make for lengthy periods of time waiting while your friend sorts through all of his or her loot, just so you can spend an equal amount of time when it is your turn. Allowing for split-screen item management for two players at the very least might have streamlined the process. Another way in which copious amounts of precious time could have been saved would have been by merging all inventory from a player's stash (a treasure chest at base camp that can hold extra items) with the inventory on his or her person when visiting the Blacksmith, so that players can salvage, repair or upgrade their inventory without having to make the trip over to the Stash to first gather their items. It's unlikely that these sorts of changes will be applied in an upcoming patch, but they would certainly be welcome. Thankfully, developer Blizzard has already pledged to keep the current-gen console versions of Diablo 3 up-to-date along with future improvements to the PC version, so there is always hope.
While our review of the Xbox 360 version praised Diablo 3's graphics and sound, it's simply not enough to say that the Ultimate Evil Edition improves upon them and leave it at that, despite the high expectations that an Xbox One version brings. In this reviewer's local co-op experience, the 60 frames-per-second action never slowed or stuttered even with dozens of enemies and NPCs on screen, and the crisp 1080p visuals (enabled post-day-one patch) ensured that there was no question which Xbox console I was playing the game on. The lush desolation of the world of Diablo and its denizens literally leaps off the screen, and all the little touches, such as the bodies of fallen warriors occasionally shifting from rigor mortis as you walk over them, the splatter from insects and scorpions when you squash them underfoot, or how building structures, walls and even the sides of cliffs spontaneously collapse, supposedly set off simply by your movement in their vicinity, all accompanied convincingly by spine-tingling audio effects in surround-sound, make the world feel all the more atmospheric and tangible. Finally, when an enemy's battle-horn blares or a boss creature roars, rattling your subwoofer and or headphone speakers, the game's unsung hero, your Xbox One controller, will rumble exquisitely in unison, providing extra impact to every major hit, explosion, and in-game cut-scene, not to mention make all those squashed bugs feel extra squishy. It goes without saying that Diablo 3: Ultimate Evil Edition has been given the full Activision-Blizzard treatment (in the best sense of the phrase), and only the most discerning (read: snobby) of the PC Elite could experience this game and wrongly declare it a lesser version than its PC cousin.
In conclusion: Diablo-fans and Diablo-curious alike, the wait is over. The definitive version of Diablo 3 is now available on Xbox One, and whether you've already played it on PC, a previous generation console, or simply been waiting in the wings to see how the latest installment in the PC-favorite franchise would shake out on the current-gen consoles, you now have your answer. Diablo 3 isn’t just as good as a PC-to-console port can get; in several ways, it's better, simpler and more enjoyable to play. Buy yourself a copy, gather some friends on the couch or online, and prepare to sacrifice several hours, days and weeks of your life to the dark lord that is Diablo.
Suggestions: 1) Allow for two or more players to access their inventory simultaneously via split-screen so less time is spent waiting for each player to finish and more time is spent adventuring. 2) Merge the Stash and Character inventories when at the blacksmith so less time is wasted going between the Stash and the blacksmith. 3) Please, less stereotypical accents for the Witch Doctor next time. It's as if Nelson Mandela (rest in peace) was raised from the dead only to phone in performance, in awkward English. As a gamer of African descent, I'm almost embarrassed every time words come out of his mouth. Diablo should be about fantasy, not weak parody.
Overall Score: 9.6 / 10
Sniper Elite 3
I'm quickly coming to the realization that the trend killing Nazis as a videogame pastime is coming back with a vengeance, thanks largely in part to the graphical power newly afforded to developers by both the outgoing generation of consoles as well as the current generation. Games have simply never looked better, and it’s the opinion of this reviewer that this new wave of Nazi-extermination simulators is wisely exploiting that power, providing us with some of the most thrilling excuses yet to become virtual tourists. Much like how James Bond hopscotches from one exotic locale to another in order to dispatch criminal masterminds, or Hitman's Agent 47 "Travels the world meet interesting people...and kill them”, games involving the utter destruction of the Third Reich are taking us to more colourful and interesting locales lately. Most recently, Wolfenstein: The New Order took us on an all-expense paid round-trip across an alternate-history Europe that had been "redecorated" by the Nazis, and while it wasn't quite the most scenic of vacations, there was a rather stimulating ride aboard a luxury train and some really good coffee. Now the latest installment in the Sniper Elite franchise invites players to battle the Afrika Korps division of the Axis forces across the world's second largest continent, swapping the drab, war-torn city streets of 1945 Berlin (Sniper Elite V2's setting) for the vast, sun-laden desert environments of North Africa. And thankfully, developer Rebellion didn't forget to pack plenty of fun along for the trip.In Sniper Elite 3, players reprise the role of OSS Agent and top sniper Karl Fairburne, whose mission is to track down yet another top secret Nazi super weapon (what is it about the Nazis and top secret super weapons?!?), ventilating as many Nazi craniums, throat and chest cavities as he can along the way, and preferably down the barrel of his rifle. Each mission begins with a briefing narrated by the grizzled voice of Fairburne himself, first setting up the essential backstory and targets, and then with the assistance of a top-down, hand-drawn map lays out the basic mission plan and suggested routes. Keeping within the historical time period of the game, the layouts of maps in both briefings and in-game are crude representations of the actual terrain at best, and the only navigational assistance players will receive before putting boots on the ground are circles, arrows and other basic scribblings that Fairburne jots down college football-style as he goes over the strategy in his head. These brief glimpses into an expert sniper's thought process are actually rather effective in enveloping the player in the atmosphere of the game, in addition to setting the mission tone. The purposely vague nature of these briefings also means however that players new to the franchise will likely find themselves scratching their heads and wondering where to go first once they have arrived in the field, having been lulled into a false sense of security by Fairburne's matter-of-fact voice-over style. The reality is that from the moment that the mission begins, Fairburne drops the keys to the car into the player's hands and takes a backseat, only offering commentary when it becomes necessary to draw the player's attention to an important mission task. Likewise, aside from key objective beacons that consistently appear on the in-game map, mini-map and in the field, little assistance is provided to the player in terms of direction. It shouldn't take players long to realize however that this is actually a good thing, as they are forced to explore each level's sandbox environment, fill in the blanks for themselves and forge their own unique path to the mission objectives in the process.
As the title of the game suggests, the sniper rifle is the preferred weapon of choice, and in some scenarios it is the sole weapon capable of hitting targets that would otherwise be out of reach, but in most cases players aren't necessarily limited to long range combat as their only option. By default, Fairburne takes a secondary automatic weapon and sidearm pistol into each mission, and these can be swapped out for other variants or types as the player unlocks them via gaining XP, which the game rewards for just about everything that the player does, from completing mission objectives, finding hidden items and of course, scoring effective and creative kills on enemy soldiers. In addition to firearms, Fairburne also has customizable slots in his loadout for bandages, medkits, grenades, dynamite and a variety of landmines types that he can use to cover his back when he's dug in at a sniper's nest, or set up deadly traps for his enemies that he can trigger remotely with a well-placed shot or more directly with a grenade. And when the situation calls for more subtlety, Fairburne also has a pocket full of throwing stones for drawing the attention of enemies away from his location and/or towards traps, and flint stones for lighting small fires to lure enemies in the same fashion. Add in the ability to choose between four different loadout types before the mission begins, as well as the freedom to customize each sniper rifle from the stock right down to the reticle, and you have a stealth-action sniping game that can be tweaked to be a uniquely personal experience for the player.
In terms of gameplay, Sniper Elite 3's closest relatives would have to be titles such as Splinter Cell: Blacklist and Hitman Absolution, as the game borrows a good deal from Sam Fisher's and Agent 47's stealth playbooks while throwing in its own sniper-specific touches. Much like in Splinter Cell, players can make themselves less visible to enemies by crouching, going prone, using cover and sticking to the shadows, but Rebellion has wisely tied these common stealth mechanics to Fairburne's breathing and heart rate. By moving slowly and staying calm and collected, Fairburne becomes even less detectable by the enemy, even when hiding in plain sight, and his aim is far steadier. When scoped, players can use the RB button to empty Fairburne's lungs and slow his heart rate for a brief time in order to line up the perfect shot, which will usually result in the one of the game's famous “X-Ray Kill-cam” sequences that follows the bullet all the way from the barrel to the target, concluding in an ultra-slow-motion shot as the bullet shatters bone and rips through the internal organs of the victim. Conversely, impatient players can also choose to literally run-and-gun their way through areas of the game, but this approach is unwise as the physical act of running quickens Fairburne's breathing and heartbeat, causing Fairburne's accuracy with just about any firearm to go right out the window. In general, it only takes one or two shots with a sniper rifle to reveal one's location to the enemy, so players keen on sniping will have to relocate frequently in order to avoid being cornered by search teams. However, resourceful players who explore the area will find noisy machinery and other environmental opportunities to mask the sounds of their shots, enabling them to keep their killstreaks running longer while avoiding detection.
In another nod to Splinter Cell, Fairburne's level of visibility is represented by a "squinted eye" symbol that narrows at the most invisible state and widens completely at the most visible, with enemies becoming suspicious or alert upon glimpsing Fairburne in the latter condition. Even then however, Fairburne can attempt quickly slip away before enemies are fully alert and maintain cover, becoming a "ghost" (and thus even harder to spot) if the player is able to do it quickly enough, and should the situation devolve into a @#%t-show instead, players can use the Splinter Cell/Hitman- derived "last known position" mechanic to shake their pursuers and put enough distance in-between them to safely go back into cover. Fairburne is no slouch face-to-face either, capable of quick and lethal close-quarters takedowns that can snuff out an enemy grunt before he has the chance to alert others, and he can always fall back on one of his secondary weapons, though their on-hand ammo capacity as well as Fairburne's capacity to absorb enemy fire are rather limited. This notwithstanding, players are never made to feel powerless in any situation. Failed stealth attempts don't instantly result in a kill screen and a punishing checkpoint reload (unless of course the player dies); instead, players are given the opportunity to salvage the situation or retreat and reattempt with a different approach or angle, which will often expose new aspects of the environment that the they can take advantage of. In other words, failure in Sniper Elite 3 is often a pleasantly refreshing exercise in falling upward, rather than a frustrating, repetitive gameplay experience.
Rebellion has clearly worked hard to offer players as much longevity as possible with Sniper Elite 3. While the team has officially "guesstimated' a 12 hour campaign on its website, depending on one's play style, finishing the game could take considerably longer, and the developers have packed each level with all sorts of hidden items (e.g. weapon parts and collectibles), top secret intel, diary entries, optional secondary objectives and prime sniper nest locations, which all contribute additional XP when uncovered or completed. Accumulating XP of course leads to higher ranks, allowing players to unlock additional items and upgrades, so completionists should set aside an extra day or two's worth of solid play time if they hope to find everything in their first run-through (good luck!). Each level in the game is up to three times larger than those of 2012's Sniper Elite V2, and there are more enemies and interactive objects (such as explosives, destructible vehicles and the like) in each one, presenting players with more opportunities to set up diabolical, Upload Studio-worthy video clips to share with your friends on Xbox One. Finally, the entire campaign can be enjoyed with a friend via online co-op, and a separate adversarial multiplayer mode is also available to test one's skills against up to 11 other players. Designed by a separate team at Rebellion from the ground up alongside the single-player campaign, this mode shares key mechanics from the solo adventure, and the XP system carries across all modes. Oh, and don't forget the Challenge Modes that can also be played solo or in online co-op, as well as the higher difficulty settings dubbed "Sniper Elite" and "Authentic" (the former intended for players craving realistic bullet ballistics and the latter for sadomasochists who want all that and an unhealthy side of NO SAVE POINTS). There is even a "Custom" difficulty option to allow players to pick and choose what elements they want more challenge from.
If any complaint can be lodged against Sniper Elite 3, it’s that the character models (including Fairburne himself), textures, and the occasional jerky animations and transitions easily betray the game’s cross generational pedigree; in short, the game looks like a multi-platform title rather than one designed exclusively for current-gen consoles, but this is a common trait of many current games on Xbox One, and doesn’t really detract one way or the other from the game’s overall fun factor. That aside, Sniper Elite 3 is a highly enjoyable game for those who enjoy stealth action games with a good deal of sniping and assassination involved. Fans of games like Hitman: Absolution, Splinter Cell: Conviction and Splinter Cell: Blacklist, as well as players who simply enjoy messing around with enemy AI in closed sandbox environments should definitely pick this game up, as it offers replayability in abundance. Just don't expect the game's looks to blow you away in equal measure to its gameplay options.
Suggestions: Occasionally allowing slow-motion bullet damage to be seen on the outside (like in Max Payne 3) would pack more of a visual and visceral punch every now and then. Also, the X-Ray Kill-cam often obscures the path of the bullet when it impacts, and the animations at times feel canned, rather than driven by physics. Small but niggling visual snags in an otherwise solid game.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack
Modern cautionary tales about the dangers of science and experimentation on living and extinct creatures have been in the movies for years, and many of them have inspired videogames. Godzilla, The Fly, and Jurassic Park come to this reviewer's mind, for example. But outside of Resident Evil, why aren't there more games with this theme? Probably because while they're scary, they're usually preachy not all that much fun. Well, Toronto-based DrinkBox studios has stepped up not only to ask those questions but also address them with their latest release on Xbox 360, Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack. In it, players take on the role of Blob (for the sake of simplicity we’ll refer to Blob as a “he”), an ill-tempered microorganism that is the result of several generations of forced mitosis and countless scientific experiments. Blob is fed-up being a guinea pig for humanity and decides that it's time to fight back. He initiates a prison break that sets free all of his imprisoned blob brethren from the laboratory, and then sets about exacting revenge upon the human race by eating everything in sight until he becomes large enough to consume every last human on earth. And it just so happens to be the 1960s, so you know it's going to be a swingin' time!
Much like Blob's motivation, the concept of Mutant Blobs Attack is simple. Players must guide Blob from the beginning to the end of each stage, absorbing as many loose objects and living creatures as he can along the way. The catch is that Blob can only absorb objects that are smaller than his current overall body size, making it necessary for Blob to consume a pre-determined amount of "stuff" before he can grow large enough to absorb the environmental barriers that prevent him from proceeding to the next section of a level or the next stage (e.g. a giant cork plugging the entryway to a tunnel).
This gameplay mechanic has enabled the team at DrinkBox to craft a collection of truly inventive puzzles and worlds that will have 2D platforming fans singing the game's praises. And rightfully so, as the concept also calls for thoughtful level design that dynamically accommodates Blob's increasing size during each stage, which almost always sees Blob leaving the level two or three sizes bigger than when he went in. Case in point, when Blob's adventure begins in a student dorm following his escape from the laboratory, he is no bigger than the size of a penny, but by the time the University chapter of the game is over, Blob is big enough to consume an entire graduating class.
In addition to Blob's primary objective of eating everything that's not nailed down, players have the option of completing additional challenges, such as finishing each level as quickly as possible in order to earn time-based point bonuses and hence higher scores to rank against their friends and players around the world; or alternatively they can take their time to thoroughly explore each stage to find and reunite Blob with his scattered blob brothers. At least one or more of them can be found either carefully concealed or hiding in plain sight somewhere in every level of the game, and they can be rescued by Blob through simply coming into contact with them, prompting Blob to re-absorb them into his own body. It's a creepy thing for a "hero" to do, but technically they were all once part of the same organism, right? It should also be mentioned that rescuing some of these stray blobs involves taking dangerous risks, so when you successfully manage to rescue one of Blob's friends and survive the ordeal by the skin of your teeth, you'll often feel like a heroic badass.
Although Blob's normal means of locomotion is slowly rolling about mixed with a smattering of double and triple-jumps, the obstacles, puzzles and dangers that the game will throw at players will quickly require them to become as nimble as a sumo wrestler, juggling Blob's increasing mass and natural momentum with surprisingly explosive bursts of speed and dexterity. After all, civilization as we know it isn't going to be content to take its inevitable consumption lying down, and as Blob evolves throughout the game into the true, city-sized mutant menace he's destined to become, he'll face military forces armed with guided missiles, artillery, giant lasers and blob-piercing beds of spikes among other threats.
At times, even the earth, the moon, and the cold, dark vacuum of space themselves will all seem to be focused on stamping out Blob's existence. Thanks to humanity's excessive tinkering however, resilience and adaptability have been unintentionally built into Blob's genetically-altered DNA, granting him with telekinesis, push/repel magnetism, rocket propulsion and stomp powers. Regardless of the situation he may find himself in, Blob always has the tools he needs to survive, and half the fun is just figuring out how and when to use them in order to overcome a puzzle or challenge. Finally, players need not worry too much about getting stuck in a puzzle, as the game provides a helpful tip each time it introduces a new power or different way of using an existing power, and will provide reminder hints should the player die repeatedly at the same obstacle without using the recommended ability.
Mutant Blobs Attack isn't going to win any awards for groundbreaking graphics, nor does it push the limits of the aging Xbox 360 hardware to any real extent, but upon seeing the game in motion there can be no doubt that DrinkBox threw every single brilliant idea, witty joke and every game and pop-culture reference they could think of into this game, and the result is a charmingly slick and fluid platformer that any gamer with an observant eye could pore over for hours at a time with enjoyment. Every visual element in the game is designed to delight and amuse the player, from how humans that Blob has consumed continue float and spin about in a daze inside his body like clothes in a washing machine while they await digestion, to the numerous and not so subtle nods to DrinkBox's other games as well as those that they clearly admire, including Guacamelee, N+, Asteroids, and even a literal, brief gameplay homage to Angry Birds.
Practically every background image, every poster, every commercial billboard, and the name of every establishment is a joke or a sly wink to the modern lives that many gamers and indie game developers know, and gratifyingly, no attempt is made to hide it. At one point, even Toronto's CN Tower makes an appearance, an obvious shout-out to the home of DrinkBox Studios and their most dedicated fans. Of course, the grumpily indifferent attitude of Blob as he rolls towards his goal of destroying humanity by way of gluttony is a delightful comic draw, but in the end, Mutant Blobs Attack absolutely charms with its solid gameplay, hilarious and easy-to-follow in-engine cutscenes, as well as all of the previously mentioned elements above, coming together to deliver a brilliant, award-worthy ensemble performance. The retro-60's look and orchestral/jazz fusion soundtrack nails the intended aesthetic, and the sound effects while limited in variety are highly effective in getting the job done; you'll never confuse the hum of a nearby laser beam with the crackle that emits when Blob approaches an object that can be manipulated by telekinesis, and the hapless panicking of humans always announces that food is nearby.
The only true stain on this intentionally sticky platformer is that some of the puzzles involving Blob's telekinetic powers often result in several accidental deaths due to their reliance on the Xbox 360's right analog stick, which depending on which generation of Xbox 360 controller you have can be prone to floatiness. In other words, a light press of the right stick can often result in a platform moving too quickly or slowly during a dangerous puzzle sequence. Similarly, some contraptions intended for transporting Blob from one point to another can inadvertently pinch or crush him to death with an errant touch of the stick as well. Graciously, checkpoints in Mutant Blobs Attack are frequent, so players won't have to do too much backtracking when this occurs, but they should still pack some patience for some of the more difficult puzzles.
To conclude, if you're looking for a fun platformer that thinks outside the box, or more precisely envelops that box, devours it and then starts looking for more, look no further; just plunk down the $8 and support DrinkBox studios with this latest effort. More great, local Canadian games like this one need to keep getting made, and once you've played Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack, you too will want to consume it and make it a part of your collection.
Suggestions: An alternative control scheme to the right analog stick would make telekinesis based puzzles easier as manipulation would be more reliable. The Xbox 360 controller is a great controller, but the sticks are known to drift and aren't the best option in a puzzle game where the manipulation of objects can mean life and death.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Earth Defense Force 2025
Do you remember the days when arcade games like Sega’s Virtua Fighter 3, Sega Bass Fishing, and Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Oratorio Tangram were the pinnacle of arcade game graphics? Or when local split-screen co-op play was the norm instead of online? How about the days when a game impressed you not by how many silky smooth frames per second it could run, but rather how many enemies it could throw at you without freezing or crashing altogether? Feeling nostalgic yet? If you are, then Earth Defense Force (EDF) 2025 is a game you should probably check out, as it combines all of the above hallmarks of late 1990’s gaming and more into one surprisingly entertaining package.EDF 2025, the follow up to 2007’s Earth Defense Force 2017 and 2011’s Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon, sees players once again enlisting for duty in the game’s titular military forces in order to protect the planet from an invasion of giant insects and robots from outer space. This time however, the alien robots, known as the Ravagers, have decided to be a bit cleverer, timing their invasion to coincide exactly with a surprise attack from a sleeper cell of giant insects that have been living and multiplying in secret under the earth’s surface for the past eight years. If this sounds like the campy plot of a Japanese 1960’s Kaiju (giant monster) film that’s been badly translated into English, then you’re right on the money. In fact, Japanese developer Sandlot Studios has been iterating on this theme since the franchise began as Global Defense Force on the PlayStation 2, and the team has become such an old hand at playing EDF’s trademark corniness to the hilt that to call it a gimmick nowadays would be a disservice…it’s more like a genre that Sandlot and publisher D3 have become the sole custodians of, and one that has generated quite a following over the years.
Naturally, as the fourth installment in the series, EDF 2025 offers players more variety than ever before. No longer limited to playing as a rank and file EDF grunt, players can now choose to embark on any unlocked mission as one of four distinct soldier classes: The versatile Ranger-class of the ground infantry forces, the jetpack-equipped Wing Diver class from the EDF’s female-only Special Forces Unit, the Air Raider class from the support and heavy vehicle division, and the dual-wielding Fencer class from the Heavy Armored Troop Unit. Each class has its unique specialty, strengths and weaknesses, and players will eventually need to master all four soldier types if they hope to have a chance at completing EDF 2025’s staggering number of levels (reportedly close to 100 when counting both offline and online-exclusive stages), all filled with seemingly endless hordes of giant bugs and robots.
Thankfully, the selection of weapons and vehicles that you’ll be able to randomly gather as pickups from fallen enemies are even more numerous, giving players extra incentive to squash every bug and blow apart every mechanical menace they encounter on the battlefield. Each class gets access to different weapons based on their pre-determined play style, and many of them are ridiculously powerful, like machine guns with the unearthly ability to shoot in two directions at once or rebound off walls; energy weapons that discharge highly destructive particle beams that home-in on enemies; the ability to call in drivable tanks and air-strikes; and even giant melee weapons like futuristic lances and riot shields. Each level can be replayed as many times as the player wants at difficulties ranging from Easy (Difficulty 1) to Inferno (Difficulty 5), with the frequency and rarity of item drops increasing with the level of challenge. Thus players will want to revisit earlier missions multiple times to find more powerful weapons, which will give them a fighting chance as the enemy toughness ramps up in the later stages.
It’s quite easy to feel super-powered when playing EDF 2025, as many of the aforementioned weapons are far more lethal than they should have any right to be, like super-soaker guns that shoot acid capable of destroying a giant anthill in a matter of seconds, or a laser sniper rifle so powerful that it’s capable of destroying ANY enemy with one hit, but can only be fired once because reusing it would cause the gun to overheat and melt in one’s hands. Even a “close range” shotgun can kill a giant spider or ant at mid-range and send it spinning backwards though the air for several city blocks. But to think that these powerful weapons will keep you safe, even when playing on Normal difficulty, is to be careless.
Much like the different soldier classes of the EDF, the giant insects and Ravager robots can be quite deadly on their own, but are even more potentially devastating in large, screen-filling numbers, and the latter approach is how most encounters with the player will play out in almost every stage. Large insect swarms in particular can close huge distances between themselves and players in mere seconds, and even the smallest enemy players will face is twenty times the size of a human being. The fearsome ‘ick factor’ of fighting dozens of giant ants, hairy, web-spinning tarantulas and towering, plasma-gun-toting robots as they skitter and leap across buildings or simply plod through them on their way to you cannot be over-exaggerated. Even in co-op mode players will often find themselves screaming and panicking when the herds of giant insects overtake them, as things can quickly go south for all players concerned when just one of them gets reeled in by a hungry spider, or becomes trapped in the jaws of an angry ant.
But while tense, the combat is incredibly fun as well. Making ‘fugly-looking’ insects burst into purple clouds of bug-juice, flying limbs and dismembered heads at the hands of your weapon never gets old, and watching giant robots and transport ships crash to the ground in earth-shaking, screen-filling explosions always manages to satisfy. In a similar fashion (depending on the weapon you or your enemies are using), many of the environments in EDF 2025 are highly destructible, and if players are not careful they can find themselves buried under the debris of the very buildings, bridges and streets that they are standing on. But the true star of EDF 2025 is the game’s incredible sense of scale. As suggested at the beginning of this review, EDF can hardly be called a pretty game, as its looks are rooted firmly in the late 90’s, evoking a polygonal look reminiscent of Sega’s Dreamcast console and Model 3 generation of arcade games. But none of those games, not even Shenmue, ever came as close to replicating the vast scale of close to hundreds of authentic-looking Japanese city blocks the way several of EDF 2025’s stages do.
As someone who once lived in Japan for several years, I was stunned by just how much the game’s “simple-looking” environments captured the urban feel of that country’s biggest metropolises, large shopping arcades, industrial ports and even subway tunnels, and then on top of making much of it destructible, dared to throw as many giant bugs, enemy ships and 100-foot-tall robots at me and my co-op buddy as the Xbox 360’s hardware could handle. Playing in local split-screen made this feat even more apparent, as my Wing Diver-playing brother would often fly to the rooftops of skyscrapers to provide sniper support. My Ranger, who was fighting the bugs in the streets often appeared so small in my brother’s view that it might as well have been from the window of a low-flying passenger plane gliding over the city. He was THAT high up. The stages are by no means limitless; there are borders, but it will take players quite some time to get close to them, and some missions will end without players even covering a fifth of their total map area.
There are a few problems that mar the fun a bit though. In local co-op the large levels can often lead to players getting separated or even lost on occasion as they try to make their way to the next combat area. Once a player goes down, it’s possible for the other player to revive their fallen comrade by reaching their body and pressing the ‘Back’ button, but more often than not, the area will be swarming with numerous and/or powerful enemies that will make short work of the remaining player long before he or she gets there. Alternatively, the surviving player can choose to press on solo and still complete the mission, but surviving later missions less a combat buddy becomes much, much harder to do, even on Normal difficulty, and most players will choose to simply restart the mission or retreat so they can try a different class or switch to better weapons.
Another scale-related problem is that apart from the flight-capable Wing Diver class, all other classes travel on foot, and unless they have access to a vehicle (which only the Air Raider class can summon), their run speed is excruciatingly slow. As a consequence, players will find themselves eating up a lot of time running over huge distances to get to fights, or worse, traveling in the opposite direction to gather health, armor and precious weapon pickups (which may or may not reward them with new weapons – the contents of each weapon pickup are only revealed after the successful completion of a mission).
EDF 2025 also commits what should be considered a co-op crime in this day and age: Only Player 1 is able to log in and earn achievements, and all unlocked weapons and upgrades are saved to his or her profile, meaning that Player 2 is relegated to playing as a “guest”. While the second player automatically gets access to any items the host has access to, should they go home and play EDF 2025 with his or her own copy of game, that progress won’t be usable in any other local or offline games where that player is not the host. So not only does EDF 2025 highly favor co-op over solo play due to its difficulty and tendency to overwhelm players, but it also unfairly offers a more rewarding experience to players who are all playing online together, each with their own copy of the game. Regardless, if you don’t care about achievements, EDF 2025 is surprisingly flexible with multiplayer, offering not only offline split-screen play but also a two-player split screen mode while playing online with up to two other people, and the visual performance is just as good (or bad) as it is in full-screen, single-player mode.
Speaking of things that are both good and bad, the voice acting in EDF 2025 is so delightfully awful that it’s deserving of an award, as there’s no way it could be so awkward on purpose. There should be a drinking game built around this title that forces players to down a whiskey shot each time a scientist says the words “Giant Insects” or “Shield Screen”, and when your EDF comrades burst into their rally song “The EDF Deploys” mid-battle, you’ll find yourself laughing at them, but also wanting to join in for the hell of it (especially after one or two whiskey shots).
At a retail price of $50-60 CAD, Earth Defense Force 2025 is a hard sell, particularly in a month that has been filled with stellar titles in the same price range on both last-and-current-gen consoles. But this is one of those cases of a game being far more fun than it is good, not to mention one of the few games available today that offers hours upon hours of 90’s old-school co-op action, regardless of whether you play online or offline. Teamwork makes a dream work, so split the cost of this game down the middle with a friend, then buddy-up with a couple more ‘EDFers’ online and you’ll be in Kaiju-blasting heaven.
Suggestions: Provide better friendly AI to make single-player progression possible without dumbing down the difficulty (which in turn reduces good item drops). Currently, your AI allies are too slow and stupid to be of much help, even as decoys.
Overall Score: 7.7 / 10
Dark Souls 2
Gamers who have been closely following the development of Dark Souls 2 since it was announced in late 2012 may remember the controversy that erupted shortly afterward when the game's co-director, Yui Tanimura suggested that the sequel would be made "more accessible", giving longtime fans the impression that the brutal difficulty, confounding lore and at times obtuse gameplay would give way to excessive handholding as a concession to newcomers. In an interview with Edge Online one year later, Tanimura would explain that by "accessible" he actually meant streamlining elements of the game that did not positively communicate and contribute to the essence of what the Souls games were about, and that players could still expect the same level of challenge and confusion from Dark Souls 2 that they were accustomed to. Well, Dark Souls 2 is now upon us, and as a veteran who has been through the wringer the original Dark Souls and Demon Souls (for PS3) before it, I can personally attest that Tanimura has remained true to his word. Dark Souls 2 is a true ‘Souls’ sequel, demanding just as much patience and perseverance as its predecessor, but some delightfully unexpected changes to the Souls formula also make it feel like a remix and re-mastering as well. While many of the changes will be lost on newcomers to the franchise, the sanding down of Dark Souls' rough edges actually benefits veterans and greenhorns alike, creating more opportunities to get back into the action (of dying over and over) more quickly.As mentioned earlier, Dark Souls 2 is indeed a sequel, but players who have poured countless hours into its predecessor would be forgiven for thinking the game is a remix. Several elements of the original Dark Souls' plot and vocabulary have returned. Players still take on the role of a cursed adventurer who journeys to a fallen kingdom inhabited by an evil undead army, the original reason for his or her journey now long forgotten. Key Souls mechanics, which a) see players beginning as undead "hollows" that gain added health and other benefits when becoming "human", and b) souls collected from fallen enemies serving as the game's soul currency, both remain unchanged. There are bonfires, and while using one has many key advantages (such as creating a new checkpoint), doing so also resets all of the world's enemies apart from bosses and mini-bosses.
As always, there are Covenants one can join, there's a king to seek out, and there are four "Old Great Ones" that must be vanquished. Even the leveling system and many of the first Dark Souls' weapons, armor, trinkets, Estus flasks, creatures and even bosses have also returned, though the majority of the latter now serve as lesser-enemies and knowing winks to previous game, as opposed to new threats. Finally, whether you're human or hollow, the penalty for dying remains the same; any humanity and unused souls that you have gathered since spawning at the bonfire are lost, and those souls can only be regained by returning to that spot upon reincarnation and touching your bloodstain. Should you die again before reaching that bloodstain those souls are lost forever, now replaced by a new bloodstain containing your newly-collected souls at the new death location. On the surface, it's all very familiar, and seasoned Dark Souls players at the very least will have a leg up when it comes to character creation and leveling, as many of the classes and upgrade paths remain the same. However, a closer look under the hood will reveal that far more of the previous title's gameplay pillars have been turned on their head.
For instance, the cursed kingdom of Drangleic is a more splintered world than Dark Souls' Lordran, borrowing heavily from the hub-world design of the first Souls game, (Demon Souls), meaning that instead of a single, contained and interconnecting world and underworld, players will be traveling outward in different directions from the nucleus that is the coastal town of Majula until they reach the ends of those branches and then return to embark on the next.
In Dark Souls, if you managed to reach a high summit and looked out upon the kingdom, any major landmarks you could see you could expect to reach eventually, but Dark Souls 2 is far more reticent in lifting its veil, making what lies behind each unlocked gateway and mist-door a complete and deadly mystery. Accompanying the Demon Souls-inspired hub design is the Emerald Herald, who is the Dark Souls equivalent of the Maiden in Black. A fixture of Majula, players must return to visit this young woman whenever they wish to upgrade their abilities or their Estus flasks, roles that were individually fulfilled by the bonfire and fire-keepers in Dark Souls (respectively). Fortunately, the amount of backtracking that these alterations necessitate have been mitigated by yet another important change; players can now fast travel back and forth between any bonfire that they have lit right from the beginning of the game, an ability that was not available in Dark Souls until much later in the story.
Of course, these are just some of the many new wrinkles that are bound to force veteran players to rethink how they approach Dark Souls 2, but none of the above are likely to affect those strategies more radically than the following two game-changers:
1) Player's worlds can now be invaded by evil spirits (i.e. other human players) when their character is in hollow form as well as human form (meaning neither state is safe) and 2) each time a player dies and chooses to remain in hollow form, the player's overall HP is reduced by a small amount. The significance of the former change means that players can no longer avoid invasions by staying hollow and still reap the benefits of playing online (e.g. gathering hints by reading soapstone messages, seeing glimpses of other live players who are also playing online, or joining other players' games). If you don't want to take the chance of being invaded, you'll have to play in offline mode and truly go it alone. Meanwhile, the latter change means that in addition to humanity being still being required to take on bosses and summon other players into your game, continuously choosing to not play as a human comes at a real cost, as ‘Hollow health’ gradually reduces with each death until staying undead becomes too much of an inconvenience (not to mention that in Dark Souls 2, the chances of player invasion are actually higher in hollow form than human form).
To balance this out however, Humanity is not quite the precious commodity as it was in the first Dark Souls. Human Effigies are easily-found or purchased totems that can be used to instantly return to human form, and although they are somewhat limited in number they are far from rare, so players need not be stingy with their use. Also, unlike the Humanity item in Dark Souls, Effigies do not require a bonfire to use, meaning that players can use them almost anywhere at any time. For example, a player can choose to clear out a level of enemies and items completely on his or her own and then use an Effigy to become Human right before the boss door, increasing their chances of victory against the boss while keeping the odds of a successful invasion low. The Covenant system has received new checks and balances, increasing the ways in which players can invade other player's games, but also improving and streamlining the means by which players can call upon aid to counter them. Finally, Humanity is often a random reward of assisting another players in their games, so its possible to revert to human form without relying on Effigies at all.
If there was ever an aspect of Dark Souls that did not need fixing however, it was the combat, and veterans should be pleased to know that little has changed in this regard. Weapons and armor still have the same weighty feel to them and players must be mindful of not just their endurance but also their surroundings while wielding them, so that they are not left exhausted or vulnerable to counterattack when their swing or thrust bounces off an entryway. Similarly, powerful defensive and offensive spells take several seconds to cast and must be used at the right time for best effect. Should an enemy character or invading player catch you in the middle of a casting animation, you'd best hope you have enough health, endurance and poise to withstand the blow and still escape with your life.
Speaking of enemies, just like in every Souls game, no single foe, even the weakest foot soldier, can be underestimated. Every single creature in the game, from the lowliest of minions to towering level bosses have their own specific repertoire of moves, and even the most basic of them can devastate or kill a player if he or she is unaware. All it takes is one careless move by a player to get rocked by an unexpected attack, upon which the same enemy or its allies can then pile on and finish the job, or push the player off of a ledge to seal his or her fate. Or perhaps the player will panic and do it for them with a careless misstep or backward roll. Combat in Demon Souls and Dark Souls always demanded the player's full engagement, and it's no different with Dark Souls 2. If this is the kind of action that you crave, then you'll be more than satisfied, as Dark Souls 2 ramps up the action before boss-fights more gradually, throwing more mini-bosses and sub-bosses into the player's path than ever before.
The only area where Dark Souls appears to fall short is in its visuals. Without a doubt, there have been improvements, particularly in respect to character animation and the scope of Drangleic’s many jumbled parts. Tattered cloths, robes and capes on both player-characters and enemies alike flow and flutter realistically as they move about, pace around each other and strike, and the complexity of level design in each of Drangleic's splinter worlds is stunning, filled with hidden and sometimes dangerous shortcuts. Unfortunately, for every new addition in Dark Souls 2 there seems to be something borrowed too. As explained earlier, many of Dark Souls' weapons, armor and enemies have returned, and as a result, there is a heavy reuse of their visual assets and animations from the previous game that won't go unnoticed by fans. It's a small price to pay for a new Souls adventure, but it will be extremely disappointing if the next game in the franchise dares to recycle with the same level of abandon, especially if the game appears on next-gen consoles.
The sound design, while also largely unchanged from the last game, gets a pass however as it fulfills its main role perfectly -- warning players of impending danger with clear and familiar signals, and delivering important audio cues in combat. Every enemy type and even some of its tells can be predicted by familiar grunts and screams, and the stark difference between the squishy-crunch of a well-placed sword strike on a minion versus the hollow clatter of one's blade against a stone wall or pillar can make all the difference in a player's decision to keep on the attack or quickly roll away to avoid a lethal counterstrike. Some sounds, such as the jingling chains of the exploding kamikaze mummies, are just plain chilling. Do yourself a favor and play this game in surround sound, where the added positional information will be even more beneficial.
The big question that many of you who are new to Dark Souls probably want to know is: "Do I have to play Dark Souls 2 online?" The answer of course is no, the game can be played completely in offline mode, but to do so would be to completely miss out on much of the experience. The Souls games have carved out a unique niche for themselves between single-player and multiplayer, and Dark Souls 2 continues this tradition, tying its multiplayer functionality directly into its theme of multiple worlds overlapping each other, with the game's soapstone messages, bloodstains, summon signs, cracked-orb items and more as means of temporarily interacting, communicating with and invading those other worlds. As a consequence, multiplayer in Dark Souls 2 remains as awkward and inflexible as it was before, but now is even more transient, as time limits have now been assigned to how long another player can exist in your world, and vice versa. But as with all of the other tweaks discussed above, the fun of a Souls game is learning how to adapt to and work around these limitations.
Dark Souls players shouldn’t easily expect to play alongside their friends, as level-based matchmaking, the inability to use party-chat while playing in online mode and other factors can make getting into the same world together a frustrating and time-consuming process. But if you're willing to embrace the randomness of multiplayer the way the game intends you to experience it (i.e. with total strangers), you'll find that not only will you enjoy, learn how to play and progress through the game faster, but you'll also appreciate and perhaps even welcome the long periods of solitary adventuring when they happen. In short, Dark Souls 2 is both a single-player game and a multi-player game, but it's not really meant to be either exclusively...it's at its best when both sides are working as one. The reasons why are too many to be listed here... you'll just have to experience it yourself.
To sum up, Dark Souls 2 succeeds for the same reasons that it predecessor was so highly praised. It's brutally hard, and it won't hold your hand (the game doesn't even come with an instruction manual anymore, and provides only the barest of in-game tutorials). Furthermore, its numerous enemies, bosses and invading spirits will intimidate and crush the unprepared at the first opportunity. But each time the game pounds your body into the earth and serves up another defeat, without fail a glimpse of the solution will make itself apparent if you are observant and make use of all the tools available. Dark Souls 2 is the videogame equivalent of "falling upward". You're going to die, horribly and often, but you'll also become addicted to the satisfaction gained from overcoming each obstacle, and ultimately push on through in pursuit of your next sadomasochistic fix. Take this reviewer's advice; avoid the numerous online wikis for your first run-through, improve through playing (and of course dying), and don't be afraid to lean on and learn from your oft-silent but incredibly helpful online allies. That's the way to truly experience Dark Souls.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
World of Tanks
(Xbox Addict Disclaimer: The following World of Tanks Review is based on release code of the game as well as an additional code for 25,000 in-game Gold currency, in order to provide a complete experience of the game from the perspective of both and non-paying customers. 25,000 Gold in World of Tanks is the equivalent of $100 US).Sadly, last month, the looming shadow of hype and fervor cast by the then soon-to-be-released Titanfall and its limited beta on Xbox One obscured two very important Free-to-Play (F2P) milestones on Xbox 360. The first was Crytek’s first-person-shooter, Warface, which in early February entered a closed beta on the platform and is still ongoing; and the second was the official launch of Wargaming.net’s World of Tanks, which is now available for public download. As many readers may remember, the last time the Xbox Addict staff were caught in World of Tanks' F2P clutches was way back in July of 2013, when the game was still in early-beta form and incredibly rough around the edges. The game was missing several features and suffering from some fairly annoying bugs, but despite that the game's fun factor of rolling about in World War II-era tanks and blowing other tanks to smithereens still shone through, keeping us engaged for the entirety of the brief play sessions that the limited beta permitted us to take part in. Fast forward eight months to the present, and we now have a World of Tanks with all of the fun and hardly any of the bugs, and while it’s still effectively ‘free’, it’s now ready and eager to accept your money.
Both in graphics and gameplay (aside from some polish and some new maps) not much has changed about World of Tanks since the beta. Players still choose a tank from their garage and participate in 15-on-15 flag-domination-style matches where victory is won either by wiping out the other team or dominating the opposing team's flag before they can do the same to yours. All players get one life per match, and should they die before the match is over, they can spectate and cheer on their team or leave the match early to start another match with a different tank (tanks destroyed on the battlefield cannot be used again until the match has ended). The most notable change is the addition of platoons (i.e. the ability jump from game to game together in a squad of three) and a much larger starting roster of 60 tanks, which adds the nation of Britain to the pre-existing American and German selections. Naturally, there are more tanks, nationalities and maps to come. The real leap that World of Tanks has made in the past eight months however is in quality. Gone are the dreaded input delay and cockpit-view bugs that severely tarnished our preview sessions, and players can now more easily browse and purchase upgrades, equipment, and consumables to keep their tanks battle-ready. In addition, Wargaming.net has added extensive support on almost every non-combat screen, including tutorial videos for every tank class and upgrade aspect of the game; detailed help-screen overlays that can be accessed by pulling the right trigger on almost any UI page; and map load-screens which include additional tips and reminders for tank combat strategies, tank class differences and how to use the game's four forms of currency (Gold, Silver, Tank XP and Free XP). The result is a World of Tanks that is far easier to understand than the beta was, and while there is still a sea of information for players to sift through, the above conveniences now make it possible for players to gradually learn as they play, instead of having to jump out of the game completely and consult Wargaming.net's website for tips.
There are some areas that could still use some work, however. While the game rules and mechanics have become easier for newcomers to comprehend, other aspects are still designed in such a way that they almost seem deliberately obtuse. For example, the symbols used to represent the different tank classes in the HUD (e.g. Square = Artillery, Diamond = Light Tank, Inverted Triangle = Tank Destroyer, Three Rectangles in the shape of a Diamond = Heavy Tank) are easy for newcomers to confuse on the battlefield and must be memorized quickly in order to avoid driving blindly into matchups with opponents too high above one's class. The thing is, there's no proper legend provided in the game that makes learning these symbols easily accessible. Even in the tank upgrade tree, where players can view all potential upgrades and read the details of every tank in the game, only the symbol representing the tank class can be found consistently; even the list of tank attributes fail to include the tank class as a key bullet point, and if players find an actual tank class reference in the profile they should consider themselves lucky. Multiplayer matches provide undeniable proof of this problem, as players will often be heard asking teammates questions in the heat of battle like "Which symbol is a medium tank again?" and "Why did I think that was a light tank, not an artillery tank?" An even more perplexing issue is how the "radio-tagging" mechanic used to mark enemy targets at times defies logic and common sense. In World of Tanks, when a tank or its AI crew (let's call this tank "Tank A") sees an enemy ("Tank B") on the battlefield, that enemy is automatically marked on the minimap for all that tank's teammates to see until that tank loses sight with it, or is destroyed. Thus each tank on a team serves as the eyes and ears of all the other tanks that are not in the immediate area. It's a very cool mechanic, but it often falls apart in scenarios such as this: 1) Tank A spots Tank B for sniper teammate Tank C. 2) Tank C trains his guns directly on Tank B. 3) Tank A loses sight of Tank B or dies. 4) Tank B magically vanishes into thin air before Tank C’s eyes, even though Tank C is looking directly at the target, is within firing range and the target has not moved. When a medium sized tank sitting in the middle of a farmer's field suddenly disappears while you're looking at it, you'd likely call shenanigans too.
Finally, it's impossible to review World of Tanks without discussing the F2P elephant in the room. First, it should be well known by now that F2P games on Xbox Live aren't truly free, as they require a still Gold Membership to be played online, and World of Tanks is an online-only game, so the Xbox Live Gold requirement should come as no surprise here either. But for some strange reason, World of Tanks states that it requires an Xbox Live Gold membership so that players can purchase in-game Gold Currency. This is more of an odd technicality than a problem, but it's hard to deny that there's something a bit insidious about having to ‘pay so you can pay’, making the Xbox Live World of Tanks experience somewhat less desirable than it would be on PC. Also, as mentioned at the beginning of this review, Wargaming.net provided us with paid currency in addition to the default amount of starting Silver in order to provide a complete experience of the game from the perspective of both paying and non-paying customers. After spending several nights grinding and unlocking tanks 'the old-fashioned way' as well as purchasing some Premium Tank starter packages to sample some higher tier battles, the conclusion of this reviewer is pretty much what you should come to expect of a well-designed F2P game; World of Tanks is an undoubtedly fun experience even if you don't pay a cent, but it’s even more enjoyable when you're willing to spend a little money.
Premium Membership (which can be bought in packages of up to 1 year down to as short as a few days) and paid Gold Currency are the grease that help the gears turn faster and make the long grinds much shorter. The perks of Premium Membership are multi-fold; members can purchase exclusive Premium tanks not available through the tech-tree, they gain 50% more XP and 50% more Silver (plus occasional multipliers) for every match they participate in, and as Premium Tanks are also “Elite” (i.e. their stats are already maxed out and all their upgrade packages have been researched), they can be used to immediately start earning Free XP which in turn can be used for almost any purchase that does not specifically require Gold or Silver (such as researching tank upgrades). Then there's the partner of Premium, which is Gold (which coincidentally is also the currency used to purchase Premium membership packages). Small amounts of Gold can be converted into larger amounts of Free XP, which can be used to fast-track the research of modules and tanks on the tank tree and unlock them for purchase (players also earn Free XP from using Elite tanks in battle, but the rate is much, much slower, necessitating days of grinding to research more advanced upgrades). Conversely, Tank XP, while much more plentiful, can only be used by the tank it was earned in, making Free XP an indispensable resource. Gold can also be converted to Silver (at the rate of 1G to 400S), allowing players to quickly purchase tanks they've unlocked with research outright or make up the difference if they just need a bit more silver to do so, and Gold is also necessary for purchasing and/or replenishing certain consumable items or removing certain upgrades without losing the refund of silver that was spent on them in the first place. It's a complicated system, and it’s clearly geared towards enticing players to spend actual money. That said, this reviewer is convinced that World of Tanks' system is not "pay-to-win" in nature, but rather "pay-to-save-time". The game’s solid matchmaking, the benefits of teamwork (World of Tanks players are surprisingly chatty) and the randomness of the battle theatre usually combine to nullify most combat advantages that Premium Tanks and Gold-exclusive consumables offer. And when they don’t, players can inexpensively even the odds with one of the many sale packages offered every week (which usually include a Premium tank and limited Premium Time among other bonuses). In this way, even the most thrifty of players can dip into the paid model for a price and period of time that suits them, take advantage of the perks, and rest easy knowing that they'll revert to the free model upon expiry and can continue grinding and having fun with the tanks they've unlocked.
To conclude, World of Tanks for Xbox 360 is a great tank game, made by people who love tanks for people who also love tanks. It delivers a deep, tactical combat experience that can't be found anywhere else on the console, and deserves a try for that reason alone. Better yet, it's one of the most compelling F2P titles available on the console, delivering a reasonable and flexible model that doesn't require players to pay a cent to enjoy most of what the game has to offer, but simultaneously puts forth enough incentives and perks that many will want to. While you might not want to go as far as dropping $100 in one go, with tempting Quick Start packages offering a Premium Tank, 3 days of Premium Time, Silver bonuses and other perks for as low as $15, it's an inexpensive proposition for curious players to hop in and see how the other side lives. After all, it’s not like you paid for the game!
Suggestions: 1) Improve the UI, make symbols easier to interpret for newcomers and provide easy-to-understand tank classification in the profile descriptions. 2) If my tank can see an enemy tank out in the open, it should remain marked and thus visible, even though my tank was not the one that originally spotted it.
Overall Score: 7.7 / 10
Takedown: Red Sabre
I'll give Serellan and 505 Games one thing; their pitch for Takedown: Red Sabre is pretty good at convincing potential players that 1) everything today is wrong with modern first person shooters; and 2) that they've created just the shooter to fix that. The following is taken directly from the game's official website description:"...In recent years, shooters have become homogenized. The realistic tactical shooters with in-depth planning have almost entirely disappeared in recent years. This game focuses on realistic weapons modeling, squad based play, in a close-quarters battle setting. To succeed in this game you need to take things slow, study your environment, and execute flawlessly...if you are a fan of old school shooters where thinking meant more than running and gunning or perks, or if you are just looking for something different in your shooter games (sic) experience, this is the game for you…"
Well, after spending a few nights with the game, I can confirm that at least one of the above boasts is true. Takedown: Red Sabre is a game that needs to be taken slow, excruciatingly slow, as a matter of fact, but for all the wrong reasons. Anyone who picks up this game looking for an old-school tactical shooter fix along the lines of Rainbow Six or S.O.C.O.M is in for a very big shock.
Before getting to the laundry list of things that are wrong with and/or missing from this game however, let's start with what Takedown: Red Sabre does offer. Takedown's solo-campaign puts the player in charge of a four-man tactical squad and challenges him or her to successfully complete a variety of infiltration missions that usually involve taking down a group of terrorists in addition to a secondary objective, such as defusing a number of bombs, hacking a terminal, or saving hostages. Your squad consists of a Recon soldier, an Assault soldier, a Breach soldier (a shotgun and C4 specialist) and a Sniper, and the player can customize each soldier's primary weapon, sidearm, ammo, grenades and kits from a selection of options within that soldier's specialty. Players choose the soldier type they want to start as, then the mission and one of two insertion points that the squad can enter from, and it's off to the races.
There are no respawns or checkpoints once the mission starts; so once a soldier goes down, he's dead for the remainder of the mission, an event that automatically puts the player in control of a different squad member and leaves the team with one less specialist to complete the mission with. If all four soldiers are killed, the mission is a failure. In multiplayer, up to six players can take on the same missions co-operatively, with each player choosing from the same four soldier classes. Unlike in single-player however, each player only gets one life, and fallen soldiers are forced to watch in spectator mode as the remaining team members complete the objective or die trying.
You'd be forgiven for thinking that the above sounds pretty straightforward, and might even turn out to be a fun challenge, like Rainbow Six: Vegas, the original S.O.C.O.M and Full Spectrum Warrior were in their day. 30 minutes into playing Takedown however, you'll be wondering if anyone on the development team ever touched, much less played any of those far superior titles, as insipid gameplay, annoying bugs and horrid overall execution permeate the entire experience.
For one thing, solo-play is almost completely unbearable, largely thanks to some of the worst AI this reviewer has ever witnessed in a shooter. It's bad enough that your squadmates are only capable of following two commands ("follow" or "hold position") and blindly mimic your movement when you run, crouch or sneak, but as backup they are completely useless; they'll either stand around and get shot within the first few minutes of play, or they'll recklessly open doors on their own or engage in firefights that are likely to get the entire team completely wiped out. The enemy AI is almost just as bad, running (and sometimes sliding) about the map like chickens with their heads cut off, throwing open doors only to let off a few shots and then run away. But unlike your squadmates, their aim is often accurate and deadly, which means by the time you see one or more of them in the open, you're probably already dead.
And while one soldier's death in single-player is not necessarily the end of the mission, the player is given neither choice as to which soldier he or she will end up controlling next, nor any reprieve during the switch, so it's quite possible for the player to die as one soldier and then get shunted to the next only to die again immediately because that squadmate was standing in the same line of fire. Perhaps this could have been avoided if the game had some sort of cover system, but of course there isn't one, neither for the player nor the AI. As a result, squadmates huddle mindlessly in the open and make themselves targets, while enemy soldiers randomly vacillate between aggro and cowardice, as moving is the only way the AI knows how to avoid fire.
Meanwhile, the only advantage the player gets as a human is the ability to perform a sluggish, shallow lean-and-peek around corners that is next to worthless for getting the jump on enemies in hiding. The game even punishes players for being too close to objects or walls by automatically lowering the player's weapon out of view and making it inaccessible until the player pulls far enough away from the obstruction so he or she can draw it again. In other words, players cannot fire when close to any sort of cover; they must literally be out in the open in order to effectively engage the enemy. As a consequence, surviving a firefight in Takedown's single-player campaign has nothing to do with skill or realism and all to do with the luck of the draw.
Then there are the issues with Takedown's controls. It's hard to tell whether they are highly unforgiving or just plain bad, but they just don't feel right at all. Character movement is intentionally slow, and if anything other than light armor is equipped, players can't even sprint. The only time that your aim is even halfway accurate is if your player is stationary and crouched, and the game's inept but cheap enemies will often kill you before you can even get a shot off, even when they're using a shotgun from the extreme end of a long hallway, or are firing at you from the bottom of a multi-leveled bunker with an Uzi. Oh, and don't think you'll be able to switch directly from your sidearm back to your primary weapon with any sort of urgency, because for some reason, Serellan thought it would be more "realistic" to stick your grenades in-between them as an unavoidable third option on the inventory cycle. That's right, if you're carrying any grenades, you won't be able to swap straight from your pistol to your primary weapon until you've used them up. Now that’s authenticity! And the ability to auto-reload when your gun is empty? Too unrealistic for Takedown’s tastes, so get ready to die often while pointing an empty barrel at multiple incoming tangos.
Perhaps what is most shocking about Takedown is just how few tactics there are to be found in this "Tactical Military FPS". The pre-mission briefings are scant on important details or even hints on how to best prepare for them. No basic floor-plans, building schematics or sketches are provided, so while the main objective is usually clear, teams are forced to go in to every mission completely blind, learning the map only through plenty of trial, error and death. And as mentioned before, there's no way for players to choose the pecking order as to which squad member they will next inhabit once killed, so they can’t even establish a chain of command to improve their odds of success. Worst of all, even though Takedown is only available as a digital download, there isn't even a proper instruction manual included that teaches players how to play. There's a training level that includes a shooting range, but it barely covers all the basics and doesn't even instruct how to properly breach a door with explosives (it tells you where to use them but not how).
All the above problems (particularly the AI) brought me to the conclusion that Takedown: Red Sabre was likely designed to be a multiplayer game first, so I also gave online a try. The first night, I wasn't able to find anyone to play with, but the second night, I luckily stumbled into a group of five other players who had been playing the game for the past two days. Craving the tactical shooter experience that the game promised, they were much more forgiving of Takedown than I was, and their tolerance made me consider the possibility that I might have been too harsh in my own opinions, but after a few hours many of the same problems I had with the single-player campaign bore themselves out in online play.
Enemy AI constantly gunned us down with the same sort of random, lethal accuracy of single-player, often within seconds of starting the game, and we'd often die two at a time because we were huddled up in a doorway with no means of quickly taking cover. A new unpleasant bug also caused some players including myself to spawn in at the insertion point a full minute after the rest of the squad, even though we all started the game at the same time, and once during a versus match the game even spawned me directly from the pre-game lobby into the spectator room, which meant that it assumed my character was dead before I'd even started playing. At that point, even the Takedown apologists I'd been playing with for hours had to admit that the game seemed extremely buggy and unfinished for a $15 game.
As the era of Xbox 360 winds down and that of the Xbox One gears up, it’s only natural to expect some of the quality and selection of games available on the Xbox 360 Games Store to diminish gradually over time, but Serellan already appears to be a in a solo race for the bottom. Takedown: Red Sabre clearly aspires to pay homage to many a great tactical shooter that has gone before it, but the final product is an inexplicably sloppy game that makes no attempt to incorporate any of the gameplay, design or innovation that made classics that inspired it as great as they were. DO NOT BUY.
Suggestions: 1) Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If you're going to try and bring back the tactical shooter genre, steal from the best. 2) No one cares how 'realistic' your game is if it isn't fun and the gameplay is broken.
Overall Score: 4.0 / 10
Strider
Upon completing Strider and watching the credits roll, I have to confess that the experience nearly brought a tear to my eye. It wasn’t just because I was convinced that I had just played though one of the best arcade classic remakes that I’ve had the opportunity to review in quite a while, but also because this game stands as undeniable evidence that Microsoft has just lost a great asset in the game’s developer, Double Helix, who was also in large part responsible for the successful reboot of Killer Instinct on Xbox One. Recently acquired by Amazon, it’s reported that Double Helix will now be employed in order to develop titles exclusively for the company’s long-rumored tablet-based console, which at the very least means the developer’s short but fruitful relationship with Microsoft and all the potential it once offered gamers is now lost. So while we raise a glass and lament Double Helix’s departure (as well as Microsoft’s puzzling decision not to purchase DH themselves), let us all take comfort that they left us a parting gift in the form of one of Capcom’s best reboots in years.2014’s Strider is a bold revisiting of the original 1989 coin-op arcade and NES games of the same name, merging the dark, sci-fi tones and ninja-leaping, sword-swinging action of the former and the exploration-heavy, Metroidvania elements of the latter into a fast-paced, modern platformer built to satisfy both itches at once. In the same vein, the game’s protagonist Strider Hiryu looks and plays as the perfect amalgam of all his former videogame lives, not only from the Strider games and related Japanese manga (comic books) but also from his popular appearances in the Marvel vs. Capcom series, retaining all of his trademark agility, weapons, robot sidekicks and signature, flowing red scarf that sets him apart from other, lesser videogame ninjas. But just as his aforementioned scarf is now made of plasma and changes color to indicate which of the four plasma types Hiryu has equipped, this modern remake of the original Strider is at once familiar yet brimming with innovative touches that make it feel brand new.
Just like in the original arcade game, Strider Hiryu is charged with infiltrating the futuristic, Soviet Union-inspired city of Kazakh in order to assassinate Grandmaster Meio, a mysterious dictator with designs to create a ‘perfect’ cyborg society atop the collective corpses of humanity. Stopping him won’t be easy, as Meio has an army of cyborgs, bounty hunters, mutants, religious fanatics and even a sisterhood of martial artists in his employ, but the Striders didn’t select Hiryu on a whim. As the most skilled member of his clan, Hiryu is a master of both the Cypher-sword and Kunai throwing blades, and once he has procured the appropriate upgrades on site, he can bend different plasma types to his will in order to give his weapons new properties, and can even call in brief assistance from a trio of robot familiars, including a mechanized panther and eagle. Naturally, all of these abilities are locked away at the beginning of the game and will need to be uncovered through story progression, surviving challenging boss fights and exploring well off the beaten path, but that’s exactly what makes the platforming in Strider fun and addictive.
As soon as players earn a new skill, more often than not the game’s level design will immediately confront them with an obstacle or enemy that requires the ability to be put into practice, driving home its importance in both exploration and combat. In addition, a world map can be brought up any time via the ‘Back’ button, allowing players to pore over every nook and cranny of Kazakh that they’ve uncovered and plan return trips to earlier areas once they’ve gained the abilities to access hidden areas and items that they missed the first time around. That said, aside from uncovering key abilities needed for progression, players who lean more towards straight action and getting faster completion times than their leaderboard friends can plow through Strider in just a handful of hours if they like, forgoing backtracking at the cost of having less health and slower energy recharges for their weapons and special abilities (a.k.a. ‘Options’). The game becomes harder as a result, but players who pride themselves on speed and skill above all else aren’t likely to mind the added challenge.
This is in part because the combat in Strider nails an almost perfect balance between the high-precision demands of the original games as well as the more chaotic, bullet-hell action of modern games like Bayonetta and Sine Mora. Newcomers as well as classic Strider fans should not expect to instantly slice though enemies like butter as in the games of old, nor should they expect to be untouchable. But as players begin to master each newly-gained ability alongside the game’s tight controls and learn their adversaries’ attack patterns, they’ll naturally become faster and more adept at dispatching foes with rapid and charged Cypher slashes before a counterattack can be unleashed. Fueling the drive for combat excellence and speed even further is Hiryu’s charge meter, which gradually fills with each consecutive, unanswered strike on an enemy and depletes with every hit absorbed. Players who manage to fill the meter are rewarded with a few seconds where time slows down and Hiryu can do extra damage to any and all enemies on screen within reach of his weapons. It’s extremely satisfying when it happens, but still requires a good deal of skill on the part of the player, as not only can the damage bonus be interrupted if the player absorbs too much damage, but the charge meter required to attain the bonus also resets to zero if there is a pause of five seconds or more in-between successful attacks. This gameplay hook results in players zipping about the screen looking for enemies to chain their attacks to while simultaneously using Hiryu’s insane acrobatic abilities to avoid enemy fire, making them feel just like the overpowered ninja-from-the-future that they should be. And should they need to take a breather, they can always dig one of Hiryu’s climbing hooks into wall, ceiling or platform and hang there like Spider-Man, right before they spring forward and cleave their next cybernetic foe in two.
To top it all off, Strider is one of the best audio-visual treats you can get right now on the Xbox Store for $15. The soundtrack, largely composed of thematic remixes from the arcade and NES originals, is note-perfect for this reboot, and much like the 8-bit and 16-bit songs that inspired it, it’s a futuristic soundtrack with music that actually sounds like it’s from the future despite its now 25-year old (!) source material. Film-grain and a CRT-style filter gives a Blade Runner-like feel to the excellent visual design, and although Double Helix is a western developer, under the guidance of Capcom they have crafted a Strider game that fully evokes and embraces its Japanese heritage alongside its western inspired visual trappings. There’s even a semblance of a story and half-decent voice acting, and while some of the accents (including Hiryu’s Japanese and General Mikiel’s Russian) border on comedic stereotypes, they are never exaggerated to the point that they offend.
If anything, this reviewer was only able to find two faults with the game. The first is that whenever the game’s major adversaries address Hiryu mid-gameplay (which is quite often), their dialogue is accompanied by their picture and large caption bar that takes up a large part of the lower area of the screen, covering up much of the on-screen action. The second is that the Xbox 360 version of Strider looks a bit rougher and has a noticeably lower framerate than its Xbox One sibling, a surprising difference given the Xbox 360’s past 60fps performance with far more demanding games (e.g. Bayonetta). While it has no effect whatsoever on the gameplay or quality of the title, if you’re torn on which version to purchase, the Xbox One version is hands-down the better choice to go with.
To sum up, Strider is a brilliant remake of the original games that is all but guaranteed to satisfy old and new fans alike. Much like Capcom learned with the success Bionic Commando: Rearmed and BC: Rearmed 2 years ago, if the original game ain’t broke, don’t fix it, just tweak the living hell out of it and make it fun.
Suggestions: Capcom, don't make us wait another 14 years for a remake of Strider 2!
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Deadfall Adventures
In a particularly auspicious Fall/Holiday season that has just seen the release of two next-generation consoles, it’s only natural to expect that many current-gen titles still scheduled for release are bound to be lost in the shuffle this month. That said, if the title that you’re looking forward to playing happens to be The Farm 51’s Indiana Jones-inspired, first-person action-adventure Deadfall Adventures, chances are pretty good you could walk into your local game store blindfolded, point at any random title and choose a better game to spend your time with this Christmas season.Deadfall Adventures wastes absolutely no time in making a poor first impression, greeting the player with a slow fly-over of one of its jungle environments as a backdrop to the menu screen. Blurry and suffering from pop-in, this Unreal Engine 3-rendered game more closely resembles something out of the original Xbox era, circa UE2, as it appears that Farm 51 has barely come to grips with UE3's capabilities. This becomes even clearer when players are first introduced to the game's principal characters, James Lee Quatermain (grandson of the mythical, legendary hunter Allan Quatermain - most memorably portrayed by Sean Connery in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) and his employer, US agent Jennifer Goodwin. The facial expressions and animations of every character in the game are so awkward and robotic that the expression "uncanny valley" would be giving the game far too much credit. They're just straight "canned".
Poor sound design, atrocious sound effects and terrible voice acting fail to do the game any favours either. Quatermain's lazily delivered monologue at the very beginning of the game is half drowned-out by the game's soundtrack, and the opening exposition between Allan and Jennifer as they drive a jeep to an archaeological dig site is an irritating, un-skippable sequence made even more unpleasant by the vehicle's engine noise, a cacophonous, 5-second machine sample that sounds nothing like a jeep and loops endlessly until the characters finally disembark. Then there's Quatermain himself. Surly, childish and tonally ignorant to the context of just about any scene (e.g. screaming bloody murder at one second, then making lame, wise-cracking jokes the next), the so-called hero's voice perfectly matches the game's presentation in its immaturity. It's as if the developer brought the actor into the studio and asked him to record only one sentence of dialogue per day, without explaining the scene, in completely random order. Meanwhile, his female companion Goodwin, despite being a US agent, speaks with a high-pitched, fake-sounding British accent that's about as pleasant to listen to as fingernails on chalkboard. Not surprisingly, the weak voice acting of both characters makes them instantly unlikable, and sets the tone for the remainder of the game, all before the player is even allowed to experience one second of actual gameplay.
As implied earlier, Deadfall Adventures strives to equally blend the action of modern FPS games with the environmental puzzle solving of the Tomb Raider and Uncharted franchises. The balance of action to puzzles is about 40% shooting to 60% puzzling, but sadly, the shooting portions are such a slog that they'll feel like they take up much more of the overall game. Taking place in the same era as that of the Indiana Jones films, Quatermain will find himself battling an Unholy Trinity of Nazis, Russians and Mummies with a wide assortment of 1930's pistols and machine guns. While each weapon (mostly German) appears to have a different look and sound about them, weapons in each class (pistol, machine gun, shotgun, etc.) pretty much function the same. In addition to firearms, Quatermain also has access to grenades and dynamite (the latter being useful for blowing up the occasional obstacle blocking one's progress or solving a puzzle). Strangely however, Quatermain can only carry one type of explosive at a time. Grenades cannot act as a substitute for dynamite, so players will have to backtrack on occasion to find TNT if they've run out or swapped it for some grenades during battle, but in most cases TNT crates can be found close to the area where it needs to be employed. As a weapon, both grenades and dynamite are generally ineffective, as enemy soldiers will always run out of range as soon as one of your explosives land nearby. Sometimes they can be tricked by "cooking" your explosives a few seconds before release (hold down RB for a second or two), but the area of effect is so weak that players will find themselves relying mostly on their guns to wing enemies out of cover and then move in to finish the job.
Finally, Quatermain has an Alan Wake-style flashlight with a beam that can be turbo-boosted to temporarily blind human enemies or render mummies vulnerable to bullets. Players interested in experiencing more of Alan Wake's light-versus-dark gunplay should not get their hopes up however, as using the flashlight in Deadfall is just a necessary extra step in order to put down the undead; no added challenge or difficulty is added to engagements by doing so.
In fact, outside of dodging grenades or overwhelming the player in large numbers, the enemy A.I. in Deadfall is completely inept. Nazis and Russians always see the player coming from miles away, immediately dig in and start firing from cover, moving only when the player chooses to change position or tosses an explosive their way. Making matters worse, even when the player is safe behind cover, enemies will still fire their weapons at the player non-stop, aurally telegraphing their position to the player if s/he hasn't already seen them. Consequently, players need only follow the sound of gunfire (like breadcrumbs) as they advance to pick off enemies one by one.
The sole redeeming feature of Deadfall Adventures is its approach to puzzles, which mercifully never demands that the player solve them in the middle of a gunfight. In general, puzzle areas are devoid of enemies or can be tackled once the area has been cleared. In most cases, a rare treasure needed for upgrading Quatermain's health, combat skills or flashlight power waits at the end of nearly every puzzle, and almost every brain-teaser offers something different than the last. Some treasures lie in plain sight and can be found simply by exploring a branching path or a hidden passage. Others can be uncovered by opening a crate, shooting a lever, or blowing up a weakened wall with dynamite. And of course, most are solved the fun but hard way, that is, manipulating buttons, switches or other objects in the environment by hand and then standing back to see what happens. Some puzzles must be solved in order for players to move to the next area or level, but for the most part, those related to upgrades are optional and can be skipped entirely if the player wishes.
That notwithstanding, a wonderfully unique twist that Deadfall puts into several of its progression puzzles is the opportunity to uncover a second puzzle within them. In other words, even when you've solved a puzzle and opened the door to the next area, you might still be able to fiddle with the same mechanisms to unlock another door and discover additional treasures that a less attentive adventurer may have skipped. The basic rule of thumb is, if you can still manipulate a switch or see a door identical to the one you've just opened not being activated, you've probably missed something and should experiment just a bit more.
Naturally, players aren't left completely on their own to solve the many puzzles of Deadfall, as there are two handy treasure-finding tools that are always at Quatermain's disposal. The first is Quatermain's broken compass, which he clearly pilfered from Captain Jack Sparrow of Pirates of the Caribbean fame. Useless for actual navigation, this compass's pointer spins endlessly in a counter-clockwise motion unless there is treasure nearby, in which case the True North-end of the pointer will orient itself towards the treasure's location and gradually change colour to the type of treasure it has found (White for "Light", Blue for "Life" and Gold for "Warrior") as the player gets closer. While not always the greatest treasure detector (it won’t tell the player if the treasure is above or below), whipping out the compass before leaving an area can be a valuable hint as to whether there are still hidden spoils to be found.
The second tool is a notebook left behind by James' grandfather Allan, which coincidentally contains notes, drawings and suggested solutions on every major puzzle that James will encounter. If this sounds an awful lot like Sir Francis Drake's notebook that the hero Nathan Drake carries with him in the Uncharted franchise, you'd be correct in assuming so, as it's a direct rip-off. Just like in Uncharted, the notes are often quite vague and Grandpa Allan’s handwriting is illegible, so players need not worry about "cheating" their way through puzzles...at points the hints are almost of no help at all.
So if the puzzles are challenging and enjoyable, then what's the problem? Well, the big problem is that a number of puzzles in Deadfall Adventures require 3D platforming. Even in the best of scenarios, injecting platforming into first-person shooters is an endeavor that often results in an exercise in frustration for the player, and should not be attempted by any developer unless the underlying mechanics, controls and feel of the gameplay are all solid. The Farm 51 has not only broken this rule without meeting any of the above requirements, but they have also burdened the players with one of the worst action-adventurers in videogame history, James Lee Quatermain. Putting it bluntly, Quatermain is a klutz of an explorer. He can't jump over obstacles that are over two-feet high. He can sprint, but he can't stop on a dime, so he'll overshoot a precise jump 95% of the time and fall to his death. His knife melee attacks are like sissy slaps, and when deprived of all his weapons he can't even throw a punch. Worst of all, HE CAN'T SWIM, so falling into any body of water will instantly kill him, even when a floating platform or actual land is sitting an inch from his face. Throw in Quatermain's habit of getting temporarily trapped on objects in the environment and the game’s abundance of invisible walls and you have a platforming nightmare made even worse by an illogical autosave/checkpoint system.
Instead of saving whenever a player discovers a new treasure or upgrades their skills at an altar (which would encourage players to explore and seek out more treasures), Deadfall only saves at the beginning of new areas or at the end of sequences that the developers have deemed important, meaning that an untimely slip or fall will result in players being bounced back to the previous checkpoint, with all previously unsaved treasures returned to their hiding spots and all unsaved upgrades removed. Hence players will have to go through all of those puzzles and platforming sequences again, or choose to skip them and lose those upgrades for good. It’s in this way that The Farm 51 have foolishly taken the only good thing about Deadfall Adventures, the puzzles, and made them just as unpleasant to struggle through as the rest of the game.
Surprisingly, Deadfall Adventures features both co-op and versus multiplayer modes via Xbox Live, but given all the above, it's almost a guarantee that if you buy this game, you'll be the only one playing it.
While Deadfall's crafty approach to environmental puzzles is admirable and should definitely be used in other games, it's still not worth the price of admission for this one, even as a budget title. If you happen to see this title on store shelves, please heed my advice; avert your eyes and walk on by.
Suggestions: 1) Improve the checkpoint system, allow for manual saves and/or autosaves after each treasure is found or an upgrade is applied.
2) Better voice acting and direction. PLEASE.
4) This game borrows from and rips off so many other superior games, so why didn't it copy any of the gameplay mechanics that worked?
3) There is so much room for improvement, take this failure as a learning opportunity.
Overall Score: 4.7 / 10
Need for Speed: Rivals
Need for Speed: Rivals is the latest in a line of EA titles that is available for both next-generation consoles (Xbox One and PS4) as well as current gen-platforms (Xbox 360 and PS3), which puts this game and its intended market in a curious position. As an Xbox One title, Rivals offers an immediate, open-world arcade-thrill alternative to the hardcore simulation experience that is Forza Motorsport 5, and seems like an easy choice for racing fans to make, given the limited launch lineup currently available on Xbox One. On Xbox 360 however, fans of arcade racing shenanigans have many more recent options to choose from to get their thrills, from Turn 10's Forza Horizon to EA's own Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and Need for Speed: Most Wanted; the latter two games in particular sharing not only many of the same development team members but also several of the same themes, gameplay mechanics and concepts. So assuming that it's all been done before, should players bother taking Rivals for a test drive on current-gen?Like 2010's Hot Pursuit, Need for Speed: Rivals revisits the cat-and-mouse, Cop versus Racer dynamic that has become synonymous with the Hot Pursuit moniker. While the setting has moved from the fictional American northwest county of Seacrest to the equally scenic (and imaginary) Redview County, the deadly rivalry between the thrill-seekers and the law remains the same. Players can choose to play as either a street racer or a highway patrol cop and can switch between careers at any time from one of their chosen faction's garages, which also serve as car customization hubs, fast travel waypoints and mission control centers. Regardless of which side they play on, players will ultimately need to purchase new vehicles, Pursuit Tech weaponry and performance upgrades with Speed Points (SP) in order to progress, and just as one would come to expect, this in-game currency is earned by completing missions, performing dangerous stunts and traffic maneuvers, damaging or wrecking other cars, and meeting certain criteria in multiplayer situations. As players complete objectives they will move up in rank, unlocking faster vehicles and more powerful Pursuit Tech. There's a specific storyline for each faction as well, in which a self-important, off-screen narrator tries to justify with increasing rhetoric the reckless driving and blatant disregard for human life each side displays in their war to shut down the other party. Both yarns are ludicrous, paper-thin and highly implausible, but they are still entertaining and effective in establishing just how different the Cops and Racers are from one another.
And it is this difference that will keep players engaged long after they've dismissed the plot, as developer Ghost Games has added a bit of Dark Souls' secret sauce to Criterion's Need for Speed Formula to make playing both Cop and Racer equally addictive and enjoyable. Wait...Dark Souls? How could that Japanese fantasy roguelike and a Need for Speed game have anything in common, you ask? Just read on.
Keeping in theme with the dangerous lifestyle of illegal street racers, the Racer Career in Need for Speed: Rivals has been altered heavily from earlier games to operate on a risk-reward system, where Speed Points earned on the road can only be saved to a Racer's account by safely making it back to a hideout. If a Cop wrecks a Racer's car before they can reach a garage and bank the collected points, all the SP accumulated during that outing is lost to the Cop that busted him or her. Naturally, the longer a Racer is out on the road and the more objectives, missions or stunts that Racer completes during that time will result in more SP earned, which in turn will raise the Racer's "Heat Level", making that player a bigger target for the police. While this might seem like a bum deal for Racers at first, this mechanic actually helps to create the high-stakes, high-challenge scenario that a Racer would crave, and reminds players that every drive they take out on the road as a Racer is a serious gamble.
Of course, with high risk comes high reward. As mentioned earlier, Racers can use their SP to purchase vehicles from a wide selection of real-life sports cars and super cars once they have been unlocked, as well as Pursuit Tech such as Shockwave bombs and EMP blasts to thwart the police and other Racers, but they are also the only faction capable of purchasing performance upgrades for each and every vehicle that they own. As a result, Racers must be careful in how they spend their hard-fought SP. Do they stick with the cars that they've currently unlocked and upgrade their tech and performance to the maximum, or splurge on that fancy new Lamborghini or McLaren that just rolled into the shop? While it won't take long to start unlocking a decent selection of rides, players will likely find themselves forming personal attachments to their favorite cars as they invest more money in them and use them repeatedly on multiple missions. Naturally, they can also personalize each car even further with new paint jobs, liveries and even custom license plates.
Conversely, the Cops of NFS: Rivals are agents of the law and funded by the local and federal governments, so they do not have to purchase any of their vehicles. In fact, their “free” fleet of high-performance cars is almost as varied and exotic as that of the Racers, with many of the cars having up to two additional variants that will gradually unlock depending upon what style of law enforcement that the player chooses to drive: Patrol (The fastest but least rugged variant), Undercover (unmarked and thus easier to get the jump on Racers with) or Enforcer (built for punishment and ramming perpetrators off the road). Best of all, in addition to confiscating all the unbanked SP of each Racer that they bust, Cops retain all of their SP, even if they wreck. There is a small downside, however; apart from their license plates, the look and performance of Cop vehicles are "as-is" and cannot be upgraded. Consequently, players in the Cop Career will be spending their SP exclusively on Pursuit Tech upgrades for their favorite vehicles, which include several tools not available to Racers, such as the ability to set up roadblocks, call in helicopters, or drop spike traps to blow out the tires of other cars. Essentially, Cop vehicles are meant to be used a means to an end, with the emphasis on getting the player out on the road and hunting down Racers as quickly as possible. After all, every great anti-hero needs an equally dangerous and cunning arch-enemy.
The career mode of both Cop and Racer are further differentiated by the variety of missions available to them, otherwise known as Speedlists. Each chapter of the game is composed of one or more of these, each one containing a checklist of objectives to complete before a player can move on to the next, with a new unlocked car as a reward. In addition, each Speedlist is always offered in the form of three different themes around which the lists of objectives are focused. In the Racer Career, these themes are Race, Pursuit and Drive, while in the Cop Career the themes are Patrol, Undercover and Enforcer. In most cases, each theme offers the player a different approach to completing the mission. A Race Speedlist for example, might require a player to get a second-place finish in two separate races, wreck a fellow Racer's car, and score a hit on another Racer with an EMP weapon. Meanwhile, a Pursuit Speedlist may ask a player to start a chase with the Cops and then lose them before a timer runs out, and then deliberately sideswipe or rear-end 3 police cars. The benefit of having themes is that players can complete most missions via the Speedlist that best compliments their preferred play style, and while the Speedlists naturally will get longer and more difficult, players are free to "tick off" as many of the objectives as they like per session as long as they stick with the same Speedlist until it is completed. This means that the aforementioned Racer could earn his two second place finishes, return to a garage to bank his accumulated SP (which automatically autosaves the player's progress regardless of career), then go back out on the road and complete another one or both of the remaining Race objectives. Or they could risk losing all SP to the law in exchange for the thrill of attempting to complete all objectives in one outing. While the latter choice may seem foolhardy, the drive back to the nearest hideout or outpost can be long and perilous for Racer and Cop alike, while the opportunities to participate in additional events and activities are plentiful.
This brings us to the second key feature of Need for Speed: Rivals that not only sets the game apart from both its predecessors and competition, but also ties all the above discussed elements together into a killer, must-play title: Online. Note that I did not say "multiplayer". This is because much like the aforementioned Dark Souls, Need for Speed: Rivals effectively destroys the line between single-player and multiplayer by making them one and the same. Once players have connected to the internet and created an EA Origin account, Rivals immediately logs in to EA's servers and connects the player's game with that of up to six other players via its seamless multiplayer matchmaking service called "AllDrive". There are no lobbies, no chat rooms. It’s your game; all the other players just happen to be playing and causing havoc in it (and vice versa). While this means that players can (and will) attempt to impede your progress (especially Cops), live players can assist you directly or indirectly in just as many ways, if not more.
Fellow nearby Racers for example can draw some police attention off of you if they have a higher heat level, or use their Pursuit Tech to help take down a common enemy. Likewise, when playing as a Cop, other live Cops may jump in along with the Cop AI to assist in a pursuit not only to help you but to complete their own Speedlist objectives. Obviously, players can choose to interact directly as well. Pressing LB while driving in close proximity to a Racer will issue a head-to-head race challenge (as a Racer) or a high-speed pursuit (as a Cop), and a minor collision (accidental or deliberate) with said vehicle will also have the same effect. Players can pull up the Redview County map at any time to locate where other live players are and set a waypoint directly to them in order to join them, or track and hunt them down to settle a personal score.
The most fun to be had in Rivals however is the kind that happens organically, and AllDrive is designed on purpose to encourage these sorts of interactions. Players that drive close and/or participate in events together earn RP multipliers, and any Racer that happens to be in close vicinity to another Racer who starts a race event will automatically be included in that race (which one can then choose to decline via the game's Easy Drive quick-navigation system should he or she not wish to participate). The only real negative is that without a clear lobby interface, players who specifically want to play with a group of their friends may have to do a bit of server hopping before they are all able to wind up in the same online instance of Redview County, and with room only for six players in server, not everyone in your group may be able to play at once.
Having recently played a next-gen version of Rivals, I can attest that from a graphics and audio standpoint, Need for Speed: Rivals for Xbox 360 loses very little in comparison to its prettier sibling on Xbox One. All the notable effects are there, including the drifting Autumn leaves, particles and debris that float and brush past as your car hurtles down the interstate; the crazy bloom effects and dynamic lighting as helicopter spotlights and police flashers bathe both hunter and prey on rain-slicked, mountain roads; and the gorgeous, accelerated 24-hour weather changes and environments capable of changing from one season to the next in the time it takes to pass through a highway tunnel.
As with past Need for Speed games, the audio is at the top of its game. The individual sound of each car engine will make your surround sound system purr, and every crash, rollover and bass beat will give your subwoofer a workout. The police radio chatter is dynamic and informative, keeping both Racers and Cops informed of what's happening in the chase, like if a roadblock has been set further up the road, whether the barricade succeeded or failed in slowing down the target, or if a Cop or Racer has joined or left the chase or been taken out. There are few criticisms that can be leveled at Rivals' presentation if any. When the action gets heavy, details on the cars and environments tends to blur and pixelate slightly, but at worst this degradation comes off as a special effect of the high rates of speed players experience in the game -- a very small concession.
Ironically, Rival's main problem is that the game often becomes a victim of its own ambitions. Simply put, there are just far too many icons on screen. HUD elements. Heat Level icons. Curved trajectory lines that draw themselves on screen whenever players race past a potential jump. All sorts of triangles, circles, arrows, symbols and colors in combination on the mini-map. The screen is almost always busy and full of distractions, which can get in the way of enjoying all the beautiful details and scenery. Nonetheless, it goes without saying that the driving in Need for Speed: Rivals is sublime, a refinement of what we’ve come to expect from the franchise since Hot Pursuit. Powerdrifting around a turn and hitting nitrous to shoot out of it hasn’t felt this natural since Burnout Revenge, and crashing authentic, real-life, multi-million dollar cars at high speeds has never looked or felt sexier.
Rivals is without a doubt a game that anyone with even a passing interest in arcade racers should take for a $60 spin. Not just because it refines, distills and purifies the elements that made Criterion Games' Hot Pursuit, Most Wanted and Burnout: Paradise great games, though normally that would be enough. Not because it's easily one of the best looking and playing Need for Speed games of the entire franchise, though normally that would be enough as well. The reason why Rivals is worth your $60 is because its AllDrive system has raised the bar for how smooth, painless and organic multiplayer can be in an online racing game. While certainly not the first game to attempt to meld solo and multiplayer into one complete experience, Rivals nails the execution of this goal better than any racing game that has come before it. In this regard, it has already beaten next generation titles with similar ambitions to market by several months (e.g. The Crew, Titanfall), and while its scope is much smaller with only six players, when you’re playing Rivals with a complete group of strangers and having just as much fun as you would have with your actual friends, there is no doubt that “smultiplayer” (single-player + multiplayer) is the future of racing games. Yep. You heard me. Smultiplayer. Take that, Drivatars!
Bottom line: Need for Speed: Rivals for Xbox 360 is a next-generation game that you don’t even need to buy a next-gen console to play. It just doesn't get better than that.
Suggestions: 1) Simplify the on-screen clutter, when the action gets heated there's simply just too much going on. 2) Expand the number of players in a server to at least 10 players, six is too small (the same limit is true for the next-gen version).
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Battlefield 4
As the war between Sony and Microsoft for next-gen console supremacy rumbles ever closer, the Xbox 360 continues to be the industry's workhorse, quietly putting out triple-A titles one after another, and highlighting the fact that many of the next-gen games we have been salivating for are actually available on current-gen consoles right now. One of these titles is Battlefield 4, whose reputation for pushing PC rigs to their limits has apparently made it the poster child for next-gen. Cut through the noise however, and you're left with the only questions that matter: How does Battlefield 4 fare on its own merits as a game, and should you enlist for the 360 version or hold out a couple more weeks for its prettier Xbox One sibling?In Battlefield 4, players take on the role of Sgt. Daniel "Reck" Recker, member of a four-man Special Ops team nicknamed Tombstone, alongside squad leader Staff Sargent (Ssgt.) Dunn, SSgt. Kimble "Irish" Graves and rookie Sgt. Clayton "Pac" Pakowski. Caught in the middle of a quickly escalating cold war between Russia and the United States while a military coup simultaneously rages on in China, Tombstone will ultimately have to wade through hell and back in order to preserve the thin layers of diplomacy preventing all three countries from charging headlong into a full-scale war. Or at least, that seems to be the gist of it. Battlefield 3 veterans know by now that the plot of Battlefield games are dismissible by default and that their logic should not be dug into too deeply, as one will only emerge out the other end confused. The bottom line is that America, Russia and China ARE at war, and while such a scenario in real life would likely result in the annihilation of at least one country and possibly the entire western hemisphere, in a Battlefield game such outright military exchanges are more like sissy slaps between governments and the loss of a few thousand soldiers and civilians on each side is considered par for the course. It's unfortunate that the Battlefield franchise continues to suffer from its writers' inability to clearly lay out for players why the conflict is happening, why the protagonist and his allies must succeed, and most importantly, what is at stake if they fail, but at least this time around, developer DICE has made several positive strides in terms of character development.
While Recker as the player-character is typically mute and incapable of eliciting more than grunts and groans of pain, Tombstone’s other members, particularly Irish and Pac, reveal through their actions and dialogue hints of camaraderie, unresolved issues and phobias that one would expect to know about after working with a small group of individuals for a long period of time. Another plus is Tombstone's uncertain alliance and interactions with Chinese Secret Service agent Huang "Hannah" Shuyi, who while not playable like Battlefield 3's lone female pilot Jennifer Hawkins, has an extensive, active role in the story. Not only is she given a strong voice and independence worthy of her rank, she’s also steely enough to go toe-to-toe with Irish, Tombstone's most verbal member. Like the rest of the squad, she has her own terrors and vulnerabilities as well, which from time to time bubble to the surface mid-conflict. While the revelations that players will discover about Reck's squad mates may not be earth-shattering or cause gasps of shock when their lives are endangered, the efforts made by DICE to fill its story with strong, layered characters and to finally give females a real voice in the Battlefield franchise deserves to be commended.
In terms of gameplay, Battlefield fans will be pleased to know that DICE has not yet "sold out" on its brand of campaign play to compete with the high-octane thrills of Call of Duty. While there are definitely over-the-top cinematic moments and areas that players will ultimately be funneled through for the sake of story, the majority of Battlefield 4's theatres of conflict provide players with some degree of choice. In many cases, this translates to multiple paths that players can take to reach the objective, such as flanking enemies by circling around or sneaking through buildings and obstacles in the environment, and in some cases, purposely destroying parts of it to provide a better angle from which to ambush entrenched enemies. Of course, with Battlefield 4 being powered by DICE's Frostbite 3 Engine, enemies can do the same to the player's cover, often forcing them to abandon their attack strategy and think up new ones while on the move. Unfortunately, not everything in Battlefield 4's many environments can be destroyed, and while it's a relief to slide behind an indestructible wall when your squad is besieged by a tank, it can be frustrating when the shoe is on the opposite foot and that one enemy that you need to take out to move on is behind a flimsy concrete barricade that refuses to go down (and you forgot to include the XM25 grenade launcher in your loadout to hit enemies behind cover more easily).
That brings us to Battlefield 4's weapon and gadget selection, which is quite extensive despite the fact that players are unlikely to unlock even half of them by the time they've completed their second campaign playthrough. While players start each mission with a pre-determined loadout based on the scenario and can procure just about any weapon dropped by their fallen enemies in the field, loadouts can be changed by players on the fly at any ammo or gadget crate the player finds in the environment (not to mention they also serve as great indestructible cover as well as pit stops, since opening a crate pauses the action until it is closed again). Player accomplishments in the field, such as headshots, group kills with certain weapons and stealth melee kills unlock new weapons for use as well, so it won’t be long into the campaign before players are overwhelmed with loadout options. Veteran Battlefield 3 players will likely slide right into the BF4 campaign groove with little effort, as many of these weapons and/or their equivalents were present in BF3, but newcomers to the franchise and military First-Person Shooters in general might initially find Battlefield 4 far less accessible by comparison, as the in-game loadout explanations of each gadget and weapon leave much to be desired. Especially the weapons, which instead of providing advice on how best to use them or what situation they are best suited towards, alternatively give the player an RPG-style stat column that only compares how much better or worse that weapon is to the one the player is currently holding.
Nonetheless, choice is still Battlefield 4's greatest strength. Unlike Call of Duty, Battlefield demands more of the newcomer, asking him or her to think more tactically and utilize all the tools at one's disposal. Learning when and where to use each to its best effect can make the difference between blasting through a fortified area in minutes or battling a lengthy war of attrition (which can also be thrilling as well, depending on how you look at it). Players with patience and a love of experimentation are likely to come away with a number interesting war stories.
This doesn't excuse the fact however that Battlefield 4 is rather brutal at normal difficulty, particularly in the way that it sets up checkpoints. There are several long scenarios throughout the campaign that scream for checkpoints between major skirmishes, but oddly do not offer any, a situation that is bound to turn some players off from certain sequences once they’ve had to play them over and over for 30 minutes. Enemy soldiers are bullet sponges and often take many shots to kill unless the player headshots them with a sniper rifle, scores a direct hit with a rocket launcher, or blasts them up close with a shotgun, and it can be especially frustrating when those same enemies run about cluelessly in the open and keep getting up after the player has already downed them with 6 or 7 bullets to the chest. Finally, while players can use the "Engage" command to have Tombstone and their allies focus fire on enemies that Recker “spots” in the environment, the mechanic is far too simplistic and the player has no control over when or how squadmates will execute on the command. In one situation, they'll lay down cover fire from where they are currently positioned, in another, they'll rush the enemy on open ground, blowing their cover if they were previously undetected and often running right in front of your crosshairs, all the while screaming at you to cover them.
Visually, in the absence of a next-gen or PC version of the game running alongside it for comparison, Battlefield 4 surprisingly holds its own on Xbox 360, appearing to deliver on much of the fidelity seen in the famous next-gen campaign reveals of the Fishing in Baku and Angry Sea missions. When the action is hot and heavy, players will be too busy enjoying the ride to concern themselves with the lower poly counts in the character models and the lack of detail in their faces. It's only during quieter, calmer moments where these graphical sacrifices clearly bear themselves out, reminding players that the game is essentially a scaled-down version from the PC/next-gen builds, rather than one developed from the ground-up for the Xbox 360. Similarly, many objects and textures in the game are basic and flat under closer inspection, impressive only when you are running past them or popping up over them to fire at enemies. The sound in Battlefield 4 however is fantastic on current-gen, especially in 5.1 surround, where locating the enemy’s position by the origins of their gunfire and shouts becomes even easier. The soundtrack is always appropriate to the tempo of the action, and when the Battlefield theme (which sounds a lot like the Terminator soundtrack, by the way) begins its low thumping in the background and rises to a bombastic fever pitch during a favorite action sequence of mine (trust me, you'll know it when you get there), I guarantee that you'll feel like a major badass.
All this aside, hardcore Battlefield fans play it for the multiplayer, and Battlefield 4 offers a solid experience for those opting not to jump into the next-generation right away. Supporting up to 24-players and featuring 10 multiplayer maps out of the box, there's plenty of game to keep players busy until the first DLC pack (China Rising) drops on December 3rd. Conquest mode is where it’s at, however, as it’s the one mode out of the 7 available that even comes close to approximating the kind of large-scale matches that Battlefield players are already enjoying on PC and are soon to be a reality on next-gen consoles as well, which like on PC will support a whopping 64 players. Naturally, fan-favorite modes such as Team Deathmatch, Domination and Rush will also be reporting for duty.
When all is said and done, Battlefield 4 is a very hard title to say no to if you own an Xbox 360 and you're even the least bit curious about first person shooters. While its campaign isn’t perfect and presents some challenges for newcomers, it’s also just the right length and offers the most entertaining off-rails single-player action you can have in a game of this genre right now. Then there's the irresistible draw of Battlefield 4's online multiplayer, with all of its vehicles, destructible environments (including the new "Levolution" set pieces such as the skyscraper in the Siege of Shanghai map), and the fact that all your stats on Xbox 360 will carry over to Xbox One should you decide to upgrade to the next generation version. And the cost to do so? Only $10 via participating retailers (for a limited time – visit www.battlefield.com for details). Either way you look at it, for the shooter fan, Battlefield 4 is a no-brainer. My recommendation: If you're keen on playing Battlefield 4 on Xbox One, there's no harm in getting it on Xbox 360 now, as you'll get a head start in multiplayer and the differences in graphic fidelity and player count will be all the more appreciated once you upgrade. On the other hand, if you're sitting pretty with the current-gen right now, Battlefield 4 on Xbox 360 is still Battlefield, and still well worth your while.
Suggestions: Provide better explanations of the advantages, disadvantages and proper use of each weapon in the loadout screen, and offer suggested loadouts.
Overall Score: 8.2 / 10
Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death
(It saddens me that for the first time in nearly five years of writing online game reviews that I must actually begin one with a Public Service Announcement. Approximately 80% into completing Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death, the in-game camera stopped following the player-character during a vertical action-climbing sequence and became permanently fixed, resulting in objects obstructing my view and making it impossible for me to progress further without dying. Neither restarting at the checkpoint nor quitting and reloading the game resulted in fixing the problem, which made it impossible to proceed. Apparently not by coincidence, there are several points in this game where an autosave takes place in the middle of an action sequence, resulting in insta-deaths and multiple situations where the above can happen. As of this writing, Marlow Briggs has been available for purchase for five days on the Xbox Store, and no apparent patches have been pushed down from Xbox Live in order to fix this issue, so the following review is based on the product in its current state, bugs and all. If you are still interested in finding out the OTHER reasons why you probably should not buy this game, keep reading.)From the moment that Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death's garishly static title screen abruptly follows the 505 Games developer logo (yes, more money was likely spent on the logo sequence than the title), the player is immediately informed that what lies ahead is a budget-priced experience that will probably be a bit rough around the edges. Unfortunately, that's just the beginning. The gameplay in Marlow Briggs can best be described as a poor-man's God of War/Darksiders meets Uncharted with a heavy sprinkling of the popular endless runner mobile game Temple Run throughout. Like protagonists Kratos (God of War) and War (Darksiders), the titular Marlow begins his quest for vengeance with one weapon (a dual-bladed halberd called Kukulkan's Fangs), but throughout the course of his journey he will find three other variations of the weapon as well as upgrades and magic aspects that will allow him to do more damage to enemies, traverse obstacles and solve puzzles. And naturally, each weapon has its own advantages, disadvantages and specific combos that players are encouraged to get accustomed to and memorize. Every enemy that Marlow kills, be it human, supernatural or insectoid (we're talking acid-spitting, Peter Jackson’s King Kong-sized-variety insects here) releases spirit energy upon death in the form of Mana (magic), health and XP, which just like in God of War is sucked towards Marlow like a vacuum and goes towards filling his respective power meters. And of course, the occasional boss fight usually involves a requisite QTE in order to conclude and allow Marlow to move on to the next chapter. Surprised?
Connecting the game's many battle arenas are a variety of platform areas and environmental puzzles clearly inspired by the Uncharted games (if you've never played or seen Uncharted, think Ninja Theory's Enslaved: Odyssey to the West), a connection that's almost impossible not to make given the game's Central American, Mayan Ruins setting. Finally, in an apparent effort made by the developers to keep mixing up the action, players will often be forced into temporary endless runner sequences, such as quickly sliding down a hill and dodging obstacles and collecting power orbs, or jumping from one fast-moving log cart to another while doing the same, once again concluding with a QTE sequence or jump that must be cleared to trigger an explosive escape cinematic.
The problem is not that Marlow Briggs falls back on these familiar mechanics from other game franchises, as it wouldn't be the first. It's more that the developer chose to take the most basic, most uncreative examples of each and made them the bread-and-butter of this game. The combat for example, is extremely one-note. Despite each of Marlow's four weapons having over 10 different combo strings and the ability to string many of them together, players will quickly find that they all ultimately do the same things: each has a simple launcher move; each has a death-from-above combo that is executed with essentially the same button sequence; there's a move with the default weapon that can be used to bust riot shields, and so on. In other words, players can essentially rely on just one or two weapons to get through the entire game and to defeat almost any foe, and aside from a rope-blade weapon that Marlow unlocks later in the game, none of the weapons serve any other functions aside from killing enemies, so players aren't encouraged to use the other weapons or become proficient with them. The platforming is super-basic, as players can only jump off ledges at certain spots, so other than the occasional sequences where players must doge falling objects while moving along a ledge or scaling across the face of a cliff, players rarely ever feel as though they are in danger of falling to their death (though at other points players are bound to unexpectedly fall and die often for different reasons, which I'll get to shortly). The QTEs are infrequent, but when they do happen they usually occur without warning (no slow-down), the button indicators are too small and they are incredibly easy to miss completely the first time round, so players will almost always fail immediately because they didn't see that B-button symbol in the bottom right corner and have to restart at the checkpoint. And then there are the endless runner sequences. There are far too many of them, period. They're not too difficult to pass, and as they double as orb-collecting challenges there is a little OCD-style fun to be had, but they wear out their welcome very quickly, long before the game reaches the halfway mark. Players who truly enjoy this sort of game can purchase a wealth of endless runners for their smartphone for only a fraction of the $10 that Marlow Briggs costs, so the heavy emphasis on these sequences seems wasted here.
Then there are the REAL problems. There is no way to put it lightly; the camera in Marlow Briggs is ATROCIOUS. It moves along a set of scripted angles for the entirety of the game, much like many 3D platformers of the early PSOne era, and does not allow the player to alter it in any way. Rather than assigning the game's dodge mechanic to a button to be used in conjunction with the directional stick (R1), the developer instead chose to assign the move to the right analog stick (R2), flying in the face of logic employed by just about every other modern 3D-platformer, third-person hack-and-slasher and third-person shooter in existence, which generally use R2 to control camera perspective, even if it can only be controlled to a limited extent.
This makes combat and even simple platforming in Marlow Briggs incredibly frustrating, as the first instinct whenever an object or enemy obstructs the player's view is to use R2 to adjust the camera's perspective, which instead results in Marlow rolling in that direction, often becoming completely obscured in combat by an enemy or the environment, or causing Marlow to jump off a ledge at the wrong angle to his death or fail to jump at a key moment, also resulting in death.
As mentioned at the beginning of the review, problems with the game's camera combined with the equally inept checkpoint system resulted in a bug which made it impossible to proceed further into the game without completely starting over, but even on their own, autosaves and checkpoints in Marlow Briggs are some of the worst I've encountered in any game I've played, sometimes loading the game only a split second before Marlow has to dodge an object or die instantly, or even in the middle of combat. An earlier endless runner sequence in the game took me over five minutes just to clear the opening seconds because Marlow kept dying over and over behind a black loading screen that would not lift to let me see the obstacle I needed to dodge. In the end I had to fumble around blindly until I managed to avoid the invisible obstacle, after which I was finally allowed to see where I was going.
Graphics-wise, Marlow Briggs as a game is below standard, and it certainly doesn't do itself any favors with the numerous Matrix-style bullet-time cutscenes inserted between chapters that highlight just how bland the visuals are (not to mention raising the question as to why players are forced to watch these non-interactive sequences, complete with sound effects, INSTEAD OF ACTUALLY PLAYING THEM). Sadly, the character designs and the voices that bring them to life are also a disappointment. As a Canadian of West Indian and ultimately African descent, I want to be excited whenever a game starring a black protagonist is made but it's difficult when the character is this generic. Big, brawny and without a single discerning feature, Briggs is cursed with an personality and accent right out of a made-for-TV special (he even says things like "Damn Straight")...it almost makes one beg for Cole Train from Gears of War to come in and teach Marlow how the stereotype is really done...if you're going to go down that road, leave it all on the floor and OWN it, or don't do it at all.
Similarly, the villain Heng Long, is voiced by an actor who suspiciously like the famous Chinese character actor, James Hong (Kung Fu Panda, Big Trouble in Little China), but there's no way to know since the developers neglected to credit ANY of the voice actors in their 14-minute long (!) credit roll (perhaps these actors saw the finished product and didn't want to be associated with it). In any case, Heng Long fills the predictable 80's Asian villain stereotype slot, complete with lame jokes playing on his name ("My reach is long") and constant references to unsafe workplace accidents, but not even a minute after each of his appearances will players even remember what he looks like.
The only character who truly stands out and keeps the game from being a total bore is the Mask of Death himself, King Tep, who after having been deprived of conversation with another person for over 2000 years reveals himself to be the king of the party, cracking jokes, giving Marlow emasculating nicknames in his Mayan tongue and never seeming to run out of witty criticisms when poor Marlow falls down a hole or stands around doing absolutely nothing when the player goes off to make a sandwich. Sometimes, Marlow and Tep will even have exchanges that might evoke an unexpected chuckle out of the player, raising Marlow's comic game a bit. But make no mistake, it's all about Tep, and conveniently he’s an omniscient character that the player almost never sees. Another irony is that aside from the three or four soldier-types that players will find themselves cutting down over and over throughout the course of the game, Marlow Briggs features an entirely ethnic, non-white cast. How often can you say that about a videogame? It's just a shame that it happened in a game that's so unremarkable.
In the final analysis, even when putting aside the game-destroying bug that I encountered late in the game and the terrible checkpoint system, Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death feels like a game that would have been better received exclusively in the mobile space, where the poor impressions left by its camera limitations and low production values may have been mitigated, or perhaps even enhanced by the smaller screen and weaker competition in its particular genre. As an Xbox Live Arcade title appearing this late in the Xbox 360's life-cycle however (and in the same week that Grand Theft Auto V was released no less), a game like Marlow Briggs faces an extremely difficult challenge standing out in the crowded field of similar but far superior titles already available on the Xbox Store, even if it is top of its class. But when factoring in all the aforementioned problems, and no sign of 505 Games administering a patch to address these issues, it appears as though Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death was given the "Kiss of Death" before it even left the developer's studio. It's simply impossible to recommend this game to anyone.
Suggestions: 1. Patch this game immediately and make sure your next title goes through rigorous QA testing before release.
2. Allow the player to adjust the camera! It's 2013, people!
3. Autosaves and checkpoints should NEVER occur during combat or in the middle of a platforming sequence.
4. The cast of your game should always be credited, regardless of performance quality, just like in Hollywood. Shame on you!
Overall Score: 4.6 / 10
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified
It's difficult to play The Bureau: XCOM without wondering what kind of game it could have been. Originally intended in 2010 as 2K Games’ first de facto entry in the storied XCOM franchise as well as the first XCOM game to be released on consoles since the original PlayStation, The Bureau (originally known as just “XCOM”) has weathered several changes in title, genre and gameplay over the past three years (and perhaps just as many from its original inception three years prior). The game's development was also the subject of much criticism from XCOM fans, many of whom were immediately turned off by the game's E3 2010 re-envisioning as an FPS, feeling that it ran counter to the franchise's isometric, turn-based strategic roots. Now re-envisioned once again as a tactical first person shooter close to a year after 2K’s Firaxis Games has stolen much of its pre-release thunder with their own franchise entry XCOM: Enemy Unknown, gamers finally get to discover whether The Bureau was actually worth the three-year wait.Although the story of The Bureau: XCOM Declassified technically takes place in an alternate universe to that of Enemy Unknown, the game serves as a spiritual origin story to the franchise, so fans Firaxis’ sleeper hit will no doubt find the plot of The Bureau interesting despite the inevitable inconsistencies. In The Bureau, players put on the fedora and wing-tipped shoes of Special Agent William Carter, a former CIA field operative who in 1962 is re-enlisted into active duty in order to deliver a mysterious artifact to Myron Faulke, the Director of a top-secret US Military branch. From his trademark graveled voice to his no-nonsense manner of dress, Carter seems like he would be more at home as a gumshoe detective in a Film Noir than as a special agent, and after being ambushed and shot by an alien mole who attempts to steal the artifact (which explodes, killing the alien and inexplicably saves Carter's life), it becomes clear that Carter is well out of practice. The lost artifact quickly becomes a moot point however, as by the time Carter is able to report to Faulke empty-handed, a full-scale Alien invasion has begun, and Carter is hastily placed in charge of a crack team of uniquely-skilled Special Agents tasked not only with fighting back against the aliens but also doing so covertly, as to not send the United States into a mass panic.
Gameplay in The Bureau is essentially divided into two modes of play, largely echoing that of the Mass Effect games. The Bureau itself is the equivalent of Mass Effect's The Normandy, where players walk around as Carter and interact with NPCs in order to advance the story, learn more about the game's principal characters through talking to them or their colleagues, unlock new field operations and complete non-combat missions around the base. It is also here that players will gradually uncover more and more information as to why the alien invasion is taking place, a genuine mystery that serves as a strong narrative hook in the game and encourages players to keep on playing and interacting even when the gameplay itself gets a bit redundant. Finally, players can customize their squads from either the facility's Ready Room or Command Centre and can initiate missions from the latter (much like The Normandy's CIC), and as an added plus players can also send lone operatives or squads out on "Dispatch Missions" provided that their skill and collective strength meet the selected mission's requirements.
Naturally, the second mode of play are the main missions themselves, which play out much like Mass Effect's away missions. In the field, players control Carter directly and command two other operatives via simple commands using the D-pad and can issue more complex orders such as movement in a specific direction or using offensive and defensive powers via the Battle Focus wheel (The Bureau's answer to Mass Effect's radial command wheels). Both Carter and his squadmates receive XP for the damage they do in battle, allowing them to level up and gain new abilities and powers that can be put to immediate use, but as each ability has a required cooldown period once activated, it is best to use each one sparingly and to its best strategic advantage whenever possible. The similarities don't end there however.
It's hard to believe that a game depicting an alien invasion in 1962's America could borrow so many elements from the Mass Effect games yet manage to stretch the player's suspension of disbelief so far beyond them that it approaches the breaking point, but The Bureau manages to accomplish it quite easily. For example, one of Carter's most useful abilities (that the game never explains how he acquired it or learned how to use it) is the telekinetic power called "Lift", which allows Carter to raise and suspend any average-sized humanoid enemy on the field into the air, leaving it vulnerable to gunfire projectiles from Carter and his allies. Even if the ability could be explained away by Carter's exposure to the alien artifact at the beginning of the game however, the ability for any Commando-class squadmate to "force push" enemies within a certain radius is a much harder sell, and if either of these two abilities sound analogous to the Biotic powers "Pull" and "Shockwave" in Mass Effect, you'd be absolutely right to think so.
Meanwhile, Engineer squadmates eventually become capable of "materializing" automated turrets capable of firing lasers or missiles out of thin air, while the tior Grays have to place them in strategic areas in advance of a conflict (just like we humans do in real life combat). Faulty logic notwithstanding, the way in which The Bureau allows players to combine these abilities is sometimes novel. For instance, if an Engineer places a turret anywhere in the field, Carter can use his Lift ability to raise it, giving the turret an even more lethal vantage point to rain death down upon entrenched foes in exchange for exposing it to increased enemy fire.
Outside of these differences, The Bureau plays like a standard third-person shooter, allowing Carter to take and move fluidly from cover to cover, use blind fire over or around obstacles and melee enemies as best he can when encountering them in close quarters. Carter can revive a fallen ally by running up to him and administering a stimulant spray, and likewise he can command his squadmates to revive him or the other squadmate should they fall to enemy fire. Unlike Mass Effect however, when a squadmate dies in the field, it's perma-death, meaning that players will have to recruit a new squadmate at the next checkpoint or revert to the last checkpoint autosave to undo the damage and replay that section of the game again. Higher difficulties prevent recruiting at checkpoints, so players seeking greater challenges can choose to press on and attempt to complete the mission shorthanded, but even at the game's second easiest difficulty players will likely find themselves dying shortly after their team becomes a man short, which will prompt a checkpoint reload and fully restore the fallen squad members alongside Carter in any event. In other words, if you really want a squad member to stay dead, you’re going to have to work at it.
One of the few ways in which The Bureau attempts to mix up the formula is with squad creation. The game starts players off with a handful of default agents from which Carter can select two to take on a mission with him, each representing one of four different classes (Commando, Scout, Engineer and Recon), and as each agent follows Carter on missions they gain XP and can be leveled up in the direction that the player desires via their respective class-progression tree, but players can and will eventually want to recruit additional agents, either to replace those lost or seriously injured in the field or to temporarily fill in for those that are currently on dispatch assignment. Any pre-existing agent's name can be changed and his appearance tweaked to the player's preference, right down to his ethnicity, and the player can also choose the innate skill of any new recruit he or she creates. It's 1962 however, so while Carter quickly finds himself working alongside high-ranking females at The Bureau, players neither have access to nor can create female agents. Pity.
Visually, The Bureau has come a long way since its initial reveal in 2010, with far more realized and detailed characters than what had been previously shown in other demos (just compare a screenshot of Carter now to any of the generic, Fedora-sporting look-alikes from past previews for the evidence). There's no doubt that the finished product could have benefited from a bit more polish along with all the changes it endured, but thankfully one element that has remained intact from the very beginning is the game's distinct 1962 Cold War America setting. It's all still here: The destroyed Middle-American streets whose sweet-as-apple-pie innocence has been forever lost to the brutal carnage of an alien invasion; the staid shirts, vests, ties, lab coats and military uniforms worn by Carter and his colleagues, with the only break in formality being when Carter swaps out his fedora and suit for a more casual turtleneck; the game's hard shadows and film-grain suggestive of the anti-communist propaganda films of the period thinly disguised as Sci-Fi and Horror flicks; and lastly the decidedly retro-design of the Greys themselves, clearly modeled after the countless images of "Roswell Grey aliens" reported by conspiracy theorists and seen in numerous Sci-Fi films.
Loading textures tend to pop-in now and again during cutscenes, making objects and weapons first appear blurry and then suddenly sharpen, but they are far from the worst examples of the generation. The Bureau may not be the Belle of the Ball, but she makes up nice. The game's sound effects and music on the other hand strike a perfect balance between the game's 1962 setting and that of a more modern Sci-Fi movie, relying on a traditional orchestral soundtrack and random licensed hits from the 50's to elicit the mood of the era while the electronic hums, deafening high-pitched screeches, mechanical whirs and resonating thumps of the Greys' shape-shifting weapons and technologies assert their fearsome supremacy to disruptive effect, suggesting that humanity would be severely outclassed regardless of what era in which the invasion took place.
Aside from the game's liberal borrowing of gameplay elements from Mass Effect, The Bureau's only real crime is that of being “just average”. While the story is certainly engaging, the characters, Carter included, are merely serviceable. They’re more than capable of throwing around mildly entertaining dialogue, but there's never really a desire to get to know more about them, and it isn't long into the game before you discover that the supporting characters that you would most want to have at your side in the battle for humanity are actually inaccessible to you, reserved for the most part to filling talking-head roles at The Bureau to move the plot along. Thus players will largely have to make due with generic squaddies for company, and with their stock voices, stock faces and interchangeable names, the only attachment that players are likely to form with them is through their value as skilled teammates, as every squad member must be leveled up from scratch by the player until they are high enough in level to go out on dispatch missions and earn XP by themselves. Sadly, the initial dispatch missions on offer in the early parts of the game are so high in level (the lowest is Level 5) that players will feel like they are already halfway through the game before they even have one member of their squad that can go on these missions, and that it will be much longer still before they can send a 3-man squad. This isn't to say that there aren't enough dispatch missions, but it seems as though this particular element of the game takes an extremely long time to get going and requires the player to babysit low-level squaddies for far too long before they can become useful.
Shockingly, a major missed opportunity of the game is actually a gameplay element that has been part of The Bureau's identity since its E3 reveal in 2010; the idea of players capturing Grey technologies (i.e. weapons), researching them and using them against the Greys via reverse-engineering. Ultimately, this idea has survived in concept only, a couple of examples being how Carter and his squadmates automatically develop alien-like powers via their wrist modules and backpacks, or just happen to come across new alien weapons lying on the ground or sitting on a weapon rack just waiting to be taken. At the game’s outset, players are given the impression that they'll be taking a more active role in acquiring and researching these technologies, but in the end the mechanic only amounts to the equivalent of picking up a lucky quarter from the sidewalk.
To wrap up, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified delivers a solid but decidedly average third-person shooter experience when compared to its contemporaries, but as an introduction to the world of XCOM, it might still serve as the perfect popcorn movie primer for those curious to see what all the fuss is about. The only question those players should ask themselves before jumping in is whether they should play full price for this B-level flick or wait a week or two and watch the less expensive matinee, especially when they can still catch the far more entertaining Enemy Unknown for half the price at the repertoire theatre.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Charlie Murder
How should I best describe Ska Studios' Charlie Murder? Well, if you take the side-scrolling beat-em up plus RPG mechanics of River City Ransom, filter it through its more evolved, modern successors Castle Crashers and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game, then put in in a blender with Taito's Ninja Kids, Rare's Battletoads and Ska's own The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai and press puree, then you might then begin to form an image of the wacky, ultra-violent experience that awaits you.Charlie Murder, the spiritual follow-up to its NA-developed indie hit The Dishwasher, fully embraces the "Battle of the Bands" theme that helped endear the Scott Pilgrim series to its fans, but instead of asking us to swallow a convoluted love story involving "seven evil exes", Charlie Murder's is a much simpler story of “re-vengeance”, as players control lead singer Charlie and the members of his self-named Heavy Metal band as they battle against the jealous rage of a former band mate (the aptly-named Paul Bitterman), who is obsessed with obliterating them and their seemingly unstoppable fame off of the face of the earth. Now calling himself Lord Mortimer, Paul has taken up dressing as a pale, bare-chested grim-reaper and sipping expensive wine to calm his nerves in-between spats of mass slaughter and bringing about the zombie apocalypse.
When the game begins, Paul and the members of his new band, Gore Quaffer (who naturally like Paul are cursed with demonic superpowers) have just beaten Charlie and his band mates within an inch of their lives and left them for dead in the street. Miraculously however, Charlie and his crew battle back from the brink and set out to stop Gore Quaffer, taking out one band member and his horde of undead followers at a time.
As with any brawler, the main tools available to our heroes are their fists and feet, and accessing the full range of their possibilities is as simple as pressing X for Punch, Y for Kick, A for Jump and B for grapple. X and Y also double for picking up weapons and items respectively, and Y+B will prompt your fighter to throw whatever weapon they have in their hands as a projectile. Seems like pretty standard stuff, but don't be fooled however, as the members of Charlie Murder are far from ordinary fighting musicians. Each member's unique mystical music talents have been unleashed by their near-death experience, providing the player with five distinct player classes to begin their adventure with; the Berserker (Charlie), the Mesmer (Kelly, Charlie's girlfriend), the Mage (Lester), the Shaman (Tommy) and the Tank (Rex).
These classes grant each character distinct sets of powers which make using each one of them a different experience. For example, as lead singer, Charlie's main ability is his power scream, which he can use to blow enemies over while simultaneously scoring multiple hits, and when modified by special tattoos it can be enhanced with acid spit that can literally melt the faces of enemies off or become a tornado that picks up enemies, weapons and debris alike, causing damage to foes both within it and anywhere nearby. Meanwhile, Lester can immediately kill weakened enemies while they are down by using his skilled guitar fingers to instantly vacuum the flesh, sinew and organs right off their skeletons (much like how a magician pulls the tablecloth out from under a fully-set table), or summon a demon familiar to assist him in battle. More class-specific powers, including team-based specials that can include the entire band, can be unlocked by getting more tattoos, or by earning and using skill points to unlock new latent abilities as the character gains XP and crosses new threshold levels. While the description of the above abilities may seem rather grotesque (and let's admit it, they are), the game's quirky paper cut-out animation style, over-the-top voices and squishy sound effects immediately sell the game's intended humor, and much like watching an episode of Itchy and Scratchy from the Simpsons, players will find themselves addicted to discovering just how much ridiculous carnage they can create as they accidentally (and then purposely) impale enemies on environmental objects, curb-stomp downed foes and then use their severed heads, arms or brains as blunt weapons, or perform outlandish, mid-air wrestling moves on enemies after they've launched them with an equally ridiculous combo.
Charlie Murder will also have players grinning ear-to-ear with how it cleverly modernizes its RPG aspects, putting an incredibly fresh and satirical spin on gameplay mechanics first popularized by River City Ransom and more recently refined in Castle Crashers and Scott Pilgrim. For example, each character has a Windows 8 smartphone (an obvious wink at the game's Xbox Live Arcade-exclusivity) in which they can view and select stat and skill upgrades, check e-mails, take photos of objects in the environment and view random messages from their followers on @Squiddus, the Charlie Murder-equivalent of Twitter (because what is any band without its followers?). It is through the phone's hub that players can level up their characters, and they can also view and review instructions on how to use new-found abilities via e-mail, as each new skill or power gained is accompanied by a message in your inbox. Just keep in mind that you'll have to sift through many threatening e-mails from Paul Bitterman to get to them (he still hasn’t changed his e-mail address apparently), and the action doesn't stop when you're looking at your phone, so choose your "check-in" moments carefully!
The hub stores in Charlie Murder also take a literally refreshing approach, adding DIY microbreweries and the aforementioned tattoo shops to the clothing and convenience stores (read armor and food stores) that players have come to expect in a brawler-RPG hybrid. That's right, you can MASH and then FERMENT your own alcoholic concoctions using different barleys, malts and microorganisms collected from fallen enemies in the game in addition to other items and weapons they leave behind, which like other consumables can buff the stats of your characters for a limited period of time. Of course, if you don't have the time to brew, you can always purchase pre-prepared beers on tap from certain stores, and any store you've unlocked can always be revisited from the world map at any point in the game, so you can always go back to stock up on brewskies and other important items, like energy bars. Conversely, if you're overloaded with too many items of clothing, consumables or ingredients, you can selectively discard them where you stand (allowing you to give or swap items with your colleagues), or if you're short on cash, you can sell them at electronic "Criegslist" kiosks, which are present in all stores. Talk about handy!
Players can also unlock free items by snapping smartphone pictures of "captchas" (square barcodes) or unusual objects in the environment, revealing a mini-game that encourages players to be very observant of messaging and other scribblings on the walls or other places in the world. In fact, this particular mechanic highlights yet another way in which Charlie Murder sets itself apart from its contemporaries. While there are certainly moments where the game indulges in expositional cutscenes and occasional QTEs to explain the tragic back story of Charlie and Paul, Charlie Murder generally chooses to show, not tell. Like the graffiti in Valve's Portal and Left 4 Dead, vaguely scrawled messages, symbols, posters and other images throughout the game provide hints and advice to players on what to do and where to go next, and while obeying these instructions (provided you even understand them) is not always mandatory, following them will often lead to some surprisingly humorous results, such as when players encounter a blatantly obvious hamburger recipe early on in the game. Not only does this approach keep players engaged, but it also motivates them to experiment and learn how to play by discovery, rather than constantly referring an in-game instruction booklet or the internet. Just like in real life, some things can (and should) be learned by experience.
The visual style of Charlie Murder is one that many players unfamiliar with The Dishwasher may find a bit immature at first glance with its predominantly garish-looking characters and environments, but the loving care and level of polish in its visuals, effects and rich sound design cannot be denied. The music is top-notch as well, alternating between the Hard Metal music of Charlie's band, catchy Techno beats and atmospheric tracks, and occasionally players are even coerced into interacting with some of the songs during interactive, rhythm-based QTE flashbacks, with each player performing a different string of timed button-presses based on their chosen band member’s instrument. While fun, these sequences are also quite forgiving and are over fairly quickly after they arise.
Now for the oddities. While Charlie Murder is an absolute riot overall, there are some design choices made by Ska Studios that are a bit puzzling. For one, the visibility of equipped clothing can be toggled on or off for each character’s headgear, torso and gloves (pants aren't customizable). But aside from telling your character apart from another player's in the rare instance that they've equipped the same gear, there seems to be little reason to do this, especially given that seeing the clothing serves as an important reminder to players that they have something equipped at all. Things get even trickier once players visit the tattoo parlor, where the process of getting a tattoo automatically toggles off the visibility of torso clothing as the character disrobes and does not revert back on its own when the job is done - characters must manually re-toggle the clothing to see it again. A more annoying limitation is how inventory items cannot be fully accessed during boss fights or horizontal or vertical scrolling shooter sequences. In boss fights, players can only access one item at a time (by pressing RB), and the item available is usually the most potent item for restoring HP.
Once all items of that type have been consumed, the computer will automatically select the next potent item until all of that type have been used up, and so on. The problem occurs when the player has not stocked up on enough of an item and is down to buff items only, which can certainly help in a boss fight but are very unlikely to save a player if he or she is near death, and because of the same limitation, other players cannot access their inventories in order to drop a med kit or energy bar that might save their colleague. Furthermore, in shooter sequences, items and powers (such as team healing) cannot be used at all, so players should make sure that everyone is at full health before starting one, in order to reduce their chances of dying and having to go through it again. In other words, proper preparation is key in either case.
Finally, while the game has a plethora of consumables that can buff character stats, most of them will likely be under-utilized by most players, who will simply want to get by on their core abilities and powers alone and rely strictly on healing items when their HP is low, as it is much simpler to understand how those items work. Only the most committed of players will likely take the time to experiment with different consumables and memorize particular brews to enhance their characters' abilities to the utmost effect.
It should also be emphasized that Charlie Murder is a game that is meant to be experienced with friends. The majority of the time I spent playing the game was by myself, and while the deep gameplay and humor still shine through when playing solo, a great deal of the fun and discovery in this game requires at least one other person to fully appreciate, as I personally found after re-treading much of the game with one of my brothers in tow. Charlie Murder supports both offline and online play for up to 4 players, but unfortunately it appears that players can only join in at the very start of the game...there does not appear to be any drop-in, drop-out co-op option, making it impossible to enjoy a game with random players unless you have very good luck or very good timing. My own attempts to start or join a random game was met with a number of anti-social folks who didn't want me in their room or would join my lobby and then leave just before the game started up without saying anything. Such is the state of Xbox Live and Party Chat these days. That said, if you can manage to round up a local or online group of friends that you actually know who are willing to commit to an hour or two of play, then you will definitely be in for a good time.
The moral of the story is, don't judge a book by its cover. Like The Dishwasher before it, Ska Studios' Charlie Murder may have an art-style that may be hit-or-miss with some people, and like its name, the game leans a bit towards the macabre and gore-tastic in its approach, but this game is as solid a brawler as they come, with a refreshingly deep RPG-side that any action gamer worth his or her salt will come to love after spending some time with it. It's easily worth the 800 MS points ($10), especially if you've got friends.
Overall Score: 8.7 / 10
Saints Row IV
Comedy is hard. Quite simply, it's tricky to get right, in any medium. Even raunchy, low-brow humor can fail miserably at amusing its target audience if the line delivery isn’t just right, if the slapstick and pratfalls aren't perfectly timed, or if the audience can see what's coming well before it happens. Last but not least, to truly "get" and appreciate every nuance of that comedy when it all comes together, both the performer and the audience need to speak the same language and share the same culture. Clearly, Saints Row franchise developer Volition truly knows their audience, and with what is likely their finale to the Saints saga, Saints Row IV, they have exemplified just how well they speak the many dialects of our gamer tongue, and how to make them not only fun, but funny. If Saints Row IV were a movie, it would be the mash up of The Naked Gun (for its fearlessness in embracing the silly and the absurd), Scary Movie (for the sheer amount of game and film genres it manages to cram in), and Hot Shots (because Charlie Sheen was “winning” even back then with his smartest guy in the room attitude); and it probably would earn a surprise nomination for best Comedy at the Oscars and Golden Globes as well, but sadly, because we don't live in the future where games are fully accepted as art, Saints Row IV will have to settle for the funniest videogame ever made.(F.Y.I. If you just heard a bunch of chairs screeching and the rumbling of many footsteps headed out the nearest door, those were the fans of Saints Row leaving to pre-order their copy if they haven't already done so, because what I just said should be all the convincing they need. The rest of you, the curious, the skeptical, and perhaps even the doubters and haters, come closer and let me talk to you. Let me tell you why you need to buy -- that's right, BUY (not rent, borrow, or steal) this game.
The story of Saints Row IV picks up five years after the conclusion of Saints Row: The Third. Inexplicably, our favorite anti-hero street gang The 3rd Street Saints have risen from media moguls and unlikely Heroes of the People to most powerful crib in the world, The White House, and their leader, simply referred to as "The Boss" has been elected President of the United States. Of course, as karma would have it, one act of lunacy begets another, and just as The President and his ballin' cabinet have begun to adjust to the more menial, everyday duties of public office, an alien warlord named Ziniak and his vast army of warships literally appear out of nowhere and commence a ruthless invasion of the planet, capturing and or murdering much of the population immediately and abducting a select group of the planet's "best and brightest" (which strangely includes core members of The President's staff) for further study (read torture) aboard his mother ship via virtual simulations. And just for kicks, after some consideration he abducts The President too, for amusement more than anything else.
Thankfully, the President's trusted tech-expert, Kinzie, is quickly able to circumvent Ziniak's protocols and manages to free herself and The Boss from the simulation, allowing them to commandeer a small alien craft and vanish off the grid within the Mother Ship. Ironically elevated from "Leader of the Free World" to "Humanity's Last Hope", The Boss (with Kinzie's help) must now venture back into the simulation and exploit any crack that can be found in order to find and release his crew so that The Saints can be reunited and ultimately overthrow Ziniak. Much like in the plot of the Matrix (which the game blatantly steals from and gives the player several knowing winks while doing so), the situation seems utterly hopeless, but things get interesting very quickly when Kinzie realizes that by stressing the simulation to its breaking point she can also grant The Boss access to weapons (earthly and unearthly), vehicles of many kinds, and yes, SUPERPOWERS.
And so begins the ridiculously absurd, open-world hijinks that the Saints Row games are known for, except with a few new kinks. As with all past Saints Row games, The Boss is fully customizable; gender, ethnicity, body type, sex appeal (ahem), hair and clothing are just some of the features that can be molded by the player in the game's Inauguration Station engine, and while it is all very "Mass Effect" in nature, the level of selection and variety is so far beyond that franchise that it would make the folks at Bioware blush.
Meanwhile, Saints Row IV isn't bashful at all about flaunting its legacy, as it even offers up a multitude of outfits and costumes from the previous Saints Row games, including Saints Row: The Third's VR skin, a mo-cap suit, pimp suits, gimp suits, big-head Johnny Gat masks, and mascot outfits (read FURRIES). You can dress The Boss in drag opposite to his or her gender (right down to the stiletto heels) and give him or her up to six default voices (two of which belong to returning voice actors Troy Baker (from The Last of Us) as Default Male 1 and Laura Bailey as Default Female 1 (in a near dead-ringer for Mass Effect's Femshep). You can even alter the vocal pitch to a higher or lower octave, or best of all, you can give your Boss the ultimate default voice: Nolan North. Just the idea that Nolan North and six other actors have voiced every line that The Boss speaks (and sings) in this lengthy sandbox game is both hilarious and mind-boggling. Of course, you can just skip the initial character customization and stick with the game's default male or female avatar, but should you get bored with your character's look later on you can still go back and alter it completely once you have unlocked one of the many plastic surgery clinics within the main simulation for a nominal “cache” fee. How convenient!
If one were to best describe how Saints Row IV is played, the majority of the game is an even cross between the aforementioned Mass Effect, Saints Row (which has evolved so much over the past three games into its own entity that it no longer needs comparison with GTA anymore) and a game whose name still has a special place in the hearts of the Xbox faithful: CRACKDOWN. (F.Y.I. Another large group of readers just got up and ran after the first group to go pre-order. Crackdown fans, obviously. Really. You're still here. Very well, on with the review.)
The game's ultimate goal of getting the band back together to push back and defeat the Alien threat is VERY Mass Effect, so much so that you might initially find yourself looking for the dialogue wheel during cutscenes, but the story that you'll be experiencing will be wholly engaging for a completely different matter...they are rip-roaringly hilarious, and the cast of characters are actually much deeper than an outsider to Saints Row would expect at first glance. Just like the throwback costumes that players can outfit The Boss with, the cutscenes, dialogues and events of each mission draw back on seven years of story and character development over the past three games, so whenever The Boss is trading jokes, insults or physical blows with his friends, you know that there is a significant enough amount of baggage behind them to make sense. When necessary, the game also uses rapidly quick, expertly cut narrative montage summaries that use footage from the previous titles to double as explanations of mission objectives, simultaneously informing players as well as catching them up. And in another tip of the hat to Mass Effect, each character's optional Loyalty Missions and collectible audio drops hidden in the simulation give even further insight into each character's backstory, further endearing them to the player and adding to the drama (as ridiculous as it may seem). In fact, it's this reviewer's personal opinion that Volition may have purposely scripted all the references to the franchises' past events just to get players so intrigued that they'll want to go back and purchase the previous games and experience The Saints' tall tales for themselves -- something I’m sure that publisher Deep Silver or Volition would have no problems with.
Taking up much of the story however is the main simulation, a virtual representation of Steelport, the Saints' old stomping grounds, but in this reality the humans that inhabit it are indoctrinated, strangely carrying on their lives as normal even though evidence of every aspect of their lives being controlled by Alien rule is standing them right in the face on every billboard, poster, and name of almost every establishment. The Saint's bar hangout, The Broken Shillelagh, is one of the few remnants of the real Steelport that Ziniak has left largely untouched, perhaps as an insult to the Saints, and it only takes a little mayhem caused by The Boss and his or her crew to bring Ziniak's overpowered forces to the assistance of the police and the army. If you thought dealing with armored vans, tanks, and military helicopters in Grand Theft Auto's Liberty City was tough, add Alien troops, armored vans, tanks, AI drones, murderbots, missile-launching UFOs, shielded mini-bosses called Wardens and reinforcement-vomiting wormholes and you have Ziniak's version rapid response in Fake Steelport.
Good thing The Boss eventually gets superpowers, like super speed and super jumps that will allow him or her to quickly escape situations when they get too hot. Of course, as the player completes more missions, more powers, abilities, upgrades, weapons and allies will become available for the player to unlock as they accumulate wealth in the game's three currencies, the previously mentioned "cache", "XP" and "data clusters". Cache is obviously the “cash” of the game, and is awarded along with XP and other bonuses for completing missions, but can also be earned simply by destroying and killing things in the simulation, including of course, innocent civilians (that's how these games roll, yo). Cache can be used to buy weapons, upgrades for both you and your crew, as well as passive and active bonuses. XP naturally represents the player's level of progression in the game, and access to certain superpowers, upgrades, and abilities will not be available to the player until they reach a required XP level. Finally, data clusters are loose parts of the simulation scattered about Fake Steelport that The Boss can collect and use specifically to unlock new superpowers and superpower upgrades (which are all AWESOME, by the way) once they become available.
That's where the Crackdown part comes in, and the beginning of a potentially obsessive-compulsive disorder. With well over 1200 data clusters to collect in Steelport, they are pretty much hidden in plain sight, and as soon as you've mastered The Boss's super jump, you'll find yourself hopping across the city from rooftop to rooftop trying to collect as many glowing data clusters as you can between missions, even during missions, and oh yes, even when you aren't in the simulation, you'll be thinking about collecting them, even if you've maxed out all your currently available powers and have over 100 data clusters in stock waiting to be used. It's Crackdown's glowing orbs all over again, and if you had a serious addiction with that game, God help you here. Don't be surprised if you fail a few missions here and there because that damned data cluster on the other side of town fooled you into abandoning your objective at the worst possible time.
Then there are all the other activities to distract you even when you temporarily tire of collecting things or completing story missions. For example, Blazin' races have you racing alone and ON-FOOT across the city at super speed while against the clock and avoiding obstacles (who the hell needs a car or opponents when you're The Flash?). Mayhem missions allow you to wreak glorious havoc in particular areas of town or across town with an alien vehicle or specific weapon under a time limit). Simple hacking missions (think Bioshock) allow players to take over businesses and provide The Boss with more locations to shop and customize his or her look and vehicles). Fraud is a hilarious cache-generating activity where The Boss can intentionally use ragdoll physics to bounce his or her near- invulnerable body into oncoming vehicles, earning more lawsuit cache for the amount of time spent airborne and sustaining the back and forth momentum for as long as possible. Then there are the Professor Genki/Fight Club game shows, and more.
Certainly, it's easy to get overwhelmed by choice in Saints Row IV early on, as the game opens up almost immediately after players enter the main simulation, and the game is clearly designed to consume most of your spare time (and makes no apologies for it -- at one point a mission description in the quest log even jokes self-referentially: "We're stretching out gameplay!"). That said, one of the most refreshing aspects of Saints Row IV is how the game acknowledges that your time is important and respects it. For example, there are five floating alien towers in the simulation where the player must climb to the summit and convert to The Saints’ control in order to significantly progress in level, and their difficulty is intended to encourage players to upgrade their super jump and super sprint abilities early on in the game. However, at no point does the game dictate how the player must get to the top. Players can easily jack a low-flying enemy UFO, fly it to the top of the tower, convert it, and even collect some of the data clusters hidden in the tower on the way down simply by landing on them. Based on their position, some data clusters may only be attainable by climbing or descending the tower by hand, but if the player's abilities are not yet to the point where they can be easily collected, they can be bookmarked on the game map for a return trip later on. There are even waypoints in several spots along the climb that once accessed will allow players to warp back to should they fall all the way back down to the bottom, saving them time and frustration.
Also, because most of the game takes place within the simulation, once a vehicle, ally or group of allies has been unlocked via a mission, they can be instantly summoned to the player’s location simply by making a request by cellphone. No need to worry about getting killed while waiting for your backup to arrive. And if you request a vehicle, it will instantly materialize AROUND you so that you can instantly drive or fly away in it, or start causing mayhem in it. Much like The Boss himself (or herself), Saints Row IV just wants to get to the awesome stuff. It understands that gamers these days don't want to spend a lot of time waiting, and if they must wait, there should be something amazing for them to do while they wait.
Of course, the game still uses checkpoints, and while it will auto-save collected items and XP progression, mission progress checkpoints only remain active as long as the mission itself is still in play, so quitting the game or turning the system off in the middle of a mission means having to start the mission over when the save is reloaded. You can't expect everything to be easy, friends.
(F.Y.I. Dude, you're the only one still here. Oh, yeah, "The reason why you should buy this game." Sheesh, this freakin' guy!)
The reason why Saints Row IV needs to be bought and played is because it is simultaneously a celebration and lampooning of all that is awesome about videogames, and even celebrates a lot of what is wrong with videogames as well, but makes no apologies for it, and rightly so, because no matter what sort of stupendously lewd activities you may get up to in Fake Steelport, you are bound to have a blast doing it. This was the case with Saints Row: The Third as well, but Saints Row IV takes things to a whole new level with its superpowers and virtual reality. It's very hard to describe just how the game does this without major spoilers, so I will summarize it as best I can by clarifying that Fake Steelport is just the MAIN simulation of the game, not the only one. Throughout the course of the story as players fight to liberate their fellow Saints and defeat Ziniak, The Boss will have to navigate and survive many other simulations, and nearly every one of these simulations represents a completely different genre of gaming, and sometimes even a different generation or era. And because they are different, different rules apply, meaning that at least temporarily, The Boss is stripped of his or her superpowers and must work within the much stricter confines and rules of that game world, regardless how silly or stupid they may seem to a gamer living in the modern era (whom clearly The Boss is meant to represent).
The situations and dialogue that emerge as a result will have gamers crying tears of laughter (many mixed with nostalgia) as the writing savages games from years gone by, riddled with memorable quips like "Why would I waste two bullets shooting out the lights when I could waste just one on the guard?!?". Perhaps even more ironic is how well these "games" look and play through the retrofitting the Saints Row IV engine (there is a particular throwback to a classic Sega game that will have the jaw of anyone who's ever played it hit the floor once the initial laughter at the title screen subsides). Bottom line: You need to go and play this game before all the video reviews, YouTube vids, comment threads and other evils of the internet spoil this game for you.
(Hmm...You’re still here. Ah yes...you're right, how silly of me.)
Okay, the bad news. The game's not quite perfect. There are a few bugs of note that I experienced a few times over the course of the review. Occasionally, a waypoint or character interaction that was necessary to proceed to the final section of a mission would glitch inside a building, or simply not appear at all, forcing me to quit the game, and since mission checkpoints are only saved while the mission is in play, I had to start those missions again from the beginning. There was also one occasion where a line of subtitled text became frozen on screen and would not disappear, even after resetting, and was only resolved after I turned the system off completely and reloaded the game. Embarrassing glitches to be certain, but not game-breaking, and hopefully they are issues that a speedy post-launch patch will fix.
The only other negatives are those that can almost always be expected of a game that attempts to do as much as Saints Row IV does. Superpowers are incredibly fun, so much fun that some other parts of the game that don't take place in the main simulation pale by comparison, despite how entertaining and engaging the story may be. It's also strange to play a third-person shooter that doesn't allow you to take cover or shoot from cover, which are handy things to have in a shooter when you don't have superpowers. Finally, there are times in the game where the controls feel a bit loose, which doesn't really affect the main story, but becomes more of an issue when trying to get Gold status on the game's many re-playable activities. Thankfully, Bronze status is all that is needed for players to advance through mandatory challenges, permitting them to move on and revisit those nagging activities for a better score once they have attained new abilities, powers and upgrades to make the going easier.
In conclusion, if purchasing Saints Row IV is not on your to-do list next week, you need to correct that mistake right away. This game is a must-buy, must-play, must-experience game for any gamer just for the comedy alone (in this reviewer's honest opinion it's at a level of sophistication unprecedented in gaming), and even after that novelty is put aside there still a rock-solid, highly-addictive and entertaining open-world action adventure that is strongly representative of the genre and well worth plunking down the $60 for.
Just two last pieces of advice. Play your first run through the game with subtitles on, as there is so much amusing dialogue that takes place during action scenes that you are bound to miss 75% of it without them. And whenever a character plays Paula Abdul's late 80's hit Opposites Attact on the car radio, pull the car over and listen...you won't regret it.
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10
State of Decay
What is it about zombies that keep us coming back for more? They've plagued Hollywood for over half a century, and infested videogames for so long now that not even having a game mode named after them was enough, now they even have a recurring bi-annual role in the biggest videogame franchise of all time (i.e. Call of Duty, for the hermits among you). Yet we never seem to get sick of them, especially we videogamers. We just crave more and more games with zombies, much like zombies hunger after human brains. And if we didn’t need more proof of this obsession, consider this. In the week preceding 1) the most important Electronic Entertainment Expo to take place in nearly a decade (in which TWO NEXT GENERATION consoles from Microsoft and Sony were announced head to head); and 2) The release of the long awaited and most-eagerly-anticipated film reboot of Superman; a small, unproven studio named Undead Labs released a tiny little game about zombies exclusively on Xbox Live Arcade, and instead of getting buried in a mountain of E3/Superman hype, the game sells over 250,000 copies in its first two days, making it the second-fastest selling XBLA game behind Minecraft. That's a lot of zombie love. So, does Undead Labs' tiny little game, State of Decay, deserve it?State of Decay places you in control of a group of survivors during the first few weeks of a zombie (a.k.a. "Zed") apocalypse and challenges you with the multifaceted task of forming a functional community and keeping as many of its members alive as you can for as long as possible. Don't mistake it for a snooty, detached God-game simulation however, as the gameplay is firmly rooted in third-person and action-adventure, with surprisingly deep RPG-style progression systems, resource management elements and unforgiving persistent-world forces churning underneath its seemingly conventional surface. Players will immediately (yes, immediately) start off smashing zombie skulls as a single character, Marcus, one of two hapless accountants from the city who chose to take a two-week camping and fishing trip together in the wilderness at the worst possible time (read into it what you will). As you come across other survivors and earn their trust by completing missions and performing other acts of heroism, you'll form bonds of friendship with many other NPCs (but not all) and be able to control and switch between them, provided they are not hurt, tired, sick, missing, or currently engaged in a mission themselves. As one can imagine however, such friendships can prove incredibly fragile in the face of an apocalypse and mean next to nothing unless they are consistently backed up by deeds, which will earn the player enough Influence Points (the game's currency) needed to maintain stability and order within their Home Camp as well as gain trust and forge trade alliances with other survivor enclaves.
The absolute tension-and-frustration-filled joy of State of Decay is how it constantly overwhelms you with tasks, many of them urgent and time sensitive, all while simultaneously forcing you to manage the immediate health and resources of not only the character you are currently controlling but also those of your Home Camp, including the overall maintenance of your base as well as the relationships brewing within it, all while chaos encroaches from all around, both in the physical form of bloodthirsty zombies but also via the fear and panic that their contagion spreads among your community. How will you play? Will you be the uncompromising guardian who puts the immediate safety of his or her camp above all else, escort your supply runners on nearly every mission, build your outposts close to your camp to better form an immediate line of defense against the Zeds, and ignore calls for assistance from other camps unless absolutely necessary? Will you be the lone wolf who better serves his or her community by venturing out further and further into the Zed-infested wilds, scouting out potentially better places for your camp to relocate to and uncovering more plentiful caches of food, weapons, building materials and medicines for your runners to scavenge, but also exposing your camp to more risk due to taking on more dangerous missions and providing them with less protection? Or will you be the negotiator that reaches out to other camps and creates supply chains to better keep your resources stocked - in exchange for risking life and limb for your neighbours as well as your own people?
Chances are, you'll be forced to organically fluctuate between all three, as State of Decay will throw monkey wrenches into your plans nearly every five minutes that will make almost any decision a big risk, even when you think things have stabilized for a moment. One of your key survivors might snap from fear of a nearby zombie infestation and run away or go missing, or embark on a foolhardy hunting mission by themselves, either way compelling you to go after them or risk losing them (and the valuable weapons, food and medicines you yourself outfitted them with when you last controlled them). If they come back on their own, you can at least expect them to bear a grudge that will further erode your influence, or worse, to have sustained an injury or health status that will keep them sidelined and unplayable for significant amount of time, or perhaps even become hostile towards other members in the camp. A lone supply runner will occasionally get ambushed by zombie hordes and require immediate assistance, which may cause players to delay their immediate plans to ensure that the runner (and the much-needed supplies he or she is carrying) make it home base safely. And sometimes, passing zombie hordes or special zombies will randomly show up in the midst of a seemingly routine mission, the proverbial shit hits the fan, and people die (and when characters die, it's perma-death, so there's no coming back for them). One of the most devastating moments in the game for me was when Marcus, who I'd been using since the very beginning, fell to a surprise attack by Feral Zombie. Already low on health and stamina after clearing a house infested with Zeds, he was gruesomely ripped apart and died instantly. The consequences were grave, as it was still early in the game and I had not earned enough trust from the camp of survivors that had taken Marcus and his friends in. With one of Marcus' friends gravely ill and in need of a skilled doctor, I only had one other playable character available to me, and until I was able to complete a difficult mission to acquire the doctor's help, all the duties of maintaining the camp rested on her shoulders. I was even further devastated when in my focus to keep my one lone character alive and help return the other back to health, I ignored the calls for help from an enclave of survivors in town for too long and was abruptly informed by radio that they had been overrun by Zeds. Those survivors could have potentially joined my group and become playable characters!
Of course, there will be plenty of opportunities for players to recruit (and lose) new survivors in State of Decay, and while the majority of them appear to be palette swaps with different apparel and hairstyles, a number of them are unique characters with interesting backgrounds to uncover and stories to tell, and they are all voice-acted excellently. Expect to hear many of the same lines of dialogue during the more mundane portions of the game, but when you encounter a new character that starts telling you a tale of how they came to be in their current predicament, you'll want to stop in a safe place and listen to their story, because they are always genuinely interesting and likely won't be repeated again. A chilling score by veteran game soundtrack composer Jesper Kyd (Hitman, Assassin's Creed) also nails the oppressive atmosphere of State of Decay perfectly, and he has even injected a catchy, heart- warming, banjo-strumming theme that accompanies the more peaceful moments around home base with delicious irony. As for the visuals, they get the job done, striking an even balance between Telltale Game's comic-book art-inspired The Walking Dead and Left 4 Dead 2's no frills look, sacrificing visual fidelity for State of Decay's much larger open-world and scope.
But for all this praise, developer Undead Labs has also earned a BIG slap on the wrist, as there are a numerous amount of flaws, ranging from technical issues to game design, that stop State of Decay just short of being excellent. While quite enjoyable overall, State of Decay barely squeaks by from a quality-assurance level and requires a good deal of improvement (which Undead Labs is promising to address with an upcoming patch, but such updates cannot be taken into account for this review). One particularly annoying bug in the game causes the notification "Too Many Infestations" to appear every few minutes and penalizes the player -5 Influence points each time even though there are no house infestations anywhere in the area, which in turn causes members of your camp to run away and go missing with increasing frequency. While not rendering the game unplayable, it comes pretty close, as it will often leave players shorthanded unless they immediately venture out to find their missing comrades, and more often than not as soon as you’ve returned to your homestead another one or two will have disappeared. And thanks to the game’s simulated offline persistence, you may even load up your last save the following day to learn that yet another one of your comrades has gone off the reservation or is already dead. A second common bug stops NPCs that are on watchtower duty from properly standing watch and shooting invading zombies with a rifle once the watchtower has been upgraded, making your base more vulnerable to passing zombies and hordes. NPCs and Zeds clipping through walls, rugsacks of fallen allies glitching through large objects in the environment and thus becoming impossible to you to pick up and occasional screen tears and glitches round out the list. It’s unfathomable how bugs like these managed to slip by Undead Labs’ QA, and while the game is still unmistakably fun even when taking them into account, the extra amount of time one will have to spend working around the “Too Many Infestations” bug alone is something that many gamers will find unacceptable. The game needs to be patched, and fast.
Another couple of obstacles to gameplay in State of Decay are the game's U.I. tutorials and the Resource Management menu (a.k.a. "The Journal", accessed by pressing UP on the D-pad). As mentioned earlier in the review, State of Decay throws you right into the combat mix after an optional "How to Play" summary right before the game begins, and then parses out a few tips as to how to fight and avoid the Zeds as you encounter them for the first time, but there is actually an entire move list and weapon specialization system that gradually becomes crucial in keeping characters alive once the player starts to encounter zombie hordes and special zombies (such as Ferals and Big Bastards), and even at 10+ hours into the game not a single new move was introduced or explained. I myself only learned of these moves after being tipped off to the above online FAQ by my brother, who began playing the game at same time as me. It's understandable that Undead Labs may have been going for a "roguelike", Dark Souls-sort of mischievousness by expecting the player to "just figure things out" on their own, but even Dark Souls had the kindness to teach players all the key combat actions during the tutorial, and provided instructions on how to perform more complex actions via the in-game menu. In State of Decay, knowing the game’s more advanced actions or being able to learn them quickly is the difference between life and perma-death. As the game industry as a whole moves closer and closer towards a future of only-digital downloads and in-game only manuals, clear and complete instructions as to how to properly play a game will become a make-or-break feature. But for now, State of Decay gets the benefit of the doubt, largely thanks to the “online meta-gaminess” that is currently accepted thanks to games like Dark Souls, not because the game has fully earned it (though to be fair, the game gives players constant reminders at the start menu screen and during its optional tutorial to join its online community, and if you have the online access to purchase and download the game from XBLA, then you also probably have the means to go online and read a FAQ, just like with Dark Souls).
A more concrete problem is that the game's resource management menu is clunky, visually confusing, and is even so intrusive that it consumes entire right side of the screen, often covering up important information updates that appear in the top right corner, so players will find themselves constantly jumping out of the journal in response to audio cues just to make sure they don’t miss important updates. An additional, related annoyance is that while weapons can be reloaded with spare ammo while in aim mode, they cannot be switched on the fly when they run out of bullets, nor can a broken melee weapon be swapped with a different one if the character happens to be carrying a second. Weapons can only be equipped via the Journal, which does not pause or slow down the action when open, so players must be able nimble-fingered and highly observant when accessing weapons or managing inventory in battle, or otherwise ensure that they are well clear of danger before opening the menu. Case in point, one very tense siege mission early in the game with the Wilkerson Brothers (tenuous allies of my Home Camp), went disastrously wrong when in the middle of battle I hurriedly attempted to offload my empty weapons in their storage locker and replace them with better ones more appropriate for the task at hand. It turned out that in my haste I hadn't noticed that my Influence level with the Wilkerson's was much lower than with my Home Camp, which meant that everything in the locker cost more Influence points to buy or buy back, leaving me broke and gun-less to face a gruesome death alongside the Wilkersons at the hands of a Zombie horde -- or at least, it would have had I not turned the console off and restarted from the last checkpoint.
Finally, on a more aesthetic level, poor logic elements in State of Decay's game design keep reminding the player that he or she is playing a game, thus spoiling the otherwise immersive atmosphere that the game creates so well. For example, runners that you send to scavenge a building miles away from home will always choose to go alone and on foot, even if there are three cars parked right outside your base and another ally is available to assist them. Rescuees will sometimes run off for no reason and cause a rescue mission to fail simply because you decided to search the house they were hiding in for resources rather than taking them straight home, yet during another rescue mission they’ll thank you for saving them and then run off on their own without need for an escort, and the mission will be a success. Then there’s the never explained reason as to why you can't swap or share weapons, ammo or items with a trusted ally that’s standing right next to you (à la Resident Evil 5), or share the load of a scavenge with the same person should you come across a cache of much needed items while on a different mission…why so much restriction in a game that places a high priority on simulation and resource management? And sometimes it's simply because State of Decay is a game, a game in which players can be swarmed and bitten by zombies several times or watch the same happen to their allies for several minutes before stepping in to rescue them, yet neither character will get infected unless it is a pre-determined element of the game's story. Of course, a one-bite, one-perma-death open-world game would probably be much more frustrating, and a game that pulls players in so many directions at once and forces them to prioritize so often needs to be forgiving, but that doesn't change the fact that State of Decay does very little to hide its "gaminess", a conceit that occasionally saps the tension out of some of its randomly generated encounters, and a great deal of realism out of its simulation aspects.
In conclusion, State of Decay is a refreshingly enjoyable and surprisingly deep post-apocalyptic romp that delivers strongly on the survivalist-horror RPG experience that it is trying to achieve, but is held back by a number of near- unforgivable bugs, U.I. and gameplay issues. It’s so much fun that you’ll find yourself wishing you could overlook the game’s problems, but much like a zombie infestation, they eventually come together to contaminate the entire experience, and that’s why State of Decay merits only a 7.0 in its current form. Without these issues, the game easily could have been an 8.0 or better. Players who are eager to pick this game up are best advised to wait until the “Title Update 1” patch has been released.
Suggestions: 1) Squash those bugs, bugs, bugs! A longer QA process would have resulted in a far more polished and playable game.
2)Allow players to swap and share items with members of their own camp when they are on a mission together, or at least let them carry a rucksack in addition to yours so that you can save time and don't have to call in yet another runner from your Home Camp.
3) Provide a complete, in-game FAQ in the next or subsequent patch.
(Please Note: This review is based on the original version of the game that was made available for purchase on Xbox Live Arcade on June 5th, 2013.)
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Metro: Last Light
Metro 2033 was one of the few games of 2010 that bravely bucked the FPS conventions of the day. Developed by Ukrainian developer 4A Games, the game itself was based on a series of books by Dmitry Glukhovsky, and featured a dark and dreary, post-apocalyptic setting that made even the first Gears of War game look like Disneyland. It didn’t include multiplayer or co-op, and it didn’t even feature a heads-up-display, opting instead to fully immerse the players in the story while challenging both their senses and their ability to multitask while under fire. The game was met with wide critical acclaim upon release and while flawed, was lauded for its strong story and compelling atmosphere. Now in 2013, having survived the apocalyptic fall of THQ and now in the hands of publisher Deep Silver, 4A Games have finally emerged once again from the development underground with Metro 2033’s long-awaited sequel; Metro: Last Light. How does their latest offering stand up in the harsh light of day?Metro: Last Light's story seemingly picks up only months after the conclusion of Metro 2033, which saw the game's protagonist, Artyom, annihilate an entire race of humanoid surface-dwelling mutants, the Dark Ones, in a lethal missile strike. In the end, it was a hollow victory, as the surface of Moscow still remains hopelessly irradiated and infested with other dangerous mutant creatures, while what is left of Russia's humanity survives underground in the habitable areas of the Metro subway system, fighting amongst one another for resources. For his recent "heroic" actions culminating with the strike against the Dark Ones, Artyom has been promoted from his previous role as a lowly foot soldier to a newly-minted member of The Order, the military faction which controls Polis (one of the "station cities" of the Metro), as well as the recently discovered, top-secret military installation D6, which is said to hold a doomsday weapon of significant power. Naturally, other rival factions, such as the communist Reds and the Nazis want this weapon, as well as control of the entire Metro for themselves, and thus a civil war is brewing that threatens to wipe out every living human soul. Meanwhile, The Order has discovered that a lone Dark One has been spotted on the surface, and Artyom, whom for some reason shares a psychic connection to the Dark Ones, may be the key to understanding their motives, weaponizing them, or simply eliminating them once and for all. As a result, Artyom is drawn back into the centre of conflict once again as he is sent out to destroy the Dark One, but haunted by the nightmares of the genocide he caused, will he be able to do what is necessary when the time comes, and more importantly, are the Dark Ones truly enemies of The Order and humanity?
The controls of Metro: Last Light will be largely familiar to just about anyone who plays modern first-person shooters, as they are almost copied directly out of the Call of Duty playbook, right down to clicking the Left Stick (LS) to sprint and using the Left Trigger (LT) to aim down one's iron sights for most weapons. Just like in Metro 2033 however, the traditional heads-up-display has all but been completely eliminated, requiring players to pay closer attention to visual and audio cues in order to ascertain the status of their weapons, equipment and health. In the case of weapons, each firearm has visually crafted to have its own distinct, makeshift look so that observant players can tell which weapon they are holding just by looking at its shape (although the various attachments that can be purchased and affixed to them potentially makes this harder). Likewise, the weapon chambers are almost always exposed and/or accompanied by a built-in, old-school digital counter, so players can always tell when they are down to their last few rounds. Reloading is performed by the X button while pressing Y quickly cycles between the three weapons Atryom can carry. A long Y press will bring up the weapons menu, where players can directly select the weapon they want to use, as well as switch between standard “dirty” ammo and military grade ammo, the latter being more powerful (capable of even setting some mutant creatures ablaze) but also of such high value in the world of Metro that it serves as the game's currency, and is necessary for just about every transaction in the game, from purchasing upgrades and munitions at weapon shops to paying for a strong drink or a lap dance in a Venice Station brothel. So, while frustrating, it is probably for the best that guns do not automatically switch over to high-grade ammo when their dirty ammo has depleted - the player must manually switch over to military grade ammo and vice-versa via the weapons menu, forcing a lengthy reload action as Artyom swaps out one type of ammo for another. The process is extremely satisfying to watch and listen to when there are no enemies around, as Artyom clicks and slaps the cartridges of ammo in and out to loud effect with the deftness of an experienced soldier, but this can be a nightmare when in the heat of battle, particularly when facing down a boss creature. Also adding to the tension is that entering the weapons menu slows time down temporarily but does not freeze it, so players must still make their selections quickly if they do not wish to take on excessive damage.
Metro: Last Light’s trademark emphasis on player immersion is further enforced with the equipment menu (accessed via the LB button), which does not pause action at all. It is here where Artyom can equip his gas mask (a must for surviving the poisoned air when traveling on the surface world of Moscow) and change filters when they run out; turn his flashlight on and off or recharge it and other equipment with a portable hydraulic charger that must be manually pumped by hand; inject himself with a stim pack for immediate health regeneration in tight spots; or when carrying an sniper rifle, crank up the hydraulic pump of the rifle to increase the velocity and lethality of his headshots. In particular, these deliberate and often time- consuming pump-actions force the player to use caution, good judgment and strategy as to how and when to perform them, and it is here where Metro: Last Light clearly favors the stealthier player who conserves his ammo, always keeps her flashlight adequately charged, and sneaks about via the shadows in near-silence in order to pick off enemies up close with her combat knife or from afar with a muffled sniper rifle. Loud, careless run-and-gunners on the other hand will face swarms of enemies that converge on their position, forcing frequent scavenging for additional ammo from bodies while under fire and a heavy reliance on stim packs, as time for health regeneration in firefights is scarce.
Metro 2033 was a beautifully atmospheric game for 2010 and Metro: Last Light proves to be no different in 2013, sporting 4A game's improved, in-house game engine. The lighting effects and character detail are very impressive on the Xbox 360, and while they are likely much more jaw- dropping on the PC, players experiencing the game on console will hardly be left wanting. It’s about as pretty as a dark, post-apocalyptic game can get on current gen-consoles. The audio is just as impressive if not more so, and is actually at its best when facing the game's various mutant creatures. I can personally attest to this after surviving a harrowing run through a catacomb filled with giant spider beasts that could only be killed after shining my flashlight on them for a brief period of time to burn-off their hard exterior shell, Alan Wake-style. The sounds of these ravenous, multi-legged creatures screeching and skittering about in the walls and along the ceilings, underpinned by a chilling score by returning Metro composer Alexey Omelchuk had me frantically pumping up the battery of my flashlight whenever there was a free moment, just so I could avoid having to fend for myself in complete darkness for even a second.
While it is possible to play the game completely in Russian with English subtitles, the English-language voice cast of Metro: Last Light does an excellent job of embodying the characters, driving home the dark tone of the game and giving dramatic weight to the many stories that NPCs share with Artyom about their personal losses as well as the state of depravity and chaos that humanity as a whole has fallen into since nuclear war forced them underground. For example, the vulnerability of women and the ever-present threat of rape in this new society is a subject that comes up often in overheard conversations, and the game does not shy away from the reality in gameplay either, as there is at least one opportunity in the game if not more where the player can veer off his or her path and intervene in an otherwise imminent assault against a female refugee, or ignore the distant cries for help and walk on by. While other recent games (such as Far Cry 3) have presented players the same choice, the implied brutality in a near- lawless, post-World War III Russia that has seen the return of militant Nazism and Communism makes the prospect all the more disturbing. Nonetheless, players keen on experiencing a great story along with their shooters will relish and embrace these difficult moments.
Regretfully, much like its prequel Metro 2033, Metro: Last Light's stubborn insistence on an almost non-existent HUD occasionally throws the baby out with the bathwater, and when combined with a number of odd game design decisions and somewhat faulty A.I., these problems serve to confound, disappoint and frustrate players, often taking them out of the experience when they should be the most engaged and/or having the most fun. For example, early on in the game I found myself stuck and going around in circles in a boiler room level for over 20 minutes, long after I had silently dispatched every enemy soldier, scavenged every bit of ammo and flipped the necessary switch in order to exit the level, simply because there was no clear visual or audio cue to indicate where I was supposed to go next. Admittedly, most other games have a heavy-handed way of avoiding this problem at the sacrifice of immersion, such as briefly seizing control of the camera to direct the player's attention towards a key point of interest or bringing up an optional "look" cue that achieves the same effect at the press of a button (e.g. Gears of War), so it's understandable that 4A Games felt this would have cramped the game's HUD-less style. However, a solution that could have prevented this issue from happening without breaking the immersion would have been to give Artyom a voice during gameplay. It's puzzling why 4A chose to attempt to channel Half-Life's Gordon Freeman and make Artyom silent during the game, given that he narrates the story both in the beginning of the game as well as the diary monologues between cutscenes. Not only does it make interactions with other characters throughout the game awkward (NPCs will speak directly to Artyom and then carry on as if he has nodded, spoken and or agreed with them even though there's no indication to the player that any such action has taken place), but it also begs the question: How hard would it have been to have Artyom say in his thick Russian accent, "Sounds like the ventilation fan just stopped, I'd better check it out"?
This same problem joined forces with other issues in a later mission to convince me that outings on the surface, which require a gasmask and an adequate supply of filters to survive, are decidedly less enjoyable than those within the underground confines of the Metro. The mission, which required Atryom to make his way across the surface of Moscow to a church to meet with fellow members of The Order, presented several problems due to the game's poor lack of direction. First, in order to get to side of town where the church was located, I first had to locate fuel to power a winch to pull a ferry raft to my side of the river, and the most likely locations suggested to me by my superior officer Miller (before he abandoned me on the surface) was a crashed plane or a tanker truck. However, I was not told in what direction to head to find the winch, nor could I clearly tell which way I should head to find the plane wreck or the tanker, as their locations were obscured by other building debris. Red flags, apparently planted by other members of the Order seemed to indicate general paths to take, but unfortunately I was too busy fending off amphibious and airborne mutants with limited ammo to be certain which way they were leading me, so in the end I found myself stumbling upon the supplies and locations I needed to find just by random coincidence as I fought for my life. Then, thanks to all the time I wasted running around aimlessly and falling into deep swamp puddles, I ran low on filters. Then it started getting dark, and that's when I realized that not only had I still not found the church, I didn't even know what the church looked like. Before I knew it, I was once again running around in a panic, juggling gun combat with charging my flashlight and IR goggles as well as monitoring my last two remaining filters at the same time, only to arrive at the end of the level to face a huge boss with only 60 seconds of air left and a random smattering of dirty ammo, a handful of military grade bullets for my SMG, three claymore mines and one lone incendiary grenade. To say I died fast and often would be an understatement, and a couple of those times even saw me defeat the boss by the skin of my teeth, only to die immediately afterward from suffocation. To think how much time, ammunition and filters I might have saved if Artyom had spoken up during that mission and said "That looks like the tail of a plane over there behind that building" or "That looks like the round spires of the church in the distance, I'm getting close”.
Finally, while passable in straight-up firefights, the enemy human A.I. in Metro Last Light on "Normal" difficulty completely falls on its face in aspects of stealth despite the fact that the game's emphasis on realistic light and shadow, stealth kills and ammo conservation would suggest that a much more complex stealth mechanic lies underneath. Instead, Metro: Last Light commits stealth game "faux pas" in the dozens, making one wonder how such atrocities can still exist in an industry where franchises like Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell set the gold standard over a console generation ago. For example, Artyom is able to loot bodies, but is inexplicably unable to drag them to a less conspicuous place, forcing players to kill enemies in shadow and carelessly leave them there. Stranger still, enemies will walk right next to the the poorly-concealed body and not notice it, even though the player can still clearly see the body from a greater distance away (making one wonder if they would even react if the body were left in plain sight). If an enemy glimpses Artyom for a moment, he will investigate, but will hardly be troubled by a light being shot out above his head with a silenced bullet, or consider a throwing knife clattering against the wall only inches from his head as more than "strange". Shutting down an entire fuse box will prompt a lone soldier to investigate, but the rest of the soldiers in the room will continue on as nothing has happened, and there is no way to audibly distract a soldier away from a point of interest other than exposing one's self visibly (because Artyom has apparently never heard of whistling, and guards don't consider throwing knives hitting objects worth investigating). Players can pass through a room full of soldiers without killing a single enemy, then engage in a full blown firefight in the next room connected to the first by an open door, and the soldiers in the other room won't come running, even if an alarm was set off, and so on. It's truly a shame that for all of 4A Games' insistence on immersing the player in the world of Metro: Last Light, that such a significant portion of the game where such immersion could and should have been at its best shows the most cracks -- the fun of stealth only holds up as long as the player believes that he or she is "outwitting" the A.I., but once it becomes clear that the A.I. is literally blind to many of the player's actions, much of the challenge and enjoyment quickly seeps out of the experience. Of course, there is a possibility that playing the game on "Hardcore" or the pre-order-exclusive "Ranger" difficulty DLC might unlock improved A.I., but this review is based on the experience that the majority of players will have when first playing the game.
Overall, Metro: Last Light sticks to the formula that Metro 2033 was built on, offering a mature, engaging narrative and a solid shooter experience that fans of the previous game as well as those who appreciate unique single-player first- person adventures such as Half Life, Condemned and Bioshock are bound to enjoy, despite the occasional lack of proper guidance. However, if you are looking for an A.I. that lives up to the game’s visuals and promises of competent stealth gameplay, enjoying Metro Last: Light will require a significant lowering of expectations. That aside, it is still an experience not to be missed.
Overall Score: 7.9 / 10
Injustice: Gods Among Us
What I'm about to say is probably not going to surprise you. Injustice: Gods Among Us is easily the best fighting game based on the DC Universe in existence. Now, given that the actual number of fighting games starring DC characters that are actually considered to be good can probably be counted on one hand, the above comment may seem like shallow praise, but trust me, it isn't. Much like its spiritual predecessor, Mortal Kombat (9), Injustice not only raises the bar once again for narrative in fighting games, but it also shatters and rebuilds the concept of what a superhero- based fighting game should be while simultaneously nailing the essence of what makes the DC Universe and its characters so compelling. To break so much ground in any medium is no small feat, but in the realm of videogames, it’s a monumental accomplishment. If it were not for a few nagging issues, Injustice would be superhero fisticuff perfection.Injustice's story focuses on the efforts of our world's Justice League to thwart the overreaching tyranny of a dictator Superman and his cadre of like-minded superheroes and super-villains from another dimension who have all but subjugated humanity in their universe, and for reasons later revealed in the plot, plan to invade and take over our own as well. Just as NetherRealms did with Mortal Kombat, Injustice’s campaign does away with the multiple storyline, ladder-style progression of typical fighting games, instead opting to feature a single narrative broken up into 12 chapters, each one featuring a different superhero or super- villain who plays a key role in the plot, and thus whom the player must gain basic mastery of and win battles with in order to progress the story to its dramatic conclusion. On the downside, this means that first-time players will be forced to switch to a new character just as they have become accustomed to another and start from scratch with each new chapter, but the overall narrative and gameplay benefits far outweigh this inconvenience. Consequently, the cutscenes that bookend each fight not only keep the story moving forward, but also provide dramatic context as to why certain fights are happening (e.g. why would allies such as Green Lantern and The Flash ever come to blows) and provide some semblance of logic when required (e.g. how in the world could Green Arrow survive being knocked about by Solomon Grundy, much less defeat him?). Even dialogue flows more seamlessly throughout the story campaign as a result, as snappy one-liners, boasts and threats made by characters before a fight pay off at the conclusion with a follow-up line or joke by the winner, making each fight seem more like a riveting conversation. That said, NetherRealms also wants you to pay attention to the hard work they’ve put into their story cutscenes as well, so they’ve occasionally infused a few of them with interesting QTE-style mini-games to keep players engaged. While not particularly difficult, success or failure in these sections will reward the player with an advantage or penalize them with a handicap in the next fight. It’s a clever way of allowing the player to feel more involved in some of the action outside of the one-on- one fights themselves while also indirectly adding variation to the core experience.
When Superman and Lex Luthor clash in Metropolis or Batman and The Joker throw down on the streets of Gotham, there’s no referee, and developer NetherRealms has adapted Mortal Kombat’s fight system to reflect this reality of the Injustice Universe. Fight rounds have been completely eliminated, replaced with a two-layer health bar system. Depleting the first layer of an opponent's health bar results in the opponent collapsing temporarily while the assailant pauses to gloat or taunt him or her, forcing a momentary "break" in the action. Likewise, if the downed player manages to deplete the other player's health bar, another break ensues as the roles are reversed. There is no fade to black or resetting of character position during these breaks, so fights in Injustice move at a much quicker pace than in most other 2.5D fighters. Nonetheless, a couple of gameplay staples from Street Fighter have found their way into the game as the “Super Meter” and the “Meter Burn”. Just as it sounds, when filled, the Super Meter allows players to deal out flashy, devastating attacks intended to finish their opponent (by pressing LT + RT together), while the Meter Burn (special move + RT) is a modifier that allows players to consume part of their Super Meter to increase the attack power, duration or end state of certain special attacks. These are essentially the Injustice equivalents of Street Fighter’s Ultras and Supers, and they work more or less work the same, unfortunately with some unfortunate control caveats, which I’ll get to later.
The Wager/Clash, a new system intended to make fights more epic and unpredictable in nature, occurs when a player whose health has been reduced to the second layer and is on the receiving end of a combo presses Forward + RT, interrupting the combo with a shockwave that separates the players and then initiates the wager. Both players are then prompted to secretly wager single, multiple or all sections of their Super Meter against each other by pressing a corresponding face button. The characters then rush towards each other in a super-charged rage and collide in an even larger explosion from which the highest bidder emerges victorious and the loser is rewarded with an embarrassing case of road rash as he or she skids and tumbles backwards across the pavement. The clashes in particular are fun to watch, as the exchange of insults between the characters right before the collision is different for every possible match-up and is often The system can only be used once per player per match and is somewhat flawed (more on that in a bit), but it’s still an entertaining way to shake things up a bit when the fight is in its final minutes.
Each character in Injustice has a unique, rechargeable ability that they can use multiple times during a match to give him or her a potential edge in battle simply by pressing the B button. For example, Batman's ability summons three drone batarangs that he can spin around his body and damage nearby opponents, or send them flying at enemies in a swarm that explodes on contact. For Lex Luthor, his ability creates an energy field that increases his power suit's resilience and damage output. For Wonder Woman, her ability switches her stance from flight and lasso-based attacks to an Amazonian walking stance with sword and shield, and so on. These abilities, in addition to each character's unique moves, combos, specials and aforementioned Super Attacks further distinguish each DC character from one another and encourage players to experiment with each and every one of them.
Finally, the most lethal tools available to every character in the game are the stages themselves. Each of Injustice’s environments are filled with interactive objects that players can use as instant weapons against their opponents by pressing RB when close to them. The way in which certain characters use these objects will differ however, depending on that character's style. For example, highly agile characters such as Nightwing can use large background objects such as the Bat Signal to leap out of and back into the foreground in order to get behind his opponent. Meanwhile, brawny characters such as Superman, Lex Luthor or Black Adam will rip the Bat Signal from its foundations and hurl it down at ground-based enemies. Green Lantern will do the same with a flying car, while Catwoman will quickly light the fuselage of the same vehicle and cause it to explode with an area of effect radius. Some interactables can only be used once by some characters (such as Superman and the Bat Signal) while others can be reused or are replaced frequently during the match, such as a garbage dumpster that can be tossed or kicked back and forth along the ground. And when you get tired of your immediate surroundings, connecting a heavy attack with an opponent near the edge of most stages will knock him or her right out of the arena and into a “level transition” that will treat him or her to a violent guided tour of the location and then spit them out in a different area to continue the fight. These sequences are incredible and must be seen to be believed.
From an audio and visual standpoint, Injustice has quality and attention to detail stamped all over it. Every super attack, every interactable object, every level transition and destructible environment is built to showcase and immerse the player in NetherRealm's over-the-top take on the DC universe, and the effect is pulled off brilliantly -- and surprisingly -- without having to push the boundaries of gratuitous violence to the level of the Mortal Kombat games. DC fans will still have to work a bit harder than usual to suspend their disbelief as they witness their favorite DC heroes and villains being viciously stabbed by knives and swords, impaled on tridents and racks of ice spikes, crushed like a walnut between asteroids, riddled with bullets or arrows, flattened by the hand of a god, mangled by the jaws of a great white, and suffering all sorts of wounds and accidents that even Superman himself should have no right to survive, much less get up from and keep on fighting only seconds later. Particularly nasty battles will occasionally leave the victor with large chunks of flesh missing from their limbs and torso, an obvious wink to Mortal Kombat fans, but a bit off-putting to DC fans who prefer their heroes to look a little more…invincible. However, dealing out the same damage to your opponents is just as deliciously satisfying as it is disturbing and humiliating on the receiving end, and right around the 30th time you’ve run the Joker over with the Batmobile you’ll learn to accept that you’re playing a game starring imaginary super-beings. Don’t worry, they can take it.
There are 15 arenas in Injustice, and almost all of them feature a second level that can be reached via the game’s destructively cinematic level transitions (at the brutal expense of you or your opponent). But even when you are pounding the tar out of one another in just one stage, witnessing the amount of destruction your battles wreak on the environment is simply jaw-dropping. Aside from interactive objects that you can destroy, the impact of your strikes can cause the walls of buildings to crumble and expose their metal girders underneath, dislodge the Daily Planet globe from its titular office building and send it crashing atop the rooftops towards you, topple enormous statues and monuments, and even black out an entire city for several seconds. Without a doubt, each stage is just as much a character in the game as the superheroes and villains fighting within them. Speaking of characters, NetherRealm’s visual take on DC’s finest and most villainous isn’t too shabby either. Most of their unique character designs are hits, with Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Sinestro and Lex Luthor looking like they have leapt right out of the comic books and into the game sporting snazzy new duds. Some on the other hand are puzzling misses, with Superman and Wonder Woman resembling poseable action figures more than people and a skinny-necked Batman whose costumes seem to draw more inspiration from Mortal Kombat and the rabbit from Donnie Darko than the myriad of awesome batsuits found in Batman: Arkham City. Thankfully, there’s some pretty good-looking DLC incoming.
Audio is where Injustice absolutely hits it out of the park. Every punch, kick, slash, bone crack, grunt, scream and explosion resonates with satisfying and glorious detail when enjoyed in surround sound -- so much so that you'll find yourself wanting to successfully execute each character's Specials, Super Attacks and crazy Level Transitions over and over so that your ears can be massaged repeatedly by the aural carnage. And If the sound of Superman breaking the sound barrier as he punches an opponent through the atmosphere doesn't sell you on the epic magnitude of this DC Universe experience, the superb voice talents behind this game absolutely will, as many of them are veteran voice actors that have portrayed the same characters in other DC media, such as the animated features. These talents notably include the iconic Kevin Conroy (the signature voice of Batman for over 20 years), the chameleon-tongued Phil Lamarr (Aquaman), as well as Superman and Wonder Woman vets George Newbern and Susan Eisenberg (who have voiced the Man of Steel and the Amazon princess respectively in various DC features since the original Justice League cartoons of over a decade ago). Every voice in the game hits its mark dead on, making one’s immersion in the Injustice fiction complete.
As mentioned at the beginning of this review however, there are some small but not insignificant problems that keep Injustice from achieving true greatness. The first, while not a complete deal-breaker, are the control options. It's been known for years that the default Xbox 360 controller has never been the best option for fighting games, and NetherRealms has been thoughtful in addressing the problem by allowing players to create their own custom setups (helpful for those who prefer to use one of the many fightstick options available out there instead of the stock controller) and they’ve even provided an "alternate" (a.k.a. Street Fighter-style) control option that makes certain moves easier to perform for players from the Ken/Ryu school of martial arts. Unfortunately, the concessions didn't go far enough, as there are elements of Injustice's controls that are still rigid and unforgiving. One example is the execution of each character's Super Move, which can only be performed by pressing LT and RT together, regardless of where those buttons are on the stick or what commands have been assigned to them. This means that if you are using a joystick or fightpad, this crucial part of your arsenal is still tailored to the default controller setup, which depending on the control method in use may require the players using an alternate control scheme to perform awkward and uncomfortable finger-gymnastics to pull off Supers in the heat of battle. Two-button grapples and Meter Burns (select special moves + RT) are similarly difficult to execute reliably for the similar reasons. Meanwhile, two buttons in the control scheme must always be assigned to the commands "Flip Stance" (a move so seemingly pointless that it was left out of the game's tutorial) and grapple (which is also achieved by pressing the weak and strong attack buttons together), making its mandatory inclusion in the button layout utterly redundant. Freeing up those buttons so that they could be reprogrammed for shortcuts along with allowing players to reassign the Supers to whatever combination of two buttons they like would have gone a long way to make the game more attractive to serious fighting fans with dedicated sticks and pads (including those who bought the Injustice-branded Fightstick). As they are, Injustice's controls are hardly a deal-breaker, but hardcore fighting fans might find themselves frustrated by the amount of compromises they'll have to make to play with their peripheral of choice.
The second issue is the above discussed Wager system, which while flashy and fun to watch, could not be more inappropriately named, as hardly any element of chance or gambling plays into the system whatsoever. Victory in a clash always goes to the player who wagers a larger amount of their Super Meter, so unless both players have the same amount of Meter, it is always obvious who will come out on the losing end even if you don't know how much your opponent is wagering, because most people will bet it all. Even stranger is that the only player positively or negatively affected by the wager is the player who instigates it (i.e. the one who is already on the receiving end of a combo and interrupts it) -- the other player loses no health from the clash, only the amount of Meter that they wagered, while the instigator either gains or loses a percentage of health based on the difference between wagers in addition to amount of Meter wagered. So unless the player who initiates the wager has more Meter than their opponent, instigating a wager in the first place is almost a pointless exercise. Such a system would be far more interesting if the outcome were completely random and that both characters stood to lose something, which would make entering wager mode a riskier yet far more tense and exciting proposition.
Finally, there's the online. At the time of this writing, Injustice's online netcode suffers from noticeable button input lag, so while the game visually appears to run smoothly over a fast, wired internet connection, the inability to perform moves with the precise timing that the game requires means that the game is hardly playable online unless you can re-wire your brain for the slower response of online play. Hopefully future patches will resolve this issue, but for the time being, multiplayer in Injustice is best enjoyed with friends sitting next to you on the couch.
Despite these annoyances, Injustice: Gods Among Us still manages to deliver a solid, enjoyable fighting game experience, not to mention one of the most entertaining DC Universe adventures outside of the Batman: Arkham games that you can experience on a console. If you're a fan of DC comics in general and have an appreciation for fighting games, then Injustice is definitely for you.
Suggestions: - Offer more advanced control customization options (e.g. shortcuts, macros)
- Outcome of Wager/Clashes are too predictable - make them more random
- Improve the online netcode
- Bring the Injustice iOS app to Android/Windows
Phone/Blackberry Z10 devices so we can unlock goodies in the
console version as well! Not everyone owns an iPhone!
Overall Score: 8.6 / 10
Black Knight Sword
Imagine if it were physically possible, that Ghouls n' Ghosts, the cartoon cut-outs from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, and Grasshopper Manufacture boss Goichi Suda (Suda 51) made a baby. What you get is a dark and quirky platformer called Black Knight Sword. In an ironic twist, players take on the role of the titular Black Knight who must put an end to the tyrannical reign of the Evil Princess. Aided by his trusted sword and the aptly named "Sword Spirit" that inhabits it, the Black Knight must trudge across the Princess' realm of twisted faery tales to ultimately reach and destroy her, one bloody double-jump slash at a time. Er, yes, this game is an action-platformer. Um, and yes, Suda 51. You heard that correctly.In presentation, BKS takes the famous Shakespeare phrase "All the world's a stage" quite literally, representing the Black Knight, the domains of the Evil Princess and all her minions as moving backgrounds on a miniature stage. Just like Japanese kamishibai theatre (or if you will, the aforementioned Monty Python skits), all the characters and backgrounds animate like intricate paper puppets, while stage curtains frame the action at all times. Mixing modern, Victorian, and medieval scenery with the stuff of twisted fairy tales (including a throaty yet unseen and sorely underused narrator), the atmosphere of BKS is truly refreshing and beckons the more open minded-player to give the game an honest try. However, anyone who has enjoyed Suda 51's deeper, bigger-production (i.e. non-XBLA) titles in the past such as No More Heroes, Killer 7 and Shadows of the Damned, will find the theme of the game to be largely cosmetic, quickly giving way to relatively uninspired gameplay underneath.
To put it simply, BKS is meant to be intentionally hard, even on normal difficulty, and the Black Knight himself is given very little with which to combat the Evil Princess' forces. He begins the level with two paltry lives, he can sword-slash, double-jump, use the Sword-Spirit to send out a mid-range projectile called the Black Hellbore and cast a limited number of "Shinobi-style" magics that can cause damage to enemies within a certain range. He can also evade backwards by crouching and pressing the jump button, but this will often get you into more trouble than out of it as it's too easy to perform by accident in a moment of panic (e.g. a boss fight or a scrolling platforming sequence where a missed jump results in instant death).
Unfortunately, the game is incredibly poor at teaching you how to properly use these skills. Players will have to figure much of what they can and cannot do as well as how a particular power-up and gameplay device will aid them largely on their own. This wouldn't be such a problem if the platforming and combat in the game was tight enough that it felt as though the player was always in full control, but as it is, jumps feel clumsy, downward stabs (this game's version of the Mario head-stomp) are difficult to time with the game's erratically moving enemies, and boss fights are filled with so many cheap hits you'll be reminded of your Ninja Gaiden days (oh no, not the Xbox Ninja Gaiden, the original Ninja Gaiden on NES. Yes, THOSE days).
Just a tip, make sure to take advantage of the games manual save system (there are no auto-saves, only temporary checkpoint saves) or you can expect to do a lot of retreading of levels from the beginning in addition to getting your teeth kicked in repeatedly by the level boss and mini-bosses, the latter of which are usually the same cheap bosses you lost so much precious health and lives to on the first time round. Ooh! So much fun...NOT. There's even a "faux" returning boss fight early on that's actually a trap. As a gamer who hates spoilers, I won't spoil the when for you, but just don't fall for it, as you're likely to greet the realization less as a clever surprise and more as a dirty trick.
During the game you can unlock stores at which you can use your collected hearts (the game's currency, gained from killing enemies) to purchase temporary power-ups to give you a fighting chance, but resetting a level will remove all the abilities and powers you gained, as well as reset your hearts to zero, so reloading a save is the best way to retain most of your progress. To be fair, the game warns you of this early on, but most players will likely not heed the warning until the second level, which is twice as long and hard as the first; chews them up and spits them out a number of times.
It should be noted that the sound in BKS is excellent however and fits the theme of the game well, combining some nice foley work, appropriately weird and disturbing voice talents for the enemies and narrator, some familiar sound effects from recognizable sources (the sound of collecting hearts sounds a lot like the "presto" sound in Bewitched (or was it I Dream of Jeanie?) when things appear out of nowhere), and a chilling soundtrack composed by Akira Yamaoka.
At 800 MS points, it's hard to recommend Black Knight Sword. While the game's theme and visual style are no doubt refreshing, it lacks the deeper character involvement and entertaining dialogue that Suda 51's signature games usually deliver. More importantly, the gameplay pales by comparison and feels extremely limited when compared to other modern platformers on XBLA which this game will inevitably be compared against. Finally, while there's nothing wrong with a difficult platformer, or a difficult game in general, it goes without saying that a good game should provide the player with the tools and the control fidelity to combat said difficulty, and/or at least have some fun while doing it. The "fun" is probably the one signature Suda 51 element that is lacking here the most, and without that, you have a pretty average and poorly controlling action-platformer.
Suggestions: Tighter controls, a few more abilities, maybe a default shield to go along with the Black Knight's sword?
Less quirk, more Suda 51.
Overall Score: 6.5 / 10
Far Cry 3
"Jason, what is it? Why aren't you laughing now like you did up there? You see, the thing is, up there, you thought you had a chance. Way up there in the f---ing sky...but down here...down here, you hit the ground." -- VaasSo begins your adventure as Jason Brody in Far Cry 3, imprisoned and face-to-face with your jailor and tormentor, Vaas, who has captured you and your friends following a foolhardy skydiving excursion over the beautiful and mysterious Rook Islands. Facing certain death at the hands of Vaas once his ransom demands have been met, you break out with the help of your brother, and following a death-defying escape you ally yourself with Dennis, a member of the local Rakyat people, self-made warriors and sworn enemies of Vaas and his army of pirates and slave traders. Your mission is to free your friends and escape the Rook Islands together, but once Jason begins to learn the ways of the Rakyat and becomes a true warrior, can things ever be as they were?
Unlike the heroes of past Far Cry games, protagonist Jason Brody has no military experience, so he is even a bigger fish out of water than most seasoned FPS players who will be controlling him in this game. That said, Jason's journey from a scared and desperate victim to a fearless warrior is made all the more refreshing because of this, and his symbolic growth is tied directly into the game’s leveling system. Once Jason has allied himself with the Rakyat, he is given a "Tatau" by Dennis, a living tattoo that continues to grow and ink new symbols onto Jason’s arm as the player gains skill points and uses those points to unlock new skills and abilities. Naturally, skill points are earned through leveling up, and leveling up is done by accumulating XP through various ways in the game, such as completing missions and challenges, finding hidden items, taking out enemies in unconventional ways, and the like. But no matter what you are doing, it's almost guaranteed to be fun. When you first receive the Tatau, for example, the first skill you'll learn is the ability to sneak up and silently take down an enemy from behind by stabbing him through the throat, but much later you'll be able to perform a double knife takedown where you can take the first victim's knife from his holster (because your knife is still stuck in his neck) and throw it at a nearby enemy, killing him instantly. The move is incredibly Rambo, but the way it unfolds is contextually generated based on the second enemy's position, so it never gets old. It’s one thing to silently use this technique on a couple of hapless thugs on the side of a jungle road, but it’s a whole other experience to pull the same move off in the middle of a firefight while the surrounding enemies watch in horror, then escape their fire by running and sliding into the tall grass nearby to escape their line of sight and prepare for your next attack.
This does not mean that Far Cry 3 is all about stealth. Players can go stealthy, they can go loud, they can alternate between. However, the game's theme is largely focused on survival, and this is reflected in the game's mechanics. Just like the beautiful yet unyielding Rook Islands themselves, very little is given to you in Far Cry 3 from the outset. Everything you gain must be earned. Want to be able to carry up to four weapons at once? Then you're going to have to seek out and hunt the proper fauna to craft weapon holsters that will allow you to do so, as well as the extra pouches you'll need to carry your additional ammo and munitions. That pistol you started with not seeming so great anymore since every time every time you use it the animals you're hunting run away and Vaas' thugs come running when they hear the shot? Better do some side missions to earn some cash and put a suppressor on that thing, or better yet, save up and buy a bow and arrows from your local weapon smuggler so you can hunt prey (and enemies) silently. Oops, can't carry any more items in your backpack or money in your wallet because of all that side-stuff you've been doing? Better use some of those pelts you collected to fashion yourself a bigger backpack and wallet. Running low on health often or need some chemical enhancement in the fields for better hunting and fighting? No problem, just collect some of the local flora and concoct some medicines - - just make sure that you've already crafted a big enough syringe pack to carry enough of them. This is how Far Cry 3 rolls, and to the typical Call of Duty player who is looking for a straightforward campaign that they can blow through in a few hours, the game's crafting mechanic will likely serve as an anathema, but for players who are looking for the exact kind of experience that Far Cry 3 is advertising, a large, open-world, sandbox first-person shooter rich with opportunities for exploration and the chance of being hunted just as much as being the hunter, they simply will not be able to get enough of the feeling of empowerment as they along with Jason "earn" the badass abilities, skills and weaponry that other first-person shooters take for granted.
What is given freely to players from the get-go is freedom. From very early on in the game, players can hop into an abandoned car, jeep, jet-ski, boat or even a glider and venture to almost any location on any of the islands that they want. There are no invisible barriers between the islands, no inexplicable barricades, and no GTA Police helicopters to shoot you down. But just as avoiding hunting and crafting will seriously hamper your ability to progress in the game, exploring the islands without taking the time to repair the 18 radio towers scattered across them that Vaas and his men have jammed will leave the world map obscured and have you literally flying blind towards objectives. Conversely, removing Vaas' jammers from these towers will not only reveal the areas surrounding them, but will also make it easier for weapons smugglers allied with the Rakyat to move their goods, a favor for which will they will reward you with free weapons at their shops, removing the necessity to buy them with your own cash (though you'll still want to visit them to purchase ammo refills, weapon enhancements, health syringes -- if you don't have the materials on hand to craft your own -- and to sell both craftable and non-craftable items such as jewelry and pelts). "Supply Drop" vehicle-based delivery missions, which grant players additional cash and XP upon completion, are also unlocked when radio towers are repaired.
Also scattered among the islands are enemy outposts that Jason can go in and clear of Vaas' men, liberating it for the Rakyat and unlocking additional on-site safe houses (each complete with their own "weapon vending machine") as well as optional side missions and challenges from the Rakyat people. While the missions are optional, completing them will reward players with additional XP, cash and in select missions, rare pelts needed for making the "ultimate" version of Jason's equipment. And despite the Rook Islands being a hornet's nest of guerrilla warfare, players will encounter Rakyat civilians running high-stakes vehicle races on the beach or other secluded areas, as well as those who will reward cash for helping them repair their car that has broken down or rescuing them from a hostage situation. In other words, there is no shortage of fun things to do, even when not on a mission.
It would be remiss to review Far Cry 3 without taking a moment to briefly mention how cohesively its environments, characters, story and gameplay work together to create such a believably tense atmosphere. Having just returned myself from a vacation in the tropics, I can say that while Far Cry 3's Rook Islands may not be an exact replica of a real-life tropical island, it absolutely captures the essence, from how blades of sunlight glimmer and dance through the leaves of a rainforest canopy to the white sands of the beaches and greenish blue of the shark-infested waters. At the risk of overusing the word, the Rook Islands are simply gorgeous, and it's instantly understandable why Jason and his friends would have chosen them as the ideal vacation hotspot, even though it's still a mystery why they wouldn't have noticed the part of the brochure that discussed the islands' main economies: slavery, drugs and gun-running. The motivations of the characters are also highly believable and impeccably captured by the voice actors, particularly Michael Mando, the voice of Vaas, and Gianpaolo Venuta, who voices Jason. Vaas is easily one of the scariest, unpredictable yet irresistibly compelling villains to appear in a video-game, and even though most of the player's time will be spent fighting his forces rather than him directly, players will want to progress through the story just a little bit faster just so they can watch what will happen each time he and Jason meet. Meanwhile, Venuta's slow burn portrayal of Jason as he grows to adapt and embrace the insanity of the island to survive is so believable that when Jason sets a field of marijuana plants ablaze with a flamethrower for the first time and exclaims "This is awesome!!!", both the gamer and the cynic in you will nod eagerly in agreement. You'll also care about Jason's girlfriend, Liza, his captured brothers and friends, who all share their own unique interactions with Jason that hint at underlying tensions that have existed for years, even though the reasons are never mentioned. Meanwhile, villains Vaas, Buck and Hoyt, and allies Dennis, Willis and Citra are the true entertainment, running the gamut from true friends and mentors to psychotic madmen -- it’s never boring when they share the same space as you.
And then finally, there's life on the island, which takes place around you, not because of you. Leopards and asiatic bears will hunt and chase their prey almost oblivious to your presence, sometimes even only feet in front of you. Vaas' pirates and Rakyat warriors will encounter each other on the roads and engage in firefights, and sometimes even be wiped out by a wild boar, a tiger or a flock of cassowaries (think deadly ostriches), that they managed to enrage. Hostages being ushered off at gunpoint will occasionally make a run for it, offering the you the choice to come to their rescue by taking out their pirate captors, but players can choose the route of self-preservation and stay concealed to concentrate on their task without penalty. Always be mindful however, the random-rolling dice of the Rook Islands can roll over and crush you as well, so don't be completely surprised to find your almost perfect infiltrate-outpost- and- destroy mission getting ruined by that tiger you didn't see approaching from behind, or that your desperate dive into the river to escape your pursuers dropped you right into the waiting jaws of a ravenous crocodile. Jason Brody is just as much the hunted as he is the hunter, which is what makes Far Cry 3 so much fun to play.
Rounding out FC3's impressive package are multiplayer and co-op modes. At the time of this writing online play was still under embargo, but I was able to sample a bit of both modes during last week's Far Cry 3 Preview Event in Toronto and came away pleasantly surprised. Multiplayer controls are exactly the same as those in single-player, which in turn cribs heavily (and wisely) from Halo and Call of Duty, so players of those two franchises won't need to make many adjustments to get comfortable. Team Deathmatch and Domination played as one would expect, but with interesting Far-Cry inspired tweaks, such as Battle Cries, which through fighting players can earn and boost their surrounding teammates' health and abilities, as well as guerrilla warfare-style ordinances such as poison gas and firebombs. In co-op, 2-4 players take on the role of mercenaries in pursuit of a ship captain that has made off with their money and is taking refuge on the Rook Islands. Compared to the single-player campaign, the co-op plot seems incredibly paper thin, but who needs a believable plot to get together with friends and shoot stuff these days? A fellow journalist and I took on the first mission of the game and were quickly overwhelmed in the first chapter by pirates as we simultaneously tried to defend a train as we were moving it out of a tunnel that led to our next objective. After three attempts, we decided it was probably better to play with four players, or water down the difficulty, as it proved to be a real challenge. Both versus multiplayer and co-op modes were played via dedicated servers, so the play experience was optimal, with barely any latency. Hopefully when the multiplayer servers finally open up on Xbox Live, players can look forward to similar results, and if not, I have faith that Ubisoft will quickly provide a patch to rectify it.
To sum up, if you are a fan of the previous Far Cry games, you probably stopped reading this review about two paragraphs in and are already on your way to your local game store to pre-order your copy, because Ubisoft Montréal have nailed what those games were and/or should be about. If you are a fan of shooters and open-world adventures, then you should be out the door following the first group of people - - what are you, daft? And if you're concerned as to whether the game is worth taking your time away from CODBLOPS2 and Halo 4 this holiday season, just trust me, once you've tired of Forerunner installations, Future Cold Wars and zombies, Far Cry 3 will be your perfect virtual island getaway.
Overall Score: 9.4 / 10
Forza Horizon
In last week's preview of Forza Horizon we were given an opportunity to acquaint ourselves to Microsoft and Turn 10's latest racing offspring; a wilder, hipper Forza child prone to wanderlust and staying out well past curfew. Our 20-minute test drive with the game left us with a good impression, perhaps even a little infatuated, much like the feeling one gets after a first date that went REALLY well. Since then we've received our review copy, driven it off the lot, and put her through the paces to answer the question everyone wants to know: Is Forza: Horizon worthy of a spot in your garage?In terms of driving, the Forza DNA is undoubtedly present in Horizon. It's almost as if you went to bed with who you thought was your wife and upon waking realized it was actually her twin sister, except without the awkwardness and inevitable divorce. Turn off all the assists and you will be in Forza 4's simulation territory, or at the very least, a convincing replica of it. I even broke out my coveted Microsoft Wireless Racing Wheel to heighten the sense of realism and did not find myself wanting. Simultaneously however, Horizon is also a very different game from its predecessor, throwing players into an open world with much more varied terrain (over 64 different types), civilian traffic to avoid, and much longer play sessions as they explore the fictionalized playground that is Colorado between events, so you might want to stick to the default controller unless you really want to give your arms, wrists and braking foot a Kinect-level workout.
And what a workout you will get. As detailed in our preview, Horizon's solo campaign will have players criss-crossing Colorado to participate in a multitude of festival races, earning points towards colored wristbands that will in turn grant access to higher-level events and ultimately, a showdown with festival champion Darius Flynt for the Horizon Festival title. But in addition to these challenges, many more await players on the open road, including unsanctioned street races that earn players cash, one-on-one challenges from key rivals you will meet as you move up the ranks, and other events that you will unlock through exploring and uncovering new locations, such as Horizon Outposts. Horizon Outposts are essentially Race Central satellite hubs where players can fast travel to other locations on the map for a fee. That said, it’s to your benefit to be a cheap bastard, as each Horizon Outpost you drive up to will unlock a variety of events that will each grant a significant discount on fast travel from that outpost. Complete all of the outpost's events and fast travel from that location is free, so not only are stingy players rewarded with more gameplay; they're also given a more practical incentive to explore the entirety of the Colorado landscape. Other incentives are the 100 "Jay's Garage" signs hidden in plain sight all over Colorado, each one providing a 1% discount on upgrades when the player smashes through them (do the math, that's a potential 100% discount), and "barn find" rumors that lead the player to abandoned vintage cars in dire need of restoration. Jay the Mechanic will fix these classics up and add them to your garage for free.
Best of all, Horizon rewards you with popularity points and cash for almost everything you do, be it playing cat and mouse with traffic, smashing a shortcut through a picket fence, hitting new style or speed benchmarks while free-roaming, or beating your friends' best lap times by racing against their ghost car. Layer on top of all this a selection of over 60 cars on the disc, car customization (not as deep or granular as Forza 4's), the Paint Shop (every bit as deep as Forza 4's), Car Club interactions and online multiplayer with its own assortment of special "Playground Games" modes and you have a title that more than justifies its $60 price tag.
Perhaps the only area in which Horizon falls down is in how the game's difficulty seems to arbitrarily spike at times, particularly during races against key rivals, Skill Events, and Showcase Events. For example, an early one-on-one race had me facing off against off-road champion Ramona Caravache in a nighttime race with what was then my best off-road vehicle, (for which I specifically had to pay for a mandatory upgrade just so I could enter the event). Attempt after attempt, Ramona's beast of a truck shot ahead of me at seemingly impossible speed, yet hugging the road as if it were on a relaxing Sunday drive, while I struggled desperately to keep her tail lights in my sight. Midway through the race after a particularly difficult bend in the road, she would always disappear and the race would end long before I could get to the finish line. This was despite the fact that I had schooled her repeatedly in similar off-road events with other racers on the track, with the exact same vehicle. Fortunately, almost every event in Horizon is optional, so I eventually chose to move on and continue earning points towards the next wristband elsewhere, but it was not without a good deal of frustration and much swallowing of pride. I suppose one could alleviate the situation by going into the difficulty settings, temporarily turn on all of the assists and lower the AI difficulty to easy if one really wanted to just get through it, but I think it's safe to say that no racing fan worth their salt wants to win this way. We don't want our hands held; we just want to suck less. Unfortunately, while all the tools to win any race or skill event are apparently at the player's fingertips, such as manual upgrades, the racing line, ghost rivals, etc., there is no clear way for players to know what they are doing wrong, short of going to the Forza Motorsport Forums and posting a thread about it to get advice from the community.
Enough has been said about Forza Horizon's visuals in both our preview as well as countless early reviews on the web attesting to how dead-drop gorgeous the game is, so I won't bore you with more flowery language on the subject except for this: To expect impeccably authentic-looking cars in a Forza game is natural, so to say that nothing has changed in Horizon goes without saying. But while Forza 4's environments were equally stunning from a photo-realistic and dare I say clinical standpoint, Horizon's gritty, picturesque Colorado compels exploration. When you see a breathtaking mountain in the distance, glance at the cavernous Red Rock canyon as you traverse it via the interstate or catch a glimpse of a Hoover Dam look-alike worthy of a "wish you were here" postcard, you'll want to drive there. And chances are, you can (or at least get as close as you can realistically expect to get on four wheels).
Horizon also fires on all four cylinders in the audio department as well. The sound of each vehicle is distinct and unique as a fingerprint. When you get behind the wheel of your first Ferrari, Lamborghini or Viper and revel in the high pitched buzz and wail of the engine as you tear down a city street straightaway, you will quickly learn that you are driving a vehicle that demands your respect. Meanwhile, the radio chatter provided by the festival’s organizer, local DJs and other key characters seamlessly pop in and out occasionally between songs, keeping you up to date and informed on what is going on at the Festival, where the latest barn finds are rumored to be and what you probably should be doing if you have a challenge or mission outstanding. The large selection of licensed music curated by DJ Rob Da Bank is a welcome departure from the generic “lounge muzak” of previous Forza titles, with its eclectic mix of rock, dance, house, dubstep and electronica lending a level of authenticity that the soundtracks of many similar games lack, and keeps the music festival vibe going without smacking too much of commercialism (e.g. EA Trax).
To conclude, Turn 10 and Playground games have accomplished something very special. They’ve created the perfect companion game for Forza 4, one that retains its stunning visuals, its attention to detail, and most importantly, the Forza gameplay DNA. And like a classic fish-out-of-water Hollywood movie, they’ve taken that DNA out of its element and placed it in the open world to run free and thrive. That new experience is what Forza fans should and will initially come for, but with Playground Games’ mixed pedigree of successful racing franchises such as Burnout, and Project Gotham Racing under their belt, the best elements of those great games can be felt here in Horizon as well, and that is what will keep players coming back long after the bloom has come off the rose. A must-buy for racing fans.
Suggestions: 1) Allow the racing line to be visible when using Kinect voice-enabled navigation during free-roam, even if you have the racing line turned off in the difficulty settings for actual races (as having it turned off increases race bonuses).
2) Provide interactive lessons as DLC that can teach players how to become better drivers. Ghost racers and racing lines show players what better drivers do or can do, but they don't teach players how to properly use a handbrake, or use manual shifting effectively.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
