G4F Productions

The Last of Us: A Discussion In Progress (Part 1)

2013-06-27T11:28:00.002-05:00

There are few games that I follow as closely through their development as The Last of Us. I've always enjoyed Naughty Dog games ever since the old Crash Bandicoot days on the original Playstation, and the Uncharted Trilogy remains my favorite franchise for the current console generation. It's something about the way that Naughty Dog writes their characters, and their dialogue that makes things more relateable than other studios' games. Their characters aren't just plot vehicles, they feel like real people. They communicate with each other like real people would, and without the usual bravado that most video game heroes succumb to.

When I first heard that ND was making a survival adventure game, I was more than a little surprised that their next game was taking such a serious tone. The Uncharted series has its dark moments, but nothing like what they were promising with The Last of Us. To be honest, I wasn't even sure they could pull it off. Nathan Drake was always capable of showing a dynamic range of emotions, but in the end he relied on his own humor to stave off the horrors of his own deplorable deeds. Everything I read about The Last of Us before its release indicated that the campaign is filled with heavy, emotionally raw subject material. Naughty Dog had crossed over into the darker side of story driven gameplay.

My sources weren't wrong. The Last of Us is a pretty grim game so far, and though I haven't finished the campaign yet, it's pretty clear that things aren't getting sunnier any time soon. It's interesting to see how much this game really contrasts with what Naughty Dog did with the Uncharted games. Nathan Drake's exploits were always these grand, sweeping adventures that find their grounding loosely tied to real world mysteries and mythologies. Furthermore, Drake is larger than life in his own right as a character. He can do it all. He's acrobatic, charming, intelligent, and he's merciless as he fights his enemies and the environment.

By comparison, The Last of Us paints a much more relateable picture. It's true that the post-apocalyptic world that the main characters Joel and Ellie must navigate through is well traveled territory, but it feels much more like something we can imagine ourselves living in. The landscape is harsh and unforgiving, and traversal is more realistic. There aren't any convenient hand holds for scaling buildings, and many of the obstacles are either man made or they are a result of the world's natural state of decay. It's brutal, but it probably hits the mark better than most zombie survival games have to date.

Then there's the character interaction. TLOU doesn't offer much in the way of humor, which is a pretty big change for the developer. The story this game is trying to tell isn't some light hearted tale of companionship and compassion. TLOU's characters have grown accustomed to the harsh world they live in, and they act in a way that they feel is required to survive. Joel is ruthless because he has to be, and it's important to understand that he isn't the game's real hero. I haven't finished the campaign yet, so I don't know if Joel ultimately finds his redemption, but it's clear that he hasn't always been comfortable with the moral ambiguity that the world has forced upon him.

Ellie, on the other hand, has grown up without ever knowing the world that Joel and the others took for granted. She's tough, but she has also been sheltered to a certain extent. In the beginning of the game, she talks about how she had never been outside of a quarantine zone before. Instead, she grew up in the relatively safe custody of the rebel Fireflys and under the protection of the military. This innocense is what makes some of the random dialogue so great as Ellie and Joel travel together.

At one point, Ellie starts making odd sputtering sounds with her lips to which Joel inquires whether she is feeling alright. She tells him that she never learned how to whistle, and it makes sense. In a world where everyone is trying so hard to cope with such overbearing hardships, why would anyone take the time to teach a child to whistle? It's one of the joys that has faded from their world. It also makes it all the more comical and triumphant when Ellie later masters the trick taking Joel, and us as players off guard during a later sequence. Little touches like that pull players into the game more than action alone could. Ellie and Joel may not be as chatty as Drake and his cohorts, but they still come to life just as convincingly.

I won't go into gameplay elements at this point since I haven't finished the game, but expect to see the second installment of the game discussion once I have. TLOU is one of those games that you never really want to finish, but once I do, the next installment will be posted.

~Krimmit

Now Playing (On a Console Near Me)

2013-06-01T11:13:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I sat down and dusted off my console backlog, and since 2012 started out with such a flood of games to review for the blog, there are a few that I never really got to dig into. There are even some that I started, and never got to finish (Gasp!). So, with a day off on my side, and a little bit of good old determination, I sat down with my neglected binder of Xbox 360 games and dug in for the day.

1) Max Payne 3

This is one of those games that I got as a rental through red box, found out that there was only one disc in the case, couldn't finish the game, then got the full game and never finished. Poorly punctuated, and grammatically incorrect sentences aside, I put about an hour into the second half once I bought the full version, but I never really went back to it until just recently. Once I picked it back up, I couldn't stop playing it again. Max Payne 3 isn't a very long game by single player campaign standards, but it's still longer than most first person shooters and the total run time usually takes around 8 hours. I haven't finished it yet, but here's what I think so far.

I remember playing through most of the first game of the series long ago, and at the time it felt pretty game changing. I understand that the development of the franchise has changed hands since then, but I never got to the second title. That being said, I haven't been too hung up about any tonal shifts in the game's central plot arc or with the overall tone or style of the story telling. However, since I started playing this game last year, I have gotten increasingly more annoyed by the cinematic style used between game play sequences. It borrows pretty heavily from 2004's hit movie Man on Fire with text popping up on the screen periodically for emphasis. The concept seemed pretty cool for the first couple of hours. Beyond that, I got pretty burned out, and I'm not one to skip cut scenes so I continue to endure it.

Rockstar always does a really great job with dialogue though, so even though the narration is riddled with cliche, and many of the game's central characters have as much depth as the plastic disk the game is written on, It makes things extremely entertaining for a late 1980s action flick fan like me. That's pretty much what this game is though. It's exactly like a dark, convoluted tribute to the great action flicks of years gone by.

The violence of this game can also be jarring at times, but then again shooting people in narrow corridors in the seedy underbelly of Brazil should make players uncomfortable. There is no glorification of violence to be found here even though gore is abundant. Furthermore, Max is never glorified for his actions in any way. For most of the game so far, Max is nothing more than a fall guy for some of the campaign's more nefarious characters. He drinks, he pops pills, he smokes, and he's basically the most miserable thug you could imagine. Whether or not he finds his redemption has yet to be seen, but whether or not he deserves it is the grander question.

2) Driver: San Francisco

I know my fellow blog founder reviewed this game a while back, but I never bothered to touch this game until the other day, and I'm still pretty glad I did so far. I feel like I've been playing nothing but shooters lately, and a little change of pace was just what the doctor ordered. I haven't played a Driver game since the days of the original Playstation, and I felt that Stuntman for the PS2 didn't really hit all the free roaming notes that I expected it to. Hence, I had little interest in the franchise up until this point. But there it was, sitting in that binder sleeve just staring at me.

Driver: SF is another game with a relatively short run time for a free roaming game. The main campaign missions take around 10 hours to complete, and I think I must have put in around three or four hours so far. The mission types stay true to what I remember from the good old Driver days, with a little bit of the stunt work from Stuntman mixed in for flavor. Still, SF puts a new spin on things by introducing the "Shift" mechanic, whereby the main protagonist can take control of other driver's bodies, and drive any car he wants.

The ability is introduced by one of the most convoluted and highly improbable plot deliveries imaginable, but who cares? Shifting opens up a whole new level of player strategy that keeps things entertaining even though some of the game objectives start to become repetitive. It's plain to see that Driver: SF isn't too interested in taking itself seriously either. After I had completed a few of the main story missions, I was treated to a little "Previously on Driver: San Francisco" vignette that recapped several of the main plot points so far. It was pretty great, and also pretty cheesy.

If Max Payne 3 is the equivalent of a 1980s action movie, then Driver: SF is best summarized as a 1980s buddy cop show with an emphasis on driving. It's kind of like Smokey and the Bandit, but you're the cop....and you are in a coma....but you are solving crimes in your mind. Yeah...it sounds stupid, but the game is really quite fun, and the visual fidelity is pretty awesome for a free roaming car game. Car models all look true to their real life counterparts, and every vehicle drives differently.

I also like the fact that you can purchase different vehicles with in game currency. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense given the fact that you can jump into any vehicle, but you sometimes bounce back to a default ride for specific city events. I haven't finished the game yet, but the story seems good enough to carry things through to the end.

As things slow down for the summer release season, it looks like I will still have plenty of blog fodder to chug through in my backlog. There are a couple of action RPGs that I have been too intimidated to touch yet, but they will most likely take a pretty good chunk of time, and they will keep me busy enough to prevent me from spending all of my money before the new consoles launch in the winter. Until then.

Stay Frosty!

~Krimmit

Most Anticipated Titles (Summer 2013)

2013-06-01T09:39:00.000-05:00

Summer time is a notoriously slow season for quality video game releases. There are some inevitable summer sleepers that risk the peril of skating below game of the year radar, but some gems garner enough attention to be memorable and wildly successful. It makes sense from a marketing standpoint. Game developers operate under the assumption that a majority of their customers still fall somewhere between the 12 to 18 year old range that still relies on their parents to buy games for them. With this sort of business model, the winter holiday season is the best time to market and release games.

As an adult gamer, I don't really care when a game comes out, but this particular practice does tend to make it more difficult to catch those hidden gems when they hit the market unless I'm really paying attention. Digital distributors like Steam have alleviated this issue somewhat by offering sales during off seasons, but I digress. This isn't a long winded rant about business strategy. I neither have the knowledge required to speculate the marketing practices of major video game publishers, nor do I have the desire to research and quote credible sources in order to form an argument on the subject. Instead, let's stick with what I do know.

There are two games that I'm really looking forward to this summer. They are total must haves for me, and the fact that they are wildly anticipated summer games is saying something about off season releases. It might be somewhat telling that the games I'm about to discuss are both survival based games, but in many ways they couldn't be more different. One is a story based game with an interesting focus on character development, splashed with some crafting and environmental puzzle solving. The other is an open world survival game with a strong influence on player agency and environmental awareness. Still haven't figured out what they may be? Wonder no more!

The Last of Us

There are very few development studios that I admire more than Naughty Dog Studios. Ever since they broke out onto the market with Crash Bandicoot, and the Jak and Daxter trilogy, I have been hooked on anything they put out. The Uncharted trilogy remains my favorite current generation franchise even though I thought the third installment fell a little flat, and it felt a little self important. Still, Naughty Dog is constantly setting the standard for developers who strive to build cinematic, story driven games.

Uncharted gave gamers a protagonist who could form meaningful relationships with other characters, and an even more meaningful relationship with the environment around him. Sure, the combat is rather basic given the window dressing, and some people complain that the gameplay itself does little to advance the standard of interactivity, but few can pull off a spectacle like Naughty Dog can.

So what is it about The Last of Us that warrants so much excitement? Well, it's a number of things really. After watching several of the available gameplay videos that have been circulating over the past year or more, TLOU shows incredible promise as a heavily story based companion game with a focus on strategic inventory management and adaptive combat. What this means is that Naughty Dog has maintained its focus on building compelling characters and dialogue interactions, but they are building a more complex combat system which should set this game apart from the Uncharted games.

Game footage shows the main characters searching through post apocalyptic city ruins for supplies, and fighting through more believable enemy scenarios than those found in previous Naughty Dog games. The developers have stated that TLOU is a survival adventure game first and a shooting game a distant second, so that in itself is pretty interesting from my viewpoint.

Another compelling aspect of this game is that combat really feels like something dangerous that should be avoided if possible. Enemy encounters hold a weight that most games fail to capture outside of titles like Dead Space and the original Resident Evil installments. Human enemies react dynamically to your actions, and encounters really seem to play out in a way that feels organic rather than scripted. There are infected humans who act much like zombies, but different infected types require different tactical approaches to be dispatched or avoided.

All in all, The Last of Us looks like a survival story with interesting survival based gameplay. It isn't your own story, but the character development should be strong enough that it will leave players wanting more. I do have some concerns over the game however. With any story driven game, my immediate concern I have is that there may only be so many ways that a given encounter can play out. With the Uncharted games, enemies would move around combat areas in a way that was challenging, but combat was predictable.

One minute, you would be prowling through a corridor area that is largely devoid of obstacles, and the next moment you are standing in a room with fallen stones and waist high walls that are perfect for cover. It's fair to say these areas are built as scripted combat arenas. Enemy spawn points were fairly obvious as well. What remains to be seen is whether or not enemy areas will be as identifiable in TLOU.

Furthermore, does the game take cues from other games like Dishonored in that many combat opportunities could be avoided all together in favor of a more stealthy approach? One of the game footage sequences showed the main character dispatching several bandit type enemies by using the environment and his inventory to his advantage, but could the encounter have been circumvented entirely if he had been stealthy enough to pull it off? Furthermore, if one of the bandits were left alive to escape, would that have consequences after the encounter? Would he and his comrades come for revenge?

Perhaps I'm putting too much emphasis on what could be possible with a game like this when the confirmed gameplay elements are exciting enough on their own. It's never good to set your expectations too high when they are bound to be unsatisfied with the final product. That being said, The Last of Us still looks like a pretty amazing game that releases on 6/13.

DayZ Standalone

The DayZ mod for Bohemia Interactive's Arma 2 game and expansions has been something of a phenomenon in the PC gaming world for the past two years. The mod started off as a shaky, unstable mess in which players were thrown into a barren, post apocalyptic world swarming with erratic, shambling zombies. There were no instructions, no missions, and no objectives. Your goal was only to survive. Danger came in the form of starvation, exposure, zombie attacks, and interference from other players who inhabited the world.

Then, the community embraced the game with such enthusiasm that it soon evolved into an Internet sensation. Mods of the mod surfaced as user support increased and different game modes emerged. Soon, you could find Dayz servers featuring different maps and weapons. There has always been a lot of love for DayZ, and it showed as sales for Arma 2 skyrocketed on Steam.

All of these things made the inevitable announcement that DayZ creator Dean "Rocket" Hall was building a standalone version of the beloved mod for PC and possibly for console systems in the future more intriguing. Hall promises that the standalone game will feature even more survival systems than the mod, and since it won't be encumbered by some of the limitations of Bohemia's own Arma 2 game, there is much more potential to what the developers can accomplish.

I've played my share of the original mod and its variants, and the only disappointing thing about them is that PVP, looting, and survival is about all you can do. Sure, it's fun to group up with a squad and raid NPC encampments in DayZ: Origins, but aside from that, what is there to do beyond that? At least Dean Hall has promised that there will be a great deal more lore and back story to the new DayZ universe, and that players will really be able to take ownership of the world in a way that hasn't been possible within the mod.

Furthermore, Hall has stated that there is a bigger push for realism in the standalone game in reference to having a number of visual cues that are typically found in shooters being removed entirely. For example, the standard HUD will be less invasive, or it may be removed completely meaning that there will be no more health or ammo counters to aid players in game. The developers seem to be aiming for more of a simulation effect in this regard.

The draw for me is that DayZ has the potential to be the kind of game that lets players write their own stories, and create their own missions. There isn't a scripted scene to be found anywhere that forces you to enjoy the game the way developers want you to. Also, there isn't any sort of finite quality to DayZ. The game has no ending, and if you die, you just start over again.

The full level of customization that this game will allow has yet to be seen, but it seems that the Alpha build will be available for purchase some time in June 2013. I for one can't wait to jump in. Dean Hall may have some lofty expectations for the game's final product, but then again it's nice to see a developer show such enthusiasm for a product.

Though past summer release seasons have proven to be barren wastelands of mediocre release titles, this June seems to be a fairly promising month. Things will naturally slow down quite a bit for current generation consoles with the Playstation 4 and Xbox One coming out this winter, but it's nice to see that at least the PS3 lineup is getting some love before its successor launches. Both of these games have generated so much buzz that it seems likely they will both sell well, and they are certainly must haves for me.

As always, stay frosty!

~Krimmit

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (6 months in)

2013-05-06T14:32:00.001-05:00

This time of year, I typically do some sort of Call of Duty article on the blog, and with teaser trailers already surfacing for 2013's holiday release it seemed fitting to look back and examine my experience with Black Ops 2. I chose not to do a review when the game released, and I'm not going to do an in depth comparison with any past COD titles like I did for Modern Warfare 3 here. Instead, I will look at the best and the worst of my experiences with Blops 2. The highs and the lows if you will.

In no way do I consider myself a hard core Call of Duty Fan, or a COD "fanboy" for lack of a better word. Instead, I like to say that COD is often my go to game due to the fact that it is so accessible to such a wide range of players. There have been nights where I have mulled over my gaming choices for several minutes only to settle on a few quick rounds of Blops 2 multiplayer due to the fact that I don't have to coordinate any parties with known teammates, or deal with complex strategies in order to enjoy myself. COD's largest appeal for me is that it makes it so easy to jump into a game that I barely ever think about it beforehand, and I don't mind playing with unknowns.

It's not exactly mindless fun, but it takes less preparation than say Battlefield 3 would. When I play a game like Battlefield, I commit to a plan before even putting the disk into my console. I know what weapons I want to rank up, and I know what game modes I want to play. If it doesn't go well, the whole thing is a wash. Such is not the case with Call of Duty. I can mix and mince my play styles and class setups however I want, and I usually end up with a mostly positive experience every time. Sometimes Battlefield offers more satisfaction, and a good night playing DayZ on my PC with my friends can provide me with battle stories for weeks, but no game fills that middle ground better than COD.

These days, I find myself rotating between MW3 and Blops 2 on a somewhat regular basis for a few different reasons. I'm not going to go into length to compare the two games, but things really took an upswing for MW3 once they ironed out some of the spawn and lag issues just before the launch of Blops 2. The game became playable very quickly, and I saw my game improve immediately as a result. Blops 2 on the other hand has a LOT of ground to make up in this department.

Incremental patches have resolved some of the weapon balancing issues that the game originally suffered from, but different game modes still present issues with random spawn generation and perceived lag continues to plague the PS3 version that I own. The recent patch on 4/30/13 seems to have made things somewhat better, but I can't tell if it's just in my head or not yet.

I will most likely touch on some more of the bad later, but let's move on to some of the good for now. My favorite thing about Blops 2 continues to be the "Pick Ten" class building system. The concepts employed in this inventory system aren't revolutionary, but they are easily the best thing to happen to a COD game in a good long while. The fact that there are only 10 available slots helps to limit the amount of exploitation that opportunistic gamers resort to while striking a good balance of power versus utility.

I had always felt that MW3's class system was too bloated with complicated perk and attachment combinations to be efficient. With "Pick Ten", I immediately know the limits of what can and can't be combined. Furthermore, the in-game interface is visually simple enough to be used easily. I haven't used the online menu system to track stats and customize classes yet, but I'm sure the same could be said of the interface found there.

That being said, some of my most enjoyable moments with the game come from when I am simply running around like an idiot, trying out new weapon and perk combinations. In many ways, I take my performance too seriously with this game, which is frustrating, but the most fun is to be had when I simply let go an enjoy the ridiculousness of it all. My favorite part of the grind is when you reach the next prestige rank and are forced to use preset classes. In those moments, I can throw myself into matches with such abandon that I don't really care what my K/D is, as long as I get some points to rank up later on.

Then, there's the unnecessary rage. COD has always been effective at soliciting over the top frustration from me from time to time. I've had my share of "WTF?!?!?!?!?!" moments, and I almost always blame the game for whatever hardship I may be facing. It's usually the standard, "How did that guy hit me?" or "There's no way that should have happened?" response. Most of the time, these occurences can be attributed to my own error, but sometimes the game seems legitimately unbalanced even without lag.

As I mentioned above, there are still some glaring issues with lag in Blops 2, but some of the one on one decisioning seems built into the game itself. Don't get me wrong, I know when I'm playing poorly on a good connection, but at times it seems like I have dominant matches that will be followed up by abysmal ones with the same group of players in the lobby. Perhaps its the way that COD represents server ping in the stats menu, but it seems like most player's connections seem to be misrepresented.

On that note, I still like the fact that console versions of this game give you the ability to search for the best possible server connections in lobby. Whether or not the search restrictions are as discriminate as advertised is debateable, but the choice is interesting. Some times I can tell the difference in my match quality. Other times, I wonder why I bothered switching to "best connection" at all.

Now let's talk about downloadable content. There aren't too many games that I go "all in" on for DLC, but I chose to buy the season pass for $50 on Playstation Network for this one. My biggest motivation for this was that I really loved the map updates for the original Blops, and I liked the idea that they had rehashed some of the maps from Treyarch's previous COD titles. I didn't bother downloading any of the paid content for Modern Warfare 3, and now that I actually enjoy the multiplayer for that game, I'm kind of kicking myself for not doing so. I wouldn't go back this late in the cycle to buy them now, however.

So far, Blops 2's DLC is somewhat of a mixed bag for me. Of the four new multiplayer maps, I really only enjoy three of them, and I find the other to be frustratingly cheap as it is riddled with convenient camping spots and choke points. I don't play zombies, so the rest of the content is really wasted on me, but even if I only get three good maps out of four, I'm ok with it. None of the maps come close to the variety and quality of those found in Modern Warfare 2, but I'm not holding my breath for that to happen again...in any game...ever. Also, I may be looking back on that game with the rosey colored notalgia specs due to the fact that multiplayer was ruined by hackers long ago, but I can't really say.

It seems like developers are so caught up with geography with map design lately, that they forget about the fact that the most enjoyable maps allow players to branch out, and try different play styles. Most of Blops 2's maps are relatively small, with an emphasis on including an equal amount of indoor and outdoor areas for each arena. There aren't as many long sight lines as there were in Blops maps for long range gunplay, and Treyarch seems to have taken one from Infinity Ward by including verticality in their map design. The only trouble is that snipers in this game aren't usually pearched in second floor windows. Instead, they are busy trying to hard scope you from ten feet away in the crowded corridors where the SMG lovers go to play.

Black Ops 2 takes some getting used to. In fact, out of all of the CODs out there, it took me the longest to adjust to how things work in Blops 2. The mechanics are the same, but things don't really gel the way they did in past games. That doesn't make Blops 2 worse than its predecessors, but it does make me wonder why they haven't ironed things out more after six months on store shelves. I'm sure there will be improvements as the game matures, and those who don't want to shell out the cash for annual installments of COD will be satisfied until Treyarch announces their next title, but it is also entirely possible that connection issues will continue to plague this game indefinitely.

With Call of Duty: Ghosts on the horizon, COD fans will eagerly eat up any news about the next best thing to come this holiday season. Then, when next gen consoles launch, they will flood the web with hungry cries for bigger and better things. Hopefully COD will be able to keep up and innovate more. Treyarch is on the right track, but even they need to ratchet things up a bit for their next installment to keep me interested. Until then, I'll keep my copy spinning, and keep getting pwned by the lag.

~Krimmit

DayZ: A Game or a Job?

2013-04-17T14:52:00.000-05:00

This isn't one of those articles that goes into depth about how a person who is passionate about video games can make a living by playing them. Instead, I wanted to discuss the different ways players approach video games in general. Obviously, video games are built to be interactive entertainment experiences. The level of player interaction varies in degrees from passive interaction (i.e. playing simple puzzle/physics games in ones spare time on a cell phone) to rigorous consumption in the vein of someone spending hundreds of hours per month digging through in game content.

Ain't it the truth?

The question is, when does a person cross the line between simply "playing" a game and treating games as another job? I asked myself this after playing online with a group of friends this past weekend, and I began to wonder what my level of video game commitment stood in relation to those I was playing with. My overall position has always been that I am a moderate gamer with a relatively high affinity for video games. This blog would not exist otherwise, but the amount of time and effort that I sink into games really can't hold a candle to some.

For reference, let's look at what events transpired over the weekend that led up to this realization. As I had mentioned in a previous post, many of my friends are fans of the ARMA 2 mod, and soon to be standalone title, DayZ. Most people who play are drawn to DayZ because it requires a certain level of devotion and patience to truly enjoy. The environment is unforgiving, and unknown players are a constant threat. I personally only play the game in small doses as the experience can sometimes be frustrating if you don't have anyone watching your back. Gathering loot and weapons can be a tedious process, and losing your inventory to murderous bandits can be disheartening.

Spawn randomly, my friends.

Still, this past weekend I agreed to play online with some of my local friends who have rented their own DayZ: Origins server. Origins is an offshoot of the original mod in which players can band together to take on NPC characters guarding some of the more coveted loot and weapon items in the game. The NPCs are merciless, and it's really quite challenging, but I digress. Being a newbie to this particular flavor of DayZ, I was subject to the instruction of my peers as I loaded into the game.

My friends had made an alliance of sorts with some of the regulars on their server in an effort to gather loot and to set up safe zones on the map where they promised not to steal each other's gear. The point of stockpiling gear in the first place is that assaulting NPC controlled areas takes a certain amount of preparation and planning as the AI enemies are particularly fearsome. My friends were kind enough to arrange transport for me to one of the safe zones, where I was geared up and briefed on our objectives.

Even though my friends had made a pact with some players on the server, there were still other squads who were only interested in killing our respective squads and stripping our hard earned items from our carcasses. At the safe zone, we prepared our transport helicopter and set off for the NPC controlled island to collect more high end gear. This process alone took approximately thirty to fourty minutes.

After our heli was sufficiently stocked, we flew to the island and touched down to begin our work. After a confrontation with an enemy player that resulted in the death of one of our team members, we were ambushed and massacred by NPCs. Our pilot escaped and picked us up as we respawned around the map, but we then had to re-kit ourselves by looting our dead bodies. Then we loaded high end gear from the NPC zone onto the heli to replenish our depleted base supplies. The entire process from the time of our initial incursion to our return to the base took another forty five minutes to an hour.

Once the game went into the night cycle, we were ready for our raid on the NPC island once more. Some of the high level NPCs inland were holding valuable loot items that our team required to build structures capable of increasing our stockpile. We moved across the island in the cover of darkness picking off guards as we made our way to the Mayor's mansion. We suffered a few casualties along the way, but ultimately our mission was a success once we assassinated the Mayor and exfiled back to the base island to unload our bounty. The entire event spanned five to six hours, and continued on long after I had logged off for the night.

Even though this particular raid was incredibly fun and exciting, it left me wondering just how much time a person would have to sink into the game to do this on a regular basis. Most of our time had been spent farming resources and loot from the game in order to prepare ourselves sufficiently so that we wouldn't be massacred again. The next night I logged on, and it was an entirely different story. My own squad and our allies were simply gathering resources and transporting them from one place to another to build storage houses. It was a far cry from the excitement and anticipation I had experienced the night before. It felt more like work, or grinding.

Does anyone miss this.....ever?

That's when it hit me. Was I really willing to grind it out with this squad night after night like this just so that I could enjoy the few nights that we wouldn't be grinding? On the one hand, I admire the level of detail and depth that games like DayZ offer. It's rewarding when a game allows you to take control of your own livelihood in such an involved manner. On the other hand, nine times out of ten I like to play games as a means to escape the fact that I spend forty plus hours a week at a full time job, and then spend another good portion of my time doing house work. Sometimes the last thing I want to do is more work whether it be virtual or otherwise.

I've always been a man of all trades when it comes to video games. I have never claimed devotion to one particular gaming platform or another, and (perhaps too often) I buy multiple game systems so I can enjoy everything that appeals to me across all platforms. My attention span for games has somewhat diminished when it comes to video games over the years, and perhaps this can be attributed to the fact that I haven't chosen a single platform to support, but I like to think I'm just a fan of games in general instead of being a specialist. Perhaps I'm not "hardcore" enough, but I like variety.

So, what is it that makes the grind more appealing than the occasional, easier to consume action or puzzle games that I normally enjoy? I should say that I have put hours upon hours into some of my favorite games, but none of those experiences were as involved as this. The same goes for people who pour time into games like World of Warcraft, or the Everquest games. For someone like me, the concept can be difficult to understand.

When I first started playing DayZ, the formula was simple. You spawn randomly. You are forced to find weapons and gear that is mostly only obtainable in cities where other players will see and possibly kill you. You get gear so you can go and raid areas on the map where better gear is spawned. Then, if you so desire, you terrorize other players with your advanced weaponry, and then repeat. If you got tired of the game, you could step away for a while, and the formula would still be the same when you picked it back up.

With the way things have changed, if you are away, you could miss just about everything. When I spawned in after one day, I would have been stranded on an abandoned island with no transportation had my friends not still been moving their stores around. That would have been unfortunate. It would have been the equivalent of waking up one day to find that your house had been moved and your family left you with just enough provisions to survive for one day.

I don't want this all to come of as me complaining about grinding, or that I'm putting down those who enjoy playing games in this fashion. In fact, I think it's awesome that video games have evolved to the point that players can enjoy games in pretty much any way they would like. What's even more compelling is that different types of gamers can find some common ground through games like DayZ.

However, I still feel that there should be boundaries when it comes to responsible play time. This may vary from person to person depending on his or her real life responsibilities, but I'm not here to preach about the importance of personal responsibility. When I refer to DayZ as a "job", it's because it would be easy for a person to sink in as much as thirty plus hours into it per week if not more if he or she were so inclined, and obviously I'm referring to the grinding.

I can't tell if they are playing Wii, or if this is the
first person view of the family dog who is about
to be beaten?

With that said, looking at how some people play DayZ has made me better understand where my own balance between game time and family time must stand. The two don't necessarily have to be mutually exclusive as games can be enjoyed as a family, but there needs to be a healthy mix between quality time and "tube time" spent as a family. Games will always be a part of my personal time, but I know now that I'm not looking for a second job unless it pays really well.

~Krimmit

Now Playing (On a PC near me)

2013-04-05T23:16:00.002-05:00

It's been quite a while since I've posted anything in the ole' blog. I'm not sure what it is. It could be another 6 month stretch of writer's block, or that I've been over exposed to alternate reviews that crop up on the internet for games that I'm currently playing. All of those reasons chalk up to the fact that things have grown stale. I'm not saying that games have grown stale, or that the many titles I've played in the extended blog hiatus are poorly executed. In fact, the opposite is true.

Most of the games I've bothered to purchase have been excellent to the point that they have somewhat eased my concerns about video game writing and development and the stagnancy therein. There's still a lot to be done in order to save what I view to be an overly generic creative trend for popular AAA titles in recent years, but I digress. There's a case of writer's block to be broken.

So, what is it that I have been up to since the start of 2013 you may ask? Well, lots of things really, but I have run through several multi platform games on my PC in the past several months that are worth mentioning. Heck, most of them were entirely worth reviewing, but rather than go back and slog through individual reviews, I can offer a little summary review of the titles I have been playing in the order I played them.

1) Far Cry 3

I spent quite a few hours exploring the island scenery in Far Cry 3 at the end of 2012, and I stuck with the game into the early weeks of 2013. That alone is a testament to the overall longevity of the game's single player campaign. However, the game left me feeling a bit conflicted, and mostly in agreement with a lot of the Internet buzz surrounding it.

The campaign missions and the story fell a little flat after what I would call the 60% completion mark where you travel to the second island. After wrapping up some of the events on the first island, the game felt empty, and somewhat devoid of purpose. Liberating enemy bases which is a staple requirement for opening up island events, was by far the most interesting and satisfying part of the single player campaign, but mission events felt a little too forced and linear for my liking. That was surprising given that the island environment provides for so many open sandbox opportunities outside of regular missions.

I didn't bother playing the online multiplayer since I used my Xbox 360 gamepad to play the campaign on my PC. Adjusting to keyboard and mouse controls to be competitive online seemed like a hassle. Plus, multiplayer looked like a tacked on, derivative FPS attempt rather than an earnest endeavor to introduce unique multiplayer combat.

Perhaps the most disappointing part about the game is the lack of replay value after the main story is completed. There are a slue of challenge opportunities and treasure hunting objectives to explore in order to complete the game 100%, but I didn't really feel like there was a reason to continue. Maybe it's just me.

2) Spec Ops: The Line

I waited to play this game for quite a long time, and after seeing it drop down to the bargain price of $4.99 on Amazon I could resist no longer. Spec Ops: The Line (SO:TL hereafter) does some very interesting things with storytelling that I hadn't really considered possible for a video game until now. There are definitely still some cliche character archetypes being used here, but the pacing of the story was spot on, and the whole thing seemed pretty plausible as long as you can ignore a few plot holes here and there.

I will admit that I haven't finished this game yet, but I like to break it up into chunks of play time for several reasons. First and foremost is that once I really start to enjoy a game, I don't want it to be over. I have done this for years, and the only draw back is that is has led me to restart many games repeatedly because I forget where the story last left off.

The second, and perhaps more unfortunate reason, is that SO:TL's gameplay can be a bit frustrating at points. It's not a matter of difficulty in most situations, but the lack of a clear cut objective or proper course of action that plagues some of the game's more intense action sequences. Some segments lead to unfair deaths that could be prevented by better game design. Still, Spec Ops: The Line is one roller coaster ride that I was happy to get on.

3) Sine Mora and Bastion

I put these two together because I purchased both on a Steam sale, and I haven't really taken the time to dig into either title much since. Sine Mora is a side scrolling airplane/submarine shooter with some interesting gameplay elements. Rather than follow the standard "shoot bad guys, avoid environmental obstacles" formula, Sine Mora takes one from the old Time Crisis handbook and gives you a countdown timer that will run out more quickly if enemies damage your umm.......airplaine/submarine craft.

Killing enemies adds time in small increments, and upgrades to your vehicle's weapon systems will appear onscreen. The story is secondary to the action, which is completely fine in this case. I literally ignored 90% of the dialogue/subtitles with this game and focused on not getting my butt shot off during most play sessions. What appeals to me most about this game is that it gets things completely right in terms of difficulty. Players are punished for mistakes, but the respawn system is mostly forgiving. It's a source of good, quick fun.

Bastion was a little more disappointing for some reason, and perhaps it's because there have been so many people raving about it on the Internet since it was released. So many of the elements that others praised since the game's release such as the narration and the way environments build themselves as you move along felt somewhat hollow to me. Perhaps it just didn't appeal to my own play style as much as I had hoped.

I still admire the amount of polish that the combat system shows given the fact that it is an indie game, but I had half expected it to feel a little more like an old school action RPG from the Super Nintendo glory days with more graphical fidelity. Still, it deserves some props for accomplishing as much as it has in today's market.

4) Tomb Raider (2013)

What can I say about this game? I thought the reboot was fantastic, and it was a truly enjoyable experience from start to finish. Crystal Dynamics took the smartest possible approach to rebooting one of the most definitive action platforming franchises of all time, but some people will always complain that the new Tomb Raider is too different from its forbears. They claim that there isn't enough focus on puzzle solving which has been replaced by an increased emphasis on action, but lets be completely honest. I don't think anyone wanted this game to go the other direction in the first place.

When the Tomb Raider franchise was first launched in the 90s, video games were in a very different place. Environmental puzzle solving was more about showcasing the introduction of 3D platforming than it was about developing characters or crafting compelling story arcs. Controls were clunky at best, and character interaction was sparse. Sure, the original Tomb Raider had a story, but it was nowhere as involved as what consumers expect from games today.

Once people understand that this is a different Tomb Raider that hasn't completely forgotten its roots, things will get a whole lot better for this franchise. That being said, I was hooked into this game from the time the opening cinematic played all the way to the end. Heck, I have even started my second play through shortly after finishing it the first time.

Another thing that bothers me about Tomb Raider's reception is the number of people who keep comparing it to Uncharted. Sure, the fundamentals are similar, but Tomb Raider is a very different game both tonally and in terms of overall environmental navigation. Don't get me wrong, I love Uncharted, but Naughty Dog's games are built to feel like cinematic experiences. Characters interact in real time as they banter and poke fun at each other. Tomb Raider puts more focus on trying to make players empathize with Lara as she stumbles painfully through the world the game throws at her. There is nothing light hearted about Lara's adventures, and she is mostly alone which makes players feel like they are constantly trying to survive.

I digress, however, this won't turn into another Tomb Raider blog rant. Let's move on to what is next.

5) Euro Truck Simulator 2

This is like the zen game of the century for me, and I was completely surprised at how much I really enjoy ETS 2. The game is wonderfully simple while being complicated enough to keep me engaged at the same time, but it's something that I can only play in spurts. To make a long story short, ETS 2 is a sim game about being a semi truck driver in Europe. I know it sounds boring, and it may not be for everyone, but there are some interesting mechanics going on here.

It's a slow driving game on the surface, but there are quite a few RPG like elements going on as well. I won't go into much depth about it since I'm not writing a full review, but ETS 2 can take a bit of thinking and planning if you want to make your experience feel a bit more fulfilling. The game does have its flaws. AI controlled vehicles can be really stupid at times, and traffic patterns don't always pull off very realistic simulations, but that's all minor stuff.

The control system is a little complicated as well, and it's not really clear what the best way to play would be. Some might consider getting a racing wheel, but then there are so many secondary functions mapped to the keyboard that I don't know if there would be enough buttons to do so. I personally use a combination of an Xbox 360 controller and the keyboard. It makes playing a little clumsy, but I don't use some of the controls anyway.

Still, what I love most about this game is that I can sit down, accept a long distance job, and just get lost in the game hauling my cargo from point A to point B. Some trips can take up to an hour to complete, so it's incredibly easy to sink time into building your bank roll. Then, after you buy your first truck, the game really opens up. You then have the ability to hire other drivers and build a successful trucking business. Again, it isn't for everyone, but I have been having a blast so far.

6) ARMA 3 (Alpha)

OK. I pretty much got suckered into this one. Last August, a couple of my PC gamer friends talked me into getting ARMA 2 and the expansions so I could get online and play the DayZ mod with them. I never really got into it as much as they did, but I did play ARMA 2 quite a bit, and I realized how difficult and rewarding this military sim could be. Months passed, and I played less and less until I started watching YouTube videos of others playing multiplayer missions like "Wasteland" for ARMA 2, and my interest was piqued once again.

Still, none of my PC friends would play anything but DayZ, and I lost interest again. Then, once it was announced that the ARMA 3 Alpha was being released, my friends started geeking out about how awesome it would be and how we could play online together and so on. The prospect of playing online with others again was too exciting to ignore, and I downloaded the Alpha so we could connect once more.

Can you guess what happened? I am once again stuck being the only one playing ARMA 3 while my friends have gotten sucked back into DayZ. Don't get me wrong, I love DayZ, but I'm not very good at it. I don't like to spend day after day memorizing the maps and scraping up loot only to be killed by random players and have to start over again. I can only take it in small doses.

ARMA 3 seems like a fine game, but the only single player content missions available are the showcase assignments. Multiplayer is open, but the game's optimization is still not where it needs to be, so technical issues abound. It's getting better, and I'm sure the end product will be just as great as previous installments. I just need better online friends.

Closing Comments

Well, there you have it. Things have slowed down a bit since we started the blog, but I'm still around doing what I do. G4F will not likely become a full fledged website as originally planned. I also don't expect that reviews will ever come as frequently as they originally did as I am no longer interested in purely doing reviews. I will post content more frequently, but it will mostly be editorials or random comments on industry news as opposed to review content. I will also attempt to get back into producing video content for the blog.

I think my blog partner will be largely absent from this point forward, but if you follow G4F on Facebook, you will see updated article postings there. Things have mostly cooled down on the console front, but with The Last of Us coming in June, I will most likely HAVE to write a review for that game. Keep looking for more stuff from G4F, and as usual, stay frosty!

~Krimmit

Medal of Honor: Warfighter Review (360 Version)

2012-10-30T19:50:00.002-05:00

This is a difficult review to write for many reasons. On the one hand, it is important to be fair to developers who put hundreds if not thousands of hours into building the games that we play. It is equally important to hold developers accountable for selling products that don't meet the expectations of consumers when they are spending hard earned cash for them. With that in mind, I will say that I really wanted to like Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

I gave the troublesome beta the benefit of the doubt when it released even though it largely failed to promote any sort of confidence in the fact that Warfighter was ready for launch just weeks before its release. I even chose to ignore the implications of EA's choice to delay releasing review copies to reputable games sites given the fact that the game required a day 1 patch to fix a wide array of campaign and multiplayer issues. Despite all of my best efforts to ignore the signs that Medal of Honor would not meet my expectations, I am forced to admit that Warfighter is simply not a worthy follow up to Medal of Honor's success and critical acceptance in 2010.

Even after a 2GB HD install.....consoles versions won't look
like this.

Generic is a word that many critics have used to describe Warfighter, but I don't feel that the word appropriately conveys the sense of disappointment that I felt after pouring hours of my time into it. Many of the first person military shooters that have been released in the last half decade could be called generic for various reasons, but the adjective has become something of a tired excuse for the mediocrity that we as consumers have been stomaching for far too long.

Danger Close does deserve some credit for sticking to their central story telling vein of exploring the soldier's side of war. However, they kill any sense of connection that players may feel for their story by chopping the plot up into incomprehensible chunks that have been interspersed between sections of maddeningly linear gameplay. It's not that the story itself is inherently bad, but it's difficult to tell what the story's focus is or to decipher who the characters really are as it plays out.

The main reason for this confusion is that Warfighter's plot timeline is about as convoluted as they come. A big part of the central conflict focuses on a downtrodden character code named "Preacher" who along with Dusty, Mother, and Voodoo makes a return from 2010's MoH. It seems that years of die hard devotion to the cause of the Navy Seals has taken it's toll on Preacher's marriage and on his relationship with his young daughter. There are some poignant segments that convey Preacher's frustrations with having to choose between his duty as a soldier and his responsibilities as a husband and father, but all of that gets lost somewhere after the halfway point of the campaign's progression.

The gameplay is as lifeless as my eyes.

From that point forward, the actions of Preacher's unit become harder and harder to follow as they bounce from location to location trying to track down mystery suppliers who are distributing a deadly substance referred known as PETN to terrorist cells across the globe. The real trick then becomes deciphering who exactly the Tier 1 operators are fighting against from segment to segment or what their objective is. Even as the game reached its conclusion, I had to ask myself why I was chasing a man that had only been shown once before over the duration of the campaign, and how did I come to face him in the first place?

Amidst all of this mess, there were several segments that felt forced into the game's continuity just for the sake of being there. One scene puts you behind the scope of one of the Navy Seals who ended the infamous Somali Pirate standoff in which a cargo ships captain was held captive for several hours. The scene is immediately recognizable and lasts for no more than a few minutes, but after I was left scratching my head as to why it was included to begin with.

Sadly, the story is not the only component that leaves Warfighter wanting. To say that the gameplay experience is linear would be an insult to Warfighter's well paced and notably linear competition in this genre. Every instance and action sequence is scripted in a way that there is really only one way to progress through the game. During regular shooting segments, every enemy must be killed or players will face a mission failed screen or otherwise be killed themselves.

Danger Close mercifully kept the on rails segments to no more than 2 or 3 this time around, but that doesn't change the fact that these segments were so dry and uninteresting that one scene where I was manning a mounted grenade launcher on a zodiac water craft prompted me to see what would happen simply refused to touch the trigger at all. The result was that, aside from soaking up a few shots from enemy soldiers, I survived the event with no effort whatsoever.

Warfighter's gameplay doesn't suffer from broken controls or maddening campaign glitches, and most of the campaign scenery is well rendered with the use of the Frostbite 2 engine, but there's absolutely nothing interesting about it despite it's visual flair. Most, if not all, of the now common place military FPS mechanics used in popular titles are used in this game, but they are used so frequently that by the end of the game you would rather smash your hand repeatedly with your controller than prompt another slow motion breach maneuver in game.

Online multiplayer doesn't do much to soothe the pangs of buyers remorse over Warfighter's $59.99 price tag as it presents a number of its own technical and compositional issues. Warfighter features a persistent ranking and unlock system that can be accessed in game or through EA's battlelog website. Unfortunately, the unlock system suffers from two main problems. The first is that the upgrade process is over complicated by Warfighter's in game menu system. Viewing earned unlocks requires filtering down through separate menus for each individual unlock category. To make things worse, unlocks are exclusive to whatever faction and nationality you happened to be playing as when you achieved them thereby adding an additional step to the player configuration process.

The second issue is that the unlocks themselves aren't that interesting or game changing enough to keep players interested in the grind. From the outset, each faction and class is equipped with a default weapon which plays to the strong suits of that given class. Different nationalities carry different stat bonuses such as increased stealth and stamina, but the classes all have the same special abilities and kill streak bonuses. As you use your selected characters, points accumulate that can be used to unlock weapon parts and camouflage, but those augmentations don't do much in terms of improving weapon performance.

Other mods such as magazine alternatives are purely cosmetic, and do little to justify grinding out points to unlock them. It was hard to get around the fact that the menu system is complicated to navigate, but I do admit that I haven't logged in to the battlelog site to explore configurations on that end. Perhaps that system is more user friendly.

Multiplayer offers a number of different game types that are very reminiscent of most of those found in Battlefield 3 or Call of Duty, but poor map design ensures that most matches will be decided by how well or how quickly either team controls choke points and well known camping spots. I'm not how Warfighter's server architecture is set up, or if my particular connection was just being finicky, but I have also experienced an inordinate number of lag deaths during matches of every type. One moment I will be running down a corridor when I notice I am taking fire from an enemy. As usual, I round a corner to escape harm, but just as I think I'm safe to turn and face my attacker.....I'm dead.

A similar issue plagued Battlefield 3 in its early days where rubber band lag often reset players to previous positions when their connection slowed, but I don't recall experiencing as many unexplained deaths from that particular issue in the past. The issue is exasperated by the fact that downing opponents seems to take an inordinate number of well placed shots with most weapons when the system makes you believe that fewer of your enemies shots will kill you.

In summary, Medal of Honor Warfighter ticks far too many boxes off in the negative column for me to keep coming back for more. The single player campaign fails to capitalize on any of the successes that its predecessor pulled off well enough to make it a viable alternative in 2010, and the multiplayer suite puts up too many frustrating roadblocks to provide a satisfying long term diversion from what will most likely be another banner release year for Activision's Call of Duty series.

When I think back on how much flack I gave titles like Homefront for presenting lackluster campaigns, I have to give those releases credit for at least providing an enjoyable multiplayer experience. Sadly, the same cannot be said for Medal of Honor Warfighter. I can't help wondering how much external influence may have interfered with the production of this game with reports in past weeks stating that the controversial Zero Dark Thirty map pack was pushed heavily by EA as the development team didn't want to build it, but at the same time I can't clear Danger Close from blame for how this game turned out.

Medal of Honor (2010) still managed to be enjoyable despite the fact that it was formulaic, and there were questionable design decisions in regard to the division of labor behind creating the campaign and online portions of the game. For these reasons, I don't doubt that Danger Close was capable of making a memorable successor with Warfighter, but this was not it. There is always the chance that downloadable content and software patches may help save the multiplayer in coming weeks, but I will most likely be returning to my older FPS catalogue to satisfy my online gaming needs.

Overall Score: 2 out of 5 (stick a fork in it....I'm done)

Medal of Honor: Warfighter Expectations

2012-09-08T18:42:00.002-05:00

Perhaps the most notable thing about this game is that it actually attracted more attention by announcing that a beta key for Battlefield 4 is included with limited edition preorders than it has from marketing its own campaign or multiplayer game play. However, after a less than stellar sales record from 2010's Medal of Honor modern reboot, public expectations are rather muted for a popular franchise release which is slated for October 23 of this year.

Many franchise loyalists have expressed that the MoH series was best represented by the World War II installments that helped to redefine the first person military shooter genre, but that's not to say that the last MoH game was a complete disaster. Still, there were several things that kept it from being a great, or even memorable game. Medal of Honor was somewhat successful in terms of distribution. EA reported that the title sold over 5 million copies after just two months, but the game seemed easily replaced by heavier hitting titles soon after release.

That being said, what is it that MoH: Warfighter needs to get right to hold it's own during the Fall 2012 release season? There are several things about the last MoH that left an odd taste in gamers' mouths, but for the sake of argument, let's boil it down to the most obvious points.

Single Player Campaign (Story):

I can remember being particularly excited by the prospect that MoH was playing the angle of what it was like to be an elite soldier in the United States Special Forces, and the game's inclusion of tie ins to real world events like 9/11 really fueled the fires of controversy that may have ultimately increased sales of the title. Still, with all of the hype, the story was perhaps a little too effective in its aim. The plot devices of MoH were planted in the real world, and a great amount of effort was taken to portray the soldiers in game in the most realistic way possible. However, it also served to alienate players from the story that the game was trying to tell.

The NPCs were often a little too clinical as they worked their way through enemy encampments and villages which made the characters feel robotic and alien to civilian players. MoH: Warfighter promises to examine the more human side of many of the characters returning to the franchise by exploring the effects of war on their personal lives, but I question how this will tie into the conflict of the new game. If the plot moves away from the more grounded, realistic tone that MoH set for a more action oriented experience, the developers may struggle with diluting the campaign to something derivative, and that's the last thing that today's shooter market needs.

Multiplayer Development:

It's not unheard of for developers to contract out development of certain game resources to other studios under the same publisher's flag, but MoH developer Danger Close's decision to leave the construction of their title's multi player component completely up to DICE was something that confused many fans of the game. The result of said split development was that the two parts of the game felt like they were completely different games with different control schemes. DICE's approach to MoH's online multi player was evocative of their then recent Battlefield: Bad Company games with a little bit of Call of Duty's franetic pacing, twitch reflex shooting and kill streak like gameplay mixed in.

Multi player felt good, but it didn't carry many of the mechanics over from the single player campaign that could have made the experience feel unique. For example, the campaign control scheme introduced a crouch sliding mechanic as well as a cover lean command and both were absent from the MP side along with the inability to go prone. Perhaps those additions wouldn't have dramatically altered the MP experience, but they would have provided some tie ins to the campaign that could have pulled things together.

Development of Warfighter looks to be handled by one developer with the use of the Frostbite 2 game engine created by DICE, but who really knows what this will mean for the MP suite. Early reports indicate that Warfighter will utilize micro destruction like Battlefield 3, but most likely on a much smaller scale. It's most likely that some environmental elements may be destructible, but structures and buildings will be another matter since MoH tends to favor smaller, more frenetic map layouts over the sprawling environments that Battlefield 3 is known for.

The Breakdown:

With so many shooters on the 2012 roster that failed to capture much acclaim this year, Medal of Honor: Warfighter has quite a bit of ground to cover if it plans to make any sort of dent in what will most likely be a holiday season dominated by Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. Not that every shooter that EA publishes should be out to steal the throne from Activision's Call of Duty series, but it is still likely that there is a lot riding on MoH's shoulders in terms of market representation this Fall.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter may be another in a long list of modern military shooter games, but this series still has a lot of potential to influence the direction that the genre will be taking in years to come. It will be interesting to see what adjustments will be made to this tried and true franchise and whether or not the series reboot will be justified in the public's eye. Medal of Honor: Warfighter launches on all systems on October 23, and hopefully the experience will be worth more than the Battlefield 4 beta for pre order purchasers.

What Half-Life 2 Can Still Teach Devs About Shooting Games

2012-09-06T10:42:00.000-05:00

8 years later....still awesome

I'm fully aware that I have been living under a rock for the past 8 years when it comes to Half-Life 2, but having recently built a capable gaming PC, I finally was able to experience this title as it was meant to be experienced. Of course there was the opportunity to purchase HL2 for consoles via the "Orange Box" release, but I had no interest at the time since most of the game's fan base seemed to be PC loyalists for which I had irrational disdain. However, after Steam announced that they would be discounting HL2's already low price tag of $9.99 to nearly 1/3 of that cost, I decided to dive in and give the game a try.

After roughly 3.5 hours of playing the campaign, let me say I am still thoroughly impressed with this game. It's true that HL2's mechanics are somewhat clunky and outdated given the fact that so many shooters have deemed it necessary to include an excess of sensory feedback devices (i.e. motion blurring, head bob, ADS, etc.), but HL2's bare bones point and shoot/interact mechanics are almost a refreshing break from all of those things. Not being able to see Gordon Freeman's hands while he is steering a vehicle, and the absence of his lower body when pointing the reticule toward the floor may detract from the immersion effect of the game, but those complaints are small beans when compared with the copy and pasted issues that many modern shooters face.

So what is it exactly that HL2 gets right almost a full decade after it's release that modern shooters repeatedly fail at? It all boils down to simplicity, and difficulty. Now my current play through is still fairly young at under four hours, and I'm sure things will ramp up before I'm through, but HL2 is not an overly difficult game even on the highest difficulty. The difficulty of the game is not really what I'm talking about, but rather the level of player challenge that the game presents mechanically. Confused? Let me explain.

Most modern games offer multiple levels of difficulty that adjust how the game performs in specific ways. Lower difficulties dumb down enemy AI, and perhaps even lower the number of enemies you face from level to level. Other alterations may include increasing the overall amount of damage that your character can sustain from enemy encounters, or the availability of health packs and ammo, etc. However, many shooters will still lead players through the environment in an obvious way via an NPC shouting "follow me to the next objective", or by placing a glaring way point marker on the HUD that leads you to the next checkpoint. They want you to succeed even though there may be some cheap or unsound obstacle sitting in your way.

There are some exceptions to this rule, but nearly many modern shooters on the market has a way of leading players by the nose through scripted events in an effort to make things more exciting or visually pleasing. Everything is instance based, and it makes for short, derivative campaigns that really don't leave players feeling like they have accomplished anything. Sure, the ride was exciting, but then again it was more like participating in a choreographed action movie than actually having interacted with a world or it's inhabitants.

At it's core, HL2 is still a linear shooter with clearly defined objectives and way points, but moving through Gordan Freeman's world feels very different than most experiences in that navigation and puzzle solving is left mostly up to the player. Perhaps the most obvious indication of this difference through the first part of the game is that there is very little dialogue aside from the few interactions Gordan has with NPCs as he sets out into the world. There are huge gaps in the narrative where players are left to explore the environment where no direct communication with Gordan is made aside from the mechanical sounding chatter of his enemies. There's no inner voice instructing players on how to solve puzzles, there's no radio chatter telling Gordon that he's headed in the wrong direction, there is only the emptiness of the desolate world that players must survive.

Puzzle solving also plays a huge part in what sets HL2 apart from most games. HL2's world is a puzzle in itself even though it appears to be linear and straight forward. HL2's stages are set up as one continuous labyrinth where players are presented with obstacles that are not immediately obvious to solve. For example, in the early parts of the game I was navigating through the drainage canals of the first city when I came to what was apparently a dead end. Before me was a pool of water with a large stirring apparatus in the center. On the other side, a locked gate with a ladder and walkway behind it. My first reaction was to scour that area for a way to get around the gate, but my searches above and below the water turned up nothing. After several minutes, I realized that this area was just meant to throw me off of the true course which was hidden behind some rusty metal oil drums that I hadn't noticed earlier.

The small amount of triumph that I felt at having passed that obstacle was greater than any scripted action sequence that most modern shooters have thrown my way in the past eight years, and that's something that I hadn't expected from a first person shooter. In fact, given Valve's reputation, they are quite adept at making first person action platformers that masquerade as shooters given the popularity and success of their Portal games, but perhaps this type of balance is what is needed in modern FPS games across the board.

ArmA 2 is another example of an older game that brought several interesting concepts to the board by giving players a huge sandbox world to traverse while still throwing in the action element that other shooters offer. Now the ArmA series is perhaps a little too complicated mechanically to appeal to the wide audience that HL2 caters to, but still the concepts are the same. Developers need to move away from holding the hands of their fans to some extent if they would like to appeal to more mature audiences.

Is this a profitable business model that will ensure that heavy hitting publishers/distributors will continue to see top dollar sales on a continual basis? Perhaps not, but it is an appeal for developers to pull back from their need to funnel players into enjoying their gaming experience in a specific way. Games should be interactive, but also should promote exploration and innovation in a way that promotes better game playing instead of exploitation. Perhaps with next generation consoles on the horizon, systems will be able to handle this more capably, but it is more likely that such games will find a larger following with the PC community.

I will continue to enjoy the more generic shooters of this generation, but once I finish HL2, I will always be looking for something more to fill out my experience.

We're still here!!

2012-04-26T13:05:00.003-05:00

Hey everyone. I just wanted to let you know that the G4F crew is still alive and kicking despite the absence of new posts lately. We have a lot going on right now that is sadly not game related, and spring can tend to be a pretty hectic time. Nevertheless, we are working on a number of projects at the moment that should provide a bit of content for you all to feast on in the coming weeks.

Just to shed some light on what we actually have been doing, here's a glimpse into how the past few weeks of my gaming schedule have looked.

Starting April 1, did a repeat play through of Mass Effect 1 and 2 to prepare for long awaited Mass Effect 3 (I know it launched almost 2 months ago at this point) and effectively put the ME trilogy to rest.
Completed Mass Effect 2 on 4/20 with my entire team intact (woot) and without any help from online FAQs or walk through guides. Began Mass Effect 3 the same day. Still playing in little chunks when not tending to real life crises not involving Reapers or the impending doom of sentient life in the galaxy.
On 4/23 obtained and began digging into the XBOX 360 version of The Witcher 2 (this game is completely badass so far) and put in about 3 hours so far. Expect videos on our YouTube channel soon.
CasualFiddle and I have been working on building a following on our Facebook page to promote the blog and the upcoming website. CasualFiddle is building the website a little more every day.

This all may not seem like much, but given the fact that we are one console down for games reviews, and with everything else we are working on in our personal lives this seems pretty reasonable for now. I'm going to start putting some more video segments together for the YouTube channel, and more reviews will be coming soon as more games come out. Look for a Prototype 2 review to pop up in the next week or two, but The Witcher 2 looks to be quite a chunk of game, so that one may not be out as soon. There are plenty of reviews of the PC version out there, but the console version looks to be pretty solid so far if not as visually dazzling as its counterpart.

As usual, keep looking for more content as the weeks go by!

~Krimmit

Binary Domain Review

2012-04-18T19:34:00.003-05:00

This alone is motivation enough to play this game.

Sega's recent contribution to the Spring 2012 lineup proves that the all but diminished publisher still has some spark with the recent release of Binary Domain. This third person shooter certainly borrows a few concepts from other popular titles like Gears of War and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, but the Japanese flair of BD makes this title stand out amongst its peers in a nostalgia inducing way. Don't get me wrong, this is a good thing even though this game has been sorely overlooked since its release. Even if Binary Domain comes across as a formulaic and generic third person shooter, there's still plenty here to make it worthwhile for any fan of Japanese action games.

The single player element uses a squad mechanic that is similar to those used in the Rainbow Six and Ghost recon games published by EA, and your success at moving through corridors and arena areas relies on your ability to successfully command your team. The neat thing about this is that you have the option to give commands and initiate team banter through voice commands by using a headset connected to your favorite gaming system. For example, if you want your squad mates to provide cover fire while you flank your enemies, you can shout "Fire", or "Cover me" and your team will provide the appropriate response. This mechanic works well in most instances, but the voice recognition requires a little bit of tweaking to filter out the ambient noise in your play area. If the sensitivity is too high, and a TV is playing in the background, you are bound to have some funky playback issues as a result.

For those who don't like the voice command system, the menu allows you to change to manual command inputs that are issued by pushing one of the shoulder buttons along with a controller face button. This proves to be somewhat awkward during more intense battle sequences, but it works in a pinch. Your squad mates' responses to simple commands are also dictated by their level of trust for your character which is influenced by dialogue responses, time spent in your squad, poor command choices, etc. The more an NPC trusts you, the better they follow your commands or provide automatic combat support functions and vice versa. As you progress through the game, several segments allow you to change which team members will be assigned to your squad. The choice doesn't affect the ultimate outcome of the game like it would in a Mass Effect game, but the dialogue options change to fit different squad members, and the scripting never sounds awkward when squad members are swapped around. Each NPC has his/her own skill set that can give your squad certain tactical advantages, so it becomes important to make wise squad selections on higher difficulty settings.

Binary Domain also makes use of skill points that are doled out during combat as you take out your robotic foes. Effectively, the more damage you deal to enemies before they collapse, the more reward credits you receive. Credits are then used to purchase weapon upgrades and character buffs such as increased health or agility at in game kiosks. The process is efficiently straight forward, and you are only allowed to buy upgrades for characters that are currently in your squad and typical upgrades include increases to rate of fire, damage, accuracy and so on for each character's primary weapon. Additional weapons and grenades are available for purchase at kiosks as well, but only your main weapon can be upgraded, and will therefore be your go to gun for most of the game.

Despite the fact that Binary Domain is fraught with plot holes, over the top drama, and equally cheesy dialogue, the story is what ties this whole game together. Binary Domain is a game that doesn't take itself too seriously, and that is something that has been sorely lacking from many contemporary titles. While it's clear that a great deal of care went into crafting the world of Binary Domain, the plot never hammers you over the head with dark commentary or overly moody atmosphere. The environments are believable and appropriate, but there is just enough over the top sci fi action to keep things entertaining.

There is a multiplayer mode to Binary Domain, but the entire endeavor felt tacked on and somewhat obligatory when compared to how the rest of the game performed mechanically. Online services are really what sets this mode back with continued issues being tied to input lag, and exceptionally spongy enemies with inconsistent hit registration. The multiplayer cooperative mode is definitely not competition with the likes of Mass Effect 3's more polished combat system.

Even though Binary Domain offers little in the way of innovation or dramatic spectacle, Sega knows how to stir memories and emotions of how games used to make me feel before there was such an emphasis on having the best game on the market. I'm not saying that this game doesn't show a level of polish or effort that makes it worthy of being a current gen title, but rather it offers a level of simplicity that hearkens back to older generation games that appeals to me. I remember dumping hours into games like this in the glory days of the Playstation 2 or the original Xbox, and that is what I love about this game. Binary Domain may not hold up well in comparison with upcoming titles such as Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, but it does such a good job of bringing classic elements into the current generation of games.

Overall Score: 3/5

~Krimmit

Over 1000 hits!

2012-04-10T13:35:00.000-05:00

Wahoo! G4F's blog hit over 1,000 views over the Easter weekend! We know at least a few of those hits are the result of us looking at our page having not selected the "don't track my own page views" button, but we're still pretty pumped. That many views are pretty good for a blog that we launched just over two and a half months ago, and we are still trying to push out new content as often as possible. We've been working past some personal roadblocks lately which explains the recent lack of new reviews, but rest assured that we are looking to remedy this as soon as possible.

We have also been working on building the official website which will feature content not shown on the blog such as exclusive videos, news articles, etc. It's a slow process, and it gets difficult to post content, find time to play new games, and work our regular full time jobs, but we aren't giving up any time soon. The Binary Domain review kind of fell by the wayside for a while, but I will post it soon, and I also have writeups for Ninja Gaiden 3 and Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City on the way. In the meantime, hang in there for new content!

~Krimmit

G4F's New Scoring System

2012-04-05T11:37:00.000-05:00

Hey, all. Going forward we will be using a different scoring system for how we review games in place of the old 10 point scale. I have personally never been a fan of 10 point systems since most people equate the numeric value with a percentage of how good or bad a game is rather than as a representation of enjoyment. Instead, we will be using a 5 point scale with tiers that reflect different criteria. Of course these criteria are fairly subjective and there is room for some interpretation, but here's a breakdown nonetheless.

1/5: This game is either completely unplayable or suffers from technical issues that make it completely devoid of any enjoyment or reasonable amusement. Burn any copies you come into contact with.
2/5: This game is worthy of rental or borrowing from a friend who was naive enough to purchase it, and that's being generous. Wait for this one to hit the bargain bin before you shell out your hard earned dough.
3/5: There is definitely some potential with this one. It offers solid performance, but may be lacking in certain aspects. Give this one a look for sure, but don't expect anything mind blowing.
4/5: This game encompasses everything that we have come to expect from a successful, interactive, electronic entertainment experience. There is little in the way of innovation, but you would have to completely hate video games to say that this game is not enjoyable.
5/5: We don't believe there is such a thing as a perfect video game, but this one comes close. You will find it difficult to pull yourself away from this title, and it will most likely be a good candidate for the best game that you are playing right now, or for the entire year.

We are also working on a graphic to depict the scoring system for the blog and for the website which is still under construction. Feel free to sound off in the comments with any suggestions you might have. That's all for now!

~Krimmit

Battlefield 3 Adds Rent a Server to Consoles

2012-04-05T08:31:00.001-05:00

G4F doesn't typically touch the breaking news scene, but when we heard about this, it was hard not to be excited. Unfortunately this news is a day or two old, but players booting up their copies of BF3 in the last 2 days found themselves staring at DICE'S latest multi player update. After years of begging, console fans of the franchise have finally been given the ability to rent their own multiplayer servers for either private or public online play.

The update forum states that administrators who rent this service are able to set lobby limits and restrictions to customize matches to their specifications. Limits include member participation, map rotation, vehicle spawns, and more. We haven't had the opportunity to try things out yet, but this feels like an important move in the right direction toward closing the divide between PC and console versions of the game. Although pricing for this service is broken into daily, weekly, and monthly subscriptions. Pricing can be found on the battlelog online or through your respective console copy's BF3 store menu.

See you on the battlefield!

~Krimmit

Premier Video: Part 2

2012-04-03T15:04:00.002-05:00

Here's part 2 of the "Works in Progress" video where we take a look at Ninja Gaiden 3. The game play shown here shows several of the differences in direction that the latest NG game took, and perhaps some of the reasons that most people have been unhappy with this title. I will be doing a full write up of the review in the coming days, but enjoy the video for now.

~Krimmit

Premier Video!

2012-04-03T00:47:00.001-05:00

Hey G4Fers! I finally got some video content edited and posted for your viewing pleasure. Apparently, editing is a difficult and time consuming process. Regardless, I am posting the first part of a two part series I recorded, but when I loaded the first video to YouTube, the last 10 or 20 seconds got cut off. It took about 2 hours to load the thing, so I won't fix that one, but I should have all of the kinks ironed out for future videos. Take note that I changed my username on the blog to reflect my Xbox Live and Playstation Network gamer tags as well. At any rate, enjoy the video below!

~Krimmit

Edit: I'm working on getting the video fixed right now. Evidently, there was a setting that I missed when uploading the video that directly asked me if I wanted to truncate (see shorten) the edited footage to conserve space.......DERP! Should have the updated link and part 2 posted later today.

Edit #2: OK, the complete video is now active on the blog. For those of you who were aching to see the last twenty or thirty seconds, consider your dreams fulfilled.

Hiatus, schmiatus!

2012-03-20T13:55:00.001-05:00

Hey G4F'ers! That's my new nickname for people who visit GF4 Production's sites, and I hope you like it. I thought I would just drop by and do a little status update since things have been a little bare around here for a while, but rest assured things will get rolling along nicely again soon. Despite the sparse spring lineup, we are actually working on a number of title reviews, and video content to post to the blog, and we are still plodding along on our way to getting the stand alone site launched. My partner in crime recently had an unfortunate accident regarding his gaming consoles, thereby leaving me solely in charge of reviews. Hence, things have been a little slow in the going in the article department for the last few weeks until we can have his equipment replaced.

We are also working on getting a premium PC built to handle high spec PC releases so we can cover more platforms, but that may not be for a while yet. Suffice it to say, things are slowly going back to normal, and we have not been deterred from venturing into the world of games journalism. Some of the titles we are picking up this week are Resident Evil: Raccoon City Chronicles, Ninja Gaiden 3, and Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2. We currently have a copy of Mass Effect 3, but I'm not so sure we want to get involved in all of the negative press this thing has been receiving by posting a full review, but we may do some game play videos or something for those who are still undecided.

I'm currently working on a review of Binary Domain, a game that I feel has been desperately under appreciated, but writer's block has delayed me yet again. Nevertheless, we are still here and we are still working on building our repertoire. Stay tuned for more content soon!

Syndicate (2012) Review

2012-03-07T14:40:00.001-06:00

I'll spare the comparisons between this version of the game and it's 1993 counterpart for this review given the fact that I didn't play the original, but Syndicate 2012 has been out for about two weeks at this point, and players have expressed mixed feelings about the game. The winter 2012 release schedule has been fairly uneventful as of yet, but Syndicate adds a little bit of flair to an otherwise dull season. Immediate visual and mechanical comparisons can be made to last year's Crysis 2, or Mirror's edge (both also published by EA), but aside from the futuristic setting and the now standard control scheme, this linear FPS stands on its own as a uniquely interesting piece of work.

A game featuring voice work by Brian Cox? Yes please!

The future is bleak in Syndicate's 2069, as corporations are the new super powers, and most of modern society has embraced electronic integration in the form of neural implants thereby rendering many electronic devices obsolete. You play through the single player campaign as an "agent" of one of the leading neuro chip manufacturers or "syndicates" who is basically responsible for carrying out acts of industrial espionage or counter intelligence against other corporations. However, corporate terrorism has become far more public than in our current day, and war is carried out by militant syndicate units rather than nationalist armies. There are underlying tones representing the effects of consumerism and corporate manipulation of the public, and the whole thing is tied together by some scarce but superb voice acting by the likes of such celebrities as Brian Cox (The Bourne Supremacy) and Rosario Dawson (Sin City) who add a little bit of something extra to the story's credibility.

The single player mode starts out slowly with tutorials and backstory that help lead players into the mythos that has created this dismal future, but things quickly ramp up through the middle chapters as the plot reveals more about the silent protagonist and the history of the syndicate wars. The whole story presents its share of plot twists and moral dilemmas, but the linear nature of the game leaves little room for the negotiation of Syndicate's ultimate outcome. There is always the feeling that the game is drawing you to some predetermined conclusion, but the narrative never hammers you over the head with this innevitability to the point that a second play through the campaign would be impossible. The game action never feels "on rails" like other popular FPS titles on the market, but it would be refreshing to see more choice and consequence interactivity with action titles like this.

The story is not completely unique, but the presentation style and the quality of the writing, although sparse, is worthy of most successful Hollywood science fiction efforts. Mechanically, Syndicate is perfectly polished, and nothing aside from a few difficulty spikes felt frustrating or clunky as you move through the game environments. Some arenas do look a bit cut and pasty at times with repetitive achitecture, but then the game throws you for a loop by moving things to dark slums where the advance of technology has been rejected. The geographic dicotomy is not necessarily mind blowing, but it offers just the right amount of variety to keep things interesting.

There is plenty of weapon variety to be found in Syndicate, and most or your arsenal has a secondary function that provides the right amount of balance as you plan your strategy. For example, on assault rifle features a full auto mode with a red dot reticule for close quarters, and a secondary ACOG scope for ranged encounters. Each weapon has its own unique weight and recoil that set them apart from others. There are also several power weapons to be picked off the bodies of tougher enemies that are insanely fun to use like the mini gun which slows your running speed, but tears through most enemies handily.

DART overlay.....an agent's best friend.

Your most valuable weapon, however, is the DART chip which allows you to hack or "breach" enemy implants. Throughout the campaign, you learn new abilities that allow you to compromise your enemies' hardware on the battlefield thereby increasing your own tactical options. Each time a new ability is learned, a tutorial session launches to help learn how to use the ability effectively, but taking a break from the in game action to do so felt forced and obligatory rather than helpful. The DART chip also allows you to enter a DART overlay mode which reveals enemy signatures even if they are behind cover. Overlay mode also has a time slowing effect which makes it easier to aim shots to dispatch foes more quickly.

Your breaching abilities also allow you to interact with a number of environmental objects throughout the game such as lifts or pressure valves that you can use to gain a tactical advantage. There were a few puzzle solving sequences during the campaign that required the use of breaching, but it would have been great to see the DART chip utilized for more puzzle manipulation. However, the focus on action seems to trump environmental navigation in this title.

Syndicate also features and online multiplayer suite that matches you with as many as four other players for cooperative missions. There are no competitive multiplayer modes to be found here, but co-op feels satisfying nonetheless. Every mission has an overlying objective that you and your fellow agents must complete as you face a variety of AI controlled opponents and boss enemies. Multiplayer takes most of its cues from the single player campaign, but adds some depth by adding a ranking system, and a weapon upgrade system for those who like to customize their player classes.

Cooperative goodness.

Each player accumulates points throughout each mission that are based on team interaction and on how enemies are dispatched. As each round commences, a running point bulletin runs in the corner of the screen so you can see how you are doing compared with your team mates. The scores are then tabulated on the game's online leaderboards for bragging rights. Despite the addition of the leaderboard, the multiplayer never feels overly competitive, and most players play well as a team. However, if you don't want to play with randoms, you have the option to form syndicates with your friends to set up private matches online. You also have the option to try playing through each mission alone at varying difficulties, but I wouldn't recommend it. The enemy count quickly becomes overwhelming, and most people would find it difficult to last more than a few minutes before they are overrun.

Overall, Syndicate exceeded all of my expectations, especially for a title that I hadn't heard much about until a few months before its release date. The futuristic title is not without its faults, but the single player alone is definitely worth a play through. The multiplayer suite left me wanting a bit, but I have nothing against the cooperative format chosen for the game. However, it would have been interesting to see some more modes of play that pit squads against each other in some way. For example, there could be a sabotage mode where opposing squads are working for objectives while the other sets traps ala Splinter Cell"s mercenary mode, or something similar. Fighting against bots is fun, but it's not really enough to hold my attention indefinitely.

Something about this title really strikes a chord with me though, and it reminds me of how I used to get excited about games before multiplayer became so popular on consoles. The story slowly builds, and then before you know it you are hooked and want to know what happens next. I wouldn't say that the writing is the best effort out amongst other popular titles, but this game absolutely lives up to its potential and in some ways exceeds it. No individual component felt out of place, and Syndicate is solid all around.

Overall Score: 8/10

Asura's Wrath Review

2012-03-01T19:21:00.000-06:00

Asura's Wrath is a difficult project to define. In fact, I'm not so sure that I would qualify it as a video game at all as much as it is an interactive and heavily scripted video experience. Most people who pick up a copy of this title will immediately draw game play comparisons to Quantic Dreams Studios' title Heavy Rain since Asura's Wrath is laden with quick time events, but stylistically the two endeavors couldn't be more different. Asura's Wrath is best described as an episodic, interactive anime with interspersed action sequences, and even this comparison falls somewhat short of the mark.

If this doesn't scream ANIME, I don't know what does.

Asura's Wrath follows the story of the demigod Asura who is one of the 8 demigod generals tasked with suppressing the spread of the impure gohma that are plaguing their homeworld. However, things go awry when Asura's fellow generals betray him, frame him for the murder of their emperor, murder his wife, and kidnap his daughter. Asura himself is killed and sent to purgatory only to be resurrected by the power of his own rage 15,000 years later. Upon his awakening, Asura wages war against the remaining demigods who are harvesting human souls to irradicate the gohma, but by doing so pose a greater threat to the survival of the planet than the demonic creatures they seek to destroy.

If there is any way this story could be more convoluted I would be interested to see how, but the way the plot unfolds is worthy of the praise any traditional anime would receive. AW's progression is action focused, but it would be misleading to call this an action game. I would also refrain from making too many comparisons to titles like Heavy Rain due to the fact that there are no diverging paths for the story line to follow based on in game choices. The path Asura takes is strictly scripted, and the only thing the player has any influence over is how quickly each sequence is completed. AW is broken down into literal episodes complete with mid action breaks and end credit previews of the coming action. Each episode is a small part of a larger chapter which breaks the game into 3 chunks demonstrating the 3 phases of Asura's existence.

Crazy action and absurd violence aren't necessarily bad things.

Make no mistake, the majority of this game revolves around the story being presented here, but there are portions of the game where you are in partial control of what is going on. Quick time events are the most prevalent form of interaction, and players are thrown into short battle sequences. There's not a lot of depth to AW's combat mechanics though. Attacks are basically broken into light hits, heavy hits with a cool down counter, and a few charged power attacks. Asura also has the ability to shoot energy from his mechanical fists, but you must remain still to do so. Asura must finish each battle sequence before his own health depletes, but enemy characters don't typically have an energy or health bar. Instead, every battle is completed once Asura lands enough blows to build his rage meter thereby unlocking "burst" mode. This triggers a cinematic finishing move or another sequence of QTE events that are visually dazzling, but not very difficult to complete.

Asura's Wrath may not be for every audience, and the $60 price tag may dissuade many gamers from buying what is essentially only 1/3 game, and 2/3 computer generated anime. However, I wouldn't say that AW is completely without merit. I played through the entire game in around 2 sittings, and walked away satisfied with how things played out. The game doesn't hold much replay value since there aren't any collectibles or side quests to be found here, but individual chapters can be selected and played through to achieve a better rank at any time. At any rate, Asura's Wrath warrants a rental at least to experience the craziness that ensues here, but doesn't provide enough real content to justify the full retail price mark. At the very least, this game is a visual spectacle that is certain to please any anime fan, but the lack of any real strategical substance makes AW more of a novelty piece than a true action game.

Overall Score 6/10: (Rental Worthy)

Upcoming Review Schedule

2012-02-22T14:49:00.001-06:00

Hey there everyone! It looks like the winter/spring 2012 release lineup is finally starting to heat up, and the G4F crew is busy playing as many of the latest console releases as possible to clear out our backlog. March and April will be very exciting with some of the most anticipated titles of the year dropping, but I thought it would be good to let you all in on the G4F review schedule for the next few weeks. As we have mentioned in the past, our reviews are not likely to come out on launch day. We have to wait for most titles to release publicly like the rest of you, but we like to think we give titles their due by playing them for a week or more before rendering our decisions.

At any rate, I wanted to put out a list of upcoming games we plan to review and their release dates. We are sticking with console titles exclusively for now until we get enough funds together to build a capable gaming PC, but we will try to include titles from every current console if possible. If you read the list below and don't see something you think we should include, sound off in the comment section below with your suggestions. I will update the list every few weeks to include more future releases, but for now here is what we will be working on in March.

Street Fighter X Tekken (Launch 3/6)
Mass Effect 3 (Launch 3/6)
Ninja Gaiden 3 (Launch 3/20)
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City (Launch 3/20)
Dragon's Dogma (Launch 3/27)

There are a few gaps in there between releases, but some of these games promise to take a bit of time to burn through (I'm looking at you Mass Effect 3). Also, we will be working on putting together some gameplay videos and other nonsense to get us through to April. We are also all about revisiting past titles, so there may be a bit of that going on at G4F as well.

Until then......VIDEO GAMES!!

~KGB

Syndicate Demo Impressions

2012-02-18T09:28:00.000-06:00

In four short days, the full version of Syndicate will launch, but in the meantime, EA has graced us with a playable version of the 4 person cooperative online mode which showcases some of the game's mechanics. There is only one playable stage available for exploration, but the demo does a good job of demonstrating the general control scheme and the overall feel of the available weapons.

From what I have gathered so far, the co-op mode features up to 4 players who are pitted against computer controlled opponents as they attempt to complete the stage specific objectives. As players move through the stage, points are awarded for kills, kill assists, team support actions (revives/reboots), and other skill based activities. Those points then show up in a running lobby leaderboard which tracks your stats in comparison with your allies as the mission progresses. Teamwork is encouraged, but not in the same way that you would find in competitive multiplayer matches in other FPS titles. Players are given the option to choose from a limited number of customizeable class loadouts before the map loads, but most players that I have come across abandon their preset classes some time after the beginning of the match.

There are several unlockable player abilities that allow for a degree of character customization, and will likely have more impact in the full version of the game, but a majority of the unlocks are unavailable for the demo. Weapons are customizeable to a degree but not to the extent that you would find in COD or in Battlefield. Weapon perks seem to focus more on proficiency than aesthetics in this regard.

Syndicate's default control scheme most closely resembles COD's current control setup with the exception that the shoulder buttons are mapped to your given character's equipped abilities. Other than that, console FPS veterans will likely feel right at home with this one. There is an option to adjust the sensitivity of the X axis and the Y axis independantly rather than one all encompassing sensitivity control, which makes sense. However, no matter how much I tweaked these settings, it seemed like there was a bit of input lag that I haven't experienced in most modern shooters. I found this to be an issue with both online and locally hosted one player matches, but I doubt it is indicative of how the final product will play out.

I also took issue with the overall menu navigation of the demo. The layout is somewhat cluttered for my taste, and I found some of the scroll over prompts to be misleading when cycling over certain menu options. Transitions from one menu to the next feel a little sluggish at times as well, but perhaps I just wasn't in a patient mood while playing the demo.

Overall, the demo feels slick, but somewhat lackluster if the one playable mission is indicative of how the rest of the finished co-op mode will run. I also found that most of my allies simply wanted to rush headfirst into most confrontations without exploring all of their tactical options first, and there doesn't really seem to be any noticeable penalty for doing so. Perhaps there will be a difficulty curve to some of the later missions, but I'm betting that the single player campaign is where most of the meat will be found in this title. That's not to say that co-op will have nothing to offer, but the demo doesn't really have me pumped to jump online on launch day.

The Darkness 2 Review

2012-02-16T20:34:00.000-06:00

Jackie Estacado is back in full force with this year's sequel to the Darkness, and after spending a week with this game I can confidently say that this is one roller coaster ride that you don't want to miss. Despite the fact that The Darkness 2 is a basically linear, story driven first person shooter, it proves to be the most entertaining new release that I have played in 2012 so far. Let's pick it apart though, shall we?

Story/Visuals

If you didn't play The Darkness, there's no need to feel like you are out of the loop. The Darkness 2 does a very good job of bringing you up to speed on the history of Jackie E. and his cohorts through in game dialogue and a few flashbacks that don't hit you over the head with rehashed plot. Even though The Darkness 2 is a direct continuation of its predecessor, Jackie and the ever present "Darkness" have been pitted against a new enemy and the story stands up on its own without much help from the original. The in game dialogue and chapter end vignettes are very well scripted, and the voice work is convincing despite the fact that most of Jackie's mob buddies sound a bit like canned, Italian stereotypes. However, when someone mentions "this thing" of Jackie's, they don't mean the mafia.

I was just admiring the.....AHEM......art style. Yeah....that's it.

Of course, The Darkness 2 follows the lore of its comic book counterpart, and the presentation style does a better job of pulling this off than most video games or even movies have managed to do before. The world that Jackie lives in is gritty and visceral, and the depths of his own psyche are even more dangerous. The Darkness 2 is not without its plot twists and turns, and the story will often leave you scratching your head, but don't let that dissuade you from playing it through to the end. Eventually, everything makes complete sense.

In keeping with the comic book presentation of Jackie's story, The Darkness 2 is rendered with the cell shaded, hard outlined visual effect that many other titles have used in the past. At first I was skeptical about what effect this would have on the immersion effect of TD2, but it really works for this game. All of the hard edges are softened somewhat by the textures and lighting that are used to build the game's environment. It never felt like the game looked too cartoony or that the color palette betrayed the darker tone that the game was trying to convey.

The art style did tone down the effect of the extreme brutality a bit which isn't really a complaint. Most games put too much emphasis on making viscera too realistic while abandoning any sound reason for including such gratuitous imagery in the first place, but TD2 finds balance in this area. TD's animation system helps tie things together nicely by keeping things reasonably realistic, but by adding a bit of visual flair that ratchets up the entertainment value at the same time.

Gameplay

It um......doesn't end well for this guy.

TD2 is technically just another linear FPS, but having the "Darkness" on your side adds a dimension to the control scheme that other titles lack. As you progress through through the story mode, every kill builds Jackie's essence pool which can be used to buy attributes or level up existing abilities. TD2 uses an attribute wheel that is broken into 4 sections. One section essentially builds your attack powers, another increases the amount of health or ammo you are awarded for specific kills. The other two sections either augment existing powers or open up style techniques that increase essence output.

Jackie's darkness tentacles are responsible for adding the most variety to the way TD2 plays as they provide three dimensions of attack during any battle. The left tentacle is used to grab enemies or environmental elements that can be thrown or manipulated. The right tentacle is assigned for melee functions and executions. The combination of the tentacles with Jackie's ability to dual wield a variety of weaponry brings more excitement to every battle sequence. Also, TD2's dual wielding function is probably the most effective use of the mechanic that I have experienced in an FPS since Halo 2. Whether you are toting dual 9mm handguns, twin SMGs, or a combination of both the results are more than satisfying. On top of that, Jackie moves the pistols around and even crosses his arms after prolonged gunfire further enhancing the coolness factor.

Boss battles are few and far between in TD2, but the sheer number of varied enemies you confront in later parts of the game fills the gap nicely. The bosses you do come across will test your mastery of the "Darkness" as most of them know about your aversion to light, and the arenas force you to choose your plan of attack carefully at higher difficulty settings. The only weakness that I found in this area was that by the time you reach the end of the game, your darkness powers will likely be leveled up to the point that later boss battles won't feel as challenging as the earlier ones. In fact, the final boss battle provided little to no challenge when compared with most of the normal enemy confrontations throughout the campaign. Then again, I suppose this reflects Jackie's growing mastery of the "Darkness" itself.

Final Thoughts

The Darkness 2 is just what gamers need to spice up the otherwise dull winter 2012 release schedule. The combination of solid storytelling with multi-dimensional first person gameplay goes a long way toward making this title a tough one to top for this year's release lineup, but TD2 is far from perfect. I didn't experience any frustrating glitches or frame rate hiccups, but TD2's hangups come from its own action's fluctuating peaks and valleys. During the first few chapters of the game, players are encouraged to explore Jackie's powers, and while enemies are challenging they never felt overwhelming. As a result, TD2 gives you a chance to experiment and acclimate yourself with its control scheme. In later parts of the game, it just felt like there were so many enemies in various points that you are more likely to hack and slash wildly to survive the onslaught rather than playing strategically. The effect is short lived, however, as the game's ending resets the pacing for the last few chapters.

Nonetheless, The Darkness 2 provides everything I look for in a worthwhile FPS campaign. Jackie isn't your typical silent protagonist, and it is clear that the game developers want their audience to connect with the struggles he is experiencing. The story mode takes around 7 or 8 hours to complete if you take the time to collect all of the dark relics hidden throughout, and the ending suitably ties up the story while leaving the option for another sequel wide open. The game does feature a multiplayer mode called "Vendettas" that allows players to play through co-op missions, but I haven't had the chance to dig into this mode yet. Expect to see a gameplay video that highlights Vendetta mode later this month. It's also nice to see that once the game is completed, you have the choice to select a "New Game +" option that allows you to play through the game with all of the abilities you unlocked at the expense of erasing your existing save file.

Long story short, The Darkness 2 is one game that I'm glad I didn't pass up this season. Although TD2 may seem like a vanilla shooter on the surface, there is a level of potential depth here that will keep you coming back for more darkness time and time again.

It ain't easy having hair like this.

Overall Score: 9/10 (Great)

Look for reviews of Syndicate and Asura's wrath in the weeks to come. Also, we should be posting some gameplay videos in the near future. Until then, keep your thumbs limber my friends.

~KGB

UFC : Undisputed 3

2012-02-13T18:11:00.003-06:00

UFC Undisputed 3 gets ready to drop in a few short hours. Many have played the demo few the full game as of yet. I am one who did get the chance to play the full game. Let me tell you this game is more polished than its predecessors, while still keeping the basics intact with a few minor tweaks.

One of the great additions to this game is the expanded weight classes giving you pretty much anyone you want to fight with a few fighters that can go up and down in weight class. Pride mode is a welcome addition to the game, but the only real downfall is that you can only play with fighters who have held a fight in Pride (checking on this it has been brought to my attention there might be a way), making the pickings very slim in the overall division. On the bright side it holds true to the actual competitors and who doesn't like soccer kicking Rampage in the face?

The overall striking detection and sway response has gotten a huge overhaul, and it doesn't feel clunky to stand up and bang. If you go for a round house and miss completely you now can over spin and be taken down and give up your back instantly. They have also made a change in the submission game which i feel is a huge upgrade. Instead of having you spin the stick as fast as you can and having the superior submission expert pull off the tap almost instantly in the fight you now must keep away from your opposition submission bar as shown below.

I have yet to begin the camp mode, and have just been messing around with friends, or playing title mode and title defense. I can say if you're a fan of the others this one will surpass and live up to the hype a lot of other sites are giving this game. The game play is pretty flawless especially with simulation health (you gas faster the more you throw) hit detection is pretty much spot on i have not run into any problems. Graphics are outstanding giving out the old eye vagina is really satisfying in this game as you can see the extent of the cut.

3 hours to go until some epic online battles.

Ill say 9/10 the additions to this game have made this fighter simulation that much better.

~Casual

KoA: Reckoning

2012-02-07T21:26:00.002-06:00

Today were going to take a look at KoA: Reckoning. KoA to me is a hack and slash style of RPG, a cross between God of War and Elder Scrolls it was it screams the most. I have probably about 10 hours worth of play time put in so far as a mage (which i have never played in an RPG).

There are a only a hand full of races to select from that each have there own racial awarded bonuses. Much like the traditional RPG. You may wanna research the following races before rolling your character in KoA so you can decide which path to take from warriors to casters the choice is yours.
Almain (Human)
Varain (Human Nomads)
Ljosalfar (Light Elves)
Dokkalfar (Dark Elves)

The quest icons in KoA remind me of World of Warcraft as the are displayed on the map as an exclamation point and when the quest is filled and ready to be returned the quest giver has an arrow above his head. On the min map your quest will appear as a gold circle. Make sure you check all buildings for quest if you dont like to miss side quest for easy gold and experience.

The game play is pretty basic as you can combo with your melee weapon, or combine buttons such as LT and X to do longer but more powerful attacks. Casting consists of holding RT and pressing A,B,X,Y to your mapped spells. That makes the ability to cycle through your spells while others are on cool down excellent. But it also causes a frustrating problem for console users because you can only have 4 spells mapped at once, to switch you must go into your abilities menu and map a different one. It might be a good idea before you hop into a dungeon to know what your enemies weakness is.

There are 3 basic skill trees in KoA they are Sorcery, Might, and Finesse. Going back to your race you may want to pick a race that goes well with the tree you are going to build on. I only have experience in the sorcery tree i have yet to expand into the others but i would imagine tree has skills for melee combat, medium range combat, and long range combat.

KoA is a challenging game on Hard Difficulty, i have encountered a few Dungeon Bosses that have given me some fits so far with having to juice up on potions to running away to break there attack aggro. One thing that will help you get through your boss battle is to save your Energy called Fate, with this attack it will allow you to bring the fight into slow motion and also have higher chance to stun. When you knock out your enemy in fate mode it goes into quick time mode where you mash a botton to gain up to 100% more XP.

Overall this game has lived up to the hype, it may not be as big and tedious of Skyrim, but its just what the doctor order.

9/10
Ill keep you update if anything changes but this game just meets the requirements for an RPG, and has a bunch of cool and relaxing features at the same time.

~Casual

Soul Calibur V Review

2012-02-07T14:36:00.000-06:00

Soul Calibur V is yet another addition to the long catalogue of 3D fighting games out on the market, and it continues the course of the "Soul" series established back in the fledgling days of the original Playstation console. However, does this latest title add anything to the series that challenges the standard of what 3D brawlers have come to be? Let's take a look at how the base elements stack up.

Play Modes

SC5 is a continuation of the popular franchise set nearly two decades after the events of its predecessor, and as such there are very few changes to how most of the standard modes of play have been hashed out. It's all about the basics here with a short story mode, arcade challenges, online and offline multiplayer, quick play matches, a "Legendary Souls" mode which pits you against CPU controlled opponents of increasing difficulty, and an obligatory training mode.

Story mode was perhaps the most disappointing of these game types due to the fact that most of the plot revolves around the actions of no more than 3 main protagonists throughout its 20 chapter span. Rather than giving each playable character his or her own unique story line, SC5 strictly follows the story of Patroklos and Pyrra Alexandra whose fates are tied directly to the Soul Calibur and Soul Edge swords. Many of the other characters make appearances throughout the main campaign, but they are used either as opponents or as minor support devices.

In a presentation sense, the story mode is primarily illustrated through a series of manga style story board pictures with character narration. Some scenes were delivered by way of game engine animated CG vignettes, but these felt few and far between given the emphasis on the static images that comprised the majority of the story's delivery. The combination of both forms was not particularly impressive or stylistically unique in regard to Japanese fighting games, but they adequately drive the action forward.

Regrettably, the plot was too weak to warrant a stand alone effort, and the lack of variety left me wanting after using the same characters over and over for nearly three hours (including cutscenes and dialogue). Arcade mode offers some respite in this regard for players who want a progressive opponent based challenge that allows you to sharpen your skills with a given character. Story mode seemed bent on confining the experience to just a few characters for the sake of continuity, but the weakness of the plot made this move superfluous.

Arcade mode is interesting as it pits players against 6 consecutive CPU controlled opponents and then reports the time that it took to defeat them. That score can then be reported to a leaderboard or to your friends list for a bit of friendly competition. Of course the meat of this game can be found in the competitive multiplayer mode which can be played either online or offline against friends or a CPU opponent. The character gallery provides enough variety in terms of play style and character design that most players will be able to find a niche that fits their own play style.

The character creation tool is another way to tailor the Soul Calibur experience to your liking as it provides a way for players to customize their own fighter's appearance, fighting style, and weapon selection. There isn't as much customization available as in the creation tools found in Skyrim for example, but it's still a cool way to leave your own mark in online matches. A character's height and build does factor into his or her level of strength and agility, however, so a four foot tall fairy sprite swinging a two hundred pound battle axe won't necessarily do as much damage as a seven foot troll would. It should also be noted that the fighting styles available for character customization are limited to those used by existing characters in the multiplayer catalogue.

Final Thoughts

3D fighting games have grown somewhat stagnant lately as many of the mechanics that made them unique in the early days of arena fighting have become so common place across the full spectrum of game developers. Soul Calibur doesn't necessarily cater to the hardcore skill player culture in the way that past Virtua Fighter or Street Fighter titles have, and it lacks the creativity in multi layer set design that Dead or Alive provides. The result is that SC5 fails to recapture the spark that 3D fighters set off in the late 90s. That's not to say that the variety found in SC5's character gallery isn't impressive or rewarding, but the fact remains that this game's basic formula is a bit overplayed for today's market.

SC5 is ripe with acheivements and trophy opportunities, but none of them really lead to areas that make playing the title feel fresh or fun. The online multiplayer runs as smoothly as can be expected, but input lag is frustrating and can often be game breaking if either party has a weak connection. Offline multiplayer is still fun, but I can't see myself pumping hours and hours into it like I did with past games. I also found the lack of any multiplayer game type tweaks to be a bit of a let down. Most modern games employ some sort of tag team mode or 4 player mode, but SC5 is devoid of any of these conventions.

The verdict here is that SC5 may not be a sub par fighting game, but it doesn't really do much to advance or challenge the current state of 3D arena fighting games in any way. It's nice to see that this title stays true to it's loyal fan base by preserving Soul Calibur's core gameplay. However, it would have been great to see things mixed up a bit more. The game play is solid on this one, but I think more should be expected from 3D fighters in order for the genre to continue to be successful.

Overall Score: 6/10 Average