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You're Doing It Wrong - Need For Speed: Most Wanted

2012-12-31T02:03:00.001-08:00

I'm back and full of opinions. Kyle's officially handed this column off to me and I'm very excited to be contributing to this blog, blah blah, whatever, let's get on with the lynching.

To be honest, this one is kind of different. I don't hate Most Wanted, I actually quite enjoy it. However, that doesn't mean it's without its strange design choices. This is also different because Most Wanted isn't a sequel, it's a reboot. Most Wanted is also made by an entirely different studio than the original. So lets talk about how Criterion fucked up.

First, the basics. Most Wanted is an open world racing game where you compete in a variety of different race types to gain points so you can take on the Most Wanted, the Best of the Best, and claim the title of best racer. Pretty simple stuff, right? In the original, you played a nameless driver from a distant city, who has his car sabotaged and taken from him but some upstart and ends up locked in jail. After your release, you have to start from scratch and you are gunning to bring down this bastard. The story is told in these real coll Full Motion Videos that blend live actors in with in-game graphics and CG. It's wonderfully over the top and gives each driver just enough character that you really want to ruin these guys days. There's some intrigue to your character as well, but that's better not spoiled. In the remake/reboot, you play as...someone, who's come from...somewhere, and you race against...cars. Honestly, there's no story at all. You're just dumped into the world and told to collect cars. You race against the Most Wanted to claim their cars, but they are just cars, you're not racing against actual racers. You can also find cars out in the world to claim. There are no cutscenes, no characters and no story. Just gameplay. Which is fine, I guess, I mean, it's a video game, right? But without at least some hint of story, you have no driving motivation. What is my motivation for wanting these cars? Sure, some of them look nice and drive nice, but when you have Ashton Martin Vanquish's or Bugatti Veyron's just out in the world for your taking, it becomes lacklustre and you lose motivation fast.

So let's talk gameplay, then, seeing as there is little else to talk about. Both games play very much the same. You race in a variety of events to unlock the ability to race the Most Wanted, rinse and repeat. Where things vary is in how you unlock the Most Wanted. In the original, you had a set amount of races and goals to complete, as well as "heat" (which consists of smashing cop cars and leading them on merry pursuits) to gain, and then the race unlocked. This is where the reboot shines. Everything you do nets you "Race Points". Racing, driving on the wrong side of the road, crashing, getting busted, getting in chases, upgrading your gear, just playing the game nets you RP. Get enough RP, and you can challenge a Most Wanted car. Big plus. The reboot also does away with the economy. In the original, you had to make money. You then used that money to buy cars, parts and visual mods. In the reboot, you unlock upgrades by racing, and the only customisation is a random colour swap every time you drive through the Body Shops scattered around the world. This doesn't really work. Firstly, it's really strange that there is no extensive customisation. In the first you could do elaborate paint jobs, right down to your rims and window tint. You could make the craziest looking, original cars that you wanted. In this one, what you see is what you get, basically. This is especially disappointing with the game's greater focus on Multiplayer, robbing you of the opportunity to show off your crazy designs to all your friends. Secondly, upgrading your car becomes a grind. You just compete in the same races over and over to unlock the good stuff. And you can't get the stuff you want until you unlock the bare basics that you need, like nitrous. However, the biggest crime on the upgrade front is that the Most Wanted cars don't come with any pre-installed or special upgrades. In the original, if you won the Most Wanted car, you wont hat exact car. They often came tricked out with special upgrades, or at least the best of the basics. It gave you a reason to gun for them. In the reboot, you basically just unlock that model and have to upgrade it yourself. I have three other complaints. First, the game is really difficult right from the get go. The original suffered the opposite problem of being way to easy at the start, then randomly spiking about a third of the way through. I'm not hugely bothered by the difficulty, but because there's no real sense of progression you never really feel you're getting better. Also a lot of the races seem really scripted. There were a lot of times I was way in front, and then suddenly almost get pipped right before the line. It takes away a lot of race satisfaction when it constantly feels like you are only winning by chance. Secondly, the crash cams are really annoying. You crash a lot in this game, and every time control is ripped away from you and you have to watch a sometimes 30 second long cutscene of you wiping out. This not only kills the pacing in the races, but takes away one of the best parts of the original - smashing the crap out of your opponents, bouncing around corners off their sides, plowing into cops and generally causing wanton destruction, etc etc. Also, the checkpoints it drops you back at are random and arbitrary. its as liable to drop you ten seconds back as it is exactly where you wiped out. It's amusing sometimes to seeing yourself go spinning off cliffs, but almost always it's just annoying. Finally, the cop chases are a lot harder and long winded than they need to be. In the original, the cops were very fun to get into chases with, and ferocious, but you also had a lot of tools at your disposal to lose them. You could crash into the environment to drop things on their heads, hide in buildings or just straight up smash them up. In the reboot, you just have to outrun them. That's it. On the low levels, this is pretty easy, but once you're past about level 3, it's basically impossible. Not only are the cops literally everywhere, but if you somehow manage to lose them, you still have to wait for the levels to slowly tick down it take about 20-30 seconds per level, and the cops are still hunting you the whole time. if you're lucky, you'll lose them near a Body Shop and use it to quickly wipe off a level, but that very rarely happens. It's a real shame that they didn't take advantage of the Frostbite 2 engines destruction capabilities for some cool environmental take-downs.

So that's gameplay, what about visuals? Well, the original still looks real good, and runs great, but the reboot definitely outshines it. Environments look great, the models are fantastic and the lighting is brilliant. However, the city is a lot smaller and it suffers the usual Frostbite problems of constant lensflare, dirt and other shit in your face all the time, which can really fuck you up in races where the blinding speed makes it hard enough to see the track. Which reminds me, the track designs are a lot more unpredictable this time around. I'd say they are better and a lot more interesting visual, but its rare you'll get all the way around your first time. Later tracks drop severe turns on you completely unpredictably, or send you over blind hills or jumps. The interface is worse this time. In the first, you could access a few things quickly out in the field, but it was usually easier just to jump straight to the menu and do it from there. In the reboot, everything is done through the ironically named "EasyDrive". This menu does not pause the game, which means you basically have to be at a full stop to use it. Seriously, just try using it at speed and see how that gets you. There's also basically no quick travel. In the original, you could jump straight to the race event and start it if you wanted, or drive to it. In the reboot, you just gotta drive to it. And some of them can be up to 12kms away. You can sort of jump around by using different car spawn points and hoping they are close, but its often quicker and easier just to drive straight to it. A small inconvenience, maybe, but in a game where you're driving all the time, it just feels like padding.

And that's about all I got to say. These really aren't review articles. I'm only really interested in the changes from the original that the sequels fuck up. It's 'You're Doing It Wrong', not 'You're Doing It Right'. I'm sure Kyle will do a full review at some stage, maybe crack out his Angry Nerd style videos he's been saving for Hitman: Absolution. Yeah, I'm not even going touch that one, that's all his. Anyway, like I said, I enjoy Most Wanted, but definitely prefer the original. As a racing game, the reboot is a lot better than a lot of the competition, but placed against the original it falls short in a lot of baffling ways whilst improving very little. You may be Doing It wrong, Criterion, but at least you're not Squeenix. Shudder.

The Women of Heavenly Sword

2012-12-13T02:31:00.004-08:00

Heavenly Sword is one of the most tragically underrated games on the PS3. It received a lot of acclaim from the critics, but was often accused of spectacle over substance, and came out in the early days of the system where everyone was still knocking around the gimmicks of the PS3 Sixaxis controls. It is not a perfect game, it suffers from uninteresting boss fights, tacked on motion controls (which are mostly redeemed by the fact that you can turn them off) and frustrating QTEs and puzzle sections. Still, it offers a deep and challenging combat system, tight responsive controls and stunning visuals, rivalling most games being released 5 years later. On top of all that, you have an amazing story, directed by Gollum himself, Andy Serkis. Serkis also provides the mocap and voice performance for the lead villain, Bohan, stealing every single scene he is in. However, I'm not here to talk about the game. It's great, underrated and one of the better action games on the system. I'm not here to talk about Serkis' amazing performance/direction either. I'm here to talk about the three women of Heavenly Sword.

(Spoilers to follow, read at your own risk)

I'm going to start with the villain, Whiptail. Whiptail was a woman once, but has somehow ended up a part eel/part snake/whip-wielding...thing. She is devoted to her master, King Bohan and it is insinuated that he somehow turned her into what she is now. Whiptail is fuelled by sex and anger and views our heroine as a potential ally. Throughout her battle, she attempts to lure Nariko in with promises of a life of luxury in servitude. Ultimately, Nariko weakens her by praying on her relationship with Bohan. While she is hardly the greatest written character, she provides a surprisingly deep and haunting villain.She has become a victim of her love, truly becoming a worthless monster in his eyes. Had she not fallen so hard, perhaps she would have been on the side of good. But the heart is blinding and love ultimately is the downfall of Whiptail, as she dies at the hands of her love. True tragedy.

The second playable character is a young girl called Kai. Little is known of Kai at the start of the game, we are introduced to her as a strange, vague child, with a morbid fascination in playing "twing, twang" (read: shooting bad guys with her high powered crossbow). It is later revealed her whole clan was slaughtered in front of her by the psychopathic General Fox, and she herself may have been tortured, or worse. Nariko finds her some time later and the two bond as the only women in an all my clan. They bond over their grief and loneliness, Nariko at the loss of her mother and alienation by the clan, and Kai over the loss of her whole clan. Kai desperately clings to her childish innocence, playing war as a simple game, but beneath that shell hides a raging inner turmoil. She is fully capable of defending herself, often showing ingenuity and prowess in battle. She even manages to assist Nariko even while being tormented by the man who murdered her family. Kai provides a truly tragic heroine, one who overcomes an overwhelming hardship and ultimately rises to save the day, many times. She's like Batman and R2-D2, haunted by a tragic past, forever hiding in the shadows and saving the day, often as an unsung hero.

And then we have Nariko herself, who is, in my own opinion, one of the greatest female characters. Now, let's just get this out of the way. Yes, her outfit is revealing. You can see half her butt, and she wears little more than some strips of fabric. However, she is not wearing any more or less than any other character in the game. In fact, she is probably wearing more than most of the male characters. Justification, perhaps, but there is very little titillation involved with the way she looks. In herself alone, Nariko represents a lot of the games major themes. Born during a time of prophecy, Nariko is seen as a portent of doom. A male was meant to be born to lead them to glory, instead a daughter is born. Nariko's birth kills her mother, and her father nearly murders her before she can draw her first breath. She is alienated, feared and even hated by her clan, and her father treats her as a pupil first, and daughter second. Still, he clearly loves her and trusts her enough to gift her their most sacred possession, the Heavenly Sword. Driven to rescue her father and save her friends form Bohan's army, she takes the sword in hand and forfeits her life. Those who wield the sword are cursed to die, but Nariko does it without hesitation. And eventually, through sheer willpower, she bends the weapon to her own will, bringing herself back to life long enough to slay the King and bring piece to the land. She dies a hero, worshipped by the clan. Kai sums up: "Some worshipped the sword, others killed for it, but only you saw the truth." Nariko's character just simply wouldn't have worked as a male. Ninja Theory used the power of gender roles to reinforce Nariko's character arc. Her whole story could be seen as a metaphor for a woman's struggle to exist in a male dominated world. There are no females in positions of power in this game, and those with power are hated and feared.The game explores a lot of strong themes: religious persecution, misogyny, genocide, sexual tension, ignorance and many more, and Nariko herself personifies nearly all of them. Her story arc ties the world together and she is it's beating heart. That is why I truly believe that Nariko is one of the best written (and marvellously acted by Anna Torv) female characters in gaming. Now, go buy the game. It's less than 20 bucks in any gaming store.

Review Quickie: Chernobyl Diaries and Friends With Kids

2012-11-18T19:01:00.001-08:00

Man, it's a slow month of DVD releases. Once you've watched the big ones: The Avengers, Cabin In The Woods, etc., you are really starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel. And so it was that I ended up with two movies in my hands. Chernobyl Diaries (one I was at least mildly interested in thanks to Oren Peli's name on the cover) and Friends With Kids (one I had no interest in but my housemate wanted some thing else to watch). Since neither of these films are worth a full, detailed review, I'm going to hit them both on the head. Let's start with the better of the two: Chernobyl Diaries.

I gotta admit, I was pretty pumped for this. Not only was this the first film Oren Peli has written since the first Paranormal Activity (one of my favourite horror films of the last ten years) but nowhere near enough creative media has used Chernobyl as a location. STALKER proved that Chernobyl can be a scary fucking place and I was looking forward to what Oren could do with the location. We've got the pretty typical set-up, young hot kids on euro trip decide to up the ante with an "extreme" tourism trip to Chernobyl. You've got the assertive one, the cautious one (who happen to be brothers), the hot, tough heroine, the dumb, bland blonde, the mysterious tour guide and two foreigners (an Aussie and his Russian girlfriend). Doesn't really sound that exciting, but Oren's deceit is turning horror conventions on their head, so I was still pretty pumped to see where this was going. The first thing Chernobyl Diaries gets right is the location and atmosphere. From the first moment you see Chernobyl and Pripyat you can feel the horror of what happened here. The oppressive death and decay of the fallout ridden wasteland, the silence, the decaying husks of abandoned buildings left to what little of nature survived. I got a little excited seeing the theme park and ferris wheel where you hold out for extraction in Modern Warfare, or the big plaza that you battle through on the way to your final destination in STALKER. And for about 70% of the movie, that atmosphere remains. The first few scares are powerful, and the feeling of claustrophobia and isolation works well. Outside of some of the mutated animals, who or what is stalking the tourists is not revealed right until the very end, as it should be. We can some fantastic 'something moving or standing in the distance' shots, as well as an incredibly tense kitchen scene. The deaths all occur off-screen as well, which is a nice change. There's very little gore in the entire film. Mixed with some fantastic cinematography, I was ready to give this a big thumbs up. And then came the last act, and everything fell apart. The few remaining heroes are chased into this creepy fallout shelter, deep underground and everything looks set up for a cool reveal of the creatures as these people driven mad by having to survive deep underground. There's also one fantastic scare here, too. And then the creatures start to come out into the light and I'm not going to spoil it, but they are not scary. Anyone whose played STALKER knows how terrifying the scuttling, gas-mask wearing snorks, or the invisible, vampiric bloodsuckers were, but there's no such creativity shown here. From the initial trailers, I thought this was actually a good, old-fashioned ghost flick, but I really was left bewildered and disappointed by the final act. The story just ends. No real answers, just bam, done. Finished. This feels especially disappointing because the first two thirds of the film were fantastic. I can only imagine what happened to Oren's script. Perhaps the butchering's is why he decided not to direct it himself. I don't know. While not an awful film, the final act stops me from truly being able to recommend this film. Mix in some questionable acting and you've got two-thirds of a good horror movie. Really only recommendable to die-hard horror fans.

Alright, let's make this quick. Friends With Kids is written, directed, produced by and starring Jennifer Westfeldt and boy, can you tell it. Let me some up this movie in one sentence: she never, ever shuts up. This film is just an endless dialogue dump. And not even interesting dialogue. Alright, so Jen and Adam Scott's character are friends who share a kind of platonic relationship. Both their friends are in couples. We have Chris O'Dowd (of IT Crowd fame and one of the only funny people in this movie) and Maya Rudolph, and Kristen Wiig and Jon Hamm (only in this film because he's with Jennifer in real life, but thankfully doesn't phone it in). We start the film with them all getting together, happy as Larry. They talk. We jump forward four years. It seems both couples now have kids and neither take it well. To buck the trend, Adam and Jen decide to have a kid together, share the parenting role, but continue to date other people. I wonder where this is going. God, this movie is just fucking predictable from end to end. Damn near nothing happens. I'm not kidding, the film takes place over six fucking years, but almost nothing dramatic or interesting happens. There's this weird dramatic tension towards the end, but it disappears as fast as it appears. Jen seems to forget there's anyone else in this film but her and her vision. The friends only turn up four times, for a total screen time of about 20 minutes. I'm serious. There nothing but a convenient plot device, completely neglecting the acting potential of the four. Thankfully, Adam Scott delivers a great performance almost convincingly selling this bullshit. Jennifer herself is ok, but criminally unfunny. She's got this "oh I'm so awkward" stumbling thing always going on, but unlike someone like Zooey Deschanel there's no subtlety or variation to it. Thankfully, both Adam Scott and Chris O'Dowd have some generally funny lines, but they're not enough to elevate this film about self-indulgent shit. This could have been a 30 minute play, and it would have been decent. But film is a visual medium and endless dialogue with nothing to watch is just boring. People talk, then they talk some more somewhere else, then they talk some more somewhere else, then someone else talks. Rinse and repeat ad nauseum. This is one woman forcing her frankly confused and completely cliche message all over us. Avoid this shit unless you enjoy endlessly screaming at the screen "Oh my God, would you just shut the fuck up and do something!?"

You're Doing It Wrong - Medal of Honor

2012-11-15T18:44:00.006-08:00

I'd like to introduce a new section. This is an idea I've had for a while but haven't had the time to put it all together. This first one is actually written by a friend of mine, who has asked to remain anonymous as he did it as a favour for me last minute. Oops, did I say he? I meant she. Or they. Them. It. Ahhh, anyway, check out "You're Doing It Wrong", written today by Alan Smithee.

Alright, Medal of Honor: Warfighter. With a name that fucking awesome, what could possibly go wrong? This is some authentic shit, apparently. See, in real life, soldiers are controlled by mysterious puppet masters that line up all their shots for them, because God doesn't want America to miss. Also, in real life you can take a .50 calibre sniper round to the chest and just shrug it off. Multiple times. Alright, I know what you're thinking. Real life isn't fun. I agree with you. Real life sucks, that's why we play games. This is not military sim, this is an action fps. I'm not here to talk about how EA's marketing department fucked up with this game, I don't have the time or patience for that. Instead, I'm going to outline the ways in which Warfighter fails as a sequel. This is MoH vs MoH:WF.

Let's talk openings. The first Medal of Honor began with a bunch of chatter outlining the events leading up to 9/11, as well as the military intelligence's response, before dropping the player straight into the heart of Iraq. Straight up, we meet the first of our three groups of main characters - SEAL Team Neptune. We play as Rabbit, a man with a bizarre taste in auto-tuned Arabian pop. Within the first five seconds, every character is presented with at least the broad strokes of personality. Joining Rabbit are Voodoo, Mother and Preacher (the least interesting of the bunch). In Gunshooter, we open up with a cutscene of somewhere, and two mysterious dudes emerging from the water. The sneak up behind a guy and we're instantly thrust into a first person view of the back of a guys head. 'Press Mouse 1 to shoot" we are told. No need to even do anything else. In fact, we can sit here all day if we want to. So go ahead, click. Bam, dead guy. Satisfied? Well, don't sit still for too long, the game has some more parts for you to watch. And that's basically the intro mission in a nutshell. You literally have to do three things. Click the mouse to kill a guy you can't miss. Press F on a truck to plat a bomb. And shoot at a chopper that you can't miss as long as you stand in the right spot. And run a bit. Compare that with MoH, where right from the start you're thrown into a hostile village and have to fight your way to free a hostage. There's no handholding; you want to save the guy, you're going to have to kill everyone in your way. Sure, your team will help some, but the onus is on you to play the game. BTW, the guy you play as in Bulletuser is Preacher AKA MR. Two Lines of Uninteresting Dialogue from the first game. Great choice, guys.

Another big problem that Cutscenewatcher has over it's predecessor is a massive focus on set pieces. There are maybe two, maybe three 'setpieces' in the first game. If that. Bombexploder has a new setpiece every five seconds. You thought Call of Duty was bad? There are more set pieces in the first two missions of Doorfighter than there are in the entirety of MW1. Wrap your head around that. The setpieces in the first game were used to either create dramatic tension (such as the feeling of helplessness as hundreds of Taliban rush your crumbling defensive position) or to relieve tension (the following helicopter mission). Here, it's the equivalent of some guy flashing you in the back street. I don't care how big his cock is, I saw it the first time. now it's just getting ridiculous.

Let's talk villains. In The first game, there really wasn't an overall villain. It starts out as you trying to wipe out the Taliban as revenge, but quickly devolves into a desperate struggle to rescue your friends and get the hell out of dodge. The enemy was as much the location as anything else. Or maybe that stupid army general that seemed more interested in guts and glory over brains. Arabkiller tries to have a more present villain, even setting the tutorial mission as a terrorist training under him, but it ultimately fails as you never really feel the villains presence. His lackey gets some strong screen time and the only genuinely effective moment in the game, but even then he's given no back story outside of "evil guy", so who cares. There's some attempt at a story about explosives or something, but it's lost in the endlessly shifting locations and objectives. In the first one, you never left the one mountain and you had a strong sense of place and purpose because of it. This one has you bouncing from Singapore to the Philippines to the Middle East and everywhere in between desperately trying to tie it all together cohesively. It's big conceit is that most of these missions are supposable based on real events but they lose their power when they are twisted together to fit a fictional story. Either go 100% real, or 100% fiction. Actually, I think the main enemy is doors. There are so many doors to brutalize in this game. In fact, Breachshooter devotes an entire mini-game mechanic to it. I'll let the boss talk about that more in his review, though. There's still more shit to trudge through.

Ok, let's talk graphics. Lensflareblinder was meant to be the big flagship for the Frostbite 2 engine. Did it work? Oh God, no. It's like the developers didn't even understand the fundamentals of the engine. There's almost no destruction and what little there is makes no sense. You can blast a guy through a metal sheet, but not through a cardboard box? You can't shoot through holes in cover but a block of concrete won't protect you from a grenade? It's nonsensical. not to mention it runs badly, the textures are shockingly low-resolution at times and the animations just look bad. Again, this is more a review thing but I thought it was worth mentioning as clearing using a proprietary engine was a big mistake for I'mruningoutofclevernames. The first one ran on Unreal Engine and while it came with the usual Unreal problems, it at least functioned as you would expect.

Alright, let's wrap this shit up. There's more I want to talk about, and even some things that Warfighter gets right, but the review is a better place for all that. I really love the MoH reboot, that's why Kyle got me to write this. We've often argued over who likes it more. I just can't believe that this sequel was made by the same team. Everything the did right in the first game is gone. everything they did wrong in the first game is worse. Outside of a few story beats and one original mechanic, the game is a total, abyssal failure. It was buggy to the point of broken at launch and doesn't run much better since the colossal patch. It's insulting to the lives of the soldiers it's meant to be respecting and it doesn't know what it wants to be. Where is the market for this game? It's too flashy for authentic crowd, it's too me-too-try-hard for the Call of Duty crowd, it's multiplayer isn't good enough to win over the Battlefield crowd and with black Ops II out now and blowing it out of the water, why does this even exist? At least the first one had a market. It was a slower paced, cerebral shooter that was more interested in being a war drama than an action film. because of this, it didn't sell well. It was accused of being a lifeless shooting gallery by people who would rather have things blowing up in their face all the time. Well,a re you happy? You made this, MoH detractors. Danger Close listened and made the game they thought you wanted. Are you happy now? You're Doing It Wrong, guys. Stop destroying originality. You did it MoH, you did it to Sleeping Dogs, you did it to Spec Ops. Don't bitch about CoD if you want to shoot down anything that isn't CoD. That is all.

PS Has no one at Danger Close seen women or children before? Because whatever those abominations are in game, they are not women or children.

PPS Seriously, never use Preacher again. With so many interesting character to choose from from the first game, you choose the one guy with a personality of mud. Great job.

PPPS Thank you, Treyarch, for continuing to revolutionise and innovate Call of Duty while Infinity War seems happy to make the same game over and over.

Resident Evil: Retribution 3D Review

2012-09-20T17:56:00.000-07:00

My name is Alice...

That's right, Alice is back and it's time for the haters to start hating. I've never really understood the hate for this film series, especially from fans of the game. Hell, if it wasn't for the movies, I would never have even played the games. Still, even I will admit that the 4th movie had it's moments of shitness, mainly stemming from an almost fetishist use of slow-motion and an intro almost entirely ripped off from the Matrix, but Resident Evil: Retribution seemed set to bring the series to new heights. Did it deliver? Did it ever.

The film begins at the exact moment the last left off. Umbrella is leading an all-out assault against Arcadia, led by Jill Vallentine (somehow played even more lifelessly by Sienna Guillory, who does brain-washed bad-ass even worse than she did regular bad-ass). So Umbrella comes in and blows everything up, and Alice is captured once more. We then jump to a non-descrip American suburb where Alice wakes up from a nightmare to her life as a subruban housewife. It seems she's now married to Carlos and they have a deaf child. Ok, Paul, I'll give it to you, this is different. Still, it's not long before the zombies show up and everybody dies. Michelle Rodriguez's Rain shows up again, for a bit, before we return to Alice, who's locked in a sterile environment, naked except for that thin sheet thing from the second movie. Now normally, I'd call this pandering, but here it's used to good effect, hammering home Alice's new vulnerability. Big props to Milla for pulling off this performance, it's nice to see Alice's human side again. Don't get me wrong, it's still pandering, but it's pandering with a purpose and Milla sells it. Still as lost as the audience, Milla manages to escape with the help of a mysterious power outage and suits up in regulation Umbrella skin-tight lycra. I'm not going to reveal anymore of the plot from here, except a few broad strokes. It seems Ada Wong, working for Albert Wesker (who no longer works for Umbrella) is the one who broke Alice out and they must now fight through he facility to meet up with a strike team, lead by Leon S. Kennedy and Barry Burton. Much arse-kicking follows.

I want to talk a little about the casting/characters here. We have three new characters from the game in this movie: Ada Wong, Leon S. Kennedy and Barry Burton. I can see why they brought Leon and Ada together, and they obviously brought in Barry for his connection to Jill.

(SPOILERS which goes nowhere because they just kill him off before the two meet and in this fiction they've never met SPOILERS)

I want to say this first, Li Bingbing's Ada Wong is fantastic, she gets the character spot on. Ada Wong is my favourite Resident Evil character and I was very worried about whether they could get her right in the movies, but the Ada Wong on screen is very much the Ada from the games. Sadly, she's very underutilized, given little to do except act as a plot device. Still, that's nothing compared to the horror that is Leon. I've got no idea who this guy they chose to play him is, but he is terrible. He's terrible if you compare the character to the game, and he's terrible if you've never even heard of the character. For one, leather jacket aside, he doesn't look a thing like Leon. Secondly, his characterisation is completely wrong. Leon is a typical B-grade action hero. He spouts terrible one-liners, he's basically brain-dead and if he's showing any emotion at all, it's usually some kind of bravado. This films Leon shouts a lot, scowls a lot and seems to be all dark and haunted by something. Also, his relationship with Ada is barely developed at all, which makes the little wink and nod to it at the end feel more like pandering towards the gamers and alienation of the people who only know the films. Barry is handled a bit better, but like Ada is given very little to do. I was initially thrown by the actor, who seems to be of Asian descent, but he delivers a decent performance. The part where he whips out his magnum towards the end is pure pandering towards the gamers as well, but at least this scene doesn't alienate the film fans.

Bitching aside, this movie gets a lot of things right. The plot is almost non-existent and completely unimportant. It basically feels more like a game than any of the previous movies. Alice and her friends fight through various levels and set-pieces and battle massive bosses on their way to the surface, before the movie ends on one of the greatest cliff-hangers/sequel bait I've ever seen. Also, the final fight is incredibly well shot and acted. Paul has really developed as an action director throughout these movies and the action this time around is easy to follow and beautifully shot. The action elements are often used to further enforce Alice's vulnerability, she is often wounded, or at the very least seems less confident and over-the-top compared to the previous films. The over-use of slow-mo is completely gone. In fact, there's almost no slow-mo in the entire film. The first action sequence is shot in slow-mo, but runs entirely in reverse, which is a really cool effect.

Overall, Retribution is my favourite in the series so far. The acting is the best so far (a few exceptions aside), the pacing is brilliant, the action is easier to follow and the 3D is much better done and far less gimmicky. I should also give a mention to the great score, which is less pilfered popular music and more actual composed score. If you can see this in the cinema, I really recommend that you do it. It really needs to be experienced on the big screen. otherwise, wait for the BluRay, whack on the 3D glasses and dive once more into the crazy world of Resident Evil.

Bane Plays Dark Souls

2012-09-20T17:18:00.002-07:00

So I wanted to take a moment to talk a little about this series. I've played Dark Souls through, start to finish, more then 8 times now. I've got it on both PS3 and PC and it was my Game of the Year for 2011, so I don't have to tell you how much I love this game. I've been wanting to do a Let's Play of it for some time, but didn't want to do something along the usual lines. Then I saw a video called Bane Plays Slender and really liked what the film-maker did with the character. So I though, what if I took this idea and instead of having it as a one off gag, actually ran with it? This allowed me to not only brush off my voice-acting skills, but play Dark Souls in a way I never had before. Now I had to play Dark Souls not as myself, but as Bane (or a fictional version of Bane I've created for comedic purposes). Doing this has injected new life into the game for me, and I'm having a blast with it. I've got a couple of videos up, with two more to come within the week, so check it out. I know the impression isn't perfect and slips at times, but I'm working on it. I've embedded the first two videos below, so check them out.

Scoot 'n' Shoot - Resident Evil 6 Preview

2012-09-20T17:12:00.003-07:00

Oh yeah, the Resident Evil 6 Public Demo is finally here and let me tell you, it was worth the wait. There's still a lot of detractors of this game, I know, but I honestly can't see where they're coming from. Let me illuminate you a little as we dive into the bleak world of Resident Evil once more.

Let's start, as we should, with Mr Kennedy. Leon is still rocking the leather and emo haircut, but now seems to have picked up a more manly voice. Joining him on his adventure is Laura Bailey. I mean, Helena. (This is actually kind of disconcerting fiction wise if you remember that Laura Bailey voiced Angela Miller in Resident Evil Degeneration.) But anyway, it seems there's been a virus release and Leon is forced to shoot the President. Helena then confesses to causing all this and then insisting that Leon takes her to the cathedral in town before she reveals anything. Showing his usual levels of intelligence, Leon doesn't arrest her on the spot and instead agrees to accompany her on this lunacy. What follows is pure Resident Evil 4. Dark, tight corridors, punctuated by heavily populated open areas. Action is slow paced, but incredibly taut. Shooting feels good, really good, and the ability to move while shooting is an incredible game changer. Dodging and melee is no longer contextual, too, which really shakes up combat. That doesn't mean it's suddenly easy, though. Zombies will rush you in crazy numbers at times, but even a solitary zombie can catch you off guard, moving in unpredictable patterns. This section ends with a tense driving section that forces our protagonists into the sewer and the demo ends.

Next, Mr Redfield, who still seems to be chowing on the 'roids. He's giving inspirational speeches to emotional orchestral music and moving his team to tears. You know, the usual Chris stuff. "Is he always this awesome?" a rookie asks. Still, it's not long before the shit hits the fan. It seems the local guerilla forces have got their hands on a new type of virus that creates BOW's smart enough to use weapons and with some nasty defence mechanisms. Combat for Chris is Third Person Cover Shooting, for the most part. Cover is automatic, push against a wall whilst aiming and Chris will latch on, or pressing X while against a smaller cover object will make him duck for cover. This feels much more responsive than Resident Evil 5, but still feels a little funny at times. I'm not going to lie, I actually had fun with Chris' campaign. It felt like what Reisdent Evil 5 could have been. This is straight action with horror elements, it controls well for the most part, and the enemies are varied and challenging. There's a really fun boss fight against an El Gigante and a tense shootout in a trainyard that make some great set pieces.

Finally, we have Mr Meuller. We join Jake (played by Troy Barker, who's rapidly giving Nolan North a run for his money) in some kind of drug den. He shoots himself up with something that sends everyone else over the wall, but just seems to turn him into more of a douche. Sherry Birkin (that annoying little girl from Resident Evil 2) turns up and tells him he can save the world, which turns him into even more of a douche. Anyway, Jake's campaign is...hard to describe. The demo level features the same J'avo type enemies from Chris', but now they're even harder. The more you shoot them, the stronger they get. It's crazy hard, but more often than not, just crazy. I found it much easier in the end just to pump a few bullets into the gun type enemies and force them to mutate into melee types, then make a run for it. I'm worried about the difficulty spikes in this campaign, it feels a lot more scattershot. Jake's character is a nice change of pace for Resident Evil and I look forward to what he can bring, but I feel I'll only play this through because you need to finish all three to unlock Ada's campaign.

And that's it for the demo. Seems Capcom is still keeping Ada's campaign mostly under wraps, which I like. For those who are worried about the changes to the game, I can assure you they're mostly for the best. Whilst Jake's campaign, at least from the little bit I got to play, seems a bit hit and miss, Leon and Chris' campaign are both really enjoyable and offer something for the die-hards and newcomers alike. The partner AI seems much better this time, and you don't have to worry about managing their inventory or anything, which is nice. Speaking of inventory, it works really well this time. Scrolling through is fast and responsive, and weapons can be changed without opening the menu as well. There's also a quick heal button, which really comes in handy. There's now no way to actually pause the game, which keeps the tension high. If Capcom continues to design the levels around these new additions, I can see this becoming the best game in the series. That's right, I said it. Well, regardless, I got this pre-ordered and the demo's free, so I really suggest checking it out. Resident Evil 6 is out on Xbox360 and PS3 on October 2.

Something Is Coming

2012-09-15T07:19:00.001-07:00

When Lordran lies in ashes, you have my permission to die...

Star Fox 64

2012-08-23T05:01:00.004-07:00

I'm so tempted to just leave this an empty article. Surely the title says enough. Surely we all know this by now. Still, I feel this needs to be said, at least by me.

STAR FOX 64 IS THE GREATEST SPACE SIMULATOR EVER!

I'm serious. Forget Rogue Squadron, forget all the Star Wars games. This is where it's at.

DO A BARREL ROLL!

This game, man, this game...I don't think my child like mind fully comprehended just what the fuck I was experiencing. The graphics, the level design, the characters, those bosses...

I honestly can't think of many games with the sheer depth and replayability that Star Fox 64 had. We didn't even have internet in our house when I had this game. I remember replaying the game for the umpteenth time and suddenly discovering there was a whole other boss on the first level that took you on a whole other path. Fuck Ocarina Of Time, this is where it's at.

DO A BARREL ROLL!

Even today, everything about this game feels right. The controls are sublime, the level design is perfect, the challenge is monstrous but always manageable. The voice acting is brilliant, the dialogue is funny and quotable and the characters are just so memorable. I could literally quote most of this game line for line, not just

DO A BARREL ROLL!

I've got to be honest, I still have never defeated Andross. I just can't do it. He fucks me up. But I happily blaze my trail to him, driven on by an ever burning desire to kick his weird floating head arse

thing

That level seriously freaked me the fuck out as a kid. I mean, you had some weird shit before then; fire levels, underwater levels, Slippy (boom-tish!) but from the moment Fox says 'I'll go this alone', shit just gets fucked up. You dive headfirst into this trippy LSD tunnel, only to be greeted by a giant floating head with enormous hands that proceeds to decimate you in about three seconds. I know now the whole floating head thing is a throwback to older games, but back then my young mind couldn't handle that shit. I had nightmares, horrible, horrible nightmares.

You're becoming more like your father every day.

I love Rogue Squadron, and to be totally honest I find it hard to place this game above it, but I truly believe that not only as a game, but as an experience, Star Fox 64 is unrivaled. Even today, it stands up. Sure, the graphics might be a little funny, but everything else is still unparalleled. Not to mention they just remade it for 3DS, so there is no reason for there to be anyone alive who hasn't played this game. Now if you'll excuse me I have to

go make dinner.

Resident Evil Retrospective: Resident Evil 5 (PC)

2012-08-15T16:49:00.001-07:00

I'm going to keep this one brief, as I feel I've already wasted enough of my life on this. For those who don't want to waste time with the review, here's my succinct and honest opinion. Do not buy this game. Do not rent it. Don't even borrow it from a friend. There may be some fun to have playing with a friend online, but there are a tonne of better co-op games out there. Borderlands, for example.

Still here? Ok, let's get this out of the way.

So Leon is back in the states, annoying President's daughter in tow, and the worst seems to be over. Umbrella is finished, Las Plagas is all but destroyed and Ada and Wesker have vanished into the sunset. Enter the BSAA, a corporation founded by the remaining Pharmaceutical companies in an effort to salvage there image as "Not Umbrella". Chris Redfield, stalwart hero of Resident Evil 1 and Code Veronica, is back with bigger muscles, a new beard and a new partner. It seems Jill went an kamikazeed Wesker out a window and now Chris is feeling bitter and disillusioned with the world. Why he didn't celebrate her surprisingly apt departure I'll never know (The joke here being that she is a massive "wet fish", for those who aren't following me and my intense dislike of her character. Just wait till my REmake review). Anyway, Chris finds himself in a nondescript African nation, with Sheba, his new partner, who is neither a wet fish, nor annoying (at least as a character). In fact, she definitely ranks up with the Claire's and Ada's. Not quite as well rounded and intriguing, but still well written and acted. So there's another Las Plagas outbreak or something, Wesker on some doomsday device, the pharmaceutical companies are secretly evil and the whole gig is just a cover operation. Stop me if you've worked out where this is going. Oh, and Jill's still alive. Yay. Though weirdly she magically turns into not only a bad-ass, but an interesting character. Go figure. She took the Gandalf route and came back as Jill the White; older, wiser, less wet. And strapped into a hot jumpsuit, just cause they hadn't squeezed enough sex appeal out of her tight body yet. Sarcasm aside, the characters are all well written in this game. The story, though cliche and terrible, is well written, acted (especially for a Resident Evil game) and is paced very well. Wesker is my favourite villain and it's nice to see him get a whole game to himself. His relationship with Chris is explored a lot more thoroughly than previous games, as well, which is nice. The music is good, too, easily on par with Resident Evil 4, but now even more cinematic and dynamic. This is also a very good looking game. Character models look great, the environments are detailed and varied, and the lighting effects are very nice. The game utilizes Direct X 10 very well and easily competes with more recent titles.

Right, that's all the good out of the way. Let's get on with the bad.

Remember Resident Evil 4? Ok, good, welcome to Resident Evil 4.1. You're fighting 90% of the same enemies (I'm not even joking, there's maybe 2 'new' enemies, and they're both pinched from earlier games), the controls are exactly the same, and it's a permanent escort mission. Yes, your partner can technically look after themselves better, but that doesn't mean they actually will. Oh, and you're back to 9 inventory spaces a piece and for some stupid reason the game doesn't pause while you access it, leaving you desperately pressing buttons like an idiot trying to pick a new gun while a massive enemies rapes your face with a chainsaw. Still, these controls worked for the most part in Resident Evil 4, because the game was built around them. They design the over-the-shoulder control system from the ground up to work with that game, a slower paced survival-horror game with an action feel. Tank controls do not work in a straight third person shooter. Which is what Resident Evil 5 is. And a pretty stock standard one at that. They try to mix things up with ranged and melee enemies, but the cover system is terrible and a lot of enemies can stunlock you, allowing the other enemies to shoot you to shit. Still, this would all be bearable if only the partner AI wasn't an insult. Resident Evil 0 this is not, you have basically no control over Sheba, other than to call her to you and set her routine to cover (which means only shoot at things attacking her and stay close to you) or attack (which means shoot everything all the time and waste all the items you give her). She spends the rest of her time getting killed, wasting all your ammo and healing items and generally just standing around shooting the wall or something. It makes the singleplayer campaign all but unplayable. I had to play on Easy just to make the enemies stupid enough that they at least kind of matched the partner AI level. This game is specifically designed to be played by two people, there's just too many enemies to tackle alone. Also, back to the controls for a bit, but not being able to move while shooting does not work in this type of game, especially when all of the enemies dart around like they're on caffeine. Especially the bosses. Stop to take a shot or two and they'll warp straight up to you and fuck you up. Also, the game is completely filled with almost broken quicktime events. By the time the button has flashed on screen, it's already too late. This wouldn't be so bad if 9/10 of them didn't result in instant death and a bump back to the last checkpoint. This happens a lot in boss fights, too. The Wesker fights are plagued by these. All of the boss fights in general are terrible. Fighting Wesker should be fun and exciting, but instead devolves into him repeating the same three moves while you desperately try to initiate the one context sensitive action that kills him, which requires you and your partner to work together. In fact, the last fight with him is so awful it's nearly broken. I'll be honest, I haven't gotten past it and I'm not going to. The only solution I can see is jumping back to the start of the chapter and trying to stockpile ammo (the last chapter throws more enemies and mini-bosses at you than the entire game combined, mind you, and I have 6 bullets left thanks to a terrible checkpoint system that saves your equipment from the last save, not from where you start the game from).

This is the first time in my reviewing career that I've given up on a game. Honestly, I tried. I've restarted this game 3 times. I've played through all the way from the start with different co-op partners, I've played it singleplayer. I've dropped the difficulty to Easy, but I'm tired of wasting my time. This game is not fun, it's not interesting and it's badly designed. Resident Evil 5 is not a bad Resident Evil game, it's just a bad game. It's plagued by bad game choices, broken partner AI, counter-intuitive controls and an uninteresting story. Only die-hard fans should consider playing this, and even then I'd recommend finding a way to not spend any money on it. I got it for $5 and I still feel ripped off. I cannot recommend strongly enough that you don't waste your time on this game.

Slender - Survival Horror Done Right

2012-08-09T20:43:00.005-07:00

Now that's what I'm talkin' 'bout. All I can say, honestly, is thank God for the internet, because every now and then, something rises from the pools of porn and, at least in Slender's case, scares the living shit balls out of you.

I didn't know much at all about Slender going into it. A random link on the internet promised scares, and that did it for me. I had no idea who, or what, the Slenderman was or just what this game had in store for me. Taking the advice of the poster, I skipped the readme and jumped straight in.

Collect the pages.

A nice, simple objective, I think, recalling my experiences with the convoluted puzzles of Silent Hill and Resident Evil. I'm in a forest, rendered very nicely, and very densely, with the Unity engine. some mucking around leads me to discover I also have a flashlight, the ability to run faster, and I'm a girl. How do I know I'm a girl? The game is first-person and the protagonist is silent, I cloud be anyone. True, but the panting that issues after you run is unmistakably female. This is just the first of Slender's many clever nods and winks to classic horror movies. Exploring the forest reveals it's massive size. There's no map, no real sense of direction either. The occasional landmark is your only way point, but they are few and far between. It's just trees, and more trees. Finally, I stumbled on to a house and carefully creep inside. The fine white tiles remind me of a public washroom, but it's been long abandoned and moss and fungus overrun the walls. There's no pages here, so on I continue.

It's maybe three or four minutes until I stumble onto my first page, stuck up against a rock formation. DON'T LOOK, OR HE TAKES YOU. The chilling message is scrawled in a child's hand and accompanied by some hurried pictures. My mind instantly springs back to Blair Witch Project, and my heart races. I grab the page.

Boom.

A deep, pulsating sound, repeating over and over. Something has awoken. I turn, and catch a glimpse of a silhouette in the trees, so close. Blindly, I run, flashlight swinging wildly. Now, the level design really shines. With no sense of direction, you find yourself madly running in circles, desperately searching for any kind of landmark. The fear is real, there is no escape. You feel claustrophobic, even in the massive space. 5 pages later, and no sign of the silhouette since the first page. Still, the thrumming comes and goes, the deep vibrations shaking through my body. The music is picking up now, from a subtle whine ton a quietly intense theme. I can't shake this feeling that he's somewhere close by. A wrecked car and shack greet me ahead, as well as the telltale shine of a page. So close to my goal now, I rush behind the car and grab it. Confident, I step back around the car, straight into the Slenderman. The screen fills with static, I should have run but fear has rooted me to the spot. Also, the shock caused me to jump, which sent my mouse flying and I'm now helpless as he devours my soul.

HE'S ALWAYS WATCHING.

It's amazing watching others play this game, just to see how truly divergent the gameplay is. Some playthroughs last tens of minutes, some barely make it to five. I've yet to see anyone get all the pages, yet. Their locations are randomized, too, so there's no sense of familiarity. Slender is a pure experience. It's wholly focused on scaring you shitless. Like Amnesia, you are completely helpless against your foes, your only hope is to run. And run you will, endlessly pursued by something beyond your understanding. This is why Slender is scary, every time. The chase is not linear, or scripted. The Slenderman can come from anywhere and relentlessly pursues you. But he is still bound by rules, seeing him is not instant death and he can only move in a straight line. There is always a hope of escape, but not of ending the pursuit. Not until you completely your goal. Every aspect of this game is designed around making you feel afraid. Best of all, it's completely free and a tiny download. So crank up the sound, put your headphones on and turn off the light. Just remember, DON'T LOOK, OR HE TAKES YOU.

Prototype 2 Review (PC Version)

2012-08-09T03:41:00.005-07:00

The first Prototype game is one I share a passionate love/hate relationship with. It was simultaneously the most frustrating, and the most crazy fun game I've ever played. It was a game that gave you the most insane superpowers, but then seemed to revel in finding more and more ways to take them away from you. Now the sequel is here promising a fix to all the first game's problems. Does it deliver on that promise? In the words of Sergeant Heller: "Hell fucking yes!"

Right from the word go, you can tell Radical is really trying for something different with this game. The opening shows Alex Mercer, the anti-hero protagonist of the first, now fully cast in the antagonist role. Taking his place as protagonist is Sergeant James Heller, a loving father who returns home from the war to find his family murdered by Mercer's virus. Filled with a fury to rival Kratos's, he sets out to hunt down Mercer. After a really cool opening level, you come face to face with him, only to have Mercer infect you and send you out to do his bidding. Throughout the game, Heller will discover a web of deceit and lies, and eventually discover just what Mercer has planned for the world, and Heller himself. The story is stronger this time around, helped by better writing, stronger and much more likable characters, and great pacing. Potty mouth aside, Heller is a sympathetic protagonist, mostly because this time around Radical never try to paint him as a troubled hero. Like Kratos, Heller is driven only by pure rage, and God help anyone who gets in his way. His ensemble cast is strong, too, often in surprising places. Sabrina Galloway provides an interesting femme fatale role as Heller's contact within Blackwatch, and Father Guera presents a welcome humanity that tethers Heller to reality. A returning character from the first game was also a stand out for me, though they were also a stand out in the original. The writing is wonderfully over-the-top at times, especially the dialogue from the various Blackwatch soldiers and Gentek scientists. "Shut your fucking fuck hole, you fucking geek!" one perturbed commando shouts at a whining scientist, while 4 Gentek VIPs brag about a project to sterilize the lower classes and ethnics. This over-the-top villainy just makes it all the more satisfying when the get their bloody comeuppance. And God, is it bloody. This game could be one of the goriest, bloodiest and grossest games I've seen in some time. Limbs are severed, people are swallowed alive, the infected are twisted and mutated in horrific ways. It's truly a beautiful sight to behold.

And the game itself is beautiful. The graphics might not be cutting edge, but on the PC at least it still looks good. The city shines and sparkles, while night scenes are often accompanied by rainfall and moody lighting. The city looks amazing, and is varied as well; with three distinct zones. The Green Zone is all but free of infection, the Yellow Zone is under quarantine, and then the Red Zone, which has almost been entirely swallowed by the virus. This could be the best version of New York since Spider-man 2. The city feels alive, bustling with sound and sights, and helped by a much improved draw distance since the original. Aesthetically, Prototype 2 is very pleasing, too. The infections manifests in bright reds, reflections in the water and glass dance and sparkle, and the cinematics are rendered in a gorgeous black, white and red style. There's actually a very noir feel, not just to the visuals, but the story and character design as well. And I love noir. Some of the animations look a bit dated, ripped straight from the original, but for the most part the characters move beautifully. The scale of destruction has a lot of weight, with massive explosions and Heller's every step ripping up the environment.

It's the gameplay, though, that is improved so much over the original. Everything that the original hinted at is perfectly realized in the sequel. You see, the virus allows Heller to change his very body. This can be used in combat, with five different weapons at his disposal, or in stealth, by taking on the form of various people you consume. There's a much bigger focus on the powers this time around, with missions specifically designed to encourage greater use of your powers. There's also a surprisingly deep upgrade system. XP will level up Heller, allowing him to increase his attributes, while completing side missions and finding collectibles will net you Mutations, which are like perks. These are locked in once you've chosen them, lending a bit of weight to these decisions as the available mutation points are very rare. On top of that, specific consumable enemies will upgrade your powers and abilities. Combat is much more simplified and streamlined this time, and so much better for it. Two of your powers can be mapped to the X and Y buttons at any time, and they can be swapped out on the fly. A dodges and jumps, and B grabs. And that's all there is too it. Radical has managed to strike a balance between making you feel powerful, but still challenging you. Gone are the random huge difficulty spikes of the first game, as well as the awful boss fights. The boss fights this time around are really well designed, especially the final one, which requires you to rapidly adapt your fighting style and cycle through all your abilities. Completing the game unlocks a new game + mode, as well as the insane difficulty, which I'm currently playing through on. The gameplay still holds up, more than 20 hours in I'm still having a blast with it, which is more than I can say for the original. I keep finding more and more stuff to muck around with, and there's still a ton of collectibles, side missions and leveling up to do.

It's a shame that Radical is no more, because Prototype 2 is really the pinnacle of their vision. Building on what started with the Hulk game, they really went out on a high. I should also mention that the voice acting is of a much better quality this time around, too. For anyone looking for a great action game, I can't recommend Prototype 2 enough. I have heard some people complaining of issues with the PC version, but I've experienced not a single problem in my 20+ hours. Also, I played with an Xbox Controller, just because I don't like to play action games with mouse and keyboard, so I don't know what the mouse and keyboard support is like, but honestly, Xbox controllers are so cheap now I'd be surprised if there were still people who didn't have one. This game is badass, it's crazy fun, and it's my favourite action game of this year. I cannot recommend it enough.

Resident Evil Retrospective: Resident Evil 3 Nemesis (PSN)

2012-07-29T20:49:00.002-07:00

Counting backwards, we continue with the Resident Evil Retrospective with the most fun, tightly coiled and enjoyable Resident Evil experience I've had so far. Providing an incredible amount of innovation to the "classic" Resident Evil formula, as well as one of the most terrifying and effective villains in the RE-verse, Resident Evil 3 is an action-horror masterpiece. But is it flawless?

Jill Valentine has had a pretty shit week. After being sent to investigate a mysterious mansion in the first game, she now finds herself trapped within a zombie-infested Raccoon City and desperately searching for a way out. To complicate matters, she's being relentlessly pursued by a seemingly invincible killing machine and racing the clock against an impending nuclear cleansing. Despite this incredible premise, the story falls on it's face right from the beginning. Jill is just an uninteresting character. Outside of generic badass chic, she really has nothing that resembles a personality. Joining her is Carlos Olivera, Mr. 2D Hot Latino Guy, and his team of "russian" mercs with secret motivations. Thankfully, the Nemesis is such an effective character and plot device that it stops things becoming boring. The incredible tension and horror this relentless machine creates is reminiscent of Resident Evil 2's "Mr X" (who I'll talk about him in my Resident Evil 2 Retrospective), but retains an originality all to his own. There's no real explanation for who or what he is, or why he is relentlessly pursuing any remaining STARS members, which only layers on the tension. Every other aspect of the story just doesn't work. The voice acting is as awful as ever, but now without an interesting script or at least well-written characters to counter it. The only real ingenuity in the story are these "live trigger" moments, where you can make a binary decision at key story points that supposedly affect the story, though after only one playthrough I can't really comment on how much this does affect things. Such a thing seems run-of-the-mill these days, but was innovative back then and still provides a fun distraction now.

On the gameplay front, Resident Evil 3 really shines. It feels like the perfection of the mechanics. The tank controls remain, but now there's a quick 180-turn (which would become a staple of the series from now on). Jill seems to move faster, too, and all the animations (doors opening, stairs climbing etc) play out much faster, keeping the pace way up. The real strength of the gameplay comes from a seemingly tiny thing - the dodge move. If you press the 'action' button at the right time while holding your weapon, Jill will perform a context sensitive dodge move. This one simple thing makes combat much more fun, especially against the faster, more vicious creature. No longer do you stand around uselessly shooting and then desperately try to rotate and run away from their attacks. This not only makes combat more interesting, but balances out the boss fights a lot better. Nemesis especially is relentless and powerful with his attacks, especially some of his later forms with tentacles and spikes and ranged attacks. The puzzles remain, but are way more streamlined and way less obtuse than any previous games in the series. The inventory management, health management and saving system remains exactly the same. There are only 8 inventory slots, so excess items must be stored in item boxes scattered around the place and traded in and out as necessary. Saving is limited by however many ink ribbons you have (although easy mode provides unlimited saves a la RE 4) and health is managed by a variety of different healing items. Nuts and bolts aside, it's damn fun, really balancing the feel between action and tension. I played through on easy mode, which has more of an action feel with more weapons, more ammo but hard mode still retains a very survival horror feel. Not to mention it is damn hard. You really have to nail the dodge move, as well as managing every single bullet, every single healing item and every single save.

Graphically, Nemesis could easily be mistaken for it's predecessor. Character models are blocky and aliased, their mouths don't move when they speak. Gun models are kind of blah as well. The backgrounds are well designed and all pre-rendered, but the textures are very muddied. This PS1 game after all, but it is disappointing that there's been no improvement since 2. The locations are bigger, though. You really get the opportunity to explore Raccoon City, and a lot of locations within it. The hospital and the clock-tower are especially creepy. CAPCOM is really great at telling the story through the scenery. The city is in ruins, and it's often fun looking around at the wreckage and trying to work out exactly what happened here. Locations change occasionally, too, on return to them. An extra dead body, or more junk, just little subtle things that can shake things up. The colour palette is a bit more varied, too, with some brighter primary colours. It all seems slightly less blurry and murky than the original.

The soundtrack remains strong, with a lot of recognisable themes returning, such as the save room, but also a lot of original work. The music blurs between industrial, electronic and classic B-grade horror cliches. Sound effects have improved slightly, but are still very low-quality. Weapons sound rather weak, especially. The voice acting ranges from bad to awful. The zombie and monster sound effects are very good, though, especially the Nemesis' creepy mantra of "STARS". It chills you every time you hear it, often just before he appears sprinting wildly at you, fists swinging.

Despite the strength of it's gameplay, Nemesis is ultimately let down by bad characters and a badly told story. Nemesis himself remains probably the most effective and terrifying RE villain, but none of the main characters are strong or interesting, especially Jill and Carlos. That said, the gameplay is tight, tense and incredibly fun and I can recommend this on it's gameplay alone. If you can look past the story and all it's flaws, there is a tonne of fun to have with Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.

Resident Evil Retrospective: Resident Evil 4 HD (PS3)

2012-07-22T17:16:00.003-07:00

With Resident Evil coming out soon, I felt it was high time to go back and check out what it was about this series that incites such passion in the fan base. So I started at the one game I tend to hear the most about, the 4th entry in the series. Often hailed as the best, and credited with single-handedly revolutionising the survival horror genre (for better or worse), with it's recent HD re-release I figured it was finally time to see what all the fuss was about.

I'll briefly mention the pros and cons of the HD dressing here, as it's barely relevant to anything I want to say. If you've ever played any of the earlier releases, there's really no reason the buy this. The "HD" only means they upscaled the resolution, all the original graphics are left entirely untouched. Characters look alright, and the environmental designs are interesting, but the textures themselves are very blurry and stretched, and the whole aesthetic and colour palette is very washed out. Sound is an issue, too, with a lot of the audio and music coming across low quality and grainy. Outside of the upscale, the HD re-release bundles together all the post release content, including the Ada Wong side missions and the Mercenary mode, which I still haven't had much of an opportunity to check out.

Story wise, RE 4 plays out like a B-grade horror movie, filled with bad dialogue, over-the-top voice acting and ridiculous plot contrivances. Leon S. Kennedy, no longer the cocky, young cop who survived Raccoon City, has grown up and joined the Secret Service. His first job is to protect the president's daughter, who is conveniently kidnapped. And so Leon is sent to an unnamed European location, coming across as a weird blend between Transylvannia and South America. It turns out that the locals aren't to friendly here, and are in fact being controlled by a mysterious parasite called Las Plagas, providing faster, more intelligent "zombies" for Leon to fight. The plot jumps around from ridiculous, to terrible, to insane as character motivations are revealed, plot twists fly fast and furious and villains posture and pontificate all their wonderful plans for world domination. And with both Leon and Ashley, the president's daughter, both infected, it soon becomes a race against time to find the cure and escape. Leon delivers a suitably action-hero performance, rife with one liners and sardonic dialogue. Paul Mercier is a much more competent voice actor than the original Leon, providing some nuances to a basically one-note role. During story moments, Carolyn Lawrence manages to convey a sense of strength and sophistication, mixed with vulnerability to Ashley, but during gameplay her dialogue devolves to a series of shrieks and incessant squeaking of "Leon! Help me, Leon!". Potentially the most frightening part of the game. Ada Wong is a stand-out again, both character and voice-over wise. Her motivations are more clouded than ever, and the femme fatale relationship with Leon is well fleshed out. Outside of voice acting, the sound fx are decent. The guns have a decent weight to their shots, and the "zombie" dialogue, although low quality and repetitive, feels sufficiently alien and creepy. The music is horror cliche, but effective within the setting.

Gameplay, however, is where the game's strength lies. The camera locks over Leon's shoulder, and pulling your gun pull up a laser sight for precision aiming. Moving and shooting is non-existent, forcing you to dispatch enemies quickly, but precisely, before they close in on you and force you to move again. For the modern gamer, it can be a bit of an adjustment. The quick turn, pressing "X" while moving backwards, is the greatest tool in your arsenal. Once you learn to use this properly, the pace can actually be quite fast. Gameplay is constantly tense, with many different types of enemies often rushing at you from all directions. Some enemies carry melee weapons, while later ones carry ranged weapons from crossbows all the way up to rocket launchers. There's also mini-bosses, like the hulking El Gigante, or the creepy flying insect types. Thankfully, Leon is armed with an ever increasing, fully upgradable, arsenal. A lot of fun lies in choosing and perfecting your arsenal. A new game + mode allows you to carry all your inventory across, with bonus cash and items, allowing you to upgrade and perfect your arsenal to your heart's content. There's also boss fights, but these suffer with age. The often employ cheap tactics, and always devolve into avoidance and repetition. They're big, flashy, but unfortunately probably one of the worst parts of the game. There's some basic puzzle solving, too, but more of the push block, or fetch quest variety. Consider yourself warned, however, that the sections with Ashley are escort missions. There's not a lot of them, thankfully, but they can be very frustrating, You need to manage her health, protect her from enemies and basically do everything for her. See, enemies won't only just attack her, but also try to kidnap her as well, meaning you can never stray very far from her. Friendly fire is also a big problem, meaning you have to be even more careful with your shots and anything explosive is basically out. She won't move out of the way of explosions, but at least she ducks under shots. Mixed in is the mid 2000's quick-time events that Capcom loved so much. While normally a small annoyance, there are some that fly by crazy fast and are often instant failure, bumping you back to the last checkpoint, however far away that was.

I found myself enjoying the game much more the second time around. As I got used to the controls, and started to understand conserving ammo and health, I finally started to uncover why everyone praises this game so much. The gameplay is addictive, and a lot of fun. The story, provided you don't take it too seriously, is a lot of fun. It's a shame the HD uplifting didn't extend past the upscale, but the game itself is still pretty good looking and at the end of the day, horror games shouldn't be all squeaky clean anyway. This is a game that appeals to both survival horror fans and third person shooter fans. It's only $20 on the PSN, it's really worth the download. I can whole-heartedly recommend this one.

Dragon's Dogma Review

2012-07-04T19:22:00.001-07:00

It's pretty rare that I don't know what I think about something. My thoughts are rarely concise and entirely logical, but 9 times out of 10, I know what something means to me. Dragon's Dogma, however, has left me completely confounded. Even now, days after finishing the main quest and hanging up my adventurers hat, I'm still not entirely sure what just happened and how it makes me feel. So, I'm left with a lot to talk about, but maybe no final conclusion, which is kind of a cardinal sin when it comes to reviewing. Here I am, trying to offer you a clear and concise guide to what to expect for your money, and I can hardly even tell you if it was worth my money, a rare, almost extinct species. I'm hoping that by the end of this article, after finally getting all my thoughts on page, together we can reach a conclusion. It's quite serendipitous, in a way, as this feeling of journeying without really knowing where I'm going or how I'm going to get there, almost sums up the experience of Dragon's Dogma. But the quest is given and excepted, we need only follow the marker and hope what awaits us is an answer.

I'm not usually one to judge on first impressions, as I tend to make bad ones myself. This is fortunate for Dragon's Dogma, as it's first impressions are hardly, well, impressive. After a gorgeous, if confusing, cutscene of a mighty dragon being birthed form the sky admist a sea of harpies (of all things), we are then greeted by a small seaside village (yes, it's one of those stories) and the ugliest graphics engine I've seen in a long time. Now, I'm going to make this point fast and early, becomes I'm going to talk about graphics a lot and want to make my position clear. I am not a graphics whore, I often believe that graphics are not integral to the enjoyment of a game provided they don't interfere with the mechanics. I'm wholly unaffected by the turgid graphics of such games as Deus Ex, or Duke Nukem 3D as they have nothing to do with the overall enjoyment of the piece. However, in Dragon's Dogma, my problem is not with how awful the graphics are (and trust me, they're bad. This game would've looked awful running on the last generation of consoles), but with how often they interfere with not only the enjoyment of the game itself, but with the core gameplay mechanics. But more on that later. You step out of your brown and lifeless seaside village after getting your arse handed to you and your heart ripped out by the dragon, who then brings you back to life and challenges you to seek out and destroy him. You're guided on the first part of your journey by a pawn, introducing Capcom's attempt at a unique multiplayer, perhaps in an attempt to borrow some more from the Souls series. The pawns are a mercenary race, which exist outside time, within the Rift. The Arisen, that's you, has the power to summon them, as well as create your own, who shall follow you permanently. Your main pawn levels up with you, you control their skills and class, and you create them with the same amazingly detailed character creator as your main character (seriously, the character creator is awesome. i spent the majority of my time with the demo just messing around with it. Still, I did manage to make my poor Arisen look totally drugged out). The other two pawns are drawn from the rift, and provided you're online, are the main pawns of other characters. you select the ones that suit your playstyle and current quest best, and set out into the world, returning them once you've leveled up and picking some new ones. You can often trivialize combat by picking way over leveled pawns, but this is incredibly expensive and the currency required to do so is very rare. Once your pawns are chosen, you get your first taste of the next "unique" twist of Dragon's Dogma, the giant creature battles. Remember Shadow of the Colossus? It's basically that, but thankfully just as fun. Most of the time. Scaling these beasts are the most effective ways to fight them, and often the most fun. Specific creatures, like the stone golem, can often only be killed by reaching specific spots, either by scaling or with ranged attacks. These fights are easily the best within the game, but sadly there's very few of them, and the main hordes just can't quite match the excitement.

Combat is crafted by the team behind Devil May Cry and its wicked fast and meaty, and it also ties into the one thing the Dragon's Dogma really nails - the RPG systems. Skills are weapon-based, as apposed to class-based, meaning you pick your classes less on what skills are available, and more by what weapons they can use. The rogue classes focus on bows and daggers, while fighters and warriors focus on either sword and shield, or two hand combos. Once that skill is unlocked for that weapon, it's unlocked permanently, meaning any class that uses that weapon can also use that skill. Class-specific skills, referred to as augments, remain even if you switch class, so you can easily pinch some warrior augments to boost health and strength, then mix it with some magic damage reduction mage augments and some dexterity increase rogue augments, crafting your perfect character. Change vocation is cheap and easy, but not sticking with one vocation for too long means you'll never unlock the high level skills and augments. The leveling up feels incredibly rewarding and the RPG aspects are the deepest since the D&D based games. Status ailments and buffs are the name of the game, but far less confusing than they were in the D&D games. Each status ailment has an obvious visual clue, and they all have an item or two that can combat them. Pawns warn when they are ailed, or what ailments certain enemies provide or are weak to, so if you catch one and are unprepared its your own fault. The combat itself just feels so good. Each class feels different and satisfying. Each weapon type has its own moveset and feel. Daggers are fast and brutal, while sword strikes are powerful and deliberate. The ranger's massive longbow can send enemies flying, but can be outdone by the faster short bow. No one weapon beats any other. Two handed weapons may send you flying, but they leave the user incredibly open, and often weighed down to a slower speed. The weight of what you carry, plus whatever is in your inventory, is crucial. Body shape and size affects how much you can carry, as well as your speed. Tall, heavy characters might by able to carry more, but they move slower and recover stamina at a slower rate. Small characters are light and nimble, but can't carry much at all and are more susceptible to knockdown and knockback. All of this creates fast, yet strategic combat. When the pawn AI works, which is most of the time, they work strategically, too. My rogue based character traveled with a Sorcerer main pawn as a damage dealer, a Mage as a healer and controller and a Warrior as a tank. This strategy worked for me throughout the game. How well the pawns fight is mostly based on their knowledge of a beast. The first encounters, they will experiment a lot, calling out what works and what doesn't, but by the end, they work as a tight team., which makes things all the more frustrating when the AI fails and your left basically alone. Pawns can be revived upon death, but rarely, if ever, use any curatives provided, causing you to spend most of your fights with your pawns at half health, or less, meaning you have to spend too much time reviving them, and less fighting. But Dragon's Dogma has much bigger problems. Let's talk about them.

Firstly, the map. It only fills in as you visit areas. Promotes exploration, right? Well, yes, but without much of a fast travel system, only a single item that warps you to one spot and is stupidly rare and expensive, it makes exploration kind of sucky. As does the level locked areas. Nicking another page from the Souls series, Dragon's Dogma often points you int he right direction by dropping massively overpowered monsters on your head. Throw an almost non-existent autosave system and few replayed half hour long treks later, you'll have just about had it with exploration. Also, the paths to objectives are often long a convoluted, leaving you wandering helplessly lost more than once. If you're lucky your pawns know where to go and give general, and I do mean general, directions. There's also no indication of whether you're a high enough level to take on a quest, and a lot of quests have weird time-based fails, or fails that I can't even work out why they failed. The loading screens (of which there are far, far too many and often of the over-long variety) tell you to try other quests if you're stuck, but I've had four quests fail or be rendered un-continuable because I followed other quests to level up. So there's that. Also, I hate to beat a dead horse, but I need to rag on the graphics for a bit. Firstly, the draw distance ranges from awful, to non-existent. My pawn may tell me to survey the area from a high point, but when enemies often spawn literally right in front of your face, what's the point? Honest to god, I had an ogre spawn right on top of me in a cave once. This was after I ran into its invisible form and suffered an attack or two before it spawned in. It's honestly horrifying and destroys not only emotion, but tactics. Then there's the lip syncing, or more truthfully, what lip syncing? There's been no attempt at all to sync the lips. Hell, the faces barely even move, outside of a main character or two that may widen their eyes or smile or frown. if you're lucky. Hair is atrocious block textures that would have looked out of place 10 years ago. Hell, Mount and Blade's character design looked better than this, and that was made by an indie developer. At least the monster design is interesting, and the environments are about 2008/Oblivion level nice, if completely derivative and mostly uninteresting, barring a few atmospheric, creepy areas - which are basically pinched from the Souls series again. If this was someone's first game, an indie team even, I'd be more forgiving, but this is Capcom, for Christ's sake. What are they doing with all that money they've robbed from us with DLC? Graphics this awful (and I haven't even mentioned the awful framerate throughout, the unwieldy camera that often interferes with the climbing mechanic, or the general murk and bland colours) are completely unacceptable in this day and age, when even small companies can make gorgeous games. Actually, let me rag on the camera a bit. If I'm climbing someone, don't bind my movements to the camera if its just going to swing about wildly. Either lock it in like SotC, or make my movements independent. If I'm hanging on the front of an ogre, while the cameras looking at me from above and its flinging about, which way do I press the stick to climb up? The amount of times you'll end up uselessly stabbing a cyclops in the balls is ridiculous. Not to mention the inside fights when the camera insists on clipping through everything. Alright, I'm done. And I think I'm done with the bad, too. Oh wait, no there's more.

Voice acting: Ranges from barely tolerable to awful.
Soundtrack: Some cool J-Pop songs, but mostly derivative, distracting or non-existent.
Writing: I don't want to sound racists, but English is not your first language, don't even attempt to write something in faux Ye Olde English. Aught is not a word, stop fucking saying it every fucking sentence. Just say something. Also, 'tis is short for "it is", not "is". And just because its "olden times" doesn't mean grammar didn't exist. I honestly wanted to tear my ears off listening to some of this dialogue. It renders the majority of the story, and a lot of the quest instructions, completely nonsensical, which is a big no-no in a game with as little hand-holding as Dragon's Dogma.
Story: Actually had some potential. Mostly derivative, yes, but the relationship between the Arisen and Dragon is very interesting, and the character of the Dragon is very well written, but any impact the story has is lost thanks to terrible delivery, bad cutscenes (broken, even at times, I had an entire cutscene take place without any character except my own. A crucial cutscene, too, which instead consisted of various bad camera angles and no sound for a few minutes) and a complete lack of connection to any characters, which renders the late game choices meaningless as they have no strength within the world.

There's more that's wrong, a lot more, but I'm going to stop for a few reasons. Mainly, this is getting way too long, but also because you might start to think I didn't enjoy this game. But that's the thing that's left me confused. Despite everything that is wrong with this game, I enjoyed it. Even really enjoyed it at times. I was often enthralled beyond reason. Every time I thought I'd given up, I found myself back again, soldiering on. A lot of this has to do with the inherent depth within the game, even by the end I was still discovering more intricacies to the gameplay, or the economy, or the leveling up and combat. Its incredible challenging, sadly unfairly so at times, a lot of the horde human enemies you face are the same classes as you, but aren't governed by the same stamina rules and instead just spam their overpowered attacks, making some fights very unfair. But then you'll throw someone off a cliff, or bring down a mighty griffin, and you're captured again.

And so, here we are, at the end of our journey. And I now know what to say. Buy this game. Play it. Make it through the huge learning curve and make up your own mind. There's so much potential here, marred time and time again by inexperience and a lot of great ideas that just don't mesh. With Capcom announcing their intent to make this a franchise, I am filled with hope. Hope that the team can iron out the flaws, because Dogma has the potential to far surpass even the Souls series, if - and this is a massive if - it can focus on only what makes it so deep and innovative, and forget about all the external trappings and trying to make it like everything else on the market. If Capcom has the strength and bravery to follow through, then we may be witnessing the birth of the next great RPG franchise and I for one, am very excited. Now go, buy this game. That is all.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition Review

2012-06-23T17:04:00.001-07:00

Well, this has been a long, long time coming, but 93 hours and 5 playthroughs later, I finally feel ready to review this monster. This review is both for people who have never played the game, and for those who played the original release and are wondering whether the upgrade to Enhanced is worth it. There is a chance of spoilers, but I will tag what I can, just consider yourself warned.

The original Witcher was an interesting, deeply engaging, yet hugely flawed experience. It told a riveting story, with meaningful choices, but tripped in the un-intuitive combat and the lackluster graphics. Severely limited by Bioware's aging Aurora Engine, CD Project RED decided to build The Witcher 2 completely from the ground up, and boy was that a fantastic choice. The RED Engine remains one of the most jaw-dropping engines of this generation, exploding with colour, life and some amazing animations and character models. It's still hard to find a game that looks better than the Witcher 2, even on it's low settings. It has been fiercely well optimized since release, and my ASUS G73jw laptop can keep her above 30fps at almost max settings. There is, of course, a lot more to the Witcher 2 than graphics, but it's thanks to not only the graphics, but the superb art direction, that The Witcher's world not only feels real, but feels like a place you want to explore and spend time in. From the vicious forests of Lobinden, to the dwarven city of Vergen and the infested sewers beneath Loc Muine, each location feels vibrant and alive, and intrinsically designed around it's inhabitants.

Everything you do in The Witcher 2 can have a permanent, and often surprising, effect on the world, making you truly feel like what you do matters. It's often the little choices you barely realize you're making that have the biggest ramifications, ramifications that often don't appear until many hours later, removing the "oops, I made the wrong decision, quick load" gameplay of more recent choice systems. Mixed throughout the adventure are critical decision, causing the story to branch along its two main routes in Chapter 2 and 3. It takes a brave game to completely shut off half of its content based on one decision, but it takes many, many playthroughs to experience everything this game has to offer. Even at my 5th playthrough I was still surprised by the subtle changes within the story.

And it's thanks to the strength of the story and its characters that you actually feel like you are making a meaningful choice, not just an arbitrary Paragon/Renegade points hunt. There is no morality system, though how you act will not only affect what people think of you, but potentially cause you to lose friends, or even cause their death. Even by my 5th playthrough, I still agonized over some decisions, such was the connection I still felt to the characters and the world they inhabit. Things are going from bad to worse for Geralt. Someone is killing kings, and thanks to some severe bad luck, he ends up framed and ready to hang. Aided by an unexpected ally, he flees in search of the real killer, as well as answers to his still patchy past. See, Geralt has amnesia, brought on by his supposed death. However, CD Project RED utilizes the amnesia cleverly, as Geralt still remembers most things from his life and past and it never becomes all about trying to restore your memories. However, the way Geralt's mysterious past ties into the events of the game are often surprising, and sometimes horrifying. Especially the final revelation. Along his journey, Geralt must fight to protect Triss, his sorceress love interest, as well as aid or crush a non-human rebellion, battle monsters both massive, small and human and finally attempt to stop the decent of an entire nation into an all out war. The story is carried through beautifully crafted cutscenes. as well as dialogue driven sequences, gameplay and books. New to the Enhanced Edition is some animated cutscenes preceding each chapter, and as an epilogue, narrated by Dandelion. These make a huge difference to the story, summing up some of the more convoluted plot lines and constantly reminding you of where the rest of the world stands. (SPOILERS) Also new is an epilogue, an immensely powerful scene showing the march of Nilfgaard down through the south. The final image of the massive Nilfgaardian army and the fire spreading throughout the map leaves you yearning even more for the sequel.(SPOILERS)

But even the best story would be let down without a brilliant soundtrack and fantastic voice-acting. The voice-acting is much better this time around, even Triss' performance feels more nuanced, even if she remains the weakest element at times. The American accents of Geralt, Triss and Letho, the Kingslayer, can feel a little out of place amongst the sea of British accents, but I feel it suits their characters. Geralt's dead pan approach cracks at times, he shows genuine concern and affection towards Triss, and even comes close to rage at times, especially towards the end of the game. Saskia, the Dragonslayer and leader of the non-human rebellion, is another stand out performance. The soundtrack is one of the best I've heard, improving from the amazing soundtrack from the first game in everyway. The combination of stirring orchestral tracks with rich and haunting vocals, as well as folk instruments and screaming electric guitars somehow seems to suit the Witcher's world. It's a mess of medieval, folktale and the modern world, filled with filth and grime, but also great beauty and mystery, each element captured within its sound track. The main theme and the night theme for Vergen remain my favourites.

But of course, it wouldn't be a game without gameplay, and here some of the cracks begin to show. CD Project RED is still an inexperienced studio, relatively independent when judged against the American and Japanese studios, and at times their inexperience shows. Combat is heavy and satisfying, highly tactical and based around clever evasion and combos, as well as tactical use of bombs, potions, traps and Signs, the Witcher's version of magic. There's no way to heal yourself in the Witcher, instead you must brew and drink potions to buff yourself. You can speed up health or stamina regeneration, buff your attacks, or your defense. Potions can only be taken before hand, not throughout battle, so scouting out the area and reading up on what you might face is critically important. For the most part, the combat is fair, though the learning curve can be steep. However, some enemies gang up on you, pumelling you with block-breaking and stunning attacks. Also, when combat is initialized during dialogue, Geralt almost never draws his sword. Also, it takes a second or two for you to gain control again, which can lead to some cheap deaths on higher difficulties. Signs and bombs sometimes don't fire straight away, and the targeting can be wonky at times, too, with Geralt flying at someone off screen instead of hitting the guy in front of him. However, there are a lot of improvements in the Enhanced Edition, to the point where nothing really breaks the flow anymore. There's no fast travel system, and levels can be massive at times, but there is a lot of fun in exploring it, and missions rarely send you running from one end to the other. The boss fights still feel underdeveloped and cheap, but it's the mini-bosses that really shine. These encounters are tense experiences, I still remember my first fight against the Endrega Queen. The best part is, a lot of these encounters are entirely optional. Questing is refined in the Witcher 2 as well, with event he side quests and jobs feeling like an expansion upon the law. Geralt is a monster hunter after all, and chasing down that contract will provide you not only with money, but valuable information about the monsters you hunt and often times, the eradication of that monster from the area, making it much easier to explore. A simple fist-fighting competition might reveal shadowy backstory to some main characters, or lead to encounters otherwise unavailable. Side quests are often surprising, such as a late night drinking party that goes all kinds of wrong. The main quest itself is expertly paced and crafted, driving you on with a sense of urgency when it needs to, but leaving you open to explore at more quiet moments.

The last thing that need be mention with The Witcher 2 is that there is a lot of sex, nudity and violence in this game. It is mature in every sense of the word, with a dark and adult tale. Still, almost all the nudity and sex is optional, barring one scene at the start and one towards the end. If you want to see tits and sex, then you'll have to either work or pay for it. However, there is a tasteful and beautifully shot love scene between Geralt and Triss that rewards your hardwork wooing her throughout the first chapter and acts as a consummation of your love for each other, as well as motivation for what is to come after. It's certainly more tasteful than the first Witcher's sex cards.

Okay, for the lazy guys, here's the summary. The Witcher 2 is the one of greatest RPG of the last 10 years and just about the best games of last year, only just losing to Dark Souls in my Game of the Year list. It provides deep and rich lore and story, with stunning graphics, a moving soundtrack and mostly satisfying gameplay. It's few flaws have all but been resolved with this, the Enhanced Edition and best of all, the upgrade is entirely free. CD Project RED continues to support the game with patches and updates, all completely free. It's DRM free, as well. If nothing else, CD Project RED should be supported for being so loyal to their fans and consumers and not following the insanity of the larger publishers. I can guarantee you, you will fall in love with this game. It even has an easy difficulty that trivializes the combat for those that only want to experience the story, as well as an insane difficulty that adds permanent death into the mix, for those gluttens for punishment out there. There's also an arena mode, for those who want to fight up the leaderboards and hones their combat skills, as well as a new tutorial level that fleshes out the basics in more detail than the original game. I find it hard to believe that anyone out there hasn't played this game yet, but if there is, then what are you waiting for? Go and buy it and prepare to experience something wholly unique and amazing. You cant hank me later.

Lollipop Chainsaw Review

2012-06-20T05:02:00.002-07:00

Oh, Mickey, what a pity you don't understand
You take me by the heart when you take me by the hand

Sorry, there's no way I'm ever getting that out of my head, so now it's in yours. You're welcome.

So, here we are again. Another year, another explosion of madness from the one they call Suda51 and Grasshopper Manufacture. Armed with a cornucopia of cult hits, including Killer 7, No More Heroes and Shadows of the Damned, Suda has made a name for himself for providing bizarre and totally unique gaming experiences. Flawed,, frustrating, titillating and completely mad gaming experiences. Despite owning both NMH and Shadows, this is the first Suda game I've made it all the way through. This is probably because it's short. Not as short as Juliet's skirt, sure, but if that thing was any shorter it'd be a belt. You're looking at about 5 to 6 hours on normal difficulty for this one, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Speaking of heads, Lollipop has a thing for decapitation. Want to get the most points and medals? Decapitate at least three zombies at once. How do you play basketball with zombies? Decapitation, straight into the net. Oh, and her boyfriend Nick has found himself ahead in life, too. Literally. Decapitated by his frankly insane girlfriend in a weird magical ritual to stop him becoming a zombie. Bummer. Still, it doesn't stop Nick from talking, which is good, as nearly every line from his torso-less mouth is comedy gold and a lot of the laughs in game come from him. The rest are split up between Juliet and her batshit family, consisting of her ditzy mother, horny father, manly elder sister and off-the-wall insane younger sister. I feel I should warn you, Juliet is probably going to annoy most gamers. Whether or not you enjoy her is going to depend on how funny you find blond bimbo, airhead cheerleaders. Personally, I found her quite amusing and never annoying, but her comedy works best when offset by Nick's disarming, dry straight guy routine. Had she not had him there to compliment her, a lot of the humour in this game would fall flat. He is the Abbott to her Costello, and both Suda and James Gunn (credited as Creative Consultant and Adaption, whatever the hell that means, but his influence is undeniable) understand this relationship. Also handled well are the zombies themselves, from the off-colour one liners from the general horde, to special quips for special zombies, all the way to the Rock God Dark Purveyors, each one more mad and over the top than the next. From a punk rocker that literally shouts words at you, to a psychadelic zombie who trips you for a whole level, and a final boss I'd be criminally liable if I spoilt.

But games aren't all story. There's the graphics, too. Lollipop goes for the ever reliable Unreal 3, the workhorse of the games industry. Sure, it brings it's old friends screen tearing, shit draw distance and the worse pop-in since your gran was last in town, but Suda gives everything a nice cell shaded look, and works in more than enough colour and variation to keep things from falling into the usual dirt and grime. Also, zombie explode in sparkles and rainbows, shoot out Gold and Platinum medals and activating super mode makes you go all Mario rainbow magic. And unleashes Hey Mickey upon the world once more. Thanks, Suda.

The soundtrack is delicious, too. From perky cheer tracks, to death metal, and everything in between, each stages soundtrack is based around whatever musician its end boss is. However, completing a stage lets you mix and match its music for later stages, with more music available for purchase, so you can create your own BGM. Jimmy Urine, of Mindless Self Indulgence fame (they so totally don't sound gay, according to Juliet's little sister), handles the soundtrack this time around, with Akira Yamaoka listed only as Musical Consultant. The voice acting all around is stellar, with Tara Strong taking the lead, infusing Juliet with as much sugar, spice and all things nice as someone can manage. Michael Rosenbaum is fantastic as Nick, too.

Ah, the part you've been waiting for. Saving the best for last? Well, maybe. The gameplay is where most of the flaws of Lollipop lie, but this being a Suda game, this was to be expected. Surely. To be honest, this is their best combat system to date, even better than No More Heroes. There's a real sense of growth. When Juliet starts out, she's slow and limited in her attacks. Even basic zombie hordes can really eff you up if you're not careful. However, as more and more combos unlock, you start to really get into the groove, tying together pom-pom and chainsaw attacks in a violent frenzy. Combat is simple. One button for pom-poms, which are fast, weakening attacks. One for high chainsaw, one for low chainsaw. One for dodging/jumping around. Combining these in specific ways unleash combos, some fast and weak, some slow and damaging, others designed for crowd control. These combos can be easily broken, however, whilst most zombies, especially higher level ones, will be mostly unaffected by your attacks until they're dismembered, so the combat becomes about watching your enemies and learning what combo is best used when and where. There's a real arcade sense about the game, not just with the high scores and general arcade theme, but just from the way it encourages growth through skill. The more skillful you are, the more medals you get. The more medals you get, the more upgrades you get. How much upgrades you get is entirely tied to how well you play the game, which gives levelling up a real sense of growth. Gameplay is interrupted from time to time by the obligatory Suda mini-games, which range from mildly amusing to mind-breakingly frustrating to irritatingly dull, as is to be expected. You take to the good with the bad, as the 80s theme tune says. And yes, as I mentioned earlier, it is short. However, you're going to want to play through from the start at least once. Stages unlock as you go along and can be replayed in any order at any difficulty mode, or in the extra hard, score chasing Ranking Mode. All your abilities carry over, and the only way to unlock everything is to not only keep replaying stages, but keep improving your skills to rack up as many medals as you can. It's frightfully addictive, not to mention increasing the difficulty not just increases the zombie health and attack, but introduces new zombie types, new mini bosses, more zombies, or different combinations, and less pickups in more obscure places. Exactly the kind of good difficulty I mentioned in an earlier article.

To sum up, for those who skipped to the bottom: Playing a Suda game requires a few special abilities. The ability to laugh at yourself, the ability to realise you're being trolled most of the time and to go with it, and the ability to not take things seriously. You take this game seriously, even for one moment, and it falls apart. It's not taking itself seriously, not even once, so why should you? If you're a Suda fan, you'll love this, but let's be honest you've already bought it. If you're wondering just what the hell this all is, give it try, you might have fun. For the brain-dead, undersexed, hormone crazed masses - just cause there's tits on the cover and more panty shots than a japenese porno, this is not the game for you. Seriously, go back to CoD. Finally, the Suda haters, this one is not going to change your mind, so it's probably best to give it a miss. That's everyone, right? So now there's only one last thing to do...

Hey, Mickey, you're so fine
You're so fine you blow my mind
Hey Mickey!
Hey Mickey!

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 - Innovation Is Always a Good Thing

2012-06-19T18:25:00.001-07:00

I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I've played almost every Call of Duty game. Call of Duty 1 was the first FPS I ever played and I still remember getting off that boat the first time and being handed nothing but a clip of ammo. Times have changed, sure, but there's still very few shooters on the market that can match the frantic twitched based combat of Call of Duty. That said, there is a lot wrong with the series as a whole, and a lot that has grown stagnant over time. The great innovator has become a sign of everything wrong with First Person Shooters as a whole, but Treyarch is looking at trying to change that.

Black Ops, the first, is my least favourite CoD game. It was first since CoD 2, which I'd played when I was maybe 10, or 11, about 5 or 6 years previous to Black Ops. I loved the zombie mode, however, mainly because you got to play as JFK, or Tricky Dicky, and hearing them spurting one liners while dispatching zombies is comedy gold. However I found the campaign lack luster. It tried to change and innovate, providing vehicle levels, subtle shifts to the formula and a bigger focus on a twisted and cinematic story. And it would have worked, except for one critical flaw. Sam Worthington and his soul-destroying overacting. Every word out of that man's mouth made me want to shoot myself in the face. But still, I respect it despite this mistake, an easy one to make, because it at least tried something different with the formula. And now Treyarch are looking to do it again.

The thing that really got me excited about this game was a single quote from its director, paraphrased: "When I hear people say 'I used to play CoD for its campaign', I think 'Why don't you play it anymore? What can I do to bring you back?'". Where everyone else has been thinking, "Well no one plays the campaigns anymore, so let's make it all about multiplayer", Treyarch is thinking "Why? Why don't you play anymore and what can we do to bring you back?". And so they're trying to mix things up. A new setting, new weapons and technology, but also non-linearity, branching story lines and a sense that what your doing has some importance in the world. There's still not much revealed, outside of Lamia's talking, but it's enough to get me excited. Especially working for me is the new Overwatch mode, an objective based, open world style game, where you can either play as an Overwatch, commanding your troops RTS style, or jump into the body of any soldier and chase the objectives yourself. This freedom and strategic thinking is what confirmed to purchase for me. Sure, the demos so far have all shown of the usual CoD big bang boom blam splat slow mo ballet of stupidly epicness, but there remains hope that this time, the innovation just might work. If nothing else, there's no more Sam Worthington, and that can only be a good thing.

So for all those CoD fans freaking out I saw calm down and give it chance. And to all the haters, I say the same. Whether it works or not, any attempts at innovation and change, especially in an annual franchise, is always a good thing. Assassin's Creed is also a great example. Sure, all the new additions didn't always work, but at least they were there, and for the most part, optional. As long as we don't get anything along the vein of Revelation's failed attempt at Tower Defense, I think we'll be fine.

Dead Space 3 Second Impressions

2012-06-19T18:00:00.001-07:00

So I wrote a little about my thoughts on Dead Space 3 not long after its initial E3 reveal. At the time, I'd only seen about 5 minutes or so of gameplay, and had little information to go on. Well, today EA and Visceral have released a 20 minute gameplay trailer showcases a lot of what's new, and also what's old, with Dead Space 3 and I want to talk a little about what I saw. I'm going to embed the video below as well, so you can offer your own thoughts.

As I mentioned in my previous article, Dead Space 3 has kind of left me in two minds. I'm excited, there is no doubt, and I know right now that I will definitely be purchasing this game. However, I am also cautious. Change is not always a good thing, and it still remains to be seen whether the shift in focus will be effective or not.

So let's just get this out of the way from square one, Dead Space 3 is gorgeous. Visceral's proprietary engine has never looked better. Hell, the original Dead Space still looks better than most games these days, but it really shines in 3, with some mind blowing lighting and even more grotesque and imaginative character designs. It sounds awesome, too, familiar yet with some new elements, especially in the soundtrack. Isaac's voice actor still really delivers, further proving you can take a silent protagonist and give him a voice. I'm a little cautious about Carver at the moment, he seems to come off in the stereotypical overly macho, no-bullshit, aggressive Sergeant role, but we haven't seen much of him yet, so my opinion is reserved, for now.

The demo begins with Isaac waking up in a crashed ship on a frozen planet. Steve mentions that this is the second act, so it seems not all of the game will occur on this planet. Visceral has mentioned spaceship portions, like the original, so perhaps the first act occurs on the ship, explaining its current crashed state. Isaac is looking for Ellie, his partner and rescuer from the second game. Tau Volentis makes me hopeful. There is a great atmosphere to it, the snow can come down thick and heavy at times, obscuring the view and helping create a tense atmosphere. It's full of caves and abandoned mines, keeping the dark, claustrophobic feeling from the first. The demo showcases two new enemy types. A necromorph that splits in half when attacked, sporting three sharpened tentacles from it's now torso-less legs, and also the Unitologist human enemies, armed with a lot of similar weapons as yourself. This is where my concern arises. From the little shown, the shooting looks good. The controls are tight and responsive, and there's a lot of options outside of simply shooting them. You have Kineses, which you can use to throw back grenades, or Stasis to freeze. There's a cover system, by which I mean the good old magical chest high walls and inexplicably placed debris, but outside of being kind of jarring and out of place, the lack of sticky cover works in Dead Space 3's favour. As Steve says, the last thing you want to do is be stuck in cover when some necromorph is gouging your eyes out. However, the mix of viscious melee and shooting enemies reminds me of the first Uncharted, or even Far Cry, who both tried and massively failed at getting this mix right. Also new is what appears to be a new use for Kineses, a kind of Force Push ability. There's no mention of it, and it's only used a few times in the video so it's hard to see whether it's a secondary weapon fire or not, but it looks interesting a provides a nice failsafe for holding back the horde.

The real reason behind the demo, however, was to show off the new drop-in, drop-out co-op. I was worried about co-op, until I saw the words "drop-in, drop-out". That means no shitty partner AI, no requirement to have to play it with your friends. They have preserved the single player experience entirely, simply offering another approach, probably to boost sales for EA (though Visceral claims co-op was always planned, citing the infamous System Shock 2 which apparently is their main influence and also boasted potential co-op support). If you play the game alone, Carver seems to have very little to do with the story, only popping up once, briefly, off screen. Which could be a great thing if his character is as uninteresting as he seems. However, playing with a friend not only alters the gameplay, but changes cutscenes as well to feature your partner. For the most part, co-op seems to be divergent, there hasn't been any showings of the "two people required to solve this puzzle" or "defend partner as he does something slow and laborious", but it's still early.

The demo ends with an enormous boss, reminiscent of the Hive Mind from the first game, but with a far more viscous streak and some new tricks. The encounter ends with Isaac being swallowed, shown in impressive detail, and then an image of the final weak point int he creature's stomach.

So I'm left very hopeful, but still slightly cautious. I've been hurt by EA's meddling and money-grabbing before, as I'm sure many of you also have. Their ridiculous claims of having to sell at least 5 million games is troublesome, but if you ignore the great beast behind them, Visceral is saying a lot of promising things. And a lot of the new additions can be explained logically within the confines of the universe, which is good. Seriously, Isaac is no longer unprepared for these things. Like the player, he knows what they are and he knows how to fight them. He's clearly been training and it appears he is now working with people that know how to end it once and for all, so he's driven by a need for revenge, a need for closure. He's not lumbering around slowly anymore, he's trained with weapons because he needs an arsenal to face what is about to come. He can combat roll because slowly strafing around is not going to cut it against an army. So I'm popping the video right here, let me know what you guys think.

Understanding the Parts of the Whole

2012-06-14T16:18:00.001-07:00

Do you remember Deus Ex? The original, that is, not the sequels (although DX:HR had most of what I intend to talk about here). Well, for those of you who do, you're going to understand what I'm going o talk about and can skip to the next paragraph. For those who don't, or never played it, here's a summary. Deus Ex was a mission based, action rpg with first person shooter style combat. It had literally endless variation and freedom thanks not only to its gameplay mechanics, but just how fun and easy it was to find ways to trick the system. Stacking wall mines to climb over a wall to bypass enemy defenses is a particular favourite of mine. A lot of why Deus Ex succeeded was in the ways it limited you. It tricked you into thinking it was a shooter, but getting stuck in a gun fight, especially early on, was always a death sentence. So it forced you to be clever, to try anything and everything to get through a level alive.

So what makes me bring up Deus Ex? Its spiritual cousin, Dishonored. Developed by Arkane Studios, which features members of the Deus Ex dev team, the Half Life 2 art team and the guys who made Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah, Dishonored stars you as Corvo, a supernatural assassin. And it's about what you expect, it's a game that looks life Half Life 2 and plays like Deus Ex, with some Arx Fatalis style first-person hack and slash-y combat thrown in. But it's a focus and love for the many parts that make up the whole, rather than the whole itself, that makes Dishonored so exciting. It's all about creatively limiting the player to encourage exploration and experimentation. There's nothing hat you can't do within the rules of the game. Want to fly over that roof to avoid the guards? Just jump in the air and Blink. Time it right and you can break your fall with some unfortunate saps body, killing him instantly. Surrounded? No problem, slow down time, drop a mine then Blink out of there and watch the carnage from afar. Or maybe you'd rather posses a fish an swim through the sewers to your target? Or call down a swarm of rats to help your escape? Every part of this game, from the expertly shaped gameplay, to the fantastic soundtrack and the immediately recognizably unique art style, feels like well oiled, well loved parts of a machine. And that's why I'm so excited about this game. If they can put that much love and attention into every tiny part of the game, then the whole will be some extraordinary. Dishonored is releasing for PC, PS3 and Xbox360 October 2012.

Medal of Honor (2010) Review

2012-06-14T05:09:00.005-07:00

Well, here's me putting my foot in it and accidentally researching the wrong developer. Medal of Honor was developed by Danger Close, an elite team of designers from within EA Los Angeles (who developed the original MoH games amongst many others), but who also used to be DreamWorks Interactive who made one of my favourite games ever - Neverhood. So I'd like to apologise for the misinformation.

In a brave move, Medal of Honor decides to focus on characterization and real world scenarios over the flash-in-a-pan, overly cinematic, set-piece driven frenzy of it's competitors, especially Call of Duty. The story focuses mainly on two teams of Tier 1 operatives, highly trained and deadly black operation soldiers, fighting to uproot Al Qaeda from Afghanistan. There's not a lot of story here, in fact I often times forget why I was even where I was. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but perhaps a sign of the times. The Afghanistan war feels like so long ago now, and I, like many, am quite disillusioned with why we were fighting there. However, when things go bad and the game becomes about desperately trying to save your comrades and evac from hostile territory, you forget all about grand machinations and instead focus on your desire to save these characters that genuinely feel real. There's some side stuff about a loud general safe at home sending men to die, but it feels a little under-powered when we've seen it so many times before.

Gameplay is mainly standard fare, but everything has weight and meaning. Barring a few key moments in game, there are not a lot of enemies. They don't endlessly respawn (again, barring a few key moments), so each kill feels meaningful, and powerful. Missions are often very quite, focusing on killing with precision and silence, just like real world operatives. Because of this, when things get loud and crazy, it feels all the more hectic. There is a section where you control a helicopter that is amazing, again helped by some clever mechanics, well designed levels and some brilliant set up before hand that really makes you want to keep not only yourself, but your partner alive. Probably my favourite in game mechanic was the sniping level, in which you're forced to make precision shots from hundreds of meters away. at first, it's very disconcerting, relying only on your spotter to guide you. but eventually you get used to the signs and the mechanics and it becomes crazy fun. There is also a hugely impressive defend mission, that ends with you and four others trapped in a tiny hut while enemies spill endless down the mountain towards you, watching your cover blow away and your ammo run dry. You honestly feel the desperation as you have no idea whether help will arrive in time or not. I literally leapt for joy when the rescue finally arrived, it was that intense.

Graphically, for the time, MoH is a powerhouse. It's running on DICE's Frostbite 2 engine and uses its strengths to the fullest. Cover breaks apart around you, explosions kick dirt and snow into the air, the gun models are gorgeous and the facial animation is fantastic. The sound design is brilliant as well, with an effective soundtrack, powerful and realistic weapon sounds and brilliant voice acting across the board.

I haven't really checked out multiplayer yet, but it's DICE so you know what to expect I'm sure. I'm all multiplayered out at the moment, so you'll have to forgive my unprofessionalism, just this once.

I know MoH received a tonne of criticism upon release. I've heard it referred to as a lifeless shooting gallery, and this is simply not true. In a shooter world over populated with adrenaline fueled, testosterone gun porn, it's nice to have a slower paced, more cerebral and deliberate, character and story driven shooter. This is a truly under-appreciated gem, a well-balanced, weighty shooter mixed with an affecting, personal and thought provoking story, with a conclusion that will leave you aching for more. I can only hope its sequel continues this trend of bucking the system, because it would be a shame to lose this refuge from the madness outside.

The Dead Space Debacle (or Not All Good Things Come In Threes)

2012-06-13T05:20:00.000-07:00

Warning. Massive, complete and total spoilers to follow. If you have not played both Dead Space games and seen both movies, prepare to be spoiled. Seriously, you've been warned.

Dead Space is a game I hold very dear to my heart. I still count the first one among the best action-tinged survival horror, above Resi 4 but under AvP 2, and the second one made some interesting innovations to the formula whilst still retaining it's heart and soul. And now, with the announcement of the third entry, I'm noticing a lot of outcry. So about here is where you're expecting me to lend my voice to the fury, right? Well, I hate to disappoint but I'm going to present my own view here, completely contradictory to the angry mob.

I am very excited for Dead Space 3.

Let me riff a little on the essence of horror. Horror comes in three forms: the self, the uncanny and the other. The original Dead Space focuses brilliantly on all three of these. Horror of the self is mainly based on two things: The Shadow, which is the Jungian term for the area between what we believe ourselves to be and what we truly are; and our secret shames or desire. Dead Space's antagonists, the Necromorphs, are a personification of The Shadow, a culmination of everything base in humanity. Our need to feed, to procreate, to kill. Their appearance however falls into the category of the Uncanny. The Uncanny is something that looks almost how we would expect, but somehow isn't quite right. It's most effective when applied to the human being as we have such a good idea of what a human should look like. It's why someone with a funny eye, or an amputee, can freak us out so much. Necromorphs often times look like us. The poor sap melted into the wall is especially Uncanny. And finally, the location of space, and a spacecraft and planet, provides us with The Other. The great fear of the Unknown. There is a lot of synchronicity between Dead Space and the Alien franchise. Both the game and movie began on a spaceship and thrived on claustrophobia and a feeling of helplessness. Then the sequels subsequently went for a more action focus, realising a crucial thing: once you know what it is, it's not scary anymore. Sure, Dead Space still had the power of the Uncanny and the Shadow, but we've grown used to it now. Even the few new enemy types can't shake us that much. So what do we do once we're not afraid of the big bad anymore? Kill it. Kill lots of it. Dead Space 2 tried to work in more psychological horror, but for the most part failed with a much less subtle approach than it's predecessor. Insanity isn't effective if we know we're insane. The revelation of Nicole being a vision from the Marker at the end of the first game was so effective because we, like Isaac, we were so certain she was real that we felt just as shaken as he was afterwards. I remember when I first saw the trailer, a part of me really hoped that the whole "necromorph invasion" in the game would actually be a psychotic break by Isaac and he ends up destroying everyone on the station before killing himself. That's just how I would've done it, but I was riding on a crazy high from the deeply unsettling Penumbra: Black Plague at that stage. Man, you ever want to experience true insanity from a first person perspective, play that game. You never know what is real and what is not.

So now we come to Dead Space 3. Isaac is back, and this time he brought a friend. Countless games before (i'm looking at you Resi 5 and you FEAR 3) that playing horror games with a friend is not scary at all. But Dead Space 3 is not a horror game. It's a TPS with some freaky monsters to kill. It's time to get even and I say bring it on. Necromorphs aren't scary anymore, we know everything there is to know about them. WE know what they are, we know where they come from, we know how to kill them. So let us kill them. Once and for all. I also like the fact that we can finally take the fight to those Unitologist bastards, the true monsters of the Dead Space universe. I hope the series continues after 3, but not with Isaac, and hopefully not with the necromorphs. Visceral Games have created such a unique and interesting universe, filled with so much untapped potential. I'm excited for Dead Space 3, but most of all, I'm excited for what is to come afterwards, for Dead Space's "Prometheus".

Altman be praised.

The Secret Art of Crafting Challenge

2012-06-08T21:56:00.002-07:00

Somewhere in the last decade, game designers have forgotten a very basic and crucial part of game design: challenge. Challenge is a difficult thing to understand, and something that's even harder to create. There are certainly many levels of challenge, and just as in life, the greater the challenge you overcome, the more rewarded you feel. Back at the birth of gaming, from the arcade to the early consoles, designers used challenge to their advantage, crafting almost cruel products like Contra or Battletoads. Games so intricately designed you were truly considered a god among your peers if you could complete them. To be fair, a lot of this design came from a desire to make money - the harder the game, the more times you'll have to attempt it and therefor the more money you'll spend. But along the way, as our medium began to reach a wider and wider audience, developers began to ease back on the difficulty, and thus was the "difficulty level" born. Outside of the cover system and regenerating health, the difficulty level is one of the most abused and misused devices in gaming ever. Now, I'm not a game developer, so this opinion is only my own, not a professionals, but the following is what I believe the problems are, and what solutions I believe can be found.

Problem Number 1: Lack of Direction

To create something, the creator has to have a lot of things in mind. What audience do I want to market my product to? What skill ability will be required? How much do I intend this to cost? Where will I release it, and when? Every design decision needs to be carefully thought out and crafted with clear answers to these questions in mind. However, with more and more developers focusing on the widest audience, the clear, directed approach is becoming non-existent. How can you design a focused experience when you have no idea who is going to play your game? This also leads to the "voyeur" problem, that feeling that you are only a casual observing in everything that's going on, rather than a participant. But how does this affect difficulty, you ask? Quite simple, in fact. How can you design a game's difficulty and challenge when you have no idea what type of person is playing it? You want it to be easy enough so that as many people can play it as possible, but challenging enough so they don't become bored. Hence, the "difficulty level". However, the "difficulty level" almost always leads to lazy, and plain awful game design. I'm going to use Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 as a perfect example. When reviewing games, I like to play them through first on the easiest difficulty, and then the hardest. I find at the easiest difficulty you find the experience the designer wanted you to have, and at the hardest all the games flaws become perfectly evident. So let's talk CoD. At the easiest difficulty, you can eat bullets for breakfast without even flinching. You are a walking immortal God and can sprint checkpoint to checkpoint without breaking a sweat. Perfect example of the voyeur problem right there. Barring a few critical moments of player interaction, you can just run from checkpoint to checkpoint without shooting anyone and the AI will handle everything. It's a joke. So let's switch it to Veteran. And of course, the only way to make something harder is to reduce your health and damage, and increase the enemies damage output. So most enemies will one or two shot you, while you have to empty half a clip into people unless you get a lucky headshot. So you play cautiously, sticking to cover and slowly picking enemies off one by one. Thankfully, you have three men at your side at all times, watching your back. Or at least, you'd think that. Unfortunately, their too busy standing in front of your shots, blocking your escape from the endless tirade of grenades, or shooting uselessly in any random direction. Or my favourite, calling out clear when there is clearly at least one guy left shooting at you. So the flaws are revealed, just as I thought. But the real problem, and the real point I want to make, is that the enemies in CoD don't play by the same rules as you. They can lock into cover, blindfire, lean and shoot, roll onto their backs and pull out an infinite ammo pistol when shot. They never run out of ammo, they have wicked good aim and they don't react to being shot at all. In fact, the only person stuck playing by your rules is you. Your partners act just like the enemies, while your left awkwardly crouching behind flimsy cover, occasionally standing up to be oneshotted by some guy blindifring from behind a solid steel wall. To juxtapose that, let's use an example of perfect challenge: Dark Souls. In Dark Souls, every enemy plays by the same rules as you. They have a health bar, they have stamina, they can only make the same movements that you can, they have the same openings and weakness that you do. They can be learnt, outsmarted. They require skill. CoD on Veteran falls down to a simple game of luck, chance and memorization. Enemies always spawn at the same spots, always move the same ways, always do exactly the same thing. They are scripted, entirely devoid of AI, carrying out the same routines over and over.

Problem 2: Not Seeing The Curve for the Peaks
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The difficult curve is a concept as old as games itself. The idea of ramping the challenge to match the player's increase in skill, providing a consistent challenge throughout the experience. This used to be achieved through clever level design, new enemy types and other clever design decisions. Now, it's achieved one way and one way only: more enemies with more health. Almost every single developer is guilty of this. Bioware is an especially good example. Why have clever boss fights when you can just have a massive enemy with a stupid amount of health that instantly spawns smaller enemies until it dies. It's bad design, and worse, it's lazy. It requires no thought, no creativity at all. To bring up Dark Souls again, The Tomb of the Giants, one of the hardest levels in the game, barely has any enemies compared to other enemies. There's maybe 20 proper enemies in the whole area. However, it's almost entirely dark, filled with perilous walkways and clever enemy placements. Each encounter is a tense affair as you try to maneuver around the tight terrain and the pitch dark. And yes, the boss has a lot of health and has an immortal army of followers, but if you have a divine type weapon, which is very easy to get, you can wipe out his army without breaking a sweat, and his big heavy attacks are easy to evade.

Problem 3: Player Error versus Cheap Design

This is probably the biggest problem in modern games. Cheapness in place of challenge. A lot of this results from the first two problems, but together they form a massive problem. If I die in Dark Souls (barring one or two rare areas), it's because I messed up. I mistimed my strikes, I wasn't paying attention, I rolled when I should have blocked. You get angry, you get frustrated, sure, but at yourself, not the game. You got outsmarted by a computer, how dumb does that make you look? However, when I die in CoD because the guy standing next to me was to busy running into a wall to watch my sides while I engaged a swarm of enemies running at me so I got oneshotted by a dude who spawned behind me, I get frustrated at the broken AI and shitty level design.

The Solution

So what can we take from this? Is this ranting leading anywhere, you ask? Well, maybe. I don't know. The solution seems simple, but I can't see developers willing to put in the effort. There are two options. Option one, ditch the difficulty level entirely and design games with one difficulty only. Think back to games like Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, Contra. Not a difficulty level in sight, right? So what you get is an experience uniquely crafted with a clear vision of what challenge they want to present. Option two, make each difficulty level unique. The Devil May Cry team and Platinum Games (especially with Bayonetta) are really good at this. Want to play it on easy? Then you'll encounter less enemies, or less challenging enemies. Want to play on the hardest difficulty? Then your going to encounter enemies that were mini bosses before as regular enemies, new harder, smarter enemy types, maybe some new bosses even. Replaying Bayonetta on Hard achieves this perfectly, mixing in late game enemies right form the beginning, giving them new move sets and more dangerous combos. But both of those require a lot of effort and a clear design vision, something modern developers seem to be uninterested in. Instead, by focusing on appealing to a wider audience, they are alienating the very people they want to include. Casual gamers feel pandered to, and alienated by the harder difficulties, whilst more skilled gamers feel cheated by the lack of challenge and cheap excuses for difficulty. Outside of the indie scene, and the Souls series, the seems to be no sign of a return to this kind of intelligent design and it's somewhat horrifying to see. Where never going to be taken as a serious artform when we don't have the courgae to stand by our decisions, to take risks. Where so busy holding hands and constantly reminding gamers of the most basic activities. I should not need to be told "press R1 to shoot" in the last fucking level. We are the generation of "press X to win" and it's a joke. Splinter Cell: Blacklist confirmed this for me. Punch one guy in the face and then you can kill every single guy in the area with one button press. No challenge, no user control required. Just two button presses and you win. I honestly hope we're all not as stupid as game developers think we are. I really do.

(500) Days of Kyle (or What I Found in the Garden State)

2012-05-27T17:18:00.002-07:00

I'm about to try something a little different here, as I find myself in a bit of a strange situation. As I said in my Avengers review, professional courtesy as a reviewer implies that I must write my reviews from a purely critical, analytic state. However, I also want to talk about some of my favourite, most well loved movies. Obviously I cna't review them, pre se, being so emotionally attached. So instead, I'm going to provide a written piece, discussing these films and the benefit they've had on my life in as spoiler free and critique free way as humanely possible.

It was pure chance that led me to hire these two movies again. A re-watching of Scrubs and a Pixies song. Two seemingly irrelevant, tiny details. However, watching Scrubs reminded me of Garden State, a movie I had not seen in many years and listening to the Pixies' Here Comes Your Man reminded me of the karaoke scene from (500) Days of Summer, a movie which at that stage I had already watched 6 times. So upon returning Scrubs, those two films found themselves at the top of my hire list. And then it was straight into the DVD player with (500) Days of Summer for my 7th viewing. 5DoS has always had a strange synergy with my life. The main character always rang a little too close to home for me. When I first viewed it, I saw it only as "finally, a movie with the bloke as a hopeless romantic". I felt his pain struggling against the tyranny of the world and Summer's emotionless realism. At the time, I was in a similar relationship and thus blinded to the true story at work. However, over multiple viewings, I began to realise that despite the entire film taking place from his point of view, this was not Tom's story. Nor was it Summer's. If anything, it is a morality tale about the dangers of close mindedness. It's Tom's steadfast belief that Summer is the "One" that drives her away. It's this close minded belief that leaves him shattered at her departure. But it is also Summer's stubborn refusal to see anything outside her pragmatic view on life that leaves her confused and lonely. We constantly see her looking lost and broken, torn between her heart and mind without realising it's possible to follow both. And it is through her growth at the conclusion that we realise what the film truly is about. Acceptance. Acceptance that we can't define life, or love, or fate. Acceptance that we can't let emotions and blind optimism rule our lives. Acceptance that we can't let fear of failure freeze us in place. Acceptance that we are all different, that what we believe true for ourselves won't be true for others. Whether or not Tom accepts this at the end is left open, but I think that's why the message remains so important. (SPOILERS) While Summer stumbles into commitment and happiness in love and comes to accept Tom's view along with his own, it seems to the audience that Tom will continue to endlessly pursue "The One", but we can only hope he has been left wiser from all that has come to pass.(END SPOILERS).

Garden State is a bit of a different beast. I was young when I first saw it, probably too young. I knew only that it was Zach Braff's feature film directorial/writing debut, and that it was shocking different to Scrubs. Don't get me wrong, I loved the movie. I found it poignant and funny and strangely different to anything else I'd ever seen. However, I was so caught up in just how different it was to Scrubs, how strange it was to see Zach playing the straight man, that I missed what the movie was truly about. At it's heart, Garden State is a simple growing-up film. It's a film about family, about mental health, and about death. But there is so much more under the simple trappings. At its heart, Garden State is a celebration of life through the mirror of death and suffering. Every character in the movie represents a different aspect of the human condition. And separately, they are all broken individuals. Most of them are hooked on drugs, or booze, or sex. Andrew (Zach's character)'s father is so set on trying to make the world perfect and happy that he can't see all he is doing is making the world numb. Andrew himself, drugged out of his mind on Lithium and stupor, is shown different aspects of himself through the people that surround him. The childishness of his best friend, the laziness and immaturity of his rich friend, and most importantly, the acceptance of life for all its pain and sadness represented through Sam. Sam represents everything that Andrew has numbed out of his life. Fear, grief, love, excitement, naivety. The audiences perspective shifts almost to Sam's eyes after her introduction, and we suddenly see a change in all that surrounds her and Andrew. Is this change brought about by her presence, or has it always been there and we, like Andrew, have been numbed to it? There's no attempt at reconciliation, no tight, happy package at the end, because life isn't like that. It won't always be perfect, or happy, or safe, but who could possible want that? By flooding the audience with emotions at the same time that Andrew experiences them, we feel we have all grown along with him. We feel the shell of numbness falling away and we, like Andrew, feel like stepping out into the great meat grinder of life and trying to get few with as many body parts intact as possible. And the most important lesson we learn of all is, always take time to listen to the Shins.

Which leads me to my final point, and one that applies to both movies, and that is an expert use of music. Being a musician, and someone finely attuned to music, choice of music can make or break a movie for me. But the sign of true melding of film and music is being able to listen to the soundtrack and understand the movie as if you had just watched it, and that's what both films achieve. And that's all I have to say really. Just something to share. Perhaps there are films that mean something special to you. If so, please feel free to share the stories in the comments below.

The Avengers Review

2012-04-28T05:13:00.001-07:00

It's generally considered pretty bad form for a critic to get emotionally invested in something they are critiquing; and even worse form to write an entire review whilst still under the emotional influence of said article. Still, I've never been one for rules and dammit if I'm not going to try to convey just how indescribably amazing this movie is.

You've heard the hype. If you haven't, then you've been living under the biggest rock yet to grace this technologically advanced floating lump of earth and water. As with any hype, there is always a fear that The Avengers could never live up to the massive hype surrounding it. But fear not, The Avengers not only lives up to the hype, but blows the hype out of the water, into the atmosphere and Hulk Smashes it to the ground. It is truly impossible to generate enough hype to match the splendor of The Avengers.

For those of you somehow not aware of what's happening here, The Avengers is the culmination of Marvel Studios attempt to bring comic book cross-media continuity to the big screen. Starting all the way back with Iron Man 1, then continuing through The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Iron Man 2 and Captain America, Marvel has been slowly weaving their films together into a concrete universe. Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the disgraced sun of Odin and brother to Thor, has returned to Earth with a massive and unstable power and the intent to unleash an unstoppable army onto the Earth. Desperate, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson, in the role that was based on him in the first place) pulls together any and all heroes under SHIELD's purview. This includes the reclusive Dr Banner (Mark Ruffalo, replacing Edward Norton), the thawed out Captain America (Chris Evans) and the narcissistic, ego-maniacal Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr, playing the role for the third time). Thor (Chris Hemsworth) himself even eventually joins the fray and it's a race against time as the heroes must put their differences and egos aside to unite in the Earth's defense. Over simplified as it is, The Avengers is much more than its deceptively simple premise thanks, mostly, to three important things. Joss Whedon (Firefly, Serenity, Buffy) has not only provided an extraordinary screenplay, but once again proves his directional chops are criminally under-appreciated. But a fantastic script and direction wouldn't mean a damn without the actors to back it up, and thankfully The Avengers deliver on all fronts. Both Chrises and Robert deliver even stronger performances than they have previously, and Mark Ruffalo owns Banner more than even Edward Norton could. Tom is having way too much fun as Loki and his personality elevates him well beyond stock-standard villain territory. Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye is really the only missed opportunity here, with his character mostly left to the sidelines or support roles. And yes, there is much more to Scarlett's Black Widow than that leather or 'dat ass' this time around; Whedon gives her plenty of room to flex her acting as well as her legs.

The Avengers true wonder comes from the way Whedon manages to work in all his little quirks and have them not feel out of place. He truly understands these characters; their flaws and their humanity. His wonderful moments of comedy never feel unnecessary or forced, but a natural progression of events from a deep understanding of who and what he is writing for. This especially shines through with both The Hulk and Captain America. Whedon provides the best understanding of The Hulk so far as an unrestrained, brutal force, like throwing a hand grenade into a sandpit. Some of the best moments of comedy come from the Hulk being the Hulk. And Captain America provides an interesting change for Whedon, a step outside his usual flawed, complex characters and a chance to write a straight man, and he handles it divinely. It's a tribute to everyone involved that this film manages to feel like a natural continuation of not one, but five different movies.

In weaker hands, The Avengers could have easily fallen apart. There's always so much going on, so many characters, so many sideplots, but at no time does it feel like too much. Whedon keeps a steady hand on everything, letting the pace build slowly until it erupts into a stunning final act. It succeeds not only as a standalone movie, but as a movie teeming with the fan service this kind of cross-continuity stories were invented for - Hero on Hero, cross film cameos and references, hints at further stories and developments. I challenge anyone not to leave this film feeling something incredible. I'm calling it, right now, nothing this year, comic book movie or otherwise, is going to surpass this film. Go, see it, now.

Seriously.