GAMER'S SPOT

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 - Defiance Review

2012-01-26T22:59:00.000-08:00

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3: Defiance is a competent though flawed handheld shooter.

The Good

Multiplayer is good fun, with rewarding progression
Level design suits the small scale
Touch-screen functions work well in conjunction with button controls.

The Bad

Stylus aiming controls have issues
Poor checkpoint placement
Occasional bugs

Given the huge fanfare that accompanies a Modern Warfare launch, it's easy for its DS counterpart to slip under the radar. It's understandable, really. Whereas the console/PC version is a high-octane, explosive visual feast full of gloss and gunfire, the DS offering can't help but seem a little ropey in comparison. And while it almost manages to hold its own, Modern Warfare 3: Defiance struggles with poor controls, a number of glitches, and some ill-thought-out checkpoint placement.

Defiance tells a story that is parallel to the main Modern Warfare 3 campaign. It sees you, playing as members of the National Guard and the British Special Forces, trying to repel the invading Russian army. There's little in the way of story, and scenes jump from place to place, with the general goal always being to "kill the bad guys." Cutscenes are lacking in exposition and also lack a subtitle option, and often, the audio is a bit unintelligible. It's not a huge matter, but most of the cutscenes are in game and can't be skipped, so it would have been nice to follow what was being said all the time.

Mechanically, it's fairly typical Call of Duty. You're funneled from gunfight to gunfight, down tight corridors, shooting bad guys as you go, meeting with the occasional turret sequence along the way. There's a decent balance here; you're never overwhelmed with enemies, which suits the small screen. And you have the helpful ability to peer down the sights with a tap of the touch screen, which snaps your view close to an enemy soldier. There are two control methods. The first, using the stylus to aim, is problematic. Finding the aiming sensitivity sweet spot proves difficult, and more often than not you'll end up flailing as you struggle to get a bead on an enemy. Button control works a lot better though. The D-pad is used to move back and forth and to strafe, while the face buttons allow you to look up, down, and turn left or right. Auto-aim comes into its own here too, compensating for the lack of pinpoint control. The touch screen is used nicely in this control scheme too, with the hot spots to change weapons or interact positioned well so that a quick tap of the thumb does little to break the flow of combat.

It manages to be quite exciting at times. Running in, clearing out a warehouse of Russians, switching up weapons, and hurling grenades is all rather fluid once you get the hang of it. It's often difficult to aim precisely, though, and the limited directional control from the four buttons occasionally becomes a problem, especially at close quarters. It's serviceable, though, and once you get the hang of using the iron sight auto-aim, becomes less of an issue.

An incoming helicopter? Explosions must be imminent.

The turret and helicopter sections are less exciting. There are a few missions that see you providing air support or guidance, and these end up being rather fiddly, slow, and boring. The best is one in which you have to guide your troops below in very rudimentary real-time strategy sections. But later missions--where you have to take down tanks and trucks--can get a bit frustrating given the tight time limits and slow movement of the mounted weapons. Later on in the game, a turret section where you fire from a helicopter proves even more problematic, with the game demanding slightly too much quick-aiming accuracy.

Perhaps more annoying is the poor checkpoint placement. Checkpoints are frequent, and you rarely have to repeat more than two or three minutes of the game, but little thought has gone into where they actually occur. One section early on, for example, has you breaching a warehouse. This requires you to listen to your squad chatting about it and then wait for your squad to get into position so you can plant the charge. If you die in the next few rooms of baddies, you're whisked right back to before the dialogue and are forced to sit there and listen to your squad a second time. Then you have to accompany your squad all the way back before you can dive into the combat again. There are too many checkpoints that follow a similar pattern, and it's a shame a bit more thought wasn't put into the structure. The occasional glitches are also annoying. These usually involve a friendly non-player character blocking a pathway or required enemies refusing to spawn. Quitting to the menu and reloading always sorts it. Because the checkpoints are frequent, there's usually little progress lost, but it's still rather annoying.

Thankfully, the multiplayer fares better than the single-player. Once again, it's exactly what you'd expect from Call of Duty, with unlockable weapons, perks, and customizable loadouts. The progression system is just as fun as always, and there are some nice, small maps that are perfectly suited to the smaller number of players. Diving into a random match is easy enough, although you can't choose your game type. There's also the ability to host or join friend matches after you've exchanged lengthy friend codes. Matches can be played online or locally, and if you have a group of friends all keen on Defiance's multiplayer, this is the best way to play.

Resident Evil: Revelations Review

2012-01-26T22:56:00.001-08:00

The Good

Taut stop-and-shoot action
Creepy atmosphere
Great visuals, especially in 3D
Entertaining story.

The Bad

Unengaging new characters.

Resident Evil: Revelations splices the survival horror DNA of classic Resident Evil with the new, brisker strain of Resident Evils 4 and 5. The result isn't an Umbrella-style crime against nature, but a healthy, happy hybrid: an optimum mix of tense, creepy exploration and stop-and-shoot action, telling a tale of bioterrorism and unwise genetic meddling aboard an abandoned ocean liner. It's also lovely to look at and, with a 10-hour story campaign, it's a meaty slab of a single-player adventure.

Veteran monster mashers Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield return, both in the service of the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA), but not as partners. The game is set after Resident Evil 4 and before 5, in the wake of a bioterrorist attack in which the high-tech island city of Terragrigia gets obliterated. Chris is paired with the flirty Jessica Sherawat, and Jill with Parker Luciani, a husky BSAA agent with a dubious Italian accent. The story plays out in TV-style, bite-sized episodes, each sandwiched between a "previously on Resident Evil: Revelations" recap and a cliff-hanger ending. It's a fun format for the compellingly hammy melodrama of Resident Evil tradition.

Much of the early game is spent playing as Jill or Chris in search of Chris or Jill, scouring the giant ship of horrors with your respective AI partner in tow. The new partners aren't hugely engaging--when you first meet Jessica, she's in shorts and ankle warmers, moaning about the cold on an arctic mission--but you're at least not responsible for their safety, since they can't be killed. Still, you wonder how much lonelier and scarier the game might be without the sidekicks. One of the most atmospheric portions is one that also most resembles old-school, haunted-house Resident Evil: Jill wakes up in a ship's cabin and has to venture alone and unarmed through the decaying luxury of the once-grand cruise liner.

The pace alternates between slower segments of cautious exploration and fraught sequences where you fend off waves of mutants while waiting for an elevator, for instance. In the slower sections, sinister ambiance and the odd well-placed jump scare come to the fore while you navigate ship corridors and dim rooms on the hunt, generally, for a key. The infrequent puzzles are on the slight side (one has you win coins from a casino slot machine and use them to unlock a high-roller suite), but they're agreeable palate cleansers all the same.

Gloomy corridors aplenty.

Not so agreeable: the comic relief double act of nerdy BSAA computer expert Quint Cetcham (really?) and his playable straight man Keith Lumley, whose comedy banter completely misses the mark. Their appearances, at least, are mercifully brief; Jill and Chris get the bulk of the screen time, the episodes flitting between BSAA teams, and there are plenty of stretches with these long-serving characters for fans of the series to enjoy.

As in Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, the franchise's first foray onto the 3DS, you use the circle pad for moving or aiming, the right shoulder button for snapping into a laser-sighted aim mode, and the Y button for firing. It's a comfortable, reliable control scheme that makes for tactical and deliberate combat in characteristic Resident Evil style, and it holds up well even in more hectic fights with fleshy boss monsters. Battles are taut, measured standoffs, where you weigh the option of standing your ground to shoot an inbound enemy against the option of lowering your weapon to retreat to a safer spot.

Batman: Arkham City Review

2011-11-02T04:43:00.000-07:00

Batman: Arkham City's irresistible world, joyous movement, rewarding combat, and varied side quests make it an exceptional adventure game.

The Good

Atmospheric, fascinating world rich with details and secrets
Satisfying, varied, hard-hitting combat
Grappling and soaring around the city is thrilling
Great assortment of involving side quests
Makes terrific use of a host of Batman characters.

The Bad

Boss fights are too easy.

Gotham City. This crime-infested metropolis has been famously imagined and reimagined in comic books, cartoons, and films. Now, we have a new vision of Gotham, and it stands not just as one of the most unforgettable incarnations ever of the city that Batman is devoted to protecting, but as one of the most richly detailed and exciting environments ever seen in a game. Building on 2009's outstanding Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City sets you free in the intoxicating neighborhood of North Gotham, now a sealed-off superprison for the city's worst criminals. As the Caped Crusader, you struggle to bring some semblance of order to the chaotic streets, foiling the plots of supervillains and protecting the victims of those who prey on the innocent. With its atmospheric setting, thrilling movement, immensely satisfying combat, and tremendous assortment of secrets to discover, side quests to complete, and other attractions, Arkham City is a fantastic adventure game.

Welcome to Arkham City.

It's winter in Gotham City, but the streets of the part of town now known as Arkham seem particularly cold. Snow falls on the criminals who roam this place, making the asphalt shimmer with reflections of the neon signs advertising shuttered shops that once upon a time bustled with business. Gotham faced a prison crisis in the wake of the events of Arkham Asylum, and certain unscrupulous characters took advantage of the situation by acquiring the run-down neighborhood of North Gotham, walling it off from the rest of the city, and tossing the criminals in there to fend for themselves. It's an inhumane and immoral operation; food and warmth are scarce, and some inmates are people whose only crime was voicing a negative opinion of Arkham City and those who run it.

But their misfortune is your gain. The area of several city blocks that makes up the superprison isn't especially vast as open worlds go, but what it lacks in scale, it more than makes up for in atmospheric detail. Arkham City is home to an old courthouse, a former police headquarters, a musty museum, a disused subway terminal, and other fascinating places. These structures, with their faded portraits, old billboards, and plentiful other features, convey a sense of history. The exceptional art design draws on 1930s art deco and makes Gotham seem like a once elegant and shining city that has fallen into darkness. It's clearly a work of imagination, but as you explore it, its richness pulls you in, and it becomes a world you can't help but believe in.

Batman has no choice but to explore the alleyways and underground tunnels of North Gotham. Within the prison's walls, Joker is dying, and the villain's schemes force the Dark Knight to help him find a cure. That quest brings Batman into contact with the Penguin, Mr. Freeze, and numerous other members of Batman's rogues' gallery. Each character is represented terrifically, with plenty of nods to their histories as established in the comics, and part of the fun of progressing through the story lies in seeing what character might make an appearance next. The excellent Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill reprise their roles as Batman and the Joker, heading up an ensemble of voice actors who never miss a beat.

That smile can't hide the fact that clownface is about to be in a world of hurt.

Also returning from Arkham Asylum is that game's accessible and satisfying combat system. At its core, it's quite simple: one button performs your attacks, while another counters enemy attacks. The combat rewards good timing, and when you get into the rhythm of battle, chaining your attacks together and turning your enemies' attacks against them, it's deeply absorbing. It's also as graceful as it is brutal, making it a joy to behold. The varied attack animations make most tussles look as if they might work as choreographed fight sequences in a movie. In response to your inputs, Batman might simultaneously counter two attackers with a single impressive move, or take advantage of a convenient surface and slam a thug's head against it. As you progress, you encounter enemies equipped with things that make taking them down more complicated. Guards with stun batons can be attacked only from behind; enemies with shields require the use of an aerial attack; and foes with body armor can be injured only with a rapid-fire punch attack called the beat down. It's especially satisfying to defeat large, diverse groups of enemies against whom you must use a variety of techniques. Zoomed-in camera angles that give you a close look at moves that finish off a battle add impact to your attacks and make your triumphs all the more rewarding.

Batman's assortment of gadgets plays a bigger role in combat than it did before. In Arkham Asylum, you could throw batarangs and keep your combo going; here, you can quickly fire off many of your wonderful toys in the heat of battle. A blast from your remote electric charge device can make an enemy involuntarily swing his hammer at surrounding thugs, and a quick placement and detonation of explosive gel can knock nearby foes off their feet. The variety of "quickfire" gadget options and other special moves that Batman has at his disposal can actually be overwhelming, and you may occasionally find yourself pressing the button combination for one gadget when you want to use another. But the game does an excellent job of easing you into the finer points of the combat system, displaying button prompts when you have a good opportunity to use a particular technique. And if you don't quite grasp a move the first time, you can go into your upgrade menu and re-enable its tutorial for a refresher. The addition of quickfire gadgets gives you a number of new options, and skilled players can benefit a great deal from the smart use of these techniques, but you never need to rely on these abilities. If you prefer to keep things simple, you can certainly get by relying primarily on your fists.

Detective mode shows you which thugs made the mistake of bringing guns to a batfight.

Of course, thugs with shields, blades, and body armor are one thing; enemies with guns are something else entirely. Batman is tough, but far from invulnerable, and when faced with such firepower, it's time for him to rely on stealth. As in Arkham Asylum, you sometimes find yourself needing to take out rooms of gun-wielding enemies, and all of Batman's techniques from that game are still every bit as fun to use. Sneak up on an enemy from behind and you can take him down silently. By hanging from a gargoyle, you can ensnare an unsuspecting enemy below with an inverted takedown. Your detective vision gives you an edge, letting you see the positions of enemies patrolling the room through walls and floors. And Batman has a few new tricks up his sleeve. When spotted, you can toss a smoke pellet, aiding your escape and possibly leading confused enemies to accidentally attack each other. And you eventually acquire a new gadget that's great fun in these situations: the disruptor, which lets you can remotely disable a thug's gun. It's especially satisfying to do so, then jump down in front of him and watch as he attempts to shoot you, and then knock his lights out. The disruptor's use is limited, so you can't overdo it, but it's a great new addition to Batman's arsenal. The excellent sound design adds tension to these stealthy standoffs, with bad guys becoming increasingly frightened as you pick off their buddies one by one.

As you win battles, you earn experience points and periodically level up, which lets you upgrade your suit, gadgets, and combat skills. These upgrades have a real impact on gameplay and create a rewarding sense of growth as you advance through the game. Purchasing the batclaw disarm move, for instance, lets you yank weapons from enemies' hands, while the critical strikes upgrade rewards precise timing in battle with more powerful attacks that let you build up to special combo moves more rapidly. There are an impressive number of upgrade options to choose from, and you'll probably still be leveling up and unlocking upgrades well after finishing the main story.

It's not all about combat in Arkham City, though. Far from it. One of the greatest joys of the game is the act of moving around its open world. The grapnel gun made getting around enjoyable in Arkham Asylum, but Arkham City, with its numerous buildings to grapple onto and soar off of, is a veritable playground. You can zip up to ledges and rooftops with the push of a button, and you can leap off these surfaces as well, using your cape to glide through the air. Once you get the hang of generating momentum with your dive-bomb move, you can soar through the city, diving and climbing like a roller coaster. It's an exhilarating way to travel. And if, as you're flying high above the streets, you spot a group of thugs and fancy a fight, it's easy to plummet straight down and plant your boot in a goon's face.

Ah, the old 'remote control batarang to the back' trick.

Arkham City also acknowledges that Batman's brains are at least on par with his brawn. Occasional clever environmental puzzles, such as a situation involving a pool of water covered in thin ice, frozen cops who need to be saved, and a giant, deadly shark, require you to make smart use of your gadgets. More significantly, the Riddler returns to torment Batman, and he has stepped up his game considerably. As in Arkham Asylum, Riddler trophies have been placed throughout Arkham City. Some of these collectibles have been hidden in the city's nooks and crannies, and if you locate them, you can simply pick them up. However, in many cases, the trick is not locating them, but figuring out how to get them. There are Riddler trophies in plain view all over Arkham City, but they're enclosed in cages, and to retrieve one of these, you must figure out how the mechanism for that particular cage works. There might be a series of switches on a nearby wall that need to be triggered in a particular order. Or it may be a test of agility, with a switch that opens a gate some distance away that you have only a short time to reach before it closes. Some of these puzzles are surprisingly tricky, but there's always a discernible logic that makes working out the solutions rewarding. And in a nice touch, you can mark the location of trophies on your map so that if you can't figure out how to get one at the time, you can easily come back to it later.

In addition to his trophies, the Riddler has a new set of environmental riddles for you to solve. Some of these take the form of questions or statements, such as "Do you have Strange thoughts? Maybe you should seek help?" and "I am an actor who can transform a film with the final cut. Who am I?" Answering these requires you to locate the sign, storefront, or other environmental detail that contains the answer. The richness of the world already makes exploring it a pleasure; tracking down these solutions makes doing so even more engaging. Each of these that you solve unlocks an Arkham City story, which offers some textual background on the people associated with that particular riddle, deepening the neighborhood's sense of history. The Riddler's perspective puzzles also make a comeback. These are question marks painted in the environment that need to be viewed from just the right place to appear correctly. Working out the proper vantage point from which to solve these puzzles is as enjoyable as ever.

Solving these conundrums doesn't just reward you with a job well done. This time around, the Riddler has kidnapped hostages and placed them in riddle rooms throughout Arkham City, and the only way to get the locations of these rooms is by completing enough of the Riddler's challenges. And this is just one of the numerous side quests you have the option of pursuing or ignoring during your time in Arkham City. You'll almost certainly want to complete many of these, though. These engrossing quests often make great use of villains from the Batman comics who don't play a role in the main quest, and they have their own story arcs that are worth seeing through. They're also fun to play. There are strings of murders to investigate that have you analyzing crime scenes, following bullet trajectories and trails of blood. There's a madman who forces you to race across town to answer ringing pay phones before time runs out and he kills a hostage. There are innocent political prisoners who need your help. And much more.

Many Riddler trophies are easy to locate, but not so easy to collect.

If you buy the game new, you receive a code that gives you access to Catwoman. (If you don't have the code, you can purchase one in the game's online store.) If you have this content loaded onto your console, the story will occasionally switch to Catwoman. The paths of the two characters occasionally intersect, and if you have the Catwoman content, her occasional interludes offer some illumination on how she gets into the situations in which you encounter her as Batman. Playing as Catwoman is enjoyable; she has just enough abilities that are unique to her to make her feel distinct from Batman, while controlling similarly enough to feel immediately familiar. She can cling to certain ceilings and use her claws to scale walls, and her caltrops and bolas can be used in combat to trip and immobilize enemies. You spend only a short time playing as her during the main story, but once that's complete, you can switch between Batman and Catwoman at any time, and she has her own objectives and challenges to complete, and her own set of Riddler trophies to collect.

Once you complete the main story, you unlock the new game plus option, which lets you carry over your upgrades but also makes your life more difficult; you have to do without the helpful lines that appear in combat informing you that an enemy is about to strike. But once you've spent that much time with the game, you'll likely be ready for this challenge. And, as in Arkham Asylum, there are a host of challenge rooms that test your skills both in all-out combat and in stealth situations. Some challenges take the form of small campaigns that alternate between combat and stealth scenarios. Each campaign assigns you an assortment of modifiers and requires you to use each of them once. One modifier might benefit you, perhaps giving you regenerating health, while another might benefit your enemies, perhaps giving one a protective aura that prevents him from taking damage. These modifiers, and the tactical process of applying the detrimental ones to the easier scenarios and the beneficial ones to those scenarios you might have a tougher time with, make these campaigns feel distinctly different from the encounters you have during the story.

Do you ever get the feeling you're being watched?

But more than anything else, it's your adventures and explorations in the city of Arkham itself that make this game extraordinary. The game's boss fights look dangerous and spectacular, but they're disappointingly easy, and on occasion, context-sensitive actions may thwart your efforts. You might intend to evade an enemy attack, for instance, but instead your button press makes Batman slowly disable some device as bullets are shredding your health. But these criticisms are nitpicks in a game that does so much so well. From the speedy exhilaration of soaring high above the streets to the atmospheric thrill of discovering long-forgotten secrets in the tunnels below Gotham, this is an unforgettable adventure that will keep you coming back to the cape and cowl long after you've seen the credits roll.

Battlefield 3 Review

2011-11-02T04:32:00.000-07:00

In the realm of online combat, Battlefield 3 provides thrills that few games can match.

The Good

Deep and varied multiplayer competition
Awesome array of vehicles
Many attractive environments
Rewards teamwork handsomely.

The Bad

Campaign is disappointing and dull
Only six cooperative missions
No way to practice jet flight outside of multiplayer.

When it comes to virtual battlefields, nobody does it quite like the Battlefield series. It has a long history of creating sprawling conflict zones where players have an exhilarating range of ways to make powerful contributions to the war effort. Yet it wasn't until the Bad Company games were released that Battlefield really made a splash on consoles. As you might expect, the PC version of Battlefield 3 still boasts better visuals and larger matches than its console counterparts, but competitive multiplayer on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 is incredibly addictive, immersive, and exciting. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the single-player campaign, which fails to capitalize on the series' strengths and ends up feeling like an off-brand imitation. The six cooperative missions fare better and offer a tougher challenge, but only the competitive multiplayer provides a compelling reason to buy Battlefield 3. With online battles this excellent, though, that reason is all you need.

There are many factors that combine to make these battlefields as good as they are, most of which will be familiar to series veterans. Nine great maps set the stage for up to 24 players to fight it out in a variety of urban, industrial, and military locations. These places all look great, though the grassy hills and blue skies of the Caspian Border are naturally more appealing than the drab urban corridors of the Grand Bazaar. The maps vary widely in size and offer diverse environmental elements, including claustrophobic tunnels, coastal roads, desert plains, and a variety of multistory buildings. Many man-made structures can be damaged or destroyed by the explosive tools at your disposal, creating new infiltration routes or removing cover positions. The maps are designed to create opportunities for combat at all ranges, and the element of destruction lets you manipulate the environment to create even more.

Combat is not just about where you are, but also about how you get there, and the variety of vehicles is one of the things that makes Battlefield so uniquely engaging. Small maps might only have a Humvee or a light armored vehicle, while larger ones boast buggies, tanks, amphibious transports, helicopters, and jets. There are a few variations within each class of vehicle that make them better suited for troop transport, anti-infantry, antiair, or anti-vehicle combat, and learning how to get the most out of each one is a blast, even if you're sometimes the one getting blown up. Whether you're piloting, gunning, or just going along for the ride, vehicles offer a key tactical element that can change the tide of battle when used by a savvy squad. Using a vehicle well can earn you powerful upgrades and bonus weapons, but it can be tough to get the hang of the flight mechanics for helicopters and jets. It's a shame there's no way to practice flying them outside of active multiplayer matches (with one exception), though you can take comfort in knowing that you are at least entertaining your fellow players when your jet nose-dives into a mountain.

The maps and vehicles allow for a great degree of strategic freedom, but choosing your class and loadout is the first and most important decision you make before spawning into combat. Abilities and weapons have shuffled around a bit since Battlefield: Bad Company 2, so now the assault class slings health packs and totes defibrillators, while the support class carries light machine guns and ammunition boxes. Engineers still thrive on vehicle support/destruction, and recon delivers long-range death. New gadgets like robots that can arm charges (engineer) and mark targets (recon) give players more to look out for on the battlefield, and claymores and mortars (support) ensure that the engineer class isn't the only one packing an explosive punch. Unlockables include class-specific weapons and gadgets, gun-specific sights and attachments, and specializations that can make you tougher and deadlier. Focusing on one class to unlock higher level gear has its advantages, but so does spreading around your progress in an effort to be more adaptable to the ebb and flow of combat.

Regardless of what loadout you choose, there are a lot of ways to earn points for your actions. In addition to kills and kill assists, you can now earn points for suppressing enemies who are subsequently killed by your teammates. When a player is suppressed by enemy fire, they suffer from blurred vision and decreased accuracy. This disorienting tactic can help you mitigate the effectiveness of enemies who are peppering you from a prone position, which returns in Battlefield 3 after being left out of the Bad Company games. Battlefield 3 may be a successor in name to Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, but in spirit, the competitive multiplayer is a refined version of that offered in Bad Company 2. Nevertheless, it will be immediately familiar to veteran players of either game, though fans of Bad Company 2 will encounter a few other small but notable differences. Buildings are not easily destroyed in Battlefield 3 and underslung grenade launchers are, as of now, far less prevalent. Furthermore, you can't just run up to someone and stab him in the face for an instant kill; you need to get in two swipes or sneak up from behind. Nor can you simply rely on explosives to destroy M-COM stations in Rush mode because arming and detonating the charge is now the only way to progress

As with the previous Battlefield games, the focus is on teamwork. Diverse loadouts encourage you and your squad to make complementary choices, and point bonuses reward you for working together. Every vehicle is better with teammates in it, and even the simple act of spotting enemies is an effective way to contribute to your team's efforts. Teamwork is woven throughout the fabric of Battlefield 3's multiplayer action, and when your team is working well together, it's one of the most gratifying experiences you can have in a game.

Battlefield 3 also has six cooperative missions that require teamwork on a smaller scale. These stand-alone sorties have a narrative connection to the campaign, but they are tougher to complete than most campaign missions and you can unlock some nice weapons for use in the multiplayer. Chatting with your teammate is helpful here, especially in the stealthy sections, because the spotting mechanic doesn't sufficiently differentiate enemies at long distances. Your foes are fairly tough, even on normal difficulty, though some unexpected quick-time events can also catch you off guard. The most notable mission here puts you in the cockpit of a helicopter, which provides the only chance outside of multiplayer to practice your flying skills. Earning all of the weapon unlocks requires repeat playthroughs of these missions, so it's a shame there aren't more of them to keep you busy.

Finally, there's the campaign. Battlefield 3's single-player adventure tells a harrowing tale of a fictional modern conflict. It follows a familiar formula by delivering a short campaign with diverse combat scenarios and dramatic set pieces. The story is solid and has some good acting, but the "Now tell us about this mission" interrogation mechanic makes the structure feel stale (having made a notable appearance in last year's Call of Duty: Black Ops). The focus on realism makes the unrealistic elements like the heavy-handed linearity, quick-time events, and reckless foes even more noticeable, but most disappointing of all is the campaign's utter failure to capitalize on any of the series' strengths. The lively personality of the Bad Company games is nowhere to be found, nor is the operational freedom on which the series has thrived. When you climb into the cockpit of a fighter jet, you are merely the gunner in an on-rails sequence rather than the hotshot pilot. There are some beautiful environments and a few exciting sequences, but these are outweighed by the overly familiar cityscapes and set pieces that were clearly inspired by other shooter campaigns from the past few years. This contributes to the pervasive sense that this campaign is not only outdated, but also outclassed.

Fortunately, Battlefield 3's competitive multiplayer is among the best in its class, providing immensely rich and immersive combat zones. Though there are still some intermittent server issues that might cause you to lose your connection or put you in an unpopulated game, these are infrequent occurrences that aren't likely to keep you from having a blast online. Battlefield 3 may not offer much beyond the multiplayer, but there are so many ways to contribute and feel like a powerful soldier that after hours and hours of playing, all you'll want to do is play more.

Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi Review

2011-11-02T04:23:00.000-07:00

1.The battles in Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi look intense and exciting, but dull mechanics prevent the gameplay from channeling any of that excitement.

The Good

Visuals capture the over-the-top combat style of the anime.

The Bad

Simple, repetitive fighting mechanics
Flow of battle often determined by chance rather than skill
Tedious boss fights that make poor use of quick-time events.

No ordinary human could ever perform the kinds of tremendously devastating and destructive attacks that the characters of the Dragon Ball Z universe regularly pull off. But even for Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, and the rest of the gang, such abilities take dedication, training, and a great deal of energy and effort. In Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi, however, sending opponents flying through the air with a kick is as easy as pushing a button, and firing off a kamehameha takes only a press of the right thumbstick. In fact, combat requires so little effort on your part that, despite the explosive display of power and fighting skill happening onscreen, it's hard to feel invested in what's taking place. Ultimate Tenkaichi is all spectacle and no substance.

Battles in this fighting game pit characters against each other in three-dimensional environments. When close to your opponent, you can dish out a flurry of melee attacks by tapping a button repeatedly, or press another button for a slower, more powerful attack. If you land a string of attacks, the action stops for what is called an attack clash. At this point, you and your opponent select one of two options; if you each choose different options, you win the clash, dealing damage and potentially sending your foe soaring through the air, giving you the opportunity to keep a chain of attacks going. If the defender chooses the same option that you do, he or she breaks your combo and performs a counterattack. There's no sense of timing or skill involved in unleashing the chain of attacks that triggers the clash; the stops the clashes bring about interrupt the flow of battle; and the continued success or failure of your attacks comes down to a 50-50 chance rather than to any actual prowess or technique on your part. It's a shallow and uninvolving melee combat system, and one in which the sight and sound of combatants being knocked hundreds of feet through the air is so commonplace, it quickly becomes tiresome.

If you have sufficient ki (energy that you can charge up by pressing down on the D-pad), you can perform a breakaway attack, which again presents you with two options that result in either dealing damage or taking damage. After the breakaway, you're at a greater distance from your foe. From here, you can fly in all directions and can fire ki blasts, but combat at this range plays out almost identically to melee combat. Landing a string of ki blasts triggers an attack clash, and once again, both you and the recipient of your blows choose from two options that determine how things play out.

Performing the dramatic signature moves of these characters is even less exciting than everything else about the combat. When one combatant's health is running low, the fighters gain access to their spirit gauges. At this point, firing off a galick gun, a spirit bomb, or any other super attack is done with a press of the right thumbstick. The visuals that accompany these attacks are appropriately intense--waves of energy tear up the earth, and massive explosions are viewed from orbit--but the simplicity with which they're performed makes them unsatisfying and anticlimactic. If you're on the receiving end of such an attack and you have enough ki stored up, you have a few options. You can guard, which automatically reduces the amount of damage you take. You can evade, which requires that you pull off a sequence of timed button presses; if you succeed, the attack does no damage, but if you fail, it does more than it would otherwise. Finally, you can intercept the attack. This leads to a button-mashing contest, and if you win, your attacker takes damage from his or her own super attack. These options balance risk and reward nicely, which makes being the target of a super attack one of the few mildly engaging situations you might find yourself in while playing.

There are a number of ways to experience the shallow combat of Ultimate Tenkaichi. Story mode has you playing through a series of battles based on events from the anime. Sometimes the story is advanced by cutscenes, but far more often, all you get is a wall of text summarizing events. In addition to the standard one-on-one battles, Story mode has chase battles, which are boring sequences in which you just move your character around to either shake off a pursuer or catch up with someone you're pursuing. But the worst aspect of Story mode is the boss battles with massive enemies. These towering opponents repeat the same simple attacks over and over again, as you dodge their assaults and chip away at their health. Eventually, you must complete a quick-time event to win. A delay between the moment you press the button and the moment your press registers makes some of these needlessly tricky, and the amount of damage you sustain if you fail is so huge that one or two mistakes are enough to finish you off and force you to repeat the entire tedious process from the beginning.

Such boss battles also appear in Ultimate Tenkaichi's Hero mode. Here, you create a character from a very limited number of options and make a name for yourself in a parallel version of the DBZ universe. The idea of creating your own character whose skills increase as you progress is an interesting one, but because the underlying combat mechanics are so shallow, there's no rewarding sense of growth to be had. That shallowness also saps the fun out of online combat. Human opponents are more unpredictable and more fun to fight than AI combatants, but Ultimate Tenkaichi's focus on mashing buttons and winning games of chance over skill and technique makes it a dull fighting game regardless of whether your opponent is human or artificial. There are also tournament options and the ability to create battles between teams of up to five characters (though only one character per team is fighting at any one time), but there's nothing you can do to infuse the action with the energy it appears to have.

The combat certainly captures the intense look of the anime it's based on. Attacks appear to possess incredible power, and stylish camera angles strive to create a sense of impact as characters collide in midair or hit the ground with enough force to shatter the earth around them. But this appearance of excitement rings hollow; the characters grunt and sweat and fire massive beams of destructive energy, but the dull gameplay leaves you feeling disconnected from their struggles. If you're looking for an engaging Dragon Ball Z experience, you're much better off watching the anime than playing this game.