Category: Video Game Reviews

Adventure Found Me: Trey’s Tomb Raider Review

Stonking Great T*ts

I was around 12 or 13 when I got my first Tomb Raider game (Tomb Raider 2 on the Playstation, to be exact), so I was just the right age to feel all the ways that most gamers have felt about Lara croft at one point or another. I cannot tell a lie: I even went so far as to secretly use the family computer to (gasp!) try and look up cheats to make her more… Naked. That’s the right word. However, underneath all the hormones was a young gamer just starting to really understand that games could be more than just idle distractions. TR 2 doesn’t tell the best story in the world, but it did feature some amazing locales and genuinely engaging platforming, with some moderate puzzle-solving for good measure.

That was the last retail release I actually picked up in the franchise before now, though I did play the demos for most all of them and rent a few others along the way. I watched with everyone else as the series stagnated, then tried to evolve, then tried to recapture its former glory. By the time we got to TR: Anniversary (2007) and TR: Legend (2008), the release of Uncharted only served to highlight the franchise’s slow descent into obscurity.

Training Bra

Everything old is new again, and we find a fresh-faced Lara Croft in a cabin on a ship on her way to investigate… something. The game starts off with a bang, and then a thud, scream, puncture wound, explosion and cave-in. If the idea was to make the player feel as overwhelmed and exhausted as Lara, the developers succeeded in spades. The end of this initial rush finds Lara stranded on a remote island, cut off from her crew and in desperate need of some shampoo, trail mix, and a good abdominal surgeon; she manages a bow, some arrows, and a rock tied to a stick.

From there, the player must try to survive, meet up with the others, and find a way off the island, in that order. Of course, things don’t always go as planned; there’s at least one group of haggard, possibly fanatical men running around kidnapping people and trying to do bad things to attractive young women. One of these lucky gentleman has the dubious honor of becoming the first person Lara ever kills; he does not die well. In fact, he dies so “not well” that I had to look at the ESRB rating and discover that the game did in fact receive a “M for Mature.”

Lara again finds herself separated from the crew, and then… I didn’t care anymore. I’m sorry for jumping the gun on this, but I can’t help it. The story in this game is a mess, and it honestly became kind of a distraction. The main thrust is supposed to be the whole “A Survivor is Born” tagline; that’s what the game’s last achievement is called, and then the damned words poop up on the screen pre-credits with a music spike to boot. I’ll admit that your first three kills – a deer, a wolf, and then Rapey McFeels-You-Up – are executed in such a way that they have gravitas, but literally two minutes after that you’re murdering guys left and right. Hell, five minutes after that the game is actively encouraging you to drop lanterns on guys and burn them alive.

Hot on the heels of that failed plot device are the rest of your crew, who might as well be called the following: BFF / Lover Maguffin, Dead by the End Mentor, Obvious Betrayal Glasses Guy, Nerdy Glasses Guy, Sassy Black Woman, Surly First Mate from UK, and Ethnic Heritage Wisdom Man.

The issue here is that the game seems to put all of its story stock in you giving a crap about these people, without ever giving you a single instance to get to know anything about them. The game’s maguffin character, Sam, is either Lara’s best friend or her lesbian lover; I honestly could not tell you which, because the games provides evidence toward both ends. This takes all the urgency out of a majority of the story, since I lack a point of reference for these characters, their relationship to Lara and each other, and their basic motivations. All it would have taken was an introductory level on the ship, where you interacted with each of them while learning a few mechanics, to give the player some bearing for the remainder of the plot.

Finally, the game commits that most dire of sins in games where there are collectibles scattered throughout the world; instead of enhancing the story, these knickknacks are given the burden of telling significant parts of the story. This bleeds over a little into the previous paragraph, but is at its worst concerning the aforementioned other island inhabitants, previous visitors to the island, and the island itself. The most noticeable victim is the game’s main villain, as everything about him – name, motivations, favorite flavor of ice cream – Lara just seems to know, but the player can only discover by stopping mid-play to read his diary pages. This is compounded by the fact that, while text for such items is narrated when looking at it in menus, it cuts off if you try and keep playing while listening.

I’m not saying there’s nothing good about the story, especially considering there’s an insane twist at one point that they managed to keep completely off-the-radar during marketing. I don’t want to spoil too much, but I will say that the parts involved in this twist help the game earn its Mature rating in spades. The final act you take as the player – an event that is teased several points during the story – will also make long-time fans of the series smile.

Sports Bra

For those of you who like to cheat and look at our scores first, you’re probably wondering “How did we get that number from everything negative he just said?” That number comes 100% from the gameplay; the platforming, shooting, puzzle-solving, free roaming, and set-piece surviving is all executed near flawlessly.

The first thing I have to talk about here is pacing, because the game wouldn’t be the same if it didn’t flow as well as it did. The basic formula is this: You’ll start in an open area where you might have platforming and combat, with a chance to look around and find hidden goodies; those tend to flow directly into linear action / platforming sections where the pace picks up; finally, you are thrust into a setpiece that mixes run-and-gun with zero-tolerance platforming, usually while the area you’ve been in comes to pieces around you. Inevitably you escape and do a bit of light platforming until you reach the next big area. The end result is that I almost never got bored, and found it hard to stop playing most nights.

The open areas are marvels of design, with multiple ways to get to and from each ledge, hill, and rope. The main draw of these areas is to scavenge for material you can use to upgrade your gear; secondary to me was the chance to find a hidden tomb; the last thing on my list was usually collectables, but damned if I didn’t get invested when I saw something I couldn’t quite reach. Most of these areas are usually visited twice, and tend to contain out-of-reach items you’ll need a gadget from the upcoming linear bit to finally obtain.

The combat is, in my opinion, an enormous step forward for games of this ilk thanks to two words: Auto. Cover. When you’re in an area with enemies nearby, any Lara approaches immediately becomes cover; move away from it, and Lara simply disengages and moves freely. Never again do expect to press a button for cover in an Uncharted game, only to take cover behind the wrong thing and then get stuck there as enemies use Drake for target practice.

Unfortunately, Tomb Raider does take a bad cue from its alternate-gender franchise: At the very climax of the game, it forgets to be an adventure-platformer with shooting elements and tries to be Gears of War. I don’t know what douche is infiltrating dev meetings at Naughty Dog and Crystal Dynamics, but his pitch is always the same: “Hey, right near the end, let’s throw double the number of enemies from any previous sections in there, only we’ll find arbitrary ways to make the environment cramped. Then let’s cap that off with a multi-stage boss fight involving quick-time events and waves of regular enemies.” I don’t know who you are, but if I ever find you, I’m going to discover your weak spot and deal damage until I can do something horrible to you once you’ve been downed. Three. Times. In. A. Row.

*Obvious Gripe Voice* This is an intense 3D platformer, where the platforms are occasionally falling, breaking, burning, or some other nonsense, and sometimes during these sections it becomes infuriatingly difficult to determine where the ^(@& I’m supposed to be jumping. *End O.G.V.*

The only other flaw comes in the lack of instruction concerning upgrading your weapons… or maybe my complaint is with modifying them? I don’t know, because the game won’t tell me. Essentially, one of them uses scrap to do standard upgrades, and one requires you to find parts scattered throughout the game to do a complete overhaul on your weapon. The latter of these two is so inconsistent – where you get the parts, how to tell if you have any parts, determining what parts you may have missed and need to go back for – that entire forums have sprung up about the topic. My honest suggestion is that you just kind of roll with things on your first playthrough, since the overhaul happens automatically at the next campfire once you have all the required parts. After you’ve finished, you can go back worry about any pieces you’re missing.

Body by Victoria

From a technical perspective, the game is fairly impressive. The graphics are crisp and consistent, and the environments are appropriately detailed and populated; some of the draw distances are fantastic, especially at times when you’re looking at something in the distance and thinking “I’m going to be there, soon.” I never noticed any real clipping, tearing, or what have you. The game does occasionally slow to a crawl while auto-saving, sometimes several times in a few minutes if you’re picking up lots of collectables in a small area. The sound is stellar, though the music, voices, and effects are sometimes balanced poorly; for some odd reason, sound effects and dialogue volume can’t be adjusted separately.

I did “enjoy” finding one massive technical flaw in the game, something which I can attest that others have encountered as well, but I’m going to save that for after my final score. For now, just know that it was game-breaking, for all intents and purposes. My sincere hope is that it has already been patched.

This isn’t twelve-year-old me’s Tomb Raider, that’s for damn sure; while Lara isn’t unattractive by any means, she spends the entire game so dirty, bloody, beaten, and exhausted that sexualizing her would take several long showers and at least two major surgeries. Though the writing of Lara’s rebirth as a “survivor” may not deliver, the gameplay delivers on almost every front, and definitely points toward the series having found better footing after years of clinging to the crumbling ledges of nostalgia. I can tell you this much: If the sequel can make the same leap that Uncharted took for Among Thieves, then Lara’s adventures can find me anytime.

TREY’S NERD RATING – 8.5

Third Nipple

*Spoiler Alert* This section talks about a bug that concerns a late-game gear acquisition.

The bug I encountered is not uncommon; in fact, so many players have encountered it that there are numerous forums and videos dedicated to it already. No one seems to have found a clear pattern on how to avoid it; either it happens to you, or it doesn’t. In its current state, it is game-breaking, as the area you are in cannot be (easily) gotten out of, and reloading a save – or even rebooting the whole game – does nothing to solve it.

At one point, you find yourself on a derelict ship deck with no discernible way through; luckily for you, Lara has just acquired an item that allows her to pull heavy objects into new positions. The idea is that you find a weak spot in the deck, then use this gear to swing a crane holding cargo over the area. This lets you shoot the pulley on the crane and drop the cargo through the deck, allowing you to proceed.

If the glitch gets you, the animation for the crane swinging triggers, but the cargo remains in its original location in mid-air. When the crane reaches the spot above the deck, the pulley snaps, and you actually hear the sound effects that indicate the cargo has fallen through the weak point. The cargo hasn’t moved, though, and the placeholder graphics for the deck remain intact, barring your passage.

I spent half an hour trying to figure things out, and finally took to the web. What I eventually found was a video solution that made use of another glitch. I called the weak spot “placeholder graphics” because that’s exactly what they are, to the point where everything that’s not Lara herself – arrows, bullets, grenades, etc – can pass right through them. The solution I found involved positioning Lara at exactly the right spot between the deck and this placeholder. If you do it just right, she goes into her falling animation, because as far as the game is concerned she is falling. If you can keep her hovering there long enough, she slowly sinks past the placeholder and falls through to the corridor below. When you look back up, the deck appears broken, and you can climb freely between the two areas as intended.

I have numerous rants on this subject, but I condensed it to this: There’s no way this got past QA, which means that they caught it, but the underlying issues were too big to try and fix without delaying launch. Instead, the team released an unusually large (23 MB!) day-one patch to try and fix the problem.

But what about people who don’t have the internet on their console; while I know I’m usually not a big supporter of that group, this annoys me on their behalf for some reason. Probably because I do have internet, and got the patch, and still got screwed. What if I had been playing more frequently those first days after launch, before the issue became well-documented online? I would have had to restart my whole playthrough, and just crossed my fingers that it wouldn’t happen again.

In the end, the glitch genuinely did not affect my final score, which is a testament to how much fun the rest of the game was.

March 17, 2013
Make Us Whole: Dead Space 3 Review

“In Space…”

I don’t get scared very easily. That’s not machismo talking, it’s just the truth; while I enjoy scary movies, survival horror games, and even ghost stories, but my enjoyment comes from allowing myself to be drawn in and spooked. I don’t experience nightmares or sit up listening to things go bump in the night afterwards. So I always consider it a testament to a title’s terror credibility when it gets under my skin: Dan Simmons’ historically engrossing novel Drood, John Carpenter’s hopeless tale of survival The Thing, and the genre re-defining Resident Evil 4 all have places on that list.

I say all that to give you a foundation for the following statement: I could not play Dead Space 3 for more than a few hours at a time before my anxiety levels became unbearable. I’m going to talk a lot here about the series’ evolution into an action game, but I wanted to establish that no matter how much the balance of power might have shifted in Isaac Clarke’s favor, this game will still scare the Hell out of you if you let it. It accomplishes this task the same way the first two did:

Necromorphs are $*^-ing terrifying.

For me, at least, that has always been the core concept of Dead Space. These aren’t just zombies that a headshot will put down, or Flood that drop after a few shotgun blasts, or even the mutation-capable Plaga. We’re talking about civilians whose ribs are now talons used to crawl along the ground; workers whose legs rotted off and their spinal column is now a scorpion tail; toddlers on all fours with barbed tentacles growing from their backs; and finally, crab walking infants with their torsos swollen into exploding sacs of acid.

As if those creature designs weren’t enough, the persistent gameplay mechanic is that shooting them is never enough. You have to dismember them, take them apart piece-by-piece, and even that just slows them down at first. The standard necro has four limbs and a head, and can lose two of those things and still survive; three if one piece is the head and it still has both arm appendages. Body shots might eventually cut them in two, but that doesn’t always stop the upper half from dragging itself after you.

One of the new enemy types is mutated researchers in arctic gear dual-wielding climbing axes. Taking off their upper half results in their legs sprouting three tentacles and continuing to attack, and you have to take off two tentacles to finally drop them. Late in the game I missed the tentacles on one with a shotgun blast and got the legs instead; I mistakenly though it dead as the force knocked it away, only to be horrified as the intact tentacles began crawling after me, dragging the now-useless legs behind them.

The Binding of Isaac

With that image now firmly in your mind, we can continue on to a more extensive look at the game as a whole: Dead Space 3 continues the tale of Isaac Clarke and his seemingly inevitable fight against the alien artifacts known as Markers, the Necromorphs they create, and the Church of Unitology whose members seem to think that becoming an undead nightmare is some sort of transcendence. I’m not big one reviews that spend too much time on the past; if you want to know what happened before, there are two excellent games that can fill you in. The only really important bit is that Isaac was previously imprinted with the “gift” of being able to decode, create, and destroy Markers.

After the events of DS and DS 2, Isaac understandably decided he was done getting involved in situations where he had to perform combat amputations on entire populations using jacked-up power tools. Unfortunately, both the forces of EarthGov and Unitology fell differently, and have small armies to back them up. A small squad of EG troops has located what they believe to be the Marker “homeworld” and they want Isaac’s help to possibly eradicate the necro threat for good. Just as they arrive on the lunar colony to enlist him, the Unitologist leader Dannick launches a massive coup that culminates in him activating Markers that had been secretly installed in an unknown number of locations.

From there, things get all sci-fi horror as crap just starts falling to pieces around Isaac and the rest of the team. You eventually make it to the Marker homeworld, and once there you uncover evidence that “all of this has happened before,” etc. The planet itself, known as Tau Volantis, has been visited by more than one group of people (and more than one species) trying to understand, control, eliminate or activate the Markers over the millennia. Its frozen plains and canyons make for an interesting change from the usual deserted corridors Isaac finds himself in, and allows for new necros to do things like pop up out of the snow or blindside you in a white-out blizzard. A late game environment shift puts you back in corridors for good, but the change is part of a plot reveal that makes those sections more interesting than you’d think.

A Fistful of Stasis

Attractive environments aren’t your only reason to pay attention to your surrounds, as DS 3 ups the ante in terms of the series’ weapon crafting / upgrading system. For those unfamiliar with previous installments, each weapon came pre-built and used a unique type of ammo; upgrading was accomplished by using a universal resource to unlock new stats via a branching research tree specific to each gun. Most players eventually settled on two weapons that they just couldn’t live without for upgrading, and used the rest of them as circumstances dictated.

The new system breaks each weapon down into core components: the basic frame, a top tool, a bottom tool, a tip for each tool, and two attachment slots. These parts can either be found in the world or constructed as you need them from scrap; there are also blueprints that can be constructed from scratch if you have enough resources. Ammo is also universal this time around, so you don’t have to micro-manage how much you have for each weapon or worry about equipping something and forgetting to change out your clips.

The end result is combat that can be significantly more varied than previous outings, if you want to put in the effort. I won’t go into all the variations, or even a fraction of them, because even I only scratched the surface. Suffice to say that if you’ve ever wanted a high-tech beam rifle that fires acid-coated saw blades from its lower half, or a dual-stream flamethrower / cryo gun that also puts enemies in brief suspended animation, you’ll probably find the crafting system to your liking. Upgrading has also been streamlined into “circuits” that affect damage, reload speed, clip size, and fire rate; these can also be found / crafted and are freely interchangeable between weapons.

I beat the first DS using only my plasma cutter, not because I wanted the “One Gun” achievement (though that was a nice bonus) but because none of the other weapons felt as solid to me. I quickly realized in DS 2 that such tactics were unadvisable, and DS 3 only builds on those changes. Crafting and equipping weapons suited to your play style is essential, because you’re going to be using those weapons at every turn. Make no mistake; this is an action game where the enemies just happen to be horrible monstrosities. You will have to fight off necros in most rooms, and as the game progresses they only become more frequent in both numbers and variety; it’s these large-scale, multi-wave fights that provide biggest test of your loadouts and resource management.

This installment introduces human enemies for the first time in the form of Unitologist soldiers that attack in squads. I had heard these segments praised as a nice break from necro hordes, but to be honest they fell kind of flat for me for one reason: headshots. I’ve spent two full DS games learning to pick limbs off charging necros from twenty yards out; I’m Sheldon Pendergrass with a plasma cutter. So when you give me enemies that can be dropped with a single shot, and combine that with the ability to craft a weapon whose sole purpose is damage and accuracy, I’m left with a lot of corpses just waiting to be infected. Supposedly the soldier AI is capable of impressive tactical maneuvering, but again, I didn’t sit around waiting for them to start flanking me in two-man teams or whatever.

The designers must have recognized this fact, because there is an enemy type that consists of a head that crawls around on tentacles and attaches itself only to enemies who already don’t have heads; said enemies then get back up and either fire wildly in your general direction or try to club you if you get too close. I haven’t decided if I’m impressed that they tried to make the soldiers a dual-threat or annoyed that they didn’t just have them immediately get ambushed and reanimated every time you encountered them. Hell, about half the time you encounter them toward the end of the game that is exactly what happens, and often on a large scale that makes you feel pretty awesome as you sprint through the chaos.

Now Entering Zero Gravity

If I have one major complaint about the game, it would be that it contains several half-developed concepts such as this one. The zero-gravity sections have finally been perfected, but now there are bits where Isaac is rappelling up and down cliff faces while fighting enemies and dodging avalanches; the idea is solid, but the execution – especially when it comes to the collision detection for dodging chasms and debris – is so maddening I almost threw my controller on more than one occasion. There’s a new type of hacking mini-game that uses the analog sticks to control the interface, but very early on it introduces diagonal movement, which it can only accurately detect about half the time.

The weapon crafting is great, as I said, but weapon parts, upgrades circuits, and spare part boxes all take up space in your inventory until you can get to a bench and store them. This wouldn’t be as aggravating if there weren’t a full nine slots for “key items” down in one corner, which I swear I never had more than three of in the entire campaign. Finally, several missions that do use those slots involve you running about and collecting parts that then need to be assembled at a bench to make some gizmo or another. As if fetch-quests weren’t bad enough, the benches are often in areas where enemies constantly spawn, meaning you have to clear the area and then hope the doo-dad assembles faster than they can respawn.

The worst offender in terms of useless mechanics, bar-none, is the side quests that are scattered throughout the game. Not the co-op quests, mind you; those work well for reasons I’ll talk about later. The single-player side quests work this way: you’ll come across something, usually a key card or an audio log, which indicates there’s a place nearby that has a resource stash or information that could be useful to the mission. The catch is that most of these places are where things went to Hell the fastest and hardest at some point in the past. Admittedly some of them work really well, and can deepen your understanding of the Markers’ impact on history, introduce unique enemy types, and provide you with some truly phenomenal new equipment.

The majority of them fall far short of this ideal, and serve to do little more than lengthen the game in infuriating ways. You’re led somewhere you believe will be important, yet there are no indications of this via audio logs, text logs, or the collectible artifacts scattered throughout the game. You wander through four generic rooms, go down an elevator, and come out on another level where the rooms are essentially the same. The only distinguishing feature of these rooms is that each one has at least four vent shafts, which means a constant stream of necros. This all culminates in a room where you press a button and then have to fight some insane number of foes, and then open a resource crate that contains little more than resentment.

Too Many Engineers in the Drive Room

My final complaint with single-player is simply that I didn’t really care much about this story this time around. DS and DS 2 survived on the Alien / Aliens dynamic. The first game was driven largely by a mixture of Isaac’s survival against an unknown enemy, his reliance upon questionable allies, and his investigation of where it all went wrong for the Ishimura; the second one thrust us into a situation that was just starting to go wrong, as Isaac – the sole survivor of a previous outbreak – tried desperately to get someone to listen to him while everyone above him manipulated his experiences for their own purposes. There were some questions along the way: “What are Markers?”; “How are Markers and necros related?”; “Why would anyone ever want to be a Unitologist?”; etc. We got some answers, too, but the real focus was on Isaac (i.e. the player) and his personal journey through this madness.

Dead Space 3, while certainly better than Alien3 in my book, suffers from some of the same missteps in terms of changing focus away from the main character in favor of the “bigger picture.” We’re suddenly expected to care about the balance of power between EarthGov and the Unitologists; questions about the why and where and how of Markers / necros are too central to the plot; enormous answers to those questions are overshadowed in favor of keeping the plot going; the plot see-saws between focal points to the point where nothing seems to have any substance. The low point for me was when the only emotional impact I had felt was overturned to give more heft to act three’s maguffin, of all things. I’ve got some more story elements to talk about, but they’ll make more sense after we talk about the cooperative play mode.

Butch Clarke and the Teslacoil Kid

Of all the things that I’ve ever seen gamers up-in-arms about, the inclusion of co-op in DS 3 has to be fairly close to the top of the list. Citing examples like Resident Evil 5 & 6, general consensus was that you can’t make a genuinely intense survival horror experience if there’s someone tagging along for the ride. I think RE 5 and DS 3 both have intense moments that go beyond the number of players, but I will admit that the former got one thing right: When you’re not in a co-op game, the second protagonist – John Carver – simply isn’t there. The game arranges for him and Isaac to have to “take separate paths,” and this works well for the most part. Carver will still communicate with you over the radio, and you can sometimes see him on cameras or off in the distance. In co-op play, the game actually features separate dialogue that takes Carver’s sudden proximity into account; the developers even went so far as to alter some of the scripted action sequences so that both characters have to participate.

Yet in a few key cutscenes and scripted events spread throughout the game, it fails repeatedly and always in the same way: Carver simply appears somewhere near Isaac in a way that makes absolutely no sense. The worst co-op example of this I can find is a scripted event early on that has Isaac leaping onto a ship from a platform. In single-player, Carver was already on the ship, and the player just button-presses to help Isaac climb; but in co-op, regardless of where the Carver was when the event is triggered, he is suddenly on the ship already and both players have to button-mash. Single-player wise, there is a scene where Isaac has fallen behind the group and is ambushed as he tries to catch up with them; despite the fact that you are alone and having a conversation with Carver over the radio, when you get ambushed the camera pans around to show him coming out of the corridor behind you.

The only substantial change to content between the two modes are side missions that can only be accessed through co-op; the reasons for Isaac not getting into these places alone is actually part of the story these missions tell. They follow the same formula as the other side-missions, but don’t fall as flat as often due to the aforementioned story significance. Without revealing too much, the driving force here is that Carver, unlike Isaac and others, has not yet become as… resistive to the Marker signal. Suffice to say that arguing with your co-op partner about things that may or may not be real and should or should not be killed right now or else you’re going to die adds something to the experience.

As a gameplay experience, co-op is handled almost flawlessly: Areas where you have to do something like climb feature two grapple stations, and vehicles feature two seats; benches feature an activation panel at each end so neither of you has to wait, and previously hidden suit kiosks power up in some areas; each of you sees and can collect standard resources independently, and unique crafting items are automatically put in both inventories. You can also share blueprints and upgrade circuits at a bench, and either drop or directly give ammo and med kits to your partner.

Unfortunately, I’m not going to pretend that these latter features don’t drastically reduce the difficulty, especially if you’re playing with someone who has significant playtime under their belt. I opted to play the game through solo at first, as did my brother, and we started a co-op venture after the fact. If you want a true Dead Space experience, I would suggest doing it that way, as well as playing the game on at least Hard. For the record, one of my friends cares more about experiencing the full story and all possible content, so it actually worked out for him to start in co-op. In that regard, the addition of this mode does become a boon to less hardcore players who prefer entertainment to having a re-animated mound of nightmare flesh rip their head off and spew acid bile down their throat on the first date.

Convergence

Dead Space 3 is not a perfect game. To be honest, in writing this review I have come across qualms I wasn’t even aware of while playing it; others were so obvious that they had me seeing red as I reloaded a checkpoint for the eighth time. The characters are mostly bland, except for Dannick, whose hipster glasses and tiny ponytail are grade-A tv villian reject material. The most interesting character in the bunch is a scientest who’s been dead for over 200 years and the rest of his doomed expedition, but audio logs are infrequent and have been replaced with text logs that you have to read on your tiny, holographic HUD. The gameplay whiplashes from survival horror to horror action to cover-based action to Uncharted-esq climbing and scripted events. It veers a little far from its roots, both in terms of gameplay and story, and the end result is a game that isn’t as memorable as either of its predecessors. Knowing that, keep an open mind going into my final score.

Because my final score has almost nothing to do with those qualms, and everything to do with how I felt playing the game. The rush of adrenaline I felt at finally being able to mow through familiar necros only to have my bowels constrict at the sight of some new form; the elation at decimating Unitologist zealots replaced by the despairing thought that convergence might be Isaac’s ultimate fate; the confidence of having someone watching your back shattered by the realization that he might be your biggest threat. The final level design and setpiece are jaw-dropping, and the mechanic used to kill the final boss is a massively satisfactory middle finger to Markers and the hell-spawn they generate.

Then, like you could in Dead Space, you can go online and look up the chapter titles and put the first letter of each one together into a sentence.

And you will share my fear.

Altman be praised.

NERD RATING – 9.5/10

Author’s Note:[amazon_link id=”B0050SWVIQ” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ] I reviewed the game on Xbox 360. It is also available on PS3 and PC.[/amazon_link]

February 23, 2013
Review: Aliens: Colonial Marines

Aliens + Gearbox= A Winner….Right?

Gearbox Software has become a major player in the video game world with the rise of the Borderlands franchise. Both entries into the series have been massive critical and retail successes and Gearbox has reaped the benefits. So it was no surprise that their game based on the beloved Aliens film was high up on many people’s list. A true sequel to James Cameron’s sci-fi classic from the developers of Borderlands. What could go wrong?

Everything apparently.

First off we have to put things in perspective. Gearbox did not finish this game. In actuality, no one outside of the developer really knows exactly how much of this game was worked on by actual Gearbox employees. You see this game has been in development for six years and Gearbox…actually we will get into that a bit later.

Aliens: Colonial Marines has you playing Winter, an everyman marine that is sent to investigate the distress signal set off by Hicks in the film Aliens. Somehow the U.S.S. Sulaco has made its way back to orbit around LV-426 and you and your squad are sent in to see why the ship has mysteriously appeared back there. Right off the bat you cannot help to realize that the script and voice acting in this are horrid. I don’t even mean like in the hard ass military jargon or anything because there are plenty of games that get that right without being laughable, but Colonial Marines is like one of the direct to DVD Starship Troopers bad.

You can tell that some love of the Aliens franchise was in this at one time. Some of the environments, James Horner’s score and even bringing back veteran actors Lance Henriksen and Michael Biehn to reprise their roles of Bishop and Hicks. But everything that was supposed to make this game a treat for Aliens fans is handled so poorly and lazily that all of the good that made it in the game is overpowered by the heaps of utter uselessness that was in the final product.

Is This Really Happening?

I don’t know exactly where in the development process things went wrong for Colonial Marines, but it is evident that this game needed to be re-worked or scrapped altogether. For almost two years we have been shown demos that showed off a pretty good looking game graphics wise, but the game that awaited me was riddled with so many graphical hiccups that it truly appeared as if I were playing first year 360 title. I could probably put Doom 3 on the original Xbox up against this and this would win…but only by a small fraction. Lighting problems, floating shadows, rampant clipping and piss poor between mission cinemas keep you detached from any sense of world immersion. When aliens explode from gunfire its not so much disgusting collapse of a body as it is a sloppy explosion into eight square pieces.

If you are used to FPS’s that have minute controls and like to pull off quality headshots then I suggest you go looking elsewhere. Sloppy aiming is rampant with almost no sense of true control in the middle of a firefight. Even with the additon of add-ons (in a poor attempt to make the game seem deeper) to various weapons you will still have a frustrating time trying to pop off aliens or Weyland-Yutani soldiers with any precision.

One of the best things about the movie Aliens was the sense of helplessness. The fear that the xenomorphs brought was undeniable. You find none of that here. With the exception of one decently designed level in the sewers of Hadley’s Hope where you are without weapons and must make your way through aliens that can only sense you by sound, you always have a host of weapons on your person. At one time I had eleven weapons at my disposal as well as grenades so any fear I would have from the aliens was non-existent because of me basically being an unstoppable badass. When there is no sense of dread, there is no Aliens.

The multiplayer is just an added on feature that feels like it is there because it is what is required in today’s games. Even the chance to play as the xenos trips up with huge balance issues that make the marines the hunters not the hunted. Sloppy controls hinder any kind of fun that could be gleaned off of this. Multiplayer runs well enough and I had no problem finding parties , but when it is as generic and stunted as this it would almost be a blessing if you couldn’t.

My Soul Hurts

Please do not be fooled by Aliens: Colonial Marines. You may read this and think this review is coming from a place of hate from an uber-fan, but I assure you this is not the case. While I am a fan of the highest regard for this film franchise I still went into Aliens with high hopes despite the hellish development stories and other reviews. I played this game with a set of rose colored glasses and still came out feeling like I had sh** thrown at me.

Beyond my wildest imagination I could not imagine that after six…damn…years that this game could have shipped like this. Even if Gearbox subbed out the game to secondary developers there should be more than what is offered up to gamers here. For a quick comparison here are some of the games that have come out in the last six years:

-Uncharted trilogy

-Mass Effect trilogy

-Red Dead Redemption

-Grand Theft Auto 4

-Fallout 3

-Skyrim

-BORDERLANDS 1 and 2 from Gearbox!!

Think of all the millions of hours and GOTY awards that have been split with this list of games over the past six years. How can anyone tell me that this game should have taken this long to make and come out this bad and broken? Even when the story takes a chance and reveals a MAJOR character long thought dead is actually alive, the explanation given is simply “that’s another story”. No it’s not!! That is the story! That’s why it is such a big deal!! And therein lies the problem with Aliens: Colonial Marines. We have waited so long for a great Aliens game and expectations were met with something unexpected.

Laziness.

NERD RATING- 4.5/10

February 20, 2013
Amongst the Living : Review of Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead

Courtesy of statesman.com

A New Day

If you are evenly vaguely aware of popular culture, you’ve probably noticed that zombies are kind of a “thing” right now. You may have even heard someone talk about “The Walking Dead,” in reference to Robert Kirkman’s long-running comic published by Image; or maybe – and more likely – they meant AMC’s television adaptation of the series; or – if the someone is especially awesome – they are talking about Telltale Games’ episodic adventure series that ties in with both. Even if you hadn’t heard of it before Spike’s VGAs this year, it probably would have caught your attention when it beat a field of triple-A titles for Game of the Year.

I was certainly surprised. Since the episodes had begun in May ’12, I had purchased three of them and completed two, so I knew the game was high-quality. Still, we’re talking about an episodic adventure series that some have claimed is little more than a point-and-click progression of choose-your-own-adventure interactive cutscenes. This, at the absolute core of the game – and especially highlighted during its weakest moments – is exactly what is going on. Luckily for anyone who has played it, though, those weak moments are few and scattered throughout the most player-driven experience I may have ever had. That’s because from the very first moments of the game, the content of the aforementioned cutscenes is based almost 100% on player decisions. The system is constantly keeping track of everything you do and say, and is using that to build an experience that is exceptionally unique.

Starved For Help

I’m getting ahead of myself, though. In such a story-driven experience, I would be remiss not to talk about the story: When the game begins, your player character Lee is in the back of a police cruiser being taken to jail. An accident occurs, and by the time you wake up, the zombie outbreak is in full effect. You make your way into a neighborhood, where your life is saved by a young girl named Clementine. The two of you team up, and you eventually make your way to a location taken straight from the comics and meet some of the people who will join you on your journey.

I am being vague about things like why you were going to jail, why and where you are going with Clementine, where you meet the other characters, etc. for two reasons: Spoilers would be a massive disservice to the game, and more significantly, the answers I would give are based on my playthrough, and might not be relevant to yours. Yes, I am telling you that information as specific as “were you actually guilty of a crime” is completely up to the person you want Lee to be.

That being said, Lee is his own person, something which has more weight to it the further you progress into the episodes. While it is true that almost everything he says comes verbatim from dialogue choices, some little things like personality quirks, facial tics and body language cues are all his own. It creates an interesting dichotomy the likes of which I’ve only ever experienced in the connect / disconnect between myself and my version of Commander Shepard in Mass Effect.

Courtesy of venturebeat.com

Long Road Ahead

The end result is unique: I had times when my decisions made sense as both a player and a character, and times when I had Lee do something in-character that was totally against what I thought as a player; those times tended to deal with the survival of Lee and the others in the group. As a player, sitting safe and warm and well-fed on my couch, I can think “This is wrong, I don’t want to do this,” and still have to make the call that Lee would make in that situation. The game really shines in these instances, and juxtaposes them with moments of tension, horror, and action where I felt 100% in Lee’s shoes as he (I)(we) tried to run from a horde or fend off a walker with his (my)(our) bare hands.

The game also excels at developing the secondary and even tertiary characters, especially considering how much of their development is tied directly to the choice structure. Again without spoiling too much, not only are there characters that can live or die based on your choices, but some of those characters make choices based on your choices that can then change whole plotlines. Not only does this give the player an amazing feeling of involvement, it means that Telltale was committed enough to this mechanic that they created content that players might never see. Considering that it’s not a large studio, an investment of time and money on unseen content is nothing to overlook.

What content you will see looks and sounds amazing, and I have to give credit to the artists who worked on this title. The cel-shading was a stroke of genius, and really gives you the feeling of being inside the comic; at the same time, it never looks “cartoony,” and the moments of violence are every bit as gut-wrenching as they should be. The characters are exceptionally expressive, and the voice actors sell me on their roles in almost every case. I experienced a few minor hiccoughs like items disappearing from a characters hand now and then, but it didn’t last long and never affected gameplay.

The choice mechanic itself is exceptionally well-implemented into gameplay, whether it was during dialogue or as part of an action sequence. If you’re in a free-roam area and initiate a conversation, there’s no pressure in weighing different responses; during time-sensitive sequences, though, there is a bar under the dialogue that quickly drains while you try to respond. During action moments, the bar is replaced by a red tint that gets darker the longer you take to respond, usually by pointing the cursor at something and hitting the action button. These bits are generally pretty tense, and the need to take action occasionally leads to split-second choices concerning who lives and who dies.

Courtesy of wikipedia.org

Around Every Corner

Unfortunately, those sequences also highlight one of my two big gripes with the game, which is that this game is so PC-developed-then-ported-to-consoles it hurts; sometimes it hurts so hard that Lee and others die. I’ve been using analog sticks to point at things for a long time, and it still felt like the cursory was just too… heavy is the right word, I think. Ten game also had a strange tendency to start the cursor – which is supposed to represent where Lee is looking – in the part of the screen furthest from what you need to do. I don’t know about you, but if I’m being attacked by a walker, I’m going to be looking at the walker, not off into the corner.

My other big complaint is that the item-specific adventuring has the ability to slow and even destroy the pacing, which is an issue in a game where you’re supposed to be surviving a zombie apocalypse. I’ll openly admit that I used a FAQ a few times, and felt justified when the answers were “look in this one very specific spot in a very specific way for this very specific item.” The third episode in particular dragged so badly I had to stop playing and pick it up the next day.

These little things didn’t keep the overall experience from being phenomenal, though. I was especially lucky in having an audience for the game in the form of my girlfriend; while she didn’t use the controller, we “played” the entire story together, with her keeping an eye out for items, helping with puzzles, and weighing in on decisions. I was genuinely happy about this, considering she probably won’t ever read the comic or watch the show given her natural aversion to gore. In this case, though, her shock and horror just contributed to my own; she was also my conscience, and openly disagreed with a few things I did. One particular decision at the end of episode four got to her so much that she wouldn’t say anything to me other than “You lied to Clementine. You lied to her.”

No Time Left

Courtesy of wikipedia.org

Near the end of The Walking Dead, an antagonist confronts Lee with a laundry list of things he – and by extension, you – has done that makes him / you a “monster.” Actions like stealing food, abandoning other survivors, and even a few outright murders from over the course of the game’s five episodes are thrown at you interrogation style. During this scene, the dialogue options “You don’t know the whole story,” “There wasn’t any other choice,” and “I wish I had done that differently” sounded just as hollow and desperate coming from Lee as I felt telling him to say them.

Because we did have choices, in every one of those situations and a dozen others leading up to them; and while we had tried so very hard to do the right thing, we made mistakes and people died. The only thing stopping us from giving up right then and there was an eight-year-old girl in a dirty hoodie and a tattered ball cap. Everything Lee and I had done up to that point had been to keep “sweet pea” safe, and so long as that was seen through, I could live with the rest. If I can speak for a certain history teacher turned escaped convict turned makeshift dad from Macon, Georgia, I think he would agree.

NERD RATING – 9.0/10

Editor’s Note – I played the game on the XBox 360 as downloadable episodes. It’s also available on PC and PS3, and was recently released in [amazon_link id=”B007WQOIGW” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]retail disc form.[/amazon_link]

February 17, 2013
Review: Sleeping Dogs

Welcome To Hong Kong. Come Stay Awhile.

Sleeping Dogs took quite the interesting development trail to release. First, the game was being developed as the next in the True Crime series. After continual delays and budget concerns Activision cancelled the game. After about six months Square Enix picked up the game and let United Front Games finish development and Square took up publishing duties. I am glad that Square decided to take a chance on Sleeping Dogs (which Sqaure is not known to do really). There is a lot of good going on in this game including a John Woo quality plot, refined combat mechanics and open-world driving that is just plain fun. While the game may not be as large as the Grand Theft Auto’s, there is no doubt that Sleeping Dogs is a welcome addition in the sandbox category.

You play the game as Wei Shen, a cop that has returned to Hong Kong from the States and is arrested after getting busted on a bad drug deal. He is offered a chance to infiltrate the Sun On Yee gang because of his friendship with a member of the gang, Jackie Ma. Jackie takes you to meet the leader of the Water Street Gang, Winston. The Water Street Gang works under the Sun On Yee to complete all the tasks they need completed whether it be drug runs, collecting protection money or just straight up murder. Winston is having trouble with an old member named Dogeyes, the leader of a rival gang that is trying to muscle in on the Water Street Gang’s territory. This is where you spend a good bit of the first third of the game. As you complete more missions for Winston and gain the trust of the Water Street Gang you find yourself getting suck in deeper and deeper into the triad lifestyle.

As Wei begins to get more involved inside the Sun On Yee, the stakes begin to get raised more and more. Not only are you becoming well know by all the power players in Hong Kong, you also have to stay accountable to Pendrew, the man who is leading the investigation into the Sun On Yee. This is where Sleeping Dogs separates itself from other open-world games like GTA or Saint’s Row. While the story is set in stone with how it plays out, you have three separate menus for upgrading your skills: the Police, the Triad and the Face.

Police XP is gained by completing investigations marked on your map with blue shields. these could be simple drug busts, which have you beating the crap out of a gang of thugs, hacking a camera on the corner they work, then head back to your apartment and watch the closed feed for a drug deal. Once the dealer is identified a simple hit of the button and the cops are on him in a minute. Many of the investigations are multi-part affairs that involve things like the illegal street racing scene to women being kidnapped and sold into the sex trade. Triad XP is marked by green shields on your map and will move forward the Sun On Yee portion of the story. At first you will be completing collection missions for Winston but soon find yourself showing rappers a night on the town and revenging your fallen brothers. A lot of the missions play out like a Chinese Godfather complete with betrayals and red weddings. Face XP are marked as yellow on your map and these are simple side quest missions that raise your face meter, or what the citizens of Hong Kong think about you.

Kung-Fu Upgrade

The reward for completing all of these missions are the upgrades you receive. Each category has its own set of skills that are awaiting you. At first you find yourself simply breaking out windows to steal a car. Wouldn’t you rather just carry a slim jim with you to get quick access? The upgrade system is not as deep as Far Cry 3, but there is a lot to unlock and it is fun to try out all the abilities you open up. Once you learn how to “action jump” from your car to a speeding car you truly begin to see how Sleeping Dogs is an homage to cop movies also.

Your fighting abilities are also full of upgrades. You are tasked with finding statues around town and returning them to your sensei, Master Sifu. With each statue returned you will learn new ways to combat your enemies. Combos, roundhouse kicks and even limb breakage are in your arsenal before long and you will want to use them…a lot.

This leads to what is the best thing about Sleeping Dogs, the combat. One of the weakest aspects of games like GTA is that hand to hand combat and even gunplay is not particularly fun. Even when GTA 4 implemented their loose cover system, it only seemed like a minor upgrade that was avoiding a bigger problem. Sleeping Dogs has solved the problem of fighting in open-world games. How you might ask? Simple, you take your lead from the Rocksteady Batman games. When entering into hand to hand attacking enemies are highlighted in red right before they attack. Timing your counter is essential to survival in Sleeping Dogs, especially when you take on groups of 9, 10, or more guys. You can not simply go in swinging away or you will quickly find yourself with a beaten ass. When you have the counter timing down there is no better feeling than opening up your inner Bruce Lee on hosts of enemies. Striking actually feels like you are hitting and kicking something. Breaking opponents legs or arms will make other opponents cringe for a split second giving you an advantage against them.

As if simply beating your opponents to a pulp with your fists and feet weren’t enough, you have the wonderful world of environmental kills. By grabbing your opponents everywhere you can kill them using the environment will be lit up in red. Throw them into a garbage can, crack their skull against a brick wall, electrocute them in a fuse box and even impale them on a meat hook Texas Chainsaw style. You wanna feel like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas? Play Sleeping Dogs. Wei Shen will show you how to get things done.

You Want Beethoven Or Soufly Today?

Driving is another area that Sleeping Dogs is a winner at. It still amazes me that after all the Grand Theft Auto releases we have had that driving in that series still feels floaty and not too realistic. Saint’s Row and now Sleeping Dogs has figued out how to solve this equation and I hope Rockstar can with GTA 5. Cars handle extremely well and feel like they have weight to them. At super high speeds you always feel in control, but still have the inkling that you are one bad move awy from an epic crash and that is a good thing. You may find yourself, as I did, spending a lot of the game driving a motorcycle around Hong Kong. While I had my fair share of cars I bought for my garage (which can be accessed throughout many parking structures placed throughout the city), I always seemed to go back to the ease and fluidity of the motorcycle. Especially when you have to weave between traffic on the interstate system or chase suspects, it is an obvious choice.

Like other open-world games, Sleeping Dogs has a complete audio experience when you are in a vehicle. While the soundtrack may not be as big as GTA, it certainly is just as varied. Boosey and Hawkes carries your classical selections from Bach to Tchaikovsky, Sagittarius has your 80’s mix reminiscent of Vice City, a complete channel dedicated to Roadrunner recording artists and multiple Chinese artists on other stations. There really is no more surreal experience than shooting armed enemies in a car chase and seeing their car explode as you are listening to Handel’s Messiah. Yeah, you just read that correctly.

Choosing Sides

Wei Shen’s story is equal parts respect, loyalty and towards the end of the game, terror. While the characters in Sleeping Dogs are ruthless in their profession, no matter what side of the law they are on, the last 45 minutes to hour of the story goes much more dark than you expect, even after all of the blatant murder, betrayal and sex. When all the players in this game of human chess are in place the lines are so far blurred that Wei finds himself not choosing black or white, but standing in a muted gray splattered with red. Sleeping Dogs really does play out like a video game version of a John Woo film and no, Stranglehold does not count. Think of Wei Shen’s story as Hard Boiled with a controller.

Sleeping Dogs is just plain fun. There is no simpler way to put it. Its story will keep you engrossed, especially if you are a fan of Chinese cop movies (here). While you won’t be running around beating people to death with a purple dildo like Saint’s Row 3, there is still plenty of sexual innuendo like going to get a special “massage” to up your face meter. The representation of Hong Kong is not as big as Liberty City, but it is quite large and is the perfect mix of feeling like a big city while also being memorable enough to remember where to go without looking at your map every five seconds.

What I am trying to get at it that Sleeping Dogs may be the new kid on the block when it comes to open-world sandbox games, but it carves its own niche in the genre. People may only think of the GTA’s or Saint’s Row’s when the conversation comes up, but in a perfect world, Sleeping Dogs interjects itself right in the middle of it with a perfectly placed roundhouse kick.

NERD RATING- 8.5/10

February 8, 2013
Dishonorable Discharge: Medal of Honor Warfighter Review

Record of Dis-Service

Oh, Medal of Honor: Warfighter, you’ve had a hard run in your brief existence: the follow-up to a 2010 game that me and seven other people played, you were tasked with trying to renew interest in a franchise that arguably more people cared about when it was still a last-gen WWII shooter than after the reboot. It didn’t help that the market is even more over-saturated with modern shooters, or that DICE didn’t contribute to the multiplayer; certainly your marketing execs could have done better than Linkin Park tie-ins and a “free guns” campaign that was in poor taste even before the Sandy Hook shootings; and let’s not forget that the idea of having your first map pack be based on an actual military op lead to the discharge of several SEALs who helped contribute; but to top it all off, your subtitle is the “Die Harder” of current gen titles. Yes, MoH: W(t)F(?), you were bred for failure.

And even before any reviews went up – because Danger Close hadn’t provided any review copies, a sure sign of suck – out rolled the laundry list of bugs addressed in your Day 1 Patch. As several friends and I sat playing Borderlands 2 that night, we scrolled through the fixes picking out our favorites, and wondered aloud how something like “Players without an invite can no longer join invite-only games” could possibly make it through into the launch version. The reviews only confirmed what we already knew, to the point where each successive drop in the cumulative score became less funny as things just got sad. “How?” the gaming media at large asked, “How could something so wretched have ever been considered ready for release?”

After that, I had all but written off Warfighter, the MoH franchise, and Danger Close studios when my brother said that he’d like it if we got each other the game for Christmas, as part of a series of collaborative gaming gifts we’ve done for the past several years. Apparently some of his online buddies had gotten the game, and were reporting in that it was, unbelievably, “fun.” I was skeptical, certain that we’d be better off just burning $120 and calling it even, but I held my tongue. Thankfully, EA decided to go all-out on Black Friday last year, and every retailer ever had the game for between $25-30. At least now when the disc proved to be nothing more than a coaster with a dumb name, it would be easier to convince him that we should each get another game.

Which we did: We each chipped in to order my girlfriend and our best friend a copy before we went to bed that first night we played. What follows is my honest opinion of the great enjoyment I got out of a game that I mocked, maligned, and dismissed based on what gaming media unanimously told me. Now it’s my turn to testify in MoH’s defense, though it may be too little, too late.

[amazon_link id=”B0050SY5BM” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Medal of Honor: Warfighter on 360 / PS3[/amazon_link]

Advanced Battlefield of Spec Ops Duty (With Driving!)

The single-player campaign once again follows the exploits of “Tier 1” operatives Dusty, Voodoo, Preacher and Mother alongside a few new faces. Let me say right now that if you never gave the previous MoH a chance, it’s only $10 most places, and the single player campaign is easily worth that investment, either on its own or as a lead-in to Warfighter. The game advances via the tried-and-true method of dropping you into the boots of several different soldiers whose exploits all eventually tie together. To its credit, though, Warfighter does this a little more neatly than its counterparts, as it rarely sends you across half the planet (or randomly into space) for five minutes that don’t seem to have any real impact. There are also several missions where the game moves you between characters during a larger assault, such as a particuarly satisfying mission where you call in air support and then get dropped into a helipcopter seat, after which the chopper lands so you can link back up with your original squad.

The game actually features several vehicular sections, including one where you are driving / gunning from a boat in the middle of a hurricane, and two driving sequences that are on par with anything I’ve played in an FPS, not to mention a few racers. Through a combination of first-person driving, forgiving handling, and a few sections where you can knock enemy cars out in Burnout-style takedowns, these two missions feel so organic that even if I were told most of the cooler parts are semi-scripted, I wouldn’t care. In fact, that’s probably where the game excels the most: it made me feel like what I was doing was important.

This is especially true of infantry combat, where I can honestly say that I did not encounter a single instance of infinitely-respawning enemies, or enemies just popping up out of nowehere because I had pushed too far ahead of my squad or gone outside the LZ in a hold-the-line mission. Instead, each enemy came out of a door, or up from a tunnel, or some other believable entry point; if I decided to stay in cover while clearing a room, we would eventually kill all of the enemies in that area without having to “move up.” The number of enemies in each area was also reasonably believable for most of the game, something which I appreciate in games where I’m supposedly taking on terror organizations and grass-roots resistances, not the entire population of Iran.

It’s not all Silver Stars, though. While I liked these characters a fair amount in the first game, and genuinely care about some of the events that happen during missions, the main thrust of the story is told via the worst-looking cutscenes I have seen in a long time. I have no idea why they opted for this terrible CGI over using the in-game engine, since characters rendered in the latter look way better than they do in the former.

The main focus here is Preacher, a returnee from the last game whose involvement in Task Force Mako is destroying his marriage and estranging him from his yound daughter. His wife wants him to stop fighting, but events keep conspring to pull him and the others back into the line of fire. There’s a lot of talk about some new ultra-explosive, an unmemorable middle-man villian, and a vast conspiracy involving the… Cleric? Some terrorist leader with a religious codename who’s barely in the game. It’s cliched and poorly executed, and only takes time away from the bits of dialogue between the squad that I enjoyed; although it should be noted that there is far less emphasis on Tier 1 operatives getting to have beards this time around, which is disappointing. The game is also a bit on the short side, the missions get a bit repetitive, and the ending falls flat, but overall I found it to be a good time.

Does the Carpet-Bomb Match the Drapes?

The multiplayer is also standard fair: different classes, level progression, weapon unlockables, pointstreak rewards. But what it lacks in originality, it makes up for in execution by keeping a tighter lid on things than some of the over-wrought mechanics that have become so common. For the most part, we exclusively play Sector Control, which is just Domination from CoD, which is just multi-hill King of the Hill; based on server useage, this seems to be the mode that most everyone who owns the game finds most enjoyable. Modes like this usually require good map balancing and design, and for the most part all the maps work. Any size differentials are intentional and change the pacing of the match in good ways, spawn camping is difficult to execute and even more difficult to maintain, and the maps offer various routes without becoming too labrynthian.

The combat is also satisfying, with each weapon group feeling unique, and each weapon within that group adding to that feeling. I was surprised to find that using each class effectivley genuinely requires you to understand that classes straengths and utilize them, instead of each one simply being the same thing with a different coat of paint. Each class has a special ability and gadget – grenade launchers and frags for Assault, hollowpoints and flashbangs for Pointman, etc – as well as three tiers of unique pointstreak abilities, and each teir has an offensive and defensive. I prefer Assaulter, so my offensive abilities are mortar strike, guided missile, and carpet bomb respectively. The best moment I’ve had so far was when I launched my first carpet bomb, asking as I did so “What does this do?”; two seconds later the entire map shook, and when the match ticker lit up with seven kills to my name, my brother simply responded “It does that.”

I would love to talk about how many points it takes to get to each streak, or what the defensive streaks for the class I play almost every match are, but that information falls prey to the multiplayer’s biggest downfall: It has got to have the most poorly designed and executed menu system I have seen in a decade. Overlooking the fact that the game has no manual (!) would be easier if any information, at all, even a little, was provided somewhere within the cumbersome, busy, unintuitive mess of tabs and sub-menus that make up the interface.

From picking which class you are, to customizing weapons, to forming a platoon, to actually getting everyone in the same lobby and joing a server and beyond takes patience and a fai amount of luck. Even then, it doesn’t always work out. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve browsed the servers for non-hardcore Sector Control games with four open slots, only to get landed in a hardcore Combat Mission that only had room for two of us. Still, once we found a mtch we usually didn’t experience lots of lag or long loading times, and in the event people dropped out the server usually compensated and re-populated pretty quickly.

De-Classified

In the end, I’ve had a blast with the game since late Novemeber. I can’t honestly tell you why the reviews are so low, especially when I know firsthand that Black Ops II has several of the same flaws – and a few that are all its own – and yet still received the adoration of every major gaming media outlet. You know, the same ones that love to bash CoD and Activision before and after the fact to show how cool they are. I’m not here to talks about that *cough*stagnant*cough* franchise, though. I’m here to tell you that if you and some friends have $30 to spare and are looking for some good multiplayer action supported by an enjoyable campaign during the early-year lull in shooters, this might do the trick, beards or no.

NERD RATING – 7.5/10

UPDATE: Shortly after this writing, I was informed by a friend that EA has pulled MoH titles from future developmental rotation:

“The game was solid, but the focus on combat authenticity did not resonate with consumers. Critics were polarized and gave the game scores which were, frankly, lower than it deserved. This one is behind us now. We are taking Medal of Honor out of the rotation and have a plan to bring year-over-year continuity to our shooter offerings.” -EA COO Peter Moore

“We’re in a hit-driven business where it’s about what you can build in a certain period of time and really deliver for the marketplace, and frankly we missed on Medal of Honor. And we take responsibility for that. If you look at Medal of Honor as a specific case, it was really about a hit missing.” -EA Labels President Frank Gibeau

January 30, 2013
Review: Far Cry 3

Fun, Intense and Disturbing. These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things.

“Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity?

Insanity is doing the exact… same fu***ng thing… over and over again, expecting… sh** to change.”

When these lines are spoken by what may be the best video game villain of this generation, Vaas, you would never guess by the time you get done with Far Cry 3 that he was not only speaking to your character in the game, but he might as well have been speaking to the world of first-person shooters we live in. Yearly Call of Duty’s, Battlefield’s and Medal of Honor’s have deadened us to how special a shooter can be. Lucky for us, Far Cry 3 is here to turn everything you know about shooters on its head by delivering a living, breathing world and story so unpleasant and disturbing that the random killing you do inside of the game may be the least of your worries.

You play as Jason Brody, a kid with too much money and not enough responsibility. After taking a adventure trip around the globe you and your friends find yourself kidnapped on a tropical island after a skydiving trip. You begin the game locked in a cage with your brother and listening to the maddening exposition of Vaas, a pirate who explains that they are going to ransom you off to your parents and then sell you into the slave trade anyway. You escape soon after and after being knocked out awaken to find a man giving you a tattoo on your arm. He is Dennis and he is part of the Rakyat tribe. He explains that his tribe have been under oppression by the pirates of the island and he believes Jason is the one to help them get out from under the harsh rule of the pirate gang. Dennis explains the use of the tattoo on your arm, called the tatau, and how it will give you power to help defeat the pirates and Vaas. Jason agrees to help if Dennis helps him rescue his friends on the island.

When you first begin your adventure it is almost overwhelming the amount of content you have at your disposal. The map stays mostly hidden until you find one of eighteen radio towers that the pirates have cut the power to. Each tower is its own small platforming puzzle which is never difficult and I never found tedious. Imagine them as the perches in Assassin’s Creed, as you restore power to the towers, the more of the map is unveiled. As your map unfolds you will see it begin to fill up with icon upon icon, a plethora of different adventures that the island holds.

Like Skyrim On Crack

When I compare this game to Skyrim it is with the thought that you can become completely engrossed in learning the island, completing side missions, defeating enemy camps and looting. The enemy camps are scattered throughout Rook Island and each one poses a different way to approach it. You have to take over these camps for the Rakyat to gain more control of the island and once you do this you push back how many enemies you will encounter in the areas around the camps. Running in full on, guns ablaze sounds like fun but it is more fun (and more worthwhile) to use stealth at first. Each camp has two possible places to turn off the alarm system. Turn off the alarm, no reinforcements will be called in. And believe me, they will quickly call them once you are seen and they will come in force. An added incentive will give you extra XP for clearing a camp with no alarms triggered.

Once these camps are completed you open up optional bounty and hunter missions. The bounty missions are for quick reward money, but come with an exception. You must kill your bounty with a knife in the tradition of the Rakyat. Any other member of the gang may be dispatched as you will but the leader must die by a blade. Hunter missions offer you money for finding certain animals and killing them with a weapon that is chosen for you. A few of the hunts are for rare animals that can be sold off for extra cash or need to be used in creation of special items in your inventory.

For you loot fanatics Far Cry 3 understands your (and my) addiction. Now I am not saying this game is on the level of Borderlands looting (is any game?), but you can loot to your heart’s content in this game. Unlockables litter the landscape. Loot chests abound in shacks, hiding in wreckage on the shore and even in the depths of the ocean that surrounds you. Every enemy carries their own personal stash of money and paraphernalia. It’s an addiction I tell ya! Especially being OCD as I am you can be dang sure that everyone was pick pocketed clean.

Now with a loot system as large as this you have got to have some way to carry these items until you can sell them off and this is where Far Cry 3’s crafting system comes into play. You start off with a meager sized wallet and ruck sack for carrying loot and these must be expanded by crafting new ones. How you say? Well, by hunting of course!! If you want to be able to carry more money, loot, even hold more weapons, ammo, grenades, etc. you have to get your inner Ted Nugent going and head out into the wild and hunt game. Some of which are just fodder for your knife and bow and arrow skills like pigs, deer and goats. If you want to really expand your inventory then you better put on your big boy pants and get ready to go after tigers, leopards, komodo dragons and sharks. The first time you hear a komodo hiss and run at you is a bit unnerving. When you get out on the open waters and take out a shark from a boat knowing you have to now jump into the deep abyss to skin it and get back up before anything else chomps down on you is a rush. Never before in a game (for me) has the wildlife in a game become its own character. These animals are not just an afterthought, but a necessity for survival.

As your inventory capability increases and you sell of your loot, you are open to purchase a host of weapons. From handguns, shotguns, SMG’s. LMG’s, sniper rifles each have four or five variations that can also be attached with silencers, retinal sights and extended clips. Once you begin to power up more and more radio towers weapons will become available to you free of charge. That is not even adding in the ability to carry four seconday items of destruction like grenades and molotov cocktails. You won’t find more weaponry this side of a military shooter.

How Dark Is Too Dark?

When you actually take time away from the immense number of side quests and delve into Far Cry 3’s story you are going to find that it will take you places you may not wanna go. Excessive brutal violence, rampant drug use and references, the selling of people into the sex trade and even male rape. This game pulls no punches. It will hit you in the gut with its reality and then kick you while you are down. As you begin to free the island of pirate control and have more than one run in with Vaas you begin to see that a choice will be coming for you as a character and it will not be an easy one. Believing that saving your friends is the end of your journey would be folly because in many respects it is just the beginning. Do you ,as Jason Brody, truly believe you are here to free the Rakyat people and is your place here with them? The plot is paced out so well and seems like a natural progression for Jason.

If there was one aspect of the game that doesn’t live up the greatness of the other parts it wold have to be the boss fights. They basically boil down to quick time events which I would not mind for some bosses but you begin to hate these men with such a passion that a short button mashing kind of takes away from the pleasure of defeating them. It really is a minor complaint considering how amazing the rest of the game is, but it is still there. Can’t deny it.

There is a little frustration in the controls when platforming on the radio towers but otherwise the game feels smooth in almost every aspect. Running and gunning is a breeze and the quick inventory makes weapon swapping second nature even while you are in the dead middle of a firefight. Driving is a big part of the Far Cry 3 experience with Rook Island being so massive, so I can happily say that it is pure joy just to drive around the island no matter if you are taking roads or just seeing how off-road you can go with whatever vehicle you happen to be in at the time. When you get to the coast hop in a boat and take a stroll around the island or hell, even jump on a jet ski and try to ramp off of a shallow swimming shark. You get it yet? There are lots of modes of transportation and all of them are freaking fun. Oh yeah I almost forgot….hang gliders!!!!

Good Luck Multiplayer

In a game like Far Cry 3 where the story is so memorable it can almost go forgotten that it also comes with the prerequisite multiplayer. Far Cry 3 at least attempts to change up the proceedings by adding a co-op mode also to keep you playing long after the single player is done. It was admirable of the team to try and get a co-op mode into here but it just can’t match up with the rest of the game and is nothing more than a time waster. It does have a story to go along with it that takes place six months before the events on Rook Island but it is nowhere near as deep or even decent compared to the single player. Co-op is way more linear and really breaks down into enemy waves coming at you on the maps, kind of like Horde Mode Lite.

Vs. multiplayer is nothing to write home about, but it is good for some fun and a nice change of pace when you have been playing the games for 30 or 40 hours. You have Team Deathmatch, Transmission, Domination and Firestorm modes. Transmission is basically capture the flag and Firestorm is probably the most fun mode of the mulitplayer. Both teams must find and set fire to two fuel tankers while still defending theirs, all the while the map is catching fire and changing the routes your team can take.

I applaud the developers for taking the time to at least make a halfway decent multiplayer when they simply could have not done one or just half-assed it because games are SUPPOSED to have it.

The Difference Between Good And Great

I did not buy Far Cry 3 on release day. Far Cry 2 bored me honestly and I lumped this game into the crowd of holiday games that would probably never get played. Then I read a few reviews and some word of mouth that told me I might want to jump on this crazy train of a game. God am I glad I did! Never has a shooter engrossed me like Far Cry 3. The story is the stuff of nightmares, like the first time you watched Hostel. Wonderfully paced and even though the quick time boss battles are a bit of a downside, there is no way I can see a reason for that to affect the experience any. Vaas will change the way you think about villains in video games. When you think of the Call of Duty’s and Battlefield’s with the “terrorist of the year” bad guy, it goes to show you just how a great villain can truly make a great game. He takes those forgettable wannabe’s and slits their throats.

Rook Island holds so many mysteries and explorable areas it is near impossible to resist spending hours on end driving, running, swimming or gliding around trying to learn every nook of the vast terrain. It is beautiful and deadly all at the same time and that is the appeal. You can be admiring the sheer size of the land and taking in a wonderful view and then get mauled by a tiger. It snaps you back to reality which is exactly what Far Cry 3 does for the shooter genre. It wakes it up from the coma of yearly military FPS games. It shows you that action, adventure, looting, hunting, driving and crafting can all co-exist together in one game. Not only can it co-exist, it can thrive.

I could easily jump back into Far Cry 3 tomorrow and start it all over again. It is that good of an experience. I compare it to when I first played Bioshock or Mass Effect and knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that this was the reason why I play video games.

Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity?

NERD RATING- 9.5/10

January 30, 2013
Review: Lego The Lord Of The Rings (PS Vita)

Handheld Travels To Middle-Earth.

With the release of The Hobbit this year Lego seized the opportunity to release sets based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic work as well as its follow-up, The Lord of the Rings. Now as any gamer should know this inevitably meant that we would be receiving a video game translation. With Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean and Batman already under their gaming belt the folks at Traveller’s Tales now had the opportunity to bring one of the most beloved film trilogies to life in the wonderful world of Lego. This is the review of that game’s not as large but still enjoyable cousin.

By now, if you have played any of the Lego licensed games (Star Wars, Pirates, etc.) then you know what you are going to get here. Like my Lego Batman 2 review, you are basically fulfilling your inner loot monster by bashing everything in sight in the pursuit of Lego pieces to build structures to inaccessible areas and to spend on unlockable characters.

As I said, by now we know the name of the game so the real appeal is the license that is attached to it and The Lord of the Rings is as strong as it gets. You will make your way through all three movies with many different variations of party members from the entire fellowship with Legolas, Gimli, Boromir and more, then swapping to two or three member groups according to where in the trilogy story you happen to be playing through.

The real shame of this game is that it is, once again, a port of the 3DS version of the game which truly undermines the power of the Vita. The system is billed as a console in your hands and guess what? It is. So the fact we are made to play a simple port of another handheld is a bit disappointing knowing that this game could easily have been closer to the console version with just a little extra work. The back box art promises to take you through the open world of Middle-Earth and having played Lego Batman 2 extensively on a console apparently my definition of open world and Traveller’s Tales differs greatly. The areas are big enough to explore around to gather Lego pieces and solve minor puzzles but you will not lose yourself in the vast expanse of Tolkien’s world.

Controls are serviceable especially since the Vita has dual analogs. Make no mistake, this is a button masher and your square button will get a workout. Some areas are a bit frustrating with jumping onto small places with no real shadow to guide you as to where you are so some jumps are guesswork. Nothing will overly frustrate you but the feel of the controls are not top notch either.

On the good side is that almost every main character from the trilogy are represented well with each one having a special ability that you must use to access hidden pieces needed to continue. Gandalf can float objects into place, Gimli can bum rush into things and Aragorn can use his tracking ability are just a few of the attributes that you have at your disposal. There are some places, especially in the Fellowship section, where you will be using four or five members of your party to get secret items together.

Like Lego Batman, The Lord of the Rings features voice acting. They have taken samples from the Peter Jackson trilogy and used them throughout the game. On the downside they do not sound all that good. It sounds like a cassette tape played over clear music. So the cut in and cut out of the voices is very noticeable but the inclusion of the movie dialogue is still a welcome sound. Also there are good bits of the soundtrack in the background and it sounds much better than the dialogue. It really does add a lot to be able to run around The Shire and hear Howard Shore’s soft hobbit theme playing.

In the end, if you are trying to decide between the console and handheld versions there really is no contest. And it still upsets me that a system as powerful as the Vita is still getting stuck with 3DS ports which hinder the quality of the game but honestly I had a little bit of fun with [amazon_link id=”B0088MVOU2″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Lego The Lord of the Rings[/amazon_link]. If you are looking for a Vita game to sink a few hours into and get your Tolkien fix it is not a bad game to pick up. Given that is on sale.

NERD RATING- 7/10

January 14, 2013
Review: Halo 4
Can 343 Industries Take Halo To New Heights?

Who in there right mind could envy 343 Industries? The studio was tasked with carrying on the Xbox’s flagship title after developer Bungie decided to leave the comfy confines of the Microsoft umbrella and start making games for multiple systems. Yes, you can not deny that Microsoft most likely gave them a blank check to get Halo back onto their console but as any self-respecting gamer should know, big budget does not always equal a great game. The team (or should I say army) at 343 has been working tirelessly over the past few years on [amazon_link id=”B0050SYX8W” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Halo 4[/amazon_link] and have made people wholly aware of it with a host of development videos that gave a glimpse into the care they were taking with the franchise. So many aspects of this game had to come together to meet up with what the rabid Halo fanbase would be expecting in the first true sequel in five years.

Well take a deep sigh of relief because Halo is in very good and capable hands. 343 has done this franchise a great service and this entry easily has the best story of any Halo game and tweaks the multiplayer you know and love while keeping it true to its legendary roots. Pun intended.

A Tale Of Two (Or More) Cortana’s

It has been over four years since the events of Halo 3 and Master Chief has been frozen solid enjoying trippy cryo dreams aboard the ship Forward Unto Dawn. Cortana has been hanging out having conversations with herself until the Covenant try to board the ship. Here is where Master Chief gets his chance to get his shooting practice in. Right off the bat you are familiar with the controls. There is nothing too out of the ordinary and that is not a bad thing. It feels like Halo. Moving, jumping and shooting all come back naturally even if you have been away from the series for a while (like me).

It seems the Forward Unto Dawn has happened upon a Forerunner planet called Requiem and crash lands there. When you first make your way onto the planet this is where you truly begin to see that Halo 4 is a stunningly beautiful game. Crisp and vibrant even when the action is in full swing. I often found myself taking time after gunfights to look around and enjoy the sheer beauty of Requiem. The art designers have really designed something special with a planet that pulsates with colorful vegetation while also incorporating the technology of the Forerunners. It makes other environments in previous Halo games pale in comparison.

Now not everything is all pretty alien daisies and blue skies. Cortana gives Master Chief the news that she is in her eighth year of existence. The problem with that is that AI’s such as her only have seven year lifespans and because she is operating past her life expectancy she is experiencing “rampancy” which basically means that she is going schizo and will slowly lose her virtual mind until she dies. That is where Halo 4’s story is more interesting and emotional than any previous in the series. It is as much Cortana’s story as it is Master Chief’s. Even while you are trying to do your Spartan duty and save the universe there is this underlying personal part of the journey that connected me to John-117 and Cortana.

The big bad this go round is an ancient Forerunner known as the Didact. He has lured Master Chief and the UNSC Infinity, who responded to the Forward Unto Dawn’s distress signal, to Requiem where he is freed inadvertently by Chief and takes off to look for something called the Composer which will change all human life into artificial intelligence’s for him to control.

Prometheans Pack A Punch

The change in enemies is very welcome for anyone that has had their fill of blasting through Covenant or Flood forces since the first Halo. You still have plenty of Covenant gun fodder this go round but you also have the Prometheans to deal with. I could not help but think that most of the different classes reminded me of enemies from Metroid Prime. Crawlers appear as dog like creatures that can crawl on any wall while firing at you and they do not hesitate in charging you when you are close. Knights have different variations (commander, lancer, battlewagon) and all have separate abilities and weapons. Some even have Watchers that fly around them shielding them from gunfire and have the ability to summon crawlers to your location. They certainly are a formidable group and will make sure that you can not just run into battle guns blazing. You need to choose which enemies to take on first and what weapons work the best against them or you will be paying the price with a quick death.

One of the most fun parts of the Halo 4 experience is the abundance of weapons available. You have your stock of UNSC weaponry like the assault rifle, sniper rifle and the redesigned battle rifle. Covenant mainstays like the Needler, Plasma Pistol and Energy Sword make returns also but 343 has added new pieces to each of the human and Covenant arsenal. The real fun comes in the use of the Promethean technology. Each has their own look and feel and while they are really nothing more than Promethean versions of the same class of weapons you have on the UNSC and Covenant side they really make you feel like you have been shooting with inferior weapons for a long time. Here is a quick rundown of the Promethean weaponry.
- Suppressor- assault rifle that fires bolts of hard light rapidly.
- Boltshot- pistol that is dropped by most crawlers.
- Scattershot- shotgun that is uber-deadly in close combat and can deflect off of surfaces.
- Light Rifle- long range rifle that does more damage when using zoom mode.
- Binary Rifle- sniper rifle that is mostly a one hit kill. Low ammo count.
- Incineration Cannon- explosive rifle that is part rocket launcher, part shotgun, all badass.
- Pulse Grenade- grenade that creates a circular area that affects enemy shielding.
Now I am not sure how any of you will feel about these weapons but it was hard for me to go back to the UNSC or Covenant weapons unless I absolutely had to. Now don’t get me wrong I would still rock an assault rifle or Needler in a pinch but the visceral feel I got off of these new weapons was unmatched. My personal favorite was the Light Rifle and had me regretting every time I ran out of ammo for it. It is the first time I have really wanted to go back through a Halo campaign simply to find better ways to use every piece of weaponry to its fullest.

Multiplayer Madness

While the single player story is the best in the series, the one aspect of the game that had to hit the nail on the head was multiplayer. After all, that is the reason why people will keep popping the disc into their Xbox’s for the coming months and years. I am happy to say that it hits all the marks from previous Halo games and even improves in some places.

All of the multiplayer is handled from inside the UNSC Infinity. Here you will decide what mode you want to play in. First off you have to choose between War Games and Spartan Ops (more on this mode later). There are ten maps in Halo 4 to choose from and nine more will be releasing as future DLC. My favorite among these would have to be Ragnarok because it is a remake of Valhalla from Halo 3 and it has always felt like the perfect Halo map for any kind of style you play whether it be on foot, by off-road driving or air.

Forge also makes a return for all you map editors out there. There are three maps of varying terrain (Erosion, Impact and Ravine) and 343 has added a number of tweaks and new features including trait zones and better weapon and power-up detection.

The biggest addition (at least to me) is the sheer amount of customization that you are able to achieve with your character. You will earn XP by playing in War Games, Spartan Ops and Forge (or with Dew XP points until January) but XP is not just where it stops because along with XP you will receive Spartan Points which give you the ability to change your loadouts, customize everything about your armor and make changes to your Spartan ID. Once you reach Level 50 (which I am nowhere near right now) you can then go into the “Specializations” menu which give you ten different abilities like armor mods or weapon skins to ensure that your multiplayer experience lasts way past the max level.

For my money you can keep your Call of Duty’s there is nothing better than driving a Warthog around as your teammates hop on and try to mow down as many as you can, hopping off a split-second before you explode, take out a few guys then lob a grenade as you die and watch the man that just killed you get blown to hell. Respawn, start again. It is easy to see how hours pass by with this. I have never been a big proponent of multiplayer in games (just has not been my bag, sorry) but there is just something about Halo’s that is undeniably fun.

Spartan Ops

The biggest new addition in Halo 4 is the Spartan Ops mode. This is a multiplayer mode (or single if you want) that continues the story after you complete the Halo 4 campaign. Divided into seasons that will spread over ten weeks, Spartan Ops episodes will come with five missions lasting around 15-20 minutes each. As of this writing the first five have been released with Episode 6 debuting on January 21, 2013. This is such a wonderful idea that comes across really well when played. You are really getting the best of both worlds in Spartan Ops, playing multiplayer while it has the feel of the single player campaign with the continuing story and amazing cutscenes that accompany each new episode.

Playing these missions on your own feel like different beasts than with players online. Most missions begin simple enough with powering down shield generators or taking out anti-air turrets but when you reach the end of the mission it becomes basically a battle for survival when your screen and mini map fills up with so many enemies you begin to wonder how long you can make it. Don’t worry though because you will have weapons drops that will make items like rail guns and rocket launchers available to assist you to take out the hordes of enemies. Multiplayer playthroughs of Spartan Ops levels is a completely different feeling. You and three other players will take on the same objectives but with three other Spartans you will begin to achieve a certain feeling of badassery. It is here that the Spartan Ops mode finds its real footing. No matter what level your characters happen to be you will never feel under powered by your teammates. Just use good team work and don’t be a moron and the missions will be a rewarding experience.

Now that you have read (hopefully) everything that [amazon_link id=”B0050SYX8W” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Halo 4[/amazon_link] has to offer here is the real question. How does it stack up to all of series creators Bungie’s efforts? If you had told me a year or even six months ago that I was about to say this I would have look strangely back at you but Halo 4 is the best entry in the franchise. There is no denying this. 343 Industries has taken all the best parts from Bungie and made them better as well as adding their own set of features and game modes that make Halo 4 one of the best values in gaming. The story is paced perfectly and scripted great. The tale of Master Chief and Cortana has never felt more personal as the line is blurred between them on what is human and what is machine. Controls are tight and super responsive which is what we have come to expect from Halo. The multiplayer is balanced and players of lesser rank never feel like they are in a no win battle against teams of higher ranks. All of this would be worth the price of the game but then you also have Spartan Ops which gives you 50 new story based missions that only further add to the gameplay time and show that 343 Industries took special care to make sure that Halo’s return would be not just a memorable one but set a new high bar for all others that follow it.

Welcome back Chief. Its been a long wait but well worth it.

NERD RATING- 9/10
December 12, 2012
Review: WWE 13

Taking A Look Back Has Me Looking Forward To More.

Almost every generation of video game consoles has had one definitive wrestling title. WWF No Mercy released on the Nintendo 64 is still widely regarded as the best wrestling game ever made. WWE Smackdown: Here Comes The Pain on Playstation 2 brought the most complete package to that date of TV style presentation as well as an expanded control scheme that made almost anything possible and now on THQ’s seventh WWE game of the current generation they have made the definitive “must play” wrestling game.

Last year’s WWE 12 saw THQ completely scrap all the move animations that they had been collecting and using since 2007 and installed a new physics engine that they coined “Predator Technology”. Not only that but the team completely re-mapped the controls so that long time fans had a LOT to unlearn. It was a giant step in the right direction because you can tell that everything the developers learned last year has been brought over to this year’s game. The aptly named “Predator Technology 2.0” feels more smooth this year and with a host of new animations added to everything that was in last year’s version, makes WWE 13 feel as close to natural as you can probably get.

That is not to say there aren’t hiccups. Clipping and phasing through opponents and objects is still there but not near as rampant as it has been in past years. Honestly with everything the engine has to take into account including the different heights and weights of the wrestlers you can forgive a little bit of this. You will still have moments in matches where opponents won’t read steps being around them or how the top of the announce table doesn’t hit your grounded opponent but phase through them. It is a wrestling game. Belief should be suspended for some things.

Bringing Attitude Back

The biggest (and best) change this year is that the long running Road to Wrestlemania has been completely scrapped and in its place is the all new Attitude Era. What this does is takes you on a lengthy journey that celebrates the 15th anniversary of the Monday Night Wars and the beginnings of WWE’s Attitude Era.

I can not express enough how fun this is to play. Each section of Attitude Era is broken up into sections that involve the formation of DX, Stone Cold’s rise to the top of WWE, The Rock’s time as the Corporate Champ, Mick Foley’s championship dreams coming true and the road to Wrestlemania XV. Inside each section are between 7-12 matches and events that helped shaped the WWE’s win over WCW. For a lifelong wrestling fan I had so much fun playing through every bit of this. It brought me back and had me remembering specific nights when I could recall where I was and who I was with when I was watching the certain episode of RAW that the game had me playing. Even when you complete Wrestlemania XV you have an entirely new section available that includes random matches including Edge and Christian and the memorable Lita vs. Trish Stratus RAW main event. The nostalgia that was brought up is almost worth the price of the game.

Every match inside Attitude Era has a set criteria for completing the match. To get every unlockable open you will have to 100% not only just the match but the hidden objectives that pop up during the match. Don’t worry they are not overly difficult and for wrestling fans like myself you will be able to guess most of the hidden objectives just by your memory of the matches.

To help the Attitude Era seem like you are re-living those moments THQ has actually put in video packages that run in between sections and also has included the actual commentary from the WWE archives during matches. Not all of it is from the actual broadcast but the mix should not be recognizable to a lot of gamers. But if you are an old bum like me and remember things very vividly you will be able to spot the differences in the actual and newly recorded easily. One thing that is a bit annoying is that everytime during videos or commentary taken from the archives that someone says WWF the “F” is clipped out of the sound bite. I understand all the legal mumbo jumbo that goes into the WWE not being able to use it but it is a little distracting. This is not THQ’s fault and I really appreciate them putting the effort forward to include it.

Creating A Virtual Smackdown

User creation has always been one of the biggest part of any WWE game and this year’s does not disappoint. Create a wrestler is back and believe it or not it is even larger. A big plus is that a good majority of the moves added this year are very well done and makes you actually want to use them in the game. They didn’t just go through the sets and add in four different armbars and a new powerslam. Beyond the pre-set moves, create a finisher is just as fun as it was last year and now you have the ability to create your own signature maneuver as well.

Create an arena has been rebuilt this year to give you greater flexibility in crafting your vision. You can change every aspect of the ring as you could last year down to the design on the mats and rope color but the biggest change comes in how in depth you can get when you make your stages. Different arena sizes are available from high school gym all the way to Wrestlemania sized stadium shows. Alter your stages any way you want right down to what you want the runway ramp to say.

The championship editor is a good addition but it is not near as good as the belt creator was a few years ago. You can take any of the titles that appear in the game (which is quite sizable) and can alter the belt color and metal sheen of the championship and rename all the titles with a pre-set announcer name much like in create a superstar mode. It is good for a quick distraction but you won’t lose yourself in a wealth of options.

Chairs With Friends

Online is a mixed bag again this year. During last year’s game I had numerous problems even getting in the community server to upload and download wrestlers. I can not tell you how many times I would get on and it would tell me that the community services were down and to try back later. This year, getting into the community servers is normally a quick affair with download times being pretty decent. Downloading created storylines remains a fun affair because there are just so many insane ones out there to see. Some are almost as weird as Edge and Booker T feuding over a shampoo commercial. The big minus comes in online matches. I don’t do these a lot but to get the complete game experience I have tried to wrestle a few matches and each time I am kicked out into the lobby or can not connect at all. This is with my signal being near perfect by the way. Hopefully it is just minor hiccup that will be fixed with a patch.

The roster in WWE 13 is MASSIVE. This year offers 84 superstars after you unlock everyone and that is before the three DLC packs that will be released by January. There are some omissions from last year that I miss and wish would stay in the games on a yearly basis (like Macho Man) but this is still easily the largest roster THQ has ever offered. In place of most of the legends that have been appearing in various iterations, we are given a host of Attitude Era stars that have not been seen in a video game since the Nintendo 64 days. The Godfather, Ken Shamrock, New Age Outlaws, Big Bossman, APA and even the three faces of Foley will have you reliving all your favorite moments from over a decade ago.

THQ really has done a wonderful service for wrestling fans this year. For lifelong fans that long for better days (especially when you watch Monday nights now) this is the year to finally pick up a WWE game. Don’t mistake this for just another yearly update of a tired game. WWE 13 has improved on all the good steps taken last year in term of control and match options. By letting fans relive the major moments of the Attitude Era, WWE 13 reminds us of the best days that the world of sports entertainment ever saw, when the Monday night wars were raging and WWE was appointment television. It is easily the most fun and complete wrestling game of this generation.

NERD RATING- 9/10

November 16, 2012