Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D--the first handheld RE game since Deadly Silence--faithfully captures the gameplay nuances and visual aesthetic of the most recent console releases in the franchise. Having achieved this respectable feat, Capcom has opted to utilize this technology in a supremely disappointing way: by recycling the content of an unlockable mode from those games into an entire retail-priced game. Less of a port and more of a compilation, The Mercenaries 3D dutifully recreates the Mercenaries modes from Resident Evils 4 and 5, and that's just about it. Even if you previously enjoyed the Mercenaries mode, you'll find little to be excited about here; there are no new maps to explore, no new enemies to fight, and you'll have exhausted the game's meager offerings before you know it. With virtually nothing new to offer and not enough content to justify the price, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D is a straight-up bad deal at $40.
This modern version of The Mercenaries was introduced back in 2005 as a feature unlocked upon completion of Resident Evil 4. The Mercenaries strips out the traditional Resident Evil story structure in favor of an arena-based, score-focused survival mode. Players will come to blows with hordes of Resident Evil 4 and 5’s not-zombies, trying to rack up as many kills as possible within the time limit. To maximize one’s score potential, players must quickly kill enemies in succession to build and extend a kill combo throughout the match. Completing certain score milestones will unlock the usage of additional playable characters, complete with unique weapon sets, which can impact the ways in which you can take down enemies. In contrast to the typical Resident Evil experience, The Mercenaries is more akin to an arcade game, focusing on playing and replaying short levels to obtain high scores.
Console-to-handheld ports can be tricky, and rife with control compromises, but The Mercs 3D makes the jump to the 3DS with relative ease, thanks to the fact that the modern Resident Evil games are built around single analog stick controls. Movement and turning is mapped to the circle pad, holding the R button brings up your weapon sights for aiming (and, in RE tradition, locks you in place) and the face buttons are used for shooting and utilizing context sensitive prompts. While the top 3DS screen displays the core action, the bottom screen serves as a quick-select inventory screen, allowing players to quickly switch between weapons, reload guns and use healing items.
In perhaps its most notable advance, The Mercenaries 3D finally brings the RE games in line with more modern third-person shooters with an alternate control scheme that allows players to move and shoot at the same time. In this mode, the circle disc will handle movement and strafing while the four face buttons are used for aiming (similar to the way shooters have been adapted on the PSP). It's not a perfect substitute for a second analog stick, but that’s the price you have to pay in order to bring a little modernity to RE. The Mercenaries 3D plays about as well as the series’ console counterparts, with very little of the gameplay nuances sacrificed in the translation.
The problem with The Mercenaries 3D, however, has to do with the content. Specifically, there isn’t enough of it. All eight of the game's maps come directly from Resident Evil 4 or 5, and these aren’t full Resident Evil campaign levels, complete with the some of the best interactive cutscenes, set pieces, and boss fights found in modern action games. These are small, corridor-heavy maps that don’t last more than three to six minutes. The only noteworthy addition to The Mercenaries 3D is the skill system, a Modern Warfare-style perk structure where players can take up to three passive enhancements into each match. The skills level up as you accrue skill points from completing rounds, but the bonuses aren't so impactful as to dramatically affect your chances of success in-game. It's not long before you’ve exhausted the few available maps on the cart, and if you've ever played those Mercenaries modes before, you'll be familiar with virtually all of the content in this game.
As if to add insult to injury, you won’t actually get full access to the eight maps and eight playable characters when you start the game for the first time. Instead, players will be forced to complete a series of missions so disjointed that it does injustice to the word “campaign.” There is zero context for these missions, so if you’re playing through the campaign, you’d better really love Resident Evil’s combat.
The missions are almost all identical, and they don’t necessarily do the best job in instructing you how to deal with enemies or move effectively through the map. The only significant departures from the core Mercenaries gameplay are a penultimate boss fight against the Popokarimu bat monster from Resident Evil 5 and a final boss fight against... that bat monster again. That the game actually runs a full, unskippable credit sequence after the second bat boss fight feels like some kind of cruel, miserable joke. The whole campaign can be completed in less than two hours and and amounts to little more than a slog through soulless, boring content. The campaign problems are further emphasized by an awkward menu structure that makes progressing through missions more of a hassle than it should be.
The series’ high quality visuals haven't had the smoothest translation to the 3DS. Capcom’s MT Framework engine recreates the environments, character models, and effects of the past two console RE games onto the platform, and some assets have made that transition better than others. Character models for the playable Mercenaries, the Ganados cultists, and Majini infected look sharp with striking animation and detailed texture work. Mercs 3D also utilizes the 3DS' stereoscopic visuals to good use with a pronounced-but-not-overwhelming depth enhancement that I was happy to leave on as I played the game. Textures in the actual environments, however, can appear blurry and muddled (not unlike the RE4 port to the PS2). The game's weirdest visual quirk, however is its habit of cutting out frames of animation on enemies in the distance. Enemies move stiffly until they cross some determined point in the environment relative to the player, upon which their animation fills out the missing frames.
The sound design fares even worse than the visuals. The Mercenaries 3D features plenty of music tracks and effects from the other Resident Evil games and those sound fine, but the vocals--from both Mercs and not-zombies-- feature some of the lowest quality sound recording I've heard in any modern video game. Though the low-bit rate recordings of the vocals may have been a result of low storage space, the vocals in Mercs 3D sounds like bad digitized voice circa the early 90's. It's awful stuff.
The Mercenaries 3D also ships with local and online co-op, allowing you to team up and work together on maximizing your scores. Like much of Mercs 3D, the online functionality is identical to that found in RE5, though, like the visuals, it hasn't arrived without problems. In testing the game, lag issues popped up sporadically, resulting in enemies teleporting to new positions in order to catch up, as well as enemies taking too long to register bullet collision and death. In a game mode entirely based around skillful weapon and ammo management, watching ammo wasted on enemies that have already died can seriously mangle your strategy and timing. On stable connections, the feature is functional, but if you’re looking for online co-op versions of The Mercenaries, you should go back to play Resident Evil 5.
And that’s the reaction I come back to over and over again as I played through Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D. If I wanted to play the Mercenaries game mode, why would I pay $40 for this handheld version when I could ostensibly get both Resident Evil 4 and 5 for way less? The gameplay in Mercs 3D has been competently recreated on the handheld, but it’s all to recreate an experience that is done (mostly) better and way cheaper on other platforms. Not to mention the fact that both of those games come with supreme single-player campaigns. If you’ve never played the modern Resident Evil games, you could pick up both Resident Evil 4 and 5 for less than the price of this cart. And if you have already played Resident Evil, the only worthwhile additions in Mercs 3D are portability, a present-yet-inessential skill system and the opportunity to play as several characters who have never been in a modern RE game--hardly $40 worth of additions. Even on a platform suffering a from a drought of software, The Mercenaries 3D still feels like a bad deal. It’s simply too much money for too little original content.
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BioShock 2 had you playing a lumbering Big Daddy in search of the Little Sister you were meant to protect. Minerva’s Den is a separate story for the same game: you play a different Big Daddy with a different goal. You’re looking for The Thinker, a punchcard-driven artificial intelligence developed to run Rapture’s automated systems.
That means you start from scratch, in terms of weapons and abilities, but they come fast enough for you to quickly tool up for the play style you like. The additions to the combat formula are all worthwhile, but don’t change it dramatically. That means it’s still creative and fun, but doesn’t feel refreshingly new.
There’s a Gravity Well plasmid that sucks enemies into a singularity and spits them back out – entertaining, but a pretty slow way of dealing with the least dangerous enemies. And the new Ion Laser weapon is a very straightforward damage-dealer, as is the new Big Daddy type that uses it.
The most enjoyable novelties are the new security bots: firing rockets, lasers and electricity. When hacked to follow you around, the electricity one is a hilarious and handy companion, repeatedly shocking your enemies so you can take your time with their fate.
Hynotise splicers - they can make interesting friends
Minerva’s Den takes around five hours to play, and the story is intriguing and substantial. It’s also focused: there’s almost no peripheral backstory lying around, every audio diary you find is a piece of the puzzle.
Accordingly, it asks you to do more exploring than the main BioShock games. Most areas are large hubs with no clearly marked goals, riddled with Adam, Tonics and Plasmids to upgrade your abilities.
For the most part that’s great, but you’ll occasionally hit a dead end and be unsure how far you’re supposed to backtrack, or what you’re looking for. And if you miss a major audio diary, the plot makes less sense.
Not that it makes perfect sense even if you don’t, of course – it involves powerful ideas, but operates under the same magical logic by which a secret city on the ocean bed is a viable thing. The main thrust of the plot requires a credulity leap of that kind, which is a shame, but it doesn’t prevent the game being engrossing.
Incendiary lasers are the best lasers.
As with both BioShock games, the antagonist isn’t nearly as convincing or interesting as the conflicted characters along the way, and his taunting wears thin. But Minerva’s Den is more consistently engaging than BioShock 2, because the meat of the story isn’t diluted by a lot of empty philosophy. The sting in its tail isn’t quite as potent as either of its predecessors, but it’s a satisfying ending once you make sense of it.
Fuck George. He’s the gambler standing at the entrance to Nellis Air Force Base. Behind him: nothing but craters and bombed-out houses. The Boomers control this area, a community that protects itself by shelling anyone who gets in range, but I need to get in and George knows how to get past the bombs. He wants 200 bottlecaps for his services.
This is the world of Fallout: New Vegas. It’s harsh. Hell, I only have 200 caps because I killed the doctor who saved my life and scooped a bullet out my brain. So when George demands these caps for doing little more than standing on a path, while I’ve had to slam pool cues into the skulls of helpful medics, it upsets me.
“What part of ‘krrkthpt’ do you not understand?”
I hand them over, as I can’t see any other way in. After a terrifying bolt through a barrage of bombs, following George’s instructions, I make it to the compound. The Boomers are surprisingly cool, if a bit overprotective. They agree to not shell me any more, which is nice of them. I find it difficult to blow up people I’ve met socially, too. I head back to George. It’s not just his opportunism that angers me. He offered to repay me double the amount of caps if I survived. I’m his dirty little gambling fix!
I grab my spiked knuckles and start whaling on him. Every punch makes me feel a little bit better. He runs off into Nellis and I run after him. The Boomers promised to leave me alone, but George? He’s fair game.
As is anything in his radius. Bombs are indiscriminate jerks. I only realise my huge mistake when he reels at one of my uppercuts and I explode a second later.
A flaming Nightkin holding a rebar club.
I should have known better. New Vegas might be cleaner than Fallout 3’s Washington wasteland, the Mojave desert having got off relatively lightly during the nuclear apocalypse, but it’s still a game about survival. Shot in the head, buried and presumed dead, you’re caught up in a revenge tale that turns into a battle for control of the region, with you in the Clint Eastwood role. Do you track down the man who put you in the ground, explore the desert, beat up some nearby gang members, or look for a faction to join?
Crafty Buck
What would Clint do? Or, in my game, an athletic, red-headed lady I named ‘Buck’. Lady Buck, I decided, was simply going to be an extension of me. If I found the people I was dealing with personally repugnant, I’d give them Wasteland justice. I plumbed for my usual mix of lockpicking and stealth skills, eventually regretting my Thief-centric approach to character creation. My advice: New Vegas is so skewed towards dialogue that, for the first run-through at least, you should put as much as you can in Speechcraft and Barter skills. Even the final bosses can be chatted into submission if your stats are high enough. You can’t lockpick a mouth. Oh, and you should probably avoid Hardcore mode for that first runthrough. It’s the triathlon of New Vegas, a gruelling slog designed to sap your strength as you play. It’s not for the ill-prepared.
Wandering the wasteland now, two years on from Fallout 3, I’m both happy and disappointed. I’ve long wanted more of the same from Bethesda, and this is the hand that New Vegas deals. But while it’s good to be back, the leap from one game to the other isn’t nearly as large as it should have been. New areas, characters and factions, but the same clunky inventory and character models. Two years to stay exactly where you were.
Spacesuit? Check? Club? Check. Exploding Roman Centurion? Check
Fallout’s world of cracked asphalt and rolling deserts can still impress. Whacking the view distance up to max is chilling: futuro-’50s buildings poke into the air, a giant wireframe cross stands on a hill, and at night Vegas glows on the horizon.
The world goes about its business, delivering some amazing random encounters. After a save, I stumbled across two small gangs fighting it out. I leapt into the fray – mostly to try out my newly acquired rebar club: a lump of concrete on the end of twisted metal rods. Combat is still lightweight: swinging kilos of concrete at someone’s head only feels powerful when they explode in a shower of gristle at the end, or in VATS where you’re given choices of where to hit with different chances of success. My rebar broke the face of the Powder Ganger’s leader, leaving a ragged red lump where her smile used to be. I reloaded, and this time sat back, watching the battle play out. At one point, a Ganger limped off to safety and pulled out a Stimpack, healing himself.
The central story is a big improvement on the dad-quest of Fallout 3. You’re following the trail of the man who shot you, as it snakes across the Mojave through the major urban areas, drip-feeding you tasks that vary from sorting out a town’s escaped prisoner problem to a ghoul infestation with a brilliantly overthe- top ending. Scenarios and characters that I’m loath to go into detail over, as their tricky little problems should be experienced first-hand. Twisty moral conundrums are laid at your feet as you pick and choose who to piss off (and you’ll always piss someone off). When a game asks you to lead someone into a sniper’s line of fire, but doesn’t specify who, you definitely have to confront your id.
Dynamite vs giant, irradiated lizards. We’re all winners, here.
It’s not overtly encouraged by the game, but you can just head for Vegas. Giant Rad Scorpions and Deathclaws stand between you and The Strip, and you’ll end up aggroing every one of them, but you’re given impressive leeway to just stumble across points of the story as you wander. But eventually, all roads lead to New Vegas.
It’s here that a surprising second act kicks off. Structurally things get messy: you’re used as an emissary from Vegas to talk to the factions. While there you can take up more missions, or simply report back to Vegas without having much to do with them at all – pretty much invalidating the entire endeavour. Don’t do that. The factions are interesting, particularly the Caesars: a vast army with nasty predilections, based on the Roman Empire. They crucify people, for Jupiter’s sake. Even the lesser factions, like the Elvis-impersonating Kings or the mafia-inspired Omerta, have been teased out of Vegas tropes.
King Rex
There’s something for everyone, different personalities and points of view to empathise with or despise, depending on how you’re playing. So the Romans felt my wrath, and I helped the leader of the Kings fix his robot dog (by bashing in another dog’s head to replace the brain). My reward was having the dog as a companion. There are eight companions to pick from, six human and two not, and you can have one of each if you find them. They back you up in fights, and you can set their state via a control wheel, but the most important addition is they bring a perk to your character sheet. Rex’s perk will find and mark nearby items for you to collect. I could have swapped him for ED-E, a floating robot who’s good for spotting people and fighting from afar, but Rex, with his glowing skullcap, was too cute. I was on a ‘nice’ playthrough.
Vegas won’t know what hit it. It was me. I HIT IT!
But I could so easily have played nasty, and aligned with the Romans. Or ambivalent and aligned with the NCR – the other main faction and strangely likeable people, just doing what they can to survive. Those choices, and the wonderful way the game accepts and adapts when you make them, make New Vegas worth your time and money. I had a lot of fun, but I never uncovered anything as wonderful as Fallout 3’s Oasis or Little Lamplight.
There are things to see, sure, but the rewards aren’t nearly as interesting in New Vegas. I didn’t get as much out of heading for intriguing things on the horizon as I did in the previous game. With some new technology and the ambition to create a full world as compelling as the previous game’s, it could have been wonderful.
The First Templar is the poor cousin of a poor knight to the Assassin’s Creed series
I apologize in advance if my game review fails to come off as a professional review of The First Templar, but as I didn’t see any other game reviews yet of this third-person action-adventure shooter–err slasher, I thought I would don my writer’s armour and hack off a few words.
To begin with, I have always been fascinated with the Knights Templar, the medieval organization that protected the roads to the Holy Land, not to mention their contribution to the banking system, and their popularization of Friday The 13th (not the movie series). So when it was announced that there would be a game based on the “first Templar”, likely referring to the original nine Knights Templars that created the organization in 1109, I was excited.
The story for The First Templar includes a tapestry of history describing the Knights Templars with introductions for each chapter telling aspects of the templars, along with a series of Templar tablets that the character discovers through his travels throughout medieval Europe in the early 14th Century. While these snippets of templar history bring an element of education regarding the poor knights of Christ, they don’t always seem to coordinate with the storyline, which is basically a quest (yes, for the Holy grail in fact) conducted by poor knight Celian, a French templar with a curious past (that is slowly revealed throughout the game), along with his knight-captain Roland, and Marie, a dagger-wielding wench who is faster with her knives than a hungry fat man on pork cutlet.
The game concept is very cool (knights, the Church, religious conspiracies, etc.), however the execution is somewhat flat, as are the graphics, the character animation, and the restricted gameplay areas.
While playing through the varying different levels of towns, keeps, crypts, tunnels, swamps, burning forests, and castles (some burning, some not), I was disappointed with the bushes, rocks, fences, and every other part of the environment restricting my movements; there were ladders that could not be climbed, rivers that could not be forged, doorways that could not be passed through, and areas that could not be accessed, blocked by invisible forces. Alas, there were several texture errors, where it seems that you could see through stone walls, or you character would be floating above the ground of some stone ramp, and while not a perfectionist myself, I would expect that programmers would better field-test these issues, as it is an instant mood-killer.
I also felt more like I was being corralled, guided along a specific path. In today’s game world, gamers want to feel like they’ve made the decision to go in a specific direction, not herded along like third-person cattle. While there were some vast landscapes, and diverse environmental settings, I still had restricted paths, and only in a few situations could I flank the opponents.
The worst part about crusading is getting all that sand in your steel boots.
The gameplay system was somewhat frustrating for me on my PC, where I had to unbind keys in order to re-bind them, where in other games, the normal function is to allow you to change the bind and damned be the key that held that command before. It took me a good fifteen minutes just setting up the normal E-S-D-F keys for my direction controls (does ANYONE even use W-A-S-D?)
On my quad-xenon machine, I adjusted the video controls to 1920×1080, as it was chunky-monkey on the higher resolution. The detail levels were all set to the medium levels.
Your character starts out with a sword and a shield, and throughout the game he is able to discover other swords and shields, but the catch is that you have to find the complete set (usually just two items). I never really figured out if the better-seeming sword-shield sets actually gave me more power or a better defense, as the tactical system doesn’t really show you any difference. You have your standard health bar (have you been to a health bar lately?) and your additional health is represented by “health orbs”, glowing red balls that deplete as you get whacked and chopped by the various middle-age baddies, with their swords, axes, and their pikes. You also have Zeal, which is a like mana for the magic-less, and with the experience points you earn from defeating enemies and advancing through the game, or finding treasure (before today I didn’t know you could find experience in a treasure chest). Your zeal is represented by glowing blue orbs, and these can be restored by blocking attacks or killing enemies (of course). Experience points can help you advance your character’s skills, where the player can select items that allow for more health, more zeal, and make certain attacking and defending skills available. The skills tree (no, not the Skittles tree) is somewhat limited, but functional, and created some interesting choices. By the end of the game, however, I had maximized my character’s abilities, and felt like it never really mattered what paths I had selected throughout the game.
Most of your enemies are either Saracens, French, or other templars who for some reason think that you’ve betrayed the Order, and while the AI of these enemies is somewhat limited (except for the crossbowmen, they do sort of all just rush you, but without any other types of weapons other than the swinging types, what other tactics are there?). Later on in the game, you are introduced to some rather gruesome enemies who you will not find in the history books. Bigger, dummer, and slower, these enemies can pack a whallop, and they probably dined on roast peasant. The only challenging enemies are other knights, presumedly these were the boss enemies because only their health bar and orbs were represented on the screen, telling me somehow that these guys must be stronger and badder through that bit of extra information. In gameplay, this simply translated into more hacking and slashing, and where I played in “normal” mode, I could probably assume that the “casual” setting meant fewer hacks/slashes, and whereas the “expert” setting meant more hacks/slashes. Again, it got a little tiresome, and I was disappointed that my co-player, usually the computer, just stood around and let me duel it up, placing honour ahead of my health orbs.
Facing your enemies was an easy task, and really, despite the different moves available for attacking, I basically just clicked on both mouse buttons and my templar character swung and hit and cleaved no matter which way I clicked. I did notice that several direct hits led to a multiplier which provided some interesting animated death kills upon the poor soul whose neck or arm I had slashed.
If I were to rate these Templars between good and evil...I'd say they're about mid-evil (medieval).
Did I mention the puzzles? Oh yes, the game is filled with crazy puzzles that look they came out of a Lara Croft junk drawer (In fact I recall seeing similar floor spikes in Lara Croft And The Guardian Of Light). There is only so much that one (or two) can do with pressure plates, levers, fires, swinging axes, and metal grates. The spewing flames, rotating axe blades, rotating spikes, and moving saw blades are all regurgitated from other older games, like Runescape or Rogue’s Den.
There was really little challenge to these puzzles, which seemed more like a nuisance than a test, and they paled in comparison to the clever, dynamic puzzles that were afforded in the various crypts and dungeons of Assassins Creed: Brotherhood. In fact, the whole game of The First Templar seemed very much like the poor cousin of the poor sons of that aforementioned game, with the exception of those health orbs, which reminded me more of an Ultima Underworld game.
The First Templar was released on May 12, for Xbox 360 and PC by Haemimont Games and being published by Kalypso Media for the Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows.
I don’t have a rating system, as I’m not Gamespot, but I’d highly recommend that the money you would spend on this game would be better spent on any of the Assassin’s Creed games, and any leftover coin could go towards a copy of Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, whose concept of the Knights Templar is about as accurate as The First Templar.
Razer Onza Tournament Edition Review
Razer's gamepad is finally out—was it worth the wait?
We’re no fan of the console-ification of PC gaming, either, but you’ve got to admit, Microsoft has had the gamepad market locked since it introduced the USB Xbox 360 controller more than five years ago. In that respect, it’s not really surprising that the first real challenger to Microsoft’s super-solid wired controller is, itself, an Xbox 360 controller: the Razer Onza.
The Onza was first revealed more than a year ago at CES 2010, so consumers have had a lot of time to ask questions like, “Is Razer really going to try and become a console peripheral company? Can a third-party controller ever really beat the first-party offering?” Well, we don’t have an inside line on Razer’s business dealings, but we do have the Onza in our hands, and we can tell you that the answer to the second question is an emphatic yes.
The Onza’s low-profile face buttons are much more responsive than the standard Xbox 360 controller.
The Razer Onza isn’t a wide departure from the standard 360 controller in looks—it’s the same shape, more or less, with a nearly identical layout of face buttons and analog sticks and feels as good in the hands as the original. A slightly rubbery, nonslip coating makes it easy to hold on to, and it looks nice in matte black. It feels just the tiniest bit lighter and less solid than Microsoft’s controller, but that still leaves it in “very sturdy” territory. Like the Xbox 360 controller, no additional drivers are needed in Windows Vista or 7.
Where the Onza controller beats the regular Xbox controller is in features. Notably, the Onza uses Razer’s Hyperesponse actuators for the light-up face buttons, giving them a much clickier and more responsive feel. Additionally, Razer’s controller packs two bumper buttons above each trigger—the bonus button can be bound to any of the other standard buttons—and the physical resistance of the two analog sticks can be adjusted individually.
The one questionable change to the Xbox 360 controller formula is the switch from a rocker-style D-pad to one with four oversize buttons with lots of travel. It’s not a disaster, by any means, but we can’t say we like it better than the rocker, and it might trip up people who use the D-pad for complex inputs, such as fighting game commands.
The suit makes the man
You can take Crysis out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of Crysis. For those worried that Crysis 2’s city-slicking setting would turn it into a cramped corridor crawl, go ahead and activate strength mode, grab your fears, and ragdoll them 30 feet in the air. Crysis 2—while not quite as open as its predecessor—is subtly complex, brilliantly paced, and morbidly satisfying from start to finish. Sure, it’s far from revolutionary, but sometimes, you just want to put on a talking suit and shoot squid monsters, you know? OK, that made more sense in our heads. Allow us to explain.
The fight shifts from an island in Crysis to the urban playground of New York City.
Crysis 2 throws you headlong into a tale of military in-fighting, invasion clichés, and whiny scientists crying into your ear that’s, well, honestly kind of terrible. But that’s not the point. The nanosuit has always been the Crysis franchise’s real main character, and this time around it’s quite apparent that Crytek knew that. The end result, then, is a stylish piece of sci-fi chic that—while at first glance appearing “dumbed down”—has been expertly refined. Now you have two central modes to aid in your almost unfairly one-sided manhunts: stealth and armor. That doesn’t mean your old pals strength and speed have abandoned you, however. Rather, Crytek has decided that there’s something to that whole “making sense” idea that everyone’s always talking about, so speed is now rolled into your normal sprint, and holding down your melee attack automatically gives you a hulked-out variation on the theme. All told, the new approach is even more empowering because picking a central mode is now a snap decision. One or the other: no more fumbling through superfluous nonsense. As a result, tailoring your play style to the task at hand quickly becomes second nature.
Deformable environments change dynamically during gameplay.
The Crysis franchise’s other main pillar—largely open level design—holds up its end of the bargain in a similar fashion, sacrificing a bit of freedom for a pace that makes the game nearly impossible to put down. So yes, we encountered a few “if only there wasn’t an invisible wall here...” moments, but they were far outweighed by a fusion of smart, sparingly applied scripting and impromptu chaos. Combat, you see, isn’t quite like anything else on the market. In Crysis 2, you’re neither Rambo nor Solid Snake. The nanosuit’s limited energy capacity doesn’t allow it to go all-in with either, so hit-and-runs are your best option. And that’s the beauty of it. Any enemy, alien or human, can and will kill you if they catch you with your superpowered trousers down, and that element of real danger ensures that you never feel like a bored child stepping on ants. Instead, you’re a mighty hunter—easily at the top of the food chain—but your prey’s no slouch, either. And even though levels are more confined, they’re no less varied, managing to be both hauntingly beautiful and suitably vertical.
You’ll go through numerous weapon changes throughout the game.
Then again, given the franchise’s history, that’s not exactly shocking. On the “pleasant surprise” end of the spectrum, meanwhile, is Crysis 2’s multiplayer. Again, the nanosuit’s the star of the show here—especially in modes like Assault, where one team doesn’t have nanosuits at all, but makes up for it with better weaponry. Other than that, Call of Duty’s the obvious inspiration (gain XP, unlock weapons/attachments, etc.), but Crysis 2’s superpowered shenanigans put it near the front of that particular pack.
That’s not to say, however, that Crysis 2 is without flaws. Foremost, the game chose to stick with an antiquated autosave system that’ll turn your smile into a scowl faster than you can say, “But I played this area, like, 20 minutes ago.” Also, enemies—while generally the ShamWows of brutal bullet-sponging—occasionally suffer from AI brain farts, resulting in staring contests with walls and the always comical, “Oops, I guess it was just a false alarm,” when you’re standing two feet away from the enemy. The game’s graphical customization options, meanwhile, are shockingly limited compared to other PC games, presenting you with literally four options and nothing else.
A thermal imager makes sniping a snap.
All told, however, Crysis 2 is an extremely empowering action-fest that absolutely deserves your attention. It’s a game that sprinkles creativity and planning atop a heaping helping of chaos, and during this age of mindless Call of Duty clones, it’s exactly what the doctor ordered.
Review: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D
What do you get when you take one of the most beloved Nintendo games of all time, upgrade the graphics, toss in new content and control mechanics, and slap it on a portable? Super Mario 64 DS, you say? Well... ok, you got me.
The original Super Mario 64 was the game that, to many, showed off the benefits of running around a 3D game world. The possibilities for immersion in gaming were raised exponentially, and the potential gameplay applications were unfathomable.
Unfathomable, that is, until Zelda. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time took the design sensibilities of previous games in the series—the overworld, the dungeons, the puzzles, the ease of control, the character interaction—and transferred them into a polygonal environment so rich and detailed that many still consider it the finest game ever crafted. Thirteen years later, Nintendo is attempting to sell us on another kind of 3D technology: stereoscopic. With this in mind, an updated Ocarina on the 3DS isn’t just a good idea; it is easily the finest title released on the platform to date.
Ah... I'm home.
First, the burning question: What’s changed in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D? Simultaneously, ‘not much’ and ‘a lot’. Nintendo and co-developer Grezzo have taken great care to preserve the magical experience of the original game while updating it to take advantage of new hardware, as well as a few minor tweaks here and there.
For those who haven’t played the original game (for shame!), the basic premise is that you’re a boy named Link who lives in the forest with his tribe of elf-like people called the Kokiri. Unlike all of his friends, Link was never given a fairy that follows him for life, so he is always picked on by most other kids in the village. That all changes when he is summoned by the Great Deku Tree, which watches over all life in the forest. After procuring a sword, a shield, and a fairy and breaking the tree of an evil curse, it tells him about the Triforce, a magical object whose bearer has unimaginable Power, Courage, and Wisdom. Dark forces are attempting to procure the Triforce, and so the most logical solution is to send a young boy who’s never left his forest to stop them. So, Link embarks on an epic quest involving the fair Princess Zelda, the evil Ganondorf, and a magic ocarina that can, among other things, send him back and forth through time.
That was the basic summary for the original game, and nothing’s changed here. The Zelda formula has remained constant throughout the series—you go through a dungeon, solve some puzzles, get a new item to help you solve more puzzles, fight a boss, talk to some characters, get the sacred object you’re looking for, and repeat. Veterans won’t find anything new or changed in the way of dungeon layouts, object placements, character development, or story. So, if you played the original, you’ll instantly know your way around Kokiri Village, Hyrule Castle Town, and of course, the much-maligned Water Temple.
What has changed is that the game’s graphics have been updated to modern standards for new hardware, while still being true to the vision of the original game. With the added polygons, Link’s character model looks less abstract and more in line with the concept art that went along with the original game. Textures are at a much higher resolution, and objects that should be round actually are this time, but the ‘mystical’ feeling that always pervaded Hyrule remains. This is all aided by the near-silky-smooth framerate, which makes the game world flow much better than it did on the N64. However, hills, some buildings, and certain other key structures do look a little blocky still, and the action still slows down once in a while when there are lots of enemies and breakable objects being destroyed at once. All in all, though, the game looks stunning.
As opposed to 2D images, shop backgrounds are now fully rendered.
Said mystical feeling is magnified by the 3D. If there was ever a poster-child for the tech in the 3DS’ top screen, this is it. There is a great sense of depth in this game world—when you fall from a high height, there is a palpable sense of vertigo as the inevitable pain rushes toward you. Rain in certain cutscenes made me instinctively blink as it jumped out of the screen, as if I was going to get splashed in the face. Of course, the basic thrill of dashing around Hyrule Field on your steed, Epona, is magnified when you can see her and Link dashing far off into the distance.
Aside from the graphics, most other additions and changes are more of the ‘subtle’ variety. As opposed to the original game, where you had to pause, scroll over to a required item, assign it to a button, then unpause, inventory use in Ocarina 3D is much more streamlined. Simply tap ‘Items’ or ‘Gear’ on the lower screen, tap the item, then assign it to a button. You have one more ‘quick item’ slot in this game than the original’s three, as you can assign things to the ‘X’ and ‘Y’ buttons, as well as two virtual buttons on the touch-screen. In an appreciated touch, the ocarina (one of the most-used items in the game) doesn’t take up one of the slots, instead occupying its own permanent space in the lower-left of the touch-screen. You can also view the notes to your songs while holding the instrument now, eliminating even more of the original’s annoying menu hopping. The 3DS’ motion-sensing capabilities are put to good use, too. Any item that sends you into first-person mode, like the slingshot, boomerang, or hookshot, can now be aimed either with the Circle Pad or by physically moving the system around. I found the former to be much quicker and more fun, using the latter only for finer adjustments.
Hello, Water Temple, my old frienemy.
Content-wise, the only real addition to the package is the ability to replay any bosses you’ve defeated. By sleeping in Link’s bed in Kokiri Village, you can relive your fights against Queen Gohma, King Dodongo, Dark Link, and all of the others. If you beat them all again by this method, you unlock ‘Boss Rush’ mode, in which you can attempt to beat all of them in a single life—a worthy challenge, to be sure, but nothing worth buying the game over. Also included is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest, a bonus first included in the GameCube port of the original N64 game. This is essentially ‘Hard mode.’ Master Quest is the same game, but the world has been flipped horizontally, and dungeon layouts and puzzles have been changed to be significantly more challenging. Master Quest benefits from the same graphical updates and other tweaks as the main game.
Unfortunately, for as many enhancements as have been made to the game, some core features that could have done with an update were either left as-is or made worse. There hasn’t been much of an update from an aural perspective, for instance. While Link’s yelps and sword swipes come in clearer this time, and the tunes are still great, the audio is still in a computer-generated MIDI format. This was understandable in 1998, as this file type doesn’t take up much space and the game was limited to a 32-megabyte Nintendo 64 cartridge. The 3DS’ cartridges are a gigabyte, at the minimum, and with the fantastic graphical update, the decade-plus-old sound sticks out like a bombed dodongo. It would have sounded amazing if all of the ocarina’s songs were recorded on an actual ocarina. Hearing Epona’s Song in all its fully-orchestrated glory would have brought a tear to my eye.
You look very... *puts on sunglasses*... Shiek. (YEEEEEAAH!)
In addition, there’s Navi the fairy. To anyone who’s ever played the original, I don’t think I need to say more. Honestly, I think Link should have been ecstatic that he was the only one without a fairy, as she still yells ‘Hey! Listen!’ every thirty seconds. If you actually do press her touch-screen button to listen, she either has something completely irrelevant to say, or she’s saying you must go to Kakariko Village when you’re already in Kakariko Village. In fact, she’s even worse in this version of the game. Once in a while, she’ll offer you a hint movie that shows little snippets of what you need to do. Now, I haven’t had as much issue with that one as other critics, as the first time I was presented with a video was over halfway through the game. What did annoy me even more was that, if I was in the middle of a lengthy play session, I would pause the action to see what she had to say, only to have her tell me I should take a break. I can't stand when a game tells you to stop playing itself.
If you’re concerned about how much bang you get for your buck here, let me break it down. If you haven’t played it before, the main game can easily take at least forty hours to beat, and even then you’ll likely still have a fair amount of sidequests to complete. There are dozens of Gold Skulltulas to find and defeat, and you get some nifty prizes for killing milestone numbers of them. You can become a travelling mask salesman, go for the top prize in all manner of minigames, and scour the world for every last life-extending Piece of Heart. Boss Rush mode will probably add another couple of hours. Then there’s Master Quest, which will take you at least as long again. All told, I can easily see new players getting a hundred hours out of this package.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D is the first game that I honestly feel justifies owning a 3DS. The system has some other great titles, but Zelda is the first to really hammer home just how much the capabilities of this new system can add to a game. Beautiful graphics, effective motion control, and touch-screen use that eliminates a lot of monotony, all layered on top of an already top-of-the-class game. Even if you’ve already beaten it ten times, I would still recommend Ocarina 3D because it is easily the definitive version of the game. Despite a few issues like the odd framerate hitch and music quality that should have been upgraded, this game has done the improbable and exemplified the benefits that a 3D world can bring to video gaming—twice.
Since its arcade debut in 1999, the Virtua Tennis series has been the go-to game for an experience with the wackier side of tennis. The series has been defined by its inclusion of power shots and crazy training minigames while retaining the more solid mechanics found in other, more simulation-esque tennis games. Virtua Tennis 4 strikes that same balance of simulated absurdity.
Even on the Wii, SEGA’s Virtua Tennis 4 definitely doesn’t skimp on the features. Arcade, Exhibition, Practice, Party, Motion Play, and Online Modes offer plenty of action to keep you on the court, but the meat lies in the World Tour mode. You’ll go through what we’ll call a passable character creation sequence. Options seem pretty sparse, and it can be hard to see any real difference between each alteration. In the end, I think my character ended up looking like me… if I happened to be a generic polygonal brunette man with glasses and shorts that are just a bit too short (or too long, I suppose). Yeah, that sounds about right.
Upon completing your digital counterpart, you’ll be placed on a map of sorts. This is the central hub for the entire goings on of the Virtual Tennis world. You’ve got what amounts to a deck of cards that dictates your movement options. At any given point, you’ll have a set of three cards with a number from one to four which indicates your move choices for that day. There’s a fair bit of strategy involved here as, if you pass a spot, there’s no going back any time soon. Events, training, publicity opportunities, and resorts are all given tokens on the map that you can only reach if you posses a card with the correct number of spaces, similar to a board game. Events, training, and publicity drain your Condition gauge, while resorts and hotels refill it. You’ll need to be at peak condition when tournaments come around otherwise you’ll end up messing up your ankle and being ravaged by Raphael Nadal in the final round (true story).
Over the course of your World Tour, you’ll have a set number of days to travel to each major tournament. The scheduling and qualification for the major tournaments was a bit surprising in some ways. You’re given a set number of days to reach the tournament, as well as a required level of fame to participate. I found that you’ve got a ton of time to get there and not enough opportunity for fame. Stopping for publicity and winning singles/doubles matches along the way add to your rating. Unlike the scheduling, however, there are moments where I felt that it wasn’t possible to achieve the level of fame required to participate. The final tournament in each Season of the tour (there are 4, by the way) will drop you into a “loser's bracket”, so to speak, in the event that you failed to qualify. You’ll still have a chance at the finals, but it’s a lot tougher. Every match lowers your condition meter so by the end of the tournament you’ll end up in pretty bad shape.
You’ll be participating in an array of diverse training minigames to build up your character. Things like Wall Matches where you hit switches to block your opponent's shot, Wind Matches where you have to maintain a volley with ridiculously high winds, or my personal favorite where you have to collect just hatched baby chicks and shield them from incoming tennis balls. Yeah, it’s pretty special. You’ll increase your character's proficiency in a handful of areas as you progress through your World Tour: Stroke, Defense, Tactical, Net-play, and Condition. As you increase these skills, you’ll gain access to new play styles that can be purchased and trained in. The benefits of each play style each differ slightly but it all boils down to the same thing. Your place style will determine your power shot and what you have to do to power it up. My style of choice for the majority of my time was Hard Hitter. My focus was on charging shots to force my opponent behind the base line. Each charged shot poured in to my power shot. There’s little more satisfying than using charged shots to keep distance, finally letting your net-play focused foe get in close, then unleashing your power shot when they least expect it.
When I first got a hold of my copy of Virtua Tennis 4, I was pretty excited to see the “Compatible With Wii Motion Plus” emblem emblazoned on the bottom. Motion Plus launched without causing much of a stir and, as a die-hard Wii hopeful, I’ve been looking for a game that shows just how engrossing motion gaming can be (by the way, I’m still looking). Needless to say, I was a bit disheartened to find that the only motion control to be found in the entire game is in the “Motion Play” mode. Motion Play switches to a first person camera and only asks that you swing the racket at the appropriate time. To be blunt: it’s not fun. Much like MLB 11: The Show’s Move support, Motion Play is just a tacked-on feature which enables them to put the Motion Plus emblem on the box. This, I must say, is the biggest disappointment. “Tennis has never been better with Wii motion plus," sure.
As for the rest of the game, you’ll be playing with the Wiimote on its side. The 1 and 2 buttons are your two shot types, and the D-Pad moves your character. Despite my initial displeasure with this layout, it’s actually pretty solid. In some ways, it reminded me of Mario Tennis on the N64, only there are no thrills, just basic, classic tennis control. So despite the fact that I was irreparably let down by this it was probably a good decision.
The multiplayer in Virtua Tennis 4’s Wii iteration could conservatively be considered a ghost town. While you wait for the game’s matchmaking to do its job, you’ll be tasked with playing through the arcade mode. With a few hours spent playing against the AI, I successfully connected with one player. The online’s state of complete desertion isn’t the fault of the developers, of course, but it’s an issue nonetheless. The one set that I did manage to play was fairly smooth and provided a much greater challenge than the game’s AI provides.
Judging the game’s visuals comes with a bit of a stigma: it’s a Wii game. I hate it, but every statement regarding Virtua Tennis 4’s graphical fidelity must be qualified with 'for a Wii game'. That being said, it is one of the better looking Wii games I’ve seen. Character models contain a good deal of detail and the courts you’ll be playing on look quite nice. Beyond just looking good, however, the game is smooth as silk. I haven’t encountered any glitches, freezes, tearing, or graphical hiccups of any kind.
There’s a lot of game here; the single player modes alone are ripe for replay. The way the World Tour is structured, you’ll finish up your first run through and want to jump right back in and do it again and, once you get adjusted to the higher difficulty levels, Arcade mode can be just as rewarding. More of that same satisfying gameplay can be found online, but only if you’re fortunate enough to find a match or have friends. It’s nice to see a multiplatform title perform well on the Wii. Too often, they’re shoved out the door and dismissed as “the requisite Wii version.” SEGA seems to have put a good deal of work into making sure the Wii version of Virtua Tennis 4 could stand up alongside its HD brethren and, for the most part, they’ve succeeded.
Action RPGs exist for this very reason: They're engineered to satisfy your id. You slash and slice your way through thousands of enemies on your way to the loot at the end of the tunnel. You're overly powerful, unable to be taken down by armies of soldiers, spiders, or demons. You fulfill all sorts of power fantasies this way, and only fulfill more and more as your characters level up. So, really, Dungeon Siege 3's measure of success is whether or not it is capable of pleasing your id.
So, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to go ahead and ask my id how it enjoyed the dozen or so hours it spent in the Kingdom of Ehb. He's prone to mood swings and occasionally contradictory opinions, so hang with me.
Here goes. How you doing in there, buddy? Glad you could show up without me drinking large amounts of alcohol first. How's Ehb treating you?
I love it here, man! There's tons of dudes to kill, tons of treasure and armor and weapons to steal. People don't even get mad when I break all their stuff. It's awesome! They keep throwing thousands of enemies at me, and I keep taking them out! It's the best!
Do you have any issues with the game? How do you feel about the lackluster story? What little there is doesn't amount to much more than a basic revenge quest with no real choice in where your character will take the story. Don't you think that's a little bit of an outdated structure in a Western RPG?
Man, who cares? Instant gratification is what it's all about. Get a quest, go kill some demons, get their loot, come back, get some experience, and get more loot. Dungeon Siege 3 doesn't need any of this immersion business. Stuff, my friend, stuff!
Well, for starters, the dialog trees are the worst. I don't care about all your problems, widow who's giving me a quest. All I want to know is how to get to where the bandit that killed your husband is so I can kill him and take all his gear.
But you get experience from those people! Have some respect.
Nope. We don't need every single bit of information about whatever little town we're in, but even if we did, the horrible voice acting makes it nearly unbearable to listen to. Even with that background info, the total lack of a map or real objective markers makes it awfully difficult to find my way to the loot. More often than not, more time was spent wandering around looking for the right path, than actual combat time.
It gets rather frustrating when, after wandering down a long path for a while, you get turned away by a monster that's far too tough for you to take down, or worse, finding out that you can't go down that path until later in the story. Sure, if you wait long enough a little glowing path will appear briefly, but why not give that to us from the start?"
The leveling system seems quite stripped down. Each of the four characters only has nine abilities to choose from, which are upgradable each level through one of two enhancement choices. On top of that, they've all got ten passive skills to upgrade as they progress. It's very streamlined and isn't for those looking to make each character their own through heavy amounts of min/maxing and stat manipulation.
I'm your id, dude. I don't like thinking about all that math or doing research on character builds or any of that garbage. I'm repeating myself, but I just wanna kill everything. Restricting your skill choices may be seen as a poor choice for more high-minded individuals, but when one simply wants to go out and use skills, eliminating the guesswork of more complex skill trees is the way to go. Learning to summon a fire wolf is bad ass, and Dungeon Siege 3 lets you do that, upgrade its health, and unleash it upon unsuspecting bandits without having to worry about getting a bunch of arbitrary prerequisite skills. There's very few things cooler than fire wolves.
To make matters worse, other player's characters can't even come into our world! They simply have to take over a prefabricated AI companion, using all the stats that we bestowed on them. What's the point of having four-player co-op in an action RPG if you can't steal the loot from another player's world? It's an unforgivable offense which other games in the genre fixed years ago.
It sounds like my Id's enjoyment of the plentiful loot and monsters was matched by his dislike of the measures required to bring you to said loot and monsters. I couldn't agree more: If you're looking to satisfy the most primal of urges, you could do worse than Dungeon Siege 3. It's unapologetically simple, revels in throwing huge amounts of collectibles at the player, and lets you sift through the mess it creates. It's just a shame the co-op isn't better implemented -- without a compelling multiplayer component, Dungeon Siege 3 lags behind its role-playing competitors.
The shooter market is definitely a saturated one, rife with derivative titles that rarely buck any trends. But every so often, a title comes along that does things a little bit differently. F.E.A.R. 3 is one such game. A horror and gore-inspired romp, F.E.A.R. 3 approaches the conventions of first-person shooters from a different perspective and successfully mixes together familiar gameplay elements with a unique and authentically chilling setting. F.E.A.R. 3 isn't without its problems, and these problems stop it from being a top echelon shooter. Still, its tendency to go off the beaten path is largely successful and will appeal to shooter fans and horror aficionados alike.
In F.E.A.R. 3, gamers are placed in the role of the genetically-enhanced Point Man, the protagonist from the original F.E.A.R. As you may remember from the end of F.E.A.R. 2, the mysterious female foil Alma forces herself upon that game's playable character -- Becket -- and becomes pregnant with his child. Alma is an evil psychic dynamo manipulated by Armacham, the same company responsible for Point Man's genetic enhancement, but her powers far outweigh his own. Thus, stopping Alma from having this kid is the name of the game in F.E.A.R. 3. Because after all, if Alma is so powerful, who knows what that kid is capable of?
Stopping Alma's pregnancy will be no easy task for Point Man, especially because he's accompanied continuously by the apparition of fellow Project Origin prototype Paxton Fettel, another character fans of the series will be familiar with. One of F.E.A.R. 3's great strengths is that you can actually play as Fettel through any level that Point Man already beaten, which gives a completely different feel for getting through the main campaign.
While Point Man is your typical gun-toting badass, Fettel is able to possess enemy soldiers and generally cause an insane amount of havoc. Better yet, you can play the campaign together with a friend locally or online, utilizing both characters' strengths simultaneously.
In terms of aesthetics, F.E.A.R. 3 provides passable graphics that look slightly dated but still get the job done. And the game runs fairly smoothly, with the exception of some stuttering when the game is loading and saving mid-play. Regardless, you won't mistake F.E.A.R. 3 for a top tier shooter in terms of its looks. On the other hand, F.E.A.R. 3 is a sonically appealing game. The voice-acting is at times over the top, but the sound effects and music add greatly to the scary feel of the game. There's audio nuance everywhere.
Mechanically, F.E.A.R. 3 will feel familiar to fans of the FPS genre. Your characters will have access to a number of firearms, explosives and more. Point Man and Fettel can also use their own psychic powers, primarily in the form of time slow-down and enemy possession respectively. The combination of the conventional and the supernatural isn't revolutionary by any stretch of the imagination, but it works well in F.E.A.R. 3. And though the stages are generally linear, there's reason for ancillary exploration, mostly to take in the sheer amount of ambiance present on most levels (not to mention to find collectibles).
If I have one major complaint about F.E.A.R. 3's core gameplay, it's in terms of grenade throwing. It's hard to use grenades in the game with any modicum of accuracy. Chucking grenades way over the intended target is more likely to happen than the perfect toss. Additionally, the AI glitched out on me once in a while, not reacting to my presence when I was clearly in view. None of this breaks the experience, but it certainly hampers it unnecessarily.
But there's good news for gamers who are looking for more than a campaign. F.E.A.R. 3's greatest strength rests in its multiplayer offering. This is no typical multiplayer game, and it shows from the get-go.
F.E.A.R. 3's four modes each only allow a maximum of four players at a time, greatly focusing the experience while giving gamers something different and fresh. Each mode has its own unique maps with no crossover between modes, and each mode will appeal to different tasks you want to complete.
But my favorite two multiplayer modes are F**king Run and Soul Survivor. Both are team-based games with a twist. In F**king Run, you and your team have to run away from an ever-incoming cloud of smoke while dodging and fighting enemies. With little room for error and no time to stop, you have to plow through obstacles while ensuring that the smoke never catches up with any member of your team. On the flipside, Soul Survivor is a unique mode where one of the four gamers is randomly made into a ghost that can possess other players. In the time allotted, the goal here is to turn the other three human members of the team into the undead before time runs out.
Everything in F.E.A.R. 3 is wrapped-up into an overarching score system that keeps track of your progress in single player, co-op and online. Points are mostly earned in single player and co-op by completing certain tasks -- menial, difficult and everywhere in between. So you may earn 1,000 points for using cover for 100 seconds, while 5,000 points can be earned for killing 10 enemies in a row without taking any damage. When carried over to the points you're earning online, your profile will be leveled-up, unlocking new perks and skills for you to use no matter where you're playing, whether in the realm of single or multiplayer.
This feeling of progression kept me locked-in to the experience. I wanted to play more, I wanted to play better, and I wanted to see and do everything I could in the game. I found this aspect of the game somewhat addicting. The fact that the game separates how, when and where you earned your points for you to examine later simply gives you more of a reason to come back for more. Trying to beat high scores in single player and co-op can be challenging, but rewarding, and the more you play multiplayer, the more points you'll earn towards making your character stronger and more viable in all of F.E.A.R. 3's modes.
Deadliest Warrior Legends review: A stab, crush and cut above
Much like its predecessor, Deadliest Warrior: Legends is peppered with fleeting, unexpected delights. It also contains a shocker of its own; that the original title wasn't just a qualitative anomaly. The series' second coming is full of so many inspired, innovative improvements over the surprisingly solid original, you'll temporarily forget that it's based around an anachronistic bloodsport that's far too ridiculous to exist, even virtually.
Fights in Deadliest Warrior: Legends move along just as expeditiously as they did in the first installment, with most matches lasting half a minute or so, and campaigns lasting no longer than 20 minutes. The sequel adheres to the philosophy of similarly swift fighter Bushido Blade, peeling away the fighters' life gauges and requiring players to keep track of their own health -- a task made much easier with visual cues, like bloody stumps where your arms used to be.
Combat has been spiced up with the addition of a few new expert-level moves, including feint attacks that could trick your opponent into briefly opening their defenses, and pushes, which can chuck your foe into the nearest bottomless pit. Players can also grab one another, opening up a rock-paper-scissors-esque duel: The attacker chooses to attack high (instant kill), medium (broken arm) or low (broken leg), while the defender gets a chance to guess his attack and attempt to cancel it out.
These new features add a lot more strategy to the formula, giving Legends the intellectual edge over its predecessor. They allow for a wider variety of murder, accommodate for varying levels of player expertise and, most notably, cut down on one-shot instant kills. Though, yes, those still happen. And, yes, they're still pretty satisfying.
It's a brilliant mash-up of diametrically opposed genres. The interplay between large-scale warfare and one-on-one combat works surprisingly well. You can't claim victory without proficiency in both gametypes, though in most matches a keen strategic mind is going to win out. Much like in regular Risk, it's hard to mount a comeback over a dominating player; but that just makes your doomed final stand in your home castle all the more exciting.
Deadliest Warrior: Legends gets the important stuff right, and the unimportant stuff so wrong that it very nearly becomes right again. Each fighter has one intro animation, victory animation and outro animation, resulting in three lines of horrendously written dialogue a piece. It's so campy, though, that it's almost endearing. If there's a point where Vlad the Impaler's classic endgame bon mot ("Bloody ... pathetic!") ceases to be hilarious, I did not reach it.
And then there's the occasional instances where fighters execute some maneuver which defies physics and logic entirely. Fighters are able to push, even if they're currently sans arms. Characters wearing full metal greaves can still get their knees hyperextended by what could only be described as the strongest punch in the history of punching. Between these blemishes and the inimitable joy of cutting a person's entire body off, every single fight is certain to elicit squeals of joy.
Also, though the game's other online multiplayer components have been expanded with the addition of a tournament mode and "Skirmish" modes (which let you take two to four fighters into a relay battle), the poor matchmaking from the original hasn't improved. There's no option to change your arena, character or loadout between online fights; you have to drop all the way back to the multiplayer menu and start a new match from scratch. For a game that lends itself to brief, repeated fights, a momentum-stopper like this is a huge misstep.
Ms. 'Splosion Man review: Sweet science
Ms. 'Splosion Man takes everything that was good about the original 'Splosion Man and manically runs with it. Like many platformers, the goal every level is simply to reach the end, triple-jumping past obstacles and solving puzzles along the way. The obstacles remain essentially the same – acid, spikes, blades, crushers, etc. – though the puzzle elements have been greatly expanded for 'Splosion Man's significant other.
The sheer number of additions to the (scientific) formula is dizzying. Moving platforms are back, as are the jump-boosting and enemy-blasting barrels. Added to the mix are rocket cars, zip lines, jet engines, cannons, trampolines and much more. One of my favorite new items is a background panel that instantly recharges Ms. 'Splosion Man's 'splosions.
These resplodinators (as I have charmingly named them) can fill entire rooms and are often suspended over acid and dotted with any number of death-inducers. Stop jumping, and Ms. 'Splosion Man will fall to her death. Jump too much, and she slams face first into an electric barrier.
It's this demented, but precise choreography that lends to the science of it all. The level design, while brutal, is meticulous and calculated, and the goal is always clear. Death, like a failed experiment, provides valuable data for the next run, allowing players to see the action that will cause the next reaction needed to progress.
One mistake in these carefully choreographed sequences, and it's instant death. Thankfully respawns are also instant. Fail too many times, and players are offered the opportunity to skip to the next checkpoint. Be warned, however, that doing so imparts a horrible curse (which I won't spoil here). Furthermore, the especially difficult levels, which are highlighted in red, are entirely optional.
All of these mechanics carry over into Ms 'Splosion Man's multiplayer mode. Multiplayer has an entirely separate campaign – and a separate ending – that requires both cooperation and precision timing. As in the original 'Splosion Man, placing your digital life in another player's hands is both nerve-racking and rewarding. Deliberately allowing your partner to die ... well, that has its own rewards too.
One second, she's aping dance moves from Beyonce's "Single Ladies," then she's up on her tippy-toes like a ballerina. Next, she's doing "the Carlton dance" or gabbing on a cell phone. She's also much more talkative than 'Splosion Man, singing any number of girl-power pop ballads or quoting films – everything from "Like a Virgin" to "Nobody puts Baby in a corner."
It's true that her comments are mind-bogglingly single-faceted, but they're too over-the-top to be offensive. She is, in effect, the feminine opposite to 'Splosion Man's macho, meat-headed bravado.
It's very clear that Twisted Pixel put a lot of love into Ms. 'Splosion Man. It would have been easy to cobble together fifty new levels for the original 'Splosion Man, put a bow on his head and call it a day. Instead, however, Twisted Pixel went above and beyond to produce something better. Stuffed with new mechanics, meticulous level design and what I believe (with some confidence) to be the best ending of all time, Ms. 'Splosion Man excels over its predecessor in every way.
Lucha Fury is a terrible beat-'em up. That a terrible beat-'em-up can even exist in 2011 is almost inscrutable. The beat-'em-up is among the most heavily populated video game genres, replete with example after example of how to make an exceptionally fun game about walking around and punching bad guys into blinking submission. For examples, see: Double Dragon, Final Fight, Bad Dudes, Streets of Rage, Final Fight, River City Ransom, Golden Axe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II, Final Fight, X-Men: The Arcade Game, The Simpsons, Final Fight, Castle Crashers, The Warriors, Final Fight, and so on and so forth.
Lucha Fury shows no reverence to these classics of the genre; it barely even seems aware of them. Imagine a game that makes every rookie mistake a beat-'em-up can make--lousy combat, braindead enemies, uninteresting characters, clunky cooperative play, miserable music--and then stop imagining it. Lucha Fury is all of that, and some other nonsense you wouldn't even normally think of.
Perhaps the developers at Punchers Impact were just so enamored with their concept of wacky luchadores beating up other wacky luchadores that nobody stopped to think about why they were doing any of this. The sheer allure of colorfully silly men and women in ludicrous wrestling masks running around and punching each other was more than enough to set this whole thing in motion. Too bad it wasn't enough to actually create an even remotely enjoyable game.
Lucha Fury grates right from the get-go, with a nonsensical opening cutscene that gives way to a combat system that immediately informs you that you've made a terrible purchase. Controls are sluggish, unresponsive, and further hobbled by sometimes glitchy animations that don't quite hit their mark. Not an issue, mind you, given that enemies are morons. The default dumbasses literally stand still and flail their arms at you. That's their on-purpose default attack. After that, yes, things become slightly more challenging, but it's usually easy enough to clear wide swaths of bad guys just by wandering up and hammering on the X button.
There is an upgradable combo system in the game, but its purpose is elusive. With the exception of a few enemies who are best dispatched via a grapple attack or two, there are few reasons to ever worry about any of the extra moves. More often, you'll be too busy taking your hands off the attack buttons to jiggle the right control stick when you're stunned. Yes, you can't recover from a heavy attack unless you flail the right stick for several seconds. That's precisely as awkward and unnecessary as it sounds.
Some beat-'em-ups can suffer troubled fighting mechanics if they offer up enough personality, or, at the very least, a few memorable boss fights. Lucha Fury has none of these things. There is a story of some fashion, and the characters are presumed to have personalities, but you will care none at all about these things. Despite colorful appearances and misshapen forms designed for maximum wacky factor, the on-screen action offers a shocking dearth of excitement. The bosses occasionally offer up a creative design or two, but the fights range between "over in a couple of seconds" and "laboriously long and drawn out."
You can't even play Lucha Fury with your friends online. Co-op play is limited to offline, and drop-in/drop-out play simply doesn't exist. If you're the sort to force your friends to suffer through terrible games alongside you, you'll have to do it in the same space, and they won't be able to leave the game. Unless they just get up and leave, I guess.
It's all quite a shame, because Punchers Impact at least made a game that looks pretty good. The graphics are sharp, bright, and full of nifty cartoonish scenery. Still, good graphics on an abysmal game are little more than a terrible waste. It's like painting a killer racing stripe on a rusted over Corvair... that's on fire.
Maybe as some kind of postmodern commentary on the nostalgia we, the longtime players of video games, hold for the admittedly simplistic and sometimes overly revered beat-'em-up genre, Lucha Fury is an effective tool. I know it certainly made me question whether I had simply been viewing these games through rose-colored glasses all these years, and that in truth, all beat-'em-ups are really this terrible. Then I went and played Final Fight again, and was reassured that no, old beat-'em-ups are fine. It's just Lucha Fury that's miserable garbage.
Lucha Fury is a terrible beat-'em up. That a terrible beat-'em-up can even exist in 2011 is almost inscrutable. The beat-'em-up is among the most heavily populated video game genres, replete with example after example of how to make an exceptionally fun game about walking around and punching bad guys into blinking submission. For examples, see: Double Dragon, Final Fight, Bad Dudes, Streets of Rage, Final Fight, River City Ransom, Golden Axe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II, Final Fight, X-Men: The Arcade Game, The Simpsons, Final Fight, Castle Crashers, The Warriors, Final Fight, and so on and so forth.
Lucha Fury shows no reverence to these classics of the genre; it barely even seems aware of them. Imagine a game that makes every rookie mistake a beat-'em-up can make--lousy combat, braindead enemies, uninteresting characters, clunky cooperative play, miserable music--and then stop imagining it. Lucha Fury is all of that, and some other nonsense you wouldn't even normally think of.
Perhaps the developers at Punchers Impact were just so enamored with their concept of wacky luchadores beating up other wacky luchadores that nobody stopped to think about why they were doing any of this. The sheer allure of colorfully silly men and women in ludicrous wrestling masks running around and punching each other was more than enough to set this whole thing in motion. Too bad it wasn't enough to actually create an even remotely enjoyable game.
Lucha Fury grates right from the get-go, with a nonsensical opening cutscene that gives way to a combat system that immediately informs you that you've made a terrible purchase. Controls are sluggish, unresponsive, and further hobbled by sometimes glitchy animations that don't quite hit their mark. Not an issue, mind you, given that enemies are morons. The default dumbasses literally stand still and flail their arms at you. That's their on-purpose default attack. After that, yes, things become slightly more challenging, but it's usually easy enough to clear wide swaths of bad guys just by wandering up and hammering on the X button.
There is an upgradable combo system in the game, but its purpose is elusive. With the exception of a few enemies who are best dispatched via a grapple attack or two, there are few reasons to ever worry about any of the extra moves. More often, you'll be too busy taking your hands off the attack buttons to jiggle the right control stick when you're stunned. Yes, you can't recover from a heavy attack unless you flail the right stick for several seconds. That's precisely as awkward and unnecessary as it sounds.
Some beat-'em-ups can suffer troubled fighting mechanics if they offer up enough personality, or, at the very least, a few memorable boss fights. Lucha Fury has none of these things. There is a story of some fashion, and the characters are presumed to have personalities, but you will care none at all about these things. Despite colorful appearances and misshapen forms designed for maximum wacky factor, the on-screen action offers a shocking dearth of excitement. The bosses occasionally offer up a creative design or two, but the fights range between "over in a couple of seconds" and "laboriously long and drawn out."
You can't even play Lucha Fury with your friends online. Co-op play is limited to offline, and drop-in/drop-out play simply doesn't exist. If you're the sort to force your friends to suffer through terrible games alongside you, you'll have to do it in the same space, and they won't be able to leave the game. Unless they just get up and leave, I guess.
It's all quite a shame, because Punchers Impact at least made a game that looks pretty good. The graphics are sharp, bright, and full of nifty cartoonish scenery. Still, good graphics on an abysmal game are little more than a terrible waste. It's like painting a killer racing stripe on a rusted over Corvair... that's on fire.
Maybe as some kind of postmodern commentary on the nostalgia we, the longtime players of video games, hold for the admittedly simplistic and sometimes overly revered beat-'em-up genre, Lucha Fury is an effective tool. I know it certainly made me question whether I had simply been viewing these games through rose-colored glasses all these years, and that in truth, all beat-'em-ups are really this terrible. Then I went and played Final Fight again, and was reassured that no, old beat-'em-ups are fine. It's just Lucha Fury that's miserable garbage.
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