A full eight years since the release of the original Dead To Rights, and the franchise is unleashed for the first time on current gen consoles. Though the original promised much, in reality it was certainly nothing to write home about. If you did happen to play that 2002 release, however, you may be pleasantly surprised by this latest version.
The plot is akin to something you’d read in a pulp fiction crime novel, or see in a million and one action games, with revenge being the name of the game as evil underworld crime bosses wreak havoc on an unsuspecting city. And as is so often the way with videogames, you can simply take it or leave it. Skipping every single cut scene won’t make a blind bit of difference to the gameplay or your opinion of the game. In fact, much like a pulp fiction novel, you could pay attention to every minor detail within the story and still forget what the hell it was all about two weeks after finishing it. But that’s beside the point. The great thing about throwaway, trashy novels is that while you’re deep within their pages they’re a guilty pleasure, like eating a six-pack of crisps in bed for breakfast, only without all the nasty, get-out-of-bed-right-now crumbs. And so it is with Dead To Rights: Retribution. Once it’s over, all you’ll really remember is that you played a cop by the name of Jack Slate, out to avenge the death of his father and ably assisted by your dog-wolf, Shadow. And we’re not talking Turner And Hooch dog/cop buddy story, this is more like 80’s B-movie Maniac Cop meets 80’s rabid dog movie Cujo buddy story, because Jack Slate’s style of police work is more akin to Brazilian death squad tactics and his dog enjoys nothing more than ripping out the throats of his enemies. Meaning DTR: Retribution is a violent, blood soaked, fist-fest of a game that seems more interested in capturing the bone breaking, cartilage crushing pain of Jack’s enemies in slow motion than anything else.You kick things off playing as Shadow, working hard to protect your wounded master from the low level thugs surrounding him. Immediately, the level of eye watering violence hits home as Shadow tears off the gonads of each gun-toting thug and then mauls his bleeding body like a normal dog worries a slipper. Though this sounds like a sweet thing it’s nowhere near as compelling as Jack’s selection of grievous finishing moves. But no worries,
The game revolves around a valiant, mature-looking male hero called Nier who is struggling to survive in a tough world with his only daughter Yonah. The situation got worse when Yonah became a victim of the so-called Black Scrawl virus. The infection started to spread rapidly and pretty soon Nier heads on a desperate quest to find a cure for his daughter. It may not be the best story ever written, but at least it keeps things simple and a lot less baffling than in, say, Final Fantasy XIII. In fact, NIER maintains this kind of simplicity in almost every aspect. In all fairness, I can't say whether this approach was the wisest of decisions. Gameplay wise, you'll find that things work similarly to your average 3rd person action adventure. The main character wields a variety of melee weapons (well, mostly swords), in addition to casting a range of deadly spells. Of course, the devs. didn't hesitate to throw in one or two RPG facets to make things a bit more interesting. You slice your enemies, gather experience and level up in time. As you make progress, Nier gets more and more proficient at using weapons and magic. Eventually, he'll unlock a diversity of combos and powerful spells to dispatch numerous foes simultaneously. Sounds very straightforward, doesn't it? The biggest problem with NIER is that it aims to attract gamers with simple gameplay mechanics and rather basic story-telling. Most of the characters you meet along the way convey a wholesome easy-going manner, as each and every one of them showers you with a number of optional tasks (i.e. side-quests). True enough, these tasks are good for one thing - brining in cash and you're going to need a lot of it, if you want to buy a decent weapon. Weapons can be upgraded with special items called words, to allow for extra damage. The same upgrade system applies to magic. 
Square Enix opted to release another game this spring, following the launch of their highly anticipated tactical RPG (or whatever you wanna call it) Final Fantasy XIII. NIER was developed by Cavia, a company with a long history and a lot of console games under its belt, not the least of which is last year's Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles (Wii). By the way, just so there's no confusion, NIER is also known as NieR: Gestalt in Japan, where it was launched as an
Let’s say someone’s just given you a jack-in-the-box. He then motions for you to crank the handle, so you give it a whirl. Round and round it goes until—boom—out comes a platter with the world’s most delicious cake on it. Awesome! Before long, you want more cake, so you crank the handle again—only this time, a fist rockets out and punches you right in your cakehole. You try again. Another fist. Again. Fist. But then, finally, cake.
That’s Alpha Protocol in a nutshell. More often than not, the game rewards your efforts with a frustrating menagerie of awful design choices and glitch-ridden combat. But every once in a while, everything comes together, and you get a tiny, shimmering glimpse of what it might feel like to actually be James Bond or Jason Bourne.
Alpha Protocol casts you as wise-cracking superspy Michael Thorton. However, unlike other so-called “espionage” games where you’re not stepping into a secret agent’s shoes so much as you are taking the reins on their trigger finger, Alpha Protocol gives you complete control over Thorton’s actions. You sweet-talk potential informants, you cut deals with crafty terrorists, you seduce every pretty lady you come across. In this respect, Alpha Protocol truly succeeds. And as the game progresses, your choices shape everything from the plot to characters’ opinions of you to your stats and abilities. With this in mind, the game’s conversation system—which gives you only a few seconds to choose your responses—makes other choice-based RPGs seem stilted and awkward compared to Alpha’s tense verbal sparring matches.
Alpha Protocol’s take on the subtle art of infiltration ranges from serviceable to downright frustrating, and—wouldn’t you know it?—makes up the majority of the game. On paper, it’s a fascinating fusion of RPG and shooter tropes, but in action, the two mash together with all the grace of a high-speed car wreck. See, everything you do—from shooting to hiding behind walls—is based on behind-the-scenes dice rolls. So yeah, it may look like you squeezed off a skull-shattering headshot, but actually, you missed. Why? Math. It’s like elementary school all over again, only it makes even less sense.Worse still,
In case you're not up on all your BioShock lore, here's a quick recap: Andrew Ryan built the underwater city of Rapture to be the first true Utopia. While living there, a member of his team found a species of sea slug, which excreted a substance called ADAM that allowed instantaneous genetic modification; ADAM serves as the in-game currency that allows you to purchase Plasmids. And Plasmids allow for a wide-range of swappable abilities, such as shooting fire or ice from your fingertips, or hypnotizing foes to fight each other instead of you. To harvest and process this material, young girls were turned into mobile ADAM refining units called Little Sisters, and Big Daddies were made to protect them. And the Little Sisters needed these Big Daddy bodyguards because of the ADAM-addicted Rapture citizens (called "splicers," due to them splicing genetic modifications into their bodies) who still patrol the mostly abandoned city.BioShock 2's story, set 10 years after the events of the first game, presents a Rapture in an even greater state of decline. Andrew Ryan is no longer in charge, but the city is still filled with wandering Big Daddies, splicers, and power-hungry humans. The game retcons in a few new characters, puts you in the roll of one of the original Big Daddies, and then sets you out to reunite with the Little Sister taken from you by central antagonist Sophia Lamb. Through audio diaries, you learn that Lamb has been stealing young girls from the surface to replace the ADAM harvesters that were rescued (or harvested; either way, the ones "taken care of") in the first game. Yet despite the changes, you definitely get a strong feeling of the familiar as you make your way through the game. Not just in the look, but in the order that events unfolds. You'll find Plasmid powers in about the same sequence as the first game, and all the familiar ones have returned. Even though you're walking around in a huge metal suit with a drill for an arm, you don't actually feel like a lumbering giant -- you move like a normal, gun-toting human. The weapons are standard-fare from the first game, though modified aesthetically to fit your new Big Daddy physique. 
BioShock 2 has a big reputation to live up to. The critically acclaimed BioShock put together a stylized, provocative world; it wasn't a perfect game, but the story -- a red-herring-filled plot mixed with existentialist (and objectivist) philosophy -- turned the game into much more than a shooter; BioShock was a game that made you think. And while BioShock 2 borrows heavily from its predecessor's aesthetic and solid gameplay, it fails to provide the strong narrative that made the original so compelling.
Have a lot of spare time on your hands? If so, Silent Hunter 5: Battle of the Atlantic might be the game for you. The latest addition to Ubisoft's venerable submarine simulation franchise is so confusing and unfinished that it would be less of a hassle to join the Navy and get firsthand experience underwater than to figure out what's going on here. While the game has strong points and shows potential if you want to wait for developers and modders to (hopefully) fix the current problems, at present you have to do everything the hard way. The opening tutorial mission teaches you nothing about how to captain a sub. Key functions have been stripped from the interface in favor of clumsy commands and giving orders to the crew in person. The new morale system for crewmen is broken. And let's not forget the generous assortment of design quirks and bugs, which are joined by an obnoxious copy-protection scheme that requires you to be online at all times. There are a few glimmers of hope, but much of the time this is one of the most grueling experiences below the waves this side of Das Boot. Like its predecessors, Silent Hunter 5 is a thorough World War II simulation of life spent hiding under the waves in a German U-boat. Just about everything can be configured, so you can go for total realism or take advantage of crutches that make it easier to spot enemies, shoot torpedoes, and so forth. And it's a good thing that you can dumb everything down, because Ubisoft has made it tough on rookies. The early hours are frustrating, largely because the tutorial mission is a waste of time and the 35-page on-disc PDF manual covers virtually none of the core concepts you need to understand. It's absurd how little you're told. The tutorial sees you do nothing but sink sitting-duck cargo ships and use the map screen to plot a course, while the manual spends more space on cheesy bios of your crew ("Emil is usually very quiet and somewhat nerdy") than it does on the nuts and bolts of the sub operations necessary to get everybody home to Hitler. Even worse, the manual has been scanned at a low resolution, so you can't zoom in on maps and illustrations without them turning into blurry messes. First impressions don't get much worse than this.If you can get over this steep learning curve, you'll find a full-featured game awaiting you on the other side. You assume the role of a U-boat captain in the lengthy single-player campaign, as well as in the handful of one-off historical missions where you do things like protect the Bismarck and sail down the St. Lawrence River to attack the Canucks. Most of these historical missions are brief and flavorless, wrapping up fairly quickly after you fulfill basic objectives,
Let’s face it, for some time there it seemed like PnC adventures had gone the way of the dinosaur thanks to the first and third-person shooters becoming all the rage. But over the last few years, thanks to some great titles, we’re beginning to see more and more on the scene.
The Whispered World is one of this new breed of PnC adventure games. I first saw it what seems like ages ago way back in 2008 and am glad to see it’s finally arrived (pre-order through GamersGate for 23 April).
The rich artwork and sound show the attention to detail that was paid this title during the development phase with everything having a fine level of detail. The environments are all rich and interesting to look at and contain the necessary ambient sounds to make it more than just a painting.
That’s the thing about point-and-click adventures, they have to maintain the interest of the gamer which is difficult at times as they’re generally not what I term ’high-impact gaming.’ Adventure gamers are a savvy bunch and we need an intricate storyline, challenging puzzles with unique solutions and some eye/ear candy to make the experience well-rounded. The Whispered World has this in spades.
In the game you play Sadwick, the sad clown, who is tormented by dreams of a dark future and the end of the world. You find out that the world is in peril and you of course have to save it! Helping you along the way are a wide assortment of characters and your trusty pet Spot. I’m not really sure what he is, like a giant Play-doh slug with feelers or caterpillar. You can do certain things with him like change his shape to better suit some particular puzzles. Here’s a hint, stuff him in the open stovepipe in your trailer.
Electronic Arts has given over the Command & Conquer franchise to an always-online, MMO scheme of leveling up to unlock content, which can work in a shooter, a role-playing game, or Scientology. But it's a fundamental misreading of the appeal of real-time strategy games. The basis for an RTS is that you have a box of different toys. Each game, you choose different toys. Do you go with tanks? Infantry? Aircraft? Your choice, pitted against the other player's choice, determines how the game unfolds.
But when you start Command & Conquer 4, your choices are limited to about a fifth of the actual content. Leveling up is a slow laborious process. Expect to spend several hours fingering listlessly through the meager baseline stuff. Vanilla tank. Vanilla rocket buggy. Vanilla anti-tank soldier. Skirmishes against the A.I. and online games can inch you along that bar to the next level. The campaign is a big, fat, uninteresting experience point farm, and you're expected to play through it twice, once for each faction. You get the usual scripted guff, which is particularly frustrating when you have to play the more difficult missions at the mercy of A.I. teammates or -- even worse -- a timer. The story throws over the series' usual, B-level celebrity camp in favor of something earnest, but it doesn't work any better. It's clearly digging deep into its source material, so it's not going to make a lot of sense to folks who haven't kept up on the lore. Me, for instance. At one point, Kane says something along the lines of "when I found you people thousands of years ago, you were living in mud huts". Aside from having no idea what he was going on about, he really doesn't look that old. As near as I could tell, the story was about a one-of-a-kind Lasik procedure and some unlikely cosmetic surgery. Go figure. But, hey, what a lot of units, and upgrades, and support powers! But as you discover them, you'll get the sinking feeling that the gameplay has been compromised so as to draw out the content over 40 levels worth of unlocks. For a game built to appeal to the basic gamer instinct of unlocking stuff, it does a terrible job. Yeah, sure, I can see that I'm going to get some sort of tank called a Widow when I hit 16th level, but it might help to know why I should care. Everything is poorly explained and much of it reeks of filler.
Match-three puzzlers always used to be such dependably sensible games. Then Lumines came along and introduced pumping techno music and striking laser-show visuals to the mix, and poor old Tetris had to go for a lie down. Turba looks to add to this funky sub-genre with the twist of being able to add your own music into the mix. Turba’s method of matching blocks is one of the simpler ones we’ve encountered - at least on the surface. While you have the ability to slide blocks of two up and down their row, it’s a useful option rather than an absolute necessity. The main mechanism involves left-clicking and dragging on three or more coloured blocks of the same colour, or clicking on them individually, and then right clicking to make them disappear. This manual detonation means that you can set up enormous multi-coloured combos before pulling the trigger. Indeed, you’re actively encouraged to try and link matches in all four colours in order to get mega points. That’s the easy bit. The main challenge comes in dealing with the threat of Beat Blocks – ticking bombs that count down with the beat of the music track (more on that in a bit). When they hit zero they turn surrounding blocks black, which makes them impossible to chain. It’s imperative that you link these Beat Blocks before they explode, although this can be annoyingly tough when you only have partial control over the orientation of the surrounding blocks. There are also Silver Blocks that serve to double up your score multiplier when incorporated into combos.As mentioned, beat-matching plays a part in Turba – although it’s not as pronounced as the blurb would have you believe. The idea is that you detonate your combos in time to the music in order to receive a modest score boost, but in reality the general gameplay never seems to be quite keyed in with the music in same way as, say, Lumines manages.
A unique and well-designed entry in the "bullet hell" class of shoot-em-ups, Cave's DeathSmiles is an exciting and addicting shooter that, while incredibly fun for fans of the genre, definitely isn't for everyone.
There's a Japanese developer called Cave whom I've long adored that has very little presence outside their homeland. They're most known for arcade 2D scrolling shooting games -- but not just any shooting games: Cave specializes in the "bullet hell" subgenre, the sorts of shooters where enemies eventually start to fill the screen with multiple, multicolored barrages of deadly fire in crazy, intimidating patterns. Well-done art design, setting, and excellent music are also Cave hallmarks. Their games are considered AAA titles in the genre; it wouldn't be a stretch to call them the BioWare of 2D shooters.
I love these sorts of games because they inspire an intense emotional response. It's an amazing thrill when I'm weaving through an impenetrable-looking blanket of deadly enemy fire, charging through with your own weapon blazing, surviving a ferocious onslaught where the slightest mistake can spell doom. There's excitement when I go up against these impossible odds, and in the end, I'm rewarded with a feeling of overwhelming satisfaction when I've learned the game enough to triumph. But these titles aren't mainstream, especially here in North America. I had given up hope for DeathSmiles seeing a US release until Aksys's surprise announcement of it earlier this year -- a surprise I found very pleasant.DeathSmiles takes place in an alternate world where time seems frozen in a supernatural, early-20th-century Europe. You take control of one of several young, superpowered "angel" girls tasked with fighting wave after wave of demonic forces from the underworld. You'll fly through several short but challenging levels (each with adjustable difficulty settings), facing off against a huge boss at the end of each. The stages are very intense from beginning to end -- there is always something happening on screen, be it waves of bullets flying at you, enemies swarming in every direction, or perilous obstacles impeding your shots and movement.
Deadly Premonition arrived with no fanfare, and even fewer appearances on store shelves. In fact, not many people outside of the hardcore gaming community (and not a great deal more within it) know of its existence. Yet, this $20 horror game has been in development for years. I first heard about Deadly Premonition when it was still called Rainy Woods in 2007. However, the game is older even than that.
We knew it would be a disturbed, crazy, very silly game, and we were prepared for more than enough cheesy, ironic humor. We were ready to laugh at it, in other words. However, nobody at Destructoid was truly prepared for this game. Nobody can be prepared for it. Despite taking its cues from Silent Hill, Clock Tower, Resident Evil and, of course, Twin Peaks, Deadly Premonition manages to be completely unique. In all honesty, there is nothing like this game. Perhaps there never will be again.
If you want some "FK" in your coffee, please read on for our full review of Deadly Premonition.
Special Agent Francis York Morgan (just call him York, everybody else does) is an FBI criminal profiler with an interest in the murder of young girls. He's also got a split personality called Zach, whom he talks to frequently and openly in front of other people. Other people never question this particular quirk. York is on his way to Greenvale, where a young woman has been cut open and hung from a red tree. However, as soon as York arrives, he realizes this won't just be any other case, not least for the fact that Greenvale is crawling with undead horrors that bend over backwards and like thrusting their arms into his mouth.
When Deadly Premonition starts, you'd be forgiven for thinking it would be a derivative, po-faced survival horror that simply rips off Silent Hill or Siren. However, once the prologue has been completed and York arrives in Greenvale, the game throws a complete curveball and becomes a ludicrous pantomime of pop culture references, shamelessly contrived humor, and the kind of dialog that leaves you both scratching your head and laughing your face off. Very much like Agent York, Deadly Premonition is a game with a split personality -- equal parts atmospheric horror and farcical comedy.
Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper is the latest entry in the popular Sherlock Holmes mystery game series for the computer. Developed by the same company, Frogwares, that has designed the most recent Sherlock Holmes games, this game follows the same format of a traditional adventure game with conversation, puzzles and a compelling mystery.
The year is 1888, and London is being terrified by a serial killer who is savagely killing prostitutes. There are no witnesses to the crimes, and the police do not have any clues as to the identity of the murderer. Sherlock Holmes and his friend, Dr. Watson, are concerned and want to help with solving the crimes. They begin by visiting the police station in the area of the murders, and solicit information. Soon, they are investigating clues and questioning possible witnesses. With Holmes and Watson on the case, it is only a matter of time before the perpetrator is caught!This Sherlock Holmes Mystery adventure is similar in design to the other ones in the series, but has some changes. Players can now play in either a first-person or third-person perspective, and toggle back and forth between the two modes during the course of the game. There is also a deduction board for use in putting together clues found near the bodies, in order to formulate a theory as to the circumstances of each murder. Similarities include manipulative puzzles, and conversation dialogues. The conversations cannot be revisited, but each is saved in Sherlock’s personal case notes. There is a map for traveling, as well. I can’t remember if the map was present in the previous games, or not.The adventure begins with Sherlock and Watson visiting the police station near White Chapel, the area where the murders take place. The first tasks are “fetch and carry” errands commissioned by various characters who will only give information or objects in exchange for certain items or favors. I was struck by how silly these errands were, given the nature of the person carrying them out, but then Sherlock Holmes made a remark about having to hurt himself if he had to run any more errands, and I was amused. The rest of the game concentrated on investigating the actual crimes, and evidently these errands were to get the player used to the mechanics of the game.
Summer is just around the corner, so I guess it’s that time of year again for Hollywood to roll out another Blockbuster Superhero movie. This time it’s the sequel to Iron Man, which is probably one of the best marvel movies to date. So with this massive release just about to hit the silver screen, it comes with no surprise that a video game is out just before the film. Iron Man 2 The Video Game has a lot to make up for. The original game was awful and very repetitive. So has SEGA redeemed itself?
The game is not based around the story of the film, but rather a whole new story altogether. This tale takes place in the movie universe but it’s not rehashing the big screen version and instead is written by Invincible Iron Man scribe Matt Fraction. Samuel L. Jackson and Don Cheadle are on hand to voice their characters (Nick Fury and Rhodes ) while sadly Robert Downey Jr. isn’t voicing Tony Stark. Eric Loomis, from the animated flicks, provides the voice of Iron Man and makes for a more than suitable stand in. Other characters such as Crimson Dynamo and Black widow (Natasha Romanov) will also appear in the game.
There is only one mode in the game and that is a campaign. This is a shame as I would have liked a CO-OP mode or even a battle area like in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The campaign will take you around 4-5 hours to finish on the normal difficulty setting. Changing the difficulty up to Formidable could add a few more hours but not much. I must admit I was hoping for a longer experience playing trough the levels as Iron Man and War Machine, but such is life. Before starting each mission you will be given the choice of which character you wish to play as. But you also have the choice of researching new ammunition, weapons, and modular enhancements. And let’s not forget the choice of Iron man’s suits. Unfortunately, you can only use the one War Machine armor but then it’s not his game, is it? Once you have researched a new item you can equip it to a certain suit in the Fabrication area, this will be where you assemble your custom weapons from the research you have done.
My head almost exploded with delight when the original BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger hit store shelves last year. The game featured gorgeous, hand-drawn character sprites, amazing gameplay, and a sweet soundtrack. It also boasted one of the most complex stories that fighting games have ever seen, and plenty of unlockable content to keep gamers happy. Fortunately, that wasn't the end of the BlazBlue name, as developer ARC System Works has given us BlazBlue: Continuum Shift, a refined version of the original BlazBlue with plenty of new modes, new characters and a brand new story. Even though a good deal of content in Continuum Shift is identical to the original, there's still plenty of new BlazBlue goodness to enjoy.
If you're new to the BlazBlue scene, Continuum Shift is a one-on-one fighting game from the same developers that brought us the eccentric and wildly fun Guilty Gear franchise. The real beauty of BlazBlue, besides the incredible cast of characters, is the fighting system. It's really easy to pick up and play but it has an absolutely staggering amount of strategy to learn over time.
At its core, there are really only four attacks in BlazBlue: weak, medium, strong and Drive (or A, B, C and D, alternatively). Every character has this basic assortment of attacks, and the Drive attack is a simple way to execute a character-specific technique. Rachel, for example, uses her Drive attack to summon a gust of wind, which can push not only her through the air but also alter her special moves. Iconic hero Ragna, on the other hand, uses his Drive to absorb an opponent's health. These Drive techniques represent just one of the reasons why I love BlazBlue: the cast. The characters in this fighter are so diverse and play so differently there's always something new to learn and figure out. You must understand, I am too intimidated to master unorthodox characters like Litchi Faye-Ling or Carl Clover, but they're available to those fighting game veterans that want a challenge.
Just Add Water’s Gravity Crash is a retro-inspired dual-joystick shooter with a tinge of Sony’s “Play Create Share” genre thrown in. The shooter includes a complete level editor, allowing you to create entire levels and share them online with other players.
Gravity Crash takes a futuristic, neon spin on the retro-space shooters of old, setting you target objectives at the start of each level, and using clever level design to create a challenge. As the game’s title suggests: floaty, exaggerated physics are key to the game’s personality – but getting a feel for gravity mechanics can take a while. Gravity Crash requires finesse, rather than twitch, and it can take a while for that to sink in.
Aswell as a complete single-player campaign, Gravity Crash offers local multiplayer deathmatch and race modes, alongside a level editor and leaderboards.
The level editor. Media Molecules “Play Create Share” tagline has become a big draw for Sony. The genre, which has basically been untouched by competing platforms thus far, has become a staple-mark for Sony’s PSN community focus. With two iterations of LittleBigPlanet allowing gamers to create platform levels, and custom racing tracks on the horizon with Modnation Racers; Gravity Crash aims to fill a void by allowing players to create their own dual-stick shooter levels. The customisation options are quite powerful. Alongside the ability to create aesthetic instances on your levels, you’ll also be able to create specific mechanics. Mechanics give your levels objectives and sub-objectives. For example, on a level we created while testing out the editor, we made the objective to destroy a battery cell. However, upon the destruction of the battery cell, we created a trigger instance that raised the levels of lava on the level. Naturally, lava is dangerous, so the core idea of our level meant you had to destroy the target and then escape from the hazard. It’s a very simple example, but it shows what can be done with the level editor. The single-player campaign includes some great inspiration for creating little puzzles on your own levels. However, don’t go into Gravity Crash expecting limitless amounts of freedom. There’s enough scope to make your levels creative and original, but this is no LittleBigPlanet.
Hydro Thunder, released back in 1999 in arcades and on the SEGA Dreamcast, is a title probably many of you haven’t played or even heard of for that matter. For those of you who do know of it, well, you will know that it was pretty good powerboat arcade racer. Admittedly, this isn’t a “genre” packed full of quality titles (or many titles at all) but, hey, the point is it was a good game. Fast forward to the present day and we finally have a “sequel”. The game is called Hydro Thunder Hurricane and it is being released exclusively on Xbox Live Arcade as part of Microsoft’s “Summer of Arcade” promotion. Almost 11 years on from the original does this “sequel” manage to storm its way to the top or does it get lost in a hurricane? Read on for the full review.
A few seconds after loading up Hydro Thunder Hurricane and hearing the “announcer” shout out the title, you are made aware of the games arcade roots. Other than the aforementioned “announcer”, you also have the “cheesy” music and the easy to navigate menus, something which is almost an unofficial trademark of arcade based titles. The arcade style also crosses over to the visuals, both during actual gameplay and outside it. For the most part, the game uses bright colours (mostly primary ones) to create a welcoming, arcade feel. The in-game visuals are impressive for an XBLA title, the water in particular looks great. The boats themselves are nicely modelled but their textures could of done with some extra work. You can read the text or see the graphics on them fine in the selection menu but in-game they look rather blurred. Apart from that though, everything else has a clean, crisp look to it. Even the courses look great, each one having its own distinct personality thanks to some great visual touches. On some courses there is so much going on (planes flying by, explosions or police boats “chasing” you) yet it doesn’t seem to effect the gameplay at all, everything moves along without even a hint of slowdown.
At first glance Hydro Thunder Hurricane doesn’t seem to offer much in terms of gameplay but once you start playing the game, you realise that is not the case. The main “goal” in the game is to earn credits so you can unlock more content. The catch is though, credits are only earned if you finish in the top three. At first this can only be done on the novice level due to the boats at your disposal but once you earn enough credits to unlock the pro and expert boats the game opens up big time. Using the pro and expert boats not only earns you more credits for a top three finish but events become a lot harder too, especially the expert ones.
First, let's deal with that elephant in the room -- Dante's Inferno borrows heavily from from predecessors like God of War, and similar games in the genre. There's simply no getting around it, and even bothering to try is foolish. But if you're going to wear your influences on your sleeve, you need to show and prove yourself... do it well, or do it better. In that respect, Dante's Inferno impresses, with solid third-person action that certainly feels familiar, yet throws in enough of its own tricks to make the action feel fresh and fun from start to finish.
You'll use standard "light" and "heavy" attacks to wield Dante's scythe, a massive blade yanked from the bony hands of Death himself. The size of this weapon is evident in the gameplay -- it feels substantial with each blow you land, the weight of the weapon felt in every sweeping swing and combo. The combat is solid, unyielding, and deliberate. Compared to a recent title like Bayonetta, where the combat is fast and frantic (almost to the point of confusion), there's never a feeling of losing control when Dante's in combat.Dante also wields a Holy Cross, a ranged attack that can be used alongside his scythe. While the Cross can be used on its own to stave off enemies or clip the wings of flying enemies, it truly shines when used alongside Dante's scythe. Toss an enemy into the air and blast them with the light of the Holy Cross to keep them there. Or hop into the air and continue punishing them with your scythe before slamming them into the ground with the Holy Cross. Groundbreaking combat gameplay? Not really. But when it feels this tight, and this responsive, the "this is just like another great game" argument doesn't hold much water.It's a great thing the combat feels so good, because you'll be doing a lot of it. Yes, there's minor platforming. Sure, there are some puzzles Dante will have to work through as he makes his way down and through the circles of hell. But the focus here is most definitely on combat -- it's obvious that Visceral made this an early priority, and it shows. To keep things fresh, the game throws in upgrades via a skill tree, split into two paths -- Holy and Unholy. Progression is based on gameplay choices the player makes -- punish enemies and unlock upgrades in the unholy path; absolve them to continue on a holy path. Relics can also be equipped to augment Dante's abilities even further, which keeps the skill set feeling fresh up until the game's end.
If I were to reduce all of the things I liked about THQ’s new epic action/adventure down to one particular thing, it would be this: Darksiders is great for being a game for game’s sake. It doesn’t feel like a movie waiting to happen or an adaptation of one that has already been made. It doesn’t feel like a comic book come to life, though it was written by a well-known comic-book artist. No, it simply feels like a story meant to be played, with awesome fighting and puzzle solving components, complemented by a fun set of weapons and tools that let you traverse the game world in varied and interesting ways. Darksiders doesn’t do anything plenty of games before it haven’t done, but it puts so many of those great borrowed elements into its game experience in such a neatly designed way that it feels like you’re doing all of these things for the first time. It may be derivative, but Darksiders even does that better than most games of its kind.
What Darksider does really well is stay interesting. As you progress through the post-apocalyptic world, trying to make sense of the impenetrable story involving angels, demons, wars between Heaven and Hell and a bunch of other stuff regarding the Seventh Seal and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (don’t bother trying, at the end it all sort of gets explained, but it’s still confusing), the game continues to add more gameplay elements in the form of new pieces of equipment that let you do new things and get to new places. It’s a bit Zelda-like in overall design, because of the way logic plays in to the level design and increasing capabilities of your character, but the combat is God of War with a dash of Ninja Gaiden. In fact, the main character is the actual “God of War” from the biblical Book of Revelations; the horseman named “War,” who rides with his three compadres of the Apocalypse. Death, Famine and Pestilence (Wikipedia claims the other one is Conquest, but Pestilence is the more familiar) don’t make actual cameos in this game, but at the end of the game (minor spoiler alert) they are definitely hinted at making an appearance in a potential sequel. War is the star of this show, and as a character he’s a bit of a cipher. You’ll wonder at his inscrutable motivations through the game, and if you’re like me, wonder just what War does in his off-time. It’s probably not scrapbooking. As a character, he doesn’t give us a lot in the way of personality, but he sure looks cool.
If you're familiar with developer Traveller's Tales' previous Lego games, you might think you know what Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 is like even before you've played it--and you'd be partially right. In this game, just as in Lego Star Wars and its ilk, you (perhaps along with a friend on the same console) experience a witty and wordless rendition of a famed tale, with your favorite characters replaced by blocky Lego re-creations. Yet central elements of the previous games, such as simplistic combat and floaty platforming, have been given a secondary role in Harry's story. Now, the focus is squarely on collecting all those countless Lego bits that go flying everywhere with almost every spell you cast. You're constantly showered with currency as you solve light puzzles and manipulate practically every object you see with your versatile wand. You still need to contend with a few of the series' lingering issues (unhelpful AI, slippery platforms) and a couple of minor new ones (iffy targeting, random bugs). But the scattered flaws aren't likely to dampen the joy of playing Lego Harry Potter, particularly if you're a fan of the source material.
Of course, you'll get the most out of Lego Harry Potter if you can tell Dobby from the Dursleys. And if you're one such fan, the game will frequently have you in stitches. As you can tell from the title, this adventure covers the first four novels of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, and it does so with the same humorous bent that characterizes all of the developer's Lego games. Whether it's a Lego Hagrid screeching into Little Whinging on his motorcycle or the lovely young ladies of Beauxbatons prancing into Hogwarts, exaggerated sound effects and adorable animations make every cutscene a total delight. Lego Harry Potter takes most of its cues from the movies rather than the books, using the films' evocative musical soundtracks to great effect. The game takes certain liberties with the story for comedic effect, but these charming tweaks are in the spirit of the series and likely to elicit constant giggles. The only liberty that doesn't work out so well is a final action sequence bolted to the ending of Prisoner of Azkaban, which is super fun to play, but makes no sense within the context of the original story.
Such action sequences are rare in Lego Harry Potter, though there are still light combat sections and boss fights. You defeat Dementors by casting the Patronus Charm, fight Aragog by throwing spiders at him using Wingardium Leviosa, and even take on He Who Must Not Be Named. Most of the time, however, you're scouring the environment looking for ways to use your ever-increasing repertoire of spells. You can switch between spells easily and cast the one you prefer, and in certain cases, such as using Lumos to make vines wither away, you need to select the spell manually. However, most spells are contextual and can be cast by holding a button and hovering the spell cursor over the object you want to manipulate. The targeting can be a little iffy; sometimes the halo indicating an interactive object won't appear when it seems it should, and it's really easy to target something you don't intend to--such as an unsuspecting student. But this is a mostly insignificant inconvenience. For the most part, you'll be smashing everything that's smashable and reconstructing everything that's reconstructible, reaping the bits that scatter as a reward for charms well cast.
Yakuza 3 is a game about mobsters but only in a peculiar, roundabout way. The series is often (ineffectually) sold as the Japanese version of Grand Theft Auto, and it often comes out looking shabby and underwhelming when looked at in that light. Of course, Yakuza 3 is nothing of the sort. It’s much more akin to a linear, pseudo-open action game, like Fable 2. It’s a game that wants to communicate what it’s like to be in a certain place, not give you an amazing place to do things. Lengthy cutscenes and frequent bouts of text make up a little more than half of the game. The other half is separated into a host of mini-games and distractions, the fighting game around which the game’s upgrade mechanics revolve and a circumscribed kind of world exploration.
Yakuza 3 wants to do a few things: it wants to tell a hilariously, bizarrely, and sometimes surprisingly well told crime story. It’s also quite keen on selling you on its deep brawling combat, which most players should welcome, given the sad state of hand-to-hand combat in most games that aren’t explicitly fighting games. These are the two things that Sega has chosen to highlight upon the game’s North American release. After all, lots of people who aren’t Japanese like Yakuza crime stories right? They also like beating up thugs and leveling up an amusingly dressed, fantastically sideburned hero, Sega hopes.
The thing that Sega isn’t advertising (and that the enthusiast press has latched onto with understandable glee) is the third key element to Yakuza’s unique charm: its rather rigorous reproduction of the sights and sounds of different bits of Japan (I assume, given my complete lack of experience in this area).It’s this idea (and the relatively fun combat and relatively entertaining story) that kept me hacking away at Yakuza 3 despite the fact that the first four hours were completely unbearable. The game starts out promisingly enough. You, Kazuma, are the famed Fourth Chairman of the Tojo Clan. Your history, as detailed in the outrageously complicated “Last Time on Yakuza” videos included on the Yakuza 3 disc, is too convoluted to explain. Suffice it to say that, as the game begins, Kazuma moves to Okinawa to run an orphanage. His companion is his adopted daughter, Huruka, the daughter of his long lost, dead love. Kazuma really loves children, as the game goes out of its way to inform us. For the first five hours of the game, Kazuma splits his time between exploring downtown Okinawa and getting into a ludicrous number of fist fights) along with solving problems back at the orphanage. These long, long hours of child-rearing are quite annoying, when playing a game that is ostensibly about beating up mobsters, watching people talk in serious voices, and exploring fastidiously rendered versions of famous Japanese urban environments.
There are plenty of games that attempt to make you feel like the star of your own action movie, but few have done it with as uproariously fun results as Just Cause 2. Or with explosions as big and as frequent for that matter.
Take this scene for example, typical of what to regularly expect from Just Cause 2; you're hurtling through dense jungle on the back of a motorcycle headed for a despotic government installation a few hundred miles away, when you spot a passenger plane soaring up over your head. You stand upright on the motorcycle, surf-board style, and open your parachute, catapulting you towards the plane. Within reaching distance of your arm-mounted grappling gun, you reel yourself into the plane and hijack it in mid-air. After a few minutes taking in the sights thousands of miles below, you spot the enemy base, set the plane on a collision course with the installation's fuel tankers and bail out just in time to see the whole place explode and crumble as you parachute to safety.
It's all in a day's work for the game's hero Rico Rodriguez, and all possible within a few minutes of picking up the controller in Just Cause 2.
There's a loose and ridiculous story holding all this together. Agency Special Agent Rico Rodriguez is out to find his old mentor, Tom Sheldon, who has gone rogue somewhere within the fictional South-East Asian archipelago or Panau. Rival gangs vie for power in Panau, and Rico will have to play each group off of each other to get to his mysterious mentor.
It's all very tongue in cheek and more an excuse for a string of set pieces than any intricate tale of intrigue. Voice acting can be excruciatingly clichéd (sometimes bordering on racial stereotypes), though in the context of the ludicrous action surrounding it, it all sort of works, in a straight-to-video sort of way.But there is nothing straight-to-video about the scale of Just Cause 2. Panau encompasses some 400 square miles to be freely explored, with terrain ranging from expansive deserts to lagoons and icy mountains. While up close it's graphically rather average, take to the skies in Just Cause 2 and you'll see what the detail has been compromised for; there is an absolutely breathtaking draw distance, with the island stretching as far as the eye can see. It makes base jumping a really exhilarating experience as the ground miles below you rushes into focus.
Last Rebellion is in many ways a reminiscent trail across what typically represents the RPG experience. Certain aspects will make you dread playing this game, but others will really stand out uniquely amongst the slew of other RPGs available to you. Weighing the pros and cons, Last Rebellion might actually be a game for you.
Last Rebellion is a tale about the rivalry of two Gods on Earth: Meikteillia the God of Death, and Formival the God of Life. Interestingly enough, the people fear the God who brings life and worship the God who maintains death. The kingdom is suffering from a serious case of unbalance because of Formival’s overactive desire to bring beings back to life, flooding their land with resurrected demons and souls. Blades and Sealers were created to use their strength and magic, respectively, to help maintain the balance through the Gods’ biddings. Nine, who is a Blade adopted into the royal family, is the first character you will begin to play as. King Arzelide, Nine’s adoptive father, gets swindled by his other son, Alfred, in what soon turns to an evil ploy involving the miscreant’s attempt to attain Formival’s godly powers. Getting caught in the midst of it all, your death at your brother’s hands leads a present Sealer to bond your two souls together in an attempt to retain your existence. And thus begins your journey as partaking in both roles of Blade and Sealer with Nine and Aisha.
Nine sets out for revenge against his brother and, being that you are both bonded together into one being, Aisha must come along. She has her own mission to accomplish, however, which she vaguely mentions in passing. And so you begin your trek to find Alfred and attempt to discern his plan along the way.
This was the progression of my reaction to Nippon Ichi Software’s RPG, Last Rebellion:
Some of the elements of White Knight Chronicles come with little surprise. The bad guys are identified all too easily, and the heroes are overmatched, but what they lack in experience and armament, they make up for with gallantry.
It does begin innocently enough, though. A young man, Leonard, a player-created character venture off to fetch wine for the 18th birthday celebration of the silent princess. The princess, Cisna, has not spoken for 10 years since witnessing the death of her mother – apparently at the hands of an assassin from Faria. The two kingdoms are attempting to forge a peace pact. Meanwhile, Leonard, a young woman name Yulie (who joins the party – there are up to three characters that can travel in the group; the rest are in reserve and can be switched out at logic stones) and the created character head back to the castle with the wine. What begins in joy soon turns violent as a dark monster, Pyredaemos, attacks the castle, under the control of the magi, which apparently have designs on taking the princess, securing an ancient artifact and stirring up the war again.
Several things are immediately apparent in the prolonged prologue. First, the game is a bit of a romance simply because Leonard loves the princess and would do anything to save her. Second, the game is rather linear and somewhat predictable. Third, the graphics are gorgeous and imaginative, but much like the second item noted, the narrative is obvious, forced and somewhat silly at times.But moving back into the story arc, after the king is slain, with the guards failing at subduing the Pyredaemos, Leonard tries to get the princess to safety beneath the castle. Just when it appears they are about to escape, the Pyredaemos shows up and gives chase. Leonard and Cisna are chased into the castle treasure vault where there is a shining, white suit of giant armor. More than merely armor, the armor is a weapon forged by the predecessors of the nations of the world, a race known as the Ancients. Lore states that only one deemed worthy can activate the armor. There is a glove, an ark, that connects to the armor, but to gain access to the armor, Leonard must fight an Umbral Spirit Phantom. Only after defeating the Phantom does Leonard enter in a pact with the Incorruptus. Within the armor of the White Knight, Leonard defeats the Pyredaemos, but as the battle ends, the Magi leader shows up and kidnaps the princess.
While I missed out on the opportunity to review Final Fantasy XIII - arguably the opening quarter's biggest role-playing release - Resonance of Fate represents the third JRPG that's dropped into my lap in 2010. It's been a trying time. In fact, it's been a veritable trudge of disappointment through the sucking, muddy depths of mediocrity. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm honestly starting to miss first-person shooters.But wait, despite the lingering pain of White Knight Chronicles and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers there's a chance for hope and respite in equal measure with Resonance of Fate from "renowned RPG developers" tri-Ace (Infinite Undiscovery, Star Ocean: The Last Hope). For a start, Resonance of Fate and its dystopian mechanical city of Chandelier represent a steampunk fantasy built around the unconventional gameplay draw of modern day projectile weaponry. How refreshingly simple in a genre weighed down by oversized phallic swords, flamboyant summoning, and elemental spell casting.Actually, the last thing Resonance of Fate's gameplay can be described as is simple. It may well centre on just gunplay and curing the odd status effect, but the surrounding structure often appears bewilderingly complex and a million miles from simply pulling a trigger while occasionally distributing vials of health-restoring elixir.My first few hours with Resonance of Fate were akin to being pushed unwittingly into a darkened room crammed with untold riches and terrible perils. Without clear direction I was forced to stumble blindly onward, grasping at fistfuls of treasure in one moment only to be knocked to the ground by terrible foes the next. Repeatedly painful physical contact soon presented a confused picture of my immediate surroundings but offered no clue as to why the room was there, what my purpose was within it, and how progress could be attained without incurring further harm. Confused, I scrambled forwards in search of answers as crippling blows rained down through the darkness. Then, as fear and frustration threatened to engulf my blunted senses, the room was bathed in a glorious light, and suddenly all seemed right with the world.
As a franchise prequel, Star Ocean 4 charts mankind's tentative first steps into space as they seek to colonize a new planet. Much like the rest of the series, it's an unapologetically Japanese-style RPG, the main differences here being terrible pacing and refined combat.
Being a JRPG, you can assume the following: you use swords and magic, you lead a band of plucky androgynous teenagers and "old" battle-hardened thirty-somethings against an "ultimate evil," the main protagonist has a ridiculous name (Edge Maverick), and you possess mysterious powers that you don't yet fully fathom. And although you try to blend in on the planets you visit, none of your characters can be bothered to change out of their gaudy space suits, put on different clothes, or hide their fancy space swords. But clichés and gaping plot holes aside, the story's twists and turns are engaging -- especially with the extensive in-game dictionary to help sort out the details. And if things get too convoluted (which they frequently will), you can always check the synopsis, which highlights everything you've experienced up to that point.
Unfortunately, the narrative gets bogged down by ham-fisted voice acting and the fact that you spend the first 10 hours jungle crawling and reading character introductions. Line by line, the localization is well written, but it takes too long for characters to get to the point in the game's rambling monologues; cut-scenes can drag on for up to 45 minutes. The characters keep repeating themselves, pounding basic plot points into the ground. No audience would tolerate such heavy-handedness in a movie or TV series, and there's no reason they should in a game.
The flora and flauna don't add much to the game's overarching interstellar theme either. No matter where you go, you'll find chests sitting around filled with blueberries. A game needs consistently named restoration items, but this makes the separate planets feel more connected than the light years of distance separating them would indicate. And the creatures on each world are mostly palette-swapped doppelgangers.
I've played enough idiosyncratic games of Japanese origin recently that the above exchange - one of many in Trinity Universe that poke fun at games and gaming culture - barely raised an eyebrow. This isn't the weirdest game I've reviewed this year, though with its effective skewering of anime stereotypes (there's a neat recurring gag about one character's silly hairstyle) it might just win the prize for the wittiest.
Trinity Universe is a hefty slab of pure JRPG whimsy which half-inches characters from the Disgaea and Atelier series and sprinkles them among a cast of originals led by a half-man, half-dog, understandably reluctant to fulfil his destiny of bringing harmony to the universe by transforming into a "dinky gemstone".
Demon Dog King Kanata is an idealistic young pup looking for adventure, rescued from being prematurely bejewelled by Tsubaki, his softly-spoken aide who may or may not have an ulterior motive for saving him. Here in the Netheruniverse, outer space is filled with detritus, from soft toys to traffic cones, rubber ducks to castles, and you're tasked with eliminating all these drifting objects to prevent them colliding with your home world of Empyria.Many of these objects are meaningless decoration, but others house shops or inns, with the largest objects containing dungeons to grind through. For all the bizarre window-dressing, this is a fairly traditional RPG at heart, with a structure that will be familiar to anyone with even a passing interest in the genrYou'd need more than a passing interest to be part of the audience for Trinity Universe, though. In the West, Nippon Ichi is pitching towards a very narrow niche with this: the kind of gamer for whom the idea of playing as Disgaea favourites Flonne and Etna brings a frisson of excitement. So it seems odd that NIS and Idea Factory initially appear to be tilting towards new players, offering a difficulty mode recommended for beginners, and drip-feeding abilities throughout the opening stages to get everyone accustomed to what are fairly recognisable RPG mechanics.e.
It seems that crafting a street soccer game is significantly harder than it appears. Throughout the years, gamers have been treated to plenty of attempts to capture the beautiful game as it’s played all over the world (read: the way basketball is played Stateside). Most of them have ended in failure, or at best, a passable diversion you picked up after a price drop (FIFA Street 3, Mario Strikers Charged). Add Ubisoft Vancouver’s Pure Futbol to the former, not the latter. Amidst a month of footy fever, it’s a cash-in designed to nab the casual soccer fan. Don’t be fooled by its wiles.Pure Futbol’s arcade-style approach to 5-on-5 soccer is cut from a similar cloth as FIFA Street. It features cartoonish versions of real-life players from several national teams, including powerhouses such as Brazil, Spain, and England as well as non-World Cup heavy hitters like Croatia and Turkey. However, there are conspicuously missing big names like Drogba and Sneijder. They’ll play in rather ordinary recreations of different European locales, like a Milanese factory, a Madrid bullfighting ring, and a Marseilles port.Gameplay follows a similar standard seen in other streetball games. You accumulate Pure Points by pulling off stylish flourishes -- on-the-ball trickery or hitting the sweet spot for a goal shot. Most of the gameplay is dependent upon a pop-up meter (similar to Mario Strikers Charged) that indicates the accuracy of your shooting, aerial passing, and through ball passes. If you can hit the flashing white pure spot on the meter (red, of course, means a bad move and green is accurate), you’re more likely to set up a big play. Pure Futbol takes a different tack for defense. You defend by tapping one of the shoulder triggers a la FIFA 10, and slide tackles are counted on a foul meter. No matter where you are on the field, a few mistimed sliding tackles will give your opponent a penalty kick.You take those skills to the next level in campaign, in which you take a created player and user-generated club to take on the world’s finest. As you hit certain requirements in each match (score two Pure goals, prevent the opponent from taking more than six shots on goal), you’ll unlock more recruitable players from each nation and build up your Pure Point tally. Eventually, you can sell your players online for a ridiculously high amount of Pure Points.
After a decade long hiatus, Capcom’s over the top fighting franchise is finally here, and if the long lines of gamers waiting for a chance to play the game at this year's E3 are any indication, it’s worth the wait. With a new graphics engine and a suite of new fighters, MvC3 looks like it will continue the franchise’s long standing record of excellence.What we’re talking about: This game needs little introduction: it’s the third installment in the acclaimed 2D fighting franchise that marries Marvel’s stable to superheroes to Capcom’s eclectic cast of brawlers for some insane three-on-three fighting action.Where we saw it: I got a hand’s on demo with Capcom’s Wes Phillips at the company’s booth on the E3 show floor. (I also got an awesome interview with producer Ryota Niitsuma, so look for that video to go up soon on GamePro.com.)
- There was only a limited demo with the following fighters available: Ryu, Captain America, Morrigan, Chris Redfield, Ironman, Hulk, Wolverine, Felicia, Dante from Devil May Cry, and Deadpool (woot!).
- The game uses the Resident Evil 5 engine, and features a look that strays away from the first two MvC titles’ cartoon-inspired visuals. Don’t worry though: the game looks great in action. It reminded me of Tatsunoko vs Capcom but a little different.The levels look great as well. I was too busy watching the action but the backgrounds have a lot of little visual touches that flesh out the arenas. But of course, the fighters are the real attraction, and although I miss the colorful models of MvC titles of the past, the new visual style is pretty cool in its own right.There are some new fighting mechanics in place and some tweaks have been made to the control scheme to compensate. One of the new features Wes showed me was the new tag team air combo move. You start an air combo with one character, then you can call in your team members to continue the chain. All you have to do is hit one button and you can start the juggle.
I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t a big fan of the Dungeon Siege series. That isn’t to say that I don’t love me [sic] a good Diablo clone as much as the next guy, but the way Gas Powered Games handled the third-person-camera system left much to be desired. When I first heard of Space Siege, my reaction was something along the lines of, “Oh great; Dungeon Siege in Space...” Welp, I wasn’t too far off the mark...The good news is that sieging space with a fundamentally broken camera system seems to work better than in a fantasy flavored Middle Ages. The bad? Read on... The story is pretty generic. Random hostile alien species invades Earth, kills everyone, you barely escape on a makeshift colony ship, Starbuck goes bat shit crazy, blah, blah, blah. Whoops, wrong sci-fi series, but you get the idea. Here’s the quick version: before you get out of orbit, the aliens managed to dock a troop transport to your hull and all hell breaks loose as you try to repel waves upon waves of elites, brutes and grunts. Err, I mean Keraks. The graphics and art direction really remind of playing Halo in the third person. The only difference is that Space Siege isn’t as bump mapped and the models look like they have lower poly counts. If this was released in 2002 or so, the visuals would be superlative, but for a $49.95 PC title in 2008 they leave much to be desired. The physic effects and particle systems are nice, but when you zoom in close to get a better look at the world, you can really tell how dated everything looks. It wouldn’t be so bad if the game ran smoother, but for whatever reason, is pretty chuggy. By the time I finished the game, I crashed four times, with two blue screens of deathDespite the frustrating camera system, once you get a hang of the controls, the gameplay becomes fairly fluid (and even fun). There are a bunch of weapons and cyborg implants that you find over the course of the game and unlock. That, along with a two-tree skill system and a series of upgrade options, is what makes Space Siege a ‘role-playing’ game. Some of the skill pre-requisites require a certain percentage of cyborg parts to be installed, others depend on how much humanity is left inside of you. Points are awarded after finishing objectives, but there’s not much of a character level system per say. Upgrades to yourself and your best robot buddy Superfly (that’s what I affectionately called my HR-V unit) can be purchased by picking up the loot monsters drop, barrels and boxes hide, or even the electronics stuff you blow up along the way.
In Space Trader: Merchant Marine by HermitWorks Entertainment and Meridian 4, players have the option of two single-player modes, Campaign or Challenges. There is also multiplayer which will be covered later.
Campaign is the story mode where players assume the role of a person who has just acquired their trading license. The player begins the game in search of a way to acquire a ship. As the story progresses, more planets can be visited and the missions increase in difficulty. To complete the chapter the player must earn an amount of money in a set time limit (based on interplanetary travel, not actual playing time.) The story isn’t very complex, but it provides players with some direction and a purpose for accomplishing their goals.
Challenge mode is similar to campaign except that it lacks the story element. There is still an amount of money that must be earned in a set time limit, there just seems to be less distraction and a greater emphasis on the buying/selling (trading) element of the game.
The game is played through the first-person perspective and is broken down into three tasks: Bounty hunting, collecting stash, and trading.
Bounty hunting is the action segment of the game. NPCs, such as bartenders, will offer rewards for your combat skills. The combat scenarios have an arcade feel to them similar to an early version of Unreal Tournament. These scenarios vary in length from 3-10 minutes depending on your skill and focus on the task at hand. There are several enemies that can be shot down for cash and items but there is always a target foe that must be defeated to claim the reward. The controls are the standard of what you would expect for an FPS and these missions are fun to play.
I didn't expect much from Alpha Prime. All the warning signs were there: the small, foreign developer (Prague's Black Element Software), the discount price ($20 on Steam), and the fact that every review quote on their site reads like, "Graphically, at least, Alpha Prime doesn't disappoint . . . rest of game [is good]." After about five hours, I began to pity this unlovable FPS. It isn't a bad game, or more precisely, it isn't merely a bad game. It's an unbelievable fiasco of a game, a brazen travesty that continually displays its own hindquarters like the world's ugliest mammal attempting to mate. Alpha Prime is the Half-Life of suck.
Half-Life in particular comes to mind many times in the course of this game, while crawling through vents, stacking crates to solve physics puzzles, using oddly familiar health stations, and even (points for chutzpah) a tram ride. Mathematically speaking, it's no surprise that a game named Alpha Prime should be derivative. The surprise is that each element has been modified just enough to be irritating. The tram ride is twenty feet long, breaks down every five feet, and by completing an objective the wrong way, I tricked the game into pulling me and my tram through a closed door. The health stations work fine but there are identical-looking oxygen dispensers in low-oxygen environments which require constant backtracking. (When your tiny oxygen meter runs out, it's instant death, without warning.) Finally, if you're going to include crate stacking and jumping puzzles, make sure collision detection works perfectly. The crates kept clipping into each other, and when I jumped next to a wall or heavy object, it magically pushed me backwards through the air. I found a basketball lying around in one level and tossed it around a bit. It rebounded off the wall and killed me.
Every enemy in Alpha Prime can be lethal, not just the sporting goods. Robots and humans alike are crack shots, down to the unarmored, wimpy civilians with pop guns. Without aiming, they can hit a moving target every time. You, on the other hand, need to hold down the right mouse button for anything like accuracy. Enemies do occasionally miss when they blind fire, which they do in a particularly cute way. I'm no tactician, but shouldn't they be facing me, their opponent, while they retreat? Instead, they turn their backs, run away, and unload a pistol over their shoulder. Sometimes they run into a wall and keep running like they're on a treadmill. Given the game's clipping issues, they might make it through nonetheless.