It has happened to everyone; a game you love but at the same time, can't believe how frustrated you've gotten playing it. On the whole, it is still a great experience, but there are instances when the game just has too many moments that make you wonder if continuing is really worth it. Well, after playing Mirror's Edge, I have yet again felt that way.
The plot behind Mirror's Edge is simple. You play as Faith, a runner in a dystopian future where everything is monitored. She is part of group of 'messengers' who transport information from one side of the city to other using roof-tops and other non-orthodox ways of getting around. While your character is a parkour who relays messages, the game doesn't actually have you doing that.
When you begin playing, you control Faith after an unknown accident has put you out of commission for a while. The game starts you off with a tutorial to give you an idea of the controls. The game is played in First-person, but rather than this being a shooter, you're playing a first-person action game where your movements and actions are done with both your hands and feet.
Controlling Faith is done with the use of the shoulder buttons. The majority of the game has you running and jumping from roof-top to roof top. You will have to wall-run, leap over or slide under beams and figure out creative ways to get from one location to another. The controls when moving are relatively simple, with plenty of variety of moves available to you. The tutorial you go through in the beginning of the game gives you a good idea on how to use them, but it will take you a while before you really master her move-set.
As stated before, Faith is a Messenger, but in the game she never actually is doing any jobs other than the first level in the game. You are brought back into the fray on a simple mission but when police officers just randomly appear, you begin to ask questions. Shortly thereafter you encounter your sister, a cop, but discover that she has been framed for murder and then the real story begins.
Now you will need to help your sister by gathering information to prove her innocence. Mirror's Edge story goes for 9 chapters but there is little variety in them. They all start off the same. You begin a point A, must reach point B but along the way you'll have to run, jump, climb, jump, fight, run some more, avoid being shot and jump all before you get to the end of the level. While the jumping and running mechanics work well, the fighting is where the game suffers a lot. Most of the time, when you encounter a battle, the odds are really stacked against you. The scenarios are always the same, you arrive at a location and a handful of enemies with weapons will be trying to shoot you dead. In the beginning, the cops carry only pistols which are easy to disarm, but as you progress, their weapons become more powerful and it turn out to be increasingly difficult to disarm them.
Your options are simple, you can try to disarm your first enemy and then use his weapon to get by the area, or try to avoid conflict all together and either disarm or incapacitate your enemies. Disarming is difficult, so you'll want to try to defeat them with your melee abilities, but unfortunately they aren't always effective. Attacking becomes a button masher as you just begin to hit the attack button over and over again until the enemy falls over. You can attempt to do a jumping or crouching/sliding attack, but often you will miss the target, land with them facing you from behind and getting a good hit or two. They typically only need to hit you twice in succession before you keel over, so don't be surprised if you happen to die over and over again. The game wants you to avoid using weapons, but at times you'll feel that it is the only way to get by. There will be a few areas where you can run by without ever attacking, but those are few and far between.
The biggest downside to the game is the trial and error that fills the game. There are markers located throughout the levels, signified by objects appearing in red, but it doesn't always mean the best way of getting by. Because of this, you will die a lot. A situation might require you to do a wall-run and leap to grab a ledge to your left or right, but the timing required to do so is so finite that you will often miss the jump and fall to your death. While the falling animation is incredible, it does get boring after you've seen it 30 times.
The game's graphics are pretty incredible with a lot of great looking environments. There is plenty of variety in the locations you encounter, but too much of the game is spent running around indoors, rather than spending it outdoors, doing actually roof jumping. I would have rather preferred more variety in the outdoor environments, but what hurts is that there are rarely bystanders in your way. It would have been cool in some levels, especially those that actually have you running in what should be busy areas of the city, if you had people in your way. It might have been too similar to Assassin's Creed, but it is something you could see them doing in the future.
The game's cut-scenes leave much to be desired. It is disappointing that even the few in-game moments the characters seem too stiff and do not give off any realism. The chapter cut-scenes are done in a weird animation style that again, throws off the experience. They aren't that well done and the characters end up looking really different than how they do in-game.
Outside of the game's story, there are time-trails for those who want to see just how quickly the can complete a section of the game. The times seem to be quite unrealistic to achieve, but that is because, there are actually faster ways to complete each level that are not given away by the game's red hints markers. If you spent time in this mode, you will probably play levels over and over again as you try to shave or a few seconds to perfect your time.
For the most part, if the game was more about exploration with the running and jumping and less of the fighting, it would have been an incredible experience. It's still a good game, but there could have been a bit more polish done. The way the game ends, is another disappointing aspect. The last battle is weak and the ending itself doesn't really offer any closure. The experience isn't long, but considering the amount of dying you will encounter, you should deduct about an hour or so from how long it actually took you to complete it. There is definitely more to come from this series, and hopefully for the next game, they go the more open-world sandbox route with more variety since this game really craves it.
I still suggest you give this game a try since there isn't anything quite like this around. As stated in the beginning, this is a frustrating game that will anger you at times. Because of the amount of dying that will happen, if you are short-tempered, you might want to stay way. The graphics and running mechanics save this game, but the dying and horrible fighting system restrict this from being an excellent experience.
Showing posts with label Xbox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Xbox. Show all posts
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Too Human Review (Xbox 360)
Do not buy Too Human. Let me get that out of the way as quickly as I can, because you deserve to know well in advance that this is not a good game. What on paper and in theory should be an incredible adventure ends up being a game that is so frustrating and complicated that any of the time you put into it will feel like a complete waste of time. The worst part is that you can see the potential right there in front of you; the developers of the game just did not focus on the right aspects and in the end everyone suffers.
In order to get any understanding of Too Human you have to have some knowledge of Norse Mythology. If you lack that you will have no idea on the history of the characters of the game and the future titles to this planned trilogy. While there is an introduction to the game prior to the option menu, it still does not give you enough background on the main character in the game, Baldur, your main foe Loki or anything in between (eg. Ragnarok). The game takes place in a futuristic world where these Norse gods use technology to their advantage as they act as the protectors of humans against the rise of the machines. While they try to protect humans there are problems within the Gods and this will eventually lead to the battle of Ragnarok. Outside of little bit of information here and there, you get nothing from the off-set and only bits and pieces are revealed in the first game.
Too Human is a 3D Action-RPG. Take the non-stop action of Diablo and Baldur's Gate and you get what Too Human is trying to achieve. You have your wave upon wave of enemies; your containers of items; plenty of customization with weapons and armour and five different character classes to choose from. Each character class is different enough that it does create some variety to the game, and is especially good for the multiplayer aspect of the game.
The problems of Too Human start right from the moment you being with its horrible control scheme. In 3D action games, your right-analog stick is always the camera control, but Too Human goes against that. Rather, they decided to map your melee attacks to it. While it's nice in principal, it has been successful with other games (PS2's Rise to Honor). To control the camera, you need to hold the Left Bumper button then use the right analog stick, but often the controller doesn't recognize this and you continue to swing your weapon instead. Also, the game relies too heavily on the cinematic camera perspective, in which the game wants you to admire the game's large areas. Again, nice in principal, but often can be really annoying and can cause your character to get stuck in some areas. The camera's problems continue by making it harder to target and manoeuvre during fight scenes. The game's auto-targeting system is never accurate and will often still track dead characters when you should be attacking the enemy right next to you.
There are four main quests in the game's story, each taking about 2-4 hours to play. To be honest, the actual length is short, but thanks to the issues that plague the game mentioned before and continuing on will force you to complete the game in about 10-15 hours depending on your character class.
The problem with the length is that every level is the same. While they look different, they have the same formula. You walk for a bit, fight a wave of enemies. Defeat them, walk a bit more to fight more enemies. This time you also will fight a sub-boss, which is followed up with more walking and treasure hunting. This pattern repeats itself over and over again until you finally reach the stage's boss battle which each will take you approximately 30-45 minutes to beat with two of them requiring you to chase your foe to different parts of the level.
What adds to the problem of the length is that dying is a certainty. You may be a God, you are still extremely weak against your basic enemies. With death comes a Valkyrie and you will see a lot of this in the game. When you die, a Valkyrie descends from the heavens to lift you up to Valhalla (which is according to Norse Mythology, Eden and where Odin gathers fallen soldiers for the battle of Ragnarok). But of course, you don't actually die, but are re-spawned only to fight some more. There are two cases when you re-spawn. One, you will be spawned far away and must run back to the action or two, you will be spawned in the worst possible spot only to get attacked as soon as you start.
While you do fight with a group, your group is there for show as the enemies know to attack and love to 'gang-bang' you. Since you have to fight so many enemies at once, you will continue to die.
Attacking the enemies can be done with your melee attack or with a ranged attack. Both are good but neither stands out as you are almost suggested to use both to fight. Use your melee to lift the enemy then finish them off in the sky with your ranged weapon. As a bonus, if you attack for a long period of time without, your bonus attack bar fills up and allows you to use either your Ruiner or Battle Cry attacks. These you unlock as you progress and level up your character. These are extremely effective, but hard to get when you really need them. If you die, you lose them and must rebuild that bonus bar. One of the problems I faced with the enemies is that once you hit them they are immune. So if the enemy touches the ground, the1-2 seconds it takes for them to get back up, they are invulnerable and any strikes you make on them are useless.
Since this is your 3D-crawler, you do have a lot of items that you pick up. Weapons, Health, Rune and other pick-ups should help you along the way, but rarely do they make a difference. Enemies level up with you, so as you get stronger as do they. I completed the game with a Level 27 Bio-Engineer, but apparently, you can reach well past the 40th character level, but it won't matter as your enemies will get that strong as well. You really don't feel that gaining weapons means anything since you are collecting so many different weapons and each one is better than the last. You can add Runes to certain weapons which make them stronger, but it doesn't really show. The only interesting part to the weapons is that their strength and value deteriorate over time. It's nice since it does remind you that you need to upgrade your weapons after a certain amount of time.
The game's graphics are good but not great. Baldur doesn't look anything special but most of the other characters do look fairly nice. The environments are nice in the beginning, but once you see the same area time and time again, it does start to get boring. The Valkyries are stunning and their scenes are nice, but again, once you've seen them 50 times, you're impression of them starts to wane. Aesir is really nice but you spend very little amount of time there. Enemies are ok, but suffer from the previous repetition problems.
The sound is also a mixed bag but definitely better than I give the rest of the game credit for. The score is fantastic and really helps the game, but there were often times where the music goes wonky. This occurs often during boss battles. Since they take so long, the music needs to repeat, but it wasn't looped properly so it sounds really out of place.
In one battle it is really distinctive and becomes really annoying that you may want to play the game without sound.
The voice work of the characters is top-notch, and probably the best aspect of the game. The only problem I encountered with the voice-work was in non cut-scenes where too many people are trying to talk at the same time. There will be times when Baldur is speaking only to be talked-over by various Humans who are trying to comment on the situation you are in. If anything of importance is mentioned there, you won't have the slightest idea what is going on.
Too Human could have been a really incredible game. Ignoring the whole 'this game was in development for ten years' aspect that is greatly misquoted, you can see that Silicon Knights wanted to do something different but just did not properly manage the game to its full potential. The developers tried too hard to try to make the game a cinematic experience as well as a unique one but failed to work out the quirks. Another problem the game suffers is that they wanted to make this a multiplayer game. Originally, Too Human was intended to be played by four players cooperatively, but that was then dropped to two. The difficulty shows that it was still built for four players. It is hard enough to get two people to play so getting four would have been next to impossible. If you want to go through this adventure on your own, you should be prepared for a challenge. The multiplayer does make the game easier, but games like this should be made first to work properly for one person, then tweaked for Co-Op play.
I cannot recommend this game to anyone regardless if you are a fan of the Dungeon-crawler RPG games that were once so successful on the PC. It really disappoints me to say that because I really wanted to enjoy this game. It had a lot of promise and it even starts off on the right path game-play wise. Once the difficulty kicks into full gear, the enjoyment factor drops and the frustration goes through the roof. The game ends on a cliff-hanger but we already knew well in advance that this is a planned series.
I do believe there will still be a sequel even with the problems of the first. I really feel that there is a true gem under all this dirt and with a little bit more work, Too Human 2 can be really incredible and make up for the mistakes of the first. Right now is what matters and Too Human is just not a game that will get people interested in the series or genre.
In order to get any understanding of Too Human you have to have some knowledge of Norse Mythology. If you lack that you will have no idea on the history of the characters of the game and the future titles to this planned trilogy. While there is an introduction to the game prior to the option menu, it still does not give you enough background on the main character in the game, Baldur, your main foe Loki or anything in between (eg. Ragnarok). The game takes place in a futuristic world where these Norse gods use technology to their advantage as they act as the protectors of humans against the rise of the machines. While they try to protect humans there are problems within the Gods and this will eventually lead to the battle of Ragnarok. Outside of little bit of information here and there, you get nothing from the off-set and only bits and pieces are revealed in the first game.
Too Human is a 3D Action-RPG. Take the non-stop action of Diablo and Baldur's Gate and you get what Too Human is trying to achieve. You have your wave upon wave of enemies; your containers of items; plenty of customization with weapons and armour and five different character classes to choose from. Each character class is different enough that it does create some variety to the game, and is especially good for the multiplayer aspect of the game.
The problems of Too Human start right from the moment you being with its horrible control scheme. In 3D action games, your right-analog stick is always the camera control, but Too Human goes against that. Rather, they decided to map your melee attacks to it. While it's nice in principal, it has been successful with other games (PS2's Rise to Honor). To control the camera, you need to hold the Left Bumper button then use the right analog stick, but often the controller doesn't recognize this and you continue to swing your weapon instead. Also, the game relies too heavily on the cinematic camera perspective, in which the game wants you to admire the game's large areas. Again, nice in principal, but often can be really annoying and can cause your character to get stuck in some areas. The camera's problems continue by making it harder to target and manoeuvre during fight scenes. The game's auto-targeting system is never accurate and will often still track dead characters when you should be attacking the enemy right next to you.
There are four main quests in the game's story, each taking about 2-4 hours to play. To be honest, the actual length is short, but thanks to the issues that plague the game mentioned before and continuing on will force you to complete the game in about 10-15 hours depending on your character class.
The problem with the length is that every level is the same. While they look different, they have the same formula. You walk for a bit, fight a wave of enemies. Defeat them, walk a bit more to fight more enemies. This time you also will fight a sub-boss, which is followed up with more walking and treasure hunting. This pattern repeats itself over and over again until you finally reach the stage's boss battle which each will take you approximately 30-45 minutes to beat with two of them requiring you to chase your foe to different parts of the level.
What adds to the problem of the length is that dying is a certainty. You may be a God, you are still extremely weak against your basic enemies. With death comes a Valkyrie and you will see a lot of this in the game. When you die, a Valkyrie descends from the heavens to lift you up to Valhalla (which is according to Norse Mythology, Eden and where Odin gathers fallen soldiers for the battle of Ragnarok). But of course, you don't actually die, but are re-spawned only to fight some more. There are two cases when you re-spawn. One, you will be spawned far away and must run back to the action or two, you will be spawned in the worst possible spot only to get attacked as soon as you start.
While you do fight with a group, your group is there for show as the enemies know to attack and love to 'gang-bang' you. Since you have to fight so many enemies at once, you will continue to die.
Attacking the enemies can be done with your melee attack or with a ranged attack. Both are good but neither stands out as you are almost suggested to use both to fight. Use your melee to lift the enemy then finish them off in the sky with your ranged weapon. As a bonus, if you attack for a long period of time without, your bonus attack bar fills up and allows you to use either your Ruiner or Battle Cry attacks. These you unlock as you progress and level up your character. These are extremely effective, but hard to get when you really need them. If you die, you lose them and must rebuild that bonus bar. One of the problems I faced with the enemies is that once you hit them they are immune. So if the enemy touches the ground, the1-2 seconds it takes for them to get back up, they are invulnerable and any strikes you make on them are useless.
Since this is your 3D-crawler, you do have a lot of items that you pick up. Weapons, Health, Rune and other pick-ups should help you along the way, but rarely do they make a difference. Enemies level up with you, so as you get stronger as do they. I completed the game with a Level 27 Bio-Engineer, but apparently, you can reach well past the 40th character level, but it won't matter as your enemies will get that strong as well. You really don't feel that gaining weapons means anything since you are collecting so many different weapons and each one is better than the last. You can add Runes to certain weapons which make them stronger, but it doesn't really show. The only interesting part to the weapons is that their strength and value deteriorate over time. It's nice since it does remind you that you need to upgrade your weapons after a certain amount of time.
The game's graphics are good but not great. Baldur doesn't look anything special but most of the other characters do look fairly nice. The environments are nice in the beginning, but once you see the same area time and time again, it does start to get boring. The Valkyries are stunning and their scenes are nice, but again, once you've seen them 50 times, you're impression of them starts to wane. Aesir is really nice but you spend very little amount of time there. Enemies are ok, but suffer from the previous repetition problems.
The sound is also a mixed bag but definitely better than I give the rest of the game credit for. The score is fantastic and really helps the game, but there were often times where the music goes wonky. This occurs often during boss battles. Since they take so long, the music needs to repeat, but it wasn't looped properly so it sounds really out of place.
In one battle it is really distinctive and becomes really annoying that you may want to play the game without sound.
The voice work of the characters is top-notch, and probably the best aspect of the game. The only problem I encountered with the voice-work was in non cut-scenes where too many people are trying to talk at the same time. There will be times when Baldur is speaking only to be talked-over by various Humans who are trying to comment on the situation you are in. If anything of importance is mentioned there, you won't have the slightest idea what is going on.
Too Human could have been a really incredible game. Ignoring the whole 'this game was in development for ten years' aspect that is greatly misquoted, you can see that Silicon Knights wanted to do something different but just did not properly manage the game to its full potential. The developers tried too hard to try to make the game a cinematic experience as well as a unique one but failed to work out the quirks. Another problem the game suffers is that they wanted to make this a multiplayer game. Originally, Too Human was intended to be played by four players cooperatively, but that was then dropped to two. The difficulty shows that it was still built for four players. It is hard enough to get two people to play so getting four would have been next to impossible. If you want to go through this adventure on your own, you should be prepared for a challenge. The multiplayer does make the game easier, but games like this should be made first to work properly for one person, then tweaked for Co-Op play.
I cannot recommend this game to anyone regardless if you are a fan of the Dungeon-crawler RPG games that were once so successful on the PC. It really disappoints me to say that because I really wanted to enjoy this game. It had a lot of promise and it even starts off on the right path game-play wise. Once the difficulty kicks into full gear, the enjoyment factor drops and the frustration goes through the roof. The game ends on a cliff-hanger but we already knew well in advance that this is a planned series.
I do believe there will still be a sequel even with the problems of the first. I really feel that there is a true gem under all this dirt and with a little bit more work, Too Human 2 can be really incredible and make up for the mistakes of the first. Right now is what matters and Too Human is just not a game that will get people interested in the series or genre.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Lost: Via Domus Review (Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3)
It is usually extremely difficult for most movies or television programs to translate well onto a videogame. For one, it's almost a challenge to get the support of the full cast and crew of the movie/series to agree to spend the extra time in making the game. The other problem they face is that they are often rushed either to make a quick buck or ride the popularity wave of said franchise.
In my history of games, the last good TV show to translate into a solid videogame that I played was Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the Xbox back when the system was still new; that was more than 6 years ago. Lost: Via Domus, is not a bad game, it's definitely not a good game either.
The game, based on the popular ABC (CTV in Canada) series recently completed its abbreviated fourth season. Lost: Via Domus was released earlier in 2008 to help tide over fans of the series between seasons. While the game does not bridge the gap between seasons, it does take part at various points in seasons one and two of the show.
In Via Domus, rather than playing as one of the regular cast members, you play as Elliot Maslow, a person on the plane who is suffering from amnesia. The main plot of the game is trying to help Elliot remember his past and at the same time trying to get off the Island. Since you don't remember who you are, you need to piece things back together. Since Elliot is a photo-journalist (something he re-discovers very early in the game), he knows that information about his past is available both on his computer and his camera. So the game starts you off by finding those two items. Once you do, that opens a whole new plot point which you must also uncover.
There are two main gameplay mechanics in the game. The first is your simple adventure game, where you must lead Elliot through different areas, collecting and talking to people for clues and solving puzzles to progress further in the game. The other, uses his photo-journalism past to uncover his history. These flashback moments are interesting as the do have some connection to some of the other characters and plots from the show. There isn't anything that is really important but like the show, everything is connected.
The controls in the game are alright, but nothing special. Majority of the game will have you collecting items and talking to people, but often, you only need to trigger one character speech or one specific item to progress.
You will spend most of your time walking or running by pressing the Right Trigger button. There are only a few times when there are 'action' moments, but even those are easy to do.
The game's story is fair, but nothing that rocks or changes the plot of the show. If you are a fan of the show, you won't miss anything. At the same time, if you're not a fan of the show, you might not understand some of what is going on or the people on the island as there is little to no history of events occurring during that point in the show (for example why the first time you talk to Sun, she speaks to you in Korean, but the next time, she's fluent in English).
An interesting aspect of the game is that it is split into 7 mini episodes. Each episode begins with a 'Previously on Lost…'; has the intro and even the 'Lost' closing for each episode. This is good if you play the game in short bursts and want it to feel like a show, but realistically, you can finish most episodes in about 30-40 minutes, so seeing these over and over again does become a strain.
The characters from the show are almost there just for show. While you'll talk to most of the cast, they seem little more than just there to fit disk space. You never really interact with them unless you need to trade for items or to get clues. I also had a problem with the interaction with characters as they will either give you horrible answers (which sometimes don't make sense) or don't progress the story further.
The characters are all represented in the game fairly well, but the voice-acting is extremely poor. Outside of a few of the characters and all of your favorites with the exception of Ben are voiced by someone other than the actor themselves. Locke sounds like an old farmer and Sawyer sounds like he's constipated. There are even times when while the characters are in the game, they serve no real purpose (Michael, Desmond and Sawyer in particular)
At the same time, while the characters do look like themselves, their animations are down-right awful. At one point, near the end of the game, when you interact with a character, she looks like a ghost, when she should be expressing herself much more dramatically. Elliot and the other 'made for the game' characters do look a bit better, but it just seems weird.
Voice acting might be poor, but at least the game does use the solid Lost score very well. The game sounds great when the tension is rising and helps keep you interested. It does save the game, but not greatly.
While the game is short and relatively easy, there are times when frustration will occur. The controls of your character are decent but do pose a problem sometimes, especially when you are trying to search for items. The game also does not offer a skip feature during cut-scenes, so if you fail a portion or happen to die, you'll have to go through some long cut-scene that you wish you could skip. Overall, you should be able to finish the game in about 5 hours; shorter or longer depending on if you want to find all the game's achievements and actually bother to ask every possible question available to you.
Outside of the interesting flashback moments and some little treats here and there, you really don't have any reason to play this game. As I stated before, they didn't add anything that would benefit the fan of the show, so there is no incentive to play. Also, once you beat the game, you have no reason to play again as there are no bonus features to unlock, which would have made the value of this title so much better and more appealing the fans.
If you haven't played this game but are a fan of the show, I recommend at least renting this. Considering the show won't return until January of 2009, this could help you remember some of the environments and moments from the show, but it doesn't substitute the solid show. If you aren't a fan, I strongly suggest you avoid this because it won't turn you into one.
In my history of games, the last good TV show to translate into a solid videogame that I played was Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the Xbox back when the system was still new; that was more than 6 years ago. Lost: Via Domus, is not a bad game, it's definitely not a good game either.
The game, based on the popular ABC (CTV in Canada) series recently completed its abbreviated fourth season. Lost: Via Domus was released earlier in 2008 to help tide over fans of the series between seasons. While the game does not bridge the gap between seasons, it does take part at various points in seasons one and two of the show.
In Via Domus, rather than playing as one of the regular cast members, you play as Elliot Maslow, a person on the plane who is suffering from amnesia. The main plot of the game is trying to help Elliot remember his past and at the same time trying to get off the Island. Since you don't remember who you are, you need to piece things back together. Since Elliot is a photo-journalist (something he re-discovers very early in the game), he knows that information about his past is available both on his computer and his camera. So the game starts you off by finding those two items. Once you do, that opens a whole new plot point which you must also uncover.
There are two main gameplay mechanics in the game. The first is your simple adventure game, where you must lead Elliot through different areas, collecting and talking to people for clues and solving puzzles to progress further in the game. The other, uses his photo-journalism past to uncover his history. These flashback moments are interesting as the do have some connection to some of the other characters and plots from the show. There isn't anything that is really important but like the show, everything is connected.
The controls in the game are alright, but nothing special. Majority of the game will have you collecting items and talking to people, but often, you only need to trigger one character speech or one specific item to progress.
You will spend most of your time walking or running by pressing the Right Trigger button. There are only a few times when there are 'action' moments, but even those are easy to do.
The game's story is fair, but nothing that rocks or changes the plot of the show. If you are a fan of the show, you won't miss anything. At the same time, if you're not a fan of the show, you might not understand some of what is going on or the people on the island as there is little to no history of events occurring during that point in the show (for example why the first time you talk to Sun, she speaks to you in Korean, but the next time, she's fluent in English).
An interesting aspect of the game is that it is split into 7 mini episodes. Each episode begins with a 'Previously on Lost…'; has the intro and even the 'Lost' closing for each episode. This is good if you play the game in short bursts and want it to feel like a show, but realistically, you can finish most episodes in about 30-40 minutes, so seeing these over and over again does become a strain.
The characters from the show are almost there just for show. While you'll talk to most of the cast, they seem little more than just there to fit disk space. You never really interact with them unless you need to trade for items or to get clues. I also had a problem with the interaction with characters as they will either give you horrible answers (which sometimes don't make sense) or don't progress the story further.
The characters are all represented in the game fairly well, but the voice-acting is extremely poor. Outside of a few of the characters and all of your favorites with the exception of Ben are voiced by someone other than the actor themselves. Locke sounds like an old farmer and Sawyer sounds like he's constipated. There are even times when while the characters are in the game, they serve no real purpose (Michael, Desmond and Sawyer in particular)
At the same time, while the characters do look like themselves, their animations are down-right awful. At one point, near the end of the game, when you interact with a character, she looks like a ghost, when she should be expressing herself much more dramatically. Elliot and the other 'made for the game' characters do look a bit better, but it just seems weird.
Voice acting might be poor, but at least the game does use the solid Lost score very well. The game sounds great when the tension is rising and helps keep you interested. It does save the game, but not greatly.
While the game is short and relatively easy, there are times when frustration will occur. The controls of your character are decent but do pose a problem sometimes, especially when you are trying to search for items. The game also does not offer a skip feature during cut-scenes, so if you fail a portion or happen to die, you'll have to go through some long cut-scene that you wish you could skip. Overall, you should be able to finish the game in about 5 hours; shorter or longer depending on if you want to find all the game's achievements and actually bother to ask every possible question available to you.
Outside of the interesting flashback moments and some little treats here and there, you really don't have any reason to play this game. As I stated before, they didn't add anything that would benefit the fan of the show, so there is no incentive to play. Also, once you beat the game, you have no reason to play again as there are no bonus features to unlock, which would have made the value of this title so much better and more appealing the fans.
If you haven't played this game but are a fan of the show, I recommend at least renting this. Considering the show won't return until January of 2009, this could help you remember some of the environments and moments from the show, but it doesn't substitute the solid show. If you aren't a fan, I strongly suggest you avoid this because it won't turn you into one.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Soulcalibur IV Review (PS3 and Xbox360)
When it comes to fighting games, there seems to be three types of categories. The first is your over-the-top fighters like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat which rely on special attacks with out-of-this world characters. The second category is the complete opposite with realistic actions and move-sets that use real fighting techiques, like Virtua Fighter. The third category is your fighting with weapons, and the game that best fits that group has been for many years the Soul series of games.
Soulcalibur for years has been among the best known and probably easiest to pick up fighting games around. You have your selection of characters, each with a weapon, and you duke it out. Your basic moves are the horizontal or vertical slash, kick or grab. Unlike other fighting games where you press back to block, here you press one of the face buttons. To do grabs or other special moves, you’ll have to combine face buttons, but for the most part, it’s very easy to learn, but will take time to master.
The Soulcalibur games in the past have contained your basic arcade mode and a story based mode. Soulcalibur IV continues this, but the story mode this time around is extremely short, with only 5 stages. In previous versions you would have spent a lot of time in this mode, but this time, it takes the back seat to the other modes and can be completed in about 10 minutes. The two modes which you’ll spend the most time with are the
In
Soulcalibur IV gives you the ability to essentially create a character from scratch. You’ll take a template and then you can adjust just about anything from armour, weapons and abilities which will affect your character that can be used in various modes, including online. There are already a plethora of interesting characters created by people that include famous fighters from other games and even a few super-heroes (check out YouTube for examples). At the same time, you can adjust characters already available and unlock characters that are not available from the start.
Just because there is a Character Creator option, does not mean that the selection of available characters is weak. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. All the characters, both returning and new, work really well. The only down-side to the characters is the bonus characters: Yoda, Vader and The Apprentice. Yoda just seems out of place, Vader is ok, but nothing rspecial while The Apprentice seems a bit too powerful for his own good. All three look great, but it’s better to stick to the regular cast when playing either against the computer or with your friends.
The graphics in the game are great but nothing absolutely incredible. The character models work well and so do the environments, as you would expect with a Namco title. A nice addition to the game is that character armour deteriorates as you fight. If your character attacks a certain part of the body (head, torso or legs) repeatedly, your opponent will lose that part of armour. This is a great little addition since you can essentially turn your opponent completely ‘nude’ and dish out massive damage.
The game’s sound is also great but I preferred to play the game with the Japanese voiceovers rather than the English ones. This is ok, except for the fact that if you play with either of the two bonus characters (Vader/Yoda and the Apprentice), they don’t speak in their normal language. The game’s famous Voice-over is still there and continues to narrate the game as you play. The in-game music is also still quite memorable and fits with the levels (meaning the Star Wars levels have famous Star Wars songs when playing in them).
Soulcalibur moves into the world of online fighting and thanks to the Character Creator, you can really have some interesting fights. Because of that fact, you might not actually fight against one of the main characters. The lag is hit-or-miss but for the most part, you’ll be able to play some decent matches, unless you have a ‘drop’ with the person you are playing against.
It is a bit of a disappointment that the Story mode was reduced, but thanks to the
Thanks to the to the easy to learn controls, new players in the series will not take too long to get used to the controls and at the same time, veterans will have a lot options to master the game, giving it that great balance for all. I can easily recommend this Fantastic game and suggest if you have even the slightest interest in fighting games that you pick this up. With small selection of fighting games available right now, you will be playing this until the next Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter IV hits the streets and that won’t be for at least another few months.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Assassin's Creed Late Review (PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360)
What if historians could use our DNA to uncover the secrets of the past? Well that’s the premise of one of 2007’s most talked about games, Assassin’s Creed. While the game was released a while ago, I only recently managed to play the game and wanted to experience what the hype was all about.
Technically you are Desmond Mason, a bartender who is apparently the descendant of a famous Assassin, Altair. it seems that, the events carried out by our ancestors are embedded in our DNA and are passed from generation to generation. An interesting concept, but definitely restrictive, since the moment of conception, that data is stuck, so anything they do afterwards cannot be transferred. Since Altair is essentially a relative of Desmond, he carries some vital information that certain people need. Desmond is ‘kidnapped’ and agrees to let a doctor (Dr. Vidic) and his assistant (Lucy) to take a ‘look’ at this information to try to uncover some secrets from the past.
While you are Desmond, you become Altair when you take control of him during these memory blocks. Your goal as Altair, is to complete tasks given to your by your Assassin’s Guild. You begin your memories with an unsuccessful mission where you are punished and you must regain your skills. You proceed to take-out important figures and solve the mystery of your environments. As you complete these Assassinations, you regain your skills (similar to every Metroid game).
The game takes place during the Crusades and all the missions begin with you traveling to one of three
While the game ‘can’ be easy, it’s actually quite not, thanks in part to the horrible controls and auto targeting that hamper a large chunk of the game. If you encounter a problem in the game, it will be because of the extremely sensitive controls. Since you need to do a lot of climbing and jumping, the touchy controls can cause you to miss an easy jump, jump to the wrong ledge or have a problem trying to grab a ledge. The controls also pose a problem when attacking, in particular when you have a lot of characters on the screen. You will often encounter groups of 3, 5 or even more guards and it can be problematic trying to target them thanks to the far from perfect auto targeting. If and when you do ‘die’ (you technically do not die, but you need to restart the memory: it’s the past, so the events have already occurred) it will be because of the controls.
The controls do make the game a pain, but thankfully the game looks great in terms of the environments. All the cities look stunning and sometimes you might just want to admire the architecture. The character graphics are good, but at times seem extremely stiff, especially with Lucy and Dr. Vidic. The cut-scenes are done well and look good, but it’s a bit of a disappointment that the movements of NPCs are not fluid and realistic.
The sound department is nice and fits the time-frame of the game. While the voice-acting is not bad, it’s not that good either. You’ll get annoyed after hearing the beggar-woman or the random character repeat the same thing over and over again.
This is a Good game, but because of those pesky controls, be prepared for some challenges along the way, and may turn off most from this title. The premise of the story original and the sandbox options (climbing ledges to synchronize, saving pedestrians, etc…) does give the game a lot of longevity. It will take you a good 15-20 hours to complete the game and if you’re playing on the 360, you’ll want to spend the time to find the flags and completing all the tasks to unlock the achievements. I would also recommend playing this game on the 360 over the PS3 for that reason alone. It looks good on both platforms but the collecting and extra tasks are better suited for those looking to improve their GamerScore on the 360.
It’s almost a certainty that there will be a sequel some-time down the road, and if they can fix the extremely sensitive controls and stiff character animations, the series will be absolutely incredible. Until then, try this one out, have some fun, but keep your voice when you want Altair to climb a wall instead of using it to jump off it.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Grand Theft Auto IV Review (PS3 and Xbox 360 Review)
Videogames are the new form of story-telling. When done correctly, they can engage the viewer into a world that is usually better than their own. Even with all the controversy surrounding the series, Grand Theft Auto has always done a great job in connecting the player with the characters, storylines and environments. The open play gives players essentially the controls to do things at their own pace. Yes, you will have to do some mandatory tasks to open up the entire ‘world’. Once you’ve done that, nothing holds you back from non-stop enjoyment.
Grand Theft Auto IV doesn’t build on the III canon and offer the gamer an entire country to play with, but rather takes us back to the city that started all the hype: Liberty City. The people behind the game decided to give us a city with so much to offer and so much detail that you will forget about the fact that San Andreas gave us an entire state to play with. The Burroughs that makes up Liberty City are all extremely well developed with plenty of places to see and things to do. Feel like getting something to eat, you’re not too far from a variety of eateries including hot dog vendors at various street corners. Want to play pool, darts or even bowling? You’ve got options. Heck, just want to sit back, relax and have a laugh, drop by the comedy club where Katt Williams is performing live. You might not be able to buy property, but you have so many other things at your disposal make up for that.
The GTA III canon of games all had great and engaging storylines. You had your basic story, based on getting back at those who ‘screwed’ you over and along the way, you meet up with people who you at first trusted but later had to ‘take care of’ later on, or those who you thought were ‘slime balls’ but were there when you needed them the most. GTA IV is no different. This time, instead of playing as an American, we get the opportunity to play as immigrant Niko Bellic, a former soldier who fought during the Bosnian Civil War during the mid-90s. Niko has had some problems back home in the Balkans and made the decision to come to America after reading the great stories he heard from his cousin, Roman. While we’re led to believe that his reasons to come to America were to ‘Live the American Dream’ we slowly realize that Niko is there for revenge.
Not wanting to go into too much detail, during Niko’s service in Bosnia, something went wrong and people he cared for died. He feels that the person who back-stabbed his unit is hiding in Liberty City and he wants to find them. The goal in the game is to find this person, but it won’t be easy for an Illegal immigrant with no money and a cousin who told grand stories of success, but actually owes more than he has. This is why Niko needs to be-friend various people and essentially become a goon-for-hire in order to get those with power to help him find the person he is looking for.
Niko is not your stereotypical main character. He’s not American and doesn’t connect to the average American. You need to understand the fact that he is different to understand his actions. If you accept him as a foreigner and his manners, or the fact that he tends to be very accepting of people, you will turn to love him for what he is. There are some great moments where we see just how difficult it can be for someone who doesn’t speak American English to understand the slang of the area.
While all the characters you interact with in the game are all extremely unique and well-done, the storyline does tend to drag on a bit. This may understandable since anyone would have to do a lot of hard work to get to that ultimate goal. The ‘main’ objective for Niko slowly becomes the sub-plot and his ultimate finale deals with an entirely different issue and character. This is common with the GTA III canon, but this could have been a great opportunity for RockStar to do things a bit differently and surprise us. While the levels are great, there are some that just don’t make sense as to why Niko would agree to do them. One particular mission, which is also probably the best mission ever made (an homage to the film Heat), really wasn’t necessary for Niko to take part of but was an pleasure to play. The game also puts us into situations where decisions must be made and those choices will affect the game later down the road. These are nice because it forces the gamer to make a tough decision. What is impressive is that other characters react differently depending on the choices you make.
With GTA IV entering the HD era, the graphics and sound in the game are absolutely incredible. Everything from the cars, buildings and people are all extremely well detailed. The pedestrians might not look super crisp, they still look good enough that you may at times just want to stand at a busy corner and admire the scenery. The graphics are great, but it’s the dynamic lighting that most people will talk about. The natural lighting changes as time goes by. Play at noon in game, and it’s extremely bright; play at 2 am, and it will be awfully difficult to do anything in any dark environments. This can be frustrating at times, especially with some levels where you need to see where you’re going, but it is extremely realistic. It actually ended up hurting my enjoyment of the finale as I finished it late in the evening (in game time).
The sound is also really good. While being of Serbian Decent and fluent in the language, I was disappointed with the accents of the actors who spoke in Serbo-Croatian, both their Slavic speeches and even the attempt at the English accents of a foreigner. It wasn’t bad enough that it dampened the story but sometimes I wish foreign actors were used instead of American based ones. Other than that, the characters deliver their lines well and you really feel like you’re watching a Gangster Movie. The sounds of the cars, the street noise and everything else that adds to the ambiance of the game are extremely top-notch and make all the environments extremely believable. The music in the game continues the great tradition of the previous series with dozens of great tunes and something for everyone; Jazz, Russian, Rock, Hip-Hop and Reggae just to mention a few. Also, the great talk-radio stations are there as well.
GTA IV is absolutely Stunning and I loved it. Yes, it is frustrating at times, but games are supposed to be challenging, it is why we play them. The main storyline should take the average gamer 30-40 hours to complete, but the amount of extra content available at your finger tips doubles the playtime. Because of what the game has to offer, no one can fault you at wanting to take some time away from the story to watch some TV (in game), clean up the streets (helping the police to rid the city of its other criminals), dating a potential future wife (or ex-wife) or playing the absolutely enjoyable multiplayer mode, there is something for everyone.
We might not have gotten double the size of San Andreas, but we did get a Grand Theft Auto game that does satisfy the fan of the series. There are problems in the lighting and some glitches will appear here and there, but it is never to the point that you give up. If you’re not a fan of the series, I really feel that this could change that since Niko and the supporting staff is really well-done with not a bad or out of place character in the bunch. The game does take some time before you hit the really juicy parts, but once you start to have fun, you won’t want to stop. Like GTA III before it, this will force other game companies to copy its success and will change the face of gaming in the future.
Grand Theft Auto IV doesn’t build on the III canon and offer the gamer an entire country to play with, but rather takes us back to the city that started all the hype: Liberty City. The people behind the game decided to give us a city with so much to offer and so much detail that you will forget about the fact that San Andreas gave us an entire state to play with. The Burroughs that makes up Liberty City are all extremely well developed with plenty of places to see and things to do. Feel like getting something to eat, you’re not too far from a variety of eateries including hot dog vendors at various street corners. Want to play pool, darts or even bowling? You’ve got options. Heck, just want to sit back, relax and have a laugh, drop by the comedy club where Katt Williams is performing live. You might not be able to buy property, but you have so many other things at your disposal make up for that.
The GTA III canon of games all had great and engaging storylines. You had your basic story, based on getting back at those who ‘screwed’ you over and along the way, you meet up with people who you at first trusted but later had to ‘take care of’ later on, or those who you thought were ‘slime balls’ but were there when you needed them the most. GTA IV is no different. This time, instead of playing as an American, we get the opportunity to play as immigrant Niko Bellic, a former soldier who fought during the Bosnian Civil War during the mid-90s. Niko has had some problems back home in the Balkans and made the decision to come to America after reading the great stories he heard from his cousin, Roman. While we’re led to believe that his reasons to come to America were to ‘Live the American Dream’ we slowly realize that Niko is there for revenge.
Not wanting to go into too much detail, during Niko’s service in Bosnia, something went wrong and people he cared for died. He feels that the person who back-stabbed his unit is hiding in Liberty City and he wants to find them. The goal in the game is to find this person, but it won’t be easy for an Illegal immigrant with no money and a cousin who told grand stories of success, but actually owes more than he has. This is why Niko needs to be-friend various people and essentially become a goon-for-hire in order to get those with power to help him find the person he is looking for.
Niko is not your stereotypical main character. He’s not American and doesn’t connect to the average American. You need to understand the fact that he is different to understand his actions. If you accept him as a foreigner and his manners, or the fact that he tends to be very accepting of people, you will turn to love him for what he is. There are some great moments where we see just how difficult it can be for someone who doesn’t speak American English to understand the slang of the area.
While all the characters you interact with in the game are all extremely unique and well-done, the storyline does tend to drag on a bit. This may understandable since anyone would have to do a lot of hard work to get to that ultimate goal. The ‘main’ objective for Niko slowly becomes the sub-plot and his ultimate finale deals with an entirely different issue and character. This is common with the GTA III canon, but this could have been a great opportunity for RockStar to do things a bit differently and surprise us. While the levels are great, there are some that just don’t make sense as to why Niko would agree to do them. One particular mission, which is also probably the best mission ever made (an homage to the film Heat), really wasn’t necessary for Niko to take part of but was an pleasure to play. The game also puts us into situations where decisions must be made and those choices will affect the game later down the road. These are nice because it forces the gamer to make a tough decision. What is impressive is that other characters react differently depending on the choices you make.
With GTA IV entering the HD era, the graphics and sound in the game are absolutely incredible. Everything from the cars, buildings and people are all extremely well detailed. The pedestrians might not look super crisp, they still look good enough that you may at times just want to stand at a busy corner and admire the scenery. The graphics are great, but it’s the dynamic lighting that most people will talk about. The natural lighting changes as time goes by. Play at noon in game, and it’s extremely bright; play at 2 am, and it will be awfully difficult to do anything in any dark environments. This can be frustrating at times, especially with some levels where you need to see where you’re going, but it is extremely realistic. It actually ended up hurting my enjoyment of the finale as I finished it late in the evening (in game time).
The sound is also really good. While being of Serbian Decent and fluent in the language, I was disappointed with the accents of the actors who spoke in Serbo-Croatian, both their Slavic speeches and even the attempt at the English accents of a foreigner. It wasn’t bad enough that it dampened the story but sometimes I wish foreign actors were used instead of American based ones. Other than that, the characters deliver their lines well and you really feel like you’re watching a Gangster Movie. The sounds of the cars, the street noise and everything else that adds to the ambiance of the game are extremely top-notch and make all the environments extremely believable. The music in the game continues the great tradition of the previous series with dozens of great tunes and something for everyone; Jazz, Russian, Rock, Hip-Hop and Reggae just to mention a few. Also, the great talk-radio stations are there as well.
GTA IV is absolutely Stunning and I loved it. Yes, it is frustrating at times, but games are supposed to be challenging, it is why we play them. The main storyline should take the average gamer 30-40 hours to complete, but the amount of extra content available at your finger tips doubles the playtime. Because of what the game has to offer, no one can fault you at wanting to take some time away from the story to watch some TV (in game), clean up the streets (helping the police to rid the city of its other criminals), dating a potential future wife (or ex-wife) or playing the absolutely enjoyable multiplayer mode, there is something for everyone.
We might not have gotten double the size of San Andreas, but we did get a Grand Theft Auto game that does satisfy the fan of the series. There are problems in the lighting and some glitches will appear here and there, but it is never to the point that you give up. If you’re not a fan of the series, I really feel that this could change that since Niko and the supporting staff is really well-done with not a bad or out of place character in the bunch. The game does take some time before you hit the really juicy parts, but once you start to have fun, you won’t want to stop. Like GTA III before it, this will force other game companies to copy its success and will change the face of gaming in the future.
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