Hydrophobia: Prophecy

Hydrophobia is a strange little game, and it really does feel like an unfinished product. It sets you up with elements of a psychological thriller, but then never mentions it again, half the characters you interact with just disappear without any explanation, and to top it all off it's only about 2 and a half hours long if you just buzz through it. And that's not to mention the sometimes infuriating combat and wonky camera controls which auto correct to the back of your character even when you don't want them to. The game doesn't look that great either (besides the water but I'll get to that later) but it's not ugly enough to do any more damage.

Honestly the most frustrating part of this game was just the complete failure to capitalize on the more interesting story and background elements that they set up for you. The game opens with the main character having a nightmare, in her nightmare she has drowned, and at the end she turns into a zombie and lunges at the camera, thus waking her up. Right off the bat I was thinking the character was going to be cripplingly afraid of water and that we were going to get into some really good survival horror type segments. Wellp, I was fucking wrong. THEY NEVER MENTION HER FEAR AGAIN. It's like it just never happened, seriously if you are going to make a game, and realize half way through that you cant afford to complete it as you originally intended, JUST CUT THAT SHIT OUT. I wouldn't have gotten my hopes up for it if you hadn't left it in the game. It's like if Live Free or Die Hard started with some fucked up nightmare sequence involving a goat and no small amount of crisco, but nothing else in the film was changed. It just feels completely out of place, like it doesn't belong there at all (that's probably what the goat was thinking). And the odd part is, I played the updated version, so that bizarre little tidbit made it through 2 iterations of the game.

Hydrophobia also has a problem with names. Throughout most of the game the main character refers to her handler as "Scoot" and the only other friendly character is the security chief, who is ALWAYS referred to by his last name. But when the terrorist leader captures one of them (i don't know who because the cutscene graphics are MUCH different than the ingame) she refers to him by his normal first name, so I had no fucking idea who she was killing or why it should matter. In a game this short, it seems like a serious misstep to assume that the players are going to know the characters well enough to recognize them by a name they have never been referred to with. It's REALLY HARD TO CARE ABOUT A CHARACTER'S DEATH WHEN I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO IT IS.

And then we get to the combat, this starts up just shy of half way through the game, and is severely frustrating, especially when it all but cuts out the very entertaining platforming bits. The problem with the combat isn't balancing, your enemies are typically fairly easy to kill (and so are you). But they can pop out from god damned anywhere. But the thing is, the game gets you accustomed to a "kill what you see" approach, where you walk into a room, there are 4 enemies, you kill 4 enemies, and the fight is over. But then randomly it will throw respawning enemies at you, and their respawn points make NO FUCKING SENSE. For example, in one scene I was running down a narrow hallway, the door behind me was sealed and the room on the other side of it filled with water, ahead of me was one enemy, I quickly killed him, only to be shot in the back of the head by a shotgunner who came from NOWHERE. Did the fucking guy just happen to be out for a swim in that particular part of the ship? What the hell. And because of the lighting sometimes an enemy can be shooting at you, from somewhere in front of you, but remain completely invisible even when firing. That is just about as frustrating as combat can be, being killed by an enemy who is invisible not due to some special suit he is wearing, but due to bad lighting programmers.

However, beneath the many layers of dust and tarnish there is a pretty solid 3D platformer here. The story is pretty negligible, the combat is very very hit and miss, and the voice acting and story telling get pretty damn rough. But jumping and swinging and shimmying from place to place is really very fun. And the underwater scenes are usually tense enough (though they would be much more tense if the characters fear of water were ever acted upon). And, in keeping with its name, the water graphics are absolutely stunning, they achieved a rare feat here, water that actually behaves like water. When you open a door the room quickly floods, if you take a wave directly it will likely knock you over and sweep you away.

There are even a couple of Half Life 2 like puzzles that involve moving floating objects underneath platforms to get the platforms higher. Basically, whenever you don't have a gun, and you aren't worried about substance, Hydrophobia is a hell of an entertaining game.

When all is said and done, I have to take into account the fact that I only paid 3 dollars for this game. And for that price, it's absolutely brilliant (thank you steam sales). It is far from a perfect animal, but when I get more fun out of it than going to a movie, and it costs far less, I'd say I'm satisfied. As a game critic though I can't be biased and rate this game higher than it deserves just because it was cheap. So I give it a 5 out of 10. There really is a good game here waiting to be made, but it just isn't here yet. If an updated or finished version was released though, I would almost certainly be on board to give the franchise a second chance. Especially if it's released as another inexpensive title. At the best I get what Hydrophobia should have been, and at the worst I get an afternoon of fast paced occasionally frustrating entertainment. Hydrophobia is still on sale through steam for about 4 dollars for the next day or so, and it really is worth picking up if you have a few bucks lying around.


Hydrophobia Prophecy and Live Free or Die Hard are property of their respective owners
All else is ©Alex Jenkins 2011

Green Lantern (the movie)

I've been looking forward to the release of the Green Lantern for a while now, so when i popped onto rottentomatoes.com to see how things were looking I was more than a little bit dismayed by the generally low ratings and harsh reviews. None the less I made my way to the theater earlier today with some hesitation. But honestly I was pleasantly surprised. No it wasn't groundbreaking and it wasn't the best superhero movie ever, or even this summer, but it was really pretty good. I apologize in advance because this isn't much of a review. I'm really just trying to piece together why critics hated it so much.

The cast was solid, and the writing was pretty good for this kind of movie. I think where a lot of the summer crowd is going to lose interest is in its relatively deep back story. It doesn't jump straight to the action, it spends a lot of time explaining where the Green Lanterns come from, and how their abilities work. It's sort of a blessing that so much time is spent on this back story because when the action does kick into gear, it gets a little bit overdone. The special effects are more than good enough but some of the things used in combat are a little bit ridiculous. For example (spoilers) when the Green Lantern manifests two fighter jets to keep himself from being sucked into the sun. When things are kept in the realm of giant green fists and bolts of energy the action is cool. But a few goofy scenes do mess it up a little bit. So I guess I have to give the critics at least a point there, but really the weak moments are few and fairly far between so it's barely worth mentioning.

The cast was great all around. Ryan Reynolds did his typical smart ass personality and used it to great effect here, fitting the script and character perfectly. The female lead was thankfully not overly involved in the movie, nothing ruins a cool superhero movie like an overbearing love interest (*cough* Spiderman *cough cough*). But when she is on screen she is SUPER hot and a pretty decent actress, who, against the norm, ENCOURAGES, Hal to go beat up bad guys, and at one point actually HELPS. The supporting characters were all competent enough that they didn't take anything away from the movie, but only a couple of them actually added anything, most notably the villains lackey on earth played by Peter Sarsgaard. It's hard to explain much about him without ruining some things, so if you don't want things ruined for you, skip to the next paragraph. Sarsgaard plays an unassuming college professor and xenobiologist who is originally called in to examine the body of the Green Lantern who passed the ring on to Hal (aka Reynolds). He comes across as a nice guy and is even offended that his father pulled strings to get him a position that others deserve more than him. But he is corrupted by yellow energy (aka Fear), he slowly loses his mind and sets off, as you would expect, to try and kill Hal. When Sarsgaard is killed you really just feel bad for him, he is just as much a victim as any of the innocents.

Probably the best aspect of the film is the fact that it never takes itself too seriously. Reynolds friends and even his acquaintances immediately recognize him in his mask, and there are some subtle jabs at the superhero genre as a whole.

Again, I really have a hard time understanding why Green Lantern got hit so hard by critics. Obviously it's hardly an artsy or revolutionary film, I mean it's a superhero movie so what do you expect? Really I thought it was a step above most (not all) superhero movies that have been released as of late. The movie always felt like it knew where it was going and it didn't feel padded. But I suppose from the average American the fact that it goes in depth and doesn't have THAT much action means it's bad. Too much story not enough action. It's basically the same reason that video games have been gradually devolving. The general populace is so god damned stupid that any plot that goes above and beyond "ARRR YOU KILL PARENTS I DEVOTE LIFE TO KILLING YOU ARRRRR" is looked upon as needlessly complex and convoluted. This is sad and pathetic. I swear to the giant wizard in the sky, if we keep this up Idiocracy is going to come true.


Green Lantern is property of DC comics.
All else is ©Alex Jenkins 2011

Metro 2033

Well it's Russian. Which means awesome accents, lots of vodka, and one of the most deeply disturbing post apocalyptic worlds ever imagined. In Metro, Earth has fallen victim to a devastating nuclear holocaust. The surface has become incapable of supporting human life and is home to all kinds of horrific mutant creatures, so the people of Moscow have taken shelter in the subway tunnels beneath the city. As a result of this claustrophobic setting you always feel trapped, even when you come across one of the many human settlements in the tunnels (about half of which would rather kill you than help you). You would think that the few segments in which you see the open air of the surface would be a relief. But they are just the complete opposite, not only are they filled with far more dangerous enemies than in the tunnels below, but you must constantly wear a gas mask. This impedes your vision and hearing both, and every few minutes you have to stop and change out your filter. This constant stress makes you actually look forward to going back to the dark enclosed tunnels which have become your home.

There's a lot to talk about with this game, but I guess the most notable thing is the atmosphere of unrelenting oppressiveness that has been laid over the entire experience. From the moment Artyom (the player) wakes up in his tiny room, which makes a college dorm room look like a palace, to the final moments of the game, this feeling of hopelessness just never lets up. Ammo is almost always scarce, you are not survivable, and if you aren't paying attention you are going to wind up dead. Either because you will miss the enemy sneaking up on you, or because you will miss the fact that your pneumatic rifle is at 0 pressure and might as well be firing cotton balls. Or you could be in a dark corridor (they're ALL dark) and forget to charge your flashlight, and by the time you realize you can only see 2 feet in front of your face the mutants are right on top of you.

Most of the Time you will have a companion with you, and typically when you have a companion it's not as freaky, partially because of the company and because you cant get lost, they almost always show you were to go. But that's not to say that it's a bad decision for a horror game because what ends up happening is this. You get used to having a companion, they help you out, they keep you alive and vice-versa. But when your companion is gone, and you are still out in the tunnels, it makes everything seem that much lonelier, and that much creepier.

The story is relatively simple, though by current FPS standards it's positively transcendent. It more or less breaks down to this, Artyom's home is being attacked by mutants called Dark Ones. These Dark Ones break peoples minds to such an extent that a human who has been attacked by one will die within a day or two, without suffering any real physical injury. Artyom is for some reason resistant to their attacks, while they are still capable of giving him some pretty violent hallucinations, they can never quite manage to finish him off. But Artyom's plan is essentially to go to the surface, find a functioning nuclear silo, and nuke the shit out of the surface above his home, hopefully without destroying his home in the process.

A Hallucination

A Dark One

And finally that brings us to the graphics, which are nothing short of stunning. It can't be easy to make a subway and a destroyed city seem so beautiful. Everything is meticulously detailed, honestly I'm pretty nit-picky when it comes to graphics, but I never found anything to complain about. That could be because the pacing of the game is so relentless that you rarely have time to stop and look, but I really think it's because Russians are crazy and refuse to release an unfinished product. But here are a couple of really spectacular examples of the games gorgeous environments.

There were very few things about the game that I didn't like, but probably the most troublesome was the partial voice-over of the main character. It's not that the voice acting or writing was bad, it's that he only speaks during loading screens. This is very strange, why hire a voice actor, but only have him speak when no one else can contribute to the conversation? It winds up getting a weird on numerous occasions where other characters will ask direct questions to Artyom, wait for a second or two of silence, and then act like Artyom had given them the answer they wanted. I felt like I was watching post apocalyptic Russian Dora the Explorer. Usually this isn't a problem because your companions are typically quiet and you are often alone anyways. But it just seems strange to me to go through the trouble of hiring a voice actor, doing voice overs, but then giving him no in game voice. I understand that most games which feature a silent main character, do so in an attempt to make you feel like you ARE the main character, and that's fine (I guess, honestly I just think it's lazy, I'm lookin' at you Valve) but it only works if the character NEVER has a voice.


I'm going to skip the breakdown here because the above review basically IS a breakdown. All in all Metro 2033 is a great action game and a competent horror game with some well executed new ideas, and a solid foundation of tried and proven ideas. That on top of a solid story earns it an 8/10 in my book. Also now seems like a decent time to point out that there is a sequel that was announced just a few days ago called Metro Last Light. Here's the trailer for all those interested.

Metro 2033 is property of 4A Games
All else is ©Alex Jenkins 2011

More Excuses.

So, I haven't updated. If you are one of the 5 people who reads this you have probably already noticed this and may want to know WHY I haven't updated. And there are really a few reasons. First and foremost is that I am pretty well broke and currently looking for a new job, which has taken up a decent chunk of time to begin with, and is also very stressful and makes me not WANT to write. 2nd is that I can't find any of my older games that anyone might really care to hear about. But if you want to let me know which of the following you'd rather hear about that'd be great Mark, since I know you're the only one likely to read this. 1. Metro 2033 (a Russian made survival horror FPS) 2. Dawn of War 2 (either the original or the Chaos expansion, its a sci fi RTS) 3. Borderlands (FPSRPG) 4. Fallout New Vegas (you know what that is) or 5. Mafia 2 (sort of like GTA but in the 40's and with Mafia and somewhat less open). Let me know because I am an indecisive bastard lately and I just don't care.

What? Blog? Where? No. Rift so far.

So once again I've gone close to a month without updating here. That's largely because I've recently been playing Rift, which is of course absorbing a lot of time and isn't something I can really review. But what I can say, is that so far it is quite a lot better than World of Warcraft, really it comes off as sort of an unofficial sequel to WOW. But as I never get as involved in these games as some other people I haven't gotten to the high level stuff, and I haven't participated in any of the dungeons so I can't comment on those. But what I can say is that the random Rifts that pop up all over the world are extremely fun, and the fact that they allow you to automatically join a group with everyone else in the rift, that's convenient. The only major complaint I have so far, is the fact that any settlement can be randomly raided by an NPC army. Normally that's not that big of a deal, if anyone else is around you can typically fight them off without too much trouble. But when you find yourself alone, on your way to turn in 4 quests in a town, and you find it completely overrun, you lose your sense of humor fast.

it's hard to see but this was an invasion, and a massive pain in the ass

Also I have only played a warrior thus far, but it's worth mentioning that the variety in armor designs is startlingly low. My character is level 29 and I have only seen 2 types of armor thus far, they are simply given different colors or patterns. This is more than a little bit disappointing but again, the maximum level here is 50 so I'm far from seeing everything.

Combat is great, and feels a bit more involved than your typical MMORPG, right off the bat I got several retaliation attacks, one that works only after I get a critical, and another that works after the enemy dodges my shot. There is another that I just haven't unlocked yet but these make the combat feel more interesting and less like I could just walk away and come back in a minute to loot the bodies. The combat animations are also pretty decent. In fact the graphical presentation overall is fantastic, everything is bright and vibrant, without being cartoonish and overstated. And almost all of the environments that I have seen so far have been a pleasure to look at.

The community is a pathetic and depressing caricature of MMO players as a whole. I mean it's honestly pathetic. Now as a rule, I do not chat on global channels, and I avoid grouping at all costs in all MMO's, but I still pay attention to some of what is said in these channels. And in this case, every time someone asks a question, no matter what it may be, they are met with a smartass remark, or by someone just generally giving them a hard time. For example, someone came on, and said something along the lines of "Hey I've never played an MMO before, how should I get started?" and several people responded, most saying things like "go ask your mother" or "just press alt F4". It's like the games community is comprised entirely of the population of a certain website that I'm not going to name because you shouldn't go there. And then comes the constant WOW hate. I mean really guys, you're really going to complain about WOW when you are playing a game that is very nearly identical to it? But that's based off of just the one server, it could be different elsewhere I don't know.

Anyways that's about all I want to say at the moment, ill update this if I ever have enough to write you a full review but for the time being Rift is a pretty fun game. It's really nice to finally have another good fantasy MMORPG, World of Warcraft is REALLY showing its age, and unless the boys at Blizzard get their shit together and at least update their graphics (MORE THAN JUST THE FUCKING WATER) they are going to find themselves off the market relatively soon. I'm not saying Rift is going to force WOW out, but someone is going to, and it's going to happen soon.

Rift is property of Trion
All else is ©Alex Jenkins 2011

Dragon Age II

Because much of this review may come off as more than a little bit harsh I'd like to preface all of this by saying that I loved Dragon Age 2. Now that that's out of the way, let's get into why I am constantly losing faith in what was once my favorite game company, Bioware. Bioware has been around for God damned ever. They brought us Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, KoTR, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age Origins. All of which are fantastic games, in fact, besides KoTOR (not because I didn't like it, but because I've never finished it) all of those games are on my top 10 list. But then something weird happened, Bioware sold out. While Mass Effect was definitely a very straightforward action shooter based game, it also focused very heavily on story and featured a relatively deep character advancement system with more (poorly managed) loot than you could shake a squirrel at.

But then came Mass Effect 2. Mass Effect 2 is a great game, a great action game, not a great role playing game. Instead of taking the praise of their loyal fanbase to heart, they took the criticisms of the gaming community at large. They listened to the CoD and Halo fanatics, all the guys who said "NOT ENOUGH ACTION TOO MUCH TALKY TALK, ME NO UNDERTAND TALKY TALK ME HIT GAME WITH STICK". So when they threw Mass Effect 2 out there we got a game that was not designed by Bioware or Bioware's fan-base, we got a game that was designed by the mainstream gaming community who it was specifically tailored for. Loot became a thing of the past, and the level up system was grossly simplified to the point that you could go through the entire game without allocating a single point to any of your abilities and still do just fine, yes even if you played an Adept. I could live with all of that if not for one thing, if not for the fact that they scraped the story down to a tiny little nub. The entire story of Mass Effect 2 will be summed up in the next sentence, if you haven't played it and want to continue to believe that it will be as rich and engrossing as the first, please don't read ahead. Shepard get's launched into space when the collectors attack the Normandy, both are destroyed, Cerberus rebuilds both and sends Shepard after the collectors (who are working for the Reapers) but tells Shepard to gather allies first, Shepard gathers allies and kills collectors, the end. And honestly only about 3 hours of the game actually deal with the overlying and incredibly thin plot, the other 9 of this roughly 12 hour game (as opposed to about 20 or more for the first) are spent running around getting allies and forcing them to like you.

I know I know "Alex, this is supposed to be a review of Dragon Age 2, shut the fuck up about Mass Effect 2 already.". No you shut up! I'm going somewhere with all of this and you just don't understand! The point of all of it is that Dragon Age Origins to Dragon Age 2 follows almost the exact same progression (minus the simplified leveling up). For the sake of keeping this to a standard R rating we'll just call this process streamlining, that's what the sheep seem to like calling it anyways.

Dragon Age 2 has seen nothing but controversy ever since it was first announced, being that it was given a release date mere months after the release of DA:O. We were immediately concerned about what kind of quality level it would be at if they were really releasing it that soon. Then came the gameplay videos and the new label of "Action-RPG" fans of Bioware felt their redemption slipping through their fingers and into the sewers. The gameplay on the xbox had been dumbed down to a simple hit A to swing system, fights were over so quickly that there was no way you could possibly have had time to use any kind of tactics or even micromanage your team, but no one much cared, because seriously who plays Dragon Age on the frigging xbox? Then we got wind of all of the "streamlining" that had been done to make the game move faster, and really some of it actually made improvements.

At least on the PC version of the game if you turn the difficulty up, combat still requires a careful and tactical approach, and cross class combo moves add another layer of potential micromanagement that can turn groups of enemies into paste with a few quick moves, and the quicker cooler animations make it that much more fun to watch. This is actually probably the biggest improvement that the game has seen. While I personally enjoyed the rather methodical combat of the first game, the animations were almost painfully slow. But what Bioware has done here is speed up the animations, while keeping the core of the combat in tact. The basics are the same, it's just a lot prettier and more flowing.

So you wrap up your awesome fast paced fight and you find all kinds of loot scattered around the bodies, like a suit of armor lying mostly undamaged in the dust. It isn't as good as what you're wearing but it will certainly be an improvement for that warrior you just added to the team right? Hmm... this is weird... I can't seem to give it to him? Maybe he isn't strong enough to wear it yet? Oh wait, what's that Bioware? We aren't allowed to equip our party members? Makes perfect sense Bioware! I hate having the opportunity to suit up my companions with awesome new gear to keep them up to speed for the next fight! I mean really! Who the hell plays an RPG for character customization? Only idiots who play trash games like Baldurs Gate! That's who!

The other 2 that you can see in this shot, will look like that for the entire game. This gives them character, but takes your freedom.

Well since I don't have to waste any time equipping my team I guess that leaves me extra time to work on my crafting, guess I'll go out and gather up some elfroot and buy some vials so I can make myself some health potions, hmmm, I clicked that elfroot but it doesn't seem to be in my inventory.... Maybe I can only craft at some sort of crafting station? Oh wait, what's that Bioware? No crafting either? I just "order" potions when I have found ingredient locations? Makes perfect sense, I definitely don't like the feeling that my character has made these items for himself, that would be silly. The reason I mention that last one, is because it's basically the same system as crafting, only instead of doing it yourself you have someone else do it. This just seems so utterly pointless to me that I cannot even begin to wrap my head around why they did it. But merchants (besides the crafting ones) work pretty much the same way as before.

Enchantment?

But oh well, I guess I'll just stop and have a chat with one of my team mates! I wonder how Merril is doing! Hmm, this is odd, Merril won't talk to me? What's that Bioware? I can only talk to my party members in their homes? And even then only if they have something extremely specific to tell me about? Sure makes sense, talking to and getting to know my party is just one more thing that I hate doing in an RPG. 


But I think that's just about enough griping. There's so much here that's worthy of praise I don't want my complaints to make the overall package look bad. The first thing that I absolutely loved about Dragon Age 2, is the fact that it didn't have what you might call a straight-forward story. There was never any point during the game where I said to myself, "yep, that's the ultimate bad guy and I have to do this and this and this before I can go after him", as was the problem with ME2 and DA:O. That said there were some pretty significant omissions towards the end, but I'm willing to excuse them as I'm relatively confident that what was left out, was left out intentionally as a setup for the inevitable 3rd game in the franchise. But what this game is about, is not some huge threat to the world or some ancient evil reclaiming it's power so the amnesiac hero can go off to stop him. It's about Hawke, and it's about his rise to power and the people that influence his personality and choices. Don't take that to mean that there is no weight or excitement involved, because there is. There are actually multiple political and almost racial struggles that you are a key player in. And because the game spans a period of roughly 6 or 7 years, each of these struggles feels like a full story arc and is easy to get invested in. And that's not to mention the MASSIVE number of universally fun and interesting side quests that you will be sent on throughout the course of the game, most of which serve to further the overlying plot, or simply to give you background information about the people involved.

I'm pretty sure that look on his face is because he just can't believe how many side quests there are, and that HE got to be a part of one.

Another major improvement is a less obvious distinction between good and evil. For example, in the first game DA:O the templar were very clearly the oppressive and bloodthirsty watchers of the circle of magi. They had no good intent and were there because they were hoping that a mage would look at them the wrong way and give them an excuse to bash his skull in or suck out his emotions. The templar have not changed for DA 2, they are as blood thirsty as ever, if not more so (with a few exceptions) but the mages have. The mages in DA 2 are almost universally not worthy of any kind of sympathy. Just about every single one of them gives you the impression that they deserve to be caged like animals. At the drop of a hat mages in Kirkwall will resort to blood magic or making deals with demons. "Oh my god! There's a rat in the kitchen! I'm going to make a deal with a pride demon for the power to stop this creature!", or "Oh jeez a papercut! I'll need blood magic to save myself from this peril!". The mages just want an excuse to go bad. Or at least that was my take of the situation. The big question that is asked though, is this. Is it the templars fault that the mages so readily resort to such dire and suicidal measures? Or are the mages like this too begin with? Things like this that blur the line between good and evil are what make the choices in Dragon Age 2 so much more fun and interesting.

The overhead map has 3 sections, Kirkwall in the day Kirkwall at night, and the outskirts of the city. Locations with an arrow over then are quest locations.

The way that you gather your party is also handled extremely well. I never felt like a new guy was being thrown at me just because the game knew I only had 2 warriors and wanted a 3rd. They always showed up at appropriate moments that made sense within the games story, and everyone (with maybe 1 exception) has a vital role to play (get it?) in Hawke's story.

there are somewhere around 8 total party members, you can choose 3 to come with you at any given time. It just takes a trip to any characters home base.

DA 2 is also a relatively long game. It took me 26 hours to finish, and I tend to get through games quicker than most (the average time for DS2 was about 10-12 hours I finished in 8). So probably figure somewhere between 25-35 hours if you're relatively thorough. This is a bit shorter than the original which I believe took me 38 hours to finish from start to end. But as my computer died I don't have those numbers right in front of me. But considering what they left out to make room for the sequel, the length felt just right (that's what she said).

The graphics are still a little bit behind the times which strikes me as strange considering that these are the same people behind the creation of Mass Effect 2, which is one of the finest looking games ever made. But that's not to say that they look bad. What they lack in technical prowess they make up for in great art design. Some of the new environments are pretty enough to just stop and admire for a few seconds before starting the next bloodbath.

there be pretty in them there hills.

Which actually is another thing worth mentioning graphically, though the short comings are noticeable when you aren't fighting, it all goes away when the fire starts flying. Everything to do with combat looks absolutely fantastic. Basic attack animations are fast and brutal, your enemies deaths are gruesome and bloody.

I mean like, really REALLY bloody (and this was all from one swing)

Did I mention bloody?

 And all of your spells have fantastic colorful animations. When all of these elements are combined in a full on fight this game looks really great.

Fire and blood?!

It also shines during the closeups in conversation, faces are brilliantly detailed and display their emotions perfectly. And at the very least it is a very big improvement graphically over its predecessor.

Close up faces are well detailed and expressive. (and frequently covered in blood)

And that brings us to the voice acting. As is par for the course with a Bioware game, every character is voiced perfectly, and the writing ranges from bitingly sarcastic and witty, to deep and emotional. There are really no short comings here. By the far the most noteworthy part of the ensemble is Varric Tethras, your beardless dwarven companion. His writing is hilarious, and his delivery is flawless. He was my favorite character in the whole damn game the minute he opened his mouth. I also like that Hawke has a voice, though I still think I would have preferred having race options instead (even though I'd still play human), and Hawke's voice actor is really pretty great, one or two of his lines come off as very flat and kind of fake sounding but you have to give the guy some credit for how much work he had to do for this. The fact that only 1 or 2 lines sound kind of flat is damn impressive if you ask me. Another awesome aspect of his voice is that depending on which dialogue options you choose most often (sarcastic, ruthless, cordial, and other) Hawke's combat dialogue will change. For example if you tend to be more sarcastic Hawke will joke about how many he has killed or say things like "oh look, more enemies, I'm SO surprised". Whereas if you tend to be more ruthless he will revel in the bloodshed and just generally do a lot of shit talk such as "give the maker my regards". This isn't a significant feature but it's fun to have the character you have developed be reflected in more than just your chosen dialogue.

A standard set of responses

I'm not going to do a breakdown of this one as the review above is pretty much already broken up into those sections anyways. So overall, Dragon Age 2 is a great game that could have been better had it not placed so much stock in the mainstream market. I'm sure this helped it to sell better, but it came at a cost. And from what I hear the mainstream douchebag gamers still don't really like it. So come on bioware, listen to the people that love you, and make the games you WANT to make, not the ones that will appeal to the most people. Anyways, I'm getting off track. I give Dragon Age 2 an 8 out of 10. The features that were inexplicably removed and simplified were enough to drag this back out of the realm of perfection. But it's still a great game and one that any gamer, who wants something intelligent in their game, should absolutely buy.

and honestly, when just slapping someone with a SHIELD can do this, HOW COULD YOU GO WRONG?

Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Knights of the Old Republic, Baldurs Gate and Neverwinter Nights are all property of Bioware (And EA for Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 2)

All else is ©Alex Jenkins 2011

Rant time. With sort of a review of Darksiders.

So I'm not normally one to slam a game around for being derivative, because, let's be honest with ourselves. If no one used other peoples ideas to make their games, the gaming industry as we know it would not exist. For example, I don't hear anyone calling Call of Duty derivative because it uses the exact same combat mechanics as Half-Life did oh so many years ago. So why do you hear so many people calling games like Dante's Inferno, "God of War clones"? I mean shit people let me get this straight right about now. The biggest turning point in the 3D action game genre, was Devil May Cry. God of War broke no new ground whatsoever besides throwing a small army of generally pointless quick time events in your face to break up it's merely competent story and combat. But regardless of that, I don't think God of War should be called a Devil May Cry clone for the very same reason that Call of Duty is not called a Halo clone, and whatever other real time strategy games exist are not Starcraft clones (Also Gears of War and Army of Two, the list goes on). But this doesn't mean that a game cannot be a ripoff, I'm just saying that it requires more than just similar combat mechanics and the same point of view to make something a truly blatant ripoff. This brings us to....

The reason I bring this particular case to your attention is because it is the very first I have played that I think should be paying royalties to roughly 20 other games, oh and also reviewers universally LOVED it. It got a metacritic score of fucking 83. EIGHTY. THREE. I shit you not, it's like someone took Watchmen, The Hulk, and the Dark Knight, and spliced them together without any particular order in mind, threw it on the screen, and fucking Ebert shit a house over how great it was. The parts in play may be great, but that does not mean that the whole will share that quality.

Darksiders is the epitome of plagiarism. There is not a single original idea in this entire mess of a "game". Here's the thing, if maybe you have a life, and you don't really play many games, but someone tossed you this steaming pile, you might actually like it in your oblivious state of mind. But if you have been even mildly interested in the gaming world at any time in the past 10-15 years, just brace yourself. In Darksiders you play the role of the God of War, er sorry, I meant to say you play War of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Through circumstances out of your control you are stripped of your abilities and have to slowly regain them throughout the game (WHAT? THAT'S CRAZY! NO GAME HAS DONE THAT!), but don't worry your faithful blue fairy Navi, er, shit, did it again, I meant to say your blue demon guide named the Watcher will be there to help you figure out where to go and what to do in tight spots. Oh and you almost always have to find one special item in each major area which will allow you to gain access to the next area and solve the puzzles within, you know, little bit like a game about a bro in a green hat with a sword but hey, I'm just thinking out loud here.

This doesn't have context, I hate this game way too much to go picking it apart for the right bits.

So now you're thinking, "but Alex, you just said that borrowing game features doesn't necessarily constitute an actual rip-off! You're contradicting yourself!". And I would agree with you, while the extent to which it robs Zelda is a bit irritating, I can't really justify calling it plagiarism (CoD to Halo again) but there is something else. Something far more troubling.

Now I've been a Devil May Cry fan for ages, and I played them all way too much but most of all I played the ever loving shit out of DMC3. It was just a quality game, the story was there (though you were having too much fun to care if you were playing) and the combat was just balls to the wall insane, and the game was so damn hard that you felt like a badass after killing a nasty boss (until you realized that you were sitting in front of a TV, single.). But my point here is that I really got to know Dante's set of moves, from his basic combos to some of his crazier special moves. In fact I got to know them so well, that I didn't even have to check the move list when I went into Darksiders. Because it uses. The exact. Same. Fucking. Combos. It's all done at an extremely sluggish pace for this type of an action game, but if you look closely, it's exactly the same. And that my friends is where I draw the line. Now I know you might be saying something stupid like "but Alex! All of the guns in FPS game shoot exactly the same way!". Yeah that's right idiot they do because guns can only shoot one way, shut up. In a genre with so much freedom, you'd think they could at least have given their character some attention, maybe tried to really make him their own. But obviously they weren't interested in that, they just wanted to cash in on the surge of 3rd person action games ever since DMC and GOW. So these dumbasses just threw together a shoddy, piss poor excuse for an IP and called it done. And the worst part of it all is that IT WORKED.

Same deal here don't bother.

Now I'm gonna go ahead and throw in a few more of my thoughts on this game, mostly focused around it's flaws because that's about all it has.

First and most noticeable is the art style. When the game first starts up you are treated to a very nice looking CGI cutscene of very realistic looking people running away from what I assume are realistic looking demons (I unfortunately don't know what demons actually look like). But when you are placed in control of your character in the in-game engine, everything changes. The world takes on a bizarre quasi-cartoonish look, and it just does not work for this game, at all. And another reason why this part in particular pissed me off, is that reviewers in general praised it's graphics. Why they did this is beyond me but I leave it up to you, if you sit down and play it and even TRY to pay attention to it for more than 15 minutes (it's hard to do I know) you will notice all of these absolutely glaring incongruities. For example, one minute you are fighting this dark twisted looking demon/dragon/lady thingy, and it looks sort of cool and kind of fits for the tone of the game, then you run into monsters that look like they just stepped out of that old Hercules cartoon. It just doesn't work, and every time I noticed it, I was just completely sucked out of whatever small amount of immersion the game had managed to create. It's tough to get invested in the battle between heaven and hell when the minions of both look like fucking Disney cartoons.

Seriously guys I'm just trying to break up the walls of text a little.

But art direction is not the only graphical problem here, this game has one of the worst frame-rates, of any game I have ever played, and I'm running a damn decent computer, and this game looks like shit, there is no reason for it to have a sloppy frame-rate. But even worse than this is the visual tearing that runs across your screen roughly every 30 seconds to a minute.

This might be the same one as before, I just don't care, nor do I have more screenshots, and I'm not going to take more either.

The controls are garbage too, not only are they extremely poorly mapped out for the keyboard (2 different weapon swaps are both mapped to the same button) but even once you get used to them, they are just clunky as hell. War's movement is about as awkward and unresponsive as it could possibly be, there are huge delays between when you hit W and when he starts walking, and another big delay between when you let go, and when he actually stops. He can't jump for shit, he swings a sword slower than a potato would if it had arms, and the gun controls.... sweet invisible wizard in the sky the gun controls.... No, no you know what? I refuse to even talk about the shooting in this game, I just won't do it. Suffice to say that if you thought Army of Two had questionable aiming, you should avoid this game like the plague.

What the hell? I didn't add this....

But my biggest problem with this game, besides the ripoff factor, is the fact that it is completely and utterly devoid of any substance after the first 15 minutes. Now I admit, I didn't finish the game but I did play it for well over 5 hours, and beyond the relatively interesting introduction, I did not feel that I had done a damn thing. Every single objective in this game just feels like padding or artificial lengthening, it's like the game knows it isn't packing much, so it slips a sock down it's pants before it heads out to the clubs. Literally every objective is, go to this place and kill this guy! Or go to this place and bring back this item! And while these types of objectives are fine when tied to a story of some sort, they do not do well when they are just arbitrary tasks that you are doing for no other reason than that the game says you should. Not to mention the pointless locked doors.

Dead Space 2?! What are you doing here?! You're a good game! Sweet Jesus, DARKSIDERS IS ADDING PICTURES ON ITS OWN NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Let me just paint a scene for you. You come to a door, it has a strange blue energy blocking you from touching it, you realize that you need a key to unlock it. So you go about searching for the key and immediately find it one room over. But just as you pick it up you are swarmed by enemies who can do almost NOTHING to you. They are not a challenge, they aren't even fun to kill, but damnit you've gotta kill them or you can't keep moving forward. So you do, then you open the door having added 5 minutes or so of absolute nothing to your game which so far has contained absolutely nothing.

Now I know that similar mechanics are used in all kinds of mainstream action games, Devil May Cry especially. Many doors are sealed until you beat the demons that are guarding it, but the difference is, you are killing them because you need to get through that door, and you know WHY you need to get through that door, and most importantly, killing them is FUN. But in Darksiders none of those criteria are met. The fights are boring and slow, you have no idea why you need that door open, you just do, you don't even have an idea of the overlying plot. Or at least, if at this point I DID have a sense of the overlying plot, it was a fucking terrible one. Anyways things just went one step too far for me, the demon Samael who is imprisoned but for whatever reason is capable of fully restoring my powers (which forces greater than GOD took away from me) has sent me on 3 identical quests back to back. Go here, kill demon, bring back heart. 3 times. No story info is being revealed during all of this, it's just mindless killing, it's stupid, it's pointless, and it isn't even worth the 5 dollars that I spent to buy it on sale. If you have any self respect or any love for quality in video games, buy this game. Not so you can play it. So you can burn it and ensure that no other poor sod makes the same mistake I did.



Nͫ͗ͩ̏͛̆̕͏̨̧̖͕͍͔̰̻̳̯̳͔̮ͅ ̸͋ͬ̂̾̂̋̂͋̋ͧ͐͏̰̠̲̥̻͉̭̭͎̥͙̻̲͔̙͚͘Ơ̢̧̮͉̳̲̪̖̞̦̥̓͐̇ͣ̊́͋͐̑̈̑͐͆̄ͨͤͤ̉͝N̨̉ͪ́҉̬͔͚̙̙͙͖͇̦̺̭̜̘̻̯̼͝ͅE̶̴̢͚̰͚̖̤̮̥ͩͥͫ̓͐̈̀̃̾̔̆̊ͯ̐́ ̵̧̪̱̬̝̘͇̥̫͇̲͖̘̥ͥ̋̊̂̈́̄͗̊̇ͥ̓͐̇͡O̧͍̫̻͕̪̞͖̞̱̯̰̞͈̠̪̪̓͐̎͋͗̑̐ͨ̃̾ͥ̀̃́ͫ̈͞F̵̷̡̞̣̞̘̰̞͐ͣ̽͒ͨ̓ͣ̈̎̌͂ͩ͞ ̸̷̪̠̼̱̣̩͒͗͗ͧ́Ḧ͙̣̤͕͚̠͙̲͈̉ͮ̈́̈̉̑̏̉ͣͤ͘İ̴̖͙̤͙̤̫̪̗͔̗͇̭͈͔͇͋̉̊̂̌̉͑͆͟͠͝͠ͅͅS̢̻̘͈̪̟̲͚͈͚͓̞ͪ̃̏̅̓ͦ̒ͪ̆ͦ̐ͬ ̷̧͕͔̪̖́͆̾̅̿ͮ̓͗ͥ̉̃̓̔ͫ̂̚̕͝͡Ś̷̭͓͎̹͈̺̺͓͔̦̉̌ͫ͋ͥͮ͊ͧͩ͝Ǐ̈ͪ̒ͫͫ̇̈ͣ̑ͩͮ̄͑ͣ̆ͦͮ̀̀̕͠͏͎̞͉̯̭͕̬̼̮̪̱̘̲̙X̵̸̻̩̺̙̰̌̍ͮ̈̋ͤͬ̽̑̽̇ͪ̏̓̓̋ͫ̚͘ ̶̶̧̛̰̹̫̫̖̥̱͚̱̜̙̥̠͖̫͑̀̽ͯM̯͖̥̹̭̯̖̞̟̤̲͉̍̽͂ͯ͋͐ͤ̈́̄͊̌͝Oͭͤ̐ͥ͌̚͏̶̺͓̥͍̘͕̺̫̙̖̩́U̴̩̻̳̙̘̗̻̰̔͋̿̄ͪ̊̀͝T̽̍̆̈́ͮͧͨ̿̐̎̈́ͮ̊̽ͫ͌̈̚͏̱̰͈̩͔͈͚̯͍̞̭͝͡H͉̣̳̹͍̲͖̠̰͐͊͆͒ͭͦ̈́ͪ̽̆́́̚͝ͅS̵͙̳̰̹̎ͧͩͫ̌̾̂̐̄ͯͩ̽̚̕͟ͅ ̑̿͌ͫ̎͊ͮ̐ͣ͐ͥ̽̐̓͏̴̡̣̮̤̫̼͜A͇̦̗͓̲̝͓̞͈̘̗͓ͭ͂ͣͮ̑͐͆̄͆̐͌͆̽ͨ̒̒͘N̜͓͈̤̗̩̰̬͕̖̮͓̺̅̊͋̏̂͗͢͜ͅD̴̛͙͉̰̖͉̹ͬ̉ͩ͐͋̃ͥ̇̒̀̚̚͟ ̶̢̡̦̹̺͙̯̻̻̹̥̩̝̪̩̺͇͖̺̐͋̏ͯ̈́̅̒͗͌̂ͥ͐ͦͯ̈́͒̒ͭ͜S͈̟̰͇̻̓̏̿̂̉̋̈́̆̏̏͌ͧ͌̉̉͢͠Į̨͋̿ͧ̓͗̉̽͑ͤ́͌͒̀ͨ̈́̋̕͡͏̼͖͙͈͈̣̻͓̺N̿ͨ̏̽ͪ͑̎̃ͦͩ̇̈ͮ̔͛́̚҉̶̛͓͎̼̠͖̻̳̺̭͇̩͞Ģ̮̪̳͙͚̩͎̤̪̙ͣ̊ͭ̀͜ ̷̛̳̥̣̘͇̼͓̻͕̱̫̱͎̳́̔͌͌̈ͪ͞T̟̠̭̣̰̞̤̬̗͈ͪͤͧ̓̌ͮͯ͛ͥ̋ͮͤ̿̒͘H̡̪̺͉̙͇̬͇͕͉͙̠̤̼̪̻̊͊ͨ͗͊̂̀̚E̘͙̩̪͖̯̜͇̩̫͙͋͐͛̒ͯͦ̾͋̊̌̍͗́͟ ̡̛̲̪͈̳̹̱͓̬͕̺̙͔͓̯̞ͪͭ̐̂̉͒͛ͤ͗́̍́͒͛ͬͯ̆ͯ̾S̔̀ͧͤ̂̑ͬ͛̓̑́̎͏̴̗̖̝̺͚̗̲͟͟͠O̵͉̗͉̞̘͙͍̼̭̞͕̦͉̳̺͆̏͆͋̄̅̾̄͆̓̾͒ͥ͌ͪ̈́͞N͈͙͖̘̼͕̘͙̮̰̼̟̒ͮ͛̏̊ͪ̐ͤͭͫ̌̋̀̀͟͟G̔̍ͦ͆͊̇͌͑̈́̂ͭ҉̰̭͈̣̱̲̪̬̰̟̯̥͚̼̙̬͓͡͞ ̄̿͒ͨͩ̿ͭ̅̃̊ͫͨ̈͆͏̨̬̥̼̠̳͇̞̘̖̲̘̰̟̗T̷̗͎̪̫̗̟͔͙̜͒͒͋̈́͒ͭͤ̇̾ͪ͋̊̅͛̆̈́̄͐̀́̚͠ͅḨ̷̬̠͚͔̲̠͗ͩ̇̓̾̕͟Ă͊ͥͭ͑͏̢̢̬͎̖̻̭͓̗͍̼̘̦̕͜ͅṬ̡̭͚̫͚̳̪͓̬͎̻̖͖̥̹̗̭͚̺ͥ͊͂͒ͯ̕͞ ̓̿ͮͦͩͭ͛͡͏̵҉̶̘̣̤̥̣̣̥̱̰̫̪͚̖̰̥Ê̶̏͌̋̅͆̿̑̒̀҉͇͇͍̘̘̰͚̣͙̬͖̺N̡̛͓̟̞̗̺̠̟̮̮̉͂̈͢͢ͅͅD̬̫͕̠͕͙͔͚͓͖̪̣͙̮͆̉̂̌͐̂́ͫ̉͒̈́̍͑̊͛̂͞͠S̆ͤͣ̀ͭ̓ͧ̎̊ͩͮ̄͛ͩ̀̎ͦͧͧ͢͞͏̴̼͇̩̜͓̥̞̝̖͓̯̙̻̮̙͖̙ ̆̾͆ͥ҉̴̱̤̠͎̯̳̝͔̹̤̪̻͓͔͕̙̖ͅŢ̴̴̲͕̝̜̱̳͆͊̔̓͌ͭ͗̇ͮ̚͟Hͧ̀̿̂͑̋̈́͌̐͏̡̛̹̰̥͕͚̫̦͚̣̀Eͮ͂̈̐̌̉ͨ̽̈́̽͌̓͒͌ͯ́̚̚͏̗̲̱͖̲̜̺͚̜̯͓̼̝̱̬ ̷͍̮̜̱̺̱ͩͤͯ̏́̐ͤ͛̎̽̀̕͘ͅE̸̶̹̺̜̗̟̺͍̼̤͂͐̂ͭ̾͂́ͩ̋̒͐̃̍̃ͣ̌̑̀͟͠A̵̴̐͐̅̒ͩ̅ͤͦͯ̈́̾̆͝͝͏̰̪̥̟̲͓̩̠̮̲̝̤̙̹̜Ŗ̵̛͎̤̬̲͊̓ͥ͛ͤͮͩ̊̒͂͐͋̆͟T̨̰͎̮̞͔͙̗̥̪̝͔͇̥̣̦̱ͮͫͬ̒̀̕͠͝ͅH̵̨̡̳̘̮͎͓̹̻̓ͮͮ̍͋͛̑ͣ̈̈́̆̎̑ͧ̾̍́̚͡



I'm going to give Darksiders a rating here, and you are well within your rights to cry foul because I haven't even beaten the game, and I promise that when I do attempt to beat it, if I can stomach the whole thing and it turns out to be better than I thought, I will gladly eat my words and revise this rating. But as it stands, while it is playable, and it isn't the ugliest thing in the ENTIRE world, the amount of stuff this game shamelessly steals from other titles, coupled with it's nonexistent story and repetitive mission structure bring it way, WAY, down. As of now I place it at roughly a 4.5-5/10, if a 1 is Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing and a 10 is Dead Space 2.

As always thanks for reading, please spread it around if you like it, and feel free to leave any comments you'd like. Take it easy all.

Darksiders Devil May Cry, God of War, Dead Space 2, Gears of War, Army of Two, Starcraft , and Zelda are all property of their respective owners.

All else is ©Alex Jenkins 2011



ͬͥͬͦ͌̚͞ḙ͆̆̉̽̉͗r̢̬͔̬͓̺͇͎̬̘̆ͤ́̆̋̕͝dͥͫ̊̾͋ͪͩ̒̐҉̙͇̩͉i͍̙̬̦͙͉͍ͮ͡ͅǎ̸̡̘̩̟̮̫̋̿̇̈́̀n̸̶̜̻̲̝̰̗͙̍̌̓͐̾ͯ̀ ̩̣̻͍͔̩̥̱̈̊̆̎̔̔͑̕h̵̸̝̳̮̫̙̮͖̬̔̂͗̂͞ZALGO COMESͬͥͬͦ͌̚͞ḙ͆̆̉̽̉͗r̢̬͔̬͓̺͇͎̬̘̆ͤ́̆̋̕͝dͥͫ̊̾͋ͪͩ̒̐҉̙͇̩͉i͍̙̬̦͙͉͍ͮ͡ͅǎ̸̡̘̩̟̮̫̋̿̇̈́̀n̸̶̜̻̲̝̰̗͙̍̌̓͐̾ͯ̀ ̩̣̻͍͔̩̥̱̈̊̆̎̔̔͑̕h̵̸̝̳̮̫̙̮͖̬̔̂͗̂͞