The Scourge Project.

Well, it's been a while since I uploaded anything to the pain and suffering section of the site. Guess that had to change eventually. And you might be wondering why it is that I rarely put stuff in that section. It's because I don't like to post anything about games that I haven't actually beaten (WITH THE EXCEPTION OF FUCKING DARKSIDERS). But most of the games that I would normally toss into this forsaken section, are honestly so bad, so difficult, or so both of those factors, that they are almost impossible to really complete with sanity intact. So that said I'm going to forgo that condition and just get to the heart of the matter.

Looks like you've got yourself a pretty bad case of blood-crotch there bud.

The Scourge Project is bad. Really. Really. Really. Bad. And that's disappointing because on paper it sounds solid. It's a team based 3rd person cover shooter, intended to be played online with friends. You play the role of one of 4 mercenaries each with their own special ability, and you investigate the activity of a corrupt corporation. Standard stuff but it sounds like it would be hard to mess up right? HA. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh God.

So you start the game off being dropped outside of one of this corporations major facilities. You are given the most pathetic pea shooter of a gun ever conceived and are sent head long into battle. Here's where things go wrong! Aiming is nearly broken, remember the first Army of Two? Remember how hard it was to effectively aim your shots at first? Think of that times at least 2,000. You will spray wildly until you finally get locked onto your target, it's a little like the end of the night with your old lady but far less enjoyable and with bullets instead of... ahem, well anyways. The next issue rears its horrific misshapen head when it dawns on you that your enemies have far more health than you do, you might unload an entire clip into a bad guys head and he doesn't even twitch. Then a stray bullet clips your toe nail and you drop dead on the spot. But wait, what's that? You aren't dead? Your team could revive you? Well that doesn't sound too bad then! And so you watch as one by one your AI partners walk up to you with zero cover, lean down to revive you, and get fucking shot. If it weren't so frustrating, it would make a good Monty Python skit. One after another they will march forward and die. Even when there is only one enemy left, and they could easily dispatch him and revive you safely, they will do everything in their power to revive you immediately and your entire squad will cease fire because they all want to revive you at the same fucking time.

See the circle in the upper left? All the red things in there are enemies. Notice that my friend there isn't even close to in cover, And also please note the other asshole standing directly behind him doing nothing. Jesus.

You may be saying to yourself now, "why is this asshole bitching about friendly AI in a game that is intended to be played with multiple people?". Well shut up. I played this alone because I don't want to play online with anyone who would play this game for actual enjoyment, and I would never wish ownership of this game on my friends. I would even hesitate to send this to my worst enemy, but I'd prolly do it anyways. And honestly, just because your game is meant for multiplayer, doesn't mean you can just ignore the single player AI and say "meh! No one's gonna see that anyways!" I saw it you lazy assholes, I saw it. And the thing is, were it not for that horrendous AI and the inordinate difficulty combined, this might be a passable if extremely clunky and generic game. It would at least be playable for an afternoon of mindless fun. But those two factors are like a flood light drowning out the tiny half-burnt out incandescent bulbs that are the high points of this game.

Oh and did I mention the checkpoint system? It's a real hoot. I personally can't play a game unless it sends me back at least 15 minutes every time I get killed. And I love it even more when that 15 minutes is laced with painfully boring and completely unskippable (ITS A WORD NOW BITCH) cutscenes. This wasn't too much of a problem until I got to the first "boss" fight. Which was only difficult because the "boss" hid on the other end of the room and generic enemies spawn constantly until you kill him (often springing into existence directly behind you, from nowhere!). So anyways I got killed several times, and every time I got launched back to the beginning of that portion of the game, left to slog back through, and watch every god damned piece of shit cutscene over again.

Oh, the graphics are pretty ok I guess?


The Scourge Project is the property of it's respective owner. And I'm really sorry about that.
All else is ©Alex Jenkins 2011

Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days

Well I've been MIA for a while, a pretty long while, mostly due to being busy with school but also because I haven't been able to afford new games, as I have previously mentioned. So anyways, a steam sale popped up recently and they were giving away Kane & Lynch 2 for 3.50, so I figured what the shit, why not. And now here I am, to tell you about what MIGHT be the most underrated game of all time.

I didn't play the first game, I never had a reason to, thankfully that didn't come back to bite me here because the only consistent factor seems to be the 2 lead characters. Whatever happened in the first game isn't ever brought up in any concrete fashion, there are just a few events mentioned here and there, generally of no real consequence. So now that that's out of the way, we'll move on.

KL2 starts off fast, and it NEVER slows down, for those of you who have played Army of Two: The 40th Day, think of that game, but on crack. It even takes place in the same city. The plot essentially breaks down as follows, Kane and Lynch are reunited in Shanghai, where Lynch has been living the past few years, in order to pull a major arms deal. Before the deal Lynch needs to go rough someone up, to "teach him a lesson", the man is waiting for them, and a protracted gun battle ensues that sprawls out across the crowded streets of Shanghai. SPOILERS BITCHES A mistake is made and a girl is inadvertently killed. Turns out this is the daughter of the most powerful crime boss in all of Shanghai, who has not only the police, but the Chinese military in his pocket. As a result, nowhere is safe, Kane and Lynch can never stop moving, and they quite literally never find themselves in a position where someone ISN'T trying to kill them. Even their own partners betray them eventually, leaving them quite literally alone to fend for themselves, and to scramble for a way out of Shanghai.

This is obviously a fairly thin plot line, but what really carries you through the game is the characters, Kane and Lynch have this bizarrely charismatic air about them despite neither of them being a particularly likeable individual on the surface. Lynch is quite literally out of his mind and will frequently suffer breakdowns mid-firefight, and he has a murderous streak 5 miles wide. Kane is a bit more redeemable of a figure, he is the typical ex mercenary who wants to get out of the game and just wants to pull this one last job so he can give his daughter something when he dies. But it's the constant bickering and bantering between these two that elevates the game above others of the genre. They really feel like friends, as much as Kane seems to hate Lynch he can't bring himself to just ditch him, and Lynch genuinely likes Kane, but is a little bit too insane to express it in words.

The second really great thing about this game is it's absolutely brutal adherence to realism. This is a dark, honest, violent depiction of the seedy underbelly of the world that we all know exists in some extent. SPOILERS AGAIN YO There is a scene about half way through the game, in which the two leads are captured, along with Lynch's wife. They are tortured, graphically, and Lynch's wife is killed (it is also implied that she is raped). This is horrific and honestly fairly hard to watch, and for a short period thereafter Kane and Lynch are forced to run through the city naked, covered in truly horrific looking cuts, in search of clothing. And that brings me to my next point, the art direction.

Kane & Lynch 2 is awesome to look at, the graphics themselves are competent, but the real draw is the presentation. Everything is tailored such that it looks like you are viewing from the perspective of a documentary crew running around with cell phone cameras trying to capture the life of these two psychopaths. The screen is covered in mpeg compression artifacts, lights cause dramatic flare on the screen, and the more brutal moments of violence are concealed by on screen pixelation. An especially cool moment comes at a point early in the campaign when you blow up several propane tanks, the force of the blast and volume of the detonation cause the entire screen and all audio to distort to the point that you have no idea what's happening for a few moments. These small touches are really pretty awesome when you're playing the game. When you're watching someone else play it all seems kind of disorienting, especially the shaky cam that accompanies sprinting, but when you're in control of it yourself it feels much less like watching a drunken cameraman sprint through a hurricane, and more like you're just directly involved with the action on screen.

As far as gameplay goes it's a fairly standard 3rd person cover shooter. You move from cover to cover shooting your enemies when they make the mistake of sticking their heads out. It can be very difficult at times, as you have just about the same amount of health as your enemies on normal difficulty. I had a few moments where I made the mistake of running around a corner without looking, and my head would very abruptly go from normal to pixels as someone took a shotgun to it. It's typically not too frustrating though, as the checkpoint system is fairly solid and rarely sets you back more than a room or two upon death.

In final I think anyone who is looking for a dramatically more mature take on crime thrillers, and video games in general, there is really no reason not to pick this game up next time you find a used copy or it goes on sale, it's worth mentioning that the average gamer will finish the solo campaign within 4-6 hours. But I've already started replaying it and it does have the standard multiplayer modes with a few others added in, one of which places a double agent in the midst of the criminal team, whose job is to kill all of his team mates before they find out who is doing it. I haven't played the multiplayer, but it sounds like a really cool concept that I'd like to try out. All in all I'd give it an 8 out of 10, but those 2 points are deducted solely because of the relative brevity of the game. But to be fair, in comparison with the average 3 hour campaign of your standard call of duty game, I can't see why so many people are complaining about it being short.




Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days is property of IO interactive, Eidos and Square Enix.
All else is ©Alex Jenkins 2011

Demo Impressions: Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

Being that I've been a Warhammer 40K fanboy since I was a little kid, you'd have to assume that I've really been looking forward to the day someone made an action game out of it. Now obviously this isn't Games Workshops first outing in the video game world, they have actually had several really great games. There were a few I can't even remember the names of back in the 90's, then there was Fire Warrior, a first person shooter affair from the perspective of a Tau Fire Warrior repelling an imperial invasion. It didn't do so well but it was still pretty fun. Then of course came Dawn of War and its sequel, both of which are in my top 5 for strategy games. But the Warhammer 40k universe has been just begging for a good 3rd person action title since it was first created. And Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, seems to be prepared to deliver it in spades.

I just got my hands on the demo yesterday and sat there furiously playing through it over and over again. Once probably 2 hours went by I sat back in my chair and said "fuck Gears of War 3". And I meant it. This is for several reasons, one is that the world of Warhammer has some of the richest lore ever written. And the material has been written over the course of decades, and that lore leaves room for so much within the universe. So there is virtually no way to really mess up your story as long as you don't ignore the lore. And Relic has proven extensively that it understands and respects the source material with which it is working. But I'm starting to ramble so I'm going to get straight to the mini review of the demo for Space Marine.


The demo gives you access to two different missions out of the campaign. One of these "The Inquisitor" is what I assume to be the games standard fare. You march from place to place fighting with orks. After that mission is another mission wherein your marine dons a jump pack. Both of these brief missions do a great job of showing off what the game is capable of. First off the graphics are gorgeous. This is where you can really see how faithful Relic is to its source material. The crumbling buildings of the forge world are truly oppressive and even though I had no idea what the situation was, I felt like the situation was completely hopeless. And the character models are just so clean and sharp it's hard to complain about them. Especially when your Space Marine is coated in the blood of the orks that he cut apart (quite literally) in battle. As his armors shields are beaten down electricity crackles across its surface giving you a warning of impending danger even if you aren't paying attention to your life bar. The only graphical short coming that I saw, was in a few of the environments. Some textures looked a little bit muddy up close. But that's just nit picking, the overall look of the game is brilliant in its unrelenting bleakness.



The next thing I really want to stress is the sound design. Shitty sound effects can really kill a game. Look at Duke Nukem, yeah yeah I know, Duke didn't need bad sound effects to be a shitty game. But honestly the guns just sounded pathetic. This was also a shortcoming in the game Garshasp Monster Slayer. But in Space Marine, every bullet you fire lets loose a blast like a grenade in any other game. They did a wonderful job giving the impression that any normal human trying to fire those guns would have his arms taken off by the sheer force of it. And the melee sounds are awesome too, your chainsword revs and roars with every swing, and blood and gore spatters every time you make contact. It makes the combat audibly just as satisfying as it is visually.

And finally the combat. Think if you were playing Gears of War, but you can't take cover, because Space Marines are WAY too badass to cower behind conveniently placed cement blocks. And when you get to melee, instead of just throwing a random gun butt, or killing them with a chain saw if you get lucky, you pull out a fucking sword. But it isn't just a normal sword. It's a chainsaw, shaped like a sword. And then, all of a sudden, the game just turned into Devil May Cry. The speed and brutality with which you dispatch your enemies in melee would be disturbing if it wasn't so god damn fun and awesome. Whenever an opponent is stunned you can use an execution move on him. These both look AWESOME and serve a purpose besides taking enemies out of the fight, every time you execute an enemy it heals you. So it's not just the standard "OH EXECUTIONS THOSE LOOK BALLER LOLOLOLOL LETS PUT EM IN" they serve a strategic purpose. But, unlike most games, you aren't invulnerable while caving in an ork's head or Sparta kicking him off the end of your chain sword. So the risk sometimes outweighs the benefits.

The jump pack essentially adds another layer to the melee combat. The way it works is similar to the DOW2 assault squad. You jump up in the air, choose your extremely unfortunate target, and come crashing down on him and his friends. It puts you right into the fight and kills about half of the enemy while they are distracted shooting at your friends. My only drawback while using the jump pack was that it started to feel very repetitive. The slam attack was so lethal that it made it a waste of time to use anything else. So it just turned into, jump, slam, jump, slam, jump, slam. It was fun for a while but eventually I just ignored the fact that I had it and fought as normal.


I have extremely high hopes for this game now. I was already looking forward to it but talk about making a good first impression. It's like meeting your girlfriends parents while wearing a tuxedo and driving a brand new Mercedes that you named "Commitment". Unfortunately I won't be able to afford the game for a while but when I do a full review will be soon to follow.


Copyright Alex Jenkins 2011

Back to College

Well I'm back at school. Hopefully this means that I can get myself back on a regular schedule and throw those regularly scheduled updates at you that I've been talking so much about. This of course banks on me getting hold of a job so I can afford to buy games that I can review. Until then I do have a few older games sitting around that I could give a play to refresh my memory. But no new releases anywhere on the near horizon. And unfortunately no more news to share within the gaming world. Thanks to those of you who do actually read this, I'll do my best to keep you updated.

Alex

Bethesda. Yah done goofed.

As everyone knows, big established developers like to shit on the little guys who may some day represent competition in the market. So I can't say I'm entirely surprised by the recent news that Bethesda, or I guess more appropriately, Bethesda's parent company, Zenimax, is attempting to sue Mojang. Mojang, if you don't know, is the company responsible for the indie hit Minecraft. Turns out Mojang is planning another game titled "Scrolls". OH GOD, SOMEONE RING THE FUCKING ALARM BELL. Clearly because the word Scrolls is in the title of a few of Bethesda's games they must own all rights to the word! Just like how Gears of War should have to give up all of its profits, after all, Warcraft came out first! Although, wait, wasn't there a game that used the word "The" prior to the Elder Scrolls games? OOPS. Guess ol' Zenimax didn't think that far ahead.

This seems like an astoundingly stupid move, especially considering the upcoming release of Bethesda's flagship title TSE V: Skyrim. It may simply be that they didn't take bad publicity into mind when they came up with this brilliant scheme. But honestly this wouldn't be smart even if they didn't have any impending releases. Mojang is a beloved company by millions of people. Seriously, Minecraft, has sold over 3 million copies to date, and one of those copies went to yours truly. I'll take a small innovative company over a money guzzling corporate whore of a company any day. Bethesda isn't even staying true to its fanbase with Skyrim, everything about it is stripped and dumbed down to appeal more strongly to the FPS crowd. Much in the same way Bioware has filed the intellectual value of its games down to a nub in recent years. So to effectively screw over your own fan-base, and then make absurd attacks against other more valuable franchises and developers just seems ridiculous. Now I want to make it clear I'm not trying to attack Bethesda here, even though I am disappointed in some of their recent decisions. The people responsible for what has to be the most ridiculous lawsuit since the people who sued McDonald's for making them fat, are the people who own Bethesda, Zenimax. And I can't stress that enough, this is Zenimax's doing, not Bethesda's.

All that said. I wouldn't get too worried about Mojang. I really have never heard of a corporate lawsuit based on such paper thin material. Maybe Zenimax ought to look into hiring a new "crack" legal team. One that realizes you don't actually own the rights to a single word just because it's in your game. And one that doesn't time its unbelievably stupid lawsuit to coincide with the release of their main title. We can only hope this hurts the games sales figures enough that these idiots (the lawyers, not Bethesda) wind up on the streets.

All above titles and trademarks are property of their respective owners. Bethesda, Epic Games, and Blizzard.

All else is ©Alex Jenkins 2011

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