Duke Nukem Forever Review

Screw the naysayers, Duke Nukem Forever is a fun game. 15 years ago, shortly after Duke Nukem 3D successfully released, 3D Realms (and even though Gearbox's name is on the cover, this is still a 3D Realms game, their last one) decided that the sequel to their game would be called Duke Nukem Forever, and began initial work on it. At the 1998 E3, the first trailer was released to the public. 13 years later the game finally released. Is it perfect? No. I'll get to that in a minute. Is it Raucous, immature, and humorous? If you played Duke Nukem 3D, I don't need to answer that. And if you are expecting anything different, this is not the game for you. It's Duke Nukem, not Call of Duty, Halo, or Dead Space (there are references to all of these in the game). It never takes itself seriously, which is exactly how it should be.

First the good. As the game opens, an Alien Mothership has returned to Earth claiming goodwill. It doesn't take long before they start taking our women, and Duke is called

back into action (against the President of the US's orders) to save them and all of humanity. The levels are linear, but well designed. You'll fight aliens in a stadium, a Vegas casino, a fast food joint high above the Vegas streets, the Nevada Desert, and on top of, inside of, and even deep underwater by the Hoover Dam. The FPS action is mixed up between mini games, turret battles, and little distractions scattered throughout the levels, that once you try for the first time, add to your EGO Gauge (life meter). Things like turning on a hand dryer in the restroom, peeing into a urinal, playing a game of pool or pinball, and several others. There's a few levels mid-way where you are headed to the Hoover Dam (the first part of the game takes place in Las Vegas), and you are given a monster truck to drive. These were some of the funnest levels I played. The truck never felt like it was floating or skating. There are areas where your truck runs out of gas, and you have to go out on foot, find gas, and bring it back to the truck before you can move on. In several places, you are shrunk down to action figure size. These areas consist of mostly platforming sequences that other than a couple of hiccups, work surprisingly well. A lot of this takes place at Duke Burger in Vegas, another area, that was one of my favorites.

The weapon variety is pretty good, although except for boss battles and a few other instances, you'll probably find yourself sticking to the Ripper. There's some fun to be had with the Shrink Ray and the Freeze Gun, but you'll always come back to the Ripper. You can find several "power up" items throughout the game as well. You use them by pushing a specific direction on the D Pad, however you can only carry one of each at a time. Beer will make you stronger, and you take less damage. Steroids make you almost invulnerable, and you get one punch melee attacks. The Holoduke creates a hologram of you, while turning you invisible so that enemies focus on him instead of you. And finally, you always have Dukevision, this game's version of night vision.

As I stated above, this game isn't without it's faults. After you beat the game, you'll unlock some extras, including videos of previous trailers, and art from previous versions. There's also a nifty little timeline for the game. Based on all that, I'm guessing this game was visually finished in 2008. And since I'm guessing, I'll go one further, and say that the visuals are based on the engine

from another 3D Realms game, Prey, which released in 2006. And it shows. The graphics are far from what is coming out of most games this far into the consoles' lifecycles. And there are some framerate issues. I would be surprised if the game is evening running at 30 FPS in some places. But perhaps the most surprising and disappointing thing about the game is the load times. I could forgive the sub-par graphics and the framerate issues. Between each, level you will wait 40-50 seconds for a level to load. If you die, you also have to wait that long. I didn't die a lot (playing at the normal level), but there are a couple of boss battles that are very trial and error, and it doesn't make things any better having to wait almost a minute after each death. According to the timeline in the extras, the single player was pretty much done in 2009. While they used the extra time to get through legal and ownership issues, as well as add a multiplayer component to the game, you'd think in two years they would be able to fix the load time issues. It's disappointing.

And while there is a multiplayer part included in the game, I didn't play it. Didn't have any interest. I got the game for the singleplayer campaign, so I won't be reviewing the MP.

This game should never have released at a full $59.99 retail. Had it been released at $39.99 or less, I would probably give it an 8 out of 10. At full price though, I can't give it anything higher than a 6.5. I'd recommend it at a lower price point or as a rental.

TL;DR: Fun, entertaining game with 2006 visuals, and enjoy those load times!

REVIEW: L.A. Noire

For once, I’m in a quandary about how to proceed. I just completed a game that had my full attention, that blew me away in terms of story telling and visual effects, but also left me with a lot of questions and frustrations. Am I being to greedy for wanting more in a game that is already fantastic? Am I being overly critical for totally enjoying a twenty hour experience but still having a bit of an empty feeling. Am I looking too much into a game that gave me all the answers and yet I still have questions?

This is the enigma that is L.A. Noire, from Rockstar Games. Set in 1947 Los Angeles, you play as Cole Phelps, a undeserving war hero turned driven, overachieving LA Police Officer working his way through the ranks one case at a time. As in Rockstar’s last bestseller, Red Dead Redemption the protagonist has a troubled past, trying to make things right, playing out through a twisted maze of friends turned enemies and the mystery of an overarching conspiracy driving the story.

If you've played Red Dead or Grand Theft Auto, you’re familiar with the basic set up. Driving around a large landscape, doing tasks that drive the story, and filling time doing small minor tasks not necessarily germane to the overarching plot. L.A. Noire is really no different in that simplistic presentation. There are, however, a few new elements that you have to grapple with to move yourself throughout the game. Since you are a Police Detective, you must master the art of interrogation and “reading” people’s reactions in order to determine whether they are telling you the truth, they’re hiding something from you, or just flat out lying. If you are correct, you will get the info you need to lead you to the next clue or solve the case quicker. If you are incorrect in your assumption, you’ll get the run around.

Cole Phelps’ troubled past is as a marine lieutenant serving in the horror of the WWII’s South Pacific. He is a meticulous and all too “by the book” as a platoon commander, which draws the ire of both marines under his command, and fellow platoon commanders who feel that Phelps’ dithering is costing time and lives. This storyline is presented in flashback form throughout the game, with characters in that flashback appearing throughout the present day Los Angeles. When you begin the game, Phelps is a gum shoe beat cop, who’s potential catches the eye of his superiors, who advance him to detective based on his stellar performance and reputation as a war hero.

The main story puts you working cases progressing through four department desks; traffic, homicide, vice, and arson. Traffic will get you acclimated to the procedures of gathering clues, interviewing persons of interests, tracking down potential suspects, and eventually making the collar. As you cruise through the streets of Los Angeles, you are also alerted to “street crimes”, emergency calls that you can either tend to or ignore, as mentioned before, they are something that doesn’t really relate to the overall story.

Once you have things down in Traffic, Phelps is promoted to Homicide, where you begin working murders. This desk is the largest of the game, and as you gather evidence and clues, you begin to notice strange ties that string all these murders together. I’m not going to spoil the story from here, but each re-assignment to a new desk is the result of an event in the last case of the last desk; something that continues Phelps down to the realization that in these cases he’s worked lies a deeper and complex plot at hand involving people he’s encountered earlier in the game either through interview and evidence.

There are a few things that really stand out throughout L.A. Noire; first of all the environment and landscape is absolutely stunning. Apparently, Rockstar used footage both through aerial still photographs and landscape photos to faithfully recreate late 1940’s Los Angeles to 90% accuracy. The city is vibrant both day and night, sometimes I found myself driving around the city instead of ‘fast travelling’ to a location just to see the different points of interest.

Another thing that has been made a very big deal about the game is the technology used to create the facial and voice animations, which, quite frankly are the best I’ve ever seen in a video game. And its not just lips moving to words; its facial features expressing emotions like frustration, anger, intimidation. You can just see without hearing anyone speak that they are being coy, smug, desperate, deliberate, or scared. Aaron Stanton who plays Cole Phelps delivers a really remarkable performance that is exemplified by how well his face and body language are rendered. The game does a pretty good job of giving you characters you can both relate with and enjoy like Phelps’ partner Det. Rusty Galloway in homicide, and also distrust and annoy in Earle, your partner in Vice.

Now, here is my quandary. I really enjoyed my time playing L.A. Noire, and pretty much could not put it down from the moment I bought it on release day. However, there are things that if I really sat down and picked the game apart, I would find almost as much if not more things find negative than positive of it being a great looking game and something that did keep my attention.

The “action” of the game is soft. Yes, there are car chases and gun fights, but they are really kind of substandard when actually compared to similar third-person action  games but even other Rockstar games. You’re trusty weapon of choice is your handy pistol, which you have to bring into every gunfight and hopefully take down the bad guys who always are out-arming you with Tommy Guns and Shotguns. There is a cover system but it just seems a bit awkward going from cover to cover, when you can just run around, auto aim and take people’s heads off.  As Lord Bling eluded to below, street fighting is a button mash fest, though the fights get slightlymore difficult later in the game.

Car chases are very problematic as the fugitives’ cars drive like they are on rails and you’re car varies from having absolutely no power steering to maneuvering like your driving on a sheet of ice. Again, the later I was into the game, I got a better hang of driving. Still, though, I found myself having to restart car chase after car chase because I would get hung up on a light pole that won’t collapse or would be on the heels of the suspect’s car and they would take a perfectly executed turn into an alley and I would sputter onto oncoming traffic.

Truth? Lie? How the hell should I know?

As I mentioned before, while interviewing a person of interest, the answer to your question would be met with three responses: truth, doubt, or lie. If you knew the person was lying, you’d better have evidence in hand to prove it, and you’ve made the right choice. However, sometimes choosing between truth and doubt was pretty much a 50/50 decision. I mean why would a witness to a murder hide something from me when she was obviously shaken and the victim meant something to her? Well apparently, I wasn’t good at figuring that out when I would mistakenly think “yeah, she’s telling the truth”. In OXM’s review of L.A.Noire, they gave the good advice of “when in doubt, choose ‘doubt’”. I’d stick with that practice.

In the end I don't think it really matters because it doesn't appear that the results of some of your interrogations and miscalculations in interviewing people of interest actually affect the result of a case, only how well you were rated on solving the case. And I don’t think (or at least haven’t been alerted to) your rating on the case has any bearing on how the story plays out. Sometimes you have to multiple people tied to a case as a possible suspect and you have to decide who to charge, or you are in a situation where you have to decide to charge someone and you aren’t sure if they are the right person.

Having completed the game and knowing its outcome, I get the latter in why the game’s story makes you charge someone you aren’t sure is the actual culprit. Without spoiling anything, it kind of ties back into the whole concept that you’re not putting a person away because you think they are really the killer, but you have enough evidence that a DA will put them away, and that there is a gray area in Justice that never quite vibed with Phelps.

Phelps is the wanna-be White Knight. As you work cases, you see that he is a guy who wants to do things by the book, but also be someone who is ambitious and yet not content with the status quo of finding the convenient suspect and building the evidence around putting them away. He is thorough, and deliberate, which draws the consternation of everyone around him; the player gets that. Then he does something completely out of character at the end of Vice that hardly set up before hand and you are like “WUT”. It really doesn’t make any sense and sets off a weird tone for the final desk of cases.

Having said all that, I just have to play the hypocrite and look beyond it and say I loved playing L.A. Noire. But don’t discount what Lord Bling and NIN have said below because I cannot really argue with them (sometimes repetition can be mundane and L.A. Noire definitely has that). I've already downloaded the DLC (which was really pre-order bonuses made available to the general public) and am looking forward to getting through that. While I do think there are things that can definitely be improved upon if Team Bondi and Rockstar decide to make future installations of the game (which they’ve hinted to be interested in doing), I think this has been a pretty good first step.

TL;DR- Your mileage may vary.

REVIEW: Homefront

I absolutely hate it when I have to do this. I understand that there are a lot of people more talented than I, who work harder than I do, who pour a lot of time and energy into something that the last thing they want to hear or see is some dippy thirty-something-amateur-video-game-blogger shit all over it. I'm not one of those assholes that ridiculously trashes a game to make some point or has some preset agenda just to sound cool. I try to dissect a game by looking at what works, what doesn't, and whether you should buy it or rent it. I'm not going to say "avoid this game at all costs because it sucks royally".

However, I'm going to come very close to saying exactly that today. (/suspense)

I was really looking forward to Homefront, which dropped this past Tuesday. I was a big fan of Red Dawn, a movie from the 80's which I understood was an inspiration for this game. John Milius, who wrote Red Dawn was writing the story. Kaos Studios, who did Frontlines Fuel of War was going to develop it; I didn't think Frontline was groundbreaking but if they could build on that and make a better game, this could be something enjoyable.

Last week, an article circulated that Homefront's Single Player Campaign was only five hours long. Red Flag. Ok, maybe that was just someone breezing through the game on easy; hell, Dead Space 2 would probably clock in at that time on the easiest difficulty. Then after release, investors took wooden bats to the mailbox of THQ's stock price , upon the news that the game's reviews have been rather negative. Red Flag number 2. Then when I had the game in hand and tried to play online multiplayer, we failed over and over again. THQ issued a statement saying they had more traffic than anticipated which meant some delay in getting into online multiplayer games. Red flag number 3: There is no joy in Gameville, my wallet has struck out.

If you are familiar with Red Dawn, then you get the premise of Homefront. Input North Koreans for Russians, grown-ups leading the resistance instead of kids, and you are the essentially the Powers Boothe character. Now, as Homefront begins, you get the notion that this game has some potential. You get the back story behind the decline of the America's power, how their economy cratered and left it susceptible to internal choas and occupation by a foreign regime (basically everything that people expects to happen after the oil crash). You open to what is a grizzly scene; while being escorted as a prisoner, you witness the horrors of occupation: military outposts sitting by the neighborhood drugstore, "processing areas", people murdered on the street corner with their infant children crying over their mangled bodies. Its all pretty powerful and a good setup.

Its playtime.

Unfortunately, everything that comes after that setup is a letdown. You are freed by the local resistance freedom fighters and as you escape, you alert the KPA, who are none too happy.  As you get into the action and weave your way through suburban neighborhoods, you find yourself in a few situations where you are facing 10-15 bad guys who have you pinned down and seem to have all their gun sights trained on you (this will be a recurring theme filed under "things that make me rage").

(Spoilers below)

To be totally honest, for a single player that's very short, there certainly is a difficult time discerning what the hell you are doing. Basically, you are doing a fuel heist: since gas is a rare commodity, the American resistance is going to take the opportunity to seize some fuel tankers and deliver them to the United States Armed Forces in San Fransisco (I guess the coming and going of Peak Oil, the US ignored its pursuit of alternative energy sources by the year 2027). Your role as a former marine pilot is to help gather information about how to track these fuel tankers, then steal a helicopter in order to hijack the convoy and escort them to the military and turn the tide of the occupation. In case you were wondering, yes the Single player campaign is rather short. Don't be stunned if you beat this game in one evening or maybe two at most.

I think Homefront had the opportunity to tell a more compelling story, something that could have immersed the player more into the world of despair and desperation. There is a scene where you happen upon a community baseball diamond that's become a dumping ground for the dispatched local dissonants. Instead of using this moment for tension and drama, its cheapened when your co-hort feigns rage and alerts the bad guys directly to your position. I would have rather liked it if that was left to you to be disturbed by this sight. You'd think that the people in the midst of resistance would have some knowledge that all their buddies are being disappeared in the middle of the night.

You will also happen upon a fellow enclave of freedom fighters later in the game, that are somehow interested in killing you as well. After a fierce gun-battle in the opening sequence, you infiltrate the camp to steal a helicopter, encountering more sentries in your wake. I had a hard time believing that a fifteen minute firefight would leave the remaining guards totally unaware or even ignorant about bullets flying not 1000 feet away.

These guys: not your friends.

Beyond the plot hole elements, the gameplay is infuriating.  As I've eluded to before, there are moments where you will find yourself grossly outnumbered by enemy. The game wants you to use cover and move around to the flanks, but the problem is the friendly AI does nothing to help you in terms of drawing fire away from you, and the enemy AI are nothing but sharpshooters who completely ignore your friends and trains all their weapons on you. There were many points in the game where I was completely pinned down, could not train my sights on a bad guy with enough time to shoot him before he dropped about 6 rounds right in the ten-ring. You could do your taxes in the time it takes to aim down your sights, even then its rat-a-tat-tat: you're dead. While I did find the scenery and the sound pretty good, some of the animations are frankly substandard for this generation's console first person shooter. Throwing a grenade is pretty laughable. As well as enemies that attack you head on with little to no cover themselves.

For a short single player game, there is another part that cheapens the experience and that is when you are controlling a remote "Goliath" that will put down enemies in your stead. I really would rather have used some basic combat tactics of having one group lay down some cover while you moved around to the sides and flanked your entrenched enemy, instead of just having your RC Bigfoot with minigun do it all for you. There is a similar scene in Bulletstorm (that I just reviewed); wasn't cool there, wasn't cool here.

As of right now, Multiplayer is a mess. I tried for two evenings to bring a party of four into a multiplayer match with no success. Here's a few hints to THQ: You know how many copies of the game you pre-sold (anywhere from 200,000-300,000), and you figured that a good majority of those presells were going to pick up the game in the first few days and want to play online. So when you tell people that you had a higher-than-expected capacity on your dedicated servers, it totally comes off as amateur hour, ESPECIALLY when your game comes with a code to "unlock multiplayer".

Once I got into a few games, I found the classes were totally unbalaced. Your score becomes currency to unlock new things, weapons, abilities, vehicles. Well people that managed to put in more time than you online have already the capability to unlock a chopper that just rains death upon you and is near impossible to take down. Your games are going to be pretty lopsided; either you have a 10:1 kill/death ratio or 1:20 because you can't go 5 steps without getting mowed down.

Now again, I hate to belittle anyone that puts a lot of time and effort into something that had promise and just does not come close to delivering. I won't tell you to not play this game, but you certainly wouldn't want to drop $60 on it unless you hate money. You could rent it, but kiss off playing multiplayer or else you'd have to pay $10 for your online access code. I wouldn't recommend that, either. If you rent it, just play the Single Player collect your 150ish gamerscore achievements and send it back in. You get the feeling though, upon finishing the game, that THQ/Kaos kind of leaves you hanging; that more will come in the way of a sequel or more missions via DLC. If that's the case, its a sham money grab and you needn't waste your time.

TL;DR- "... In the early days of 2011,  the hopeful - mostly suckers - bought the game Homefront. They were shown great fail and gave up their money, so that 'this nation shall not have to waste their time on this Earth'. "

COUNTERPOINT REVIEW: Dead Space 2.

Recent photo of Lord Bling.

I wanted to take a moment and highlight another opinion of Dead Space 2. I, of course, fellated it, but not everyone on the TL;DR staff agrees. Lord Bling posted his take in the comments section of my review but I wanted to do one better and pull it out and place it in its own post.

"Well, I tried, but fuck this game. I just couldn't get into it like I did the original. The 'story' is threadbare compared to the first, and most of the twists you'll see coming a mile away. You're constantly low on ammo (even on Normal), no matter how much you buy at the Stores. For a survival horror game that throws a shit-ton of enemies at you, it's unfair to limit the ammo found in the environment. Apparently, you're supposed to use telekinesis and objects in the environment a lot more in this one, but that's quite a change from the first (where I played through it entirely with just the Plasma Cutter) and there's not enough time to coordinate all of that when you're constantly getting raped by three or four monsters. And raped you will be. Every fucking hallway sees you getting jumped and overrun, and the 3rd person perspective doesn't help when you're surrounded. And to this point, why can't your character stomp while reloading? This was never an issue in the first game, because you rarely got so outnumbered. It's an issue in multiple instances in this one. There are 'puzzles', but they're barely a diversion from the next raping you're going to get (and in many cases, you'll get attacked in the middle of solving them, which defeats the purpose). Power Nodes are sparse enough to where you'll have to pick and choose what you upgrade (and they expect you to play through it again in order to level up more than a couple of weapons and/or your rig and stasis module). Sorry dudes, but I couldn't even finish one playthrough, much less start a second.

Having said that, the voice acting is great. The audio and graphics are top-notch yet again. And a couple of strong set piece moments stand out.

Basically, Visceral tried to pull an 'Aliens' by taking the atmospheric original and going all-action, all the time, but they should've put more ammo in the game if they wanted to go that route. They also should've given us a reason to care. 

TL;DR -- Save your money and play the first one again."

REVIEW: Bulletstorm

There is something vaguely familiar about all of this. I feel like I've been here before. You know, they say nothing is original anymore, and you see it everywhere. Music samples from earlier music (which usually ends in the new music sucking). Newer music samples from the music that just sampled the older music (also sucks). Movies are being 'rebooted' (sucks). American television shows are being either rebooted, or are directly ripped off from British Television (the result of which is pretty sucky in nature). With video games, its more there is a trend that gets set and is repeated and then variants are built from it. The side scroller. The first person shooter. The RPG. The JRPG. The MMORPG. 3D. Even with that, I think video games can differ from other media in that although they follow a certain predictable pattern, if done properly, they can stand out as unique through milieu, presentation, and gameplay.

Bulletstorm doesn't.

I could just end things right here and simply tell you what this game Frankensteins together. However, that wouldn't be fair and that lets me off the hook way to easily. So I'm going to show you but also say a couple of good things as well. I will start of by saying that Bulletstorm is not a bad game. There shouldn't be points taken away because a game isn't extraordinary, or redefines a genre, or is life altering. Which is good, because this game isn't extraordinary, genre definitive or life altering in anyway.

You are Marcus Fenix Grayson Hunt. You're a wayward mercenary, seeking revenge on the commander that you feel betrayed you and cast you out of your elite military unit. In the attempt to take revenge, you crash land on a once populated resort planet that is now overrun by mutants, convicts, and indigenous creatures.  Your mission is to escape the labyrinth of dilapidated buildings, cavernous terrain, and war-torn urban chaos, and figure out a way to exact your unpleasant reciprocity.  You aren't alone in your run of terror; your main companion from the get-go is Ishi, a fellow crewman who, during the first engagement, suffers a catastrophic injury and must become half cyborg in order to sustain his life. You will also gain another companion about a third of the way in that knows the ropes of the city and will help you get through (though she doesn't trust you much).

C'Mon, Sal. The Tigers are playin'...to-night!

Early on you will acquire your trusty machine gun, and...what I can only describe as your "power whip". Its an attachment that you'll use to grab either items or people. As you move through the game, you are able to grab more weapons, upgrade them, and enable their special abilities.

You earn your upgrades and are able to buy ammo through points you accumulate through kills. You just shoot a guy a billion times until he dies? Ten points and boring. You aren't buying a lot of bullets with that. Kick him into a a mutated cactus? How about a hundred points. Blow up that explosive object next to four guys? Fifty points each (times four). THAT is how you accumulate your experience currency. Its simple to grasp, and pretty fun to toy around with, trying to pull of 'kill trick shots' just because you can. Its very arcade-like, and something that you may have experienced before.

Whoops, wrong game. But do you see what I mean? 

One thing I do want to point out that is an overwhelming positive about the game, and something that is praised in almost every review I've read, is that the environment and look of the game is totally gorgeous. Though the controls are somewhat clunky (you can't jump, buttons can be slow to react when you want to change weapons or target something), but the landscape, the action, the characters, movement, all just fantastically rendered. There are times where it almost has a Borderlands feel to it, some have that cell shaded feel, but there are definitely elements that are staples of Epic games style animation.

If you had honestly told me that Bulletstorm was a 'Gears of War' side story, part of the cannon, just sans the main characters I would have believed you. Its first person instead of third, but when you run, the camera gets that familiar blur. When you shoot, you need a hailstorm of bullets to take someone down, if you can get in a good decap, that feels the same.

Ishi the Killer. 

Even the banter and speech in which Grayson carries himself is all very...Gearsish. That banter, among other things, landed the game under a little bit of scrutiny from our resident mega media squeaky wheel. They felt that the crude sexual comments Grayson (and later on General Serrano) makes, the names of some of your killing moves, extra bonus points awarded for shooting enemies in their nether parts, all made Bulletstorm the beacon that summons young children to mischief.  Trust me; there are better other games more vulgar, more gratuitous, and more gore-laden than Bulletstorm. This is not the pole in which to waive the "video games corrupt children" flag. The game is rated M for a reason: and honestly, its not really even a very good one. The crudeness is forced. The gore isn't anything new. You've seen it before, you've heard it before.

This is where I talk about the multiplayer aspect of the game, but instead of deathmatch or anything like that, we get a co-op horde mode. I played a few games, and was pretty much done with it. I've mentioned in years past that games with good stand alone single player campaigns really don't need multiplayer. Bulletstorm needs multiplayer. Although I usually suck at Epic games that have multiplayer (Gears, Unreal Tournament), I think I would have enjoyed what they could have thrown together in close spaces or a large landscape using the weapons from the campaign. While I won't count the lack of true multiplayer against the game, the fact the single player campaign clocks in under seven hours playing on normal difficulty, it would have been something nice to extend what is otherwise a rental at best.

Bulletstorm is what it is. Short and unoriginal. But what it also is, honestly, it is fun. Its a quick ride, but despite what you may think reading the words above, I didn't hate the game. Its a quick, not very frustrating (at least at the level I played), sometimes smirk-inducing, mindless game thats fun to look at and fun to play. In short...

TL;DR -

REVIEW: Dead Space 2

Before I dive in, I want to take a moment to give some advice for new fathers. When your new baby is big enough to be out of a bassinet and into an actual crib, (around the 2 or 3 month mark) you should give your wife a break on the overnight feedings. What you do is whatever night you don't have to work the next day, take your infant, put her in one of those little bouncy chair things, and just rock her to sleep while you play video games until about 5 in the morning, stopping only to feed and change the baby. That way the Mom can get a solid night's sleep, you get some good gaming in, and you look like a hero. 

I give you this advice because that is how I played the first Dead Space game two years ago. It was one of those games that in the cold and darkness of a November night, and with surround sound speakers sitting behind you, really made you jump when startled by a man you once knew turned necromorph. As Isaac Clarke (an obvious nod to classic sci-fi writers), you were part of a team that tried to figure out what the hell happened on a wayward excavating vessel only to discover that things are no bueno in the worst kind of way.

Well, you're back and and so are the necromorphs. This time you wake up three years later in a space station type setting and there really is no moments of peace before the chaos. From the second you are able to control Isaac, you are evading people getting eaten, begging for help, and screaming for their mothers.

The first chapter of Dead Space 2 really sets a great tone for the game. You don't get any kind of weapon except a flashlight through most of the first 25 minutes or so. After you've evaded the initial chaos of the psycho ward you just escaped, you are now trying to traverse dark rooms and shadowy corridors in order to find something that you can use to fight back. The game does a great job in the beginning of giving the gamer a sense of anxiety as you hear things that may or not be there, you try to find your way to escape, not knowing what lurks around the next corner.

Uh....umad?

Your first encounter with the necromorphs, you won't even have a weapon. You acquire a kinetic ability to objects and have to use it to impale the first batch of baddies that come your way. Once you get the all familiar plasma cutter, then the strategy is conserving ammo and your med packs to survive. You'll always have your ability to kinetically throw objects at enemies and potentially kill them if you run out of ammo, but you will have to be very deliberate in which you can take down necromorphs; shoot off their limbs, then run up and curb stomp them to finish them off.

I got a great sense going through the first part of the game that reminded me of the first Alien movie: quiet, tense, and not sure where the next attack is coming from. Scaring people is more than just jumping from a dark corner; Dead Space 2 gets psychological on your ass. Throughout the game you are haunted by the memory of your dead girlfriend, who appears to you in the form of a vision trapped inside your mind, making you wonder if you are personally responsible for the terror that has befallen this settlement. There are also moments while you are traversing the living quarters of people that have gone crazy and lost it. Candles with alien writing, people crying out for their lives in the distance, later a mother holding her infected infant only to see them both explode; that is where the real fear resides and where Dead Space 2 can seriously creep you out when you're playing all by yourself in the middle of the night.

I'm so ronery. 

As the game progresses, the action becomes more fast paced. You go from the feeling of Alien to more like Aliens as the necromorphs begin to come at you in higher numbers, actually making you fire forward but be mindful of your blind sides as some of the different varieties of baddies flank you as you're fighting.

The scenery also changes up a bit, right at the right time. You will go from fighting in a cult-like church, to open room shopping area, to trash compactors in zero gravity and more. I was really impressed with the amount of different environments and varieties of weapons you're able to employ to dispatch enemies. As with the norm these days, you have someone there to guide you through the game, but you also have another voice of one of your fellow test subjects who is slowly descending into madness and foreshadowing what is next in store for you if you can't get through to the end of the game.

I don't have a lot of bones to pick with Dead Space 2. I do recommend that you play on a higher difficulty than casual. I played on Normal and got through the Single Player campaign in about 9-10 hours total. I then began a second play through (New Game plus) on casual to pick up some achievements (you pretty much have to go at least two playthroughs to get the majority of them) and that's probably going to finish up around 5 hours. At a higher difficulty, again, ammo is going to be at a premium, so don't just go firing blind. I also left myself in a few sticky situations where I had no health, no ammo, and bad guys surrounding me in opposite rooms. Be sure to use your stasis packs sparingly and only when you are in serious trouble. Higher difficulties will make the game more enjoyable for you. Beating the game once unlocks hard core mode which only allows you three save points in the entire game. I am not that glutton for punishment that I am going to try and beat the game on hard core (which you have to start from scratch; no New Game plus), even though doing so would unlock one of the coolest guns evar.

There is a multiplayer component to Dead Space 2 but I never really bothered to get into it much. I played a few rounds and it seemed very Aliens v. Predator to me (not a knock against AvP). Its something to play to say you've played but its something that will neither add nor significantly detract from the overall experience. If you don't want to buy a game that is about 20 hours total of gameplay (considering the number of playthroughs), that's fine, but you definitely need to play it. Its fun, terrifying, and visually stunning. With this, the original, and last year's Dante's Inferno, Visceral Games is becoming one of those studios that I've totally bought into. You should too.

TL;DR - A fantastic ride.

COGS!

Man, this game... WTH was I thinking when I bought it?

Always been a fan of puzzle games and this one has its teeth in me pretty hard.

Basically a take on the old slider puzzle games from when you were a kid, this game puts steam pipes, gears and chimes on the sliding pieces which you must then rearrange to solve the puzzle. Simple right? HELL NO! This crap is in a 3d environment and in some cases, moves made on one side of the puzzle affect piece on the opposite side.. SOOOO in some cases you are trying to solve multiple puzzles simultaneously in 3 dimensions.

There are 50 puzzles (51 actually I think if you include the "End Credits" puzzles). These puzzles can be played in 3 ways:

Inventor Mode - no time limit but Gold, Silver and Bronze medals are awarded based on the time it took to solve and number of moves used.

Challenge Mode - Puzzles solved in Inventor Mode are unlocked in this mode. There are 2 categories:
-Timed - You have 30 seconds to solve the puzzle.
-Moves - You have to solve the puzzle in 10 moves or less.

I'm about 15 hours into this game.. I've solved all the Inventor Mode Puzzles, All the Challenge Mode Puzzles (Both Timed and Moves)... and yet the game still haunts me... Why you ask... Those God Damned Steam Achievements!!! I've earned 13 of 18 of these cursed things (as of this post)... with the last 5 being uber-pains in the ass with like 1% or less of people earning these achievements.

Sigh...

Anyway, its a great game if you like puzzle games. Its on Steam and currently bundled with 4 other games (which I haven't even downloaded yet because I'm so obsessed with COGS!) for only $4.99, a price I think that's fair for just Cogs alone.

Watch the vid if you think you may have some interest in this game. Mayhap I'll earn the remaining achievements soon and move on with my gaming life.



PEACE!

REVIEW: Vanquish

I always appreciate a time where I can just kick back, relax, and kick some ass. 

When I first saw Vanquish back in May of this year, my first thought was "Gears of War" meets "Robocop" meets cocaine. Seeing a futuristic over-the-shoulder shooter may have looked like visual porn, but I wasn't quite sold on how it would play, what the story behind it was, and how it would play with friends. When the playable demo came out last month, it was the same thing I had already seen, but getting hands on was a different story. This was going to be some fast paced, intense action that I hadn't seen in a while. Not only was the demo level engaging with crisp controls, but there was a lot going on screen which showed me the game had potential.

For the most part, the retail version did not disappoint. 

This is the second game to come from Sega's Platinum Games developer with the critically acclaimed Bayonetta dropping 10 months ago. You will notice a somewhat similar feeling with Bayo with the Arcade-type presentation (I say 'Arcade' because you are "scored" at the end of each mission); there are a lot of visual stimuli going all over the screen, and the difficulty curve goes from shallow to controller-shaped-dents-in-wall difficult. Vanquish is, however, refreshingly more "western" in its execution ditching the really cheesy cut-scenes to slightly less cheesy cut-scenes (and the annoying as hell faux-Joe Pesci character).

Cuidado; Piso Mojado.

In talking about the game there are two things I need to say up front: Yes, there is no multiplayer. I'll address that in a moment. Also, I really have no idea what the hell the story is about. You play as Solid Snake Alex Murphy Sam Gideon, a dude with a bad ass mechanical super suit who is about to wreck shop on some bad guys. I mean, is there really much else you need to know story wise? Not really. Anyway, you are the tip of the spear of a rag-tag group of soldiers looking to fight a combination of robots and mechs. Sam's suit is capable of switching modes of weapons nearly instantaneously, he can power slide across the floor using rockets, he can do some bullet time slow-mo action when his suit depleted of energy either by damage or activation by the player. There are a good variety of weapons as you progress through the game, and each one serves a useful purpose from a plain old assault rifle, to heavy machine gun, to lazer cannon, to sniper rifle. Everything works well in combat. There is a pretty good cover system, but what is a little unique is that some cover can be destroyed, so you have to move around, strategize, flank, and overcome. This especially holds true in some boss battles, which not only come at end of levels, but some pop up mid-level, too. 

Visually, if you already don't have ADD, Vanquish will take care of that for you. With a smooth framerate, there is a lot that goes on screen, and it all looks really pretty good. There are points in the game where there are seemingly endless amount of baddies, and you can take them out with a weapon that locks four missiles on various targets, as a Thunderdome-reject style tank is barreling down on you. I can't remember having any camera issues or control issues; Vanquish does a good job in keeping the game enjoyable. There is also a good variety in level design. The differing environment kept the combat from getting repetitive, as I never felt bored or bogged down- everything moves fast. The game comes up short on playtime, but honestly, my suggestion is to play on harder difficulty- that way you are well challenged, and you get upwards of 8
hours of gameplay in. 

Pew! Pew! Pew!

So yeah, there is no multiplayer. Honestly, that doesn't bother me. I think multiplayer would have felt tacked on, and after Bioshock 2, I'm good with a stand alone strong Single Player game. I mean this is a game that was really easy and fun to play, I didn't even care about all the plot components. There is even a point in the game where you are crawling in the belly of a mech-stratofighter and you happen along a small room with a robot disguised as a boombox and a few band guys just dancing. Hilarious, and just a reminder to not take things seriously, just kick back and enjoy the ride.

Again, one dude that did NOT enjoy the ride was the review over at Destructoid. I hate to pick on them, because I do enjoy their website, but when a game is hitting an 83 on the Metacritic, and you drop a 5/10 on it, then you pretty much come off as a troll. I'm not saying you have to be in lock-step with everyone else on the internet, but at least you need a little bit of perspective. Again, in reviewing a game, or anything, you need to present what the game is about, what you think the developers are trying to present, and what works. Whether or not you like a game will affect how you review it, but there needs to be enough objectivity that it shouldn't sway it into a category of "Mediocre". There are plenty of games that I weren't keen on but I'm not going to say they straight up suck if there are things about it that are technically sound, and enjoyable.

What makes things worse is when there is no consistency throughout reviews. For example: Buggy, Glitchy, Obsidian developed Fallout New Vegas is worthy of a 9/10 rating from their site, but Buggy, Glitchy, Obsidian developed Alpha Protocol nets a 2/10. Now, I will concede that Fallout New Vegas (TL;DR review pending) is better than Alpha Protocol but the difference isn't 9 and 2; that is ridiculous. Vanquish deserves better as well.

TL;DR - For Sega fanboys, Vanquish is Space Harrier meets Zillion meets a lot of fun. 

DLC REVIEW: Borderlands Claptrap New Robot Revolution

If you had told me that so far I've played more Borderlands this year than Modern Warfare 2, I would have thought there was some sort of game crashing bug, Gearbox was handing out free candy, or told you that you are a complete moron. In May, I threw a quick post together about how I was still enjoying Borderlands, but things didn't really kick into full gear until over the summer when I was determined to finish the third downloadable episode 'Armory of General Knoxx'.

I was in full Borderlands mode when the fourth installment of Downloadable Content released a few weeks ago. "Claptrap New Robot Revolution' takes you to a few new environments and introduces you to a few new (and some old) enemies. Quick summary: The Claptraps are getting kind of sick of being the 'Butler Bot' of Pandora and have risen up to overthrow everything and kick some ass.

No matter what playthrough you begin this episode, everyone is going to be tough. I played through on a level 61 character and all the baddies were at least level 60. If you play alone, prepare to die a few times. Claptraps have taken over all the bad guys so all the humanoid enemies hey are imbued with cybog-like abilities in terms of strength and weapon skill. There are also a few varieties of Claptraps that will kick your ass, roll up on you and kamikaze you into a quick death. As with everything Borderlands, Co-op is the best way to go; I suggest having characters that have good up close weapons, some rocket launchers that do electrical damage, a guy who can sustain damage and heal, and someone who goes around and collect dropped items.

Speaking of collecting, you will do a lot of it. We never really found a large amount of really good weapons that you can find in General Knoxx's Armory, or ones that Crawmerax drops when killed. You do have to collect a bunch of bits and pieces of Claptrap entrails as a mission, and it gets a little tedius. Its not really as entertaining as the 'Braaaaaaaaains' mission in Dr. Ned's Zombie Island, maybe because Dr. Ned was more entertaining in that you can line up four zombies, blow their heads off and ...brains!

I honestly felt underwhelmed when completing this DLC. Its much shorter than either Dr. Ned or General Knoxx, and I think its shorter by a long-shot. I played through the whole thing, went back and brought a few friends up to speed and finished all withing 5-6 hours? I didn't feel that it added much in terms of story, or even humor. I know that may be nit-picking but humor is something that I really enjoyed about Borderlands. There are some funny bits toward the end but it's not really all that entertaining.

There also isn't a lot of re-playability in the game. Dr. Ned is good because Zombie's are fun, and The Armory is really really good because you can go back and kill Crawmerax unlimited times to find good loot; or you can enter the Armory up to three times, as well as traverse a very large map. Upon completing the DLC's main storyline, all there was really left to do was gain a few collectibles that claptraps dropped and even at the time of this review, the Xbox 360 Achievements associated with getting things like pizza boxes, 3-D Glasses, bobbleheads and oil cans are glitched.

At 800 Microsoft points, you get much less than you did with the like-priced other DLC's. At 560 or so Points, this would be a good deal. At 800...eh...

TL;DR- Unless you are a fanboy (which I profess I am), pass.

REVIEW: Halo Reach

At first, I was a skeptic.

In 2002, I was working at a retail store in Lawrence, KS, riding my high of having the latest and greatest in next generation gaming. I went home from class and work every day to the delights of...Medal of Honor Allied Assault, and SSX Tricky. I was a complete PS2 fanboy at the time, rebuffing all attempts from my co-workers to invest in Microsoft's HUEG monstrosity and its silly little game called 'Halo'.

When I finally pulled the trigger (let's face it, it really didn't take a LOT of convincing for me to purchase a new console), I ate my words in a bad way. Halo was one of the most impressive games I had played to date. The single player campaign, which was a great combination of immersive environments and storytelling gave way to 3 AM rocket-fights with 15 of my friends (ok, 2 friends and 13 people I didn't know). When Halo 2 came out a few years later, the addition of Xbox Live expanded the scope of multiplayer, leading to many legendary online matches, clans, and game variants (Troy, Jihad). There are still many people on my XBL friends list from the old Halo 2 days.

In 2007,  Halo 3 launched, anticipation had built back up, we all played the Beta (and managed to discover a decent game in Crackdown in the process), we were ready to go back in for another few years of multiplayer madness. However something happened: Call of Duty 4 came out, and offered multiplayer game play that not only rivaled Halo, but exceeded it in many ways. We didn't have to deal with 'Halo Jumping', tea baggers, and  the l337 Combo, to the extent that Halo dragged us down. Halo 3 stayed at the top of the Xbox Live leaderboards for quite some time, but eventually it was eclipsed by Call of Duty, and even all but forgotten when Modern Warfare 2 launched. Microsoft and Bungie tried to counter with Halo 3: ODST. It didn't work. The campaign was lackluster, and although the introduction of the Firefight multiplayer mode was refreshing, it just didn't have the punch.

I had become a skeptic again. When Halo Reach was announced, I kind of rolled my eyes and fed myself a big spoonful of apathy. And while I was always outwardly quick to defend the franchise from straight up hatred, I was not necessarily ready to sprint to my local game store and reserve the game.

What helped me in preparation for Reach was a combination of the intrigue of a few changes in multiplayer, and, quite frankly, the letdown of other first person shooters on the market. Modern Warfare 2 started out strong, but I honestly haven't picked that game up in months, right along with Bad Company 2. I guess I was ready for something fresh, ironic considering the franchise is nine years old and the last game released wasn't interesting.

In case you haven't been keeping score, Halo: Reach is a prequel. The player is the newest member of Noble Team, a team of rag-tag and gruff Spartans. Not quite as bad ass as Master Chief, each one has a certain uniqueness about them. Are you bearing witness to the destruction of the planet Reach by the Covenant.

When I played through the campaign (yes, we are finally getting to the 'review' portion of the review), I was hit by a bit of nostalgia. No, Bungie didn't re-invent the wheel, but the environments are expansive, gorgeous, and had good level design. As with the problems in most prequels, you have to deal with technology that is supposed to be inferior to Master Chief's arsenal, so you get the old school assault rifle, pistol, and the new single-shot designated marksman rifle (which I found a salvation in the Campaign, and a pain in the ass in Multiplayer).

As you progress through the story, you will find something that is both interesting and something you can follow. Its pretty simple: fight the covenant, realize the covenant is kicking your ass, find something that can potentially best them in the end, and escape with it so that humanity has a chance to survive later. No flood, no Arbiter, no problem.

Colony Wars, anyone?

Bungie included a few new things in the experience that mixes things up. One is a space mission that seems kind of out of place, but isn't poorly done and has some challenges. The other, and more lasting is a variety of "classes" in which you can spruce up your Spartan. You will find these augmentations during the campaign and can choose them straight up in some multiplayer games, but you can be able to rocket around, sprint (I'd forgotten after playing CoD for 3 years that you couldn't 'run' in Halo--until now), create an armor barrier, go invisible (only if you walk r-e-a-l-l-y slow and don't fire a machine gun) or replicate yourself in an interactive hologram, Total Recall style.

There is a good variety of gamplay in the single player campaign. You can mix it up with sneaking around and sniping, running and gunning, and just plain running. I beat the campaign on Heroic and had to use an interesting blend of tactics in order to advance through some of the trouble stages where you find yourself with little to no ammo. Four player co-op does well, at some points you actually have to strategize how you are going to defeat hordes of bad-guys, elites and hunters (by the way, if you are going to play co-op, be a real gamer and play on Legendary).

Chuck Norris Spartan doesn't sleep; he waits. 

Multiplayer has a bit of customability to it. Firefight is horde mode co-op game type where you can take on legions of covenant in a contained area. Invasion is rather enjoyable, as you are either attacking and defending certain checkpoints, ultimately ending is an attempted smash and grab job. There are also a slew of variants in game type that you can vote on (as opposed to veto) that can incorporate classic slayer, to using to various abilities I mentioned earlier.  Right now, my favorite is using the Hologram. Its great to get a read on where people are as they fire onto your fake image, or when someone does have the drop on you, hit the holo to evade their fire. I've also found renewed success with the sprint class, although I've also found renewed failure against many of the transplanted Halo savants. Its always been a game I've been 'OK' at, but when running up against the MLG wannabe's who are dome-rackers with the DMR or Needler Rifle, it just becomes frustrating. Not the game's fault; just some people need to get a life.

You will notice that I have left out the Forge and Theater parts of this review, as I am about to discredit myself completely and say I haven't paid much attention to either. There are many players who pretty much immerse themselves in those, and come up with some very good presentations in both their own level design and videos.

Going back to my previous post about the beta, I want to readdress a few things:

• Most of my 'meh's from the beta are pretty much not 'meh's anymore. Character classes spruce things up, The visuals are great, and I haven't run into the new '1337 combo'. I still wish the sniper rifles didn't have a reticule so pros can no-scope, and I wish the world took note of how awesome a sticky grenadier I am, but those are minor gripes.

• I do wish weapons were a little more unique, not necessarily more powerful. I love the needler rifle and yet the DMR drives me crazy in MP because slower single-shot weapons that take multiple shots to bring someone down are tedious. 

• I previously said that Halo is still relevant and can still evolve, and I'm beginning to wonder if that is true. Yes, Halo: Reach is one of the best of the franchise, and with Activision's struggles with their flagship, this could have some staying power into the next year, but what after that? Bungie is now done with Halo, and Microsoft is taking it to another one of its internal studios. Unless they can redefine the franchise by finish story and bring back freaking Master Chief, bringing through some more customization in multiplayer, add a lot of unique (a mix of vast and smaller, NOT retreads of old) maps, then do we really need it? 

I think the answer to the last question is going to be "you may not need it, but we sure hope you'll buy it." Perhaps since this Reach is a step in the right direction, the next one will just continue that path. Then again, with all that is coming out at the end of the year, I doubt I will still be there to put in the time, energy, or patience. 

TL;DR- Tonight, we dine on Reach, Tomorrow we dine at Arby's.

REVIEW: Alpha Protocol

Sega does this sometimes. They take a chance into unproven territory with some of their games and hardware. The VMU. Madworld. Shadow the Hedgehog. Unfortunately, being that guy who says "I'm going to do something different" usually means that different doesn't either sell or it just sucks.

When I first heard about Alpha Protocol, my mind immediately (and probably unfairly) thought Jason Bourne meets Mass Effect; an espionage action RPG. Obsidian, who made the follow-up to Bioware's Knights of the Old Republic and is now working on Fallout New Vegas would be developing the game, so good pedigree there. I was very intrigued, and excited, but also hesitant as to how this all would work together and play out. What I got when playing through Alpha Protocol was two feelings: 1.) this game has a lot of potential with a lot of great elements and 2.) Some people really have it out for Sega. Today's review will focus heavily on the first feeling, and then I will touch upon some of the (recklessly undue) haterade in the internet land.

You play as Michael Thorton, the quintessential new guy: discredited from his super-secret agency, goes rogue, tries to clear his name, possibly expose an evil corporation and save the country. The game actually plays out in flashback, as you are sitting with the head of Haliburton Halbech discussing how you managed to go through these missions, not get yourself killed, but also 'fail to see the big picture'. You will start out getting the feel for the game in Saudi Arabia, which as a n00b, you will not be very good at anything such as sneaking around and shooting. At that point, the game feels kind of clunky-- but as you move past that mission, you get to choose your next destination between Moscow, Rome and Taipei, things begin to open up, as well as the gameplay mechanics.

Just like in past games of Obsidian/Bioware's ilk, the dialogue drives the story, and you actually can dictate the direction you go by how you react in each coversation. To keep the pace moving, you aren't given specific lines to choose from, but more of a reaction like "frustrated", "flirtatious", "sarcastic", just as examples. This keeps the conversations moving at a seemless pace. Characters in the game will react differently to each style you choose and will either like you (and will provide bonuses and be more cooperative) or they will hate you. How they react and deal with you really does give the gamer a unique experience.  I was playing the game at the same time as a friend of mine and we would talk about a conversation, or email response option and sometimes my friend would have a similar experience, and sometimes he would be like "that didn't happen for me at all."

Some of the conversations that take place had me laugh out loud pretty easily, not because they were cheesy, but because they were well written and funny. You can be Mr. All-About-the-Mission or you can be a sarcastic jackass. Some situations will actually dictate your mood. When trying to romance a photojournalist, you can be mister mysterious and suave. With Steven Heck, the tinfoil hat wearing "bug out guy", its best to not to be a total prick, but some sarcastic options will lead you to plenty of humorous moments. I can't think of a character in the game that I could have done without, or thought was totally out of place.

Your playstyle is customizable as well. You are given skill points that you can put into certain abilities such as stealth, weapon proficiencies, tech, health, and melee. Each time you put a point in a category, it will unlock either and active or passive ability that will help you in missions. You can be Sam Fisher, Jr. Sneaking around taking people out by stealth, going 99% non-lethal by tranquilizing people, avoiding cameras. You can also be Arnold, Jr. just buzzsawing your way though missions leaving nothing but carnage in your wake.

During missions, you get a few hacking minigames that are both unique and challenging. Picking locks require you to push pressure sensitive pins to a certain point, and unlocking each pin to crack the lock. This is pretty easy with a three pin lock, pretty hard with a five pin. You bypass keycodes with a board in which you have to connect a numbered circuit in the correct order. The computer hacking mini-game makes you match up two numbered key codes within the grid where other numbers are cycling except for the passphrase. The code resets once within the time frame given, and sometimes I can find one key code, but have to wait for the reset to match the next one.

The combat is a bit of a mixed bag. I like the controls; you can duck in and out of cover, sneak up behind people and take them out quietly. I kind of wish the camera was pulled back about five feet; sometimes if a bad guy charges up on you, you kind of lose him because the camera will zoom into the back of your head. At the beginning, you won't be able to shoot for shit. Your weapon proficiencies aren't developed so you are going to spray bullets all over the yard. Alpha Protocol's mechanics are that there is a mathematical formula that will determine whether you can score a hit, depending on your weapon stats and your stats. That's a bit of a turn off for some people, but it worked for me. I ended up putting most of my points into Assault Rifle and Pistol, if I were to pick up an SMG or Shotgun in which I had no formal "training", I shouldn't be expected to hit a whole lot with precision, especially at range.

One other thing Alpha Protocol left me with, was a desire to see more things in a potential sequel. I want to be on record as saying I had a lot of fun with this game, and think it has a solid foundation, but I think there are some things that Obsidian/Sega can tighten up if we progress through a potential franchise:

- I would like to have the environment be a tad more interactive (save the exploding barrel or propane tank). Not to go all Splinter Cell, but I would like to be able to shoot out a light and move in the cover of darkness. There were times where I felt I was kind of backed into a corner stealthing around, and because I couldn't move to a better location because of the lighting, well, here we go with guns blazing.

- I would like the game to be longer. You will essentially go to four places, but I would like to have explored more cities, gained more contacts, etc. As it sits now, Alpha Protocol is about 15 hours or so... I could have easily been game for another 10.

- Tighten up the animation and gameplay just a bit. Things kind of do a 'slow render', and there are random spots that the game will pause to load (usually while I'm about to go through a door or up a ladder). Also Mike's "crouch walk" is a little humorous. I didn't mind the level design although its not spectacular, but I'm being pessimistic here.

Those are just a bit off my personal wishlist for the game. But now, I want to get into a bit of the critical reaction. The game has been scoring around a high 6 (out of ten) to a low 7. I think this a tad bit low, as a lot of attention has been paid to the technical aspects of the game (mechanics, gameplay, graphics) and not to the over all story. IF I were to score this game, I would put it in the mid to high 7's, maybe a low 8, depending on how a second playthrough went, and how it I liked the progression and variety of that second experience.  For anyone who likes a good spy game, a good action RPG, this is definitely a game you'd want to check out, for rent, buy, or buy on sale.

But then, there is Destructoid's review. I don't have a problem with a game getting a bad review, even if its deserved. But Destructoid gave Alpha Protocol a 2. Out of Ten. That is, quite frankly, irresponsible. One common complaint about the game is that it is buggy. I get that, there are a few animation glitches, but a game has to be unplayably buggy to warrant a score that low. I got through the game with no such bugs or glitches. Also, I don't think that any conversation was forced or "rambling" at all. Even so, each conversation would have to be Zero Wing in quality in order for me to be so dismissive that I would be like "God, this sucks".

I thought to myself, maybe the reviewer just had a bad experience and is sending a bit of hyperbolic message, so I checked out Splinter Cell Conviction's review on the site: a game that is somewhat similar in concept and execution, but a game I enjoyed way less than Alpha Protocol. Sure enough: 9. Not to go Steven Heck on anyone, but this is absolutely ridiculous. That is like saying Conviction is Star Wars and Alpha Protocol is Wing Commander (the movie); when at best, both movies are Attack of the Clones. I'm not going to go so far to say that the reviewer or Destructoid has it out for Sega, but its possible that they have it out for Sega.

As a reviewer, you want to present the game, and interject what worked for you and what didn't. Subjectivity is unavoidable, but  you don't want to get extreme. So when your review is 2, and average reader and critic scores are around 7, then you are either not seeing something the right way, played some half ass alpha version, or are just a straight up hater. I've quite frankly have no time for that, and you shouldn't either.

TL;DR- You should, however, have some time for Alpha Protocol. You'll enjoy it.

REVIEW: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

In the beginning, (of the last generation console's military first person shooters), there was EA. The Spielberg/Hanks dynamic duo that created the iconic Saving Private Ryan nearly re-invented the military shooter (and WWII game genre) in the Medal of Honor series. Throughout latter span of the original Playstation and into the life of the Playstation 2, the Medal of Honor games were pretty much it. One of those latter games, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, s begot Infinity Ward. With that, we were given the Call of Duty franchise.

In 2007, Infinity Ward 'evolved' from the 1940's to the present day in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Already superior to the games EA were putting out in the military shooter genre, Activision and Infinity Ward, blew everything out of the water. EA's counter was the Battlefield series, which was good but just could not measure up, at least not to the games that IW was developing (sorry, Treyarch). The first console version of Battlefield actually was a modern warfare type game that released on the Xbox, and then a graphical upgrade for the Xbox 360. In summer of 2008, EA put out Battlefield: Bad Company; the answer to CoD4 that scored well, and sold well. Now, in 2010, 4 months after the release of Modern Warfare 2, we have Bad Company 2.

Now, considering all this set-up, you're figuring that all this review is going to be comparing Bad Company 2 to the Modern Warfare games, and its getting a little old to make such a comparison because everyone is doing it. You're right; gotta try and measure up to the champ. EA's doing a bit of a one-two combo this year with Bad Company 2 and this October's update of Medal of Honor, set in the current Gulf War environment (especially with further news that DICE, who developed BF:BC2 is handling Medal of Honor's multiplayer component). With Infinity Ward in shambles, and their ugly little sister studio handing the next Call of Duty, EA may actually be in decent shape in this little genre war, or are they?

Well, I will save you the suspense: EA is in more than "decent" shape. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has proven to be a title worthy of not only giving Modern Warfare 2 a run for their money, but in some areas, even surpassing it.

I'm going to make the discussion about the Single Player Campaign brief: you won't spend a lot of time with it, and you'll find the overarching storyline to be very familiar. I will note that one thing that is entertaining about the Single Player campaign is that it is pretty humorous. You are one of four people in your fire team, each with distinct personalities with a 'A-Team'-misfit type persona. There are even some shots at their Infinity Ward counterparts. Those things did actually add a little something for me to the Single Player experience, which otherwise is short and forgettable. That's really not a knock, but let's face it; you, I and EA both know that the replayability in this game wasn't lying with Sarge and the Gang.

Bad Company 2 shines in multiplayer. I had been underwhelmed in the past with Battlefield 2 and, to some extent, Battlefield 1943. And oddly, the presentation isn't overall that much different from those games: you can control vehicles, run in squads, and level up to attain new weapons. What keeps me coming back are the minor tweaks that have been made; things like balancing within each class. Snipers can be exposed when people get the drop on them, but can call in mortar strikes from distance and set traps with C4. Engineers have silenced SMG's that lack for range and power, but are critical in taking out enemy vehicles (I cannot recommend anti-tank mines more for land vehicles) in addition to repairing your own. Medics carry large machine guns and can revive fallen friends.

You don't necessarily have to kill guys to gain XP (necessary for unlocking better, more powerful weapons). Go around reviving people and giving them health packs with your medic. Replenish ammunition with your Assault class character. Use spotting mines to help your assault teammates know where the enemy is. TEAMWORK within your squad will help you improve your overall game in Bad Company 2.I struggled mightily in the beginning with the default class weapons. Once I was able to unlock class upgrades (such as red-dot, 12x scopes and better weapons) was I able to actually achieve relative success in the game.

I consider Bad Company 2 more "warfare sim" to Call of Duty's "warfare arcade". You will need to account for gravity when you snipe. You won't be able to sit half a map away, put your enemy's skill in the cross-hairs and score a kill. Try that, and the bullet will land about 20 feet in front of him. Meanwhile, he will see where that bullet just came from, get the drop on you by putting the cross-hair about a millimeter or two above your head and turn the lights out on your dumb ass. If you try and "Halo jump" and shoot at the same time, your accuracy suffers, as it will when you run while shoot. You try and go lone wolf? You're going to get flanked and knifed in the back of the head, and your dogtags will be on your enemy's wall forever.

In Bad Company 2, you can go 30-0 and lose a game. Kills aren't the be-all end-all of the (multiplayer) game. The best game mode is "Rush" where one side defends M-Com stations, and one side attacks. You will need to employ team strategy or you're going to get slaughtered. Your squad is going to have to utilize multiple classes in order to combat your enemy. Use the "back" button to spot your enemies. Have a buddy help you destroy a building.

Of course, the multiplayer mechanics aren't perfect. As of now, the M-60 is way too powerful. You can essentially snipe with it half a map away with that thing because there isn't a lot of kickback, and the bullets just shred you when they should be spraying all over the yard at distance. Knifing can be pretty iffy. Multiple time, I get the drop on someone while they are moving, go to plunge the knife in the back of their skull, get the animation, hear the sound effect, but don't get the kill. Instead, dude turns and knifes me.

There is also is no feature for going prone. One can argue this is a good thing since it helps limit "camping" but you can't stop campers, so you should be able to go prone. Really not that hard. Just enable the B-Button (which does nothing) to be the crouch/prone button. See? That was simple.

And while I'm on that subject, the clicking right thumbstick to crouch is freaking annoying. This game suffers the same problem as Halo 3 in that respect. I zoom in to aim, and when I go to fire, I end up crouching because I'm moving the right thumbstick to target. I don't know why it happens, and I don't know why I'm not able to program the controller have another button do any given command.

With all that, we have come to the inevitable side-by-side comparison part of the review. Why is it even needed? Well, let's see: Everyone bought Modern Warfare 2. EA knows that, but they aren't going to sit and be the Diet Rite to Activision's Coca Cola. EA's has spoofed Modern Warfare's commercials, and put out a game that, overall, is almost on par with Modern Warfare. I say "almost", because I'm honestly not quite ready to say "better". Like I mentioned before, Bad Company 2 is more "warfare sim" and Modern Warfare 2 is more "warfare arcade". Modern Warfare 2 looks better. You can get full lobby support. It plays faster. More people are playing it. But it's also a glitch-fest, and one person can dominate a game. Fortunately, in some ways, Modern Warfare 2 forced EA to step up their game, and EA responded. Go ahead and read some of the things I posted last month. Talk to anyone you know playing Bad Company 2, now. They are sticking around because, right now, Bad Company 2 is the better multiplayer experience. There, I said it; and now, its up to what's left of Infinity Ward to change my mind.

TL;DR-  Right now, it's what you should be playing.