If you missed picking up Batman: Arkham Asylum on the PC (shame on you), here is your chance. The Games for Windows team has announced a sale-a-week for the next five weeks. The sale kicks-off with, get this, seventy-five percent off Batman: Arkham Asylum! That makes the game a very cheap $12.49 to pickup. The next sale will be announced on March 5th.
In the meantime, head over to the sale page and buy B:AA right now!
EA DICE has sent word that on March 2nd, when their upcoming Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is officially released, two new (and free) multiplayer maps will be unlocked for gamers to make use of. The double-map pack features the Laguna Alta map playable in Conquest mode and Nelson Bay map playable in Rush mode. Bad Company 2 continues the story of Bravo Company as they get involved with yet another harrowing conflict.
INTRODUCTION
Thinking back to the original Aliens vs Predator in 1999, which was also developed by Rebellion, I have nothing but fond memories of making my way slowly through claustrophobic hallways with nothing but the sound of my motion tracker pinging into the distance. In fact, the first level of the original AvP is in my list of all-time favorite game levels. There is not a single alien anywhere in it! You, of course, don’t know this at the time and are all set to fire off your M41A Pulse Rifle. Towards the end of the adrenaline-filled experience you are treated to an explosion of steam and what appears at first to be an alien’s head drops down from the ceiling. It is actually, just a simple pipe… The moment is classic and makes you feel like a complete dork for unloading all of your magazine into it.
Unfortunately, with this reboot of the series, Rebellion seems to have lost its way. This new Aliens vs Predator on the PC platform suffers from a myriad of issues which hold it back. Not saying that there are not moments in the game that players will enjoy and even those that some fans might find ‘epic’ but, overall, they should have done much better…
GAMEPLAY
The new AvP is broken up into three single-player campaigns, each putting the player in control of either a Colonial Marine, an Alien, or a Predator. Each campaign is broken up into smaller chapters, in-between you will be to choose if you wish to continue on or play the other campaigns instead. This is because while the three campaigns are separate, they overlap in many story aspects and progressing too far in one might spoil some of the surprises in the others.
Playing as the Marine is pretty standard for a shooter, although moving your character feels a bit ‘wooden’. Something happened about the time HALO came out for the Xbox 360 which changed how players moved their characters in shooters, eventually even hitting PC titles. Movement became very fluid, especially when alternating between strafing and forward/back keys in erratic patterns during combat. Moving the Marine in AvP feels much more robotic – forward/back, left/right. There does not seem to be a smooth transition between strafing and forward/backwards movement. Even mouse sensitivity seems ‘off’, which greatly affects player aiming. On the offensive front, the marine has a small array of weapons to wield – none of which have an ‘iron-sights’ mode a la other modern shooters. The flare system first used in the original AvP is back, albeit now it is more forgiving as you have unlimited flares but can only throw one when the last flare has burnt out. The weapons have been upgraded in the time between when Aliens took place and when the game takes place – for instance, the pistol now has a three-round burst secondary mode. One aspect of the Marine gameplay which bothers me enough to mention it again is the lack of ‘iron-sights’. Marines are trained marksmen that should be able to aim down the barrels of their pulse rifles during combat – especially given that, in the story, the existence of the Xenomorph is no longer a surprise to them. I would also have liked to have seen some sort of cover system for the Marine.
Playing as the Xenomorph, or Alien, in AvP tends to walk a fine line between moments of ‘awesome’ and moments of tedium. This creature is the only one in the game which is supposed to be able to run up walls and onto the ceiling, through ducts, etc. In Aliens vs Predator 2, this system was flawless and, sometimes, nausea-inducing with as fluid as it was. Unfortunately, in the new AvP, the controls never seem to work smoothly enough to be useful. You are just not able to run from floor to ceiling, instead having to hit the middle mouse button to cling to the surface you wish. What’s more is that even if you do this, you often get hung up on invisible obstacles on the walls and ceilings. One control which does work well is the planned-jump, in which you can jump long distances and cling to the targeted surface. This also works as a planned, long-range attack in which you can jump onto your foes. The Alien has melee attacks, ranging from claw strikes to tail stabs. You can even perform a ‘killing move’ where you grab an enemy and impale them through the cranium with your set of inner-jaws. The opening chapter in the Alien campaign also starts off in a very cool fashion, showing your character’s birth to the moment it… escapes confinement.
The Predator has its own share of tedium as it’s control scheme seems to be a cross between the Alien and Marine’s while not doing either all that well. Coupled with the fact that the player has a finite amount of energy which gets expended with weapon’s fire way too quickly, and it is just a big problem. You get both ranged weaponry as well as melee attacks, including a planned-jump attack a la the Alien. In the good news department, the Predator features its own amazing killing moves where you can tear your human prey’s head from its body! The game has gore, that’s for sure.
Rebellion has tried, with some success, to recapture the claustrophobia of their first AvP in the game’s interior levels. Unfortunately, there are just not enough of those levels. Also unfortunate is that the game’s interior levels are loosely laid-out and never feel logical in how they are put together. It just does not seem like a human being would design a colony structure that way.
Once the game goes outside, the level design really suffers. It seems like you are always fighting in either a narrow canyon, tunnel, or patch of forest which is very ‘arena-like’ in layout. Plus, in these areas you lose the ‘creep-factor’ so prevalent in the indoor areas. I am sure these outdoor areas were added to give Predators a bit of the jungle environments seen in that franchise’s films, but they make for the weakest portions of the game. The most interesting levels are found in the first couple chapters of the Marine campaign. The single-player experience also make heavy use of scripted events, some of which are very obvious. As a Marine, when asked to restore power to something, you can pretty much guarantee that you will be under siege by Aliens the moment you trigger the event. These scripted events usually serve to move the story along but often times fall flat in their reveals.
One area where the game can be a lot of fun is in the various multiplayer modes offered to players. Hanging out with your Marine buddies, fending off hordes of Xenomorphs is still a great time, even with some of the issues from the singleplayer experience bleeding over. Playing as either Predator or Alien can be equally as fun, hunting the other two species down in a variety of environments.
VISUALS
AvP can make use of a number of DirectX 11 features, leaving DirectX 10 GPU owners out in the cold. Even at the basic DirectX 9 detail level, however, the game is generally very attractive. The Marine’s flashlight has a great volumetric element to it and real-time shadows coming from various light sources add a lot to make the game look realistic. The outdoor levels, unfortunately, lose a lot of that. With that being said, the foliage and other fauna in the outdoor levels does move and undulate as players push past – a nice touch. The in-game gore is really well-done, especially in the killing moves. Giblets glisten and normally have a gross, ‘wet-look’. The one death effect that does not look good is the strange bubbling that occurs when an Alien is shot down. I take it that the effect is supposed to illustrate the blood-acid expelling from its body and bubbling up around it, but it just does not look good. To Rebellion’s credit, the three featured species are well-detailed and are easily the best they have looked in a video game to date.
SOUND
The voice-work is generally acceptable, with the exception of Lance Henriksen who is just a treat for us fans to hear in the role of Karl Weyland Bishop. Thankfully, the ambient sounds while roaming through the dark interior halls are well-crafted and add a lot to the feeling of impeding dread and claustrophobia. Once you get outside, the sound design and ambient effects are far-less effective.
OVERALL
Unfortunately, Aliens vs Predator should have been a lot better than this release for Windows PCs ended up. Rebellion had a while to work on the product and it feels unfinished, unpolished, and in serious need of patching. Sure, there are some fun moments to be had in both the singleplayer and, especially, the multiplayer – however the game’s various issues really bog the whole affair down. Game over man, game over!
*DISCLOSURE: SEGA provided GamingShogun.com a copy of Aliens vs Predator for this review.
Capcom has announced that MotoGP 09/10 will be released across North America on March 16th for the Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms. The game is the first game ever in the history of console racing games to promise 20-player multiplayer matches for an authentic racing experience.
According to Capcom, a demo will be released ‘shortly’ before the game’s official launch date.
LucasArts has announced that they have released a new downloadable mission for their popular actioner, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. The new mission is set on the ice-planet of Hoth and is currently available on the PlayStation Network for $9.99 while the Xbox LIVE Marketplace will get the mission on February 23rd.
KOEI has announced that it has released Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce to Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles across North America. Strikeforce promises action-packed gameplay with several new enhancements to the series such as ‘weapon resistance’ and ‘awakening abilities’. Also, Strikeforce sees the addition of a brand new character, Meng Huo.
Darksiders casts you in the role of War who just happens to be one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The balance has been broken by something called ‘The Destroyer’ and War is called in to figure out who this entity is and why it has framed him for what is essentially the end of the world.
STORY:
Without going into too much detail Darksiders has an interesting take on the whole heaven vs hell conflict. While both sides are constantly at war there is a balance that needs to be maintained so the world is not destroyed. I really loved this concept and the story was engaging right from the get go. I felt like I was watching something that could easily be ported over to a graphic novel or animated series. The inclusion of Mark Hamil as one of the supporting characters really added to the story’s punch. The one thing I could not get over though is Hamil’s voice for ‘The Watcher’ really just sounded like ‘The Joker’ without the evil laughing. This wasn’t that bad of a thing though as The Watcher provided some much-needed, albeit sinister, comic relief.
As I said in the first part of my review the characters really made the game for me. I loved watching the interaction between War and Ulthane. It was like a giant drunken Scotsman ready to smash War into the wall at any moment. Every character that I came across was interesting and held my attention.
GAMEPLAY:
Darksiders is a fun hack and slash game with tons of platforming to accomplish. If I could best describe the game it would be if The Legend of Zelda and God Of War had a baby. A really long-haired, buff, baby who slices people in two for fun… No need to bore you with how the controls work as they are pretty much setup like any other action title. You have your jump, attack, block, and special attack buttons all there for you to play with. The controls were responsive, however I did have some issues with accidentally hitting the R2 button, triggering the wrong attack. This is no fault of the game itself as my giant-sized hands sometimes do not play well with the PS3 controller.
One of the cool gameplay elements in Darksiders is the finishing move system. Once you hack and slash your opponent to a certain energy level, a floating circle will appear over its head. Once you trigger the appropriate button you go into a God of War-style kill shot resulting in some gore-filled goodness. Killing these baddies not only gets you further down your path but you can also collect different kinds of souls. Blue souls are used as currency where you can upgrade your sword, learn attack movies, and buy consumables. Green souls are the traditional health and yellow signifies rage. Rage souls allow you to use special attacks in a trigger menu unleashing devastating moves to forces of both legions.
One of the coolest moments in the game was the introduction of your chaos form. Without going too much into the story, War finds out he has a lot more power then he knows and, when he attacks enough baddies, he can change form. A simple press of two shoulder buttons and you can turn into a fiery demon able to decimate virtually anything in your path. It only lasts a short time but this was a hell of a lot of fun to use. Be careful though as the camera is sometimes your worst enemy in this game. I found myself getting tagged into a corner at times as the camera spun around to an awkward position.
Darksiders not only offers mindless hacking and slashing but requires the player to think a little bit as well. Throughout the game there are several platform-type puzzles to solve in order to continue your journey. While the traditional puzzle elements were a fun break from the action I have to say that the shadow arenas do not get a passing grade from me. You are sent into the shadow world to complete a series of time trials before you can move on to the next section. Each time trial has its own goals like killing a certain number of baddies in a given time frame or only killing baddies while using cars. This really became more of a bother then story progression for me. When I arrived at these shadow arenas I felt like the story really came to a halt and I lost that engagement with what I was doing story wise.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND:
Darksiders is a great looking games from the characters to the environments. I found little to no FPS issues and no graphical errors while playing through the game. At times it felt like I was watching an animated movie and some of the cut scenes were just a pleasure to view. During the early levels of the game the destruction of the environment really gave the feeling that something horrible was going on around you.
The sound in Darksiders is really more about the character work. The voice acting is well done and doesn’t seem forced at all. Mark Hamil and the other actors were easy to understand and a pleasure to listen to during cut scenes. The game audio just did not meet on par with the game’s visuals. The game is lacking in the amount of ambient noise I would expect from it.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Darksiders is a fun game with a great graphic novel feel and lots of cool attacks to utilize. The story alone is worth the price of admission despite its gameplay issues. Hopefully, THQ will proceed with a sequel so we can see where the story leads.
*DISCLOSURE: A copy of Darksiders for the PS3 was provided to GamingShogun.com for this review.
‘Space, the Final Frontier…’, with these words I was indoctrinated into the cult of Star Trek as a young child. Since then, I have followed every television program, and every abysmal video game incarnation of the show (save for Star Trek: 25th Anniversary and Judgment Rites). With the rise of MMOs, my geek-heart had always held out hope that the world of Star Trek would be taken massively-multiplayer so I can helm my own vessel and fight the enemies of the United Federation of Planets.
Cryptic Studios took over development of a Star Trek MMO from Perpetual Entertainment back in 2008. In an astonishing amount of time, Cryptic developed a whole new game from scratch as Perpetual took their code and engine with them into bankruptcy. The result is Star Trek Online, and it is mostly fun, mostly…
Your first foray into STO will be the character creator. Here you will see a layout which looks very similar to Cryptic’s other MMO, Champions Online. This is because STO shares many of the same resources from that title (hence the VERY speedy development time). During the beta this process felt clunky but now, with the retail release, the character creator feels a lot smoother and more fleshed-out. You are given mostly humanoid customizations for your character, but can really change your head design quite a bit. This is in keeping with Star Trek’s long-standing tradition of humanoid aliens who’s only real ‘alien’ appearance is a different head bump configuration (Incidentally, this was done on the TV shows to keep makeup and costuming costs down).
One important step in character creation is choosing what kind of officer your character will be (tactical, engineer, or science). These are the closest thing that STO has to the traditional class-system found in fantasy MMOs. Tactical officers will get skills that focus on offense, engineers will get tanking skills, while science officers will get abilities that exploit their enemy’s weak points and other de-buffers. Remember this point when I talk about ship-types coming up…
Unlike Perpetual’s original vision for Star Trek Online, Cryptic has designed the game so that each player will command an individual starship from a third-person perspective when they are not walking around alien worlds and starbases. Every player will start off in command of a Federation Light Cruiser, similar to the Miranda-class vessel commandeered by Khan in Star Trek II. These are good, all-around space craft capable of showing players what kind of ship-style they prefer. This is important as after players reach Lt. Commander status (which starts at a standard-MMO equivalent of level 11). At this time, players have to choose whether or not to command a cruiser, escort, or science vessel. Okay, remember when I mentioned character classes earlier? Well, ships work similarly in that escort ships are primarily built for DPS attacks (however they have very thin defenses), cruises are tanks, and science vessels serve the de-buffer role.
What makes STO interesting in its incarnation of a class-system is that just because your character is, say, an engineer doesn’t mean you have to choose a cruiser. While that combination tends to compliment each other, you can really mix things up by placing your tactical officer character into a cruiser, for example. This customization adds a lot to the gameplay and eliminates simple ‘X > Y > Z > X’ gameplay found in many MMOs on the market.
Commanding a ship by yourself might seem lonely, given that Starfleet ships usually have a large bridge crew which serve as the story’s heroes. In STO it is no different as you will gain bridge officers throughout your adventures. Each officer will add his or her own abilities (they are also made up of tactical, engineer, and science varieties) which you can utilize in combat. Which means, if you are a tactical officer and want that shield buff ability, just make sure your chief engineer aboard the ship has it and so will you – again, mega-kudos to Cryptic for this kind of customization.
Your bridge officers will often accompany you to the ground-mission portions of the game, as you explore alien worlds and fight Klingons and Romulans (to name two foes). The ground combat is very quick and is where you can see the most parallels between STO and Champions Online. The system is virtually the same – which is not to say ‘bad’, and I actually think it works slightly better here than in Champions.
Ship-to-ship combat in STO is handled similarly to the Starfleet Command line of PC games. Your ship has firing and shield arcs which must be monitored and managed carefully as you turn-and-burn around the cosmos while locked into vicious combat with enemy vessels. The experience is harrowing and exciting with the exception that you cannot set more than two of your ship’s weapons to auto-fire. This means you will wear out your thumb quickly spamming the spacebar to fire your directed energy weapons like phasers. Also, ground auto-fire is nonexistent, which also makes for a button-spam-fest. Aside from this, combat is a lot of fun to take part in.
The part where Star Trek Online lacks is in its mission variety. Even though you might read the briefing given to you when beginning one, your goals usually break down into either destroying a certain number of enemy squadrons and scanning a certain number of items. Cryptic needs to focus more on the multi-tiered mission experience which combines both space and ground combat as well as gripping storylines. That’s not to say that STO does not have this, its best example being the mission surrounding the Guardian of Forever! In this experience, you will not only fight Klingons in orbit but beam down to the surface, and go through the Guardian’s gate to follow an enemy into the past. There you will actually fight alongside the original U.S.S. Enterprise (with Leonard Nimoy providing the voice-work for Spock). It is a brilliant mission and I only wish all of them could be that involved.
Visually, Star Trek Online is a great-looking game, both in space and on-foot. The ships are well-detailed, weapons effects brilliant, and sound effects pulled straight from the various shows. One of my favorite things is when I hit the ‘Brace for Impact’ ability to protect my crew members from harm during an attack will sound the red alert klaxon from the original television series.
Overall, Star Trek Online is a very fun and enjoyable recreation of the Star Trek universe in MMO form. It provides a lot of customization in terms of your character, starship, and overall gameplay experience while also providing tons of visual candy to enjoy. It may need some work on the depth of its quests but that is nothing they will not work on in the future as witnessed with their recent Borg missions content upgrade.
A new video has been released from the upcoming interactive movie, Heavy Rain, showing off how the love scenes will work. It raises the question, what happens if the player does not hit anything during the encounter? Will things end ‘prematurely’? Heavy Rain is due out February 23rd on the PlayStation 3.
Capcom has released a new trailer for Dead Rising 2 showing off some of the awesome ways you can splatter zombies around Fortune City. I have to say that after watching this video I think I need to go to my nearest hardware store to prepare for the upcoming zombie apocalypse. Dead Rising 2 releases August 31st for the Xbox 360 console.
