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!
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.
‘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.
Electronic Arts and Visceral Games have released the official launch trailer to their newly-released third-person actioner, Dante’s Inferno. The game chronicles Dante’s journey into the various circles of Hell to find the soul of his beloved. You can find more info out on Dante’s Inferno at the game’s official website.
The Olympic Winter Games conjures up thoughts of national pride – our country’s team winning the gold and showing the rest of the world exactly what our athletes are made of. That’s what SEGA and EuroCom have tried to do in Vancouver 2010, their video game representation of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
PRESENTATION
Vancouver 2010 features a pleasant, vibrantly-colored user-interface, mirroring the colors seen in the logo for the upcoming Winter Games. Navigating the menus is simple and effective, never leaving you at a loss for where a particular feature or mode can be located. Unfortunately, beyond this pretty menu system, the game does not feature any of the pageantry or spectacle that goes hand-in-hand with the games. There is no career mode, no lighting of the flame, no real visceral connection to the games themselves or what it would be like to participate in them. A ‘career mode’ would have benefited this game greatly, perhaps showing the story of an Olympian from flame lighting to closing ceremony. Without this, the various events, while fun, feel isolated from one another.
This brings us to the selection of events included in Vancouver 2010. While the box claims there are 14 different events in the game, many of them are slight variations on one another and feel mostly the same. Missing entirely are some VERY important events such as curling, the biathlon, and figure skating. Furthermore, in some of these events, you are only given the option to only play in either the male or female categories. Why you could not choose the gender dynamically is beyond me – there really isn’t a whole heck of a lot of difference between the two variations.
This may sound like a lot of negative so far, however when you get down into the events that are included, you will have a good time playing them. They are a lot of fun and, when placed into the first-person perspective, you will really get a sense of speed and excitement while going through them. I especially liked the representation of the bobsleigh.
Also a definite positive are the game’s online and ‘challenge’ modes. While playing online is fun to compare your scores in the various events with your friends, the various challenges offered by the challenge mode do a lot to keep things exciting and moving forward.
GAMEPLAY
Something that Vancouver 2010 has going for it in spades is being easy to pickup. Each of the games you will take part in don’t require very complicated control schemes to compete. Usually, you only need to hit a couple of buttons in a specific sequence or steer slightly with the left and right triggers. Thankfully, like the classic game of ‘Reversi’, while it is simple to pickup the game can be very challenging as there are a ton of nuances in each event.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
Visually-speaking, Vancouver 2010 is a crisp and rich representation of the Winter Games. Beautiful, snow covered landscapes and vivid signage and costuming will grace your screen. Unfortunately, the crowds seem a bit wooden and are not up to spec with the rest of the graphic elements in the game. Thankfully, your character is very well-detailed and will express his or her satisfaction with your run through an event with the appropriate body language.
The game’s first-person perspective is incredible and will really give you a sense of exhilaration and an appreciation for what some of these athletes experience during their trials. Between going what seems to be mach 2 in the downhill slopes to flying through the air in the ski jump, the game has a lot going for it in the graphics department.
In-game music is a great, upbeat mix of songs that will keep you fueled and playing. Some of them, from artists like Fallout Boy and Fairweather, will make you want to take them along in your iPod to listen too while driving… Be careful with that one, I was once known to hit triple-digits while blasting Kenny Loggins’ Danger Zone, but I digress.
While taking part in the events, the sound of rushing wind, skis on snow and ice, and a whole lot more will grace your ears. Going back to the pageantry and spectacle portion of this review for a second, it would have been nice to feel more involved with the Olympics rather than just randomly doing an event by including a commentator as a person would hear watching the events on television. Aside from this, the game audio is very well-done.
OVERALL
SEGA and EuroCom have attempted to capture the 2010 Olympic Winter Games with Vancouver 2010. While they did not succeed in this goal outright, they did succeed in creating a nice smattering of isolated events that you will enjoy taking through the online and challenge modes. The game looks really nice, is easy to pickup, and the events are fun to play through.
Electronic Arts is finishing up their dev diary series on the various circles of Hell featured in their newly-released actioner, Dante’s Inferno, by talking about the ninth and final circle: Treachery. This is the circle where Lucifer himself sits in wait for Dante to make his try for his dead beloved, Beatrice.
Funcom has released the first trailer of in-game footage from their upcoming MMO, The Secret World. Set in a variety of environments, but all pervasive with Lovecraftian-attitude, the game will feature three secret societies or factions which will battle it out for control of our world and the dark forces which inhabit it. In this new ‘Kingsmouth Trailer’, we are treated to what appears to be a zombie outbreak in what would otherwise be a ‘normal’ US town.
Electronic Arts has announced that it has purchased airtime during the Super Bowl on February 7th to show a commercial for its upcoming third-person actioner, Dante’s Inferno. The 30-second commercial spot will promote the game’s February 9th release on the Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms.
Dante’s Inferno tells the tale of a man trying to save his love from an untimely demise by actually going through the many circles of Hell to find her.
