Author - Ripper71

The Darkness II Review (PC/OnLive)

2012/12/09

News, Reviews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review

So a while back I asked to review a game for OnLive and they generously said “sure, have a couple” so I picked a second game called The Darkness II simply because I loved the trailer with a twitchy guy standing in the dark babbling about the game. Don’t get me wrong I had heard of The Darkness and it’s acclaim for both being an extremely solid video game and its rich storyline which it had mostly borrowed from the comic book whose staff included my favorite comic writer, Garth Ennis, so it was on my to play/read list. The trailer just sold me on playing the sequel first while I had a chance.

Storyline:

This is a hard part to describe without giving away too much of the game and the first volume of the comic book. In The Darkness II you play Jackie Estacado two years after the events of the first game. You have become the Don of a crime family and after what happened to you in the first game you have decided to keep The Darkness locked up for everyone’s sake and safety. The problem is an organization called The Brotherhood has targeted you to try and claim your powers and has no problem taking down both your family and the familia to get it. This awakens The Darkness within you that talks you into unleashing it to help solve all your problems. This all happens in the beginning of the game which offers a deeper story of hard choices and questionable reality. There is a big twist in the story which, while not necessarily my favorite, did lend even more depth to the game, ties to the franchise more and created an alternate ending.

Graphics And Sound:

The gameplay graphics are done using cel-shading which is very reminiscent of the Borderlands franchise but also creates a comic book art style which fits nicely into the comics it is based on. This graphic style even kind of ties into the subplot of the game making it not just look good but surprisingly fitting. The cutscenes are done in a style more like standard animated cutscenes for video games which normally might seem mismatched with the artwork of the rest of the game but when taken into consideration with the subplot makes sense too. The sound and graphics are put to great use in the game because when Jackie is subjected to brighter lights he loses his supernatural Darkness abilities and this is represented by a brightening, whiting out of the screen with a high pitch annoying ringing which makes you want to get out of or destroy that light source as soon as possible. Because light plays such an important part of the game the graphics for lighting do too, giving you an idea of what areas of lighting source will give you problems. It isn’t very often that the graphics and their representations play such a heavy role in a game. The sound work is excellent and helps aid the atmosphere as well as give cues of danger and the soundtrack is excellent giving a terrific selection of KROQ standards from Jane’s Addiction to Offspring.

Gameplay:

I played a bit of The Darkness so I would be able to properly compare the two games, enough to know that point of view and gameplay are very similar with just a few slight improvements which works fine since the first game played so well, no need to fix what isn’t broke. In the first game you had your guns and your Darkness tendrils at the side of your vision and you could dual wield guns or dual wield tentacles where in this game you can do both at the same time. This allows for some fantastic and intense gameplay as you can be doing such things as dual wielding a pistol and machine gun while one Darkness tendril picks up a pipe and throws it impaling an enemy and the other Darkness tendril rips the heart out of a dead man’s chest and eats it. You can also shoot an enemy to the point of weakness then use the Darkness tendrils to rip their bodies apart earning such bonuses as “Wish Bone,” “Daisy Pop” and “Anaconda Kill.” The tendrils themselves look like snakes with piranha heads and are extremely satisfying and gory to put into action. In general the game has an over the top gore factor which helps keep the heaviness of the storyline from getting oppressive and while you get moments of to catch your breath and prepare for the next section the waves of onslaught can be pretty crazy.

Along with The Darkness yelling at you in your head you have a little companion darkling dressed only in a British flag t shirt and a cat skin cap that not only helps you get through rough fights but that you can possess to get around obstacles or freed from capture. The game chooses when you can use him but he can be handy in a fight or scouting capacity as well so whenever you get the opportunity to inhabit him be sure to look around and kill anything you can, it will make things easier for you when you get back to your own body. The darkling is also remarkably entertaining to interact with or even just watch as he urinates green piss on corpses, lets out huge green farts and behaves in other undignified imp-like fashion.

There is an extensive wheel of unlock-able abilities which branch into other abilities and power ups which can truly turn the battle. In the first game you get Darkness shooting weapons later in play whereas in this game you don’t get them at all unless you choose to unlock that section of the wheel and work up it’s tree. My first playthrough I went with a swarm attack instead that caused one of the Darkness tendrils to cough up a green cloud of bee like insects that attack enemies distracting, stunning and even damaging them giving a huge advantage in battle. I also unlocked and upgraded my Black Hole so that I could through a vortex out that would suck in and kill all enemies in the vicinity giving me an essence bonus. Essence is collected by killing enemies, finding relics and eating hearts, the last of which also replenishes health. The essence is collected and used to purchase unlocks on the ability wheel. Some pre-planning is involved if you want a particular ability higher up on the tree because you will need to save up essences and work up that particular ability tree instead of just picking up any ability you can afford at lower sections of the wheel.

Once you beat the game you have the opportunity to play it again with all the abilities you unlocked the first playthrough still unlocked and all the hidden treasure you found the first time around still found. This gives the player a chance to either tear through at the same difficulty destroying everything in sight or up the game difficulty and have an advantage to help survive it. All the levels are unlocked once you beat the game too allowing you to replay them again with or without your unlocks.

Co-Op:

In most games’ multiplayer you wind up playing another version of the main character or you wind up playing side characters from the storyline. In The Darkness II you go on Vendetta missions where you have hired a squad of hitmen imbued with Darkness powers to attack the Brotherhood back. This is a great departure from the standard co-op play giving new storyline and makes sens since as The Don you really shouldn’t be running around doing all the dirty work. Each character has a strength, weapon style and personality which are unique to them and are different from Jackie. My personal favorite when it comes to style is the Creole voodoo doctor Dumond but when it came down to fighting I was a bit more of a fan of the Scotsman Jimmy Wilson with his axe and darkling (darklings are just so much fun!). There are four different characters for the four man hit squad and if you are having a hard time finding someone to play with who has a pleasant disposition (ie. not an asshat), you can play the Vendetta missions solo as well.

The OnLive Advantage:

It’s becoming harder and harder to find someone who hasn’t heard of OnLive but most of people are still in the dark about it (ok, slight pun intended). Onlive is pure cloud gaming, meaning you only have to have a small launcher on your computer and the entire game is played remotely by internet on servers in another part of the country, much like Netflix streaming. So you don’t need hard drive space for the games or a strong computer, all you need is a decent internet connection and you can play the games through your computer, micro-console or a couple newer devices on the market such as OUYA, VIZIO Plus, newer VIZIO blu-ray players and newer LG televisions. Many of the games also support touch screen play and are available for play on Android tablets. Just like with Netflix you can start playing a game on one device then continue it on another giving a lot of diversity and mobility of play. There is also an interesting feature called Arena that allows you to watch other players playing their games, cheer or jeer them and ask them to be your friends so that they can easily play titles they own, rent or are part of the subscription package with you. This is particularly handy with The Darkness II co-op mode where while I was playing the game spectators joined to check it out or if they owned the game they friended me so I wouldn’t have to search for another player to co-op with. With the free activation of an OnLive account you can even demo the game for a certain time limit so you aren’t playing a demo but the actual game for a period of time rather than a certain amount of a level.

Last Call:

It is really easy to recommend this game and suggest that it may be be your first OnLive purchase. The gameplay is great, has a decently long campaign mode, nice graphics, and excellent replayability. Add to that the diversity of the co-op play and the option to play alone or with the ever growing OnLive community and this game is worth the money. I wasn’t a huge fan of the game’s subplot, probably because of how long I have been in the gaming and entertainment community in general and seen how it is used but they did handle it better than most and I always love an alternate ending.

Trailer:

Gallery:

Miasmata Review (PC/Steam)

2012/12/01

Ripper71

News, Reviews, Screenshots / Photos, Trailers / Videos, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review

I have always been fascinated with plague doctors. Growing up, I was a Spy Vs. Spy fan and learned at a fairly young age that the look of the spies was based on plague doctors – both in dress and choice of bags. I even recently received a mask based after the plague doctors original design that matched right down to the style of buckle. So when I heard the name of the game that popped up for review I jumped at it because what few people may know is that Miasmata is the poisonous atmosphere or mist from decomposing bodies originally thought to be the distribution vector for the Black Plague. Miasmata has been used in other descriptions over the years since, but just my luck it was the one I was thinking of.

Storyline:

You play as Robert Hughes, a plague-stricken scientist on a journey to discover a cure. Your adventure begins on the shores of a remote and mysterious island. Long ago the island was inhabited by a group of indigenous people, whose extant monuments still decorate the island landscape. The island is now home to a scientific research outpost and it is your hope to reunite with your colleagues working there. Unfortunately, you’ll soon discover that something has gone terribly wrong. During your adventure, you will encounter a mysterious and deadly creature. This creature can stalk you for miles, lurking behind grasses and vegetative cover. By treading carefully and with stealth, you may be able to elude the creature. If you are careless however, you will be forced to confront the creature head-on.

Official Key Features:

Experience: An engine built from the ground up, featuring voxel-based volumetric clouds, advanced water reflection and refraction, volumetric light-shafts and atmospheric scattering simulations.
Explore: A lush and incredibly detailed natural word. The island landscape is covered by forests with lush canopies. The terrain surfaces are blanketed by tufts of moss and grass. The forest floors have thick undergrowth and are littered with fallen leaves, rotting logs, stumps and sticks.
Discover: Dozens of camps, outposts and ruins. Find maps, notes and clues that lead you on your adventure.
Survive: A deadly world. Discover plants and fungi and synthesize them into life-saving medicines. Find water and shelter to stave off fever, dehydration and exhaustion. Use stealth and cunning to escape the deadly creature.
Create: A map of the island using an innovative cartography mechanic. Use a true-to-life triangulation system to pinpoint your location on the island and construct a map of the its boundaries, contours and landmarks.

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Graphics And Sound:

The physics behind the graphics are immediately impressive because the scenery is not just luscious and detailed but so is every shadow, every cloud, every reflection on the water. The environment seems alive as you pass through it with plenty of creatures from cockroaches to seagulls just there to breath life into the environment and each one individually reacting to your presence. The sound is sharp and clear, no sound in the game is wasted. Someone walked in the room while I was playing and said “wow, that game is quiet” right before I fell off a cliff and watched the detailed environment flip end over end in front of me as my character cracks his head on a rock, all quite loudly. As mentioned above, stealth plays into the game and it is quiet when you try to be, though it is never really silent because it is a forest teaming with life and you hear the flutter of wings from birds and insects and the call of creatures. The only truly silent and still part of the environment is the the Easter Island-like stone monoliths that stare off mysteriously ever into the distance.

Gameplay:

The background story is told in the game’s opening then fades in from black on your first person view of the beach. You glance at your hands, which look like they are covered in blood but heck we aren’t experts on this alternate world, that could be a sign of the plague there. Within a couple minutes into the game you have reason to question what is on your hands and from there the game develops not just into a survival game but a mystery one as well. In traditional mystery/survival game fashion you have to solve puzzles, in this case chemistry/botany based. Don’t worry if you don’t know a tulip from a trumpet, you mainly walk around and pick any plant it will let you while trying not to get lost. There is a cartography skill that can be utilized and I highly recommend you do since the map doesn’t open up when you enter an area, it only shows if a piece is found or a landmark charted. There are two ways for you to show up on the map, making a potion or triangulating your position. The reason I recommend mapping is the first few hours I played I tried to just run around and find things without mapping and found myself more turned around than the Blair Witch kids with something just as nasty on my heels.

So you pick and study plants, collect notes and research, and hopefully discover a cure for The Plague before you expire. As the protagonist, you too are infected – you have a fever and more cowbell ain’t gonna fix it. You are weak, and by weak I mean if you run down a hill too fast you fall down it and your plague gets the better of you. You are too weak to swim more than a couple strokes and will find yourself drowning in no time. You have to keep health and strong health potions around if you don’t want to fall over dead from a fever. The catch to this is that you can only hold one at at time, so keep track of what the health flowers look like so you can brew up a few more hours of life. This dynamic leaves you constantly racing the clock, picking new varieties of flowers and avoiding the creature. That creature and something or someone else that might be stalking the island make up the “survival” aspect of the gameplay experience.

Last Call:

It was surprising just how addictive potion making and plant picking can be – Miasmata’s environment playing heavily into it with the richness of the ground you are traversing and, also, the biological clock you are constantly under. Add in the mystery solving aspect of finding a cure and it is a fun and intense time. I just kept going, picking up clues and coming up with new combinations of potions to help me through the adventure. If you like first person survival games or good puzzle solving, this is definitely worth picking up. At time of this publication, the game is marked at $14.99 with a sale price of $13.49 and provides hours upon hours of gameplay with replay necessary to get all of the Steam achievements – most of which are pretty darn humorous, as well as giving you a chance to play it differently next time around.

Trailers:

Gallery:

Tropico 4 Gold Edition Review (PC/Xbox 360)

2012/11/23

Ripper71

News, Reviews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review, Xbox 360 News, Xbox 360 Review

Maxis turns 25 years old next year and one of their most influential titles of all time SimCity is just a year younger. That’s give you an idea just how long city sims have been around, the title that put them on the map was sharing computers with mostly educational games such as Oregon Trails. Computers were supposed to be for work or typing, in some cases both. I remember being in high school and how cutting edge it was to be writing our senior year school paper on computers, and how one day a friend brought in SimCity changing how we looked at computers forever. So to bring this waxing nostalgic story to an abrupt conclusion, I was playing SimCity in 1989 when it came out and I am pretty sure there hasn’t been a year that has passed since then that I haven’t been playing one sim title or another. Certain titles become mainstay and certain companies, like Kalypso, become ones you associate with solidly built fun sims. If you are a fan of this genre at all you should have heard of the Haemimont and Kalypso collaborated title Tropico and it’s various installments and DLCs. If you have played them but not gotten to installment four in the series there is no better time than now and if by some misfortune you have not played them at all go out right now and get Tropico 4 Gold Edition and you can read the rest of the review while you are waiting for it to finishing installing and updating.

Storyline:

As the president of a tiny Caribbean island, it’s up to you to lead your country to greatness! Will you be a benevolent and tolerant leader, or a power-mad dictator? Will your economy rely on tourism, farming, big business or cheap sweatshops? The decisions you make will shape the future of your island, and more importantly, the size of your off-shore bank account.

However, time waits for no-one, not even El Presidente. The world is changing and Tropico is moving up with the times: geopolitical powers rise and fall and the world market is dominated by new players with new demands and offers – and you, as El Presidente, face a whole new set of challenges. If you are to triumph over your naysayers you will need to gain as much support from your people as possible – whether with the carrot or the stick is your choice.

Features:

Tropico 4 Gold Edition is the ultimate city building experience, including: Tropico 4 and the “Modern Times” expansion.

Become the heroic leader, or a despicable despot as your customized El Presidente avatar makes decisions for the good or ill of the people
Two extensive campaigns consisting of more than 30 unique missions including the new “Modern Times” campaign
More than 100 buildings in total, including the stock exchange, shopping mall, aqua park, car factories and shuttle launch pad
Face interactive real-time disasters including volcanoes, droughts and tornadoes
Council of Ministers – Elevate citizens to government positions to help push through your more controversial decisions
National Agenda – Receive objectives from Tropican factions, foreign powers and secret societies
Sandbox mode for custom games, with improved map and scenario editor for endless replayability

Hands On:

This is not my first Tropico game and not my first hand at Tropico 4 though this is my first time to play “Modern Times.” When it comes to a gold edition of a game it is really important to consider whether or not to include all the content associated with the game to date or concentrate on the one that gives the most dynamic story. “Modern Times” seemed the perfect choice to go with because it keeps the original storyline concept and just advances it into an extended timeline whereas most other DLCs were more of tangents or just extra content. If the two campaigns aren’t enough all of the other DLCs are available but this combination gives a nice linear play.

If you are familiar with city sims in general you have an idea of certain things that need to happen and buildings that need to rise in order to get a functioning city started, Tropico is no different in this basic way. It is how you build your political, social and economic that make this sim unique. Basically you have been given the chance to build a better Cuba, and what would make Cuba better is really up to the player. You may believe Castro was too lenient or should have gone towards capitalism instead of communism or should have turned the island into Club Cuba with resorts and water slides. Or maybe you feel Cuba should have gone for another geographically isolated location, like the moon? You find yourself trying to please the people, interest groups, foreign lobbyists and other nation’s agendas while deciding whether or not you need better healthcare for your people or a new lumber mill to boost the economy first. Then just when you think all your plans are in order and your future looks perfect you discover a dormant volcano is no longer feeling so dormant or the tropical storm off your coast just turned into a hurricane. There goes Si World, Cuba’s first aqua park on the beach.

You can also decide how in depth you want to manage your people. At any time you can select any individual in the game and get vital statistics on them or you can mostly rely on the Almanac, a much more broad summary for your information, you can build only what missions ask for or you can try to be pre-emptive and anticipate the next concern or just see what else you can accomplish while working within the mission parameters.

The great thing about the Tropico sims and Tropico 4 Gold in particular is the variety of choices of how to play so that it truly is never the same game twice whether you are playing through the missions trying to fulfill agendas and overcome obstacles or playing the game in sandbox mode where you customize your game and make your own mission plans. There is even a map and scenery editor so you can make your own missions and lands so that maybe you decide you want to know what would happen if a dictator took over Hawaii and tried to build itself into a succeeded nuclear country? (someone build that one for me! I would do it myself but you see how many games I play!).

Last Call:

The sky isn’t even the limit on in Tropico 4 Gold because you can make your island home part of the space race. The variety of gameplay and leeway with missions and scenarios make it a keeper game for plenty of replay and when you throw in sandbox mode and map and scenario editor then the only limits to this game, particularly this Gold Edition, is your mind. You are El Presidente, the world of Tropico is yours.

Trailers:

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Omerta: City Of Gangsters Preview (XBLA/PC/Steam)

2012/11/19

Ripper71

News, Previews, Windows PC Preview, Xbox 360 Preview

Growing up I wasn’t a huge Cowboys and Indians kind of kid. I was a fan of the gangster era, whether it be the crooks or the G-men who chased them I always wanted to be playing Cops and Robbers with every toy gun becoming a Tommy Chicago Typewriter and every bank job becoming a blood bath. I grew up, and when it came time to put down children’s toys another man with the same passion did something from which I think I have never recovered from. Brian De Palma made The Untouchables and I realized my love of the era wasn’t a childish thing but a fascination of many. I took it a little far, traveling around with my friends in ties, fedoras and trench coats (pre-Trench Coat Mafia days) and we would hit the town dressed in the height of fashion – for Prohibition. There was a style to the genre and as I reluctantly put my coat and fedora aside I remembered this feel as I added my own sound effects to games over the years. Sometimes ad libbing movie dialogue as I played and every time a game came along like Omerta: City Of Gangsters with a speakeasy door and words like “copper” or “payola” thrown around I got my hands on it and got transported back to the days of squirt gun Tommies and the palookas I called pals.

Storyline:

Taking the role of a fresh-from-the-boat immigrant, with dreams of the big life, the player will work his way up the criminal hierarchy of 1920’s Atlantic City. Starting with small jobs, his character recruits a gang and expands his empire by taking territory from other gangsters. Eventually he establishes his own crime syndicate and becomes the de facto ruler of Atlantic City.
The storyline is fairly straight forward in this aspect but this really doesn’t do it justice as it also plays heavily on the injustices of the era and tries to have fun as well as accuracy with the missions and characters. You get to fight the KKK at one point in the storyline, ‘nough said.

Features:

Historically accurate representation of Atlantic City and its landmarks
Strategic gameplay allows city overview, planning, expansion and gathering of intel
Turn-based tactical combat with a cover system and stealth action
15 unique player controlled characters each with unique personalities and backgrounds
A RPG system for development of player characters and managing their equipment
Competitive and cooperative multiplayer mode with persistent gangs
15+ hours of gameplay in a single play-through
20 unique maps visualizing the various districts of Atlantic City

Gameplay (Hands On):

It is for the most part top down gameplay on the general map in a standard city simulation setup with close quarters mini maps at mission sites. The games attempt at impressiveness is very apparent when you look at all the detail on the main city map, it is a historical looking map of the time period with little cars and people bustling around with density dependent on the areas population. So in the warehouse district near the docks where most of the shadier, less reputable business’ operate there is very little pedestrian traffic and after dark the streets are almost deserted except for those up to no good. Whereas the influential neighborhoods have people walking on the streets and regular police patrols, all visible from a God’s eye view. The detail holds up when you zoom in tight on the maps to the point that if you send one of “your boys” on a mission you see them leave the safehouse, head over to the location of the job and do the work. This is particularly fun and thrilling when you send someone for a driveby and you watch not knowing which is your car as one suddenly has muzzle flashes coming from the side of it and pedestrians start dropping. You can zoom in close to see the detail of this or stay wide on the map watching the happenings all over town.

When you are choosing your gang you not only get a name with strengths and weaknesses but you get a mugshot that looks like it was taken right off an old police blotter and often a greeting that shows some of the personality you can expect from this member. This personality isn’t just limited to the conversations either, their fighting styles and techniques are direct representatives of the character. For example a favorite at the game demonstrations was a character named Doc, the persona of a Drunk Irishman out to not just commit crimes but to have fun in the process. His character traits include “Dance for me laddy!” which involves him shooting at someone’s feet drunkenly to scare them causing a fear buff. On the mini maps during missions his movements are more limited because he doesn’t walk anywhere he staggers. And may “The Blessed Mother Mary and Joseph” be with any fellow gang member in front of him when he starts firing blindly with his two pistols, there is a percentage for them being hit as well.

This happens in close combat missions where you go to mini maps with each character having a certain number of action points to effect moves and attacks in with a turn-based gameplay. Anyone who has ever played a Jagged Alliance game has a pretty good idea of how this system works and will find the gameplay intuitive. If you haven’t had this kind of gameplay your map is broken up into squares or hexagons and each character depending on attributes can move a certain distance and perform a certain attack with each of these actions using up action points. When the action points are out the turn is over for that character, when they are all used up on all your characters or you are done moving them your turn is over and it is your opponent’s turn, in the case of campaign that is the AI. In these kind of games the intelligence of the AI can be a deal breaker: too good and they are almost impossible to beat, too easy and the game gets boring. With Omerta I could tell they had already found an excellent balance between the two so it will simply be a matter of not shooting themselves in the foot to make it good for market.

The thing about committing crime is it eventually draws the attention of the coppers. The boys in blue are a bit slower to pop you in the clink if you are just shooting up other thugs but when you start trouble in respectable, upstanding citizens’ neighborhoods, well then something needs to be done about it! This is all measured much like the GTA series with five stars of heat, when you hit five stars the police launch an investigation against you which if you don’t nip in the bud will land you in the pokee permanently. You can buy off the cops (which costs more each time you do that), give them a patsy (doesn’t make you any friends) or… well maybe there are more ways to keep the party goin’ as well as appearing to keep your nose clean in the first place.

The better you do the more experience you get which translates directly into leveling and new skills as well as cash for better weapons and vehicles. There are different skill trees set up to cater to different play styles and part of the fun is putting a new talent to use. In this way Omerta plays a lot like an RPG, because you choose how you get through situations and you are often given lots of options on how to do that and skills to suit your fancy. It is in the depth and detail that Omerta really sets itself apart from other sims, it is part RPG, part action shooter and part city simulator all rolled into one.

Multiplayer:

Let’s face it when you played cops and robbers as a kid part of the fun was having your pals with you. Besides the campaign play you can also play Omerta at the mini map mission level as Versus or Co-Op. Versus is pretty straight forward, you are given a map and pick your teams and shoot it out with each other in different maps. The Co-Op which was a personal favorite you and your friend pick your gang and try to complete an objective like rob a bank and get away fighting against the AI using the action point system. This all takes place on Kalypso provided servers so you can play your friend across the room or across the country and with Steam in the works for this the players available should open up even more.

Last Call:

I have played a lot of mob games over the years in just about every form and I don’t think I have been as excited about one as I am about this one. Don’t get me wrong, there has been some great gangster games lately but it has been a while since a great mobster city simulator has come along yet alone one with so much massive detail and style crossover. Expected out in February of 2013 this is one to keep an eye out for and might make the difference between you feeling like a boss or a chump.

Trailer:

Gallery:

Dragon Ball Z For Kinect Review (XBox 360)

2012/11/19

Ripper71

News, Reviews, Xbox 360 Review

I want to love the Kinect. I really, really do. It’s red eye seems to beg for attention every time I fire up one of my XBox 360s, I have an old school one with an upgraded hard drive when Kinect was an addition and I have the beautiful Star Wars one, a white console with a white Kinect daring dust and grubby hands to touch it. When I get on with my controller and start playing a game Kinect always gives me the opportunity to wave at it if I want and say hi, but most times if I do I find a game that will soon be relegated to a shelf until the day I either discover a place that gives me a good price for a near mint near-miss game or I have a garage sale and pass disappointment on to someone else’s household. Don’t get me wrong there, have been a couple of decent ones out there, I really recommend the Yoostar series even if they never fixed the clipping issues (if you guys do I will be one happy ham handed pseudo movie star) because being clipped into a movie, tv show or music video badly is still a hell of a lot of fun, especially at a party. But others leave me frustrated and cursing like old school comic strip characters with #@$% over my head, unable to get the Kinect to read the proper gestures causing me to give it inappropriate gestures (hence why I stopped playing the Kinect games at store displays in front of children). So when I got a copy of Dragon Ball Z For Kinect I put it aside until I was in the mood to really mess with lighting, distance and probably frustration. I try to go in objective, I really, really do, but hope has become a limited resource with Kinect for anything but chatting and Netflix.

Storyline:

This isn’t so much a storyline as the chance to fight famous foes complete with cutscenes then unlock them to use in a different mode. It does tell a loose story and the special feature actually tells some great Dragon Ball Z lore but when it comes down to it it is really about fans of the series getting to fight the characters they love to hate.

Graphics and Sound:

This is pretty vital to a game of this type because the goal usually needs to be to make the graphics nothing like the cartoon series it is based after or identical to them, mixed equals muddled. Luckily this is like playing episodes of the show from a first hand perspective with third person cutscenes with animation identical to the cartoons. The voices are great (American style, not the original Asian voice style, deeper pitch) and match the sounds and music all fit nicely together to make a great experience for fans of all ages.

Gameplay:

This is where Kinect game reviews usually go awry and so I am happy to say this one is MUCH better than most. Mapping positions and movements are usually awkward and clunky but it this case it does an excellent job responding and reading movements. I’m 6’5″ tall with really broad shoulders so reading certain moves are just going to be insanely difficult with a one position view. When it came to blocking enemy attacks I almost never got it to read, which caused some frustration though it’s completely understandable, with my arm build the meat of my biceps completely block out the location of my hands when I put them up for the blocking gesture. A person with normal arm proportion would have no problem being read and I think any of the issues I had with the game would be resolved with a normal physique. Giving this consideration I was extremely pleased with the body mapping and game response. When I put my hands to one side in a holding-a-ball position I had the pleasure of watching a magic ball build there and when I thrust that movement forward the ball flies at the enemy with a very reasonable response time.

I think a lot of the success for this game lies in the tutorials and the move display options being on the screen. The tutorials are broken up into each style of fighting, not clearing you and unlocking the next type of fighting until you mastered it. This makes sure the moves are ingrained but also gives you an idea of what moves will be weaker for you to do. I knew for the tutorial my blocking ability and ability to break an enemy’s block were going to be my weak points in fights because of my build so I worked around them, I also knew that my jabs and upper cuts responded real nicely and stacked combos fast. Being so big I had to jump pretty high to get my jumps to register but my dodges registered with ease. The tutorial decided a lot of my fighting style and skills so that I could use what I knew worked when I got into actual matches instead of flailing and hoping.

The move displays definitely need to get credit too. Sure in theory they are like a kick boxing version of Dance Central for the most part with special moves and energy building ones displayed on the edges of the screen but it worked and reminded you that if you timed your energy building right you could unleash some seriously righteous fury down upon your enemies as well as jab and kick the snot out of them. It shows energy building, how long you need to hold a position and how long you have to take the follow up position to complete the combination. If you pull of some really good moves you are treated to a short cutscene to give you a quick breather and let you reset your position real quick before the next moves. If the enemy is sending in a wicked attack at you the screen will show on each of it’s four sides different possible things you can do to dodge it such as lean left, right or back or duck. This was where I had issues because blocking was sometimes the only option but I figured out a way around that I won’t spoil here.

I think something that really needs to be stated is how physical this game is. You are basically kick boxing in time to a cartoon fight and it wasn’t long before I was sweating profusely and needing to get some fluids in me. This will have kids of all ages worn out after a few rounds and even the games suggests after some of the longer battles to maybe rest your back a bit and take a break. The Special Feature is a great way to do this and give you a rest before getting back to the cardio. This is probably the only time I have every suggested this but I think it is important to supervise younger players of this game because it is possible to push yourself too far and either get dehydrated or physically injured. As I said before this is basically kicking boxing with some mixed martial arts moves and stances thrown in and that can be extremely strenuous.

After completing a fight it gets unlocked in Score Attack mode which enables you to fight the same fight over again, using unlocked characters, to try to beat your own score as well as a preset one. These literally can be used as a workout with the game being set on different level of difficulty for how hard you want the workout to be that day.

Special Features:

Normally I don’t address these too much but in this case I felt it really needed to be said that there is an actual subtitled episode of Dragon Ball Z called “Episode of Bardock” that shows a possible answer to a big question in DBZ lore that even a casual fan of the series may be wondering about, or a casual observer at recent conventions that saw people walking around with cardboard golden hair.

Last Call:

I’m exhausted but satisfied, something I have not said about a video game in a long time. Normally my hands are sore and my wrists or arms ache but I am all over sore, sweat soaking through every inch of clothing and I feel proud of my video game accomplishments and my workout at the same time. Parents should pick this up for their kids, adults with even a passing fancy in the cartoons or who think a kick boxing workout might be for them should totally grab this. Just pay attention to the tutorial and note what works great for you and what doesn’t and this should be a good experience for you. This game has also given me another satisfaction, the opportunity to recommend another Kinect game.

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Painkiller: Hell & Damnation Review (PC/Steam)

2012/11/19

Ripper71

News, Reviews, Windows PC Review

Fans of the first person shooter genre even if they haven’t played them know games like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D and, after it failed so badly, even non-FPS gamers (and non-gamers) know Duke Nukem 3D which wasn’t much different from it’s massively successful predecessor graphically. Some may say it was a simpler time of gaming when those titles reigned supreme, graphics were good for their time, the story didn’t mean crap it was all about run and gun, shoot anything that moved because it all wanted you dead. There have been sequels to these titles, each with varying success but all with the same formula: fun weapons and lots of things to kill with them. Alongside these titles should be another that true fans of FPS hold close to their hearts but most outside the genre have probably never heard of: Painkiller. It’s idea was simple: give the players cool looking weapons and have them kill everything in sight to Hell and back, literally. The formula worked through add-ons and expansions where it just gave you more scenery and more killing because that is what players wanted, back then at least. Now about eight years later does a sequel for the game stand a chance with today’s players or will it become Painkiller: Hell To Play?

Storyline:

Our hero of yore is back again, killing time in Purgatory pissed at how he kept getting jacked over in previous encounters with anything he didn’t shoot. So when a new entity approaches him, this time Death himself, and offers him a way to reunited with his wife he tells Death off right quick. Then he thinks about how bored he is and decides what the hell? Even if he doesn’t get back to his beloved Catherine at least he can kill some time killing. Jaded and pissed off fits Daniel Garner just fine as he locks, loads and causes things to explode. Death’s deal? Kill stuff and collect souls. If it sounds like I am spoiling things I’m not, that is all in the first few minutes, after that the storyline takes a backseat to slaughter, and I think sparse story works for better than bad story.

Graphics/Sound (Atmosphere):

This is where some games went wrong recently, no matter how much even older gamers want to relive the glory days of video gaming genesis they have forgotten just how bad the graphics are compared to their youth. Honestly the graphics on the original Painkiller games were no slouch, coming out only about eight years ago but there is still a marked improvement which was an extremely smart move. It also has a kick ass soundtrack by Ojo Rojo which gets the blood pumping to match the blood splatter.

Gameplay:

Ok the first step in making a sequel to a classic is updating the graphics, second is deciding how much of the old formula to stick to. In the case of Painkiller: Hell & Damnation they went back to the old play formula even more than before, give a little back ground and then give wave after wave of enemies. They vary a bit, during Halloween they even had special monsters just for the season, but in the end you take on tons of monsters of varying difficulties then a boss fight. To do it they give you lots of weapons to slice, dice, and anything else you might want to do to an enemy killing wise.

The variety of kills helps the repetition of enemies seem less of a consideration as you care less about what they look like before you kill them and more about a new creative way to take them out. I literally constantly cycled through the weapons, changing attacks on every enemy making goo and bits of them all. This game knows what it is and what players loved about it in the past. Sometimes players just want to play a good old fashion bloodbath and that is what it is. The bosses require a bit of challenge and thought, and finding all the secrets of the game to unlock buffs can be challenging but in the end you can just sit down at this game and play a session of kill everything in sight.

The game is pretty short though playing through again trying to find more things, or in some cases less things just trying to beat the clock, can be rewarding. There is a great co-op mode that allows you to go through the campaign with another player and the game adjusts enemies to match. There is the classic deathmatch and capture the flag multiplayer modes as well to give you an opportunity to splatter other players as fast as you can too in case you like to share your bloodlust and get literally more bang for your buck.

Last Call:

This review is a bit shorter but that is because this game is simple and straight forward, it is a classic FPS updated graphically for today’s gamer. If you remember the days of Doom fondly but still want your Halo style multiplayer Painkiller: Hell and Damnation is a great bridge between the games that made the genre and the play you have come expect. When I feel like just doing lots of creative killing I plan to go back to this game time and again, I really hope they keep up with the holiday themeing too, I could get behind blasting Santa and his elves.

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Euro Truck Simulator 2 Review (PC)

2012/11/16

Ripper71

News, Reviews, Windows PC Review

I definitely know my way around a simulator. Another member of the GamingShogun.com family used to be known for them but somewhere along the line I slipped into the driver seat, quite literally in most cases, and I now have a nice solid butt groove in it. I find that some of the most challenging of the sims are the truck ones because we want to draw upon our general knowledge of physics from driving cars which is entirely different. Some also come with the opportunity to try to learn the complex stick system of big rigs which is not just hard but once you learn it you don’t always have it like riding a bicycle you have to stay fresh or lose your edge. What Excalibur did with Euro Truck Simulator 2 was put all the challenges of all the different trucking games into one game then add terrific graphics and over the top features to make this game the best vehicle simulator I have ever played.

Features:

Transport a vast variety of cargo across more than 60 European cities.
Run your own business which continues to grow even as you complete your freight deliveries.
Build your own fleet of trucks, buy garages, hire drivers, manage your company for maximum profits.
A varied amount of truck tuning that range from performance to cosmetic changes.
Customize your vehicles with optional lights, bars, horns, beacons, smoke exhausts, and more.
Thousands of miles of real road networks with hundreds of famous landmarks and structures.

Gameplay:

The gameplay in most vehicle sims is just trying to complete missions or tasks. In this game you have an actual full storyline in which you are trying to progress through. There are multiple ways to change the difficulty from the kind of jobs you take, to the how accurately you want to drive the vehicle such as camera angles and shifting. You choose the job you want to do from a long list, weather goes through patterns as does day and night all making it so it can be insanely realistic and difficult or just a simple fun play. It is all up to you.

Vehicles can be customized for looks as well as function also adding to the game experience and though thankfully the times doesn’t match one minute to one minute during the missions they can be pretty long to complete especially if you take on a long haul. The amount of versatility in this game is absolutely staggering, a person could play through the game over and over and never have the same experience because of the variety of jobs, diversity of business building possibilities and sheer number of customizing options. This game is basically a driving simulator, business simulator and custom truck designer all rolled into one with the possibility of enough realism to prepare the player for most real life scenarios in each. If someone had told me they wanted to try to combine all of these I probably would have called them mad, to see it pulled off so well is incredible. This isn’t a game you could just play for hours, this is one you could play for days.

Graphics:

To pull off all of the above you would think the graphics would have to suffer. Not the case, there is excellent detail in the environments, vehicle cabs, and outside sections of the rigs. There are complex reflections in the environments as well as shadows. Landmarks all over Europe are painstakingly recreated to make the landscapes feel as real as possible. This is one of the best uses of the exterior camera angles, to see your customized rig driving past landmarks and beautiful scenery while the sun is setting or the rain spatters off the cab. Personally though I love to look at it all out the windows of my cab like I would if I were really behind the wheel.

Sound:

Normally this is grouped with graphics as part of the atmosphere of this game but this time I felt it deserved it’s own section because not only are the general sounds of trucking realistic but you can change the radio stations to choose from dozens of real live streaming European radio stations! The streaming is perfect with no glitches or buffering and it honestly sounds like you are listening to it in your own truck. I cranked up my speakers and amazed other people in the house with how good the stations were. I particularly liked a French station which mixed classic 80s, contemporary alternative, and popular European bands all together into a station where I never understood the DJ but loved the universality of great music. At one point I had to do things around the house so I paused the gameplay and left the music going because it was better than my iPod, iPad or iPhone. I used to love listening to “radio” stations in other games that had a soundtrack rotation on each “channel.” This game may have spoiled me on those because it just uses real radio.

Last Call:

This game was a complete shock to someone who is hard to shock when it comes to games. It could be as easy or difficult as I wanted, as in depth or simple as I wanted and could have been a good game as a rig simulator, radio streamer, business simulator or custom truck designer but instead put them all into one package with each part having immense diversity. I keep finding myself drawn back to another haul so I can change my paint job or have a bit more money in the bank to hire a new employee the following month or so that I can just enjoy the road, the scenery and the terrific music for a while.

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Dark Preview (XBox360/PC)

2012/11/16

Ripper71

News, Previews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Preview, Xbox 360 News, Xbox 360 Preview

1 Comment

Those who really keep up on the FPS and third person shooter genre have probably come across a strange trailer from Kalypso that creates questions rather than answering them. It starts out with a first person point of view of a strike team being wiped out by a teleporting beast that mostly keeps to the shadows and then moves into make a kill on the viewer. The word “Dark” slowly fades in, fades out. After that a handful of screenshots for the game were released showing a dark figure stalking through darker alleys in third person perspective. With this the forums blew up. Was it first person? Third person? Shooter like the trailers hints at or power based fighting like the screenies hint at? The only official word was that is isn’t a shooter, you are a vampire and use those powers. Players hounded Kalypso for answers and they bided their time… until recently when they invited a couple handfuls of journalists to come see for themselves what the game had in store and I was one of the lucky few.

Storyline:

Still shrouded a bit in secrecy and development, the initial storyline is that you are a vampire fledgling, freshly made and still learning your powers, and you have been set on a path of both self discovery and discovery of who your master is. Along the way you discover that there are certain things that a fledgling must do to become full vampire and that if you fail you become one of the beasts from the trailer, mad as a hatter zombies/ghouls killing everything in your path. If these issues aren’t enough there is a military group known as “M17” that is not just in your way but wants you dead. All this is in the initial developing storyline of the game.

Graphics/Sound (Atmosphere):

It is a game of dark themes and dark environments but the game uses 3D cel-shaded graphics and great lighting so that it still makes great use of color and rich contrast. The environments vary so much as to put the graphics to great use being everything from office buildings to forests to mine shafts. As a company that appreciates making the most of platforms Kalypso also plans to make advanced graphic settings for the PC version of Dark giving the greatest visual experience your system can handle (deadlines for the XBox360 platforms require the games to be done at a certain time for physical production allowing more time for PC graphic adjustments). The cutscenes are designed to match the action graphically which also helps maintain the suspension of disbelief and the flow of the game. The sound is excellent and crisp and I am sure the final soundtrack will be match great since the music being played at the event matched the action extremely well.

Gameplay:

The most beautiful game with the best story in the world can still be unplayable if the game mechanics don’t work well. Luckily even though they are being adjusted every day the current gameplay builds, both mechanics and options, are not just playable but solidly defined to the point that if the game were to release tomorrow with the current build it would be a good play. This makes it look extremely optimistic that once the final version is released it will be a great game in all aspects. The control choices are intuitive to the third person genre and are easily picked up and mastered so that players can concentrate on play rather than on learning to play.

The gameplay style itself is a different take on a well established formula. This game heavily involves the use of stealth, misdirection and strategic approach. It is not an attack everything run and gun play style. Many enemies are just better off being avoided completely and the whole area of a level should be considered from a safe spot of cover before moving. One of the vampiric talents you get is the ability to sense blood around you as well as sensing if you are observed. This enables you to have an infrared style look at a level showing glowing red figures of your enemies and whether or not they already see you. This is a great way to keep you from stepping out from behind some crates into a six man crossfire which I saw plenty of when people weren’t being cautious during hands-on.

Another vampiric trait that helps is called shadow leap, which is a teleporting ability showcased in the teaser trailer that has been released. It is based on line of sight and makes it so that you can teleport to any location you see regardless on obstacles between you and the spot. This can prove great for teleporting across rooms to escape guards, teleporting past fences to prevent pursuit, heck this is a great way just to cross a room quickly. The best use of this however is teleporting right up next to an enemy and feeding on them or dispatching them in some other way. There is a definite feeling of satisfaction when you appear in a puff of black smoke and since your teeth into an enemy. Remember this game is a third person action, not a third person shooter, so you have to rely on techniques that let you pass enemies or let you get up close and personal to them fast.

To help with this there is also skill points that are gained to fill in skill trees and improve your vampiric prowess. There are multiple trees and multiple traits on them that are still in development so it might be a bit soon to comment on them too deeply but they are at this time designed to make significant improvements to your play and also vary enough to custom tailor greatly to your personal style of stealth play, which there can be a rather large variety of. Offhand examples would be trying to complete a level without killing guards or half-vamps, another would be killing everyone in sight, another would be teleporting through as much as possible as fast as possible. There will also always be those who want to just run in and kill like crazy and only retreat to cover when they are about to die. The developers have taken all these styles and more into account and have already built in great replayability with just these trees and traits since you can play through a different style each time. Add to it the variety of environment and replay should definitely not be boring.

Last Call:

This was a preview of the game, a glimpse of what is to come after so much teasing and it was nice to not just see gameplay but to be able to be directly hands on with it to get a solid feel for what we can expect. With its unique theme and own taste on the third person action game Kalypso has taken us out of the dark wondering what to expect and instead given us great expectations of the game to come.

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Scania Truck Driving Simulator Review (PC)

2012/11/12

Ripper71

News, Reviews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review

I have played a lot of car driving games over the years which made me think I was pretty well prepared to drive a big rig. Heck when I was a teenager I learned how to drive a water truck and a dump truck so I thought I had a pretty good understanding of the steering involved with big trucks. It doesn’t take long before you realize that driving a semi with a trailer is different from any other driving game you have ever tried.

Storyline:

Sims usually don’t have much of a storyline but this one actually has one to a degree. You are a young trucker who is working on your skills so you can compete in Young European Truck Drivers contest held in Sweden then go on to deliver cargo down dangerous roads to individuals in need. In this sense the story is basically three chapters: learning to drive, competing, then putting all you learned to practical use.

Gameplay:

Semi trucks with trailers do not perform at all like you would expect them to. Learning to drive in this game is a very difficult lesson in physics and any person who has every thought a trucker has the easy life needs to play this sim and learn differently. Backing up in particular is a hard learned trick because a semi trailer doesn’t behave at all like you would think when you put that sucker in reverse. They are also squirrely as hell which might cause a less patient player to run away quick. This game is hard but anyone who ever thinks they can drive anything or have ever thought that life on the open road was for them should really give this game a run. I sincerely believe that the learning to drive section of this game not only prepares you for the next section of the game but also teaches you the fundamentals you need to drive a truck with a trailer in real life.

The second part, the Young European Truck Drivers contest that has you running obstacle courses and performing tricky maneuvers struggling for the best times not just set by the developers but set by fellow players all over the world. You have to have your game down pretty tight if you want to be ranked decently at all. This part I was generally just happy to complete, getting competitive times would require dedication bordering on obsession. No scratch that, you would have to be obsessed. It is crazy hard to complete yet alone compete so those who do deserve mad respect. They also deserve a giveme hat and a loan for their first rig or at least a try at being a tram driver at Disneyland.

The last part is actually a bit easier and possibly the most fun is the dangerous roads and deliveries section of the game that follows the competition. Instead of having required moves you have to make to complete a task you are on timed runs driving the best you can through flood swollen streets and along cliffs with sheer drops. You really put your reflexes and knowledge of the physics of the rigs to test in this one but instead of trying to avoid cones you are trying to keep from sending your rig plummeting to certain doom. This seems the most appealing just like seeing a tight rope walker walking 50 feet off the ground is more exciting than seeing one walk 5 feet off the ground. To succeed at these tasks it takes the same skills you learned in practice and competition but there is much more satisfaction in real world conditions.

Graphics And Sound:

The graphics in the game are excellent and really help immerse the player into the game. The tiny details can be important on some of the driving challenges so good graphics can be key. The sounds are also very authentic with the rumble of engines and when making a mistake sometimes the screech of metal. Between the graphics and physics this game might not play quite as well on a lower end computer but if your computer can handle it you will enough the atmosphere.

Last Call:

This game definitely isn’t for everyone, it takes patience and more patience as well as some skill. Driving a semi truck using real world physics is a lot harder than it looks when you see someone doing it at your local loading dock. If you like a challenge this game is an excellent one and if you have ever thought of a career in truck driving master this game first.

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Zombie Cat: The Tale Of A Decomposing Kitty (Book Review)

2012/11/12

Ripper71

Book Review, News, Reviews

When I first heard the title of this book I thought it might be much like some of the books of my youth titled “101 Uses For A Dead Cat” and expected a tasteless collection of mistreated kitty corpses. What I found instead was a heartwarming book about a boy and his recently deceased feline and their journey through the zombie apocalypse.

Without giving away too much of the book this is written in children’s book style with the gore you would expect from a zombie tale but told in a way that reaches out to all ages. The artwork is very well done with colorful illustrations that one would expect in a children’s book and the story is both heartwarming and hilarious.

For fans of the zombie genre, children’s books aimed at all ages or just folks who want an unusual table top book I highly recommend this fun and original read.

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