Story: Here come the SPOILERS: The gameplay builds heavily on Resident Evil 4. Cut and paste the basic Granados enemies into “Africa”. Remove the scarier Plagas human infestations and replace them with flowers. Yes, I feel that the Majini are less intimidating this time because there aren’t huge parasites coming out of their body and the African culture is muted. The Los Illuminados cult was very unexpected and well executed with the robes and the castle. I expected more reliance on African culture of shaman, voodoo and other racial/cultural heritage to be utilized for the fifth Resident Evil. Yet Capcom has given into the fear of Resident Evil 5 appearing racist by including white Majinni (How many times do I have to see the Mexican looking guy with a mustache and the bald looking white guy?). The tribal village middle of the game attempted to rise to the occasion, but there wasn’t any good sacrifice of people, possession from spirits, or dense jungle fever. Please let me officially raise the bar for future games set in Africa that won’t be afraid of appearing racist:

Resident Evil 5 Racist Alternate Story (Going to be Uploaded Soon)


REAL STORY

Weskar may be able to dodge bullets Matrix style because of increased reaction time due to multiple viruses, but he sure fails at killing a steroidal mini-tank named Chris and a knife wielding “African” British sounding woman named Sheva who specializes in kicking and flipping moves. Weskar’s repeated failure to remove these two people, and its plot device, forces Capcom to come up with a story where Weskar with his epic skills, can’t kill mere mortals. Instead only his passive actions are successful like any good villain would have it (Weskar killing Excella with the Uroboros injection). Is this divine intervention from god ala the action commands? No, it comes down to the elite training of the two agents.

Chris has taken a course in epic action commands learning the famed punching moves from Captain Falcon. Chris PAUNCH with a “Straight” and Chris KIIICK with a “Stomp.” or “Kick” to the enemies face or back. The Straight and Stomp moves have the ability to completely explode a Majini’s face. Chris has made a fundamental flaw in his training that makes his move-set incomplete. He seems to be lacking the crucial “Suplex” that Leon spontaneously learned by entering a castle. Since Chris doesn’t enter a castle, he doesn’t learn how to suplex enemies which is a shame. In exchange, Chris has the combo action command of “Haymaker” and “Neck Breaker” which almost make up for the loss, but not quite. I can’t forget the first time Leon did a suplex with a “Huh” and the enemy’s face exploded. All I was expecting was for Leon to kick the Granado in the face, not pull out epic skills.

Kirk is member of Sheva’s military team who joins forces with the BSAA. He has a great voice, excellent skintone, and reminds me of Louis. All of these are pros in my book. It’s just a shame that he isn’t a playable character for Co-op or for multiplayer. WHY?? I would much rather have Kirk on my team than Sheva. Kirk is a minor character that only serves a purpose of tying Sheva to the black community.

Umbrella is able to live on as Tricell, another “pharmaceutical” company intent on creating biological creatures of mass destruction. So for some reason, there are more Granados with Las Plagas than Uroboros, the black worm like creatures that swarm the hosts. There is some really annoying Brooklyn guy that serves no purpose other than he sells the biological agents to terrorists and has worse development than Sheva in the story department. I don’t even know his name offhand, that’s how poor his development is. His real role is very small and he does nothing because Capcom cares more about co-op this time than story and meaningful action sequences.

Then comes along the first real interesting part of the story where Weskar goes and kills the person who originally breed children with the Weskar name who would be biologically better than other people. The old man’s children all died except for Weskar. Then Weskar somehow realizes that the old man manipulated him and goes to prove that the “right to be a god is now mine”. So Weskar easily kills an old man and decides to take over creating a perfect world of really really strong people while not realizing that this is the old man’s goal still. That’s where the pre-mutant person named Chris shows up with Jill. Both fire wildly at Weskar who decides he can easily move at the speed of light to teleport around the room. Jill gets choked, Chris gets splintered on some wood (haha), and Jill sacrifices herself by throwing herself at Weskar, which takes them together out a window. That last sentence was pretty self explanatory but I liked how I described it. Chris is left with no one in the room and never finds any bodies. Thus since he has played a role in Resident Evil before, he should know that both are still good. No body = alive (Weskar, Jill, Mike the Helicopter Pilot, ect). Dead body = alive (Weskar). Zombie like body = death but can become human again (Leon). Body becomes Uroboros = no cure, basically your soul is dead, your body is alive with the sound of black wormlike music.

Weskar once again manipulates every single person he meets so he can develop biological weapons in missiles. Why not just launch them if Uroboros can’t be stopped? So instead of firing the missles, he decides to load up his one plane, carrying maybe two missiles so he can drop them himself. Chris and Sheva completely forget about all the stockpiled missiles in the bases and decide that two missiles and Weskar are a greater threat than the Majini accidentally stumbling around and activating one with their flowers.

I just want to say that Uroboros is more racist in this game than Africans. I am deeply offended by worms being show in a black color. Pink worms or I boycott the game.

Gameplay: The gameplay remains faithful to Resident Evil 4 but the gameplay is expanded to incorporate co-op. The best new aspect of gameplay is the ability to “help” your partner when grabbed and to be able to do combos with action commands. I assume gentle reader that you are familiar with the basic mechanics of the hit game Resident Evil 4, so there is no need for me to go into generalized stuff about how you have to hold X to run and backward X to turn 180.

The ability to strafe is not a gameplay enhancement as each character’s strafing is too slow to avoid thrown objects or attacks. The C and D play styles are only there to entice FPS players on the 360 to give Resident Evil 5 a try. Those players are going to be frustrated at the stop, aim, shoot mechanic and will HATE not being able to run and gun. This focus on shooting and action is probably why a lot of people think the Resident Evil franchise has departed too much from the Horror genre.

Resident Evil 5 was never created to be a FPS and games like Metal Gear Solid 4 failed in this use of the first person perspective. I shouldn’t have to hold a billion buttons to be in first person in MGS 4 and I shouldn’t have to hold buttons to keep the gun/knife out in RE5 (this was later half fixed in the PC version with the quick knife button). I like the controls on the PS3, but I still feel better using the Gamecube controller (obviously since I played RE4 on Gamecube and didn’t own a PS2). Having to push “B” to help your partner results too often in my character saying “Come on”. Yes, I need to “come on” and help my partner. At least I died less often because my partner was there to save me. This changed my mindset from survival to using Sheva as portable first-aid spray. The mean the computer Sheva will automatically try to heal any small amount of damage with whatever she has.

The controls are responsive to what I want to do. There are only a few problems and they revolve around the inventory menu and me not being able to switch weapons or items fast enough. The designers actually let you reload weapons by moving the ammo onto the weapon in the inventory screen. This is a very handy feature that inadvertently makes the game even easier for me and is essential for keeping the Mercenaries combo going with slower reloading weapons (magnum and shotgun).

MINIBOSSES

I characterize any enemy that has a one hit kill attack or does massive damage as a miniboss. They take a little longer to dispatch because a grenade won’t instantly kill them. An example is the axe wielding dude at the start of the game. This classification extends to the different variations of this enemy.

Here are what I consider to be other minibosses: the bag chainsaw guy, the tribal masked giant, the initially very annoying bug creature, the big mini-gun RE4 guy (this time he is packing heat with a cigar), the humanoid mouth creature with the closed hard shell/fleshy leg (because it is annoying), and the Lickers (Beta). The minibosses are for the most part well executed. I still find the Lickers to be really powerful and a challenge to take down since their tongue attack is very powerful and there is no chance of escape without partner assistance. The chainsaw people are extremely easy for the veteran RE4 players since they are old hat and feel a lot weaker this time. The only difference is that on higher difficulty levels, the chainsaw enemy will get back up after defeated and go into a wild chainsaw swinging motion. This is instantly fatal and you can put the enemy back down permanently with more firepower.

The best part about the minibosses is that most of them have action moves you can do against them to attack, dodge or something in between. It’s a lot of fun to let off an action command, your partner goes in for their action command, and then you can follow up with the powerful move like the haymaker. It is very dynamic and feels intuitive.

Bosses

Let me rank the bosses. The most creative boss award goes to the Weskar and Jill fight. It was refreshing and my first time fighting them was exciting. My mindset was “Oh, I see Weskar dodging all my attacks. Ok, well Jill is able to be hit.” So I unload many rounds into Jill only to see Jill die and Chris yell “JIIILL!” That apparently wasn’t the right way to beat the boss. It was a while before I found out that Weskar can kick open the door and open up the upper level. I will say that surviving the 7 minutes the first time was nerve racking but not in the same level of survival.

Most disappointing boss: This award goes to the El Gigante, the on rails boss fight where the car is not moving. Way to go Capcom! You turned one of the most dynamic boss fights into a stationary shooting gallery. The new boss is no fun. All you do is fire and fire. The action button to dodge his attack is strange because Sheva and Chris duck and El Gigante doesn’t FEEL like he wants to crush the people and the truck. Why do I have to target random Majini at the same time while I am fighting this boss? Oh, it’s because the Majini need to be added to add some “action” into the battle. There are some high expectations when you use the most well known boss from Resident Evil 4 again in this game. A small consolation prize is that the El Gigante is named something else and looks quasi African with a goatee.

The coolest looking boss: the spider boss inside the bio lab. I didn’t know you could feed it grenades the first time I beat it. The in-game description says that Chris and Sheva only fought one type of the spider boss. I would have rather fought this twice than the flying bat boss.

Gameplay FLAWS

When on Veteran, I usually only too damage because I was reloading or missed shooting projectiles out of the air. Professional presents a plight: I like the added difficulty that a single hit puts your character in the critical state. What was done poorly here was when the other player tries to “revive” the “downed” player. On Professional, it is near impossible to health the other character in time with a can of First Aid Spray because by the time your character gets out the car, the other character has already died. So literally, the player falls to the ground while the green spray is still coming out of the can. Yet, if you didn’t have the can of First Aid Spray, then the “revive” button would instantly work and the player would be saved. You better hope you are standing a cm. away from the other player if they get hit and you have a can of First Aid or else you lose on Professional. Optimally, I wish Capcom would fix this stupid gameplay mechanic that inadvertently punishes players for carrying healing items who want the Professional level of difficulty.

Like I mentioned earlier, the new action commands are great forms of gameplay. (I am referring to the punches and kicks and not the reduced number of Quick Time Events in the game) but the Quick Time Events are poorly implemented in this version. The reduced number of these Quick Time Events (QTE) has actually hurt the franchise. Leon showed us how he could do the impossible as long as you got the button presses correct. Need to jump across a bridge, no problem, just press ( A + B ). Want to dodge danger (a pit, a thrown knife, a defeated boss?), just press ( L + R ). Resident Evil 5 thought that randomizing the buttons made it too difficult so the actions are always the same if you die and have to replay the cutscene. This is a gameplay design failure. There are also few QTE during boss battles.

Your partner is really never in any trouble, especially if they are grabbed from behind where the enemy does NO damage. Being grabbed from behind could actually be a great strategy in the Mercenaries mode as the enemies LOVE to grab people from behind. The CPU controlled Sheva is not up to my level of expertise since Capcom didn’t want to make a partner that plays the game for you. Potential deadly enemies are only the ones that are instant death ala the “regenerator cricket bug” as one could call it. I don’t know how many times Zott was owned by the bug creature before we developed a correct strategy to dispatch it. I guess Weskar’s whip arms could be considered instant death but Chris enjoys swimming in magma just like Weskar.

There is no reason why Sheva needs to be flipped across a gap to become helpless with an onslaught of summoned enemies. I mean, there is no one there, and then just for game design, about thirty Majini are spawned. Then you have to assist the other player if they aren’t good enough to handle it on their own. I am good enough to handle it on my own. My partner is just there for support so I can do all the epic gunplay and action commands; they will provide healing support and action combo potential.

There is more use of the “cover” mechanic in this game. It makes more sense in this game since later on there are a lot more projectile enemies. I like and dislike the ability to fire behind cover. I like how it makes sniping really easy with the protection but makes the player TOO powerful with cover. I dislike how the cover controls make it difficult to get off the cover. I would like to be able to get out of cover faster somewhat similar to gears of war where I can just push a button and back on the controller.

Chris and Sheva should have the option of using ammo that fires healing anti-plagas medication at the people. In my mind, this would be some sort of lightbulb or taser system that would activate a bright light inside the target, killing the plagas from the inside with a flash. Then ammo could be limited on a recharge meter before it could be used again. The Majini would then be able to break free of their plaga, sometimes helping Chris distract the enemy, sometimes running away, sometimes hiding, there are many options. There could even be an entire mod where players play the game with only this weapon on a cleansing mission.

There needs to be more infected women in the game. There was one female character enemy in the game and it was only in a small part of the village. Like I mentioned in what I would do with the game, I want more woman shaman, more women showing off their physical power, an actual woman boss, more controversy.

If the game threw in children who were infected, like an diary article alludes that they were, then the game would get so much criticism but it would be more realistic. If the game included infected babies, I don’t think there would be much backlash since Dead Space was able to do it (I got a laugh out of Issac drop kicking the baby aliens). If the designers included pregnant women who were infected, this game would be boycotted internationally and reach a level of infamy that ManHunt 2 and Hot Coffee reached.

Graphics: The first impression is that the graphics are both next gen but lacking the graphical punch that the Resident Evil series usually brings to the table. The best graphics are the Uroboros worms, the bosses, the character models and the final volcano areas. Chris’ character model is excellent with great bump mapping for his huge muscles and decent texture work. Sheva is also pretty good with a solid face texture and well rendered body. For best character model, I would say it is a tie between Weskar, Jill and the tribal miniboss. Weskar’s moonlight jacket is very well designed and looks photorealistic. His glasses and character design are top notch and deserve to be praised. This level of effort on Weskar paid off since he was the main focus of the game. Jill also benefited from a very sexy “Zero Suit Samus” character design. I can’t say no to a girl with a ponytail who isn’t afraid to show off her hot bod in skin tight clothing. The tribal miniboss is the tall huge Majini with the mask who has some really well rendered facemask and sweat streaking his body. He attacks by doing the jumping and sweeping of his melee weapon; he also has a amusing kick attack.

The environments look great but feel much smaller than Resident Evil 4 in a few areas. I would have liked to have some fights in the savannah where my character can walk around. There are some large areas but they are mostly large just from the amount of open air that is above the characters. It’s good that the developers dropped their intense heat and shade gameplay since the shadows in this game are not dark enough to contrast with the HDR. My favorite set-piece in the game is the prison Mercenaries map because the volcano environment and Fire Axe Executer mini-boss look amazing.

I really don’t have many complaints with the graphics. The engine is effective at rendering enough zombies for the single player. At certain points like explosions, there is a little lag below 30 FPS. The cutscenes are all in-game which is always a good step in the right direction.

Sound: The music is a less adrenaline pumping than Resident Evil 4. The music is very environmental so it accomplished its goal of players not paying it any attention. The bat boss music sometimes irritates me because of the jarring sounds. The enemy voices are decent but it comes down to the voice acting of Chris, Sheva, and Weskar to make the game special. Chris always sounds confident and does sound like an emotionless machine even when he is talking about Jill. Sheva seems to have more emotion in her voice. Both have some corny lines. How about Chris: “Now Sheva shoot him! Sheva: I can’t without hitting you! Chris: Then shoot through me!” anyone? Luckily I like cheesy dialogue.

Weskar’s voice actor really enjoys pronouncing each of his lines with precision and excellent timing. I was more excited to hear Weskar’s dialogue than any other character. His over-the-top dialogue about genetics and superiority is well done with cheese.

A majority of the menu and gun sounds are reused from past Resident Evil games including 4. The sound in this game was overall good enough where I don’t have to focus on it.

PC Version: Since this review took a long time to complete due to distractions, the superior PC version came out. I have no reason to buy this version except I want a real challenge of more enemies with the PC version. Capcom seems to want to release this game like 3 more times with different controls, side missions and skins. I’ll probably end up reviewing the re-release version on PC if it comes out. Otherwise, they better have Leon with voice acting if they want me to buy an add-on.

The Bottom Line: I am satisfied with Resident Evil 5 even though it is not as revolutionary as Resident Evil 4. The game would have benefited from a little more story and character development so I can feel connected to a mini hulk and an “African” woman. The first part of the game was decent, the gas facility/terrorist man was not well developed and the final part was excellent sans ridiculous lava plot. The game could have really used more African elements as this game felt like it could have taken place anywhere in the world. Also, the coop was good for single player but split-screen coop should have had a menu option like the demo instead of having to start the game and then selecting “start” on the second controller.

PS3 Reviews Game: My framerate may be a little worse than the 360, but I can render black worms too. I just glad I can render a lot more zombies than the Dead Rising port on Wii but I'm not displaying the large amount of people from the early RE5 E3 videos. Having Capcom hide their Versus mode in a patch and then paying for it is not worth $5.

*Images from Capcom's Resident Evil 5 website. Note they were from development some look better than PS3 version. Also some elements have changed from images.

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by BlueZero

My review of this game comes almost comes by luck. Why? Well, there was a Direct2Drive promotion not too long ago that sold games for 5 dollars apiece. It just so happened that one of those games was Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena. It had been marked down from $40 in the promotion, an eye catcher if any. I had heard positive notions about Butcher Bay on the original Xbox, many praising the graphics, perhaps some of the best on the system. A quick trip to Metacritic showed an average rating of about 90. More convincing was not required. For 5 dollars, if it sucks, then it is no big loss. I have paid more for worse games (especially when $10 is considered bargain-bin prices.)
The deed was done, and I proceeded to install the 7GBs of data needed to play this sucker, which would eventually uncompress to about 10GB. Hefty Hefty Hefty.

This review will only encompass the re-mastered Butcher Bay campaign. I have only finished that campaign, and having never played the original, felt that I should give it its own review. Therefore, I’ll consider the two campaigns as completely separate games, and thus possibly two unique reviews. Everyone who has reviewed this game has seemed to complain about it being remade. Well, I don’t have any bias toward the original, since I never played it, so this should be a fresh perspective.

First off, I beat the game on normal once through, with most graphics settings on high, except at a resolution of 1440x900 and one setting at 8-bit to avoid extra lag for possibly negligible graphical increase.

This review contains SPOILERS.

An unofficial list of changes of this remake from the original can be seen here:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=939612&topic=49738144

Story: You are Riddick, scourge of the universe, or so it seems. To be honest, I haven’t seen the movie that this game ties into. You start off being escorted by Johns, whom is some mercenary with enough guts and skill to capture Riddick somehow. Then, the player has a short tutorial level, which was cleverly implemented, giving the ability to explore some of the game’s tactics early on, while usually throwing them by the wayside for the rest of the game.

(IE: Guns are DNA locked most of the game, yet the tutorial gives them to you no problem). From here you meet Hoxie, the warden of the non-quotidian Butcher Bay Prison. It isn’t made clear in the game, but the prison is multi-layered, with towers and deep subterranean pits. Riddick is initiated into the prison in a Call of Duty 4-esque walking sequence. Perhaps Infinity-Ward was inspired by the original?

Once properly deloused the player has the option to talk to various characters, as well as walk around freely. The game is not open world, but similar to an RPG in that not every quest is a requirement; there are missions that can be completed to grant additional equipment. These periods of rest in the story, without action, reminded me of the puzzle sequences of Half Life 2, as well as the calm ship exploration scenes of Star Trek: Elite Force.

From this moment on, Riddick cranks out authority, and escapes that prison part. He fights some monsters then repeats this structure 2 more times. After that there is an underwhelming final boss(es) to end the game.

This light summary may make it seem as though the story is repetitive but it is only in the fact that you seem to keep escaping and being recaptured. Each time Riddick is recaptured, I was expecting an ending to the game. In fact, each pre-capture feels like a climactic ending yet the game will not end. Instead, each restraint results in Riddick’s transmission to a new sector of the prison; somewhere with new characters, new enemies, and new environments. In this way, while the basic gameplay remains more or less the same, the player now has new venues to explore, joined with a new cast of characters. Though… all the characters whom Riddick help pretty much end up dead. Or he kills them, your choice.

The game is still linear at its heart. Riddick is free to move around in the prison sections often using the ducts as a slipstream to new areas. This includes sometimes circuitous backtracking if Riddick wants to finish optional quests down the line. Overall, the freedom of movement gives the game an open-world feeling, even though it is prison, and largely confined. Riddick cannot move back to zones post-capture(s) (I.E. Riddick cannot go back to the starting Prison level after being sent to the second-tier prison level) but this is not too bad, except the chance of finishing earlier segment missions is then removed at those points.

There was only one multiple-path section in the game that I recognized; happening in the second-tier prison. It was a choice between killing lots of people in a fighting ring, or getting caught with drugs. I chose the pure killing route, and it was straightforward. The drug path choice, as far as I could tell, was more complicated; I was unsure how to even start it. Regardless, it too involved killing though had additional plot elements. Both ultimately resulted in the same solution, but it was nice for the developers to add a sense of choice, and possible replayability.

There are a couple sections of the story that are unexplained. Riddick gets super-darkness seeing eyes about 1/3 of the way through the game. Yet, despite there being a women’s voice, I have no idea why he got these powers. There is also an intro and outro to the game that star Riddick hunting a yeti-like creature with the same women voice-over. I’m not sure why he’s doing that ether. These cinematics don’t play automatically in the remake, which adds to the confusion; they are found in the extra content part of the menu. I think the makes more sense without the random movie sequences, so I can see why they were left out, but on the same note, what is their background? Perhaps the women and the movies relate back to the movie tie-in that I haven’t seen. Either way, the movies and the voice felt out of place or perhaps just a plot device to give Riddick the special “eyeshine”. Consider me uninformed.

Characters: There are a bound of characters in the game, but honestly, few are really important, and these are people that are reoccurring. The game is not afraid to kill off characters, main or not; realistic, raw, and fitting.

Riddick – Man of few words. Virtuosic killer whom likes the darkness. Bio complete.

Johns – Mercenary who keeps getting screwed over when capturing Riddick multiple times.

Jagger Valence – Dude that helps Riddick.

Abbot- High Ranking Guard, antagonist of early segments of the game.

Hoxie – Warden of Bucket Bay. Not really evil, just a shrewd businessman.

Soldier – Dies

Riot Guard – Dies harder. Takes more critical flinching damage from behind.

Pope Joe – Doesn’t die, but doesn’t do much either. “Gives” Riddick Eyeshine.

Monsters – Come in different varieties but act much the same. Xenos, mutants etc. Die; Gib familiarly.

Turrets – Most annoying enemy in the game. Changes from instant kill varieties to major damage type with no visual indication. Very weak health-wise, but if it spots Riddick, it is usually too late. They tend to respawn, making them that much more persistent and horrible.

All other characters are just well voice-acted quest vendors. I will compliment the developers for creating such a wide assortment of characters, not just their personality and dialogue, but also their modeling. It is a compliment when there are not five characters standing around that are cookie-cuts of each other. The soldiers are, but that is because you fight so many of them through the course of the game. Even among soldiers there is usually some distinction on their visible features that set them apart; some wear helmets and hats.

Regarding enemy strength, there is no initial indicator to tell how strong one enemy is to another. For this I must give an example. In one situation, Riddick commandeers a Riot Guard and must plow through the facility. Along the way he meets other, bigger and different-looking Riot Guards. These enemies seem like they would be a suitable match, and yet pumping bullets into them sends them into a twitching frenzy, in which they don’t return fire, and just die. During that same phase, a communication by the guards mentions that they must send in some super robots to stop me. These super-robots only appear at that point in the game and the player has absolutely no idea how strong they are, but just pumping bullets into them seemed to work like it did for regular riot guards.

On foot, Riddick is meat to robots and Riot Guards unless he can sneak behind them to their weak spot or use a heavy weapon such as a chaingun. With this in mind, the later portion of the game throws the player for a loop by introducing big white robots, which while looking stronger than Riot Guards, are taken down easily with one or two shotgun blasts. There are also floaty robots that are even easier; one shot of anything will kill them. When the thought of robots was previously “strong”, it is unclear what hierarchy of power exists. The confusion continues later with bosses, and how seemingly strong they look, yet tactically simple to kill they are.

AI and Gameplay: Just to mention it, each box of health is a portion of the health that is recoverable by waiting. If a box is lost, only a health station can get it back. There are special health stations that give an extra bar of health permanently. These were rare, and the game could be beaten without them, but they do help. Med-stations that run out of their “four squares” of juice can be refilled with health canisters.

Moving through different areas of the game results in a load screen like Half Life 2, but the big difference here, is that the load times for Chronicles of Riddick are whopping fast (Maybe 10 seconds or less). I seriously mean this. This includes the initial load too. Compared to other modern games, I am surprised at the pace. Even Half Life 2 doesn’t load as fast as this game, and it is older with lower requirements. I was very, very impressed by the loading speed. It is annoying to walk back through a load portal and have the game have to reload, but thankfully, I don’t have to waste my life waiting for this game to queue and complete.

The AI in the game is acceptable. It is not a very intelligent AI, but it fits the purpose of the characters it is portraying for the most part. Most usual guards tend to stay far away from Riddick. They will not simply rush up to him (to be bashed to bits) if they have cover. Instead, it was often I who had to come to them. They also didn’t fire and retreat either, a flaw or a clever plan?; forcing me to get shot at as I approached. Let me tell you, the guns do a lot of damage to Riddick. This is more than likely used as a method to keep the game sneaking based, and it works. I often had to rethink attacking strategies to incorporate stealth.

Guards are both facile and execrable at spotting Riddick in the dark. Sometimes I will make a noise and they’ll come rushing to me. Or they will see where I hid and search it. Other times, when I attacked, and then rushed to hide, the guards will change into seek and destroy mode, moving slowly with gun-mounted light on, and making easy targets for Riddick at less than 1 ft away walking by.

Other enemies, like the robots, tended to not have much of an AI at all. They simply stood there and got shot, or shot. Sometimes they changed positions and repeated the behavior. The same simplicity applies to the Xenos and pit dwellers, but their simply programming is Left 4 Dead style pack rushing.

Graphics: Imagine walking into a prison, and instead of being greeted with grit, you found yourself face to face with lots and lots of shiny things. The prison looks anything but sere. That is how this game is. The new game engine definitely added something more to Bucket Bay. I haven’t played the original, but from what I’ve seen from comparison videos, there are definitely items that have more detail attached, such as the health dispensers and character models.

The lighting is also better, giving the shadows and textures a sense of more depth. The darks and shadows are inviting. The only problem is that secularity. While not the bloom that plagued Mirror’s Edge, it might as well be, for it does detract from a couple scenes. The only spots where the secularity is fitting are the near ending portions that revolve around “clean-rooms” in which case the graphics engine makes the rooms feel futuristic and on key. A legally required recreation chamber is an especially outstanding example of the lighting done correctly. (And an offbeat section of the game too) In a prison though, not the best. The flatness of the original game engine might have been better at giving off the dullness of the prison. Overall, certain objects should have kept the shiness, and others not so much. I’m not sure if this unsightly shine was intended, or an oversight by the developers to save time and not have to reformat all the textures with new bump-maps.

The addition of motion blur and field of depth add a lot to the game. Especially giving a more cinematic touch to many of the cutscenes, and a ferocity of Riddick's moves during gameplay. Both are pluses, and they are integrated so well that they don't have any of the annoyance that plagues their use in some games. Bravo.

Special attention was paid to the graphic indicators and HUD. With this I mean effects that relay information to the player. When Riddick is in darkness and well hidden, the hue of the screen will turn bluish. Similarly, when Riddick is using his eyeshine, he is given a slight tunnelvision/fisheye, as well as increased brightness overall. These effects were well integrated, and they were not detrimental to the game I felt.

On that note, the developers seem to have opted for a different way of signaling objects and character names. In the original Butcher Bay, there were HUD elements where descriptive text would hover over an object or person, with a line connecting to that person. In this remake, that has been replaced with a fade in of the same text in the bottom left and right corners of the screen with no connective elements. This works more effectively, as it doesn’t make Riddick seem like a robot wearing an eyepiece. It also enhances the integration into the game world, Riddick knows these objects and so the fading in is almost signal of a recollection of his memories. Unfortunately, it forces looking into the corners of the screen to see who or what is being interacted with, but this is only a problem initially, once you get used to the areas and objects, there is no reason to even think about the text. The health in the top left corner IS important however. The developers made the boxes signifying chunks of health more shaded which make them look nicer and fit better with the rest of the UI.

Color blending is an issue in the dark areas, where bands of color can be made out when they shouldn’t. I can only say that it may be due to the graphics settings I had chosen, the 8-bit lighting with the off occlusion setting, and so cannot lay absolute judgment on this unfortunate outcome until further analysis is done. There is a cool grain effect placed all of the game's visuals. It isn't as prevalent as in L4D thankfully, and I only noticed it through the screenshots. If it played any part, it was subtle. This grain effect is not the color blending problem.

In the later parts of the game when Riddick are controls a Heavy Guard, the rooms become quite destructible. This is really the only section when you can do this. Every other destruction scene of the environment is scripted, especially when the guards throw path-opening grenades. During this particular scene, there isn’t a plethora of things to destroy, mostly pillars and flooring, but it was nice to see that something came apart in the game world. This may have originally been a 2004 game, but a little bit of physics is appreciated, bringing it up slightly to more modern gameplay standards.

Sounds and Music: Sound quality was good. None of the sounds were washed out or overly compressed. It is difficult to describe sounds in particular that stood out, but they were good enough as to not needing mention.
Sadly, the sound seems to de-sync on the cutscenes. It didn’t happen all the time, but occasionally would become noticeably off from the actor’s lips and movement. Now, the lips of the characters are not as good as the ones from Half Life 2 at matching what the character is actually emitting from his orifice, but even then I could tell the sounds were off. Furthermore, taking the many snapshots for this review resulted in de-synced sound. Apparently the engine is not capable of taking a snapshot and keeping the sequences up to date. Disappointing.

Apparently, some of the music was changed in the remake compared to the original release. I can’t tell any in particular, given this being my first time playing Butcher Bay, but some people said that the prison break song and others were changed.

Overall, the music seems very atmospheric in this remake, at least when sneaking. There are a couple up-beat action tracks, especially when the Xenos attack, or when driving some of the mechs around, but generally it is just atmospheric background. I can’t complain, even if there were changes. What did stick out was the use of a “Riddick theme” which popped in and about the songs too often. I could have used a little less of that during my playsession. It may even have been the same song repeating, but whatever the case, I seem to recall noticeable annoyed at the theme being so prevalent. This is bad when the music, not the enemies are causing annoyance.

Voices: Dialogue is of high caliber and quality with the NPC’s characterization correctly played out. Riddick’s ethos is one of strict independence, a man of few words; even when answering people’s questions, which one might think would require more than 3 words, somehow he finds a way.

There are parts of Butcher Bay where Riddick can stop to listen to the characters speaking about events. These are not like Oblivion in which they are random; they happen as you enter the areas for the first time. Still, I liked the option of listening to these optional dialogues, or just interrupting them, never to hear them again. On that note, conversations can be skipped, and it doesn’t skip the whole dialogue tree either, only what the person is saying at that instant. I found this feature useful, as in many games I prefer to read the dialogue through the provided captions than wait 4 times as long for the actor to finish speaking. Also, on subsequent playthroughs, I may not want to hear all the same lines again.

There is some subtle humor written in for some of the NPCs. The Heavy Guard constantly insults the Riddick for being a poor driver. There is Craps, who lets Riddick play dice, along with some interesting professional/unprofessional terminology of the mini-game. Running around and beeping all the doorbells in another section rewards completely frivolous dialogue to please oneself. I liked all these diversions; my accolades to the developers to put some humor in an otherwise serious game.

Controls: Good and bad. What makes the controls iffy is the feeling that they are not as precise as they could be. There are moves that should be pulled off, and they are not. Blows that should hit in hand to hand combat, and are deflected. An enemy attacks you by raising back for a blow. There is supposed to be a moment in which you can counter the move, or do a finishing blow. This feature works accurately when countering guns, but if you are fighting a foe with a switchblade or club, it hardly, if ever, works. Is it supposed to? I think it should.

Attacks are dependent on the movement of Riddick when a button is mashed; moving forward while attacking yields a different offensive strike than if moving left and attacking. While these were supposed to play a strategic role in hand to hand combat, I found it hard to accomplish to any real degree of skill, and was just random button mashing with the hopes of a hit. To win any of the hand to hand showdowns, it was timing, gap between characters, and weapons that mattered most.

I know I am beating this game with its controls, but I must continue to crush them. Mouse look was also slightly odd the first time the game was played by me. The freelook had an almost limited degree of motion, something that I’d grown accustomed in very old games like Marathon. By this, I mean the degrees of look are not all possible positions, but are limited to certain angles of movement. This only appeared when moving short spans of look and did not detract from overall gameplay as one got used to it, but initially it felt offbeat. Could this have been something ported from the consoles? If it is something real, and not just part of my imagination/ gaming setup, why put it in?

So many bad controls can only means one thing…. Console port. Well, the developers included a weapon wheel, but unlike Crysis; no you can’t change weapons with the middle button effectively, and no you can’t go through all of them with the number keys. Thus you must hold down X, and either pin a weapon to the two available assignable slots (1, and 2 only), or just use the clunkier than Crysis selection menu. I’m not sure why I can’t use the number keys to change weapons, the weapons all occupy specific spots anyways and there is no customizable inventory, so they can’t be rearranged. You won’t be changing weapons often in this game, but why such a stupid limitation? The number keys were there for a reason, and especially in this day and age the scroll wheel should be perfected in quick weapon switching and killing. Arg!

I will compliment the vehicle scenes. Both felt clunky and heavy as they were supposed to. The Riot Guard scene didn’t change too much for the controls, but the Heavy Guard added noticeable delay and mass, which I felt were comfortable integrated with the style of the beasts.

There is actually a decent amount of user interactivity in the world. Riddick can open lockers, flush toilets, Flip beds, turn off lights, ring doorbells, pick up weapons, talk to people, poison food, use health machines, open vents and more. A lot of these actions are required by the game to proceed, but a couple, such as the toilets and lights, are merely methods to get players more involved in the gamespace. Granted, there are no PhysX or Havok physics at work here, so objects stay stationary for the most part, and the barren prison is just that, barren; but I appreciate the extra “optional” interactivity the developers put in. As something fun and strategically important, bodies can be dragged into the shadows to avoid alerting the guards. I frankly didn’t find it all that useful. I appreciate its inclusion for the true Splinter Cell players and for throwing bodies into flesh hungry blades, and off cliffs. I only wish that like Arkham Asylum there might have been some atmospheric debris floating around…

Navigation: When Riddick is jumping, he can sometimes catch onto objects. The problem is, the objects that are grabble are not clearly defined. This isn’t like Mirror’s Edge where you can climb anything. This is like Mirror’s Edge where you want to climb a ledge and find you don’t seem to stick. Riddick tries to jump again, and again, but it turns out you aren’t even supposed to get on that box. Sigh* Also, Riddick likes to lose his grip when getting shot while climbing up. I know it is more realistic, but from a gameplay standpoint, it meant enemies on platforms above could neither be shot, nor reached as they camped the spot. This happened rarely, but was still annoying, especially towards the end of the game, when the monstrous Xenos attack.

As I mentioned, the prison is navigateable through ducts and Riddick can visit most of the facility that he is stationed in freely. To help guide the player through the many pathways and labyrinths there is a map. This map is useless. I couldn’t even tell where I was on it, and even worse, the map just shows room names on generic squares. Instead the proper way to get around is just by learning the environment. Luckily, there are useful guiding signs to help maintain sanity. Some lunatic had been kind of nice to paint/etch the names of areas the ducts are leading with an arrow pointing the way towards those stations. I usually stumbled across the correct path to get to my destinations, but for those wishing to explore more, this writing in the duct is very useful. It also prevents the player from backtracking down the same duct by accident, which due to the similarity of textures and lighting, happened on occasion.

Weapons: In this game, weapons are a mixed bag. There are some criteria for weapons that must first be brought up. There are melee weapons, and there are shooting weapons. Every shooting weapon can be used as a melee weapon though, as well as a flashlight. With that note, let me go over some weapons.

Shotgun- Best weapon in the game. Use it in close range for instant-kills, use it at longer range to suppress till you have gotten within close range, repeat.

Rifle- Inaccurate. Use as a last measure, or if out of shotgun bullets. Frankly, it is almost better to snipe with the shotgun than use the rifle. The rifle is good if the target is close for dealing a lot of damage quickly, but then, that is what shotgun is for. Later down the line you can find an enhanced prototype rifle, I have no idea what was enhanced about it besides the shape.

Gun- It is a generic “gun” in the game, but is really a pistol. It isn’t prevalent, but can be better than the rifle, though weaker.

Gatling Gun - Strong, fast and seems to have unlimited ammo. Sucks at close range though, since it takes a while to spin up, ALA the Team Fortress 2 Heavy.

Shiv- Ranging from screwdrivers to scalpels to various shapes of metal, they all perform the same.

Clubs – Pretty much the same as a Shiv, though has a different attack pattern, so I’ll count it different. Not sure how much better it is, though usually costs more than a shiv.

Knuckleduster/hand-to-hand – This weapon attaches to your knuckle and possibly adds more damage, it is difficult to tell. It is not removable once equipped, unless switching it for a different looking one. Surprisingly, the guards do not care if you wear this around them, especially during the Tower 17 parts. I guess this is attributed to the fact you cannot remove the item, and killing anyone is that part will have you die anyways.

Stun gun- Shocks people, unlimited ammo. The victim will recover after a while, but can be stomped for an instant death. As good as the shotgun, except it takes a long time to recover per shot. Useless against robots and Riot Guards.

As can be observed, there is not a wide selection of weapons. The melee attack of the guns seems weaker than using the shiv or clubs, and so is not recommended. Unfortunately, due to the controls, easily switching weapons in case of ammo depletion is not possible; something to keep in mind.

Finishers are awesome. They make your effort to kill a person have that extra surprise at the end. There are no gun finishers, though the shivs, club, and hand to hand do have some. These finishers are usually gruesome [Shiv in the eye anyone?] and happen automatically if the target gets below a certain health. There appears to be enough frontal finishers that I rarely saw many repeat.

However, for stealth finishers, I found that the same animations occurred too often for my taste. It was either a crepitating neckbreak; for hand-to-hand, a stab in the head; for shiv, or a strangling/bashing; for the club. For a game based a lot on stealth, I think there should have been a couple more of these stealth finishers. The shiv is also slightly strange for its stealth finisher. The stab in the head works no matter what gear they are wearing. It is awkward to see Riddick smack a piece of metal through a soldier’s metal helmet; guess Riddick is super strong.

The game doesn’t go overboard with the guns, thanks to those RPG-esque missions sequences as well as limiting their use. Guns are locked down the majority of the game with DNA, forcing Riddick to use what is presented to him. Through the second half of the game this includes the Stun Gun, which is amazingly effective at killing. The stun gun is limited by the reload time, so a couple areas of great guard density force its holstering for sneaking. This helps keep the balance between pure power and stealth in the game.

Extras: For collecting cigarette packages the player is given extra art. The art is good, but doesn’t feel worth it to collect the cigarette packages for it alone. Also, the art is not so high quality that players can zoom in, like Soul Caliber 2 allows. I suppose disk-space might have been an issue for that. To make up for the averageness, each pack had some pseudo-witty quotes on them, and are interestingly named. That is the real draw; at least it was for me. Also 100% completionism with achievements, but I am not one of those people. The commentary that was in the original director’s cut is removed which is a serious disappointment. I can only suppose the game is so big already that perhaps it wasn’t cost effective to include it on the “DVD” too.

There is money in the game. It is used to buy items, pay off guards or enter bets. It is only useful for the second portion of the game, while in second-tier security. After that, the use of money seemingly disappears, and also stops showing up around the level. No problem gameplay-wise, just something noticeable if the player pays attention.

Conclusion: For $5, I definitely cannot complain. Even at full price I’d say the game is worth getting if you have never played it before. Butcher Bay is good on its own, even if I find that Dark Athena sucks, this portion is worth the price of admission. Graphics were above average though wet and shiny. Sound was quite good. Music is repetitious. Characters and voices were stellar for being unique, even better than Oblivion’s. Enemies do their job, but misleading strengths. Mech scenes are fun. It is refreshing to find games that have RPG elements, but they aren’t forced down the player’s throat, and give a chance for the player to relax in an FPS. Cigarettes and concept art are a nice treat. Confusing story if not in the know. Characters die in gruesomely effective and spectacular ways. HUD and graphical effects are useful without going overboard. Missing extras from previous versions of the game disappointing. Desyncing cutscenes is very sad. Appreciate a game that gets loading done correctly. Getting around the mines is somewhat of a confusing mess, but horrible map, but there are some helpful pointers around.

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by Zott820

Note: One of our faithful readers sent this review in to us. Appreciating biased videogame opinion, we post it here for your pleasure.

By ZenOnion

I found the other day, a game that made me smile when I thought back on the hours I spent playing it— NHL Hitz 20-03 by Midway Home Entertainment. As a Mom of biased gamers, I was challenged by my sons to learn this game. Since they had many years of practice, they were the experts, I was the beginner and to play together was crazy. If you do not have access to experienced gamers who can show you the controls and offer advice it is a good idea to complete all lessons at the Hockey School and then go on to one of the 6 Mini Games to learn how to handle the controls. This I did since the boys decided to keep some controls secret just to mess with me. Much laughing and snickering occurred around me as I provided hour of entertainment for them. This was evident during the many hours I spent in The Hockey School as I learned how to handle the controls and make a fool of myself. I enjoyed the various mini-games and became a better player because of these elements. I found out that expert gamers get very competitive and creative during these mini-games so be for warned. The entertainment value alone in what strange things can occur between players showing off and trying to win is both time stealing and at times indescribable. Many tricks were learned by me by just sitting back and watching. The most enjoyable mini-games to play for us were in this order:

1. Shootout You as Goalie need to protect your goal or you as the shooter try to score. One on one action.
2. Three in a Row Tic-Tac-Toe via stick to puck. The secret to win is to block the shot.
3. King of the Rink Check or sweep players to gain the most points. A player knocked out of the rink earns extra points.
4. Shooting Gallery Shoot the most windows out of a building while on rooftop across the way. Try getting them all in a row, diagonally, or make a design.
5. Own the Ice Grab the puck and skate over 5 areas of the ice trying to change them to your color while your opponent steals the puck trying to do the same.
6. Keep Away Gain points for highest time of puck possession and most successful passes to your team mate.

Now to an actual hockey game—to begin with we would all yell out our preference for the various special themed ice arenas such as “let it snow in the disco arena”. We had customized the Viking team into our franchise team by adding players to match our personalities and physical characteristics. We made a player named Mr. Big who was gigantic— as big and tall as we could make him and who was announced on the ice as “Slim”. There was our favorite female player the “Black Knight” and our high scorer “Mark” followed closely by “Zeus”. I was of course named Mom, but was announced on the ice as “Mummy”. We had the most fun and challenges when we had a total of 4 players competing against each other. A player could change his position on the ice depending on the action or player he wanted to be (forward, goalie, etc). Since I was a beginner to start with I usually locked myself into one position so when I got lost I could scan the rink to find out where I had skated off to by looking for my number on the ice rink. Also by locking in my position I didn’t mess up the game so to speak by getting in the way of the action. As I became a better player I was able to not lock in and could change my playing position as needed. The intent of winning as many games as possible and performing certain tasks or goals was to unlock certain rewards which could be used in future games. It was strange to see elk and other strange characters as players as rewards. You could also earn equipment and experience points to boost your player’s attributes which was our goal. The ultimate challenge for the expert gamers in our house was to see if their Goalie could skate all the way down the ice to the opponent’s goal with the puck and score a point while leaving his goal unattended. The other players did their best to steal the puck.

Lately other games have gotten my attention and the gamers are not around like they use to be. Once in a great while when we have the time, we get the game out and find Hitz 20-03 was always fun to play and still is.

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by Zott820

With the upcoming release of Tropico 3, I felt inspired to go back to the original, and play it. Here, I will lay down my thoughts for you. But first, let me say that the Mucho Macho edition which I have includes the Paradise expansion pack built in. I am unsure how many features were in the original, and which have been added, so I shall just review this complete version and eliminate a two part-er. [Whew…]

Tropico for PC is a Caribbean island simulator, sort-of, it almost crosses the line into overly realistic. You are a dictator whom is cooped up in his palace, and runs the island with an iron first, mostly. At heart, despite trying to be a dictator, you are more often than not a pawn of the people, as I shall go into in more detail.

I’ll start off by going through the modes, and you’ll get a feeling of how the game plays from that.

Build Mode: Here you lay down buildings. The interface is slightly unintuitive. For example, some buildings have an arrow next to them that lets you rotate them. Yet, I’m not sure why this doesn’t appear on all buildings. Are some square and so the turning is negligible? I’m not sure. Even if this were the case, I should still be able to change the facing of the building for my own personal satisfaction. Nothing requires being set next to a road, but I would still like to perhaps makes things face a road for atmospheric reasons.

The elusive arrow has another function; on some buildings, such as farms and mines, it will switch which type of product will be produced from your placed structure. Thus you don’t have to go and change it once it is built, though you can. You cannot rotate these buildings since the arrow occupies the same space where the rotation would be. The developers could have Ameliorated this with two different graphics for the different functions, or at least moved them around. They should also let me rotate buildings with type selectors as well.

Once a building is placed, you have to wait for some construction crew to come by and build it. This can take a VERY long time. The reason for this is that the crew do not like building things far away from them. Thus you’ll have to build a couple of construction crews throughout your city. They will build closest objects first unless you change the priority of the buildings, thus you will want to place one in the center of your city’s extensions. Thankfully the developers included this option otherwise some buildings would never BE built. It is changed by clicking on buildings under construction and choosing one of 4 priority settings. Also, I believe walking tires them, so when they do reach your far out building, they may only work for a little while before heading home.

It gets slightly more troublesome when constructing the building is a pain too. The workers must first remove the trees, which isn’t too bad. Then they must level the ground. This is where the real pain is. If your island is anything but flat, buildings could take forever, especially large ones. For example, the airport, the biggest in game structure, could take practically the whole game to be built, just because the workers spend so much time leveling the terrain. A pure nuisance, despite being quasi-realistic. The developers took it too far with that one. (Thankfully, it seems to be mostly cleared up in Tropico 3, as far as I could tell in the demo)

Finally, after all that is complete, the building can finally be constructed as its yellow building hue becomes fuller and the building pops into place complete. Construction in this game is very crucial; everything revolves around it, and yet is hindered by inclement mechanics. Thankfully the rest of the game is more pulled together.

Ways to make money: Now that you know how to build things, you need to know how to make money, and feed your people. This is done by building structures, which are occupied by workers, and ultimately ship a product. Besides building placement, you don’t have to worry too much about most of the steps in the industry.

Farming - Farming in Tropico has several levels of realism to it. Clouds fly overhead, and change the fertility of the soul. They rain and help the crops. Thus, you must place your farms where they are going to be growing in correct conditions. Luckily when placing a farm, and any resource gathering building, the ground changes to shades of green and red to show where the most suitable places for that building are… at that time. Corn is the easiest to grow of the foods, and usually most of your island is cultivated with this resource. However, it doesn’t make the most money. The rest of the crops are more profitable, yet have more specific growing conditions. One thing I must mention is that you don’t want to place the farms ON the green parts of the map when choosing the fertile land. This is misleading, but your crops are grown on that green, so the workers will plant it there, and they can’t do it if you have just placed a farm on it. It took me forever till I realize this. (I tend to ignore tutorials). Finally, your crops go through a cycle of growing, filtering and harvesting, which have different animations, and are satisfying to watch. Out of all the things included, it seems that farming was a place where assiduity was placed. Kudos. I must mention one thing I did not like about farming. You must grow food to feed your people, yet, you cannot control which food goes to your people, and which goes to your exports. Thus, you might be planting papayas and bananas to export, and your people are eating your expensive produce. Arrgg. A little clicker button for Export only would have been nice, especially when so much else was done.

Mining, Logging, Fishing – Easy resource gathering economies. Just place the building, and the workers take care of themselves. Mines should go near the places where the resources exist. Logging camps should be placed near trees, and fishing near the shortest distance towards the best fishing hole. Fish can be fed to your population, but once again, you cannot control export/local feeding. Trees cut down by the logging camp are renewable to an extent though are sparser than the original tree placement. What is cool is that each tree that has fallen has multiple sections that are cut out. So one tree is not just one log, many of the tree cutters can come by and collect sections of the fallen tree; another welcome attention to detail on the part of the developers.

Ranching – I wanted to mention this one separate from the 3 above. Granted, it is like the others, you just place it down and they take care of themselves, but more micro-details make me fill with glee. I love these micro-simulations because they remind me of the old Maxis games; but enough reminiscing. Ranching is cool because you have a choice of cows or goats. The cows and goats can have children, which will eventually grow up to build up your Bovinian empire. You start each ranch with about 2 cows, and from there they multiply out. The best part of the simulator is the fact the cows and goats terra-form the terrain in real time. You can watch them eat the green landscaping as it transforms to barren brown. It is quite fascinating, and at the same time puts a maximum on the amount of cows you can have. They work to find the green, but eventually they will eat your island bare if there are too many. I guess it is almost representative of the world at large now, but perhaps I’m thinking too far into it.

Industry - All the things listed above are basic money makers. You can dramatically increase your profit margins if you take the raw resources and transform them into things. That is what canneries, cigar factories, and jewelry makers are built for. Granted, it takes more people, and for some reason these structures require workers with high school educations (It beats me why. You have guys cutting down trees but they can’t make a chair out of it? ) At this point, the money made from these structures usually puts the player out of needing money the rest of the game, assuming you don’t spend like a madman or get hit with a hurricane.

Tourism – I’m not sure if this existed before the expansion or not. If it did, the expansion heavily increased the available options for it. Basically, you have to build special structures, like hotels and resort sites. I never fully grasped the intricacies of making money through it, and with the much easier methods of farming/ranching available; I didn’t see much need, unless the mission required it. However, there are a lot of options for hotels and entertainment. Unfortunately, the local populous tend to ignore these places themselves, so in vanilla games they tend to be widely useless. It would have been nice if once again there was a button to make the tourist place a pure local entertainment building. Why can’t my farmers play mingolf?!

The expansion adds new tourist types, which I’m not sure affect much except they have new sprites, sounds and varying types of money. Always good to have more people types just to break up the monotony.
Those are pretty much the major ways of making money. Other ways exist, such as in the output of the entertainment venues you place, and newspaper coupons but they are usually not enough to keep your island growing productively. You can make money though US/CCCP stimulus, but the same idea applies.

The People/Factions: Each person has a set of motives which they follow. These include things, such as food and rest, the two basic needs of Tropicans, as well as entertainment, health, and religion. These contribute to overall happiness. There are more, such as liberty, housing quality, environment, crime that also contribute. Overall, a lot to keep track of. And this is why I tend to juggle them poorly.

Not only that, but each person may be part of a special faction, such as the militants, communists, environmentalists etc. These people feel more strongly about those motives and so if you are failing in those categories, it carries more weight on their overall happiness.

In this way you have to build your infrastructure so that buildings that satisfy the needs are not too far from each other. Therefore, you might have to build a church, a clinic, marketplace and housing right by each other so that the people can satisfy all their wants. This makes for a lot of duplicate structures being needed at the end of the day.
But wait, there is more. People also want good pay relative to other people. But of course you can’t have everyone making the max amount of money or else the relativeness is null. Furthermore, people want jobs that fit their education. Thus you need to make buildings that satisfy the jobs. Luckily, churches and clinics need high school and college educated people respectively, so you’ll always have those to fill as you need to have many to serve the masses anyway.

People also have stats, such as intelligence, courage and leadership. Education level decides what jobs are available for that person to occupy. There is also a “skills” group which shows how skilled the selected person is at each job. They don’t even have to be human; more skilled goats find greener grass better than unskilled goats. The higher the skill, the faster and better they do their job. More educated people learn things faster. More courageous and leading people will rise up against your government more readily if you do poorly.

Besides the information that is vital, there are a couple ever sections that show up per person. You can see a list of “thoughts” which tell you what the character is going to do/joke comments. You can also see the nearby family of the person, (No Sims Family Tree though), age, as well as their birthplace.

All and all, there are a lot of micro-simulations going on for each person of the island. When there are 200 or more people, it can be quite a headache to keep them all happy. And let me tell you, I usually am unable too.

The Almanac: Luckily, there is this tool that helps generalize, and categorize the people of otherwise equivocal needs on your tropical paradise. It also lets you see how close you are to reaching your overall objective for the mission or the score for free-play. You can look at detailed statistics of your population, arranging them in to graphical overlays of education, or sorting them by political faction.

While detailed there are still wants to be had. This is no Excel, nor is it a Google Stock chart. You can watch charts that show popularity over time, and click on and off different factors such as housing’s affect on it, but these things are mostly useless for me. It would have been nice if I could scale the chart freely to see my lifetime happiness as it progressed over time in relation to the other factors, then move it to just the current month, not limited to a set time range. Furthermore, when sorting my population by say, intellectuals, I would have much preferred the game to count the people for me, instead of showing me graphical representations of the people lined up under titles. At least give me the percentage of people in each title per the entire population. These things would help me more accurate gauge the population on certain ideas. Same goes for unemployed/paycheck. At least you can click on the graphically represented people to see who they are in game. This is probably not very useful if there are 100s in the category, but proves the depth that some players could go into running their empire.

Some parts of the almanac are genuinely useful, but getting there is somewhat of a forest maze. For example, to get to export prices, you have to go through 2-3 submenus, the same goes for finding out who is the leader of each faction and what they think about you. I didn’t even know factions had an actual leader that you could see in game until this week! I’m not sure how to fix that without adding more clutter to the overall almanac menu, but I’m sure it could be better integrated.

Despite these hiccups in GUI accessibility, the almanac is very sophisticated and complete. You can find charts of happiness, threats to power, numbers of citizens, where their allegiances lie, how much they are eating, expenses, what kind they were, the economy of the island, how much I am making in each sector, how much rent is costing/making, tourism ratings and profits, and relations to the foreign powers etc. There is A LOT to look over. You could get very deep into the numbers and analysis of your island with everything they have included for you to look over. I’m sure it is useful to some power users, but I find that I ignore the almanac except for looking for specific problems and my player score. Still, I am impressed with how many variables the developers let you look up.

It is hard for me to find anything seriously wrong with the almanac besides the clutter of options available. But, I will add some cavaliers; with so many things already put in why not add in the ability to see where people are living on a mass scale, as well as let me see where they are working. This might make it easier to do a mass firing. Also, it would be cool if I could find out how many strong leaders exist among my population to easily combat. Furthermore good developers, let me bribe and use my militaristic power on the almanac menu, for example, if I wanted to eliminate all the farmers in a mass genocide, I could do it. (There is an option under the Info mode to show the respect of each faction if I wanted to pick them out, but then I’d have to move around to select each one, why not put them all in one place?)

Alright, now that all that is covered we can actually start with the reviewing part.

This game is very complicated as it has many many MANY variables disguised under simplistic graphics. To me, this game has more things to look out for than Sim City. Pretty much the only thing that Tropico doesn’t have to manage that Sim City does is Traffic, though even then, you have to manage layout and distance rather than cars on freeways.

Graphics: Tropico is 3D and 2D. Ships are 3D with poor textures and some sort of single pong lighting. Birds are the same, though you can’t tell since they are small and don’t suffer from the lighting grossness that plaques the ships. The terrain is also 3D, as shown when the constructions workers elevate and terra-form it. Everything else is 2D, including the clouds that hover above the ground.

This is fine as I’d rather have the charming colorful people be high quality 2D sprites, which they are, than the flat ugly 3D models they tried to stick in. I guess it would also be taxing for 200+ 3D models to be roaming around in 2001 when graphics cards weren’t as advanced as they are now. (Heck, there are settings for the quality of the 2D sprites, so that you wouldn’t run out of RAM playing this game. On max settings Tropico uses a whopping 60 Megs for sprites! The whole game was using about 75 Megs at one time. Kind of makes me crinch when Firefox uses 300+ Megs)

The sprites are beautiful, as the walking and acting animations are clean, and each character has their respective job looks. This is cool because ala TF2, you can tell what class someone is/where they work, without having to think twice about it. The characters do twitch as they change directions, but it isn’t noticeable on the fastest setting, which I usually play on anyways.

You can rotate and zoom the camera, though it is not free-flowing. This is fine for the most part, except it has the problem that most isometric games game, some things get blocked. The partial remedy is the “B” key, which makes buildings transparent, but that just makes them look like they could be under construction, minus the yellow hue. Still, it is better than nothing. I still find that to be slightly a problem on densely placed structures.

The game also includes all the tiny micro-simulation details which I mentioned above, such as the farming and grass. Workers stack up their products at their place of business outside, and so you can visibly detect which ones have output to be shipped. They are not a generic package either. Logging camps have logs that stack up, while the ranches output meat “things”. This style reminds me of another game, Stronghold, which uses the same mechanic to show food stores, and an efficient method it is.

There are a couple more problems besides the ugly 3D boat however. Hardware mode for me did not work at all. Whenever I did, I had a skewed screen display with graphical fuzzies all over. I was forced to switch back to software to make it playable. Furthermore, while I like that the resolution can go to up 1600 x 1200 or (possibly) more, I couldn’t get the game to switch to it. I guess my max resolution of 1680 x1050 is just too little under it, and the game doesn’t want to scale it. This is not too much of a big deal though, the game looks good at the 1080x 1024, though is stretched to fit my widescreen monitor. (This is not visible in the pictures here)

One last nitpick on the graphics are a couple of the characters, notable the dockworker have some sort of unclean walking transition where the shadow of the foot seems to stay in one spot till the animation repeats. Hard to explain, but noticeable on the closest zoom. In no way a game-breaker though.

Story: There are mini-campaign missions which have stories, but there is no one main story. Each campaign mission has a different goal, but they are usually similar to as follows: Attract X number of tourists, Build X building, gather X number of Y.

You can program your own missions with external tools, which are available elsewhere on the web. However, there is a built in editor for simple things like adding more workers, or changing the landscape of the island. It was nice for the developers to include this “unsupported” feature. [Hold Ctrl and type editor to access]

Though not a story per-say, the game does have a losing condition that is the same across every mission. Every 5-10 years there is an election. If you lose, you lose the game. Let me tell you, it is not always easy to win these things. In fact, despite the option to rig the election, you can still lose, though from slightly other methods. Choosing to ignore the election often leads to the same results.

If the citizens on the island find the election unfair, and you won, they have the tendency to jump onto the rebel side and try and take down your regime. Not only that, your own military tends to be quick to follow if not happy. So pretty much it is game over if you don’t have enough respect among your own men and decide to cancel or rig the election.
Overall, I found the elections to be quite frustrating. It was hardly ever the actual mission conditions I was failing, it was usually just the elections. I found myself having to cheat past the elections, to try and reach endgame. Quite sad. With the vast plain of variables mentioned before, it is difficult to get a majority, and harder to please everyone.

You can also apparently lose if a foreign power takes over your island, though this has not once occurred to me.

The missions included though are quite fun, and although there is a limitation to the variations of winning conditions which aren’t just different values of other missions, PopTop kept the game flowing with interesting and witty writing, and some missions specific choices which could have any number of outcomes..

Controls: As I mentioned in the almanac, the GUI is both robust, and slightly a pain. Besides merely building things as a dictator, you can also do much more. You have the ability to set wages per each job, and per building as well as the price of admission for that building. I loved the inclusion of this feature, but at the same time, having to choose specific values for each building seemed like an accountant’s dream and a nightmare for players. You can change them based on education level, but I rarely did. Thus, I left most buildings on their default wages and prices. I found messing with them caused more problems with the economy than it is worth and I’m not Timothy Geirner. (Random namedrop, whoot).

In the same ballpark as the wages, you can edit some mini options about how each building is run. Despite the different names for the different jobs, it basically comes down to a couple repeated settings: Running the business for more lucre/maintenance cost for better overall satisfaction, working the workers for less time, changing the output/purpose of the business, and lastly keeping certain people out. I’m sure if I was doing a segregated town the keeping the “undesirables” out might be useful, but I usually don’t. As for increased maintenance costs for less population/increased satisfaction; later on when money is nearly a nonissue, you can pump these settings up just for the heck of it.

As El Presidente, you must do the best for your people, or what you want. Edicts are your imaginary grip on the land. Building and setting wages are but one sense of control, edicts let you actually get some foreign policy magic working. Under this panel you can have people eliminated, always fun if you don’t care about winning, have people fettered, extend relations to the US or Russia, and enable a number of policies that help/hurt your relations with various factions. Overall, I don’t have any criticism of the edicts present, nor are there any that I felt needed to be added. I will say though that some of the prerequisites to use some of the policies are a pain to reach, but not all are truly required to win a mission.

You can also control game speed. I have the same problem with this game that I do with Roller Coaster Tycoon and The Sims 3, the fastest speed is just not speedy enough (and in the case of Roller Coaster Tycoon, there is only one speed…). This means many of the longer missions are drawn out. Plus, you don’t have to do super micro-management like the game does of its own people, so you can usually just let it sit on the fastest setting till you have money to build something. Then you have to wait again, which is why faster speeds are needed. Also, the game pauses whenever you get a news brief. I would have liked to either turn an option on that keeps the background going when I get these, or a at least have a 5 minute limit before it automatically closes. This way, I can leave the game on and do other things, and still have my people slaving away. I might get voted out of office, but that’s what autosave is for.

Sounds and Music: If I had to choose one thing about this game that truly made it remarkable, it would be the music. Every time I hear the main menu theme, it makes me just want to jump back into the game, regardless of how much I sucked at it, or why I stopped playing. The music washes away all doubts, and I’m back again. I suppose my last Video Game Menu Music is one reason this review/strategy article is being written.

The music is hard for me to explain, it just feels like it belongs. Apparently the expansion added more music to the game, but it continues to fit so well that I hardly noticed an extreme variation in style. Out of all the songs, I love the main menu one the best, but there is also an upbeat rumba song that plays every now and then, and it makes El Presidente feel like he’s doing a good job.

Clicking on each character results in them saying a few saying, nothing super impressive, and it isn’t different for the different jobs, which is a little disappointing, but overall, the character voices were unimportant. Tourists from the expansion pack are unique in that there appears to be various foreign language selection voices, IE Some German, French, and English accented ones. These are definitely a step up from the original game voices but not much more than that.

Plenty of bird sounds inhabit the island, as well of the sloshing of waves. They fit naturally, so they are not noticeable until you find them audible when you ALT-TABed out of the game. Glad they are in there. The best sounds are the ones that you don’t notice; it is because they fit so well.

But, above all is the narrator. This, like the music, will draw me back by just making obscure references to it. It has something to do with the delivery and psydo-cuban accent more than anything. This is akin to the narrator of Majesty, whom is memorable for these reasons in his own right. Hearing Tropico’s tropican Hierophant plead to me about how my people are bored staring at grass brings some mild joy during my people’s hardships. Unfortunately, while I do love the adviser and his voice, I wish the developers had perhaps added a couple more variations, or at least changed up the beginning word. When I hear “Presidente” being said to me, followed by “your people” for maybe 3 of the different things I need to watch out for by audible notifications, I have to wait for the whole phrase to be suttered before I can get any feedback. It isn’t instant, even when playing for a while. “Do my people need health care or food? Tell me already!”

It also would have been rewarding to hear the narrator read out the campaign text in his memorable voice, yet the text stays silent. I can understand how it isn’t possible for user scenarios, but put them in for the ones included with the game, pleeeease? Awwww.

Conclusion: This conclusion will largely ignore what I have written and just try and put an overall view of the game. Tropico is a game for people who like economics, and who would love to have a subtle, and not so subtle hand in the way an island of technology-deprived people can live. You can set wages, you can change the living conditions, you can educate your population, or not. You can specialize in a couple different money markers, with some very cool micro-simulations going on in the background if you want to watch them. The almanac included to help run your people is a blessing, and also somewhat of a GUI mess. There is too much to manage, and at the same time, you aren’t really directly managing any of it. Music is wonderful and catchy, as well as the narrator’s voice. With so much included, it is a disappointment that some things were slightly overlooked/left out. If you love watching charts then look at no other game. Sim City pales in comparison to some of the things you can manage here. 2D graphics are pleasant with minor issues, 3D graphics are just ugly. Some technical problems. Building just takes too darn long on the fastest setting, and without the ability to move the game faster than its current fastest, it is slightly annoying. (And no, I don’t want to build 10+ Construction buildings). Voting is both suitable for the game, but a large pain overall, and detracts from the campaign missions, better suited for free play. Witty humor is always a plus.

Even if you don’t like to control everything, I still recommend this game. I can’t remember why I originally got this game, but all I know is that it is fun to play. The game can now be found on the cheap, sometimes maybe less than 10 dollars. He music alone is worth that, so why not get the game and have a vacation down south?

Glitch: Just because I’m cool, I’ll let you in one a glitch I discovered. First of all, the furniture factory was in the expansion, so you may not have it in your game. I haven’t tested it with any other building, but let us continue with it anyways. Hold the furniture factory out like you are going to build it, but don’t place it down. Wait till some construction people come by, and they will try and build it. The building will proceed to get LESS filled in, and when it finishes will be a pile of rubble on the ground. Apparently my game crashed right after, so I’m going to blame that on this glitch. I held the building next to something else I was waiting to be built, and I did not have enough money to build the furniture factory, so it was red. I couldn’t get to it be repeated, though, it happened to me, so it could happen to you if you were trying for it.

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by Zott820

This is one of the few games that I bought based on the demo I played of it. A pre-release demo was put on a PC Gamer disk. I hadn’t heard of the game, yet I tried it once. That transition from CGI to in-game engine had won me at the start, and the graphical bonanza with enthralling action grabbed me deeper. I knew this would be a good game. I put it on my want list. Later, I checked out reviews, and after seeing a 96% from that same magazine, I knew an instant buy was made.

But let me give you my unabridged feeling of the full game. This will be from pre-expansion, since I will save that for another time. This review will however take patch 1.71 into account for Direct X 10, though I’m not sure of the balancing at this point or currently anyways, so it is all relative.

Storyline: Able Company has just landed on the beaches of Normandy. Fox Company joins you. Both must fight their way inland to put an end to the Nazi regime. Missions have you doing various tasks such as holding a hill, eliminating panzer tank divisions, capturing towns and raiding V2 rocket battery sites.

There is a story to this RTS, and most (good) RTSes I’ve played do have stories, so this was not a surprise. I was never strongly emotionally attached to the main heroes, but they helped provide some commentary. There are two allied men that serve as the protagonists; Captain Mackay and Sergeant Conti. They basically talk about the plans for the mission and put the camera on the ground-level, so to speak.

While there are many enemies, further into the game, a primary antagonist is made. He isn’t overly important, but tries to put a temporary face on the evil. (As well as through his “evil” deed)

Overall, story wouldn’t be the reason to plan this game, but it does exist.

The AI in the story mode does a fair job of putting up a fight, but since most of the campaigns have units given to the computer, you don’t really see it build up. In skirmish where the playing field in equal, the AI, even on expert, can be very predictable, and easy to beat. (The newest patches help rectify this, but I’m still counting this only up to 1.71, as that was the last “vanilla” version of CoH)

Graphics: The graphics for 2006 were stellar. Many people, at least from what I heard, though this would be a FPS. (I can’t judge this since I heard about the game just before release), but it could certainly look the part. Both the ground and units are bump mapped, and the lighting looks really good. Bullets wiz by and pick off squad-mates as they dart for cover, Mmmm.

Furthermore, graphics interact with game-play many times, setting it apart from most other RTS. One example is that units can take position behind cover to get bonuses, while those out in the open will be pinned, with units prone and immobile accordingly.

Tanks and vehicles take visible damage if their components are destroyed, with smoking engines, and empty gunner seats.
Smoke effects are clean and have many layers of particles. While most look alike, it is understandable, and really isn’t a problem.

Once again, graphics interact with game-play in another sector of the game. When driving a tank, or even using a well equipped infantry unit, you can blast holes through fences, hedges and walls. This lets both the tank and infantry pass through, and opens up new paths of attack. This seems to happen normally during game-play with explosions, so it isn’t as though you have to think about doing it, though there are times, especially when only infantry are on the field, when you can catch a human player unsuspecting of your unorthodox entrance.

Houses are also destroyable, making any occupants at risk of being crushed if their hostel takes too much fire, or has its supports run out. Tanks cannot run buildings over, but they can smash into its walls, removing support, and taking a lot of health out of the building.

As you can see thus far, the graphics really matter in this game, as the game-play would not be the same without it, but wait there is still more.

Buildings have windows, and while this might seem like common sense, infantry cannot shoot through walls. Thus, if the enemy approaches your fortified building from a side without a window, there is not much you can do about it. While you cannot shoot out at them, they can shoot at you. (For reasons, I’m still not sure why).

Killed unit may or may not be dead. They may be severely wounded. In which case you can zoom in and see them struggling for dear life. They may also drop their weapon when downed. Get some medics over there pronto, and you may be able to rebuild a squad of zombies. Efficient and moral, don’t let your men suffer. You may even be able to salvage that dropped weapon before the enemy does.

Enough about graphics. As you can see, they are brilliant. And, at this time they could run on an average video card at decent frame-rate, so don’t think it is too powerful for you.

But wait… Direct X 10.

Company of Heroes was one of the first games to be released as Direct X 10 compatible. Let me say, that Company of Heroes doesn’t need Direct X 10 to look amazing, it already does. Even today it holds up quite well even though it has been 3 years since release. Better than I can say for some games. But when turning Direct X 10 on for CoH you do get some bonuses. For one, the smoke supposedly looks better because it won’t intercept buildings like most textures do to 3D objects. Furthermore, all light sources are now dynamic besides the global lighting. This means on night missions the lamps should emit their own independent light, effecting shadows in the vicinity. This also adds additional detail to characters, whom while retaining the same textures, seem to have additional depth. In addition grass has been improved, along with more ground debris to mess with.

But, all these extra goods do have a downside. For one the game in that mode runs like a dog, even today. It was bad when the patch for it came out, but now I still think it likes to drop your frame-rate badly. I’m going to say 15 frames are munched on over the DX9 Version. If you have frames to spare, go ahead, but don’t just turn it on for the sake of best quality. When the game looks great already, I feel it just isn’t worth it.

I’m not sure if the problem still exists with the clouds and reflections in the water, but I’m going to assume it is currently fixed.

Cutscenes: With such a great graphics engine, it is only fair to use it right? Relic has two types of cut scenes, similar to Mirrors Edge. In one, you have a pre-load pre-game cinematics that is stylized as though a watercolor painting. These are great looking, though are not “action packed” They are a moment to withdraw from the battles, and think of the entire operation, sort of a narrative flashback. Moving troop markers and arrows compliment the cutscenes.

The second type of cutscene are the in-game ones. These are slightly dynamic too. This I mean, if you destroyed a lot of buildings, the cutscene will show more buildings. Or, if the cutscene is highlighting a road and you built lots of mines and wire across it, then you will see it. They won’t affect the cutscenes, which is a good thing, trust me, but it’s nice to know it really is in-game, unlike some versions of Resident Evil 4’s cutscenes. The syncing of the voices with the mouth movements is good, what makes it more impressive is to remember that this is an RTS, not a FPS. Thus, any mouth movement is setting the standard in my book.

Camera: Control is important in games like this, and it doesn’t fail. You can zoom in to ground level, or pan around units and characters by holding down the ALT key while manipulating the mouse. Pressing Backspace twice will reset your camera quickly if you get caught examining the scenery too much in a firefight. I loved being able to zoom in and out at will, especially with the strong zoom. It let me enjoy the graphics on the characters much more than other games, which may be a few shaded polygons (Ala C&C, even Red Alert 3). I wish that I could have zoomed out a little bit more than the limit, though it is hardly game or strategy breaking. For the most part, the camera will probably remain in its default position throughout the game, but it is nice to have a sense of full control over its placement.

Sounds and Voices: Here is where the game definitely impresses. Graphical leaps were going to be a usual anyways, but the method that Relic (the developer) took with sound made me gasp. Here is why; Take Warcraft 3 for example, if you attack an enemy, your highlighted unit will say something and then go attack. Or if you click to move the unit will say something and then move. Or just click on the unit and it will talk. Company of Heroes has all that, but it goes farther. Move your unit, VO, Click on unit; VO, Attack with unit: VO, Getting attacked: VO, idling: VO, Upgrades: VO, Units Dead: VO, and these are just a few instances. Now you may be thinking that with all these Voiceovers there are too many clogging up the sound stream, but you’d be wrong.

Sounds that are important are sent over the com to you, such as getting attacked, and buildings completed, but others such as the idling and “storytime” do not. By storytime, I mean that occasionally, moving or idling the unit will say something that relates to what they are doing or just a story. Some of the ones involve made-up characters that you’ll never see but are fun to hear about. (Ala, Bobby shot his head off yesterday.) This is amazing, something completely unimportant, and yet also non-distracting is being said, that is fun to hear. It gives the player a sense that the units are “alive”, as per Relic’s intentions. To hear these stories you’ll have to be zoomed in near the units, so it isn’t something that will happen unless you are trying, or waiting for the enemy assault. These sounds happen appropriately too, there won’t be any storytime if the units are being attacked, though they may mutter some remarks about their current predicament. Units that aren’t even yours may be heard if you zoom in close proximity to them.

Now, some games may have 3 different sounds for an action, CoH has more. I’d say there are probably 5 or 6 different voiceovers for an action. Some are different dialogue, but some are the same dialogue but said in a slightly different tone. This guarantees that while you may hear these VOs many times over the course of the game, they aren’t repetitious. I wish most games, RTS or not took this approach. Furthermore, the VOS relate to the situation in a helpful way. You may hear units complaining they are under attack by a halftrack. Not only do you know they are under attack, in the case of Starcraft, but you know by what. Without looking you could rally necessary forces to combat the threat. Another way in which Relic excels in the sound department here.

If a unit is talking and you move the camera off of it, it may either fade out, if unimportant, or if it is a critical VO, will be overlayed with static, as if transmitted by radio. Another immersion effect to good use.

The Germans speak English in an accent, as well as saying a few lines in actual German with some English equivalents. Both work well, and it beats them all speaking in fake British accents.

In regards to other sounds, gunshots ECT. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the sounds but I will say that they sound good. Explosions ring out, and bullets can be heard whizzing by the camera. Sounds off-screen are also more muted, but audible, fitting if they are the loud explosion of a V1 rocket on the home-base.

Units: Here is what really matters, the units and how they interact can make or break an RTS. Let me say, that while this game is not 100% balanced, and will probably never be; it is good enough to play without one unit type getting spammed all the time.

There are two armies available, the Allies, and the Wehrmacht. They both play differently but have similarities. Each army can build 4 basic units, a pioneer/engineer squad, a sniper, a mortar team, and a MG crew. These are the same for both armies, though some slight adjustments to the stats, IE the Wehrmacht mortar team has a longer range than the American equivalent, or the American engineers have 3 men instead of the German’s 2.

Other than those, there are no “duplicates” between the armies. Each has different tiers with different results. In quantity, the Wehrmacht have more units to build in their hierarchy, yet some units are just more powerful equivalents of older ones. The same applies for the Americans, except that the units are hardier, and so can be upgraded to be effective even at game’s end. This isn’t to say that units become outdated for the Germans, but if not supported early units will die quicker end-game.

Company of Heroes different from most other RTSes is that you don’t necessarily have one unit win over the other. Different factors such as range, rate of fire, unit health, and cover matter. By this I mean:

In Warcraft 3: Basic Unit 1 will always beat Basic Unit 2 in combat 1 on 1.

In Company of Heroes: Basic Unit 1 may be stronger than Basic Unit 2, but if Basic Unit 2 is in heavy cover, it may win the fight. Though if Basic Unit 1 rushes the cover, it will take more damage while approaching, but might win in the end.

This is what makes the game enthralling, you have to think about unit placement and how one unit compliments the other correctly if you want to win. You have to position your MG behind sandbags, but also perhaps put an anti-tank gun behind it, so that a tank may be tempted to easily take out the MG, but will not know there is a threat in waiting out of sightline. Or you may have to do the same with a flame tank, if enemy infantry is expected to approach from the rear. Another example is supporting mortar teams and anti tank guns with weak scout cars. The cars are fairly useless at fighting once tanks are on the field, but they give a great sight view, and let the other units fire even out of their own viewing range. It is difficult to describe all the different situations, but needless to say, spamming one particular unit is not the most effective.

There are basically three types of units, ground units, light armor, and heavy armor. Ground units are the usual infantry, and anti-tank guns that inhabit the world. They can be retreated, granting them resistive bonuses as they dart to HQ, and reinforced at less than the cost of new units. This keeps you on your toes, gauging when to retreat, and when to keep fighting, at the chance of losing a precious unit. Light armor includes half-tracks and Greyhound light tanks. These are not as easily damaged by conventional fire, but they will be killed if left with the enemy’s peashooters. Heavy armor is invincible to machine-guns and ordinary weapons. In this case, you better hope you have some Panzershrek RPGs (for Wehrmacht) or Stickybombs (For American Infantry), at least. Different than other RTSes where GIs or marines could take out tanks no problem with their rifles.

It would be a mess to talk about every unit in the game in this review, so let me simply say that there is enough to keep the game strategic, and there are a variety of well-voiced units.

Command Trees: As you play through the game, killing the enemy nets you with command points. These can be sent on one of three available upgrade tech trees. Each army has 3 separate ones, so that is when things start to get messy. In Single player the computer will not use the command tree, though you can, so that is not an issue. Command tree bonuses would be given to the computer in that case automatically. Bonuses granted are not of one type. For example, the Germans are granted the ability to reinforce units at their bunkers if the defense command tree is chosen, while the Terror Command tree may get the fiercesome King Tiger Tank as one of theirs.

Command trees are very important, as once the decision is made to choose one track, you cannot change it. Thus, you have to think carefully of how the enemy will assault you, and choose the best countering special abilities.
Command trees add great replayability online, since it adds a great sense of uncertainty. You may know what units they have, but you may not know what they can call from the air, or summon from the edge of the map to wipe you out, or when.

Multiplayer: To be honest, anything besides the Story section is applicable to multiplayer. Up to 8 people can play. As a side note, there is no “Unholy Alliances” which means that Allies will not be sided with Axis forces. This keeps things “simpler” though I still would have liked the option as I could see some crazy potential, though I know that would make balancing the game even more of an impossibility.

One problem with multiplayer is that the winner can be decided in bad games in as little as 10 minutes. Since the one who controls more resources can build more, they do build more. But, that’s not the problem. The problem is that by capturing points, they also have the potential to build more units, their pop cap goes up. This basically means that the side that has fewer resource points and thus fewer pop cap cannot even build the same magnitude of an army as the other side, even if they have the resources. This makes the weaker side’s fall quite exponential, as they tip more and more into no ability to resist.

With this in mind, the best games are the ones where both sides take heavy losses, and it is never really clear whom is going to win, as every rifleman down is a tip of the balance.

There are two multiplayer gametypes, victorypoint and annihilation. Annihilation is as it sounds, destroy your opposing army. Victorypoint has you capturing specific territories that train the opponent's ticket supply. Unlike the Battlefield series, kills don't drain tickets, so camp away. Alas, some Victorypoint games are just Annihilation games at heart since players often build an army, and rush right into your base, removing you from the game, and making the point of tickets null.

Music: Company of heroes has pretty good music (though the Opposing Fronts expansion has slightly better music). There are a few main themes, as well as some per army. There is a mellow music for your army, and then an action packed music. It fades in and out depending on what is going on on screen. For the most part it works, though sometimes when moving the camera from your base to some soldiers fighting a bike and the sounds blasts to a loud portion of the fight song it just seems wrong

Conclusion: Great game, great replayability. Multiplayer will keep you on your toes. Graphics are phenomenal, for the time, and even now. Sets new ground for RTSes I’ve played. Somewhat glitchy at points, even with the latest patches (Not gamebreaking like Crysis Warhead). Voiceovers are simply amazing, and don’t make me want to tear my ears out, in fact some of the sayings get stuck in my head. Gameplay keeps you on edge.

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by Zott820

This is not so much a game as a choose your own adventure book, or an interactive novel/movie. In fact, the game could be attributed more to a movie, since to start a new game you select “New Movie” on the main menu. Not only that, the tutorial level has you walking through a movie set to learn the controls as your very own crash test/3D animation dummy.

But first, let me say that I played through this game completely once, collecting extras where I saw fit/ got lucky. It probably took around 10 hours to completion. I sought out to play this game after I played an appetizing demo that came on a PS2 disk. Regardless, I played the PC version for hopes of better graphics, and more accessibility. Also, I tried to play the unrated version, but got some kind of mix, not sure what happened there.

Story: The story is linear. The ending is changeable, but is only really decided in the last 5-10 minutes of the game, therefore the game is mostly linear. However, the approach that the storytelling invokes gives the player a sense of control. It is possible to make decisions, and even play as both parties to determine the outcome. I will go into this soon.

Firstly, you play Lucas Kane, whom is possessed and commits a murder. You then take control of him as you evade police as well as find out what has happened to you.

Here you can control the story elements. When you start out in the diner, you can choose to hide the body, gaining you extra time to make decisions, clean your hands, so that the waitress won’t notice you are covered in blood, or not do anything. If you don’t do anything, you’ll go out, the waitress will scream, and you’ll have to escape the diner quickly to continue the game. Or, you can choose the ending where you lose. In these cases, it IS an ending, just not a complete one, though I’m sure you could believe that it is the proper ending, letting the “innocent guy” rot in jail, and throw the game back on the shelf to collect dust, but that isn’t really how to play this game, let alone most.
So you will escape from the dinner, and depending on what clues you left behind, Shakespeare, a ticker reel, fingerprints etc. The investigators, Carla Valenti and Tyler Miles, whom you also play, will try and determine who you are. Ultimately Lucas Kane will be discovered as the murderer, like I said linear plot, but you get to choose in what detail.

I’m not sure the different ways, but the investigators search for clues in bookstores, and also question victims. I do know that you can have the waitress match Lucas’s face for a profile, which is a little mini-game while I failed, or have the ticker tape matched with the occupation of Lucas which is what happened in my game. Ultimately, the investigators question you at your place of work, where as Lucas you can hide clues, or as one of the two investigators, try and find them.

The story is split into chapters. After each chapter you can choose one of the three characters to play as for the next scene. Ultimately, Lucas’s scenes are separate from both investigators, while sometimes the investigator’s scenes are mostly a preference of character. In some scenes you may even take control and switch off between them. This was cool, and necessary, as some scenes force you to look around as both characters, such as at a crime scene, or at the character’s apartments.

Regarding dialogue, not only was the voice acting good like I mentioned, but there were usually more than one dialogue tree that would progress that story. I welcomed this, since sometimes I had died, and upon reloading I didn’t want to hear the same 5 minutes of dialogue I had just completed. It also helped to ease you out of the feeling of linearity that the overall plot actually is. Though, like most of the things, once the initial investigators as to who the murderer is, the dialogue trees sort of fade out in importance, as most of the plot is fed to you anyways.

This whole beginning portion of the game was fun for me. It really empowered me as a player, thinking that my actions had weight on the plot. Not, only that I felt I was choosing Lucas’s Fate. In my game, I tried to keep Lucas anonymous as long as possible, but I suppose one could do the complete opposite, arousing a lot of suspicion, and leaving clues everywhere. I am unsure how much the plot can be melded at this point, though I’m assuming not too much, and would only change the dialogue in the chapters, not skip over them.

Besides directly interacting with the story, it is possible to decipher it through third party sources. By this I mean listening to the TV, and browsing the internet on Lucas Kane’s computer. Even near endgame there are at least a couple objects which indirectly give story. A radio for one gives updates on military and weather conditions throughout the world. All these elements are completely optional, but like the tapes in Bioshock they help give more details and emerge you greater into the story-soup.

With the good voice acting and narrator, I felt connected to the characters I was playing, hoping to see more, and to hear the end of the story. But, I found out later that this view would change.

Around the halfway point the game started to lose its grip. It started to introduce a lot of paranormal elements. This would be okay, and in fact the game was still interesting and playable, but it got worse. Within maybe the last hour to hour and a half of gameplay, all the prior characterization that was done up to there was completely thrown out the

window. The developers not only introduced a main enemy, but threw in a new love interest, and destroyed the slow but poignant storytelling up to there. This almost made me want to stop playing the game if it weren’t for the investment of time and emotion up to that point. This is an example of what I have heard about the lack of falling action in game plots, the game raises to a threat, and unfortunately, it tries to keep the action rising, but ultimately falls flat, and not in the good gradual way. Especially this game, which is in itself a movie, should at least try to be consistent with novel devices.

The later story moves slow too. Looking online I discovered the story-elements out early on. For the beginning of the game this was useless, since you still got to play it your own way. Later, with the supernatural, it took forever just to get tiny bits out of the story. Mayans, There I saved you a 15 minute scene which does little for the plot anyways. With a game based around storytelling more than action, I am sorry it had to end so poorly, if only the game were continually good all through it.

Controls: The controls were made for a console, no doubt about it. There are 3 varieties of control. You have: (I made these names up) context actions; in which you must move the mouse/thumbstick in the movement patterns of the action your character is doing, Memory; in which you must repeat colored directions using the thumbstick/keyboard, and pacing; where you must press right and left with proper pace/timing (Two versions).

The memory one was by far the most common, and the easiest, though the least rewarding. It became a bore around the same time as the story starting failing, ironically, being used more and more. During cutscenes it would appear, and depending on your accuracy of the presses you would get different results. Unless lives were involved you could probably fail these events with no real problem, as they seemed more to keep the player occupied/alive during dialogue sections.

The fast pacing one sucked, mainly because you couldn’t jam the keys super quick, it had to be a gradual one key press at a time, yet it still needs to be fast. I had the fault of pressing them super fast and failing a helicopter cutscene so many times. AHHH! The scenes using them are quite long, so you had to keep the “breathing” motions going, maybe even for 15 seconds.

The slower pacing version is more immersive, since instead of being focused primarily on the button smashing, you usually have this one in the background of the story. IE, for one part you are navigating a basement but have to keep breathing calmly, so the player must alternate left and right keys to keep the meter in the center, not too fast, not too slow. It also isn’t as picky on timing as long as you keep it centered overall.

The Context action was the main form of navigation control outside cutscenes, and was my preference. It was abused for some climbing sequences, where you had to move the legs and arms as you rose many times in awkward mouse movements. Notable is that you can slightly move the contextual action and your character will start to do that action, but you can cancel it, and the character will back off before the action is completely initialized. Kind of neat I thought made me feel more in control this way.

Otherwise movement besides these were simple. Walking is the usual. However, running is a bit of an issue since you cannot change directions while running or else you will halt. I wish I could be a free roaming jogger, but I guess the game doesn’t want that. Plot the coordinates into the navigations computer before you go to hyperdrive I suppose.
On the computer the left mouse button can move the camera around the room for free look. It let me admire the environments and see things that the follow cam would be hard to focus on.

I also want to briefly mention the camera. Most of the time the camera follows behind the character. There are cinematic-esque parts though where you are greeted with multiple camera angles, allowing you to move, and see yourself from many positions at once. It is not often I see this technique done in games, since they seem to distance yourself from being the character. In this game though it works, we aren't playing the character's view only interacting with their story, and I felt the camera system was effective and helped highlight points of interest too.

Graphics: Since this is a PS2 game at heart, there is nothing super impressive; I will say though that some of the snow is quite graphically appealing. The game has a Mass Effect grain effect, which I found less annoying/noticeable than Mass Effect’s so it stayed on throughout the game. Also, the characters usually have smooth animations though the facial

animations are not always up to par. Tyler’s smile for one is super scary and will give you nightmares. The textures are blurry, but many items decorate the landscape. Therefore, it is a tradeoff, items are of the low quality variety, but there are many of them detailing the apartments and basements of the game, that if you look at them from a far, they look quite stunning. Boxes, phones, pictures on walls, figures; good from afar but far from good. In this way, I found environments to be quite detailed and a compliment to the detail acute developers.

Despite playing on the computer, the graphics were limited in resolution to about 1280x 1024 tops. I did throw on 8x of anti-aliasing, but that didn’t seem to do much. The game wouldn’t have looked better on the console anyways. This game isn’t about the graphics though; it is about the story, which I don’t have to tell you about again.

Characters: Different than story, I’m going to introduce a few of the characters to you.

First we have Lucas Kane. He is the main character. He works in a bank, and murders someone in a diner while possessed by an ancient Cult that has leaders in every wake of society. I’ve probably killed about 3 hours of the game’s soap-opera right here, but I’ll say a bit more. He does a lot of inner thinking, mostly because he doesn’t have characters to converse with besides himself. Had a girlfriend, no longer, in more ways than one. Halfway through the story he dies. But then, you should stop playing once that happens if you care about story. I still don’t understand the whole coming back to life part, and I guess I never will. You get to play a few special scenes where he is a kid. These involve sneaking around Metal Gear Solid style and saving/letting burn little kids. Also Lucas is infected with radiation.

Carla Valenti: Police officer, not really supa sexy, but not tough either. Afraid of the dark. There was an especially notable cutscene involving that fact as she has to retrieve documents down in the basement. You can fail and Tyler will take over the part or complete it against her wits. Later a mini-game is applied involving an insane asylum where you get some FPS action going in the dark, which I also liked. She likes to walk around her apartment in her underwear, and have flings. Compared to Tyler she is more logical and focused. (Though this idea dies at that special midpoint when she kind of does whatever)

Tyler Miles: Has a girlfriend who seems kind of whiny, slutty and unimportant, which is why I won’t even give her a character profile. He seems “hip” at least to himself, though is more tired and lazy. His scenes have you jive-walking to find clues, go to work, or interview people, much to his reluctance. He quietly exits the story later in the game, good or bad I couldn’t see.

Oracle: Works for a cult, has special matrix-like powers. Can summon you to the spirit realm, except without the dueling and card battles. Captures small children from their beds, given the opportunity.

Markus Kane: A priest. He is also a whiny character who doesn’t believe a thing that Lucas Kane tells him. Later he semi-does.

Waitress and Diner Guard: The dinner guard is cool. He only has 2 or so scenes, but something about him made him seem cool. Waitress likes to cry and pester you about your dinner’s bill/bloody hands.

Mini-games: A good break from the storytelling, some are good, some bad. The good ones are the few I alluded too already, the sneaking around the military base, and escaping from the insane asylum. These are good because they break from the usual mechanics of button pressing and context actions.

There is a first person shooting range, but it is one of the poorest shooting ranges in any game I’ve tried, even America’s Army. It is flat out boring, shooting at targets and having to hit so many to hear the next segment of dialogue. Repeat that sequence of events 4 times, and you are already sick of it once you find out the trend.
There is the face-matching with Tyler and the Waitress to get a profile of Lucas. I thought I did well on this, but apparently my “sketch” wasn’t close enough. If you’ve played those Warioware games where you must pick the proper face parts, it is almost exactly like that but in longer than 3 seconds.

A boxing mini-game relies on the button pressing to success as Carla spars with Tyler. For some reason it was quite fun, and even a bit challenging, as the pattern flashed quickly by and the animation was elegant acting out the moves. A basketball mini-game is similar, just with a different setting.

Overall, the mini-games were good, though ones that simply relied on the same button matching and tempo were usually not that great unless they felt strongly motivated by action or just felt special.

Sound and Music: Sound is fine, I can’t recall any moments that stood out to me where the sounds were brilliant. Not a game that requires surround sound either.

Music WAS good, and had the mopey tone of the plot and its characters in a snow-laden city. Though, while some songs were used in one scene and then dismissed, others reappeared constantly. This isn’t in the way of the Battlefield Themes where they may have different tones and moods, the songs were the same. The main theme for one didn’t seem to be used that often at the beginning, but I was getting sick of hearing it after a while. I will comment that the music is original, and that especially songs that appear during some of the minigames or cutscenes that aren’t atmospheric, and are meant to be on the radios/TVs did a swell job capturing say, a country, rock or [genre] ambiance.

Bonuses: You can collect point cards which can be redeemed for soundtrack pieces cutscene sequences and develop commentary. The soundtrack unlocks unfortunately can only be played within the game. I would have liked to have been able to find them in a folder for my own personal use after unlocking them, much like Leisure Suit Larry 7 did with its pin-up art. Alas, it is somewhere hidden in the game files, despite your masterful unlocking.

The commentary discusses the game creation, voice acting, etc. There are also a couple of joke cutscenes available for unlocking. One has a strip show from Tyler’s girlfriend, but since she is kind of annoying, I felt the scene was overly drawn out. Another one has Tyler being molested by the crafty Bookstore owner, which was quite funny.

Once you have unlocked a chapter you can go back and play from that point, along with any of the mini-games in the bonus menu, as long as you encountered it during the story. (Not all mini-games/sequences just appear for you as you progress linearly through the story; you may have to use certain conversation options to reach them. [They may all become unlocked once you beat the game, whether you saw them or not but I cannot confirm this])

One bonus you can unlock shows a vignette of every character model in the game. If you don’t want plot possibly spoiled, don’t unlock it. It is the last one on the right of the cinematic unlock menu IIRC.

Lives: Wasn’t sure where else to put this. During the course of the game you have a set amount of lives. You can have up to 5, and scattered around the levels are extra lives. I’m not sure if and when they reset, but I’m assuming they do. The function of these lives is to prevent you from having to redo cutscenes over and over. If you are working on a cutscene with the button memorization or the pacing part and fail, it will show a failure clip and take away a life. Fail with no lives left and it is Game Over, or the story ends there with a tragic ending of sorts. I felt these were a pain, mainly because the memorization/pacing sequences in and of themselves became tiresome, but once you got the hand of the intricacies of the buttons you had to press, the lives were hardly an issue. Though, playing with one live really set you on your toes for fear of redoing the part.

Conclusion: I recommend this game, because it felt original. Yes the plot does degrade but the time spent with the good parts are certainly engaging and worth trying the game out for. Think of it as one of those interactive novels; to try and make it anything else would be a disappointment. Strong characters and dialogue with some good soundtrack selections. Weird gameplay mechanics, with some surprises. Not sure what happened to all the great creative spirit near the end parts.

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by Zott820

As I have written on my blog, Ghostbusters: The Video Game is a success as both video game and an installment in the Ghostbusters cannon, even if you have no intention of touching the games multiplayer component. After two weeks of playing online, I can tell you with confidence that the multiplayer is good too. It’s not must-play, but it is both very unique and very polished which is incredibly rare for licensed games which are usually formulaic and slipshod.

The unique aspect of Ghostbusters’ multiplay, is that it is fully co-operative. You are always fighting NPC ghosts with other players controlling Ghostbusters. Before you throw your hands up in disgust, know that there are a number of different game types within this formula, such as Protection (essentially a mix of keep away and king of the hill), Thief (where you prevent ghosts from snatching four idols), Destruction (where you have to destroy idols that serve as ghost spawn points), and Slime Dunk which is like playing basketball with Slimer as if he were a basketball, and a ghost trap as if it were a hoop.

Teamwork can be fun!

There is a competitive aspect to the game in that each ghost you capture awards you points ($), so if you capture a ghost by yourself, you will end up with more cash than if you worked with other players. Of course, it is much easier to catch ghosts when working together. So when your other three teammates have been knocked down, you can either try to take out the ghosts by yourself for the big bucks, or do the right thing and help your fallen comrades.

The polish doesn’t come from the generous trimmings (a well developed ranking system with special uniforms, a roster of most wanted ghosts) but the balance. When I played this game I kept seeing ways the play could have felt broken or gone wrong, and was delighted to find it worked. Since the game is not strictly a shooter, or even a RE4 style shooter, but a shooter/wrangler, its game play feels a little bit ‘different’ to begin with. If the boys at Threewave Software didn’t do a hell of a lot of balance testing, the multiplayer would have imploded under the weight of its own awkwardness. Defense kinda sucks sometimes since your default proton-stream has weak stopping power against full powered ghosts who come barreling into your PKE disrupter, but everything else feels strong.

Despite the fun single player campaign, and the surprisingly robust multiplayer, Ghostusters is missing something. Most people won’t notice it, because it is a feature which has been silently dragged down a dark alley and brutally shanked to death. I speak of course, of split-screen multiplayer. Sony and Microsoft have realized that they can make a hell of a lot more money if everybody needs to buy a separate console and a copy of the game (and in Microsoft’s case, pay a subscription fee), rather than just bringing an extra controller to a friends house. It’s not only loathsome but sad, as well. Our monitors have never been bigger and better equipped to show four screens at once, and now the feature has been brushed into obsolesce.

The corporations will likely claim there is no demand for it, which is a lie (I want it. I know others who want it), or that online multiplayer can offer all the same experiences as local, but this is a falsehood as well. Local multiplayer is the backbone of party video games, and if ever there were a title that screams “mad party potential” it is Ghostbusters. It is clear that fitting in split-screen multiplayer is no big deal, because the Wii Version allows you to play the entire campaign in split-screen co-op. Throwing that in on the Xbox 360 and PS3 would have been nice, but including true local multiplayer, that is “the busting of ghosts outside the context of the games main storyline”, would have given this title some serious legs, which is sadly what it needs most of all.

In conclusion, I give Ghostbusters: The Video Game a score of Slimer out of Gozer divided by Grundel, which translates to "You should at least rent this game."

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by Sarcasmancer

I feel confident that I can review Battlefield 1943 based on the 30 minute demo. I can do this since the demo was representative of the full game. With the luck of server rotations, I would be playing on Wake Island only. Writing about the demo and calling it a review of the full game is usually something that would get you fired from mainstream video game review sites. Luckily, I can only fire myself and I’m not going to do that. The real reason I am confident to review a demo as the full game is that I basically experienced everything there was to do in the game during the 30 minutes. My prior Battlefield 2 and especially my Bad Company skills allowed me to dominate the competition. Thus I was able to “accelerate” my game like all those gamer drinks promise they can do:

Game Engine and Controls:
Since BF 1943 is directly running on the frostbite engine, you are going to notice that the game plays almost identically as Battlefield Bad Company. DICE has made some small modifications to the engine to make 1943 in some ways better than Bad Company. To start, there is no infantry health bar; if you survive damage, your character will slowly recover. This is an improvement to Bad Company’s darkening of the screen when your health was low. It made sniping and seeing difficult and was generally annoying if I wasn’t playing a class that could heal in Bad Company. In BF 1943, thank god DICE has fixed the way that running is handled. In Bad Company, you had to firmly hold the left thumb stick to continuously run. This was a flawed design, especially compared to the superior Call of Duty 4 running by just hitting the left thumb stick in for a second. BF 1943 follow the correct way to incorporate running controls: you just tab the left thumb stick and run as long as you are moving the thumbstick in a forward direction. Your character feels a lot more nimble while running and I used it effectively to avoid enemy tanks. A general feeling with the BF 1943 controls is that they are implemented well. I was able to pull off some good aiming and dodging. Basically, I felt empowered by the controls even though they were on a console. My PS3 controller did not disappoint.

Server Issues?
I should briefly mention that I didn’t have any problems getting online in BF 1943. I played the demo July 19th, which was after all the demo traffic dropped off I guess. People online complained that they couldn’t get onto servers. That was probably the 360 version or before EA added more servers. The server issues, for anyone that had them, is not a huge issue. Yes you paid $15 and it’s mainly an online game. These server issues were nothing compared to the pain suffered by the hands of Sackboy in his LittleBigPlanet. THAT was a server issue. I could see Media Molecule just assuming their one server running windows 95 and 1 ghz of CPU would be able to handle that anticipated game. EA responded very quickly to solve whatever issues were out there. I didn’t suffer so boo-hoo. The servers will be online till EA decides to yoink them for Madden 25.

BF 1943 Domination
As for the actual game, I was able to play around 3 rounds, with 2 full rounds of domination. I started the game on the losing team and they were losing so badly that I couldn’t save them. Since BF 1943 is based on the existing Bad Company engine, I had zero learning curve. I primarly played the anti-tank class and was randomly chosen Japanese to start. That class gets a crossbow looking smg (like the crossbow from Bioshock for some reason) and a Anti-Tank rocket weapon that looks like the one in Battlefield 2. Note that this was the Japanese weapon look, the American weapons looked different. That anti-tank class also gets a wrench, so tanks can once again dominate instead of air. I spent probably 10 minutes in a tank capturing points before I finally decided to jump out because a bridge was destroyed. I made my way over to the next spawn point and got my instant melee kill with the wrench. I next moved to the airfield and captured that easily. I pulled off epic Anti-Tank kills and had the range with my primary weapon to keep enemy infantry at bay. People playing BF 1943 must either didn’t know what to do or are PS3 noobs (ala 3rd level FPS tier. Xbox 360 is the 2nd tier and PC is the Godlike 1st tier. Just look at games like Unreal Tournament and Quake and you will agree about their mouse and keyboard domination. The Wii doesn’t show up in the FPS tiers for lack of competitive FPS) Anyway, the people weren’t much of a challenge. I ended up getting first in points and kills for my team.

The next round, I was put on the American side. I decided to try out the sniper class. This class also seems very powerful because they have some sort of C4 like weapon they can lay down and then remotely detonate. Thus I used it to destroy fences to quickly cap the airfield as well as take out a enemy jeep on the move. I probably got some kills with the sniper rifle, I can’t remember as I finish writing this review days after I played the demo. There is probably not much to see there folks. A sniper rifle is a sniper rifle. They are either overpowered or weakened. It seems like they aren’t overpowered since not many people were playing them. Fairly, I can’t evaluate the sniper weapon as I didn’t encounter many snipers in the demo.

Planes
At one point I got into a plane and was able to control it relatively easily. The controls were not airplane inverted so up on the controller moved the plane up in altitude. Enemy planes have a red box to signify they are bad. This makes it really easy to line up the machine gun. Since I was Japanese, I knew that even though I had critically damaged the enemy plane as we approached each other I had to go all the way. I continued to fly right at the enemy plane even as he was slightly descending and got my kamikaze kill in for the day. The Wake Island ancestors would be proud, I brought them much honor. My other time flying I dropped some bombs and did alright.

DICE has consistently tried to weaken the air units after in Battlefield 2 the jets were unstoppable under flying masters. In BF2, jets could easily aim their machine gun and pick off infantry. The jets bombed the hell out of people on the servers. They danced around anti-air missiles and destroyed rival air assets. There were no jets in Bad Company, only a helicopter which was weak compared to a tank or a machine gun. In Battlefield Heroes, the plane is very weak and gets destroyed by infantry weapons. The plane is supposed to be strong against tanks but I haven’t seen it proven in battle. In Battlefield 1943, the plane is again much weaker. The machine gun doesn’t seem like it does that much damage and the bombing was difficult to use with my limited time. I doubt that planes will dominate the battle as long as DICE continues to learn from their mistake. Battlefield 2 should have been called JetDomination 2: Revenge of the Planes.

I briefly tried out the anti-infantry class as the demo was on its final rotation for my time limit. It starts out with a bolt-action gun and a grenade launcher. I tried out the weapon on the carrier but wasn’t able to try it out. I wouldn’t play with this class anyway since the anti-tank class seemed to be the best. I’m sure that the grenade launcher is as powerful as it is in all games.

Overall:I’m going to wait for the PC version of 1943 since the game needs mods for longevity. There will be someone out there that will remake the BF2 or other oldschool maps for PC users to enjoy. Another factor for my decision is that I will be getting/building a new PC soon so I might as well pay the same price and get the hardcore competition.

PS3 Reviews Game: Some people say that Warhawk is a better game, some people are stupid. My processor could render more aggressive online opponents for Battlefield 1943. The smooth framerate and budget price makes me happy but there is a small problem. Three maps do not impress me. You’ll completely forget about this game when Call of Duty: Modern Warefare 2 comes out even though 1943 isn’t bad. I look forward to rendering that beautiful and colorful Call of Duty….

*Images from EA BF 1943 website

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by BlueZero

Background: I love Gauntlet, this is a certainty. My love is very narrowly focused; I adore the masterpiece Gauntlet Legends for N64 and tolerated the worse off sequel Dark Legacy on Gamecube. Gauntlet 1 and 2 are very boring and do nothing for me. Thus, I welcomed myself to the pain I knew I would experience with the GBA version of “Dark Legacy”.

Story: There always is a simple story for Gauntlet. Sumner, not to be confused with the season summer, is a yellow colored mage who lives in a castle. The “EVIL MAGE” Garm, Sumner’s younger brother decides he wants to play with some advanced magic from the Runestones, summons Skorne, some hellfire demon. Skorne, proving to be “too strong” for Garm to handle, decides to kill Garm and “scatters” the Runestones through the realms so he can’t be challenged.

(I had absolutely no idea that Midway just ripped off the introduction FMV of Gauntlet Legends for PSX to create the intro for Gauntlet Dark Legacy. The Dark Legacy intro now has less impact.)

Now, take all this information you just learned and omit it from the GBA version. The game starts without a cutscene and a few lines of text detailing none of the above.

“Step forward minion. Many have travelled (sic) this path you follow. All have failed. Your desire to face the forces of darkness will prove your undoing. You must face Garm’s evil forces in each of the five realms. Return them to their underworld and you will earn the respect of the entire world. Fail and …….. Come to me now and I will tell you more about your quest.

Whoever was the script writer for this game should be fired instantly. Not only is there a spelling error of “travelled” in just a few lines of text, but Sumner would never refer to the heroes as minions. That would be a term used for the enemies/respawning hoard. Sumner would say the following:

“Welcome hero (Blue Wizard, Red Warrior, Green Archer, ect.). Garm has used the power of the Runestones to unleash evil upon the five realms. I turn to you to banish the evil from the land and stop Garm, my misguided brother. Go forth now and end his dark legacy.”

Gameplay and Sound: To sum it up in one word, this is Gauntlet, version .05. The developers of the game have the basic scenario down: kill enemies, kill enemy generator, collect loot, level up, ect., but completely fail in execution.

By game, I refer to the first level which took forever to beat, was very boring, and only 8 creatures could spawn at once on screen EVER. This means that I could let ~8 enemies spawn, let them chase me, and then just walk to the exit. Gauntlet is about huge number of enemies onscreen. I understand the GBA is less powerful, but SNES games could put tons of sprites on screen at once, Gauntlet’s ugly isometric enemies aren’t pushing any limits. When I mean walk, I mean walk. I was using the archer, which is the fastest character, and it took at least 20 minutes to beat the first level.

A glaring omission comes from the lack of the turbo system. This is the positive reinforcement that makes trudging through the hordes of enemies worth it. You know that in a certain amount of time, that you can unleash the BFG, Demon Skull, or Ball and Chain. Gauntlet Dark Legacy GBA has no turbo system, thus no cool special effects to kill the 8 enemies.

Let’s just say I wasn’t playing the game on my native GBA, so I am not sure if the enemies on screen were lagging. I did see my characters movement speeds vary, so there is probably game slowdown.

Sound is directly tied into gameplay for Gauntlet games. The Announcer, ala Sumner in Dark Legacy, is the voice of reason. He tells you important facts such as “Don’t shoot food” and “Use keys to open chests” and “Blue Wizard is about to die”. The game has voice for the character select, but that is it. Once you are in the game, you will never hear the voice again.

The worst part of the sound that exists is the background “music” which is more like someone failed to create a midi their first attempt and then ran with it. This is some of the worst background music I have heard; it was like listening to an album getting scratched.

Fun Factor: Here is why there is a lack of fun factor with the game: Too few enemies onscreen, “automatic” combat when close is poorly implemented, no Announcer voice and no reason to collect gold? I stopped playing after the first level because it was a chore to go through the game, even with my Gauntlet love. Sumner wasn’t popping up a menu to spend money, so I figure it is useless. The BIGGEST mistake with this game is that it is SINGLE PLAYER ONLY!

Gauntlet’s “Multiplayer” in this game is the fact that the player has enemies to attack or can switch characters to start a new game. This design choice makes the game alone a failure of the Gauntlet name if I were to check the back of the box.

Graphics: Graphics are passable for what I would consider the first generation of GBA games. The designers should have stuck with a top down perspective or done a much better job with the “3D” look of the 2D sprites. The enemies in Gauntlet games have always been low quality, but the look of these enemies make it hard to see what they are. I can see the red scorpions, but the bigger grunt guys don’t look like anything I’ve seen. The fire creatures are downright ugly. Most of the graphics have been based off the existing Dark Legacy for consoles for the Sumner’s Tower hub.

The Bottom Line: This is a travesty of the Gauntlet brand name. Here I thought Seven Sorrows was the worst “modern” Gauntlet game, but along comes Midway with a cash-in on GBA by outsourcing to a developer which doesn’t understand the game. No omnipresent narrator ala Sumner, no multiplayer, no turbo, no big enemy spawn, no fun. Any of the other Gauntlet games are more fun, even the old console ones were you could glitch through walls. At least that was entertaining. This game makes me pessimistic for the isometric DS Gauntlet that has been delayed many times. Maybe the designers finally played the GBA version so they could get the formula straight.

If Midway were still a viable company with control over the Gauntlet IP, I would be the best game director for the Gauntlet franchise. Listen up whichever company gets the license, I could return the game to the glory of Gauntlet Legends for N64 with updates. If not, I’m going to make a clone of the franchise stealing the best parts of other games.

As a way to ease the pain and slow the tears, please enjoy this YouTube Gauntlet Theme Remix on guitar by fr3rdsky:

GBA reviews game: A Gauntlet game without multiplayer is a poor choice when I support link cable with up to four players. I can handle isometric games and I can render more than 9 sprites at once. I can have more fun with better games than this Gauntlet. I’m the modern SNES, I deserve better.

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by BlueZero

I rent game b/c heard 4 hours. Minimal investment.

Beat game once on normal; 5 hours.

Story: Jack kill people. The End. Lingering voices;duty, honor, policy. NO, #1 = killing.

Graphics: NO progressive scan?! Blasphemy. 21st century fail

Eye popping graphics. Welldone B/W JFO, some yellow. Maybe Increase eyesite

Minor slowdowns. Cutscene = remove enemies then reappear.

Repetitious animations. Smash helicopter 5 times? ARG!

Enemies: Kill enemies in interesting ways. You is on TV.

Enemies vary on levels.

Theme levels make ninjas + space guys. They like Special attracting items.

Minibosses: Some hard, some easy, immediate problem.

Bosses: Punchout style if you want to win. Your Lives = 2 normal, 0 hard. Respawn = enemy keep damage. Nice. Punch or Chainsaw, good either way.

Power Struggle = chance for carnage damage.

Ways to kill: You have chainsaw = 1 hit kill. Avoid, kill more better ways. A= fist kill, B = chainsaw kill. Special is nicer.

Not unlimited killing instruments. :(

Handheld weapons: Each level maybe 1-2. Usually club or dual knives. I disliked both. These bored me. Level specific items: both good and bad, want on all levels.

Every level has Poles, barrels and rose gardens. Up to 5 in head. Combo with flaming barrels and dumpsters.

Annoying garden roses, must repeat animation 3 times, no no no.

Throw into things = cool/useful. Make cool deaths / save time.

Black Baron and the Bloodbath Challenges: The Black Baron, pimpin pottymouth.

Running killing gag = entertainment.

Bloodbath challenges, slice up main game, sidequest is good. Creative and unique.

Control: Waggle = not overloaded, enough. Sometimes, hard to get B when waggling.

Jack Bike Missions = limited in scope and fun. No Mario Kart

Taunt button = meh

Music: Hiphop and rap. Not Sonic Adventure 2’s Knuckle Bad. Some catchy.

Yo Yo Yo, have an example.

Sounds = decent. Wii-Mote sounds = good addition.

Voice Actors not bad.

Commentary: No lols but witty. Greg Proops and John Dimaggio = :D.

Repeating dialogue. Repeating dialogue repeating dialogue. Not enough for pickups. :(

Conclusion: This whole review is the conclusion.

1. http://thenumber35.webs.com/walkthroughs/mad_world_script.html

Check out that link for an unofficial version of the script. Check it out if you want to see what the commentators are actually saying.

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by Zott820

I rented this game. I have the tendency to do this when I hear games have a playtime of about 4 hours. I figure, if I can complete it within the 5 days I have it, with minimal investment, maybe an hour a day, must I really shell out the full 60 bucks, possibly 7 hours of work for that same amount playing? I think not. All this is beside the point, for now, I get to the review.

I beat the game once through on the normal difficulty. Took about 5 hours.

Story: You are Jack, you like to kill people. The End. There may also be some lingering voices telling you about honor and meaning in one ear, and duty and policy in the other, but these only get in the way of what this game is about. Killing, the announcers do a better job at narrating, but then, that’s what they are there for. Besides the one word answers, in Madworld you are killing people and participating in the game Death Watch, to figure out the location of the Mayor’s daughter and uncover the meaning behind the basterdized killing game.

The story isn’t super deep, and I mainly didn’t skip the cutscenes to get the full picture. On the other hand, I used the cutscenes as downtime, because most of the game is the same, outside of the narrative.

Graphics: Popping the game into my Wii, I clicked the start button on the Disk Channel and waited to be engulfed into pure blood and sweat. But wait…where’s the image? NO progressive scan?! Blasphemy, instant F, return to sender. The game is not worth playing.

After calming down, I hooked up the Wii to a regular CRT television, and got back to work. Still, this is the HD generation. I’m fine with people not supporting progressive in the GameCube era, though some great developers did, but how could you release a game on the Wii without progressive scan, it boggles the mind. I know there won’t be a super increase in quality, but my computer monitors, don’t support interlaced footage. I hardly thought I’d have to worry about this, but alas, I guess I did. Not sure why they didn’t include it, would there really have been that big of a slowdown in the game if it had been put in? I’m sure it could have been done, so consider me disappointed.

Now as for the actual graphics; Fantastic. I thought that black and white would never work. Well it did, I rarely found myself grumbling over the images being hard to see. A note on the developer’s blog reveals it isn’t all black and white; they used a method of yellow and increasing contrasts to improve visibility. I noticed it wasn’t pure white and black, but didn’t know how they were pulling off the visibility, now you know. In fact, it may have improved my eyesight, and visually acuity, simply by having to pick out the geometric shapes among the limited palette.

For a Wii game, the model details are quite good. For example, one enemy has a giant drill in which you can make out little gears on the motor, and all sorts of little intricacies.

The game suffers from slowdowns when there are a lot of enemies being crushed/ destroyed at once, but generally the framerate is good enough. One minor quirk I found is whenever you used a special kill, such as a catapult, all other enemies, except the one you are launching would disappear. This is good, because other enemies don’t block your view of the action, though at the same time, slightly disconnecting, having them disappear, then reappear.

Another gripe is the repetitious animations. For one example a boss pulls a helicopter out of the sky and tries to smash you with it. Once it was VERY cool, the 7th time, not so much. For boss power struggles you are sometimes found doing the same move 3 times to take down a boss. Not all bosses are like this, some you decapitate them in different ways (It wouldn’t make sense to take the same arm off, now would it?) but the majority do have reoccurring animations, which are a downer.

Enemies: Most of the time, they minded their own business. They hardly attacked, besides the boss characters, and on the normal setting could be dispatched with little effort. Though, you’d want to put SOME effort into it, you are on TV for a reason, and entertainment is your premiere objective.

There are varying types of enemies though. There is the usual common enemy, not worth mentioning. There tends to be a more supped up version, carrying a weapon, they can prove a problem, as they will attack, and can interrupt you when dealing with the usual garbage. Examples are the scissor guys on the Dungeon level, not only did they remind me of Clock Tower, but they were a slight pain on my abdomen.

Neat additions are the themed areas, where the enemies change with the areas. IE, on the Japanese themed levels there are Ninjas, while on the horror levels zombies occupy the spaces. Later on in a space level you get Martians and Space Troopers. These minions come equipped for their areas as well. The ninjas get their swords, and the Space troopers receive shields. Zombies come back to life if not handled fully.

Each of the enemy types is attracted to a certain object. Thugs like money, zombies like raw meat, and wait for it, ninjas hate pirates. Yes the pirate hat, internet meme for the win.

Besides the grunts, there are also minibosses. None of them are super challenging on the normal setting, though they will not wait for you to bother with the grunt enemies, they demand immediate attention. Some varieties include a hedgehog rolling enemy, a double chainsaw wielding foe, and a driller maniac. Of them, the driller guy is the worst, because he takes lot of damage, and then runs away, only to reappear and tackle you again. One more miniboss character appears on the level with the Ninjas, but he was taken out with 2 spear hits, so it could hardly be called a miniboss.

After slaying away at work, you come home expecting to relax, well not in Death Watch. After earning enough points, you make your way to the boss chamber, where a cancerous being awaits your presence. The majority of the time the arena bosses are challenging, even on normal. You may have to use a life to get through it. On that note, you have a certain amount of lives starting you. On normal you start with 2, and on Hard you get none off the bat. Dying lets you use a life and start where you failed. This means if the boss kills you and is down to ½ hp, he’ll still be at that much health when you are resurrected. A very useful feature; I’m glad they put this in; it made my life on bosses much less hell.

In terms of boss strategy: dodge, and attack. Do not get greedy with the attacking. For most bosses, you must attack, dodge, and then attack. Don’t try and get two or three in or else you’ll be doing an attack when the boss starts attacking, and take damage. This strategic assault will mean fewer lives spent, definitely required when you tackle hard mode and have none to back you up. Also, I never figured out what was the best weapon, punching does quick little damage, while the chainsaw takes a big chunk of health change, but is slower. I prefer the chainsaw, but I’m sure punching is good against the slower enemies.

Performing the proper waggle at the precise moment during a boss fight initiates a power struggle. Here you do some more Wii mote shaking and if you do it enough, you seriously weaken the boss, or take out a lot of health.

Ways to kill: Being the main function of the game, you have to have new and interesting ways to kill people or else the game would get boring fast. (True, it does get sort of mundane after a while, but these help offset that.) Starting off with the basics, Jack has a chainsaw arm, and fists of steel (well, at least one). You can beat down enemies with these simple destructive instruments or you can SUPERCHARGE your gaming experience. The chainsaw, assuming a direct hit, will usually kill in one hit. This is not what you want. Unless you are surrounded, and about to take damage, you should be conserving your foes. Not because you want them to live, oh no, you want them to die in the most gruesome way possible.

Here we have the finishers; there are B finishers, which utilize the chainsaw, and A finishers, in which you use your fists. Either is good. To be honest, I rarely used either. Environmental kills were my thing.

Now, when I first read online that you would be able to kill your enemies with countless weapons, I was intrigued. Unfortunately, there are not countless weapons, much to my disappointment, but they do a good job. Frankly, I guess anything could be a killing instrument if you fling them into it, but then it may just act like a wall.

I’ll start on the handheld weapons. Each level has about 1-2 of these. Generally it is either a club or the dual knives. I disliked both, the club was slow, and the knives didn’t seem to deal a strong blow, though they certainly decapitated the fodder’s limbs with ease. These bored me. Luckily, and unfortunately, there were level specific items. I give you an example of one of my favs, the spear. Not only can you stab, you can stack up to 4 peons on the end of the spear, and watch as they helpelessly shake about. If this wasn’t what this game was made for, I don’t know what is. Madworld’s engine won’t spawn any more enemies or let you continue till you clear out a certain number, so you can’t really get more than 4 on the spear, still it was entertaining. Though, the spear only appears in one place, on the Japanese level. Same for another cool weapon, the golf club. Thus, while there are more than two basic weapons, a few are relegated to only special maps. I would have liked to see these weapons appear all over. Can’t I fry spacemen with a torch? Can’t I zap ninjas with the magnetic gun? Why is the boring rocket launcher only available for a boss battle?

These things annoyed me. If you wanted me to kill everyone, why not give me the tools I want. How about, after beating a level with a cool level-specific item, the game lets me find that same weapon on an earlier/later stages?

Poles, barrels and rose gardens can be found on every level. You can fit up to 5 poles into someone, as long as you act quickly, but often I had trouble getting the poles together, let alone smashing 5 into someone’s head. Barrels are fun; you can either throw someone in, or throw it onto someone. Some barrels have flames. Dump people into them to fry those suckers, you can even have a clipping pole go into the barrel. You can then take this barrel with carcass and dump it on another guy. Repeat. Then dump it all into a chopping garbage can. One of the many ways to kill in Madworld.

The rose gardens are an annoyance to me. It is a pleasure to throw people onto the thorns, but holding them as you repeatedly smashed them into the spike was a major annoyance for me. Mainly because you couldn’t stop at just one smash, you had to go all 3, and finish the job. Not only that, but since it is the same animation, it gets old quickly. If the developers had added a timeout time for the canceling of the rose thorn smashes, I’d be happy being able to cancel at 1, but seeing all 3, over and over gets boring.

On a side note, being able to throw the enemies into things is a major plus in my book. Not just into grinders, another citizen of death, or 747 engines but into barrels and onto spikes too. A major convenience, I’m glad the developers put this in. It makes traveling time so much shorter, and better yet, you can even push other enemies into the spikes when throwing. Now that’sa spicy combo.

Well, besides the equip-able weapons you can also kill people using the environment. Generally, I found this to be slightly more satisfying. Whether you are holding someone over a saw blade or catapulting a zombie into the moon, there are ways to die. One fun extreme is the slice and dice bar assistant. Throw them in, and order up. Another similar, but no less fun, is throwing enemies into an open flame. (I think it is some kind of deep fryer) and watching them sizzle, then picking up their sizzled bodies and throwing them around. Havok physics help complete the picture.

Let me just say, while there aren’t lots of equip-able items, there are certainly lots of fun ways to kill the enemies.

Black Baron and the Bloodbath Challenges: This fine potty mouth deserves a section of his own. Let me just say, reputably that he his the best character in the game, and a reason to keep playing. Like the GLaDOS commentary in Portal, the challenges are the draw that keep you playing the first time through (The killing I guess keeps you there afterwards).

For those that don’t know, The Black Baron, stop staring, is a pimpin' pimp, whom appears for the Bloodbath Challenges. He gives a little lecture about his awesomeness, the awesomeness of his game, and swears so many times the censor had the work overtime. Let’s just say one part had him saying Mutha*kers like 6 times in one sentence. Rude and I enjoyed it.

After his spiel, his sexy assistant kills Black Baron in his own Bloodbath Challenge. I applaud the developers for this reoccurring gag. For one, you learn how to play the game by example, and not with a boring tutorial either. Two, it makes the Black Baron seem much cooler, reappearing each time, laughing in the face of death. You never really know if he actually exists, or what he is. (Until later, *wink wink*)

The Bloodbath challenges are the second greatest part of Madworld besides Black Baron himself. They are relatively simple in ideas, kill people a certain way, but their creativity surpasses most other games. IE Moneyshot: Impale enemies on moaning women billboards after shaking bottles of “cola” and smashing them into the enemy’s faces, only to have them rocket off into the distance. Definitely unique. A few of the challenges make multiple appearances, IE the Moneyshot one, and the human dartboard, though the developers change enough, whether by landscape, or the enemies involved, to keep it interesting. My Personal favorite would be the golfing Bloodbath challenge, where you had to smash enemy heads through goals. The game even told you the distance the head traveled. FORE! Little details like this, made the mini-games entertaining. Another good one is the fireworks one. How fitting for the 4th of July. Both of these examples however, are unique to particular stages, which is acceptable, unlike the equip-able weapons.

Control: The developers had a nice balance between need and want. In this way, you DO have to shake the Wii mote, but you don’t have to shake it very precisely. Thus you can lie back on the couch and play it like an Xbox360 title, except with a motion twist. Shaking the Wii-mote is reserved for special A punches, chainsaw swipes, and onscreen quicktime events. Not too many things thankfully, but enough that I felt they used the system’s capabilities. One problem I had however, is that while shaking the Wii-mote to do a B attack, while holding B, the game might register it as an A special punch, since you don’t have to hold A for the special punches and uppercuts. Thus, I did this on bosses a few times; giving them hardly any damage and my desired effect was not reached. Furthermore, if this happened, and you kept shaking, the game would keep registering A moves even if you were still holding B. You had to stop, wait a moment, then hold B and do the shaking. A little annoying, but not a deal breaker as far as controls go.

A few missions have Jack on a bike. Here, the game was limited. You could either grab people with your left hand, chainsaw them with your right, or land on top of them to kill. I felt a lot more could have been done at these parts, giving Jack more control, perhaps having Mario Kart elements, where Jack could throw things at the other drivers. A missed opportunity.

There is a taunt button, where you flip people off with your giant throbbing chainsaw. Wished that there were more than one taunt, but I hardly used it. If only they had added in a taunt bonus, I’d be doing it a lot more.

Sounds and Music: Sounds were decent; I didn’t find any that I simply screamed at. Sounds coming from the Wii-Mote, while some would claim a gimmick, I saw as a seized opportunity, and it works. Even with the sound muted, I can hear the fine whirl of a 3000 rpm chainsaw cutting through bone.

Now, I’m not a fan of rap or hip-hop, and this game had both. So, some levels ground on me constantly. None of the music is as cacophonic as Sonic Adventure 2’s Knuckle stages thankfully. Not all of the rap was bad, there were a couple that were well garnished with catchy background tunes such as the Asian levels, with their stereotypical Asian instruments and beat. For those catchy tunes, I didn’t mind the lyrics as much, as I could tune them out, and just kick ass with a fun beat.

Here’s an example of one of the better beats.

Whenever I see SEGA on a box I have to be wary of voice acting. Luckily Platinum Games did a good job at choosing appropriate voice actors, both for the cutscenes, and especially for the commentary. Whew, that was a close one. The characters don’t have much to say before they die but the commentators certainly do.

Commentary: Not laugh out loud funny, but the witty and careless remarks do tug at the side of your mouth, and curl that dull face into an evil smile. Greg Proops and John Dimaggio do an amazing job at commentating. I bet there were times they just improved some of it, but I wouldn’t know, they make it all flow and believable. There is commentary for frankly everything in the game, every weapon, and every way you can kill your enemy, they have words. The only other games I see with as much witty dialogue tend to be RTS games for the units.

The problem with the commentary is not what they say, but saying that same thing again, and again. I was expectant of this flaw, though Madworld did throw it in my face earlier than expected. The problem lay with the pickups. Power pills for one. Since you need health so readily, and pills are the way to do this, the commentator must say something, but he only has like 3 things to say. Over the course of the game, you are sick of hearing the same pickup line. The deaths do not repeat as often, since the ways to kill change readily for each level, and the commentary with it. It is just these pickups that are annoying. I frankly don’t care that you turned into a roach for the 12th time, give it a rest! Thus, my words of advice for the future are to put many more lines for pickup items. You’ll have to pay more, but you’ll stave off bleeding ears.

Conclusion: Madworld is a Good game. Not the best game I’ve ever played, but certainly worth playing, if not only for the commentary and Bloodbath Challenges. There are some minor issues, mainly too many reoccurring animations, and sounds. I wish that all weapons were available on every stage, and that driving missions were deeper. Voice acting is especially worthy of mention, and the Black Baron overshadows Jack as the best character in the game. Normal’s grunts are dumb, but bosses prove a challenge, Punchout like dodging and attack patterns. A clean graphical game, though lacking the all important progressive scan. Short but with varying landscapes, enemy types and ways to kill enemies. Rap/hip-hop music is a fitting choice for the game, isn’t TOO distracting. Some small control issues.

1. http://thenumber35.webs.com/walkthroughs/mad_world_script.html

Check out that link for an unofficial version of the script. Check it out if you want to see what the commentators are actually saying.

* Pictures from the Madworld Flickr Pictures and from the official wallpaper from Sega.

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by Zott820

SPOILERS Within
I’m not sure quite what to call this, a review, or just a nostalgia overload. In Either case, I’m here to talk to you about ChexQuest. ChexQuest at its heart is an advertisement, but for me, it brings back memories of just pure fun.
I remember walking through the store with my parents, and upon seeing a game available in a cereal box, I WAS THERE! I begged my parents for it, and clutched my prize with joy.

Upon installing I was transported into this mystical Dimension of Cereal. No really, the name of the universe was “The

Cereal Dimension”. This may have been the first FPS I had ever played in my life, and I loved it. The colorful graphics pleased my senses, as I zapped green gooed aliens. At my age, it was slightly scary, at least the flying aliens, but more importantly, it was the best 3D (ish) videogame entertainment I had at that early age.

Now, years later, I have found out that Chex Quest 3 had been released, the third, and likely final episode, so, loading the game up on Easy. (Don’t judge me, I’m not a big fan of Doom or its mechanics, and it still is challenging on easy if you fight everything.) I checked it out.

Well let me tell you, the graphics are not why I play this game, but there is obviously an extra sense of graphical polish that has come with this third episode, released 2008. The work of former Digital Cafe employees whom returned to finish the last campaign; their time elsewhere in the videogame market have visibly increased their skills. The graphics for the textures are clean, and seem more varied, with new texture sets, some used just for single levels. The writing will be primarily about Chex Quest’s Third episode, but I urge you to play through all the episodes just for the pure thrill.

Monsters: A couple new and fierce monsters fill the ranks. They are not super different than what came before, but there are more varieties. There in an additional flying type, which is a pain, and is a heavy trooper too in that it takes lots of punishment, fires heavy globs of goo, and follows you aerially; there is no escape. There is a new ground type which is fast, attacks less than usual enemies, but takes a lot more punishment than conventional fodder, reminds me of a supped up AT-ST. Furthermore, there is a bomb-like dashing enemy that only appears in the last level. Lastly, there are 2 boss type monsters that only appear on one level each.

Levels: Everything new is welcomed, and I additionally appreciate how, while taking place in different environments, they still pay homage to the original idea of advertising, including a Chex lodge in a national park. The first level, and the town one are not quite as good in level design as the other levels, and are too reminiscent of the second episodes. Compared to the other campaigns, it seems the second episode had a better sense of creative direction, while here, although a few are new and cool, they don't seem quite as original. In your adventures, you shall be visiting a military base, a national park, an asteroid, and a town.

Enhancements: [I’m not sure how much of this is capable though the original engine with hacks/I didn’t realize they were possible in the original game]

A few of the levels make use of the advanced features of the enhanced ZDoom port. One such are the slanted platforms (especially on the last level of the game), which act as climbable ramps. ZDoom also allows green glop that splashes against the wall like blood when the enemies are hit. While blood existed like this in the original Doom, I don’t think the green blood would splatter in the original Chexquest, however ZDoom allows this, and surprisingly the developers changed blood color to green, even when it wasn’t necessarily used. (I used the original WADs once with ZDoom, and the blood was green, even before this all in one pack with a modified ZDoom).

Looking back on the original levels, they appeared plainer than the later levels in decorations, meaning that for the most current campaign, the developers could more easily ignore item limits of the default Doom engine, and use the limits of ZDoom for item placement/monsters. This is especially apparent in some new rooms covered in fauna or trees. A moving landscape completes the enhancements I appreciate.

It also helps playing at a higher native resolution. THis doesn't do anything for the sprites, but it makes the 3D world look nicer. The lighting, which appears moves as you move, is annoying, but is forgotten after focusing on the gameplay

Before the official Chex Quest 3 was released there was an enhancement of the original Chex Quest levels, in a mod called “The Ultimate Chex Quest”. It attempted to spruce up the game with enhanced visuals; fixing landscape viewing errors, adding continuality in spawn points, and adding 3D objects (like the stools in the bar in the E2L1. The website for the mod however is on hiatus, possibly indefinitely, but I liked what I saw. It is unfortunate it all wasn’t transferred to the official Chex Quest 3 pack, because it had good things.

Weapons: No new weapons, but with a spoon of death, and a Gatling spoon for that matter, what other weapon do you really need? Can you say best melee weapon ever?

Story: Story is nonexistent in the new content except the Flemoids, the alien race, continue to invade. In the 2nd episode they invaded a town, and here they seem to be pushing into military bases and national parks. Zorch them back to their own Dimension! Story is unimportant though, this isn’t Marathon here, this is about zapping things with your zappy gun.

And, let me say the advertising is working. While playing the game, I hungered for the cereal. I think I’ll take a bite out of that donut character…

Links:

Introduction to the game, not bad for something in 1997 made to be in a cereal box:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSpGQ5AVJpI

This site is good for everything Chex Quest related: http://www.chexquest.org/chexquestgallery/

You can download the Chex Quest Pack here: http://www.chucktropolis.com/gamers.htm

Here are some more pictures, including ones from Chex Quest 2:

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by Zott820

Final Fantasy VII vs. Final Fantasy IX

With excitement mounting for Final Fantasy XIII (Lightning has invaded our title banner!), it seems appropriate to examine the long running series’ highest and low points. I could approach this discussion in my usual formal manner, but BlueZero recently remarked that for a biased video game blog, our site could use a little more bias, so I’m going to take a sharp turn down the perilous path of personal opinion. Sit back, buckle up and enjoy the ride cupcake; You're in for one hell of a rant.

Final Fantasy VII is the best game in the series and Final Fantasy IX is the suck. Not the suckiest game in the series, or a game that sucks, it epitomizes suck. I refuse to acknowledge it as anything more than a super-deformed mistake. To me, Final Fantasy X-2 is a more legitimate member of the series. Yes. The Charlie's Angel abomination that totally breaks the tone of it's predecessor is still better in my book, than Final Fantasy IX. I've got a couple good reasons why, but the most obvious one is still the most important: It's a matter of mood. I tremendously prefer dark and angsty (FFVII) to nostalgic and whimsical (FFIX) because I find the former atmosphere produces far more interesting stories. Whimsy tends to be pithy and nostalgia draws upon the familiar (under the pretense of having universal appeal) as opposed to presenting audiences with something new. Angst can be mellow-dramatic and adolescent, but those traits tend to gel well with the convoluted nature of fanciful worlds. As long as you keep a healthy sense of humor (and Final Fantasy VII totally does), there's no harm in getting grave now and again as well.

Admittedly, the biggest factor in my preference for one title over the other is 'skin deep,' in the sense that it primarily boils down to aesthetics. Tetsuya Nomura's character designs for Final Fantasy VII may seem generic now, but that's only because they have been so tremendously influential. Giant swords and spiky hair were groundbreaking character additions when FFVII first launched. No seriously, each character is dripping with detail and glowing with awesome. Cloud has grown to be one of the most celebrated icons of video gaming. Sephiroth has become the character template for scores of villains by now, including Final Fantasy IX's horribly lame Kuja (Why yes, I think he is wearing a thong). Contrary to popular misconception, Vincent is not a vampire or emo, but a genuine goth who just decided to become an immortal badass. Mr. T originally tried out for the role of Barret, but found himself to be too much of a Foo for the part. Cid managed to make chauvinism, smoking and swearing seem fresh again. Red XIII is a talking flame wolf; nuff said. And of course, the ladies… Tifa and Aeris still present players with the most intriguing and appealing love triangle I have yet to encounter in video games. Admittedly, Yuffie and Cait-sith can be a bit annoying, but they brought a little lightheartedness to a cast that would have been way to serious otherwise.

By contrast, the cast of Final Fantasy IX looks like a collection of super-deformed precious moments dolls. If Zidane's 'flamboyant' outfit doesn't prevent you from taking him seriously, his random monkey tail will (The plot might explain why it's there, but it doesn't justify it's idiocy). One can't consider Garnet as an appealing romantic lead without feeling like a pedophile because of the strange huge-head + petite body proportions. I may be showing my cold steel robot colors here, but I have to tell you that Vivi, the supposed heart and soul of the game's story, evoked nothing but annoyance in me. Yeah, even his tearjerker fate. Decrease the surplus population and all that. Freya was mildly compelling, but all of the other characters don't even really warrant a mention as far as I'm concerned.

My superficiality acknowledged, there is a deeper reason behind my devotion to FFVII (and my hatred for FFIX), and I've spent several sleepless nights trying to articulate it. Mostly it boils down to how I view the Final Fantasy franchise as a whole, or rather, how I view it as a Not-whole. You see, Final Fantasy games can be grouped into two major series. The first one runs from episodes I-V. Each game utilizes some variant of a class-based party system for battle, and a “save the crystals-save the world” sort of story. There were some variations, but the world felt largely the same from one installment to another. For my part, I think FFIV was the best game from the first batch, seeing how it had the most memorable characters and my favorite line of horribly mistranslated video game dialogue, ever.

Final Fantasy VI marked a profound turning point for the game. The technical jump from 8 to 16-bits made for some of the sweetest tunes ever to grace gaming and allowed designers to create a much more detailed, distinctive world than those in previous entries. The use of steam-punk aesthetics was particularly ahead of its time, and helped set the game apart from other fantasy role-playing games. Stunningly, these aesthetic and technical advances helped improve the narrative rather than stifling it. The inclusion of technology and the overall shift from pure fantasy to fantasy/sci-fi did not only open the door to a whole new host of enemy types and character abilities, it allowed story tellers to address new themes (experimentation, arms-races). Some people say it's the best Final Fantasy ever, and that is a position I can respect, even though I disagree with it. In the end, Cloud is just too damn awesome to settle for second place. I see me trying to hand the first place meddle to Locke or Terra, only to have him mow me down on a motorcycle and have the entire cast of FFVI defect to his cause on account of sheer awesome.

Anyway, what I was trying to convey with my "Final Fantasy = two separate series" digression is that after Final Fantasy VI, the franchise evolved into something more than a generic fantasy RPG series (yeah, I typed it). It became a game series about innovation, not only in game play and graphics, but narrative, and Final Fantasy VII's original story, broken and messed up as it is captures that risk-taking spirit beautifully using time honored literary techniques such as amnesia, cross-dressing and motorcycle chases. In all seriousness though, the story had a compelling flow to it that managed to thread together the disparate locales and absurd side-quests characters undertook to save the planet and track down the nefarious Sephiroth. A couple of gamers were turned off by the Sci-Fi-ification Midgar represented, and others felt that the new Materia combat system dissolved the individuality of party members. While it is possible to create a party of heroes with identical abilities, it is just as possible to re-create the classic ‘class’ archetypes using unique Materia-combinations, and to create brand new ones all together. Giving Barret Jump materia amused me to no end. He was like a proto-Demoman!

As a sidebar, it's worth mentioning that Final Fantasy VIII continued the tradition of innovation, or at least put in a solid effort. The game’s novel, (but ultimately unsatisfying) approach to combat forces every character to partially fulfill the archetypal roles of warrior, thief, mage, and summoner by stealing and junctioning magic. It also continued to ramp up the Sci-fi aspect of the game, though to less effect than it's predecessors. The trend had already been established.

In contrast, Final Fantasy IX is a return to ‘pure’ fantasy; the sort of conceptual regression which really strikes me as a huge step backwards. I realize that the game is supposed to be a love letter to long time fans of games from 'the first series,' but it's a love letter scrawled in crayon on construction paper. That would be adorable coming from a child, and appropriate if it were addressed to a child, but for a maturing audience, it just struck me as a slap in the face. Keep in mind, I am not opposed to Final Fantasy revisiting it's roots. I //heartily// endorse this, for instance. And frankly, I think it would be a great endeavor for Square to try and remake it's classical games from the ground up. The anthology collections they did a few years back were great, but the remakes they've been doing for the past couple years are really inspiring.

Ironically, I think that Final Fantasy VII deserves a bit of a rest considering what the various spin-offs and prequels have done to it's plot. The majority of the compilation is enjoyable, but like Shihnong states in his review of Advent Children: Complete, it's completely unintelligible. In some cases, it cheapens or even complicates the existing story line, which was far from airtight to begin with. Advent Children in particular also adds credence to the misconception that Cloud is incredibly Emo, when in the original game he was just incredibly cool. He initially acts distant towards party members, and he's a little self-absorbed, but at the same time he's willing to crack jokes, and despite loosing Aeris, he's the first to state that the party needs to move on so they can stop Sephiroth.

That being said, I would not object to the oft-rumored remake of Final Fantasy VII that has been whispered about ever since Sony showed off that PS3 Tech Demo a couple years ago. I just hope they don't do anything else to mess with cannon.

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by Sarcasmancer

Go back in time to your childhood and remember the Super Solver series by The Learning Company. Let me help you become familiar with a very important part of my computer education. While everyone has played Oregon Trail (and loved it), the Super Solver games consistently delivered. These games can't be reviewed using my traditional approach.

The Master of Mischief, Morty Maxwell he seems to be named, is truly a tricky character.

Note that I didn’t upload these videos since I’m lazy and I own most of the games for Mac. On another side note, Mac gaming was superior in the early days of computer gaming due to Macs having powerful midi sound support through QuickTime. The same midi on the early PCs sounded much worse. Macintosh was the multimedia powerhouse until soundcards became the standard in PCs.

Super Solvers- Outnumbered / Midnight Rescue

Super Solvers Outnumbered is the game that introduced me to the series. You are in a radio tower where the Master of Mischief is going to do something evil there (maybe broadcast the game music to the world). You have to solve which room he is hiding before you go crazy from seeing robot TVs strolling the halls and electric chords roaming the inner rooms.

For Midnight Rescue, the Master of Mischief is somehow hiding inside robots. If you take a look at the video, can you tell me how he is fitting in those skinny robots? He wants to make schools disappear with invisible ink. You as a student want to thwart his plans because you like your school to exist. I like choosing the wrong robot to see the brutal death of the Sleuth. Buffo just took a victory lap…

You will begin to notice that The Learning Company is good at releasing a very similar game, but with different graphics and different educational subjects.

Super Solvers- Treasure Mountain

Super Solvers Treasure Mountain was the second one I played in the series. You solve clues and get treasure on your way to the top. Once you get to the top, you ditch your treasure into the chest, which then gives you back one piece of treasure before you decided to go back down to the bottom. Logic isn’t a strong part of this game being that it would be better to take one trip up the mountain and not take the death plunge down a ladder. I completed this game back in the day by getting all the treasures.

Super Solvers- Treasure MathStorm

Treasure MathStorm is almost exactly the same thing as Treasure Mountain except this time there is snow. I particularly like the time game because the elf pops out of the clock. The Super Sleuth is paid WAY below minimum wage in this game for solving simple riddles. He just needs time to advance. I can safely say that I beat this game 100 %.

Super Solvers-Treasure Trove

Ok. So the Master of Mischief flees Treasure Mountain and goes to an island to pollute the world. You don scuba gear and interact with very happy starfish in Treasure Trove. By some magic, the gems you collect are thrown into a magic pot which creates a bridge to the island.

The Super Solver is armed with a bubble gun which he uses to dispense enemies. He has a flashlight which he uses to pickup gems. The best part of the game is the cave where the starfish are dancing the Can-Can.

Super Solvers-Treasure Galaxy

I don’t remember much about Treasure Galaxy. Basically, it is like all the other games but in space. The main character rides a red space scooter and can zap angry looking meteors. I didn’t finish the game because I was getting tired of the formula and didn’t think the end cutscene would be gripping enough.

Super Solvers- Gizmos and Gadgets

Now here is a game that can suck your time away. For some reason, the Super Solver decides to take on Morty Maxwell who takes over the Shady Glen Technology Center. The game story consists of duels using machines to see who the best scientist is. The Super Solver has really matured since he now has teenager proportions, all gangly and thin.

Gizmos and Gadgets has a more mature for kids in 4th or 5th grade up to middle school. The object of the games is to roam multi-tiered 2D corridors collecting parts that will help you build your vehicle. So have the choice of turning on the mechanical monkeys that will steal your parts if they touch you. I choose to turn them on since without them, the game would be less challenging.

The puzzles to open doors are particularly fun to solve when they get more difficult. I like the one where you manipulate force of objects and gravity to shoot different sized balls into the target holes. There are also puzzles where you work with magnet polarity and build objects from pieces. Once you get past the easy races, these puzzles get more exciting and you may not beat them your first try.

The game is setup where you will have to mix and match parts to get the fastest or most efficient engineering structure. To keep the game fun, there are parts like spray paint and decals that have no effect on your car’s performance. In my mind, having the racing stripes makes your car go faster. Also having your car red or yellow also helps.

After you have enough parts to have a working car, blimp or whatever, you get to race Morty Maxwell. Most of the early races you could beat him if you jumped out of your vehicle and decided to run. At the later levels, the more advanced stages of the game, Morty Maxwell has better parts and will be constantly beating you by a nose if you don’t have the best parts.

The racing music is catchy and I always like seeing a trophy come out of the podium. If Morty Maxwell wins the race, he has a cool Richard Nixon style victory dance. When the Super Solver wins the race, he does his signature somersault. I progressed far when I played it on the Mac, but I don’t remember if I actually finished the game. Most likely the ending has Morty Maxwell fleeing for his life.

If you have to play only one of these games, and I am assuming you are an adult, I would probably suggest Super Solvers: Gizmos and Gadgets because it targets the middle school audience. This is by no means a criticism of the other games; they perform their goal of being easy and accessible for elementary school students. It comes down to longevity which is the weak part of these series. That’s why Oregon Trail (1 and 2) was so much fun, you wanted to know if a teacher with no money leaving in the dead of winter could make it to Oregon. I’ll have to eventually talk more about that game.

* Image from Mobygames.com

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by BlueZero