Impressions: World at War

With the latest installment of the Call of Duty series being released tomorrow, I just thought I would offer my impressions of the public beta.  After reading Brendan’s impressions on the game I can agree with him on some points, such as the lack of originality, but I also disagree for the most part.

Let’s get this out in the open right away, World at War pretty much is Call of Duty 4 in World War II.  However that is not entirely a bad thing.  Call of Duty 4 is still one of the most popular games being played across all platforms and will probably continue to be played for many more months.  Game modes from previous Call of Duty games make an appearence, such as Search and Destory and Capture the Flag, as well as some modes that were only featured in Call of Duty 3, like War mode.

Gameplay like everything else is not changed too dramatically but it does seem to take more shots to take someone down that in Call of Duty 4.  My biggest complaint about the game though is that no matter where I spawn I get shot at and most of the time die as a result.  Here is a short little rant, get ready.  When the beta finished downloading off of the Xbox Live Market Place, I joined a game of Team Deathmatch and selected one of the default classes.  This part may seem outrageous, but I literally took one step and was instantly sniped by one of the players on the other team.

Aside from being killed without having the oppurtunity to return fire is quite frustrating in a game like Call of Duty, but the game for the most part is pretty good.  The addition of Co-op play and the newly announced zombie survival mode promise to give World at War longevity in both the online multiplayer of shooting fools in the face and getting a group of friends together to slaughter Nazi zombies.

-Frank

11/08/08

In this edition of the Up Down Left Right A B Start podcast the crew gathers and discusess Gears of War 2, Little Big Planet & much more. We also beat Far Cry 2 to death… some more. Then we get onto originality in games, and wrap it all off with a nice, shiny bow. Please enjoy! Send all questions and comments to updownleftrightpodcast@live.com.

Link to the show

Brendan

Fallout 3 – What a bloody game.

So naturally, I used my EasyCap to record lots of violence with it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sey7fanaF4

We still have a review coming for Fallout 3, but the author is currently MIA.

Podcast

So we’ve had alot of traffic lately so I decide to inform are readers that we do have a podcast, if you would like to listen to it click here (this is a link to are iTunes page). So if you any feedback or questions leave a comment.

Thanks

Adam

Fallout 3 – “Revised” Impressions

Lets set the record strait here. I do not think Fallout 3 is a bad game. It is a good game, with a few problems that got to me.

So, yesterday I posted something completely bashing Fallout 3. I’m not taking anything I said back. This is simply stating that after spending another 3-4 hours with the game today, I can say that Fallout 3 is a fun, and enjoyable game with a healthy selection of quests and things to do. After you rank up some times, and get a host of new weapons, the game becomes easier, and more fun to play. I did a few main quests and took some time to explore (which although it nice to do, I highly dont recomend it considering that supplys are so low that running around shooting is a total waste) and play some side quests.

So, for me, this game was hard to get into, but once I grabbed it I’m being pulled along quite nicley.

Darren should post a review in the not-so-distant future, so until then, I’ll shut my jabbering mouth up.

Fracture Review

This may look fancy but don't let it fool you.

Have you ever looked at the previews to a game and had a overwhelming sense of just… meh? That’s what I got the moment I laid my eyes on Fracture, Lucas Arts recently released shooter based in a Sci-Fi setting where the united states has been torn in two, quiet literally as the ice caps melted or something like that, and is now at war with the newly formed Pacifican nation. After the motherland over in Washington declared genetic alteration illegal the west coast formed their new little nation and now everyone hates each other. Apparently them killing each other was an inevitable outcome given the situation as the into to the game will remind you a couple of times as it desperately tries to paint a morbid picture. Sadly this absolutely enthralling setting fails to really make you care about what is going on and i found it very hard to take the story seriously. It is like the game doesn’t know whether it wants to be over the top and a little goofy or if it wants to be really serious and gritty. It fails at both.

Anyone who listens to the podcast is probably aware of my dislike of the Halo series. This game reminds me a little of the Halo universe through its bright colors and attempt to steer clear of the dark brown and grey universes so prevalent in today’s shooters. Sadly, unlike Halo, this game fails to make it look any More then simply ridiculous. Nothing seems to fit in with itself and stands out way to much. There is a reason people go into battle wearing camouflage and colors that will blend in with nature, so they don’t get laughed at with their bright red and power armor!

So its obvious that i dislike the games setting but what about the gameplay? Surely this game can save itself with some fun run and gun action, who needs a great story? Well… no, it can’t. If you don’t know already the gameplay of fracture is a fairly standard third person shooter similar to something like Gears of War. However they have attempted to mix up the equation with the ability to terraform the battlefield around you. This may sound cool, and it should be, but in practice it felt horrible underused. Besides helping you find little secrets hidden throughout the game, there was very little reason to utilize the feature except to make a little hill to hide behind because there sure as hell isn’t any sort of cover system to help you hide from oh so painful gunfire. Even if there was it wouldn’t matter because the firefights are so hectic and confusing that you are constantly being shot from all angles. The enemies are fairly tough to begin with and it doesn’t take long before their big bad sniper wielding brethren come from the depths and whoop your ass.

So THAT'S what I'm supposed to use it for. It makes sense now. Wait no... no... still useless.

The difficulty in the game seems just a little too high. Right from the start before you can get used to the controls and the way the game works your thrown into a bunch of tight corridors packed with baddies. Sure i didn’t die till a good twenty minutes into the game but i constantly felt like i was struggling for air as I tried to find a place to breath and recover some health. The controls were also a little on the clunky side and no matter how i changed the sensitivity i just never felt like i had firm control over my aiming prowess. The entire time I played the game I felt like i had to wrestle the controls to get them to aim where i wanted, and that just isn’t fun. Also, how about that camera eh? That little bastard gave me issues the entire play through. For the most part it was fine, we both understood the situation and worked together to keep me alive and shootin’. Then out of nowhere it decides it likes this bush behind me and it wants to cuddle with it. I’m over here getting pissed off cause i can’t see the baddies currently turning me into Swiss cheese but he doesn’t want to cooperate because the his new little love affair. It felt like every other prime spot i tried to hide behind the bushes were getting in my way. This wasn’t so bad when i was just using a rifle, but yank out that sniper rifle and your in for a world of hate. I have a general thought about sniper rifles. First off, when you zoom, you should actually ZOOM! A simple 2x or 3x zoom for a sniper doesn’t really help worth a damn. Second, when you zoom, give me a damn scoped view. Don’t just move the camera a little closer so i can see my awesome glowy red shoulder pads with greater clarity as the bush continues to make love to the camera and i miss every shot.

Which brings me to my next gripe of the game, the weapons. Although ill give them props for some neat heavy firepower, the game just flopped on the guns for me. The automatic weapon sounds were somewhat unsatisfying (a big pet peeve of mine) and felt a little underpowered. The explosive heavy weapons were good fun but the sniper rifle was utter crap. Sniper rifles in my eyes are supposed to be one of the more powerful weapons in a shooter. Apparently Lucas Arts didn’t get the memo. Although it did ok on the standard Pacifican grunt, it still felt a little underpowered, but i could get over that. its when you try and shoot one of their more powerful cousins that It frustrates me. The big offender was the snipers themselves. These dudes have about three times the amount of health. It seemed to take about 4 shots to what I’m assuming to the head to make them feel uncomfortable. They were nothing compared to the leap frogging bastards I encountered and had to kill with a rocket launcher. Not a single kill in this game felt satisfying to me.

HEY LOOK! It's the multiplayer I never got to play!

It is sort of sad that i hate on this game so much. Because it is evident that a lot of effort was put into certain aspects of the game and I really wanted to enjoy it. Lucas Arts used to be one of the kings of the video game world. With their awesome adventure games and fantastic space sims, to me they ruled the world during my childhood. What happened to the crazy fun i had playing Dark Forces as a kid. All the magic that Lucas Arts had seems to have been fading away during the years. Force Unleashed was one of their few good titles released in recent years, and even that didn’t quiet hit the right chord with me. Fracture was just a horribly underwhelming game for me and I can’t really recommend it to anyone. I couldn’t even finish the game I was so frustrated and bored with it. I’m a busy college student and i felt like i was wasting my time investing in this game. I almost forgot to mention the game has a multiplayer. Although it looked like it could have been the redeeming quality of the game I never actually got to play it. Every time i tried there was only one or two games in progress i couldn’t join and one dude sitting in the lobby neglecting the start button.

So it is with a little sadness that I put this game back into its Gamefly sleeve and send it back to the depths from which it came. I can’t really recommend this game to anyone. Stick with your Gears and Resistance this Holiday season kids, ’cause this one just isn’t up to the challenge. Fracture is mediocre in every sense of the word.

-Darren

Fallout 3 Impressions

I purchased my copy of Fallout 3 today from Best Buy, and sat down to spend some quality time with it.

This quality time soon turned into a screaming match of which my television dominated.

Before I start this, I really wanted to like this game, and I still am enjoying it, but there is so much stuff I really want to get out of the way.

Fallout 3 is often described as Oblivion with guns, and I just ignored this because I thought that there would be something newer to it. God was I wrong. Strip out the guns, and Washington DC setting, and your left with Oblivion… v2. The game even starts relativley the same, you get to pick a some stats, and what areas you would like to focus on. Fair enough. The intro takes you from when you are born to when escape Vault 101 at the age of 19. At this point, you are set out into the wasteland.

Cool, so your out in a destroyed washington DC, to search for your father who escaped the vault. How does that go wrong? Very fast. The game does tell you that you should head to the town of “Megaton” where a bunch of creepy people worship an unexploded nuclear bomb. Maybe the radiation is getting to them… You talk to the Sheriff, who is no help. It is up to you to find out a way to find your father, who is simply described as a middle aged man. Yes, that must help a lot, it eliminates 5% of the people in nuclear ridden DC. After about 30 minutes of searching, I found myself in a bar with a mutant serving me drinks faster than I could think. Little did I know, the one building that you would not find unless you where looking for it is the place I needed to go. Fine, moving on.

THE FUCKING COMBAT! FUCK VATS! Okay, that made me feel better. VATS at about 3 hours into the game is totally pointless, and is a waste of time. I went to a old school which raiders where stashing up in. I tried to do a head shot with my character in VATS, and 3 head shots, a baseball bat, repenting of sins, a bottle on whiskey and a good porno later, his head finally poped off. The nest person I took on I shot at without VATS, went down in a few shots. So at this point I left realizing that this was totally pointless and I headed towards my next quest location. Along the way, some annoying 12 year old poped out of no where and decided that I was his saviour and it was up to me to save his father. Okay, what ever. Ill be a good person and try to save his dad. I followed the kid, and was promptly assaulted by some scorpions who had a real mean streak, and where on fire. I killed one, and I was killed by the other.

I beg you Bethesda, please make a game accessable to players who do not spend all thier time grinding levels and are used to bloody hard gameplay.

For now, I will leave you with this:
Fallout 3 is taking what Oblivion did, slapping some new paint on it, and decreasing the fun level.

(Of course this could all be void tomorrow once I get even farther into the game, as most of complaints are due to the fact that I’m level 3 only)

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3: Retro Review

 

There are many game series that come to mind when one thinks of the history of classic fighting games.  These include titles such as Tekken and Street Fighter, but the series that has become a target of praise and controversy is Mortal Kombat.  One of the most revered games in the long lasting series is Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, which can be found on the Xbox Live Arcade.

Worthy opponents await

 

The problem with some classic arcade and console games being digitally distributed through means such as Xbox Live or the Playstation Network, is that the original game can be lost in translation.  Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 is not one of these thrown together ports that pepper the downloadable games online.  The original game is kept intact and adds new features such as online multiplayer, friend as well as world wide leaderboards, and unlockable achievments.  All of these additions add a lasting value to this already classic arcade fighting title.

All of the Mortal Kombat characters that have become synonamous with the series is included.  Subzero, Scorpion, and Lui Kang are all available to use for combat in the tournament for survival.  The character animations run smoothly as fighters run and fly across the screen performing bloody combos.  Each character is equiped with their own move set full of deadly fighting styles.  Subzero uses his trademark freeze attacks as Scorpion can perform the famous ‘get over here!’ spear attack.

 

Reptile gets a better view

The gameplay of the original game remains intact and nothing has been drastically changed.  In fact this is one of the game’s strengths as UMK3 did not need much improvement in the first place.  New features such as online multiplayer and leaderboards allow players to compete with people around the world and prove their worth.  Online multiplayer works quiete well, allowing for ranked and unranked game matches and run as if the person who you were fighting was standing right next to you in an arcade.  However the inevitable issue of lag does occur here and there, usually leaving the game in frustrating state, UMK3’s overall multiplayer runs smooth.

There is nothing new that can be said about Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, as it has been out for many years.  Athough this may be true, having access to this classic arcade game on your Xbox 360 through the Xbox Live Arcade is a great feature.  The game has been faithfully transitioned and the game benefits by the new additions, such as online multiplayer.  Fighting games may not be as popular today as they were in the 1990’s but the classic title in the genre is now available for all to play with the ease of purchasing it on a digital platform.

-Frank

Ever wonder about Fable II?

Fable II is one the best RPG’s I have played, and I have played a good amount of them. From rags to riches, you go from being a child and end up growing into an evil man, or a giver. Unfortunately, I am a 100% evil/corrupt man. Many of the quests in this game, depending how you do them, can choose your fate. Quests in this game aren’t the only ways to decide if your evil or good, you can buy out houses/shops and lower prices for good and higher them if you plan on being evil.

Shop owners, employers, husbands, wives, whores on the streets, and traveling traders will always be around for you, but depending on what you do around them, and what you say to them can effect their views on you. Love and hate are the two main themes of this game. While doing quests and acting nice to people can result in them loving you, it may not always be the best way to go. Making money the easy way by rising prices can result in whole towns disliking you, which has happened to me. During the story, which is a good length, you make some tough choices and the good thing may not always be the easier thing to do.

Live your life not only with a dog, join in with an Xbox Live friend or have one join your world. Although this is a great way to help each other, the coop is not a great experience. Many things can go wrong, who ever hosts the game, the joiner can kill his friend’s family and leave the world. Now you may think, ‘oh, this is only in coop, I can get my family back,’ you’re WRONG. Whatever happens in your world, stays in your world for good, so make sure your friend knows the rules you have and don’t let them join if you don’t trust them. The screen you see is limited to a small square that you and your friend must be in. If one of you happens to go outside of the other persons square somehow, both of you cannot move and one must teleport to the other by clicking the ’select’ button.

Choose Wisely! Choosing the skills you have is a major part in this game. You may want some extra damage, but on the other hand, maybe some life at the same time. Deciding this can determine if you get knocked out, or live through many of the fights on your journey on quests. Although after a lot of fighting, you will eventually have all the skills maxed out, some have 4 levels while others have 5. Having good upgrades can save your life in this world, make sure you pay close attention to it!

Can you spell? Spells are also a great way to make easy experience and kill enemies. While the lower level spells can cast faster, the higher levels will do tons of damage and level 5 spells will almost all the time be a one hit wonder. I made the mistake of not maxing one skill out and then doing the others. Dont make this mistake because once you can kill enemies in one hit, the game goes faster and you wont get knocked out all the time. Dont get greedy and want each skill, it will not help in the long run when enemies get harder.

I hope you know how to run for a while. While controlling your character is pretty simple from the third person view, you can sprint for an unlimited amount of time. When in your in low health, running is a good idea. You lose experience when you are knocked out. There is also a quest helper that shows a golden line, as shown above on left, that helps you see where to go. Although, it does not work all the time, if you go off path, it is pretty reliable but will NOT beat the game for you, in some parts you must figure out how to open things that the helper will not show. Be smart, learn where to run, and when to not follow the path.

Overall this is a great game. It has a good amount of details and the visuals are amazing. I would have to give this game a 8.5/10, only because the helper could be better and your health goes down pretty quick. So, stop reading this, and go out and buy it!

-Ben

Bioshock Review

When 2K Games first announced over six months ago that they were porting their highly-acclaimed first person shooter Bioshock to the Playstation3, the main question on everyone’s mind was whether 2K would take the time to replicate the same experience that players had on the Xbox360 and PC versions and bring it over to the Playstation3. Let me assure you, however, that Bioshock on the Playstation3 is every bit as good as its 360 counter-part. The game features the same excellent single-player campaign that was found on the 360 and PC versions as well as adding another difficulty level labeled ‘Survivor’ and a set of bonus “Challenge Rooms” which will be made available for free download over the Playstation Network. 

When you first play Bioshock, you may think it is nothing more than a graphical show-piece. However, as you progress into the mysterious and haunting underwater city of Rapture you quickly become entranced with the magnificent story and you can think of nothing else but finding out what happened to the citizens of this mysterious underwater metropolis. 

Bioshock is set in 1960 and takes place in a mysterious underwater city called ‘Rapture’. The game begins with your character on a plane flight over the mid-Atlantic when suddenly the plane mysteriously crashes you, the only survivor, are stranded in the ocean and looming in front of you is a mysterious black tower sitting on an isolated rocky outcrop. At this point the first thing that strikes you is the sheer beauty and realism of the games visuals, you notice the way the water rolls around you, the tongues of fire that engulf the plane’s mangled shell, and the moonlight glinting off the surface of the water. You find that you have to remind yourself that you are playing a game and not watching a movie. As you climb out of the dark waters and walk into the tower you discover a small submarine, called a bathysphere, waiting to take you underwater. In this submarine you are introduced to the man who created Rapture, a mysterious business man named Andrew Ryan, and to the city itself.

Would You Kindly …Enter…Rapture

When the bathysphere docks you begin to understand that all is not well in Rapture and something terrible has happened to its citizens. Even before you step into the city you witness one of the genetic mutants known as ’splicers’ attacking one of the few remaining un-mutated citizens, these splicers have effectively taken over Rapture. You also begin to notice that everything appears run-down and broken. The source of all the problems in Rapture is due to a substance known as ADAM which allows peoples genetic codes to be altered with ease. After acquiring the first weapon in the game, the wrench, and battling your way through a few splicers you come across the first ‘plasmid’ in the game, which gives your character the ability to shoot lightning from his fingertips.  

This is essentially where Bioshock slightly deviates from its core first person shooter

gameplay and becomes more like a Role Playing Game. Throughout the game you collect special types of ADAM known as plasmids these give your character special powers such as the ability to shoot lightning from his hand, or fire, or bees, or ice, or you can make a replica of yourself so enemies will attack that instead of you, the list

goes on.  

Electro Bolt, one of the plasmids in Bioshock. 

However the catch is you have to unlock extra slots for the plasmids, at the start you only have two slots but as you progress through the game you can acquire more slots. You can only have a maximum of six plasmid slots though meaning that you have to choose which plasmids your character has at all times. You can change the plasmids you have assigned to slots at designated locations throughout the game for free. Certain plasmids also interact with the environment in unique and interesting ways. For example if there are a group of splicers standing in a pool of water,(which will happen quite a lot because Rapture, due to its lack of maintenance, is constantly leaking and water is everywhere) you can zap them with a bolt of lightning and the electricity will spread through the water killing all of the splicers standing in it. Also if there is a splicer unwittingly standing in a pool of spilled oil if you light them on fire the oil will also catch fire causing them to lose health much more rapidly. In Bioshock you are also presented with puzzles and problems which you have to solve or fix with your plasmids, some doors control panels might have short-circuited and by sending a bolt of electricity at the control panel the door will open for you, or if a door is frozen shut by a chunk of ice, sending a beam of hot flames from your fingertips melts the ice and opens the door. To use a plasmid you have to have a certain amount of EVE, this is basically the substance that gives you the ability to use plasmids and if your EVE meter empties your dude has to inject himself with a syringe to replenish his EVE. Some plasmids use more EVE than others depending on what they do. 

As well as plasmids there are also things called tonics which you use to power up your character. Tonics are broken up into three categories; Combat, Physical, and Engineering. They operate under the same ’slot’ system that the plasmids use, whereby you can only have six tonics influencing your character per category. Tonics have a more passive effect than plasmids. They don’t give you new attacks or anything like that, but for example you might have a combat tonic that increases your wrench damage, or a physical tonic that gives you more health from first-aid kits or food. Engineering tonics give your character more benefits when hacking shops or security bots etc. There are over 50 tonics to customize your dude with so that you can shape your characters abilities in any way you like.  

Throughout the game there are certain vendors that specialize in things like ammunition, general equipment, plasmids and tonics etc. You are given the ability to hack these vending machines. When you choose to hack a vendor, you are thrown into this mini-game where you are tasked with completing a line of pipes so that the flow of liquid goes from its output to its input. Just think of the old game Pipe Dreams. If you put the pipes in the wrong place or you don’t put a pipe in place before the liquid reaches the gap you fail the hack and you lose a chunk of health. There are also special tiles in the mini-game that will trigger a security alarm if the liquid flows into it. This causes the local splicers to know you are there, as well as local security in the form of little helicopters with machine guns attached to them to take you out. The result of a successful hack is that there are more items available in that vendor for sale and all the items are a bit cheaper. I found this hacking mini-game to become quite tedious and frustrating so I eventually just gave up hacking everything and decided to pay for an items full price.

The Bioshock hacking Mini-Game 

There are essentially two forms of currency in the game; Dollars and ADAM. Dollars are the main form of currency in the game, and can found on corpses or on enemies you kill, you can also find Dollars in cash registers, safes throughout the environment, and just lying around. Dollars are used to purchase things such as health packs and ammunition. ADAM is the second form of currency, it is the substance that has destroyed Rapture and you use it to power up plasmids, acquire tonics, purchase new slots etc. The main sources of ADAM in the game come from Little Sisters. These are seemingly harmless little girls that harvest the ADAM from the dead bodies littered throughout the city. However due to the splicers insatiable demand for ADAM they are protected by the most fearsome enemies in the game; Big Daddy.

 

A Big Daddy protecting a Little Sister 

To get to the ADAM that the Little Sisters carry, you must first kill the Big Daddy that is assigned to protect them, which is no easy feat. Once you do kill the Big Daddy however, you are able to take the ADAM from the Little Sister. At this point though, you are presented with perhaps the biggest moral choices throughout the game. You can either choose to ‘harvest’ all the ADAM, which will kill her but you get 160 ADAM, or you can rescue them and spare their lives, in turn only getting 80 ADAM. Your choice becomes even more complicated when a mysterious female German doctor called Tenenbaum shows up and says that she’ll make it “worth your while” if you spare the Little Sisters. Both routes have their pros and cons and each one culminates in a different story arc. As well as the plasmids, there are also a lot more conventional weapons in the game, such as a pistol, shotgun, machine gun, and a crossbow just to name just a few.

The shooting in the game doesn’t feel immensely satisfying, there is nothing really wrong with it, but it just doesn’t compare to more traditional First Person Shooters. This is one of the key traits of Bioshock. It isn’t trying to hit the template of most First Person Shooters. Instead, it is trying to do its own unique thing with the genre. It is relying more on its intense atmosphere and gripping story to suck players into its unique and terrifying world rather than just focusing on brilliant shooting mechanics. 

One of the best things about Bioshock is its terrific atmosphere. The dark and gloomy visuals combined with a haunting periodic soundtrack really help to immerse the player in the experience, and they almost feel like they are down there in Rapture. As I said before, the game has an excellent soundtrack featuring songs that really fit the setting. The city of Rapture looks and feels very much like what you would imagine a city in the 1950’s to look like and the soundtrack continuously drives this fact home. You will actually feel as though you are playing in this time era. All the songs are very orchestral and calm, though in the destroyed setting of Rapture, they somehow create this very jaunting feeling, and they also bring a sense of irony to the game. There is something quite hilarious about seeing a group of screaming enraged splicers come yelling at you while ‘It Had To Be You’ or ‘God Bless The Child’ is playing in the background. 

The main reason that Bioshock is such an outstanding game is undoubtedly its magnificent story. Bioshock’s story is very original and immensely refreshing.

Right from the very beginning of the game, the story is presented in such a way that you feel compelled and determined to find out what happened in the underwater metropolis of Rapture. Pieces of information about the main story are revealed to you through audio logs you find throughout the city. From these small chunks of audio are accounts of various people who lived in Rapture when things began to go wrong. You begin to piece together what went so horribly wrong and what drove nearly all of the citizens of Rapture insane. Throughout the game you find a wide variety of interesting characters, each of whom have their own individually enriched and detailed back-stories. The story holds many unforeseen twists and turns that will keep you captivated until its stunning conclusion.  

Even though the Playstation3 version of Bioshock has arrived a year after its 360 counterparts, it still provides the same excellent story driven experience. If you are looking for an enjoyable and deeply immersive game this Christmas, then you need look no further then Bioshock.  

Would you kindly? 
 

-Rory