Basic Braining

The New Basic Braining

2010-07-03T17:57:00.000-07:00

can be found right here .

I'm still working on transferring some stuff over but that is the new place. Still not entirely sure about the theme but I'll worry about cool stuff like that after I get this boring stuff out of the way.

Only Temporary

2010-06-10T17:25:00.000-07:00

Like it says over to the right, this "blog," for now, is merely a portfolio for my writing. However, putting together an actual blog is the next project on my agenda. This is mostly due to my frustrations with Blogger and the (supposed) versatility of Wordpress. I guess I'll find out for myself. It won't be anything fancy, but I want to learn enough to at least make it better than this. When the time comes, I'll post a link here.

In the meantime, feel free to take a look at the stuff below, and let me know what you think!

EDIT: This is the new Basic Braining (still under construction). I'll update it with E3 articles during the show, but it won't be lookin' pretty until some time later next week.

Mario Endures Because He's There For You

2010-06-10T17:14:00.000-07:00

I've had a pretty lame couple of weeks. Struck with a sinus infection, I wasn't able to enjoy Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Red Dead Redemption the day they both arrived at my front door. I know that for many, being sick is prime gaming time. But I'm not that guy. The congestion that I can feel all throughout my face and chest, like a Venom Symbiote trying to burst out of my body and take over; the demon DJ who uses my skull as a subwoofer, producing a constant, pounding bass rhythm of agony; the slow, vitriolic drip down the back of my throat that robs me of my voice and sends me running to the sink every 15 minutes to cough up horrors I dare not describe.

I'm a total baby when I get sick. Thank God for antibiotics and legitimately-prescribed narcotics.

By the end of Week One, I'm finally recovering, and eager to get down with the rest of my prime gaming time (unemployment -- wee!). Still fighting what feels like a metric ton of pressure building up INSIDE MY FACE, I take a break from my brief time with Red Dead to breath in some steam and the fumes of soothing oregano oil.

That was a mistake.

Setting down the small pot of boiling water and oil, looking back to the pause screen frozen on my TV (because it's much more important than keeping my eyes on the bowl of scalding pitch in my hands), I feel a "sensation." It's not a good one. Actually, it hurts. A lot. In fact, it almost feels like--

"AAWWWGGGHHHH!"

The next thing I know, I'm looking at my hand. The skin looks loose and wrinkled, like a fitted sheet that's become slightly untucked. This is bad. I immediately run to the freezer and stick my hand in ice (I later learn, this was a bad idea). After spending a couple hours with my hand soaking in ice water (again, for your future reference -- bad), still feeling like it's on fire, I bandage it, pour five or six tylenol down my throat, and, eventually, fall asleep. The next morning, I awake with what looks like a jellyfish stuck to my hand. I rush to the CVS resident nurse-practitioner (unemployment = no insurance -- wee!) who tells me I just need to wait it out. I go home.

On the plus side, there's no pain (once again, very bad; a real doctor would later tell me that I killed the nerve endings). But there's my Xbox 360 controller, staring at me, daring me to learn what, in my heart, I already know. Holding it in my hands, moving my thumb up and down, back and forth across its wide face is simply not possible. Does Week Two of feeling like crap, being confined to my bed and deprived of games begin now?

I look to my unopened copy of Galaxy 2 sitting on my floor. "No!" It pleads, "Try me!"

Excelsior!

The Wii-mote fits comfortably in my mangled paw and my thumb only has to hit one, large button! Next thing I know, the real world melts away as I spend the next several days collecting coins and star bits, stars and comet medals. I'm hopping around on clouds, drilling through planets, clumsily buzzing through the air, putting that jerk bastard monkey in his place, stomping that fool Bowser Jr. (you got nothing on the Koopa Kids, you little punk), and, well, there's no end in sight to this List of Awesome Things.

Mario games are perfect games. I'll say it again: perfect games. Not perfect "experiences," not perfect "art," not perfect "interactive fiction," not perfect "personal narrative." It's none of the pretentious, high-concept experiments taking agonizingly slow baby-steps on their way to becoming what they want to be. There are no growing pains with Mario, no identity crises, and it has nothing to "say," nothing that, especially as a former art student (with all the indoctrination that implies), I spend way too much of my free time fussing over.

Mario isn't trying to immerse me in his world and yet, somehow, he manages to do so more successfully than most games. Truth be told, the Mushroom Kingdom feels more familiar and natural to me than Liberty City, Renaissance Italy, or the Old West. I've been to so many places once or twice but the Mushroom Kingdom has been a constant destination for me since as far back as I can remember.

Mario isn't forcing me to care about him or his friends. I'm not being forced information about their pasts, their relationships, their emotional states. There is no "only survivor of his ancient race"; there are no attempts to address scientific ethics; there are no tortured anti-heroes; no "ancient and evil powers"; no "sexy" animals; and no flirtations with bestiality... You know, like some other (formerly) simple and innocent mascot games. Bowser kidnapped the princess because he's a jerk and I'm rescuing her because, dammit, I'm a good guy and that's what good guys do. Also, it's really fun along the way.

Mario doesn't try too hard. He isn't trying to say something, he isn't challenging you with big claims, he isn't forcing you to sit through a hideous attempt at "plot." You always know what you're getting with Mario. You can pick him up in bite-sized chunks or marathon through dozens of levels and challenges. The Mushroom Kingdom isn't a strange, oppressive, or sprawling space; you've been there before! Everyone knows your name, so to speak. All these faces and things are familiar. Everything about it is innocent, pure and fun -- so comforting that, for just an hour or two, you can forget that you're 24, unemployed, living with your parents, bacteria are wrecking havoc on your insides and you have a blister the size of a -- I dunno -- some kind of gross alien or something, on your hand (not to mention the nerve damage, chance of infection and possible skin graft down the line).

Mario Endures because he make me go from feeling like this:

To this:

Mario endures because he's always there for you. And he always will be.

Din's Curse review

2010-06-10T17:12:00.001-07:00

The Diablo clone is a constant in the world of games. In the intervening decade between the second and third installments of the seminal franchise, many developers have attempted to fill the gap. Unfortunately, for all their admirable attempts, few manage to scratch that elusive Diablo itch. The question always remains: what makes Diablo so addictive? Din's Curse is developer Soldak Entertainment's latest crack at an answer.

The premise for Din's Curse is straightforward: the god Din has punished you, the player, for living a worthless life. Reborn into his service, you're tasked with helping people, performing good deeds until you can earn redemption. Ultimately, this boils down to crawling through randomized dungeons, performing randomized quests for randomized NPCs.

Randomization in Din's Curse goes beyond towns, dungeons and loot, and extends into the game world itself in the form of events. You (and maybe some friends, in multiplayer) hack and slash your way through dungeons, fighting monsters and finishing quests, but the world doesn't simple idly wait for you to act. Opposing factions of monsters can go to war or form alliances; named monsters can form their own parties, fight and level up; monster bosses take action against your town, sending scouts and raiders to kill vital NPCs such as merchants and questgivers (who can be replaced through quests, so don't worry about being completely screwed). Occasionally you'll even find that your quests became obsolete because the thing you were supposed to kill was killed by another monster or even an NPC adventurer. Din's Curse makes you feel that anything can happen (and usually does).

At times, this can be frustrating. Monsters seem to attack the town at the worst possible moments, just as you're exploring a new level of the dungeon and up to your eyeballs in Dark Elves thanks to a recent population boom. If the goal was to create tension, then it was successful, but only to a point (more on that later).

Soldak marries the classic randomization gimmick with another more modern, but no less familiar, one: choices and consequences. There's no binary morality system at work in Din's Curse but bad things can (and will) happen based on your failures. If a quest says its urgent, it means it. Fail to destroy a weather machine? Well, because their scheme was successful, the monsters are now building an earthquake machine. Did a monster scout make it to town and escape alive? Well then, prepare for war, my friend, 'cause it's coming. And if you fail to defend the town then you'll have a whole lot of quests to complete to get it back on track. The clock is invisible, so you never really feel the pressure of its ticking, but you're frequently reminded that you don't have time to waste on identifying all your magic items or scouring for every scrap of loot.

I'm sad that the wost things I can say about Din's Curse all stem from the fact that it's an indie game, with an indie budget. Soldak's effort is strong -- they have some great ideas and do their best with what they have -- but the game can't conquer its own limitations.

Redemption is a weighty theme and a lot could be done with the story of a resurrected stranger who wanders the world, doing good. The idea is made more appealing by the notion that your actions have tangible consequences. When you've done enough -- quelled hordes of monsters, cured illnesses, built defenses, saved lives -- a town is saved and you move on to the next. But because it's all stripped down and randomized, you have no reason to care. NPCs are utilities; no more than merchants and quest-givers. Din never speaks more than a few words or does anything, and your hero is just a blank slate; you never know what crimes he (or she) committed in the past to earn Din's punishment.

Typically, this isn't a problem. How many dungeon crawlers have engrossing plots? But the extremely limited graphics hold back the paper-doll effect as you collect loot -- I found no joy replacing my brown smudge with a grey smudge -- and the environments barely change; there are only so many variations of 'dungeon.' So without a reason to care, all of that tension that I mentioned before transforms into routine: go to a town, do some quests, move on to the next, do the same quests, repeat ad infinitum.

Din's Curse is the kind of game whose mileage will vary. With heaps of randomization, a dynamic world and tons of class combinations, you'll get out of it what you put into it. Its budget visuals don't impress but Soldak did an admirable job of working within their limitations. Monsters, at least, are interesting to look at, as Soldak relied more on angles and form than intricate details. Basically, it will run on just about anything. Combined with the indie price, there's almost no barrier to entry here. Furthermore, with all kinds of customization and difficulty options, it can be as casual or hardcore as you want it to be. If you're the type of RPGer who loves experimenting with different classes and styles of play, especially in groups, then there's a lot of replay value to Din's Curse. If not, then its wash, rinse, repeat routine will grow tiresome sooner than later.

An Open Letter to Suikoden Character Recruitment FAQs c. 2000-c.

2010-06-10T17:11:00.000-07:00

Dear Suikoden Character Recruitment FAQs c.2000-c. 2006,

I'm writing this letter to you now, many years after the fact, to express the final, lingering, spark of deep-seated adolescent aggravation. Despite the numerous gaming message boards and Suikoden fansites I frequented as a lad, I never expressed my frustrations. I can't say why, really. Between the ages of 12 and 20, I wasn't adverse to expressing my teenage anger over the internet, protected by a wall of impenetrable anonymity. But because this one issue -- trivial to many but paramount to my precious (and abundant) youthful free time -- slipped by, I feel it needs to be addressed.

Back then, I was one of those stubborn "gamers" who thought of using a walkthrough as admitting defeat. Not to mention the spoilers: what was the point in continuing with a game if I knew what was coming? But despite my misguided elitism, I could still be practical. In that vein, let's be honest, the Suikoden games are not meant to be played without some sort of walkthrough. Each one features over 108 characters to recruit, numbered according to the stars that marked their births, and listed in-game, according to star, in a database called the Star Tablet. The window to recruit them, for many, is time-sensitive; miss it and they're gone forever. The solution: frequently scour every inch of the world, talk to everyone and leave no stone unturned.

Such a solution was simply not acceptable. But I couldn't let the game send me running to a walkthrough with my tail between my legs, could I? Certainly, I couldn't abide spoilers. As we all know, a game completely loses its value once you know the name of the next boss. My solution: You, the Character Recruitment FAQ. No directions for dungeons, no rare item locations and no boss strategies. Just the limited info I need and no more.

I assumed (incorrectly) that these FAQs arranged characters in the only logical way: by order of recruitment. I would rarely be spoiled, as by the time I checked the FAQ I would have already encountered the character in question, and I could follow it leisurely as I played the game, checking off new recruits in sequential order.

Of course, as you know, Character Recruitment FAQ, I was wrong. For some ungodly reason, you were always nothing more than a copy of the aforementioned Star Tablet. The Star Tablet is flavor and has very little purpose as a utility. Sure, you can see how many characters are missing and look up some info on those you have recruited, but the actual sequence isn't at all helpful because you don't recruit characters in the same order. So to even take advantage of you, Character Recruitment FAQ, I need to cross-reference character names and star names between you and the in-game Star Tablet. Aren't you supposed to make playing the game easier?

You failed at your only task, Character Recruitment FAQ. You didn't make any of these games easier nor did you protect me from spoilers. At your best, you listed characters alphabetically, which is just as useless. At the end of the day, I'm still inputting a Ctrl+F document search for every new named character I meet. Half of my time spent "playing" the game was wasted scouring FAQs. So many wasted afternoons spent searching, in vain, for a better solution -- for the obvious solution: the list of characters by order of recruitment...but it didn't exist.

I know, I know -- eventually you figured out. By the time Suikoden V arrived in my mailbox, I could easily hit you up and find the convenient information I had been searching for all those years. Unfortunately, it was too late. I had left my young wannabe "hardcore" phase. I was a sophomore in college with scarce time to spend playing JRPGs the "right" way.

Since then, I've had the opportunity to replay those beloved classic Suikoden games, each with a proper FAQ to guide me through. So I do thank you, Character Recruitment FAQ, for eventually getting your act together and still helping me enjoy many wonderful hours of gaming, free of routine monotony and wasted time. Now that I have that off my chest, I can finally let go of that last remaining flicker of fanboy rage and be the well-adjusted adult Suikoden fan I should be.

I forgive you, Suikoden Character Recruitment FAQ c. 2000-c. 2006.
All the best,
Christian "Higgles" Higley

Michinarium review

2010-06-10T17:08:00.000-07:00

I love adventure games. I love Monkey Island; I love Grim Fandango; I love The Longest Journey; I love the Sam and Max Episodes; I even love Indigo Prophecy. It stands to reason, then, that I wanted to love Amanita Design's indie adventure title Machinarium. As a fan of the once-dying point-and-click puzzlers, I was content with the series resurrections, remakes and episodic content that have marked the resurgence of the adventure genre. But after a few years of playing the new versions of the same games I grew up with, I find myself pining for something more -- something original. What made all those old adventure games so great was the chance to explore so many brilliant, imaginative and, most importantly, new worlds. Arguably, there's no genre better suited for rich narrative world building. I wanted to love Machinarium. If only it wanted to love me back.

To be fair, it certainly tries. At least, it makes a lasting impression. As the game opens, you, a spry little-robot-that-could, are dropped, in pieces, into a scrapheap on the outskirts of the eponymous city. It's up to you to put yourself back together and retrace the steps that led you there, solving puzzles to make your way back into and through the quiet metropolis.

From that first instant, I was enchanted. Call me a sucker but take one look at the game and you can see why: Machinarium is beautiful. With its hand-drawn environments and sprites, it evokes the highest caliber of children's storybooks; it's just quirky enough to be cute and just surreal enough to be slightly unsettling, yet thoroughly enchanting. The world and its machine inhabitants all look old and broken-down. The sky is a burnt umber, covered in smoke; the earth is a black, blasted wasteland; and the city itself is rusted and crumbling. Yet there's an innocence as you wander its sparsely populated streets and squares, watching its machine inhabitants go about their daily lives and helping them with their troubles. The feeling of sadness that you feel exploring this world doesn't stem from a place of tragedy. Rather, it's the kind of sadness you feel wandering through an old house, taking in its history, age and mystery. It's the kind of sadness you could call, 'happiness for deep people.'

Machinarium isn't only visually beautiful-oh no-but aurally, as well. The sound design in general will blow you away and the soundtrack itself is arguably the best I've ever heard in the medium. The ambient tunes easily fade into the background, allowing you to focus on whatever adventure game logic puzzler you're currently tackling. Its more musical aspects are hypnotizing, lulling you into an almost meditative state of concentration. The individual sounds that make up each song -- the chimes, taps, whistles, zips, hums, twangs, and groaning bass rhythms -- sound completely authentic to the world. The music of Machinarium isn't just music, it's the sounds of the city itself coming to life. Occasionally, the music of the game will be brought to the forefront in the form of radios and a street band. In these moments, the funkier, jazzier tracks sound more like experimental dance beats; rhythmic, motivating and unwaveringly enthusiastic. It would have been so easy to match a soundtrack of sterile bleeps and bloops to a game about robots, but composer Tomas Dvorak deserves big propers for lovingly crafting such warm, soulful tunes to do justice to the game's overall aesthetic. I've never been a big game music enthusiast but this is one game soundtrack I could, and will, listen to on its own without ever growing bored.

The next thing you'll notice about Machinarium is its method of storytelling. Specifically, you'll notice the complete lack of dialogue or written instruction. While this is certainly one of the elements that makes Machinarium so unique, it's also one of my most contentious issues with the game. Aside from menus and the title screen, there are no words in the game. Dialogue is presented as brief sketched animations that play out in thought bubbles. Even hints and tutorials are portrayed using sequential images. In many ways, this approach does a service; cheap voice actors could have ruined the whole experience, and indeed, any dialogue, no matter how well delivered or written, could have dealt serious damage to the whole aesthetic experience. On the other hand, most adventure games are boiling over with dialogue for a reason: it's a simple and effective way to inform the player.

There was a moment in the game where I found a kind of stretchy band of cloth. At least, I thought it was just a stretchy band of cloth. In truth, I couldn't effectively tell what it was or what to do with it. After attempting to use it on random objects in the environment, I eventually discovered its purpose: I used it on a swarm of flies and caught them. It was fly paper -- ohhh. Maybe I'm just not as bright as I think I am, but I encountered many such moments in the game: find an item that looks vaguely like something familiar and only stumble upon its actual identity through a combination of luck and trial and error. With no labels, no inner monologue/commentary from the player character and no handy "investigate" or "look at" buttons, I just felt lost and frustrated. This is why I couldn't love Machinarium like I wanted to: every step of the way, I felt like the game was fighting me, trying my patience to the point of exhaustion.

Machinarium is unfortunately archaic in the way many of its puzzles are designed. The days of pixel hunting and game-specific moon logic are back...and they're pissed about being (almost) forgotten. I don't necessarily mind that, in theory, but the problem with pixel-hunting in Machinarium is that you don't notice them. Everything in the game is hand-drawn, making it a chore of aimless clicking to figure out which objects can and can't be used. Everything looks like setting or background; there are no indicators to say, "this light bulb is different from all the other identical light bulbs." You're forced to to just wave the mouse around the screen, waiting for the cursor to change.

When it does, hope you're actually pointing at the right thing, because the hit detection could use a lot of work. If I had a dime for every time I tried to interact with one object, but accidentally clicked on another next to it because the two overlapped in some weird way, I'd have, well, at least a few bucks (but hey, that's a lot of dimes). The confusion is accompanied by the frustration of the game's many, lengthy animations. The first couple times you watch them, they're great. They're fluid and thorough; you feel like you're watching a cartoon. But the fifth or sixth time you accidentally have to watch your little robot guy walk up a flight of stairs or climb a latter, it just becomes a waste of time.

Additionally, many of the puzzles are unapologetically rigid in how they must be solved. Too often I knew what I was supposed to do but felt stuck because I didn't know how to do it. I had all the pieces, I just wasn't putting them together in the right order. No, that's not a metaphor; there are literally arbitrary orders to the way certain puzzles need to be solved. Early in the game there's one where you need to make a disguise. I had all the elements for the hat: a traffic cone, a light bulb and blue paint, but I couldn't put them together. I was convinced I was missing some crucial piece of the puzzle, so I turned to the handy in-game walkthrough. For every puzzle, the game features a two-tiered hint system. The first provides an image of your final objective. The second provides you with a pictorial walkthrough that you must first unlock by playing a side-scrolling shooter mini-game. Unlocking the guide, I discovered that I wasn't missing anything. Instead, for no logical reason, I simply needed to put the three objects together in a very specific order.

Playing Machinarium, I sometimes felt that I was at odds with it. I was infatuated with its beauty and craft, yet infuriated when its artistic qualities clashed with its basic mechanical design. As much as I love and appreciate its aesthetic, my adoration so often melted away in the face of frustration. Every new location and character brought butterflies to my stomach and each new puzzle violently killed them. I felt that actually playing the game was a chore and my reward was the next environment, the next sprite, the next song. But this is a videogame and playing the game should be its own reward. Still, I have a hard time arguing that the rewards aren't worth the work. In spite of its frustration, the worst thing you can say about a game, or about any work of art, is that it's forgettable. Machinarium is anything but forgettable; it's sights and sounds will stay with me for a long, long time. While it did anger me at times, the frustration isn't what I'm going to remember. I'll remember its crumbling stone paths, its rusted pipes and cogs, the innocence and honesty of an antique city populated by antique machines, and, of course, its haunting, evocative and just plain beautiful soundscape.

Darksiders (Xbox 360) review

2010-06-10T17:07:00.001-07:00

Just as comics struggled to break into the film industry before eventually exploding in popularity, so have they done with games. The days when developers could just stick favorite costumed fighters into a forgettable brawler are long gone. They gave way to a new trend whereby developers placed beloved masked vigilantes into forgettable open-world games. Like filmmakers, game developers are now realizing the need to approach comics-based games in unique and inventive ways that reflect the strengths of their properties, talent and respective mediums. The mechanics in Batman: Arkham Asylum were tailored to the character; investigation, stealth, gadgets, using fear as a weapon to dispatch opponents one-by-one. Similarly, the upcoming Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions plays to the superhero comic trope of the multiverse, casting the player as multiple versions of everyone's favorite web-slinger. Last year's InFamous, in addition to having a title that's annoying to type, was an original comic-style property. At a reductive level, InFamous was just an open-world shooter. It was good, but its comic inspiration wouldn't have been so strongly felt without its comic-book styled custscenes. As an original IP, Darksiders is made much in this same vein. However, Darksiders does a much more effective job of evoking its comic inspirations.

Darksiders begins with the Horseman War -- one of the biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse -- being summoned to Earth for the end of days. When he gets there, he finds Heaven and Hell engaged in their final war, with humanity caught in the middle. There are only two problems: his fellow Horsemen weren't summoned and Armageddon has come a few thousand years ahead of schedule. War is initially blamed for the snafu and, after 100 years of imprisonment, is sent back to Earth to find and punish those responsible for the catastrophe.

On a technical level, comics are a form of art that use sequential images to tell a story. The goal of the comic artist and/or writer (depending on the team's method) is to make and frame each image to effectively show a visual narrative. Basically, a good artist should make art that can stand on its own, able to show at least the gist of the plot without any dialogue or captions. This is where the effort from comic artist Joe Madureira, creative director of Darksiders and co-founder of developer Vigil Games, is most strongly felt. Every frame of a custscene looks like it could be a frame in a comic; I could mute the TV and still perfectly understand what's happening, based solely on the framing and art.

The art itself is also vivid and expressive. Finally, a game in a post-apocalyptic setting that's bright and colorful! The ruined city features some genuinely beautiful landscapes. In Anvil's Ford, the urban ruins have been reclaimed by vibrant, green vegetation; the Iron Canopy is grey, but in a way that's chilling and still, exploiting my anxiety instead of just being boring; the Ashlands are a wide expanse of craggy desert, formed by the ashen remains of humanity instead of boring old sand. The environments in Darksiders never lack originality or their own form of beauty.

Truthfully, in addition to just looking nice, Darksiders uses its pretty art to tell a good visual narrative, much to the benefit of its overall level design. The aforementioned Iron Canopy is a prime example, where I was especially struck by the use of a public bus, suspended between two platforms by the webbing of demon spiders, as a type of bridge. It was a visually striking image that told its own story (possibly suspended so the demon spiders could more easily capture those trapped inside) and served a utilitarian function within the level that also felt very believable.

So, why am I talking so much about Darksiders' visual presentation and not its actual game mechanics? The answer is because Darksiders doesn't do anything you haven't seen before. If anything, Darksiders strives specifically to do things you have seen before. This isn't a bad thing, necessarily; rather than innovate, Darksiders borrows, spins and refines. In short: Darksiders is the best Zelda game I've played in a while.

Most immediately striking in that regard is the level design. Like modern Zelda games, it falls in that area between open-world and linearity. There's freedom of movement and areas to explore, but you're exploring niches in a relatively constrained environment, rather than wide-open spaces. The world is divided into distinct areas and dungeons that you progress though linearly, with the exception of backtracking. In that regard, even your progression as a character is in the Zelda tradition. Each dungeon gives you a new item, which is used strongly within the dungeon (especially during boss fights), and again in previous areas to reach formerly inaccessible treasure. That treasure consists mostly of Life Stones and Wrath Cores; collect 4 of each to upgrade your health and "wrath" (magic power, mana, choose your favorite synonym for "energy") bars. The equipment itself includes such mainstays as the War Glaive (boomerang) and Abyssal Chain (hookshot). You even have your own guide to chime in and tell what to do and where to go, though War's relationship with 'The Watcher' is a far more antagonistic one than Link had with Navi (though it's probably just as antagonist as the relationship most players had with Navi).

Darksiders' "homages" don't end there; on his journey, War will collect multi-colored orbs to replenish health, wrath and act as currency; buy new items and skills from a shady, sinister-sounding merchant whose domains are marked with a distinct blue light; he'll even acquire a portal gun. Yes, that's right: a portal gun.

Knowing these facts beforehand, it would be easy to come to Darksiders with a cynical attitude. To do so would be just that: cynical, and unnecessarily so at that, as Darksiders is anything but. Playing the game, it becomes clear that none of these mechanics have simply been cribbed due to laziness or a lack of originality. If anything, Darksiders is a love-letter to videogames. Every idea and mechanic that it emulates, it does well and with great care. The developers' passion for the medium comes through in the sheer fun of playing the game. Its combat and puzzles are right up there with the best in the biz, so much so that it's one of few games I've played in a long time that kept me up nights, unable or unwilling to put down the controller.

Darksiders isn't perfect. Like some of its inspirations, the platforming is a far cry from the standards of Mario or even Ratchet and Clank. I had many moments of frustration because I felt confident that War shouldn't have missed a jump, jumped too late or should have grabbed a ledge. In fact, there were times where I swear War didn't jump at all, and just ran straight into a pit of death. Fortunately, falling to your death in Darksiders only results in a small health penalty and places you back at the jump you missed, so it was never a big deal.

I also had some issues with the camera. Specifically, it's fixed too close to War. Too often I couldn't see what was happening in a fight, resulting in too many hits from off-camera. But I'll say it again: Darksiders is the best Zelda game I've played in a while. Joe Mad's visual style is stunning and unique and the game itself is just downright fun. Darksiders shouldn't be missed.

Mount and Blade: Warband review

2010-06-10T17:06:00.001-07:00

When I reviewed the original Mount and Blade back in 2008, I was quite taken with the unique action/RPG. It offered a fresh take on the sort of free-form adventuring offered by a game like Sid Meier's Pirates! Except, instead of exchanging broadsides in battles on the high seas, you took your fight to the turf; commanding armies, vying with your opponent for control over the chaos of swords, shields, arrows, and horses all slamming into each other. It was a quirky but fascinating product of a tiny Turkish development studio and, while it wasn't much to look at, it demonstrated what a handful of creative people can accomplish with scarce resources and a fresh perspective. If the enemy of art is the absence of limitation, Mount and Blade was an example of, arguably, what a powerful creative catalyst limitation can be.

One thing you should remember about Mount and Blade: Warband: it is a stand-alone expansion to the original -- not a sequel. It does not re-invent the original in any way, but builds on it incrementally. Warband brings updates, additions and tweaks. While they're all very welcome, few of them change the game in any significant way.

While Warband brings some new graphical tricks, such as improved textures and HDR lighting, it's still not a contender for any beauty pageants. To be blunt, the game looks ten years old, at least. It's at its best when the visuals are minimal; on a battlefield in the plains, steppes and deserts of the world, Warband doesn't look so bad. The draw distance goes on for what feels like miles and the hills, mountains, rivers, and woods lend good credibility and variation to the terrain. Villages and towns, however, look like they were made from toy blocks and just stuck on the ground. Some sense of life is attempted as random NPCs move about in the streets, but their wandering -- which is either completely aimless or guided by pre-determined routes -- only enhance the static feel of the game's urban environments.

Of course, being an action/RPG, you'll spend most of your time looking at people. Unfortunately, the people look like poorly-carved wooden dolls. Mount and Blade is one of those games that would benefit from a stylized art style that doesn't rely strictly on graphical fidelity. Unfortunately, the game insists on striving for, for lack of a better term, a realistic look. Consequently, and unfortunately, its graphical limitations are likely the first thing you'll notice.

And it is unfortunate, because underneath that unattractive appearance is a unique and sound open-world RPG. Warband introduces a new faction to the world of Calradia, which previously consisted of five factions built on real-world archetypes, in the form of the Arab-inspired Saranid Sultinate. With them, the world itself has been re-designed to allow for a new desert region and some more natural landscaping.

I want to make the comparison to Sid Meier's Pirates! once again, because it's an accurate one. Like that series, Mount and Blade doesn't feature much of a pre-scripted plot (or any, for that matter). Warband drops you into the world and tells you to go do whatever you want, whenever you want, and carve out your own personal narrative. You can work as a mercenary, hunting outlaws and selling your sword to the various factions; pledge your allegiance to one of the six factions and fight as a lord of the realm; become an outlaw and terrorize the smallfolk; raise a rebel army to conquer a faction, restoring its rightful ruler or claiming that title for yourself; or just be a humble merchant trader and make a fortune by taking advantage of the game's rich economy. Warband gives you the chance to marry into prominent families, gaining renown, power and favor. With a whole lot of patience and tenacity, you can even form your own faction and become a king, with the power to wage wars and conquer all of Calradia for yourself.

Fighting those wars is where the Mount and Blade games set themselves apart with their robust, physics-based combat. Different weapons deal different kinds of damage, which in turn can be determined by how they're used. Blunt weapons are good for destroying shields, but can only be used one way. On the other hand, a sword can deliver either piercing or cutting damage, depending on whether it is thrust or swung. Your speed and movement get factored into the equation, as well. When charging an opponent on horseback, a backswing isn't going to be very useful since you aren't taking advantage of your momentum; a thrusting attack could be devastating, with all that force behind it, but that's assuming it connects; similarly, a regular swing benefits from the added force of your movement and has a wide arc; the weight of your weapon; the length of your weapon; the direction your opponent is moving; the direction you're moving; your distance from your target; how quickly you swing...there's a lot to consider. It sounds so much more complicated when put on paper but feels very natural in practice.

Warband makes some small but very welcome changes to combat. Shields now block arrows even when unequipped, which has become an extremely effective form of defense in multiplayer (but more on that later). Arrows, bolts and thrown weapons can now be recovered and used on the battlefield, keeping you in the game if face-to-face knife fights aren't your thing. The most noticeable change, however, is how thrown weapons, such as javelins, can now be used as melee weapons in a pinch. None of these tweaks are significant changes but they help strengthen a few of the weaker layers of combat from the original.

In truth, the only frustration I felt in combat didn't stem from its mechanics so much as the artificial intelligence of your opponents. Enemies are always extremely aggressive, charging you, constantly pressing their attack and swinging their weapons frantically. They never fight carefully which means that you rarely can yourself. It sucks because the depth of the system seems to want to encourage careful, tactical thinking, yet the A.I. never gives you the chance. In battle, on horseback, it isn't a huge deal because there's so much going on. But in smaller conflicts or one-on-one fights, I often found that the best strategy was to simply flail wildly. Unfortunately, this nagging issue is just as it was in the original game. If Warband had added a windmill attack, it would be impenetrable.

The biggest (and most advertised) addition to Warband is the new multiplayer mode. Multiplayer in Warband consists of the basic combat from the main game in map-based competition, played out in usual FPS modes such as deathmatch variations and capture the flag, and more tailored faire like siege, wherein one team attacks a fortified castle while another defends. Before and during each game, players can choose one of three pre-determined loadouts (archer, infantry or cavalry) and customize them with better equipment using money gained from eliminating other players. Basically, it's Counterstrike with swords.

Despite being a major addition to the expansion, multiplayer feels underwhelming. There's fun to be had fighting other humans with the game's robust combat system, but by falling back on familiar competitive multiplayer tropes, it just feels like only a small fraction of the singleplayer experience. What's sad is that the singleplayer provides such a good model for multiplayer. It would be so much more interesting not simply fighting other human players in single combat, but going up against each other with armies, conquering towns and castles on smaller overworld maps with the chance to really cooperate and coordinate with your teammates. As the multiplayer currently exists, it's an interesting experiment, but I would think the core game would have benefited more from those resources.

Currently, Warband's most glaring flaw is that it may or may not be unfinished. Upon starting the game, I encountered content that wasn't complete. One early example is when I took a quest to rescue a captured noble. It was presented with three options: lay siege to the city, fight my way through the prison or negotiate a ransom. Since my army was still small and I wasn't confident in my personal combat abilities, I opted to negotiate. But when I did so, the game bluntly stated, "Ransom option not yet implemented." As of this writing, the game has been patched to remove those options, but references to the missing content still exist and the content itself has not yet been implemented. Whether it will be in the future is a mystery, but it's inexcusable that any game would be released at retail in such a state.

Arguably, the best thing that Mount and Blade: Warband has going for it is longevity. The game is so multi-layered that I couldn't even cover it all above. In addition to the deep combat and freedom, there's a dynamic economy and political system; factions go to war, conquer territory, form treaties and alliances, and struggle internally with betrayals and uprisings with or without your influence. Hardcore RPG fans get numbers to crunch in the forms of basic stats, weapon proficiencies and various skills that range from the personal (stronger attacks, faster movement, persuasion, etc.) to the slightly more meta (treating your soldiers' wounds, training them for bonus experience, increased army size). Loot seekers and lovers of the paper-doll effect (seeing your avatar in shiny new clothes) will find a staggering amount of armor and clothing with which to customize you and your companions. The learning curve can become steep and managing your armies in real-time can be overwhelming, but Warband's robustness (since that seems to be the word of the day) even extends to its difficulty settings, which allow for a great degree of customization to ease you into things at your own speed. If you can get past its aesthetic shortcomings, Mount and Blade: Warband isn't a game you'll want to miss. Likewise, if you were a fan of the original, Warband offers just enough to warrant a trip back to war-torn Calradia.

Risen Diary 6

2010-06-10T17:04:00.000-07:00

Everything changed in the monastery.

Walking its halls as a bandit on a diplomatic mission was an endurance test. The monastery is the rogue's wet-dream. The quarters are lined with the bunk rooms of the recruits, all of whom are busy with their daily tasks, and rich with chests and cupboards to raid; in the cemetery is a tomb, hosting only still-dead, non-animated skeletons buried with their possessions, ready for plundering; there's a warehouse where the Inquisiton keeps its artefacts, guarded by a single old man who enjoys taking time off; and if that weren't enough, a surprisingly thriving drug-trade makes the guards easy to bribe. It takes every bit of will I have to be a good envoy and not rob the fools blind.

The monastery itself, unsurprisingly, turns out to be very much the opposite side of the coin to the Don's camp. Where the Don's camp is open, scattered across wilderness in a deep swamp basin, the monastery is a single structure, completely enclosed and built into the high peak of a volcano. Where the Don's men are concerned with toiling, hunting and generally surviving, the monastery is populated by disciplined novices, training and sparring. Most importantly, whereas the Don's men are bandits and outlaws, they have all chosen their allegiance and lifestyle freely and are content with the consequences. The novices of the monastery, disciplined and noble on the outside though they may be, are largely being trained against their will. Many have been captured and "conscripted," forced to learn the ways of the Inquisition, are eager to leave, and are passing time until they get the chance by smuggling, selling and smoking weed. Whereas the Don justifies crime and anarchy as being for the greater good, the Inquisition does the same with fascism. At least I was right about one thing: it seems my only choice was ever between two poisons. Risen's world is a grim one.

My discussion with the Inquisitor, Mendoza, is illuminating, however -- much moreso than any I've had with the Don. It quickly becomes clear that, while the Don claims he's working for the "greater good" -- the "freedom" of his people -- he has yet to really convince me. While I do prefer his brand of anarchy to the theocratic, totalitarian ways of the Inquisition, the giant pile of gold in his temple tells its own story. Mendoza, jerk he may be, seems much more commited to the greater good of fighting the "true" evil threatening the island (like you didn't see that plot twist coming?). I don't trust Mendoza but I've played enough games to know that I can usually at least trust lengthy exposition about forgotten evils. Therefore, I agree to help him collect the x number of mcguffins he needs to stop this evil. Also, it's the only way he'll accept the Don's terms for peace. And then, you know, it's also the only way to advance the main quest of the game. So there's that.

I finish my conversation with Mendoza when I'm greeted by a screen that proclaims, "Chapter Two."

Chapter two? I'm only just beginning chapter two? Oh boy. I accept my fate to be tied to this game for quite a while longer than I ever expected and carry on.

Things change in chapter two. There are new monsters in new places; there are new NPC's in new places; NPC's with whom I had previously exhausted all dialogue options now have more to say to me; I'm informed that the temple to the east is now open. However, the small changes only bring to light the lack of big ones. The workers at the Don's camp are still carrying crates from the site we claimed; Harbour Town has still not been claimed by either faction and its residents persist in the same daily routines; the Inquisition's farm outpost is still in a perpetual state of "packing up."

I return to the Don to report on my meeting with the Inquisitor. I tell him the Inquisitor's terms and about my new quest. Most importantly, I relate the importance of my new quest. Naturally, he will hear none of it. I'm to collect these magic items for the Inquisitor, but bring them to the Don instead to strengthen his bargaining position. I don't trust either of these old fools but at least I have an enemy to fight now. It's invisible, always looming just beyond the horizon, but it's there. If the Don won't see reason by the time I have to report back to the Inquisitor, I'll kill him. From now on, I'll decide for myself what does and doesn't fall under the banner of, "for the greater good."

In stark contrast to chapter one, wherein I spent most of my time in the Don's camp or Harbour Town, wrestling with ethical crises, playing for/against factions and learning to navigate the morally murky waters of civilization, chapter two isn't so easy on me. Yes, I said easy, because while I fought with my own conscience in chapter one, I also spent a lot of time in duels that weren't to the death, talking and exploring. I was surrounded by people, good or bad. Now I'm out in the wild, on my own, and it's clear that things will be this way for quite some time.

Becoming a jack of all trades has screwed me a bit. I really ought to have seen that coming. I'm not completely gimped but, to make a long story short -- a story filled with the frustration of constant paranoid saving/loading -- I turn the difficulty down to easy. Oh well. I have nothing to prove.

Risen Diary 5

2010-06-10T17:03:00.001-07:00

There's something I have to take care of before I head out on my "diplomatic" mission. Remember those thieves I helped out of Harbour Town earlier? Well, I didn't just do it out of the goodness of my heart. I've had this quest for a while now that I haven't had time to tackle, to find the entrance to some ruined temple on the opposite side of the island and find three treasure seekers to go dig it up. After I inform one of the Don's officers in the camp that I've found the three treasure seekers, who are triplets, he tells me to tell them to get to work. I should point out now that I have still yet to check out this temple, myself.

Returning to the beach outside Harbour Town, I find the three brothers still waiting, sitting around a fire. I tell them about the temple, about what they need to do, and they assure me they'll be on their way shortly to get to work. Then they sit right back down and continue poking at the fire.

"That's fine," I say to myself. "I'm sure the game will teleport them there so they won't die walking across the island." I decide to go off to the temple finally and meet them there. Upon arriving at the temple, however, I find myself alone. They aren't here and the entrance to the temple is collapsed.

I'm going to digress from my digression for a moment (I know this is getting convoluted but please bear with me) to talk about one of my general pet-peeves with games that omit any kind of fast travel. I'm impatient and, personally, I think every open-world game should have some form of fast travel. However, I also respect the position of the designer if they want every leg of your journey to feel like a journey in itself. I can appreciate that I have to explore this island on foot and alone. However, while this concept works in theory, it breaks down when you face the fact that games don't always work as they should. I've played enough of these rough-around-edges RPGs to puzzle out my current situation: I have likely skipped a step with this quest, so while I told the brothers to head to the temple, I missed some other trigger that actually sends them there, and now I have to run around trying to figure out where I went wrong.

I have to run all the way back to the brothers, to make sure I didn't miss any dialogue options. When I confirm that I didn't, I have to run all the way back to the camp, to the questgiver, to tell him that I finally visited the temple myself, then tell him that I sent the treasure seekers there as well. Next, I run all the way back to the beach to see if they're still there, sitting at that fire. They are not. Returning to the temple, I find that they've now arrived.

It turns out that I was, indeed, supposed to visit the temple myself first. Since I was able to tell the men to go there regardless, I just ignored that step. I have no idea which step of this quest actually triggered the brothers going to the temple. What we have here is a completely linear quest that branches off, pointlessly, into multiple parts that all lead to the same goal. The game allowed me to skip a step and then refused to recognize that I had done so. This is a problem.

Ugh. Are you as exhausted as I am after that?

Back on track, I'm on my way to the monastery to meet with the Inquisitor when I pass a farm that's occupied by the Inquisition. Novices are lugging crates into the buildings, which are clearly being used as storehouses. Guards are posted at the buildings and an important-looking man is standing like a sentinel at the rear of the farm, supervising the workers. Ah, to be mid-level management.

In an attempt to be a good and sincere diplomat, despite my shady mission objective, I introduce myself as such to the boss. Naturally, he isn't thrilled about my presence, but he's nothing if not professional. After asking some general questions about the area and his group's operations, he mentions a camp to the west, led by a man named Rudolph, that they haven't heard from in quite some time.

*Gulp*

That does sound...familiar. Nervously, I tell him that Rudolph has, uh, "passed." I know I probably shouldn't, but my guilt over the thrill that I felt killing this man's brothers in that first battle is overwhelming me. He's no idiot; he immediately picks up that the Don's men were likely behind it and that I, as a high-ranking member (now), probably had "something" to do with it. Nevertheless, this man is a professional. He mourns the situation, acknowledges that war is likely coming and steels himself for the inevitable.

He also brings up an issue that he and his men have been having with local gnomes stealing their supplies. Hating gnomes, and he hating them as much as I, I feel that solving this problem of theirs is the least I could do to make some amends. I guess I'm not much of a spy?

The gnomes fall easily and swiftly to my newly upgraded sword skill and I'm promptly off to the monastery (finally). Announcing myself as the Don's diplomat, I'm immediately allowed entrance. Almost too immediately, I think. My suspicions turn out to be correct. I'm greeted inside by a presumably high-ranking member of the Inquisition, who points me toward the office of the Inquisitor. When I ask how I can leave the monastery after the meeting, he tells me that first I will meet with the Inquisitor, then he and I will discuss the possibility that I might ever leave this place.

*Gulp*

Risen Diary 4

2010-06-10T17:01:00.001-07:00

The walk back to the swamp looks far more daunting on my map than it turns out to be. I haven't been in the wild for a while now, but during my time in the city I invested good money and points into my skills and stats. For the first time I feel like I can survive out there on my own, without a tour guide or a mercenary mob by my side. This feeling turns out to be true but only thanks to the fantasy-game miracles of health potions and healing scrolls. I'm killing the vultures much more easily now but a small swarm of "talon moths" prove to be frustrating foes. But they're nothing compared to the gnomes. Those damn gnomes.

Why does every game need its requisite small, obnoxious, swarming enemy type? Gnomes are less than half my height, they attack faster than I do, able to hit me while I'm readying my own attacks, and as I engage one or two in melee combat there are about seven others in the wings, throwing junk at me. No, literally, junk: old boots, dead fish, forks, cans...I feel like I might be able to appreciate the humor if they weren't so damn annoying. They also don't at all resemble the gnomes that we're used to. If you're looking for cute, quirky, inventive, clever little people, go check out the WarCraft universe. Risen's gnomes are deformed, dirty, mean little urchins who hack away at your knees with sickles. I don't like them.

The extremely imprecise, uncontrollable auto-targeting isn't helping me one bit. I didn't mention this before because it largely wasn't an issue. In combat, enemies are targeted automatically by the game, allowing for movement circling the targeted foe. This works much like picking up items: get close to an enemy, get it mostly centered in the camera, and your locked on. But (and this is a big, brightly lit "but" framed in cascading fireworks), when fighting multiple enemies, Risen will select which enemy to target. It will also decide when to switch targets and will do so often and (seemingly) without any criteria. There's no way for me to stay focused on the gnome that's right in front of me and turning the camera to disengage a lock makes it sweep wildly, spinning me around. The tiny gnomes, who I can't adequately place in my line of sight to begin with, present an incredible challenge. I can get one or two strikes in before my target changes to another; the one I'm targeting strafes to my side (the grease feet of my foes are becoming exponentially more irritating), forcing my view away from the one that's hacking away at what is now my side; every time my angle of view changes, I'm pelted with a boot or a fish thrown by one of the waiting gnomes, unable to aim my shield in the right direction because my target has shifted.

This issue could have been fixed so simply by just making targeting manual. Just let me hit a button to switch or disengage a lock-on. Zelda: The Ocarina of Time did it more than a decade ago. I shouldn't be wasting potions and scrolls and getting killed because of a poorly designed camera. I wish I could say this issue ends with the gnomes, due to their stature, as I initially theorized. Later I'll fight a group of skeletons who present the exact same challenge. Since these are my first experiences fighting larger groups of enemies, this had never been an issue until now, but evidence suggests it will be an issue for the remainder of my time on this island.

After the encounter with the gnomes and a quick detour into an abandoned mine to reap its rich ore deposits with my newly acquired mining skill, I finally head back to the swamp to report to the Don. I inform him that the city is ready for his rebellion and deliver an important package from his top man in the harbour. For all my troubles and loyalty (and after paying a steep 1000 gold fee), I'm rewarded with some real armor. In terms of stats, the leather is a significant upgrade from the cloth I'm currently wearing, but after a few battles I begin to question how useful armor really is. The huge jump in the numbers seems poorly represented in actual combat, where I still have to suck down potions and scrolls like a crazed addict. At least it looks cool?

I'm also promoted to a for-real hunter. What I was before, I have no idea (Freelancer? Castaway? Worker? Errand boy?). Whatever the case, I'm now a card-carrying member of the gang. I'm also charged with what I imagine is a fairly important assignment as the Don's emissary to the Inquisition. My job is to walk right into the Monastery, where all the brainwashing supposedly takes place, and break bread with the main Inquisitor himself in an effort to open negotiations. He doesn't hide the fact, however, that I'm really just a spy, sent to find out what the Inquisitor knows about the island and what he really wants from it, without giving away any information about our current situation. I wonder why the Inquisitor isn't also attempting something so under-handed, and once again I doubt that I have chosen the lesser of two evils. I suppose only time will tell.

Risen Diary 3

2010-06-10T17:00:00.000-07:00

I've finally found a way out of Harbour Town. During the rest of my time there, I engaged in numerous dirty deeds, all of which means to the justified end that is fighting the Inquisiton. I've sold off a poor fishmonger's stall to a gullible drunk, informed the tavern girl about her pirate father and been rewarded with his shack, convinced an Inquisition guard that I can help them find the Don's secret stash of loot, only to retrieve it for one of the Don's men, helped a petty criminal out of lock-up, broken up a drug deal and recovered the "product" for the Don, extorted free beer and information out of a shopkeeper, and recovered some artefacts to be smuggled out of the city.

But I've also done some good. I helped an overworked craftsman get some much-needed time off and offered to help a poor servant woman track down her missing sons. I also helped a mage--a supporter of the Inquisition--deliver health potions to ailing peasants and refugees. Guys like this keep making me wonder if I'm doing the right thing. On one hand, the Inquisition is slowly destroying the city's economy with their occupation. On the other, here's this good guy who actually gives a damn. In the end, it doesn't matter. I've completed enough quests for the Don that my loyalties are public. The Commandant of the Inquisition -- Carlos -- invites me to meet with him. I've never met him but he sure seems to know me. He expresses his disappointment in my actions and tells me to bugger off.

By the way, I never solved my earlier moral dilemma. It honestly doesn't bother me; as long as those artefacts (I probably should have cleared this up before, but this is the way the game spells this word: "artefact") are in the hands of the workers, they aren't in the hands of the Inquisition. I've also copped out on a quest to track down one of the Don's spies who has been fingered by the Inquisition, so one of the Don's men can "silence" him permanently. Yes, I am a coward, and there are some lines I just can't bring myself to cross. He'll remain, hiding in the city, on his own. Whatever happens, happens.

Fortunately, my cowardice doesn't affect my ultimate goal. I've proven myself to the Don's top man in Harbour Town in other ways and I'm allowed to see him. In the back of the brothel, there's a painting. When pressed, it opens a secret passage to a hidden warehouse, which has its own secret tunnel leading outside of the city. When I first heard rumors of this tunnel, my head was still filled with romantic ideas about the Don and his "resistance." Yes, I knew they were gangsters, but like the Cosa Nostra of antiquity, I just convinced myself that they're doing what they need to do for the people, because the Inquisition and corrupt nobility refuse to do so. I don't do harm, it's all for the greater good, the ends justify the means, there is no right or wrong, only actions and consequences. But there is no magic "weed only" sign -- figuratively speaking -- on either side of that tunnel. It's used to smuggle things and people, good or bad, for whatever it takes to undermine the Inquisition and buff the Don's coffers. It seems there are only evils in Risen's world. I just hope I've chosen the lesser of the two. In either case, I do harm. I do harm.

I'm finally outside of Harbour Town. It's time to return to the swamp and report my many successes to the Don. At least I have shoes now.

Risen Diary 2

2010-06-10T16:59:00.001-07:00

Wherein our hero acquires shoes.

The first (maybe only?) city in Risen doesn't change much. Yeah, it's a lot bigger than the Don's camp, filled with more people and more things to do, but for the most part it's more of the same. I'm still performing tasks for whichever factions I choose to ally myself, performing fetch-quests and proving myself in duels.

What the city does offer, I'm beginning to realize, is a strong sense of atmosphere, different from what I experienced in the wilderness or the Don's camp. Harbour Town has its own sense of culture and culture clash since the occupation by the Inquisition. The value of my experience in Harbour Town can't be adequately measured by the things I am doing or any matter of technical presentation. Like before, and like I am now realizing it will be for the remainder of the game, I can only shine a positive light on the game through how it makes me feel, as opposed to what it simply does.

Harbour Town is a place of grey, somewhat ironically in stark contrast to the black and white world of the Don's camp. There, things were easy. I was dealing with outlaws and thieves; that much I knew upfront. My biggest problem was Brogar, who was more a power-mad tyrant than anything else. Everyone hated him, for very good and clear reasons that he himself made no effort to hide. There were distinct "good guys" and "bad guys" (relative to the situation, mind you).

In Harbour Town this is not the case. I'm here on orders from the Don, helping the Don's men who remain in the city. Previously, I had no doubt that I was better off working with criminals than the brainwashing, fascist, zealous Inquisition. Harbour Town is making me think more than I care to.

After bribing my way into the city, I'm almost immediately approached by one of the Don's inside men (his name escapes me at the moment, but it's probably something Spanish, as with seemingly all outlaws in the game). He asks me to shake down a local shopkeeper for protection money, insisting that the shopkeeper is a cheat, manipulating the local farmers out of their hard-earned goods and selling it back to them at ridiculous prices. I guess that's the danger of a completely insular, cyclical economy. After talking with the local farmers, this certainly does seem to be the case.

I'm not too fond of beating on a simple merchant for extortion money, but the cause seems just. "I suppose the ends do justify the means," I reason. So I challenge the merchant's bodyguard to a "friendly" duel, ensuring he's too beat up to do his job. Then I provoke the merchant, beat him to the ground, and get the Don's money. Feeling bad, I try to explain to the merchant that I'm really just doing my job, and he agrees to "let bygones be bygones" and sells me some new armor (which comes with SHOES). Well, honor among thieves, I guess? I return the money to the Don's man who insists the whole situation is just a necessary way to make sure everyone is paying their "fair share." I question where that money will actually go--back to the farmers or to the massive pile of gold in the Don's temple. Yeah, denial isn't just a river in Egypt...

But I'm just doing my job. Unfortunately, my next encounter with one of the Don's men is a similar, but much more complex situation. He and his workers have been stealing artefacts from the Inquisition's warehouse. But his workers are holding out on him and keeping the artefacts for themselves. The workers, meanwhile, insist that they're only holding the artefacts until they get paid for stealing them. There's no way for me to tell who's telling the truth. For all I know, both are. I can pay the workers for the artefacts, which will cost me a lot more than I'll make for recovering them or I can "persuade" them another way. This is for the Don -- my boss. This is also, I tell myself, for the "greater good" of fighting the Inquisition.

But that's just it, isn't it? Should I be fighting the Inquisition? I've heard a lot of talk about their "brainwashing." I assumed that their novices would all be mumbling zombies. Quite contrary, however, I find that the Inquisition's "brainwashed" conscripts are not only lucid and articulate, but friendly and helpful.

I hold off on the decision to recover the artefacts from the workers. Like Hamlet, I just need more time to decide (and then everybody dies...well, hopefully not).

I go to the tavern and meet its owner, a kind young lady who, like all other young ladies in the game, is impossibly-built and dressed like a pornstar. Well, I guess it's just one of those games. She seems to be in a fairly straightforward pickle: she's looking for her father so the two of them can escape the city and the Inquisition. Ah, a nice change from the moral grey I'm currently avoiding. She says the only person who has info on her father is a pirate captain who's in lock-up on the pier. That's cool; I can justify sneaking into a jail cell to meet secretly with a prisoner if it means helping out this girl and her old man.

The guard at the cell is willing to not notice me enter if he's conveniently pre-occupied. He's been standing guard for days and is in need of some, uh, "companionship." So, I'm merrily off to the local brothel.

The brothel, unsurprisingly, is filled with women identical to Sara, my companion from the shipwreck. Actually, looking around, I notice that most of the city's female population consist of these impossibly-proportioned clones. It's kind of a shame. The first person I notice as I enter the brothel is one of its customers, a man called Erickson, sitting at the bar. Because I talk to him and because he's a dick, he starts a fight with me, which I win.

Combat, even against humans, is beginning to become more routine. Their grease-footed maneuvers are becoming irritating. Furthermore, I've learned how to counterattack, but the technique is useless. In the time it takes for my character to ready a counterattack, my enemy basically gets a free hit. So I'm sticking with the same tactics I've been using since starting the game, despite the game insisting it should be more advanced by now. That's also a shame.

Erickson is down for the count. Our fight carried us into the neighboring room, where there's a lovely young lady of the night enjoying a nice bath (settle down, she's dressed and crudely polygonal). She gives me a quest to beat up Erickson and then immediately rewards me for having just done so. Okay, so by beating this guy I completed a quest that I didn't even know existed. Groovy. The ability to work on quests you might not have is welcome, but it would be nice if the dialogue with the quest-givers somehow reflected that. Similarly, talking to Erickson allows me to bring up a "key," which he gives me. I've stumbled onto another quest. It turns out, the pirate captain could have told me about the key, then I could have gotten it from Erickson. I accidentally skipped a step. Confusing, yes, but undeniably convenient.

It's at this point that the tedium is beginning to wear on me. Back and forth, back and forth, do this, do that, do this...maybe I shouldn't have abandoned that sketchy fun with ethics from before.

Eventually, I make my way into the cell to speak with the pirate. As I mentioned, I bring up the key, which apparently opens the door to a shack, which belongs to the tavern girl's father, who is himself a nasty pirate. Oy. You know what? It's been a long day. But I have shoes now and that's the important thing.

Risen Diary 1

2010-06-10T16:41:00.000-07:00

Risen is a hard game for me to review in the traditional sense, at least while giving it any justice (especially the 360 port). Risen, like its spiritual predecessors of the Gothic series, is often criticized harshly for its technical shortcomings, including bugs, graphics, controls, and interface. In spite of such criticism, the Gothic series, and Risen in turn, maintain a strong cult following. The question I will attempt to answer by writing a multiple-article journal review is, why?

There's no doubt that the criticisms of the game's technical flaws are justified. The Xbox 360 port is especially crippled with drastically lower quality graphics than its PC counterpart, so much so that it could easily be mistaken for a mid-generation original Xbox game. By playing Risen at a more casual pace than I would for a typical review, taking the time to make myself see what the fans see, my hope is that I can more adequately convey the experience of a game whose value lies more in the feeling of playing it, rather than the formal qualities of the product itself. Personally, I believe that this is the case for all games. Most of my reviews I write to convey the feeling of playing a game, rather than to explain the game itself, and make an attempt to reconcile both approaches to determine value. In the case of Risen, however, it's my belief that even in my usual approach the game would be unfairly marred by its formal qualities and technical shortcomings.

Now that we have the background information out of the way, we can get on with the business at hand: my Risen journal.

I wake up awash on a tropical beach during a storm. All around me are the detritus and drowned crew of the ship -- belonging to some folks who call themselves "The Inquisiton" -- on which I was a stowaway.

Being a classically trained pack rat from my days with Elder Scrolls and Might and Magic games, I immediately set to looking for stuff. Coins, food, bottles of rum -- I have no idea if any of this will actually be useful, but in a survival situation, you take what you can get, right?

The inventory and general looking at things and picking things up interface leaves a lot to be desired. There is no first person view and there is no reticle. The camera itself isn't very agreeable, dragging slowly closer to the center of the analog stick before jerking wildly once it moves past a certain threshold. I can only interact with an item on the ground once I'm standing directly on top of it and the camera is pointed in its general direction. I suppose the word I'm looking for is "precision" and, more specifically, its absence. Fiddling with the UI and the camera is annoying but far from broken. Further into the game I'll realize that many of Risen's formal elements are just kind of annoying without being broken.

So, once I'm standing on top of an item and facing it, giving it my undivided attention, its name pops up obtrusively on the screen in a blocky generic font. Again, annoying, but I guess it gets the job done. At the very least, in this regard, the game doesn't fail at being clear. I find out later, to my frustration, that this doesn't apply when I'm holding a weapon. Not only can I not pick up items while already carrying something but I can't even identify what an item is. I'll admit that the former makes some kind of sense. To be blunt, as far as I'm concerned, this is a game and I don't see how such a restriction is necessary. But, maybe the developers want to push a certain amount of realism. If that's their vision, then I can buy it. Or, probably more likely, maybe they just don't want me accidentally picking up an item in the middle of combat and getting killed as a consequence. I certainly can't fault them for making their game work. But to blind me to the items that litter the ground -- and there are many throughout this game -- seems ridiculous; a minor but unnecessary time-waster that forces me to constantly switch between an armed and unarmed state. This would be such a minor complaint if it wasn't simply one symptom of the persistent time-wasting you'll experience in Risen.

Ahead, munching on the body of one of the ship's crew, is a rather menacing looking vulture. He doesn't like it one bit when I get close, spreading his wings and warning me away with a bone-rattling shriek. Not feeling confident about fighting a vulture that's as tall as I am with my bare fists, I heed its recommendation and return to rummaging through the pockets of unclaimed bodies.

Naturally, in accordance with all good RPG logic, one of these bodies is not like the others. While all of the other bodies are men dresed in generic medeivaly garb -- tunics and leather and whatnot -- this one is a woman, dressed like a stripper. Of course she is; while a male stowaway such as myself is fully clothed in rags, it only stands to reason that a female (in the land of videogames, remember) would be dressed in a (fur?) bra and skirt. Anyway, that's (mostly) beside the point. It turns out, she's alive, and was also a stowaway. She also gives me some good advice: maybe I should find a weapon.

Before she even got the chance to open her mouth I was gritting myself for the inevitible terrible voice acting. To be fair, she's not bad. Her English accent, real or not (I have no idea), is convincing, though she doesn't seem very rattled by her current situation (maybe she's been stranded on a few islands in her lifetime). Then my nameless, generic hero opens his mouth. Yep, this is what I was preparing myself for. Dry, strained, completely lacking in personality...well I guess it suits his visual design: another generic, chiseled white guy with a shaved head, falling somewhere between some mythical "everyman" archetype and a typical space marine.

So, on to combat. I find a stick laying nearby but a little more scavenging rewards me with a hunting knife, which is a welcome step up (I'm assuming; I never actually gave the stick a fair shot in combat). I immediately set off to kill that vulture from before so I can rifle through its dinner's pockets.

Combat at this early stage is simple enough: hit the beastie with the pointy end. That's not to say that the vulture and other early monsters are pushovers (later on a boar humbles me right to death) but their strategy is rudimentary: attack, retreat, repeat. The bird especially is an agile little bugger who dodges my swipes and slashes until I back it up against a cliffside. By killing it I'm rewarded with its meat. I can't deny a certain satisfaction with that. Monsters don't drop weapons or money, but their actual parts, which enhances the whole hunting/survivalist thing the game has going on, particularly at its start.

What's truly unfortunate is that, as entertaining as combat in Risen is in theory, its severely hampered by a nagging framerate issue. I eventually lose fights because the game stalls at exactly the wrong moment, completely throwing off my game. I also learn, much to my further disappointment, that installing the game to the Xbox hard drive does nothing to address this issue. In fact, installing the game to the hard drive doesn't seem to have any affect at all. I find that rather peculiar.

The stowaway pole dancer suggests we head further inland and try to find a town. Sounds like a good idea to me. She's also starving (clearly, since her waist is approximately the size of my wrist). My companion -- her name is Sara, by the way -- and I make our way through the jungle. Occasionally I stop fight a procupine-ish rat or a wolf. Like the vulture, fights with both are pretty straightforward. The rats are pushovers. Mash on the trigger and they die. Whatever. But the wolves introduce a threat, diving away from my attacks and leaping to my side to counter-attack. I actually rather enjoy Risen's combat so far. Enemies have patterns. Study those patterns, remain cautious, and strike when you have the opportunity. Hacking away wildly will get you killed fast.

Finally we discover an old, abandoned house. There's a convenient fire raging in a pit outside and a barrel of collected rain water. I assume drinking some water might heal me and it turns out I'm correct. Unfortunately, the healing is accompanied by a four or five second long animation wherein I lean forward, scoop water into my hand, drink, and step back. What's worse, drinking from these barrels only restores a small fraction of my health. So here I have free, infinite health that I can only take advantage of if I feel like wasting up to a minute watching this pointless animation. I soon discover that this is something Risen does often. Finding a chest in the house, I open it only for the treasure within to once again be rewarded to me after a needless animation. I didn't think games were made this way anymore. This sort of archaic time-waster should have been discarded a long time ago. It serves no purpose. These minor, seemingly insignificant rime-wasters start to add up after a while. After a few hours of play the game, I begin to seriously wonder how much of that time has been spent on these trivial matters.

Opening the chest in the house rewards me with a frying pan. Combined with the fire outside and all that raw meat I'm getting off the monsters I kill, I can probably make food! Cooking is something I enjoy about RPGs like Risen. The notion that I can acquire all this meat, cook it into something edible, and make it into something useful to me is a small feature that goes a long way in ehancing the atmosphere of the game. Again, it's that hunter/gatherer/survivalist "feeling" that I'm a sucker for and gets me every time.

Now that I've escorted My Lady of Impossible Proportions to safety, hunted for her, cooked her food, and found her shelter, she decides she'd be better off staying at the wrecked house to rest, and I should go on to find help on my own. Well that's just great. It doesn't seem like a good idea, considering all the mean, hungry wolves, vultures and rats we fought off on our way here, but she doesn't give me a chance to argue. I head off alone.

Further up the hill I find a tomb and some grave moths. The sound they make is horrifying but they aren't much of a threat (at least alone. I have yet to fight anything in numbers greater than two. I'll soon learn that all of these pathetic critters are extremely threatening in packs).

Still further up I find another abandoned home and an armed, bearded man who dwells within. He's very suspicious of me, as I am of him, and he demands to know where I came from. I tell him that I, and "Princess" Sara, were stowaways on an Inquisition ship and he seems strangely impressed. I don't know who these Inquisition guys are yet, but I'm getting the impression that they're kind of a big deal. He offers to help my (former) companion through the jungle. It seems like a bad idea; send this big, bearded outlaw to pick up the stripper waif who was too tired and hungry to even walk up a small hill, but once I accept his offer the game informs I have completed my quest to "save" her, so I guess it's all good in the hood?

He tells me a little bit about the island. There's a town nearby, but its been taken over by the Inquisition (again with those guys). Meanwhile, the "Don" and his men (the group of outlaws to which the bearded man belongs) have fled to the swamp and oppose the Inquisition. He's very eager to get me to join his outlaws instead of going to town. I'm suspicious. A band of outlaws led by a guy who calls himself the "Don"? It isn't hard to put that together. But I'm not big on organized religious zealotry so I take him up on his offer to lead me to the swamp. Along the way he points out some of the Inquisition's men. I decide to introduce myself and see if maybe they're not so bad. They immediately attack me. I guess I made the less wrong choice between the swamp full of gangsters or the city of fascist holy men.

It's at this point that I decide my character's past is a shady one, and that he is no stranger to the world of organized crime. It's an RPG and I don't know who this hero I'm controlling was before being washed up on this beach, so it all works for me as a convenient way to justify whatever actions I might be lead to take on this path. Yes, it's decided. I know the score; I can join up the Don's gang and become a made man. Just like in the movies. Sounds groovy.

In the Don's camp, however, I discover that all is not well. The Don has sealed himself up in a temple, leaving the running of the camp to his beleagured wife, who's powerless against Brogar, the Don's self-appointed right-hand man, and the strongest man in the camp. It seems Brogar has everyone working for him, performing his own petty tasks instead of those assigned them by the Don. The fighters are engaging in gambling and arena fights; the chief hunter is performing manual labor; the workers aren't working because the fighters refuse to protect them from the swamp's giant insect population; and a couple members of the camp have even run off.

It becomes pretty clear that if I can de-throne Brogar, I can be the new Big Boss. I ally with Rachel and we agree that I'll work for Brogar and get myself in his good graces until I can stab him the back. But there's no shortage of other things to do in the camp, either, and it soon becomes clear that I'll be spending a lot of time in the swamp, performing fetch quests and the like.

Amazingly, I don't really mind. I have to get the workers working again, get the hunters hunting again, find food and beer, clear monsters from the worksites, prove myself in the arena...every step of the way, however, I feel like I'm making real progress in the game-world. Every menial task is a means to a very tangible end. I complete a quest for a worker, and there he is hauling boxes back and forth. It's a simple visual change but it goes a long toward making the consequences of my actions have some weight. In fact, my only complaint running through the swamp is that I'm still dressed in rags and shoeless. Gross.

That was hyperbole. I actually do have other complaints. Quest objectives can be frustratingly vague. To get the workers working again, all I was told was the position of the worksites: "two in the center of the swamp and one east of the temple." This is true. However, only one actual worker is at one of these worksites. The other two are hidden out in the wilderness and it's just up to me to search aimlessly for them and figure out how to get them working again.

Similarly, I also soon discover the lack of intricacies in dialogue. Coming off of Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age, I'm still conditioned to be selective with what I say; develop a personality and use my silver tongue wisely. But in Risen, the only way to get any info out of someone, the only way to complete certain quests, the only way to get anywhere with anyone, is to exhaust all dialogue options until they have nothing more to say to you. This approach, at least at this stage in the game, really seems to contradict any need for dialogue trees. What's the point if you have to take every route on the tree and all arrive at the same place? I don't get it.

It's also around this point that I realize I don't know how to level up. I've been seeing the "level up" message pop up, but I've never been told what to do, and the menus don't seem to have any skill points to assign. Leveling up works a bit differently in Risen. At each new level, you gain ten "learning points." These points (along with gold, of course) can be spent at trainers to improve stats and skills and learn new abilities. I also realize at this point tat I'm not really sure what I want to be. Not thinking about it much, I later find that I'm becoming a jack of all trades. I meet a trainer, he has a skill I like, and if I have the gold and the points, I get it. I'm now an amateur in the bow, the crossbow, the sword, alchemy, smithing, sneaking, lockpicking, and the brewing of beer. I still don't have a grasp on how magic works. Oh well. I try not to think about it too much, and just enjoy the ride.

I perform various chores around the swamp, I get in good with Brogar, then I undermine him and challenge him to a fight in the arena. By now I've fought a few humans and its quite a bit different from fighting animals. There's blocking, parrying, counter-attacking...it's a much more complicated affair, and not nearly so predictable or routine. I have to be cautious and deliberate with my movements. Swordfights are involving and exciting, but they can also be frustrating, thanks to the figure-skater-like movements your enemies can make as they side-step and circle-strafe around you.

One neat feature to the game is that combat with another human doesn't necessarily end in death. Your opponent's health depletes and they fall to the ground, unconscious, at which point you can deliver a final, killing blow. Fighting in the camp I never felt compelled to murder my adversaries. My first taste of guerilla warfare later would find me adopting a different attitude.

I assumed that I could just replace Brogar and I was wrong. He's not too impressed with me, though he is quick to set me to work (as if I haven't proven myself by getting his whole camp running, the ungrateful bast--). I am to lead the camp's fighters in an attack on an Inquisition camp. For this task, I request armor. He denies it. Still shoeless.

Marching through the jungle with my crew of fantasy-world gangsters, we arrive at the Inquisition camp, which is set up around a temple not unlike the Don's. It's mostly filled with novices, sparring with bo-staffs in the yard. There's a couple full-fledged guards and an armored fella who's clearly their leader. He's armed with a pointy staff and looks very mean. I'm glad I have backup.

Fighting with allies in Risen is tricky. On one hand, it's cool, just in terms of atmosphere. I've worked hard to take Brogar's place in the camp and now here I am, leading his (former) men in an all-out assault against our enemies; my guerilla warband up against the orderly, uniformed Inquisition fighters. It looks and feels pretty cool. Even though I'm just fighting guys while my AI-controlled guys fight other AI-controlled guys, I feel like I'm a leader, in spite of the fact that I'm not doing much leading. There are no commands to issue or anything like that.

On the other hand is the "friendly fire." If the arc of an attack is too wide, if a stupid ally steps into the wrong spot at precisely the wrong moment, if they're all just too crowded together...well, it wasn't difficult for me to wind up striking one of my own men. And he was not happy. I became his enemy and there was no reasoning with him as he now tried to kill me. I had to reload a game and restart a fight because I accidentally turned a friend into an enemy. Perhaps he wouldn't have killed me. Like my enemies, I can only be truly killed by a killing blow after I fall prone. However, I wasn't willing to drag out a fight just to find out. It was easier to reload.

We successfully take the camp and slaughter our enemies from the Inquisition. A poor fellow named Phil doesn't make it but for the most part the battle is a big success. I report our victory and send the workers to collect artefacts from the temple. I receive a new mission to infiltrate the town.

Sadly, I am not rewarded with shoes.

Risen review

2010-04-11T23:09:00.001-07:00

You awake in the night to the steady sound of pouring rain, broken by the occasional crack of distant thunder, washed up on the shore of a tropical island. Surrounding you are the remains of a wrecked ship and her crew (now only food for the vultures). You're clothed in rags, shoeless, and the best weapon you can scavenge from the wreck is a stick. You have no direction, no objective, other than to scrounge through the detritus, collecting rum, coins and junk--anything that could possibly be useful to your survival.

From just these opening moments, thrusting you into its world confused and helpless, Risen makes its intentions very clear. For better or worse, this is not a by-the-books new-gen action-roleplaying game. Throughout the experience, Risen will see fit to remind you of this. Often it does so through its punishing difficulty, complex ethical questions, restrictive yet immersive sense of exploration, overlapping quest structure, sardonic dialogue, and generally open design. Just as often, it does so through its almost total lack of direction or guidance, ghastly user interface, reliance on archaic design philosophies, pathetic graphical presentation, poorly executed ideas, flimsy mechanics, and unfortunate technical shortcomings.

It would be easy to judge Risen by its graphics, just as one might judge a book by its cover. To be blunt: they're terrible. Its textures are blurry and sometimes stretched beyond recognition, its lighting is flat, its characters and environments are hard and polygonal -- it looks like a mid-generation original Xbox game. The "rays of sunlight filtering through the trees" effect (and I do believe that's its technical name) is so overused that I eventually just forced myself to believe that light worked differently in this world; clothes are cartoonishly out of proportion to the mostly realistic character models whom they adorn; its women are made of beach balls attached to pencils; and everyone and everything moves like a rusty tin robot. But (and this is an important "but"; imagine it adorned in cascading fireworks that scream, "look at me!" every time they go 'round) what Risen lacks in outward beauty, it makes up for with substance.

Much more than the sum of its unimpressive individual parts, Risen's moments of beauty and wonder stem from its carefully-constructed environments and thoroughly developed world. Faranga's towns and single city are populated largely with actual, named NPCs, all of whom have their own take on things. The game will frequently hold up a mirror to your own ethics and actions. From the outset, you're basically given a choice between joining two opposing factions: a group of bandits and rebels or the occupying, theocratic Inquisition. Neither side is necessarily "good" or "bad" and even at their best, both are doing some bad things for what they consider to be "the greater good." That's a concept I faced often while playing Risen. I fell in with the bandits early on, thinking they were idealistic freedom fighters. Gradually, I found myself engaging in ever more reprehensible acts: shaking down merchants for protection money, "silencing" witnesses, performing drug deals, all for the "greater good" of ousting the fascist Inquisition, who have their own (arguably justified) reasons for being the way they are. Risen got me to question my own actions in ways that few games do. More than that, Risen actually got me to sacrifice little bits of my own principals so gradually, that I almost didn't notice.

While shining a light to the ethics of my actions was certainly Risen's most remarkable achievement, second to that was its thrilling sense of exploration. Remember how Oblivion's world lacked so much personality because of its procedurally-generated forests, caves and generic NPCs that all looked and acted alike? Yeah, this isn't that. The island of Faranga begs you to thoroughly explore its every nook and cranny and its world feels alive.

A ruined keep overlooks a steep coastal cliff-side. You've destroyed its skeletal inhabitants, looted whatever treasure it had to offer, and now you're looking to move on. It seems that the only way to go is back. That is, until you edge ever closer to that cliff and dare to look down, delighted to see a series of outcroppings that come off of the cliff-side and gradually step down, all the way to the shore below. It will be a dangerous hop to the bottom but you know you can't possibly resist the thrill of it. Best of all, you know that in all likelihood there will be no great reward waiting for you.

No, that's not a typo; I said "best" of all. Risen doles out its rewards at a very deliberate pace, not making any attempt to cater to the loot-addict crowd. Equipment consists of a weapon, one general armor slot, a helm, and some jewlery. Out of all of these items, armor is the most valuable, but it must be earned. Armor in Risen is like an indicator of status, and acquiring only leather armor after hours of gameplay feels like a real accomplishment. Hell, for that matter, getting any armor that has shoes feels like an accomplishment after hours spent looking like a hobo.

Incidentally, putting in the effort to explore Faranga's secret places is one of the closest examples I've come across in games of exploration for exploration's sake. Don't misunderstand, you'll still find money, potions and ingredients -- all of which are valuable in Risen's grim survivalist setting -- but seeing new things and going to new places carries its own unique sense of satisfaction. Maybe it appeals to my masculine instincts -- my desire to hunt for secrets and conquer the virginal frontier of Faranga. Whatever the case, it sure is satisfying.

Speaking of conquest leads me to Risen's more unfortunate but glaring failings: its camera, interface, controls, and overall technical difficulties, and how they all come together with the game's combat to sabotage its brightest moments, and threaten to fundamentally break the experience. To pick up an item, you need stand directly on top of it and looked straight down; drawing your weapon makes you unable to interact with anything else or even identify items or objects; a hideous and obtrusive font identifies everything and everyone you look at; long animations remove your agency over your character every time you interact with an object; the framerate drops in crowded areas; and the camera is loose, easily obstructed by walls or foliage, and alternatingly too stiff and too sensitive. However, while all of these issues make Risen inelegant, they never outright break the game. That is, until you enter combat, when they come dangerously close to doing so.

Risen's combat makes a serious effort to stand out from its genre contemporaries. Button-mashing results only in death and advanced techniques can only be earned by investing precious money and learning points (a currency that's gained upon leveling up in place of pre-determined stat increases). Most enemies are stronger and faster than you are, encouraging you to fight carefully and think tactically. Unfortunately, all of the aforementioned technical issues, in one way or another, prevent this type of play from actually being possible.

Risen "features" (and I use the term loosely) a targeting system like you might find in most action-RPGs. In theory, this works by allowing you to lock onto a target in order to automatically track them in a fight. Risen sees fit to handle this task for you, choosing your target automatically, and it rarely does so with any competence. In one-on-one combat, the first thing you'll notice is that when your target jumps to your side and you need your lock-on most of all, it will immediately go away, leaving you open to attack. The issue gets much worse when fighting groups, as the camera will jump between multiple targets with no purpose; you're lucky if it locks onto the thing that's actually attacking you at any given moment. The only way to make any attempt to change targets is by moving the camera, which you have to wrestle away from the game, refocus and hope it lands on your desired target. Compounding the frequent feeling of cheapness caused by this, the frame rate frequently stutters during combat and always at the worst possible moment. Just as you're about to counterattack or dodge, the whole scene just hiccups, completely throwing you off. Too many times I either died or wasted valuable potions and healing spells because of these moments. The only thing that prevents these issues from completely breaking the experience is that you can compensate for them. But you shouldn't have to do that; the game should just work.

Risen is the kind of game that really makes me want to see what developer Piranha Bytes could do with more time and money. They're no rookies, having long-since established themselves with the cult-favorite Gothic series, and they have a lot of big, great ideas. Some of my problems with Risen, such as poor graphics and frame rate hiccups during combat, are the result of a shoddy port, which is a damn shame (I understand the PC version is quite a bit better on the technical side). If you're looking for a new experience that you can take your time with and really bite into, or are just hungry for a good RPG, you could do a lot worse than Risen, even on the 360. Even with its technical hangups and poor presentation, it still beats yet another generic JRPG in my book. However, only the patient need apply.

Darksiders review

2010-04-11T23:05:00.001-07:00

Just as comics struggled to break into the film industry before eventually exploding in popularity, so have comics done with games. The days when developers could just stick favorite costumed fighters into a forgettable brawler are long gone. They gave way to a new trend of developers placing beloved characters in open-world games that rarely ranged above mediocrity. Game developers are now realizing the need to approach comics-based games in unique and inventive ways that reflect the strengths of their properties, talent, and respective mediums. The mechanics in Batman: Arkham Asylum were tailored to the character; investigation, stealth, gadgets, using fear as a weapon to dispatch opponents one-by-one. Similarly, the upcoming Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions plays to the superhero comic trope of the multiverse, casting the player as multiple versions of everyone's favorite web-slinger. Last year's InFamous, in addition to having a title that's annoying to type, was an original comic-style game. At a reductive level, InFamous was just an open-world shooter. It was good, but its comic inspiration wouldn't have been so strongly felt without its comic-book styled custscenes. As an original IP, Darksiders is much in this same vein. However, Darksiders does a much more effective job of evoking its comic inspirations.

Darksiders begins with the Horseman War--one of the biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse--being summoned to Earth for the end of days. When he gets there, he finds Heaven and Hell engaged in their final war, with humanity caught in the middle. There are only two problems: his fellow Horsemen weren't summoned and Armageddon has come a few thousand years ahead of schedule. War is initially blamed for the snafu, and after 100 years of imprisonment, is sent back to Earth to find and punish those responsible for the catastrophe.

On a technical level, comics are a form of art that use sequential images to tell a narrative. The goal of the comic artist and/or writer (depending on the team's method) is to make and frame each image to effectively tell a visual narrative. Basically, a good artist should be able to make art that can stand on its own, able to tell at least the gist of a story without any dialogue or captions. This is where the effort from comic artist Joe Madureira, creative director of Darksiders and co-founder of developer Vigil Games, is most strongly felt. Every frame of a custscene looks like it could be a frame in a comic; I could mute the TV and still perfectly understand what's happening, based solely on the framing and art.

The art itself is also vivid and expressive. Finally, a game in a post-apocalyptic setting that's bright and colorful! The ruined city features some genuinely beautiful landscapes. In Anvil's Ford, the urban ruins have been reclaimed by vibrant, green vegetation; the Iron Canopy is grey, but in a way that's chilling and still, exploiting my anxiety instead of just being boring; the Ashlands are a wide expanse of craggy desert, formed by the ashen remains of humanity instead of boring old sand. The environments in Darksiders never lack originality or their own form of beauty.

Truthfully, in addition to just looking nice, Darksiders uses its pretty art to tell a good visual narrative, much to the benefit of its overall level design. The aforementioned Iron Canopy is a prime example, where I was especially struck by the use of a public bus, suspended between two platforms by the webbing of demon spiders, as a type of bridge. It was a visually striking image that told its own story (possibly suspended so the demon spiders could more easily capture those trapped inside) and served a utilitarian function within the level that also felt very organic.

So, why am I talking so much about Darksiders' visual presentation and not its actual game mechanics? The answer is because Darksiders doesn't do anything you haven't seen before. If anything, Darksiders strives specifically to do things you have seen before. This isn't a bad thing, necessarily; rather than innovate, Darksiders borrows, spins and refines. In short: Darksiders is the best Zelda game I've played in a while.
Most immediately striking in that regard is the level design. Like modern Zelda games, it falls in that area between open-world and linearity. There's freedom of movement and areas to explore, but you're exploring niches in a relatively constrained environment, rather than exploring wide-open spaces. The world is divided into distinct areas and dungeons that you progress though linearly, with the exception of backtracking. In that regard, even your progression as a character is in the Zelda tradition. Each dungeon gives you a new item, which is used strongly within the dungeon (especially during boss fights), and again in previous areas to reach formerly inaccessible treasure. That treasure consists mostly of Life Stones and Wrath Cores; collect 4 of each to upgrade your health and "wrath" (magic power, mana, choose your favorite synonym for "energy") bars. The equipment itself includes such mainstays as the War Glaive (boomerang) and Abyssal Chain (hookshot). You even have your own guide to chime in and tell what to do and where to go, though War's relationship with 'The Watcher' is a far more antagonistic one than Link had with Navi (though it's probably just as antagonist as the relationship most players had with Navi).

Darksiders' "homages" don't end there; on his journey, War will collect multi-colored orbs to replenish health, wrath, and act as currency; buy new items and skills from a shady, sinister-sounding merchant whose domains are marked with a distinct eerie blue light; he'll even acquire a portal gun. Yes, that's right: a portal gun.

Knowing these facts beforehand, it would be easy to come to Darksiders with a cynical attitude. To do so would be just that: cynical, and unnecessarily so at that, as Darksiders is anything but. Playing the game, it becomes clear that none of these mechanics have simply been cribbed due to laziness or a lack of originality. If anything, Darksiders is a love-letter to videogames. Every idea and mechanic that it emulates, it does well and with great care. The developers' passion for the medium comes through in the sheer fun of playing the game. Its combat and puzzles are right up there with the best in the biz, so much so that it's one of few games I've played in a long time that kept me up nights, unable or unwilling to put down the controller.

Darksiders isn't perfect. Like some of its inspirations, Darksiders isn't so strong with the platforming. I had many moments of frustration because I felt very confident that War shouldn't have missed a jump, jumped too late, or should have grabbed a ledge. In fact, there were times where I swear War didn't jump at all, and just ran straight into a pit of death. Fortunately, falling to your death in Darksiders only results in a small health penalty and places you back at the jump you missed, so it was never a terribly big deal. I also had some issues with the camera. Specifically, it's fixed too close to War. Too often I couldn't really see what was happening in a fight, resulting in too many hits from off-camera. But I'll say it again: Darksiders is the best Zelda game I've played in a while. Joe Mad's visual style is stunning and unique and the game itself is just downright fun. Darksiders shouldn't be missed.

Section 8 (PS3) review

2010-04-02T16:02:00.001-07:00

From the moment I started playing Section 8, I had to wonder, "Why haven't I heard more about this game?" I burned through the atmosphere before hammering into the earth below with a thunderous crash, leaving a me-sized crater decal on the ground. I met up with my squad and could see our target in the distance -- a giant planetary defense cannon, firing at our fleet in orbit. I began the long run to the objective, instinctively clicking the left thumbstick to engage my sprint, as I have been condition to do from years of modern first person shooters. Lost in the beard-stroking thought of how the pervasiveness of shared control schemes and mechanics have established a standard in game design literacy, I was just as quickly snapped from that thought when the camera pulled back to third-person view, showing my avatar engaged in a full-on super-powered hyper-sprint. The fence surrounding the facility quickly approached as I raced toward it, struggling to find a jump button so I might not have to end my mad blitzkrieg just to find a way around the obstacle. Success! Much to my delight, I manage to engage my jet pack, sending myself soaring above the fence and into the heart of the enemy base. While my opponents are distracted by my squadmates, who were not quite so suicidal as I, I seize the opportunity to hack the control panel, allowing us to capture the target and complete our first objective.

I then repeated that exact same strategy for the next objective. And the next. And the next. And the next, for the remainder of the singleplayer campaign. As I played I took notice of more reasons why I probably hadn't heard more of this game. Mission objectives just had me acting as a gopher; capture this base, retrieve those intel. documents, kill these officers, defend this spot for a designated amount of time. Environments ranged from interesting -- the aforementioned giant defense cannon, the wreckage of a massive starship strewn about a desert, a giant communications satelite -- to bland and boring -- streets and sidewalks that were no more than flat textures on the ground, hard-edged geometry attempting to pass as natural terrain. I was frequently equipped with pre-determined new equipment "loadouts" at the start of each new level, which prevented me from ever finding a style of play with which I was comfortable (though to be fair, these loadouts can be changed mid-game at purchasable supply stations). At one point, I was put in control of a tank which, thanks to its horrible controls, became much more of a liability than an asset. Worst of all, the "burn in" mechanic I had heard touted as giving the player the ability to drop in anywhere on the map was limited to just a small radius.

Then again, maybe the single player wasn't the best way to get introduced to Section 8. I know Section 8 is primarily a multiplayer experience, so, once again relying on that instinctual reaction to the literacy of game design, I just assumed the campaign would function as a long-form tutorial for the multiplayer built around a throwaway plot. I was half-right.

The plot of Section 8's campaign isn't particularly memorable. You play as Corde, a member of the 8th Armored Devision of...uh...the good guys? You're fighting a faction called the Arm of Orion, though for what purpose, I never had a clue. I'm not going to argue that a multiplayer shooter needs a good, compelling plot for its single player campaign, but without one, and when that campaign introduces you to only the game's most basic concepts, I have to ask, "What's the point?"

The actual game to be found here, the multiplayer, was a most welcome change after trudging through the campaign. Finally getting to it only served to highlight the campaign's problems even more; in multiplayer, you can "burn in" anywhere on the map; the preset load outs are completely different; the in-game economy and the ability to purchase objects is integral; objectives are dynamic.

The campaign prepared me for none of this, mind you.

It took me several live matches to learn how to play this other game, but once I did, I was brought right back to those first moments: Why haven't I heard more about this game? From a tactical standpoint, the ability to drop in anywhere on the map opens a massive branching tree of advantages. You can drop down with your squad, contributing to a united frontal assault against an enemy base (or a tightly-knit defense); drop behind enemy lines and activate a sensor blocker, making you invisible to both radar and automated defense turrets; drop down right into a crow's nest and take out your sniper rifle. All of these advantages are balanced by the use of AA guns that can shred any incoming player to pieces before they hit the ground. All bases come with their own AA guns but they can also be purchased, though in very limited quantity, making them a valuable resource. Destroying them can completely turn the tide of a fight, allowing your side to literally get the drop on the enemy and swarm them from within.

Team coordination is vital, but the biggest thrills come from the occasions when you are able to play a key role in your team's success. The Arm have AA guns and supply stations massed over the control point and turrets surrounding the perimeter. That is, until you come in. You drop in behind the base and make your mad dash for their center, jetting up to the target. You throw detonation packs onto the AA guns, triggering them and using your missile launcher to destroy what's left. Now outnumbered, you make a tactical retreat, leaving them to repair and replace their defenses. Seizing the brief window of opportunity, you call in your own AA gun and a supply station. While the station gradually heals you and replenishes your ammo, your own AA gun is now picking off their incoming replacement reinforcements. The one gun isn't enough to get everything, but the brief interruption is enough for your team to overwhelm their position. Before you know it, you've won the base, and completely turned the tide of the fight in mere minutes.

The best part is, everyone gets these hero moments. Even playing defense, a role that normally bores me to tears, was a thrill that actually became my favorite thing to do. The fact that, thanks to good forethought and smart placement of AA guns, turrets, sensors, supply stations, and a bit of luck, I could almost single-handedly defend a base was immensely gratifying. Section 8 is a game that rewards skill.

That thrill of personal and team gratification is once again echoed in Section 8's Dynamic Combat Missions (DCMs). DCMs consist of various "missions" that pop up every so-often for each team, from escorting a convoy across the map, protecting a landing zone for a dropship, capturing enemy intelligence and returning it to your own base, and several others. What's great about the DCMs is that they're really just the standard multiplayer FPS modes (king of the hill, capture the flag, etc.) thrown into the mix of Section 8's basic structure of capturing control points. Completing them is a huge boon for your team and their random nature keeps you on your toes.

Section 8 is a pleasantly surprising sleeper in the crowded realm of multiplayer shooters. If anything, the campaign just contradicts what the game is supposed to be by teaching you something completely different. I realize I'm harping on an admittedly small and arguably negligible aspect of the game, but I feel that I have to because, even after the roughly 4 hour affair, it still took several live multiplayer matches for me to learn how to play (and unlearn what the campaign taught me). That there was no worthwhile narrative and the fact that it not only failed to teach me about the game's mechanics and rules, but actually deceived me in regard to them, made it a terrible introduction to what turned out to be a fine game. I feel this is an important point because its exactly this kind of barrier to entry that's absent from other, more accessible multiplayer shooters. Section 8 has a lot going for it, but its occasionally muddled, aimless and even contradictory design makes it its own worst enemy in a genre that's not lacking for competition.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity (review)

2010-02-19T14:42:00.000-08:00

Here I am: the sovereign of an upstart space empire. I have a single world to my name, some asteroids to mine for resources, and a frigate factory to start what will one day be a glorious fleet, hundreds of ships strong, spreading my will across the solar system. One day. But now is the time to plant the seeds of my empire; to expand, gather strength, and test the waters (so to speak) of the great unknown that surrounds me. What does the final frontier hold for me, I wonder?
"A pirate raid is imminent," my faction's "voice" informs me. Ok, then. My fleet has grown a bit, there's a defense platform or two in orbit around my couple of colonies; I can handle a few pirates.

Moments later, I'm promptly annihilated by a fleet easily three times the size of my own. My home world is no longer mine.

[New Game.]

My empire's growing, slowly but surely. I have several planets colonized, my fleet has grown to include a capital ship or two and is big enough to hold its own in an occasional skirmish against my peers. The meager "fleets" of neutral corporations are no match for me as I seize their colonies and expand my influence. I've already made a few quick enemies, but I have also formed the foundations for what will one day, hopefully, be a grand alliance of super powers. Things are going well. Pirates? Humph. I've learned my lesson; I devoted more resources to defenses and growing my fleet. I already repelled the first raid. I took some losses, but it was nothing I couldn't handle.

"A pirate raid is imminent." Whatever. I'm ready, and now that I know how to handle simple pirates, I'll be ready when one of my neighbors decides to invad--

Wow. That's a lot of pirates. No, like, for realzy -- A LOT of freaking pirates. Within minutes they destroy most of my fleet, all of my planetary defense, and my ship factories. I surrender.

[New Game.]

Ok. Not going to happen this time. I have two capital ships, at least two dozen frigates, a sortie of ships at each planet, repair platforms, defense platforms, defense hangers...my empire has almost no civilian economy since I've devoted all resources to military and defense. Those pirates aren't going to get me thi--

DAMN PIRATES!

[New Game.] [Options.] [Pirates: Active.]

A-ha! Got 'em.

[Pirates: Inactive.]

So who's Big Boss now, eh pirates? Me, that's who, because I just turned you off!

Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity -- the package that includes the original game, plus its two "micro-expansions" Engagement and Diplomacy -- was not really "doing it for me" at first (clearly). As a total n00b to the critically acclaimed grand space strategy game, I found myself thrust into the deep end with lead floaties. In truth, that was partly my own fault and partly just a symptom of a strategy game that is, as I discovered only after much learning, one of the deepest, most engaging, complex and rewarding experiences I've ever had with the genre.

Sins -- as I'll refer to it from now on because it's much easer to type than even the acronym for the full name -- isn't just posturing when it defines itself as a new hybrid genre: the "RT4X," or "real-time explore expand exploit exterminate" strategy game, combining the fast-paced action and immediacy of a real-time strategy game (StarCraft) with the forethought and careful, deliberate pacing of a turn-based, 4X, strategy game (Civilization). At first thought, it doesn't like chocolate and peanut-butter -- the nature of the two genres strongly contradict each other -- but developer Ironclad Games makes it work in a number of ways.

For starters, the AI is some of the best around. There's no need to micro-manage every battle, allowing you to multi-task more easily. You can fight multiple battles, manage your economy, forge and break alliances, and research new technologies all at once without skipping a beat. More often than not, you can feel confident that your forces don't need too much hand-holding. That's not to say that they don't need some guidance, or that micro-management won't give you an edge (it will, especially against human players or overwhelming forces), but you don't need to worry yourself with every single skirmish. As long as your side has even a slight edge, you can worry about more important things, like larger battles, the defense of a key world, or fulfilling missions from other factions.

Then there's the vast amount of dead space. Any actions that don't take place in menus, such as building and combat, can only be performed in the "gravity well" of a world, represented by a radius surrounding any large heavenly body. Between worlds is just empty space that ships need to traverse in order to travel between these active areas. During transit, ships are invulnerable and can't be interacted with any way. It sounds restrictive, but the time it takes for ships to travel gives you a lot of time to focus your attention elsewhere. You know in advance when an attack is coming, so you can bolster defenses and gather reinforcements. Or maybe you don't have any imminent issues, and you can just use this time to browse your tech trees, trade and deal with other factions, or engage in a pirate bidding war.

Ah, yes. The pirates. Oh Sins newbie version of me...how misguided you were. In searching for a solution to my pirate woes, I discovered that they have been considerably beefed up in the latest version of the game. While this seems to be an issue of contention among long-time players, they do serve a purpose in the game as a resource to be exploited. Any time you're notified of a pirate attack, you have the ability to enter into a bidding war against other factions, raising bounties on your enemies so the pirates attack them and not you. Ideally, this keeps everyone on their toes and levels the playing field a bit. An economic-minded player who lacks an edge in brute force has more money, and therefore, more influence with the pirates. Incidentally, if any player ignores this feature completely, they're going to have a lot of pirates to deal with. For the veteran players, pirates present a sort-of wild card. For newbies like me -- well -- I still prefer to turn them off. Maybe some day I can swim with the sharks, but today is not that day.

Don't underestimate the learning curve of Sins. Those not interested in taking the time to really learn all of the ins and outs of a system, critically study its mechanics and really think out their strategies will never see the full potential of the game. But that's not to say there's no place for you. Indeed, I count myself amongst that group. So one thing that's great about the game is its variety.

Most RTS games are just about combat and, to a more simplified extent, economy (as far as resource management is concerned). Sins incorporates all of that while also featuring the robust alternate ways to play prevalent in 4X games. Warfare is a constant aspect of the game, but by no means is it the only road to success. As I mentioned, an economist can exploit trade alliances and manipulate pirates to do their fighting; you can adopt a slower pace by building a powerful and influential culture over time, devoting resources to technologies that spread your influence and inspire revolts amongst your enemies; you can form alliances and treaties and win through diplomacy. Or, you can adopt a combination of any of the above strategies. My go-to tactic became weakening my opponent with my overwhelmingly awesome culture, sewing discord on their world, then sending my fleet in to destroy their defenses.

At its most, Sins is not for the light of heart. A casual player would find swift destruction in multiplayer or on harder difficulties. Certainly, I wouldn't stand a chance. But playing on low or mid difficulties, preferably with pirates off, even casual players will find a rich and unique experience. Who knows? If you really do take to the game, practice will only make perfect, and you just might be surprised by how invested you actually get. Sins of a Solar Empire (whole name because this is the conclusion) has this quirky way of being mind-bogglingly complex while maintaining a strong sense of accessibility. Ironclad Games combined two genres I suck at, and only occasionally enjoy, and got me to completely buy into the product of their incestuous union. I regret avoiding it for so long. If you have even a mild interest in the game, you should give it a shot. Approach with patience and an open mind, and you won't be disappointed. Pirates could probably stand to be nerfed a bit, though.

Mass Effect 2 (review)

2010-02-02T10:31:00.000-08:00

What is role playing? According to the literal definition of the word, it's something that is entirely irrelevant to a game's genre. As gamers, we role play every time we play a game that puts us in the shoes of a character separate from ourselves. In the world of gaming, however, role playing has always been defined largely by numbers. Stats, skills, talents, specializations, levels, and equipment define the genre as much as dialogue trees, branching story lines and multiple endings.

The original Mass Effect fell under the umbrella of the so-called "hybrid" genre; it was an RPG/shooter. Except, it was really just an RPG. The combat was real-time and involved guns and a sort of cover system, but the kinds of tactics and skill that go into a shooter were never necessary to play. Your success or failure was determined on how you used your skills and on who had the biggest numbers calculating their damage. The shooter veneer and the RPG structure contradicted each other; your success was determined by numbers, but the effects of those numbers never felt tangible.

BioWare was doing what they do best while at the same time experimenting with something they had never done before and it only barely worked. I never outright disliked combat in Mass Effect, but it was always secondary to the other elements of the game: exploration, dialogue, making decisions and facing consequences, and forming relationships with my crew. That's what fascinated me so much about the first entry in the series: the literal sense of role playing. The numbers never felt necessary or even welcome. But I went along for the ride because that's what an RPG is, right? Numbers.

No. That's what BioWare says with Mass Effect 2 and they make a convincing argument.

Forget the numbers. There are still skills and powers to upgrade; the increments in which you do so are much smaller but the effects are significantly more tangible. Abstract effects such as, "moderately lowers an enemy's accuracy" are gone. The game now directly tells you what increasing a skill will do, and the best part is, it will do just what it says. When a skill upgrade says it will do "20% more damage to enemy armor," you'll notice it.

The shooting is, of course, the biggest change. Mass Effect 2 is a straight-up, no-foolin' modern shooter. Damage is location-based, you actually push a button to enter and exit cover, health regenerates, and it's all real-time. Smart tactics, good reflexes and quick thinking are vital to success. There are still skills, powers, and damage and armor types to make things interesting, and these elements add a lot of depth to the gameplay. However, how you use your abilities is much more important now than the simple fact that you have them. Tactics were never this important in the first game.

When I first started playing Mass Effect 2, I lost so many battles playing it like I played Mass Effect. It really is a squad shooter now, and when I started using my squadmates to do things like flank, draw fire, and provide sniper support, the whole game changed. Join me for a quick example, won't you?

I'm walking through a narrow path, right into an obvious bottleneck, empty buildings on either side and down on the other end. The insectoid Collectors flutter down from the sky and open fire. I send a biotic to the front to draw their attention. Using her shotgun, she's deadly at close range, and her flurry of powers will keep them in disarray. I have another member of my squad -- one capable of using an assault rifle -- lay down covering fire from behind. While the enemy is distracted, I engage my cloak and run through the crossfire, into one of the empty buildings. Now I'm at their flank, behind their cover, delivering headshot after headshot with my sniper rifle. It's only a matter of time until we're victorious.

It never occurred to me to think that way in the original. It took a little while for it to occur to me in this one. After a few fights though, it became totally natural. I never approach a battle without first observing my surroundings, noting every possible advantage for my squad; before every mission, I think about what enemies I will be facing and who has the skills to be the most help. If I'm fighting Krogans or Vorcha, I bring along allies with incendiary abilities to counter their enhanced health regeneration; if I'm fighting synthetics, I make sure to bring a strong support character and someone capable of firing disruptor rounds. No two battles go exactly the same way and there is no "win button" routine to fall back on. In every fight I'm engaged, thinking critically and acting fast.

Still, not all is quite as it should be for this grand space-opera. I recently wrote about my biggest disappointment with Mass Effect: the "thrill" (or lack thereof) of exploration. Mass Effect gave us the freedom to explore the final frontier, explore strange new worlds, and so on. But every strange new world wasn't strange at all. I traveled to the fire world, to the ice world, to the dirt world, the grass world, the ice world again, another dirt world, and I did it all while driving the frustrating, floaty and physics-defying Mako vehicle. Exploring the final frontier didn't feature a whole lot of exploration, just more finding loot and fighting bad guys. Bizarre alien landscapes, described so vividly in the in-game encyclopedia (called the "Galactic Codex"), were never encountered in person.

One of my bigger hopes for Mass Effect 2 was that I would get the opportunity to explore truly strange new places. Sadly, that's not the case. Instead planet exploring is replaced by planet scanning. Scanning a world is a mind-numbingly monotonous task that involves holding a button and occasionally pressing another button. This task is necessary, as it is the only way to find significant amounts of the resources needed to upgrade items and skills. So you're going to spend a lot of time doing this: looking at a sphere, waiting for a meter to spike, gathering thousands of units of what is really just an alternate form of currency. It's grinding. It's gold farming. It's an unfortunate symptom of the mis-conceived notion of "role playing" that Mass Effect 2 has otherwise done so well to disavow. There's something to be said for BioWare cutting the weakest element of the previous game, but I'd rather have the boring planet exploration over this.

Fortunately, Mass Effect 2 still shines in the same way its predecessor did, going above and beyond what we normally expect from role playing and character interaction. Since before the original was ever released, BioWare touted the the continuity of the trilogy and how your decisions in one game affect the later games. I never imagined just how successful this feature would be. I felt the effects of every decision I made in Mass Effect, even the minor ones. Whether its an encounter with a character, an email, or a news broadcast, I was continually confronted with everything I had done. I've never felt so connected to my in-game avatar before; thanks to the strong continuity, the notion that this Shepard is mine, and no one else is having the exact same experience, is firmly cemented.

This feeling is constantly reinforced through the game. Paragon and renegade options don't feel as polarizing. I can perform a renegade action and still feel vindicated that I'm doing the right thing, or at worst, the necessary thing. You can still be a jerk if you want, and you can still be the patron saint of boyscouts, but the middle ground is now wider and it just makes Shepard and the world feel that much more real.

I hated Miranda when I first met her. She was cold, possibly xenophobic, and a complete Cerberus loyalist, which made her hard to trust. However, I soon got to know her better. It started with our ideological clashes regarding Cerberus. Eventually we started talking about each other (mostly her). She bothered me but that was the attraction; I found her interesting. Eventually she asked for my help with a personal matter. To avoid spoilers, I'll just say that I helped her keep something safe and, because I'm such a good guy, stopped her from doing something I knew she would regret. I did all of this because, even though she frustrated me, I still sympathized with her.

Up until now, I never felt that games could do romantic relationships successfully. I didn't pursue one in Mass Effect; Ashley was annoying as opposed to challenging, and Liara was a doormat, seemingly just waiting to fall in love with the first man who spoke to her. Dragon Age, as trumpeted as its character building and relationships were, suffered from the same issues. I somehow found myself caught in a love triangle with Zevran and Lelianna, simply because I was nice to both of them. In the videogame world, being nice is apparently all it takes, and as nice as it would be if relationships were just that easy, we all know they aren't. Fundamentally, Mass Effect isn't much different in terms of how the system works. Be nice, be flirty, and you'll pursue one of the romantic relationships. However, the quality of the writing and the pacing of the narrative mask it so effectively. My relationship with Miranda felt like it developed organically and felt believable, even if it was based on obvious dialogue options.

The great thing is, that goes for all the characters, in one way or another. Sure, it all follows a fairly mechanical arch: talk to them often, unlock their personal mission, and basically buy their loyalty upon completion. But once again, the quality of the writing and the way relationships develop over the course of the game make it all feel very organic, even though it isn't. You don't notice when you're wrapped up in the moment.

So what is a role playing game? In a way, all games are role-playing games. Most of the roles, however, are on a linear journey and defined by another person (or group of people). So is the answer at the opposite end of the spectrum? The silent protagonist leaves too many variables. The only emotion they feel or inject into their personality is all in your head. Yes, it's defined by you, but for the most part you're doing all the work beforehand, looking at your many options, evaluating them, and then making an educated decision. So does it need numbers? Certainly there's a place for that, but at the end of the day, as far as a shooter is concerned, a headshot should be a headshot. Mass Effect 2 strikes that perfect middle ground. What BioWare does is create a world and a story outline, then they give it to you and let you write the actual plot and fill in all the blanks. Mass Effect 2 delivers the ability to create your own personal narrative, guided and structured, almost invisibly, by a bunch of professional writers, delivered by professional actors, in a beautiful, exciting world created by professional artists, made by possible by professional programmers. It's the chance to make your own blockbuster without doing any of the heavy lifting.

Games of the Decade

2010-01-23T21:50:00.001-08:00

Hit the jump.

Top 10

Batman: Arkham Asylum

I'm standing perched on a gargoyle in a dark room, somewhere deep in the Arkham Asylum sewers. There are about ten of the Joker's henchman in the area, all armed. Some are patrolling back and forth, a couple are hanging out off to the side, some are lingering, chatting by a wall, and two more are guarding the tower that I need to reach. There are few places to hide.

Focus on your surroundings. Look for an advantage.

I activate the x-ray in my cowl and survey the area. The wall ahead of me is hollow at the base, right behind the chatty group of guards. Below that and to the side, in a trench, is an open duct leading into the small, hidden area behind the wall, but two of the henchman are in the area. One turns his back. I fire my grappling hook, swinging to another gargoyle. Before he has time to turn back around, I descend like a predator, grabbing his partner and stringing him up by his ankles, unconscious. He turns around. His heart rate spikes; he's confused and scared, and runs to find his missing partner. I glide down to the duct entrance and make my way to the hidden area sealed behind the wall.

The wall is crumbling; some explosive gel would take it right out, probably with enough force to take out the group of gossiping bad guys gathered in front of it. But the commotion will draw all the other guards to this spot. Fortunately, the duct exit is on the opposite side of where I entered. I place the gel on the wall, and place more on the weak floor beneath me, which is also the ceiling to a small tunnel beneath that. I make my way to the exit of the duct and detonate the first charge. As planned, the henchman are caught in the blast and the rubble, and all knocked out. Also as expected, more come running to investigate. As one runs through the lower tunnel, I detonate the second charge, taking him out.

In the chaos I dash out of the duct and grapple up to another gargoyle. I have to act fast, while they're scared and panicking. I throw three batterangs into the crowd, knocking their guns from their hands. I glide to the floor and deliver a hard and fast kick to one. I get up and turn around to fight the other two. I knock one down while the other goes for his gun. I turn to deliver a downward punch to his shoulder, knocking him to the ground. The last one comes from behind me and attacks; I quickly counter, grabbing his arm and delivering a hard strike to his face. Only the two on the tower are left. I fire my line launcher right over one of their heads and deliver the old speeding kick to the face move again as I shoot across the room. As soon as I deliver the kick, the other guard turns to attack, but the moment I land I just continue running straight and then around the tower; before he even knows what's happened, I'm behind him. One quick strike and he's on the floor.

Oh yeah. I'm Batman. No other game has made me feel so much like the character I'm controlling. Arkham Asylum, for me, was the ultimate wish fulfillment game that made me feel as empowered as the Dark Knight himself.

STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl

I've sung this game's praises in places far and wide across the internet. I can't speak of it highly enough; I love this game. The Zone is a harsh, desolate and unforgiving landscape. The ruins of civilization surround you, whatever riches they may have once had to offer long ago picked clean by salvagers and treasure hunters. Necessities such as first aid, food and weapons are in short supply, hazardous environmental anomalies and mutant wildlife make travel deadly, and the underground labs and bases you'll be exploring are host to worse horrors. Exploring the topside of the zone instilled a profound sense of desperation, where even small victories were immensly satisfying.

Likewise, exploring the underground labs and military bases were some of the most terrifying experiences I've ever had in a game. You never know what's going to try to kill you; the almost invisible, ninja-like bloodsucker mutants, the completely invisible, telekinetic poltergeists, lumbering behemoths who shake the earth with their every step. All the while you're caught between competing factions of bandits, scientists, the military, and the warring Freedom and Duty militias. I love this game.

Psychonauts

I want to have Tim Schaefer's babies. Most people who know me also know this. I worship the man. He's brilliant and you need to look no further than Psychonauts for proof of this fact. Psychonauts is a fine example of design and narrative being blended perfectly. Ostensibly, Psychonauts is a cleverly-written action platformer about Raz, a young boy in a psychic summer camp, as he explores the psyches of various characters. But Psychonauts becomes so much more than the mere sum of its parts thanks its level design.

A perfectly smooth, black and white cube floating in empty space. As valves begin to burst open, sides of the cube explode into jungles of ephemera. A bed, a crib, building blocks, stacks of books; psychic censors -- meant to expel foreign or troubling thoughts from the mind -- pour out from valves in hordes.

A hopping retro night club/roller coaster that hosts a never-ending dance party. Faceless automatons dance ceaselessly while the guests ride around obstacle courses on psychic levitation orbs. Dance platforms hover in the air, the music never stops, bright colors plaster everything in sight... truly, this is a happy place. So you're bouncing around on your levitation orb, collecting items and exploring every nook and cranny of the dance party palace. But what's this? This room looks different. It's quieter and there are toys scattered about. You punch a conspicuous looking chest and are greeted by a fiery red light. Jumping into the portal, you're surrounded by flames and monsters as childrens' voices cry out for help. Being suitably freaked out, you escape. That was... unexpected...

A sleepy suburban neighborhood, or at least, it is at first glance. As you continue down the streets, they spiral out into oblivion. The whole thing looks like an MC Escher painting. As if that weren't strange enough, there are no regular people in this town. It's populated solely of suspicious-looking robots, acting out roles such as housewife, gardener, and road worker. Actually, there are the girl scouts, but they seem to be strangely hostile and withholding of information. And then there are those cameras and eyes that seem to pop out of bushes, mailboxes, fire hydrants, and, well, they're everywhere!

A strategy board game. The player's opponent is Napoleon, who always wins.

A peaceful city of "lungfish" monsters being brainwashed and dictated over by a giant, monstrous human.

A small Mexican town that looks like a black velvet painting, populated by painting dogs who are being terrorized by a rampaging bull.

These are all levels in the game that exist inside the minds of its various characters. Sasha is a cold, calculating man who has his emotions under tight control at all times... until those valves break, and his deepest troubles come exploding to the surface, exposing the deep-seated memories of loss that permeate his subconscious. Mia buries her nightmares under a carefree and fun-loving exterior, as demonstrated by her endless dance party being built upon the remains of a personal tragedy. The suburban nightmare is the product of paranoid conspiracy theorist Boyd. The board game is the result of humiliation and general low self-esteem suffered by Ned, a descendant of Napolean himself with a strong inferiority complex. The black velvet painting come to life is birthed from the mind of Edgar, an artist failing to accept the reality of a past that might not be quite so horrible as it seems.

Psychonauts's levels told entire narratives with no more than their visual design, all within an already well-written and hilarious plot.

Deus Ex
What can I say? Deus Ex is not just in my top ten of the decade but also in my top ten of all time.

It's the not-too-distant future and the world is kind of a mess, under almost constant threat of attack by numerous organized terrorist organizations and ravaged by a plague referred to as the "Grey Death." There's a vaccine for the disease but it's in precious short supply, and restricted for use by only the most rich and powerful. Corporate power has risen to the level of government and the poverty gap is at an extreme; there are the haves and the have-nots, and very few in-between.

In this brave new world, you assume the role of JC Denton, an agent of an international anti-terrorism/police force called UNATCO. Beginning the game as a new recruit, freshly implanted with nanotechnology upgrades to your body, your first mission is to reclaim Liberty Island -- the home base for UNATCO -- from a group of terrorists who have taken over the area surrounding the statue. After this you'll embark on several routine but suspiciously connected missions that eventually unravel into a conspiracy years in the making, and with you at its center.

I could go on about its mash-up of genres (which is sublime, by the way). I could go on about the intricate, conspiracy-theory 101 course that is the game's plot. I could go on about the depth of RPG elements, the freedom of play styles, the openness of the environments and level design. However, all of this boils down to one simple design law: choice, and there is one particularly resonant instance where this core philosophy was made most clear to me.

My brother has just be revealed as a traitor, working for the National Secessionist Forces against UNATCO. He's convinced that UNATCO is the real threat to the world. I'm not so sure. However, he's my brother, and I trust him. He sends me on a mission send out a signal to his friends in the underground. Upon completing the mission, we're both discovered as traitors, and UNATCO is on their way to his apartment to arrest him. I race back to Paul's place so we can flee the country and meet his allies in Hong Kong. The soldiers are already at the entrance to the building, so I go up the fire escape and through the window.

As soon as I enter the room, they're already at Paul's door, demanding his surrender. Paul begs me to leave while he holds them off. They threaten to blast open the door. Reluctantly, I turn away from my brother and escape back through the window. It doesn't matter. I'm still captured, and later, while escaping my prison, I find Paul's body in the morgue. I grieve for my brother, whom I will never see again, whose friendly, familiar voice will never again chime in on my communications link with words of advice.

Jump forward to my second playthrough of the game. Once again, I'm standing in Paul's apartment. UNATCO soldiers are outside, demanding his surrender. He tells me to run and save myself while he holds them off. No. This time I'm not turning away. I'm seeing this through. I plant proximity charges on the wall by the entrance, take out my assault rifle, and take cover behind the couch. UNATCO soldiers blast the door open and run into the room. The charges explode, taking out the point men, as Paul and I leap into action, guns blazing, killing the rest. We run out to the lobby. Paul stands at the top of the stairs, firing into the group of soldiers gathered on the first floor while I toss gas grenades. Together, we make our way to the front door. This time we're both captured -- alive. While making my escape I find Paul in the doctor's office, where he assures me that he can escape on his own. Later, I meet him in Hong Kong, alive and well.

The first time, it never occurred to me that I could stay and fight with Paul. I had been in this situation in games countless times; forced to watch one of my allies valiantly sacrifice him/herself for me, and unable to do anything to prevent it due to the linearity of the game. That character dies so I can live. That's how the story is written. Done. Deus Ex was the first game to give me that kind of choice. It broke my expectations of what a game can and should be.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
Hideo Kojima is an artist. There, I said it. Want proof? Did MGS2 piss you off? Did it fascinate you? Did it confuse you? Did it defy your every expectation? Yeah, I thought so. Congratulations, you felt exactly what Kojima wanted you to feel.

Like everyone else, I came to this game expecting another stealthy, shootery tale of Solid Snake taking down another Metal Gear and saving the world. Silly gamer. Of course, that's how the game began, before Kojima ripped the rug from under you.

Now you're controlling Raiden -- a young rookie, raised for combat in virtual simulators. He's green, he's never seen a real battle, he's skinny and pale, kind of withdrawn, a bit of a loner, not very emotionally available... Huh. He sounds kind of like me, maybe not in such a good way.

Then, the game has you enter your name and blood type into a computer. That'd weird -- what was the point? Whatever, you shrug it off.

You continue through the game, which seems all too similar and yet all too different from the first game. You're replaying almost identical scenarios, yet they rarely work out quite the same way. You consistently meet with failure or anti-climactic, hollow successes. Eventually, you're captured, tortured and stripped. As you make your escape, naked, everything around you begins to break down. The Colonel because to speak gibberish. The game feels like it's starting to glitch out. Has Kojima lost it? What the hell is going on?!

Eventually, you encounter Snake, who hands you a sword.

Raiden and Snake are faced with dozens of enemy soldiers. Snake locks and loads and does what he does best: shooting stuff. Raiden, amazingly, has never been more effective than he is with the sword. Sword-wielding enemies close in on the team and Raiden cuts them down. Raiden does all of this while the player controls him from a distance. A 3rd person view suits the control scheme for the sword, which uses the thumb sticks instead of the triggers. Instead of looking through Raiden's eyes, aiming down the sight of a gun, and focusing on a single enemy, Raiden is aware of his full surroundings, and reacts with lightning speed.

And then, just as suddenly as this new style of play is introduced, it's taken away. Raiden is faced with a horde of Metal Gear RAYs, forced to fight them one-by-one with a missile launcher. You're back to playing Snake-but-not-Snake. And what happens? You give up. Raiden can't hold them all off. It isn't until the game's climax, when all guns are removed from your inventory and you're forced to duel Solidus Snake in a sword fight, that Raiden truly finds his purpose.

This is the only fight in the game where the player's success has the direct result of also being Raiden's success. Raiden does succeed, he does so without Snake, or the Colonel, or Rose or Olga, or anyone else. His success isn't hollow, but hugely significant; he's killed the game's antagonist, his father-figure, one of the sons of Big Boss, a man who was, genetically speaking, Snake's equal. Raiden discards his dog tags, which are shown to be printed with the player's name and blood type entered previously.

BioShock was praised for being a game about games. Its entire design was a response to the linearity of even "open-ended" games, and to the player's expectations of games. BioShock handled this theme quite well, and uniquely, but really, MGS2 did it first. Kojima confronted the player with their own expectations and preconceived notions of what a game sequel should be and twisted them. By emulating Snake, Raiden met with failure and empty victories because he was trying to be something he wasn't. Likewise, by trying to recreate MGS1, the player experienced disappointment in the identical scenarios and their own hollow victories. It wasn't until Raiden rejected the player and their expectations that he was able to truly succeed. It wasn't until the player was given a new way to play that they were able to appreciate MGS2 as a new game.

Raiden was made to disappoint fans. The script was made to disappoint fans. The gameplay was designed to be slightly frustrating. But delivering a successful piece of entertainment made only to be consumed and forgotten was not MGS2's purpose. MGS2 was about its form: what is a game? What do we expect from games? What should we expect from games? Kojima is often blamed for wanting to be a director of films, but MGS2's whole purpose was to strip away the notion that games are films. They should be concerned with more than their narrative elements, and use their own unique mechanics to say something new.

Half-Life 2 (and Episodes)

I think it's safe to assume that the brilliance of HL2 and its episodes is just fact at this point. Is there anyone left who does not revere these games? There's simply no reason not to. The combination of animation, writing and acting that convinces us all the Alyx is a real person; the level design and its use of visual narrative that convinces us that City 17 and its surroundings are real places; the stunning vistas, the subtleties of the design (using color and geometry to lead the player without their knowing), the action, the iconic monsters... I could go on and on, but what's the point? We all already love these games for all these reasons and more. I simply don't have much to say because, well, you already know it all.

Shadow of the Colossus

The story of a man called Wander, his horse, Aggro, and his quest to save his dying love. Pursued by a priest and his soldiers, Wander carries his love to the temple in the Forbidden Lands where a spirit, Dormin, claims it can revive her. In order to do so, however, he must slay the Colossi that inhabit the Lands. Shadow of the Colossus is one of the few games to illicit a very real emotional response from me. Not just once, but several times over.

The first time I ventured out into the open of the Forbidden Land was stunning. What was this place? Who lived here and what happened to them? These questions are never answered and that's part of the beauty; the feelings of loneliness and being lost and forgotten. There wasn't much to find there apart from the colossi. Exploring the Forbidden Land was a treat in and of itself. Seeing the next ruin, a swamp, a desert, a lake, was all the incentive I needed to explore this place. It's just me and Aggro exploring the great unknown.

The first time I encountered a Colossus. I have to kill this thing?! How?! I awed at its beauty, terrified that it could kill me with one big stomp. I felt like some kind of fantasy hero dragon slayer; I was a lone swordsman about to bring down the biggest game in town. I climbed its body, stabbing its various weak points, until I emerged victorious.

The first hollow victory. The Collosus falls, lets out a bellowing cry and dies, and for what? It serves no purpose other than my own. I'll do whatever it takes to save her, but surely, this is one of the greatest tragedies of my life. Am I doing the right thing?

The first time I notice the changes in Wander's appearance. A few Colossi dead at his hands and he looks... different. He's bloodied, dirty, tired, weak... and darker.

When Aggro falls into the ravine. My only companion in this wide expanse of emptiness and sorrow, now gone. My quest is nearly complete, but how can I continue alone? Alright -- alone, then.

When I finally complete my quest. My pursuers find me as Dormin is freed. This is what they sought to prevent. Dormin takes over my body and transforms me into a massive demon. I attack my pursuers, but as they flee, the priest creates a vortex to seal the evil, which is now me. I return to my own form as the vortex pulls me in. I struggle against it, employing every cheap trick I can think of. When running is not enough, I attempt jumping and rolling. I'm trying to exploit the game's mechanics and I can't. The vortex is too strong and, despite my best efforts, I can't fight it. It takes me, while my love remains out of reach, far across the temple. I die alone. That's my reward.

Portal

Has any one game created so many memes? The Weighted Companion Cube, the cake is a lie, Still Alive. All have permeated our subculture and continue to be popular three years later.

How about the purity of the design? One weapon with two functions. The game is short, sweet, and leaves you wanting more. There are rooms, these rooms have puzzles, and you have to solve them to advance. That's tetris brought to a whole new, modern level. Pure.

The art direction? The clean, clinical veneer of the facility gradually gives way to its grimy, rusted innards, as GLaDOS gradually reveals her murderous intentions.

The humor. The writing. That's what cinches it for me. Few games have made me laugh out loud quite as much as Portal did. If joy counts as an emotional response, and if the ability to illicit an emotional response qualifies something as art, then I would put Portal on that list without a second thought.

Every Day The Same Dream

It's just a simple, free Flash game, but it's had a haunting, lasting impact on me that I can't ignore. I implore you to go play the game before reading this piece. It only takes about 15 minutes and I promise you, you won't regret it. Reading this first will have a strong impact on your experience, and you should experience it fresh, without expectation.

I wake up to my screeching alarm. I turn it off. I get dressed. I step out into the kitchen, where I'm greeted by my wife.

"Honey, you'll be late for work." What? No, "good morning"? I try to talk to her. "Hurry, you're late for work."

I exit my apartment. I take the elevator down. I get in my car. I sit in stop-and-go-traffic for far too long. I arrive at work.

"You're late," my boss says, "Get to your cubicle." I sigh and head into the office. I pass by a row of identical workers all busy at their computers. I pass by another row of identical workers, all busy at their computers. I pass by another row of--

f**k this.

I see the green sign pointing to the roof at the opposite end of the room, as if it's a traffic signal telling me to go. I don't even think about it. I walk right past my cubicle, make my way up to the roof, and jump.

I wake up to my screeching alarm.

Every Day The Same Dream places you in the role of a disaffected corporate automaton living out his own personal Groundhog Day. There are several actions you can take that derail your day from its usual routine. You can complete them in order until reaching the game's end.

The other actions never occurred to me on that first day. I walked into that building, saw my life, and said "no."

So what does that say about me?

Okami

I am creating life. With a swipe of a brush, I can make flowers bloom, trees sprout, and ward off death itself. If ever there was a way to make the player feel empowered, and significantly so -- not just in the sense of having a bigger gun than everyone else -- this is it. As the sun deity Amaterasu, I bring color and light to a world engulfed in darkness and despair. So simple but so powerful.

True, the game as a whole is great. The Zelda-esque adventuring and exploration, the fast-paced combat, the uniquely gorgeous, painted art-style, the quirky characters; these are not elements to be ignored. While all of those elements contribute to my love for the game, none of them, despite their brilliance, compare to the feeling of being so much more than just another hero, and being so powerful and so mortal at the same time.

Honorable Mentions

Left 4 Dead

I'm not a big multiplayer guy, especially when it comes to shooters. It's not that I dislike them, but rather that I hate playing these games with strangers. It isn't fun for me, competing against or cooperating with a bunch of faceless avatars, many of whom are spouting racial slurs and homophobic rants. Left 4 Dead lets me play with a small group of friends, but it does so much more. I think just about everyone has their go-to L4D crew. And it brings you closer to them, in a weird way. You learn each other's more subtle cues; you develop a sense of understanding usually reserved for tight-knit, elite military units in actions movies. Eventually, the four of you operate like a well-oiled machine, and working with anyone else seems like an invitation to suicide.

Dragon Quest 8

I used to love JRPGs. That was my go-to genre. That love died a slow, painful death as I watched every other element of the industry race ahead while JRPGs remained steeped in their archaic design philosophies. They all began to blend together, with generic plots, generic characters, and outdated play mechanics. I ceased to be able to tell one game of the genre from any other. The genre needs a massive re-imaging to survive, a game to turn it all on its head and venture forth into the brave new world.

Dragon Quest 8 is not this game. It's about as generic as you can get. The story is shallow and the characters cliche. Random encounters, poor balance requiring grinding, uneven pacing... and yet, I love this game. The only thing I can say is that it's charming. I don't know how else to put it. The world is typical, but it's beautifully rendered. The characters are archetypes, but bursting with personality. The English accents, the cute dialogue, the cel-shaded art style -- this game just made me fall in love with it. It does nothing special, but for me it was the swan song of the genre I once loved so much. It brought me right back to those days when I didn't mind grinding for hours, or random encounters, or cryptic methods to obtaining rare items for bragging rights. I put this game in my PS2 and feel like I'm 11 years old again. It just makes me happy.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Oh my GAWD! Remember how awesome this game was the first time you played it? How long we had all been waiting for another good Star Wars game -- no -- another good Star Wars ANYTHING? Light Side points! Dark Side points! The possibilities of the now-scoffed-at binary morality system seemed endless. Exploring planets, becoming a Jedi, playing out your role in a grand space opera. KOTOR was afternoons spent playing with Star Wars micromachines brought to life (or as close to life as Star Wars is likely going to get). Unadulterated joy.

Silent Hill 2

One of my biggest regrets is that I never finished Silent Hill 2. It's too scary. In general, I'm not a fan of scary games. They're too scary. However, what sets Silent Hill 2 apart is how it's scary. Yeah, I'm scared by the monsters, shadows, mist, sounds, and just general atmosphere. Silent Hill 2's atmosphere works on two distinct levels. The narrative level, as the demon-ridden, evil town covered in fog and crawling with evil horrors, and the formal level, as the manifestation of protagonist James' subconscious, which is a driven by guilt, masochism, and a staggering amount of repressed sexual hang-ups.

Therefore, it isn't simply the monsters themselves that terrify me, but what they represent. The slutty zombie nurses, the naked female mannequin legs, the pyramid heads... it call came to a head for me when you witness one of the pyramid heads raping one of the mannequin leg monsters, while James watches from a closet.

Yeah-- dark.

Diablo 2

For the many (many, many, many) completely sleepless nights that this game caused. World of Warcraft never reached this level of game-as-crack for me. In fact, Diablo 2 is the only game that has caused me to play it until the sun comes up (and often, even longer than that). Offline, online, with friends or with strangers, it didn't matter. I had to have it any way I could get it, any time I could get it. And when my mom took it away from me for playing too much, I was tweeking hard. I found where she hid it and stole it back. In hindsight, she did the right thing.

God I love this game. Too much.

Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

My first Ratchet and Clank game. Apparently, I was really missing out. Playing Ratchet and Clank Future is like playing a Pixar movie. For actually caring about collecting all the knick-knacks and leveling up all the weapons, for the sheer pleasure of exploring the game's many and diverse alien landscapes, for Quark's loveable bravado and cowardice, for Clank's dry wit and clever quips, for Ratchet's quest to find the Lombaxes, for the Groovitron (forcing an unresistable urge to dance on your foes is the best weapon in any game ever), for Mr. Zurkon, for all the pretty colors, I say "yes!" to Ratchet and Clank. Color me fanboy.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Grand Theft Auto 3 created the big, open sandbox city. San Andreas expanded it to several cities and a wilderness in between. But few games really show an understanding of themselves as much as Vice City. Claude was a silent everyman, CJ a misunderstood antihero, but Tommy was a homicidal psychopath whose every word was dripping with acrimony. There wasn't anything redeeming about him and that's what made him so much damn fun. He killed people. He blew stuff up. He caused complete and total mayhem. He reveled every minute of it and his psychotic joy was totally and completely infectious.

Then there's the setting. Vice City captured the excess of the '80s by blowing it out of proportion and creating a modern day Sodom. And the soundtrack still remains one of the best, capturing every aspect of the 80s that we all were hoping to forget.

Mass Effect

The shooting is a little bit lackluster and the sidequests are boring and unrewarding. But Mass Effect is a roleplaying game and the roleplaying is where it shines. The Mass Effect developers defined the larger aspects of Shepard before the player ever got a chance to touch him/her. Strangely, by imposing a definition on who Shepard was, it gave the player more freedom to define who Shepard is. Through its grey morality system and paraphrased dialogue options, the player was able to define the more complex aspects of Shepard's personality, and what makes him/her tick. I was always pleasantly surprised with how Shepard interpreted my directions. Mass Effect struck an odd balance between linearity and player freedom that just worked.

God of War 2

God of War 2 is possibly my favorite PS2 game of all time. A big part of that is due to the character of Kratos. Kratos is a villain. I sympathize with his hatred for the gods and his quest for revenge, but I never feel as though his actions are morally justified. Kratos is a villain, through and through. However, there's something incredibly liberating in playing a villain.

Yet, for some reason, I almost never play an evil character when given a choice. God of War 2 is the only game that forces you to be a straight-up bad guy. There is no other way to play the game; there is no roleplaying; I don't have a choice in the matter. Oddly, I find that very freeing. If I don't have a choice, I may as well just accept my fate and enjoy the ride, which is exactly what happens when I play God of War.

Most Under-appreciated

The Witcher

Actions have consequences. I sell some weapons to an "organization" of Elves. Later, one of those weapons is used to murder a man in cold blood. The village is persecuting a witch out religious zealotry. I sympathize with the witch and try to protect her. As a result, I wind up slaughtering the angry villagers in her defense. A civil war is brewing between humans and non-humans. Throughout the game, I try to remain neutral. When everything finally comes to a head in the end, I find myself with few allies. My neutrality has bought me only vitriol and apathy from both sides.

There is no morality in The Witcher. There is no right or wrong, there are only actions and consequences. Dragon Age attempted the same, and succeeded, but not as profoundly as The Witcher did. Your actions in The Witcher create ripples, the effects of which are felt throughout the game. When those actions have their final consequences, it's far too late to simply reload an old save and choose another option. I'm surprised more games don't do this, but I wish they would. The Witcher was, sadly, widely overlooked and deserved some attention.

The Longest Journey

Yeah, yeah, it was technically released in 1999, but it didn't make it to the U.S. until 2000, so I say it counts!

The Longest Journey is like a master class in world building. It tells the story of April Ryan, a young art student living in the future. Like most her age, she's wracked with feelings of apathy, cynicism, uncertainty, fear, etc. She's going through some "stuff." To make matters worse, she thinks she's going crazy, as her dreams begin to invade her waking life in all-too-real ways.

As if life weren't complicated enough, she finds herself integral to the continued existence of two worlds. There's our world, Stark, which is ruled by technology and logic, and there's another world, Arcadia, which is governed by magic and faith.

But that basic premise doesn't do any kind of justice to the game. Narratively as well as thematically, Stark and Arcadia are worlds that feel very real. Stark is an extension of our own reality. It's wracked with wars, big and small; consumerism is a way of life; democracy faded away so gradually that no one even seemed to notice. People live simply for the sake of living, and everyone, April included, is either apathetic or cynical about the whole situation, never really caring to do anything. It isn't quite dystopia but it's still pretty depressing. It's a world whose neon metropolises and grimy inner cities indicate a society that resigned itself to a bleak fate long ago. No one has hope because they've forgotten what the word even means.

Contrastingly, Arcadia is built on hope. It has its own problems: wars, bad omens, the end of the world and all that. Yet the people of Arcadia are robust and strong, and their faith in themselves is completely infectious.

Then there are the more obvious, narrative elements of these worlds. Stark borrows heavily from the usual cyber-punk, Bladerunner-inspired futureworld. The details are what make it stand out. April's student hostel, her neighbors, the school, the art galleries; the ephemera of society that make it what it is, despite its outside appearance. Yes, the world has kind of given up, but they didn't do so deliberately. Life continues, as do its pleasures and quirks.

Arcadia is a mash-up of just about every fantasy world you've ever seen. Yet, it still manages to be so completely alien at times. Typical elves and dwarves are replaced with numerous bizarre, original species, all of which have their own customs and cultures. It just feels real, in large part due to the fact that we only see a sliver of it. We see one part of one country, while it's made clear that there's a whole other planet out there, not at all like our own. Arcadia is built on faith, and as with faith, it's the not knowing that can sometimes make it so important.

Finally, The Longest Journey was, for all intents and purposes, the last gasp of the point-and-click adventure genre. While it has seen a resurgence lately, with the likes of Sam and Max and Tales of Monkey Island, at the time it was dying, and for all we know, The Longest Journey would be its funeral dirge. Somewhat appropriately, TLJ still remains possibly the best of the genre.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

As a whole, Vampire is a disappointment. But for the first 1/3 or so of the game, it's unmitigated genius. The sense of atmosphere in those early parts is unparalleled. The haunted hotel level is, hands down, the most scared I've ever been in a game, and there aren't even any enemies trying to kill you.

It starts with little things. A chair mysteriously falls over. The door to a dryer opens on its own. You hear a pitter-patter behind you. You turn around and--

What was that?

Did you just see something? You could swear you just saw something. It looked like a man but... it came and went so fast. Was it just something in your eye? Is the game really so effective that you're seeing things that aren't there?

Despite the mess of the later game, Vampire deserved more recognition than it got. Maybe it has something to do with the bugs. Maybe it has something to do with being released at the same time as Half-Life 2 and World of Warcraft. Yeah, that might have something to do with it.

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

Imagine if Middle Earth found itself embroiled in a very sudden, and largely unwanted, industrial revolution. Old traditions butt heads against new ideas. Magic is in direct competition with science, the two physically unable to coexist. Entire cultures find themselves fading into obscurity, facing extinction.

Now imagine being free to be whoever you want to be in this world. I'm a beautiful female outlaw who uses my sexuality or a gun to get what I want, more concerned with my own survival than the fate of the world, but when push comes to shove, I'll do the right thing. Now I'm a gnomish mob boss. I lack any moral compass, taking whatever I want. I have a small army of lackeys to do whatever I demand of them -- why dirty my own hands? I'm a valiant paladin spell-sword, committed to doing justice. Despite my best intentions for the world, my magical leanings make things harder for me. I'm forced to rely on myself more than on society, as society's machines refuse to allow me dominion over them. I'm a sharpshooting elven scientist who believes the old world has to be steamrolled to make way for the new, ancestors be damned.

Arcanum was widely considered a spiritual successor to Fallout and Fallout 2. An easy comparison to make, considering its isometric perspective, 2D graphics and turn-based combat. Personally, I found the world of Arcanum far more fascinating than the wasteland.

You know, both Arcanum and Vampire were developed by Troika, who also win my award for most under-appreciated developer of the decade.

Fact Really is Stranger Than Fiction... And Fiction is Kinda Boring (rant)

2010-01-19T18:21:00.000-08:00

As I write this post, I'm awaiting possible annihilation at the powerful tendrils of an oncoming tornado, while my cat clings desperately to my legs, digging her claws into my flesh under the (probably erroneous) assumption that I'll be sturdy enough to not get sucked up into the sky and flung through a tree. The supposedly violent weather, which actually appears relatively tame from my window, combined with this article on Discovery News (thanks to buddy Jeff for posting it on Facebook), got me thinking.

About aliens.

Well, not really. You see, I recently re-played Mass Effect in anticipation for the upcoming sequel and it was a much different journey my second time around. My favorite aspects of the game actually seemed to shine brighter. However, it's flaws also glared much more harshly.

From a roleplaying perspective, I adore Mass Effect. My Shepard is a good guy, but he's also practical. He doesn't believe in right and wrong; he believes only in actions and consequences. He is not, however, immune to his own emotions.

Mass Effect's Commander Shepard, unlike the characters of many western RPGs, is not a blank slate. For starters, he/she is, for lack of a better term, a "good guy." A Lieutenant Commander in the Alliance Navy, the first human Spectre working to protect the galaxy -- there are no options to go super evil and start slaughtering children. Shepard, if not necessarily a good guy, will always be against the bad guys. While Mass Effect features the typical binary morality system, it isn't one of traditional "good" and "evil." The morality system in Mass Effect has much more to do with how Shepard gets the job done. Is he a boy scout or the take no prisoners, ends justify the means type? Cold and calculating or passionate and emotional? Shoot first or a keen diplomat?

The slightly looser-than-average moral compass combines with the subtleties of dialogue options to make Shepard a more complex character. Yeah, Shepard can be the Clark Kent of the universe, all wholesome and goody. However, like anyone else, Shepard can also be capable of acting out of character depending on the situation. My Shepard could justify making some darker choices because of the situation and that didn't change who he was.

Let us investigate, shall we?

Stepping off of his ship at the Citadel, Shepard is faced with an irate superior officer. The angry old man continues to rant at length about his concerns -- and they are many.

"The Normandy is a waste of Alliance resources! You should be answering to the Alliance, not the Citadel Council! New battle tactics should be tested in a lab, not in the field!"

Shepard handles the misplaced berating with respect and understanding.

"Yes, sir; You make a good point, sir; If I may, sir, I think you're underestimating..." Finally, the officer demands to inspect of the ship himself. "Be my guest, Sir."

"And another thing," the officer continues as he returns to the dock, "I don't like the idea of our most advanced ship being crewed with aliens!"

What?! I just got all these cool new alien characters to back me up. Wrex is a comrade if there ever was one; Garrus and I see eye-to-eye on almost everything; Tali understands The Geth better than anyone; Liara... well, okay. I don't much care for Liara and her childish naivete and doormat personality.

"Old man! Back the fuck off before I go fucking medieval on you!"

Ok, so the in-game Shepard didn't quite go that far, but I still picked the most harshly-worded response available to me at the time. The point is, My Shepard allowed his emotions to interfere with procedure when the old coot decided to go ranting his xenophobic BS about my friends.

My Shepard is not perfect.

Faced with the decision to kill or arrest one of the scientists responsible for unleashing the monsters that killed his entire unit on Akuze, My Shepard was not so forgiving.

"Do it," he said to the man pointing the gun at the scientist's head. In truth, it would have been smarter to arrest the scientist. His group's activities would be made public and he'd have to answer for what he did. But once again, My Shepard allowed his emotions to get the better of him.

However, these instances are an exception to the rule. This is not the norm and more often than not, My Shepard makes what I believe the be the more strategically sound decision. Faced with the choice to save or abandon the Council, My Shepard adhered to this policy.

"You can't abandon the Council just to save human lives!" Kaiden pleads, "all the species of the galaxy are in this together!"

"What has the council ever done for humans?" Wrex makes an interesting point. This whole time, the Council only served to cock-block me at every turn. They never listened to my warnings. A Spectre is supposed to act autonomously, yet they berated me for almost every call I made. And to cap it off, they arrested me when I was most needed elsewhere.

Still, they were only doing their job. They acted as I did, not doing what was 'right' or 'wrong,' but weighing the consequences of decisions and acting accordingly. And now, they, unfortunately, were going to die.

Still, I'm only doing my job. This isn't about human lives or diplomacy or revenge. Sovereign is about to destroy us all and I need all available firepower to take him down fast and hard. Sacrificing ships and risking the whole galaxy to save three politicians simply doesn't seem worth it. Too bad.

All of this is quite a tangent, but I wanted to get my little love-letter to the game out of the way before I get to the heart of this piece: that fact is stranger than fiction, and it shouldn't be.

Allow me to take you by the hand as I give you a tour of every optional planet you have the opportunity to "explore" in Mass Effect.

The Normandy swoops down low in the atmosphere, jettisoning your Mako APC so you and your two best squad mates can explore the uncharted world.

It's your first time doing this.

And wow, what a place! A completely untouched, alien world! Did you ever imagine you'd get to see this? It's so, so, so... barren... But hey, that's why it's unsettled, right? Hazardous environment and all that hooplah. This is just the landing zone, on one world; surely, there's so much more to see out there!

So you drive around, navigating your way through ridges and canyons. You find an abandoned prospector camp and grab some neat goodies from their crates, lockers and corpses. You continue your little road trip and make more little discoveries -- a crashed probe here, a deposit of minerals there. Maybe you find a pirate base and raid it for experience points and more knick-knacks.

And then it's time to leave and get back to your mission.

Fast forward a bit. It's your third or fourth time exploring an uncharted world.

The Normandy flies in low and jettisons your Mako APC. You take your best two squad mates and explore the uncharted world. It's so, so, so... barren... But in a completely different way! The last planet was covered in rocks and sand. But this planet -- oh, this planet -- is covered in rocks and snow! So, you drive around, this time just going over the ridges and canyons because the sketchy game physics of the Mako allow you to drive up and over almost everything (though it is often frustrating). You make straight lines to the four corners of the area map because it's the most efficient way to find stuff. Another abandoned camp, another cashed space thing, a slaver base, maybe complete some side quests.

Yep, that was great.

Fast forward a bit. You're exploring your dozenth or so uncharted world.

The Normandy flies in low and blah blah blah. The planet is barren and volcanic. You drive over pointy rocks, find some stuff, kill some dudes, pack up and go home.

"Ohh, look! A lake of molten lava!" That's the coolest thing you've seen exploring these optional worlds, and it's just a pool of red water that kills you if you touch it.

Sand world, lava world, ice world, grass world -- welcome to the final frontier. Occasionally there are heavy winds. Every so-often you'll find an alien lifeform; giant bugs, monkey-lizards, the giant Thresher Maw monsters. The first time I saw a Thresher Maw -- the horrible abomination of teeth and tendrils that slaughtered my entire unit on Akuze -- I nearly jumped out of my seat. It plunges out from the ground with a horrible wailing shriek. One look at the behemoth and I knew that if the Mako were caught in those jaws, it would mean instant death. Luckily, driving in circles confuses the creatures easily and pelting them with explosive shells makes quick work of them. Fighting them soon became a routine, just another part of the bigger routine of exploring uncharted planets.

"Exploration" becomes a pretty loose term after coming to this realization. I've accepted that I'm never going to see anything truly interesting or strange on these worlds. After number three or four (hey, I'm an optimist), I'm only bothering with them for the sake of finding more stuff, fighting more dudes, and completing more quests. Here I am, exploring the unexplored far-ends of outer space. I'm out in the wild, away from advanced research stations, alien metropolises, claustrophobic spaceships, and ancient technologically advanced ruins, and what am I doing? Picking up scraps left behind by those who came before or killing those who are currently there.

Now, a diamond ocean, with diamond glaciers... seeing that would be a reward in and of itself. That's real exploration.

It's so nauseatingly cynical. This is the best artists and writers could up with, while scientists pump out a constant stream of the bizarre and awe-inspiring visual landscapes that exist out there beyond the stars? And what's worse is the realization that I doubt I could do any better. Hell, "desert moon" is the best I could come up with for the setting of my own comic book. Maybe from now on, I'll a keep a closer eye on the Sci than the Fi. Fact truly is stranger than fiction, so... why can't we get a little more fact in our fiction?

I want my diamond oceans.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl review

2010-01-18T16:14:00.000-08:00

I’m burdened with loot and equipment that I’ve salvaged and unlucky enough to run afoul of a bandit road ambush. I'm out-numbered and out-gunned by a dozen men. Do I fight? I have precious little ammunition, but the bandits might be carrying valuables or much-needed supplies. At the very least their guns and ammunition will come in handy. Do I make a desperate attempt to flee? With my loot weighing me down I won’t make it far before I fatigue, lose my stride and, consequently, my life.

I'm pinned down behind a broken-down van for a good 5-10 minutes until I decide to make a run for it, skirting the perimeter of a radioactive hot-spot. I take cover behind a large rock and am lucky enough to get some help from a nearby Stalker base. I helped defend them against a bandit invasion the previous night, and a couple of them come to my aid when they heard the gunfire, returning the favor.

Together, we take out the bandits, but my trek back "home" is only just beginning. On the way back I almost die from radiation poisoning while attempting to retrieve some salvage from a wrecked van. I take a short-cut through the woods and, wouldn’t you know, run right into another gang of bandits. There are only three this time, but that's still 3-1 odds against me. I take cover behind a tree and compose myself. Unable to come up with any good route of escape, I decide my only option is to make a break for it and take my chances. Just as I prepare to run, I’m saved by a pack of mutant dogs. They set themselves on the bandits with rabid ferocity; I’m only lucky they didn’t see me first. Taking advantage of the chaos, I sprint to a nearby farm house. Yesterday I met a Stalker here who shared some valuable information with me. I enter the ruined house only to find my new friend lying dead next to the fire we had so recently shared. It could have been the dogs, it could have been the bandits. They’re still fighting in the woods (the dogs are winning). A man emerges from the nearby barn -- maybe it was him. I could avenge my friend now, but this newcomer is out of my league, and intimidates me into retreat. There’s no need to throw my life away now for a man I barely knew.

Up ahead are the train tracks. There’s potential treasure in those wrecked train cars. I should know better. I'm already heavily weighed down by loot and supplies; greed would only tempt fate more. I choose greed. I follow the tracks for a while, occasionally firing my shotgun at the ground to scare off any mutant dogs that come my way. When alone, they’re easily frightened. There’s nothing in the cars -- karma's a bitch -- but I finally make it to the bridge only to find that it's out of commission, and clearly has been for a long while. On the road below the military has set up a roadblock. The military doesn’t like people like me.

They see me.

They run up the hill to attack me. I charge one in a banzai attack and empty both barrels of my shotgun into his chest. I take cover behind a train car and prepare to take the other, but there’s no time. Three more soldiers are coming up the hill behind me and more are coming to join the one on the other side. I charge the one in front of me and, mostly due to luck, manage to land a shot from medium range. The well-armored fascist lives, but it’s enough to stun him and allow me to escape into the woods, where they eventually give up the chase.

Exhausted, I limp my way back to the farm to catch my breath and tend to my scrapes. I take bandages and rations from the body of my new friend -- he won’t be needing them anymore, anyway. I regroup and head back across the road to another farm where I helped some Stalkers a while back. I head up the tracks again, making sure I’m far from the roadblock this time. Wild boars are through galloping the bushes, but I keep my distance and they leave me alone. It isn't much farther now, so I make my way back to the village, but not before taking another ill-advised detour for some possible treasure.

Bad idea.

I soon find myself surrounded by an enormous pack of wild mutant dogs. They aren’t so easily frightened in numbers.

I run.

Again, I’m exhausted by the heavy load I’m carrying on my back. I stop to let myself rest a bit and fire a few scattered shots towards the pack. My shotgun is about as deadly as a paper airplane at this range, but it’s enough to buy some time. The dogs are more cautious now, but are still coming. Having regained some strength, I continue my run back to the village.

The dogs won’t chase me here; it’s too populated. I return to the Trader and get paid for my missions. I’m able to make a pretty penny off of my recovered loot. I buy a shiny new pistol, a silencer, and some med kits, bandages, and canned food. My greed paid off, after all.

This little journey represents approximately two hours of my time spent with first-person shooter RPG, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl (released Marched 2007). After a second nuclear disaster occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the surrounding Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is transformed into a radioactive ruin populated by mutants and host to reality-bending anomalies that produce valuable “artifacts” -- crystallized, radioactive objects that alter the space around them or even the biology of the person carrying one, to often advantageous results. Seeking these treasures are Stalkers -- explorers and treasure-hunters -- as well as bandits, scientists, and the military, all of whom are competing for the next big score. The player assumes the role of an amnesiac Stalker, rescued from a crashed truck by a fellow Stalker and brought to a nearby black-market trader, who promptly sets you to work for him. The only hint to your identity is a vague mission listed on your PDA: Find and assassinate the famous and enigmatic Stalker known simply as ‘Strelok.’ As you work your way through numerous traders, informants, and organizations in your quest to find this mystery man who may hold the key to your past, you will unravel the mysteries of The Zone and your purpose within it.

It might sound a bit odd, but this nuclear wasteland was my favorite virtual space of 2007, even more so than much-acclaimed (and deservedly so) underwater dystopia. Even with the mediocre graphics and limited spaces that make up The Zone, GSC Game World managed to create a sense of atmosphere that is rarely seen in games today. Part of what makes it work so well is exactly the sense that I had while playing through the experience I described at the beginning of this review. The name of the game in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is survival. The Zone has mostly been picked clean of treasure; it’s dominated by mutants and perilous anomalies, and your enemies greatly outnumber your allies. You need food, medical supplies, and ammunition to survive and all are fairly rare. Fight or flight is a question you’ll be asking yourself often, and just as often the latter is the smarter choice. At the end of the day, The Zone is just a place you don’t see often in games -- one where you're dis-empowered.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.’s development has been a long and troubled road. Consequently, it may not be all it was originally meant to be, but GSC Game World still managed to deliver one of the most entertaining and unique shooters in a time when the genre has become anything but. To see a developer continue the design philosophies pioneered by games like System Shock 2 and Deus Ex, regardless of mainstream trends, is refreshing, welcome, and, most importantly, needed. A more than simply solid first step, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. may be flawed with occasional technological problems and sometimes irritating design (vague mission objectives, slightly uneven progression and nagging balance issues), but its potential is vast and the example that it sets is one that I wish more developers followed.

Penumbra: Black Plague review

2010-01-12T14:45:00.001-08:00

I'm going to dispense with the winded background and get this right out of the way: you don't need to have played Penumbra: Overture in order to get into Black Plague. Yes, Overture has its own merits in the form of puzzles and atmosphere, but its sparse story is crammed into literally seconds of exposition at the start of Black Plague.

As you probably already know if you're reading this, Penumbra: Black Plague is the second episode of Penumbra Collection. For all intents and purposes, it is also the last episode, concluding the story of Philip's search for his father. That search took him first to an abandoned mine in the tundra of Greenland. Overture ended with Philip finding his way out of the mine and into a deserted facility, only to be knocked unconscious by a shadowy figure. Black Plague finds Philip searching the facility that caused the outbreak.

Once more, there's nothing especially unique happening with the plot itself. Early in the game you are infected yourself, and cursed with another personality (Clarence) mocking you from inside your own head. Don't get me wrong, I dug Clarence big time. He's snarky, funny, sadistic, and creepy. However, every time he spoke I couldn't help but feel a tad let down. He would have been much more interesting as a foil to the player, but since Philip is a protagonist in the silent tradition, that isn't possible. I will give major propers for a twist that occurs about 2/3 of the way through the game. Clarence messes with your head, making you see things that aren't there from time to time. It comes off as a gimmick at a first—a way for the developers to get a few cheap scares from the player—but it pays off brilliantly in the end.

Black Plague plays out a lot like Overture—as is to be expected—only in a different setting. You'll navigate maze-like hallways, sneaking around monsters (which are now infected humans, so no more dogs and spiders) as you make your way to the next puzzle. Black Plague does make some changes. The simple and cheap combat from Overture is thrown out. You can still throw objects to stun enemies, but there are no hammers or crowbars this time around. Furthermore, the enemies are smarter this time and carry flashlights, so the shadows are not always your friend. Nevertheless, it is all too often still simple to just run past your foes. They're better at finding you this time, but if you know where you need to go, there's no reason you can't simply run from one load point to the next, as the enemies can't follow. However, to give credit where credit is due, Black Plague's pacing is much improved over its predecessor's. The overpowering sense of routine and monotony isn't nearly as pronounced this time around. Mazes and puzzles are spaced a bit less predictably and there are more puzzles that actually involve enemies, which provides a needed sense of urgency to your shenanigans.

One element that puts Black Plague above Overture, and in turn above many such games, is the clever use of the physics engine. Overture already did some very smart things, but when Black Plague had me using the physics to open a door using leverage, I was sold. It seems so simple but I've never seen physics used in such a believable and natural way in a game. It says something for indie ingenuity when Half-Life, the series that popularized the physics puzzle, rarely musters anything more clever than some variation on the seesaw puzzle.

Another thing that Black Plague has going for it over Overture is the environment. I talked about how atmospheric Overture was, but the setting did get old after a while. I mean, there's only so much that you can do with an abandoned mine. The facility in Black Plague provides a much more interesting narrative. The barricades, corpses, and traps provide a narrative of what happened before your arrival. The offices, labs, utility rooms, dorms, and even frozen tundra of the research facility provide a much more varied and visually interesting environment to explore.

If you really aren't interested in playing the entire Penumbra Collection, Black Plague should be one you do play. It easily stands as its own game, explains what little you need to know of Overture's plot, and concludes the story of Phillip. Everything about it is improved over Overture and I would go as far to say that it's one of the better adventure games I've played in a long while.

Penumbra: Overture Review

2010-01-12T14:39:00.001-08:00

A first-person stealth-action survival-horror adventure? Well, that's the wacky world of indie PC gaming for ya! Penumbra: Overture is the first in a series of episodic games known collectively as the Penumbra Collection. In a genre that's leaning ever more towards emphasizing visceral action and monster-closets over good old fashioned scares, Penumbra throws out the guns and leaves you with your wits and a flashlight.

The story finds the player character, Philip, exploring an abandoned mine in Greenland in search of his presumed-dead father. The plot is told through exploration of the environment, old notes you'll discover, and your interactions with another character. You'll come across giant spiders and nasty mutated wolves as you delve deeper and deeper, trying to uncover what happened, where your father is, and make your way to Red, a manic former miner communicating with you over radio. Red may be your only hope of getting out but his insanity makes his loyalty highly suspect.

The first thing that sets Overture apart is the player character. Philip is a physics professor and just an ordinary guy. I don't mean “ordinary guy” like Gordon Freeman is an ordinary guy, rampaging through alien dystopias with a machine gun. I don't even mean “ordinary guy” like Harry from Silent Hill, picking up a gun and facing the horrors of the titular small town himself. Indeed, there are no guns in Penumbra. Overture features a hammer and mining pick that can be used in emergencies, and objects in the environment can be thrown at enemies, but these tricks merely stun your foes long enough for you to run away, hide, and quietly wet yourself. Progress is made by sneaking your way past monsters as you get from Point A to Point B and solving numerous puzzles in order to progress, most of which are based around the game's physics engine.

At it's heart, that's really what Penumbra can be boiled down to: an adventure game. The meat of the game is in exploring your environment and using it to overcome various obstacles. What makes the puzzles interesting is the game's rich physics engine. You see, Penumbra is a thinking man's horror game. All of the puzzles are based on the in-game physics, requiring the player to explore the environment, observe the objects within, and find a way to use them. How can you break this rusty lock? How can you find a way to distribute your weight as you walk across an icy lake? How can you block off this cave so the giant spiders can't get to you? Penumbra tests your reasoning and awareness and it does it well.

Every object in the game is operated—for lack of a better word—“manually.” The mouse acts as a hand and left clicking allows the player to interact with objects. The mouse must be rotated to turn a valve, pushed forward or back to operate levers, and moved around precisely to manipulate other objects. It's a system that very easily could have become tiresome and frustrating with a less precise physics system. Luckily, Penumbra's physics are some of the best I've seen, and the level of interaction gives the game a surprisingly tactile feel.

Overture's weak point, unfortunately, comes in between these head-scratcher puzzles. While scary at first, fear quickly becomes overshadowed by monotony. Getting from Point A to Point B is set up in a fairly generic stealth-action manner. You're in a maze being patrolled by monsters. Since you can't fight the monsters, you need to sneak around in the shadows, slowly making your way to the next puzzle. Well, that, or you could just run by them; it's surprisingly easy to do so. Sure, fear comes from other places as well. Penumbra manages the psychological scares that can be felt from effective use of light and sound better than most. Still, once you get used to the routine and know what to expect, it mostly stops being scary.

Those lights and sounds are still put to good effect, however. Despite the budget graphics, Overture offers atmosphere in spades. The creaking and crumbling of the mine, the howls and growls of distant beasties, the narrative that can be gleaned from the settled chaos of the mine. More time and money and the environment could easily approach BioShock's Rapture in terms of immersion.

Arguably, Overture's weakest point is the story. In looking at the entire series, it really isn't necessary to play Overture for its story. The story arc with Red, the game's prologue and its cliffhanger ending are all the plot that really matter. The notes you find lying around provide some decent insight into the backstory but are hardly necessary to the actual plot of the game. Other than that, it's all very standard: an abandoned facility overrun by mutants created from some kind of infection. That's okay, though. The reason to play Overture is for its atmosphere and puzzles; the story merely provides context for these elements.

Overture is a fine game on its own. It drags on a little longer than it probably should and the routine of puzzle, maze, puzzle begins to wear thin after several hours. The puzzles themselves are fun and challenging and the atmosphere is compelling. While the series doesn't truly shine until Episode 2: Black Plague, don't write off Overture too easily. It isn't necessary to play it first but it is worth a look.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition Review

2009-12-03T17:04:00.001-08:00

Sadly, I did not play the original Secret of Monkey Island back when it was released in 1990 (I was five). Actually, it was well into my life as a gamer that I stumbled into the PC adventure genre with 1998's Grim Fandango. That event began a love affair with the genre that led me through its past, exploring the brilliant games I had missed during my formative years. I can't recall exactly how I got my hands on a copy of the Secret of Monkey Island and its sequel, LeChuck's Revenge. Was it packaged with Grim Fandango? With another game? Whatever the case, I did manage to play the original game some years ago. I'm a fan. Of adventure games, of LucasArts adventure games, of creators Ron Gilbert and Tim Schaefer, and of Monkey Island as a series. I should probably mention that the announcement of a remake and the episodic Tales of Monkey Island was, for me, the highlight of E3 2009. Fortunately, the Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition doesn't fail to meet my hype.

It feels strange explaining the story of a 20 year old series but I'm going to go ahead and assume there are a few newcomers out there. The Secret of Monkey Island is about aspiring pirate Guybrush Threepwood. Guybrush arrives on Melee Island hoping to become a full-fledged professional pirate. After meeting the Pirate Lords he is set on three trials that begin his quest. However, the schemes of the ghost pirate LeChuck soon thrust Guybrush into an entirely new endeavor.

If you've ever played an adventure game, you know the drill. Gameplay consists of logic puzzles, either in the form of branching dialogue trees or navigating and exploring the environment, using items to overcome obstacles. Guybrush needs a key, but to get the key he needs a banana picker, to get the banana picker he needs access to the cannibal village, and so forth. One aspect of the adventure game genre that LucasArts has always managed well was the consistency of the puzzles. Very rarely do they dabble in the moon logic for which the genre is infamous. This is due partly to the fact that LucasArts adventure games are often comedies. Often, the most logical solution and the most humorous solution are one in the same. The Secret of Monkey Island is no exception to this trend (well, actually, it established it).

All of that is been-there-done-that, unchanged from the 20 year old original. So what's new to warrant a Special Edition? Well, for the one, the special edition is no less than a complete remake of the original. New HD graphics (with gorgeous hand-painted environments), a new re-recorded and re-mastered score and complete voice acting for every character and every line of dialogue in the game.

Also new is a redesigned interface, which hides the verb and interface menus that take up the lower half of the screen in the original. Each menu can be called to the screen with the push of a button, but hiding them allows a view of the screen not obscured by a HUD. In theory this seems ideal, as the new hand-painted backgrounds really are breathtaking. However, it quickly becomes annoying, having to constantly switch between menus in order to interact with items or the environment. The game features context-sensitive control with the right mouse button, however it lacks a good concept of context and rarely performs the action you need.

Another new addition is the three-level hint system. Hitting the 'H' key provides a hint on how to solve a current puzzle. A second press will provide a clearer hint and a third will pop an arrow onto the screen indicating exactly where to go. It's a welcome new feature that streamlines the head scratching process inherent to adventure games. I'll admit that I had to rely on it a few times and it sure beat alt-tabbing out of the game to hit up an FAQ.

One of the game's best features is the ability to switch between the classic game and the special edition with a simple buttons press. Instantly, it switches from the new graphics and sounds to the originals and back again. This came in handy quite often for a number of reasons. With every new environment and with every new scene I did find myself switching back and forth just to compare the then and now. However, it also highlighted one of the more glaring issues with the game. While the graphics have received a major overhaul, most of the animation has not. It's distracting to see Guybrush instantly go from facing left to right with no animation for the turning in-between, or to see characters close-ups, speaking with voice acting, but their mouths not moving. Despite the gorgeous new environments, I often found myself switching back to the original because I still preferred it. This could be a fair amount of nostalgia talking, I'll admit, but some new animation would have been very welcome. Also, what's up with their take Guybrush's hair?

So is the Monkey Island remake perfect? Sadly no, but it would be hard to please fans of such a classic game. Still, it's pretty damn great. None of these issues affect the game significantly. Even the menu switching is no more than a minor annoyance (that can be remedied by switching to classic mode). It would be nice if the game offered some customization options for how to experience the game. For example, I would have enjoyed playing the classic graphics with th new music and voice acting, occasionally switching to the HD graphics to take in the oh-so-pretty new environments. Fans of the original will be overcome with warm fuzzy feelings and newcomers have a genuine chance to experience a true classic.

9/10

Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 Review

2009-12-03T17:01:00.001-08:00

In case the name didn't give it away, Dynasty Warriors: Gundam is a spin-off of the Dynasty Warriors series using settings and characters from the Mobile Suit Gundam series of anime. The first entry in the new series was released in 2007. It was a rather mediocre game, even by Dynasty Warriors standards, and appealed mostly as fan service. Now that Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 is here, one thing is certain: This game is karmic retribution for my belief that the series had nowhere to go but up after the first game.

The game is divided into two primary modes. Official mode follows the canon storyline of the Universal Century timeline (the “main” Gundam series). It follows the plot of the anime series strictly, although it is highly abbreviated. Mission mode takes the place of original mode from the first game. This is the mode where canon and continuity are thrown to the wind and all the various, disparate Gundam universes and timelines come crashing together in an orgy of fan service. Or, at least, it's supposed to be (more on that later).

The same basic Dynasty Warriors formula remains unchanged. You will wade into a field of cannon fodder foes, taking them out by the dozens in an attempt to lower their control over a field. Controlling a field provides reinforcements and raises your side's morale, making your allies more effective in combat. The roster of characters and mobile suits has been expanded considerably but the same can't be said for the level selection, which remains sparse and still only includes environments from the main UC timeline.

As I already mentioned, the previous game's original mode, which created an original story that brought multiple Gundam universes together in a cross-over plot, has been replaced with the much less structured mission mode. Mission mode introduces a number of new design concepts to the game, though none are particularly well implemented. The only new introduction to the core gameplay is the use of bosses: giant “mobile armors” that present a unique challenge to simply fighting other characters.

Replacing the Dynasty Warriors feature of finding new weapons, players will instead collect, research and upgrade new parts for their mobile suits. New parts increase the stats of your mobile suit but you also need to collect all parts of a mobile suit before it can be used. This brings me to the license system. Similar to the first game, characters and mobile suits can be selected independently. That is to say, any character can (theoretically) use any mobile suit. However, the “special” mobile suits require licenses that have to be acquired through special missions. These missions in turn must be unlocked by meeting certain requirements, usually revolving around the new friendship system. The friendship system builds or destroys relationships between the player's character and other characters based on the player's actions. Essentially, if you fight alongside a character, your relationship improves. Fight against a character, and your relationship suffers. It isn't exactly a complex system. You can also join various factions, though this is mostly just a means for building relationships with certain characters or unlocking parts for mobile suits. It doesn't affect the plot at all.

It's funny how all these new elements of the game actually manage to make it more shallow than its predecessor, or any Dynasty Warriors game for that matter. Collecting parts, unlocking licenses and building relationships all boil down to the same tired gameplay mechanic that is a staple of the series: grinding. That's all it ever is. The friendship element is particularly frustrating in this regard because your allies and enemies from mission to mission are randomized. Therefore, if you need to build a relationship with a particular character for the sake of unlocking a license mission, you could be playing the same level over and over simply hoping that this character will happen to show up as an ally.

Mission mode also lacks any kind of plot. It provides a very basic story for your character (Milliardo Peacecraft doesn't like guns, so he's fighting because... um... to get rid of the guns?) but there isn't any actual plot or narrative arc. There's no motivation to play other than to grind; there is nothing driving it forward. The plot from the previous game's original mode was certainly nothing special, but even that light, simplistic, fan service plot provided some sort of motivation. It provided some kind of purpose to the gameplay separate from just grinding for the sake of grinding.

Everything about Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 is hopelessly archaic. Bosses present a challenge merely by having a ridiculous amount of health and only being vulnerable to attack during brief moments that rarely last longer than a second. The game boasts “improved AI” but all this translates to is the fact that enemies attack slightly more often and have more attacks that knock you down. Meanwhile, your allies' AI doesn't consist of anything more complex than mindless button mashing. This becomes especially frustrating when you get a game over screen because one of your allies died fighting a boss because all he/she did was stand in front of it and frantically attack, with no concern for their own defense or health. Speaking of which, a “game over” screen? I can't think of any other modern game series that still uses these outdated arcade-based design concepts. Most games gave this up ten years ago, almost all have done so within the last few years.

The presentation for this game is fairly uneven. The models for the mobile suits actually look pretty good, if a little like shiny plastic action figures, and there are a ton to choose from (62 compared to the previous game's 19). The game is able to support an enormous number of models on-screen at a given time, however many levels only consists of 4 randomly chosen mobile suit models to represent regular grunt soldiers.

Level selection is extremely limited and hasn't grown much from the previous game. Furthermore, levels themselves are bland and sparse. This is especially true of outer space levels, where I frankly can't tell one from another.

Cut scenes provide a good recreation of famous scenes from the anime, but any gaming Gundam fan has seen these clips so many times that they have lost all meaning. The voice acting is accurate to the characters but you've never heard such phoned-in voice performances. It doesn't matter much since dialogue is never presented as anything more than talking heads with dialogue boxes.

Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 fails in every respect, even as fan service. More characters do not a better game make, even if you are just trying to appeal to fanboys/girls. It adds content over its predecessor but also manages to remove depth by drastically over-simplifying an already overly simplified design.

2/10

Majesty 2 Review

2009-12-03T16:55:00.001-08:00

2000's Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim, developed by Cyberlore Studios and published by MicroProse, was a unique entry in the RTS genre. While the game achieved a small cult-hit status, its sequel was only briefly in development before getting canceled. I guess publisher Paradox Interactive and developer 1C:Ino-Co were fans, because they picked up the dead franchise to deliver the long-awaited sequel. While Majesty 2: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim continues to run with the original's concept, it's marred by some debilitating AI issues and a downright unfair difficulty curve.

In Majesty 2, you take on the role of the newest king of Ardania. Once plagued by monsters, evil and rival kingdoms, your ancestors worked tirelessly vanquish their foes and transform Ardania into a land of peace and prosperity. However, thanks to their success, the previous king, Leonard, found himself bored. Seeking to prove his right to be king, he summoned up a terrible demon, who quickly proceeded to kill Leonard, take over the castle, and bring all the monsters and bad guys back to Ardania. As the last remaining member of the royal bloodline, it falls to you to restore Ardania to peace.

There are no vast armies at your disposal to accomplish this task. Instead, you'll need to rely on brave heroes who volunteer their services for their own fame and fortune. Heroes are hired from their respective guilds. There is a guild for warriors, one for rogues, one for mages, etc. – all your basic fantasy standbys make an appearance.

What sets Majesty 2 apart from most real-time strategy games is the fact that, as king, you don't have direct control over these heroes. They aren't your soldiers; technically, they're more like independent contractors offering their services for a modest fee. Instead of commanding them, you guide your heroes to accomplish tasks by offering incentive. This can include placing bounties for them to collect, offering new items for them to purchase, and basically driving a cyclical mercenary economy.

Money is your only resource in Majesty 2. Tax collectors, trading posts and shops bring in money, you use this money to reward your heroes, and then they return your investment by buying more stuff for themselves and protecting your kingdom as it expands and brings in more taxes. Money is used to upgrade items and buildings, recruits heroes, research new skills for heroes, and resurrect your heroes.

For those who played the first Majesty, it's that last point that should stick with you the most. Unlike in the original Majesty, heroes can now be resurrected for a steep fee. In fact, it's probably what you will find yourself spending most of your money on.

Heroes will die. A lot. There are many reasons for this. Sometimes heroes legitimately lost a fight with a tough monster, or were caught off-guard alone in the wilderness. More often than not, however, your heroes will die due to their shoddy AI and a severely unbalanced difficulty curve.

Heroes can be more motivated by the game's bounty flags. As the king, you can place bounties to attack or defend certain characters or objects in the game world, explore certain areas, or avoid certain areas. The higher the bounty offered, the more motivated your heroes will be to go after. However, this motivation, even for small bounties, becomes far too effective. Seeing an underdeveloped, lone hero go rushing off after a bounty flag that's way out of their league is an all too frequent occurrence.

In my usual experience, the hero would die almost instantly, I would resurrect him/her at the graveyard, and then they would go right after that same bounty again. This was especially true of rogues, who are more motivated than most by bounty flags. It's an interesting idea to have different types of heroes have different types of personalities and motivations, but the result of this mechanic is that I simply avoid building rogues because they aren't worth the trouble. A game's feature shouldn't make you want to completely avoid it.

Another issue with the AI is its lack of cooperation. The player can manually form a party of heroes, which is a process that involves clicking a button at a tavern and then waiting while your heroes drop whatever they're doing and walk all the way to that spot to gather. Unless you're willing to deal with this slow process, heroes almost never seem to work together. Even if they're all physically together and performing the same task, they rarely actually help each other.

The AI issues are a nuisance but the game's biggest shortfall is its difficulty. It's simply unbalanced and too punishing. The majority of the game feels like trial and error. You can never recruit all hero types at once, as some guilds refuse to work with others. However, certain heroes are far too vital for certain missions, yet you have no way of knowing that until you get slaughtered by something. For example, well into a mission I found myself suddenly being assaulted by elementals, who were slaughtering my lower level heroes. Oops. I guess I should have recruited the dwarves instead of the elves, since dwarves are resistant to the elementals' attacks and the elves' arrows are almost useless against the elementals. Time to restart the mission and do it the “right” way.

The trial and error nature of the game is by far its most glaring and obnoxious issue. Add to that the problems with the AI and the frequent crashes I experienced with the review copy of the game, and I simply can't bring myself to love Majesty 2 like I loved the first one. My flashback goggles may be slightly rose-tinted, I admit, but that doesn't change the fact that Majesty 2's best moments are constantly at odds with its worst.

The concept remains interesting and unique, and the game provides some challenges you aren't used to from other games of the genre, but ultimately its issues are too distressing. Fans of the original will probably still find a lot to like – I did – but there was only so much I could tolerate before it just didn't feel worth it to trudge through the bad parts to experience the good ones.

6.5/10

Brutal Legend Review

2009-12-03T16:53:00.000-08:00

It's been a long, bumpy road for Brutal Legend. Tim Schafer and Double Fine's follow-up to their first game, Psychonauts, was originally going to be published by Sierra. However, when Sierra was shut down in the wake of the Activision-Blizzard merger, the growing publishing giant cut Brutal Legend loose. Enter Electronic Arts, who eventually snatched up the publishing rights and began hyping the game into a media darling. Realizing their mistake, Activision took some loosely-grounded legal action and the once invisible Brutal Legend found itself being tugged by the arms by two of the largest publishers in the industry.

All the marketing and drama put Brutal Legend on the hype express train. However, Brutal Legend still has some big shoes to fill, being the latest game from a man whose accomplishments include classics such as Psychonauts, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, and Money Island. Can Brutal Legend possibly meet such Peter Molyneux-esque expectations? Well, I know this sounds like kind of a cop-out, but the answer really is: yes and no.

Brutal Legend's story isn't terribly complex. Eddie Riggs is the greatest roadie ever, able to build, fix and tune just about anything. However, being a roadie to modern wannabe metal band Kabbage Boy isn't the most fulfilling gig in the world and Eddie longs to go back to a time when music was “real.” Thanks to an on-stage accident and his mystical belt-buckle, Eddie's wish comes true as he's hurled back to a time before history, when metal was the only way of life and the world looked like a Judas Priest album cover.

Like Double Fine's first endeavor, Psychonauts, Brutal Legend is a game that defies simple genre categorization. What starts as a simple but fun brawler becomes a Zelda-inspired open-world adventure. Soon enough, it becomes a mini-RTS, along the lines of Pikmin or Overlord, before eventually turning into a much more full-blown RTS/action hybrid game (but still open-world).

No one of the these elements is robust enough to carry the game alone and it's where they all come together in the RTS battles that the game really meshes. This isn't an RTS in the vein of a Starcraft or Command and Conquer. While you will be taking over resources and upgrading units, you really aren't playing the game correctly if all you do is lord over the action like you're watching it from the war room.

Eddie is a man of action. You'll be constantly switching between observing the battle from the skies, issuing move/attack/defend orders and building your army, to diving down into the thick of battle, hacking away at enemies and unleashing all manner of devastation and empowerment with guitar solos.

However, it is only in multiplayer where these different genres fully come together. After playing the multiplayer it becomes clear that the singlelayer RTS battles – which introduce new units and tactics right up until the game's finale – are really a tutorial for multiplayer. Double Fine has done a pretty amazing job of creating three wildly different factions that are balanced against each other quite well. Sure, the singleplayer only teaches you to play Eddie's faction, Ironheade, but a little experimentation in battle is all it takes to learn the other two. The multiplayer in Brutal Legend is arguably its most robust component, at least in terms of pure gameplay.

While the ways in which those disparate gameplay elements mesh together in the RTS gameplay are arguably one of the game's biggest strengths, they're also one of its biggest weaknesses. Brutal Legend simultaneously suffers from a lack of focus and too much focus. I know that sounds like I'm just trying to squirm out of having a solid opinion but bear with me.

The adventuring and exploration, the intricacies of combat that you're introduced to at the start of the game, the small-scale squad tactics — all the fine details are lost in the big picture that is the RTS battles. The open-world game that's a mash-up of competing game genres gradually becomes extremely focused and linear. This change highlights a much more encompassing issue with the game: pacing.

This issue is echoed throughout the game; it pops up in the gameplay itself, in the story and even in the design of the world. It was a bit of a shock to feel disappointed with the plot in a Tim Schafer game. To be fair, what's there is fantastic. The problem is that there simply isn't enough of it.

I never felt as though the plot or characters were developing organically, simply because the plot itself moves too quickly. Relationships are formed and broken, characters come and go, the battle between good and evil pulls back and forth, and the whole time I just felt lost.

The strong dialogue and performances keep it entertaining throughout, and even though I never felt like there were parts missing, these parts just never felt like they were fully explored. Most disappointing of all though, was the feeling that the plot basically ended in its second act, and the third act was no more than a final battle and a boss fight (and a whole lot of exposition).

The “open” world faces similar issues. The first area you'll explore is large, with lots to see and do. Furthermore, as you've come to expect from this game, it's very, very metal. Canyons are lined with engine parts (awesome), giant swords are stuck from the ground as if they rained down from the sky (awesome), volcanoes spew out chrome lava (awesome), trees are made from stage scaffolding (neat), and the skies are streaked with lighting and falling comets (yeah, awesome). However, the rest of the world simply fails to fit in with that aesthetic.

After moving beyond the initial area, you'll encounter the standard snow, jungle and swamp zones, and finally a gothic undead-land area. Each one of these is built in a much more confined, linear manner than the starting zone and none maintain its initial aesthetic.

Aside from panthers shooting lasers (f**king awesome), they all feel sadly generic. While the final, gothic inspired area opens up a bit more, it's so dreary and oppressive that I never enjoyed exploring it. In fact, I wanted to spend as little time there as possible.

The scope of the actual game falls short of its ambition. What's most unfortunate is that Brutal Legend's ambition always feels like it was attainable. I'm no fan of games that drag out the length so they can boast more hours of gameplay but Brutal Legend really needed more time and more space to adequately convey its epic tale.

However, this is still a Tim Schafer game. The dialogue is brilliant and hilarious, the characters are endearing, the mythology of the world is wildly imaginative, and the aesthetic is simultaneously comic and captivating.

Despite its numerous shortcomings, the pure imagination and love that goes into any Tim Schafer/Double Fine game is still on full display. While that doesn't give the game a free pass to greatness, and while it doesn't quite live up to Psychonauts, fans will still find a lot to enjoy in the land of metal.

7.5/10