Sins Of A Solar Empire: Rebellion

In my best Ace Ventura voice, "alrighty then!" Time to wrestle this beast to the ground.

                        

Sins of A Solar Empire is by no means a new game. The base game was released in 2008, with the two expansions a year and two years later respectively. However, just this month Rebellion (the third and most probably final expansion pack) was released, piquing my interests and beginning a week or so of solid play. I feel that you, my beloved reader, would benefit more from a well rounded piece that includes and critiques all aspects of the game over just my rantings regarding the new shiny bits.

The Tale So Far....

Do you remember Homeworld? That stunning title from Relic/Sierra released way back in the last millennium? Well I do, and it was fantastic. If you have any love for bastard-hard RTS games then check it out, as well as the sequels in that series; Homeworld: Cataclysm and Homeworld 2. I bring up this wonderful series because, for a time at least, Sins was heralded as "basically gonna be Homeworld 3, brah," which is what first caught my eye. That claim was unfortunately quite off the mark, but this did not disappoint me, and I am eternally grateful it at least made me aware of Sins.

I actually own this game three times. Yep, three. It was the first title I purchased through a client and after changing from my laptop to my PC, I completely forgot that I could just reinstall it. So I bought Trinity, which came with both expansions. Since then, I've purchased Rebellion via Steam, and Rebellion is a stand-alone game, with all the previous content included. I love this game that much.

Gameplay

So let's get into it.

Sins advertises itself as a "RT4X" game, meaning it's pure strategy but with more to winning than just having the biggest gun. This is one of the key elements to the game's appeal for me, as every new match has the potential to be won in multiple ways, depending on the player's style and choices as well as the faction they choose.

From small beginnings....

There is no single player campaign, challenge mode or other such game type. The game is centered around deathmatches with up to 8 players, online and off, competing across a map that ranges from a single star system of 12 or so planets to 5 star systems and over a hundred planets. I do not exaggerate when I say I've played a single game for 40 hours and I still ended up losing. That's longer that it took me to 100% Red Dead Redemption. A. Single. Game.

Expansion of your mighty fleet

In a typical game, a player will find themselves with a Capital World and some resources, with the entire map, save the adjoining gravity wells, under the Fog of War. From this point the player can then begin to expand to neighboring planets, some able to be colonised and some not, and begin to pacify local forces in each gravity well, adding them to the player's empire. Eventually their sphere of influence will begin to brush up against that of another faction, and then comes the RT4X choice moment, giving the player the opportunity to decide how, not if, they are going to subjugate the other player. The size of the fleet, the number of units the player can control at any given time, is proportional to the number of planets s/he has in their empire. This is cleverly done by capping the fleet until research is completed, and that research requires a number of buildings to be constructed, and those buildings require space which, ironically for a space game, is at a premium early on.

What do I need more of, shooty things or shiny things?

Each player can choose from one of three factions, each with their own unique ships, structures, research tree and feel: The Trader Emergency Coalition; a human hyper-capitalist society that has been forced by impending war to band together to form a rag-tag defense force, The Advent; exiled humans who were shunned due to their embracing of psychokinetic adaptions, now returning to avenge their banishment, and The Vasari; a true alien race fleeing from the destruction of their galactic empire and looking for fresh worlds to conquer.

Each race has their specific traits; strengths and weaknesses, which lend themselves to a few key strategies. For example, the TEC are the eco-boomers, able to rake in the cash at an alarming rate in order to bolster their average strength fleets with constant reinforcements; The Advent have a more 'peaceful-until-provoked' style, focusing on converting enemy planets by remotely spreading their culture, The Vasari are the rush (if you count an hour as a 'rush' play) faction, having the best starting ships and highest mobility. Taking these traits into account, utilising them and adapting them to each game enables players to enjoy random deathmatches for a considerable length of time. Personally, I set my faction choice to random, and make do with what I get. This way I'm never stuck in a 'rut' of only being able to play with one faction, which can quickly get boring.

Expansions

As I mentioned, there have been two expansion packs for Sins; Entrenchment and Diplomacy. Each pack adds another panel to the research screen and another unit. This may sound like a bit of a rip off, and I'm sure at the time it was, but when I purchased the Trinity edition I was incredibly thankful for the additions. Entrenchment allows the construction of starbases within any gravity well. This is vital, as it enables the defense of areas that cannot be colonised, areas which pre-Entrenchment would either be left undefended or draw valuable ships away from the front lines on the off-chance you're playing a sneaky Vasari player who can nip round the back of your entire empire with a fleet or 3. Each starbase is tailored to the traits of it's parent race. The TEC Argonev starbase has the ability to act as a trade depot, further increasing the income of the TEC player. The Advent Transcendia starbase focuses on huge hangers of strike craft, able to swarm invaders (they can also turn local meteors and enemy ships into a diabolical Newton's Cradle). The Vasari Orkulus starbase, whilst resembling a flower, is a mobile fortress of death and destruction able to heal itself from the wreckage of enemy ships as well as open a phase stabiliser node to allow rapid reinforcements.

Never liked you anyway....

Diplomacy couldn't be more different to Entrenchment if it tried. As the name suggests this expansion adds a much greater ability to negotiate with other players and eventually sign peace treaties, trade agreements and even implement pacts which provide bonuses to a wide variety of things so long as the pact stays in effect. The diplomatic rating system in Sins is simple and elegant. Each faction has a relationship with every other faction, represented by a number within the range of +/-20, with 20 being the most friendly. There are many factors that can alter this rating, an entire panel in the research screen is devoted to improving relations and implementing pacts. Early on in any game the rating between two factions will be dependent on inherent traits of each race. Naturally, two Advent faction will be friendlier than an Advent and a TEC faction. These inherent traits include racial tensions, which are one of the many things that can be mitigated for through research, allowing for a more peaceful relationship to develop. Envoys, cruisers which are immune to enemy fire, can be built and dispatched to the territories of other factions. Whilst within the gravity well they slowly increase the relationship between the two factions and, with research, can provide powerful bonuses to that gravity well in exchange for an enhanced relationship.

Aesthetics 

Boy did this game look sexy back in '08! Time hasn't ravaged it's once youthful features either. In fact, with the release of Rebellion, the visuals have been given a spit-shine to bring them in line with more modern standards.

Arr, we be bombing the pirates

My desktop can run this at Ultra. So can yours, most probably, it runs on XP for crying out loud, which is no mean feat. Usually there is a direct trade-off between scope and shiny; the larger you make the game world (i.e. the more that has to be rendered at any given time) the lower the quality of aesthetics you're going to be getting. Somehow, the Iron Engine manages to shine even when it only supports DirectX 9.0c, not 10 or 11. For the less technically-minded of you, this might as well be equivalent to using potatoes to paint the Mona Lisa, these days.

The planet/building detail is great, making for a great background to the units, especially during combat. The weapons fire almost has haptic feedback when engaging in large-scale fleet action, something most other RTS games have yet to mange. The interface and map are both polished nicely, allowing the player to get stuck in without bleeding from the nose and eyes after an hour of staring at a garbled mess, which is always a positive.

A medium-scale battle between two factions

Longevity

A single star system, soon to be owned by me

There are a limited number of set scenarios, ranging from 1 star/12 planets up to 5 stars/100+ planets. I've played maybe half, in 4 years. That's not a criticism, more a compliment to the well designed random map generator, which is able to provide you with precisely the scale map you want whilst still having that edge of exploration that is such an important factor in deciding the outcome of each game.

Let me give you an example; I'm in the process of playing an 8-player game with my friend (yes, you can save online multiplayer games, it's fantastic!) and we've both started within the same star system in a 3-star game. He managed to expand and colonise 7 planets in the time it took me to colonise 3. Why? Four reasons; 1) the planets surrounding me were high in resources, which sounds like a good thing, but it also means that the local forces are stronger, meaning I had to build up a better fleet before leaving my first planet, 2) all three planets required research before I could colonise them, two were volcanic and one was an ice world (you can freely colonise desert, terran and asteroid planets without research, which is what my friend was surrounded by), 3) he was TEC and I was Vasari, meaning he has access to the eco-boosts much sooner than I, allowing him to swell his fleet faster. He ended up with a flagship and 15 frigates to my single, low level flagship, and 4) I was busy spending all my resources on my Titan (more on that later).

What this example illustrates is the sheer number of variables that can effect the outcome of any given game, at any given time! I could say this means that there is no end to the life of this game for me, but that isn't true, as eventually I'll spot something shiny and fly away.

Rebellion

So far you've read about the game and my experiences to date. Now I'm going to talk about the latest expansion and how outraged I am.

Eradica Titan; a fairy with an oreo

Rebellion adds three things to the game; it splits each faction into two (Loyalists and Rebels), it adds a super-heavy unit for each faction (Titan) and sprinkles in a new capital ship (useless), corvette (useless) and some new technologies in the research screen. These additions, especially the faction splitting, are great in principal, as they only add to the longevity of the game as a whole. The titan class ships are part-death machine, part-fleet support, and a helluva lot of fun to build and then throw against enemy fleets. Whilst early on they can withstand pretty much anything, they are by no means invincible and so do not un-balance the game thankfully. The corvettes, one for each faction, are light, fast ships designed to disrupt enemy healing, abilities or damage with negative buffs. They do fill a missing niche in the game, but a niche that I tend to ignore in favour of brute force and explosions, therefore I find them inconsequential.

But I said I was outraged....? And I am.

Make an estimate as to how much you think Rebellion costs. Go on, I'll wait. Done? Good. If you said £7.99, then well done you get a Gold Star of Approval from my Vault of Patronising Incentives, for choosing what it SHOULD have costs. In reality, that dark and frightening place that I cant code how I like (yet), it costs £25. For some new ships and an updated aesthetic. That's a whole GAME'S WORTH of my money. This has been justified by including all previous content in this 'stand alone' expansion, meaning that new players to the series can wander over and pick up the entire collection for a mere £25. That's grand, I agree with that. What I don't agree with is how consumers, like myself, who have already got all the back collection of expansions as well as the original game (twice, as I said) are being made to pay £25. It would've been very little effort for IronClad/Stardock to release the stand-alone but also have a digital only download for Rebellion, for a reduced cost, for consumers who already own the original game and it's expansions. I don't like to think of the yawning gulf between game developers/designers and the suits that run the business but it's incidents like this that basically slap me in the face with the corporate trout, reminding me that however much I love and enjoy the vast scope, scale and quality of the gaming market, there are still people running the show that either have no idea about games or only view the industry as a business. Now, I'm not saying all the business aspect of the games industry should be scrapped, that would be silly, just that seeing a lot more of the publishing power with the developers would go a long way to making this industry a better place for the end user, not the MD.

Conclusion

I'd wholeheartedly recommend this game to all RTS fans, it's a solid title that has very little in the way of short comings. If you only play RTS games for the story, (what's wrong with you, go and play an RPG) then maybe give Sins a miss.

For fans of: RTS games of all kinds, any game in a Sci Fi setting, blowing shit up with big lasers.

Batman: Arkham City

Have you heard of Batman? He's mighty popular at current, what with Mr Christian 'Gravel-Voice' Bale giving it all that on the big screen. Thankfully, Rocksteady Games have made two titles to date with a much better sounding protagonist. I've played Arkham Asylum, and loved it, and now I've played Arkham City. Look, here:

In the Batmaniverse, Arkham Asylum is akin to an Alcatraz for the criminally insane, and is the setting for the first game in this series. A stonker of a title, go play it. The name Arkham is taken from the H.P. Lovecraft mythos, a town in Massachusetts which features in 12 of his tales. I figure this information will cause a certain friend of mine to explode with cross-over desires. Onwards with the review.

Plot

How am I supposed to brood without the Bat-Umbrella?

This game, Arkham City, is basically Asylum but bigger. The premise of an asylum for dangerous criminals has been expanded to 'city' size (more on that later), and the number of villains doubled. The plot sees Bruce Wayne imprisoned by Dr Hugo Strange, the overseer of Arkham City, for basically no clear reason other than so he can swoop around a dark, Gothic landscape for a bit and be gruff. Once inside The Caped Crusader immediately sets off trying to...no, wait, he has no motivation at this point. Yes, he's been imprisoned by Strange and would probably like to get out, but the first thing he does is rescue Catwoman from Two-Face, I assume so the game can introduce the second playable character. After this, the three major villains (Two-Face, The Penguin and The Joker) present themselves and territories are carved up across the city. In addition to these three Big Villains and their appropriately garbed henchmen armies, there are also several Small Villains running about being a nuisance. This is present in the form of a few side missions that have multiple parts which become available as you progress through the main plot. These missions provide enjoyable sections of the game where you get a chance to play The Detective and not The Cage Fighter. There are also a few recognisable names from about the mythos, like Commissioner Gordon, Oracle and a few TV celebs that crop up to be liabilities during the game as well. All in all, a ton of names well and truly dropped. Now Batman can get on with the task of....nonono, wait!

When will this happen?!

The Riddler. He's back and all, only this time instead of being a series of disembodied recorded taunts with a graffiti problem he's an actual villain in the city. There are riddles to solve by taking thousands of photos of everything you can with your cowl-cam and over 400 trophies to find which range in difficulty from 'look up, use batclaw' to piloting a batarang through a sewer version of the Boota Eve course. In addition to this, the oddly House-resembling Riddler has captured a few medics who were also trapped in Arkham City. When you have found a enough trophies The Riddler challenges you to solve his puzzle houses and save the hostages, the final puzzle house being where you meet and defeat Edward Nigma himself.

Characters

I think I can safely assume that, even if you've not seen The Dark Knight, you're at least aware of the truly wonderful performance that the late Heath Ledger gave in THE LEADING ROLE as The Joker. He was great because he captured the essence of unpredictability and madness of The Joker that is diametric to Batman's logical and calculating methods of detective work, moral code etc. But that was the Nolan franchise, and is thankfully very different and removed from this game. In the Arkham series, The Joker is voiced by Mark "I used to bulls-eye wamp rats back home in my T-16" Hamill and he does a stunning job. His laugh is spot on, and that's one of the most important parts to the character. In general, each Big Villain is very well done, each playing perfectly to the single trait that was the original inspiration for each character. There is a tier system for importance of villain in this game: The Joker and Hugo Strange are at the top, followed by The Penguin, Ra's al Ghul and Two-Face as major obstacles for Batman, below them Mr Freeze, Poison Ivy, Bane, Deadshot, Azreal, The Riddler and Hush occupying either passing roles as 'hey look, it's that one!' during missions related to other, bigger villains or as side missions in their own right. Next comes the one-appearance only tier, with Clayface, The Mad Hatter and Solomon Grundy. Finally, at the base of the Pyramid of Screen-time, are all the passing references in riddles etc. In total, I counted over 40 named heroes, villains or general characters. In Asylum, most of these characters were mentioned in passing, their names usually being linked to a riddle or mentioned in dialogue, but in City at least 25 are actually in the game. This is ridiculous. Most barely get any screen-time and those that do are developed to the bare minimum. I would've much rather had The Joker, Two-Face and The Penguin, with the potential for each of them to have a secondary villain or two (Ivy, Bane, Deadshot etc) in their employ.

I CAN develop more than
2 characters in a game!

This would've allowed more than a passing show for each villain other  than The Joker, who's the only one I could really tell you anything about  his motives or plans. It would also enable people who are completely  unfamiliar with any of these villains to enjoy their appearances more.  Granted, each character does have a biography in the pause menu but  this is just a flimsy solution to cover the design choice, in my opinion. 

Combat

So there's a lot of stuff going on. In between the things happening plot-wise Batman is usually punching someone. The combat is lifted directly from Asylum, as one would expect, and works just as well. A slight modification including some end of combo finishers just adds to the fun of taking on 50 henchmen at once. All the gadgets (batarang, batclaw, bat-tazer, bat-splosive, bat-birthday cake) and signature moves can be worked into any combo allowing for illegal levels of fun to be had providing you nail the timing. If you've played Arkham Asylum you'll know that early on B-man can't do jack against guns, and the same is true in City. So, not only do you now have a gadget for silently jamming enemy weapons, causing them to panic when you appear and they can't fire, but at the end of a combo you can leap over to the smug bastard with the assault rifle, shotgun or even stun-stick and rip it out of his hands. That not enough? Don't worry, it isn't, you dismantle it in seconds right before his eyes. The henchman genuinely looks upset. And then you throat-punch him.

The best kind of four-way

Fighting anything larger than henchmen is rare. There are The Abramovici Twins (surgically separated conjoined twins with one arm each, one wields a sickle and the other a hammer (Soviet reference shoryuken) and then maybe two Titan henchmen, previously seen in Asylum. Both are dealt with in similar ways, and are not handled badly, it would just have been nice to see more of them as most boss fights are either 'fight hoard, single punch takes out Big Villian' or 'get swamped by Ra's al Ghul and his multiple guises

For the most part making your way around the city involves avoiding henchmen without guns (very simple due to the sexy flight mechanics) or stealthily taking out those with guns. Still very satisfying to clear an entire room of henchman without any of them noticing.

Visuals

Booting this game brought back a wonderful sight to my eyes, a sight that hasn't been seen since the first Dawn of War. A PC Stress Test. I ran it, and it looked fine. I started the game on Ultra High, everything lagged. It rendered fine, but the game was running at half speed. Tweaking a few key settings down to High solved everything. This game is not beautiful, because that wouldn't fit with the Gothic theme. It is as good looking as it needs to be, and then some, but by no means blew my mind. In fact, it was very similar to Asylum. I feel City was just a case of expanding instead of innovating anything new, so this is to be expected and not criticised. 

I'm Batman

Along that theme comes my first criticism. There are a few internal areas, the GCDP morgue and a few rooms in the subway and steelmill, which are pretty much lifted from Asylum and given a quick re-skin. Whilst I don't begrudge the devs doing this, I feel it's a tad sloppy for a triple A game. My second criticism is an expansion on my first, or lack there of. The game is too small. When you climb certain buildings and look out to the East you can clearly see Arkham Asylum in the distance, and due to perspective it does indeed look small in comparison to City. But when you consider the actual playable size of Asylum, I'll wager it was probably about 60-70% the size of City. This is flat out not big enough for this game. If we can have full sandbox worlds in games like InFamous, GTA, Prototype then why didn't Batman get one? An example to further highlight my irritation: at one point there were Two-Face thugs patrolling the steps of a building chatting about The Penguin and how he sucks...whilst not 25m away across the road there were Penguin thugs saying the same things about Two-Face. The game really needed double the space.

On a lesser note, the score is spot on. A brilliant mix of Nolan-esque soundtrack and original themes.

Longevity

Picture funny, but
not relevant

The game took me 32 hours to finish; that's the main quest, all the side missions and all The Riddler trophies/challenges. Then there's the ton of challenge maps available to be played as Batman or Catwomen, (Nightwing and Robin if you shell out for the DLC) but all they consist of is internal maps used in the main game filled with either a hoard to fight or some guards to takedown. These challenge maps were also present in Asylum, and I ignored them then as well. There is also New Game Plus, which restarts the story but you keep all your upgrades and gadgets, plus change Batman's suit to one of 7 available as DLC. The villains are also leveled to match, to keep the challenge up. This mode is best for trophy hunting as, with all the gadgets unlocked, any Riddler trophy you come across can be claimed then and there (idiocy dependent). There is also a single achievement for finishing the game twice. I HATE this, for two reasons; 1) because it's the cheapest way to extend a game, 'just do it again for a shiny thing,' and 2) because I'm probably going to do it.

Conclusion

A very good game, well worth what I paid for it and certainly an enjoyable way to spend 30+ hours. It is by no means perfect, nothing ever is, but what flaws it has are mostly down to my personal experience and expectations. Recommended to anyone who enjoyed Asylum, fans of comic book characters and stealth games.

Those of you wanting batnips can take a hike.

Surrender to them

Some Stuff What I've Played: A Compilation of Words etc.

It's that low point of the month again, when I've splurged nearly all of my last pay cheque on food and shelter and I'm only left with a pittance to spend on the important things, like games and cinema tickets. To that end, there hasn't been a proper game title that I want to review for a good few months now, and so instead I present to you a few words on a few things.

Bastion

I'd heard a lot about this, Indie Game of The Year 2011, Best Art/OST of 2011 etc. and thought I could shell out a few quid for it.

Turns out, not a bad game. The plot is a bit thin, there's very little in the way of explanation for anything which I suspect is in an attempt to add "mystique" to the game. The combat and upgrade system are fairly mundane, but sufficient to keep the player interested.

Hit with hammer. Repeat.

The big draw is the presentation. There's a smooth talking narrator who guides you through not only the plot but also describes each level, upgrade, item etc. completely removing all need for dialogue. Essentially think of POP:Sands of Time; the entire game is The Prince attempting to convince Farah he is who he says he is and occasionally if you fall to your death he'll chime in with "No no, that's not how it happened..." Bastion's narrator is like that, but slowly moving from interesting to invasive and irritating. Prime example, there's an arena map that can be replayed (by getting high) to earn resources by fighting 20 waves of enemies. Each time you attempt it you have to listen to him drone on about The Kid and his hard life. The art style and visual presentation have been most praised, with the world creating itself piece by piece as you walk around. Seems like a nice idea, keeps the scenery active and interesting....but was probably introduced to save on memory usage, this being an XBLA port.

Arbitrary number score: 6/10. For fans of Indie/artsy/casual gaming.

Killzone 3

Let me first start by stating that I was a massive fan of the original PS2 game, and somewhat enjoyed the PS3 sequel. THIS, however, does not belong anywhere near those other two games. Generic and bland from start to finish, with an abhorrent colour pallet of brown, other brown, slightly shiny brown, grey and poorly rendered green lighting.

The shooting bits seem to have gotten worse since Killzone 2, and there are god awful rail-shooter vehicle sections, but apart from that it appears to just be most of the second game copy pasted with some slightly different art styles and tweaks to the interface. Most notable being an ammo crate every five yards, meaning all the special weapons like the flamethrower, bolt gun and the man-exploding flubber cannon (yeah, you heard me) can pretty much be used constantly. Level design suffers heavily from the chest-high wall plague meaning you can spot an "ambush" a mile off. Even worse is the cover system that uses those chest-high walls doesn't even protect you from the hideous amount of incoming enemy fire you'll be under most of the time. I think somewhere along the road the development team decided that including the ability to have your allies revive you meant that the difficultly curve could be abandoned all together. What they failed to do was path the AI properly so over half of the time I'd Rambo my way into the enemy forces, kill half of them and sacrifice myself relying on The Mouth to resurrect me, only to have the shot list to the side framing him sprinting towards me....stuck on a single brick. URGH.

Nobody Cares

The game says it comes with PS Move enabled, but that's only for single player, doesn't work on co-op and barely works at all. The fine control accuracy and fluidity of movement needed for a non-rail shooter is far too high for motion controls that have trouble navigating a simple menu. Oh, it can be played in 3D, which I strongly advise against as the saturation of awful colours nearly drove me mad, and I was only playing it in 2D.

Arbitrary score: 3/10. For people who require another reason to champion this series but are unaware what makes a good game.

WHY AM I IN THIS GAME?!? - Ray Winstone

Driver San Francisco

You'd be forgiven for thinking that a game called Driver, with a big yellow car on the front and in a series of games all to do with....driving that Driver SF would be a pure racing/driving game. And you're....well, right and wrong.

Just kill them all, Tanner...

So, yes, it does present itself as a driving game. Notice I said GAME, not simulator. For a driving sim you can fuck off back to GT5 with all its neck-beardy P-2-WR accurate cars that handle like drunk cats. This game's got power slides, and even when you don't ask for them it's still got them. But the more important part of this particular fairly generic Burnout-esque title is the interesting and frankly just good use of a single game mechanic. Early on in the story, about 20mins in so I don't consider this a spoiler, Tanner (you) has a car accident and ends up in a coma. Because of this you can astrally project (go with it) yourself into the body of any driver across the entire city at any time. During races you can drive oncoming traffic into your fellow racers, you can use trucks and tankers to block the paths of escaping criminals or just fling mini-van driving "soccer moms" at them til they crash into the nearest lamp post. Totally consequence free, but thankfully not in the "it's OK because you're Russian/evil/12 and trying to piss off your parents" way GTA handles consequence free collateral damage. Oh no, Driver just flat out ignores it.

Aside from that one brilliantly constructed and implemented mechanic, the rest of the game is fairly standard. Story, voice acting, visuals and physics are "enough" to carry the game forward whilst you dick about making two petrol tankers jump each other over and over.

Arbitrary score: 7/10. For people who enjoy Burnout and want a side order of story to go with that big juice car-burger.

Transformers: War For Cybertron

What can I say, it was on sale for £3.50 and I like Transformers so I thought I'd risk it.

All the worst things from...just so many games, I imagine the development team would've had to go out of their way to make this game so bad.

I've played, at time of writing, 30minutes of this. And I intend to give it at least another hour, just to be sure. But I'm fairly certain it is indeed the utter, UTTER shite that it appears to be. Shocking controls, an out-dated engine, offensively original art style (to me at least), repetitive missions and voice acting that is literally unbelievable. As in, how were the publishers happy with A) the script written for the VA's and B) the delivery of nearly every single word. Mind officially boggled. Not to mention the entire game seems to be built around coaxing you to play online, setting up another third part account (last count, I have 12) just to access those parts of the game. Oddly, my main two problems are not unlike those in my last Transformers game review (here), a mostly copy pasted single player and pushing you into playing online mp. I can only hope that, should I ever play it, the tie-in for Dark of The Moon doesn't follow this seemingly compulsory game structure.

Arbitrary score: 2/10. For people with too much time/money/Hasbro fanboyism.

Beat Hazard 

Ending on a high note, thankfully. Beat Hazard is the latest in the music-game genre, previously championed by titles such as Audiosurf. The premise being that you can choose any audio file on your hard drive and the game will map a level around it, with changes in tempo, volume and rhythm all affecting the difficulty, visual style and pace of the game. Whereas Audiosurf managed to take a simple idea and try and complicate it by ramming in different characters and an odd Connect 4-esque in-game mini-game (far too many hyphens) Beat Hazard has literally gone back to basics, by emulating the classic title Asteroids.

An XBLA/PC title with simple controls and a potentially infinite lifespan means that I will be playing this game regularly and perpetually, as it has now taken up residence as my go-to casual game, filling time between all my important business meetings and fundraiser events with the Duke etc.

Here, look at this, click on it to enlarge if you like.

I struggle to see anything there that's not to like, assuming you like A) music, B) space ships with lots of guns, C) asteroids or D) all of the above and are not epileptic. That's a serious point, this shit causes seizures.

Arbitrary score: 8/10. For anyone who likes casual games, music and bleeding eyeballs.

N.B.

Depending on feedback, I might start doing this sort of things more often, a few short reviews in one post instead of a longer article on a single topic.

Mass Effect 3: Plus Some Other Stuff

Colour me a fanboy, but I feel that the Mass Effect trilogy is one of the shining examples of quality gaming in a market too often dominated by absolute garbage covered in the putrid, fetid, stinking bile that is the result of the hyper- games of the CoD generation. Sadly, it seems even this last bastion of solid RPG enjoyment has been tainted. More on that story later.

I bought Mass Effect 3, for the tidy sum of £28, by deftly avoiding any actual shops and doing some incredibly simple online shopping. I cannot believe there are people I know and whom I consider avid and savvy gamers who just blindly pre-ordered from high street shops like Game for nearly £40 (and boy did that go well for them). All I did was use Google Shopping, click the drop down button and select "Sort from Low To High" and saved myself £12. I still got the same experience as you, I still got the game at the same time as you. People baffle me.

Anywho, on with reviewing the game, not the current financial status of the gaming market.

The Tale So Far

I'm in your Citadelz Attack Your Councilz

The third and final installment in the Mass Effect series was hotly anticipated by many thousands of gamers the world over, but what I shall be doing in this review is giving you, my most cherished reader, an insight into what I enjoyed, what I didn't enjoy, and what I got downright angry about from the perspective of a fanboy, in addition to my usual critical analysis of the game.

For those of you unfamiliar with the story let me offer a brief summary. Lots of aliens species and humans co-existing as an Alliance under a Council, living and larking about in the galaxy when all of a sudden giant synthetic death-machines called Reapers show up and start pissing on everyone's parade. During the first game they take the form of Sovereign, a single Reaper vanguard who indoctrinates an entire synthetic race (The Geth) and uses them to get right up the noses of the Council by generally making a nuisance of themselves on a galactic scale. The protagonist is Commander *Insert Pointless Name Here* Shepard, a human soldier promoted into the ranks of The Spectres, part-Jedi part-Judge Dredd, and told to sort this shit out. Which he/she does, mostly. The game culminates in a fantastic battle between the Council forces and Sovereign and it's Geth fleet. Job done, game one over.

Not so tough now, bitch.

Mass Effect 2 changed some things (understatement). Completely new race introduced (The Collectors) indoctrinated and controlled by another Reaper, Harbinger, but this time the metallic bastard just ASSUMES DIRECT CONTROL from way out in inter-galactic space where the entire Reaper armada is kicking its heels. More trolling of the Council, some abductions of entire colonies and a personal vendetta against Shepard catches the attention of a supposed terrorist faction (Cerberus) lead by The Illusive Man, an individual who appears to have humanity's best interests in mind and is combating The Collectors with the help of Shepard and his crew. After figuring out what's actually going on, who The Collectors are and what they want with all the irritatingly voiced NPCs another big final missions is undertaken, only this time culminating in a violently disappointing "shoot the glowing weak-spot three times" battle. And then some funerals.

All up to speed? Good, on with Mass Effect 3.

The Story

Stereotypically Italian: Are you looking at me?

This...is an odd one, frankly. The entire game is basically a mad scrabble to appease everyone with even the slightest quibble with something, somewhere (usually you) in order to cobble together a force strong enough to repel the Reaper invasion which has already begun. In theory, as a fanboy, this is great; travelling the galaxy as an official ambassador with the power to do pretty much anything in order to secure military and scientific assets to combat the Reapers. As I began playing the game I envisaged Krogan infantry battalions storming through breaches in enemy defenses, Salarian STG squads wrecking havoc with sabotage, Turian fleets bombarding from orbit and (something that still makes me giggle) THE MIGHTY ELCOR BATTLE GROUPS, ALL ARMED WITH CHAIN GUNS AND MISSILE LAUNCHERS. 

What it was, in effect, was a spreadsheet. You do some missions, you get some numbers, you get a high enough number, and you can finish the game. Get all the numbers and less people die. Bit disappointing, really. I did enjoy the replacement of that bastard mineral scanner from Mass Effect 2 with...well...the same scanner but now you only have to find one or two things per planet, and at least one is usually something vital to the fleet, like the one Dreadnought the Volus could manage to not sell.

The War Assets spreadsheet is directly affected by another number; Galactic Readiness. Galactic Readiness (think of it as WAAARGH!) begins at 50% and causes any war asset you recruit to only be worth half it's actual value until Galactic Readiness is increased to 100%, which can be done by (excuse me whilst I try not to bring on a hernia whilst I type this) playing.....the....*HMPGH*....online....multi....player....URGH, that was hard to get out. 

So you do all the missions and get all the things and make a big number, and then comes the final battle to save earth. Understandably, it's a tad difficult, the secret weapon you've been building doesn't quite work, and surprise surprise it's up to Shepard to get some jump cables from the back of his '62 Ford Cortina.

Then the end happens. I'll discuss it below the spoiler warning.

The Shooty Bits

One with whom you should not fuck

For those of you who've played Mass Effect 1, I don't think you'd disagree with me when I say the combat wasn't exactly polished. It was solid, but for the most part I found biotic and tech powers to be pretty redundant unless my squad had died and there was Geth Prime or Krogan Battlemaster charging at me. For the most part, it was a cover based shooter, hilariously unexpected from a game using the same engine as all the Gears of War games I know! Chest high walls a-plenty. Enough said. 

Still, don't fuck

Mass Effect 2, whilst still running on that engine and based loosely around the same combat style, brought in a whole new necessity for powers. Overload for dropping shields or frying Geth, Incinerate for burning through Krogan or YMIR mech armour and various ammo types for added oomph. The biotic powers were vastly improved, Shockwave demolishing enemies along a straight line, Pull and Levitate isolating and exposing targets even when behind cover and the Vanguard Biotic Charge for those of you who enjoy headbutting a charging Krogan. Being able to whip powers around corners was illegal levels of fun.

(Click to enlarge)

All of these changes I loved. What I didn't love, was the stupid need for ammo. Mass Effect 1 worked fine based on cool-down weapons, there was absolutely no need to include 'thermal clips.' Nor was there really a need to include 5 pointless heavy weapons. A grenade launcher that had a tiny AoE, a rocket launcher that sounded and felt like you were firing slow-moving spit balls, a freeze ray of pointlessness, a laser pen and a nuke launcher that you could only fire once due to it's huge ammo-chomping power cells. The only up-side from the weapon alterations was the limitation, and therefore specialisation, of each class into only two weapons (except Soldier class who gets more, but that's only for boring people who want to ignore 2/3rds of the combat potential in the game). But even this irked me. There was only one class that could take sniper rifles, my standard favorite in every game, and that class had no biotic powers, and biotic powers are hilariously brilliant. Personal peeve, really.

In Mass Effect 3's combat, and you've pretty much got a refined version of the previous game. Each class has two pre-determined weapons, but can equip up to five (assault rifles, sniper rifles, shotguns, pistols, SMGs) but the added weight of each weapon drags your biotic/tech abilities cool-down way low. Example, I spent my entire play-through with an AR/SR combo and had +91% recharge rate on all my powers. The minute I equipped a shotgun for one missions it because -4%. The tech and biotic powers are mostly the same, and Shepard can still choose to learn one of the powers his team mates possess, only this time there are no loyalty missions, you just have to go talk to Garrus about calibrations and then you can use his AP ammo (godsend).

Related to the combat system is the upgrades. The armour customisation seen in Mass Effect 2 is sill the same, however the weapon system is a hybrid of 1 and 2. In the first game, Shepard finds different weapons from different brand names each with a different emphasis on damage, rate of fire or accuracy, and each weapon from a brand had a scale of roman numerals to indicate its level. In the second game, you got PISTAL and then BIGAR PISTAL. Thankfully, in Mass Effect 3, the numeral system returns but this time you just pay credits to up the stats of your favorite gun. In order to unlock new weapons you must find or purchase them throughout the game. Weapons also come with two slots for customisation now, included scopes, extended clips, weight reducing materials and melee attachments, allowing you to tailor your weapons to suit your class and play style. A perfect weapon system, that balances customisation and simplicity very well.

Palavan burns and I shed a tear

The visuals during combat are exceptional, character models rendered in a very pleasing way, scenery even more so especially some of the more expansive battles, with near, medium and far objects all detailed enough to really sell the scene.

Here's a sneak-peak of some of the criticism to come later; there's no way to holster your weapons during a combat missions because (apparently) there wasn't enough memory to cope with it. I don't even.

The Talky Bits

Warning, Being a dick may
wreck your face

Story, story, story, story, story, story, semantic satiation (look it up). That's Bioware for you! Leaning heavily on the school of thought that games should be a narrative, and not an arcade shooter, the Mass Effect series is about as in-depth as games can get, without being artsy and pretentious (cough...Dear Esther...cough). Conversation choices and decisions you make within the game effect your Paragon/Renegade morality rating. During the first and second games, it was nearly required that you be one or the other in order to get access to the highest level conversation options. For Mass Effect 3 the system has been altered to incorporate a Reputation meter which fills up when you perform Renegade OR Paragon actions, and combines your two scores to give a total Reputation. So, you can be bad to the bone and be 100% Renegade and still have as much influence over certain characters and situations as you can as 100% Paragon. A solid re-evaluation.

Conversation and decisions have always been important throughout the series, with several decisions made during the first game coming back to really bite you in the arse during the third, something that I both approve of and am irritated by. Example; during a certain missions to a certain planet in a certain second game, I may or may not have decided to destroy some research data, thinking it was the right choice at the time. Conversation in the third game with a key (and favorite) character nearly ended with said character blowing my head off/me having to do similar to him because of the decision I made during the previous game. This is a great, really great, game mechanic.....but it irritates me when choices I've made have such drastic unknown consequences. Now I'm aware of them, my next play through will be all centered around making sure I've laid down the groundwork for all the best things to happen during the third game.

The plight of the galaxy is well conveyed, allowing you to justify any renegade choices you have to make in order to secure the allies you need. There are several in-depth missions which culminate in a straight choice between helping one race or another, and whilst these choices are basically a test of fanboy love for one species over another, they are irritating in themselves as it appeared to me to be quite difficult to appease both sides, effectively alienating several races and leading to the deaths of certain main characters.

The Online Dickbag Bit

Yep, there's online multiplayer. Ohhhh how I raged when I found this out. A stupid, pointless addition to a series that needs no multiplayer whatsoever. It has no place being in this game, I denounce it's existence, I shall play one game to see just how much it ruins the game fo-OH WAIT, it's really good.

That is to say, it's really good but unnecessary nonetheless.

The multiplayer is basically Gears of War engine running 4-player Gears of War style wave survival across a handful of maps against either The Geth, The Reapers or Cerberus. The same classes seen in the single player are transferred over to the online multiplayer (Adept, Soldier, Engineer, Sentinel, Infiltrator and Vanguard) and within each class there are several different skins with different powers. Example, Human Male and Female Sentinels have the same powers, Turian Sentinels are...Turian, and have different abilities.

Turian 4 Lyfe, Brah

By playing matches you accumulate credits which can be spent in the store to purchase Packs of varying price and contents, from basic supplies of consumables (medigel, instant ammo replenishes etc) to new weapons, weapon mods and even new characters. Here we find a slight irritation with the appearance of the now-ubiquitous "pay real money for in-game stuff" trend. By spending "Bioware Points" which cost actual money with the actual Queen on it, you can purchase packs without having to play any matches.

Gotta frag 'em all

Once a character reaches a certain level they can be added to your single player save file as an additional War Asset, and there are 30 different multiplayer characters to level up.

Criticisms

I'm sorry, you lost me at Yeah

There is much that I adore about this game, and much that I just don't. For one, the story appears to be one giant dick-sucking fest for fanboys, instead of a solid and relatable tale. Countless times during the game emotions are ham-fisted into cut scenes in the most trite and gauche way possible. I honestly would regard this as two games; one of reasonably high quality that I would definitely recommend to anyone who has played the first two and got on board with the story enough to care and who wants to see the saga through to it's conclusion....and another of over-the-top emotionally charged bullshit that new comers to the series will find hilarious to behold and frankly bemusing. Prime example, the endless number of self-sacrificing characters with heroic music playing as they hug a bomb, or fight a Rachni swarm single-handed whilst Shepard beats a hasty retreat. That sort of emotive cut scene only works if you care about the character, something that first time players certainly will not as there is basically NO character development for any of the Old Gang from the first two games (except maybe Ashley) and the new team members are a violently 2D man-mountain resembling Brick from Borderlands but with LESS charisma (voiced by Freddie Prinze Jr I hasten to add) and a reincarnation of an old friend who's got their own arc anyway.

Also, Cerberus are now Helghast.

Multiplayer criticisms are limited only to IT HAS NO RIGHT BEING IN THIS GAME and the way in which it s integrated with single player. My usual standard operating procedure with games is simple; finish the single player, learn the game and how you wish to play it, and if the multiplayer looks interesting give it a go. Prime example, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Loved the single player, got addicted to the multiplayer AFTERWARDS. With Mass Effect 3, however, the game encourages you to break the flow of playing the single player game to spend hours playing the multiplayer to increase your Galactic Readiness. Granted, 25 games on the middle difficulty will give you 100% Galactic Readiness, and that should only take roughly 12 hours of multiplayer action, but the principal still very much annoys me. Though I will say, I am very glad it's not just another bland, PVP online multiplayer hack-fest.

The move from Steam to Origin for PC versions of the game irritated me as well, it seems to make no sense to swap clients for the last game in the series. Origin is just a shoddy, orange (bleaugh) impostor to the golden, shining edifice that is Steam.

Conclusion

Overall, I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoyed both the other games. It's a solid shooter with a ridiculously interesting plot that sucks you right in and makes you lose entire days at a time. I would, however, strongly recommend you play the other two games first. Mass Effect 2 was fairly easy to pick up and jump into without worrying about the story (though why you would baffles me) but with 3, it's too much of an integral part of the game's appeal to expect new comers to enjoy without the slightest idea of what a Reaper is, or why Chris Griffin has osteoporosis. 

Longevity has certainly been extended due to the addition of online multiplayer, but I will always play these games regularly as I enjoy the story just as much as Garrus enjoys calibrations.

The Ending

The Internet Community

What the bloody hell was all the fuss about, internet?! Why the desk-flipping amounts of rage at what was, in essence, a perfectly good ending? Just because whatever you do Shepard dies doesn't mean you need to start a charity to petition EA to re-make the ending! And even if they do submit to your demands, how are they going to appease all of you? Are you expected tailor made endings to each and every one of your desires? I mean....they always said it was going to be a trilogy, and Shepard sacrificing himself to save humanity is quite the full stop at the end of the Mass Effect saga (although, Joker, Garrus and EDI did look set to repopulate the galaxy at the end of my game) A good ending doesn't have to be one where the protagonist survives for fucks sake!

Garrus and I share views regarding your complaints

Counter-rage over, now I'll talk about the actual ending. 

After landing on earth I was subjected to some of the most climactic, cluster-fucking combat in the entire series. No one should have to take on 4 Brutes and 4 Banshees at once, not to mention the hoards of smaller enemies. Difficulty curved ramped, which only made for a much more satisfying end to the series. The final push towards to definitely-not-stolen-from-Halo elevator was pretty intense and I was all fired up to jump through and continue the fight on the Citadel.......and then suddenly I was doing my third lap of a slow motion forest full of whispering people, chasing a child with acutely mis-proportioned limbs who resembled Dr Zoidberg "whoop whoop-ing" out of his shell. Because emotion. Here was more of the ham-fisted emotional bollocks I've previously mentioned. I'm sure some people got all emotional themselves when playing this section of the game, but I was a full Renegade BAMF and cared not for some kid with 6 elbows.

Oh my god who cares

Furthermore, slow motion running....ghostly figures whispering doubts....lost in a forest....CAN YOU GET ANY MORE CLICHED?! Turned me right off, that did. Even worse is the fact that you have to NAVIGATE this forest, reaching certain points to watch the child (and later on the child and you) burn in front of your eyes, continuing the originality of the dream sequence (because that's what it turns out to be).

Oh, then you get up and run through the lift, stagger along the inside of the citadel with Anderson and finally face down The Illusive Man. Some things are said, some stuff is done, turns out you were re-built by The Illusive Man with Reaper technology so he could control you through indoctrination.....and then they both end up dead by your hand.

About sums it up

Then comes "totally expected unexpected reveal #3," there is a higher power controlling the Reapers. Some fluff explaining why they are necessary and then you're given the choice to either destroy them, control them or merge all organic and synthetic life together in one big orgy...but that also kills everything and destroys the mass relays. To be honest, I've watched all the endings on youtube and they all seem to kill everybody just with different coloured explosions. Also, Shepard dies in all three endings. So, really, there isn't much difference if you're colour blind.

My Experience

Here are some of the key decisions you face during the series and how I chose to deal with them:

Mass Effect 1

- Fully Renegade

- Earthborn, Ruthless

- Garrus and Wrex both alive

- Sacrificed Kaiden on Vermine

- Romanced no one

- Killed Zhu's Hope colonists

- Killed Rachni Queen

- Captain Kirrahe saved on Vermire

- Council sacrificed

- Anderson made Councillor

Mass Effect 2

- Destroyed Genophage cure on Tucanka

- Killed Samara, recruited Morinth

- Recruited Thane

- Sent Legion to Cerberus

- Preserved Collector base

- Grunt and Tali died during suicide mission

Mass Effect 3

- Preserved Genophage cure, Mordin died

- Sided with Geth, Quarians attacked, Legion died

- Encouraged EDI and Joker to date

- Thane died

- Killed Kai Leng

- Killed The Illusive Man

- Chose 'green' ending, synthesis

(I'll up date this as I remember, there are quite a few)