Blacklight: Retribution

Free-to-Play games are a godsend, for the financially deficient such as myself. Therefore, I tend to jump on any and all that come along, except that horrendous poke-in-the-eye of my childhood that is Age of Empires Online. So I was mighty pleased when Steam started advertising Blacklight Retribution, having heard nothing but good things and being in serious need of a competitive multiplayer game of late. Killing Floor occupies most of my shootingness, but sometimes killing mindless zombies isn't satisfying enough.

Speaking of zombies, Retribution is the sequel to Blacklight: Tango Down, developed by Zombie Studios and released on the PC, Xbox and PS3 back in 2010. I have not played it, I had not even heard of it until now, but I suggest you at least check out the Wiki, as Zombie Studios is planning on making a big franchise - including a feature film and comics as well as subsequent games in the series, like Retribution.

Gameplay

TF2 goes Victorian Era

Blacklight Retribution follows a very simple, tried and tested format for online competitive multiplayer. If you've even been near a games platform in the last five years you've probably seen someone play a Call of Duty game/clone online. Blacklight is that, but not shit. By that I mean it has the same game types, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, CTF, Domination etc. but it's not full of Xbox COD asshats because it's a PC exclusive. All hail the PC gaming master race.

There's a nice little tutorial that is similar to those found in the more recent COD games, i.e. set in a firing range, which holds your hand through all the basics of the game from jumping and crouching to calling in heavy support. After that there are servers specifically designed for new players (level limit is 10) where you can improve your skills and level up slightly faster whilst only playing against people of a similar skill level. There is always one Level 10 bastard who's amazing in each round, but usually they usually rank themselves up and out of the server fairly quickly. Once you hit Level 10 it's off into the big, wide world of constantly full servers and unexpected kick-voting.

It's good, but it just doesn't say 'Fuck You' enough

Regarding the weapon choice, it begins very limited but can expanded through either grind play or shelling out real money (more on that later). Each 'Agent' begins with a standard assault rifle and standard gear - combat knife and a grenade. The spectrum of weapon types includes everything you'd expect to find in a modern/futuristic shooter these days; SMGs, LMGs, bolt action rifles, burst fire rifles, shotguns, pistols etc. However, these 'classes' of weapon are only the basic format.

Bigger is always better

After you get your hands on, say, a burst fire rifle receiver, you can add a sniper scope, a silencer, drum mag and better stock and turn it into a long-range, silent death dealer. Each upgrade part is unlocked via 'packs' which are rewarded for completing individual feats or as leveling up rewards or can be bought in the marketplace.

Not pictured: the enemy, fleeing

So the guns do the shooting, the grenades do the exploding and the knives do the kniving; everything works well. The sort-of USP that Blacklight: Retri....y'know what, from now on I'm gonna call it BR. The sort-of USP that BR pushes is the ability to use in-game credits (GP) which you accumulate for kills, capturing points, healing teammates etc. to buy ammo/health packs, specialist weaponry such as flamers and rocket launchers, as well as hulking mech Hardsuits with mini-guns and rail-rifles, in-game. Hardsuits are indeed as bitching as they sound. Nigh on impossible to kill with basic weaponry, unless several players swarm them to take advantage of their oil tanker-esque turn rate. These suits do have a glowing Lylat Wars weakspot, if you scan them with the game's other USP - the Hyper Reality Visor or HRV - which identifies the weakspot, as well as penetrating terrain for some distance, highlighting ammo dumps and other players.

HRV

Clearly a responsible thing to do mid-battle

Crushing your enemies with violent amounts of firepower not enough for you? Well you won't be disappointed with BR, because after humiliating the enemy MVP who's been on a killstreak for the entire game right up until he got your knife in his back, their camera will follow you for a few seconds before they respawn. This gives you the perfect opportunity to use the taunt system. A simple button tap and you can tea-bag, flip off, crane-kick or blow a raspberry and all they can do is watch. This made me giggle, as it seems like an attempt to encourage flaming/trolling in-game but in practice is actually just a bit of harmless fun that no-one takes too seriously.

Overall the fighty-shooty-stabby stuff is pretty damn good.

Aesthetics

Imagine taking Killzone 2 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and doing this with them:

After one thing leads to another, you'll get the great style of BR. It's got that brown/grey/black palette of Killzone, but not to the extent that it resembles 3-day-old curry, blended with the more 'realistic' style of COD. Also, some good character and weapon skins. There's lots of bloom as well. On one level I was genuinely blinded by the sun so much I died before I saw the enemy. Yes, I died, but I died because of lovely, lovely looking level design.

Looks damn good for FREE

My rig handled BR ramped up to Ultra, as it always does (smugface) but the game looks great even on the lowest settings. Bear (rawr!) in mind that we're still talking about a FTP game here, a game that's cost you nothing at all and yet can still compete visually with those so-say "Triple A" titles. I was very pleasantly surprised.

Given that the game is entirely online-competitive, I'm shocked that so much was invested into the visual style. I'm certainly happy that it was though, as the game is a pleasure to look at whilst I'm dominating every game. Ok, that happened one time, 25-1 KDR without a Hardsuit bitches!

Longevity

Seems a bit superfluous to include this section, so I'll be brief.

Dr Misunderstood

The game is an online shooter. They have no limit, other than a level cap or individual boredom. I see myself dipping in and out of this game for many months to come. It's currently not possible to power through a good few hours because the sheer weight of players has done some serious damage to the servers. I've often signed in and have been greeted with a message informing me to basically "fuck off and try again, you didn't pay for this so you're not entitled to complain when all our servers are full." Which is fair enough, considering that the game went live on 3rd April, and by 30th April it had ONE MILLION DOLLARS, I mean, PLAYERS!

I'll let it cool off for a few weeks.

Freemium

The word applied to a FTP game that has optional in-game content to be bought with real money. And it's never been done better.

Rental system

It is entirely possible to unlock roughly 85% of the items, weapons and aesthetics in BR through simple grind. For each round you play in, depending on how well you and your team did, you can expect to earn about 200GP. This is the amount the game's internal marketplace charges you to rent a weapon for 24 hours. That's right, RENT. I flamed a tad at this when I first started playing; I only had an assault rifle and desperately wanted to play as a sniper so I checked out the store, found myself a custom-built bolt action rifle and spent my hard-earned GP on it. The gun was great, but I was irked when I logged on the following day and was told that my rental had run out and did I want to renew it.

Simple marketplace, nuff said

I went away, sat in my Zen Garden and raked some gravel for a few hours, contemplating why the game's developers (Perfect World, also the guys behind Rusty Hearts, Torchlight 1 + 2 and the great Star Trek Online that I'm addicted to) chose to organise the marketplace this way. The conclusion I came to was simple and brilliant. It's a 'try-before-you-buy' system. You spend a little GP, which is free as you earn it in-game, to see what a certain item is like. Should you hate it, then you've lost barely anything. But should you love it, as I did with my sniper rifle, then you've paid a tiny amount to enjoy a different play style for 24 hours. I am now currently saving up my GP to afford the 5500GP price-tag on permanently buying the bolt action receiver, so I can start building my own sniper rifle.

What the hell is this?!

Even though you can grind your way to affording all the shiniest looking guns, bitches and bling you can also just pay money for them. Should I choose to, I can spend less than I feel the game is worth to buy some Zen Credits, which cost actual money. I can then use these in place of GP in order to get my gear instantly. This system is the basis of the Freemium model. You give the gamer the options of hard graft to get their reward for free, or shell out a small amount to get it now. BR does it perfectly, as at no point does it throw up pay-walls which block off certain content only available for purchase with Zen Credits. Well, at least not so far.

Conclusion

This is a solid FPS, with great online play and a healthy amount of customisation. It has all the elements that make the multiplayer aspects of games like COD attractive but without the £40 price tag. Wholeheartedly recommend it to all FPS fans, but also to anyone who's ever wanted to get into FPS gaming but doesn't want to A) pay £40 for the privilege, or B) have the sexual activity of their mother called into question by members of the opposition.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution...sort of

Well blow me down, as my old man would say. This 'review' is going to be brief, to say the least. So I might as well just get on with it.

The first title in the Deus Ex series was released back in 2000 and I didn't notice. The second title, Deux Ex: Invisible War, hit the shelves in 2003; I didn't notice that either. When the Deus Ex Episode III: Revenge of The Sunglasses barreled it's way into the gaming world I was pinned against a wall by all the press releases, hooting fans of the original title and general rumpus regarding how amazing it would be. I still ignored it because, quite frankly, I saw the Square Enix stamp on it and nearly passed out from the terminal case of Final Fantasy Avoidance Syndrome I suffer from. 

Then Steam had it on sale for £7.99 with all the DLC and I thought to myself, "Why the hell not. You've been missing a good story/shooter of late, what with Hydrophobia only being a few hours long and most other shooters out there being devoid of a compelling narrative, lets give the Japs a pop at impressing me then."

So I did a buy, (my first mistake) followed by a install (and there's the second mistake).

What I'd assumed from the hype surrounding this title, and the metacritic score of 90, is that it would be halfway decent. What I've ended up spending 4 hours of my life playing is a bland and unengaging chimera of various decent genres and/or gameplay mechanics stuffed together and failing to achieve across the board. Think "Ripley7" in Alien Resurrection.

I shall now attempt to surmise why I didn't enjoy this game. Caveat: most of these words are opinions, if you disagree with them then let me know and I shall meet you on the field of valor. 

<-- Pic related.

I booted the game, ran through the titles screen and was greeted with a fairly standard menu screen. My first instinct with new titles is to bolt for the options section and crank everything up to 11 before launching the game, which I did. My second instinct is to check what Steam Achievements/PS3 Trophies are available for playing the game on a certain difficulty or without doing a certain type of kill-move etc. I did this too, saw that I could get two achievements for finishing the game once on hard, three if I never killed anyone, so I decided to begin on Hard and see how that went.

First problem encountered: a boring, extended rail-ride of an introduction where various characters and plot points are thrown at you whilst Adam, the protagonist, gruffly grumbles in a gruff way about gruff things like some shitty Bale/Batman reject mixed with Timothy Olyphant (voiced by Elias Toufexis, who's career involves not being the main voice actor in some medium-to-large titles). Even with my settings at 11 it looks pretty run-of-the-mill, boring, dated and a few other words for shit. The character modelling looked like Goldeneye, but with less rectangular breasts.

This first section just failed to grasp my attention at all, something that the first few minutes of anything, be it game or other media, should be able to do. The Extra Credits team did a great episode that relates to this, comparing the openings of Skyrim and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and I've no interest in ripping those guys off, so for more information on what I mean, go watch their great vid.

Got pimp slapped by a pre-rendered ring hand

So after the intense rollercoaster-ride of being led about a lab and put in a lift, some shit goes down and then you're given control of Adam. Adam, for all his gruffness, handles like a puppy on a waxed floor. I spent nearly 5 solid minutes tweaking the sensitivity to get him to stop pirouetting every time I even looked at the mouse. So navigating the first few rooms and tutorial sections, which mostly involved some light jogging, a few seconds crawling about through some air ducts and far too much time rifling through peoples private office drawers for candy bars and credits, Adam comes across a few ruffians with firearms and ill-favored looks about them. These gentlemen are preceded by a short tutorial about aiming and firing from behind cover, moving between cover and general combat. This is precisely what I'd expect, and to an extent demand, from a tutorial. Obediently, I trotted into combat, fired off a few rounds at each from cover and emerged victorious. Then, I was nearly sick, because I had flashbacks to the PC/PS3/360 title Quantum of Solace. The combat feels frighteningly similar to the horrific memories I have of that game.

MFW

Now hang on, this game is indeed described in it's Wikipedia entry as "a stealth/science-fiction action role playing game," and not a shooter, so the combat was never going to be of a very high caliber. Having noted that my original reaction might have been a tad over the top, I decided that from now on I'd stick to the stealth aspect and try to get that trophy for not killing anyo.....oh fuckballs. 

Right bunch of cocks, maybe

Skipping a bit forward, through the rest of the tutorial and some frighteningly poor voice acting and exposition, we get to some cut-scenes I can wail on. For some clitting reason there are both in-game as well as pre-rendered cut-scenes.....well, it is Square Enix, so I guess they like doing what they're known for. But the problem with pre-rendered cut-scenes is the gargantuan break in (if there were any) immersion you feel as you watch Adam's oddly pointy chin and uber-slicked hairstyle move from what frankly resembles Half Life 2 polygon modelling (not a slight at HL2, but it is 8 years old now) to deleted scenes from Advent Children. 

Utter bastards

Finally on to the first proper mission. Sneak into a place, find a guy, stop him from doing a bad thing. Right, time to flex those stealth muscles! Something which I very much enjoy, especially coming off the back of my recent Arkham City play through. A quick tutorial about how to silently take down a guard and hide the body and.....HANG THE FUCK ON. You tell me how to knock out a guard NOW?! After I've already been through the combat tutorial and been forced to kill at least 7 people? For fuck's sake, I wanted that trophy.....y'dicks.

Anyway, so a there are a few guards between Adam and the door into the building where the guy with the...etc.etc. and you're told how to take them down individually without detection and where to hide the bodies to avoid raising the alarm. First one goes down, nice and easy. Come round a corner and there are 3 more. So naturally I wait behind cover for an opportune moment, pop out and take down another, and another until they've been dealt with. T'was very easy, but I figured that was just because it was the tutorial area.

Skip ahead a few areas and I'm faced with a large room of computer terminals, with several armed guards patrolling along fixed routes who pause to scratch their balls with the barrel of their gun before turning abruptly around and walking back the other way. Anyone played Ocarina of Time? Remember trying to sneak into Hyrule Castle in order to get to Zelda and you had to get passed her guards? Well, the stealth in Deus Ex: HR is precisely that. But lots. Oh no, I'm wrong, the guards also have a little wiggle/sideways walk that I assume is supposed to look like their scanning the area, y'know, actually doing their job, but it's purely aesthetic. They don't see shit.

By this point, I'm thinking to myself "The combat is shit, the stealth is shit. I'm playing this game why, exactly?" I press on, encouraged by the prospect of a stunning story and Mass Effect-esque dialogue choices that will genuinely have me pausing for minutes on end to reflect upon my choices.

This conversation is balls

Instead, I was rewarded with a series of options for answering each question that are given arbitrary labels; stuff like "AGGRESSIVE" or "EMPATHETIC," which gives little or no indication of the outcome of your choice, other than it'll be vaguely in this sort of direction maybe. Not only is this conversation mechanic pretty damn basic, but I've been told that it can have a serious effect on the outcome of certain parts of the game. From my experience of it I would've assumed it was completely inconsequential, there is no effort made to highlight the fact that it IS indeed important. Lazy. Or stupid. Either/or.

I can't really comment on the plot of the game, as I've only played the first 3-4 hours of it, but the best I can say is that it's completely unengaging, with a protagonist who generates less emotional investment from the player than Kratos does.

I was very disappointed with my experience with Deus Ex: HR, but I'm fully willing to chalk everything up to a combination of three things:

1) I'm not a fan of the way Square Enix games are constructed, narratively and mechanically

2) There was some serious over-hype surrounding this game, that just makes all the flaws seem so much more obvious

3) The game probably gets much more involving were I to sink more hours into it

All three of these points are things that cannot change what I experienced, I'm quite saddened because, on the surface, it sounds like this game is completely my cup of tea, down to the 2 sugars and buttered crumpets. I shan't give a recommendation, because I feel that I've not truly experienced enough of the game to warrant a fully rounded opinion. So, have this instead:

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.