Angry Birds (iPhone) Review
Brutal Gamer reviews Angry Birds.
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Borderlands: The Secret Armoury of General Knoxx (Xbox 360) Review
Brutal Gamer’s review of the third expansion pack for Borderlands. Full Story
God of War III (PS3) Review
A BrutalGamer.com review.
Kratos eh – he’s a bit of a boisterous wag don’t you think? Not content with laying waste to a very large chunk of Greek mythologies more prominent characters he now wants to take down Zeus himself. – as he also turns out to be Kratos’s father there is a serious Starwars fetish at work here! We find ourselves starting the game at the exact point we left it in God of War II. Namely Kratos has managed to whip the elemental Titans up into a battle ready frenzy to take down Zeus. The camera pans in on Titans clambering Mount Olympus and there, riding on the back of tree-hugging Titan Gaia, is Kratos, all the while screaming bloody murder at the top of his voice. Zeus sends forth his last remaining loyal Gods to take care of Kratos and the ensuing Titan horde. Thus we step into the action as Kratos rides upon Gaia whilst fending off the attacks from Poseidon in the form of water based snake creatures and a plethora of generic henchmen. So from this point on we will keep things as spoiler free as possible – let’s face it did you really come to God of War III for the story arc?
After our hands-on time back in October with God of War 3 we had good expectations that the game would be solid enough. After a short amount of playtime into the game any fears you had that Sony’s Santa Monica studio would find it hard to follow up on two of gamings most epic titles are firmly disembowelled. This is basically God of War 2.5 in the sense of character ad game mechanic progression and certainly titles like Darksiders have streamlined a lot of the quick time events but this game is just too epic to ignore, to visceral to be placated into the shadow of any other title – this game truly define the phrase “epic”.
You seriously would not fuck with this guy right?!?
GoW3 does the tried and tested “Fuck You!” of videogames when it basically allows you to have all the awesome skills you would of acquired at the end of God of War 2 and then takes the whole damn lot away from you. Basically Zeus whips your arse in the first fifteen minutes of the game sending you plunging back into the depth of Hades. From here, with your now limited abilities, you must fight your way back up to the top of Mount Olympus to twat that smug lightening chucker.
The game plays like pretty much every God of War title – so exactly how you would want this God of War title to play lets be honest. If you are coming to GoW3 with the expectation that something radical will of changed in the gameplay then forget about it. This is tried, tested and tweaked a little. Unlike the combo heavy Bayonetta, GoW3 focuses on mashing buttons and remembering fairly simple combos to pull off some spectacularly devastating special moves.
Click this image to get the large picture - its epic!
What has changed significantly, as as you would expect, is the scale of the game. This game looks epic. Sometimes the camera will pan back until Kratos looks little more than a textured lump of muscle in the distance. The opening scenes of the game are some of the most impressive I have ever witnessed in a videogame. Riding upon the back of a mighty Titan whilst fighting hordes of Zeus’s minions is epic in itself but when this is set to the backdrop of a massive full scale assault taking place, filled with hugely detailed Titans – this just has to be experienced to be understood.
Whilst we are talking ascetics lets deal with the graphics. At times this game is THE most beautiful game ever created – it makes Heavy Rain and Uncharted 2 look dated and flat at times – it’s that damn good. That said at other times some odd design choices or uninspired locations make it appear plain old good looking – I realise the ludicrous nature of that statement but when the rest of the game looks better than some movie CG you really notice the parts that lack that level of sheen. If you are sat looking at the demo and thinking “Yeah OK mate it looks good but nothing that amazing!” then you have a real treat as the demo code looks shite and slow in comparison. Sony Santa Monica have taken the time to completely overhaul the lighting engine and tweak so much more – even the frame rate is a damn sight better even with the extra bells and whistles.
Insert you own jokes about Kratos giving head here please!
A few games have been given the title of jaw droopingly gorgeous – I’ve not been compelled to slacken my jaw at a game since I probably first saw Shadow of the Beast running on the Amiga 500. Even the lush visuals of Uncharted 2 failed to unsteady my hardened gamer jaw. I sat with my chin in my hands, jaw slack as anything, on multiple occasions in this game. The scene near the beginning, which I won’t spoil, sees the water levels rising across the land – this is all in real-time and it looks stunning! The sheer scale and amount of visual fidelity on display is mind boggling even for the supposed “power of the Cell”. Add to this superb lighting effects (even weapons reflect in the environment), flawless character animations and some incredible environments and you have THE best looking game on any platform at the moment – period (and yes that goes for you PC guys whacking off over Crysis on 1billionx1billion resolution- I’ve seen it, it looks great but this is better!).
OK enough gushing over the graphics and on to more pertinent issues – the game play. As mentioned this follows the tried and tested path used by the previous two outings (three if you include Ready at Dawn’s excellent Chains of Olympus on the PSP). That said most people coming to God of War 3 will not want a drastic change. This is the last game in Kratos’s trilogy and as such needs to go out playing in a similar fashion to any other GoW title. Simple mashing of the Square, Triangle and Circle buttons will achieve all the damage you need. The old favourites return like Kratos’s whirlwind attack plus a great grab mechanic that allows to get hold of smaller combatants and use them as a human (demon, whatever) battering ram.
Helios is about to get seriously done over by this Titan
The game relies heavily on Quick Time Events once again. As has been documented recently I’ve pretty much had it with QTEs. Darksiders really had the correct idea here as they stripped down a lot of these button presses in to one initiating button press. Where as GoW 3 keeps close to it;s roots and has you pummelling buttons like a coked up monkey. That said they have made things a little easier in so far as button prompts will appear on the side of the screen that the button exists on the controller. For instance the X prompt appears at the bottom of the screen. This helps alleviate a lot of wrong button presses as you simply need to mirror the activity on the screen.
Voice acting is top notch and the dialogue is delivered well. This is not high concept drama we are talking here, this is Michael Bay type scripting for a popcorn generation. That said the script is more than agreeable and facilitates the brutal action very well. Unlike the recent Sony exclusive Heavy Rain we are treated to actors that at least speak English as a first language. The voice over work is well delivered and adds greatly to the feel of the title. The real star in the audio department must be the music. Stupendously uplifting and dramatic scores soar and dip in the background as the bloodthirsty action takes place on screen. Some of the compositions would shame most summer blockbusters and really help add to the epic nature of the gameplay. The sound effects too have been well thought out and this game at all times sounds like a cacophony of bloody war.
The pyrotechnics and effects on display are astounding
The game is not exactly short but it could of maybe done with an extra hour or so added to it’s 8′ish hour play time. Luckily this is the type of game you can quiet simply star over again as soon as you finish it. There are plenty of collectibles in the usual guise of Phoenix Feathers, Gordon Eyes and Minotaur Horns so this will add a little to the overall play time and urge to replay through – not to mention the unlockable extras like making of videos etc. There are even a handful of Batman : Arkham Asylum style challenge rooms on offer to give you that extra bit of play for you money.
The game is not all glory and good times though. The play style has really had it’s day, and there is a small level of monotony encompassed by a button mashing title. There are a few glitches in the game too, once or twice I died by falling through level geometry and the camera can also dish out it’s fair share of unreasonable deaths. All these things are not game breakers they just frustrate slightly in an otherwise exceptionally produced game. If you never did like this style of game then God of War 3 is not the game to change your mind (try Darksiders) because after all it’s just a platform brawler clinging to “the old ways” for one last hurrah. The checkpoint system is a little woolly at times and the fact you have to start from the beginning during multipart major encounters (for example a four stage brawl atop some massive moving cubes almost resulted in my controller going through the window!) is just plain mean but it does make you strive to be a better player – just be warned that at times this game can get frustratingly difficult (not as much as Bayonetta by a long stretch though!).
The grandeous scene setting is sometime just breathtaking
Final Thoughts :-
God of War 3 defines the word “Epic” in respect to videogames. The game is a powerhouse of visual accomplishment and demonstrates once again what can be achieved with Sony’s chunk of black plastic. It fails to reach some of the heights in gameplay that the earlier games did but this never detracts from what is simply the best game in it’s genre. Sure there are a few control, checkpoint and camera niggles but that is why GoW3 doesn’t hit the full 10/10. If you don’t yet own a PS3 I have to ask, what better reason do you need than God of War 3, Heavy Rain and Uncharted 2. This game is an essential purchase for any gamer regardless of platform loyalty.
Torchlight (PC) Review
Something lurks under this mountain. Something Ancient, and something evil. And it’s your job to figure out what in this blatant clone of Diablo. (Not that this is a bad thing.)
Torchlight starts with your arrival in the mining-town sharing the name of the game. Your reason for arriving is never made clear: Only that a very powerful magic user came before you, and the first entry of his journal the game reads to you talks about some REAL power being here. This power comes at a price that might have been too high, and had he known what it would do to him, he probably would have never even shown up. The mines used to produce precious metals as well as a magical stone called Ember. Used to is the key term, because recently monsters began to pour into the mines from below. Being the good guy you are (or perhaps because you wanted to go down there anyway), it isn’t long before you follow two other adventurers down and begin an adventure that will ultimately pit you against the source of the monsters in an epic battle for the fate of the town, and possibly the world.
When you first start playing, that this game is Diablo 2.0 becomes instantly clear. You will be greeted with a control panel much like Diablo, complete with mana/health gauges and ten slots in which you will place your spells and items, and even start with 4 taken up by health/mana potions and identify/town portal scrolls. In fact the only differences in this panel are that the health/mana are each taking half of one sphere in the center instead of each taking their own on the sides, you do not have a description box for what you are fighting (rather, that is more like Diablo 2 where the game will show that on top as you attack it), and you now have both your left and right mouse button attacks displayed in front of you, as well as an “alt” attack, which by hitting alt, you can swap with your right mouse button on the fly. In short, it takes a lot from Diablo, adds a little of Diablo 2, and improves on both to make for a very adaptive interface to configure and use quickly while in the dungeons. Even the automap returns in almost the same way: you can have it not be there, in the corner like a radar, or in classic overlay, which still remains my personal favorite for these games.
However, not everything is exactly the same. For starters, your belt no longer controls how many slots or what might be waiting as the next item you might choose to use from your 10 slots. Rather, much like World of Warcraft, or many other MMOs, you will choose an item and all of those in your inventory are attached to that button, be it a kind of health/mana potion, a kind of scroll, or even spells/skills you want hot-keyed for quick use. This helps speed up the game to make and make it even better to play.
When you get right down to it though, the ability to place whatever you want in those slots will not be the only thing to remind you of WoW. Graphically, this game shares a lot of the same style and flair as the juggernauted MMO. The 3d rendering and cartoony style will remind you a lot of this, and in a good way. The game has character and charm, and the art will not leave you bored of what you are looking at. On top of this, the game also takes full advantage of this to minimize the power needed to run this game. For giggles, I brought out an old Dell P4 laptop with 1.5 ghz CPU, 512MB RAM, and some old forgotten Intel graphic chipset and installed the game on it. Sure, loading times were long, but the game itself played smooth as butter…. well as smooth as this game runs on anything anyway.
And I do have to bring that up, because this game has one flaw in it’s presentation: The way it loads. Basically, this game takes a “load as it needs” approach to running, which may sound great, until you realize it’s loading all it’s data from a literal zip file in it’s main directory. The results may vary depending on what you run it on and what AV you are using (MSE may not have liked this very much), but anytime anything new showed up, the game would have to pause to load it into memory, disrupting the game for a little bit. Thankfully, these issues are brief and the longer you play that session, the less you run into them, but it is an obvious downside to what otherwise is an absolutely excellent blend of graphical style and performance.
Sound-wise, this game doesn’t fair so badly, either. The music might as well have been ripped right out of the Diablo series…. literally. If you walked into a room with this game idling and the screen turned off, you wouldn’t be able to tell unless you knew before hand the PC it’s on doesn’t have Diablo 1 or 2 installed. Sound effects, are also very pleasing, to boot. Weapons sound about right, all the voices are well acted (and none repeat between enemies… of course few enemies even scream, much less talk, so this isn’t a big issue) and all your major quests include full narration along with the text! That’s right, this clone’s main story is FULLY VOICED. A very nice touch to finish the feel of the game. Course do not expect this kind of detail on any side-quests you take on, but then, a number of those are randomly generated, so to do so would be impossible. (Not to mention some of the later ones that actually are planned have a few bugs, such as a portal that you have to click to the left of to use and voices stop being used altogether… clearly things that are small, but they just did not have time to fix.)
Sadly, I do have one last fault to bring up, though. This game has no multiplayer at all, so if you want to bring a team with you down into the mines of Torchlight, you are just SOL.
Overall, this game is simply amazing, especially for the price. (It launched at $20, and if you can catch it on sale, you can often get it for even less.) If you enjoy Diablo style games, you are doing yourself a disservice to miss this game. This is the game type refined, and it would have scored even higher had it included online gameplay.
Battlefield Bad Company 2 (PS3) Review
A BrutalGamer.com review.
When DICE announced the first Battlefield : Bad Company title there were several strong thoughts circling the gamesphere. “Please god make it better then the last console Battlefield title” & “Please god make it as good as Battlefield 2“. Well DICE managed the first of those wishes but fell well short with the last. The game was lauded for it’s excellent engine technology but lambasted for it’s lacklustre campaign and under developed multiplayer. Receiving some solid scores all round, and a good score in our review, DICE had a firm foundation to move on from.
Zip forward to today and BAM! Battlefield : Bad Company 2 is here and fuck me if it’s not THE BEST multiplayer game since Call of Duty 4… Yeah that’s right, Battlefield Bad Company 2 makes Modern Warfare 2 it’s bitch and no mistaking.
We pick up the trail with our four less than willing heroes as they become roped in to yet another special assignment. This time the carrot to get the job done isn’t a large haul of gold bars but the chance to finally get free of the army and return to civilian life. Only problem is they have been forced into a special forces unit locked in a race to locate some WMDs before their Russian counterparts do.
The single player game of the original Battlefield Bad Company was and OK experience but as our review states it was mostly about the multiplayer. Well DICE can finally mark their calendar; they have managed to make a single player shooter campaign that stands up with the best of them. The main draw of the first title was the banter between the four squad mates. Now this is maybe not as fresh as it once was in this outing but it still raises the game well above the usual overly serious competition in the shooter genre.
The single player campaign is full of set pieces and moments that shove two fingers up to COD4 and Modern Warfare 2. Things like comments being made by the squad about snowmobiles and other plays lifted straight from the previous Call of Duty titles play books. This makes the game a little “me too!” at times but the clincher is that BFBC2 takes those elements and adds more destruction, more chaos and more fun. Gone too is the slightly wonky aiming & health packs. In comes regenerating health, sharper targeting (still a little fiddly) and the ability to change your load-out mid game from supply drop crates. The game has employed some reasonably intelligent placements for checkpoints and does a great job most of the time of keeping the pace tight and forward flowing even in the sometimes expansive open environments.
Graphically the game has taken a large step up and you can tell that DICE have spent a lot of time tweaking the Frostbyte engine. There is the odd clipping issue (for instance I shot a soldier only to have him fall through a crate, leaving his head poking through – it was bloody hilarious!) and a small amount of pop-in of textures. None of this detracts from the stunning visuals on display and the sheer amount of destruction crammed in to every fire fight is mesmerising at the very least. Animation is solid and well defined. Characters and environments move with the purpose and fluidity expected of a top-tier developer at the top of their game.
One of the absolute standout elements of Battlefield Bad Company 2 has to be the sound design. Sure an awful lot of shooters can boast great weapon sounds, or well defined environmental soundscapes. What BFBC2 can offer is all that plus a whole heap more. For example to sound of the weapons both up close and in the distance reverberate and dissipate as you would expect them too. Sounds seem to actually live in the environment they are being born in rather than just a layer of superficial noise being applied over an action to facilitate a game mechanic. It truly is hard to explain until you hear those shots ring out. And the “special” weapon noise that you hear in the first fifteen minutes or so of the game will shake your fillings out if you have a sub-woofer (and some fillings as well to be honest..) and literally fill you with impending dread; brilliant stuff!
The rest of the game is none too shabby audibly either with great in game and menu music as well as, once again, superb voice acting, especially from the four main cast members. The pace and emphasis placed on their dialogue help elevate the game to the higher echelons reserved for the Call of Dutys of this world.
The single player does satisfy well enough. The plot is loose at best, the dialogue is easy to miss between the squad mates due to it being relayed in game and certain elements fall a little flat. During the 8 or so hours it will take you on an average play through (add maybe 1 or 2 hours extra if you intend on searching out all the weapons and satellite uplink stations) there will be plenty of thrills and a single player campaign that made more cohesive sense than that of Modern Warfare 2. It trounces the first Battlefield Bad Company game in this area and most of the competition too. If I was to score the single player separately it would be a solid 7.5/8 at most.
Where this game truly shines though is in the multiplayer. For many years DICE have found it tricky to replicate the sheer scale and form of their earlier PC Battlefield titles. Many a review will list the earlier console games as poor distant cousins to the likes of Battlefield 2 & Battlefield : Vietnam. With sheer number of options and the mammoth scale DICE have stepped up to the plate and smacked this one out of the park. There are only four modes of play in multiplayer, something that might be somewhat of a turn-off it it was not for the extremely well balanced nature of each one. These modes take the guise of Conquest mode, Rush ( a timed speed round) , Squad Rush (as Rush but split into squads – which is locked, unless you pre-ordered the game, for 30 days) and Squad Deathmatch. Each mode offers an intense and thrilling experience that will satisfy even the most hardened Modern Warfare 2 fan and tempt the most ardent COD4 zealot too.
The multiplayer is laced with great features like the ability to just spawn behind your team mates – no more trudging miles and miles to get to the action. The points are handed out for a multitude of actions and distributed fairly and evenly across a match. You never feel like you should of earnt a load more points for your heroics (I’m looking at you MAG !) but it also doesn’t just hand out points like confetti (ahem… MW2!). Unlocks are layered in reference to the character class, so for example engineers will unlock mainly sub-machine guns and lighter weapons as well as repair tools etc, where as Medic will unlock similar light guns but a medi-pack and a defibrillator. Each character class does a great job of feeding you better and better items and weapons as your skill and rank progresses and you earn numerous awards and badges too. All round these modes, especially Conquest, will endure as they are great fun and offer a slightly more tactical approach than the usual run and gun mayhem of other titles. There are vehicles a plenty to drive and shoot from which include tanks, helicopters and quad bikes. A really neat feature was the ability to fly a UAV high over the action , pinpoint enemy armour or encamped squads and drop a very satisfying missile right at their front door – I can’t emphasis how cool this actually was and how much fun too!
Final Thoughts:
If you are looking for a single player shooter then this game is fun, noisy and rock solid. It will provide you with several hours of great set pieces and explosive concussive action. If you are looking to play online then I simply say this – Welcome to the game that will put Call of Duty 4 down. “The King is dead – Long live the King!”
Blue Toad Murder Files : Episode 3 (PS3) Review
A BrutalGamer.com review. And YES there is no score for this game…
Welcome friends, welcome one and all. We find ourselves back in the languid luxury or middle-England. Betwixt babbling brooks and rolling hills of purest green we find the quintessential town of Little Riddle. After the trials and tribulations of the first two episodes you find yourself with one unsolved murder and a missing statue. This will never do for a member of the Blue Toad Detective Agency.
Taking up literally after the second episode you are once again set the task of resolving the puzzles around the village whilst solving the current crime. This time out someone has been “Arson” about with matches and tried to burn the Town Hall to the ground. “Hot” on the trail of the culprit you must investigate the four main suspects whilst also trying to track down the missing statue from the end of the last episode.
Welcome the new character of The Librarian
This time out Relentless seem to have listened to the small amounts of criticism that were levelled at the first episodes – that being it was pretty simple and the bang for buck ration was terrible. The game is now much harder than it was previously, with the majority of puzzles being very high in the logic/mental arithmetic stakes. What this does mean is that the structure of the puzzles are all very similar in this outing. There are numerous puzzles that require you to place an object (Person/Duck/Stained Glass etc) in certain configurations in a grid based structure. These are functionally fine but did elicit a groan when yet another one cropped up.
The issue to “Bang for Buck” has also firmly been addressed both in this game and throughout the series. For anyone who purchased episode one you get this episode completely free. This is a very generous offering on Relentless’s part and goes to prove that they not only listen to the consumers but also care about them too. That quality in a developer should never be overlooked! They have also altered the pricing structure to make the final three episodes come in at a combined price of £10. This is excellent news and addresses the major reason of criticism in our previous review.
Once again the graphics and voice work are a notch above anything you would usually be purchasing via the PSN store. The characters and environments are incredibly bright and colourful and retain the same graphical feel of previous Relentless stable mate Buzz!. The voice over work in particular sets the whole thing off and without the tireless characterisations from Tom Dussek the game would be a much poorer experience.
Once again the whole things will last you roughly 40 – 60 minutes depending on your ability to resolve the brainteasers. Just keep in mind that once complete, there is little more to do with the title except go back and obtain the Gold Medal for each puzzle and collect the relinquished trophies.
Final Thoughts:
As you can see this is not a full review. Many sites will not review a “free” game and to many intents and purposes this is a free title. As such I feel it unfair to level a score at it. What I will say is that Relentless continue to impress and produce consistently good family orientated titles. The fact they amended their business model to address the issues of the previous releases should be applauded and we look forward to the final three episodes hitting over the next month. If you were tempted with Blue Toad Murder Files before but were hesitant due to costs I would heartily recommend dropping the £10 for the first two episodes and then grabbing this title for free. £10 for 3 hours of great quality detective-em-up should not be ignored.
Bioshock 2 (PS3) Review
A BrutalGamer.com review.
I think its well documented in both articles and on the podcasts that I loved Bioshock. Seriously loved it! The game came at a time I was just fed up to the back teeth with yet another bloody shooter coming out for my shiny new Xbox 360. The game introduced us to the over the top Andrew Ryan, the chilling Little Sisters and the lumbering moans of the Big Daddies. The true star though was the location, an underwater utopia setup in the 1950’s called Rapture by the afore mentioned Andrew Ryan.
This time we return to Rapture around ten years after the events of the first game. You take the role of Delta, a prototype Big Daddy who is deactivated right at the start of the game before the fall of rapture. Upon sudden reactivation ten years later you awake in the aftermath of the first games activities. Upon awaking your thoughts turn to the Little Sister you were paired with and making sure she is safe. This time the main protagonist is the chilling Dr Lamb. A huge opponent of Andrew Ryan she has continued the work that Ryan started with the Little Sister project. Only Dr Lamb has taken her experiments further in the years since the fall.
The Little Sisters are as creepy as ever!
Taking place in in an older part of the city the first thing that strikes you is the linearity of the game this time out. In the first game you could transfer to and from various areas of the city by using the Bathesphere submarines. This time you take a leaf out of Zelda’s book and make your way around the city using the railway system. You must make your way through the ruins of Rapture to find and face Dr Lamb and locate your Little Sister.
OK, so that sounds fairly weak-sauce right? I’m afraid you are pretty spot on. The main draws in Bioshock were the strong story narrative and the uniquely realised location. Bioshock 2 fails to deliver the same dramatic punch as the first title and the story falls a little flat in more than a few places. This is a real shame as gameplay wise Bioshock 2 beats the first title hands-down.
It's Drilling time!
Graphically things have moved on nicely. Utilising the Unreal 3 engine again the multiple teams that have worked on the game have taken the environments and conventions laid down by the first game and extrapolated. Nothing really new has been added to the environment but the world of Rapture still remains as rich and compelling as ever. The water effects are superb, as ever, and the animation is top notch. The art design of the original game was one of the things that dragged me in and it continues on again. It seems a little too familiar but that’s a symptom of the first games success. Frame rates are solid and things run at a fair old clip improving on the first game in every way.
One thing strikes you right away, the shooting is much better. The weapons provide a much more robust solution than in the first title. Most of the first game could be waded through using the Wrench and some key Plasmids; the ability giving genetic soup you take to give you special abilities like Lightning, Fire etc. This time out the melee weapon is a huge drill attached to your right arm. This allows you to smack people about with said drill or rev it up and “dig in”, if you’ll pardon the pun, to the opposition. As awesome as this sounds the drill is slow and nowhere near as useful as the wrench from the first game. Just as well the weapons are super meaty. From rivet guns to .50 calibre machine guns there is plenty of hardware to choose from.
Add to that the ability to pimp out your guns at one time use weapon upgrade stations and purchase specialist ammo like electric buck shot or armour piercing rounds from the various vending machines around. These elements combine well to breath life in to the shooting and make the game play so much more varied than the initial game.
LOVE the shotgun - Very meaty sound effect too!
Other things to return are the Gathers Garden plasmid update vending machines, the hackable gun turrets, security cameras and sentry bots. On the note of hacking many were aggrieved by the Pipe Mania mini game you had to play to hack each machine. Well those days are gone all you have to do now is stop a swinging needle in the green areas of a gauge. Correctly performing this several times in a row will hack the device. If you happen to hit the minute blue portions of the gauge you are rewarded for your accuracy with extra items or a longer activation time on security devices. I can appreciate that many will be relieved that this lengthy mini-game is no more, but I was pretty fond of it myself.
In your pursuit for Dr Lamb you will once again come across Little Sisters flanked by their original Big Daddys. Taking these lumbering giants down this time is nothing like the arduous battle it was in the first game, after all you are a Big Daddy yourself. Once the Little Sister is free of her chaperon you are free to take her as she will trust you implicitly. This time rather than just choosing to free or harvest the small girls you place them on your shoulders and they will show you a number of fallen corpses ripe with the nectar of Rapture, ADAM. Whilst collecting this ADAM you must defend the Little Sister from the oncoming hordes of Splicers. ADAM full and ready to trot you pick up your Little Sister and take her to a vent. Here you have the choice of either harvesting her for extra ADAM or saving her for less ADAM but better karma and a few extra treats later on. Choices like this help to add a little depth to Bioshock 2 but the impact is muted as much has moved on since the first Bioshock used these mechanics.
Once you have harvested or freed all the little sisters on a level you will hear a piercing shriek. The signals the imminent arrival of a Big Sister. These are Little Sisters all grown up and encased in a lightweight suit. This is as close to a boss fight that Bioshock 2 manages and provides the most challenging aspect to the game. You must quickly prepare for the arrival by laying traps, mines and mini gun turrets to help you in your plight. These battles aer a good distraction but are ultimately quickly dealt with by the time you reach the latter third of the game.
Face to face with a Big Sister...
Longevity is good at around ten hours plus for a reasonably paced play through and extended if you want to search every nook and cranny or Rapture for audio logs. On the subject of the audio the production values are high once again. The first game benefited from great voice work and some excellent 50’s tunes. The voice work is good once again with the main characters portrayed well. The music is much more prevalent this time and were are Bioshock 1 left me wanting more of the old time tunes Bioshock 2 crams in so many that it feels a little like overkill.
To be honest reading through I have seemed fairly negative and I think the reason for this is that Bioshock 2 had such a high standard to beat. In all fairness it was going to be impossible for Bioshock 2 to have anywhere near the same impact as the first title. As such this feels more like an expansion to the first title. You could very easily roll straight on from Bioshock 1 to Bioshock 2 and still feel immersed in the same world and as such it’s a fans dream.
With it’s tight well managed shooting, great set design, high concept environments and solid multiplayer Bioshock 2 should of pounded it’s ageing predecessor in to the ocean floor. The only elements missing are some of the ones that defined Bioshock 1, ie the atmosphere creating set pieces and high level of story telling.
Nice hat... Leigh has the same one at home...
Final Thoughts:
Bioshock 2 is a good, solid game. Better than it’s predecessor in so many ways and offering a surprisingly robust multiplayer. The fact remains that the story just can’t stack up to the first title and the environment is, with this installment, played out. On it’s own merits Bioshock 2 is a worthy underwater shooter with some RPG elements and is a recommendation to anyone. If you are a Bioshock fan I heartily recommend you grab this asap as you won’t be too disappointed – things will just be a little familiar is all.
Heavy Rain (PS3) Review
A BrutalGamer.com review.
Never before, as a game reviewer, have I felt so far out of my comfort zone. You see Quantic Dreams’ Heavy Rain is not so much a game as it is an experience. Now stop rolling your eyes and groaning at that statement as I can quantify it. You remember Linger in Shadows and Flower right? They were more artistic experience than game – both great and Flower was one of my favourite titles from last year – but not strictly games. Well Heavy Rain is more of an interactive movie experience. I know that phrase is the kiss of death to so many titles but Heavy Rain wears the badge with pride and with good reason. When I did my hands on back in October I said it looked good – man can I understate things!
You take the role of several key characters all intertwined in the pursuit of a notorious serial killer known only as the Origami Killer – so called thanks to the Origami figures he leaves in the right hand of all his victims. The main plot thread in loose terms follows each of these four characters as they take different paths to help them track down the killer. I say in loose terms as at certain key moments in the game it is totally plausible that your character will suffer a fatal injury and their plot path will come to an end. That is not to say the game will end, instead you proceed with the remaining characters towards to twisting, turning conclusion.
The much troubled Ethan Mars
The story is woven around the incidents in the life of Ethan Mars, an architect torn apart by the death of his eldest son. When Mars’s younger son disappears he is thrown in to a deadly game of cat and mouse with the notorious Origami Killer that will push exactly how far he will go to save his child. Intersecting these events are the lives of Madison Page ( Photo journalist & avid insomniac), FBI Agent Norman Jayden and world beaten gumshoe Scott Shelby. Each characters story is woven extremely well through one another and a tight fabric of events unwind through the ten or so hours of gameplay. I will, from this point on be seriously vague because to ruin the plot, is to kill the game.
The visuals employed in Heavy Rain are truly jaw dropping. Not just for the serious amount of polygons and polish that can be witnessed on every screen but also for the exception set design and decoration. For the top notch animations, the gorgeously high resolution texture work – heck you can see the muscles twitch under the skin of a characters face and see the rain trickle down the pores in the skin. I spent so much time just watching the rain trickle down cars or bounce off of objects in this game – sounds stupid until you actually sit and watch digital rain behave just like proper rain would do. Sure there is a little screen tearing in a few places, noticeable mostly in the entrance to a nightclub scene part way through the game but it does not detract. Likewise a few animation glitches creep in at times and frames are skipped suddenly leaving things a bit disjointed. These are small prices to pay for what almost looks as good as the pre-rendered Final Fantasy: Spirits Within movie in real time. If you want to settle the “Why can’t this be done on an Xbox 360?” argument just sit the asker in front of Heavy Rain for ten minutes and the answer is crystal clear. The look and feel of the game is so compelling that after a fairly lengthy session I set out to watch 24 and was waiting for the on screen prompts so I could steer the action.. very weird feeling.
Madison Page - Making herself sexy apparently..
Fantastic visuals aside the game needs to at least play well to get a look in and on this front I think our audience will be polarized. You see what Heavy Rain kind of boils down to gameplay wise is a mixture of Dragons Lair, God of War’s quicktime events & the cut scenes from Metal Gear Solid 4 (all be it with the mad Japanese taken out !). See… Polarized! Anyone who is familiar with Quantic’s previous title, Fahrenheit, will have an idea of the control scheme as it was pioneered in that title and refined and improved in this one. One of the biggest upsets is that you control your character in a totally unconventional method. You use the Left Stick to move your characters head, there by orientating you in a certain direction. You then hold the R2 button to actually move in the direction you are facing. This works well in the pacing of the action but can be a little frustrating when you are trying to position your character to investigate a certain item in a scene. You interact with your environment by using a gesture system mapped to the rest of teh controller. For instance to take Agent Jayden’s ARI glasses out of his breast pocket you perform a right then up movement with the Right Stick. There are multiple variations on this theme involving slow movements, rapid button presses, flicking the whole controller in a direction (SixAxis finally used to good effect!) and the finger contorting multiple button press. All these sound pretty stale but in the context of the game the work well and translate to on screen movements very effectively. On the subject of the ARI glasses these are a novel and great way of quickly processing a crime scene for clues. A quick press of the R1 button and a pulse goes out around your character highlighting anything of interest. It’s a gimmick but a very well thought out one.
Agent Jayden making friends as ususal!
This game has, with out exception, provided me with the most heart pounding, gut wrenchingly frantic scenes in any video game. A sequence later on when Madison is attacked in her apartment leaves you feeling drained and fraught. This provides the greatest of Heavy Rains compliments, the game really draws you in and makes you experience the environments and character situations like no other title. There are countless tussles and fraught escapes in the game that should and do leave you feeling breathless and frantic. Added to this there a lots of points in the game that seem trivial that you will agonise over both during and after. Should of of killed X? Or perhaps I should of said Y. These moments provide the heart of the Heavy Rain experience and also give it replayability. Lets face it, once you know who the Origami Killer is there is little point going back right? Well these branching events and small choices make for a very compelling reason to return and experience the alternate endings the game has to offer.
Now to the story itself. Billed as an interactive movie by Quantic Dreams I can see their intentions were grand. What we end up with though is at best a TV special. A two-part special staring some D listers shown over consecutive nights on BBC One after 9pm. A lot of the plot is pedestrian and the camera work could do with some tips from Naughty Dog. The writing is passable and avoids any “game” speak to drag you out of the reality it presents. That said the story is enjoyable, and will keep you compelled to the very end. I played through with my wife watching as if a movie and she enjoyed it greatly and was ready to play through again the very next day.
Ah, the calm before the storm.. or rain in this case
The characters are likable enough if a little 2D at times. The most compelling and rounded character is the addiction battling FBI profiler Norman Jayden, although I had a good affinity for the weathered PI Scott Shelby. The whole cast of characters range from paper thin stereotypes (an antiques dealer is himself an antique) to much more diverse and likable characters. The voice acting ranges from poor to excellent. Ninety percent is passable and above but a few ropey voices, notably the kids that are plainly French voice actors trying to sound American, could of been improved. The main characters are all excellent and deliver their dialogue well and with conviction to the scenario at hand. The musical score is well suited and has a very 24 like quality to it’s approach and composition – in fact the whole game at times apes the style of TV making that 24 introduced.
The emponimous Mr Scott Shelby
Heavy Rain is impossibly subjective to score. I know the same can be said of reviews in general but this one is different. With this title Quantic Dreams have blurred the line between movie and game. Pushes gaming towards a more interactive narrative than any game has done before. There are games that mark the start of something through out gaming’s relatively short history. When iD unleashed a little title called Wolfenstein 3D, Peter Molyneux created Populous, David Braben & Andy Bell made Elite, DICE unleashed Battlefield 2’s online system, Valve released the much delayed Half Life, Gears of War perfected the cover mechanic, Sid Meir made Sim City, Lucas Arts made Maniac Mansion – all of these impacted the way game were made forever after. Heavy Rain will now be added to that list as it’s not so much the game that will stand the test of time, but the ideas and the achievements it has made in pushing interactive popular entertainment. This game should be compulsory for anyone who considers themselves a hard core gamer, or even has the faintest interest after looking at the demo. This title has it’s faults and no mistake and I hope to god that enough people buy it to allow Quantic Dreams to make a sequel as with a little more refinement to the game side, fleshed out characters and a slightly better story this would be perfect.
Madison looking moody in her granny pants.. sexy!
Final Thoughts:
As a game I rate Heavy Rain as a solid 7/10, as a technological & artistic demonstration piece I rate it a 20/10. Combine this package together and you get the score levelled above. As such I still feel that rating it as a “game” is unfair. This transcends gaming as you currently know it. Sure it has flaws, the voice acting is patchy, there are technical glitches, the branching story is a slight gimmick and the story is a TV movie at best BUT, this is a watershed moment for interactive storytelling. I can not emphasis enough how much I enjoyed being involved in this game and the awe that hits you at the incredible accomplishments of the Quantic team and the guts of SCEE for sticking this project out. No other platform manufacturer would of made this game I am almost 100% certain of that. This is an experience that even someone with a vague interest in the concept of Heavy Rain should experience without hesitation – when they ask, tell them you were there when gaming changed.
