Review: Binary Domain

Binary Domain is... an interesting game, to say the least. After playing Gears Of War 3 towards the end of 2011, I was craving for another cover based third person shooter, and Sega (of all companies) heard me. Then came Binary Domain, which felt like Gears Of War... with robots instead of aliens-- what the fuck, wasn't that basically what Vanquish was? Well, not quite, because Vanquish had a huge sense of speed thanks to the thrusters in your suit. Binary Domain doesn't have that, and although it does have a gimmick, it didn't do much to the game, and overall, it just felt like Gears Of War with robots. Now, I don't have a problem with that because I like Gears Of War. Not my favorite games in the world, but it's a fairly strong trilogy, so eh, let's go with what works. Does Binary Domain hit a home run, or does it just feel like an inferior clone? I bet you've figured out the answer, so... if you want the answer, read on.

At first, Binary Domain is about two guys, Dan and Bo, who have to go to Japan and find Yoji Amada to bring him in for questioning because he was the guy who created the hollow child (basically what a hollow child is is a robot that's a lot like a human, but without human weaknesses... and it gets to the point where they believe they're humans themselves) that attacked Bergen's Headquarters. Why? Well, the people at Bergen believed that the Amada Corporation wanted to get back at them because Amada sued Bergen for stealing the technology used to make hollow children. The story starts off fairly convoluted as it chucks a lot at you at once, plus it starts off boring because the characters are either giving you bits of the story or are spewing mostly unfunny one liners, but as you proceed, you'll eventually find yourself getting invested into Dan and his love interest you meet an hour into the game, Faye. Eventually, the story starts to make sense as it develops, and as a result, the second half becomes very addicting because you'll want to know what they'll do next, and there's even some philosophical stuff like what it is to be human. Nothing deep, but it's enough to keep you coming back, so whatever. It's pretty much a slow burner, which isn't a good thing for shooters that are like 8 hours long, but it does pay off when you find yourself really getting invested into the story.

But yeah, if you've played Gears Of War, you'll immediately have an idea of how this plays out. If not, well, what you have to do is go through a set of corridors and open areas to fight the next wave of bad guys. When you encounter said bad guys, you duck into cover and shoot them in the head. While Binary Domain boasts a decent arsenal of pistols, machine guns, a shotgun and a rocket launcher, god, it's so much easier to just fill two weapon slots with machine guns and one with a pistol. The shotgun is fine if you're getting into plenty of close quarter encounters, but it's better to chill in cover, and since rocket launchers carry fuck all, well, you're limited to machine guns and pistols there. Then you're given grenades and EMPs, and at least they have their purposes in fucking shit up.

The thing with the robots is that you pretty much need to either shoot their bodies off or shoot them in the head in order to truly kill them. Getting them in the legs will cause them to drag themselves up to you and basically hump your leg. So yeah, get them in the body or the head. I can name all the games that make hitting the right limbs mean the difference between using a bullet or two and wasting a whole clip on one hand - Goldeneye, Perfect Dark and the two Dead Space games. An interesting thing you can do is blow off their heads and have them shoot each other... I don't know why they're not just firing blindly everywhere, but I'll take it!

Another interesting thing is that boss fights are different from enemy fights. While enemies require you to blow off their heads while you're in cover, bosses tend to require different strategies. Even if it boils down to finding the rocket launcher, constantly resupplying it with ammo and shooting down the targets without getting yourself blown up, it's still something different and as a result, it does feel like you're fighting a boss and not just an enemy with more HP. A couple of the bosses were pretty frustrating, especially the final boss, which delivers more explosions than the average Michael Bay movie, and since Dan's actions get delayed because of the impact - not to mention kill his squadmates and force him to revive them since if one dies, it's game over, restart from the last checkpoint - it becomes a right pain in the ass. But beyond that, the fights are tricky and extreme enough to keep you on your toes as you'll constantly be in danger of getting blown up. Just... yeah, some of them get to the point of overkill...

So that's the shooting, which is actually pretty fun because there's always shit to blow up and some situations get frantic, which really keep you interested. Sadly, everything else isn't up to snuff. The customization (like stat buffs and shit) isn't as well executed as it could've been. It works to a degree with Dan since you're in control of him the whole time, but with the teammates, all that works with them is letting them carry more medkits because... fuck, I can't tell if the others are making them better soldiers. Ditto for the voice commanding, for that matter. If you got a headset, you can issue commands to your squadmates. I like this idea, but it's executed pretty poorly, mainly because they don't seem to understand what you're saying. I guess it has to do with my voice because I kind of sound like Christian Bale's Batman when he tries to be intimidating, but at times when I'm just sitting there, it thinks I'm dropping f-bombs and my squadmates are like "dude what the fuck". Their AI isn't terrible - at least they shoot the enemies and remember to revive you if you issue the command (sometime most shooters' AI wouldn't ever do), so yeah, it's definitely the voice commanding itself that'll fuck you over. Stick with issuing commands via holding the left bumper and pressing the corresponding face button - it's much easier and they'll actually do it. The trust feature is another idea I like, but it's underdeveloped at best since it doesn't really matter, unless you're going for achievements. Unless you fire at them like a thousand times, it'll never reach a level where they'll ignore you, so it just feels like an arbitrary addition at best. Ditto for conversations where you reaction will either increase or decrease the trust, because half of them have random answers that'll increase the trust... I don't even care, I just focused on kicking ass because that seems to raise trust as well.

But if you want underutilized, try the multiplayer. You'll either fight in free for all matches or team deathmatches... oh, and a horde mode of sorts where you have to kill waves upon waves of robots... sheesh, no wonder bugger all people are online - Gears Of War has more to do! Shit, Soul Calibur 5 has more to do, and that game was rushed. I mean, they work competently enough, no problem there, but if you're going to have multiplayer, go the whole 9 yards not for my sake, but for everybody else's sake... well, unless you want people going back to Halo, Call Of Duty or Gears Of War for more online fun. I also had no desire to replay the game because of the slow intro, and the last boss... just no.

Can't say I liked the visuals all that much though. From a technical standpoint, they feel unpolished. I noticed a good amount of lag when there's a lot going on, and some screen tears here and there. Not to mention, some textures look a little lackluster, like they could use an extra coat to make them shine. The character models could also be considered butterfaces, because their skin is a bit muddy... might have to do with the washed out colors, I guess? But thankfully, it does have a lot of interesting designs, like the different sorts of robots - big or small, they each felt different, not to mention that they just look pretty good, and whoever designed the bigger ones definitely knew about scope because shit, they definitely feel as big as they look. Ditto for the set pieces - despite overall mediocre graphics, there's definitely a sense of scope put into each of them as they look fantastic. Just wish the technology was there (and if it was, then I wish it was utilized better).

The sound department was alright to say the least. The soundtrack is far from memorable and it didn't really have much, if anything in the way of ambiance either. None of the tracks made me feel the emotions I was meant to feel during to cutscenes or inspire me to kick ass during gameplay. Instead, it just existed for the sake of existing. The voice acting was hit and miss - some of it was good, but for the most part, it was just serviceable. Nothing that'll set a scene alight, but nothing that'll ruin it either. Overall, not bad, but not quite good either.

Binary Domain was a good game. Not great, not an underrated masterpiece... maybe the sleeper hit of 2012, but at the end of the day, it was a pretty good game that managed to keep me entertained, especially during the second half. Actually, if all of the game was like the second half, then I'd believe all the claims of it being great and all that. As it is, it's a good game that can pull off gunfights quite well and keep you engaged in its story during the second half. However, I can't really ignore the underdeveloped trust system, poor voice commanding and tacked on multiplayer - all of that does hurt it in the long run, because you just expect more out of it all.

7.5/10 (Good)

Review: Assassin's Creed

When I first heard about Assassin's Creed, I thought that it'd be like Hitman set in the 1100s. What I didn't know was that it was going to be a sandbox-y game, with large environments that hosted a series of missions... that repeated over and over and over and over again, and could barely be considered missions at times. The best way to sum up Assassin's Creed is that how much you enjoy the first half of the game is in inverse proportion to how much you'll enjoy the second half, but that's if you actually enjoyed the first half at all, because an enjoyment level of 0 or less... just lowers and lowers as you progress.

Assassin's Creed starts off with some guy named Desmond being put into some machine known as the Animus, which allows the person laying on it to relive the life of one of their ancestors. Cool concept, I know, but beyond that, Desmond has no purpose. Sources may speculate that this was a last minute addition, but whether that's true or not doesn't stop it from seeming like a waste of time whenever you're forced to control Desmond again. “oh but surely the ending will make it all worth it” - fuck no! It barely felt like the ending... more like a plot twist halfway through a story! It's like “ooh yeah shit's about to get intense with... whatever the fuck that's meant to be” (and I'm not hiding anything – I wasn't sure what was going on either and nobody is willing to say anything about it either, until the sequel that is). In the end, the ending was very disappointing and left me with way too many questions for it to feel like an ending.

Ooh, but who is this ancestor? Why, Altair, of course! Altair is an assassin who, while trying to recover an incredibly important artefact, broke the three rules of his clan, and is thus stripped of his rank. Yes, even though this artefact is built up to be this big thing that can determine the fate of the world... nope, let's strip him of his rank anyway. Something's fishy and dammit, if it takes the entire game to satisfy my curiosity, then SO BE IT! Anyway, to restore his rank, he has to assassinate nine key figures of the Third Crusade to stop them from taking over the world... and they're not your typical bad guys. They're people who want to do good for the world, but the way they go about it is evil, so that's why they have to die.

Now, this could be really cool and make up for Desmond's lack of story, right? Ehh, not quite. The concept is pretty cool, and the execution is technically competent, managing to at least explain what's going on and flow cohesively, but does it have to be soo boring!? Besides the historical accuracy (which is either pretty damn close to being dead on or not quite right, depending on what textbook you've studied), it doesn't have a whole heap going for it that'll maintain your interest. The plot develops at one point, and then it just goes nowhere until the next development or twist. Until then, it just plods along, hoping that you get a boner for historical accuracy to make up for it. Actually, I'm sure somebody will debate whether this is historically accurate, but you know what, who really knows what happened? It's as one of the characters said - “do you believe it because it's in the history books? After all, history is written by the victor”. Think about it...

But yeah, usually, the gameplay makes up for that kind of thing... and for a while, it does. I don't know about everyone else who has played it, but free running on rooftops is something that's always interesting, even if all you're basically doing is holding the left stick forward while holding down R1 and X. Maybe it has something to do with the designs of the towns you explore? I'd say so. The towns are designed very fucking similarly, but that's cool, because exploring them is still fun anyway. Maybe it's just the simplicity that keeps you in some sort of hypnotic trance, wanting to uncover each square of each city for flags (which do jack shit, by the way)... that's about as far as it goes.

Sadly, the combat could never put me in the same trance. It's simple as well – either hold R1 and press square as they're about to attack or just molest the square button... no, seriously, that's all you do. “But Lukas, there are other commands like sidestepping, grabbing and more”. Okay, first off, a lot of these commands are unlocked as you proceed through the game. That's complete horse shit because these commands ought to be with you from the start. Secondly, and I feel that this is the big thing... there's basically fuck all need to do any of that when you can simply do what I suggested, because that'll manage to get you through the game! But what really frustrates me is that after a few fights, it starts to feel clunky. I mean, sure, your strikes and counters may feel alright, but sidestepping and the like... holy hell, what is this shit!? Eventually, combat winds up being this thing to dread because it just gets boring and tedious, and it honestly shouldn't ever get to that point, but here we are, at that point.

There ARE some legitimate attempts at trying to make this feel more like Hitman. Sometimes, you'll be given missions in which you have to kill specific guards and make sure no other guards catch you in the act or suspect you when they see the dead bodies. This is done either through the art of blending in with the crowd and using your hidden blade when you're sure nobody else can suspect you, or using throwing daggers. A lot of these missions are timed, which would make you think that you really ought to get your timing down, but actually, all it feels like is that you have to rush everything. Sounds fine, but given that this is meant to be stealthy, it's not so dandy in execution because when it comes right down to it, stealth is about waiting for the right moment to strike, and a time limit doesn't exactly make you think that it's okay to wait for that opportunity. I mean yeah, you can keep at it and develop the right timing to kill them all and get back to the mission marker, but honestly, in the year 2007, trial and error of a bullshit calibur like this should be fucking extinct... Oh, and you can't skip the dialogue from the assassin that gives you the mission... you can see how tedious this gets, right? Good idea, not so good execution.

Sadly, those are the only missions really worth a damn, because all of the others bite ass! The only other remotely stealthy mission is pickpocketing, but all it is, is that you have to sneak up to them, make sure they're not looking at you, and hold circle. Wow. But that's nothing. Try this one where you have to find a bench to sit on and then lock onto a specific person so you can eavesdrop on their conversation. Doing fuck all not your cup of tea? Don't worry – some people need a good punch in the face so that they'll spill the beans on your target, and then it basically becomes square, R1, square, R1, and rinse, lather, repeat. Oh sure, they'll send their mates out to gang up on you, but as long as you punch the mother hen enough, she'll crack and the chicks will leave you alone. Oh, and remember those other assassins I briefly mentioned? They don't just offer assassination missions – they'll also offer runs where you have to get some flags, and the only difficulty you'll run into is a moment when the controls decide to screw up. Honestly, assassination missions aside, these all feel like those sidequests you do in a sandbox game just to get a few more in game bucks. There's pretty much nothing to them except the same exact crap over and over again, and in the end, you're just wishing you could skip this crap so you can get to the main meat of the game!

Actually, there's one thing that really needs to be said – this game has a ton of commands. Like, more than a PS3 controller can handle. They do alleviate this by having you press or hold a shoulder button to access the appropriate commands for the situation, but not completely. See, the issue is that at times when you jump off of buildings, you'll never know what kind of jump you'll perform. Sometimes, you'll do what you want, and other times, you'll go the wrong way. At times, you'll jump when you don't want to jump. So in other words, the jumping is fairly iffy at the worst of times.

But yeah, once you do enough of these preliminary missions, you can head back to the guild and then get started on actually killing your target, which involves getting to where they are, hearing a speech or three, and then either fighting them or chasing them while mowing down their cronies. Fighting them is not really any different from fighting any of the guards, except these guys have more endurance and you can't counterattack then. Big whoop. Nothing about these fights is really exciting or even good, and you know what, I don't feel like repeating myself so let's talk about when you have to chase them. You basically run towards them, get out your hidden blade and when you're close enough, hit square and watch Altair jump and stab him in the throat. These are more exciting because there's... more to do! Seriously, it's one thing to fight them – it's another to barge through a series of cronies to get to them. As well as quiet killings, singling out a target and stabbing them is a way to assassinate them... not the best way and I don't think we'll be seeing Agent 47 doing that anytime soon, but given that this is a video game that's trying to find its audience, eh, why not?

I will say that the graphics do look pretty amazing... if you judge just by the environments and buildings. The human models are technically inferior and clash on a stylistic level with everything else. Seriously, they look like they came fresh out of a PS2 game from 2003 while the buildings and environments appear to be state of the fucking art! Same with the blood splatters, they just look silly. It's like they didn't finish rendering those... if you want me to paint you a picture here, imagine that you did a damn fine drawing of somebody with some oil crayons. That's basically what they look like. Then put in some buildings, environments and Altair's robe, all looking like they were made with some damn detailed textures that made everything look spot bloody on, like they would in real life. If that's not enough, then there's not much I can really do... except add that because they look so good, the game has some serious screen tearing and lag issues. The lagging isn't all that often, but screen tearing... holy shit, it pops up fairly often. It's a shame, because damn, this game looks good!

When it comes to the sound department, there isn't a whole lot to say. The soundtrack had barely any presence throughout the whole game. Yeah, it sounded okay, but it didn't really add to much. Not even its most intense tracks got me into the fighting, even back when I liked it (which was at like the first hour of the game). Ah well. The voice acting was hit and miss. The folks at Abstergo (where the Animus is) sound good, especially the doctor who has that kind of voice that makes you suspect something about him (that's how I felt, it's not a spoiler in any way guys). Altair sounds alright, but really out of place... I mean, since when did Middle Eastern folks in the 12^th century sound like a modern day American? Just putting that out there. The Middle Eastern folks themselves sound alright, but the citizens get annoying repeating the same dialogue. But really, it's all nothing special, except the doctor who sounds just right, and Altair who sounds completely out of place.

So yeah, that's Assassin's Creed for you. It's a game with great ideas, but mediocre execution, and not enough steam to carry a whole game. That's what shits me in the end – it had some really good ideas, like a 12th century Hitman game, with a sci-fi premise of sorts and themes of redemption and corruption. But nope, what could've been cool is just flat and not worth playing through, because it just doesn't have any endurance. What starts off as a good game becomes an exercise in redundancy with side mission quality tasks and just the overall feeling of disappointment and mediocrity.

6/10 (Above Average)

Short Update + Some indie dev not named Notch reckons games aren't adult enough

First off, I'm so sorry that none of us have updated this blog in a few months. To make a long story short, we've been having personal problems - some with each other, some in general, and after all that was said and done, we've found ourselves becoming uninspired. I don't know if they'll come back - in fact, DT Jesus had asked me to take her off the author list because her heart wasn't really in it anymore. But then I found this, and suddenly, I felt like writing again! Joy!

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-18-journey-creator-games-are-not-good-enough-for-adults

To put it simply, games these days don't have much if any intellectual stimulation, but rather, they're about getting headshots.

First off, anybody who thinks this generation is nothing but shooters is fucking ignorant. There are PLENTY of non shooters in this generation. Perhaps they're not as well advertised as the shooters, but even then, the only shooters that get advertised are Modirn Gayfuckstupid and Campfield. Hardly a "generation of nothing but shooters". Maybe this is more of an attack on idiots who probably don't even have a current generation system than towards Chen, but that's the vibe I got from the article - that, and how fucking pretentious he (like all indie developers) is, but more on that later.

Second off, while I liked Journey, it wasn't exactly the holy grail of gaming that anybody claimed it was. It was an emotional experience that touched your very soul, but honestly, I couldn't stand to play it a second time because all it had going for it was emotion. It wore off after the first time and all I felt like doing was exiting out of the game to play me some Split/Second because that game was at least a lot of fun (besides the fucken rubber band AI). Journey didn't really have much in the way of gameplay, which I was able to overlook the first time due to the sheer scope of the game and the emotions it conveyed, but cannot overlook the second time because it's worn off, and all you're doing is walking and maybe floating around every now and again. Look, I like simple, but it gets to a point where it bores me rather than keeping me entertained, and honestly, if there is no fun, then there has to be something else that's captivating, and if that something else falters, the entire game dies despite its technical capabilities or style. It's like listening to hipster black metal bands like Wolves In The Throne Room and Alcest - it's endearing the first time, but pretty meh the second time around, and just gets worse. At least, that's how it gets for me, anyway. But hey, if you want to go by the whole "video games are art" thing, then you pretty much have to accept my interpretation of it - isn't that what art elicits? A whole heap of different interpretations from a whole heap of different people? Sure, most art gets the same reaction, but more often than not, it comes from sheeple who don't really know what they're talking about.

Finally, with both of the above points taken into consideration, Chen thinks that games with fun and excitement are for those with ADD or are for children. Again, that's what I got out of it, maybe he meant something else (arthouse people tend to think that one thing has 7 billion meanings, which I think is a means of covering their asses when somebody calls them out on their bullshit... kinda like what I'm doing right now), but I'm willing to be that he thinks fun and excitement is childish and that all a game needs is emotion and intellectual stimulation. Basically, the more artsy, the better. Basically, shit that'll empower indie developers who don't know the first thing about designing a game (ie. Braid's designers). Honestly, I want to believe that Chen is raising some good points, but going by what he's developed, I can't, because I've always believed that a game has to be fun above all else, and Journey wasn't exactly fun for me.

The only indie games I like are Bastion, Shank, Deathspank, Recettear, Limbo, Journey and Sequence, but guess why that is? BECAUSE THEY'RE FUN! Holy shit, who cares about the technical aspects of a game or how artistic it is when it's not even fun?

Review: Kingdom Hearts

Everybody has a favorite from their childhoods, whether it's Space Invaders, Pitfall, Super Mario Brothers, Sonic The Hedgehog, Earthworm Jim, Ocarina Of Time or Banjo-Kazooie... and Kingdom Hearts was my absolute favorite game as a kid. Even if I didn't know what to do and I had to resort to Gamefaqs to pass a bit or two, it was still a game I loved dearly. All the Disney characters, all the Disney worlds, and the fun combat – it just clicked and really kicked ass at doing so. Eventually, you revisit a childhood memory and find yourself analyzing it with a more adult mind (well, as adult as a near-20 year old can get), like why did you love it so much and was it as good as it was? Honestly, unless your old favorite was something like Metal Gear Solid or Super Mario Brothers 3, fuck no it wasn't! You realize that some screws were actually loose that were too small for your 7 year old eyes to see, but somehow, your 20 year old eyes can see them, and oh boy, Kingdom Hearts is quite an example of this. Still a fun game, no doubt about that, but come on, it's no masterpiece.

The basic idea of the story is that three teenagers from an island are seperated across the universe when the world's about to get destroyed. But amidst the chaos, Riku disappears into the darkness, Sora gets the Keyblade out of it and Kairi just disappears in Sora's arms. Meanwhile, King Mickey suddenly leaves the Disney Castle on a mission, leaving a note for Goofy and Donald, which tells them to look for the wielder of the Keyblade because he/she's important to save the world. Goofy and Donald meet up with Sora and they travel the universe to slay the evil Heartless and the even more evil Disney villains (from big boss Maleficent, to grunts like Captain Hook and Jafar) before they destroy the universe.

There are a few things that really stand out – for one thing, it's not so much about the original story as it is about Disney fanservice. You basically relive parts of a bunch of movies like Tarzan, Aladdin and The Little Mermaid, except there are Heartless in them causing trouble. Honestly speaking, this is when the story is at its best – fanservice done right, if you ask me. It's fun going through these worlds, interacting with various Disney characters. In fact, just seeing them is awesome, like “man what are we/they going to do?” However, the game has an original story going on, and while the allies are stuck in their own stories, the villains sure as hell aren't, and...

...it sucks. I seriously spent more time picking on the plotholes, nonsensical bullshit and some questionable dialogue with my mates than actually get absorbed into it, and I'm sure you could make a drinking game out of it. For instance, take a drink anytime a plot element is introduced with barely any build up that should've been given some, and take two drinks if has no resolution... and four if it has a half assed resolution. Trust me, you'll be drunk off your dick by the time this is over, and that's just the very beginning. It's up to you how many you do for awkward dialogue, half assed character development and... just generally being a mess. Sure, it seemed good when you were a kid, especially with the Final Fantasy characters making cameos (but only actually doing something beyond some exposition towards the end), but then you learn about decent storytelling, and about how it has to have some form of coherence, and if it's not going to make sense, then it should at least be pretty damn cool... which this is far from, since a lot of the time, it just screws around, hoping it'll all fall into place, or at its most desperate, let nostalgia take over. It sucks, because there was potential for a good or at least a decent story in there somewhere, but instead, it's just a cut above the narcfest that was Cartoon All Stars To The Rescue... which doesn't say much, I'm afraid. Thankfully, it only really comes into play during the last third of the game.

Until then, it's time to get out your large keys and whack the hell out of whatever pack of enemies come your way! Combat is fairly basic – in fact, most of what it comes down to is hammering the X button, while often moving out of the way to dodge enemy attacks. There are no fancy combos (well, until you learn some at key points throughout the game), no light and heavy attacks and certainly no room for advanced tactics. Sounds bad, I know, but that's where the variety of enemies comes into play. I mean, you have your typical weak Heartless and brands of stronger ones, but you also deal with aerial enemies (some fast, some not so far), spellcasters and frontally defensive (usually blobs with heads, hands and feet) types. That alone has the capcity to keep the game fresh, and add the fact that only a few of them are consistent, I'd say it stays fresh. Just goes to show what enemy variety can really do if your combat engine is a bit “eh”.

But yeah, you can learn abilities, most of which range from adding an extra hit to your basic combo to passive abilities (for instance, you'll either get more HP/MP/Munny balls or rarer treasures when you kill enemies), but the best come in the form of combos. Accessed from the battle menu (the only menu that can be used in real time), you'll unleash a combo that can really fuck shit up and you'll be immune the whole time. They have the potential to be great, but they're usually reserved for when you're in a jam and have a decent amount of MP left. The other abilities can be quite helpful either during battle or just in a pinch, but unlike the sequel where they make Sora overpowered, they actually give you a fighting chance against some of the bosses, particularly the later ones.

So beyond enemy variety, what keeps this game interesting if there isn't much to the combat? Why, looking forward to the next boss, of course, and the bosses are mostly well designed. Yeah, a couple of them suck balls, but the rest make up for it. Theoretically, they require you to smack them senseless, but there's always a method to their madness, like how some of them have two targets (the infamous Stealth Sneak + Clayton combo – by the way, how the fuck does a shotgun suddenly fire like a sniper rifle? TELL ME), or spam certain attacks, but as you'd expect, the idea is to hit them when the times are right. The thing with these bosses is that it's so much fun just figuring out their motives and countering them. Even if the combat engine itself isn't the greatest and the difficulty pacing is a little all over the place (the aforementioned Stealth Sneak is only the fourth boss, and it'll be a fair few more bosses down the line before you fight one that's harder), they really manage to make something work out quite well.

But this game has some huge gameplay problems. For one thing, the camera fucking sucks. The only way to move it is by using the shoulder buttons... no right stick is involved; just the shoulder buttons. Now, when you target enemies (which in and of itself is a bit on the schizophrenic side of the fence), you use the shoulder buttons to change targets. Putting two and two together basically says “yeah this fucking sucks”. Plus when you're dealing with enemies that constantly move, it goes all over the place, which can make fighting them much harder than it ought to be. Oh, and only controlling the x-axis is not only really outdated, but also very limiting when against flying enemies.

Another thing is that some levels are designed pretty badly. Most of them are fairly linear and merely require finding where the next cutscene lies, but some are ridiculous. To be fair, it's all in the first half, but the last of them is a doozy and a half, requiring you to fuck about in the depths of some ruins. While the rest simply required trial and error, this one required Gamefaqs because holy shit, what the fuck am I supposed to do!? How did I know I was meant to fall into a pit and swim around... shit, since when could you SWIM UP WATERFALLS!? They're not really big, but still, that's something not even Bear Grylls's cameraman could do, let alone some kid with a big key and three timeless cartoon characters.

Might I also add that the only way to travel between worlds at first is to go through a shoot em up segment, flying through space while shooting up Heartless ships – and man, these segments are dull! Even in the second half of the game when there's more ships to shoot and obstacles to dodge, eh, the only time you feel something positive is when you get to the next world and be thankful for the warp drive being installed into your ship after a while, especially for the Donkey Kong 64-ish sidequests (in which you collect shit like the iconic 101 Dalmations and the Trinity Marks) and optional bosses (including fan favorite Sephiroth... I wish there were more Final Fantasy bosses, but whatever). It's mainly because the enemy ships don't exactly pose a threat as long as you move around and hold X (the shoot button). There aren't any bosses here, so all you fight are grunts. Thankfully, it never takes too long... at least if you go by your stopwatch, but it sure feels like forever since your ship moves fairly slowly, even at its supposed “fastest”. As for actually building your ship, eh, I just fuck about with various parts and see what fits, and I'm sure you would too. Nothing really good. Maybe adequate, but it's a decent cure for insomnia.

Finally, whenever you're forced to platform, you'll be subject to some rather crap controls. Jumping from platform to platform is made hard with how stiff it feels. It's not quite as stiff as, say, Castlevania on the NES, but suffice it to say, the few platforming segments that are (thankfully only) in the first half of the game will be a bit of a pain in the dick.

There were certainly no punches pulled in the graphics department. Some lip syncing issues aside (didn't know some two syllable words suddenly had six but okay), the visuals are bloody stunning! The locations are appropriately colorful, with green jungles and blue seas, while the character models definitely look the part – whether that means like their 2D animated selves in 3D or possible post-Nintendo Final Fantasy characters, whatever the case may be, they look great. Maybe the character designer had a zipper fetish if you look at Sora's outfit (and it gets worse in the next game), but it's overlookable, especially considering that the environments have a good amount of detail and stand out enough to make small details seem smaller. Oh, and the opening and closing cutscenes... back in 2002, they looked fucken real, I swear! I mean nowadays, they look like something out of a Pixar animation, but the amount of detail put into each of the models in these scenes was pretty unreal for that time and even now, it still looks pretty impressive.

The sound design is a touch hit and miss. For instance, a lot of characters have good voice acting like Riku and Ansem, but some of the Disney cast and a lot of the Final Fantasy cast... nah, they just don't really sound too good, like they couldn't care less about the game and just want their cheque. Ah well, can't let a few small rotten apples spoil a lot of big juicy ones. The soundtrack is especially on the hit and miss side of the fence – not that any of the songs are bad or anything, but the level tracks (both battle and non-battle tunes) can get a bit grating when you're spending a lot of time navigating through a level, plus the songs themselves, while good, aren't much to shake a stick at. But it's all worth it, just to hear the glorious boss themes (depending on the boss). Good fucking god, these songs are epic and can make a boss battle really come to life with some intense symphonic tracks! It's tracks like those that can really strenghten a game...

Kingdom Hearts is quite a mess if you look at it from a logical designing point of view. So many instances that could've been redone, so many that could've used some rewriting and so many plot points that could've used better foreshadowing and resolution. But if you're looking at it from an emotional point of view, you really can't hate this game too much. It's just so much fun interacting and fighting alongside/against Disney characters, and the combat itself when you weren't wresting the camera was very fun. Add the awesome soundtrack and mostly excellent graphics, and you've got yourself a game that's technically mediocre, but emotionally pretty good.

7/10 (Good)

Trying to understand certain games

What I mean by the title is that at times, it's very easy to look at certain games in the wrong light. I mean, there are obvious ones like treating Zelda as an RPG, The Elder Scrolls as a pure sandbox/adventure game (instead of an RPG) or any JRPG as an actual RPG (which is why I think anybody who hates Final Fantasy XIII for being too linear is mentally deficient and needs to actually play some JRPGs before shooting the shit). If you look at them as they are and not what they aren't, then it's very easy to get a decent review out of you, unless you don't have much of a vocabulary or standards.

Then you have some not-so obvious ones, like reviewing LA Noire... I mean, how the fuck do you review it? Do you review it as a movie or as a game? Well, trying to review it as a game will result in nothing but bitching about how half assed it all feels - a few shooter segments are alright, but everything else seems to be slapped on there because we need to attract the 13 year old GTA fans. Not to mention, IT HOLDS YOUR FUCKING HAND! It never, ever, ever penalizes you for fucking up. Get a question wrong? Oh well, story goes on. Die a few times? Choose to skip it and the story goes on. Looking for items? Well, you can turn off the chime and visual hints, but then it becomes a pixel hunter, and seriously, who the fuck actually wants this in 2011? So yeah, you can't exactly review it as a game, no matter how hard it tries to be one.

So you look at it as a movie, and why not - the story is what keeps you playing despite the mediocre gameplay. So let's think about it... the setting itself is neat. Imagine it, a late 40s LA full of crime. Our character is a war vet with quite the potentially interesting past and a personality that should be the foil to more casual officers. What do we actually get, though? The first half of the game (which is about 7 1/2 hours, longer than many games out on the market nowadays) focuses on setting up the second half while focusing on individual murder stories, only linking them up a bit later on and resolving it before the end of the first half. The second half really gets the story moving... about fucking time! Unfortunately, it makes the mistake of just throwing a twist right in your face with very, very little build up. It's extremely contrived and would've actually done the story a lot of good if there was more build up. Another twist kind of suffers from this, though at least you get some clarification... at the end of the game, plus I guess there's some implied build up... lazy writing, but whatever. As a story driven game, it at least keeps you interested, but mostly through dick moves like taking forever to get going and leaving out details that really, really ought to be there. No, I don't expect it to be blatant, but throw me a fucking bone! Don't give out the vaguest detail and then throw the entire kitchen at me!

At the risk of making everything in this post irrelevant, I look at games not only as a whole, but piece by piece. Are the sum of its parts any good? Do they help make the game good or fun? Is the game supposed to be fun as a whole, or is it supposed to be an experience? Is it a niche game or is it meant for the whole family? Does nostalgia force me to hold my criticisms back or does it make me want to be a lot harder on it? So many factors can go into a review and it starts to become more and more obvious as you review - when I first started reviewing, all I thought about was whether it was fun and good or not and couldn't give a fuck about much else, even replay value (of the review). Now? I keep audience, the sum of its parts and how they impact the game itself, and what kind of game it is, all while trying to keep it interesting, because people are so far up their own asses about reviews (derr i dont wanna read reviews because i should decide for myself) that it's not worth doing up a buyer's guide. No, I try to be more interesting with them, and I'll leave the buyer's guide to the paid reviewers because that's their job and most of them lost their passion for giving a fuck years ago (especially the suits over at IGN and Gametrailers).

In short, the basics of assessing a game (like playstyle, focus and genre) varies from game to game, but the intricacies (like what you look for in playstyle, focus and genre) depend on you. Also love how this practically turned into a short review of LA Noire. Speaking of cinematic games, I can't fucken wait until I get Asura's Wrath in the mail!

Get Into: Devil May Cry 3

This will be an easy thing to do since the HD Collection is well on its way and I'm sure you've already got this on your PS2, but in the event that you don't feel like buying the HD Collection for whatever reason (already got the PS2 games [like me], don't want to support them, got other games to play) or you didn't get it on PS2 (or a PS2 period), well, that's why I'm writing up this blog post. Unfortunately, should you get the HD Collection, that means you're also getting the antichrist that is Devil May Cry 2, but honestly, Devil May Cry 3 is one of the best games ever made, so I'd say it's worth it just for that alone, and the first game ain't too shabby either.

Devil May Cry 3 takes place well before Devil May Cry 1, like how Castlevania 3 takes place well before Castlevania 1, though you still play as Dante instead of playing as his ancestor. You basically have to stop his half brother, Vergil, from trying to connect the demon and human worlds, which would destroy the human race. Even though that sounds interesting, the plot is far from the reason to care for the cutscenes - it's Dante who makes them work. His cocky personality and one liners are enough to make any gamer either like or hate him, and.. I think he's awesome. I found him to be a potentially cool character in the first game, then he lost his personality in the second game, so to fix it up, well, that's why this game is a prequel.

But yeah, the reason Devil May Cry works so well is the combat engine. It feels so smooth and yet so insane that you can't help but keep playing it, even when you're getting your ass handed to you and have to start at the beginning of the level... ooh yeah, it's a hard motherfucker, especially the original edition of Devil May Cry 3 in America and Europe, whose normal mode is actually the Japanese hard mode... whoops Capcom, but we forgive you for balancing it out in the special edition, plus being able to play as Vergil? Shit yeah! But yeah, despite the fact that enemies hit hard, healing items are few and far between, levels can be long and bosses can be a real test of skill, the way the combat engine is done is just fantastic. It will keep you coming back because you know it's your fault for dying, and you want to beat the game so you can feel like a real man! That's the kind of difficulty I like - one that encourages you to get better, and is unforgiving, but is still well designed. Devil May Cry 3 is still a great game to play, which is not quite what I would say about a lot of hack and slash games during the sixth generation (in fact, the only others worth a damn would be Prince Of Persia and Ninja Gaiden - the rest just don't have that oomph if you ask me).

Get Into: Rogue Trooper

Based off of a comic book of the same name, Rogue Trooper is a third person shooter that does everything in its power to be an excellent piece of science fiction. It's basically what would happen if the Civil War took place in the future, used chemical and biological weapons and the South had access to genetically enhanced soldiers. Sadly for the South, the North caught wind of their plan via a traitor, and the North destroy all but one of the super soldiers - the one having gone AWOL to look for the traitor.

It's certainly one of the more flexible shooters - you could go in John Rambo style, go in Solid Snake style while placing turrets, or use holograms as distractions. You can use the environment to your advantage by hiding behint crates and shit. This was released after Kill.Switch and Winback, which first utilized these features, but before Gears Of War overused the fuck out of them. No matter what route you choose, it's a blast to just fuck shit up. The action is intense and every moment will feel like a fun roller coaster ride, only without you puking. It's so fun that it ends before you know it - although it's only like 5 hours long, which is bullshit, but those will be some of the best 5 hours you'll ever have, gaming-wise.