Review: Dishonored

Despite what any paid reviewer will tell you, the stealth genre is practically dead. Most of the old guard have degraded into action games with maybe the odd stealth segment or some minor stealth influence – the biggest offender being Splinter Cell: Conviction. Ugh. That's not to mention the fact that Metal Gear Solid 4 was more concerned with boring you to death with 30 minute cutscenes than actual stealth gameplay. Worst yet, I'll probably be collecting social security checks by the time Thief 4 comes out. But there's always hope. Meet Dishonored, a product by Arkane Studios... who brought to you Dark Messiah Of Might And Magic (which is a pretty good RPG if you ask me). But whilst being marketed as a stealth game, you can play this as either that or an action game, and unfortunately, the action route is significantly better. Not that the stealth route is bad because it's still playable, but playing it like an action game is undoubtably a million times better.

One thing I didn't like is the story. Corvo is the royal protector of the empress of Dunwell. But after he returns from a trip elsewhere to find out a way to stop a plague that's killed half of Dunwell, he finds out that the empress had been assassinated and her daughter got kidnapped – and to top it all off. he got framed for it. From there, he has to take revenge on them while rescuing her kidnapped daughter. The story's biggest strength is its lore. As you explore around the city, you'll find various sidequests, books, journal pages, notes and audio files laying about that will tell you more about the background of where you are and what situation you're in. However, when it comes to the present and future, it's not quite there. Revenge is often a good beginning point for something bigger, but Dishonored sticks with it throughout the entire game with maybe a twist towards the end. Said twist is... pretty bland as the characterization beforehand is virtually non-existent and the delivery felt like it was written on toilet paper after the writer ate McDonald's.

There are two endings that you can acquire – one is attainable through playing the game as a sneaking pacifist, and the other is attainable through killing a lot of people. It's all calculated by your Chaos score, which is determined by how many people you kill. If you're going for the good ending, you'll pretty much need to avoid detection and the urge to kill any plague victims (yeah, apparently there's a plague going around Dunwell), but if you want the bad ending, eh, go nuts. Having said that, even the multiple endings aren't good enough to get you to play again as there's just nothing to them that makes them worth watching outside of... well, them being endings, I guess. Even then, both are quite abrupt and basically amount to “game's over guys, go play something else now”, rather than actually concluding the experience. Neither of them are even a “see you next game” kind of ending – just “Jack and Jill went up the hill aaaaaand Jill came tumbling after, the end, good night”!

The idea is to do a series of missions in each of Dishonored's nine big levels for you which involve finding and killing certain targets. You can go about these by either either sneaking around, or getting in there and going postal with your powers. As a stealth game, it's got all the right ideas, but not exactly the right execution. The levels manage to give you plenty of options as to what path to follow without so much as alerting a dust mite, and given their sheer size, there's a fair amount of level to explore. The only real reward is just not getting spotted – no conversations to overhear or super secret weapons to find. Just alternate routes. Still, it at least gives you an option, so it's not all bad. However, what is all bad are the enemies. Simply put, the enemies' AI is ridiculous. If they are in your line of sight, you're most certainly in theirs and there's no way to tell if there'll be one behind you or not due to the lack of a radar or a light gem.

To make things worse, regardless of whether you're skulking in the dim and dark back alleys or running in the middle of a sunny town center, you'll be spotted if there's an enemy anywhere near you. There's no sense of lighting. To you, there are light bits and dark spots; to them, it's all one light so it's irrelevant whether you're in darkness or you're under a spotlight. To compensate, if you're behind cover, you're basically invisible. Add the fact that their footsteps are quieter than Britney Spears's dietician, and let's just say that the enemy AI in regards to stealth is not very good. The only other real advantage you have here is that you have a power that lets you see through nearby solid objects so you can see enemies and where they're facing, but since that requires mana, you can only use it so much and for so long. It is rechargable though – keep that in mind. Due to all of this, if you're going for a pacifist gameplay, expect to reload your last save about as often as the average human blinks. Also expect some frustration. It's a shame because the levels actually lend themselves to be good for sneaking and from a fundamental standpoint, it does function. But going for a pacifist playthrough is where you'll see the majority of the problems.

Thankfully, this game is also playable when you're more violent and it's actually a hell of a lot more fun. If you still want to implement stealthy measures, it's easy enough to sneak up on enemies and slice their throats as long as you can find places to hide behind. But no, you want to be the ultimate badass, don't you!? Yeah, of course you do - the game's mechanics accommodate towards that style anyway! See, even if you get spotted, not all is lost, because you can simply use your magical powers or your weapons (either your guns, crossbows or your retractable sword) to take down the guards. That... is not good stealth game design. Combat is supposed to be discouraged, either because you're frail and wouldn't last five seconds in direct confrontation, or you'll have enemies on your ass if they find dead bodies! But in Dishonored, you can fire a tornado to blow guards away, slow down time, teleport right in front of them, shoot them with a pistol and summon plague rats to feast on the dead bodies – mind you, you'll need to find runes throughout each level in order to even unlock them and even more runes just to power them up, but they aren't too hard to find if you explore. That's not to say that Dishonored is terrible – Christ, I even said that it's a hell of a lot of fun at the beginning of this paragraph, but it really goes against stealth gaming conventions when combat is not only a lot more satisfying than sneaking, but that sneaking only really nets you an Xbox Live achievement or a PSN trophy. Oh and I guess there'll be less enemies in later levels if you don't go postal, but let's be honest, you'd want to kill a bunch of enemies, wouldn't you? Exactly!

The elephant in the room here are the graphics – god, this game is ugly. It wants to be cartoony, but it comes across looking like something from an early PS2 game. From rampant screen tearing to some jerky animations, lag and some very low resolution textures, not to mention that the FOV slider is a joke because you don't have much peripheral vision even with the slider up past 11, and there's nothing about this game that's technically any good except for the fact that... well, it at least functions.. The character models are all uglier than Quasimodo, as everybody seems to have disfigured or just plain weirdly shaped heads and faces. Look, I understand that we all need to go our own way, but after looking at games like Borderlands 2 and New Super Mario Bros U, Dishonored doesn't even do the cartoony style any justice. It just looks ugly. Not ugly enough to make you want to kill it with fire, but certainly ugly compared to its competition and not even remotely good looking on its own terms.

The sound design is pretty hit and miss. What misses is the music. I guess the idea is to create suspense with the tunes being more in the background, only to get more intense during confrontation, but in all honesty, it does nothing except for existing. It never really conveys any suspense, it doesn't really sound foreboding and it can never excite you, maybe except the final boss theme. Said theme actually does make the fight fairly exciting due to the louder, faster composition. However, everything else is bleh. The voice acting is where it hits home, though. Generally speaking, everybody is voiced in a way that at least helps you to care for the story despite its bland premise and just as bland writing. Everybody at least sounded like they wanted it to work and because of that, there's a decent amount of conviction put behind their voices. Not quite academy award winning, but it's good enough regardless.

Dishonored really wants to be a stealth game, but given all of the cool gadgets and weapons that prove advantageous in combat with no real incentive to sneak around outside of some forced moral elements, it's more appealing to play as Corvo the powerful sorcerer, master of the universe, and son of god. That doesn't make it a bad game, but what it does become is a flawed game that favors one style well above the other. That, and marketing tends to be pretty dishonest anyway – I guess I was just starved for a good stealth game in this day and age. Making things worse is the uglier than sin graphics and the lack of a compelling story. Really, where Dishonored hits the mark is its level design and how you utilize the tools you're given to turn the levels into bloodbaths. On that behalf, it's a good game as what it does right more than makes up for the lackluster stealth mechanics.
 
6.5/10 (Above Average)

Review: Spec Ops: The Line

 

If you've played through Medal Of Honor 2010 and found yourself going “man I like this story but it just feels like a poor man's Call Of Duty”, then Spec Ops: The Line is your motherfucking savior! Now, if you've never heard of the Spec Ops series, basically, it was a series of tactical third person shooters where you and a squad of people had to complete objectives. I suppose you could say it was Ghost Recon before Ghost Recon. But for whatever reason, what was scheduled to have come out in 2002 for the PS2 was cancelled and we hadn't heard from the series since... until now. Not only does Spec Ops: The Line breathe new life into the series, but it's also a pretty damn good game – just not for the reasons you'd expect.

The story is what sells this game. It details the horrors of war as you, Captain Martin Walker, are sent into Dubai, alongside a small recon team, to investigate what's been going on in the wartorn city. I mean, it would appear that the vicious sandstorms were the reason that Dubai got like this in the first place, but when Martin and company make their way there, boy oh boy, were we wrong. Rather than the whole bro tier action hero shit you see in many modern shooters, The Line opts for a more horrific take on war where everything is already fucked up and everything you do will only make things worse. Whether it's worse for you, your team, your nation, Dubai or even the entire world, it doesn't matter, because we're already in a world of shit; it's just a matter of how much you wade through to get to the super secret treasure at the end of the road.

With this darker take on war, the story becomes rather intriguing as you'll need to make various moral decisions – save the citizens or continue on your merry way, for instance. Nothing about these are black and white because no matter what, things are bound to get worse. This is war, not tea time with the Teletubbies and certainly not Rambo. Saving people won't necessarily make you a hero, especially if it gets you killed, because nobody wants you here in the first place – why else would they be shooting at you? The further along you get, the more morally reprehensible you can become, simply because the situation has worn on your psyche. You, the player, know not to do those decisions; it's in your conscience not to do them, but as Martin Walker, it isn't so easy, especially if a few deaths means the saving of thousands more, or the satisfaction of having killed those who have wronged you. There are plenty of questions that you'll be asked throughout the game and you'll need to weigh the pros with the cons. Save a few lives, or kill said few lives because what's a few more bodies, eh? We're rescuing a batallion of our own soldiers – fuck everyone else!

I'm willing to assume that the question on your mind is “but what about the actual shooting”. Well, you'll be grateful to know that it works out quite well. For the most part, it controls well enough – moving, running, getting behind cover and shooting is easy enough, although sprinting and getting into cover are mapped to the A button – that is to say, you'll sprint by pressing it once and get into cover by pressing it twice while near cover. In some senses, it feels like a one button clusterfuck, especially whenever you're in a more chaotic situation towards the end and you need to get into cover only to end up sprinting. The B button isn't immune to this either, as it lets you vault over cover or use a melee attack, depending on how close to cover you are. Beyond that, I have noticed that the movement is a little stiff. It's not too stiff, but it is noticeable when you're not quite moving as fluidly as other third person shooters' characters do. So really, the controls aren't quite there, but they're bearable as commands to at least respond they way they should. It's more of a matter of a few moments during the heat of battle where it can register the wrong command and get you killed.

But yeah, this is a cover-based shooter through and through – you run through linear levels, duck into cover, pop up and shoot enemies down. The weapons are what you'd expect from this kind of game with pistols, machine guns, shotguns and the odd rocket launcher, and the enemies are also what you'd expect, being guys that shoot at you from behind cover or rushing up to you. The basic idea is to run through sections of Dubai (that are really linear, but the level design is about on par with Half Life 2's in that it's just linear enough to be more linear than it appears, which helps to immerse you into the experience that bit more) and duck behind cover before your head gets blown off, and pop up every now and again to pop theirs off. It's not like I'm dogging the game for that because it's better than it appears. Outside of some instances of the whole “one button clusterfuck” thing I was talking about before, it's playable enough to go through and even fun at times, even though it really shouldn't be fun. Perhaps it's the killer instinct in me talking, but when you're given a decent array of enemies to take down and guns to take them down with, there's just a certain satisfaction in mowing them down what may appear to be impossible odds... the feeling of being John Rambo kicking ass and taking names, even when I shouldn't be such a vicious murderer.

That's not to say it's 100% what you'd expect from this style, though. Martin can't take anywhere near as many shots as Marcus Fenix – particularly if you're playing on the hardest difficulty mode, Martin can only take a couple of shots before taking a permanent residence underneath the sand, so you have to be a bit smarter with your approach, which can be tricky when at times, it feels like you've actually been ambushed. No, it's not some silly scripted event; it's the enemies being placed in locations you don't quite expect them to be placed. So in that sense, Spec Ops is a bit trickier than your average cover shooter, which is a rather freshing thing to have in this day and age.

You're also given a couple of squadmates who can keep you covered. By pressing RT, you can command them to either shoot enemies or blow up wherever/whatever you're aiming at. That, or they can chuck a flashbang to hopefully get you out of a sticky situation. Other than their, their AI functions... pretty damn inconsistently. On one hand, they can gun down enemies when necessary and back you up, and they often have the sense to duck into cover. On the other hand, they love to get in your way at times and do fuck all to help you, just sitting there with a thumb up their ass. Meanwhile, the enemy AI is consistently functional in the sense that they occasionally pop up from cover and shoot at you, maybe throw grenades at you after a while and perhaps just run up to you and hit you with the butt of their guns.

The graphics aren't the best in the world – there are some pretty weak quality textures that look like something out of a launch title for the 360, or even a late PS2 game! Not to mention that there's so much pop-up that it's really distracting. It'll take a few seconds for the crappy textures to load up, and believe me when I say that during cutscenes, it will do everything in its power to take you out of the experience as it's pretty much the elephant in every single room. It also ruins a lot of set pieces, which already look rather underwhelming as a result of low quality textures and particle effects. I will applaud it for having a color other than brown and gray... and that, my friends, is dirty yellow! But really, the colors are surprisingly varied, and what's used helps each object stand out in their own ways. The sand effects are also rather impressive as, although it doesn't look anywhere near as good as what's found in Uncharted, they feel like they have just the right amount of layers for the severity of any given sandstorm. It's also used for the sake of tension, like they may or may not be enemies behind them and I think that's a nice touch. Hey, look at this – a military shooter has more tension than the last two main Resident Evil games.

The sound design is actually pretty damn good. It uses rock music to lure you into thinking that it's going to be your usual shooter, though to be fair, it does pump you up and really get you into killing enemy soldiers, so it's not like it fails in that regard. Then gives way to more sombre acoustic tracks to drive the point home. It really sets just the right tones for what it tries to achieve and for that, it's a grade A fucking soundtrack. The voice acting is also really good. This is probably Nolan North at his best as he manages to make Martin seem like a generic soldier whose brain eventually fries to a crisp due to the horrors of war, and everybody else's voice actors also really get into it. Because of this, it's very easy to get absorbed into the story, which is really where the game shines.

It's easy to write off Spec Ops: The Line as a game with a great story carrying mediocre gameplay and graphics, but doing so will ensure that you'll be missing out on quite a lot. The story is what makes the gameplay work out the way it does. You're killing all of these people who are shooting at you, but it's not like you're shooting them because the government said so; you're shooting them because they are shooting you and you need to survive to see the end of your rescue mission! It's not necessarily entertaining; it's gutwrenching, unnerving and overwhelming with its heavy handed themes and excellent storytelling, all of which only serves to keep you coming back to see where else you can go with this situation. War is hell and we've taken a permanent residence there – might as well get used to it.

8.5/10 (Great)

Review: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm

Fuck me, there are so many Naruto games out there that it's hard to figure out where to start. More to the point, it's hard to figure out which ones are actually worth buying, because a lot of them are pretty similar. Well, you could just buy all of them because unlike with Dragon Ball Z, there aren't any outright stinkers or anything like Budokai 2 and Legacy Of Goku 1; just some outright mediocre games and som good games. Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm, fits comfortably in the mediocre section mainly because of some oddball mechanics and decisions that just make me wonder what was in the air at CyberConnect headquarters that day.

If you don't know the story of Naruto, it goes a little something like this – 12 years ago, a powerful demonic nine tailed fox was on the loose, ready to unleash hell. Fortunately, the fourth Hokage was there to subdue it and seal it inside a newborn baby. So 12 years later, that newborn baby has grown into Naruto, the hyperactive knuckleheaded ninja to end all hyperactive knuckleheads. He manages to graduate from the academy and becomes a certified ninja... a low ranked one, but it'll do for now. From there, he goes out on missions with his teammates, but something up in the air smells funny as there's evil afoot. Ah well, he and the rest of squad 7 – Sasuke, Sakura and their leader, the ever so badass Kakashi – as well as other characters this game doesn't give a shit about (don't worry, Shippuden in general doesn't either) are on the case!

Now, the problem the anime suffers from in terms of storytelling is the overuse (almost self-indulgent usage) of flashbacks and monologuing, which doesn't necessarily make it unwatchable but it does slow things down considerably and does feel heavy handed more often than not; this game does the exact opposite by condensing it so much that you pretty much have to have watched the show before you can give two shits about what's going on in this game. To put it simply, it's just text that gives a basic description of what's happening. Outside of the last battles of each arc, there are no cutscenes to get you into it. Why? The older games had cutscenes and they were on fucking DVDs – this is blu ray, motherfucker; it can store five times as much data. I might also add that this game cuts out one arc entirely. It doesn't seem like a big deal because it does have the other major arcs, but this particular arc was meant to help set the mood not only for our fledgling ninjas but also the viewers – that is to say, being a ninja isn't all that glamorous and that there's plenty of hardships to endure, like being treated as a weapon and witnessing the deaths of your comrades. It's clear that this feels more like a cash in than a legitimate effort and the excuse of there being millions of Naruto games to play instead is at moot point because this is the first one to be on the PS3. Not everybody who owns a PS3 also owns a PS2. Even if they do, this could very well be their first game!

It's also indictive of the amount of effort put into this game, which is split into four different styles – a sandbox-y overworld, fighting, jumping through trees and running up trees. Getting this out of the way, the latter two styles are fucking terrible. When you're tasked with jumping from branch to branch, the idea is to avoid branches that stick up vertically while trying to touch the shoe icon so you'll blitz through the forest faster. Usually, you'll either need to go a certain distance or try and catch something like a dog or a small toad. Each of these segments are interchangable and not even all that interesting to begin with. I get that that's how they travel in forests, but come on, this doesn't need to be in a game unless it's a platformer or if it was a hell of a lot better developed.

When it comes to running up trees, you just need to avoid trunks that stick up out of the ground and get to the top of the tree. Not only are the shoes here to help you run fast, but you can also get access to techniques that'll either let you through trunks for a limited period of time or items that you leave behind, hoping that opponents (if any) will run into them and set off an explosion. I don't even know why this was put into the game – in the anime, it was just an exercise that Naruto did because he had to learn how to control his Chakra (source of energy to perform special techniques known as Jutsu) before they had to fight one of the bad guys. Here though? Oh wait, that arc was cut out of this game! So really, it's a classic case of variety for the sake of variety because they had no confidence in the sandbox and fighting segments! I might also add that each of the arcs are split into parts, and each part cosists of either tree jumping, tree running or fighting. The last arc does cut down on that, but you pretty much fight this one guy as four different characters before the big match that pretty much ends the original series (it mercifully doesn't cover the filler arcs).

But then, I can't really blame them for having no confidence in the sandbox segment – it isn't really that well developed. You don't really interact with any of the buildings here, nor do you have anything else to do besides main and side missions. There's literally fuck all to do in the village besides collect scrolls to purchase items for battle and some support moves. Said support moves can be useful in battle if used correctly, but the problem is that not a lot of main missions even give you the option of having support characters. Side missions do quite a bit, but... well, let me put it this way – to access a side mission, you have to find somebody in the village, talk to them, open up the mission menu and select that mission, and then you have to find that person in the village and talk to them to initiate it. Main missions, though? Eh, you can just open up the mission menu and select them... it's like “why bother” unless you want to get the side missions done.

Then you start fighting and... man, what's this feeling I'm having? Is it... is it fun? Is it the feeling of knowing I'm not just wasting my fucking time with underdeveloped and unneeded dog shit? Yes, yes and – you better believe it – yes! Unlike the older games which were on a 2D plane, this one is on a 3D plane, meaning you can make full use of a circular arena. But that's just the beginning. Fighting seems to be simple as you have a a jump button, an attack buton, a button that either charges Chakra or lets you use a special attack when you press it and the attack button right afterwards, a blocking button (which is also a makeshift dodge button if you press it just as you're about to get hit), a button that unleashes a few shurikens (ninja stars) and two support character buttons, but you also have to keep in mind your support characters which can, if used at the right time, set an opponent up for a combo attack and/or just fuck them up. Before battle, you can select what support attack they can use, which range from combos to one strong attack. If you have the right attacks and the right timing, you could turn a potentially losing battle into a winning one! That's really about as complicated as it gets because beyond that, a string of attacks with only two Jutsu at your disposal is all you have. Speaking of which, you have one Jutsu that's like a more powerful attack, and another that's really powerful, but using the stronger Jutsu of the two will then result in a button pressing duel. Basically, you press more buttons that appear on screen than your opponent does in order to pull it off for massive damage. If the defender presses more buttons though, they can simply dodge your attack and you've just used up half your maximum Chakra.

It might not sound like a big deal because you'll be like “oh well I can just recharge my Chakra”. Well, opponents have a tendency to jump around a lot and fire rounds of shurikens, only running in for a combo attack every now and again. Shurikens are weak as piss, but they can interupt you if you're charging up your Chakra, and the same thing applies to your opponents, so a jumping shuriken barrage tends to be a good way to interupt their Chakra flow whilst staying on the move. It's a matter of picking the right time to charge it up, and thankfully, it also charges up if you land hits on them. Really though, fighting is pretty simple, but unlike everything else in this game, it's the good kind of simple – the kind that's easy to pick up and play because it's not only simple, but it's also fun. It's easy to learn and the earlier fights are easy enough to let you learn the ropes, and as you get further and deal with tougher opponents who move around more often and make smarter usage of Jutsu and support attacks, you're prepared enough to take them down (if not lose at least once).

But hey, CyberConnect had something good going on here, so what's the catch? Oh not much, just conditions that sound more like an arbitrary means of making shit harder than it has any right to be. This is found more in the side missions, though it does sneak into some of the main missions (and I'm not just talking about the optional conditions either). These include “use Jutsu 3 times”, “get a 15 hit combo” and “use support characters 4 times”. I suppose some of these can make things more interesting/challenging and some of the others can at least force some experimentation, but really, it just feels like a cop out because they can't come up with different AI for individual fighters and/or different fights.

The game looks pretty good though. The cel shading gives you the feeling that you're playing key fights in the anime as it's all bright and colorful, although the 3D animation pretty much buttrapes the substandard 2D animation often found in the series as it flows like a calm downstream river (that, and they actually fight for more than 10 seconds at a time without yanking the animation budget because IT'S EXPOSITION/EXPLANATION TIME). There isn't much else to really say about the graphics besides the fact that at least there's authenticity – yeah, I remember them doing this fight in this forest or inside an arena. Still looks pretty good, which is what matters the most.

Now, one thing I absolutely love about the anime is the music. It was either upbeat, suspenseful, blood pumping or even sad when the scene calls for it. The game, on the other hand, seems to have this stock music that doesn't pump you up. It sounds more like elevator music. Oh, and while the anime's music is catchier than a cold, I'd be hard pressed to remember even a 2 second loop of any given song from this soundtrack. The voice acting is at least faithful to the anime as they seem to have each characters' actors/actresses – too bad there aren't many opportunities to utilize them because the story is told mostly in text format.

Bottom line: There's so much superflous bullshit in Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm that it makes you wonder if they were confident enough in the overall design of the game. A lot of what you're given is hideously basic, underdeveloped and a general waste of time. The story was hastily retold so that it could give context to everything you do in this game, but it might as well have just said “Naruto is fighting Gaara, believe it” and it'd give just as much information to you as each beginning mission text does. Despite my constant bitching though, the fighting is fun to do and it is pretty well executed. Really, it's just bogged down by all this filler content that you just wish would be better developed and flow more cohesively with everything else, or at the very least, be something resembling fun or even worth your time.

6/10 (Above Average)

Review: Enslaved: Odyssey To The West

At times, I find myself cleaning up my excess inventory so that I don't look like a loser who has more video games than friends – that, and trading in PS3 games will reduce your next JB Hi-Fi DVD/video game binge by about ten bucks a pop. Very rarely do I give them a chance to plea their case, but Enslaved was a special game for me... a special kind of shit that doesn't quite smell like what I'd be used to, and it kind of looks different too, but... well, you know where this is going, so I'll talk about it a bit more formally. Enslaved is the kind of game that only really has one thing going for it, two things that have a lot of potential to make this game good, and a bunch of crap that just sticks to the wall and stinks up the joint.

In the future, most of humanity is wiped out by robots and nature has taken over. Okay, so far, so good. But then comes some sort of doomship, which is apparently a slave ship. But never fear – the badass known only as Monkey manages to bust out and... well, he attempts to escape, except most of the escape pods have already left the ship. There's one left, but some chick named Trip escapes in it. Never fear, as Monkey, the most badass video game character known to mankind, holds onto the pod as it drops about a quadrillion feet down onto the ground. But because Monkey is such a badass, he survives (barely, but he survives nevertheless). Trip likes a man who has nice big, rippling muscles that survive death defying stunts such as falling so many feet from the air not even god knows, so she installs a head piece that'll kill him if either she dies, they're too far away from each other, or if he leaves the toilet seat up. Given that Monkey could most likely survive a 2-on-1 handicap fight against Bruce Lee and a Bengol tiger, I guess you can say Trip's found the only method that can actually kill Monkey – what a smart chick. And hot. And... kind of a bitch now that I think about it. You can tell she doesn't like Monkey for his personality – she only likes him because even a punch right across the face from Captain Falcon would only deplete a small portion of his hit points.

Oh and there's some shit about mechs and how Trip has to head home so they journey to the west or some fucking bullshit nobody actually cares about because the story is so wafer thin that you can see right through it. The ending sucks harder than a Taiwanese hooker as it concludes jack shit and actually only serves to ask even more questions, but fuck it, this is a more character driven experience than anything. Despite my embelishment of Monkey's actions, he's not a likeable character and neither is Trip. Monkey is a meathead whose only positive characteristic is his Herculean strength, while Trip is sneaky and manipulative, although she's quite a tech wizz as she can hack into pretty much anything technological. In fact, the only likeable thing about the characters are how their relationship develops. It first starts off with Monkey only helping because he has no choice, but over time, he grows to like, even love her, and the feeling is reciprocated. I only wished that they were actually likeable – so much effort was put into characters that are unrealistically selfish and otherwise bland for survivors of some apocalypse. Halfway through, you meet another character and... oh wow, a likeable character! Why? Because – and get this – he has a personality that you can actually enjoy! Now, I don't know why he's so fucking fat, unless he always lucked out when his tribe or whatever had to eat each other and he hogged all the bodies for himself, but hey, he has a sense of humor that's enjoyable to be around! What's not to like about him... unless he smells bad...

What makes it suck is how unfulfilling every moment of gameplay really is. The platforming in this game not only took a few classes in the Uncharted school of platforming – quick, climb up the conveniently placed rocks – but for fucks sake, you can't even die! Monkey never misses a beat on those ledges. He will ALWAYS make it to the next stone or chasm or whatever because he's Monkey! He's a badass motherfucker and you mustn't forget that. Ever! To forget is to realize that the platforming and what it's really there for is like what happens in the Ninja Theory headquarters while they think of ways to unfairly deprive us of 60 buttfucking dollars because god forbid these jokers can actually make a game with good gameplay! I mean, if you want to know their true intentions, look no further than the puzzles and the chase sequences – the puzzles are just long, drawn out tedious lever puzzles that slow down the game and end up having less logic the further along you go; meanwhile, the chase sequences have you chasing something on some disc board and, unless you have no hand eye coordination, it's so easy to get to the big robot that kidnapped Trip. I suppose if I must spell it out for you - The chase sequences are just there to show off the pretty graphics while the puzzles are either easy or complete bullshit. Guess what they put more effort in?

Now, to be fair, there was a legitamate attempt at a combat system, which is fine by me because that's what you did more often than not. Sure, the enemy variety wasn't big and the attacks list is smaller than the Vita's sales figures, but with that came a more realistic (well, psuedo-realistic really) combat engine and really, every decision made here at least complimented one another. The enemy variety was necessary – you have your generic grunts, big guys, shield guys, big guys with shields and gunners. The combat list is a necessary response with a combo attack, a vertical attack, a charged attack, a sweep and two sorts of plasma bullets (attackers and stunners).

This is the kind of thing that'd work if Enslaved had deliberate pacing or, at the very least, was made by a developer who knew what they were doing. I mean it's not like either of the Batman Arkham games are teeming with variety or anything, and it seems like they have similar strengths too! But alas, Enslaved's combat doesn't give it much opportunity to have anything bounce off of themselves. Instead, it just feels like a mediocre hack and slash game that wanted a slice of that God Of War pie without making any effort to be as brutal or over the top as it, or even remotely fun for that matter. It always feels like it's just going through the motions, like in case they can't shoehorn some crappy puzzle or "cinematic" chase scene or if they're looking for ways to fill up time, it's like "oh there are now waves of enemies". Parts like that especially piss me off because it shows how wafer thin combat really is. There are only basic strategies like using stun plasma bullets and/or wailing on them with the combo attack, and since you're fighting so fucking often, it wears you down. A few scenarios try to be interesting by having enemies in different positions and having a good arrangement of enemies to try and dick you over, but those are far and few between – at other points, the lack of commitment behind execution of the combat engine shows like disgusting zits on a pair of E-cup titties.

It's a shame, because the game at least looks good. There's some pixellated textures offset by some blurry ones, and lag is immiment, but beyond that, it looks brilliant. The landscapes of this post-apocalyptic world look convincing. There's plenty of green and while a puking analogy would seem fitting, no, it actually looks rather serene. Whether it's the forest you start in or the city you eventually head towards, it looks so peaceful after the obliteration of most of mankind. The city is appropriately ravaged, with mossy, rusty metals and moldy old buildings. It really does feel like you're there and it's not some fucking desolate, radioactive wonderland either, which is what really stands out about this game. The animations are also rather smooth, especially the facial features. The emotions on their faces fit their dialogue and tone of voice, which helps to bring the story to life despite the actual story's insipidness.

Speaking of voice acting, the characters, mediocre as they are, have ace fucking voice actors. Each of the emotions conveyed by them is not only appropriate, but they're conveyed so well that they manage to really draw you into the experience! The only minor nitpick is that Monkey is a bit tricky to understand sometimes due to Andy Serkis's accent, but if people can stomach the Irate Gamer, then you should be fine with this. As for the soundtrack, it's mostly ambient pieces, though when it gets loud, it manages to make for some epic music during fights. Nothing really memorable or anything, but it's got decent enough ambiance and that's probably enough when it comes to soundtracks from this generation to be considered passable.

There is potential to be found in its story as the characters' relationship is very well developed, but the characters themselves are mostly unlikeable and the story itself is an afterthought, especially that disaster of an ending. There's also potential to be found in its combat, but it becomes an insipid chore the further in you go. That's it. There's more time put into its story and set pieces than the gameplay and it shows. Enslaved is more interested in jacking itself off and because it's got such a small dick, nobody else can give it a whack. Avoid this like Square avoids making progress on Final Fantasy Versus XIII.

3/10 (Bad)

Gryzor's Top 5 Best AND Worst Video Games of 2012

With 2012 behind us, it's time to take every video game from then (that I've played, anyway) and compile two lists that glorifies both the best and the worst that was on offer.

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The Highs

Let's start positively with a bunch of games that gave 2012 the boost that it needed to keep you coming back.

Spec Ops: The Line
The idea of a video game might've always been interacting with a virtual environment, often with a story tacked on for good measure. Usually when I say a game's story is good, I mean it in the context of it being a video game story - these things are not substitutes for books or even movies and story driven TV shows. However, I'm happy to report that Spec Ops: The Line is one of the few video game stories that can stand alongside books. It has a highly engrossing story about the horrors of war and what everybody else has been glorifying. You may be shooting people, but who are you really shooting? Are you a freedom fighter or are you a bloodthirsty gun nut? Throughout the game, you'll be forced to make decisions to either press on and give the surviving citizens of Dubai two big fat middle fingers, or tell your squad mates to get fucked while you save some Dubaiins from trouble. Each decision is grey as there are positives and consequences no matter what you do. Due to details like this, the story ends up sucking you right in. The gameplay itself is serviceable, even good at times, but it's the story that helps it stand out. So if you're thinking of a story driven experience but you can't code gameplay worth a shit (eh Team Bondi), this game should be a decent enough starting point.

I Am Alive
The idea of being in a sort of post apocalyptic world is something that's somewhat done to death with the Fallout games and Darksiders. But I Am Alive takes that concept and bases not only the story and themes, but also the gameplay around it. It's not about shooting down zombies and mutants and shit; it's about surviving against the odds. Survivors may or may not be willing to let you live if you even register in their peripheral vision as anything that can move. You're not exactly a super soldier either - in fact, you have to use whatever tools you can find in order to find out what's going on. It's a highly engrossing game that keeps you on the edge of your seat, especially when you consider that while the platforming is mechanically like Uncharted (in which a lot of it is done for you), the addition of a stamina meter makes things more intense. If you can't play conservatively, you're going to die. That's how it rolls, people.

Hotline: Miami
It's easy to overthink about this game's intentions - about how it's about the glorification of video game violence and all that, especially with a level where you're not given bright neon colors nor the ability to fight. That level is meant to be crap because it's meant to show us our true nature when it comes to playing video games, and how fucking appropriate is this - you're rewarded points based on how you kill, including the variety of ways that you carry out the killing and the actual method. But look past that pretentious bullshit, and what you have is a fun, fun game about brutally fucking people up! It might have bright and colorful 2D visuals and it might have a top down perspective, but fuck me if it isn't bloody and brilliant... or just bloody brilliant. Perhaps it's the sadistic bastard inside me speaking, but this game is a lot of fun and I can see myself playing this repeatedly because I like to see cartoony heads roll...

Silent Hill: Downpour
Hey, it's my original pick for the game of the year! Fancy seeing you... no longer there! But really, Silent Hill: Downpour is a fantastic experience through and through. It, like the rest of the series, contains a lot of suspense not only with the pacing of its scares, but also the sound design. Daniel Licht may not be as awesome of a sound composer as Akira Yamaoka, but he still manages to compose something that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Also like the rest of the series, its story is one that keeps you compelled to go on as Murphy is a very likeable not to mention relateable character, going through situations that we only barely go through in our minds (fun fact: Silent Hill is basically a manifestation of one's inner demons) whilst trying to keep a level head and not go insane. Due to all of this, combat that can be seen as clunky (not Silent Hill 1-4 clunky but not as fluid as Homecoming's either) and Otherworld segments that can be seen as too trial and error heavy wind up being better seen as elements that are a result of Murphy trying to survive in a fucked up world. This is something I've always believed was lacking in survival horror games, particularly the eternally overrated Resident Evil series - the horror tends to be a result of arbitrary bullshit like tank controls and standing still while aiming. Not for Silent Hill. The horror there resides in the subconscious of the protagonist and his limitations... sorry, I'm just not over the fact that what essentially amounts to SWAT can't aim and run at the same time with fucking pistols while ordinary people like every Silent Hill protagonist can with smaller firearms...

The Walking Dead
Telltale Games, you magnificent bastards! While you guys don't always make hits (Hector: Badge Of Carnage was alright, and Jurassic Park: The Game was abysmal), fuck, when you do, you fucking do! Meet The Walking Dead, a set of five episodes based on the comic of the same name. The idea is to survive the zombie apocalypse and you'll do so by gathering supplies to keep the group of survivors alive whilst fending off the occasional zombie. Like Spec Ops: The Line, the story is most certainly the strongest point and at first, it helps you overlook some mediocre gameplay - the first two episodes feature basic gameplay that only really works in the context of itself. Thankfully, the later episodes up the ante and make things more exciting, even when they consist of pressing certain keys at the right time. But again, the story is what makes it work out so well in the first place! It's easy to get sucked into the whole thing as the writing is fantastic, as is the characterization of the survivors. To put it simply, you'll feel for their situation, you'll like their company while it lasts, and you'll be a little down in the dumps when somebody dies. It's one of those games you'll play over and over again to make different decisions, just to see where Telltale allows you to go with them - yeah, they subtle, but with characters like these and writing like this, it doesn't matter that much.

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The Lows

Unfortunately, this year had its share of shitty games, so let's just get this shit over and done with. Too bad it felt more like the aftermath of a meal at Crapdonalds.

Family Guy: Back To The Multiverse
Did anybody at Heavy Iron Studios actually watch this show? I understand that Family Guy isn't exactly the paragon of intelligent humor... or even relevant humor, but this goes WAY overboard! Anything and everything people bitch about in terms of Family Guy's humor, like its irrelevance to the plot, overrepetition or Seth MacFarlane's overly liberal agenda, is found here. These aren't even jokes, they're comments. Instead of making you laugh, they make you cringe. If that's not enough, the game is complete shit. The aiming is flimsy, enemies are batshit fucking insanely stupid, physics are floaty, the graphics are complete shit and overall, the shooting is just boring. It's like a shitty arena shooter if it was way too forgiving with its respawn points... if The Walking Dead can kick ass, so should Family Guy: Back To The Multiverse. Oh, and it's 2012 - we should know how to make good licensed games by now. No excuses, this game blows giant nutsack. The only reason it's not my #1 worst game of 2012 is because... believe me, you can do worse.

Lollipop Chainsaw
Recently, I replayed the game because it was coming up to the time to do one of these lists up and I thought "eh, it can't really be that bad, right"? Well, I'm so wrong that I'm more retarded than Peter Griffin - this game IS bad! Where the clunkiness of combat is ignorable in Silent Hill: Downpour (at least when put into context), it's actually pretty damn annoying in Lollipop Chainsaw because... well, aren't you meant to be pretty fucking kickass at fucking up zombies with a chainsaw? I know a chainsaw is heavy, but still! Oh, and the mini games feel more like an arbitrary means of falsely increasing difficulty, and don't get me started on the quick time event shitfest that is when you control Nick. WHY!? Oh, and the humor is complete shit too. There's wittily written jokes, and then there's "it's funny because they exist", and this game falls under the latter. So no, I don't regret trashing this game before because it's a terribly conceived game that can't even fall back on its style!

Medal Of Honor: Warfighter
I suppose I can understand why Medal Of Honor's reboot deserved a sequel - it was a realistic take on war instead of simply glorifying it like Call Of Duty does. Really, Medal Of Honor 2010 wasn't terrible because its story was pretty good... it was just a bore to actually play it because it honestly felt like a broke man's Call Of Duty. So here comes the sequel - Medal Of Honor: Warfighter (more like Borefighter, am I right xdd), and its story isn't anywhere near as good! Unlike Spec Ops: The Line, it's boring. The writing is mediocre, the storytelling is haphazard at best and it honestly does nothing to capture your attention at any point. Outside of a handful of sequences, it's an extremely unremarkable game with fuck all going for it - at least Medal Of Honor 2010 had a good story!

Blades Of Time
"Oh golly, we have a "sexy" half naked chick on our cover, we're gonna sell millions!" - I'm not sure whether I feel like pointing out its sales figures (frankly, I'd be embarrassed publicly acknowledging having ever owned this shameless piece of shit) or whether to just rip this game a new vagina because holy fucking shit, this game sucks! I've covered this before - it's a boring hack and slash game that doesn't ever make you feel like a badass, nor does it ever make you feel anything other than bored out of your skull. The time mechanic is poorly implemented and feels clunkier than the combat in Lollipop Chainsaw. Buy X-Blades instead.. if you want to, of course; it's not much better, but it's fun at least, and Blades Of Time isn't.

Resident Evil 6
The only Resident Evil game I like is the fourth one. I can appreciate the first game for what it did, but the rest can fuck right off for all I care. Resident Evil 6 is meant to be a push in the right direction as far as action horror goes as you can *gasp* move and shoot. Sadly, this game embodies far too many things that this generation does wrong - the third person shooting, although better than Back To The Multiverse's, is clunky with some sensitive aiming controls, the cover controls are ass backwards, and it does everything in its power to keep on taking play control away from you by either boring you to death with an irrelevant story (Resident Evil's always had a shit story, but this is just ridiculous) or by shoving a million quick time events down your throat. Look, quick time events work either when a game is designed around them or when used for a few sweet action sequences. Resident Evil 6 doesn't have anything resembling a direction in its design, instead favoring throwing shit on the wall to see if it sticks while sticking you in mostly ultra linear hallways, cramming non stop and eventually fucking boring action down your throat. Pacing - what's that? We're Capcom, we're so out of touch with reality that we can make money by slapping a famous logo onto a shitty game - which is what this game is. If it was a no name IP, it'd sell like shit and it wouldn't have such a whiny fanbase... I think that already happened. It's called Quantum Theory! This and Back To The Multiverse are strong, strong contenders for the worst game of the year, but you know you can do even worse, if that's possible.

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The absolute worst game of 2012 is...

Amy

To think that a game that was released at the beginning of the year would still be a benchmark for utter atrociousness is weird. Like Lollipop Chainsaw, I recently replayed this game just so I can say to myself that there're worse games - this was the worst game of the first half of 2012 and, although the bar had been set lower with Back To The Multiverse and Resident Evil 6... this is still such a wretched game that I can't really put it anywhere else, maybe except in a furnace! I've said it once and I'll say it again - if this is the true survival horror experience, boy oh boy, I am fucking glad it's ceasing to be a relevant genre. It still feels like it hasn't been playtested due to the fact that I've had moments where I couldn't backtrack after dying... when I needed to, as well! The co-op elements are even more forced than those found in Resident Evil 5 and the stealth level... oh my fucking god, after the likes of Dishonored and Mark Of The Ninja, I think even less of this shitty level! All in all, it's a poorly designed game that seems to take the piss out of what went wrong with Japanese survival horror games... YEARS AFTER PEOPLE STOPPED FUCKING CARING AND MOVED ONTO AMERICAN HORROR GAMES!

The absolute best game of 2012 is...

Sleeping Dogs

Like The Walking Dead, Silent Hill: Downpour and especially Spec Ops: The Line, Sleeping Dogs's biggest strength is in the story. Whether it's the writing, the concept or the storytelling, it's all very strong, and its implementation into the game itself is even sweeter than Strawberry Shortcake. Simply put, you're an undercover officer working to destroy the triads, but you find yourself becoming more and more like one of them at the disdain of your fellow officers. It's not just a cover; it's you. The dilemmas faced here in tandem with the events that unfold help keep the game's story as intriguing as possible. That's not to mention the gameplay - move on over Batman and Spider Man, because Wei Shen will fuck you guys up with his killer martial arts right after fucking up rival gangs! Seriously, the hand to hand combat in this game, while a tad easy, is masterfully crafted to work really well and be a lot of fun to pull off, and with unlockable combos earned either through Triad experience points or by collecting and returning statues to a martial arts club, there'll be more at your disposal. There's not much else to say without rambling on for hours and hours than this - buy it. Seriously, this is a fantastic fucking game that deserves your hard earned money.

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So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen - 2012 is over. Overall, it was a pretty weak year. Yes, the best of the best drove the medium further towards storytelling that's backed up by great (or just workable in the case of Spec Ops: The Line and The Walking Dead, though the latter's case is one that can't be helped) gameplay, but the worst games embody quite a lot of things wrong with gaming today - whether they be frustrating mistakes or the embodiment of everything that can go wrong with modern gaming, one thing is for certain, and that's that you better keep a close eye on what you're going to buy. There are some honorable mentions in Mark Of The Ninja, Binary Domain, Transformers: Fall Of Cybertron and yes, even Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2. I wish developers all the best for their output in 2013, hopefully we'll see some more interesting games without going through so much mediocrity. I also wish you guys all the best for the new year and remember - keep a balance of gaming and real life responsibilities so you won't be a fucking jobless hermit!

Review: Beyond Good & Evil

Before Assassin's Creed came in to save Ubisoft from being taken over; before Rayman turned into a party series (until Origins came out); before Crytek gave Ubisoft access to the Far Cry license and made the most immersing but dullest first person shooter known to mankind, there was Beyond Good And Evil, a game that wowed the five or six people who bought it, myself included. Playing through this game is like eating a high class dessert – there isn't a lot to it in terms of its size, but in terms of what's in there, how it's made and why everything was put together the way it is, is why you eat it in the first place, eating it slowly or at a reasonable pace to appreciate what you're eating and feel a sense of satisfaction for having eaten such a tasty dessert. You want more, but you had what you had and it was truly delicious.

Or you could be a pig and shovel it all down!

At first, you'd think that it'd be about the Alpha Sections, the government, stopping DomZ, an evil alien race, from kidnapping the inhabitants of Hillys, but when Jade, the protagonist of the game, is hired by the IRIS Network, they uncover a conspiracy about the Alpha Sections and the DomZ being in cahoots with one another. I can't tell you for sure if it's true or if it's just some wacky conspiracy theories because usually, conspiracy theorists tend to be a bit... looney, so to speak. What I will tell you, however, is that this game isn't above plot twists. Very well written and very well placed plot twists, with just enough foreshadowing to make you question what just happened without it ever feeling like it was there for the sake of being there. Same thing for plot development in general – you're given enough to go by while wanting more until the end, and what you get is a story that you really don't want to finish (especially since the ending is sequel bait... this game performed like shit financially so until the sequel finally comes out, the best you can do is look up fanfiction or something).

Another recipe for success is the characterization. Jade is my kind of character – serious and street smart with a strong sense of justice and a sense of humor every now and again. The way she goes about everything makes it easy for you to want to be rooting for her all the way. Her adoptive uncle, Pey'j, plays out like a typical sidekick in that he's more humorous, but he's also liable for some kidnapping. Double H, somebody you rescue a little into the game, provides more of the slapstick humor – the point I want to make is that these three play off of each other so well that any scene involving them together instantly becomes interesting to watch, and they have enough to them to make them interesting even when they're on their own, especially Jade. Then again, good writing would do that to you. Every bit of dialogue sounds just right for the situation – and as I'll get into much later, it's for that reason that you'll find yourself getting sucked into the game, wishing it would either never come to an end, or at least have a satisfying end... which it doesn't exactly, but it was great while it lasted.

The world of Hillys may not be as big as Liberty City and certainly not as big as Skyrim, but it has all the essentials – points where you'll find the main story missions, a fair amount of side missions, a city with a few shops and an upgrade shop. Side missions range from destroying enemies in caves to racing people and then to taking pictures of the wildlife, and you're rewarded either with credits or pearls for liberating caves, for beating people in races and for taking photos of unique animals (among other things). Pearls allow you to upgrade your hovercraft, which is a mighty fine idea to do because at first, it is a tad unwieldy. It's not that fast, stopping can take a while after you start braking and handling is slippery, and eventually, you'll need certain upgrades in order to progress. Credits are currency, which can be used to buy some items... including some pearls! But beyond that, the sandbox does work as it should, which is as a neat little side distraction between story parts.

But let's step into the main meat of the game. As Jade is a journalistic photographer, her job is to take pictures of anything that'll prove what the IRIS Network's saying is true. To do so, she has to sneak through certain parts of dungeons, meaning that a good amount of this game revolves around being stealthy. It really just revolves around observing basic movement patterns and knowing when to either get going or attack, but it's executed in a way that still works out really well and can even get a bit tricky as you get further in the game because of enemy placement and room designs. Taking down a guard requires you to take out their oxygen tank, but to be successful, you have to make sure nobody else is around or looking at you. At first, the penalty just has them running after you and you have to find a strategically placed hidey hole, but eventually, instant death will replace it. When that happens, the stealth aspect really comes to life and it already started off well enough, if only for the satisfaction of getting to an area full of bad guys... with none of them knowing until it's too late.

You could think of the stealth sections as a type of puzzle you'll have to do, and there are other sorts that you'll need to do in order to progress through each of the dungeons. They tend to involve fetching a few items, pushing blocks (though thankfully it doesn't feel as slow as it does in the N64 Zelda games) and shooting certain targets in order to get to a previously inaccessible area. But oftentimes, you'll need the help of an ally, and they'll be more than willing to help by giving you a boost up in the air or hitting a switch you can't hit via the press of a button whilst exchanging banter every now and again. Ordinarily, I'd find this annoying, but each puzzle (for the most part) feels well thought out, executed and – best of all – paced brilliantly so that it never feels like you're doing busywork even though you actually are.

Sometimes though, you will need to get your hands dirty. The combat consists of three options – a combo and a strong attack with your Dai-Jo staff, and long ranged attacks using discs. It doesn't seem like much and the few enemy types that are out there don't do this many favors, but unlike something like Enslaved: Odyssey To The West, it's not really what you can call a detriment because while Enslaved felt like Uncharted if it was a beat em up, Beyond Good And Evil was a bit more like Metal Gear Solid if it was a beat em up and as such, combat is only used when its necessary to neutralize the guards around you or to fight off bosses. Not to mention, it's pretty cool that Jade can continue a combo on an enemy just behind her, which is very much unlike Dante or Link.

Although like Link (or at least his 3D incarnations), the bosses Jade has to fight are easy to dispose of once you get their basic patten down, which shouldn't take a long time. That's not to say it wasn't fun to fight them because it was fun to find out their gimmick and find a way to use it against them, but you do wind up wishing they were a tad more challenging... of course, I'm referring to a legitimate challenge, thank you very much mr final boss who felt more like a test of my patience than anything that would resemble a fun challenge! Actually, while I have the final boss on my mind, *bleep* the last level! I mean, it's a good level on its own terms, but everything before it was so well thought out and executed that doing constant mirror puzzles and topping it off with a crap final boss battle made the last level feel rushed in comparison (though the last boss is bad no matter what way you slice it).

This game definitely boasts strong production quality, even to this day. In fact, I'd say its a testament to how most stylish graphics tend to age a lot better than realistic ones. While there's a degree of realism in everything, it was clearly finished with a more cartoon-y varnish to give it a more bright and colorful look (which I assume was originally meant to contrast with The Sands of Time's more realistic look). As such, the textures are fairly detailed by 2003 standards, managing to make models and environments look as they should, but the colors are more vivid so that it doesn't fall into that IT'S ALL GRAY AND BROWN look that was starting to pick up at the time with the Medal Of Honor and – I'm not joking when I say this – Call Of Duty franchises (amongst other WW2 shooters at the time). Adding onto the look is the animation. Everything flows seamlessly, especially Jade during combat with all her flips and swings, which keeps it feeling just right even though in reality, you're just hammering the X button. A lot of games tend to rely on complicated combat systems to keep combat engrossing but not this game. Like a good martial arts fight, it's the choreography of the movements that keeps you watching. In short, the graphics are fantastic and some of the best you'll find on the PS2.

But this is the big one – the sound design. The soundtrack consists of sweeping epics that not only compliment the situation – like a fast paced track with hard hitting notes for fights, a more low key exploration/sneaking track or something more lively when you're in town – but is also quite eclectic in nature, making it even sweeter when it really draws you in. One moment, you're hearing some reggae tracks while running around a rather seedy town, and the next moment, you're hearing an epic symphony during a fight. It's that sort of them that can really draw you into a game's world, but that's nothing compared to the voice acting, which is done so well that in tandem with the writing, it really manages to further draw you into the game's world. Each voice suits the personality and look of the character, like it's exactly what you'd expect them to sound like based on just looking at them. Add in the execution, and it's like these are living, breathing beings, rather than models being voiced by people in a studio, and that's the cherry on top of the cake for any game – one whose production quality and story can really draw you in.

Really, Beyond Good And Evil's biggest accomplishment is its immersion factor. The story is very intruiging with some excellent writing and top notch voice work, complimented by an epic soundtrack and fantastic graphics! Bits and pieces are all paced very well so that it feels fresh or that it feels just right, and the execution of each individual element, while simplistic in nature, is excellent. Really, all this game has going against it is a less than stellar last level, a poor final boss and an ending that basically says “BUY THE SEQUEL” as it feels like it ends too quickly, despite being about 12 hours long. It's a crying shame because before all of that lies a game that excels and ascends in just about everything, making for quite an experience. Ah well. It's still a great game, and still well worth your time.  

9/10 (Fucking Excellent)

Review: Frozen Synapse

It takes quite a steady hand to make great strategy games. You have to lay out a bunch of options that can help a player make meticulous decisions to aid them in defeating their enemies who may either be complete dullards or about 5 steps ahead of you. I'm not saying "the more options, the better"; what I am saying is that there need to be a reasonably sizeable amount of variables to make each fight feel significantly different, to give the player a wide array of strategies to combat his/her opponents. That's all. Simpler strategy games, in my opinion, don't work that well due to them having a tendency to limiting you to just one strategy. A game like Pokemon Conquest only works due to the amount of fun that it is, but other than that, it's technically a mediocre strategy game due to the limited amount of strategies available (hmm should I rush and attack, or rush and attack - decisions, decisions). A game like Frozen Synapse, on the other hand, is technically brilliant due there being enough variables to give you many ways in or out of a situation without overwhelming you. It's safe to say that I really love this game and if you're a fan of strategy games... you've probably got this already, and if you're not, Frozen Synapse is not all that hard to get into unless you're easily discouraged.

Frozen Synapse does have a story, but all it really amounts to is that in a dystopian future, you're helping a resistance group take down the government, who had manipulated the populace. There is a lot of information you can look up about the world between levels, though its only significance is for your curiosity. There aren't any characters to speak of and nothing too interesting happens... in fact, the only thing worth anything is the lore, but what makes it more bearable is that it knows it's filler. Unlike, say, Pokemon Conquest, Frozen Synapse doesn't go out of its way to make its story the focal point when it's presented with about as much care as a neglected child. Oh, it's there, but it's not in your face. It's there to justify the fighting, especially when you look up the data files. While the story is essentially filler, eh, it's interesting to at least learn about the world of Frozen Synapse.

Tactics is the name of the game. You'll be given eight turns to take down the enemy units, with each turn lasting five seconds, but what really, really gives it steam is the planning phase. During this, you can essentially simulate your next turn. Using what you can see on a randomly generated map, you select one of your units and double click to a spot where you want that unit to travel, and do the same thing with all of your units. You can also mess around with the enemy units to create a bunch of what-if scenarios, like what if that enemy unit moved through the building and then one of your units moves to the entrance as a surprise, or what if you willingly sacrificed one of your units to get the other to mess the enemies up.

But it's not just about moving from Point A to Point B; you can set up waypoints in between and change how your unit moves, either having them crouching behind cover, ignoring everyone or aiming in a direction you think an enemy unit will come from. It sounds more limiting on paper than it does in practice because not only does your opponent have the same options, but their tactics can differ greatly from yours, and one move can change the game in a very significant way. Not to mention that there are a few different types of units - ones with assault rifles who are sort of the everyman kind of class; ones with shotguns who are brilliant at close range but not so much the further away the target is; ones with sniper rifles who are best at a long range; and ones with explosive weapons whose jobs are to blow up walls with enemy units in them (that or for grenade users, trigger explosions a few spaces in front of an unsuspecting enemy unit), so at least there's some variation between them to keep things a bit more interesting, especially if you learn how to seriously kick some ass with whatever combination of unit types you're given.

In reality though, single player is a glorified training mission to get you ready for the multiplayer. It may contain a lot of missions with conditions varying from killing every enemy unit to saving hostages and protecting an area, but the main meat of Frozen Synapse is its multiplayer. Whether it's offline with a buddy right next to you or online with someone from (say) Scandinavia, there's always something to challenge your opponent with as there are more modes to try out and many variables to adjust. For instance, there are light and dark modes. Light modes let you see where the other player winds up at the end of a turn while dark mode only lets you see them if they're in your line of sight. The rest, I'll leave up to you, the reader. The cherry on the cake is that matches are easy to set up - if somebody happens to be online, you can simply ask them for a challenge and hope they accept it. It can be a little annoying when they bail out after accepting, but it happens and it's not something that should ruin your day, especially since you can simply challenge somebody else... if they haven't asked you first. In other words, multiplayer is a dream if you find yourself even remotely enjoying this game.

The game's visual style reminds me of Tron - what, with all the neon colors, mostly consisting of the color blue with some red and green here and there to make things stand out from the blue "inside the grid"-like environments. Thankfully, it's still easy to tell what are considered walls and what's considered waist high cover, indicated by what shade of blue they are within a square or L-shaped outline - the lighter shade being waist high cover and the darker one being a wall. What little animations and effects there are, are also minimalistic and they manage to look effective within the context of being inside a grid.

The calming electronic soundtrack compliments the visuals very well. Not only that, but it also fits the mood of the entire game pretty well, as each of the tracks are composed in a way that can suit the whole quiet and calculated nature of planning your next move with softer beats or even a piano on top of a synthesizer, while having harsher electronic (even dubstep-y) beats for when it's time to move out and either kill or get killed.

It's easy to want more out of this game like more equipment or a better story, but a philosophy I think we should all be following is that a good game is one that achieves what it strives to accomplish, and I believe Frozen Synapse does exactly that. It strived to be a hardcore tactics game and that's exactly what it is. It's also easy enough for beginners to get into as the story mode doesn't start off by throwing the kitchen sink at you, and the tutorial does a decent enough job of explaining the way it all works. So really, unless you don't like tactical games in general, I suggest that you go out and buy a copy of this game right now.

9/10 (Fucking Excellent)