Let’s face it. Games that stay in development for so long seldom turn out as good as people expect it to be. Alan Wake was in development for just about nine or so years, and I was hyping it up in my mind big time. I love my horror games, and I couldn’t wait for what I thought was going to be another game in the same vein as the Silent Hill series. What I got however, was a well narrated story attached to game that was anything but survival horror.

You can really see how nice the graphics are during the daytime scenes.

The plot in Alan Wake is certainly something I can appreciate. Wake, a famous writer with some serious writers block decides to take a vacation with his wife Alice in Bright Falls, which is a tiny fictional community in the Northwestern United States. Shortly after arriving, Alice disappears and Alan blacks out, waking up in a crashed car with no memory of how he’s gotten there. As he begins his search for Alice, he finds pages to a manuscript that he himself has apparently written – only Wake doesn’t remember writing it at all. The story gets unraveled through Alan’s narration, as well as through the manuscript pages that you can find scattered throughout the game world. One other thing to mention is that those manuscript pages you’ll be collecting actually document events that have happened to you, and also foreshadows events that will happen to you in the future. It works great as a plot device as well as a means to progress the story in an interesting manner.

Bright Falls itself is spectacularly put together. It feels like a realistic town, especially since there many spots that you can read up on the towns local history. There’s actually an achievement you can grab yourself if you find them all. You will be spending a lot of time in the woods at night, but even still the enviroments look great. You really notice the graphics during the few moments you’ll spend playing through the games daytime scenes. Occasionally, you’ll stumble onto a television set or radio that will play you a snippet from the story, or simply give you something entertaining to watch, such as the Twilight Zone inspired “Night Springs”.

Throughout the games six chapters you’ll encounter hoards of “the taken” – townsfolk who have been possessed by the darkness, which makes them basically invulnerable to conventional weapons. Certain inanimate objects can also become controlled by the darkness and hurl themselves at you. That’s where the games core mechanic comes in. Alan must use flashlights, flares, street lamps, spot lights and flash bangs (amongst other things) in order to strip away the darkness that is protecting the taken before he can take them down for good using a shot from one of the few fire arms he has at his disposal. The combat feels excellent however, as it doesn’t feel clunky and isn’t nearly as frustrating as one might expect. The flashlight also reveals hidden clues and useful items and ammo caches.

You must use your flashlight to strip the darkness away from the Taken.

Alan Wake is scary at points, but I wouldn’t go as far as calling it a horror game. The box promises a “psychological action thriller”, which is exactly what it delivers. In fact, the best part about this game is it’s presentation. It’s set up like a television show, and I almost could guarantee I would be glued to my television set if it were adapted to prime time T.V. It’s broken up into 6 chapters, or episodes, each one beginning with a recap of everything that’s happened in the last few episodes.

One of the only complaints I have with Alan Wake, is that the game lacks any of those “Wow!” moments. Don’t get me wrong, the plot development is very well done, but everything runs kind of flat with a lack anything particularly exciting happening. Upon completing the game, I don’t think there’s a single scene I wanted to go and tell my friends about. Also, the ending is very ambiguous, and was clearly left opened up like that to add the extra DLC episodes and probably a sequel. I’m fine if they saved those events for a sequel, but why not just add that last chapter on the disc? Why add the inconvenience of making me download the DLC to get the true conclusion? I mean, the game has been in development long enough – beginning as early as 2001. That’s just as bad as that cell shaded Prince of Persia Game.

Overall Impressions:

Alan Wake, although not perfect, is a respectable entry in the Xbox 360′s game library, and is actually one of the only worthwhile Microsoft exclusives worth picking up that’s been developed in awhile. With excellent plot development and interesting characters you can almost forgive the lack of imagination and the fact that it doesn’t have a true ending on the disc. In the end though, I have to say I enjoyed it and will more than likely give it another play through at some point. It’s certainly worth the rental at least.

Rating: ★★★½☆ 

Rule of thumb when making a video game is to have a reason for making the game. This is the problem with The Forgotten Sands: it doesn’t have one. There is no legitimate reason for its existence, and this irks me greatly.

I would be more accepting of its existence if the game wasn’t rife with problems. The sword-fighting feels stale and monotonous and when you’re thrown into fighting set-pieces with whole squadrons of the undead the monotony is amplified. It’s a development no-no to have enemy fights triggered by entering an area and it’s an even bigger no-no to bunch the enemies up together in big groups like a moshpit – increase the difficulty of fighting your opponents through game progression, don’t increase the amount of them.

Swinging & jumping around the environment still has a bit of its charm left...

Another problem is the game’s length (or lack thereof). I completed it in one sitting and was done with it – Ubisoft threw in a point-based upgrade system but after the halfway mark I was already overpowering my enemies with just a couple of powers. There are collectibles which give you extra points outside of killing enemies but unless you have a guide-book handy you won’t find them all first time round, meaning you won’t fully upgrade the Prince.

Re-playability value here is very low: getting all the collectibles alone isn’t a good reason for playing the game through again because you have no personal connection to the game whatsoever.

You don’t feel for the characters – The Forgotten Sands is an empty, hollow experience of swinging on poles and jumping around things. The game tries to make you feel for the Prince’s dilemma of having to kill his brother to save the kingdom but it’s hard to feel sympathetic to his plight when the Prince constantly throws out cheap one-liners while running around the place. There is a side character who acts as a helper but her purpose wears thin and when she literally becomes integral to the storyline you spend the rest of the game wishing she didn’t exist – she provides sword sound effects later on that are not too dissimilar to Maria Sharapova playing tennis.

I’ll play nice for a little bit by detailing a few redeeming features the game offers: there is a marginally acceptable storyline running through it and there are a couple of enjoyably reminiscent cut scenes and gameplay mechanics that add a rewarding level of nostalgia. The time-reversal system is still fun to use too and Ubisoft included the ability to freeze water when you stop time, which gave the game a rare breath of fresh air.

Reminiscent is not good enough though: if I’m expected to pay £40 for a video game I don’t want to play a six/seven hour game that is almost completely void of ingenuity or originality. I appreciated Ubisoft’s attempted rebooting of the Prince of Persia franchise a few years ago: it was a bold move and while it didn’t pay off it showed that Ubisoft were willing to take a risk in the hopes of giving gamers a new experience within the Prince of Persia franchise.

For some reason, The Forgotten Sands includes an Arena mode where the focus is purely on the poor sword-fighting. It's not like the enemies were varied either: the genericism was copy and paste clear...

It appears though that my admiration of Ubisoft’s boldness was short-lived – what Ubisoft have done with Prince of Persia is what Marvel did with the Hulk film franchise. Rather than allow the reboot of their franchise to continue despite mixed critical reception, Marvel opted for sticking to the norm and making a more fan and franchise-friendly Hulk film that was comfortable in the norm. Ubisoft have done the same with The Forgotten Sands, although Marvel did a better job with their reboot of a reboot.

I can understand why Ubisoft would want to go back to basics but what I can’t understand is why they actually did. The Forgotten Sands doesn’t need to exist – it’s interquel status is very clear as you realise rather quickly that you’re not playing anything innovative or creative. You don’t remember the story, you don’t feel any connection to the game or the characters within it and when you’ve finished with it you’re still having that aching for Sands of Time you had pre-Forgotten Sands.

If The Forgotten Sands exists to unofficially accompany and make money off the film release, shame on Ubisoft. If it exists because Ubisoft wanted to try and forgot their failed Prince of Persia reboot by making a back-to-its-roots game that lacks creativity or purpose other than to give in to the fan demand, then shame on Ubisoft.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

In terms of content, The Passing is larger than the Crash Course DLC for Left 4 Dead 1.  The campaign only consists of 3 sections (as opposed to the usual 5) but these sections are as fun and feature rich as any of the on-disk campaigns, the non-linear scavenge finale is a particular highlight.  Lasting 30-40 minutes The Passing is conveniently sized for people who haven’t got the time for an hour long game.

There is an achievement for killing 15 zombies with the M60 in one burst, meaning everybody online is currently shooting it like a hosepipe.

The DLC also adds new weapons, a ridiculously powerful M60 machine gun and a golf club.  While the golf club is simply another light melee weapon, the M60 is, for the length of its unreloadable clip, an unstoppable force of death.  Incredibly overpowered, the M60 often results in its wielder getting carried away, charging ahead of the pack only to run out of ammunition and get murdered.  The M60 is a nice example of how Valve are still designing Left 4 Dead with multiplayer team mechanics in mind.

While the meat of the DLC package is the campaign itself, Valve have also added mutations into the mix.  Similar to Halo’s weekly playlists, mutations will change week on week to provide players with something new.  This week’s mutation is Realism Versus, a combination of the two most hardcore modes of play, not my cup of tea.  In a few day though, Realism Versus will be gone and replaced with another mode, hopefully the mental sounding Chainsaws mode (only chainsaws, unlimited gas).  While Mutations will be a bit hit and miss quality wise, the fact that Valve will maintain a steady stream of content for months certainly adds longevity and value to the package.

While the story of The Passing doesn’t pack the dramatic punch I was hoping for, the campaign is still an excellent slew of set pieces, extra content and hidden treats.  Steam user will get The Passing for free but even for 560 Microsoft Points it’s a worthy purchase.

Rating: ★★★½☆ 

Fisher is back and better than ever

SCC brings plenty of new features to the table. This latest installment in the Splinter Cell series does whatever it takes to keep you fully submersed in the gameplay. How so? Well for starters, Ubisoft has eliminated loading screens during the game. Instead you’ll be greeted comfortably with a cutscene that not only takes care of loading, but it also advances the plot and each one deals quite a bit of storytelling. Theyve also stripped the HUD to a more simple and less intruding design. Interactions throughout the game will let know if you’re hidden, how your health is and ,even better, what your objective is. When hidden in the shadows, the screen will go black white. When your health is low, the screen will pulsate and turn red more or less based on how bad you’re hurt. Objective Text will be displayed on objects in the game directing you to your next objective. Also, checking objectives, if you forget or get lost, will not require a pause in the gameplay. Instead when you check your objective at anytime, it will be displayed with Objective Text wherever you’re aiming.

Sam Fisher also carries some new gadgets and abilities. You can mark enemies to keep tabs on them better and eliminate them as you see fit. New gadgets such as the sticky cam and sonar goggles allow you to have eyes everywhere. The sticky cam is my favorite gadget because you can throw it anywhere, have a look around and even play a tune to lure enemies over to it right before you set it off for a frag like explosion. Sonar goggles allow you to see through walls and pretty much anything else to an extent. Sam is also better suited for close combat kills now and when performed, you earn the right to execution. An execution is a sweet little slo-mo segment that scores headshots on the enemies you’ve marked. How many enemies you can mark and execute depends on your weapon.

Interrogations can get brutal when you do them right.

Interrogations are a sight to behold in this game. You can interact with the environment causing high levels of pain to your hostage by slamming his head into a porcelain toilet, punching their face through a grand piano and even stabbing their hand backwards into a tree stump. Of course, you can always just send a knee into their stomach and headbutt to their nose as well. But why do that when you can put their face through a few TVs? Exactly what I thought.

Weapons and gadgets can be upgraded with points you earn from in game challenges and level completions. These upgrades can drastically improve how well you do. You can increase accuracy, power and range, slap a silencer on an assault rifle, and improve duration and effect radius on your gadgets. With about 20 weapons & 6 gadgets, there is plenty of incentive for multiple playthroughs. Customization is wonderful in SCC with 3 upgrades for every weapon, 2 upgrades for every gadget, and 9 accessories and 6 different camo options for every uniform.

Playing Cat & Mouse with your enemies is what all the cool ex spies are doing.

Ubisoft’s 3rd person perspective is flawless. Throughout the entire campaign I never once felt helpless and at the point of view’s mercy. They’ve added something called last known position which lets you know where the enemy last saw you so you can get away and flank them. They’ve also set the new standard for a dynamic cover system. To all other developer’s out there, this is how its done.

The single player campaign is short taking about 7 hours to complete on Normal difficulty. About 5 hours on Rookie and anywhere between 8 and 12 for Realistic depending on your skill level. Although the campaign is short, it’s a real treat to play and is easily one of my favorite campaigns in a long time. Level design was amazing. No two levels felt the same (because they weren’t) and the pace was near perfect. There’s a certain level which I heard bad things about. The Iraq level was put down for not fitting in with the rest of the game. I really enjoyed the break this flashback gave me from the usual action to a new form of more head-up action.

The Co-op and multiplayer of SCC is whats really going to keep you coming back for more. With 4 game types and a Co-Op storyline there’s plenty of things to keep you occupied, all of which can be played via split screen, system link or over Xbox Live.

Finally! A game where Russia is NOT our enemy.

Among these game types are Last Stand which is similar to Gears’ Horde Mode and ODST’s Firefight in that you must survive waves of enemies. In this case, they’re coming after an EMP generator which you must protect. After each wave, the generator gains back health it may have lost during the fighting. This mode is very fun when you work together and really lock the area down well. There’s also Face Off which is a form of spy vs spy in which you’re up against another player and put on a map with enemies spawning around you. Each enemy you kill will get you 1 point. If you kill the other spy, you’ll get a slick 5 points and every death will set you 3 points back. This game mode is so much fun and with the great scoring system, it keeps you fighting until time runs out. The scoring system allows for comebacks that are unprecedented in awesomeness. I played a game where I was down 8 points with 6 seconds left and executed an enemy and the other player creating a 9 point swing for the win. Very exciting moments like these are what sets Conviction’s multiplayer apart from other in the shooter genre.

My favorite mode though is Hunter. In this game type, you’ll be placed in a map and ordered to clear out all hostiles as you see fit. Staying undetected gets the job done quicker because if you’re spotted, reinforcements will show up and make more work for you. This mode offers great replayabilty even if you know the map like the back of your hand since reinforcements can show up and no two games will be the same albeit similar. Lastly, there’s Infiltration which is the same as hunter except you fail if you’re detected and reinforcements are called in. All of the multiplayer modes can be played in Deniable Ops on your own except for Face Off. But they are miles better with a partner.

There were only 2 problems I ever encountered while playing. The smallest one was during an execution, you might end up shooting through objects which is sort of a glitch but it never hinders the experience. The biggest problem I had was an update on day one of release that would freeze the game when you tried to start up the campaign past the first level. That included progressing from the first to the second. Ubisoft was swift with fixing this issue and had a patch for it in only a few hours. Hows that for support?

Ubisoft have also announced that they will be releasing new DLC every Thursday for FREE. Its not known as to how long this will last but you cant complain about free content. This DLC will be from a range of things including guns, skills, maps and skins.

Splinter Cell Conviction is a masterpiece in its own right and one of the best games out right now. Although Ubisoft has canned forcing stealth on you, they keep the stealth as an option and as a toll that gets rewarded handsomely when used properly. With so much to keep you coming back I must insist that this game be bought instead of rented. Take notes developers, Ubisoft has set some new industry standards.

Rating: ★★★★★ 

Toy Soldiers is technically a tower defense game but it packs in so much more. It blends strategy, third person action & tower defense game play mechanics seamlessly into one of the best arcade games available.

The WW1 aesthetic is refreshingly and mostly untouched by other titles.

All of those units can be upgraded up to level 3, each of which costing more but increasing damage and capability. You earn more money for each kill your units get. You can also control any of these units at any time. Aim and shoot machine guns, fly planes over groups of enemies and drop bombs down their throats or even fire the howitzer – not only can you steer the shell but you can control the velocity as well giving you total control over accuracy. This make the action more intense and as an added bonus it also rewards you with kill combos that give you bonus cash.

The Toy Soldiers control scheme is extremely easy to get the hang of and works very well. Throughout the entire course of the game I have yet to have any frustrations with the controls. The visuals, although not the most impressive around, work extremely well with a nice steady framerate and low lag online.

Zooming to control one unit keeps the gameplay from getting too repetitive.

The sound compliments Toy Soldiers excellently too. From planes buzzing to mortars falling to soldiers screaming in plastic pain, the sound never lets you slip out of the action. Toy Soldiers even has a small Easter egg hunt in it; there are Golden Crates scattered throughout the campaign. Each crate you destroy will give you $300. Find them all and you’ll receive a nice little gamer pic.

Looking at the difficulty of the game, Toy Soldiers offers a great balance of levels. New & casual gamers will be able to have fun straight away whilst hardcore tower defense fans will find a challenge in the higher difficulties. The higher the difficulty, the less room for error you have, the less money you receive for each kill and the tougher the enemies are to kill.

Toy Soldiers is a fun title that any fan of the tower defense genre should own. I also recommend this game to anyone looking for a fun action game & for only 1200 Microsoft Points ($15) its well worth the coin. Toy Soldiers produces endless fun from its two different campaigns, its survival mode and its 1v1 multiplayer matches (which are either in split screen or over Xbox Live).

Jump on it gamers, titles this good at this price are few and far apart.

Rating: ★★★★½ 

Pokémon; a franchise which has become cemented alongside Mario and Zelda as one of Nintendo’s all time greatest cash cows greats.  The latest iterations of the game are Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver, which offer the same attractions as many of their predecessors.  The familiar storyline coupled with the highly addictive game play are likely to keep the average player spell-bound for large periods of time. However, delve beneath its shiny exterior and you’ll find an uninspired and sub-par remake of one of the series strongest titles.  It’s not very effective.

There are 493 pokemon in total

The game begins with you, a young and inexperienced trainer, travelling away from home with the grand wish of becoming the greatest Pokémon trainer in the land. On the way you’ll encounter and deconstruct a large criminal organisation as well as engage in countless battles with many familiar faces. This is a formula shared by the vast majority of other Pokémon games and offers the veterans of the series little excitement. This is of course the reason Nintendo will create some new, sugar coated gimmick to excite both their new and old fan base. HeartGold’s and SoulSilver’s gimmick comes in the form of the first Pokémon in your party following the trainer. The trouble is this isn’t even a relevant or necessary gimmick.  It’d be much more understandable for Nintendo to implement such a thing in their previous remake of the first generation titles in a sort of throw-back to Pokémon Yellow. The Pokémon following you offers little interest with them occasionally picking up a flower or similar items which are just as useless. There’s also the Pokéwalker; a device which operates exactly like an old Digivice, allowing the user to physically walk around and encounter wild Pokémon. These Pokémon can then be transferred into the game. It’s more likely that people will simply shake their Pokéwalker, nonetheless it’s a nice idea and one of Pokémon’s more original ones.

The sprites have remained the same since the last iteration.

In keeping with tradition, the main difference between HeartGold and SoulSilver comes in the form of the Pokémon available, a full list of which can be viewed here.  The total amount of exclusives can be counted on your fingers (presuming you have the standard amount of digits) with the most notable being whether you prefer Groudon - ‘described in mythology as the Pokémon that raised lands and expanded continents’ – or Kyogre – ‘described in mythology as the Pokémon that expanded the sea by covering the land with torrential rains and towering tidal waves’.  For those concerned, these exclusives do not represent much of an issue for die-hard collectors as the WIFI mode introduced in Diamond & Pearl allows Pokémon to be traded globally.

As these games are remakes, it seems only fair to compare them to the original second generation games, these being Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal. HeartGold and SoulSilver being ten years their successor, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect some inspired advancement.  This isn’t the case. Ignoring the obvious and expected advancements in aesthetic, there’s little change from the second generation. The few of note being the Johto Safari Zone and the ‘Pokéathlon’; a rather unimaginative collection of mini-games which when completed earn the player non-essential prizes. These advancements are certainly welcomed but one can’t help look back at Gold and Silver and think that over the huge amount of time that has passed they’d have made some much more drastic changes.

The new pokemon fit well into the already bulging roster.

This isn’t to say the game is not without its charm. The return to Johto has been highly anticipated amongst fans and the world is just as, if not more, beautiful than before.  The games have also managed to retain the core mechanics which made them popular so many years ago with the aforementioned nostalgia only adding to this.  Nintendo have produced yet another solid sequel for the Pokémon series but the game feels incredibly risk-free.  The minor additions do little to add any real spark to the game and ultimately you’re left with a re-polished version of a formerly innovative and truly inspiring game.  I have no doubt that if this were a standalone game it’d be highly welcomed, unfortunately for me this throwback has made it abundantly clear just how lacklustre the advancements in the series have been.  There’s only a certain amount of time Nintendo can continue to produce such uninspired sequels, but sadly with sales still remaining high this doesn’t look like something that’ll happen in the near future.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

Fireteam Bravo 3 places you in the boots Calvin “Wraith” Hopper, leading a SEALs team into the fictional eastern country of Koratvia.  A well funded group named the Koratvian Republican Army (KRA) are attempting to overthrow the government and take the country back to its old-school communist ways, you’re out to stop them.  The plot opens promisingly, setting itself up for some Clancy style political intrigue.  Unfortunately the story never reaches fruition and, feeling like the writers quit half way through, it plays out fairly uneventfully.  Although the plot doesn’t reach its potential, the production values are very high, with a consistent flow of in-game banter between squad mates, frequent cut-scenes and almost zero load times.

Sniping feels fittingly lethal.

I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the single-player campaign from a presentational standpoint and luckily the gameplay maintains the high standard.  Working with a lock-on mechanic and using the L trigger to strafe, the game simultaneously makes up for the PSP’s lack of a second stick and makes you feel like an efficient Navy SEAL.  Unlike other PSP shooters such as Resistance Retribution, in which you often feel the generous lock-on is doing all the work for you, SOCOM allows you a surprising amount of control.  Where Resistance auto-locked onto anything you vaguely looked towards and you simply had to wade forward holding the fire button, SOCOM forces you to click in the left trigger to lock-on and then press X to squeeze off rounds.  It may sound like a minimal difference but the tactile feel of the triggers as well as military sim considerations of crouching for accuracy and staying behind cover make SOCOM a vastly better shooting experience than Resistance, it’s closes rival.  Another way in which SOCOM keeps you engaged is regularly and seamlessly switching between close lock-on based combat situations and longer ranged sniper fests.  The sniping is handled with the analogue stick as it only requires one axis and acts as a break from the  lock-on based firefights before they ever become monotonous.

Squad commads are easy but fairly needless as they can handle themselves.

I was incredibly surprised by the quality of the single-player campaign in Fireteam Bravo 3, but I was equally surprised when the credits rolled and my playtime came in at 3hours and 48 minutes.  Even for a portable title with multiplayer, it left a lot to be desired.  There is a custom mission option that allows you to set up scenarios on the multiplayer maps in a similar vein to Rainbow Six’s terrorist hunt and while this is a worthy addition, it would still have been nice for the campaign to be a bit longer, maybe by integrating the plot twists it seems to lead up to and then step away from.

It’s strange that I have left the multiplayer so late in the review as it’s such a central part of Fireteam Bravo 3, but to be perfectly honest I have very little interest in it.  The way I look at it, if you’re sitting in your internet connected home and playing your PSP over your console, then you’re doing it wrong.  No matter what angle you look at it from, Battlefield 2 or MW2 multiplayer is considerably better than any PSP multiplayer experience.  For the sake of the review however, I stepped away from my Dualshock and played some SOCOM online.

Explosives are more effective in the fast paced multiplayer.

Spanning eight well designed maps, the 16 player competitive mode is where the vast majority of the player-base are at.  The customizable load-outs allow for different styles of play and the excellent gameplay translates well to the faster paced competitive setting.  There is also a 4-player co-op campaign, which is a lot like playing the single-player campaign but with four players.  My conclusion is that SOCOM is, unsurprisingly excellent online.  I experienced zero lag and there was a surprising amount of headset activity, but I just have no interest in playing my PSP at home.

Scoring SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3 was difficult because your enjoyment of it will vary dramatically if you invest a lot of time into it.  If you are likely to invest heavily into the multiplayer community then you should buy the game as it is an incredibly fully-featured multiplayer package.  If like me you are only interested in the single-player offering however, then you should bear in mind the brief nature of the campaign.  Although the custom missions redeem it somewhat, I still felt slightly underwhelmed by the amount of single-player content.

Rating: ★★★½☆ 

Those of you who have played through the single player campaign already will remember the flashback Chris has of Jill and himself tracking down Wesker in an old mansion. The Lost in Nightmares DLC chronicles just that, and gives a little bit more background into what happened. Don’t expect an engrossing story however, as there isn’t much to tell. You do pick up files that add a little bit to the overall Resident Evil mythos, but nothing that directly impacts the game that you’re playing.

There’s lots of co-op puzzle solving to be had, and in fact the game can be broken up into two distinct pieces: puzzle solving and combat. The latter half has the emphasis on combat, while the earlier stresses the use of Resident Evil’s tried and true find the key/emblem/seal to unlock the door mechanics. I don’t want to ruin too much, since knowing would probably ruin most of the fun, but for the full effect, play the DLC co-op with a friend on veteran. Be careful however, there are no check points – so if you die, you have to start from the beginning of the chapter.

Overall Impressions:

Resident Evil 5′s Lost in Nightmares DLC is obviously trying, albeit a little too hard perhaps, to cater to long time fans of the series. I personally enjoyed the throw back, but it may be lost on those new to the series. There isn’t anything new story-wise and just barely scrapes the hour mark as far as play time is concerned. It does however, do what Resident Evil 5 does best, and that is offer a solid co-op experience with an emphasis on teamwork and puzzle solving. For the price, if you are a fan of Resident Evil 5 I would say it’s worth the purchase.

Rating: ★★★½☆ 

It’s clear that 2K Games have done what they can to make sure you feel right at home after a two and a half year break from Bioshock. Even if that means changing very little, tweaking with the system & introducing new characters & motifs and throwing the odd game changer in to spice things up. However one thing more than anything else has remained the same: the high quality.

Welcome back to Rapture. Did you miss it?

It may have only been two and a half years since the last outing to Rapture but ten years have passed during that time. There’s been a change of developer (for the 360 and PC players at least), there’s a change of protagonist and antagonist and there’s a couple of little gameplay adjustments to cater to this.

But that’s about it. No seriously, the core of Bioshock 2 is very much the same. The visuals in terms of character presentation have been upscaled slightly and textures have been tweaked but in general, it’s like stepping back into Bioshock 1 from a different perspective. It’s wonderful.

Right from the very first momenteven before you’ve gotten to the start menu, you’re welcomed with a tantalisingly excellent cutscene. 2K Marin thankfully haven’t made many changes to the working formula, so I’m glad that what they have done is finetuned the things that could be improved upon. Visually Bioshock 2 outweighs the prequel in pretty much every department. The textures are better, the attention to detail is even more exquisite and Rapture looks exceptionally serene in its broken state. I can’t fault the visual quality of Bioshock 2 because it’s everything I wanted to see.

You can now experience Rapture from outside as well as inside. Only in short sequences mind, but still...

The inconsequential details such as the views of the world outside Rapture, the settings and places you only have passing glances at, even the inaccessible objects. Everything visual has been taken care of with such careful precision.

The same could be said for the story of the characters within Rapture too: you play as Delta, the first Big Daddy ever to be successfully connected to a Little Sister. Turns out your Little Sister was the daughter of the new antagonist, psychiatrist Sofia Lamb. Don’t worry though, 2K haven’t made a hash of connecting the two stories together – they’ve worked it so that the gap between the two games and every story arc between them is tied together. Some criticised Bioshock 2 of having a fairly weak and convenient plot line, the main criticism lying with how Sofia Lamb and other significant characters in this Rapture outing weren’t mentioned in the prequel.

2K handle that, but one thing I did notice was that one character from the sequel featured in the prequel – look closely at the spirits shop in the first Bioshock. I think you’ll find a tie right there. I don’t see the plot ties as convenient. So maybe Sofia Lamb wasn’t mentioned: it doesn’t matter because throughout Bioshock 2 the audio tape-style of piecing the story together that was so prominent in the prequel features in the sequel. This time around though familiar voices feature and the once again top-notch voice performances shine through.

The voicework in both Bioshock games is nothing short of exceptional. It’s one of my favourite things about the Bioshock series – the supremely convincing way that the story is told and pieced together while you progress. Tapes are placed around Rapture in such natural places that they genuinely seem scattered but also fit together narratively with clinical surgical precision, no matter how many or how few you find. The tapes aren’t the only way the story is told, don’t worry: the host whole of characters you encounter on your travels help out. They only enforce my opinions that the Bioshock franchise has possibly the best implementation of narrative tools in any video game I have ever experienced.

This is a Big Sister. Don't take her lightly: she'll make you pay.

Similar praise should be given to the game’s level designs: much like the first game, Bioshock 2 offers a whole host of scenarios that appeared and enthralled previously. They don’t feel forced either: the use of these scenarios are fantastic. The scenarios I am referring range from the moments where lighting is used to great effect: walking along, you’ll find yourself in a room. The lights will flicker, the eerie soundtrack will creep in, the pitter-patter of enemy feet will echo slightly. Then the lights go and the voices start to talk. Complete disorientation sets in and it’s wondrous. The lights come back on and enemies are suddenly in the vicinity. The timing and choreographing of these scenes are incredible.

Other scenarios include setting traps for enemies to walk into, fights against Big Daddies, the ability to adopt Little Sisters and help them extract ADAM and the good vs evil choices you have to make with regards to the Little Sisters. Listing them like this would have sufficed for the most part for a review of Bioshock 1 but I feel more than inclined to go into more depth for this review because that’s exactly how it feels with Bioshock 2. The scenarios you experience from the first game feel deeper and with new scenarios to face and new enemies to fight, 2K Marin have really exceeded my expectations.

There’s a greater emphasis on think first, shoot later. Bioshock 1 had the tendency to let you just walk around as you saw fit with all risks of this becoming clear a little too late. This was a little troublesome as you felt vulnerable as Jack the human, especially against the Big Daddies. However in Bioshock 2 planning is very important and patience is a healthy virtue. It’s odd that planning is a factor when you are playing as a more powerful character this time around, you would expect to march right through your adversaries.

There is that lessened feeling of fear in Bioshock 2: just whirring the drill makes you feel empowered but don’t let that fool you. The enemies are stronger and in greater numbers and Big Daddies aren’t the only bigguns walking around. Big Sisters prove formidable foes and the game really gets you to plan out the best plan of attack. Big Sisters are the Little Sisters all grown up. The ADAM in their systems has mutated them and made them highly powerful creatures.

Thankfully the game prepares you for them in particular but any enemy encountered by arming you to the teeth during your quest. The plasmids that featured prominently in the first game are back but tuned to fit your new form. You have lots to choose from but less choice over a longer period of time. You have more slots available for them though so if you invest in your plasmids mainly then you’ll find this a welcome addition. The bigger change to your gene arsenal comes in the form of a change in the tonic slots. Now instead of collecting and choosing 6 combat, engineering and physical tonics you get simply 18 gene tonic slots to fill. This is excellent because there are a massive array of tonics to suit everyone’s playing style and the space to fit the needs.

The ability to adopt a Little Sister expands the gameplay a lot. Time spent with Little Sisters is substantially increased (especially towards the end...).

Obviously plasmids aren’t the only weapons in the game since Bioshock is not just an action-adventure game with horror elements. For those first person shooters in us, 2K Marin cater. Starting off early on you’ll be given a wrench (not too dissimilar from Half Life) and a rivet gun which fires bolts. You also have your customary drill which is very useful but supplied by fuel needed to be refilled when empty. Later you’ll be kitted out with a machine gun, a launcher and a few other weapons that I’ll let you discover. Part of Bioshock 2 is the discovery so I’m not going to spoil everything now am I?

I will say this though: the wide array of weapons allows for an enjoyable and varied shooter experience. Each weapon will generally have different ammunition mods to vary singular weapons up too and each enemy you encounter whether it be your average joe splicer, security bots, a big brute splicer, a Big Daddy or a Big Sister will have strengths and weaknesses exploited by the right weapon choice.

I apologise for the perhaps vague nature of description at times but as said before what makes Bioshock 2 so fun is the element of discovery. You have to really experience Rapture and its wonders for yourself. I’d love to go on and on and on about every inch of detail but I’d be taking away from what you experience when you set foot inside the undone underwater utopia.

I will say a few more things to wrap this up. One is that Bioshock 2 isn’t flawless which is why it doesn’t receive five stars. It takes a few hours for you to get over the feeling of familiarity. It’s a wonderful feeling to be back experiencing Rapture but it’ll take a few hours before Bioshock 2 separates itself from the first game and carves its own unique experience within the familiarity.

One big change up to the gameplay is the ability to dual wield both plasmids & weaponry. This makes things sound a little easier but it won't be.

Also, there are several bugs within the game that can divert your enjoyment. I am sure that 2K Marin are working on these bugs as several have been mentioned around the internet but I was hoping that my time in Rapture would absorb me completely. Hopefully if the patches come soon then many people can still experience the game as it is meant to be but for the time being some people will have had their time cut short or interrupted.

One other issue is with the multiplayer. It’s a great multiplayer no question. There are several game modes available, many customisation options, an apartment for your character in Rapture that acts as a lobby for matchmaking and pre-match preparation and a ranking system that seems to fit very well. The issue comes with longevity and how it fits with the game. I can’t see the multiplayer being more than just a niche experience shared by a few. It’ll most likely crumble and dissipate before it has a chance to flourish. The concept and execution of the multiplayer is well worth seeing for yourself because the experience is enjoyable but it will be short-lived.

Bioshock 2 much like Bioshock 1 is a single player game that will be seen as a single player game. Very few games get lucky when including multiplayer to single player games and I don’t think Bioshock 2 will be one of them: prove me wrong please.

Overall Impressions:

I don’t buy single players. I make it a rule when I look for video games that if a game won’t last me more than 25 hours minimum, I won’t buy it. That said I think Bioshock 2′s single player alone could stand the test of time because it is one of the best, the most riveting and the most exhilarating single player experiences I’ve ever had the pleasure of enjoying and if the multiplayer does get a good following too?

Bioshock 2 is definitely a keeper. The world of Rapture that 2K Boston first made nearly three years ago has been honored by 2K Marin in 2010. There may be the odd issue you encounter during your time with the game but don’t let them take anything away from the exemplary achievement that is Bioshock 2.

Once you get over the feeling of familiarity Bioshock 2 really flourishes, taking everything that was great about the prequel and adding a few tweaks for good measure.

Rating: ★★★★½ 

First port of call should be the aforementioned similarities the game shares with other existing titles. Many have compared Dante’s Inferno’s gameplay style and violent themes to the likes of God of War and are lessening the experience based purely on that. Don’t dampen the adventure by comparing it, take the game for what it is: a very solid third-person hack and slash that takes the positives of games like it and carves out its own style from them.

You’ll find yourself bordering on Bayonetta-style button combo bashing to dispatch multiple enemies. Timing, much like in Bayonetta is crucial to succeeding in combat here: blocking at the right time rewards you with a second of slow motion and a chance to counter your enemy. Dodging an attack gives you the opportunity to make some damage and dodging is especially useful against the more powerful and faster enemies. Tapping the right buttons in the right sequence reward you with more powerful moves but because of the enemy variety you can’t just use the same attack over and over again: the game makes you vary your styles and this makes the game more enjoyable and diverse.

Another reward from the combat system comes in the form of soul collection (effectively the currency of the damned). Killing enemies will give you souls which you can use to purchase upgrades for Dante to use. The upgrade system is well implemented and it works well with the handling of enemies, the stronger enemies giving you more souls as reward. Choosing to punish or absolve certain enemies can affect whether you earn holy or unholy souls which correspond to the upgrade system’s holy or unholy ‘skills’. There are many different souls needed to be absolved or punished throughout Hell and each reward you with either holy or unholy souls which you can use to upgrade your skills.

The punishing/absolving souls act as experience which raise your holy/unholy levels accordingly and it’s up to you to choose whether you take the good or bad path in upgrading. Consequence is irrelevant with the choices but both sides have their perks so balancing the two sides becomes a mini-mission for you as you progress.

One of the bosses you'll come across on your travels. The bosses in this game are big, both in size and epicness.

Other combat mechanics include grappling, allowing you to grab your enemies and attack them at very close proximity and air attacks which vary from ground attacks and allow you to separate enemies by flinging them up and attacking them individually. During the game you’ll pick up several magic attacks which can be used to good effect and provide different advantages. The use of these magic attacks (unlike the Holy cross) deplete mana which you can recover at regular intervals.

In between the combat segments are platforming areas which involve a range of different scenarios from puzzle solving to wall scaling. A nice little touch is that the walls you scale are that of the dead who depending on the particular circle you are in will throw dialogue at you that matches the particular sins they committed in life. The little things do make the game more enjoyable but you could consider the platforming to be a little thing also as the game focuses more on the combat and accompanying narrative than anything else. There are many different puzzles and platforming sections to complete throughout (including one particularly enjoyable area involving door mirrors) but the combat takes priority in the game’s experience, closely followed by the narrative.

The CGI cutscenes look good. Very, very good. The whole game looks great.

Obviously Dante’s journey isn’t going to be a simple walk to completion and as mentioned before there are a wide variety of enemies. Since you are in Hell, the enemies aren’t your typical fantasy style enemies: they are gruesomely depicted but very fitting to the setting and the bosses and mini-bosses in particular serve their purpose very well as the damned denizens of the underworld. There are several rather horrifying enemies, such as the unbaptised babies who have scythes for hands and the gluttons who will vomit and shit on you as well as try to eat you. Hell in Dante’s Inferno is about as horrific as I’ve ever seen it depicted – by a long way – and despite Hell being incredibly vivid and abhorrent in its depiction, Hell fits with the game’s intentions.

You really feel for Dante and his journey and you feel his pain and the damned and cursed around him. For instance you come across Cleopatra who is damned forever in the circle of Lust where she and Anthony are cursed forever. They are excellently shown as execrable demons but they are brilliantly characterised too as a lost couple.

The rendering of Hell is a beautiful nightmare and the effort that Visceral Games have put in to Dante’s Inferno to create a truly horrifying underworld is a testament to their determination to make a great game and to the game’s impact on you.

One of the "fountains" in the game. These give you health, mana or souls depending on the colour.

It’s been pretty much all positive so far but Dante’s Inferno isn’t without fault. The extremes of Hell fit the narrative and combat but particular moments feel a little unwarranted: there’s a rather large amount of nudity and over-the-top violence and even in context there’s only so much before it feels like too much. Visceral have clearly tried so hard to depict Hell as horrifically as possible but it comes across slightly as an attempt to one-up God of War’s violence and nudity. Also, particularly moments are a little distasteful – I’ll kill the damned babies trying to kill me if needs be but are the bloodcurdling baby screams really necessary? For some people I could imagine it to be sickening.

Less about the themes and more about the gameplay, some puzzles are particularly frustrating and on the odd occasion I found myself stuck as to what to do. The camerawork is pretty much exceptional for the most part but very rarely the camera doesn’t do you any favours when you’re trying to solve something. You don’t have control over it much like in God of War as both analogue sticks are used for movement so you have complete reliance on the camera to find your linear path. It tries its best and almost every single time it’s spot on but occasionally it isn’t positioned as well as you’d like. That said it never makes the game incredibly frustrating – it just can be a nuisance on that odd occasion.

One thing that does frustrate is the end boss. I won’t spoil it for you but I will say this: it’s a long grind and timing is essential to beat it. You go through a mass majority of the game feeling that the damage system is balanced and everything is at a comfortable level. Then you fight the last boss ans suddenly the difficulty ramps up some and you’re forced into a systematic grind. The boss is predictable but they have a wide range of attacks and multiple stages so you have to approach the fight from a very tactical basis. The main bulk of the game is less tactics and more timing whereas the last boss is all about planning and execution as well as trial and error. It’s a surprising but somewhat unwelcome challenge. Thankfully the reward for beating them is a brilliant ending so you don’t end the game with a bitter taste.

At the end you get the chance to play the game through again with your upgrades in “Resurrection Mode” and I have to say that the game does have some replayability. It’s a single player only (until April when the co-op arena DLC is released) but the 8-12 hour experience is replayable, especially to complete all the collectible side challenges. There is also a “Gates of Hell” mode after completion which is an arena to fight hordes of enemies so the longevity is increased more there. It’s a shame that the April DLC wasn’t in the game because while the game lasts after completion it probably won’t last you two months.

Overall Impression:

Dante’s Inferno is a brilliant diversion from the biggest games that are out/on the way, mixing enjoyable combat with a compelling narrative and some spectacular visuals. So what if Dante’s Inferno isn’t a perfect game. It has its flaws but who cares? It’s not for the faint-hearted but Dante’s Inferno is a brutally brilliant fun and it’s a definite buy for any gamer who likes a bit of action.

Rating: ★★★★½ 

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is not a remake, but rather a re-imagining of that same game I played so many years ago. In fact – it doesn’t even fit into the canonical universe of Silent Hill. It is it’s own brand new game with very little in common with the game it’s based upon. Those of you expecting to see Pyramid Head or references to the occult will be in for quite a shock. It uses the same general plot, in so far that you are Harry Mason searching for his daughter Cheryl following a car crash in the town of Silent Hill – but aside from the character names, Shattered Memories is truly a unique and rewarding experience.

As you begin to play the game, you’re presented with a warning. It’s not the usual “violent and disturbing imagery” warning that is usually associated with these kind of games, but rather the game informs you that “you play the game just as much as the game plays you.” An interesting thought – but what exactly does this mean for you? It means that the game dynamically changes depending on how you play. How careful you are when you’re exploring, what objects you take an interest in and examine, where you are looking when talking to other characters – these are all factors, among others, that the game uses to profile you.

You'll be spending lots of time with Dr. K

There are also more obvious examples, such as your therapy sessions with Dr. K that take place in between the exploration sections of the game, where he runs you through a series of non-linear psychological tests. Now, many games might boast that they “learn and adapt” depending on how you play, but this generally amounts to how difficult the enemies are. Not so with Shattered Memories – your choices and actions determine which areas of Silent Hill you get to explore, how characters look and act towards you, and ultimately will determine the ending you get at the end of the game. The best part is, while the credits roll it gives you a nice long psychological report on you, based on how you played the game. This is adding at least some re-playability, and personally I know I will play the game through multiple times.

Originally coming out on the Nintendo Wii, the motion controls feel intuitive and responsive, with the flashlight mechanic being one of the best used and easy to control in any game so far. The Wii remote is also used to grab and manipulate objects to solve certain puzzles, but these often feel tacked on, such as needing to remove a door peg in order to unlock a door. These puzzles carry over well to its PS2 and PSP ports by simply using the analog stick to move a pointer around the screen to grab objects.

Your on-screen map comes in the form of a cellphone which you pull out when you need to find out which direction to go.

The look and feel of Shattered memories is vastly different from is predecessors as well. Instead of the rusty, hellish nightmare world of the previous games, Shattered Memories opts for a frozen, warped dreamscape, where you are constantly hunted by deformed monsters. It is admittedly less horrifying than previous incarnations, but the effect is still eerie enough to make you nervous and edgy.

In Shattered Memories, combat is non-existent, with the emphasis being on exploration and evasion rather than straight up fighting. This is an excellent idea, but the execution can sometimes be frustrating. Enemies continuously chase Harry as he tries to find his way through the nightmare world, and he has the ability to look over his shoulder to track just how many enemies he has trailing him. Enemies can latch on to Harry as he’s running, and players can shake them off by either using the Wii motion controls, or a quick button press, depending on what platform you are playing on. If you take too many hits, you will eventually die. The irritating part is trying to navigate your way through the twisting hallways and maze like structure of the nightmare world.

While Harry is able to access his map, he is unable to run while using it which makes basic enemy evasion in the nightmare world nearly impossible – and even though open doors and climbable ledges are highlighted, it is never really clear which way is the correct path. This can sometimes lead to running in circles while enemies continue to gather in numbers behind you. At first, it was a nerve wracking experience, but over time it can turn into a frustrating exercise in trial and error.

There are ways, however, to slow enemies down. Certain objects can be pushed in the path of your pursuers to stop them from gaining ground on you so quickly. These objects are nicely highlighted and are easy to spot. You can also pick up flares that will temporarily blind enemies, allowing you an easy escape. Thankfully, these short chase sequences are only a small part of the Shattered Memories experience.

The “normal” version of Silent Hill is modeled after a normal American small town, and the attention to detail is very high. The interiors of each of the buildings look exactly as you think they would: bars, pet shops, malls, clothing stores, homes – they all feel very real and familiar.

The environments are nicely rendered, and the shadow effects caused by Harry’s flashlight look excellent. One other thing of note is that nearly all of the text in the game is legible. Harry can easily make out small print found on posters and graffiti throughout the game, and these often give clues as to how to solve certain puzzles and riddles. There is a lack of text boxes however. Instead, Harry actually tells you his thoughts out loud, which is something that really keeps you in the experience. Thankfully, all of the voice acting is, for the most part well done and I have no complaints. Harry also has a cell phone, which replaces the inventory menus from the earlier games. From here, he can access his GPS, make calls to other characters and numbers he finds written down throughout the game, receive messages and take photos. All of these mechanics are used throughout the game, and not just added on for no reason.

Throughout your exploration of Silent Hill, you can find mementos left behind by by the towns previous inhabitants. While I found myself actually trying to track them all down, there is no real reward for doing so. This should however appeal to completionists, and adds a little length to the 8 or so hours you’ll spend exploring the game. Lastly, with the return of series composer Akira Yamaoka and the haunting vocals of Silent Hill veteran Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, the soundtrack in Shattered Memories is just as haunting and eerie as other games in the series, and if you pre-ordered the game you were treated with some nice vocal tracks as well on the pre-order bonus soundtrack.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is certainly a unique take on the series, and I can honestly say it was a welcome one. It offers a fresh and unique experience to it’s harshest critics, the veteran players of Silent Hill while being a totally enjoyable game for new comers as well.

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

It features three different modes for you to try – a training mode where you can practice the different events, an Olympic Games mode which is the main feature where you can compete in the 14 events available, and a Challenge mode which features 30 different challenges of varying difficulty and varying styles. While that could be seen as a wide variety it really isn’t – the whole game can be experienced within a couple of hours.

The training mode is irrelevant as the main mode features the same experience and even includes optional tutorials for the events, rendering the training mode useless. Along with this, the challenges are very slight variations on the actual events that don’t have any real reward for completion other than the occasional trophy/achievement.

The first-person perspective makes up for the dull gameplay mechanics and for a short period of time this perspective makes the game quite enjoyable to play.

The gameplay is very bare-bones as it only features a few buttons and the occasional inclusion of button bashing for power exertion. While the game tries to change up the style of play when participating in the events it cannot escape the monotony, as you very quickly see under the surface that the core game mechanics are almost cut and pasted across every event. You tap X/A at the right time, bash the X/A button to build power, use the analog stick/s to manouver your characters and on the odd occasion press L2/LT or R2/RT to turn quicker & move faster.

Thankfully there is one button that has a function I welcome which is the perspective switch. For most events you can switch the view from 3rd person to 1st person and the reward is great – the feeling of adrenaline is good and the experience is good as the sounds of the air flying past you and the feeling of speed is exemplified. The graphical presentation is where the game shines and when in 1st person you fully experience the rush. The presentation and attention to detail is a welcome delight and when competing in the events the lackadaisical gameplay mechanics can be forgiven. Little details like hearing your character breath or the motion blurring of the environments as you hurtle down the slopes is a great feeling and if you take anything away with you after playing the game it’s the way the game plays when in 1st person.

However, even though you can play the game from the perspective of the athletes you feel no connection or patriotism when playing. You can select the flag of your nation but that’s it. At the end of every event you get a cutscene where the winner jumps up and down in delight and their national anthem plays but there are no names, no likenesses to real individuals… there’s no feeling of allegiance at all. There isn’t a career mode and for a game that is based on national competition where you would feel patriotic and would want to support your country, there is as little nationalism as possible. Vancouver 2010 as a whole feels very empty and emotionless which is a shame.

You can play online against other people but expect the number of people to play against to dry up very rapidly. The replayability of the game is miniscule and the whole game is little more than a one-time foray into the world of winter olympics before you find something else to occupy your time. The general air of emptiness in content is a real let-down and despite the game looking the part and having a few redeeming features, the persistence for Olympic games to use timed button sequences and the limited number of game modes to choose from makes the game just another Olympic tie-in that lacks the amount of content it should have to warrant a purchase.

Vancouver 2010 is a step in the right direction for Olympic simulators but the lack of a career mode and the boring gameplay mechanics turn the game very much into a short-lived experience that’s not worth more than a rent.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

The Saboteur takes place in Nazi-occupied France and the battle between the Nazis and the French resistance. You play as a pissed-off, stereotypical Irishman who is everything the Americans want the Irish to be and is everything the Irish don’t want to be (entirely) associated to. The womanising, beer-swigging, offensive, reckless and violent race car driver takes the centre stage of the story but unfortunately, Pandemic fall at the first hurdle based on the points I’ve made: Sean Devlin is not a likeable character.

In much the same way as Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘N’ Roll received criticism for centralising a story on an unlikeable character; The Saboteur chooses an anti-hero to take centre stage seemingly for the fun of it. Sean Devlin is the culmination of Irish stereotypes but this doesn’t pay dividends as his character is not one you feel for which isn’t helped by the Hollywood story, the confused motive the game seems to have and the fact that the guy who voices Sean isn’t Irish: he’s the voice of Travis Touchdown in No More Heroes, Tenzin in Uncharted 2 and Captain Slag in Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty. Put it this way: he wouldn’t be my first choice for reciprocating the Irish accent.

Dialogue and voice acting is just one problem the game suffers from. The voices are nauseatingly stereotypical, the scripting is so full of clichés and puns that you feel like you’re watching an average, dark version of a Zucker-Abrahams film and the main antagonist is everything but believable. The Saboteur’s scripting and voicing feels like it’s trying to be comical in its approach but when matched with the fairly dark and serious undertones of the Nazi oppression and Sean’s seemingly never-ending quest for revenge it comes across as tactless and possibly slightly offensive. I’m going to have to throw the word “stereotypical” in again, because that’s exactly what it is. This doesn’t make the game experience feel authentic or even believable – you don’t feel for the characters and you don’t connect to any of the characters because they’re so cripplingly bourgeois and bigoted.

The story does nothing to save this as the monotonous missions and brutal execution of the narrative is too bouncy to maintain a rhythmic coherency I’d have liked to have seen: the characters flip from pissed-off to content to depressed to angry to relieved to happy to afraid to content to enraged and you never feel connected to the story arc or to the characters within. Characters come and go throughout and the deceptively short story introduces faces that it tries to make you feel for but you end up shrugging off.

This is Sean. You want to like him, but he's very much an anti-hero that's way too stereotypical to admire.

The inevitable plot twists and predictability of the story aren’t exactly helpful either and you end up feeling like you’re playing a World War II version of Grand Theft Auto but with an even less believable story and no sense of achievement upon completion of objectives.

The game runs off a currency of “contraband” opposed to real money – items such as bread, wine, cheese, cigarettes, music boxes etc. act as monetary value which you can trade with black market vendors for weapons and ammo. The concept is good but the execution of the idea is average as you spend ages earning little amounts of contraband before earning the big bucks right towards the end of the game. By then, you’ve set on two or three weapons and the most valuable and rewarding purchases are pointless. Several more expensive items such as perk upgrades and special weapons are only available when you’ve completed perk objectives or acquired a lot of contraband but it’s only about ¾ of the way through of the game before you’ve reached the level to purchase the best stuff. As I said though, you’re comfortable with a select number of weapons which are effective enough and towards the end when tougher enemies are introduced you can take their weapons and suddenly you own the most powerful weapons in the game.

The aforementioned perks system again is a poorly executed idea as the perks are based on mini-objectives completion such as stealth killing five Nazi generals or blowing up ten Nazis in a small period of time. However, you don’t really have the time to focus on that while playing out the objectives because the mass majority of missions are stealth-based and only a handful of perks are stealth-based. The missions generally consist of stealth-killing a Nazi, stealing his uniform, working your way to a marker and completing the objective, whether it’s rescuing a prisoner, killing someone… well, that’s pretty much it. Seriously. For an open-world exploration game the Saboteur feels very condensed and close-quarters and you feel incredibly restricted at times. It feels like if you were playing Grand Theft Auto with a Nathan-Drake styled character who acts like the love-child of Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell and Ezio Auditore de Firenze from Assassin’s Creed 2.

The game splices together different concepts from multiple franchises but the outcome is underwhelming as the Saboteur ends up feeling like an average homage from a student’s college project. The climbing is rudimentary, making you press X/A every time you want to go higher. The ledges you can grab onto shine a little so you know where you’re going but most of the time you’re going straight up so you find yourself just tapping X/A and pointing the left analogue stick up until you’ve reached the top. Almost every building is scalable and you will experience a fair amount of climbing (especially to obtain disguises from guard towers) but the experience is underwhelming and meagre in comparison to Assassin’s Creed 2. Your character jumps like an idiot and it’s reminiscent of the jumping in Elder Scrolls IV. The free-running across the French landscapes is good to look at mostly but it feels sluggish as you’re controlling a slightly unfit Irishman who’s had one too many beers

Somehow though, Sean’s damn near indestructible. You can fling yourself off buildings and he probably will be walking around a few seconds later like he’s just hopped a fence. You also soak ordinary bullets like a sponge and take explosions like you’re Iron Man. This is ridiculous and the true extent of the haphazardly designed damage counter is exemplified when you get killed within seconds by the better weapons later on. It’s literally a case of one minute you can run around with minimal worry and you’re still running around a few minutes later under heavy fire, then the next minute you’re dead within five seconds because a particularly powerful Terror Nazi has mowed you down with his Terror machine gun.

For some bizarre reason, there is a free DLC pack that comes with the option of removing nipple covers. I'd rather have better facial animations than virtual nipples...

The enemy build is another problem in the game, as you have only a select number of enemies and they all look pretty much the same. The unoriginality of the character modelling is worse than Prototype at times and the believability is ruined further when you come across Nazis in their double digits that all seem to be related. I know the Aryan thing was around at the time but it wasn’t this prominent.

Thankfully, the varied French landscape isn’t repetitive, as the Saboteur experience is redeemed slightly by a very good-looking landscape, particularly the inner-city building design and the recreation of famous monuments. There’s a real sense of polish with the game’s graphical design from a landscape perspective and it’s something that the game has done right. The implementation of colour representing oppression and the film noir style becoming colourful when you’ve successfully defeated the Nazis in a particular area is one of the few real rewards from playing the game and it’s nice to see while it lasts.

Shame the same can’t be said for the facial animations that feel like the characters were picked out of PS2 games and left the way they looked. Disappointment sets in again as the beauty of the game around the characters is great to explore but the people you see could look better.

Pandemic were sloppy in several aspects of the production and this stretches to the AI system too unfortunately. The AI is incredibly dim-witted at times and yet is a whizz-kid with a gun. I found myself standing easily within the eyeline of several Nazis undisguised ready to pounce and steal their uniform but when going for a brisk jog past Nazis when disguised, suspicion creeps in and they suspect that you may not be one of them – it feels like Assassin’s Creed, where you would try and blend in but even the slightest suspicious movement is a worry. Strange, considering you can sprint as Sean but not as a Nazi.

The detection system is flawed in the way you can be found out – driving a car as Sean when he has forged papers is perfectly fine but dressed as a Nazi driving the same car is suspicious when you even pull up to a Nazi checkpoint, never mind before they take a look at you. Stupid thing is, the checkpoints accept your papers regardless of whether you are dressed as a Nazi or not but chances are you’ll have an entire brigade of Nazis firing at you if you try and drive through a checkpoint dressed as one of them.

If you shoot a Nazi, you can't wear the uniform because it would be bloodsoaked. Breaking their neck or punching them straight in the face is perfectly acceptable though.

It’s the little things like that that left me feeling frustrated. The awkward control mapping was rugged and sluggish to handle and the wayward camera seemed to have a mind of its own sometimes, swinging to different positions as it saw fit. Sean is difficult to control at times and while it’s fun to blow stuff up and create a ruckus, trying to get away afterwards can be difficult when you’re in control of a game that seems to want to follow an exact script and not deviate from the norm. A massive flaw.

The Saboteur as stated before is supposed to be an open-world experience, but everything you are tasked to do and the way you play the game feels so scripted that if you try and play the game in a way the game isn’t expecting it doesn’t like it – I found myself stuck in floors, having characters glitching in corridors and passageways, had enemies unaware of my existence when I was in stealth mode in front of them, had bullets not causing me damage, had fall damage eradicated because I landed in an unusual spot. The Saboteur is very much unpolished in its gameplay and it’s the biggest letdown of the lot because it takes what little experience and reward you take from the game when you’re constantly fighting for freedom. How ironic.

The plot structure feels very linear and with only fifty missions to take part in you’re limited in your experience. The game offers you the chance to take part in driving races at some point in the game but the average driving controls (reminiscent of Grand Theft Auto’s driving) don’t work as well as you’d like. Racing plays a part in the story (as you’d expect) but the racing is simplistic in its design due to the context of an open-world action/adventure game with driving as a side-part but rugged in its control.

One other side part to the game are the collectables but you feel little purpose to completing them other than for trophies/achievements and a little extra contraband. Throughout the very inaccurately proportioned France are many Nazi propaganda outposts and vehicles for you to destroy and steal respectively. Collecting cars improves your garage collection but much like the weaponry as soon as you get the right ones you’re set. You get the fastest car in the game about 2/3 of the way through and until then you have one of the next fastest to play with anyway. For the collectibles, you drive around the city destroying different Nazi instruments of propaganda outposts like radio towers and signal vans, and you can steal armoured trucks for your garage. It’s very pointless though because, as I say, the reward is minimal.

Conclusion:

The Saboteur is not as good as I’d hoped. It could have been a brilliant open-world experience and the groundwork was there for that. Pandemic got very little right with the Saboteur and there were too many problems with the game for me to accept. It’s sad that this is the last game from Pandemic because it’s not a game I’d have wanted them to go out on. The Saboteur could have been so much more but instead you’re left with a hollow experience that brings very little to the table and does nothing much more than take away several hours of your time.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

The fourth in the PixelJunk series, Shooter offers a slightly similar experience to Eden but it has its own personality and gameplay style that in my opinion is better than Eden. Perhaps I’m just a trigger-happy kind of gamer, I don’t know.

Set on a fictional planet, the humans are mining for resources that the planet offers. However, the scientists in charge of the project get trapped under the ground of the planet and your job is to excavate and rescue them whilst avoiding falling into the traps that the inhabitants of the planet fell into themselves. However, all is not what it seems and there seems to be something lurking deeper still that’s been stirred by the human’s invasion and resourcing.

While the plot sounds like something you’d find in the recycle bin of rejected Avatar plots the narrative becomes pretty much trivial as the gameplay becomes everything and you find yourself playing around with the game’s mechanics, completely oblivious to how and why you are where you are.

The graphical quality is high considering the simplicity of the design. The liquids in the game and the way they move are the most appealing.

The game’s vague plot seems to have been hashed together after the game’s concept was designed to give the motives clarity. You feel that the story is almost irrelevant but that comes slightly with the territory of a short arcade adventure.

However as previously stated the gameplay while it lasts is the star of the show. In control of a little ship you can at first fire a machine gun or homing rockets but later spring forth unrelenting waves of water (and later on lava) onto obstacles to alleviate them and progress forward. Getting sidetracked by those pesky scientists is necessary as collecting (or killing) them all opens the gate to the next area.

Some will help you clarify the reasons why they are trapped in such bizarre circumstances and you find yourself confused as to why you’re forced to travel through dangerous scenarios to rescue scientists when you could be having so much more fun killing enemies who inhabit the areas and messing around the physics of the elements instead.

The enemies are fairly rudimentary and similar in their attacks but they differ in their size and danger levels, the more stronger and frustrating enemies appearing later on as you get used to the controls.

The control mapping is very simple to grasp but the lack of tutorials is a little bit of a nuisance as it was only half way through when I discovered a move that would have come in useful earlier on. You use L1 & L2 to fire a grapple for rescuing and removing certain obstacles from your path, and R1 & R2 to fire your weapon of choice, whether it be the aforementioned machine gun or waves of water/lava.

You gain the use of element control by collecting special ship suits which allow you to progress through the diverse environments. For example, wearing an inverted suit allows you to travel through lava but get destroyed by water. You have to be careful when travelling through the landscapes because even the slightest contact of lava (or water, dependent on suit) can destroy you immediately. Your ship has a system where if you heat up (or cool down) by firing too many rockets or making contact with water, lava or oil your ship is in danger of explosion.

You get to wield the very thing that you fear the most. The game becomes a bit of a playground when you can play with both lava and water.

This can be a nuisance as if you are traversing and you are seconds from reaching the end of a section but you suddenly get hit by a dangerous liquid you can die instantly, meaning you have to repeat the whole stage again. This becomes prominent later on as several more problems and enemies are introduced who clog up the narrow passageways and make it much more complex to progress.

The switch between playing with fire and putting it out is refreshing to experience and when oil and ice are added to the fray in later levels it becomes effectively a fun game of experimentation and trial & error, as you throw together different elements to create the right solution. But the close-quarters level design becomes troublesome as you have to pass harder obstacles in tougher environments before reaching completion.

To complete the game itself, you have to finish three “episodes”, each with different underground terrains and five sub-levels to complete culminating in a boss fight to progress to the next episode. With only three episodes to play through the game ends before it has a chance to truly flourish. The game does set itself up for a sequel but at the cost of a three to four hour experience which should have been more.

Plus when the game draws to a close, considering the rest of the game is fun to play PixelJunk Shooter becomes fairly monotonous and the slightly inaccurate aiming controls and the boxed-in feel of movement is exemplified when the difficulty level of the game seems to jump in the last few levels.

The bosses have a more open area for you to move around and plan your attack and this adds some variety to the gameplay but when certain elements can destroy you within a few seconds of impact the last boss in particular becomes incredibly frustrating to fight based on the boss’ design and attacks.

The boss levels are more open but the space is quickly taken up by the rather versatile bosses and their long-range arsenals.

The game does include a two-player mode allowing you and a friend to play through the game but I’d much rather have a freeplay mode allowing me to mess around with the weaponry and elements because that’s where the game shines the most. How selfish of me yes but you’d see what I mean when you find yourself getting distracted by the shiny water and lava.

Overall Impressions:

While at first it’s an interesting, exciting puzzle-shooter hybrid experience, it slowly transforms into a weary battle between you and the game’s awkward level design and fairly inaccurate aiming system and despite everything it does well you’re left with a bitter aftertaste when the credits roll.

However, don’t let that put you off entirely because while the fun lasts it’s very much worth a venture.

Rating: ★★★½☆ 

Bob uses those hips.

Tekken is a series that hasn’t progressed for quite some time now.  Most would argue that the last great installment was Tekken 3, a game that was released on the PS1 more than 10 years ago.  Since then Tekken has stagnated a little, with only incremental improvements on graphics, character rosters and modes keeping the series afloat.  Some serious improvement was needed to keep Tekken relevant in today’s busy fighting game renaissance.  Enter Tekken 6.

While the last few Tekken games have felt like a rushed mishmash of ideas, Tekken 6 takes everything that the previous Tekkens got right, strips out the trash and delivers comprehensive, best-of-package.  Gone are the annoying time wasters and the arbitrary mini-games and what remains is a singular vision of a balanced and addictive fighter.  The past decade of incremental change has produced a compendium of 40 fighters, a number that against all odds, Namco have managed to balance perfectly.  Every fighter has been tweaked and balanced.   In some way and this finally feels like the definitive roster; there is so much variety that there really is a fighter for every style of play.  Another example of how the last few games’ ideas have come into fruition here is the arcade mode.  Each opponent has their own fake online tag and style of play, randomly generated from ghost data.  Because of this each fighter feels human and never falls into awkward AI patterns.  There is also a ranking system that has greatly expanded from Tekken 5, offering many more ranks and rewards (in the form of costume items and character effects).  The system isn’t a game changing addition but gives the game a nice feeling of progression, rewarding you just enough to keep you playing.

The PSP version looks great.

Throughout, Tekken 6 doesn’t revolutionise the series, just refines it to near perfection and this stands for the gameplay as well.  It is still for more tactical and less technically minded players, with positioning and blocking taking precedence over memorisation of complex moves.  The main addition this time around is the ability to bounce opponents off the ground, prolonging combo sequences when you really catch you opponent off guard.  Long strings of combos don’t happen very often, but when they do bouncing opponents is immensely satisfying.  The fact that the 40 strong character roster is all balanced and plays fluidly is the main feat of the game however.

Visually the game is a treat.  While obviously not looking as good as the frankly stunning console versions, the PSP version pulls more than it’s weight.  Rather than downgrading the console version’s textures and effects, Namco have produced all new art assets for the PSP and it looks markedly sharper because of this.  Although it lack some of the console’s fancy 3D effects, motion blur and other post processing effects make the portable outing look extremley sharp.  The load times are also very short on the PSP, noticeably shorter than the console versions.

Scenario Campaign feels like an afterthought.

The Scenario Campaign mode, only present on the console versions is a really half arsed attempt at a brawler.  It’s really repetitive and feels put of place in such a tight package.  With the removal of the relatively dire Scenario Campaign mode, allowing players to see the beautiful and bizarre CGI ending movies by playing through story fights rather than struggling through a half-broken 3D brawler, I would wager that the PSP version is a better game (ignoring obvious graphical inferiority) that its console brethren.  Tekken was always one of the few fighters designed with a four button controller in mind rather than a fight-pad, and for this reason it also controls brilliantly, a rarity on the PSP.  Overall the console versions look prettier but are bogged down by some of the extra modes whereas the PSP version offers a purer fighting experience.

More than most games, fighters depend almost entirely on their core gameplay, and I am pleased to report that Tekken 6 has got it nailed.  Combos flow and animate brilliantly and the game always feels both fair and entertaining.  Tekken 6 feels like the summation of the last decade’s work and the most complete fighter around.  It is not going to have the same impact that Tekken 3 did ten years ago, but Tekken 6 is still a massive return to form for the series and confirmation that the fighting game renaissance is more than just a Street Fighter induced fad.

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

For starters, the storyline is solid: a direct sequel it may be to its predecessor but it goes into far more detail. The setting of the Italian Renaissance is a great choice because not only have Ubisoft Montreal implemented real parts of history in the form of real people from the past, they’ve managed to create a living, breathing middle-aged Italy with some absolutely astounding attention to detail. The far more convincing characters in the game help move the story along excellently.

The main character in the adventure, the one you take control of, is Ezio Auditore de Firenze who is the son of Giovanni Auditore de Firenze, a member of the order of assassins. Giovanni and his sons are wrongly hanged for treason and Ezio inadvertently becomes a part of his father’s history when he chooses to take revenge on those who had his family killed.

Much in the same vein to the first game, you are playing a piece of another character’s past in the form of Desmond Miles, who exists in the present and is being used to dig up his ancestors’ memories in order to find artifacts in the past that have mystical properties. He is wired up to what is called an “animus” which allows access to the ancestors memories of the person who is connected to the chair. While you play through Ezio’s memories, Desmond is hooked up to an animus. The setting for Desmond has changed however as he is no longer being help captive. The Assassins and Templars have had a long history of rivalry and war between them and in the first game Desmond is being used by the bad guys who are the Templars. In Assassin’s Creed 2 however, Desmond is in the possession of fellow Assassins. The Assassin’s Creed storyline is something Dan Brown would be proud of. It’s a maze of intricacy I find hard to describe without revealing too much of the story to you. I want you to experience it for yourself because of how deep and mythical it gets.

Ubisoft Montreal go crazy with the mythical aspects, throwing at you more plot twists, mythology, enigmas, puzzle-solving, unearthed mysteries and historical links than you can shake Ezio’s sword at.

And speaking of Ezio’s sword, the choice of weaponry is something else that has been bulked up in the game. While playing, you can access a handy little navi-style ring, which pops onto your screen when selected, allowing you to choose from a vast array of weapons, more being unlocked as you progress through the game and build up your capital and make more money. Money is a new addition used to beef up the game’s longevity, but while it’s a somewhat welcome addition to enhance the realism of the in-game world, it’s also a little short lived. After about 3/4 of the way through the storyline, if you’re resourceful, you’ll have bought everything you need to buy, and will be well-equipped.

Your real estate ventures which tie in nicely to your money-making will have flourished, but will have reached their peak, and other than for throwing at mere peasants and distracting guards, and buying medicine and poison and the like, it becomes quite inconsequential and irrelevant almost. I have a vast empire around me, which is close to completion, but after completing the game, I found myself passing the time by throwing vast sums of coin into crowds of civilians who so desperately needed money, much more than you.

One of my favourite parts of the game. Da Vinci's flying machine is fun, exciting and a nice breath of fresh air in the game's story.

Civilians in the game, and the NPCs in general, are improved on the prequel in their modelling and believability, as I never found myself meeting the same people twice unless they were whores and bards, but you literally enter a breathing, living world of habitants who curse and swear and tut at your barbaric actions, who fight and steal and are sex-craved and violent. It’s almost like being in the real world. Even though I experienced some issues with the NPCs tendency to revert to the intelligence level of the prequel’s AI system, full of faults and idiocy and frustration, I must say that Ubisoft Montreal have created a very believable AI atmosphere, especially in the dialogue and reactions.

The more important characters who appear in the story however can be quite lacklustre, particularly some of the assassination characters, a few of the guard character models and a couple of your allies. They take away from some of Ubisoft Montreal”s hard work because they don’t gel very well into the story and the memorability factor but other characters such as De Medici and Da Vinci more than make up for this. Leonardo Da Vinci is a fantastic character in the game, the young rapscallion with a lot of ideas.

He serves as the Lucius Fox to your Italian Batman, as he builds and upgrades your arsenal, giving you news tools and a few very exciting perks to help you with your killing sprees. His flying machine is one of my favourite parts of the game, where Ezio takes control of a set of wings and flies around the Venetian landscape during Carnivale taking down guards on rooftops.

Other characters that feature in the game are the thieves, which have their guild, much like Elder Scrolls, and hire you to kill people who have wronged them and help you steal items from other people. The thief characters are a mix and match of quality, a few shining out with great personalities and Italian flair, but others simply unmemorable and uninteresting. Plus, it tries to create a relationship between Ezio and a thief named Rosa, but that just stops at some point in the game and fades away. Kind of annoying since it’s part of the storyline, but it doesn’t detract from the game at all in the long run.

The thieves in the game can be used to help your missions, along with courtesans and mercenaries, by distracting guards and helping you escape or get guarded treasure. The thieves steal, the courtesans flirt and the mercenaries fight, and they are one of my favourite new additions to the gameplay mechanic, because the faculties help spice up the gameplay variety and as they never get old, it certainly helps with the issue of repetitivity (oh yes, put that down in the Scrambled Pixel dictionary).

This new addition enhances the parkour aspect in the game, which is still very much there. Much like the rest of the game it feels improved upon, allowing you to grab more, jump higher and traverse more building but when you are running around the rooftops you get slowed down by Ezio’s slightly clunky movement. Plus, when you are escaping pursuit the game has the tendency to throw you off course when you are aiming in a certain direction outside of an 8-point axis.

Say you want to jump off a building and land onto a platform or wide open spaces. Sometimes the game will throw you off course and make you jump somewhere completely different. This can be especially frustrating during races when you have to move around a certain path very quickly. Also, when you jump off a building if you don’t make a jump and you’re ground-bound you lose a large chunk of health but if you hit the ground with only a few bits of health, you’ll lose only a little.

Much like this issue Assassin’s Creed 2 can be inconsistent. While the story is solid in general, the ending is very poorly constructed in both access and direction. It’s a quite frankly abysmal ending that ruined some of the believability for me and to access it you can’t just play it, you have to collect Codex pages to access it. Why make a game that makes you do side-quests to complete the storyline? I can understand the side-quests and extras but it should be an unwritten rule that game developers shouldn’t make you run through side-quests to complete the main part of the game.

The inconsistency crops up in other areas too. There is a fair bit of texture clipping, particularly during roof assassinations and a few missions which annoyed me greatly because they were so blatant and just like in the first game. Also, some of the textures were off at times with facial animations which had the tendency to look wooden and boxish. I’m not saying the whole game was like this because for a lot of it the game looked fantastic, but when it happens it’s very noticeable and quite disappointing in retrospect.

Also, at times the atmosphere created in the bustling and lively cities can be taken away from you by the modernistic white animus shine that appears in Ezio’s world. Characters from the present voice over occasionally too giving you little pointers and discussion about the story but this is not only distracting and generally stating the obvious but also quite frustrating in that it takes away from some of the Renaissance realism that Ubisoft Montreal have clearly strived so hard to create.

Diving from insanely big heights does nothing to your health if you land in the water, but land a few metres away onto land, and you're dead.

However, even with those issues Assassin’s Creed 2 stabs itself in the foot with one big blow: it tries too hard with the longevity factor. While the storyline is fun and engaging for the most part you’re constantly distracted by a massive amount of quite frankly average side-quests which litter your map and mini-map and become a nuisance. There is a ton of treasure, feathers, statues, armor, races, courier missions, mini assassinations and more but all of these clog up the game and okay, you can miss out on a large portion of it if you choose to but if you do, when the game is done you’re left with a ridiculous amount left to do. I completed the 12-hour storyline with only 55% synchronisation. I don’t particularly want to walk around every town looking for hundreds of different treasures because then the same problem occurs that was rife in the last game: monotony. Glyphs are in awkward and non-believable places and the puzzles you have to solve are pretty hard at times. It becomes a case of trial and elimination to solve some of them and what’s your reward for completion? A small piece of the story that could have been explained in a cutscene.

A few of the missions have a similar issue: they weren’t necessary and they could have been cut down to a cutscene. The arduous timed platforming sections where you have to run through areas to collect stone circles from assassin tombs are frustrating, annoying and give you little reward, not helped by the camera angles flipping to show you where you should go, forgetting where you are and making movement awkward. The reward for completion of them? An ugly-looking armor made by Altair in the past, which is the best armor in the game. It helps when you are fighting, but I like the look of Ezio’s father’s outfit. Shame.

Also during Carnivale, the game makes Ezio run through hoops as well, trying to win an item to help him access a party and thus aid his completion of an assassination. But the challenges are stupid, pointless and detract from the storyline and when you’ve done them it turns out that you don’t even win the bloody item. You are then tasked with stealing it off the “victor” in a mini-stealth mission. Why make me play 1/2 hour of piss-poor gameplay to make me do something that didn’t require that effort?

Overall Impressions:

Admittedly there are more people who loved the game than didn’t and I’m willing to bet that a lot of people that read this won’t agree with my opinions, but despite the clear improvement to the game in general, the mass of issues I had while playing meant that when I had finished I was left disappointed. I tried valiantly to play the game as much as I could and I gave it in excess of 20 hours of my time to see whether it was just me being frustrated with a few small aspects. That wasn’t the case.

Assassin’s Creed 2 is a great game, no question. It’s a sequel to a brilliant idea, it’s a breath of fresh air and it has some very redeeming factors. Unfortunately the game is let down by similar flaws from the first game and too much content for its own good that clogs up the game and makes you wade through the bad to reach the good.

Assassin’s Creed 2 can be summed up like this: it’s an infuriatingly good experience.

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

The new survivors are far more developed than the last lot.

Left4Dead 2 follows an all new group of survivors on 5 campaigns through the south of the US, starting in Georgia and ending in New Orleans.  There’s still a different theme to each campaign (mall, fairground, swamp, heavy storm and urban finale) but the southern feel permeates the entire game, a nice improvement upon the mish-mash of ideas in the first.  This consistent setting is achieved through everything from the character’s banter and the detail in the environments to the deep yellow, Gone With The Wind sunsets.  The campaigns are also strung together by a loose plot and the single objective of reaching New Orleans.  Overall, the game feels like a story told subtly through hints (read those safe-house walls) rather than a random mix of scenarios.  This consistent atmosphere and read between the lines plot is one of L4D2′s biggest triumphs.

Blood, it gets everywhere

L4D2′s other triumph comes from its refinement of every single aspect of last year’s game.  You can see the improvements simply by the numbers: 5 new campaigns all playable in versus, 3 new special infected, 2 new modes and an armoury of new weapons and equipment.  There are also additions that can’t be measured numerical.  The new gore and dismemberment system is one of these.  The zombies in the first game had pre-set death animations and it would take you out of the experience a bit when 5 zombies died in the same way right in front of you.  With the new system you can take chunks, slices and limbs off of the zombie horde and they will react accordingly.  While a sniper-shot to the head might take it clean off, a machete might chop it in half, a shotgun to it might take the shoulders off too.  Combine this with thick blood splatter, ragdoll physics and a chainsaw and you are at serious risk of feeling psychopath.  Speaking of chainsaws, another massive addition this time around is melee weapons.  The melee weapon replaces your pistol slot but when you’re surrounded by zombie’s you rarely want pistol (even the new magnum) over a Katana.  It’s basically a trade off between short range and long range which brings some tactics to your choice, let’s be honest though, nobody says no to a chainsaw.

Valve are constantly introducing mini objectives to test your mettle.

The gameplay change introduced by melee weapons is an idea that Valve has used a lot in L4D2.  In the case of melee weapons it simply encourages close range, aggressive play but there are a lot of other additions that change up play.  The new special infected for example, are designed specifically to split up groups.  The Spitter can create acid pool barriers, separating the survivors and leaving them more vulnerable while the Charger and Jockey pick off one member of the group and try to take them away from the rest of the group.  These infected really split up the pace of play, with players having to desperately regroup or be overwhelmed.  The new infected are incredibly fun in Versus in-case you were wondering.  Another example of play changers is the laser sight attachments for the guns.  Firstly they make your gun more accurate, meaning players tend to hold onto guns even when they are running out of ammo or are unsuitable for the current challenge, the special ammo types also tends to have this effect on players.  Secondly the lasers allow you to see where the rest of your team are aiming, pointing out threats and making you a more efficient zombie killer.  Yet another example of Valve mixing up your play style is the new finale events; they now involve rushing through environment to turn off zombie attracting alarms and scouting for fuel to fill up escape vehicles (an idea explored further in the excellent Scavenge mode). Valve knew that you camped and Valve stopped you camping, you cheap bastards.  L4D2 is a harder game than the original, not cheaper just harder, because the AI director has become more adept and ruining you, not only with enemies but also with gifts.

It’s the fact that Valve made Left 4 Dead 2 with you in mind, tapping into your psychology and using it against you, that makes it such a great game.  Valve have given you an absolute shit tonne of content here and every bit of it is miles ahead of the original.  Expansion pack my arse.

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Cyprus looks a lot like Jerusalem.

When you first set foot in the port of Limassol, first impressions are good.  The graphics and presentation are sharp, the trademark fluid animation is present and you’re free-running in no time.  The controls come naturally to anybody who has played the first AC with the intuitive but pretentiously titled “puppeteering system” in full effect.  Unfortunately, after a little play you notice a few flaws continue to present an issue throughout the game.  Firstly the camera hangs just a little too close to Altair which, combined with no right stick for camera control almost breaks the free-running.  You will often be sprinting across rooftops and be forced to slow down and look around, cumbersomely holding the left trigger to do so, just to notice a route a meter out of camera shot.  The world seems to have been designed without the camera in mind, forcing you to gamble on your route existing off screen.  To add insult to injury the fall damage has also been increased dramatically so fatal falls occur far too often..  On the plus side, the combat, criticised for it’s simplicity on the consoles translates absolutely perfectly to the PSP.  Timing the counter’s works brilliantly on the PSP’s simple controls.  The world two cities in the game (Kyrenia and Limassol) are fairly vast but lack a real sense of identity between each other.  Districts in the cities are split up by refreshingly small load times (we’re talking 3-5 seconds).  The load times don’t intrude upon the flow of the game but really hurt illusion of a unified game world.  The almost deserted streets, due to technical limitations also hurt the feeling of a living city.  Bloodlines feels like a console game awkwardly crammed onto a PSP rather a game built from the ground up.

Altair can now pull guards off ledges.

The plot and mission structure feels better tailored for a handheld outing however.  Rather than tasking you with countless smaller missions leading up to assassinations, there is a linear line of story missions that you follow through to the end of the game’s 5 hour run time.  This linear path is littered with assassinations and set pieces making it enjoyable throughout.  The Assassinations themselves almost all take place outside of the main game world in castles, forts and a personal highlight prison tower.  These areas allow a far more focused gameplay experience, with designed platforming and sneaking routes, the singular purpose of these areas allows them to avoid a lot of the platforming issues that the city gameplay suffers from and are the best parts of the game.  The architecture in these areas is also a lot more striking and unique.  Having visited Cyprus last summer I recognised one fort that I had actually visited. Unfortunately the city itself is made up mostly of recycled AC1 assets with only a handful of Cypriot styled locations thrown.  This probably isn’t an issue to most players but indulging myself in the history is something I really enjoy in the AC universe and it’s lacking here.

The linear sections are the best.

There are also side missions but none of them are vital, they are just small diversions if you don’t have time for a more lengthy side mission.  The plot itself is quite interesting if you dig all of the conspiracy stuff that AC is based around.  It is also concise and keeps moving, a very good decision for a PSP title.  The characters, apart from a few colourful villains are pretty drab however, and although some shit certainly goes down it is often hard to care.  It also misses a trick by completley ignoring any plot outside of the Animus.

Over ambitious and under developed, Bloodlines sometimes flirts with excellence but these moments are few and far between in a game that is dragged down by controll issues and technical limitations.

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

Perhaps the biggest game of the decade, certainly the biggest game of this year, has arrived, and it brings with it action, violence, controversy, and a bar to reach set by its predecessor. So does it match or even better Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare?

Honestly? No, it doesn’t.

The Call of Duty franchise is a long running series of first person shooters developed by both Infinity Ward and Treyarch primarily. The original Call of Duty (which has since been remade and released as downloadable content on both the PS3 & 360), was released on the PC a shade over 6 years ago. Since then, the series has dropped and elevated in quality. Call of Duty 2 was not as good as its prequel. Call of Duty 3 was in my opinion even more of a disappointment. But Infinity Ward pulled their finger out and created one of the best FPSs in a long time, with Modern Warfare. I would chalk the success of the game up to two main reasons: it was innovative and different, as in it strayed away from the norm of the Call of Duty series, diverting from world wars to modern combat with a vastly better single player and multiplayer system, along with up-to-date weaponry and characterization. Also, it was a vast gameplay and graphical improvement on the games before it.

There was no denying that it was successful: its popularity soared, with hundreds of thousands of players on the game’s multiplayer every day. It was an accessible shooter, the kind that even those unfamiliar with shooters, even gaming, could pick up and play, and more importantly, enjoy. It made most other shooters obsolete in comparison, and while the likes of Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six were good shooters, they couldn’t match COD4”s popularity.

Even though it was released in 2007, Modern Warfare still has an incredibly strong user base two years on. And despite Treyarch’s best efforts to reinvent the World War Two aspect of Call of Duty franchise with World At War, their attempt somewhat fell flat, as the game just wasn’t as appealing or entertaining as Modern Warfare was.

So after Modern Warfare was released, and Treyarch took their turn, Infinity Ward buckled down and got to work on a sequel. There were going to be some changes, and I’d put that on the amount of criticism Infinity Ward would receive if they released a game that was too similar to the last. These changes weren’t exactly what I was expecting though.

Modern Warfare 2′s single player picks up five years after the events of the prequel, which makes MW2 the first Call of Duty game that is linked via characters as well as plot to another title in the series. You play as Private Allen, a soldier in the US Army who goes undercover as a Russian operative to gain information on the main antagonist, Makarov, James Ramirez, a US Army Ranger who helps defend the east coast of the US from Russian invasion, and Gary “Roach” Sanderson, who is a member of Task Force 141, a special army unit in charge of trying to capture Makarov and stop him from conspiring to trigger global warfare.

With these characters, they are some new characters that feature prominently in the story, as well as a few familiar faces, which help with the story continuation.

From the off, you feel right at home, the familiar pre-gameplay cut scenes using non-diagetic conversations between the characters talking about the missions you need to do featuring again. The core gameplay is back in full swing, the control system pretty much exactly the same. Everything feels as it should. It’s almost like, God forbid, Infinity Ward copied and pasted the gameplay mechanics because of how successful they were.

There are noticeable differences though. The graphical quality has been fine-tuned, colors more bright and visuals more tweaked, and movement around the game feels smoother. Personally though, I prefered the more gritty feel from Modern Warfare as opposed to the brighter feel in this game, and that slightly rugged feel from Modern Warfare felt more authentic, more realistic.

"A bigger problem I have with the single player comes with the story. It's over the top, ridiculous and not believable."

It’s clear that Infinity Ward have tried to make MW2 more accessible to more people, but the game feels a little too easy. It wasn’t as challenging as I’d like it to be, the missions feeling too short and too simple at times. There are 16 missions in total, and the entire campaign is completable in less than 6 hours. Yes, there are also two game modes that have more playability than the campaign, but if the campaign is less than 6 hours, even for an FPS that isn’t long enough.

One of the complaints that rose from MW1 was that the single player wasn’t long enough. Unfortunately, the length hasn’t increased.

Along with this, a bigger problem I have with the single player comes with the story. It’s over the top, ridiculous and not believable. The missions are too rudimentary, and the feel of the campaign is generally that of one big playable film. Yes, the game plays great, the voice work is great, the script writing is great and the graphical quality and enemy intelligence is great. But the Hollywood storyline and frankly stupid moments such as the No Russian level are frustrating to see, because they damn near ruin what should otherwise be an almost perfect shooter.

No Russian is the controversial level in the game which puts you in the position of an undercover soldier who tags along on a terrorist attack on a Russian airport. But while the level helps with character and story development, its unnecessary and it feels like it was included purely to raise the profile of the game and stir up media interest. When Rockstar make controversial moments in the Grand Theft Auto games, they feel warranted. It doesn’t feel like a publicity stunt, or a tactical move chosen to make the press inadvertently promote the game more. This scene does, and there are moments in the game along with No Russian that feel like they weren’t necessary.

The landscapes and locations are more realistic and detailed, but everything's a little too... bright. I like my shooters to feel gritty and dirty, but Modern Warfare 2 feels and looks a bit too superficial and shiny.

I’ve played the single player twice now, once to see whether Infinity Ward had improved on the last attempt, and another time to collect intel . I’m tempted to play through a third time on Veteran difficulty, but I don’t know if I want to. The single player feels rushed, one big blur of action sequences, plot twists, explosions and gunfire all hastily rolled into a short campaign mode. At the end of it, I didn’t feel satisfied that I’d played it. It was the same feeling I get from watching films which try too hard to be flashy. It’s nice to look at, and it’s entertaining in the moment, but in general it has no lasting appeal.

And on some level that’s the same with the multiplayer. The multiplayer component is what made Modern Warfare so successful, so it needed to be as good as, if not better than it. I’ve played a fair chunk of it so far, and I’m impressed with what Infinity Ward has done with it, taking the core components of the multiplayer, and making it more immersive. The rewards are more in-depth, accolades, call-signs, emblems and kill streak rewards offered to you dependent on how well you play. You can get accolades for pretty much anything, so you always feel like you’ve accomplished something when you’ve finished a game. Whilst this feels like it makes the game too easy, an  “everyone’s a winner” ethos being a strong part of the game’s unlock system, it still is enjoyable and an improvement on that front.

The perks feel more intuitive, and the host migration system along with the in game perks upgrades for struggling players gives a good balance to the game. The multiplayer flows more, a generally smoother experience felt whilst playing.

But there’s that niggling feeling. That “everyone’s a winner” feel is perhaps too strong. The game feels easier, and the challenge isn’t there as much it used to be. In my first game, I got 20 kills, all against people who had played the game more. When you die a certain number of times, you’re rewarded with a fourth perk which helps you get that kill you need. Replacing airstrikes is a Harrier strike, which sends in both airstrikes and a plane which acts as a chopper. The chopper is back, but you can now control it, making it easier for you to kill people. If you are lucky enough to get 25 kills in a row, which isn’t as much of a challenge, you can use a nuke, which kills everyone, including yourself, on the map.

When you are close to dying, blood spatters appear on the screen, and when a grenade lands near you, dust sprays up. Visually, it looks very nice, but much like COD4, it's fairly distracting.

The issue with the multiplayer, despite the clear improvements, is that it feels like Infinity Ward has sacrificed some of the components from the prequel to make room for the new ones. The better upgrading system, the bigger array of weapons and perks and improved visuals replace the harder challenge, the more enjoyable and memorable maps, and the prequel’s party system. I want the improvements in Modern Warfare 2 in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, because I feel like the prequel was more enjoyable, and the sequel has removed some of the aspects that made the game enjoyable in place of others.

What I think is the best addition to the game though, the Spec Ops mode, is very much welcome, and should be standard in any future titles. It’s a great addition, with some very rewarding factors, such as the option to play split screen, new missions outside of the single player to play, another way to play the game with your friends and a boost to the game’s longevity. You get 23 missions, of wide variance, ranging from time trials on your snowmobile, to simple destroy all enemies missions, to reach objectives missions. Some missions take quite a while, and they don’t feel as rushed as the single player missions do. You can play the missions much more to your style of play, linear patterns not as much a necessity here as they normally are.

If I ask myself what mode I will put the most time into, it will probably be the multiplayer mode, because of the vast user base and some of the core elements that made the prequel so enjoyable still featuring, but I will probably find the Spec Ops mode the most rewarding.

Overall Impressions:

Modern Warfare 2 is great. No question about it. But what makes it great is that it comes from a working formula. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in my eyes is the better of the two, a more enjoyable, grittier, more rewarding experience. Modern Warfare 2 has worked on the faults of its predecessor, bringing new things to the table, and there’s no question that I will spend a lot of time with it, but all of my favourite games have faults, some more than others.

Even the best games have faults, and while Modern Warfare 2 is a fun ride, it runs out of fuel after a while, and there’s that feeling of ‘been there, done that’. It’s the sport edition of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare: Modern Warfare 2 is a more streamlined shiny version that looks nicer and feels a bit smoother. But it’s a bit too flashy, it’s too expensive, and despite the improvements, it feels like bits of the original version are missing, and after you spend some time with the newer model, you miss the little things that made the original so rewarding.

Modern Warfare 2 has sold ridiculously well, and it’s without question a great game. But its successes come from what was already there, and Modern Warfare 2 feels like a retail-sized expansion pack. It’s a purchase, but for me, it’s a begrudging purchase.

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

As B.J. Blazkowicz, a veteran opponent to the Nazi occult program, you battle your way to saving the fictional city of Isenstadt from becoming the first target for the Nazi’s new super weapon. To complete your ultimate mission you must cooperate and support the German resistance groups in the city, the Kreisau Circle and the Golden Dawn. That’s the gist of the plot. Actually, that summary is probably the equivalent in length to the entire script. The game did feature cool occult themes and sci-fi elements and who could deny the joy from fighting super Nazi’s like this guy:

Maybe he read Chariots of the Gods too many times?

Unfortunately the story was shallow and one dimensional, not to mention predictable (though I just mentioned it). Go ahead and imagine what you think will happen in this game and your first guess would probably be right. The game was loosely based on history; the Nazi’s were actually obsessed with the occult, the Golden Dawn did exist as did the Kreisau Circle (the men behind the Valkyrie assassination attempt). Yet I found the story should have done so much more to capture my imagination and heighten the atmosphere. I suppose as an action game it did not have the warrant to give more detail (which an RPG could have, or like Doom 3 did) but I found myself wanting to know more about the Wolfenstein universe and gaining very little. It is a really interesting subject and they would do well to offer more substance in the story. Still, the plot of this game was too thin. Luckily, there is more to the game than the story.

"Hey Hanz, did you read Otto Rahn's new book?"

In Wolfenstein lore, there is another dimension layered over ours. In this other dimension exists the Black Sun, the power source for the Nazis super weapons. But the Nazis are not the only ones to exploit the power of the Black Sun dimension as the game provides you with a nifty new tool of war: the Thule Medallion. This is the game’s new feature to the series. Acquiring the medallion at the beginning of the game, you collect more crystals which enable different powers (for a total of four). The Veil Sight allows you to see hidden passageways and makes you move faster. The Shield power does exactly as it sounds. The Empower crystal enhances each weapon’s combat strength and the Mire ability is Wolfenstein’s version of bullet-time. My favourite was the Shearing Crystal upgrade to the Mire ability. Whenever I activated the bullet-time, it burned any nearby enemy into a charcoal statue. Very cool effect. It was especially useful against those lightning fast blade wielding Nazis. The powers were integral to completing certain missions and enhanced combat when activated. Against some foes, using the medallion was the only way to defeat the Nazi supermen. The medallion’s powers are nothing unique, however, and they were only worth using when you upgraded them, if that.  I felt it was only handy when the game forced you to use it otherwise I just shot my way through every level.

The game played well with an easy to use control layout that allowed me to battle through the missions with ease. The graphics were cool and the sound effects were excellent. My attention was kept in this game largely because of its graphics and sound. The villains looked great and many props in the environments were destructible. I think the sound effects of this game have to be its best feature. Using the MP40 never sounded better than in Wolfenstein. It became my favourite weapon just because I wanted to hear it shoot all the time. The flamethrower was also a delicious joy to use on the Nazis, hearing them burn and sizzle, and the grenade explosions were great too. The orchestra heightened and lessened depending on the intensity of the action and overall it was fairly adequate.

Wolfenstein included the usual WWII weapons and as in earlier instances of the franchise this one had a few super weapons. These few were the product of twisted occult-obsessed Nazi scientists. The coolest one would have to be the particle cannon which burst enemies into shreds with one hit. The game allowed you to upgrade your weapons using the Black Market. Upgrades included giving more ammo to a weapon, upgrading the attack rate, or even attaching a scope. It was a nice feature since it gave you the option of beefing up your favourite weapon adding a little bit of complexity to what could have been a run of the mill arsenal. The Black Market was also the place you went to upgrade your Thule Medallion powers. All of this was at the cost of collectibles: gold and tomes (which I never found).

One immediate fault in the game is the checkpoint system. It did not function the way it was supposed to. Sometimes when you go to load the game from the most recent checkpoint it loaded an older save instead. More than once when I returned to the game it loaded the wrong checkpoint forcing me to replay some of the missions. The first time it happened I had to replay the Farm mission because the game loaded me just before I left the city. The second time it loaded me two missions before where I actually was. I figured out that the real checkpoints existed just not in the right order. So to circumvent the problem I deleted every single save except the most recent one, that way there would be no other checkpoint for the system to get confused with. If I did not figure out my own way to fix it I probably would have stopped playing the game. How many times would I have to repeat missions I already beat before I lost my patience? This was an overlooked glitch that should have been corrected before launch. While others reported frame rate drops and a few other glitches, I did not notice anything else. Except one time the game failed to continue during a boss battle. Without giving away too much, in one fight you have to destroy four egg sacks while a giant ant attacks you. The ant returns to the glowing fountain while you battle its minions and then comes back after they are dead. One time, she just never returned. I waited for ten minutes then had to reload it. Very bizarre. Chalk it up to occult activity maybe?

Overall, I would have to say that Wolfenstein was a fun game if only to play through once. I would not pay full price for it, but I liked it enough to keep playing after the first five minutes. It was fast, full of battle, and sounded great, but the story should have been more complex and the game should not have contained such a drastic fault. It offered side missions and hidden collectibles on top of the main objectives, but none of it made a difference to the quality of the game. I enjoyed playing Wolfenstein and am glad the franchise is still producing titles but after I beat it the first time I’ll probably never pick it up again. Maybe the next one will be an exceptional heir to Wolfenstein 3D’s legacy? This one was not the most memorable horse in their stable.

Rating: ★★★★☆