So it is that the fierce Xenomorphs must clash with the mighty Predators once more, and once more, leave a gruesome wake of Colonial Marines behind them. Which leads me into my first issue I took with this game. I don’t want to sound like I’m criticising milk for being a dairy product, but from the outset I had a bad sense of deja vu. Humans, in their infinite hubris, are yet again attempting to harness, train, or otherwise domesticate the Xenomorphs to further their own cause. Unsurprisingly, this goes south, and to further accentuate the level of this human folly, the Predators show up to ruin everyone’s day. I’ve more or less reached the point where I feel like humans need to learn from their mistakes, or finally succeed at some warped experiment that changes the playing field. I know it’s not likely to be within the scope of a videogame to go messing around with some fundamental parts of the universe, but goddamn it, it’s crying out for an injection of progress.

The whole product is by and large what you’d expect, for all the good and bad reasons. The campaign, when the play time across all three species is tallied up, is short, but almost blessedly so, because around about the point when I could feel the arcs wrapping up, there was some relief that the developers had the foresight not to let it run overlong and overstay their welcome. All told, you could probably finish all three on a long, lonely Saturday afternoon (not speaking from experience here though, to be clear).

Melee combat is a significant focus to the gameplay, and I’m not going to lie to you, it’s a little bit weird. I want to be absolutely clear that I’m not some sort of snob that baulks at the idea of games that try something drastically different from the popular convention. I really liked Unreal Champtionship 2. Loved it, even. AvP has a blocking mechanic, first of all, so there’s this idea that everyone can go toe-to-toe with each other (that’s not strictly true, but I’ll get to that) provided they play it smart. There’s a standard tripartite relationship between quick melee, strong melee, and blocking. Blocking a quick melee will grant you your opportunity to counter attack, strong melee will break a guard and cause a stun, and obviously quick melee is faster than a strong one. Now, as far as going toe to toe, Marines definitely have an arsenal of ranged weaponry, so when it comes to the nasty scrapping, they don’t actually have a strong attack. Ultimately that just means you’re shooting when you get the chance, and using block and melee when necessary. When the marine gets surprised however, they’re pretty much screwed, insta-kill grab moves at the back will ruin your bug-hunting days. On the ranged side of things, marines make up for their up-close vulnerabilities, but there’s certainly mitigating factors like the Xeno’s sheer speed and wall-crawling, and the Predators cloaking ability and selection of ranged curiousities. Talking about how it all works together make me come to terms with how carefully considered it all is, and I really appreciate it on that level, but at the same time it’s quite strange to close the gap as an alien, only to have your attack blocked and to be forced into a game of rock paper scissors. Though if that’s a frequent occurrence, you’re probably playing them wrong, as the pounce moves that both non-human races have definitely place emphasis on surprise attacks.

Graphically it looks nice, nothing ground breaking, but I did get the feeling that there’s a flatness and dustiness which is true to the source material, but at the same time not doing the experience any favours. Given that the minimalistic-with-fog-and-dirt look was probably a necessity born out of budgetary constraints, it feels like the universe as a whole has maybe been bled dry, both narratively and stylistically.

Multiplayer is probably the most substantial, or probably worthwhile part of the product, given that there’s not a big market for first person action games with vastly varying playable species. The balance is pretty tight, as covered above, and you’ll need to play to their strengths in order to leverage victory. Of course player base is always an issue, and in my own trials I could never find a ranked match to join. Player matches were abundant enough though, and while I was ready to write it off as a lag fest after the first few frustrating deaths, once I became acclimated to the ebb and flow of the entanglements of an interspecies team deathmatch, I was surprised to find myself embroiled in a tense and close match more than once. There’s also a survival mode which you might be tempted to chalk up to the “gamemode flavour of the year” with all the Horde clones popping up, except that the original AvP had a survival mode in it. I was a little disappointed that it had succumbed to the wave-based nature of its contemporaries though, but it’s difficult to fault it; players need goals and objectives. Still, I will probably continue to have nostalgic thoughts about the free form infinite killing field of the old school survival.

AvP seems like the kind of big-budget franchise release where they underfund a project in order to get the best return out of an ignorant fanbase, and from time to time that becomes abundantly clear, via an AI Xenomorph not quite able to take the shortest path between two points, or marines telling each other “don’t let your guard down” exactly the same way twice, or the quite unimpressive speech work in the audiologs, but for my money, I think Rebellion allocated the resources they had access to in probably the best way, play testing and balancing the species interaction and the basic nuts and bolts of play making this a fun experience at its core. Certainly not for those happy with the modern conventions as they have developed, but fans of the franchise will likely be able to overlook the flaws.

Closing Comments:

The reboot of Aliens Vs Predator is not without its flaws, but a large number of these (or at least the ones I considered significant) are rooted in genre preconceptions, and franchise baggage. AvP is not a great game. There’s definitely a case to be made that it’s not even a good game. But if you’re not bogged down with how you think a modern FPS should look and feel, and you can’t get enough of ripping a mans head off his shoulders in order to caress his bare spine (or other excellent gory hallmark moments), then there’s probably just enough content and reverence to satisfy you in this package.

The trilogy of God of War now spans the two latest PlayStation consoles, the first being a smash success and the second having people declaring that there was still plenty of life left in the PS2. Episode three comes to us in full HD with the grunt of a few cell processors behind the technology in the black box. You’d be among good company if you already had high expectations for God of War 3, most people that seem to be drawn to this particular action hack and slash game like flies to the proverbial. So the scene is set for a rather monumental release, expectations to be dashed or dreams to be fulfilled?

Once you’ve killed a God or two, massacred your own family and slashed your way out of hell a time or two there isn’t much left in life other than some strong feelings of betrayal, hate, and self loathing. Kratos was a man, the empty shell filled with muscles and aggression, don’t expect pros from him, a few subtle one liners that indicate an intend to murder everything after having already knifed out the eyes of your victim.

If you aren’t aware of the back story it might pay to either check out a detailed explanation on Wikipedia/GiantBomb or perhaps investigate the remade edition for the PS3 (the God of War Collection). You will probably be able to piece it all together as you go along, as it does have a rather retrospective dialogue, but more enjoyment would be garnered by those that actually appreciate what Kratos has gone through to arrive at the current position in the world of gods, men and titans. I can’t decide if this is a feature or to the games detriment, I’ve always felt that a trilogy should make use of the entire story arch to tell a tale. Conversely I can also appreciate when a single unit can be enjoyed as a stand alone product while simultaneously enjoying the richness of a well established universe.

Combat is very similar to that found in the other two games, various weapons are collected which have their own benefits and drawbacks. I’m not sure about the dynamics of how Kratos manages to cart them all around the under/overworlds on his person while only sporting a skirt and some shin armour. But the over muscled ex spartan probably has a few tricks up his “sleeves” that he just doesn’t want to share with people because it might ruin the illusion.

One incredible change from past titles is that quick time events are now mapped out on screen with the aid of position based markers. Need to cut off the serpent tail of a Chimera? The X button appears at the bottom of the screen as it appears on the face of your controller. A triangle to rip out the eye of a cyclops? That’s right up the top in the middle, again, how it is mapped in real life. This is far more intuitive and means that I don’t have to look away from the action, unless of course the live gutting of a Centaur makes me turn my head in revulsion. Also, sex mini games, I no longer fail at them!!!! How’s that for video games mirroring real life.

Parts of the story are told in a mosiac theme that is actually incredibly smart, little effects and animations to help convey a history of violence that makes it all feel very greek. Probably one of my favourite visual elements of a game that is very well polished in this respect. There is a lot of blood and glowing aura effects, the enemies have plenty of detail on them and the environment is very pretty is not at times a little depressing. The scale of battle can change very suddenly with the camera panning back to show a massive area with Kratos still controllable, it’s effective and shows you how far the tech has come that drives these games.

Closing Comments

There is really only one aspect that lets the entire experience down for me, and that is that Kratos is a bit of an cock. I don’t want him to succeed, not because I don’t understand his motives, but because I want someone to punch his arrogant mouth so hard that it comes out of his asshole. Seriously, cheer up a bit, doom, gloom an retribution gets a little old after 7 hours. It is probably intentional and the conclusion to the story backs this up, but I can’t say I enjoyed the fact that there was a complete void of humour. Also the balance of ugly breasts to normal is also a little out of kilter, unless, you find the harpies attractive….

Game play wise, it is almost faultless, lots of combos, weapon upgrades, awesome puzzles. It’s pretty much everything anyone could hope from the genre. The conclusion is definite and the trilogy complete, one would hope that this is where the franchise takes its curtain call and that the story is not cheapened with a further instalment.

When you do get to play it, and once you have finished it, I would like to know how long you pushed the button for……..  you’ll know what I mean when the time comes.

Getting delayed can often times mean a death sentence for a game, the hype dies down, people look else where for their fix. Battlefield’s move back to releasing this week was either due to the developer needing more time or EA deciding that they might prefer to avoid going head to head against MW2. Either way, the time is here, so what is the final result?

First up, if you haven’t already tried it, the first one had some incredible sound design, when I say incredible, I mean it kicks every other games audio over to the middle east and then back onto a plane for the return trip home. The second game doesn’t do that, as the destination is south america, but it is still a pleasure to listen to. The final effect is an immersive effect that leaves most other shooters for dead. Modern Warfare 2 certainly has more going on than BFBC2 but the clarity of the gunfire and the shouts from opposing forces is stunning. If games like M.A.G managed to implement sound like BFBC2 we would be looking at a far more compelling offering in the current market.

Stories for modern day FPSing excursions are often excusatory, in that they are purely offering an often laughable motive to go ahead and shoot stuff. Nothing trend breaking really found here, enjoyable, but perhaps too run of the mill, bad guys vs good guys looking for secret weapon. Where it does buck the trend is the scripting and voice acting, the characters really come alive in their respective rolls. It’s a well rounded cast of personalities, and funny.

Along with the feeling of empowerment from the audio comes the accuracy of the weapons and the way that bullets interact with the environment. See it + Shoot it = Hit it. Not silly clipping of bullets off of invisible obstacles, it’s a refreshing case of what you see is what you get.

Multiplayer is, as often seems to be the case with the Battlefield franchise, a huge draw card. Fans of the first won’t be disappointed with a massive upheaval, but by the same token it really doesn’t offer a large point of difference, there are improvements I am sure, but the nitty gritty of it goes right over my head. The bi-annual instalment scenario for popular shooters just seems to be a cross platform console vice for milking money.

How do I rate the experience as a whole? Damn good, there is plenty for both single and multi player, very enjoyable and easy (not arduous) to play. You can sit back, have a laugh, and shot some ethnic people, it’s what every seems to really want in a violent gaming experience. Sometimes I think I should worry that I enjoy being part of this pack.

Shooting people is one of my favourite gaming pass times, in the face, groin or rather often the knee. I’m usually not to bothered by where as long as some damage is inflicted and I feel like I am at least getting my kicks in before the other guy (who is overly proficient at online shooters) gets some lead through my head. So you would think that a game dedicated only to the online shooting, with massive teams and large battle fields, would be right up my barrel. MAG, it seems, might not have been my cup of tea right from the start.

The collaboration between Zipper Studios and Sony resulted in a fairly ambitious announcement 2 years ago, 256 players in the same game, battling it out on in an online arena all created by the all powerful 4th dimension creating PS3. Fanboys howled with glee while the PR machine went into overdrive trying to convince the gaming public that bigger, in terms of scale, is most assuredly better.

When you fire up MAG you will be greeted with the option of choosing your faction, the team that you will be fighting with to assert PMC supremacy. After which there is a quick control familiarisation tutorial that teaches you the ropes. Once completed there is then a series of less than full size training skirmishes that include up to 64 people.

Once level 8 is reached your character will be able to join in the full sized skirmishes, 128 players on each side, that’s a lot of people, if you have every seen a mass of ants scrambling you might get an idea of what happens. People moving across the entire battle field towards the various objectives, trying to gain a little ground, destroy one fixed utility, revive a fallen comrade. The partitioning of squads is a good start to organising the mess, the voice coms become more important than any other game available.

My main problem with the game came from the slow build up, not just slow, but almost totourous. The limitation of weapons, the inability to keep pace with heavily armed enemies, it’s just not fun. At some point in development the focus moved away from fun and towards the grind of what you might expect from an RPG. Some of the blame for this may well be placed on the shoulders of the popular Modern Warfare, unlocking extra abilities and guns seems to have carried over to being the norm, if not, an expectation.

The thing is, I don’t want to have to play a game for 5 hours before a get something resembling an accurate weapon. This seems to be what Zipper think will add longevity to the online experience, it however shortened mine. It is also why this review might be a little shorter than I might have hoped, I just couldn’t bring myself to play it any longer than I did. There are games far more interesting that are waiting for me to thrash at the moment.

Closing Comments

If you have plenty of disposable time then perhaps this is something that you might not have an issue with, but as it is, I do not feel the pavlovian response to continue when drip fed pieces of a game.

The story editor lets you use prefabricated wrestling moments to which you can add custom text to make your story. These moments include all the standard wrestling stuff like a speech at the podium, wrestlers screaming crap into a mic while in the ring, backstage interviews and that kind of thing with some more crazy stuff like wrestlers jumping onto the stage out of the crowd or people being run over by cars to mix things up. The editor allows for a great deal of flexibility by letting you choose the type of animation, its location, the wrestlers involved and any custom text you want to enter. I created an elaborate story that spanned many weeks of theatrics followed by only three matches. These matches were set up to require specific goals to be met. This is by far the coolest addition to this year’s Smackdown vs. RAW.

Another great addition is the Training Facility. This is where the game will start you off when you first boot it up and is invaluable to those less familiar with these types of games (me). Simply put there are an absolutely staggering amount of commands to get your head around and the training facility lets you perform these at your own pace rather than giving them to you in a set order. Being that you are in the ring with an opponent this is the best way to practice the controls.

There is also a new Community Creations feature which should please the fans, as it lets gamers share their created Superstars and the aforementioned storylines. A large portion of the user created stuff is even more absurd than my own creation and should at the very least provide some entertainment.

If you can’t be bothered creating your own story, last year’s Road to Wrestlemania returns. This of course offers fully produced stories with the actual wrestlers providing the voice work. This year there are also some interactive cutscenes from time to time, but they are fairly basic (press “a” to smash opponent in the face). One of the stories is almost co-op, but it turns out that you spend most of the time taking turns at fighting AI opponents in individual matches with only the occasional tag or battle royal match.

While there are some great additions to this year’s game there are some fairly major flaws that have been around for a while. Opponent AI is all over the place and you see them doing some truly bizarre (and dumb) stuff fairly often. The animation system is stiff and unnatural looking and you can get stuck in your animation loops for way too long. Hit detection is spotty at best and abysmal at worst. It is also far too easy to accidentally attack the referee and get disqualified. Basically the game lacks a lot of polish, especially when compared to UFC 2009: Undisputed. Even though UFC is based on a real sport in game form they amount to much the same thing.

Closing Thoughts

Even though Smackdown vs. RAW 2010 still lacks some polish, it is a vast improvement on the previous year’s game, and I would suggest that fans of the series give it a go. You might end up like me spending the majority of your time making up some crazy ass stories, but I am certain you have will have good time.

I had pretty mixed feelings when I’d heard about Bioshock 2. On the one hand, it’s not like they’re making Hitman 2, or a PS3 version of Vampire Rain (an idea that would leave the average consumer of either product cold). I liked Bioshock, surely more Bioshock would be something I’d like. On the other hand though, Bioshock was such a special, and above all, complete experience from the narrative perspective that it felt like it needed to be kept separate in order to maintain its integrity, as if revisiting Rapture would cheapen the memory of it. So it was with some grim curiosity that I played through Bioshock 2 critically assessing its merit as a successor to the game that gave us creepy little girls escorted by deep sea divers. Please follow me past the break for my thoughts, you’ll find that I’ve also prepared a list!

Upon contemplating my feelings of reluctance towards digging up the ruins of Rapture, I came to realise something: It’s not actually all that common for games to inspire the feeling that a sequel is unwanted or unneeded. So often that the story is simply a placeholder to provide context, or set up so that sequels are inevitable. In the movie industry however, there are stacks of sequels that exist solely to cash in on the loyalty the brand may have generated. Let us review:

• Weekend At Bernies II
• Jaws 2 & 3
• Grease II
• American Pie 2
• American Pie 3 (American Wedding)
• American Pie: Band Camp
• American Pie: The Naked Mile
• American Pie: Beta House
• American Pie: The Book Of Love (!?)

You might have noticed that I didn’t group all the American Pie sequels together, and that’s because I wanted to emphasise the fact that they’ve made six goddamn sequels to date. There’s a point after a horses death where you can beat it and claim that you’re administering CPR, and the window for it is bigger if it’s a valuable horse. I mean, no-one wants to lose a valuable horse right? Well, the horse that is American Pie has been beaten into horse mincemeat, and the kicker is that it was never Melbourne Cup winning material in its prime.

Okay, now that I’ve abused a writers right to facilitate metaphors enough to convey my disposition, I think I can talk about Bioshock 2 now. With Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontain (aka Atlus) both dusted and the little sisters saved or, err… dealt with, if you were so inclined, you’d assume that there’s probably going to be some savage implementation of retroactive continuity. And you’d be right. At a preview event, Brian was quick to side with the attractive PR person when we argued as to whether the new antagonist, Sophia Lamb, and/or the sideline support character, Augustus Sinclair were mentioned in the original, but I’m reasonably certain that these two are strictly afterthoughts. It’s not worth holding it against the end product though, as any problems with continuity will only be detectable (if they exist at all) by the most nitpicky of fanatics. You play as a Big Daddy, but not the rounded, compound eyed guys you know and love from Bioshock, but one of the original test subjects in the project, the Alpha Series (and that’s just the beginning of the retcon), It goes deeper than that, and your existential uniqueness remains a recurring plot point and theme, but the specifics of it all don’t need to be discussed here, suffice to say that it is an adequate, if not good, story.

As far as the mechanics of playing Bioshock 2 are concerned, it’s essentially a more refined version of Bioshock 1, which is what you’d expect. What you might not have expected however, is how hinky it makes Bioshock look in hindsight. The controls haven’t changed much, but having all that extra paternal strength means that hefting a weapon in one hand on your right leaves your left free for plasmid use. In fact, the controls for those in particular identical, but they make a good deal more sense when you’re effectively dual wielding like that, as opposed to having the controls in place for both at any given time, but still switching between the two.

Crafting is completely gone, and good riddance. I’ll admit there was a certain charm and congruity to salvaging whatever available parts were around and bending them to your will to construct ammo, but mechanically it had the effect of creating twenty different extra currencies with no exchange rate. Hacking has also gone under the knife, and much better for it. Instead of the pipe-switching game the grew tiresome, hacking is now done by hitting a button when a swinging needle passes over green or blue zones on a small display that appears at the bottom quarter of the screen. Probably the smartest choice about this is that nothing pauses while this is taking place, so you never get entirely taken away from the action. To counterbalance the fact that turrets can now shoot you during a drawn out hack, there’s now a gun that shoots remote hacking darts, allowing for a number of interesting scenarios for hacked security without having to get into the thick of it.

Audio diaries make a return, further confusing me with Raptures willingness to record themselves and then leave the recorder in a public place so that they can leave to go somewhere else (probably to further air their laundry on another disposable recorder); and I’m someone that records audioboos. The research camera is back, but this time it’s a handicam. Essentially you film snuff movies of you killing someone, and the more creative ways you find of doing it, the more research bonus you get.

By and large, it’s a big splicer family reunion, with all your favourites returning with a friend, the Brute Splicer, which, as the name implies, is a big dude. They’re also joined by the Alpha Series Big Daddy, whom unlike yourself is suffering a bad case of mind control, bolstered by maddening rage. Of course, the most promoted baddie of this sequel is the Big Sister. While conceptually interesting, I didn’t find them that enjoyable to fight, the world feels designed around one vs. many battles, and at a stretch you take on a big daddy or a brute without finding your surroundings to be irksome, but the Big Sisters threat level is high across the board in terms of manoeuvrability, health and power, and when I was already finding weird instances of firing over enemies shoulders (go ahead, blame it on skill), the Big Sister fights felt relentlessly savage without much return.

Being a Big Daddy, however, means having the trust of the Little Sisters. Having that trust, means gathering Adam. There are prefixed corpses on every level which have Adam, and while I felt this to be something of a cop out (it’s genetic material, right? Doesn’t everybody have it then?) the Adam gathering sessions turned out to be probably my favourite parts of the game. You see, Bioshock 1 had traps. But what good are traps when you have no impetus to use them? The fact that you were typically always on the move meant that traps only came into play when you were on the receiving end, or if you decided to screw around and kill people creatively. Having to gather Adam involves setting the Little Sister down and dealing with the filthy opportunists that show up, evidently drawn to the “shink shink” noise of that gruesome needle. So before any gathering session, you have the opportunity to set up the most elaborate defence perimeter that you feel necessary, utilising rivet traps, cyclone traps, insect bomb traps, mini turrets, spear traps, it’s all quite delicious in a way which I haven’t felt since the pipe bombs in Duke Nukem 3D (multiplayer).

Speaking of multiplayer, there’s also that, too. Unfortunately I can’t comment on the quality of it given that I couldn’t find a bloody game to join; in no small part, I believe, to the lack of a “I don’t care what gametype it is just let me play” quickmatch option. I am willing to say that given the improvements in the core handling of Bioshock 2, that it’s probably pretty damn cool. It’s a moot point if you have no-one to play against though.

Closing Comments

Bioshock 2 manages to be both exactly what you’d expect as far as subtlety of retconning and feeling of significance in the story (which is to say, less significant than the original) while actually maintaining all the high production values and delivering at a consistent level that will make you forget about those misgivings. Coupled with the vastly improved gameplay, I’m left feeling glad that my cynicism did not win the day. When the truth about Bioshock 2 rose to the surface, I believe I found a mechanically solid videogame sequel riding on the coattails of a game that was special for reasons like narrative and world design. Bioshock 2 might not be contending to create discussions on narrative and artistic merit in videogames, but there’s definitely a case to be made to argue that it’s more fun to play.

If you’ve been craving a game that involves old films, pies, time travel and clones, then you’re in luck. The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is here to whet your unique, and slightly disturbing appetite. It’s just another shining example of the kinds of great games you can find on the olde Xbox Live Arcade.

From the moment I started playing I had no idea what the hell was going on. You’re transported to the land of the black and white silent film where top hats reign supreme, guiding P.B Winterbottom across a bizarre landscape. Fortunately after teaching you the basic mechanics, the levels start to make a bit more sense, and you can actually see what you’re supposed to do. Winterbottom likes pies, fair enough I guess, as do I and I’m sure you do too young reader. But this guy really loves them, so much so that he’s willing to travel through time and create clones of himself to help him achieve his twisted needs. Each level is separated with rhyming title cards that tell some sort of narrative; either that or the raving thoughts of a psych-ward patient, who knows. All that I know for sure is that Winterbottom’s whole life purpose is to chase a giant flying pie.

Once you’re done with the first few levels you’ll find yourself in a room with movie posters. The level theatre is basically the level select of the game where you play “movie levels”, and the first thing it reminded me of (not to mention most of the game itself) was Braid. Though it doesn’t take a pie-on-the-brain-genius to figure that out.

Each level usually requires you to collect all the pies. This is made difficult by them being too hard to reach, or with hazards in your way such as fire or water, or some pies that can only be eaten by clones. Most levels show the whole puzzle onscreen but there are a few scrolling ones from time to time. Clones are created by holding down the record button, and you can only have as many copies as the level allows. They will then perform the series of actions you just performed, looping over and over. This is usually pulling a switch, jumping, gliding, hitting, or just standing still. You can also jump on top of a clone’s head to get to higher places or try hitting a clone into the air, which solves a lot of the “bonus shorts” puzzles.

The “bonus shorts” are basically time trials, with leaderboards and all the rest. These are a lot easier than the normal puzzle levels but they’re quite open in how you get all the pies, and there’s a lot more of them too. I don’t see myself competing score wise but they were a fun diversion, not too difficult to finish anyhow.

Later on you’ll run into time portals. These levels remove your usual method of creating clones and instead you’re tasked with recording them only from the portals. Also at the end of recording you’ll be rewound to the starting point where all the previous clones will restart at the same time. Some levels have a limit of up to 15 clones and it gets a little crazy! Then there’s the red portals who’s job it is to make your life miserable by creating evil versions of P.B. Winterbottom. Which means you must avoid running into your clones at all cost for fear of killing yourself – I mean you, not your clone. You know what I mean!

The soundtrack is pre-tty spooky throughout, and along with the general weirdness gives you that slight uncomfortable feeling while playing. As for the style, the music goes hand in hand with the setting; clocks and industrial factories seem to play a bit of a theme. Though it’s not always black and white, there are a few touches of colour here and there. And it is really nice to play something that looks a bit different to the rest of the crowd.

The game does break the fourth wall at points by addressing the player and subtitles that go and reference their own existence or insult you. Even most of the levels are named after movies, TV shows, games and just general sayings. Parodied of course, here’s a few gems:
- Baked to the Future
- Buffet Runner
- Citizen Clone
- A Clone in the Dark
- Dissected Development
Bonus points if you know all five!

The platforming means it’s more open than your typical puzzle game and there‘s often alternate solutions. Yet sometimes I felt that I was playing against the game, perhaps not doing it the way they wanted because of the very strict timing in place, trying to make it from one side of the level to the other to pull a switch. Difficulty is all over the place. Most of the levels aren’t too bad while others are incredibly frustrating.

For instance, the last level, a pain in my backside that nearly tainted what I thought of the entire game. I made it all the way through every level only to run into this brick wall. I must’ve spent at least a couple hours on it, adding a few breaks in between of course where I couldn’t possibly pick up the controller again. With a hint from Gaming God Wugga and watching a friend muck around, I eventually realised the solution. I really don’t know what it was that made that level so hard for me, I guess it shows how we all think differently!

Closing Comments
The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is incredibly distinctive and if you play it in front of people you’re sure to get a few weird looks. If you’ve been itching for another puzzle game like Braid, Winterbottom might be your man. It’s probably not as hard as Braid but it’s still a mighty challenge. It really is a great title so go download it if this puzzle-platformer sounds like your idea of a good time.

Released on 17/02/10 for 800 MS Points.

After a excellent period of Western RPG’s in the form of Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect 2 and to a lesser extent Bioshock 2, I was looking forward to delving back into the world of Japanese RPG’s. What with their angst ridden emo teenagers as lead characters coupled with, typically, bad English voice over’s there is something endearing to us hardcore RPG fans. Love ‘em or hate ‘em the JRPG’s are big money spinners with some big hitting franchises still trucking on. So how does one translate a typically epic game genre into a XBLA title?

Well the answer to that question is to remove a huge chunk of the typically expected role playing elements and effectively turn the game into a turn based strategy title. The story in Vandal Hearts: FoJ is a respectable, if somewhat clichéd, one which is told through out the game via cut scenes in a comic book fashion. Every now and then you will have to make a dialogue choice during one of these cut scenes, and with multiple endings available I am guessing these choices are what is going to influence the final outcome. These cut scenes are nicely drawn even if some of characters look a bit scary, in a bobble-head kind of way…

The game itself plays out through fixed levels which are selected via a map. No exploration or journeying required. Once objectives are met for each level you can revisit them as ‘Skirmish Maps’ to help with levelling up your characters. Villages and towns can be visited to do a bit of shopping and listening for rumours at the local pub. The combat itself is good turn based RPG combat with movement and action phases which can be taken in either order. Actions include attack, magic, or using/searching items. One thing I do like is the ability to change from melee to ranged weapons with no cost to your turn. And one thing I absolutely hated is the inability to search the level once the enemies have been beaten. This leaves you trying to search objects and battle at the same time! Why you can’t stay on the level once all enemies are beaten just baffles me…

Equipment and skills can be look after at any time and while the equipment side of things is meaty enough to make RPG fans happy the skills are looked after automatically, increasing with use on the battlefield. This basically leaves you hacking down enemies, earning gold, returning to village, upgrading equipment and heading off to the next area. One battle tactic I do love is  when wild creatures are involved. Because they don’t discriminate between your characters and the bad guys, you can position the bad guys between yourself  and the wild creatures, effectively flanking the bad guys. And with a bit of luck the bad guys will have softened up the wild creatures before dying and leaving you to deal with them.

Closing Comments.

I could be being overly harsh on some points due to the fact I was expecting a much more complete JRPG experience, so I’ll say now that for a level based RPG-lite strategy game I had more than a bit of fun. There are enough RPG elements to keep me entertained and when tied in with some great boss battles makes for some good times. If you enjoyed Band of Bugs then Vandal Hearts: FoJ could be exactly what you have been waiting for. 1200 MS Points is going to mean that only RPG/Vandal Hearts fans are likely to pick this one up, I suggest everyone should try the free trial as I suspect that it may just appeal to a wider group of gamers than expected.

Released on 20/1/2010 for 1200 MS Points.

As with an old favourite, Trials HD, world leaderboards and even personal highscores give plenty of replay opportunity and even though you’re cursing and yelling on every death, you can’t help but play it over and over again…

At first glance Reverse Maze plays like similar maze games on the iPhone such as MazeFinger by Ngmoco, where you must move your finger to get to the end of the maze without touching the sides. Reverse Maze more than differentiates from the crowd with it’s open levels, switches and obstacles but the big factor here is that you’re playing in “reverse” – what do you mean you didn’t need me to tell you that? Anyway moving on, you place your finger on a marker to move in the direction you want to go. Of course this tells your little pink thingy to move in the opposite direction, guiding it to the finish. One more problem to make things just a bit harder is that you can’t let go of the screen, you need to complete the whole level in one stroke. Often this means your finger gets in the way of your line of sight. While that does happen in many an iPhone game, it has a greater effect here. Fortunately this hasn’t stopped me from finishing any level yet, so kudos for that.

I may have forgotten to mention that you need to be extremely accurate with your finger movements; Reverse Maze requires absolute precision. Any contact at all with a barrier or obstacle and you’re dead, instantly. There’s a neat little stats counter in the main menu and by the end of my several sessions with the game I died a total of 639 times with a success rate of 4.6%. Butterfly pants was my most frustrating level, it took me 246 tries before finishing it. Let’s never speak of that level again shall we? Okay, good. I haven’t finished every stage so there’s bound to be a few nasties still coming my way.

Thankfully each of the four difficulties have the first level unlocked, allowing you to give a few other levels a try. Of course as you progress you’re introduced to more and more obstacles keen on taking you out. In this game butterflies are the enemy! Switches that open up new paths bring in some new challenges as well as those pesky direction-altering-switches and teleporters.

From top to bottom Reverse Maze is brilliantly presented with a very pretty futuristic vibe throughout. The music is consistent with this theme, matching the neon colours with soft outerspace sounding tunes. Each level design looks almost too perfect, of course I wasn’t usually thinking it at the time, more along the lines of who on God’s green earth came up with this monstrosity of a level! I love the attention to detail with names for each level along with the little zzzt, an eerily human-like sound you hear when crashing into something. Also packed into the tight little package that is Reverse Maze are fastest time world scores & 24 hour scores that appear next to each level when connected to the web. If you want to view the full list of scores, a link opens up in Safari meaning that you have to close and re-enter the app. This is a bit of a pain and would be more useful if accessible within the game itself. Friends leaderboards or even NZ focused leaderboards would also be a great addition.

Closing Comments

Reverse Maze plays on a gamer’s worst trait, the absolute need to finish a level. At it’s core it’s very rewarding and a pleasure to look at but please be prepared to lose a few night’s sleep. For a couple bucks you can’t go too wrong by picking up this game.

Released on 02/02/10. Download for $2.59 here.

With a long legacy of high quality titles named [blank] Rain such as Vampire Rain, Chocolate Rain, and Blood, er, Rayne, Heavy Rain has some pretty big shoes to fill. Joking aside, Heavy Rain is the first game in a while (not including Fahrenheit, a long while,) to covet the notion of an interactive movie. It almost feels like the ‘interactive movie’ idea has become a dirty word in the current climate; I guess angels fear to tread where one such as Rob Schneider has failed…

Heavy Rain tells the story of four characters, with their individual stories woven around the investigation of serial murderer dubbed The Origami Killer. There’s definite potential to spoil critical plot elements by simply alluding to things or making vague references, so if you’re dead set on a pure experience, and aren’t offended by QTE action sequences, then my suggestion is to stop reading and go pick up a copy now.

If you are offended by QTE gameplay though, then you’ll be offended by large section of Heavy Rain. Possibly one of the smarter or ambitious conceits is that it’s not attempting the cinematic experience of an action movie, but rather an emotional drama with action scenes peppered throughout. Arguably, you’ve got more than an action movies worth of action scenes crammed in there, due to having a few movies worth of playtime all told. As far as QTEs go, Heavy Rain makes full use of the breadth of actions available on the six axis or dual shock 3 controller, with all the standard obvious button taps, stick pushes having to now contend with controller jerking. Crass as it sounds, there’s been some careful work to make sure that the action on the controller keeps with the action on the screen, with the six axis motion detection generally being reserved for violent actions like a headbutting, or kicking a door in. When you’re not following a sequence of button-pushery, there’s a somewhat unconventional control scheme in play; left stick is for camera movement and controlling the direction you’ll walk in, whereas compelling them to walk forward is on the R2 button. Whenever you’re near something that can be interacted with, a small icon depicting a motion for how to move the right stick to interact with it (or occasionally a button press or controller jerk). It’s not a perfect system, on occasion I found myself walking past something I wanted to interact with, and finding the turn-around animation a little slow (if I managed to have them turn around at all). I’m willing to chalk it up to  a lack of familiarity, but there’s also the weird case of what happens when you fail a button sequence. In particular, there are situations where you have to press and hold a series of buttons; one that sticks in my mind is where the character you’re controlling needs to make a jump – you’ll start out at the edge, and being prompted to press and hold three buttons in sequence will cause them to pace out a run-up. If you mess up one of the buttons or let go too soon, it’s practically a reverse of the animation that will play and leave them back at the edge. It’s as awkward to watch as David Schwimmer in one of the ‘we-were-on-a-break’ episodes of Friends.

A father, a private investigator, an FBI agent, and a… er… insomniac fashion magazine person are the main stars of Heavy Rain, and there’s been an obvious amount of work put into the way they look and act. Supporting roles have received slightly less attention, and so on down to the chance encounters who all look like you’d expect for a videogame in this day and age, which shouldn’t be construed as a major criticism. There’s also a considerable amount of voice work squeezed onto that BluRay disc, most times when you’re in full control you can hold down L2, and four key thoughts will appear swirling around the character, pressing the corresponding face button that appears will cause some internal monologue to be voiced; it’s like a less-intrusive hint system. Depending on the mood, the button icons may jump around in a jittery kind of effect; it’s a nice subtle touch that adds something to the experience despite the fact that you’re following on screen prompts.

The mood of any visual story often takes an important place in any narrative, and Heavy Rain not only takes the namesake to heart with the weather, but also with the rather oppressive use of dark colours and a nice textured dirtiness to the surroundings to give it a little more oomph in the believability stakes. Along with the buttons prompts going on the fritz, the orchestral score does a pretty great job at keeping with the ebb and flow of tension and suspense, or even the outright panic of the action sequences.

With anything this ambitious though, there’s always some weirdness that goes along with it. If you’re familiar with the kind of weird things that pop up in Shenmue which are half player choice and half game design, you’ll know what to expect. Walking into your wife like a moron while she prepares food, shouting “JASON!” over and over again in a crowded shopping mall because the button prompt compels you, or picking the obviously fatal jump out of a window of a burning building, it’s all there, and it’s all still a little bit weird. It’s actually enough to make me think that perhaps the 4th-wall obliterating tutorial by David Cage in Fahrenheit is warranted, to explain to players that they are using the characters as actors in a story (on top of the uniqueness of the controls). To continue the Shenmue comparison, there’s also a touch of foreign-translation in it too; it’s only present in a few lines of dialogue for every hundred or so, but they’re there. There’s also a couple of animations in the body language that ring a little hollow as well. Both of these quirks seem to be a little bit more concentrated around the children, so it might be worth giving it a pass for daring to take on the “no pets or children” rule of show business, in the context of its other movie-esque aspirations. It may be handled a little bit better than its peers of past generations (you only have to look at the way the main character in Fahrenheit moves to bear witness to that), but it’s proof that we’ve yet to hit the plateau on the other side of the uncanny valley just yet.

As far as the story goes, it’s one of the best quality-for-time-invested that I’ve ever experienced. It’s not a long game, but it’s longer than you might expect for something that’s so clearly attempted to bridge the gap between two mediums.There’s maybe a couple of scenes which felt a bit like filler in the greater context, but that’s only something I looked back on with regards to the overall story cohesion; they’re a nett positive, and certainly don’t detract from the experience. Yet again, I find myself withdrawing for fear of entering spoiler land, but I can say that there’s some powerful material here. It’s something of an epic tale at a personal level; with no crazy supernatural nonsense entering the mix.

Closing Comments

Provided that you know what you’re entering into, Heavy Rain doesn’t disappoint. QTEphobics should steer clear, but everyone else should give it a look; you don’t even have to be a fan of rain, or even a mere weather enthusiast; Heavy Rain is a downpour of the visual splendour of a dirty world with flawed characters.

The fact that there are several different endings is neither here nor there, for what my opinions worth. They exist as proof that your input can affect the end result; however had they not existed, it wouldn’t have turned my opinion around. Heavy Rain is an outlier on the curve of videogame narrative, treading subject matter and scope that has been all but foreign to the medium until now.