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Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Driv3r

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All those involved in game making and playing know that games have bugs in them, with some flaws that are glaringly obvious to anyone, and others that even a top rate Games Tester will miss. Generally these bugs don’t impact on the gameplay too much, usually being minor art flaws and the like and these are acceptable to most game players. Furthermore if there are too many ‘showstopper’ bugs, the developer and publisher always have the option of delaying the release (a regular event in the games industry) or cancelling the project.

So how can a game which has been in development for over 4 years, had millions of dollars spent on it, come out and be so buggy that even in the opening scene the flaws are so glaringly obvious that my techno phobic, game-hating girlfriend can spot them? Because right from the moment I loaded Driv3r and started the main story mode “Undercover”, I was confronted by a jerking cinematic that was so bad I took the disk out and checked for scratches.

Not finding any I started again and got the same “effect”. Now, this is unacceptable in any game really, but when the game boasts of being a cinematic experience, yet they are thusly flawed, it totally breaks any suspension of disbelief that the game is trying to create. This is a real shame because the cinematic feel is such an integral part of this game and this immediately puts you off. In Reflections defence, there can be problems in the manufacturing process with bad media (CDs) and once it’s gone into manufacture there’s not much that can be done.

The sad truth however is that there’s much to get involved in through the cinematic story anyway. It is trite and bland with the voice acting so stiff that you aren’t involved in the story anyway. The whole feel of the game is lifeless. There’s a lack of colour throughout the game and everything seems muted and dull. There’s a real lack of polish and refinement that shows through the bad looking textures to the characters which all look alike with little emotion portrayed in the faces and gestures.

There is simply no ‘life’ portrayed in the game at all. If it’s meant to be a gritty cop action film then you need to care for someone and nothing is developed narratively beyond the minimum needed to set up the next mission. The voice acting is kind of ok, but with such an average story and generic characters anyone could have supplied the voices and the money they have used to secure names such as Mickey Rourke, Michelle Rodriguez, Ving Rhames and Iggy Pop seems wasted.

Furthermore, as soon as the actual game starts for real, you get the sense that something has gone horribly amiss. Tanner, the carry over character, moves like an overweight 50 year old. His jump, performed by the A Button, is a laughable hop of about a foot high, meaning he can’t jump over anything. The aiming is so laborious that if he was in a shoot out with a 3-toed sloth that he’d be dead 3 times over by the time you get to pull the Right Trigger. Pressing the Back button switches you to 1st Person, and it’s a little better, but still awful slow. With something this bad a working auto aim feature would be nice, but I found no difference between “On” and “Off”.

The worst control is getting into and out of the car, performed by the X button. It is so slow that if you are being shot, health will be reduced to quarter from the time you press the button to actually entering or exiting the vehicle. Tanner can swim, but again this is cumbersome, and getting out of the water takes forever, again leaving you open. Seeing that the game is called Driv3r, they could have left this on foot part out, but no, they obviously wanted a ‘GTA Killer’. I think they may have killed it by making it laugh so hard it’s sides split open and its guts gushed onto the pavement.

Luckily the on foot AI is so damn stupid it would have trouble against an anaesthetised 3-toed sloth. This is best described by example. On a boss level, you chase the boss in a boat, and he jumps onto a little shack on the water. Once in the shack I stood back from an open door with two of the boss’ guards on the other side, the boss below me on another level, but I could see his head. I repeatedly shot the top of the boss’ head until he died and mission success. He ducked a couple of times, but then kept standing up into my line of fire. The guards didn’t budge. Didn’t run in the door to shoot me, didn’t move to protect the boss, didn’t even try to fire at me through the wall, which was another “tactic” other enemies tried.

Another time I was on foot, in a windowless building, and a cop car passed by. I must have been within its detection range because it came after me, by directly driving into the wall, until I heard it explode. This is just not acceptable in games anymore, and especially not AAA rated multimillion-dollar productions.

The driving sections are kind of fun. The exaggerated physics of the cars suits the “action film” feel they were attempting, and you get a real sense of speed as you race through the streets of Miami, Nice and Istanbul. There are cars, boats and bikes to ride, and they all handle pretty well, and the use of the standard Xbox driving controls (Right Trigger to Accelerate, Left to break, B to burnout/handbreak) means it’s easy to pick up. The damage models are pretty good too, and crashing into things and shooting up the other cars looks mighty fine. This is a good thing, because you will crash into things… and quite often. And this isn’t because of bad handling, but because there are some things that you can drive through, and some things that you can’t and it’s never clear which is which. In one part of a city you can drive through the fences, and in another you can’t. Not only is there that, but the spawning distance of cars and obstacles is so ridiculously small that things will pop up as you are right on top of them.

Given that the maps are open and huge, every one of the missions is so linear that it seems a total waste. In games like GTA and True Crime the level design is such that you are always encouraged to explore. Not so in Driv3r, which follows one linear mission after another and offers no way to really explore within the main game. There are some missions that require you to reach a destination point without a timer, and you can explore on your way, but immediately after that there are timed or checkpoint missions so if you want to go back to something you saw, you generally can’t. You can cruise around in “Take a Ride” mode, and complete the races in the Driving Games Section, and these are ok (unless you leave your vehicle), but dividing the game into 3 different modes doesn’t give a sense of a cohesive world, unlike the games that Driv3r seems to emulate.

Furthermore, the missions range from ridiculously easy to controller-smashingly hard. I would not have the slightest problem if I wasn’t able to complete the mission because of lack of skill, but the annoying pop ups, bad collision detection and even often the idiocy of the A.I turn most of the missions into exercises of frustration rather than skilful manipulation of human over machine.

The best bit of this game is the music, which is done incredibly well, and puts the score up a few notches. You can have your own soundtrack, but the game soundtrack suits the action, especially the car chases. The loading screen is in the format “Previously in Driver…” much like an action series, and is something done really well. As mentioned before, the voice acting is stiff but still kind of OK, given the generic story and script, and the cars do sound pretty fast. A few extra points come from the ability to record and direct replays, which you can share on Xbox live and a bit of fun can be had watching, and giving feedback to the countless replays already available to watch.

If you were expecting ‘the next big thing’ from Driv3r (which considering the pre-release hype you had every reason to) and you’re a fan of this style of game expecting something new and exciting, you will be extremely disappointed. If you are a long time fan of the Driver series of games there may be something of interest for you here but the bugs and general dullness of the game kills any excitement that you would be looking for.

Conclusion:
The shoddy on foot action and the terrible AI, the bugs, including bad pop up, bad collision detection and glitches in animation both in cut scenes and in game, the terrible mission design and trite story add up to a really average game. If it was a budget priced game made on the cheap it may be acceptable, but this is a AAA title with a massive budget and long development time and it is simply unacceptable. What’s worse is it seems the only thing that was done right was the marketing, as Driv3r has topped the sales charts. This might indicate to game publishers that they can get away with shoddy game making as long as they market it well, and for such a classic game franchise to be handled as poorly as it has here is a real shame. If you’re a Driver fan, give it a rent, if you’re only curious we recommend you give this game a miss.

Pros
+ excellent marketing and production values
+ ‘take a ride’ mode is fun for a while
+ the driving bits are kind of fun, with good vehicle physics
+ making the replays is also fun and you can share them online

Cons
– stiff and awkward on foot action, of which there’s too much
– annoying bugs which should just not be in retail code
– incredibly linear mission design
– terrible pop up for both textures and objects
– dull, lifeless game world.
– some of the worst AI ever encountered in an Xbox game

49/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Dungeon & Dragons Heroes

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A hundred and fifty years ago in the land of Baele, a great evil arose in the form of the wizard, Kaedin. Mastering the powers of the plains of existence, this malevolent wizard channelled the power into 4 gems, and created a fifth one to harness that power. He then cut a swath of destruction across the Kingdom of Baele. Four Heroes took up the call to stop Kaedin, and they succeeded against all odds. However, with his dying breath the Wizard smote the four heroes, and although the world was at peace again, it was at a terrible loss.

Now, a group of evil clerics, who have obviously never read a fantasy book or played a RPG in their lives, have attempted to raise the evil wizard from the dead for their own nefarious needs. Had they been exposed to popular science fiction, they would have known that raising someone so evil would surely get out of their control and end up with them meeting their makers, and unleash an uncontrollable evil on the world. So, faced with such a terrible evil, the Kingdom decides that the four Heroes must be resurrected to fight once again.

Here’s where you step in as one of the four heroes. On offer is the choice between Elf Wizard, Human Fighter, Dwarven Cleric and Halfling Rogue, the four classic classes of the D&D world. Each has their positives and minuses – the Wizard has powerful spells but can’t hold herself well in a fight; the Fighter is strong in melee, but weak against magic; the Cleric is reasonable at magic and fighting, but great at neither, and the rogue is good at hiding and ranged attacks, but weak against magic and melee. The joy of this game is you can play single player, or with all four characters at once, gauntlet style.

Awakened from your tomb, the first task is to fight through the burial grounds and get to Castle Baele. Not really quite what you would want or expect after spending 150 years dancing with angels and jamming with Hendrix. And, unlike Buffy, there’s no time to get all moody and sleep with vampires in order to get back at your friends, you have a job to do. The game moves at quite a brisk pace, and you’ll find yourself fighting nearly continuously. When not fighting you’ll find yourself avoiding traps and looking for levers on one side of a castle that open a door on the other side. These fantasy types must of really enjoyed walking around!

The gameplay is very similar to Baldurs Gate : Dark Alliance. It’s a top down view, although you can zoom in using the right joystick for a 3rd person perspective, although this severely limits your field of vision, and is basically good for nothing except looking at the detailed environments, more on which later. The controls are basically the same too: Move with the left stick, attack with the A button and block with the Left Trigger. Black and White are Magic and Health Potions respectively. A good addition to the gameplay is assignable buttons. Holding down the right trigger slows down the action, and allows the Y, X & B buttons to be assigned spells, traits and abilities, and items. This is great, as you can allocate each button to prepare for each of the 7 distinct levels with different monsters that require different tactics to kill, as well as slow down the action and do it on the fly as the situation requires.

As with any game based on D&D, there are tons of items to be found, bought and sold, ranging from standard weapons to magically enhanced armour to rings and potions that add bonuses to your attributes. However, each of the main characters has their own Ancestral Weapon, unique to them and quite powerful. Making them even more powerful are the Soul Shards, 20 items scattered across each level, and gaining 5 of these shards essentially levels up the weapon. While a very nice addition, and while the animation and graphics of the upgraded weapons look very good, I found this made the other weapons pointless, especially in single player. Whilst other weapons may offer different types of damage and bonuses, I found the Ancestral Weapon to be the best overall for all situations. Sure a flaming sword might be good against a Frost Giant, but you’ve got a greater chance to hit and higher damage with your Ancestral Weapon, especially when it’s upgraded. I also found that I’d get weapons and item suitable for one type of level after completing that level. For example, I found a protection from fire item type in the snow level, which is past the fire level.

Speaking of levels, they are very linear and quite easy. I played through the game on “normal” and it was a breeze. I tried multiplayer on “hard”, and it was also a breeze, perhaps even easier than single player. Sure, I died a few times, but had so much money from selling weapons I could buy plenty of Raise Dead Amulets. Furthermore, the quests don’t seem to flow as well as in BGDA, it’s more of an “accidentally run into this person who asks you to get that” rather than connected stories like in BGDA. The various puzzles and quests are quite simplistic and require very little thought to complete. Sure, the game is more of a hack and slash game than a traditional RPG like Morrowind or KOTOR, but the story really doesn’t hold any surprises, period. Even the big surprise with the Shopkeeper, is about as surprising as waking up in the morning and discovering you’re still alive.

While the gameplay may be lacking, the visuals are truly wonderful. The cut scenes are amazing, and look like they’re straight from a Hollywood movie. They are very detailed, and this detail is transferred to the ingame graphics. There’s heat haze from torches, reflections in the ice, waves are made in water, and each level has cool things to look at, like candles and fountains and such. The monsters all look quite monsterish, and blood and ooze squirts out as you hit them. Blood also stains you on occasion! The spell effects look great too, and it’s truly a sight when the Wizard and Cleric unleash their most powerful spells together.

Sound is also done well, with a good rustic medieval score that suits the action very well. The voice acting is pretty good, although the shop keepers do tend to get repetitive and the spell utterances are a little on the annoying side. Battle sounds sound as authentic as they can, with the clang of claws on steel sounding as one might expect. Ambient sounds aren’t really noticeable, because there’s nearly always fighting going on, but in lulls in battles, your armour clings and clangs as you run about as is appropriate, fountains bubble blackishly and rodents squeak and birds squawk.

Final Thoughts:

D&D Heroes is a decent game especially in terms of multiplayer hack and slash, but lacks in certain areas of gameplay that stop it from being truly great. It is very linear and quite easy, and while the additions of assignable buttons for spells and so on are great, there’s just not enough depth to the story or gameplay. It may look nice, but it leaves a feeling of being unsatisfied, and wanting more of a role-playing experience akin to Baldurs Gate : Dark Alliance, or Baldurs Gate II on the PC.

Pros:

+ Great audio-visual
+ Awesome 4 way multiplayer
+ Nice additions to the control method such as assignable spell buttons
+ Upgradeable Ancestral Weapons

Cons:

– Way too easy
– Story is much too linear and not very engaging
– Ancestral Weapons make other weapons obsolete

Score: 79%

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Magic the Gathering: Battlegrounds Demo

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Magic the Gathering is one of the most popular trading card games worldwide. Boasting over a massive 6 million players, the market is definitely there for an xbox version – it’s just how they convert a tabletop card game to the xbox is the real question. Other Magic the Gathering video games have used a pictorial version of the cards and tabletop, much like PC versions of Hearts or Patience, but point and click gameplay isn’t really accessible for xbox users. So how have the developers gotten around it?

Right from the word go, the game has a very arcade feel. The Arena looks like something from Soul Calibre, as two wizards face each other with big, nasty looking swords, a long way from the tabletop representation shown in Magic Online. On the demo there’s one quest and 3 battles – Red (Player) vs Green (AI), the reverse, and a Player vs Player mode. The Quest mode is basically a tutorial, and teaches you how to collect mana and cast spells. Apparently in the full version of the game the Quests will allow you to get certain cards for the deck. The other modes on the demo give you a sealed deck, meaning you don’t know what you have before going into battle, and allow you to fight it out either with the computer or another player.

There’s no “tapping land cards” here, the mana pops out of the ground in the form of glowing orbs, and you have to run around and collect them. As the wizard collects the orbs, the mana bar goes up and although it does rise naturally, it is at a much slower rate. Once you get 1 whole mana point, you can start to cast spells. Like the card game, certain spells cost certain mana; for example to summon an orc it costs 1 mana point, but unlike the card game, there’s only one colour of mana. What this means it is possible to steal mana from your opponent, but staying on their side of the arena results in you taking damage.

Spells are cast immediately – no waiting around for the other person to take their turn – it’s all action from the word go! There are 3 types of spell: Creature, Sorcery and Enchantment. Creatures summon monsters to attack either the enemy wizard, or their summoned creatures. Sorcery spells aid you, or hurt the enemy directly. Enchantment spells are cast on your creatures. Choosing the right spell at right time is important, and makes the game quite tactical, capturing the essence of the card game, but making it more exciting.

The graphics and effects are really neat – no animated cards, but rather excellently rendered monsters and effects that show off the xbox’s power by having lots of things happening at once with no slowdown at all. The music is appropriately dramatic and fantasy based, and the sound effects are a good combination of sword clanging, monster noises and magic effects. While the card game both on and off computer is quite slow, this version is quite action packed and fast paced, yet still manages to contain elements of strategy. The option to play this over Live is disabled in this demo, but promises to give xbox gamers a different and exciting take on one of the world’s most popular games.

[No score due to this being a demo version of the game]