Tag Archives: Shooter

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict

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Unreal has been the staple for fast paced frag action on the PC for years. It captured the minds and hearts of gamers and critics alike with its intense shooting action and gameplay. As the years have rolled by, the game has made its way onto Macs, Playstations and our beloved Xbox. Unreal Championship was essentially a port of Unreal Tournament 2003, and whilst it played well enough and looked great at the time, it still felt like a PC port.

For Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict (UC2 from here on in) rather than port Unreal Tournament 2004, the game was designed from the ground up to be played on Xbox – and it Midway and Epic have done a damn fine job in making this iteration of Unreal one of the best. Whilst the game is made for multiplayer mayhem, the single player side of things isn’t a mere add-on. The Ascension Rites single player story mode is a little clichéd and short, it does two important things – it demonstrates what has changed and prepares you for ownage.

Ascension Rites puts you in the role of Anubis, a member of the Nakhti race and shamed tournament player. He rejoins the tournament to prevent his ex-lover Selket from winning the throne and gaining dominance over the Nakhti. Anubis has to deal with the meddling Liandri Mining corporation as well, who seek to control the tournament for their own nefarious ends. Whilst not exactly a David or Goliath story – it’s clear from the start that Anubis can handle himself in battle – it is set up from the start that winning is something Anubis must do, or the world as he knows it is doomed.

Ascension Rites begins with a tutorial, where the new concepts set up in UC2 are introduced to the player. One of the most important differences in UC2 is that while you can play in first person view, you’re likely to play the whole game in third person view. Traditionalists may baulk at this idea, but there’s a good reason for it – melee combat. The bi-line of the game is “bring a knife to a gun fight”, but that understates the importance of the melee weapons. These aren’t just petty combat knives, these are melee weapons of such destruction that Saddam would be in trouble if Dubya found them in his possession. Just as a few rockets from the traditional RPG will send you to your maker, so too will a few good whacks from a melee weapon.

Some new moves have been added to make melee pleasurable. There’s the basic spinning attack, and continuing to hold the Right Trigger will turn you into a whirling dervish of destruction. The B button gives you a harder hit, but leaves you open at the end of your attack, so use it wisely. Jumping with the A button and pressing the Right Trigger does a devastating Matrix style Jump attack. Jumping and pressing the B button will tear your enemy a new a-hole, but likewise be wary of a counter attack or even a shield block.

Another new addition introduced to the UC2 gameplay is the “Freeze”. Hit an opponent with a melee weapon enough times, or using the alternative fire of the pistol, and you’ll freeze your opponent. In a nod to Mortal Kombat, if equipped with a melee weapon and locked on by clicking the left thumbstick, you’ll hear the familiar “Finish Him” and using a combination of button presses perform a “coup de grace” and splatter your foe across the level.

The melee weapons aren’t overpowered however. This isn’t like Halo2 where you’ll bolt at the sight of someone holding a sword. Although bullets and rockets can be deflected with melee weapons with a well-timed press of the L trigger, a well-placed rocket at their feet or sniper shot to the head can take out even the best melee combatant. Furthermore, a simple button press will change from melee to gun and back again, so often you’ll find yourself fighting in close, then jump away and switch to a projectile to do long range damage, then jump-attack to get up close again.

Adrenalin, which always seemed an afterthought for me playing on the original Unreal Championship (and probably the reason I was beat so often) is now at your command with a few simple button presses. Pressing X brings up an onscreen menu of the available Adrenalin moves available, and these are accessible with another button press. For example, “Nimble” which allows you to jump higher and control your movement better is X and A, whilst “Heal” is X + X + A. Each character has different moves, so it’s good to play each character and get a feel for what you like.

Throughout the single player campaign you’ll play through the different game modes available, and they haven’t changed too much from the Unreal staples. There’s the ol’ Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, as well as Capture The Flag and Survival. Two new additions are Nali Slaughter and Overdose. Nali Slaughter is just that – you run around a map and slaughter as many Nali – essentially non-combatant sheep people – as you can, aiming to beat your opponents total before the time runs out. Overdose is variation of Bombing Run, where you grab a ball and return it to a goal. The longer you hold a ball, the more irradiated you become, and when you score a goal when your radiation meter is full, and you get an overdose and gain extra benefits. Unfortunately Team Deathmatch and Capture The Flag are the only team modes available, and I was a left a little disappointed – I loved team Bombing Run and felt that more co-operative play would have been more fun.

The Ascension Rites campaign is quite short, but it’s not easy. Whereas some games have less than intelligent bots, the AI in UC2 can only be described as vicious. The AI has an uncanny ability to appear almost human in some respects. If equipped with a sniper rifle, the AI will often camp and attack you from afar, then switch location when you discover them, or switch to melee and bring the battle to you. They use the terrain and cover brilliantly, dodging and weaving through the levels. They’ll use power-ups to devastating effect, which can be irritating especially if you don’t know the maps.

After Ascension Rites there’s Challenge mode, whose completion is required to unlock a certain character with a stormy disposition. If you found the Ascension Rites campaign to be nasty, this is downright evil. You’ll start each round at a disadvantage, and need to catch up and overtake your opponents at whatever game you’re playing – for example you might be two to nothing at capture the flag, and be playing in a team of slow moving characters against a team of fast moving characters. You will have tantrums, you will throw the controller, and you will sweat and cuss more than a footballer on a losing team, but when you succeed the sweetness is palatable.

Multiplayer is where the real action is at, and split screen or on Live! it’s fast and furious fun. Although there was initial scepticism at the 8-person limit, any more people and I don’t think the game would be as well balanced as it is. The melee combat is blazingly fast, and more people would ruin the enjoyment. As the amount of team modes has been reduced, there is no need for many players on one team. The range of characters to unlock, mutators to play with and over 40 maps mean that there are hours upon hours of fine fragging entertainment on offer.

All the new moves and characters wouldn’t be worth jack if they didn’t look good, but each character is brilliantly realised with their individual acrobatic moves and attacks. You no longer think that you’re playing the same character in a different skin, each character feels quite extraordinary to play, and you will most likely develop a liking for one or two characters in particular, depending on your way of playing. The maps are very well conceived for the smaller limits of players, but occasionally they’ll seem a bit large as you run around trying to find campers when playing one or two other people. The background graphics, special effects, shadowing and so forth are up there with the best of the current slew of Xbox games, and the cut scenes are really impressive. Sound wise the game is equally remarkable, with Dolby in game sound on offer and with plenty of cussing and splatting to hear you’ll enjoy the audio as much as the visual aspects.


Conclusion:
UC2 is an incredibly fun game to play. It looks slick and plays well in both multiplayer and single player alike. The melee combat adds such a difference it almost feels like you’re playing a new genre of game. The enormous number of levels, playable characters and challenging gameplay mean that you’re not going to get bored of it too soon. Even if you don’t have Live! the AI Bots in single player are enough of a challenge to keep you coming back.

Pros:
Excellent blend of melee fighting and shooting.
Intelligent and challenging AI in single player mode.
Fantastic fast paced online action.
Wonderful graphics and audio.

Cons:
Cooperative team play has been cut back.
AI can be a little too tough at times.
Some maps can seem a little too big with only a few players.

91/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

The Punisher

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What would you do if you were an ex Vietnam Vet, and your entire family got wiped out in a Mob hit, and the police were unable or unwilling to help you? Would you sit back and allow the criminals to overrun your city, infesting the streets, hurting innocents and mocking you with their brazenness? Or would you put your years of training and fighting to the test, become a vigilante and start taking the law into your own hands?

In THQ and Violition’s The Punisher, you take on the role of Frank Castle, Ex-Marine turned vigilante in order to give pain back to the bad guys. No spandex tights and mask for this mean dude, he wants people to know who he is and know what he’s going to do to you if you get on the wrong side of him. He beefed up, found a really cool looking transfer to iron onto his t-shirts, and became the Punisher.

And there’s a whole lot of pain to be dealt. The Punisher is no ordinary superhero, fighting for justice, or truth, or the American Way. He’s a dark, brooding, gritty, mean and angry man, and wants revenge on the mob gangs who killed his family, and won’t let anyone get in the way of his revenge. This game is very much aimed at the mature gamer, and it shows from the very opening scene, as The Punisher brutally shoots his way out of the Takagi building before surrendering to police. Yes, The Punisher nods it’s head to the storytelling device made infamous by Tarantino, and, like a Tarantino story there is a great deal of violence and bloodshed, but this is backed up by an engaging storyline and strong lead character.

The story, from acclaimed Punisher comic book writers Garth Ennis and Jimmy Palmiotti, slowly unwraps itself as you move through the game. A cutscene plays before each level, showing an interrogation situation with two cops drilling The Punisher for information about what he has done – and what you are about to play out. This device works really well, making you want to play through the game to find out exactly what is happening, to find out why has The Punisher allowed himself to be captured, what he has done to be incarcerated, and who he’s going to kill next. But more than being a cheap plot device, the story is actually interesting and engaging as well.

The gameplay itself is really quite simple, but it is also quite a lot of fun. Each of the 16 levels sees the Punisher go from point A to point B shooting everything that moves. The controls are standard Shooter fare – Left Joystick moves, Right looks about, and the Right Trigger fires while the Left Trigger throws grenades. To assist you in this task is over 20 different weapons, although not all of these are available to you at first. There’s your usual fare of pistols and shotguns and automatic rifles, plus a couple of bigger weapons like flame throwers and anti-tank guns. To bring more pain to the bad guys, The Punisher can wield two weapons at once, but only two weapons of the same sort. He can also ‘precision aim’ (or use the sniper scope) by clicking the right joystick for all those important headshots. This is also handy when the bad guys have a human shield of their own, as the only thing you’re not allowed to shoot is an innocent.

To make the game deeper, you are given style points for being creative with your kills and avoiding being shot. To avoid being hit, you can dodge / dive with the B button, and crouch by depressing the left joystick. You can also grab nearby enemies with the A button, and used them as shields and toss them through closed doors. The more bad guys you kill without being hit, the higher your multiplier can go, and the more points you get. These points can be exchanged for better armour, health, scopes, attached grenade launchers, bigger ammo clips and so forth. They also grant you medals that unlock the extra content, which, if you’re a fan of the Punisher comics is a real treat.

But this would all be humdrum if it wasn’t for quick kills and interrogations. Pressing the X button when near or when holding a bad guy will result in a quick kill. For these, Violition pulls out a massive number of animations, from execution style pistol to the head, to knife through the skull, to shoving a grenade in their mouth and watching their heads explode. They’re all violent, and all look very slick and cool, and it is fun to run through a level and see how many you can do. There’s also a “Slaughter” Mode, engaged by the Y button, which is kind of a Max Payne style bullettime where The Punisher pulls out his knife and simply runs amuck. Like Max Payne, this time is limited, and you refill the meter in the same way you get Style points.

At anytime you have hold of an enemy, you can press the A button to interrogate them. There are four different types of interrogation – Choke, Face Smash, Punch and Gun Stress, corresponding to the direction of the joystick, and when you activate this mode a stress meter appears. By moving the joystick up and down, you move the meter into the yellow stress zone, and keeping it in this zone will cause the bad guy to break. The average bad guy will tell you generic things like “Jigsaw will kill you”, or will set of a memory which unlocks a still from the comic books. Then there are those with the White Skull above their heads, who will divulge better information, like how to get out of a room, or where certain things or people are, and so on.

In addition to this, there are also special interrogation areas around the map. These are located with a White Skull, and these areas are where the gruesome interrogations come in. They can only be used once, but they are mighty fun. There are things such as bandsaws, deep fryers, ledges over shark-infested waters, wood chippers, and a whole host of other deadly spots where The Punisher can extract information. Once you’ve extracted the information, you’re meant to let the bad guy go, but it is far more fun to simply let them have it and kill them, and watch their animated death. If you do this, you lose style points, and the screen turns black and white in order to maintain it’s MA15+ rating. Some people see this form of censorship as wrong, but I think it adds to the overall feel of the game. There’s also Special Kill area, marked with a Gold Skull, and these grisly places of death offer no punishment to you for utilising them.

The Punisher looks good too. As mentioned, the mood of the game is dark, and this is reflected in the gritty set design in all the levels. Even the bright neon in some levels have a drabness to them. There are a wide variety in the levels, from the close quarters of a Russian frigate and downtown crackhouse to the openness of an outdoor military compound, allowing a bit of variety and strategy to come into play – do you take your assault rifle or shotgun? There is also a lot of nice set dressing, especially later in the game, and whilst not being fully interactive, there are some props and glass walls that can be shot and blown about the place. The Punisher himself is very well modelled, and looks mean in his leather jacket. The bad guys look a little stiff at times, but when you face the bosses all of them are well conceptualised.

Sound wise the game is good too. The Punisher, voiced by Tom Jane who played the lead role in the 2004 Punisher movie, is deep voiced, reflective and almost philosophical at times. He narrates over the action much in the same way Max Payne did, and there are quite a few amusing lines thrown in here and there. The screams and pleadings of the bad guys can be funny too, especially during interrogations as you get closer to breaking them. The music in the game is suitably comic book action style – it reminds me of the Batman movies and Max Payne games, and suits the action in the game very well, when you notice it over the gunfire of course. The gunfire is perhaps not intense as it should be, considering the amount that happens, and at times it is difficult to know when you are being hit by bullets because there are so many flying about.

Conclusion:
The Punisher is an enjoyable, if somewhat short (about 10 hours), action shoot ’em up. It’s relatively easy too, but incorporates some interesting, if somewhat violent, gameplay ideas that work really well. The violence in The Punisher game is over the top, like the comic it is based on. It never seems overly disturbing like in the game Manhunt, and you never feel that you are playing anything other than a comic based game. The censorship that has come into the game actually adds to the overall feel, but I can see this game grabbing the attention of those who think violent games are a the end of civilisation as we know it, so expect this to go the way of Manhunt in a few months.

Pros:
– Simple yet fun run and gun style gameplay, with an engaging storyline
– The interrogations are and interesting gameplay device, and fun to execute
– The Style Points and Medals offer incentive to play through again
– Lots of unlockables, in-jokes and references to the Marvel Universe for the comic freaks

Cons
– Quite violent, so don’t let the kids play it
– Quite easy to get through on the default setting, and pretty short
– The Boss fights are very easy.

81/100

inthemix.com.au, Review, Writing

Robotech Invasion

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Xbox

I used to love Robotech as a kid. I never truly understood it, partly because the story lines continued over a few weeks and I’d miss them as I used to play soccer on Saturdays, but more so because they were edited and dumbed down for a western audience. Characters loved, lusted, romanced, deceived, cross-dressed and even died, and most of this was watered down in order to make the series presentable to western kids used to Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny. I’ve never properly revisited the Robotech universe, but after playing the game, it’s on my to-do list.

Robotech Invasion takes place in the 3rd series of the Robotech Saga, known as the New Generation. The Robotech Expeditionary force is on the other side of the galaxy when the aliens known as the Invid invade Earth to harvest protoculture from a flower only found on our home planet. Resistance forces rise up, and the Robotech Expeditionary force returns. You are part of that force, found unconscious on Earth and given a new identity, and new tools to fight the alien invaders.

It all sounds pretty exciting, but pretty quickly you realise that there’s not much to this game. Like the original series, it is dumbed down quite a degree, from the story to the gameplay. The story is more clichéd and contrived than anything the series could manage, even after the western censors took their axes to it. Although this maybe intentional, giving a nod to the series, it doesn’t quite work like that, leaving you feeling lost and confused on the whole.

The gameplay is pretty much your standard shooter fare. Point at this and shoot at that. It’s not too bad, but there’s nothing special here that hasn’t been done a million times before. When you get the upgrade to your armour that allows you to transform into a Cyclone, a two wheeled battle machine, things start looking up – until you try to control the thing. The Cyclone feels too light and floaty, and you can’t operate the thing indoors, even though the indoor areas are often bigger and less treacherous than the outdoor areas. Its weapons are a bunch of the cool squiggly rockets that have become a staple of Anime and Manga, but unfortunately they are too ineffective against the Invid and even human opponents.

Staying in human form is the best way to play this game, as you have better control and better guns. You can hold the left trigger and lock onto targets, which is a great little device, although it makes gun battles a little easier than they should be. Not that any of it is overly hard, the AI of the enemy is average – it focuses on you and simply shoots, and your teammates is even worse – they can’t seem to hit anything, but seem to get hit by everything.

The level design is probably the best aspect of the game. There’s enough variety in the game world to keep you interested for a few good hours. There are protection, search and rescue, and fetch and retrieve style missions, as well as blow up everything you see missions. There are a few ‘on rails’ missions to break up the action, which are also quite fun. The environments you fight in are quite varied too, but lack a certain level of detail that really shows after a while.

The graphics of the game are a let down too. There’s nothing shockingly bad about them, but again, there’s nothing great about them. The transformation from human to Cyclone is pretty cool, but other animations, such as explosions, gunfire and particle effects are fairly lack lustre. The sound is also just average, with the voice acting sounding like bad dubbing – which is perhaps intentional, but again, it doesn’t really work. Not even Jesper Kyd’s composition overly helps the game, unlike his compositions in the Hitman and Freedom Fighters games.

There is an online component, but every time I went online there were no players at all. This is getting to be quite a common thing for the lesser titles with Xbox Live! compatibility. Everyone plays the big release titles at release, and no one seems to want to play the smaller titles. In this case that’s probably not a bad thing, as the standard deathmatch, capture the flag, and capture & hold style games on offer nothing new to any seasoned gamer.

Overall, Robotech Invasion fails to impress on any level. Its lacklustre storyline, its been-there-done-that gameplay, its disappointing vehicle physics, and average graphics and sound all add up to an OK game, but one you couldn’t recommend over other titles that have been released recently. This is a shame, because the Robotech Universe is a very interesting universe, and has a lot of potential for greatness. The one good thing this game has made me want to do is revisit the cartoon, so I would only recommend this to devout fans of the series.

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Armed & Dangerous

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Back in the glory days of PC gaming, one company stood head and shoulders over all others for irreverent, quirky humour. That company was Lucasarts, and the games in question were Sam & Max Hit the Road, and Monkey Island. Two games that are held in such high esteem that when it was announced that a new version of Sam and Max was to be canned, the outcry by fans worldwide could be heard on Coruscant. Although no Jedi have heeded the call as yet, fans of offbeat, fun filled games need not be too worried, for it lives on in Armed and Dangerous.

Armed & Dangerous can only be described as fun. A hell of a lot of fun. From the first moment you start playing, you’ll find yourself chuckling at the comically drawn characters, enemies and the cheeky, often rude humour. The characters of the game are the first indication of how much fun this game offers – Roman, a masked fighter; Q, a very English robot who’s always drinking tea; Jonesy, a dour Scottish explosives expert who also happens to be a mole; and a weird smelly old blind man, Rexus, who is central to the plot. Not your ordinary bunch of heroes by any stretch of the imagination. These misfits, called the Lionhearts, find themselves at odds with the king of the land, who wants ultimate power buy unlocking the Book of Rule, which can only be unlocked by the person who locked it… which happens to be Rexus. So a bounty is put on the Lionhearts heads’, and every man and his dog wants a piece of them, so they have to fight their way through 21 levels of absolute mayhem.

The action comes think and fast. There are literally hundreds of opponents to kill on each level, and at your disposal is an incredible arsenal of great weapons to choose from to dispatch each and every one of them. There’s your standard sniper rifle, machine gun and rocket launcher, but there’s a whole lot more fun to be had with the crazy weapons that can be found at the Pub. Yes, the place to buy your weapons and restore your energy is the pub, quite traditional English looking pubs too. Weapons available from them include the Land Shark Gun that fires fin, connected to a shark which leaps out of the ground to devour your hapless foe. Then there’s the Guy Fawks Traitor Bomb, which makes the enemy turn on each other, and the Black Hole bomb that sucks everything around it into it, and disappears with a slight ‘pop’. There’s a whole heap more, but I’m not going to spoil it any further.

Not only can you kill lots of baddies, you can kill innocent bystanders, like sheep, penguins and peasants. You can also make a hell of a dent on the landscape, as nearly all of it is destructible. This is a game where the rule is if it moves, kill it, if it doesn’t, blow it up, just in case. However, like other shooters, at the end of missions you’re actually scored on things like accidents (killing livestock or innocent peasants, blowing up peasant houses) headshots and a few other stats that you can find in any other shooter. However, unlike those there doesn’t seem to be much point other than just a score. Which, when you think about it, is quite funny. All those other shooters are all so serious about things, and people play online and get so caught up with scores. This game throws that in your face, and has a laugh about it all.

One thing hampering the fun is the controls. They’re not standard shooter controls, and I often found myself becoming confused during hefty battles. The right trigger fires, and the A button is jump, which is quite standard, but the left trigger acts as a zoom, whereas in nearly every other shooter it’s used as secondary attack. The B button acts as secondary attack, which I found to be rather inconvenient, as I’d press A or X (reload) by accident. I also had trouble with the changing of weapons, which is used by the d-pad. Up/Down changes the main, and left/right changes the secondary weapon. In the heat of battle, fighting airship and turrets, and hordes of mean metal men, it becomes a chore to use the dpad. The action is so fast and furious that moving your thumb off the left joystick to cycle through weapons leaves you at a disadvantage, even though only slight, and it just feels totally odd in this game, although other, slower paced games use the same set up.

Another gripe is the AI, as in what AI? Sure, it’s a game of run and gun, but you have teammates, and whilst they can be ordered about, it’s at a real basic level, and they always seem to die. They’re good shots when they’re alive, but that’ll only be for half the mission. The enemy AI isn’t too bad really, if intelligence is to stand in the open and shoot you. Although if you kill one of the baddies manning a turret, another baddie will run up and man it in his stead, which is pretty clever. Yet, at the end of the day, because of this, the gameplay does become repetitive, very repetitive.

However, the cutscenes give you a reason to tolerate the gameplay. As well as being funny, (it’s worth playing this game for the one cut scene that ridicules Star Wars in such a hilarious fashion I still giggle about it!) the cutscenes are quite good graphically. The rest of the game looks great too, although the levels can seem repetitive. Whilst the environments look really cool, there’s a lack of distinction to each area. The houses and other props to blow up, and the baddies all look the same. Yet surprisingly there’s little slowdown, even with tonnes of enemies on screen, so I guess the sameness is related to a memory thing, and we can over look that when you have scores of 10,000 bullets fired and 300 + enemies dead.

There are currently two more levels to download, but despite what it says on the back cover, this game has NO online multiplayer, either through systemlink or Live! A co-operative feature would have made this game so incredibly fun that people’s heads would explode, and a must buy for fans of multiplayer shoot ’em ups, but alas, this is sorely missing. It may have been interesting on Live, or it could have been a total dud, so there’s no point pondering about that aspect, but either of these could have added more replayability to the game.

Conclusion:
Armed and Dangerous is pure, unadulterated, shooting fun. It captures the heart and hilarity of the old Sam & Max games, as well as offering a fresh coat of paint to a tired genre. If you’re looking for anything more, you’re not going to find it here, but that’s the beauty of the game and why it stands out above the plethora of shooters out there. The absence of co-operative play is a serious let down, as it is so much fun and could be doubly so with another person. The absence of online multiplayer is also a let down, but most people DON’T have broadband or Live! and it would probably seem like a pretty generic shooter anyway.

Pros
+ Furious Fantastic Fighting Fun!
+ Masses of enemies to kill
+ Destructive environments
+ Some of the funniest cutscenes to ever grace the Xbox.
+ Largest Kill Count of any shooter on Xbox

Cons
– No Co-op or Live! Play
– Controls are a bit awkward
– the window dressing is a little repetitive
– as is the action

82/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

SWAT: Global Strike Team

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Once upon a time, in those heady days of PC gaming called the 1990s, Sierra immersed us into the world of your average law officer on the hunt for ‘perps’ in one of the most popular adventure games ever, Police Quest. As time rolled on, PCs got faster, graphics improved and delved into 3D, attention spans got shorter, and the adventure game genre died a slow and quiet death.

In order to keep the franchise running, Sierra released Police Quest: SWAT for PC back in 1996. Although initially a little rough around the edges, the series has been refined over the years, and SWAT 3: Close Quarters was quite a well-rounded tactical shooter that sold millions of copies. Zoom to the present, and SWAT has finally made it to consoles, in the form of SWAT: Global Strike Team.

Set in the ‘near future’ like so many other games of this genre, it’s the year 2018 and the US sees fit to create a Global Strike Force of police personnel to travel around the world and seek justice for the good of democracy. Bypassing the fact that the thought of a US controlled worldwide police force is a hideously repulsive concept, you’ll be racking up the frequent flyer points, moving from the streets of LA to London, Moscow and beyond. There’s many a city to visit, but before you start souvenir shopping there’s some hostages to be rescued and international terrorists that need to be taken down.

Taking control of Mathias Kincaid, you lead a squad of 3 police officers through the various missions, trying to achieve your given objectives, which mainly consist of rescuing hostages, disarming bombs, and taking out terrorists. Your squad can be commanded by the use of the context sensitive d-pad, or voice commands. The range of voice commands is quite wide, with about 3 or 4 being on offer for each action and you can test the commands in the options set up. However, something that annoyed me no end was that there was no feedback in the headpiece whatsoever. I checked the options, made sure that everything related to headphones and such was on, but to no avail. This was extremely off putting, and ruined the whole immersion factor that is so wonderfully implemented in other games such as Rainbow Six.

Your two teammates have special abilities, and occasionally you’ll get to control them. Kana Lee is the sniper, and occasionally you’ll find yourself in her shoes shooting baddies from rooftops, clearing the area for the rest of the team. Lee is also good at picking locks, and by looking at a lock, the context sensitive interface allows you to command her to pick it. Anthony Jackson is the bomb and electronics expert, and he can be used to hack the many computer locks and security systems that litter the many areas you’ll find yourself in, as well as disarm the big nasty bombs around the place.

Unlike in so many other games in this genre, you are police officers first and foremost, and it is your duty to uphold the law. And the law says that using unnecessary force when trying to take down ‘perps’ is not on. This translates into gameplay with the addition of “compliance”, which is mapped to the X button. Looking at a target, and pressing the x button, or yelling, “get down” or “police” or a range of other commands if you’ve got a headset, results in a meter appearing underneath the target. This is the compliance meter, and by continued yelling, or even firing a few shots at them will increase this until they put their weapon down. Shooting the target when they’ve surrendered will result in you getting an “unnecessary use of force” penalty, as will headshots on targets that aren’t overly hostile to you. This means a 3-month investigation and pile of paper work, or in game terms, a lesser grade at the end of the mission.

The missions are really average, and I found myself being rather bored of it after the first couple. A part of this maybe the fact that each mission seems to be haphazardly thrown together around a lose storyline that lacks in every major department you can think of. The briefings have text and voice overs – no cool flashy images and cut scenes like so many other games. The characters are very two-dimensional and lack any depth, and this includes your teammates. And the plot, right from the very premise, is so contrived that it becomes predicable and hence, boring. Another factor is despite the compliance feature, most missions are just run and gun. You run into an area, wait for the enemy to shoot, and then shoot them. Whilst the AI of teammates is pretty damn good, and the only time you really need to worry about them is when they’re performing a special function such as disarming a bomb, the enemy is quite stupid. You can literally run circles around them, dodging their bullets, as they stand still and move their torso in your direction.

The game does feature over 20 missions, plus a heap of co-operative matches as well, plus a deathmatch option, so there is a lot to keep you busy, supposing you don’t get bored first. Co-op and Deathmatch are split screen – Xbox Live functionality isn’t supported apart from scoreboards and downloads. This is a real let down, as it may have been quite an interesting game online. However, if you don’t have live, and have a friend or relative to play with, then you may find yourself finding the co-op / deathmatch component getting more use than the single player missions, as whilst they feature similar locations and objectives, it’s always fun to play with others.

Graphically the game is a mixed bag. There are some real nice lighting effects, with lots of bloom (a term I picked up recently which refers to the look of the light haloing around objects) but textures and characters are just average. Most of the missions feature hallways, lots of hallways, and you can get lost, as they all do look the same. Enemies seem robotic and look sub-par, and have clipping issues with walls and doors at times. Sound wise the game is forgettable. Average voice acting, average bullet sounds, average environmental sounds, and I don’t recall hearing any music at all, it was so unremarkable.

Conclusion:
SWAT: Global Strike Team is one of those games that’s just plain average. It’s not a terrible game; just that this has been done so much better in many other games. There’s nothing overly impressive to find here, however there’s nothing really lacking either. Given that there are so many other excellent games of this genre available, the addition of demanding that the enemy surrender is a plus, but the lack of cohesive story and characters you believe in, and the oversight of not including Live! play, and the average graphics, enemy AI and sound has SWAT: GST coming off as second best.

Pros
+ ‘Compliance’ feature is an interesting idea.
+ Lots of Voice commands can be given for the same action
+ Lots of missions in the campaign, plus downloadable content.
+ Good Co-op split screen gameplay
+ Cool lighting effects

Cons
– No voice feedback through the headset, meaning you lose that sense of immersion
– The story seems very haphazardly put together around locations rather than a cohesive world
– No Xbox Live! online gaming seems like an enormous oversight, given that there’s downloadable levels, a scoreboard and voice.
– Just plain average in every other respect.

68/100

inthemix.com.au, Review, Video Games, Writing

Vietcong – Purple Haze

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The Vietnam War has been the focus of countless movies, but until recently not many video games. Maybe it was the fact that it was still fresh in our memories, maybe it was the fact that the processing power of early PCs couldn’t accurately represent the strategy and locations that needed to be included, or maybe it the fact that the Americans didn’t win the war outright, so how could they make a game where ultimately you were a loser? Whatever reason, with the slew of World War II First Person Shooters, the premise of setting a game in another war seemed quaint, and Illusion and Pterodon were one of the first game companies to take advantage of this setting.

Vietcong: Purple Haze is two games in one – the original game released in 2003 and Fist Alpha, the add-on pack released early this year. In both games, you play as a squad member in a small outfit thrust into the middle of this mad war. Vietcong places us in the position of Sergeant First Class Steve Hawkins, who is transferred to Nui Pek camp, and he and his Special Forces comrades must face the enemy in unfamiliar territory while accomplishing various objectives in the process. These missions involve reconnaissance, extraction, and elimination… the standard FPS fair. Whist there’s a little variety, it all comes a bit too samey after a few missions. The add-on pack puts you in the shoes of another Special Forces officer Warren Douglas, and it’s set a few months before the original game, and whilst a little more difficult, doesn’t add too much more variety to the action.

Speaking of gameplay, although you’ve got teammates, and each member has their own abilities, style, and their own history, they’re fairly 2 dimensional. You can order them around to do things, and you can talk to them, but on the whole the experience is a little dry. They’re invaluable in a firefight though. The hardest part of the game is seeing the enemy. It creates a sense of being there as you have to creep along looking for movement, but sometimes it seems like it’s just damn well cheating. Once you do see the enemy, they are rather easy to kill because they aren’t all that bright. You can easily outflank them, and sometimes even run straight for you!

Although the backdrops of the mountains look great, and the fog and lighting effects are used to create an eerie feeling of being in the jungle, the rest of the graphics are really sub-par and dated. The character models look awful, and objects in the foreground look blocky and badly rendered. The framerate is quite abominable when all the whiz bang effects are turned on, even on high end machines, and the game actually looks better with effects such as grass turned off.

The soundtrack is one saving grace, being full of realistic sounding jungles and swamps, with crickets chirping, frogs croaking, and the sounds of gunfire and helicopters echoing through the valleys. There’s a great number of authentic 60’s and 70’s rock throughout the game, and when in camp you can tune into American Forces Vietnam Network to listen to ‘Double J’ broadcasting to the troops. The voice acting is OK, but be warned – it’s rather mature and of the time. Lots of swearing, and use of the word “gook” in a demeaning way. Sure, it’s keeping in with the time and feel, but is it really necessary?

Online play is another saving grace, if you ignore the visuals of course. It becomes quite intense as you creep through the jungles, trying to capture the flag, or just kill as many people as possible. The maps are pretty big, and you can go some games without seeing an enemy, but again, the problem here is that after a few games, it’s just another First Person Shooter. Sure, there’s a little more stealth involved, a little more tactics and hiding, but it’s been done better in lots of other games.

While Vietcong: Purple Haze is does immerse you in the Vietnam conflict rather well, the other aspects of the game let it down. The questionable AI and sub-par graphics really hamper the enjoyment of the game. It’s a refreshing change from all the sci-fi and WWII shooters, but doesn’t really excell in enough areas to make this a “must buy” purchase.

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

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Max Payne was an incredible game. It had a deep involving storyline, an empathetic main character, and more exciting action than a John Woo movie. It was lauded for its use of “Bullet Time” and “Shootdodge”, and it’s use of comic book cut scenes that emphasised the dark story.

Max Payne 2 : The Fall of Max Payne begins shortly after where the pervious game finished. Max Payne’s world is dark, sinister and twisted. It creates a sense that no one can be trusted, that everything is dark and dank and hopeless. Yet, even through all this, Max Payne finds hope and indeed love, albeit at a price. It is classic film noir – a story of romance and betrayal. It has all your favourite characters, Chief Bravura, Vladimir Lem, Vinnie Gognitti, Mona Sax and of course, Max Payne himself, with a few surprises both story wise and gameplay wise.

Bullet Time and Shootdodge make a welcome return, and although they’ve been used to death in other games, Max Payne slightly reforms them time around, giving the game a slightly easier feel compared to the first game, whilst still looking ultra cool. The first thing to take note of is Shootdodge, which is a slow motion dive Max performs. Whilst in this dive, time slows down, but Max can shoot in real time, and reload even quicker. It’s fantastic to dive into a room and kill every bad guy before than can even react! What’s added this time is the ability to remain prone after the dive and continue shooting… Finally, a real sense of taking cover! Furthermore, Shootdodge no longer consumes your Bullet Time meter. Bullet Time is where the action slows down Matrix style, allowing Max to aim or position himself out of harm as well as dodge bullets and explosions. The more people Max kills, the longer he can stay in bullet time, and the more awesome the animations as he runs and swings about look.

But don’t let this fool you; the AI is by no means easy. They will hear you and react to your weapons fire or you opening a door. They will take cover from your fire, run away and re-group, and they can also spot you from quite some distance, and open fire with some precision. However, apart from your survival, there’s another incentive to kill the baddies – the havok physics engine. Bodies are given ragdoll physics, and react to the surrounding environment. Max can run into a room and shoot an AK47 round into an enemy thug, and that thug will go flying back into boxes, making a stack fall down around his dead body. Grenades will rock shelves, and goods scattered on those shelves will fall off and roll away. Taking enemies out near doors leaves them in a shuddering heaped mess, not half hanging through the wall or door, and if they fall off a balcony they spin and bounce as they fall in an eerily realistic fashion. The levels are set up to take full advantage of the physics, being large, multi-layered and full of things to knock over and blow up. The abandoned fun park level is an absolute corker, as you’re already on edge just from the atmosphere, and this almost sets you (and Max) over the edge.

Another great addition to the gameplay is where you have to protect someone, with the best mission being the one with Vinnie Gognitti. Without giving too much away, it is absolutely hilarious as Vinnie flops about in an oversized character suit, his shoes squeaking as he dodges enemy bullet fire. Another level starts when you as Max fall out a window. You see a cut scene of max falling, and then play as Mona Sax, armed with a snipers rifle, defending Max from encroaching enemies. Mona has the same moves as Max, and a great little tactic to take out pesky guards taking cover is to go into Bullet Time and wait for them to stick their head up to fire upon Max, and then Wham!

The real killer of Max Payne though is its story. It’s contrived, it’s formulaic, but it is incredibly engrossing. The story told through Max’s eyes as you play through the missions, obviously, but there’s always some kind of subtext running through the game, and this can be picked up by listening to the conversations of the police when at the station, be heard on answering machines, from overhearing a couple of guards before you pop them, and even from the various TVs in the buildings. Some of these missions are dream sequences, where it pays to look and listen for information and clues to what is really going on. But like the original, the story is also shown through comic book panel vignettes, dark and grainy, and when it all comes together it is a wonderfully dark tale of love and loss.

However, the length of the game ruins all of this. I played through in two sittings, coming in at just under 6 hours of gameplay. I was really, really disappointed. Once you finish the game on its default setting you can play through the game on a greater difficulty, or play a mini-game which allows you to kill lots of bad guys in a short amount of time. But with the game being so story driven, and thus quite linear, is there really a need to play through it again? You may pick up more of the subtext, but this is kind of ruined, as you already know the ending. When played through again, it’s like when someone tells you the end of a book or movie, and there’s a real sense of apathy about it all. And, with this apathy comes the flaw finding. The jumping puzzles are just exasperating. It’s hard to see exactly where to jump, and Max feels cumbersome when jumping. The dream sequences are just annoying, and you want to get through them so you can shoot some bad guys. There’s more than a few levels which are repeated, and it’s like “oh no, not this again”. So, OK, this only starts to sink in second time around, but these flaws are still present and you do feel a little cheated.

Conclusion:
Max Payne 2 has a great story, even if it is a little contrived, but you do become engaged in the characters’ and their intertwining lives. There are some absolutely hilarious moments, and some totally warped levels that capture and amplify the unique film noir mood greatly. The physics of the Havok engine are quite simply stunning, with the ragdoll physics being some of the most realistic of a game to date.

However, when it’s all over, it’s over too quickly. The story drives the game, and once it’s finished there’s not much else to be said or done. Re-running through the game will not enhance the story. You may find extra little clues, or notice a subtext within the TV shows, but you will not face new and interesting twists, nor will you really find the game’s difficulty more fulfilling. The fact that it’s so, so short that it leaves you disappointed and wanting oh so much more.

Pros:
+ Awesomely involving story, albeit a little contrived.
+ Fantastic atmosphere.
+ Unbelievable Physics Engine

Cons:
– Too damn short
– Once you’ve played it through, there’s no real point to continue.
– The levels are quite linear.
– Jumping puzzles still leave a lot to be desired

86/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3

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There are games that define a genre, and then there are those that slickly refine it, improving upon the genre without changing the basic mechanics that we know and love. Rainbow Six 3 falls into the latter of the categories for both single and online play. The story and gameplay are fairly typical for a Clancy title – you control a small group of elite soldiers who have to save the world from the sinister machinations of an unknown evil, but it works beautifully, so why fix something that isn’t broken. However, what makes Rainbow Six 3 stand out is the remarkable attention to detail, the degree of tactical gameplay involved, and the very immersive feel of the game, and it is this that will raise the bar for future first and third person console shooters.

The game is set in the near future, one that sees the world at the brink of war in 2007, as the OPEC nations are at loggerheads with the USA over oil. An unknown terrorist group is causing headaches everywhere as they try to force the Venezuelan government to stop supplying the USA with oil, and they hit targets all over the world including Switzerland, Canada, Venezuela and even the USA. Rainbow Six, a top-secret arm of the United Nations is enlisted to deal with these terrorists in a succinct and surreptitious manner. In the single player game, you are placed in the role of squad leader Ding Chavez, and must guide your team through a variety of urban locations with an assortment of objectives to achieve. These objectives are the usual tactical shooter fare: search and destroy, hostage rescue and even bomb disarmament. Some missions will require the use of stealth to survive, while others allow more opportunity to get trigger-happy.

The game is quite simple to play, but very complex in its execution. The controls are pretty standard for a shooter – move with the left joystick, turn with the right, and fire with the right trigger. This allows the player to slip easily into the game with a minimal learning curve. The other buttons are well mapped out for the game – the left trigger swaps between primary and secondary weapons, the Y and B buttons bring up night and thermal vision respectively, pressing X reloads the current weapon, while holding it brings allows selection of third and forth weapons – grenades and charges. The d-pad is used to lean left or right, peeking around corners to see and take out enemies with the protection of cover. By pushing up and down it’s also used to open and close doors smoothly, so you can peek out behind the door, and close it without alerting baddies to your presence.

The A button is a context sensitive “action” button, which is used not only by you as Ding to do ‘something’, but is also used to order the team about. For example, if Ding walks up to a closed door, pressing A will quickly open the door. However, if Ding is across the room, looking at the hostage and pressing the A button will order the squad to secure the hostage. You can also hold the A button down to bring up an action menu, which can be used to give more complex orders. Look at a door and hold A, and you will be given a choice of actions for the team from breaching the door, to opening the door and grenading the room beyond, and so forth. Furthermore, pressing the Right trigger will put you into the “Zulu” mode, where your team will wait before doing an ordered action until the Zulu code is given by pressing the white button.

Moreover, actions can be given by simply speaking if you own either an Xbox Live headset or purchase the version of the game that comes bundled with a nice Thrustmaster one. Looking at a hostage and saying “secure hostage” will see your team scramble across the room as if you pressed the A button. The game recognises up to 45 different spoken commands with all speech from your team also heard back through the headset, and it makes for an extremely immersive experience. While you can’t sit back and have a chat with your A.I team mates yet, the feeling of giving orders to them by simply speaking to them is something truly amazing the first time you experience it and doesn’t wear off anytime soon.

This context sensitive action button is superb for ordering and positioning the squad tactically. The squad AI is really quite good; if a teammate is ordered to disarm a bomb the others will take up positions and defend him. Furthermore, the team can operate pretty well on its own. See a door through a window and you can order the team to open that door, while finding an alternative route or providing cover from a height. The “Zulu” code works a treat for this kind of play too, as you can have the team stand at the entry to one door, while you find an alternative entry, and bust in to take the “Tangos” from either side. At higher levels the enemy AI is quite tough as enemies will duck behind desks and shoot over the top, or run back to other rooms to regroup when under fire. Thankfully on the ‘recruit’ level it’s a bit easier for us mere mortals with no special-ops training.

The attention to detail in this game is superb, and the game truly shines because of it. From the range of weapons and equipment, to the level design, to the lighting and sound, everything is made to feel realistic. There are over 30 weapons to choose from, and each has a different look and feel. Rainbow Six 3 also features lighting equally impressive as seen in Splinter Cell and to excellent effect. Shadows more often give away positions than not, and it’s fun seeing an enemy’s shadow and taking them out before they know what hit them. In the snow levels, steam rises from squad mates’ mouths, sheets blow in the wind on city streets, and jerk around as you shoot through them. Venetian blinds ripple along open windows, often causing a hail of gunfire to pepper an empty room. The game has rag-doll physics, so shooting people can result in humorous results, such as people falling out windows or rolling off ledges.

Speaking of windows, most can be shot out, and the muted environment sounds get louder once the window has been removed by a bullet or grenade. Grenades or breaching charges can also be used to take out doors, and the grenade effects look great – the phosphorous ones set the place on fire, and enemies run about screaming while burning. Flashbangs leave a white impression of what you were looking at superimposed over the screen, which eventually fades but is highly disorientating, and teargas is equally unsettling as it trips out your view. One of the greatest things I’ve seen is when on Live, when a player talks that players mouth moves, and while not quite lip-synced, looks close enough to cause awe when it’s first seen.

However, it’s this depth of realism that makes other parts of the game seem quite irrational. Certain glass areas can’t be shoot through, for no apparent reason. There are barrels of flammable liquid in places where realistically they probably wouldn’t be. In single player, when Ding dies, that is the end of the mission – another squad member can’t take over.

For Multplayer, there’s system link and the all-important Xbox Live functionality. On the Live Service, this game simply cannot be beaten in terms of tactical shooters. It is quite possibly the most intense game available on Live to date. The game is set up to facilitate team play – you can’t be a “Rambo” in this game and run about with guns blazing; instead you need to listen to and help your teammates if you want to win. There will be times when all that stands between winning and losing is the location of a sniper, and using teamwork to flush him out is the only way to achieve victory. Whether it is co-operative mission based matches or team survival, the game really requires you to talk with your teammates and work out strategies. Adversarial missions are equally as intense, as you move from cover to cover, trying to spot the enemy and take them out. In this game one shot to the head means death, so stealth and timing are much more important than bravado or brawn. Being complacent in your sniper spot won’t work – people can figure out where the shots are coming from, and there’s always a back way to most locations.

The multiplayer modes available include:

  • Mission – Cooperative: Play the 14 missions of the single player game with up to 4 other players.
  • Terrorist Hunt – Cooperative: Find and kill all the AI terrorists in a map of your choosing.
  • Survival – Adversarial: Essentially a last man standing type of game
  • Sharpshooter – Adversarial: The player with the most kills at the end of the round wins. This is the only type of play to have re-spawn, if you die in any of the other game modes you have to wait until the end of the game.
  • Team Survival– Adversarial: Last man standing wins for his team. This mode is very good for teamwork.

All in all, Rainbow Six 3 is a fantastic tactical shooter. It’s got some great innovations for the Xbox such as voice commands, and the single player gameplay is comparable to playing on Live. The AI is pretty damn good and the difficulty of the game quite challenging but very rewarding. Rainbow Six 3 is currently the best first person shooter on the Xbox, and if you’re a fan of the genre with or without Xbox Live, is a must get title.

Pros:

+ voice commands are awesome!
+ very immersive play
+ fantastic use of graphics and sound with excellent lighting worth another mention
+ comparable single and multiplayer experience

Cons:
– some minor inconsistencies in the realism field
– unable to play co-operative via split screen

Score: 90/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon : Island Thunder

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Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon : Island Thunder is the follow up to the incredible Ghost Recon, the game where you lead a crack team of commando’s through numerous missions to stop the world going to war. This time in the alternative future, the commando team has to go to Cuba, two years after the shenanigans in the Baltic States. The USA, being such the nice guys that they are, has seen fit to help stabilise the country after the death of Fidel Castro. Various factions are fighting over control, and due to some having vastly superior skills and equipment, the US has opted to go in and even things up a bit. Contrived? Definitely! Fun? You bet!

Like the last incarnation of the game, you lead two small squad of up to 3 men each team in a campaign through various missions of varying difficulty. Unlike last game, there are only 8 missions. There is also the option to play just a single mission that takes the maps in the campaign and allows them to be played individually. These can be played either as a Mission as per the campaign; a Firefight, where the object is to run around the map eliminating the enemy; Recon, where you must make it to an extraction point on the other side of the map; or a Defence game, where you must defend an area from enemy attack.

When selecting a team, selecting “auto assign” gives a pretty good team well suited for the mission. However, if you’re a completely obsessive control freak, there’s the option to outfit the team with different members, weapons and abilities. Each team member has different levels of stealth, weapon skills, endurance and leadership, and these along with their primary skills – rifleman, support, demolitions and sniper – allows you to outfit your team to perfection. Each team member also has a number of different weapon kits available, and it is up to you to determine who gets what; should the team all have ballistic weapons, or will grenades be better to achieve the objective?

The gameplay is pretty similar to the original, but the steaming jungles of Cuba seem a touch more sinister. Every movement could be an enemy. Like the last game, this game’s pace is slow and steady, but it’s still heart pounding. A few hits by an enemy and a team member is dead. Luckily, the AI is incredibly good, and the team members can take out soldiers before you’re even aware of them! And, like last time, there are 3 objectives to achieve each mission, and a bonus objective that will unlock a new soldier if it is completed.

The command map that is used to direct the squads hasn’t been improved upon though, and while it suffices, it really should have been enhanced. It still feels very clunky and limited. In a game where accuracy is paramount, the fact that you cannot choose an exact location on the map for the soldiers to go, nor can you choose individual firing arcs for each member of the team is really disappointing. Admittedly it must have been hard converting the maps from the PC to Xbox interface, but the Xbox has been around a while now, and other games seem to have adapted better to the differences in controllers. Another let down is the over scripted missions. Again, when replaying the missions, you will find enemies in the same locations, meaning you will literally know what’s around the corner.

The joy of Ghost Recon is multiplayer, and Island Thunder continues the legacy. With Xbox Live now available in Australia, this will be one of the biggest online games for the console. There is also system link and four player for those who don’t have broadband. In terms of settings, there are quite a lot to choose from, and the range of types of games is enormous. Co-op has the same game types as single player – Mission, Firefight, Recon and Defend.

For team games, there is:

  • Last Man Standing
  • Search and Rescue – which is kind of like Capture the Flag, except the flags are hostages
  • Hamburger Hill – also known as King of the Hill, your team has to control an area for the better part for the game to win.
  • Domination – where 5 zones have to be controlled by the team
  • and Siege – where one team defends a base from the attacking team.

And for solo (all on to all) games there is

  • Last Man Standing
  • SharpShooter – the person with the most kills wins
  • Hamburger Hill – the person who controls the hill for the longest wins
  • And Cat and Mouse – which is essentially Tag.

Ghost Recon’s multiplayer is a lot more cerebral compared to other shooter type games. Rather than running around and shooting anything in sight, the action is akin to the single player mode – move around slowly, use cover and camouflage rather than speed or brawn. Radio communication is really important, and the XBL headset functions better than any other communication device. When playing with a good team who know what they’re doing, the game is incomparable to other shooters in terms of action.

Final thoughts:

While Ghost Recon: Island Thunder is essentially an expansion pack, it is a game in it’s own right, and a damn good one at that. It doesn’t add anything extra to the gaming experience of Ghost Recon, apart from the new campaign and location, so if you have the original it would be a tough ask to tell you to get this. However, it is at a lower price, and I dare say more people will be playing this online than the original, so in that way, it’s worth it. If you haven’t got the original, and are looking for a challenging shooter that relies more on using your brain than brawn, and provides an excellent multiplayer experience, then pick this up and skip the original.

Pros:

Gameplay as good as the original – tactical and intelligent
Excellent Multiplayer
Cheap!

Cons:

Only 8 missions (but there are downloads available)
Like previous game, replay value is limited due to over scripting
Command Map hasn’t been improved
Is anyone else sick of the USA in the role of “Saviours of the Known Universe”?

80/100

inthemix.com.au, Review, Video Games, Writing

Brute Force

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Xbox

Brute Force was touted as being a “Halo killer” when it was announced. This is a real shame as it sets it up for a huge fall. Luckily Digital Anvil, creators of the also over-hyped Freelancer for PC have created a solid game with superb graphics, excellent sound and some unique gameplay ideas that will see this game get a big following, if not as big and hyped as Halo.

Begining the game as Tex, a no-nonsense muscle marine type guy, armed to the teeth with massive weapons, you proceed to blow everything to smithereens in your first few missions. As you progress, you get introduced to Brutus, a lizardman with huge strength and ability to detect nearby enemies, and in the next few missions you’re introduced to Hawk, the sneaky spy, and Flint, the eagle eyed sharp shooter. You control these characters one at a time in the intuitive style of Halo, but with extra functionality added to the controller to help team situations.

The D-Pad is used to change character. You may be controlling Tex and see an opportunity for Flint to take out a distant guard, so a simple press in the direction of Flint’s portrait will switch you seamlessly to her. Incredibly Tex will usually do something smart like duck and hold his position! If you hold the D-pad, you can issue commands to your squad. The game pauses, and using the coloured buttons you issue commands such as Hold Postion, Cover Me, Attack at Will, Move To, Heal and Use Special Ability.

This gives this game a tactical edge, as you can move your teammates into position and set up the next sequence of events. For example, you can send Hawk into an area invisible, and then move your squad around for the best angle of attack, or just become visible and lead the enemy back into an ambush.

All the characters have special abilities. Hawk’s is the ability to turn invisible for a short period of time. Tex’s is to wield two guns at once. Brutus’ is “Spirit of Vengar”, which allows him to heal himself and detect hidden enemies, and Flint’s is to Automatically target any enemy in her extended range of sight. These used in conjunction with the move orders, plus the ability to seamlessly move from one character to the next make this one of the most interesting FPS games on the Xbox.

Unfortunately the Campaign Missions let this down, as you can in most cases run in guns blazing and simply win the game. The single player missions comprise of going through checkpoints and doing various things along the way, such as retrieving objects, destroying objects and killing things. It gets repetitive. Whilst the landscapes are expansive and destructible, the missions are too linear and it is too easy to get through and find the objectives you need. Stealth and sniper shots are good tools, but seem wasted on the whole, as they aren’t really essential to winning any missions. Another let down to this is that they seem very disjointed. The story is a bit thin and seems strung together, especially compared to games like Halo and Half Life.

That’s only a minor irk though. Something really incredible about this game is the multiplayer function. You can have up to 4 people playing the single player Campaign Missions, controlling one of the four characters of the team. If someone has to leave, the game reverts to controlling the character. You can have one person playing the game, have another two join, and then the original person leave with another, and the game continues without skipping a beat. The AI of the computer-controlled players is pretty good, and because you’re always playing with a team of 4, the game isn’t thrown out of balance.

In some cases the AI goes a little silly – my team stood up in the middle of a fire fight to shoot at opposing forces and got their heads shot off, but on the whole it’s not too bad. The AI of the enemy isn’t too great, especially on the easiest level, but it’s not the dumbest either as they leap away from grenades and use teleport devices to devastating effect on some levels. Multi-player can also be head to head, with one on one deathmatch or squad-based deathmatch. As to not make it boring, scattered around the Campaign Missions are “DNA canisters” which unlock a variety of extra characters you can control in deathmatch, each with different strengths, weaknesses and special abilities. Unfortunately it’s not Xbox Live enabled, so you have to use system link or xboxconnect to play online.

The graphics are gorgeous. The backgrounds and the cut scenes are very reminiscent to Halo, and the lighting and character models are top notch. The weapons each have a different look and feel, having different firing effects that look great. The landscapes are generally good looking, but I found them to get just a little repetitive. The sounds are equally well done, with weapons sounding dangerous, and atmospherics that are just plain creepy. The voice acting is well done too, with some genuinely funny dialogue at times. All in all this is a fantastic game that’s well worth the purchase, especially if you’ve got a few friends to play with, but those who like in depth single player games may be a little disappointed.