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Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Assassin’s Creed III

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Returning to the Animus for the 5th time (not counting the spinoffs) Ubisoft Assassin’s Creed III forsakes the Old Continent of Altair and Ezio for the shiny new continent of America during its formative years. Once again we are thrust Forest Gump Like into the world of Templars and Assassins and Precursors, where every major personality and event is somehow influenced by these shadowy organisations and in particular, your main character.

Like all things American, this time it is bigger, brasher, and more in your face than ever before. But don’t go into thinking this is all “America, Fuck Yeah!” as it still stays true to the Assassin’s Creed philosophy, honestly and truthfully deals with the subject matter (well, as honestly and truthful a video game set in an alternative historical timeline can) and never lets you forget this is an Assassin’s Creed game.

We start the game with the ‘present day’Desmond Miles who is hiding out with his trusty sidekicks, the snarky Brit Shaun Hastings, ubergeek Rebecca Crane and his dad, William. Truth be told, I didn’t really understand why his dad was there as I never bothered with AC Revelations. Anyway, they find their way into a Precursor vault and send Desmond back into the Animus to find the key which unlocks the vault so they can save all of humanity. The story asks a lot of you, such as to remember plots, characters and devices from 5 games, and on top of that throws new characters, and a re-cap would have been nice, but it’s noticeably missing.

Travelling into the Animus in the Precursor vault, which is located in New York State near an old Native American Indian burial ground (or some such) you’d expect the story to start with the guy on the cover, Ratonhnhaké:ton, or Connor as he’s known to people who can’t say his name (which is nearly everyone not of Native American Indian descent), but surprisingly you don’t. However, telling you who you do start as kind of gives the story or at least part of it away. Let’s just say he’s an experienced assassin but someone you’ve not encountered before. This prologue helps you get back into the skin of the Assassin, helps you relearn the controls and the moves you’ve invariably forgotten, and also sets the scene for what will become the American Revolution.

Eventually after the prologue chapters you inhabit the memories of Connor as a child, then as a surly teen, then as a recalcitrant young man. Connor is not as fun as either Altair or Ezio personality wise. He’s much surlier and more of an outsider and rebel because of his mixed-race heritage. He’s rash, bold and unconsidered, much like Desmond. It doesn’t make him unlikable, but he feels more like a teen trying to find and forge his place in the world, unlike the Europeans of the previous game who were trying to make sense of it. The story does tackle some of the contradictions of the formation of American political system – the fight from tyranny and oppression of the British when they themselves owned slaves and terrorised the Native Indians, but does so fairly and is never unnecessary awkwardly in your face about it.

Where he improves on Altair and Enzo is in missions. Each mission given feels different, and you never feel bored playing him. The variety in length and use of abilities was very welcome, and although overall most missions were easy, I only came across on which was frustrating. Unfortunately this came at the end of the game, and really let down the last sequence which should be the best and most satisfying. I also felt slightly let down by the finale with Desmond. Like with Mass Effect, and players being invested in this character for so long, it feels like it could have been handled better.

During the early portions of the game with Connor is where it really opens up and gives you a great sense of the New World. There is a mindnumbing variety of things to do in the game – The usual collect the feathers/trinkets/treasure chests/courier/assassinate and synchronise points which existed in the previous games return. Rather than through cities across rooftops, here you find yourself ranging through the Frontier, leaping from shear rock cliffs onto trees and careening across stout tree limps and leaping with faith into bushes. Hunting and gathering tasks appear, with clues which lead you to find and trap certain animals to collect certain skins, reminiscent of Red Dead Redemption.

There are the Wilderness missions, much like the hunting missions involving looking for clues, where Daniel Boone (he of the Racoon Hat) will tell you tall stories about things such as Sasquatches. There are Forts in both Boston and New York along with the Frontier which you can take over either stealthily or with brute force, as well as convoys to raid. There is a homestead to upkeep, and people to recruit both into the assassin’s guild as well as to help out around the homestead. There’s also a creation/trading system, so not only can you simply sell all your gathered skins to shop keepers, you can create different things you’ve gathered as well as buy from your homesteaders, and send them on convoy trade missions to receive a higher return. The creation system is also tucked in here, so you can create a heap of things to help you thought the game. I found this system to be over complicated and fiddly, and could have been much more user friendly.

Then there’s the sailing, which is simply a blast. It feels reminiscent of the old Pirates game, just faster and more action packed. You avoid rocks when close to shore and huge waves whilst out to see, trying to blindside enemy ships with cannon fire, or ramming into them, or shooting them with mini-cannons. Some missions require you to disable the enemy ships with chain cannons, and then board. Here you swashbuckle your way across the boat, aiming to kill a certain enemy or group. There are also pegleg missions, which involve collecting trinkets then returning them to a swarthy ol’ sea dog to receive instructions to find a hideout, which are like the AC II catacomb sections of running and jumping.

There is a lot more besides, because it is really a huge game with many things to do and keep you interested. So many times I would plan to go to a mission, but get sidetracked on the way by this or that – say a random convoy, or chancing upon an animal I needed to hunt – and I’d spend 15-20 minutes faffing about, but I never saw it as wasted time. There was always some kind of reward for doing the side missions, whether it is in-game money and unlocks, or achievements.

When you’re done with all of this, there’s multiplayer too. The multiplayer aspect is like a game of deadly hide and seek. You and your opponents look like the NPCs throughout the map, and by watching the NPCs and noticing behaviour which is ‘abnormal’ as well as taking in the audio and visual cues you hunt your prey whilst being hunted yourself. You score points for your approach – if the enemy doesn’t see you you get reward more points and increase in level, unlocking more costumes and items, like most other multiplayer games. Whilst it’s nice to have something different from every other multiplayer game out there, and the game is fun if somewhat a little unfulfilling, I’ve always felt Assassin’s Creed multiplayer was unnecessary for the series because the single player experience is so well developed.

Like all massive open world games, Assassin’s Creed III isn’t without its faults and glitches. None are game breaking, but some are incredibly frustrating. It still has the issue where you’ll try and run in a certain direction but simply run up a wall, or do a dead stop. The NPC following skill leaves a lot to be desired, and some NPCs obviously fall through the world, appearing as icons on maps but not findable. Speaking of icons, there’s far too few indicators on the map when you need them. Guards appear as simple red dots, and you never know if it’s one guard or a group 8. Many side missions aren’t shown on the map at all, and it’s near impossible to discover them unless you stumble over them by accident. When on horseback the amount of collision with rocks and NPCs makes them feel useless in terms of speed in areas crowded with people or trees – so nearly all the time.

The game is probably the best looking one thus far, with excellent character animations, although Desmond’s backpack as a weird clipping issue which annoyed me no end. It has a great looking wilderness, and cities full of bustle and their own charm thanks to a new physics and AI system. The Caribbean when fighting sea battles looks amazing and the new weather effects are really cool – the way rain trickles down cart grooves and pools on dirt roads is a really nice touch. Voice acting throughout the game is superb, and whilst some of the lines are corny, there is some great characterisation of well known historical figures. As previously, the Animus’s history lessons are very well written and full of Shaun Hastings’ (who supposedly writes it) trademark snark, and if anything even more so because of the subject matter at hand… the British did lose the war and the colony, after all. If every history books were written in this style, I think a lot more people would be into history.

Conclusion:
Assassin’s Creed III is a pretty damn fine game. It loses none of what makes the series fun with the translation to another time and continent, and creates a whole new set of experiences which define the franchise. The biggest issue, if there is one, are the small technical issues, but these niggling technical issues only seem worse because everything else is such a great experience. And If I really was pushed I would also mention how the surly lead character isn’t as likable as maybe he could be, as he doesn’t have half the charm of Altair nor the wit of Enzo, but I think that speaks more to their solid characters than a deficiency of Connor, his characterisation, or the writing of this game.

Pros:
It’s still the great Assassin’s Creed action and fun.
Enormous game with lots to do and experience.
Much variety throughout the main missions.
Great looking and fun to play naval battles.
Fun multiplayer.

Cons:
Ending is a little weak.
Some small technical issues now and then.
Connor is not as engaging as Altair and Enzo.

90/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

I Am Alive

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Ubisoft’s I Am Alive has so many good ideas that it should be brilliant, but then proceeds to undermine that brilliance with poor choices. The central conceit of I Am Alive is the world has gone to shit after the Event, a cataclysm where earthquakes rocked the world and caused cities to crumble, leaving survivors choking on toxic fog. Our hero travels cross country for a year to return to his ruined hometown of Haventon, obstinately to find his wife and daughter despite, you know, all the earthquakes and post apocalyptic desperate vigilantes, etcetera.

Immediately on starting the game, the influence of every post apocalyptic movie in the last 20 years is apparent. Abandoned cars on broken highways. Torn apart bridges. Crumbling skyscrapers. Skeletons just lying in the street. Trolley carts everywhere. Apart from being hackneyed and incredibly grey / brown, the world is also curiously static. Sure, I’ll concede the world is meant to be drab and sad looking after it ends, but the choice to not have physics on objects and debris makes the game world unbearably dull. Climbing about on skyscrapers is a breeze, but you can’t open a car door or climb on top of it. There are wire blockades which after a year should be rusted, and even if not could easily be climbed over or through. The only movement is cloth, which flutters nicely in the wind, but walking into trash cans stops you dead in your tracks.

The climbing mechanic is quite interesting. You have a health bar and a stamina bar, and your stamina bar decreases the more you climb. The more you exert yourself, the quicker the bar empties. If it empties, the bar itself decreases, meaning you have less stamina. Erode your stamina too far and it is game over. You can regain stamina by pulling yourself up onto a ledge and standing on it, placing a piton (a climbers hook) into a wall, or use items which you find around the world. Most of these items are in plain view, so exploration of the drab world isn’t really rewarded. Also, when you get into certain areas the land becomes dusty and you lose stamina slowly but steadily. The only way to avoid it is to climb.

One of the biggest issues I found when climbing was the unresponsiveness of the controls, especially when moving horizontally, as when you’re crossing monkey bar type climbs. Often you’ll switch camera view, and start climbing the wrong way. There is also a problem with vertical movement, and you wrestle with the controls when jumping upwards or sideways. As you are climbing your stamina bar is decreasing, so you dick around trying to get the controls to play nice, all the while getting more stressed at losing stamina.

You also have a life bar, which depletes if you fall too far, or get hit / shot by enemies you encounter. Although you’re armed with a machete and a gun, ammo is limited so you have to choose your fights wisely. This is a great idea, and makes the player think about being stealthy and patient as you move through the world, listening for clues of the presence of other people. Or so the game would have you believe. However, most fights are in fact unavoidable, and most end up occurring in the same way.

You can draw your gun and threaten an enemy, getting them to back up to a drop so you can push them over, or get close to slash them with the machete. Usually there will be three guys, one with a gun and the other armed with machetes or knives. You end up in most fights simply shooting the guy with the gun and slicing the other two. In some fights there’s a “tough guy”, and shooting him will make the other guys surrender, at which point you can knock them out.

The game also has a frustrating save system. I understand the developers are trying to make the player stressed to a degree, and careful in how they play, and that’s fine. However, when part of that stress comes from issues outside the player’s control, it’s simply nasty. The aforementioned difficulties with climbing can cause you to slip and fall, meaning you have to retry from the last checkpoint, which are quite far apart.

Moreover, you’re limited in how many retries you get from the checkpoint. You start the game with three retries, and by helping people (usually simply by giving them things in your backpack you’ve discovered in the world) or completing one of the main missions, you’re rewarded more. However, if you use all retries, you’re taken right back to the beginning of the chapter, and these are spaced way too far apart.

For example, I completed a difficult climb which took about an hour, I was rewarded with a cutscene. I thought cool, chapter done, and turned off my xbox. When I returned to the game, I was at the start of the level, and had to spend another hour climbing. Again, this would be fine if there were multiple approaches to levels or encounters, but it’s really quite linear, so replaying is just a chore.

The game also suffers from minor technical issues, such as clipping and poor animation. On top of the control frustrations and lack of life in the world, as you’ve only got the main character to focus on when you jump and clip through a girder, or walk through a shaft of light and cast no shadow, it’s probably more apparent than usual here. The music score is dynamic, and as you get hurt or lose stamina, the music rises dramatically. Again, this is a great idea on paper, however it’s poorly implemented. The choice to have it occur every time you lose more than half your stamina, which is every time you climb, means it loses any dramatic impact it might have had.

Conclusion:
With so many great games on XBLA let alone on disc, it’s hard to recommend I Am Alive. It feels like it never reached its full potential. Maybe with more time or a bigger team Ubisoft would have a classic like Assassin’s Creed on their hands, but unfortunately it falls flat on too many levels.

Having said that, Ubisoft should be praised for taking a risk and releasing something beyond the endless shooters, and hopefully despite its mediocrity we’ll see an update or a sequel which addresses some of the main concerns.

Pros:
Potential to be great, but let down by poor mechanics and controls.
The balancing of stamina and health is an interesting mechanic.

Cons:
Story is contrived and trite.
World is static and lifeless, and not in a cool, “end of world” fashion.
Poor climbing controls.
Linear path through all the levels.
Fights tend to play out the same way every time.
Technical issues.

69/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Child of Eden

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Kinect games get a lot of flak for being childish or simple, and pandering to a non-gamer audience. But Child of Eden, the follow-up to the critically acclaimed Rez, is nothing but an unadulterated video game experience. So much so you can actually play the game with a controller, but only a fool would prefer it over the Kinect controller. It’s not that playing with the Kinect is more accurate, or more skilful; it’s simply more fun. As someone who has become mightily disenchanted with games recently, playing Child of Eden was an exercise in pure, unabated joy.

Child of Eden acts as a prequel to the events in Rez. The human race has moved to the stars, and what we know as the internet is now referred to as Eden, a storehouse of humanity’s combined knowledge and also the database you defend in Rez. Lumi, the first child born in space, is adding her knowledge to Eden to become the first artificial intelligence, but the memories are under attack from a virus and you have to fight to save the memories.

The core gameplay of Child of Eden is quite simple. You’re locked on rails moving slowly through the game space, shooting enemies on the screen with one of two weapons – a pink “quickfire” weapon and a blue “lock-on” weapon. The quickfire weapon eliminates enemies quickly, but they take a lot more hits than if you lock on. You can lock on up to 8 enemies, and getting all 8 will give you a higher score. You also have a smart bomb called Euphoria which eliminates all enemies on screen. It sounds simple, but the wonder and the joy of Child of Eden comes from how the enemies are presented and dispatched.

You have to play through 5 databases to rescue Lumi, each one named after a particular theme – Matrix, Evolution, Beauty, Passion and Journey. Each database has a variety of different viral enemies. Beauty contains flower-like enemies. Evolution contains gears and mechanical flying machines. Passion contains giant space whales. Each enemy is colourful and exotic, sweeping into view with majesty and vitality, and often it feels such a shame to destroy these beautiful creatures. Many will fire at you, and the pink bullets can only be shot with the quickfire weapon. There are also walls where you have to quickly unlock by locking onto certain parts and blasting before coming into contact with them, damaging yourself.

Rather than the traditional “pew pew” and explosive sounds of shooting games, each shot fired is accompanied with a percussive sound. By listening to the brilliant techno inspired musical score and timing your shots with the beats, you get better scores. Certain enemies will be predominantly pink or blue, meaning only your pink or blue weapons harm them, and then it becomes a juggling act as you switch weapons.
The boss battles use the dual weapon system to great effect. You’ll fire your lock on at various parts of the trippy and wonderfully designed creature on screen, locking on and then quickly switch to the quickfire to blast away enemy missiles. The enemy will change colour, meaning you’ll have to switch up your tactics quickly, else miss a chance at eliminating it quickly.

With playing with the Kinect, you hold your left hand out to fire the pink quickfire, and with your right hand and sweep over the enemies to lock on, flicking your right wrist to launch your weapon. Raising your hands and clapping fires the smart bomb. It’s feels silly at first, but eventually it feels very natural and you feel yourself start to sway in time with the music. You become absorbed by the action, listening to the audio cues when you’re firing, watching the visuals explode and coalesce to the sounds.

Although it will take you only about 4 to 5 hours to get through the entire game, it’s not a matter of rushing to the end. Scored on time, amount of enemies killed, and number of health pickups and Euphoria, as well as the timing of your shots to the music, it’s a game designed to be savoured again and again. Each time you play, there will be something new you never noticed, a new way to confront enemies, and you’ll start racking up the scores and climbing the leaderboards.

The best thing about completing the game is Hope, the “Survival mode”, a kinaesthetic battle against the computer which had me giggling as wave after wave of things to shoot appeared on screen, as the colours and sounds flashed and you become completely absorbed in the game. It was reminiscent of the hard songs in Guitar Hero or Rock Band where all your concentration is consumed with the action and the music, but unlike those two games there is never a sense of failure or frustration. There’s no feeling of “I’ve failed again. I can’t do this”, only “Hell yeah! Let’s do that again!”

Conclusion
Lately, video games haven’t felt like games to me. They’ve felt like extensions of Hollywood, full of violence and explosions and not much substance. Or they’ve felt like tools to keep the music industry afloat. Or, at their very worst, addictive time sinks designed to fleece money out of you.

Fortunately Child of Eden has arrived, and it’s a game that completely absorbs you when you’re playing it. A game which makes you laugh for no reason when playing it. A game which expresses pure joy at simply being a game. And it’s brilliant.

Pros:
Amazingly fun to play
Combination of audio and visuals creates a stunning experience
Proves Kinect can be used to play video games

Cons:
Possibly too short
100/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Shaun White Skateboarding

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Taking influences from many sources, Shaun White Skateboarding seeks to forge a new path for skateboarding games, and adds a few new twists on an old genre. It attempts to muscle in on territory held by Activision with Tony Hawk on the one hand, and EA’s Skate on the other. Instead of knocking out the competition, it gets squished in the middle, making a little noise but ultimately being ineffectual in making itself really stand as a contender.

With the story of SWS appearing far more developed than in Skate or any Tony Hawk games, you find yourself in the world of the Ministry, a faceless, boring bureaucracy which insists everyone to behave in a regular manner, not dream nor imagine; not be exceptional, not be outstanding. It’s a dystopian view of the corporate world, not dissimilar to the one found in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, but nowhere near as clever.
As public enemy number one, presumably because he is exceptional and outstanding, Shaun White is arrested, and hands you his board. You transform from corporate slave to gnarly skateboarder dude, and then through the help of some friends, seek to free the whole city from under the corporate grey mundanity of the Ministry’s grasp.

You do this by skating, of course. Your main objective is to colourise the world, and in this way it is a bit like DeBlob on the Wii. As you cruise around on your board performing tricks, the world around you goes from drab and lifeless greys to full colour and life. Trees sprout from the side walk. Cars are splashed with bright colours. Walls become covered in animated graffiti artworks. The more tricks you pull, the wider your area of influence becomes. The wave of energy ripples out from where you land the tricks, shaking the cars and trees around you, reminiscent of Blur’s area effect weapon.

The trick system is very familiar to anyone who’s played Skate. You flick the Right Stick to pull off moves in the air, and modify with the face and trigger buttons. However, it feels like Skate –Lite. The tricks are easy to pull off, and the game guides you to land safely most of the time. It’s only in extreme circumstances, like falling from a great height or not completing a flip that you ‘bail’.

There’s also a Flow meter down the bottom of the screen, and filling up the meter means you can use Flow to influence certain areas of the world. For example, see a swirly yellow line in the middle of the street means there is something, usually a ramp or jump, which can be influenced to appear by landing a trick when your meter is in the yellow zone. Blue swirlies indicate objects which need you to be in the blue zone, and likewise purple indicate the highest amount of Flow you need to unlock the area. This also applies to the pedestrians who populate the world. Get your meter up and you can influence yellow and blue business people to become brightly clothed snap happy photographers and skaters.

Flow is the main weapon used in the story of the game to unlock more areas and further the story along. There is more to do than just build flow though. There is an XP system, and by completing challenges around the world you gain XP, which is used to unlock more skate tricks. The more tricks in your arsenal, the more flow you build up.

The best bit of the game is creating ramps and rails out of thin air. Around the world you’ll see hazy green icons, and running up the ramp icon creates a ramp. Riding onto the street icon creates a wide path which can be manipulated up or down, creating bridges and the like. Jumping onto a rail and sliding onto the rail icons creates a rail which can get you up to higher places. At first the rails follow a determined path, but later on in the game you can manipulate the paths how you wish. This innovative approach to extending levels vertically works very well, making you feel some real freedom in making your own paths through the world.

There are also a host of things to smash, walls to wall ride, and tickets to collect, all of which grant achievements, experience and / or unlockable clothing and skate boards and accessories. The latter seems to be lacking somewhat in “real world” brands especially compared to Skate and Tony Hawk, although the subtle advertising in world (such as the Wendy’s shop fronts plastered with the Wendy’s logo) points to paid advertising in the game. As to why the advertising wasn’t more “skate culture” orientated I can only surmise that other companies had exclusive deals with the other franchises.

And despite the cool new things you can do in the game compared to the other skate games, about 5 or 6 hours into it things get rather dull. The story slows down, the new area is already full of colour so doing tricks is just morphing the world into ramps and jumps, and you feel like you’re simply going through the motions. I still like to fire up Skate and try to pull off new tricks, but the simpler trick system in SWS means there’s nothing to actually master.

The graphics of the game look decidedly underwhelming. Although the effects and colours are great, and the main character animations are smooth enough, the animations of the albeit numerous pedestrians are very basic. You’ll see the same animations over and over again. The in-game cutscenes look very basic, with low polygon models and atrocious lipsynch.

Although the game never takes itself seriously, with caricatures of stoner skateboarders throughout, the story script won’t be winning awards for creative writing. The dialogue is delivered well enough, although I often had problems in cutscenes where the voice would drop out entirely. The ancillary voices are repetitive to the point of annoying. It’s unintentionally funny you’re helping this repressed and conformist world to free itself, and everyone runs around saying “Hi, my name is Dave” and “Fight the Power!” Musically the game also underperforms compared to the other skateboarding franchises, being full of typical skate/punk/pop music with nothing too outstanding to make note of.

Multiplayer games simply do not exist. After more than an hour waiting over numerous nights, I didn’t find a single game. I admit it could have been one of those silly moderate NAT issues which sometimes occur with Xbox Live games, but I would have thought I’d have seen at least one person try and join my game. As it stands, not one person joined my on line game, and I never once saw anyone playing online.

Conclusion:
Shaun White Skateboarding provides a great deal of fun for a few hours, and then seems to collapse on itself. The ideas contained within are innovative in terms of a skateboarding game, but grow stale after a few hours. The ease of pulling off tricks, the poor quality of the characters and animations and music and dialogue all contrive to make the game lesser than the sum of its parts. Which is a shame, because given the state of the Tony Hawk franchise, the video game skating world does really need some fresh ideas.

Pros:
Interesting concepts
It’s fun creating your own paths through the world.
Easy to get the hang of tricks

Cons:
Poorly executed concepts, which grow stale after a few hours
Poor character animations, especially in cutscenes
Tricks are possibly too easy
Dialogue is too repetitive

67/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

R.U.S.E.

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When I first heard about R.U.S.E. I was pretty excited. A game which promised being able to fool the enemy into thinking you were attacking from the left flank, only to hammer it on the right and other similar tactics was something I thought I could really get my teeth into. I was a little apprehensive at playing it on console, as Real Time Strategy games on consoles are always hit and miss. Very few console RTS games have succeeded in being able to bring the ease of selecting and controlling troops as well as base defence and resource collecting as well as their PC counterparts. R.U.S.E. succeeds in this where so many others have failed.

R.U.S.E. is set during WWII. Two generals, USA’s Major Joe Sheridan and Germany’s General Major Erich Von Richter, fight for control over Europe, positioning troops and bases at strategic points across a map and try and take other points, then wipe out the enemy. There’s some silly rivalry and a plot twists to make the campaign seem more than some random maps stitched together, and the cut scenes which stitch up the battles are well done though, being fully animated and voiced, but the story isn’t really going to be that well remembered, and their intrusiveness when things start to get interesting is intolerable.

The main action of the game occurs on a table which represents the battlefield. All over the battlefield are troops, represented as tokens, and you move the tokens about using the controller. Surrounding the table is your base of operations, full of radios and clatter of Morse code machines. However, when you zoom in closer to the table the tokens come alive, no longer represented as coloured chips, but as troops and equipment. You see tanks rolling over fields, infantry moving through woods, planes dog fighting and the flash of artillery. It’s really clever design, made better by the ease of the controls. One of the joys of R.U.S.E is how easy it is to control your troops. Select a unit by clicking on it with the A button, and move it’s “ghost” to where you want it to take up position, and it does it. Select a “stack” by pressing X, and they’ll move in formation to where you direct them. The AI takes care of the rest, and does a pretty good job of getting them from A to B with little micromanagement.

Like most RTS games, the strategy comes from building your base, deploying defences, and building troops to take objectives. R.U.S.E uses a rock/paper/scissors approach to combat, with each kind of unit being strong against one type of unit and weak against another. It’s simple but it works. In addition to this, field of view and terrain up the ante. Infantry are weak against armour (tanks) and moving them into a field near a tank will lead to lots of dead soldiers. However, in woods and swamps infantry can hide and ambush armour. Buildings and woods block line of sight for many units, so placing two artillery units either side of a town allows better opportunities to attack and destroy approaching troops.

The twist on normal RTS comes in the form of the ruses, which is somewhat apparent given the title. Ruses allow you to mislead the opposition into thinking something different is going on than what they see. For example, you have a heap of infantry you’d like to move into a wooded area in order to protect the nearby town from an armour convoy. You use your Spy Ruse to make sure it is armour; you use the Radio Interception Ruse to see where they’re going, and you use the Radio Silence Ruse to move your troops without the enemy knowing.

Later in the game, Ruses can become incredibly complex. You create fake armies and fake blitzes in order to fool the enemy into thinking you’re attacking one location, when you’ve really got your sights on another. You can draw the enemy into attacking your fake base, whilst you mobilise from your real base. You can use the Terror Ruse to make all the enemy flee into a column of tanks you’ve moved behind the enemy force. It is this level of depth that makes the game shine.

Unfortunately, this level of depth takes so long to arrive via the campaign it will probably be best to skip straight into the Battles and Operations. The battles are small skirmishes, reflecting the online component of the game, whilst Operations recreate famous scenarios from WWII, such as Operation Seelöwe (Sea Lion), the German’s ambitious plan of invading the UK.

Although there is a multiplayer component, there is a lack of online games being played. That’s partly due to Halo Reach tying up the Xbox, and Star Craft 2 occupying the minds of RTS gamers. Furthermore, games take a long time to play, and only the most time rich and dedicated R.U.S.E. fans will stick around for the entire game.

Conclusion
R.U.S.E is by no means the greatest game you’ll play. It’s campaign in slow, the battles can take too long, and after a certain point all the games against the AI play out the same. And if you’re simply not into RTS games, then there’s nothing here to change your mind. However, if you are a fan of RTS games, you’ll find one deep, lengthy and engaging game to sink your teeth into. Moreover, it has enough new original gameplay elements to be truly influential in future, especially when it comes to RTS games on a console.

Pros:
Amazingly easy to control and play
Great graphical representation of the battlefields and units
Lots of options for types of games

Cons:
Campaign takes too long to get going and has a story too silly to be engaging
Battles take too long to complete
No one playing multiplayer games

74/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction

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I want to get this out of the way to begin with – I think Tom Clancy, or rather those who now write using his name, are horrible, predictable hacks. Every story with the Tom Clancy name is exactly the same. Their premises, characters, themes and outcomes are always so similar it’s hard to discern one title from another. I’ve never been challenged by his works, never tricked by the “twists”, and never, ever thought it could be anything but pure fantasy.

The story in Conviction is so predictable as to be almost irrelevant. It opens with a voice over, telling us in flashback style that Sam has changed, and how his actions are a result of many things. Sam is now out of the game, we’re told, but he gets pulled back in by the machinations of his previous employer, Third Echelon. He’s more jaded, more brutal, and even more badass, but the good characterisation stops with Fisher. The other characters are so transparent that you know exactly who is good and who is bad. The twists and reveals are so trite that you simply don’t care about any of it.

And lastly, I’ve got to say the “flashback” presentation style simply does not work for videogames. After all, if you have someone talking past tense about how Sam did this and that, then it flashes back to you as Sam doing this and that, how can he fail? Sure, you as a player can fail the mission, but story wise you know he succeeds, making the plot holes greater and twists more irrelevant!

But honestly, it’s not like something with Tom Clancy’s name is ever going to be as appreciated as high art. And I think this actually works in Conviction’s favour. No, the story isn’t great, but the game is still enthralling. I want to play through again, not to see if the story will play out differently because I know it won’t, but because the game is simply so damn fun.

Like previous Splinter Cells, it’s all about stealth and shadows. Unlike previous Splinter Cells, the darkness is used to hunt, not hide. In previous Splinter Cells, if any trace of you could be found, if you were seen, or left a body under a light to be discovered by another guard, it would be mission over. And it was frustrating as hell. Chaos Theory and Double Agent went a long way to address this, but they were still games of hide and seek. Conviction turns Sam into a cat like stalker, using the shadows to stalk his enemies, unleash terrible fury upon them, and slinking into the shadows for another round.

When you slip into the shadows, the screen bleeds of colour, leaving you in a black and white world. This is a fantastic way to show when enemies can see you and when they can’t without using on screen meters that clutter your view. Another little nicety that keeps you in the world is there are no PDAs or mobile phones to look at to get mission information. Instead, they’re projected onto the walls as if from an old slide projector. As you walk through them, the beams of light wrap around you. Also, when Sam is having a flashback, instead of taking you out of the game and into a cutscene, the walls around Sam become movie screens, and grainy, black and white images play. These techniques keep you in the game world attached to Sam as a character, and create a feeling of immersion I’ve not experienced since Dead Space.

Sam has a variety of methods to dispatch foes from the darkness. He can simply shoot enemies with his pistol or machine gun, with headshots being the quickest way to take them down. Obviously, unsilenced weapons alert guards to your presence. If you get noticed, an on-screen alert tells you who has seen / heard you and where they are, and a silhouette appears at your last known location. This allows you to set up all kinds of scenarios. Use a flash bang or EMP blast to stun them and escape. Drop a mine as you leave to wipe out any guard who comes near. Drop a few remote mines around the place, and kill them all in one big multikill. Sneak off to other shadows to circle around from behind to do melee kills, or climb walls and posts to hover above the unsuspecting guard and rain death from above.

When you do a hand to hand takedown, you get the ability to Mark and Execute. Depending on your weapon, you can tag up to 4 enemies with the right bumper and then execute them with the Y button. Some of you may think this is a game killer, in that all you have to do is take down a baddie and then Mark and Execute any others. However, there are usually more guards than the number of marks, and if they see their mates fall they will become more alert. Also, marked guards have to be within range of your weapon and in line of sight to be taken down.

All this adds up to a faster, more visceral Splinter Cell, and some people may not like this direction. I for one find it much more appealing – I hated the instant fail levels in the early games. But for those who do want to creep about and not be detected, that’s a perfectly viable option for most levels. You can sneak around and complete objectives without killing any guards, and you’ll be rewarded with in-game points you can spend on upgrading guns and gadgets, as well as the ever popular Xbox achievements.

There are a host of in-game achievements, from completing missions without being seen, to taking enemies down with explosives, and so forth, and it wasn’t until I saw these that I realised the freedom players are allowed to complete the game. You have the tools and abilities to approach the mission in a variety of ways, and are only rarely told to proceed in a certain way to beat the level. It’s a fantastic way to get the player to play through again without waving a big “YOU MUST PLAY AS A SNEAKY GUY NOW!” sign like so many other games attempt to do.

After the short but intense single player campaign, there is Deniable Ops. Playing single or doubling up with another player either locally or online, you can play Hunter, Infiltration, and Last Stand modes against the AI, or Face-Off against other spies. Hunter and Infiltration will have you sneak into various locations and alternatively kill or avoid AI guards. With Last Stand, you protect a generator from hoards of guards trying to destroy it. Face Off is spy vs spy with AI against everyone.

Whilst enjoyable, I never found a partner to play with online that I didn’t previously plan to play with. Admittedly Halo Reach Beta and Red Dead Redemption were both released around the time I was reviewing the game, so it’s understandable no one was online. However, the removal of the critically-acclaimed Spies Vs Mercs mode could have more to do with it. I had some of the best multiplayer experiences with Chaos Theory, and the lack of that type of multiplayer seems to have impacted the Conviction multiplayer experience.

It would be amiss to skip talking about sound. As other Splinter Cell games, the sound is excellent. Footsteps and bullets are great indicators of who is where. There is one part where Sam gets really angry and goes on rampage to the wonderful “Building Steam From A Grain of Salt” by DJ Shadow, and it fits perfectly with the action. Sam Fisher is portrayed excellently by Michael Ironside once again, and his deep, gravelly voice is edged with appropriate anger and brutality this time. Other voice acting for main characters is good, but the barks of the guards, whilst not really repetitive are far too vociferous. If you saw all these bodies lying about with head wounds and broken necks, would you yell out “I’m going to get whoever did this!” and let whoever did know you were coming?

Conclusion:
Splinter Cell Conviction deviates from the original series in quite a substantial way, but keeps its soul is intact. It’s still very much a Splinter Cell game, just faster paced and more streamlined. The immersion in the world is fantastic, and the gameplay enjoyable, despite the rather predictable story. The Multiplayer modes are fun, especially with two people in the same place playing together, although the omission of Spies Vs Mercs mode is, I suspect, a big reason for lack of online players.

Pros:
Excellent immersion using light and colour
All the gadgets and fun of previous Splinter Cells
Great new gameplay ideas such as Mark and Execute which are executed well
Michael Ironside brings even more passion to the lead character
Fun Multiplayer

Cons
The omission of Spies Vs Mercs mode
Not many people playing the online modes
Guards dialogue is a little over the top
Predictable and trite Tom Clancy story.

85/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Assassin’s Creed II

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Assassin’s Creed was one of those games that showed a lot of promise. It was a refreshing story set mostly in a time that’s never before been explored in games, and setting the game in the Animus, visiting the memories of relatives was not only a clever way of presenting the game to the player, but opens potential as a series instead of just a standalone title. The title’s hero, the acrobatic Altaïr, was well designed and had some great moves. However, it was let down by repetitive gameplay, sometimes awkward combat, and a frustrating lack of cohesiveness to the whole experience.

Assassin’s Creed II starts off with Desmond Miles escaping the Templar controlled Abstergo research facility / prison setting of the first game, and taken to a safe house with a new Animus, this time run by the much friendlier bunch of people aligned to the Assassin’s Guild. This time, the search for the ancient technology delves into the memories of the life of Ezio Auditore da Firenze, a likeable rogue living in Renaissance Italy, whose merchant family become involved in the conflict between the Templars and Assassins.

Unlike Altaïr, Ezio is not trained as an assassin from the start of the game, so instead of having a bunch of skills and losing them like in the first game, as you progress through the game you gain your skills and weapons of the trade. This makes the game far more enjoyable, as the first hour or so you get to just run and jump and brawl at your own pace, exploring the city of Firenze (Florence) and getting to know the character of Enzio and his allies. Enzio is a lovable rogue like Han Solo or the Dread Pirate Roberts; quick of wit and good of heart. When it does come time to fight and assassinate another person, the progression seems natural to both the story and the character of Enzio, who’s motivated by revenge and not any other shady purpose.

As likeable as Ezio is the real star of the show is the world he inhabits. Renaissance Italy is alive in this game. The streets are crowded with people going about their business, and unlike the first game you can blend in with any group, instead of having to wait for priests. Admittedly most are just walking around in circles, but the paths they follow and clever placement of guards hides the fact these are predetermined cycles, and make you believe the people have a purpose beyond hiding you. You can now enlist the aid of courtesans to hide you and distract guards, and the thieves and thugs return and appear far more able than the previous game.

Like the first game, the free running aspect truly shines. Jumping up to the rooftops and sprinting across tiled roofs and making leaps of faith into straw bales is still a tonne of fun. Paths are made far more obvious, and you don’t seem to make as many mistakes. The tall spires of Italy’s Churches make for some excellent vantage points, and the absence of Templars just standing around doing nothing at the bottom of them make exploring the verticality of the city much less of a chore.

There are a bunch of side missions to do, such as assassin contracts, races, and beating up cheating husbands. These are pleasurable distractions from the main quests, and net you some coin. Adding to this is the Assassin Vaults, six locations spread throughout Italy where you have to use Ezio’s athletic skills to get to remote vaults to unlock Altaïr’s armour. These Prince of Persia style puzzles will have you jumping and running and swinging, trying to get to a certain point before the time runs out. Whilst a little frustrating especially when Ezio jumps the wrong way from a wall jump, these challenges break up the other action of the game well.

There is also an economy of sorts. Enzio is given refuge in his uncle Mario’s home. Just as an aside, when Ezio meets his uncle it’s one of the most humorous moments in the game. Mario’s home is run down, the city in disrepair, but by gaining money from side missions and robbing chests, you can improve the citadel by upgrading buildings and beautifying the building with Renaissance art from the likes of Bruges and Da Vinci. As you improve the citadel, you gain access to better weapons and armour.

What I haven’t mentioned is all of these things are optional. You can just simply follow the story line quests, and zip through the game. But these activities unlock better items and make the game easier that they’re all worth doing. Also, they’re just a hell of a lot of fun. And the main missions themselves are quite a bit different from before. There is a heap of variety this time; you don’t simply do the same bunch of tasks to find and then kill the bad dude like the last game. This time you can bash your way through guards, leap from a rooftop, sneak up to your mark and then shoot him, or climb up a big tower and dispatch him. There’s even a part where you fly over a fortified wall in Da Vinci’s flying apparatus!

The fighting has been refined too, made simpler but more engaging. Taking a leaf from Arkham Asylum, the fights flow more fluidly, relying on timing and grace. You won’t get all the guards piling on at once; rather they’ll wait for an opening before attacking. Countering is still the best way to dispatch an enemy, but you can disarm enemies and use their weapons against them. This is particularly useful against heavily armoured foes.

There are still some issues with movement in the game. Sometimes Ezio will leap the wrong way from a wall jump, or will miss a beam you’re aiming for, or won’t edge around a wall properly. There was one particular tower where I would try and jump up to a higher ledge, but he would jump backwards into a leap of faith. There are also some minor clipping issues when fighting, and I once got trapped in some unfinished mesh because I evaded into the chimney of a roof, but these are really minor bugs and didn’t deter my enjoyment of the game.

Otherwise the game looks great. Ezio’s movements are graceful and elegant. The recreation of Renaissance Italy is superb, and the costumes and characters feel authentic. The inclusion of real life persons adds to this greatly, but the authentic sounds make it greater still. From Ezio’s footsteps on the tiled roofs, to the shop assistants yelling, to the sounds of the forge, it all creates a sense of realness. The only problem is the Italian-English accents, as it’s a little hackneyed in some parts.

Conclusion
After Assassin’s Creed, I was a little worried that the series would simply fade away. So many other Ubisoft games have suffered because of sequelitis, but the premise was interesting enough that I would like to see its conclusion. Playing Assassin’s Creed II, one can’t help but think Ubisoft really did listen to the criticism of the last game. Everything has been expanded upon and improved. That which didn’t work well was removed, and that which did was left in and improved upon. And the work done to improving the game has made it into one of the better games to come out this year.

Pros:
Great continuation of the story
Excellent amount of variety both in main missions and side missions
Likable character living in an excellently created world that shines both visually and aurally
Superb game mechanics of the first game refined

Cons:
Some minor graphical issues
Accents can sound a bit hackneyed.

90/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Far Cry Instincts Predator

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Recently, I’ve been considering plagiarising people’s reviews to write my own. I know it’s not the done thing, but when you really get down to it, there’s only so many things to say and only so many ways to say it, and say it well. And, well in my opinion, Xboxworld Australia is luckily to be blessed with some of the best writers in Australia. Dom’s excellent review of Far Cry Instincts and Dylan’s excellent review of Far Cry Instincts Evolution basically say everything there needs to be said about both games. Merge the two together, throw in a few more swear words, take out a few similes, and you’ll have my review about Far Cry Instincts Predator for the Xbox 360.

For that is all the Xbox 360 version is – both games ported from the old xbox. There is a little bit of graphical adjustment to take advantage of the 360’s power, but considering the game is absolutely gorgeous to start with, it doesn’t really stand out from the Xbox version. Sound is also given a little touch up, but these changes are only really noticeable if you play one after the other, and only to a pedant. Noticeable things like the longer draw distance and better water effects make it more akin to the PC version, but these effects don’t make the game mindblowingly different from the games on the consoles’ lesser brother. The controller setup is altered slightly to accommodate the different button arrangement of the xbox360 controller, and because the controller is of a much better design, it feels a great deal better. It’s far easier to select types of grenades now, so I’ve found I use them far more often.

Everything else seems pretty much the same. Given the power of the xbox360, it seems a massive shame that it is not utilised in any way to make the game better apart from a graphical touch up. The models appear no different, the vehicles look and handle the same, and the AI is still rather stupid. You can snipe a guard from a distance, and other AI will react, sometimes, then seem to shrug and go on its merry way, all but forgetting his ally even existed. The maps in game are exactly the same, so they’re still rather like wide corridors than the wide roaming feel that you get from the PC version. The Evolution part of the game opens it up the game a lot more, but it’s still no where near the free roaming experience of the PC version, or even other Xbox360 games.

Things do take a change for the better once you’ve unlocked the Evolution part of the game. The action ramps up as you access Carvers feral abilities, being able to run amok right from the beginning. In fact, you find yourself immediately thrust in the action as you gun for an AI driven jeep, and then flash back to where it all began. I don’t want to give too much away, but just lets say Carver should have thought with the head on his shoulders, and not the head on another part of his body. Carvers Feral Abilities have been tweaked somewhat, making them all seem much more useful. Feral Jump and Sprint are much smoother and useful, even just to get you past the slower areas where there are no guards, or you’ve killed them all.

The level design in the Evolution part of the game is also much better, opening up the maps and allowing different, less tunnelled routes to the objectives. It’s never in the same league as the PC game, which is somewhat disappointing, but does make a refreshing change. For example, you can use Feral Jump to jump on a ledge, then snipe the enemy from afar, or you can simply run into an area guns blazing, using Feral Punch to take everyone out. This gives you a greater sense of control and purpose in the game, and makes for better action.

The main problem I have with FCIP is I don’t think there are too many people out there who didn’t own an xbox before purchasing an xbox 360, and I don’t think there are too many that wouldn’t have played Far Cry on it, because it was one of the “must have” games. Like my time with Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland, I struggled with my time on FCIP. After playing through the levels on the xbox, shooting tonnes of enemy mercs, killing hundreds of those weird feral animal things, and rescuing princesses from gorillas, err, I mean reporters from evil scientists just mere months ago, I felt cheated that I had to go through and play the exact same Instincts portion again before I could unlock the new section I hadn’t played. Plus finding out that was the same as what had just been released on Xbox felt like a double barrelled blow.

Conclusion:
Don’t get me wrong, if you haven’t played Far Cry on Xbox then there should be nothing stopping you from racing out and buying Far Cry Instincts Predator right now. The Instincts portion is a great game, looks absolutely stunning, and fun and exciting, if a little easy and short. The Evolution portion of the game ramps up the action and opens it out, and will extend your time with the title somewhat, and online play is a blast. However, if you do own an Xbox, and have this game, then I can’t really recommend buying it for the Xbox360. Apart from earning achievement points from playing the game, there’s nothing here to differentiate it from it’s Xbox brother.

Pros:
Both games for the price of one
This is Far Cry, one of the most gorgeous games available.
Graphical and sound tweaks are welcome, although not all that noticeable because it’s so good to begin with
A fair amount of achievement points, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Cons:
It IS the Xbox version of Far Cry Instincts, with the tacked on Xbox version of Evolution
AI is still dumb as two bricks.

85/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Lockdown

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Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six series started off as a strategic command type game where you planned your mission, then executed GO codes to your teams and watched them do their thing. As the series evolved, it became a first person shooter to suit action orientated console gamers. Initially this move was met with some scepticism, but after the first Rainbow Six game (XBW: 94) hit the Xbox, we knew Ubisoft was onto a winner. It was action packed, but still tactical, strategic and well paced, and had awesome online modes that captured the single player intensity but pitted you against other humans.

The single player contains the usual story of evil, radical organisation taking action against various governments around the world, and also has a few little twists to try and engage you more fully. I’m not going to spoil it, but if you’ve read the book then the game’s story treads some familiar territory, although this time more close to home. For some reason though, the story isn’t as engaging as in the previous games. Part of this is the voice acting, but most of it is the overall feel of the game. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something that isn’t cohesive about the whole experience.

Gameplay wise, the feel is similar to the previous Rainbow Six’s, but a little more action based. You can pretty much run and gun through the levels and survive with your entire squad intact. There’s not so much of the careful manuvering and planning, and much more shooting. Part of this is due to the new heart detection device that shows you the heartbeat of enemies through walls. When you know there is a bunch of baddies in the next room, you know to flashbang or grenade almost every time.

There is a nice addition to the gameplay where you take the role of the sniper, and it’s like a shooting gallery. It’s quite a lot of fun, and your skill does reflect on the difficulty of the on coming mission – if you’re too slow in eliminating the enemy, and your team gets walloped, you’ll have an injured team to play the rest of the mission with, which can make it a lot more difficult. However, there is a problem with this mode, in that you’re informed of more enemies arriving, but it’s rather imprecise. For example, you’re told in one level that there are snipers on the balconies, but there are four balconies – if a special ops team was that inaccurate in real life, I would be very concerned about their training.

Another problem arises with the team and enemy AI. Sometimes it’s good, and others you’re left wondering what the hell has gone wrong. In one instance, one of my team just simply refused to climb the ladder. This meant for the rest of the mission I couldn’t actually order my team to do anything. Another time, pressing the A button to order the team to open a door meant they would prepare, but the “go code”, accessed by the black button, never appeared. Often they would clear out the immediate area, and then give the all clear, and you would walk into sniper fire. With enemy AI, you can pick off bad guys in a room without others in the room noticing. They will patrol, but don’t wander too far out of their zones, and will do really odd things like throw grenades when their teammates are in the way.

Moving onto the online modes, I was hesitant about the Persistent Elite Creation (PEC) mode. Luckily, you can choose to ignore this, and get right into the thick of the game. There’s the usual Team Survival, the elimination deathmatch; Team Sharpshooter which is deathmatch with a time limit; Total conquest, where you have to hold locations for a given time limit, and Retrieval, which is essentially capture the flag. Plus, you can join with up to four friends and work through the missions or play terrorist hunt.

The PEC mode is a new addition to multiplayer, allowing you to choose a class and upgrade your equipment. There are four classes – Commando, Engineer, Special Ops and Medic. These are pretty standard roles in shooters, and there’s nothing really outstanding in Lockdown to differentiate these roles to any other game. For example, the Commando can develop skills that allow him to dish out more damage, take more damage, and set up ballistic shields to protect his allies. The medic can heal either on the run, or set up mobile field restoration points, and the special op can sneak and use sniper rifles. The Engineer can lay mines and set up machine gun turrets, and open or lock passages and routes through the maps.

At first, I though I would be at a disadvantage, because I was a low level character and was up against level 40 players. However, after a few games, as you find your feet, and start to get a feel for your role, you do start to advance quicker. And, as you kill more opponents of higher ranking, you also advance further, so it does enforce more of a run and gun mentality. In addition, people don’t seem to utilise their extra functions properly. I never saw a ballistics shield or a weapons emplacement, although engineers did appear to block off routes, and medics did heal me on the odd occasion, but these abilities were not as utilised nearly as much as in other combat games that have ‘roles’.

The multiplayer maps are very well designed, but I found that a lot of them seemed more to facilitate spawn-rushing more so than other games. Even though they had intricate back routes into enemy bases, simply rushing to the enemy spawns seemed to be the most logical way to fight. Admittedly the tactics changed with the people you played with, but there never seemed to be the same levels of communication I experienced playing Rainbow Six 3 or other online game like Halo 2 or even Return to Castle Wolfenstien.

Rainbow Six has always looked good, but unfortunately Lockdown seems to have dragged the chain here as well. The new visor effect is cool, especially how it fogs up if you go into a cold storage room, and how the more beat up you are, the harder it becomes to see as it gets cracks, holes and grime on it. The environments all look nice, but they don’t have the impact and the wow factor of the previous games. And, perhaps more disappointingly, the explosions look quite average. The rolling fire effect doesn’t look good at all – throw a grenade and you expect something bigger and better. The different vision modes you can employ don’t have the same impact either, with both thermal vision and low light seeming to be washed out, making it harder to determine objects and enemies when looking in these modes. There was also so unexpected slowdown in framerate in single player, something I’ve not noticed in the series before.

The sound is also simply OK. The characters seem to lack the individuality the previous Rainbow Six games infused into them. There is a certain level of distance and detachment that wasn’t present in the previous games. Before you actually cared is Louise got taken down, now it’s more of a case of inconvenience. The bullet and explosions all sound good, and the score is a little more upbeat and rocking, but I did notice a few odd glitches in multiplayer where the gun firing only had the tail end of the sound on more than a couple of occasions.

Conclusion:
Lockdown is a competent shooter, which is disappointing because the previous Rainbow Six’s were fantastic shooters. Slipping further into the realm of action forsaking its origins, the single player suffers from inconsistent AI of both teammates and enemies, and even though the environments are a little more interactive, they seem to lack the realism that was the hook of the first game. The PEC multiplayer mode does add a new dimension to the usual online way of playing, and does hook you at first, but the online matches do seem to degenerate into spawn rushes and feel more like a simple run and gun battles common to all shooters than the tactical and epic battles that so absorbed players of the previous games.

Pros:
PEC Mode is a great addition to online play.
Environments more interactive than previous Rainbow Six games
New sniper action at start of round is lots of fun
Visor effects and decals are cool, even if they do obscure the action.

Cons:
Inconsistent AI for both AI and teammates
Online matches all too frequently devolve into spawn rushing
PEC Abilities seldom used
Doesn’t look as good as previous versions of the game.
Unexpected choppiness and slowdown in framerate

81/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Playboy: The Mansion

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SEX! Do I really need to say any more to get your attention? It's the PLAYBOY game – of course you're interested! But is it any good?

Hugh Hefner realised the importance of the Playboy rabbit logo himself when he first wrote his Playboy Philosophy in 1962. “We first became aware that Playboy was developing into something more than a magazine when readers began purchasing Playboy products in considerable quantities,” he wrote. “Everything from cufflinks, ties, sport shirts, tuxedoes and bar accessories to playing cards, personalized matches and stickers for their car windows –all with the Playboy Rabbit as the principal design and principal motivation for the purchase.”

This logic still seems to apply some 43 years later, as the Playboy logo has been plastered all over Playboy The Mansion (PTM from here on in) which is essentially a more risqué but less satisfying version of The Sims.

There are two modes of play – Mission and Freeform play, but they’re essentially the same game. Freeform play allows you to take your own pace in building up your magazine empire whilst Mission has little goals that you must achieve to proceed in the game. I found the Mission play to be a lot more interesting as you’re given a lot more to try and do, and you get a sense of satisfaction once you’ve completed the goals. The gameplay just isn’t deep enough to keep you satisfied in Freeform mode.

Unlike the Sims, you don’t get to create your own avatar in the game but rather are given the avatar of Hugh Hefner to guide through his loves and career. Thankfully this is the young Hef, at the age he was when he created his empire, and not the wrinkly viagra swilling old man he is now. Furthermore you don’t get to make your own house, but get the choice of two ‘Mansions’ – old and modern – and this is pretty much decorated for you. You start with a reasonable amount of money, so any you can proceed to make rather sweeping changes, plus buy rather good items right from the word go. Thus, some of the more enjoyable aspects of the Sims have been removed from the gameplay right off the bat.

Luckily the other aspects of PTM are reasonably well put together so that you’re kept interested. The main goal of PTM is to build a magazine empire, and to do this you’ve got to make a name for yourself by throwing the biggest parties and hiring the best staff. A magazine is only as good as those who contribute, and Hef needs help running his magazine – after all, he’s off socialising with all the playmates! So to get your first edition to the stands you need to hire a journalist, a photographer, and a Playboy Model. These can be found in the Roster Menu, accessed by pressing down on the D-Pad. This is essentially your little black book, where all the people you can meet at a given time are located, and is divided up into those you have in the Mansion, Available Staff, Celebrities and Inner Circle.

Under the Available Staff menu there is a list of people available for hire, and those with the most stars are the best; they’ll take the best pictures, they’ll pose well and write excellent articles and interviews, but are also the most expensive to hire per month. Once you’ve hired your staff, its time to put them to work. Each magazine needs six items of content – a cover shot, centrefold, pictorial, essay, interview and article. For the pictorial and article all you need to do is ask your photographer and journalist to do one, give them a wad of cash, and off they go. For a centrefold, you need to find your playmate and ask for a centrefold.

Taking the photos is real simple. You choose your location (The Mansion, Upper Floor, or Pool) and place your model. A Camera lens appears on the screen, and you can put the model in a wide variety of lingerie, both full body and topless. You can change the colours of the clothing, accessorise with jewellery, and then get them to pose by pressing the Y Key. In pose mode, they seek out any props – bed, couch, shower, etc and drape themselves in that suggestive playboy manner. And then you can proceed to take photos of the floor, and publish them.

Yes, the girls do not even have to be in the photo as it depends on the skill of the photographer and model as to whether it is a good photo, and nothing to do with the actual shot itself. This is very disappointing, as there is the whole rigmarole of buying props to pose on, and dressing your model up (or down) when in the end it means nothing to the overall quality of the shoot.

The cover shoot is done in the same way as the centrefold, but like the essay and interview, require you to be friends with Celebrities. This is where the party throwing comes into play. You have to invite certain celebrities to parties and get to know them well enough to ask them for a centrefold, essay or interview. Each person has 3 Drive Meters – Leisure, Entertainment, Professional – and 3 Relationship Meters – Casual, Professional and Romantic. The Drives are modified by the surroundings, and that’s why it’s important to buy things for the house, such as games, bars, bookshelves, food tables, stereos and so on. On the whole people will satisfy their own Drives, but you can also order a person to follow you and get them to use an item if you notice their drives are low. Certain items, such as the Trampoline or Staff Desk can also increase a celebrity’s star rating by increasing their various stats, although I found it better just to fire those with low stats and star ratings and hire new people, as there are no penalties for firing people – they don’t even dislike you!

The Relationships Meters are modified by the way you talk to people. When Hef meets someone, he can concentrate his conversation on the 3 relationship meters, and when one of these gets high enough, they become friends with him. Fortunately Hef is one very charismatic person, and he doesn’t have to try hard at all to get these meters filled. After a few chats, most people are very friendly with Hef and agree to do what is asked of them. It is here where you can invite people into the “inner circle”, which means celebrities will just come over for a visit and hang. This is good for getting essays and articles from a variety of people when you are low on money, because they don’t expect expensive parties or invitations.

Of particular note is the Romantic drive, which only females have. Get this high enough, and you get the option to have sex with the person Hef is chatting to. If only it were this simple in real life, as only after a few presses of the D-Pad you can be doing the horizontal boogie with people you just met minutes before. Sure, we all know that Hef is a ‘playa’ even today, but I’m confident enough to say he never found it this easy. There is no challenge here at all, and it lessens the experience. If it was difficult to pick people up and go for some rumpy pumpy, then it might actually be something worthwhile, but it seems vacuous and like taking photographs, is rather disappointingly implemented. At least the animations are funny.

Once you have your content, it’s time to put the magazine together. Pressing up on the D-pad opens the Magazine Menu, and here you choose your content, and choose your market. The Market is an interesting concept, as it forces you to examine your content a little more carefully as the game goes along. There are various sectors – political, musical, sport, and so on, and by having the right articles, you can win a higher market percentage and make more money. For example, if politics is of interest in a particular month, getting a scientist on the cover, interviewing a politician, and having a pictorial of national monuments will do better than an article focusing on sport.

As markets change over time, it’s good to have a wide range of celebrities with different interests around so you can focus on different markets and maximise your profit. You can also determine your ad content and cover price, which also affect profit. This part of the game gives a depth that are lacking in the relationship and photo taking sections, and if they were as well conceived as this section the game would be better for it. It’s still a little on the light side, as it would be nice to be able to manipulate the readership more, but as it stands it’s surprisingly deep, compared to the rest of the game.

Another disappointing aspect of PTM are the graphics, particularly the character models. The characters all look too similar, and it is difficult to discern one from another, especially when throwing the bigger parties. Any “real life” celebrity retains some semblance to their real life counterpart, but the sameness of the characters diminishes their impact. The rest of the art is fine however, and the mansion can look rather cool in photo shoots. The sound is all in Simmish – I would have loved to hear some of Hef’s pick up lines, or some of the Celebrity reactions rather than the muted nonsense that is there, but that’s a minor quibble. The music, on the other hand, is superb. There are 8 stations to choose from with a wide variety of styles and tunes featuring everything from hiphop to jazz to rock, plus you can add your own stations with Custom Soundtracks.

Conclusion:
Playboy The Mansion just doesn’t have the inches to penetrate the market it’s after. It’s too limp to be a real contender in the simulation market. Sure, it’s got boobs and sex, but they’re too easy to get these in this game. Much of the fun in getting into a sexual relationship comes from the thrill of the chase, and in PTM that chase is three or four clicks long and then your prey rolls over. If it were a little more difficult to get what you wanted the game would be much more alluring. The empire building aspect is quite engaging, but it doesn’t go deep enough to keep you stimulated for very long.

Pros:
Boobs and sex galore!
The magazine market aspect is surprisingly in depth.
Excellent music score

Cons:
Way too easy to get what you want.
Not enough depth in other areas of the game.
Character Models look too similar
Some bugs with navigation and animation.

70/100