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Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon

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When the director of the game your making comes out and says the genre your game is based on is dead, you’ve got a pretty hard sell a head of you.

Revolution Software were well renown for their clever and entertaining ‘point and click’ adventure titles “Lure of the Temptress” and “Beneath a Steel Sky” back in the day, but could they translate this across to the console generation which has been spoilt by progress?

Given the plethora of good action games on the Xbox, it takes something really special to stand out. For Broken Sword, the Sleeping Dragon, this comes in the form of a fantastic story line and excellent characterisation.

The storyline is deep, involving and interesting. The story begins with George Stobbart, an American patent lawyer, who is flying to meet a scientist who claims he has a machine that can create an unlimited source of energy in the Congo. When he gets there he finds the scientist dead, and thus begins his adventure chasing the perpetrator of the crime across the globe.

The game cuts to Nico Collard, a French journalist, who is invited to visit a local hacker who believes he can explain the reason for some weird environmental anomalies around the globe. She finds him murdered, and even worse, set up for it, and must go prove her innocence. George and Nico are old adventuring buddies, and it is no surprise that the two eventually hook up, and try to solve the deepening mysteries that surround their respective cases.

The story is helped along the way by the excellent voice acting and characterisation of George and Nico. These two characters are very well developed, very well rounded and it feels as if a real friendship exists between these two characters. A lot of other games, and even movies, could learn a lot from the character development within this game, as it is them main thing that drives the game. The secondary characters are a little more two dimensional, but seem more developed than in other games and the way Nico and George interact with them fully rounds out their characters.

The characters and story are central to the game, and whilst on the one hand this is good as it makes you want to play the game and find out more about the characters and unravel the mystery, on the other hand there’s very little else that makes the game stand out. The move to 3D has allowed the game to remove some of the infuriating frustrations of searching a screen with your mouse, but highlighted objects replace this. Interaction with objects is handled quite eloquently, with a simple yet effective on screen display showing you which controller buttons do what with the object, depending on whether you can use it, look at it or examine it. However, The highlighted objects make the game way too easy. There’s very little skill involved when you walk into an area and everything you need to either use or look at gets highlighted as you near it.

As with most adventure games, you can pick things up and put them into your inventory. Using the Black button accesses the inventory, and when you access a highlighted area, pressing the black button allows you to pull out an inventory item to interact with it. This is how a lot of the puzzles in the game work, and whilst many are logical, there are a few that will have you pulling out your hair in frustration. For example, there’s an elevator door you need to keep open. The big iron bar in your possession won’t work, but going through the inventory and trying everything until the bottle opener does is a little silly and not very logical. Inventory items also interact with other items, and there’s more than a few times you are required to combine two or more items to solve a puzzle.

Other puzzles involve moving crates around, or jumping sequences. These are generally no brainers, with the crates final position being fairly obvious, and the jumping involving pressing a single button at the edge of a cliff. There’s no timing or skill involved what so ever. There are a few timed events, requiring you to press a button at a certain time, much like Shenmue II, but it’s generally only one button press. These usually follow a cinematic, and often you are not prepared and will have to go through them again, which is annoying.

The artwork for the game is very impressive at first. The locations are all very colourful and detailed, but not interactive, apart from doors, most of which are locked and inaccessible. However, the camera is designed to create atmosphere by being stuck at certain angles, and this can lead to the frustration of wanting to look at something in the scenery but not being able to. There’s also a sense of sparseness to all the locations. There are no people populating the towns, apart from those essential to the quest. There are no animals or insects fluttering in the forest and other outdoor scenes. There’s no feeling that you’re in a living, breathing world.

This feeling is enhanced by the lack of music and atmospheric sound. Whilst the voice action is superb, the music seems to only plays when there’s something about to happen, and there’s little to no atmospheric sounds. The character models also suffer from weird glitches every now and then, and I found them to be rather devoid of expression, apart from in the cinematics. When you talk to a character, the models are all but stationary, with no real interaction or animation. This was quite a disappointment, especially given the excellent character development through the story, and I would have hoped this was backed up with a livelier world to put them in.

Conclusion:
Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon tries to capture the spirit of ‘point and click’ adventures and port it to suit a console environment and gamer, and in some regards succeeds in doing so. The story, while involving, mainly because of the excellent character development, plays out quite linearly and this makes it feel as you’re playing an interactive movie. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, yet still there’s that something missing, something that can’t quite hook the player as well the older 2D games, nor the new 3D action adventure games.

Pros:
+ Excellent character and deep story development
+ Good looking backdrops
+ A simple yet elegant and usable interface

Cons:
– Awkward camera
– The world seems sparse and lifeless.
– Some frustrating action sequences and simple puzzles that require trial and error rather than actual problem solving
– Perhaps a little too simple and linear

70/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Fight Night 2004

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Fighting games haven’t really changed since they first appeared in arcades oh so many years ago. Generally there’s a number of buttons, and by hitting these buttons in different combinations, you cause damage to the other player. Fight Night 2004 from EA Games seeks to address this by introducing a concept called “total punch control”. This new concept is certainly inventive as well as being a lot of fun; the rest of the game is a bit of a let down.

First things first, let us look as Total Punch Control. This innovation takes the form of taking the buttons out of the equation and using the second joystick to control your punches. You might not think that’s too clever, especially when a game like Grabbed by the Goulies uses a similar fighting tactic, but total punch control takes it to another level. Using the right joystick readies your boxer for a punch. Pushing forward and left does a left jab, and pushing forward and right does a right jab. Moving the joystick left or right, then pushing forward swings the boxers arm out for a hook. Moving the joystick toward back left or right, then pushing forward performs uppercuts.

Along with this, squeezing the right trigger and moving the right joystick allows for blocks. Using the left trigger, you can also wave and bob out of the way of incoming punches. Holding the left trigger and punching with the right joystick performs a body punch. Finally, the black button performs the signature move, and white performs the illegal headbutt or groin jab. It sounds very complicated, and whilst at first it feels a little awkward, it’s meant to simulate the actions of real boxers.

After a while you find the action becomes quite natural, and you can work up quite a rhythm punching and blocking. When all of these manoeuvres are used in conjunction, it amounts to quite an impressive, flowing battle. Timing has always been everything in boxing games, and this is no exception. Duck an incoming blow, throw a left hook to the body, followed by a right hook to the head, and throw in a left uppercut for good measure. Block a punch right, and you can throw a mean follow-up counterpunch. It does work very well, but for those totally uncoordinated there’s the option to use the face buttons for punching, but Total Punch Control is always available even in this mode.

Furthermore, the game is enhanced by its realistic health system. Throw too many punches, and your stamina decreases, and the power of your punches decreases. Getting hit in the head does more damage than being hit in the body, although a kidney punch does more damage than a blow to the arm. This brings a much more authentic feel to the game, making it less of a button masher and more of a realistic representation of boxing, without the weight training and black eyes. More realism comes in the form of cuts and bruises, flying blood, and a wealth of real life fighters from today and yesterday, such as Erik Morales, Roy Jones Jr., Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield, Joe Frazier, Rocky Marciano and Muhammad Ali. All of these are available during Career Mode, so you might get Ali facing Jones for example. Not exactly true to life, more of a “fantasy draft” if you will.

If your favourite boxer isn’t featured, the create-a-boxer feature is more than good enough to get you the fighter you’re after. Choosing weight, height, fighting stance, facial features and even tattoos will allow you to craft nearly any boxer you can think of (apart from foxy boxers… sorry, this is a boys only club!) There’s also rag doll physics, which kick in with the knockout punch. The one who is knocked out literally goes weak at the knees and wobbly falls to the floor. More often than not you can keep hitting your opponent as they slide to the floor, and it’s especially brutal if you’ve got them in the corner or on the ropes, as you can almost feel every bang of the ropes on their broken heads.

However, the game is let down by a poor career mode, average graphics and a terrible, terrible soundtrack. The single player Career mode is almost a joke. You earn money and unlock certain things, but they’re all irrelevant. Clothing, gloves and protective devices are mostly the same, just different colours, and the signature moves and taunts are rarely used, and not at all if the face buttons are configured to punch. Most of the other unlockables are for the entrance animation, such as your entourage (chicks in bikinis), music and effects. After you’ve seen it for the first few times, you want to get into the fight and simply skip it by pressing a button. There are also only six arenas to unlock too. And in a weird move by EA Sports, you’re forced to retire at the age of 40. What ever happened to the geriatric featherweight division?

Choosing anything but heavy weight causes matches to be long and drawn out, becoming a battle of stamina and wit rather than brute force, much like real life. Whilst this may be more realistic, it turns into a battle of YOUR stamina, as matches in career mode consist of 3-minute rounds and can last for 15 rounds… 45 minutes in one fight is a cheap way of extending gameplay in my mind, and there’s hardly any knockouts in the lighter divisions. This is made even more apparent in two-player mode, where battles can last as long as you set the timer and rounds for.

The graphics of the boxers and the six different arenas are quite good. Light reflects off the canvas, and some of the later arena’s look quite pretty. But these don’t really tax the Xbox at all, and compared to something like DOA3 it looks nearly second rate. The real time blood, cuts and bruises look great, but we’ve seen it before in Mortal Kombat and Tao Feng. The crowd, although rendered in 3D, has the same looped animations and they look to suffer from a bad frame rate, although the action in the ring itself remains steady.

Another let down graphics wise are the fighters themselves. Although they all look different, due to the robust fighter creation system, they’re all essentially the same model with the same moves. For example, watch Ali or Frazier fight in real life, and you can see they’re totally different sorts of fighters who move differently, hold their weight differently, and punch differently. In the game, the only differences between fighters are the stance and the fact that some fighters (Ali for instance) move faster.

Sound wise, the fighters are again quite well done, and the sound of the harder hits will make you wince. The sickening thud of the knockout blow is very satisfying, especially as you near the top position in your career. However, the commentating gets quite repetitive and boring. Sure, it’s boxing, and how much can you really say about a punch, but listen to classic boxing commentators like Howard Cosell or Col. Bob Sheridan or even Larry Merchant, all who have got an excellent range and make boxing exciting. Luckily the commentating fades out as you or your opponent get closer to being knocked out, replaced by a thumping heartbeat that amps up the tension dramatically. In Fight Night 2004, you’ve got a “street” mentality as you work your way from owning nothing and fighting at the Apollo Gym, and this is reflected in the “ghetto” style music, and quite frankly it sucks. P-diddy, Nelly, and a heap of wannabes do awful “rap”, and it makes me think the custom soundtrack feature should be legally REQUIRED in all future EA games. What’s even worse is there’s only about 10 tracks, so you’ll hear them again and again and again.

Conclusion:
It appears as all the effort of Fight Night 2004 went into the boxing controls, and everything else was added as an afterthought. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing: boxing is all about hitting the other guy hard, and any realistic representation that seeks to move away from the plain old button mashing so common to boxing games should be applauded. But the unlockables aren’t really worth it, adding nothing at all to the gameplay, and unless you’re a hardcore player who likes to get 100% of everything then I don’t see many people playing beyond a season, apart from the multi-player.

Pros:
+ Outstanding and innovative representation of boxing moves
+ Fantastic realistic damage. Feel, hear and see the bumps, bruises and blood
+ Excellent range of boxers to fight as or against, and a robust create-a-boxer

Cons:
– Career Mode feels rather empty, with unlockables that add nothing to gameplay and forced retirement at age 40.
– Lightweight divisions take too long to play through.
– Average graphics on the crowd.
– Awful soundtrack and very repetitive commentary.

Score: 78/100

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

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

NHL Rivals 2004

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I’m the first to admit I don’t have a sporting bone in my body. Sure, I did PE at school, and I never excelled at anything mainly because I have two left feet and throw like a girl. Truth be known I’d rather have been reading or playing video games.

Having said this, I love sports games. I love sports games precisely because I’m not great at sports. There’s a twisted sense of triumphant justice knowing that even if you are the worlds most uncoordinated fool on the field, you can take your team to the top in a video game. One of my favourite games to play is (Ice) Hockey, mainly because it’s quite an enigma to me, being from Australia where the concept of ice-skating is a novelty, not a major pass time nor sport.

But a game has to be easy to pick up and play, and that is where NHL Rivals shines. Someone with little or no knowledge of the world of Hockey can pick this game up and play. Part of this could be that Microsoft has adopted the controls standard to other Hockey games, which are also quite common to sports games in general. When in control of the puck, the left joystick moves the player, shoot is the X and pass is the A button respectively. B does a deke (aka fake) move, and Y flips the puck into the air. When not in control of the puck, A switches player, B does a body check (a tackle), X does a stick check (a tackle using the stick) and Y does a dive or a block. In either mode the right trigger is a speed boost whilst the left is pivot. In a nice touch, the right Joystick is used to pass the puck in the direction chosen when in control of the puck.

Another nice addition to this game is the use of Roles. Various players have a little symbol next to their name, and this designates whether they are Enforcers, Agitators, Snipers or Balanced players. Each role has a different special move for when in control and not in control of the puck that’s accessed by holding the B button. Enforcers are the “big men” of the league, and preform the “Bump and Go” move which knocks opponents out the way whilst keeping control of the puck, on the “Can Opener” which pounds the opposition player. The Agitator are those who get in the face of the other team, with moves such as the “Protect the Puck” when in control, and “Face Wash” which lands their glove into the face of the opponent player. Snipers shoot for goals, and do a “Spin Around” move that disorientates the keeper, and “Stick Clip” which is used to whack the shots out of the opposing team out the way. Balanced players are simply all-rounders and use the move “protect the puck”.

The way face-offs are represented is quite novel. In hockey, whenever there’s a stop in play there’s a face-off, a chance for your team to gain possession. In other games, timing has represented this, but NHL Rivals presents a rock, paper, scissors type play where you press the X, B or A button to win the puck. The move the other player is often represented, so you can sometimes out-guess them. Whilst this adds an element of luck rather than skill, it seems totally fair compared to other games.

Another addition to the gameplay is the all-important fighting. Fighting is an integral part of hockey, and the old adage “I went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out” is beautifully represented in this game. Although the fighting engine is not exactly up to par with “Rocky” – it’s just two guys standing punching each other and reminiscent of old boxing games – it is rather fun. There’s not much to it, just hit the face buttons and use the triggers to block and stick to weave.

Along with these basic player controls, you have the D-pad that is used for On-the-Fly coaching. This allows you to alter the teams’ aggression, set up team plays, and allows the changing your lines. The AI can also control these coaching moves and it does a decent job at it, but it’s nice to have that extra degree of control at your fingertips. For the total control freak, Team Plays can be managed by through pausing the game, and selecting Team Options. This allows better control over the action, such as setting a 2 on 2 penalty kill. This lifts the action into simulation just a little, but not too much to make the game over complicated.

Although it seems like a lot to remember, it really flows together nicely. You’ll find yourself utilising most of the features second-naturedly, and become quite involved in the game quite easily. However, one disappointment in the game is the AI of your teammates is rather haphazard. When not in control they seem fine, checking opposition players and generally protecting the puck and goal. However, when in control and on a break, they tend to be a little less aggressive on the puck. I’ve had a player pass to an AI with an open shot at goal, and instead of simply shooting he’s held onto the puck until I’ve taken control of him, thus losing the advantage. If the AI is one-on-one with the keeper, it seems natural that it should take a shot. Having said that, the AI of the keepers, both of the player team and the opposing team, is excellent, and even with a team that far outmatches another scoring is difficult but not impossible.

The game modes are the standard fare; Open Ice allows you to practice against a goalie of another team. Single game and Instant Rivalry play once off games, the difference being Instant Rivalry pits two rival teams together and ensures an explosive game. There are also Season, Play Off and Tournament modes, where you can trade players and play through a year of hockey with one or more teams. Whilst the trading and making teams and players is OK, it’s not too in depth and may make the hardcore hockey fans a little disappointed, but it is fine for the average player who just wants to play a game of hockey. The addition of Live! makes this game truly come alive, and in the few games I’ve played I’ve had no lag and the gameplay is exactly the same as the single player experience. As far as sports titles go, I would say this is one of the best I’ve had the pleasure of playing online, and it is certainly the better of the hockey games available. The use of XSN with seasons and tournaments gives it a greater edge over the other titles in creating a community of players.

Graphically this game looks fantastic. Player’s reflections can be seen in the ice and in the windows surrounding the stadiums, which are themselves beautifully rendered. Some of the angles in replays look like you’ve just switched to a game on TV they’re that realistic, although replays from within the net are a little pointless as you rarely see the 80mile-an-hour shots. The close ups on the players during fights are a little less than impressive, but it’s not that distracting. Crowd noise and music during the game recreates the ambience of a real match, and the commentary is very good, being humorous and rarely becoming repetitive.

Custom playlists can be played over the menu sections of the game, which replaces the hard rock score, but you’re seldom in the menus for more than a few minutes, so it’s really a much of a muchness. It would be nice if snippets of your playlist played during the game though, but again, this is no major gripe.

Conclusion:
Whilst this is Microsoft’s first venture onto the ice, it does quite a respectable job at recreating the action, speed and excitement of the game of hockey. It’s hard not to compare it to the other two NHL games, both of which have a few years of development over NHL Rivals, but for a first effort Microsoft have done themselves proud. It’s not a sim style game, and doesn’t have as much depth as the other Hockey offerings, but if you want to jump right in and play, especially online, then this is for you.

Pros
+ Great graphics, especially the players reflections in the ice
+ Xbox Live games are just like playing the computer.
+ Fairly intuitive with a reasonable level of difficulty and skill.
+ You can initiate and participate in fights

Cons
– Player animations sometimes a little off during fights.
– Team AI is lacking in some respects.
– Not great for those fully into Simulation type games

84/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade

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Knights of the Temple put you in the role of Paul, a noble Templar Knight who discovers his best friend dying in the woods. His friend has some kind of plague, and mentions some crazy talk about “holy man is… devil”. This leads Paul off on his own crusade to fight the wicked Bishop and rescue the beautiful Adelle, a woman who’s holy powers are going to be used against all humanity as the Bishop seeks to unite his monastery and hell.

The first thing that struck me is the graphics and artwork. They are very nicely designed. They may not be as ground breaking as Halo for example, but they’re very well executed, giving a strong sense of time and place. You get sucked into the world of the infernal crusade. Cut scenes are done in both an enhanced version of the game engine, as well as presented in an epic style fantasy painted stills. They reminded me of the illustrated Dragon Lance book I loved when I was younger.

Another thing to strike me was the camera. It’s not in third or first person as I suspected on first hearing about this game, but rather fixed in what is commonly called the “fourth wall”. This is an old performance device, and describes where the three walls of the set of a play on a stage are seen, and you are looking into the scene through the forth wall. This has best been done in the Resident Evil series of games, but not something I’ve seen too much of on the Xbox. It gives a very cinematic feel to the whole experience, and is a refreshing change from the usual third or first person view. It is a little disconcerting at first, as it can obscure your view, but I suspect that’s precisely what it’s meant to do, giving a claustrophobic feel to the insides of the monastery and other locations you battle through.

It can sometimes be a frustrating experience, getting in the way of the action, especially as Paul goes through doors, as unseen enemies can attack him. However, at the same time can also enhance the action. For example, I was fighting a guard, and kept getting pushed past the camera change location, and it felt like dramatic cuts in an action film, feeling as though I was immersed in an old Robin Hood film. Also, it forces you to be rather cautious when running through doors, and I found that walking slowly by holding the joystick gently, and then holding block whilst the camera changed, was often the wisest move.

The fighting system is quite easy to get a hang of – there is block (blue button), attack (green button) and heavy attack (red button), and these can be strung together into simple combos. As the game progresses you learn new combos such as the dual swing combo and windmill combo. These are performed by stringing together the attack and heavy attack buttons. Some of the moves look awesome; especially when you knock someone down and jam the sword through their skull, then use your foot to remove it.

Furthermore there are special attacks, which are granted to you throughout the course of the game, which are performed by holding the left trigger and pressing one of the 4 face buttons. These are very powerful attacks, and can break through enemy blocks and shields.
Paul also finds better weapons as he moves through the various levels of the game. He has a choice of 4 – the mace, the axe, the sword and the bow – and these are selected by the D pad.

Using the Bow moves into a first person perspective, but it really is only useful against enemy archers, as the levels rarely give you an opportunity to shoot at someone off in the distance due to their cramped nature. The other weapons are all useful against enemies, but not none more so than the other, which is a pity. There are also prayers that Paul learns from Adelle’s astral self, and holding the right trigger and pressing the face buttons can access these. There’s healing, attack boost, quake and fireball prayers, and the effects look pretty cool. However, you do have a limited amount of pray power available, and it’s best to use them wisely.

However the whole game fighting mechanics can be reduced to the enemy attacks while you block, then when its move has completed you use a special move and then combo, and then block again, until they’re dispatched. In fact, I found one combo / block arrangement that allowed me to beat nearly every enemy in the game at an early level, and made the fighting dynamic seem not so dynamic. However, having said that, the game is still lots of fun… mindless fun, but fun nonetheless. There’s also a few puzzle type things, mainly “get this, put that there”, and a few rotate the stones to match the pattern to unlock the door type things… pretty easy things to figure out.

Sound wise the game features the standard steel on steel sounds one would expect. The howling of the insane monks and the growls of the demons are all pretty standard fare, and Paul grunts and groans as he his hit, and says a few throw away lines when he finds keys and puzzles. The score is much better, being medieval in nature that changes per the location. For example, when you get to Jerusalem the score gets a decidedly more Middle Eastern bent to it, and enhances to the great sense of time and place captured by the graphics.

The Xbox Live! functionality of the game comes in the form of downloadable survival maps, and survival scoreboards. The survival game pits Paul against an endless stream of enemies, and this is timed. The longer you survive, and gain the greatest number of kills, the better your ranking on the scoreboard. It’s a fun little exercise, and a nice addition to the main game, but other than that there’s no multiplayer.

Conclusion:
Knights of the Temple is a fun game, but it does have limited appeal. If the idea of hacking and slashing your way through a variety of well designed locations from the Middle Ages takes your fancy, then the game is for you. However, hardcore gamers will feel a little let down by the simplistic battle system that does get rather repetitive rather quickly, and sometimes the frustrating camera detracts from the overall experience of the game. The Live! scoreboard will add a little extra to those with a competitive nature, but doesn’t enhance the game all that much.

Pros:
+ Immersive locations
+ Fun battle system that’s easy to master
+ Great soundtrack
+ Cool looking moves

Cons
– Camera can become very annoying
– Gameplay can seem rather repetitive, especially once you find the killer combo.
– the Bow is all but useless.

78/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Xbox Music Mixer

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Xbox Music Mixer is a strange combination of media player and karaoke machine, and while it’s main purpose seems to be karaoke with it’s included microphone, the terrible amount of songs available make it simply seem more of an attempt to provide Xbox users with a media player. Even in this respect it is rather lacking, as there are some features that should have been included but are completely overlooked.

The karaoke function has a total of 15 songs from all kinds of artists including the B-52’s, Madonna and the Village People, and a few typical party songs like For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow and Auld Lang Syne. The microphone, which has a cartridge that links to the controller with a standard 1 ¼ inch audio plug feels very light and plastic, mainly because it is, but it works well enough. If you really wanted to you could use a more professional microphone, and you can even hook up the Xbox Live! headset for duets.

Whilst the 15 songs are barely adequate, Live! functionality comes into play for downloading new visualisations and Xbox Karaoke packs. The packs cost about A$13 and are charged to the credit card you signed up with. Alternatively you can go to websites such as xboxkaraoke.com and pay for individual songs. You download these and use the PC to xbox transfer tool found on the Xbox.com website. There’s an advert when you start the included karaoke songs to visit chartbusterkaraoke.com and this implies you may be able to play normal karaoke discs as well, but I never got to try this out. There’s also a range of about 40 songs that you can use for the Music player side of the software, but they’re really quite average, and you won’t know the words to them.

However, you can put your own music CDs in and the Xbox to sing along to, utilising the inbuilt audio compression to tear out the vocals and sing along without lyrics. Whilst this is adequate, it’s no better than what can be done with computer programs such as Soundforge, and it’s not so good for more modern music that no longer uses the middle range to record vocals, and tends to deaden the overall sound. Obviously the words will not come up, but the Xbox will display album, artist and track information if it is hard encoded onto the disk. Now, here’s where the Music Mixer misses the boat – why not use the Live! service to look up track and title information? Given Microsoft’s Media Player 9 series for PC does this, surely the Xbox could.

The Music Player suffers the same problem as the karaoke in that it doesn’t look up the CD information. This is fine for some CDs that include the information, but keying in title and artist information via the xbox controller is a royal pain in the rear. The saving grace here is that if you have a PC that connects to your xbox, you can transfer files from your computer hard drive. On the PC you can name the tracks and artist using whichever ripping tool you use, and then transport the files using the aforementioned transfer tool available at Xbox.com. The downside to this is you need to have a PC running Windows XP, but I found the actual transfer to be rather painless. Even the router that screws up some Live! games for me didn’t have a problem recognising the Xbox and transferring the data across. However, the Xbox re-encodes the data, most likely to a WMA format, so for some MP3s downloaded off the internet there is a loss of quality in some cases.

The visualisations are as good as you’ll find with any PC media player, and include the usual strobing circles and fractals and even a 3D “rave” with different dancers. Many of these are interactive, and you can play around with the controller to get different effects. You can transfer photos from your PC using the transfer tool, and they can be shown as a slide show to music as well. An advanced music player comes in the form of “Rave” mode, where you can apply audiovisual effects in real time to CDs and audio already on the Xbox. Whilst fun for a while, as you can apply whacked out filters and scratches and so on to music, as well as becoming a virtual VJ, the fact that you can’t upload your own sound effects, scratches or video severely limits the fun you can have. Furthermore, the fact that you can’t transfer video at all is a serious oversight, as how cool would it be to watch all those game trailers and stuff like Red Vs Blue on a television via the Xbox!

Conclusion:
The Xbox Music Mixer seriously misses a great opportunity to turn the Xbox from a games console into a multi-media entertainment device. The ability to transfer music files from PC to Xbox easily is it’s only real saving grace, and is really worth the purchase if you have a large MP3 collection and dig listening to custom soundtracks, or if you listen to songs via your home audio-visual set up. It’s great to fire this up and whack it on for background music at a party. However, the lack of being able to transfer video, the inability of it to find title, artist and track information, and the lack of karaoke songs included on the disc sour it almost to lemon status.

Pros
+ Can transfer songs from your PC to Xbox easily
+ great for putting on in the background for parties
+ Karaoke is also great for parties
+ some really cool visualisations, with the ability to include your own pictures.

Cons
– only 15 Karioke songs included
– the other included songs for music player and rave mode are really average
– Can’t transfer videos for either visualisations or just simply watching
– doesn’t utilise Live! to look up artist, title and track information
– Need Windows XP to transfer files

Score: 60/100

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

The Hobbit

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The Hobbit is the first novel of JRR Tolkien to be set in the milieu of Middle Earth. It was originally intended as simply a story for Tolkien’s children, but the publishers of his translation of the famous English poem Beowulf read it, and although it wasn’t completed, enjoyed it so much they asked him to submit it for publication. The rest is as they say, history.

Over 50 years later, riding high on the success of Peter Jackson’s wonderful film version of the Lord of the Rings, comes the prequel in game format. Those hardcore fans who criticise every nook and cranny of the film, and even point out the inconsistencies in Tolkien’s own writing should be well advised to keep clear of this game, as like the film version of LOTR, the Hobbit game takes a great deal of liberty with the novel of the Hobbit. Yet like the films, it doesn’t lose sense of the story of the Hobbit, nor of Middle Earth.

The Hobbit begins with a dream sequence that serves as a tutorial. The controls are fairly straightforward – move with the left joystick, attack with the X button, and jump with the A button. The B button cycles through weapons, and Y buttons puts you in 1st person perspective, which is essential for aiming your rock throws. The left trigger is used to sneak, and the right trigger is used to “lock on” to enemies. Whilst the tutorial and first level help you get a hang of the controls, there is a lack of instruction to achieve certain objectives. For example, you can use your walking stick to lever yourself and jump further, and to collect certain items even in the first level you need to be able to do this, but you aren’t told how to do this “pole vault jump” until a later level in the game. Whilst the collectable item is not vital to completing the level, it is if you’re one of those who like to collect everything and get 100% for every level.

The game pretty much follows the novel of the Hobbit, and the locations are as per the chapters in the original story; well, at least some part of them. The Shire is a beautiful sprawling level, and a great introduction to the gameplay – as you learn to take jobs from the other Hobbits, collect gold, courage crystals (which add to your health) and learn how to pick locks, which is a kind of side puzzle involving pressing buttons when a meter reaches the green area, but before the time runs out. Mirkwood is eerie and dark, with twisted trees much like how you would imagine them from the story. Another level of note is Riddles in the Dark, which plays through the Orcish mines in the Misty Mountains. This ia very well conceived, but it misses out on introducing Gollum to players of the game! Instead we get a cut scene that presents narration over 2-D drawings and then moves into 3D animation worthy of a Disney movie, but this is a defining moment of the book, if not the entire Lord of the Rings Story, and it’s left me feeling more than a little cheated that I couldn’t interact with Gollum.

Although it has been a while since I read the book, I don’t recall Bilbo having to do so much jumping and climbing. Good thing he’s a fit little hobbit, because that’s what makes up the majority of the game – jumping from platform to platform, and climbing ropes and then jumping from them onto platforms. Whilst this is ok for the most part – it is a platformer after all – it’s made frustrating by the camera that never seems to be exactly where you need it to be. Sometimes objects such as trees and ropes obscure your view, and other times the camera is fixed in a position where it is impossible to accurately position yourself for a jump. The game is rather unforgiving too, as if you miss a jump, you will fall to your death and start at the last save point. Although these occur frequently, it’s never frequently enough, and the game gets bogged down by repeatedly having to do the same part of a level over and over.

Sneaking areas are placed here and there to break up the gameplay a little, but it is similarly unforgiving. Leave yourself hanging out of the corner of a box too near a goblin, and wham – caught! But later in the game you acquire the Ring, and pressing the Black button makes you invisible. However, you can’t stay visible for long, and some of the ‘eviler’ creatures can still see you. Furthermore, the sneaking button also is the button that slides Bilbo, so sometimes you slide right into view of the enemy when you’ve meant to sneak. While this is no doubt hilarious to the orcs, it’s damn frustrating for the player.

Thankfully the fighting is good enough to give the game some positives. I liked the fighting the most, as Bilbo can find pickups that strengthen his attacks, and allow combos that look cool and are easy to execute. Yet, sometimes when fighting multiple enemies, the camera is in such a position that you can’t see what’s attacking you. Also, blocking is handled by using the D-pad, which is a nice idea considering all the other buttons are in use, yet all but useless in practicality. Also in the heat of battle, you may accidentally press the “use potion” button that is mapped to the D-pad, instead of block, which is a pain.

One thing that strikes you about the Hobbit is its graphics. They are obviously designed to appeal to a younger audience, so they are bold and vibrant. The levels are quite sprawling, and feature a rich tapestry of colour throughout. They don’t push the Xbox to its limits, but there are some nice water effects, and Bilbo’s cape has a nice sheen to it. The soundtrack is also very pleasant, being atmospheric and medieval, and picks up in the heat of the battle. The voice acting has been done adequately, although naturally not by any of the cast members of the film. Sounds and effects are pretty standard for a platformer, a nice chink when you get prisms and gold, nice bashing sounds for fighting, but it’s nothing spectacular, while the ambient sounds add to the mood of the levels – crickets and birds in the lands around The Shire, and howling wolves in the Misty Mountains, and spooky noises in Mirkwood Forrest.

Conclusion:
The level of frustration and difficulty make me wonder why they aimed The Hobbit at a younger audience. I’m no spring chicken by any means, but I can’t recall any other platformer being this hard, and I really can’t see younger players becoming engaged enough to keep going. It’s not a bad game, just hard, and made more frustrating by a camera which should be implemented better.

Pros:
+ Large and colourful levels
+ Excellent use of music
+ fun at first

Cons:
– great degree of difficulty
– repetitive gameplay, even for a platform
– Camera that is never where you need it to be

65/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Dungeon & Dragons Heroes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Final Thoughts:

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

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

Score: 79%