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Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

De Blob 2

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A couple of years ago Australian developers Blue Tongue released De Blob on the Nintendo Wii. Featuring a lovable main character, a unique colourising mechanic, and awesome, complex soundtrack which grew in structure the more Chroma City became colourised, the game went on to sell more than 700,000 copies, becoming a smash hit on the console, and keeping Blue Tongue in business when so many other Australia companies crashed out. Its sequel has appeared on the real next generation consoles, and despite its “last gen” beginnings, its charm and sweetness make it ideal for any platform.

The plot of the first game had Comrade Black, evil leader of the INKT Corporation, remove the colour from Chroma City, and saw Blob and the Colour Underground restore the city to its colourful, vibrant self. The sequel sees Comrade Black and his INKT Corporation return to wreak havoc upon the population once more. A priest called Papa Blanc is controlling the minds of the populous, tricking them into voting for him, and those he can’t control he uses more nefarious means – electronic hands which push the button to vote for him! De Blob and the Colour Underground expose Papa Blanc as Comrade Black, and fight through the cities zones to wrest control from his INKT Corporation once again.

Blob is a unique creature in the world, able to absorb paint and splat it onto various surfaces. He holds points of colour, and every surface he touches leaps into colour when he comes into contact with it, removing a point. He can also mix paints, jumping into red and yellow to make orange. He also becomes transparent when he touches water. This not only cleans the dirty black ink which litters the landscape and can cover and hurt our hero, but also that which is fired from his enemies guns.

With these basic concepts learnt, the game adds layers upon the basic gameplay each mission. For example, in the first level there are no enemies, just Gradians, poor Chroma citizens locked in egg like suits. They roll out onto the streets once their buildings are colourised, and blob has to jump on them to free them. You target using the left Trigger, and jump on them using the A Button. Later on, this same mechanic is used to jump on paint bots who help Blob mix colours. From there, you learn that certain levers need to be activated in the same way. You combine colours, activate the lever, and it unlocks a certain part of the map.

It’s also used on the Inkies, the main enemies. As you move through the levels, the way to defeat the Inkies becomes more complicated. Some Inkies need to be squashed like the Gradians. Others need to be smashed, and this is done by pressing the Right Trigger instead of the A Button. Smashing always needs Blob to have a certain number of colour points. Some Inkies are colour coded, and you need to be the same colour to destroy them. However, the game is so well designed, the colour is always nearby. An additional trick you learn is when he’s transparent guards tend to ignore him, which is used almost as stealth in some sections.

There are also environmental obstacles. Some remove the colour, some zap paint off blob, some set him on fire, and others ink him. These can be avoided by jumping over them, or in some segments grabbing continently placed powerups which make Blob immune to the environment for a small amount of time. An addition to the sequel is gravity puzzles. By triggering a certain power-up, you go into gravity mode, where you can roll up walls and across the underside of roofs. It’s a little underused to be honest, but this shows the platforming was pretty much spot on the first time, and this simply enhances what is already there.

A new feature in De Blob 2 is Blob goes into buildings to transform them. The outside of these buildings doesn’t change colour when Blob lands on them, and require Blob to be a particular colour and have a certain number of colour points available to him before entering. One he’s the correct size and colour, you target a hole and move inside the building. Once inside, the actions flips the 3D action to a 2D platforming, and Blob has to fight through enemies, and press buttons and activate switches. These sections are equally as well designed and entertaining to play as the open world 3D sections.

There is a time limit, and a number of main objectives need to be done in that time to complete a given segment of the city. However, it’s a very generous time limit, and if you ever need more time you can get time boosts by doing a little exploring, freeing Gradians by colourising the buildings, or wiping out the Inkies which populate the level. Once you finish your main objective, you can complete side quests for the various residents, or move on to the next level. These side missions involve colouring buildings a certain colour, freeing all the Gradians, smashing INKT boxes, destroying all the Inkies, colourising all the trees, and wall rolling to graffiti Comrade Blacks’ propaganda billboards. You can also explore and collect all the power ups and colour atoms. The reward for doing these side quests is not only the usual unlocks and achievements, but also “inspirations” which allow Blob to become more powerful.

And it looks very polished – there’s never a moment when the Wii roots rear its ugly, lower specced head. Everything looks crisp, shiny, and beautiful. The sense of giving life back to the environment as you play is brilliantly executed. The movement of the freed Chroma residents, the bright colours, the funny and very cute cutscenes – I lost it with the one that apes the Tiananmen Square protests – and the squeaky, jibber-jabber voices of the main characters capture a mood that’s enticing and engaging for adults and children alike. A very powerful aspect of this is the music. At first, when the city streets are all grey and sad looking, the music is minimal and forlorn. As Blob rolls through the city, the pace picks up, the music becomes more layered, and by the time you’ve completed the level it is seriously party time.

You can have a friend join the game anytime, and they take control of Pinky, Blobs flying companion, who shoots wads of colour everywhere. Unfortunately this is the extent of the multiplayer, and the only gripe I have with the game. It would have been nice to have seen some kind of live compatibility. A scoreboard, so you could compare your time and scores to other on the friends list, or even the ability to play together over live.

Conclusion:
De Blob 2 is a fantastic, fun game. Its cute characters will have you giggling throughout playing, and the clever game design will have you marvelling at how something pretty simple can be so engaging. There’s enough variety and challenge to never leave you bored, even with the lack of features such as leader boards and online play.

Pros:
FUN!
Cute Characters and engaging world
Simple yet engaging and clever gameplay
Lots to do throughout every level.
Excellent graphically and musically.

Cons:
No online features.

85/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Hydrophobia Pure

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Kate Wilson is a system engineer on the Queen of the World, a massive ship city which sails the world of the future. During a large celebration, the ship is attacked by terrorists. The Neo-Malthuseans, named after 18th century philosopher Thomas Malthus whose treatise on population first formulated ideas about infinite growth being unsustainable, believe that his theories are indeed correct and the only way to save the world is to kill yourself, with a little nudge from themselves, obviously. Kate gets trapped in an elevator, and as she escapes gets entangled in the larger plot, becoming involved in rescuing not only herself, but all on the ship.

Being based on a sinking ship, and obviously from the title, the game is all about water. Hydrophobia has an amazing water physics engine. Objects in the water bob realistically. When waves are created as new volumes of water are added to existing volumes, anything in the water reacts violently with it. Barrels floating on top are pulled under, and hapless terrorists are knocked off their feet. Shooting a crack of water to weaken the wall, and watching the water barge its way into a room is amazing. But often the game feels like a tech demo of that engine rather than a full game.

The game has real problems with control and navigation. Having played the demo before the “Pure” download I can see where problems were addressed with the patch, but I still think a lot of work was needed on these aspects of the game. The controls feel loose, especially when Kate is completely under water. As there is a breath meter so there’s always a sense of urgency and fear of drowning, but often it feels Kate doesn’t respond to movements fast enough. She’ll catch on geometry and butt into invisible walls. And Kate can get caught by water in areas she can’t get out of. I was caught under a set of stairs which were placed above a shipping container. Although I was in no danger of drowning, I was stuck and had to restart the level.

Navigation has improved greatly with the Pure patch, however it’s still a little confusing. Objectives will be shown through walls, and the urgency of finding a way around the wall to the object with the threat of drowning can cause some consternation. I get that in some parts this is actually exactly the feel the developer was going for, but in others it’s clear it’s just poor level and interface design that causes you to unwarrantedly drown.

In trying to escape, Kate ascertains the terrorist attack was well planned. As she explores, there are various items to pick up, documents to find, and encoded messages to discover. I’ve liked this way of telling stories in other games, but there is such a large amount of collectables that you can miss if you don’t explore thoroughly, and feeling of urgency and the constant threat of drowning seems counter-intuitive to the exploring aspect of the game. And I was a little disappointed none of these had any real application in the game, either. You find anxiety pills, for example, which give a sense of things not being completely right on board the ship, but you can’t use them to help you face the anxiety of being a mere engineer in a full on terrorist attack.

Another aspect of the game which needs work is combat. Kate gets a really low powered gun, and that’s fine as far as the story goes. She’s not a gung-ho space marine, she’s just an engineer. I get that. But why can’t she pick up enemy weapons? You have to charge up your weapon to fire, and it takes numerous hits to take down enemies. But that’s not even the main issue.

Kate’s main form of combat isn’t gung ho run and gun, but stealth takedowns using the environment – shooting barrels, shooting walls to allow water to flood rooms, and shooting electrical wires to fry enemies. However, the cover system doesn’t always work. You’ll hold the button to go to cover, and often end up going to the wrong place. This is especially annoying as if you go into cover on the wrong side of a hallway because the game can’t tell you want to go there, the guard sees you and you’re screwed.

Furthermore, combat underwater is simply annoying. There’s one section which is completely underwater and you’ve got to get to the objective to be able to breathe again. There are enemies who shoot at you from somewhere – but it’s not clear where from as there is a lot of debris which blocks your view, and you’re trying to find the way out before drowning. Again, the sense of urgency and fear here is fantastic, but the poor level design and poor combat conspire to make you fail again and again.

Graphic wise the game isn’t going to blow you out of the water, but it’s not terrible. The way Kate reacts to the world around her by covering her head as she runs under a gushing leak for example is pretty cool. The environments and enemies look a little too samey, though. It would have been nice to have seen a little more colour, defining different areas of the ship you’re in. Not everything has to be blue, brown and grey.

Conclusion
Hydrophobia Pure is a decent enough game for a downloadable title, but as mentioned feels more like a tech demo for water physics than a fully thought out game. You can see what the developers were aiming for, but it misses the mark in many places. The Pure patch has improved a lot of things, but not enough for the game to shine. However, given the way the developers released the patch, and the promise shown in the game engine, a sequel could be amazing.

Pros:
Excellent water physics and effects
Great main character animations
Lots of pick ups which create a backstory for the game
Interesting potential

Cons
The potential isn’t realised here
Controls that feel loose and awkward
Bad cover combat
Awkward level design and navigation system leads to frustration

68/100

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

Crackdown 2

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There are certain brands which, due to a number of factors such as quality of product and level of marketing, which step beyond their genres, they begin to define those genres. Take for example Coca Cola. Even if you don’t like Coke, I’ll bet when you order a Cola based mixer drink you say “Rum and Coke”. There are other brands too – Liquid Paper, Hoover, Google, iPod. It’s the same with videogames too. Certain games have come to define genres. Pacman, Puzzle Quest, Mario Cart, Doom, God Of War, Resident Evil and Grand Theft Auto, for example.

Whilst the quality of those games could be argued until the end of time, saying “it’s like Mario Cart” instantly gives you a frame of reference to talk about another game. One of the best examples of this in recent times is XBW Shane’s review of Red Dead Redemption. In many ways it is superior to GTA, but in defining it as “GTA Deadwood” he nailed it in a simple and concise manner. You might have a different opinion to Shane about GTA and Deadwood, but even so your knowledge of those products will influence how you react to his review, and the game itself.

Crackdown could have been one of these genre defining games. It differed enough from GTA to make it stand out from any other GTA Clone you’ve played. Yes, it was a free roaming open world set in a city with cars and pedestrians you could kill, and the missions involved driving to places and destroying all the enemies in a given area, but the skill progression and the collection minigame were so distinctive they could have began to alter gaming landscape with gamers describing other games as “Crackdown Clones”, providing they made good use of what made Crackdown so good in the sequel.

Unfortunately, they’ve dropped the ball, and given us the first game only with less to do and less to see. Pacific City, itself quite a defining quality of the first game with its neon filled streets and high-rises, has undergone what I like to refer to as “next-gen browning”. The city has fallen into decay, and as such the art has lost the distinctive edge of a super city and in order to give the look of the city a “gritty edge” the art team simply made everything an uninspired rusty brown colour, something featured in every next-gen game since the PS3 and Xbox360 appeared on the market.

Moreover, the layout of the city is exactly the same. There’s nothing new to see or explore. There are new underground areas, but these are just big arena areas. Although other games have done similar in using the city over – GTA’s mini episodes spring to mind – there is still enough new stuff to see and do to make it worthwhile. They also have incredible stories which drive you play the game.

The story in Crackdown 2, what there is of one, is since you’ve visited in the first game, the place has become a mess. Although you brought down 5 gangs to bring peace to the city previously, that was all for naught as a new terrorist organisation has risen from the ashes to threaten the city’s Peacekeepers. On top of that the city is overrun by zombie mutant freaks at night time. The only way to stop it is to re-introduce the Agency’s most effective weapon against crime – the Agent.

Like the first Crackdown, your agent starts with middling powers and work your way up by using your skills to gain orbs. Shooting the enemy with guns builds up your weapons skills, unlocking more powerful weapons and making your firing more accurate. Doing hand break turns and J-Turns, drifting, and running down enemies in vehicles increases your driving skill, unlocking more vehicles and giving more control when driving. Using explosives like grenades unlocks better grenades and rocket launchers, and increases the impact of explosions. Punching and fighting makes you tougher, and unlocks ramming and ground punch abilities.

The most fun of the game is from agility orbs. Like the first game, these are dotted around the city, enticing you to explore by jumping from building to building, gaining the ability to jump higher and further as you gather more orbs. Unlike the first game though, their position isn’t as logical as before, and there’s a little bit more of hide and seek going on. To give this aspect of the game a bit of a twist, there are “rogue” orbs, orbs which have an avoidance field and are difficult to catch. At first, these orbs are great fun to chase either on foot or in a car, and you can spend a good half an hour running around trying to grab one. But eventually it gives way to frustration, because no matter how high your driving or agility score, they’re designed to move away from you, so if you had difficulty catching one at the start of the game, you’re going to have the same amount towards the end of the game.

They also haven’t fixed up some of the biggest frustrations of the first game. Some buildings look like they have ledges you can grab onto, so you’ll leap onto them and end up sliding all the way to the bottom. Or they have overhangs you can’t get past, so you jump and hit your head and fall. And this entire jumping agility thing means there’s almost no point to driving. There’s an amazing list of songs on the car radio which you’ll never hear because you’re rarely in the car for more than a few seconds. You’ll hit other cars, flip over or otherwise crash. Or you’ll be shot at by other vehicle, get out (as you can’t shoot from vehicles) and have your car destroyed.

The lack of multiple gangs means no bosses, and that was part of the fun of the last game. In the first crackdown, as you took down bosses, the enemy became less effective at fighting you. Now all you have to do is capture base points by killing all the enemies which appear on the map when you stand in a certain zone and press the back button. They’re also pretty stupid AI wise, and will mill around in groups just waiting for you to kill them. They’re only a problem if they’re armed with rockets or grenades, in which case they’ll just spam you. Otherwise, it’s simply a matter of jumping around and shooting them.

The Freaks are even more tedious. Every night, the streets become flooded with zombies. Like Dead Rising, there are so many on the screen you’re amazed at first. But they’re so dumb they pose hardly any challenge later in the game. Simply get in a car and drive though them. And if you stick to the rooftops you can pretty much avoid them altogether.

There are two basic scenarios you need to do to proceed the story and subsequently the game – capture a base which shoots a laser beam into the sky, and when you have 3 beam together you jump into the subterranean part of the city and kill all the zombies which attack a bomb device. That’s it.

Part of the reason the game is so simple is it’s designed for four players in mind. Obviously you can’t have too much of a complex GTA scenario like drive here, blow up this, drive to a next check point, and kill that, if the game is designed for more than one person. Although having said that Red Dead Redemption seems to do a pretty good job of doing precisely in its Multiplayer. So they’ve made the game as mindless as possible so you can have as much fun with other players.

And yes, it is fun with other players. It’s only a little more fun doing the missions still, as they don’t get any harder, but still the added fun of simply having another real live person with you makes it marginally more enjoyable. And doing things the designers probably had in mind, but didn’t make any use of. Like picking up a car when your friend is in it, and throwing it off a bridge. Like dropping a cluster grenade near an orb your friend is after. Like chasing each other around in choppers.

But what I can’t understand is why didn’t the designers utilise this more effectively? Surely in play testing they would have noticed people playing the game in this manner, so why not design co-operative missions around this – design chopper races; design timed missions where you’ve got to knock down as many freaks as possible, make the game co-operative in the mission design. I don’t want to call the designers lazy as it’s very hard to make a good game, but it’s clear the design is precisely that. Rather than identifying how players generate their own fun in a game and directing their design towards that, they’ve designed a game where it’s as open as possible but with so little to do, so players have to create their own fun.

Conclusion
Maybe I’m being a little hard on the game. The original Crackdown was flawed genius. It came out of practically nowhere, and was bought by the truckloads because of the Halo3 Multiplayer Beta offer. However, the game was unexpectedly compelling and fun, even if it felt a little rough and unfinished.

Crackdown 2 still feels rough and unfinished. In fact, it feels even more so than the first, especially when viewed as a single player experience. Multiplayer improves the game, but it still feels vacant and simple, and doesn’t develop a good story or good mission structure to encourage you to play the game, just a little incentive to tool around in the city for a few hours blowing shit up.

Pros:
Keeps the addictive agility orb collection game and spices the orb collection with “rogue orbs”
Heaps of things to blow up and kill.
Fun Multiplayer
Fantastic soundtrack

Cons:
You won’t hear the soundtrack because you’ll never be in the car long enough
Unconvincing story
Boring, repetitive missions
Stupid AI
Many of the problems of the first game not addressed

68/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Alan Wake

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World famous author Alan Wake has writers’ block, so he and his nyctophobic (scared of the dark) wife decide to holiday in Bright Falls, an idyllic ex-mining town in rural America. You’d think, he being a writer a fan of Stephen King and having written episodes of Twilight Zone rip off ‘Night Springs’, he’d be wary of holidaying in a rural town surrounded by tall mountains and deep forests. After all, nearly everyone knows they’re all full of some kind of unholy-and-ancient-darkness slash portal-to-the-other-side, or at least rednecks and bears. But no, he doesn’t even google the town, but heads there cluelessly, and of course something terrible happens. His wife gets abducted by this darkness, and it’s up to Alan to save her.

Alan Wake almost succeeds at creating a classic horror game. At first, the game is very creepy. The town has that disturbing Twin Peaks charm, full odd characters that you get to revisit throughout the game and discover more about. The surrounding forest and mountains, full of old mines and logging farms have that Stephen King vibe, as if the very elements are in league with nature to confound and upset Alan and in turn, the player. On top of this, the game itself creates the feeling that nothing is ever quite right, and you’re never sure what is dream, what is real, and what is psychosis.

Most of the time you’re on foot and the game encourages you to explore the wide playable areas looking for pages to the manuscript Alan is writing. The manuscript echoes the story of the game, and although I personally think reading text in a game is a cop out – videogames are a visual multimedia experience and reading pages of text on screen bores me – this works here because Alan is a writer and it does recreate the Stephen King self referential mentality of many of his finest books.

There are also environmental hazards to overcome in typical 3rd person adventure style, which are generally easy to figure out. There are weapon caches to find, and TVs and Radios to tell you more of the story. The TVs show episodes of the aforementioned Night Springs, which are quite long, whilst the radio informs the player of what’s happening in the world of Bright Falls. There are signs about the town and surrounds revealing a history of the town, all which create a very real sense of place for the game. And with a cheeky nod to Twin Peaks, you’ll find coffee thermoses scattered across the landscape.

The game uses light and dark to brilliant effect, and most of your time is spent in the dark, so you’re always under constant fear of attack, and this creates and excellent way to progress the story. As light is a source of healing and every light post is a checkpoint, you actually begin to fear being in the dark too long in the game.

The first level is a dream, and here you learn the basics of how to fight what are known as the Taken. The Taken creep from the shadows, and are imbued with unholy darkness. Equipped with a torch and a gun, fighting them involves a two phase attack. Shining your torch at them nullifies their dark power and stops them momentarily, and you can boost the torch’s power with a simple button press, although this depletes the battery power so you’ll need to stock up on batteries. Once their power is gone, you can pop a cap in their ass, as long as you have enough bullets. Dropping flares keeps them at bay, and bright light kills them outright, so flash bang grenades and flare guns become your most powerful weapons, as they light up the dark and vanquish foes at once, as does flashing car or spotlights onto them.

The Taken also manifest as poltergeists, and at various points in the game you’ll find objects imbued with darkness hover and fling themselves at you. These often take a bit more of time to take down, especially the larger vehicles you’ll encounter, although ducking behind posts and rocks can shield you a little whilst you shine your light onto them and drop flares and flash bangs.

There are also a few driving sections, and these are fun as well. Considering the game is a 3rd person action game, the car controls quite well. And as there’s nothing more fun than running people over in video games, it’s even better when they’re darkness imbued zombies, as you speed towards the Taken, turn your high beams on, and mow through them faster than Ash’s zombie killing machine from Evil Dead 3.
However, like many other horror games before it, the need t make Alan Wake a videogame ruins the overall vibe of the story eventually. Whenever there are enemies nearby, there is always a ‘tell’. Like in Doom 3, there’s always a sound to alert you to an enemy’s presence. In this case it’s music, and the game also takes control of the camera and zooms out or pans around to show you your enemy. At first, this is really cool and alarming, but eventually it becomes so much part and parcel of the game you forget to be scared about it.

Boss fights are signified by the game environment opening up into a wide area, with flares in emergency boxes lying about on the trail toward them, and as you near the “you’re about to be attacked” music plays. It happens so often in the middle part of the game the dread I felt wasn’t legitimate fear, but rather boredom at yet another fight where I had to point my torch at a bad guy/thing then shoot him when he stopped emanating darkness. Towards the end, I just wanted to advance the story, not face hordes of bad dudes just because the designers wanted to make the game an hour longer.

There is one exception to this occurs a little past midway in the game. I don’t want to give too much away, but the most fun I had in the game was at the Old Gods of Asgard’s farm. What seems like it would be a similar scenario to previous levels turns into something quite different and a hell of a lot of fun.

Also annoying is Alan keeps losing his equipment. You collect a shot gun, flare gun, flash bangs and a high powered torch during a level, and it’s likely to be gone after the next cutscene ,without any real reason for this occurring other than to annoy the player who likes to hoard things. Sure, “I lost my gun in the fall” is a perfectly legitimate reason, but losing them after going to a police station? Obviously the evidence cupboards need better locks in Bright Falls!

And although a minor annoyance, you can listen to all the radio and read the pages you’ve collected in the Extras menu, but you can’t watch any of the episodes of Night Springs outside of the game. This isn’t a game killer by any means, but I would have loved to watch the shows outside of the game in another menu, as they were quite entertaining.

Conclusion
It’s worth spending a few hours alone in the dark with Alan Wake and just the glow of a TV screen. It’s certainly better than most of Stephen King’s recent book to film outings. The game creates an excellent and believable sense of ‘reality’, as much as horror story can. You’ll suspend your disbelief for the most part, and there are some very cool and spooky moments early in the game that will really put you on edge.

It’s just a shame that because games cost so much to make and sell to the consumer, and game developers have an expectation to give players their money’s worth, extending the gameplay aspects of the game tend to ruin the vibe of the story later on. I guess it’s unavoidable as no game has really been able to create the legitimate scares of a horror story throughout its ten plus hours, although I’m pretty sure a ten hour long horror film would also be rather hackneyed by the end of it as well.

Pros:
Excellent use of light and dark both in fights and setting the scene
Great story development through the use of collectables
Very good sense of Bright Falls being a real place. Well, as real as a horror story town can be.
Lots of clever nods to the horror genre
Cool driving levels with solid controls even though it’s primarily an on foot 3rd person action game.

Cons
The creepiness of the game’s early levels gives way to a “been there, done that” feeling.
Player has all their cool weapons taken away and has to go get them all again every level.
Ending is not very satisfying and screams sequel.

85/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Blur

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Bizarre Creations’ Blur is one of those games so simple in its premise you wonder why it hasn’t been done sooner. It’s best described as Project Gotham Racer meets Mario Cart, and takes the best things of all those games and shoves it in one neat little package.

Like Project Gotham Racing, Blur has “real world” locations such as San Francisco, Tokyo, and Barcelona, with fake tracks in each of those cities. The cities look vibrant and real, full of neon lights and flowing banners and glass towers and trees and dirt on the off-road tracks. Also similar to PGR, it has fantastic looking licensed cars from Ferrari, Lotus, Ford, Volkswagon, Landrover and more. As you zoom about the race tracks, you take damage from other racers and crashing into walls and such, and the more you get hit and smashed, the more damaged your car looks. But that’s where the realism stops and the fun starts.

The object of single player is nothing new to racing game enthusiasts. Race to win and collect “lights” for first, second and third place. The more lights you have, the more events you unlock in each division. Each division is owned by a particular racer with a particular car and mod, but more on that in a moment.

There are also bonus lights to pick up via two means – Fan Runs and Fan Targets. Driving through a gate icon found on every track opens up the Fan Runs where you must race through slalom style to get more fans. Fans are otherwise rewarded for clever driving and using pickups on other racers. Fan Targets are how many fans you must win to unlock a light. Fans are the currency of Blur, and by winning fans you unlock different cars and mods. It’s similar to Kudos found in PGR. As you do certain manoeuvres, you’re rewarded points. However, unlike PGR there is more to it than simply slick driving.

Like Mario Cart, there are pickups on the track at various locations. These come in the form of offensive and defensive, and cause all kinds of mayhem when racing about. The offensive pickups come in the form of mine, barge, shunt, bolt, and shock. Mines can be shot forward or backwards, and remain on the track until someone hits them with their car or another weapon. Barge pushes the cars around you away from you. Shunt is a homing beacon, which whirls into the car targeted in front of you, ala the red shell in Mario Cart. Bolt is like the green shell, a “dumb” forward or reverse firing missile which is devastating if you manage to get 3 hits in a row with it. Shock shoots columns of lightning into the front runners path, causing mass destruction. Defence involves shield, repair and nitro. Shield protects your car from other effects. Repair repairs damage, and nitro boosts you at speed.

However, to view the pickups so simplistically won’t win you many fans. All pickups can be used offensively or defensively in the right situation. Use shield and nitro to ram into other cars. Fire nitro forward to “air break”, allowing you to avoid collisions and then speed out of danger. Deploy mines, barge and bolts to destroy shunts and mines. Your score will rise even higher due to the fan multiplier when you’re driving well and use the pickups in combination, such as drifting around corners and bolting cars. There are also Fan Favourites, which give you a time limit to perform a certain manoeuvre such as nitro slam another car, or drift well around a corner.

There are nine different divisions in single player, and to be eligible to race the owner of the division in a One on One Race to own their car, you have to do more than just race. For example, in the Fan Favourite division you must complete 5 Fan Demands, Complete 2 Fan Runs, Complete 4 Fan Targets and Win Event 5 with one x5 Fan Combo. Once you defeat them, you unlock their car and their mod. Mods do a range of things, such as increase the number of bolts you can fire, and armour plating.

There are 3 varieties of races other than One on One – Checkpoint, Race, and Destruction. Checkpoint is a timed race, with stopwatch and nitro pickups only. Race is a regular blur race against 10 or 20 other cars, whilst Destruction arms you with bolts only and places cars in front of you to destroy. Each car destroyed add more time to your race. Whilst on paper this seems like not a lot of variety, the fast paced nature of the game means you never get bored.

Single player, whist quite difficult and a little shallow compared to other racing games, is still loads of fun. Bizarre Creations have recognised this to some extent, and allowed the creation of challenges between friends. Just amassed an enormous amount of fans? Set up a Nemesis on the leaderboard and challenge your friends to beat you. Got all the lights on expert? Send a message to facebook or twitter to brag about it. It seems worthless at first, but seeing your friends beat your hard work with what appears to be ease spurs even the least competitive person to try the race again, and this simple yet effective method of creating depth has worked.

But even so, racing multiplayer is where the game truly shines. Four player split screen will fill a room with the same laughter and entertainment as Mario Cart once did, and even the best driver can be taken down by a well placed mine right on the finishing line, meaning it’s accessible to everyone.

In Online Multiplayer there are different race modes, including racing with no mods which is rather boring to be honest; Team Racing which makes the game feel like Midtown Madness but with power ups; to a smash up derby arena fight which is quite possibly the best thing since Destruction Derby on the original Playstation. Furthermore, Fans and Mods are slightly different. Taking a leaf out of Modern Warfare’s book, Fans act as experience points and Mods act as outfits. As per single player fans unlock cars and events as you go up fan levels, but you’re only racing for fans, not lights.

Mods are different from single player as there are more of them and they have more effects, such as converting shield hits to power ups, and causing mines to explode into 4 mini mines, and defensive stuff like make your car harder to home in on. You can assign 3 mods to a car, and you have 4 mod groups to customise and apply to your car, so like the weapon kits in MW you can find the mods which suit your play style best.

There are also car and rank challenges, again which improve your car and are rewarded by playing the game online. This adds enormous depth to the multiplayer game, especially in team games where users will complement each other with some equipping their cars to win the race, and others equipping to take battle to the other team.

Conclusion:
The fun of Blur is unparalleled in any other driving game. It could have been simply Mario Cart in real looking cars, but Bizarre Creations have looked hard at what is fun about racing games, what is fun about competitive play, what is fun about online gaming, and worked out how to get all of that in one game and more importantly, get it to work well and remain fun.

Pros:
Looks awesome
Simple yet fantastic take on a motor racing game
Incredibly fun to play split screen
Quite some depth to the multiplayer
Cool use of social networking tools

Cons:
Single player is quite difficult
Can’t race split screen online

90/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Resonance of Fate

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I find J-RPGs to be curious beasts. From the outrageous story arcs, to overdramatic dialogue, to the over exaggerated proportions of the characters and their weapons, the games are bewildering. Often I think someone is playing a cruel joke on us Westerners, because even if there is something lost in translation, the Japanese can’t really be into this absolute craziness, could they? Yet time and again, J-RPGs appear with the same iconographic and defining characteristics I must simply concede I do not get them.

Let me give you an example from Resonance of Fate. There’s one cutscene where Vashyron, the game’s lead character, meets with Cardinal Barbarella. From her name, you simply know she’s lusty and well stacked. As she’s telling him she needs the gang to fetch a bottle of wine, he focuses on her heaving bosom and goes into this weird dream world. As he comes out of it he says something like “she’s got luscious grapes whilst we’ve just got raisins” whilst looking at Leanne, the female character of the game, who promptly kicks him in the nuts. All of this just to let you know you need to fetch a bottle of wine as a quest… It’s completely nuts!

As to the rest of the story, I honestly don’t know. It’s quite confusing and easily forgettable. From what I can gather, the world became poisonous, and to regulate living conditions Basel was built. A towering complex of clockwork contraptions, people moved to live around the tower, and the higher up in the tower you lived, the higher your social status. Tied to this is quartz, which allows the people to live free of cancer. However, through this, lives become limited. One of the heroes of the game, Leanne, is special because she didn’t die when she was meant to, and because of this she’s wanted by the Cardinals, the rulers of Basel. The other heroes, Vashyron and Zephyr somehow get caught up in all this.

However, what isn’t confusing nor forgettable is the gameplay. Unlike every other J-RPG, Resonance of Fate doesn’t involve swords, but is a world of guns and bullets. Obviously this makes the usual turn based menu fighting style of most other J-RPGs inadequate for combat, so for the first time in years, something has changed the J-RPG battle system and it will resonate through to other games.

Upon entering a fight, you are given options. You can move and shoot a magazine of bullets into an enemy. This is the basic move and weakest attack, and is used mostly to position your heroes. There is a meter for each character, and when the character moves like this, or takes damage when moving in this way, the meter depletes.

There’s scratch damage and direct damage. Scratch damage is generated by machine guns and certain types of explosives. Scratch damage is best seen as damage to armour. It makes an enemy’s healthbar turn blue, repairs over time, and will be removed by direct damage. Direct damage deals damage directly to a targets health. If a character does direct damage on top of scratch damage, the enemy takes more damage than just taking direct damage. You’ve also got enemies with different strength shields on different parts of their bodies. By positioning your characters properly, you can do the most damage to them.

Beyond this, there are Hero Moves. These moves, initiated with a simple press of a button, will be more familiar to J-RPGs, as you set off where you want to go and who you want to target, and launch into an over-the-top cinematic. This matrix style bullet time event sees round after round of bullet pumped into an enemy. Another meter fills as you move towards your mark, and the more it fills the more power your shots will have. It can be modified by more button presses – pressing X launches the character into the rain down bullets from above, bypassing most shields. Staying on the ground can sometimes work better as you can throw your enemies into the air, and another button press sees you do multiple hits to juggle airborne enemies.

On top of this are Resonance moves. When one character passes in between the other two characters, you get a Resonance Point. Each point allows you to move your characters as one in a Hero move. Moving in a triangular direction, the characters enter bullet time and lay down heavy fire against an enemy. This is often the best way to kill the bigger bosses, although if you want a fight to end quickly you can target the leader of a group and destroy him this way, and the other enemies flee.

All these moves take up Bezels, best described as health tokens. You lose them by being shot, and gain them by killing enemies and during certain Hero Moves. If you lose them by being shot, they shatter, and lie about the battlefield. It’s in your best interests to pick these shards up, otherwise the enemies will, restoring their health. Lose all of your Bezels, and you go into critical condition, where you can’t initiate Hero Moves, take more damage, and generally die and lose the game. You can flee, but if you flee into another fight, you’ll still be at critical condition until you rest.

There is also a destructible cover system, so walking up to a wall will flash an icon, which means you can shoot from this cover. You can be hit through the cover, and the cover itself takes damage and will eventually disappear. This is best used when you’re at critical condition.

In other respects, the game is like a traditional J-RPG. You get mission bites from notice boards, run around towns to see people to get whole missions, and venture onto the world map to complete the missions. It will be very familiar to J-RPG fans, who will probably plant their face in their hand and say “oh no, not this shit again!” Where RoF differs again the world map is made of a locked hexagons grid, meaning you can’t travel anywhere until you make a path across the world. As you play you’ll find or be given Energy Hexes to unlock the map. There are also coloured hexagons, usually surrounding buildings and Stations. Unlock a station, and you can link them and their bonuses to places where you travel and fight.

If it sounds confusing, it is until you play it for a few hours. The more you play, the more you get used to it, and the more it becomes apparent on what you should do in given situations against different enemies. There is a learning curve, but once you get over that, it’s quite an entertaining system. And unlike that other J-RPG to come out recently, Final Fantasy XIII, it won’t take over 25 hours before the game stops babysitting you and let you master the moves on your own.

However, like so many J-RPGs before it, you will have to grind your characters up levels to complete missions. This is my biggest gripe against the game. Why can’t the Japanese take note of RPGs like Mass Effect or Dragon Age, and realise when you unlock an area you should be able to complete those missions without having to grind your characters stats? Even if you play all the side missions in a chapter, there will always remain story missions which you will not be able to complete until you grind your skills up in the arena for 2 or so hours. The game will take about 40 or so hours to complete, but more than a quarter of that will be mindless grinding.

I can kind of understand grinding for weapons and upgrades, and RoF has a fine weapon upgrade system. You can scrap parts for cash or items, then rebuild items and then equip them to your guns. This gives you more damage, greater movement speed, higher rate of fire, and more. However, again I believe games should reward you this stuff for killing big bosses and completing missions, whereas in RoF the best weapons and items are to be found in the completely optional areas, which you have to grind though to get.

Visually the game is fine, but nowhere near as impressive as other J-RPGs on the Xbox. The world has an interesting steampunk vibe with gears and steam pistons and men in dapper hats and women in corsets, but the dungeons you’ll travel in suffer from looking the same drab backgrounds and all too familiar layouts. The character designs are ok, and the collectible and customisable clothing gives obsessives something to collect and dress up their characters. Again, to get the best stuff (and that depends on what you consider “best” in terms of optional clothing), you have to grind for it.

The music score is decent, full of guitars and electro sounds, quite typical for a J-RPG. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the dialogue. Like many other J-RPGs the barks at the end of the fights make little to no sense and are mind numbingly repetitive, and as I mentioned, the story itself is confusing so any speech is easily forgettable.

Conclusion:
Resonance of Fate’s complex and engaging combat system is refreshing in a universe of clones, and it will be memorable for this alone. The character and weapon customisation is cute, and the world map exploration is quite clever and engaging. However, none of this goes far enough to address the other negative aspects of the game, which are also found in many other J-RPGs. Its story is confusing, the characters trite, and the grinding unacceptable.

Pros:
Fantastic combat mechanic
Interesting map exploration
Cool gun and character customisation

Cons:
Confusing story
Too much grind
Poor characterisation
Repetitive looking world locations

75/100

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

Need For Speed: Shift

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The Need For Speed franchise has had its ups and downs over the last few years. Some people enjoyed games like Hot Pursuit and Undercover but others felt the whole cops and robbers thing was a little dull and uninspired. Need For Speed: Shift (NFSS) attempts to change direction and bring track racing back to the world of NFS. It does an admirable job of it, but with a whole heap of other racing game franchises competing for your dollar at the moment, does it enough to distinguish itself from the pack?

When you start NFSS you have a practice race which tests your driving ability and then sets the games difficulty based on how well you drove. There are options such as assisted cornering, showing the race line, automatic gears changes amongst others which will give people of all different skill levels easy access into the game. This is a great way to introduce the game to the player without using a silly tutorial and allows you to get used to the controls and pace of the game.

Like so many other racing games, the set up is you’re a career driver, and you have to earn points and money to be able to compete in the later tiers of racing. You begin with a modest amount of money with which you purchase a modest car in which you race against other modest cars. However, after a few races, you’ll start getting invites to other types of races, where you can race not so modest cars. This breaks up the monotony of the early driving quite nicely.

Winning a race isn’t the be all and end all of this game. When you race, you’re rewarded points for how you are driving, similar to the Kudos system in Project Gotham Racing. However, unlike Kudos, you get rewarded points for precision as well as aggressive driving. Precision driving points are awarded for overtaking cleanly, following the correct drivers line and taking corners well. Aggressive driving points are rewarded for knocking bumpers, drifting, hitting on overtaking, and spinning opponent cars off the track.

I really liked this system. It rewards you for driving how you want to drive. If you want to nudge every car off the track whilst risking your own, then you’re rewarded for it. If you want to get out in front early and do a clean lap, then you’re rewarded for it. You’re never punished for doing something, nor is the points system designed to punish you for driving one way or the other.

Reaching the podium lands you a certain number of stars, and reaching a certain amount of points also nets you some stars, and also completing bonus objectives, such as spinning out 4 opponents, or completing a clean lap, will gain you a star. The amount of stars you have determines how much money you earn, and also unlock higher tiers.

There is an incredible amount of variety once you open a few more tiers. There’s one on one drag type races, supercar races, time trials, endurance races, regular 1, 2 or 3 lap races and much, much more. The game doesn’t feel like an out and out simulation, but it’s not too arcadey either. It’s a nice blend of the two, and the difficulty levels help you refine your preference better. The difficulty of the actual races is a little off, however. There are some races where you can blitz the field and get all the stars, and other races in the same tier, even in the same categories, that are ridiculously hard to come out on top. You might still win, but you’ll have trouble getting all the stars, or conversely, you might get all the bonuses, and not reach the podium.

But the biggest downfall of the game is the drifting. Oh boy, does it suck. When racing in a normal race, you can drift around corners fine, and it feels like it should. In the drifting races, there’s a whole new HUD meter which isn’t really explained, and a whole different feel to the car. It’s like someone has reversed the oversteer settings, and instead of flowing naturally around the corners, you wrestle with the controls and spin out, or don’t spin at all. Luckily, there is enough racing in the game to get points to unlock tiers for you to avoid it altogether.

The game carries its Driving Level onto online races, and will match you with races of your level, and racing in online races will also improve your driving level. It’s really quite clever, as it makes the modes of the game seem cohesive. Races I drove in were all but lag free, but I was driving against Australians in the middle of the day. Also, I’ve had a few races online, none which I came first in, but it’s showing up as only 1 win in my driver profile.

Graphically the game is great and the in car view has to be seen to be believed. The motion of the driver, the look of the different car dashboards, to the way the side blurs as you gain momentum forcing you to concentrate on the road ahead is truly fantastic. It’s one of the few games where I want to only race in the in car view! Another great effect is when you crash the screen jumps and distorts, not unlike Burnout (with the smashes in the replay also pay a nod to the burnout franchise).

Conclusion:
Need For Speed: Shift is a welcome entry into the world of track racing and a step back in the right direction for the series. The biggest problem is the game doesn’t do too much to distinguish itself from the other excellent racing games available lately. Everyone already has their favourites – some like V8 Supercars, some like Forza, others like Gran Turismo and NFSS comes at a time when people may be unlikely to change back to the series.

On the other hand, the Need For Speed fan may be put off by the return to fixed maps, traditional car racing and no free roaming. But there is some damn good fun to be had with this game, and whilst I’m aware people only have so much time and budget to play games, racing fans may be doing themselves a disservice if they miss out on this.

Pros
awesome in car camera
incredible amount of racing
great points system

Cons
too much like every other racing game
the drifting is a total failure

83/100