Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Review

System: PC, PS3, Xbox 360*
Dev: Ubisoft
Pub: Ubisoft
Release: May 21, 2012
Players: 1-4, Multiplayer Online
Screen Resolution: 480p-1080p	Blood, Intense Violence, Strong Language

Cutting Cookies
by MDP

Every studio wants to make a Call of Duty, that massive game that enthralls the masses, stirring them into a firestorm of controversial yet lucrative activity on a yearly cycle. Some studios, though, take their inspiration a little more literally than others, even going so far as to modify established franchises with elements of the CoD lexicon. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier doesn't just borrow from Activision's powerhouse shooter, though. It also takes elements from Gears of War and the Tom Clancy brand's own Splinter Cell: Conviction.

That isn't to say that Future Soldier lacks its own flavor. There's definitely something distinctive about it, and it's a something that might warrant more exploration, but when a title wears its inspirations this plainly on its sleeve, they truly do have to be addressed.

The first major change Ghost Recon faithful will notice about the game is that it's set almost entirely in the third person. Ghost Recon had always been a traditional series of tactical first-person shooters and, while looking down one's iron sights or scope does place the player in their character's head, this is a game that is, by and large, played from without. It definitely makes the game feel a little safer, a little more disconnected. The tension that came from not knowing where around you an enemy would strike from has been diminished, though not entirely done away with.

The bigger gripe, though, is that this perspective leads to an absurd amount of shaky-cam. Want to run from one cover point to another? Hope you don't suffer from motion sickness, buddy. It's more pervasive than that, though, showing up even in cinematics when it's really not justified. Does the camera seriously need to jerk and heave when the squad is climbing out of a truck? Ubisoft seemed to think so.

That said, the perspective fits with the overall theme of the game, which seems to be about battlefield awareness. A large portion of your tool belt is devoted to letting you know where your enemies are while they're still none the wiser to your presence. This is accomplished through classic means like using cover and thermal imaging, but the Ghosts also have access to special grenades that survey an expansive area around them, magnetic imaging, a portable UAV for impromptu aerial surveillance, and camo suits that turn you practically invisible as long as you're not moving quickly. If that last one sounds unbalanced, note that, in the multiplayer, this is changed so that moving almost at all shuts down the camo, preventing players from stalking around the map and chaining together stealth kills.

Multiplayer, as with most shooters put out in this day and age, is designed to be Future Soldier's bread and butter. It offers three malleable classes, equipment unlocking as each is leveled up (yes, they gain experience and levels separately; I'm sorry), which includes not only new guns to use, but new parts for the guns one already has. The level of granularity this system achieves is impressive, and it can be particularly fun since it's just so visually appealing, guns exploding out into their individual components before the camera captures the one you want to edit. This mode supports the Kinect, but its implementation is fairly forgettable, whether you're swiping or issuing voice commands, and attempting to control the gun with it on the firing range is an exercise in frustration that doesn't even hint at offering any kind of tactile pleasure.

Back to the multiplayer, though, the three classes are extremely distinctive. There is, of course, the basic grunt who carries frag grenades and a big gun, but the Scout and Engineer are something else entirely. The Scout may have flashbangs and a sniper rifle, but he also possesses the camo from the campaign, if in a slightly diminished form. This allows him to snipe from cover, not with impunity, but with a greater degree of freedom than his counterparts. He is at his best when stalking the battlefield, providing cover to his compatriots from the sides and above. The Engineer, on the other hand, is the entire team's eyes. He is equipped with sensor grenades, which he can throw to reveal foes in a sizable radius, allowing the team to quickly wipe them out. Playing as each is a distinctive experience, which is a fairly good descriptor for the game's overall multiplayer, as well.

Rather than deathmatch or basic capture the flag, games are objective-based and demand teamwork, which is aided by a system that assigns you to a squad with a couple of other players. As long as one of these players isn't in combat, detected by a sensor grenade, or too close to the objective, you can spawn on them after death. It's a nice touch, though it doesn't seem there's any way to control who's in what squad, and though the game tries to keep you from spawning into enemies, some players have found that if they follow one enemy at just enough of a distance, their team members will spawn more or less directly into their sights. Despite this gripe, the multiplayer was a lot of fun, and a far more satisfying experience than the campaign mode.

The campaign is where the game truly attempts to ape Call of Duty. While past entries in the series offered the player control of a squad of troops, to whom one could issue commands, you take second fiddle in Future Soldier. As is the trend these days, you're led from place to place, shooting enemies and watching or engaging in set pieces. It goes so far as to have a chopper gunner segment, in which you take down vehicles on a winding mountain roadway as you fend off other helicopters. It's done well enough, but it feels out of place in what has always been a relatively down to earth series. Every campaign mission, though, feels like it has a right way to play it, like it's heavily scripted around the use of a specific item or skill set, and if you try to play it differently, it throws a fit at you. I found the campaign to be at its best when it provided me with the option of using stealth, but didn't demand it. Using the tools at my disposal to determine enemy positions and setup "sync-shots" was a rush. Fighting in pitched battles, my squad and I on one side and the enemy platoon on the other, was dull and often frustrating.

Some of this frustration comes from the cover controls. It's odd to me, in a game that seems so inspired by Ubisoft's work on the most recent Splinter Cell game, to have thrown out that one's intuitive and simple cover system in favor of a snap-to cover system circa 2005. Sure, you can pick another spot to bolt to with the press of a button as long as you're aiming at it, which is nice, but it makes cover awkward and clunky to navigate instead of smooth and natural.

The plot, meanwhile, is pretty much nonexistent. It's the typical "bad guys are planning to do terrible things to America. Go kill them," and you've seen it a few dozen times before. You'll tour South America, Africa, and Russia—the three traditional hotspots for villainous activity—and see environments that range from jungle to desert, even navigating through a snowstorm (remember the first level of Modern Warfare 2?) There are cinematics between each level, but they seem to get less meaningful as the game goes on, which is a shame since it opens with such a bang.

It isn't a Shock and Awe-scale moment, but when a bomb goes off in the back of a vehicle in South America and knocks your character off a cliff, to which he clings for dear life, it's a little of the same-old, same-old. It isn't until the fire rains down from above, lights his arms up and begins to burn away the flesh as he brushes at it frantically before falling to his demise, radio blaring in his ear the whole while, that the event hits you full force. If Future Soldier had left it there, just gently and subtly referencing it with perhaps a wayward glance at a photograph of the departed or something, it would have been masterful. Instead, it spends the next few minutes pounding it into your head that this is now a mission of revenge, as well as national security. It's blunt and silly, and that really describes the entire game. A popcorn flick of a Tom Clancy game if ever there was one.

Saints Row: The Third Review

System: PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Dev: Volition, Inc.
Pub: THQ
Release: November 15, 2011
Players: 1-2
Screen Resolution: 480p-1080p	Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Use of Drugs

The Saints Come Marching
by MDP

Sandbox games are a strange breed. Traditionally, games have been a linear passage from a starting point to a set endpoint. One path, however jagged or curved it may be, that either culminated in a player's victory or was abandoned early in defeat. Most sandbox games add a meta-game of sorts to this linear structure, allowing one to pick maybe the order of missions and take on optional bonus tasks, but doing little to throw off the shackles of a straightforward canned story. In a game that inundates a player with things to do, that allows him or her to choose activities and missions, doesn't it naturally follow that one's choices should ultimately influence the outcome?

This is the theory on which Saints Row: The Third is predicated. Whereas previous entries told multiple, parallel-yet-distinct stories and then tied them together in an ending sequence, Saints Row: The Third tells one story with a large cast of important characters, intermingled and interspersed. In servicing this story, the game's illusion of choice is severely diminished. There are usually fewer missions from which to choose at any given time than in past games, and many of them are very short offshoots of the main tale. The fact that the game offers more real choice than either of its forebears is just one of the game's many paradoxes.

What do I mean by real choices? Saints Row: The Third gives the player either/or decisions at the ends of some of its grander missions. These choices don't influence an arbitrary morality meter, each instead offering immediate, pragmatic benefits for having chosen it. When I play a "moral choice" RPG, I have trouble taking the renegade/closed fist/dark side route, and will immediately gravitate toward options that are clearly good or neutral. Saints Row: The Third gave me genuine pause, while I considered not only the gameplay benefit of any given choice, but also what that decision would mean to the Saints in the context of the story thus far. They're well-planned choices that have a definite and understandable effect on your relationships with other characters in the world.

That said, there are only a handful of such decisions in the game and, while there are multiple endings, which of them a player gets hinges entirely on one choice made very close to the end of the game. In fact, after finishing the story, the game automatically saves prior to that choice and informs the player that it has done so specifically in case they want to see the alternate ending. It's unfortunate that more wasn't done to create distinct paths through the game based on one's choices, or to create a truly dynamic mission infrastructure based on factors such as these key decisions and city control. That, however, would have run counter to the game's tighter focus on its story.

Saints Row: The Third is primarily a tale of revenge, but one told in the Saints Row fashion: over-the-top and filled to the brim with violence and mayhem. There's a new city—the city of Steelport—for the Third Street Saints to explore, and a new overarching enemy (referred to by the incredibly generic nom de plume of "The Syndicate") to spur the Saints to conquer it. The Syndicate is composed of a stable of three gangs: the Morningstar, the Deckers, and the Luchadores. However, while the game is initially centered around this big baddie and the damage one does to it, the focus softens considerably in the second act as gang activity, as a whole, comes under fire from a government-supported occupying military force. Soon enough, you're not entirely sure which villain you're fighting and why, or even who is working with you or against you. Allegiances shift with little question from the protagonist as to the veracity of his newfound allies' loyalty. It's made all the more disappointing by the sharp writing, which has some incredible gems and does a lot to flesh out the key individuals in the Saints.

The story of the game doesn't have to be superb, though, it only has to provide a framework for the bombastic action, and excuses for some of the most ridiculous set pieces in gaming history. There are multiple instances in which a player is free-falling at thirty-thousand feet after having vacated a jetliner, gunning down incredibly persistent enemies as they all plummet toward the earth in unison. The game opens with a bank heist that culminates in airlifting the vault via chopper, the player hanging from the lines that secure the vault to its conveyance while shooting down SWAT team members and other helicopters . All the while, the SWAT team demands that the Saints surrender, but not without signing their guns. It only escalates from there, though the fame of the Saints is downplayed more over the course of the game, their public image addressed in only a few missions and throwaway lines.

But, I'm sure you're wondering how it plays. Well, it's very similar to the last game in actual gameplay, though the controls have been remapped a bit and the aiming feels a little looser. That may actually be a result of the frame rate, though.

The trimmings of combat have been altered: gone are fighting styles, but heavy, barehanded melee attacks now provoke beatdown sequences. These are accompanied with pseudo-quick time events that increase the Respect—which is used to earn upgrades from an extensive upgrade tree, all of which have the additional cost of cash money—gained from the beatdown, but apparently not its damage. Further, these can't be used against the major new enemy type: Brutes. They're massive, thuggish men who take an obscene amount of punishment, shrug off bullets, and knock you around like a rag doll. Some are outfitted with Gatling guns or flamethrowers, the latter of which are probably the most frustrating enemies in the game, though the Brutes in general simply aren't fun to combat. Since they soak up damage like sponges, only a few of the game's varied weapons actually have a noticeable effect on them other than to bring their life bars down.

That selection of weapons is, by and large, the game's bread and butter. While there are the standard pistols, assault rifles, and shotguns of any good shooter, the special weapons are where Saints Row: The Third truly goes for the absurd. Reaper drones, mind-control squid launchers, a baseball-bat-sized purple "marital aid," and a sonic blaster are just what immediately come to mind. The last, in particular, if charged up, disintegrates enemies immediately in a burst of blood. When the military shows up partway through the game, they bring with them additional vehicles, including a number of VTOL aircraft and powerful tanks that players can hijack and joyride, all of which control tightly (unrealistically so, but that's to the game's benefit).

The side-missions, on the other hand, seem to have been pared back from previous entries. While there are some truly standout concepts in the main story arc (http://deckers.die and Murderbrawl XXXI are personal favorites), most of the other activities just task players with driving to a location and shooting some people. Sometimes the people come to you, instead. Also, when the game first gives the impression that it's opening up, it takes the opportunity to introduce you to its entire retinue of side-missions, few of which are of any lasting value (though Mayhem missions return and Trail Blazing is a blast, as is Dr. Genki's Super Ethical Reality Climax, a game show that involves shooting mascots and avoiding flames and electricity).

All of this is powered by a new engine that looks, for lack of a better term, glossy. It's a good thing, in that the graphics have character and don't appear overly staid, and the darker color palette of Steelport feels appropriate (though the crumpling effect on damaged vehicles is a little hit-or-miss.) But the engine sometimes seemed to be too much for the hardware to handle. On the Xbox 360, at least, the game would consistently chug when driving at high speeds, never to the point where it seriously affected gameplay, but it became apparent during less visually demanding sequences, when the game's frame rate spiked, that aiming was definitely affected by a sort of visual lag.

Sound-wise, stuff blows up well and gunfire is satisfying; melee attacks have a meaty crunch to them, to the point where it can draw a wince when the protagonist delivers a particularly deadly soccer kick to a downed enemy's head. The soundtrack is mostly composed of licensed music, all found on the radio except during specific mission sequences that just seem to call for a certain song. At those times, the developer's choices generally adhere to the title's absurdist nature. Joe Esposito's "You're The Best" while chainsawing through hordes of Mexican wrestlers at a pay-per-view event? Very Saints Row.

Lastly, there are the multiplayer options. No competitive play, here, unless leaderboards count. The Whored mode offers wave-based enemy slaying, but it feels pretty bare when compared to the tower defense-infused Horde mode in Gears of War 3. It's good for a laugh or two, though. The crux of multiplayer in Saints Row: The Third, however, is its co-op campaign. Besides being jump-in/jump-out, and allowing players to bring their own characters along for the ride, it consists of the entire single-player campaign, played with a partner. Players aren't forced to stick together, able to go wherever they wish in the open world, though they are given the option to tackle missions together when one player activates them. It's a lot of fun to just run around with a buddy and wreak unchecked mayhem and destruction. Or, you know, play through the missions.

Legend of Grimrock Review

System: PC
Dev: Almost Human
Pub: Almost Human
Release: April 11, 2012
Players: 1
Screen Resolution: 480p-1080p

A Legendary Effort
by MDP

Legend of Grimrock was one of the first brand new titles announced on Good Old Games when the digital distribution site decided to extend itself beyond merely the classic titles of yore and into the modern era. While more recent games were announced, Legend of Grimrock was something I had never seen before. A first-person, four-character-party, tile-based dungeon crawler with slick production values, Legend of Grimrock was made by a team of only four people, based out of Finland. And, while the Norse may have the greatest claim to metal music, of which legendary beasts and fantastic legends are often a key component, the Finnish, too, are a people of Scandinavia.

Perhaps that is why, in Legend of Grimrock, the monster design was the first thing to strike me. It's what made me want the game, actually. From overgrown bipedal fungi to charging trolls and armored spear- or bow-wielding skeletons, this is a game where even the initial enemies it throws at you are intimidating to encounter. They take more than just a few hits to bring down, too, necessitating that one learn the combat system sooner rather than later, especially by the third level or so when fast-moving spiders become the enemy du jour and being swarmed becomes a very real danger.

The enemy designs are extremely detailed and beautifully animated, such that, even with their tile-based movement, they really seem to come to life and pop off the screen. Most of that comes down to their texture, which has a quality almost like that of the sort of rubber monster suits one might see in an old horror film, providing the sense that these are things that really could be standing there in front of you. Somehow, though, they don't come across as campy. It's a bit disappointing, then, that the dungeon looks fairly uniform, with pretty much the same wall texture pasted all over the dungeon with only minor variations as necessary to outline hidden buttons, or to provide a space for an object to rest.

The puzzles one encounters, on the other hand, have a good deal more range, from the basic "find the hidden button" trope to mazes of teleporters. One particularly difficult one comes to mind, involving a pair of teleporters that rotate around a central tile, which contains a drop down to the floor below (surely the most common of traps in the game). The door is straight across from where you begin, and the pressure plate required to open it is in the corner next to it, but the way from the tile with the button to the one with the door is blocked by an impassable grate. It required knowledge of both the game's mechanics (which were blessedly introduced intelligently in the beginning) to solve, but the "aha" moment was a powerful one and definitely to the designers' credit. It's a game that's good about hinting, but doesn't feel the need to spell your next step out for you, leading to experimentation and trial and error, generally without becoming trying or monotonous over extended play sessions. That isn't to say that extended play sessions won't be stressful, but that has to do with the game's atmosphere rather than any flaws in its gameplay.

It pays to remember that Grimrock is an RPG, and so has most of the trappings one would expect therein. Characters have classes that grant them distinct skills and, when they level up, they have the opportunity to put points into these skills. This can grant a warrior new attacks or the ability to wear heavier armor without penalty, while a rogue might learn how to strike from the back row or deal more damage from behind and the magic-user gains the ability to use more powerful spells in different elemental schools. This is all in addition to the stat increases peppered throughout every skill tree. Characters may also choose a few traits at character creation that affect them in more unique ways, such as one that increased a character's attack power for every skull they are holding (skulls can be found on the ground, sometimes, though they're rare enough to keep this from being a game-breaking ability). Though there are only three classes, the race one chooses also has benefits, and there are some esoteric options (insectoids, for example). But, if you don't feel like taking the time to make your own party of four prisoners, Grimrock lets you take the default party of two warriors, a rogue, and a sorcerer. Well-balanced and fairly functional.

The story of Legend of Grimrock is fairly unobtrusive, mostly disappearing after you're first cast into the dungeon (absolved of your crimes in the process, though getting out is entirely on you). Rather than climbing to the top of a tower, you're working your way down from the top level of the complex to its ground floor, slaying monsters and solving puzzles the whole way. There are, occasionally, hints from another adventurer who preceded you, as well as some equipment he decided to leave around for various reasons. The second half of the game introduces some surprisingly jarring plot twists that really take the game in a different direction than one would expect, shifting the focus from pure escape into something perhaps a bit more noble and far-reaching. I don't want to spoil too much, in this capacity, so we'll suffice to say that the story will often be out of your mind, leaving you free to contemplate the dungeon's creepy atmosphere. This atmosphere can be enhanced if one opts out of seeing damage numbers, making it ambiguous how much effect one is actually having on enemies, or turn off the game's auto-map, putting the onus on the player to memorize the layout or craft their own map, which makes getting lost a frighteningly real prospect.

This isn't to say that Grimrock is without flaws. While the combat is relatively intuitive, its interface is mouse-driven and can get a little too hectic for what it is, especially when you're managing a spell-caster, since spells are cast by selecting from a grid of nine runes. The rune combinations must be punched in anew each time, requiring that a player memorize their favorite spells for repeated use, such that, especially in the early game, most will probably find themselves falling back on the same one-rune spell in combat over and over again for expediency's sake. That you can't see the amount of mana you have remaining while casting is also an issue, and managing the inventory at all during combat is pretty much impossible, since it doesn't pause the game when you open a character's backpack.

These are fairly minor nitpicks, though, especially since Legend of Grimrock is not a combat-focused game, and even its combat is more puzzle-like than anything else. The focus is on atmosphere and brain-teasers, both of which the game pulls off with absolute aplomb and unbelievably slick production, to the point where one can almost smell the grime and mold on the dungeon's walls. It's a tense and enjoyable throwback to a type of game that seemed to have long since faded from view.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition Review

System: PC, Xbox 360*
Dev: CD Projekt RED
Pub: Atari, Warner Bros.
Release: April 17, 2012
Players: 1
Screen Resolution: 480p-1080p	Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs

A Worthy Remake
by MDP

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings was a great game that didn't get the sort of recognition it could have because it was a PC exclusive. However, now the game gets to show itself off to console gamers with The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition. Does the game still appeal to the console crowd, or does its PC pedigree alienate it from other AAA console blockbusters?

Not much has changed in the Enhanced Edition. In fact, if you've never heard of The Witcher 2 before,In terms of core gameplay and story, the Enhanced Edition is nearly identical. It's a rich, forty-to-sixty-hour experience with a large number of meaningful gameplay choices that make each playthrough different. You'll enjoy the game's crafting system, character development, and story, and you'll spend hours searching for loot just to outfit the perfect character. It's dark, it's controversial, and it's just a well-made western RPG. Long story short, it's good.

One of the high points of The Witcher 2 on the PC was the graphics engine, and the fact that CD Projeckt got this game to run on the ancient Xbox hardware is nothing short of amazing. The Xbox version is, unfortunately, the uglier of the two versions. There is a huge loss in resolution and textures are noticeably blurry. Animations are less fluid than in the PC version, which is a problem because the PC version's animations were stiff to begin with. Nowhere can this be seen more than in the facial animations. It may just be that the game is showing its year-old age, but character movements strike me as some of the worst of any current day AAA Xbox title. It doesn't really ruin the game, but it does take you out of the experience at times.

Luckily, much of the rest of the game is still incredibly pretty. Environments, though less detailed than the PC version's, are still absolutely gorgeous. The lighting effects are noticeably turned down, but they are still more impressive than most other games on the console. Characters models are incredibly intricate, right down to tiny chinks in individual soldiers' armor. Once again, while the textures are certainly blurrier and there's noticeable graphical loss, the attention to detail is still there. Compare Enhanced Edition to any other recent Xbox 360 RPG. It's still prettier than Dragon Age II or Fallout: New Vegas, and I'd even say it gives Mass Effect a run for its money.

The gameplay hasn't changed much though. Granted, the game has been altered to fit a controller rather than a keyboard and mouse, but this actually doesn't affect much of the core gameplay. Sure, it means certain things, like quick-saving, require a finicky amount of menu traversal, but you can still attack and cast spells at the push of a button. In fact, I'd say that the controller-based control scheme makes certain things feel more natural. Movement, for example.

And speaking of saving, auto-saves seem to be much less frequent in Enhanced Edition than they were in the original Witcher 2. They are awkwardly spaced at best and unreliable at worst. This can be alleviated with saving your game early and often, but this feels like a chore due to the game's menu system. Still, it's better than the alternative: replaying hours of progress because the game didn't feel like what you did was important enough to auto-save.

Using a controller to manage your items and equipment is, unfortunately, rather infuriating. Your inventory gets clogged quickly, and while the PC version allows you to manage everything in a few short clicks, you'll be doing the menu dance for a while in Enhanced Edition. Of course, then you find a new item of some sort and you have to do it all over again. The game introduces a new way to store your items, and this is certainly an improvement over the original PC version, but it's still more finicky than I would have liked.

A new tutorial has been added to The Witcher 2 since its original PC release, and it feels like it was designed specifically for the modern console market. Unfortunately, it's not enough to help out most people. Slip up once and you'll die before you even realize what's happening. Enhanced Edition is still unforgiving in its difficulty curve, just like the original. As it stands, the tutorial just serves to break up the intro to the game, and, as a result, it feels kind of out of place.

Enhanced Edition is on the level of Dark Souls and Demon's Souls in terms of its difficulty, much like the original. However, I never seemed to notice when I was playing on my PC. The control scheme for the console version isn't bad, but it is easier to find yourself messing up when using a controller, as opposed to the precision of a keyboard and mouse. This will make you feel as if you are fumbling into death on more than one occasion, but it's a frustration that soon passes.

However, the real reason to get Enhanced Edition is all the additional content. In a way, Enhanced Edition is like a Game of the Year edition and a mini-sequel at the same time. It includes all previously launched DLC for the Witcher 2, and that's quite an impressive catalogue. It also includes an arena combat mode, which does away with much of the story and simply asks you to survive wave after wave of enemies. In terms of brand new content, the Witcher 2 includes a brand new CGI intro, and many between-chapter cinematics that flesh out the story. There is also a ton of new end-game content that fits in with the existing game quite nicely, and the ending drops hints about what we might be able to look forward to in The Witcher 3, should it ever come to pass.

Should you buy the Enhanced Edition if you have already purchased The Witcher 2? That's a tough question. The additional content is appealing. If you haven't played the Witcher 2 yet, then Enhanced Edition is a definite must-buy. The Witcher 2 was one of the best western RPGs on the PC last year, and the Enhanced Edition just gives you more content while opening up the game to the console masses. However, you simply can't deny that it pales in comparison to the PC version in many ways. If you are a dedicated PC gamer, get The Witcher 2 on PC, which includes all of the Enhanced Edition content in a free patch anyway. Otherwise, pick up the Enhanced Edition on your 360.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Review

System: PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Dev: Bethesda Games Studios
Pub: Bethesda Games Studios
Release: November 11, 2011
Players: 1
Screen Resolution: 480p-1080p	Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol

 


Exit Oblivion, Enter The Dragons

by MDP

As incredible as The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was in 2006, it hasn't aged well. While it's still capable of hooking players into tens of hours of questing, it looks terrible, it crashes periodically, its load times are excruciating, and its combat is lame.

An update is due, and Bethesda didn't drop the ball when it came to Oblivion's successor, Skyrim. Every aspect of the game is improved, and while some areas fare better than others, there is no way to start playing Skyrim without being sucked into a massive, epic adventure that consumes weeks of your time. Even at full price, Skyrim is a steal.

When you begin Skyrim, the first thing you will notice is that the new engine works wonders. This doesn't look like, say, Battlefield 3—there's no way a game this big could have that much detail—but it looks good, especially when you stare into the distance outdoors, and exploring the vast world that confronts you is a pleasure. The new graphical capabilities are especially noticeable when you talk to people; the camera no longer zooms in to reveal every awkward imperfection in the character models, and the lip-syncing has improved tenfold. The third-person view is actually usable, though it's still not the best way to play. And while it's probably not fair for me to compare load times—I played Oblivion on Xbox 360 from a disc, and Skyrim from a PC hard drive—I found traveling a lot more fun and less time consuming in Skyrim.

A huge and pretty world is nothing without a story big enough to fill it, and Skyrim's plot, set 200 years after the events of Oblivion, is suitably epic. At the outset, you're a captive—just as you were in Oblivion—and just as you're about to be decapitated, a dragon attacks, giving you an opportunity to escape. It turns out that dragons are coming back from the dead, and you, as a "Dragonborn," are one of the few people who are able to kill them.

The dragons are somewhat like Oblivion Gates—a recurring battle that appears across the land and rewards you handsomely when you win. Dragons are hardy but very beatable foes; even a melee-focused character can take one down, since they land on the ground frequently. Not only are dragon parts valuable, but you absorb some of each beast's essence, which improves your capacity to learn "shouts," special abilities that include everything from attacks to a fast sprint.

They are also like Oblivion Gates in that while they're the main focus of the plot, they are a very, very small part of the game as a whole. Like its predecessor, Skyrim takes a "play it your way" approach—you can rush through the story missions if you want, but you can also join guilds, perform random tasks for countless people in each town, raid dungeons, explore the huge territory you're given access to, or just walk around talking to everyone to learn their stories. The more you play different parts of the game, the more your character improves in those ways—basically customizing himself to your play style. If you don't feel like working your way into a certain guild, fine, don't bother. If you're like me and think the "crafting" system is boring—all it entails is bringing items to a crafting station and pressing a button to finish the job—just ignore it unless you have a weapon you really want to improve. On the other hand, if you finish all of Skyrim's content and want to keep going, the game offers an unlimited supply of simple, procedurally generated quests. In other words, Skyrim is carefully designed to let you do whatever you want without hitting roadblocks or running out of things to do.

The system governing character improvement has been overhauled for the better. Oblivion was overly complicated, with too many abilities that were grouped into too many different categories. With Skyrim, by contrast, you make two simple choices whenever you level up: You increase your health, your magicka, or your stamina, and you choose a perk that improves a more specific ability. As in most RPGs, players will probably find it most effective to specialize in a few areas rather than trying to level everything up evenly. I found it worked well to make myself incredibly lethal with one-handed weapons while also improving my blocking and healing.

The combat has been improved, too, though it's still by far the weakest element of the game. Health regenerates, so you no longer have to rest for an hour every time you get away from your foes. You can equip whatever you want to your hands, but magic spells occupy a slot—meaning that you can dual wield, but you can no longer, for example, cast a healing spell while holding a shield and sword. Fortunately, you can set the weapons and spells you use most frequently to your "Favorites" and switch between them quickly, so it's still possible to cast a quick spell in the middle of an intense fighting match. Bows and arrows are much easier to use. And the combat has taken a grisly visual turn, with much more blood and even a "kill cam" that zooms out to show you exactly how brutally you're taking out some of the enemies.

However, the combat hasn't really gotten any more visceral or kinetic—you'll still feel like you're awkwardly timing button presses rather than tactically administering harsh punishment. It's still a matter of figuring out what combination of blows, magic spells, power hits, strafing, dodging, and blocking is the best way to kill off a certain enemy. And there are still very few memorable boss fights; the dragons are powerful and visually impressive, but even they don't require very much strategy or pattern memorization. When the game throws a foe at you who's a little too much to handle—which it does from time to time, despite scaling to level—you might resort to dropping the difficulty or abusing the quicksave feature.

There are other beneficial tweaks as well. Weapons and armor no longer degrade, which eliminates one of the more pointlessly fiddly elements of Oblivion. Merchants run out of money, which is more realistic but also more frustrating than the previous system. The lock picking has been replaced by the system from Fallout 3; you rotate a pick in the lock and try to force it rather than hitting tumblers and timing a button press. You can now end a conversation whenever you want, instead of navigating through the menu until the end.

The controls work quite well on PC—the Favorites system in particular allows you to do exactly what you want, when you want to do it. My only real complaint is that sometimes, clicking just off to the side of a menu item can close a conversation. And the sound is up to the series' standards—you'll hear lots of familiar music and noises, with some new material thrown in, and the voice acting is a definite step up from Oblivion.

Basically, if you're even slightly interested in RPGs, Skyrim is a must-buy. More than any game before it, it manages to be exactly what you want it to be—it can be a tight and well-told story, an epic and wandering adventure, a hack-and-slash, a first-person brawler, a magical quest, or, most likely, a customized blend of all that. No matter how you play, it will consume your gaming hours for weeks at a time. The process of exploring the world, improving your character, killing dragons, and raiding dungeons has never been so expansive, or so addictive. There's no way to tell whether Skyrim will look better in 2016 than Oblivion does today, but right here in 2011, it's one of the best video games in existence.

Crysis 3 Preview

System: PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Dev: Crytek Frankfurt
Pub: Electronic Arts
Release: Q2 2013
Players: 1
Screen Resolution: 480p-1080p

Take A Bow
MDP

The original Crysis was a technical showcase for the CryENGINE 2 when it launched on PC in 2007. At the time, it set the benchmark for high-end graphics, demanding a beastly machine to be seen at its absolute best. Even today, it can make a computer that's less-than-top-of-the-line stutter when the visuals are ramped up to full, but the result is certainly still respectable from an aesthetic standpoint. Besides its technical acumen, though, Crysis was also a better-than-competent shooter, especially in its early going when players were stalking North Korean forces in the jungles of the Lingshan Islands.

Later in the game, this gave way to awkward battles with hovering alien squids in a barren, icy wasteland, but the initial freedom of the game was a tremendous high point. Yes, it had a definite plot that pulled you on a fairly linear path through the island, but how you got to your destination was up to you, with the nanosuit's abilities providing options for stealth as well as full-frontal assaults and speedy retreats.

Crysis 2, set in New York, was smart enough to replace alien squids with bipedal forces via humanoid exoskeletons, but was far more limited on exploration, forcing players down a comparatively narrow path in the streets of the city and across its rooftops rather than the free-ranging jungles of the first game. That said, it provided impressive verticality and definitely a more powerful sense of place than the first game's generic jungle island.

Crysis 3, though, is aiming for the best of both worlds. Set twenty years after the previous game, in 2047, New York has been encased in a "nanodome," which supposedly serves to cleanse the air of the last remaining spores from the Manhattan Virus the Ceph unleashed on the city in Crysis 2. It's, in essence, a massive greenhouse that accelerates the growth of the flora within, such that what was once a concrete jungle is now a literal one. Also, it has sections of canyon and swamp, among other climes. Early gameplay footage has shown that the Ceph are still present, still a threat, with Prophet (yes, the player is apparently Prophet, in some way or another) shown hunting them in mixed jungle/urban environments, taking them out with powerful new projectile weapons (such as the Typhoon, which fires five hundred rounds per second) and what appear to be bloodier, more violent stealth kills.

Of course, the iconic image for Crysis 3, the one that first revealed its existence to the world, is of the nanosuit-wearing Prophet wielding a high-tech bow and arrow. In footage released by Crytek and EA, Prophet has been shown with the bow folded, snapping it out to full length before loosing arrows with it. One can't help but wonder in what ways Crytek will encourage the use of the bow, which will by necessity fire far slower than the guns players find lying around, and the Ceph weaponry they can employ for limited periods. Perhaps we'll see a variety of arrows, serving numerous purposes and making the bow a more versatile tool than a mere weapon.

It's also possible that Crysis 3 will aim for a more survival-focused style of gameplay, with reduced access to weapons and ammunition, thus increasing one's dependence on stealth, melee, and weapons with recoverable ammunition (it's certainly possible that fired arrows will be recoverable). Structuring the game as such would run counter to its sandbox sensibilities, reducing player options rather than expanding them, but Crytek has already demonstrated that a tighter experience can still offer freedom in approach while providing the player with enough direction to keep them engaged.

The nanosuit, though, is still all about providing options. In addition to its familiar abilities, Crytek has unveiled a new ability (there may be more waiting in the wings) that allows Prophet to hack enemy devices such as turrets. As of now, there's no minigame or test tied to this—it's simply something that Prophet can activate and take advantage of to turn weapons against enemies—but it will certainly help him deal with some of the new enemy types.

The Ceph Scorcher, a creature in what appears to be a morphable exoskeleton, and Seekers, which are unarmed-yet-far-from-harmless hovering probes, make their debut in Crysis 3's semi-urban sprawl. The former are slithering monsters capable of popping up on four legs to chase you down, while the latter possesses the unsettling ability to deactivate your cloak, making what had been a surefire escape route in previous games far from perfect in this one. It's always a pleasure to see a company take steps to balance out gameplay and ratchet up the tension.

And, really, that's what I think everyone wants to see from Crysis 3, and perhaps the real purpose of hyping the bow as the poster weapon for the game. When people think of bows, they generally associate it with hunting and subsistence living. A sandbox shooter with engaging survival elements, one that doesn't depend on railroading a player along to impose its tension upon them—that's what I'd like to see out of Crysis 3, and what I hope Crytek is aiming to provide.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Review

System: PC*, PS3, Xbox 360
Dev: 38 Studios, Big Huge Games
Pub: 38 Studios, Electronic Arts
Release: February 7, 2012
Players: 1
Screen Resolution: 480p-1080p	Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Suggestive Themes

It Looks Great, And Feels Even Better.
by MDP

The RPG genre has its major players—Bethesda, BioWare, and the like—with big ticket entries saturating the media and intimidating smaller scale developers. What typically spawns from the lesser-known studios either flops from poor execution or is clever in design but lacking in content. But every so often we are welcomed by a new studio with the mindset of making a game fun first, which then tackles the technical. The company in this case is 38 Studios, founded by former MLB pitcher Curt Schilling, who has enough personal resources to put together a game he'd enjoy playing.

Sparing little expense, Schilling enlisted fantasy author R.A. Salvatore and cartoonist Todd McFarlane, both giants in their respective fields. Schilling also purchased developer Big Huge Games, which was set to be cut by THQ, forming a capable team, along with designer Ken Rolston, to create the world of Amalur. Their first product, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a deep single-player fantasy RPG with a heavy, action-based combat system, a gorgeous world ripe for exploration, and an open class system sure to have every RPG fan praising the heavens.

The story revolves around the Crystal War in a tiny fraction of the ten-thousand-year history created for Amalur, where a dark Fae cult called the Tuatha threatens the land. A casualty of war, your body has been transported to a gnome-run facility in the far west, which houses the Well of Souls, an apparatus designed to resurrect the fallen. The Well has failed in every attempt to bring a soul back. Until you arrived, that is.

Your unique 'rebirth' breaks the link between you and your destiny, much to your advantage. Thus the game features a Destiny system that works in tandem with its open class design. Instead of choosing a class right from the start, you'll earn points as you level up to place into the skill trees of either Might, Finesse, or Sorcery, building a warrior, thief, or mage type, respectively. Points can be placed wherever you like, so if you prefer ice spells but also want to cleave enemies with a massive greatsword, or pickpocket an unsuspecting Tuatha and then smash him with a mighty hammer, you are afforded that luxury. As you invest in particular trees, you will unlock new destiny cards that give your particular skill set a class name, but also award you with boosted statistics and special abilities.

Non-combat skills are also included, with blacksmithing, lockpicking, alchemy, and mercantile, just to name a few. You are granted a single point at each new level to place into one of these skills, and each can be improved ten times. There are also trainers who can upgrade your skills, albeit for a hefty price.

But if after a hundred hours of playing a pure fighter you decide you want to try your hand at spellcasting, don't fret. NPCs called Fateweavers will (for a price) reset both your combat and non-combat skills, allowing you to completely re-customize your character.

The combination of skills is impressive, and, from your first to your millionth foray into battle, you're probably not going to get tired of it. That's because unlike many other fantasy role-playing games, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning delivers possibly the most addictive action combat yet. Dodging and blocking, timing your attacks, and learning each enemy's tactics require a quick mind and quick hands. Perfectly mapped actions mean you can switch between primary and secondary weapons, bash with your shield, launch a meteor storm, and drink a healing potion without having to pause or enter any menu screens. But the fluidity does nothing to diminish the intensity, as you'll often find yourself flanked and overwhelmed by monstrous foes. The killer move occurs when your fate bar becomes full, allowing you to enter Reckoning mode. Here, time slows and your attacks strengthen, climaxing to a random but thoroughly satisfying finishing move called a Fateshift, which also bears additional experience points.

Although the combat truly shines brighter than any other RPG in the past, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is still an immensely robust adventure with hundreds of hours of content. Considered an open world experience, Reckoning is more bound to parameters than you'd think. You won't be able to, for instance, finish the tutorial dungeon and immediately set your auto-run to the other end of the continent. Instead, each zone is contained, with a few narrow paths leading to adjoining areas. However, each of these zones is a relatively circular free-roaming environment, so you'll never feel like you're being guided down a narrow corridor. Within each region you'll find many towns, or perhaps a city, each offering you a place to relax, shop, ply your trade, or take up a plethora of quests. While some will inevitably feel like fetch or kill quests, there's enough lure and promise of rewards to keep you interested in every one.

But Kingdoms of Amalur does falter when it comes to story and the characters, and does so in many respects. Despite Salvatore's "creation" of Amalur through written lore, the scripting and execution of conversations feel disjointed. Every plot character you talk to will discuss your topics at length, but the discussion is completely one-sided as you have no opinion, save for a sporadic reply at times to indicate agreement or disagreement. And even then, neither choice has dire consequences or sends the plot in a new direction. The voice acting only accentuates this flaw, where again we have a world full of vibrant and opinionated characters (which thankfully lacks redundancy in the casting), and yet the most important character—you—is a mute.

But not only that, while the NPCs spill their praise or disdain with vocal and physical inflections, your stature remains neutral, with a rigid composure and vacant expression. This lack of connection to the character you're following for possibly hundreds of hours completely removes any amity you feel towards his or her pursuit. There is also no companion system, save for an odd quest where the computer-controlled ally tackles a dungeon alongside you for their own inscrutable purposes and then promptly bids you adieu. The lack of a fellowship gives us no diversity in attitudes, no long-term characters we can grow affection for, and a solo campaign that has you moving from quest to quest feeling like little more than an errand boy (or girl).

The rest of the music and sound blend perfectly with the world. The score fills the background ambience without being too intrusive, and the bass and percussion pick up nicely during boss fights and more intense scenes. Every strike, no matter which weapon you're using, resounds with perfect weight, and you'll never feel shortchanged as you slash, incinerate, or pummel your enemies to a pulp.

The world of Amalur looks absolutely gorgeous, whether you're traversing a lush forest or a barren wasteland, it's just plain beautiful. It's a welcome change compared to more recent RPGs that lean towards the realism, which often means tons of gray. It seems like 38 Studios made an effort to use every bold color in the spectrum, and things just pop as a result. The crafting of the enemies is also top-notch, and each has such a distinctive look and presence that you'll never grow bored hacking your adversaries to bits. The fine detailing is where the graphics seem to lessen in quality, especially obvious in the character models when having a conversation. The facial design matches the overall aesthetic of the game, but you certainly won't spot wrinkles, freckles, and other minutia that would give believability to the world's inhabitants.

While not the first game to be called a hybrid of action and RPG, it certainly is the hallmark of the former, with the robust content that's generally expected of the latter. If you were hoping to be connected to the characters like you did in some of R.A. Salvatore's great fantasy novels, you will undoubtedly be disappointed. But Amalur is still a beautiful and immense world with plenty of secrets to discover and combat that is ceaselessly satisfying.