Games to Play Before the World “Ends”:
“An in depth review of 5 anticipated sequels of 2012”
By: Erik Koby
Video games represent a new level of interactive entertainment mediums. Rather than simply watching a movie as a passive observer, you are immersing yourself deeper, becoming an active participant by actually playing the characters, and often times affecting the stories outcome firsthand. Much like film overtook theatre, video games seemingly may follow the same fate to become the dominant entertainment medium on the planet in the near future.
I would like to preface the following analytical review by explaining a few things: I graduated from college with a degree in theatre and film, and my senior thesis was based on the evolution of digital mediums, namely that of video games. That being said, the following is meant to inform (and possibly entertain) by means of objective analysis of both gameplay and theatrical/story based elements. These “reviews” are based on personal opinion paired with my analysis, and they do not reflect the views of GameStop, any published reviewing sources, or the developers themselves.
Warning— Any institution or person reading this review: You do not have my permission to copy, edit, save, print, or re-post without prior written or verbal consent. Any violations of such will be met with legal ramifications.
That being said, lets analyze my top 5 anticipated sequels of 2012. I chose sequels for 2 reasons:
A- That’s the reason I’m anticipating them, because I want to continue their stories.
2- Playing the previous game(s )in the series apply a perfect comparative context to judge the games growth and evolution.
So without further delay by legal mumbo jumbo and silly disclaimers; lets get this review going!
The Darkness 2
A long long time ago…in 2007:
The first darkness game was a fantastic achievement, no matter what negative reviews it may have gotten, or players who just “didn’t get it” at the time. They took a relatively “dead” (pun intended) comic and turned it into a cinematic experience which would help to shape the next gen system drop. Oddly enough it was the first game I bought for my PS3 (excluding the bundled games like Motorstorm that I would have thrown away had it not been for slow mo rag-doll crashes and explosions…in HD!).
It was the perfect demonstration of the PS3s power for me, giving me conversations with realistic facial expressions and FANTASTIC voice work, especially of that of the darkness itself which at times bordered on “I’m sleeping with the light on tonight”. The lighting was dark and edgy and I loved how the developers added subtle things like your eyes adjusting to rapid light changes. The ambiance, quiet music, and also LACK of music at times, also helped immerse me into the world especially during tense dialogue or even the loading screens, which I will talk about in a moment. I mean how often are you talking to your hitman buddies in a back alley dumping bodies into a trunk with a loud soundtrack blaring in the background? Never…You’re always as quiet as possible so the neighbors wont call the cops and then you have to make them think you’re just disposing your dead leaves…in the middle of the metropolis— but I digress.
Other great immersive points were things like having ENTIRE classic movies on a hobo’s/your girlfriend’s television. I cant tell you how long I was watching Sinatra in The Kid with the Golden Arm, AND To Kill a Mockingbird, before I realized “wait a second, I’m playing a fucking video game what the hell am I doing?” I was so sucked in, it happened TWICE. Similarly, the story helped to bring me in a lot as well. There were fantastic character relationships which brought tension to the narrative, and, once again, the voice work conveying the subtlest of emotional changes. It really helped me care about what was going on. I cared about my old auntie in her urban apartment and felt compelled to protect her (even though if I remember correctly she was packing a magnum revolver), I cared that the Darkness, MADE me watch the love of my life die before my eyes (I know she’s just a video game character but she was hot man! NOT COOL!), despite me being able to end it all right there with my badass snake tentacles of doom. Very few games have driven me to love and hate characters like this, without being so cliche that you expect all the villains to have top hats and curly mustaches, (or stroking their pu…cats in their chairs).
The other thing that really drew me into the game were the various loading screens. Everything is Jackie standing/sitting under a single light surrounded by perfect dark, and he either speaks about relevant situations, or just simply messes around with his guns. After a while these did get old and stale, especially seeing the one about “why” Jackie takes the subway rather than calling a cab, about 200 times. Despite this though, it helped the transition and immersion. You really didn’t know it was a “loading screen” until you saw it repeat itself, or you tried skipping it to see the load bar behind it. It was brilliant and kept the pacing up. I’m surprised more games don’t do this.
All of my blessings aside it did have some flaws. Combat was often times unforgiving with its difficulty curve especially if the darkness wasn’t “active”. Shooting out the lights was a pretty cool mechanic at first, making you feel like Batman, stalking and scaring the ever living shit out of your unsuspecting henchman, but after about the middle of the game it just seemed like a chore and the “light killing” abilities came in a bit late to really save that. Darkness abilities were varied even having your “Darklings,” gremlin-like servants, perform certain tasks for you. Your tentacles of doom did give you a lot of options to kill your enemies, but in reality I really didn’t use any aside from the “sneaky tentacle face muncher” ability, and the ability to generate a BLACK HOLE. I felt that, although you could use the other abilities, they really didn’t have enough “umph” to them to turn down the other two’s consistent success, or to just use your guns.
I also felt like the main character Jackie Estacado was a little “weak” in his overall scope. His voice acting, although probably better than most people trying to impersonate a New York mobster, felt a little to underplayed. He tends to whisper his lines and generally didn’t apply much inflection or emotion. His appearance didn’t help much either. He looked and sounded like a dork, not a hitman. In the comics Jackie looked intimidating even without the darkness generally looking like what you would perceive as the badass hitman (although the hair never really felt “Italian” to me, but thats a minor case). In the game he looks like a cross between Kaiser Soze and Top Dollar (from Usual Suspects and the Crow respectively). All that aside, the ending pissed me off the most because it felt really underwhelming. I understand the devs were hoping for a sequel and didn’t want to write themselves into a corner, but that doesn’t give them an excuse to purposely be vague. I’m playing a linear straightforward revenge story (with tentacles of doom), I don’t need the ending to be like Mulholland Drive and leave it up to the viewer to decide what is happening/happened.
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Almost 5 years later comes The Darkness 2, a sequel I was looking forward to since I finished the first game. A game that promises me answers, more refined gameplay, and…cell shading? Not that its a bad thing, I love comic books, and I love The Darkness comic that this entire series is based on, but we’re going from incredible cinematic visual style, to “moving comic book panels”. Although this feels like a step backwards to most (probably expecting to see “Bang and Pow” bubbles circa 1966, I actually think it may be a step forward. Cell shading will give the game’s performance a substantial boost as not rendering everything in full HD realism gives the devs more room to work with in terms of features, amount of content and of course things like “quad wielding”.
Yes, the masses learned and were inspired so much from Master Chief in Halo that “dual wielding is cool and everyone should do it” (which they prominently did, despite real world application just meaning you’re going to miss twice as often, but I digress; It looks cool and theres a lot more bullets flying).
But whats this? The Darkness developers Top Cowwere not satisfied at the trends of yesteryears, oh no no no. They spent billions of dollars in research, contacted the foremost scientists on the planet, and bribed several government officials—ok ok I’m kidding, but realistically how do we think that conversation went?
Lowly Underpaid Programmer:
So uh…since Jackie has two hands…and two monster tentacles…and um… the PS3/Xbox360 have four trigger buttons…why don’t we just make Jackie able to do 4 things at once…like “quad wielding” ya know?
Manager Desperate for a Promotion:
BRILLIANT!
Perhaps I’m being facetious, but it was inevitable that the general masses of the world would want to feel like Goro from Mortal Kombat…if he was packing heat; one day. It is an interesting mechanic though, and looks as though it gives the player much more destructive freedom. Having four options to kill your opponent with, at once, is sure to up the “bad guy’s shitting their pants in fear” ante. Along with this are new darkling abilities, like urinating acid on enemies (…weird but someone apparently gets off to it), as well as a new “leveling” mechanic to learn various skills freeing up some of the linearity. The light mechanics are also reworked so that, rather than it being a minor annoyance which scare away your little demonic tentacles of doom. (To where I never really knew? Do they hide in his Jacket? His long flowing Pantene Pro-V treated hair? Heaven forbid—his anus?)
Light is now going to act like a flash-bang grenade in most other games, blurring your vision, putting a ringing into your ears, basically giving you an even greater hatred for lightbulbs, that you start lighting your house with candles for a week. Hopefully one of the added powers is to summon your darkling to go to the local power plant dressed as a government inspector, to shut down the whole grid for a few hours, or at least until he stops hearing people screaming painful obscenities, and what not to put where, etc., a few miles in the distance
The voice work also seems vastly improved as the trailers seem to give us a more “focused and determined” Jackie. He’s on a mission and he’s against the world. Naturally he’s pissed, and along with the Mafia after him, he’s also got crazed religious zealots with too much free time on their hands, called “The Brotherhood”. Apparently this “Brotherhood” of Mutants, I mean of (“insert ambiguous ‘protect the world from the forces of evil that threaten our conservative and democratic way of life’ here;”) are well funded and equipped, going so far as to have “super flashlights” that look like bazookas, and other fun little toys which are dying to have their wielders shouting “the power of christ compels you.” That being said, they don’t look too intimidating compared to say a big italian guy with a middle name “the”, wielding a big shotgun, but the developers assure us, they will be a challenge. Maybe if I thought of Don Corleone in a pope hat…
The Darklings have been reduced to a singular, but smarter, entity, able to interact with the environment, help lead you on your journey and even be a minor character in the story, along with causing hilarious gremlin mischief (hopefully we can stop at a movie theatre along the way). Also, the environment can now be used as an advantage, with such features like “picking up a car door to use as a mobile bullet shield or using a pool cue as a shish kebab.”
These are fantastic additions, and if the story and atmosphere remain as immersive as the first, you can expect the Darkness 2, to be a definite “must have” for the story AND action oriented gamers.
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Prototype 2
Prototype—another game I felt was awesome, although in contrast to a game like The Darkness, the story really wasn’t that great. It helped move your character along, but it felt really disjointed, and having to “eat people” to learn more about what happened to you, although interesting and new, really made you even more confused about what the hell happened or was happening.
What really helped prototype shine was its gameplay, and the gameplay was amazing. Although it was competing with a similar superhero sandbox Infamous, it was kind of the opposite, but in a good way. Infamous shined with its compelling story and the growth of a character from average courier to superhero/villain. The powers were diverse and dynamic to use depending on your encounter, but really where it slowed down for me was your movement around the sandbox was a bit “slow.” It felt less like a superhero and more like “watching that punk kid on youtube about to end up in a hospital for several years while the rest of the world laughs at such darwinism-worthy stupidity.” After a while it sped up a bit with power line grinding, and limited flight. It still felt jerky, but it was still satisfying enough.
Prototype, as stated before was the opposite of Infamous, phoned in and broken up story lines were excused when you realized you could “run up the side of the empire state building to the top, jump from the tallest point onto a mobile attack helicopter, tear the pilots out, fly it into a massive group of zombie-like “infected” jump out before it hits the ground, onto a tank, which you destroy,pick up, and throw into the freshly flame eviscerated city block, and to add insult to injury and finish off any stragglers with an AOE tentacle rape; all within about 30 seconds before shapeshifting into a civilian and walking off as if nothing happened”…If those of you who never saw or played Prototype are now saying “Holy ‘destucity’ Batman”
(Yes I am aware I have now defamed Dick Grayson, one of my favorite superheroes, by making him quote someone as asinine as WWF’s Ultimate Warrior, but unfortunately there really is no way to express the sheer “WTF” that comes from seeing that in a game)
then you have demonstrated that you indeed have a pulse and like “action.”
Now, after a while, this did get repetitive and lost it charm, but it was one of those sandboxes that you could spend hours causing total chaos with your friends passing the stick every time someone died or did something horribly stupid resulting in a “forced pass” top stop the uncontrolled laughter. The environments, although mapped off an actual Manhattan street-plan, were dull at best, seeing the same basic buildings all over the place, in to be honest, quite “dull” textures which often suffered from horrible texture pop. The major attractions of New York stood out, but everywhere else was probably just copy/pasted of the same city block. The missions were also repetitive apart from the main story, and the powers although diverse in their own ways, lacked more abilities/combos and often times fell to the same syndrome of The Darkness being “why should I use this power?”. To be honest, I saw the previews for this game several years before it came out, we were still in the PS2 era at the time, albeit the end, and in hindsight it all comes out like a clear cut case of aiming too high to quick. Had there been probably at least another year of polish, rather than being so rushed, the game could have gone up several points in my book.
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Although left open for a possible sequel, I wasn’t expecting one to be honest. So when news came of Prototype 2 on my Facebook page, I was wary of what would come out. Would it be another rushed attempt to create a high octane superhero sandbox that will surely fall on its face? Well curiosity got the best of me and I watched some of the teaser trailers. To my surprise, the story seemed to take a hard turn from its predecessor.
Alex Mercer, the prototype from the first game, is now a villain. Ok, not too bad, that seems like a logical jump since when he “eats people” he takes all of their memories, and that could drive anyone insane enough to want to destroy the world. Plus it was even hinted at the end of the game that the infected are now under his control as he is the new “Alpha” in town. So far so good, a good plot to explore the character a bit more, but from an external and hopefully less disjointed perspective.
Next is a pissed off army guy (James Heller) whose family was killed in the events of the first game. Also good, for a revenge narrative, plus since we later see him as becoming a prototype himself, we will hopefully see a compelling psychological exploration of a man who became everything that he fought/hated before. Add in how he copes with his newfound powers to continue his revenge; its becomes almost Shakespearian in a way. Then we see his powers in action, which definitely look more fine tuned, and strategic for Heller than his predecessor, but also more dynamic. It’s still fast paced action packed streamlined combat, but it looks like strategy will be all the more important, making the fighting more complex and interesting, vs “DeSTROY TeH EVRYTHING!!11!1!” that the first game had.
One of these more dynamic and complex powers are the tendrils, which add a Spiderman aesthetic to the game allowing Heller abilities to snag, throw, and swing things around. Developers have also stated that Heller’s abilities will be more powerful, and more “meaningful” than his predecessor, allowing players to mutate and upgrade powers that they see fit. This gives Heller a more customizable feel; thereby, allowing players to add their own personal touches of destructive preferences to the character.
The setting also looks great, much more detail and its starting to feel like NYC, albeit divided into three zones ranging from:
“OM NOM NOM, GRRR, RAWR, and insert more creepy noises coming from creepy creatures doing creepy things here,”
TO
“Oh look Martha, all those swell monsters are coming to eat us again…guess they won’t want any of our squirrel BBQ (insert campy 1950s group laugh here followed by death gurgles)”
TO
“Daddy, theres a tank parked on top of my tricycle”
(If comedic analogy escapes you that is “infected (Red Zone)”, “slightly infected triage area (Yellow Zone)”, and “military protected (Green Zone)” respectively.)
Each zone has a unique look and feel and also unique challenges for Heller to face. Obviously the military wont look too kindly to your new super-powered web-slinging…err tendril slinging actions because “thats Un-a-Merican,” and the “Merican” way of doing things is to send a tanks and attack choppers after anyone that isn’t wearing a Giants jersey or carrying an assault rifle (or the more racially insensitive NYC version—anyone who has a beard and turban, not driving a taxi).
The infected won’t like you too much either since you just killed about 30 of their best friends while you were backflipping off the Empire state building to a power-dive to ground shockwave because 5 minutes previous to this event you bet your mortal enemy Alex Mercer a hundred bucks you were better than he was. I imagine that the conversation started like this:
Mercer: Hey you got superpowers too! Sweet! You know what would be fucking cool to try out?
Heller: ANYTHING YOU CAN DO I CAN DO BETTER!
In all seriousness however, I am definitely looking forward to this game. If not for the fun and crazy over the top action that the first game provided, then at least to see how the world has progressed in the 14 months since the first game ended.
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Bioshock Infinite
Bioshock. Although a dumbed down version of System Shock for the console crowd, still ranks in my top games of all time list (probably number 2 or 3 depending on my mood). Everything about this game was atmospheric imaginative, and had one of the best “villains” I’ve ever encountered in the form of Andrew Ryan. For those of you who never played this gem PLAY IT, then pick up Bioshock Infiniteafterwards.
Bioshock is a game that takes place in the 1960s in an underwater art-deco city founded by Andrew Ryan, a brilliant industrialist who seemed to channel Orson Wells from Citizen Kane to me. The story is told through a first person perspective where you, the silent protagonist, simply just watch and listen (little to no cutscenes and audio logs telling the story of the rise and fall of the city) as the world unfolds around you, and survive the trials of danger at every turn.
Rapture, this underwater majestic city, was the perfect utopia where scientific advancement was valued higher than morality and government. Prior to your character’s arrival there was a civil war which turned this beautiful futuristic/stylistic utopia into a ghost town…underwater. Whats left behind are the various “creepy functional entities” of the city —-
Let me pause for a moment to explain an example of this:
“A young girl with glowing eyes and a creepy multi-tonal voice, stabbing a syringe into dead bodies, is being followed by a hulking “man-thing” in a diver’s suit. This hulk also has a huge drill for a hand, which still has the dried blood of the last guy who never saw Star Wars, to learn the powerful advice of “let the Wookie win”. This “Big Daddy’s” footfalls make you think of Jurassic Park while its “voice” occasionally groans like a submarine adjusting to the pressure of a deep sea dive, if the submarine was alive.”
—-a few powerful, surviving, members of the utopia who have claimed territory, and the general populace who are addicted to genetically engineering themselves (subsequently driving themselves insane), called splicers.
Going through this creepy atmospheric world you are always on your toes. Combine that with hearing recorded audio journals from the (previous) residents of the city, which help establish a background to why the city is in ruin and slowly flooding, not to mention providing more of a psychological thrill. You even see ghosts at times playing out their deaths. You are definitely in for a brilliantly written and executed narrative from start to finish. If you are skeptical even after all that I have explained, all I have to say is play the first level (which is also the demo). If you are unsatisfied after that, and you’re into story driven psychological thrillers, there is something seriously wrong with you.
Naturally I went into Bioshock 2 with wild expectations, and although left a little unsatisfied, I still liked the game overall. The characters needed work and were severely underdeveloped, especially of how much they hyped up the Big Sister, which just turned out to be a new enemy type rather than an antagonist (…weak). The atmosphere was still there in a way, but it felt a little more “active” if that makes any sense. In the first game, you felt almost alone walking down the dark hallways and streets, but in the second there seems to be a lot of lighting, and a lot of enemies just walking around doing their thing. I mean I guess it was to make the city feel a little more alive, perhaps due to their new socialist-like leader trying to revive it, but I felt like the less I saw happening was more satisfying. Leaving the unknown to your imagination, as you trek on through, “alone”, really helps to set that tone that the first Bioshock helped to capture. It also helped establish that “dying-city” feel and the more “alone” you felt in this strange unforgiving environment, the more it catalyzed the adrenaline pumping feeling you got throughout the game.
Despite the lacking characters and environment, I did find the gameplay, namely the dual wielding, satisfying in this case. The dual wielding more so than the other games that have it, just to have it. Having a plasmid-power in one hand and a weapon in the other really helped open up combat and strategy for new interesting combinations and definitely upped the ante when it came to action. Take for example the battles where a horde of splicers try to attack your “little sister”, obviously not realizing you are the “Alpha Big Daddy”, the huge muscle bound monstrosity carrying a drill the size of a Volkswagen, in one hand and fire in the other. You must defend your little sister against the horde while also protecting yourself. This led to awesome trap mechanic combinations with effects like “launching an enemy into the air “covered in bees!” to quote Eddie Izzard, which could be combo’d into other traps which provided a patient player with endless enjoyment as an enemy bounced around the map getting set on fire, shocked with electricity, covered in bees, only to end his trajectory onto the tip of your giant drill.
The multiplayer was also well done in that it helped break away from that Call of Duty “shoot everything that moves”, and “my kill/death ratio is what proves how much of a man I am” mentalities. Bioshock 2 multiplayer required planning and analysis. What plasmid-powers to use, what weapons do I use, what weapon mods do I use, what perks should I gun for, etc. There is nothing more satisfying (to me at least) than getting destroyed by a group of 12 year old punk kids who think they’re cool playing with Daddy’s game and headset, (who then proceed to “teabag” your corpse, muttering obscenities and how much of a “n00b” I am), only for them to realize that they are now flying through the air on fire and dead themselves. The obscenities continue, albeit confused, much louder, and they say they are going to report me for cheating, but wait right there my naive little gamer. I did in fact “cheat” you out of your “teabag-douche-baggery”, but not by “cheating” in the game ah ha! I just decided that I was going to hardline for a perk in the later levels, that makes my body explode a few seconds after death, thereby making my body “teabag” proof and pissing off Call of Duty fans everywhere because they couldn’t show off their ” alpha male prowess that defines their destiny in life”, without dying shortly after. I however, digress.
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Then one day I was browsing the internet with a few friends and came across a Bioshock Infinite trailer and a 15 minutes of gameplay trailer. Naturally I clicked both of these hoping to not get “Rick-Rolled,” and to my surprise I didn’t. The trailer starts off showing us Rapture but WAIT…its in a fish tank? That explains so much! All my questions answered! No, its just a reference to the first game… The developers have stated, story-wise this is not connected to Bioshock 1 or 2 at all. For all intents and purposes, its a whole new universe entirely, but similar.
Once the trailer picks up, this becomes more evident. We have moved away from the dark depressing atmospheric tones of Rapture into a colorful world in the sky of Colombia. To be honest, seeing all the red white and blue flags, steam punk engineering, 19th century architecture, bowl caps and handle bar mustaches, I kind of feel like I’ve fallen into a Mark Twain nightmare. Don’t get me wrong, I am thoroughly impressed by this world. We are in a floating city held in the air by huge, shifting, dirigible platforms, (which occasionally will fall out of the sky almost hitting you with a bell tower for looking at it wrong, or maybe because a pigeon landed on it and disrupted its air/weight ratio), all of which are floating above rolling hills of farm country and…whats this 2K games? Sunlight?
I am already impressed. Yes, it doesn’t have the dark horror elements that Bioshock had, but I feel like this world doesn’t need that. The steam punk politically charged Colombia around me is compelling enough to buy the game and figure out what the fuck is going on. For example: I see a woman nonchalantly sweeping the front porch of her shop that is ON FIRE, which leads me to one of two theories:
1. The political climate in this place is so tense/strong that this is a common occurrence/inevitability for some people and one should just accept it and go about their lives.
OR
B. Hellen Keller is a character in this game.
This doesn’t have to be an underwater or floating city to grab my attention. Simply seeing all the political propaganda, the steam punk structures and machinations (namely the Big Daddy-like entities), or the fact that people see falling bell towers/buildings on fire as a common occurrence; I am in a foreign enough world already. One that demands explanations. If curiosity killed the cat then you’ll probably find me crushed under the aforementioned bell tower within the first 5 minutes of the game.
As I watch the gameplay videos my take on the game shifts again. It IS a horror game, but in a different way than you would think. Rather than being in a dark foreboding environment, with creepy things sneaking around in the shadows, waiting to jump out when you least expect it, to tear your nipples off, combined with everything in sight being your enemy, this game looks at more of a social horror if that makes any sense, to which I will explain in a moment.
You are no longer a silent protagonist, but a very vocal one, as the developers have stated that Booker (your character) will vocalize his objectives adding a new guiding element to the game. Rather than people telling you what to do over a radio or meeting in person, you are now being guided by Bookers own wit and personality. If you’re concerned this will make the game too linear, don’t be, as it seems like he will lay out his options on the table seemingly deciding which to choose in his head, and the player decides from there. This may not be a new mechanic in gaming, but its definitely an interesting one.
As Booker guides Elizabeth (your damsel in distress for the evening) in this gameplay trailer we see more major differences for the franchise. Not everyone will attack you on site. You aren’t in a ruined insane utopia anymore; were in a living breathing society. Booker walks through the streets and people are going about their daily lives, although once again, in various ways that make the player feel uncomfortable being there. I see a postman about to get executed for a vague unjustified reason and you have the opportunity to stop it and stand up for him, which results in the large mob turning on you. It starts off pretty straightforward as you defend yourself, but what discomforts me is how quickly this angry mob attack escalates into a full out war-zone, where seemingly the whole city is out to kill you. There were bullets flying, explosions going off like crazy and even a fully armed (looks to even be faction oriented) airship laying down large caliber artillery fire at my location…ALL BECAUSE YOU WANTED TO SPARE AN INNOCENT MAN. Which brings me to my next topics, combat and movement.
Bioshock Infinite will DEFINITELY be about action and completely changes the way we played any of the previous games. The first thing of notice is that your powers (called vigors) are limited now. They aren’t permanent additions to your character that require energy to use, they are essentially a new weapon that requires ammo. Also your powers aren’t just limited to yourself. Elizabeth also has a lot of tricks up her sleeve, combining her unexplained powers with yours for devastating results. I watched her conjure a raincloud over a group of enemies drenching them with water as the player hit the group with the standard “shock” power creating a massive chain lightning effect killing the group. In another instance we see that Elizabeth can phase things into existence (often times various choices are also included with these options providing different benefits, but her powers are limited in their use as it seems like they are also killing her). I saw a point where Booker was fighting a group of people near a rail line, which I will explain in a moment, where Booker used a telekinesis like power to lift the group into the air and had Elizabeth phase in a train-car behind them which crushed the floating group of enemies. Already we can see LOTS of potential in both fun and creative forms of combat giving players a lot of freedom and choice on how they go about their advancement.
Next is movement. In Rapture, you really didn’t have movement options because you really didn’t need them. You were in a dark enclosed space with lots of corridors and the slower pacing helped keep the games tension going. In Colombia, you are in a massive floating city in the sky. Lots of open space and lots of ground to cover. The developers thought about this potential drawback for a while and came up with the rail system. Basically a “flexible” train system that connects the floating islands of the city together but rather than using any of the train-cars themselves, we have a handy new toy, the “hookblade” I mean the “skyhook”. Basically Booker can run and attach his skyhook to the rails and use these rails as a quick means of movement. If you can picture yourself on a roller coaster while shooting at enemies and jumping to other adjacent tracks when stopped/oncoming train-cars obstruct your path, then you’ll have a basic idea of what this new mechanic offers. After seeing it in action, I would buy the game simply for that.
The developers have definitely got an amazing marketing plan. They give me a taste of crazy over the top amazing gameplay elements, and enough intrigue from the world, that I can guarantee you I will be there for the midnight release of this game.
Halo 4
What can we say about the Halo series? The story wasn’t exactly original, the character’s weren’t really developed outside of the “testosterone addicted” demographic, and the graphics, although nice, weren’t really pushing the envelope too much. So what made Halo, namely the first one, so popular? The answer is gameplay. This was the pioneer game of what most shooters use as a format today. Recharging health, various weapons (but only carry 2 at a time), and intense firefights (that would make even the most “itchy- trigger-fingered- Patton- loving” army generals question their ammo usage) are all very much apparent in every shooter today. This combined with fast and diverse multiplayer, not only put Halo on the map, but made it the flagship of the Xbox crowd.
The story, like I said before, wasn’t original by any means, but it was fun and helped to drive the plot along. As the games progressed, I did find the story trying to branch out into more interesting directions, but it really didn’t work that well for me and each subsequent game seemed to get worse (I did not play Halo Reach however), but as the story suffered, the gameplay got better. Each successive sequel tweaked the gameplay further and added more weapons/options that definitely kept it ahead of the curve when it comes to online multiplayer shooters, only recently being surpassed by the Call of Duty/Battlefield games.
Then Bungie decided that their franchise just wasn’t holding up the way it used to and wanted to break away from Microsoft and become an independent studio. Microsoft still holds the Halo intellectual property so they created 343 Industries, a new studio which would take over the Halo franchise. Their first test of merit…remake the first Halo game in current gen HD. A year and some months later Halo Anniversary was released. To someone like me who held the first game in such a high regard in comparison to the others, the game was fantastic. It looked great, it played great, it sounded great and it gave me back the one thing I’ve been longing for, for so long, in a Halo game…my scoped Magnum.
Needless to say 343 passed their test and were given the green light by Microsoft to go ahead with Halo 4. Not much has been released on the game yet, but I imagine basic gameplay will not shift too much. 343 has said they want to add more “mystery, exploration, and discovery” as a gameplay element stating that it will be grand in scope and scale.
Story wise however, is where the fun begins for someone like me. Halo 4 is the first in a planned 3 part trilogy from the beginning rather than forcing themselves out of the corners they’ve written themselves into in previous games. The story will also focus more on the forerunners, which I thought was a much more interesting plot point than crazed aliens who hate humans because…”X.” Finally, the icing on the cake, they actually “EXPLORE THE MAIN CHARACTER.” One of the things I hated as the Halo series went on, is that everyone loves Master Chief, but really, what do you know about him? He’s a guy in badass armor? Honestly I felt like the characters from Red vs Blue were more badass and intriguing. I wanted to know this guys backstory, his motivations, the reason he fights. Master Chief always just came off as a robot with a gun to me, and I wondered how long it would take before he started asking the other marines about Sarah Conner. I would be much more attached to the series if I knew more about the Spartan program, who/what kind of guy Master Chief was before and after he got into the armor, and an overall “who is this guy?” I want to immerse myself in a character and not a walking gun. Halo 4 says they will do this, which remains to be seen, but I’m still checking it out because if they do give me the reasons I look for, to make this game all the more interesting, I will be back in the saddle for this new trilogy and prepared to probably get “tea bagged” in multiplayer quite often for the first few months.
Metal Gear Solid: Rising/Metal Gear Rising: Revengence
If you were wondering why Bioshock rated 2 or 3 in my top games of all time, its because of Metal Gear Solid taking my number 1 spot. The first in Hideo Kojima’s more cinematic approach to gaming, Metal Gear Solid blew me away on the original Playstation. Incredibly interesting and tortured characters, powerful music, a brilliantly (although at times convoluted) written story, and hours of fun involving unlockable stealth camo, explosives, and oblivious guards. In all seriousness, Metal Gear Solid is one of the few, games that has brought a manly tear to my eyes. Final Fantasy fanboys can go take a hike because I never liked FF7 that much and Aeris’ Death wasn’t really that emotional for me. Metal Gear Solid however, had a lot of emotional charge. During the deaths of each boss, where you had a “moment (no homo)” and listened to their story, you actually felt sorry for them. You knew where they were coming from and could honestly see why they took the path they did. Sniper Wolf’s death in particular was the second most powerful (no tears yet) in my opinion. The music combined with her struggling to tell Snake her story, as snow falls down around them. It was how a sad death scene should be, slow, intimate, and “cold.”
The true tearing up moment for me however, was the death of Frank Jeager, or Gray Fox. The dynamic between Snake and Fox in the game is very interesting to say the least and when Fox essentially sacrifices himself to aid Snake on his mission it ends with a powerful moment. Fox, pinned under the foot of Metal Gear, takes a moment to tell Snake
Fox: “Snake…we’re not tools of the government…or anyone else. Fighting was the only thing…the ONLY thing…I was good at. But…At least I always fought for what I believed in. Snake…Farewell. (Insert quiet strings and piano as the foot rises slowly to crush him, followed by the loud stomp and roar of the huge machine).
The emotional effects, this game had on me, aside, it also had a new interesting gameplay element at the time. Other games were focused on killing and blowing shit up, but Metal Gear Solid, like its predecessor games Metal Gear 1-2, was focused on “stealth” vs all out war. Much like reality, you would often times benefit sneaking around enemies and avoiding a fight, rather than engaging them. Your health and armor weren’t exactly “tank” worthy as a lot of other shooters had you believe, and every time a guard saw you, the base was put on alert, sending wave after wave of enemies your way, until you were killed or somewhere they couldn’t find you so they gave up. So interesting game mechanics, immersive atmosphere, story, and replay value (multiple endings/unlockables), there is no question why I feel this is my number 1 game.
That being said, I will admit the sequels left a lot to be desired story-wise. I still loved them all in their own way, but they never quite reached MGS1 for me. MGS3 came close with the death of “The Boss” reminding me a lot of Gray Fox’s death, MGS4 was also well written, but a bit convoluted trying to tie up EVERY LOOSE END, and MGS2 was well…MGS2: Nothing like a story that takes 3 or so playthroughs to understand completely, but i digress.
Gameplay wise each game got better and better in terms of its mechanics, weapons and overall play. If you were with the game since the beginning, or at least MGS2, you could adapt to the new controls, you quickly learned how the newer moves worked, and you were pretty much a pro when it came sneaking around.
However this is the point where that all goes out the window. Metal Gear Solid: Rising is basically what all the fanboys wanted since the first game. “When can we play as the Cyborg Ninja (Gray Fox),” and as much as I hate to admit it, I was in that boat too. Sneaking around all the time as Solid Snake made me think it would be nice to run around with stealth camo, a sword, the ability to block bullets with said sword, and a Mega Man gun, once in a while. My prayers were answered with Metal Gear Solid VR missions which everyone bought simply for the 3 (yes only 3) levels where you could play as the ninja. BUT you had to unlock those three levels by beating at least 70% of the dull boring and often times frustrating VR training missions before you could even play as the iconic figure, in only 3 levels, which were timed…
In hindsight, we were all ripped off, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I played those 3 missions way too much for way too long. Later on in MGS2 they toyed with us some more, giving Raiden, the new character intended to replace Snake, a sword at the end of the game only to be used roughly for about 10 minutes, but frankly…he’s no Gray Fox. MGS2 “Substance” gave us Raiden in a Gray Fox costume for VR missions (which changed nothing other than the character skin and limiting his weapons to only the sword) to which we really wanted to slap Kojima in the face so that he understands that no matter what he does, he’s not going to get us to think of Raiden as—
(Insert Metal Gear Solid 4 Raiden footage here)
Hooooooooooooollllly Shit! Tell me we get to play as him!
(No)
WHAT THE FUCK KOJIMA!
(They decide to add him as a playable hero class in multiplayer to a randomly selected character at the beginning which is almost never “you”)
Screw this, I’m done. They are never going to make a game where I can play as the badass cyborg—
(Insert trailer for MGS Rising)
…God damn it Kojima…
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Yes, our dreams have finally come true. A game totally dedicated to playing as the Cyborg Ninja. Although I’m still preparing myself for another WTF Kojima moment like only letting us play as Cyborg Raiden for the last 10 minutes of the game or something and before that point its just regular Raiden, but once again…I digress.
This game looks incredible to say the least. Its fast paced, you are acrobatic and you have a sword that cuts through anything like butter. Watching the gameplay shows even more refinement than I could have imagined, with bullet time slicing action, and precision slicing moments where Raiden carves us a nice watermelon for our enjoyment. Paired with this, is exactly what you would expect from a sword that cuts through anything, destructible environments. Everything from cutting a balcony down on unsuspecting soldiers to cutting a car like a holiday ham, both with precise destruction, and not pre-rendered damages like a car exploding in GTA when you hit it too much with something.
Then I saw the new “revenge” trailer and “revengence” storyline redesign, as the game has now moved from interqual game between games 2 and 4, to being set after the events of MGS4, and in development of Platinum Games. There are a lot of theories why the shift in story and tone from what looked to be an MGS game with a cyborg ninja, to what almost looks like a Devil May Cry game. Some claim time and money, others believe the dismemberment features that the game showcased would fall too harshly on Japanese censorship and require the game be censored. As a result, the game and story were tweaked. For example the enemies are now “inhuman cyborgs” so the cutting can remain, but a lot of the potential I saw in the first trailer seems lost. It does look like a fast paced DMC game with a cyborg nina and MGS enemy types (kind of), but overall its becoming a different game entirely. Kojima told the developers at Platinum, to keep it in the basic roots of the MGS story, but the game itself will be a spinoff taking place years after MGS4.
Despite my skepticism, I am getting this game. Why? Because time and time again I wonder what the hell Kojima is smoking when he releases features and trailers for his games. When he announced MGS3 taking place in the 60s titled “Snake Eater” and being a prequel, rather than continuing his story in MGS2, I thought he was insane, but as it turned out MGS3 is one of my top 10 rated games. When he said that MGS4 would be called “Guns of the Patriots” and sport an “Old Snake” as the protagonist, I once again wondered who had been spiking his morning coffee, but once again, great game. Bottom line is, I see a lot of crazy things that would deter me from the MGS series time and time again, but after I play through the games, much of those things are excused or actually done in such a way that I like them. Even though MGS1 was grounded in what seemed like a near future reality, with believable characters and abilities, I excused the ridiculous things that say: MGS3 threw at us…like the boss who’s power was to control “bees” (which still pisses me off). However, I felt it should be excused because the rest of the story and gameplay made up for the goofy choices. In the end, I feel like despite the crazy directions this game may take before its released, I’ll hold true to “Kojima knows what he’s doing, so you might not ‘love’ it, but you sure as hell wont ‘hate’ it.”
Even if it becomes a DMC clone…
