WET Demo (PS3)

You can tell from the title alone that “Wet” is supposed to be pure over-the-top gunwank. Okay, so maybe that’s not the first thing the title makes you think of, especially with the super-hot protagonist Rubi right next to it, but still, that’s what it’s supposed to be: a game based on the old Grindhouse style movies that used to make Quentin Tarantino have orgasms. And I’ve had an interest in “Wet” since I found out not only that, but that the game mixes acrobatics, gunplay and swords.

And the demo managed to make me lose a lot of my excitement. I’m not wet anymore, just slightly damp.

(har har fucking har)

The demo opens with Rubi spying on a meeting wherein one of the participants, Simmons, has a case that belongs to her, as she subtly tells us while pretending to talk to herself. She literally crashes into the party through the glass ceiling and a tutorial starts.

First thing I noticed: unless she’s sliding across the floor, somersaulting or running on walls, Rubi’s shooting sucks. You’d think doing any of that would make her aim worse, but strangely if she’s standing still her gun might as well shoot feathers. However, start hopping around and not only she shoots quicker (while in slow-motion, paradoxically), she draws another gun that aims automatically. The message is clear: fuck strategy. Your job is to kill people as stylishly as possible. I can dig that. Or I could, if it was well-done.

Remember “Stranglehold”? It suffered from a shitty story, uneven gameplay and several little problems that added up to an irregular game — one of the things that bothered me was the enemies’ death animations. You shot them in the face and they’d clutch their throats, or their eyes (despite the bullet hole being quite visibly on their foreheads) and take half a minute to drop dead. In “Wet”, the death animations are also problematic. The physics are badly-implemented. Enemies don’t seem to have any weight. As opposed to say, the exceptional “Call Of Juarez: Bound In Blood”, enemies in “Wet” react exaggeratedly to gunshots (which is perfectly acceptable considering this game is a homage to the grindhouse style), but the physics make them flop like they’re made out of paper.

What’s more, enemies get drenched in blood as soon as they die. This transition is not done smoothly. Shoot them and they’ll look pristine until the moment their health runs out, and suddenly they look like an extra from a George Romero film. In fact, blood is, ironically, another problem in “Wet” — it splatters on walls, but the blood spurt from the gunshots is underwhelming (when the grindhouse style dictates it has to be exactly the opposite) and your guns seem to have very little impact on the enemy.

The swordplay is very simple: press square until everything dies. Again, though, the physics get in the way and the dismemberment seems like an afterthought, considering all I could hack off were forearms.

There are also some arcadey elements that simply didn’t ring well with me, like a set piece where you have to close three “spawn doors” (doors that, if not closed, will keep vomiting enemies at you) to get past an area and keep chasing the asshole who has your case.

But the worst part of the demo is, easily, the one that showcases Rubi during pissed-off-mode or whatever it’s called. Maybe, considering the title, pre-menstrual tension mode, but I might be murdered by feminists if I insist on that. The whole screen is drenched in shades of red and the only white thing is the blood. It is so, SO absurdly stylish it forgets to be fun — all you’re doing is slashing at black silhouettes that spill white blood and that pause midway through their death animations and vanish into thin air. I didn’t find it visually compelling at all, let alone enough to make up for the dumbing down of the gameplay (which is normally already dumb).

Speaking of style, the developers don’t seem to have any idea how to walk the fine line between “style” and “gameplay” — “Wet” has a filter that simulates video scratches on the screen like in old films. I fail to see what that accomplishes other than making the game uglier simply to pay a dumb, obvious homage to something that isn’t even a GOOD THING. Tarantino used it in “Death Proof”, but more common-sensical than the developers of “Wet”, he used it on certain moments, not all the damn time.

And finally, we get to a highway chase where Rubi jumps from car to car chasing the one she wants. Again, the developers do an underwhelming job, with the jumping being pre-scripted and executed through those fucking quick-time events. All you can do aside from pressing buttons when prompted is aim and shoot at goons who stick their bodies out of windows WAY more than is necessary to try and shoot you. And their aim is much better than Rubi’s, whose gunplay when riding the roof of a car is just as bad as while standing still — however, leap from one car to the other and suddenly she’s Annie Oakley.

The acrobatics are a mixture of acceptable and clunky. Wall-running is definitely clunky, while sliding and jumping around are acceptable. You can shoot enemies while doing just about anything (the more complicated, the better she shoots), but for all the power your guns have, maybe it’s better to just use the acrobatics to get close to an enemy and sword him to death.

Important to say, though, that except for the awful pre-mens — pissed-off-mode sequence, all you can shoot in this demo are revolvers — which actually shoot like pistols, since they never need to be reloaded. Not that pistols have unlimited ammo, but they don’t need to be reloaded as much as re — oh, shut up, you understood. They are probably twenty-two caliber as well, considering the damage they deal.

While the graphics are decent (too much red and brown used in the color scheme, which make the violence seem tame since there is no contrast between the blood and everything else), the soundtrack is awesome. This is something they got right, the songs that play during action scenes are engaging and well-chosen.

All in all, “Wet” seems like it can be mildly enjoyable, but not the blast a title featuring swords, guns, acrobatics and hot chicks could be. Let’s see if the complete game has better things to offer.

Game Review – Infamous (PS3) and Prototype (PS3, XBOX360, PC)

Two games that are very similar in concept but very different in execution, “Infamous” and “Prototype” have been the stars of “versus” features all over the internet, trying to decide which game is better. Which I think is an exercise in utter futility, considering both games are extremely solid, ambitious and manage to deliver on their promises despite the inevitable nagging issues. This review will talk about both side by side, and there’ll obviously be comparisons, but always keeping in mind both are excellent, entertaining games.

When it comes to story, “Infamous” easily has the upper hand. Cole McGrath is a courier. One day he’s tasked with taking a package to the center of Empire City and opening it. Upon unwittingly doing so, it explodes and partially destroys the place, killing thousands of people. Cole himself, however, not only survives: he develops a variety of powers related to electricity, like shooting bursts of lightning from his hands and sliding power cables. Trying to come to terms with his new life and being used by several authority figures to achieve mysterious ends, Cole has to decide how to use his powers, and the game gives you the binary choice of being good or evil. And that’s the one glaring flaw in the game’s narrative — there’s no middle ground. You’re either child-rescuing good or child-raping evil. You choose a path and you get going, so the choices the game puts before you aren’t going to take a moment’s thought — if you’ve chosen to be evil, just take the evil route, and so on. In fact, being evil for a while then deciding to be good is not a clever call, because “good” powers and “evil” powers are different and only accessible if you’re one of either. So if you choose to be good or evil, you should keep that up all the way, because going from “Infamous” (the most villainous rank) to “Hero” looks like a lot of effort (I didn’t try it, since it seems very unrewarding).

However, once you get used to the black-and-white moral system, the story is intriguing enough to keep your attention, the dialogue is well-written and the characters, interesting and likeable despite their flaws — Zeke is a good example. An utterly selfish prick, he is however very funny and captivating in his child-like enthusiasm. And the moral system may be simplistic, but the choices you make DO affect the game’s story directly, and the way people see you and react to you. And intelligently, the writers always tell the story with a light, fantastic tone that allows for some campy elements, like monsters made out of trash and the twist in the ending of the game, which would sound ridiculous in a realistic game but in “Infamous”, fits the world established by the story.

“Prototype”, however, is about a man with no memory who is the victim of a military super-human virus and we hear his story as he tells it to us, via flashbacks. I counted three major cliches so far. This is not a game that focuses on its story, but instead, on its premise — allowing the player to control a mega-powerful superhuman in a destructible New York city full of pedestrians that apparently have ten liters of blood in their body rather than the usual five. The story is just an excuse to give you a sense of purpose as you blow up the place and cause mass murder.

The protagonist, Alex Mercer, has the obvious problem of lacking a personality. After all, while he claims to be interested in saving the city from the virus (which turns people into zombies and other types of monsters), he won’t hesitate to cause so much collateral damage I couldn’t help wondering if the virus was really the greater threat. The writers were clearly at a loss on how to portray Mercer, so they just give him a sister to care about and a sub-plot involving the recovery of his memories so he has more reasons to stop the virus, since “I want to save the world” does not fit well with a guy who can’t swing his claws without killing five pedestrians along with his intended target.

And the story itself is uninteresting and cliched, with characters you could care less about. You feel compelled to progress due to the excellent upgrade system, which offers so many new powers and moves that the next mission becomes suddenly very attractive due to the XP it will give you (or EP, Evolution Points, as the game calls them). In fact, the developers were VERY creative with Mercer’s powers, like the one were he sticks his claws into the ground and, several feet ahead, they erupt like spikes, impaling targets from the bottom-up. Not to mention he can kill and consume people to regain health and take on their appearances, a system that works quite well.

The upgrade system in “Infamous” depends a lot on your moral choices. For example, you have the power of throwing shock grenades — if you’re evil, they’ll FUCK SHIT UP upon exploding. If you’re not, the enemies knocked down by it will simply be restrained by lightning handcuffs upon hitting the floor. It has to be said the evil powers ARE more attractive than the good powers, but that’s only natural — when you play a game, it’s FUN to be evil and unwind a bit.

And the powers in “Infamous” are generally cool, but the XP system is remarkably cheap. All the game’s 40 main missions add up to 20.000 XP, which is barely enough to fully power-up your main lightning power. The game rewards you for kicking ass in style, but the rewards go from 1 XP to 20 XP, so patrolling around the city in search of enemies isn’t that attractive. And the side missions give you 100 XP each, regardless of difficulty — and some are remarkably hard, opposed to some that barely feel like a mission at all.

However, the side missions in “Infamous” are well-developed and have a quick but relevant back story to them. Pedestrians will ask you to destroy surveillance equipment in their buildings, or to recover a friend or sibling from the hands of enemies, or to disband a crowd of protesters. Every time you finish a side mission, the area it happened in is generally free of enemies spawning in it, too.

Meanwhile, the side missions in “Prototype” are more like challenges — and all of them have a time limit. They offer shitloads of XP but simply add an “arcade” aspect to the game rather than making the city feel more alive — stuff like, “kill this many enemies in this time limit”. There’s even medals. I didn’t feel like wasting my time on it, since it didn’t contribute to the story — except for the “Web Of Intrigue” side mission, that consists in finding people who are tied to the game’s main story and consuming them (and therefore, their memories), which unlocks a quick (optional) cutscene and an EP reward. And some side missions, like destroying a hive (a building infected by the virus) or a police HQ have their rewards, and sneaking into the HQ is fun due to Mercer’s powers — if you’re under disguise, you can accuse an enemy soldier of being you, and his friends will shoot the poor twat and only afterwards realize their mistake. And within HQs, there’s enemies that will offer you special skills upon being consumed, like piloting helicopters or using guns.

Yes, combat IS that diversified in “Prototype”. You can pilot tanks, APCs, helicopters, shoot machineguns, bazookas, grenade launchers, assault rifles, use five different main powers (claws, hammerfist, muscle mass, extendible tentacle and blade), two different defensive powers (armor and shield), hand-to-hand combat, grab enemies and throw them, and so on and so forth.

And in “Infamous”, it’s always related to electricity. There’s some nice melee combat, but even your blows electrify the enemy. And while blowing them up never gets old due to the nice looking visual effects — well, imagine slicing several people in half in “Prototype” with one single blow, as blood washes the sidewalk and their upper halfs shower over bewildered soon-to-have-the-same-fate pedestrians, and you’ll have to agree Cole McGrath is a bit of a pussy next to Alex Mercer. Something that is also reflected in their acrobatic skills, by the way. While McGrath jumps from ledge to ledge, surely but slowly climbing the side of a building, Alex Mercer SPRINTS THE FUCK UP THE BUILDING, somersaults upon reaching the roof and jumps again to another roof. Yeah, there is no doubt who’d win in a race, really.

But despite McGrath’s limitations, he can be powerful if the player uses his abilities strategically — like electrifying a puddle of water with enemies on it, or landing heavily from a large height on a crowd of baddies to send them flying in all directions. His health is shitty, depleting fast under fire, but his abilities can make up for that if you use them wisely — and if you drain electricity from nearby objects, you can regain health almost immediately. There is, of course, the tiny problem of enemies being S.A.S. level marksmen, capable of hitting you from two roofs away — but thankfully, “Infamous” has a balanced difficulty curve that always keeps the challenge up without ruining the fun, and the missions have well-placed checkpoints.

Mercer also gets to use some strategy before FUCKING SHIT UP. For example, some of your powers are practically useless against tanks, and ALL of your powers are useless if you’re trying to bring down a building. Therefore, hijacking armored vehicles to do so is vital, and so is choosing the right weapon to do the job. Once you do, though, your enemies are fucking DOOMED. While McGrath needs to use a relatively lenghty “drain” power to regain health from enemies, Mercer just CRUSHES THEIR HEADS AND EATS THEM THE FUCK UP YUM YUM NOM NOM. You become a force of nature if you choose the appropriate powers to fight an enemy, and yes, that is as fun as it sounds.

Rampaging in “Prototype” is one of the game’s attractions, and while it can be fun to do so in “Infamous”, the former was developed with rampaging in mind — “let’s make this shit as fun as possible”. Pedestrians will be cut diagonally, horizontally and vertically in half, destroy objects when thrown against it, leave blood splatters everywhere and most of all, react incredibly well to your frightening presence. Crowd A.I. in “Prototype” is very well-programmed — some pedestrians run the fuck away, some stay paralyzed in fear, some stay torn between the two, others seem to even try to get everyone to calm down (and these are the funniest ones to brutally murder). “Prototype” lets you be an utterly evil fuck, and in terms of sheer destruction, no other game can touch this one. Using your powers to virtually destroy New York City is an ambitious concept that the clearly misanthropic developers managed to nail. And it’s unfair to request the same of “Infamous” because that was never the game’s focus.

Of course, in order to render hundreds of fleeing pedestrians and large explosions, “Prototype” had to sacrifice its visuals. The polygon count is noticeably lower than you’d expect from a next-gen title, and while things look good on ground level, climb up a building and the draw distance is pitifully mediocre, with lots of pop-in and similar problems. But really, if this is what’s required to keep the framerate steady while I FUCK SHIT UP, it’s a perfectly forgiveable sacrifice — and the attention to graphical detail in “Prototype” is truly remarkable, with blood splatters, cracks, and destructible scenario everywhere, not to mention exceptional physics. And it’s not only you causing destruction in the game — you can always see a battle between the army and the monsters happening in several places of the city, and even without your intervention, said battles look amazing, with pedestrians being brutally caught in the crossfire and casualties happening on both sides.

By comparison, I think “Infamous” could have a larger draw distance, since it comes nowhere close to being as graphically busy as “Prototype” — but the game’s art direction and overall color palette give the visuals a lot of charm, and the buildings of Empire City are far more detailed than the blocky New York City Alex Mercer sodomizes. “Infamous” also has some 2D cutscenes that look just beautiful. However, one thing both games get equally right is the animation of their protagonist — Cole and Alex are amazingly well-done, smoothly transitioning between realistic movements. Cole can target enemies from any position he’s in, and Alex can shoot guns while hopping several feet into the air. Amazing work in both games.

On the sound department, “Infamous” and “Prototype” both have competent soundtracks, but voice acting and sound effects are stronger on “Infamous”, with Cole’s powers sounding appropriately electric and the voices truly bringing the characters to life. A lot has been said about Cole’s voice (as the brilliant Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw put it, he sounds like an “angry blender full of gravel”), but Jason Cottle is very charismatic and delivers Cole’s sense of humour and anger very well. Barry Pepper also does a decent job as Alex Mercer, but the rest of the voice acting in the game is “meh” — while in “Infamous”, everyone manages to do a remarkable job. “Infamous” having a better story and characters clearly is an important factor in this. And finally, “Prototype” could have used some extra attention here and there — I would have expected Alex Mercer sprinting up a building to sound more thunderous than it does in the game, for example.

All in all, both games have strengths and weaknesses, but most importantly — both games are really fucking fun, ambitious and manage to deliver what they intended. “Prototype” is more violent, more brutal, more inconsequent and “Infamous” is better-written, more captivating and more balanced in its difficulty curve. Both games are brilliantly developed and deserve to be played.

Random Ranting #01 – A Review Of Resident Evil 5

In the first episode of what COULD be a series — possibly with recorded audio in the future — I review Resident Evil 5 in a slideshow. Random Ranting can be about anything, not just videogames, not just reviews. Feel free to put some music on, there’s no sound. Enjoy.

Game Review – Prince of Persia (PS3 version)

(that scarf was an obnoxious idea, but one of the few problems of an otherwise brilliant art direction)

 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1338661/

After a disastrous 3D debut with “Prince of Persia 3D”, the “Prince of Persia” trilogy actually started with “Sands of Time”, an innovative game considered a masterpiece and deservedly so. Then, after starting with the right foot, the left foot stepped in quicksand and sank to neck level with “Warrior Within”, where the developers seemed to think it would be “trendy” to have an angsty emo moron as protagonist, to the sound of a laughably out-of-place metal soundtrack (and don’t get me started on the sorry excuse for a “map” system that “Warrior Within” had). However, “The Two Thrones”, while not spectacular, represented a vine that saved the series from the quicksand and gave it a chance to try again.

The developer team of this installment, pretentiously called “Prince of Persia” as if it is the definitive game of the series, intended to innovate. Commendably, they wanted to avoid trends and cliches and create something unique and beautiful. And while not everyone liked it, they made it to a point. It’s common that an original work will draw love and hate in equal portions, since the audience doesn’t know what to expect from something original — I happened to like it. While it’s most certainly got its flaws, it’s a beautiful-looking, enjoyable adventure.

 It starts with the Prince – not portrayed as such, but instead with the personality of a thief, one-liner smart-arse dubbed by Nolan North (Nathan Drake from “Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune”),  looking for his treasure-carrying donkey named “Farah” (very subtle, Ubisoft) in the middle of a sandstorm — when he suddenly finds himself in a completely different realm and stumbles across a beautiful woman fleeing from unknown assailants. Deciding to follow her in order to find out what’s going on, the protagonist is informed that he’s in a world dominated by an evil god who just escaped from the temple that contained it and now he and the beautiful woman, Elika, need to join forces to heal the land, section by section.

A temple the protagonist needs to return to frequently? Open-ended gameplay? Huge, beautiful landscapes? A god? Did you just think of “Shadow of the Colossus”? Yes, Sony’s absolutely magnificent Playstation 2 game was admittedly an inspiration for “Prince of Persia” — so as you can see, the originality here isn’t in the story.

Not in the characters, either. As I already said, the protagonist is your typical cynical jerk – there’s even a button that makes him say one-liners – no, I’m serious -, which is mildly amusing – again, I’m serious, it’s the L1 button, I think. And of course Elika is a faithful, good-hearted woman who, at first, does not get along with the protagonist and builds her relationship with him as the game goes on. Ubisoft’s effort to make her and him appealing is so forced you can almost touch it. There is an unbelievable moment when he sarcastically says, “sure, it’s not like GRAVITY ever killed anyone…”

OI! WANKERS! ANCIENT Persia, remember? 

This isn’t the only anachronism, since him and Elika’s speeches are way too modernized. The American accents don’t bother me (since they’re supposed to be Persian, I couldn’t give a flying shit what English accent they’re using — American, British or Jamaican would all be equally wrong, since Persians — ready? — DIDN’T SPEAK ENGLISH), but the way they sound like 21th century people destroys immersion. I’m not into the trend of making people from before the 19th century talk like poets, but I do like that they say some things that remind us they’re from a different period – in this case, thousands of years ago, unless Ubisoft is pulling an “Assassin’s Creed” on us again.

Nolan North, a decent voice-over artist, doesn’t help in this case, since he’s working with a character who’s flawed from the beggining. He does make most one-liners sound acceptably funny, but that’s as far as he gets. Khari Wahlgreen, as Elika, is charismatic and competent. In fact, the cast is equally competent throughout the game, with Nolan North being the only exception — which, unfairly, is not all his fault.

I did, however, grow fond of the characters — although it could have gone much deeper with better writing. The chemistry between the protagonist and Elika barely scratches the surface of “Sands of Time”, which had a much more natural relationship between the Prince and the adorable Farah.

So what exactly is original about “Prince of Persia”, you ask? The visuals and the gameplay.

The game looks bloody beautiful. Many have compared it to a watercolour painting, and that’s by no means exaggerated. The art direction team did a brilliant job, which can be summarized by the magnificent temple that keeps the evil god reigned in. Colourful and alive, the screen drips of beauty, and the characters look good themselves, with excellent animations — although the protagonist’s scarf is a bit much. Despite that, the game is worth a look for the visuals alone.

However, the gameplay also shines, being hindered only by some minor problems. Many have criticized how the protagonist cannot die — Elika will save him in any occasion. But people are confusing “not dying” with “lack of punishment” — the game PUNISHES you for near-death, by having you return to the beggining of a complicated acrobatic sequence or recovering some of the enemy’s health during combat. Just because the protagonist never dies, doesn’t mean the game’s easy. Some acrobatic sequences require several attempts, and some battles can take many minutes to be finished. 

BUT — some aspects are, yes, too forgiving — like the colour bleeding out of the screen to indicate you need Elika’s help to complete a jump, or the “block” button showing up when the enemy is about to strike — visual aids that hardcore players would consider unecessary and almost insulting, and that, unwisely, cannot be switched off. 

Much like the combat in “Sands of Time”, the combat in “Prince of Persia” drew loads of negative criticism. But I tend to love combat systems that people hate — I enjoyed fighting entire cities in “Assassin’s Creed”, for example. And I liked the “Sands of Time” combat system — simple but intuitive, good enough for me. “Prince of Persia” goes the same way, having each button of the controller assigned for a certain thing — acrobatics, Elika’s help, gauntlet (on one of the protagonist’s hands) and sword. Instead of button-mashing, the game asks tactical thinking of you, which is excellent in my opinion. You can easily draw huge combos together, and it’s satisfying to do so. The combat does, however, get too repetitive after a while.

It’s the platforming aspect that truly stands out as this game’s greatest strength. Instead of favouring the “Mirror’s Edge” school of trial-and-error-and-falling-a-hundred-feet-to-your-death-every-two-seconds-because-the-object-you-should-have-interacted-with-wasn’t-tinted-red-so-ha-ha-fuck-you, the development team instead chose to make long sections of platforming that require you to string together several acrobatics, resulting in some beautiful looking sequences. Elika actually helps, follows you easily and never gets in the way. Some have said the careful assignment of a function for each button makes the platforming a “glorified quick-time-event”. I say “shut up, you twatbag”. You’re sliding down huge slopes, leaping on walls, running along them and climbing huge towers, all that with as little button-mashing as possible, what the fuck else do you want, a blowjob?

There’s also plates on the game’s surfaces  – called “power plates”. These plates activate powers that allow the protagonist to be hurled to a far platform, run along ceilings, fly and, uh, be hurled at far platforms again, but this time with Elika hurling you. As you can see, none of these are very distinct from each other, but still, they’re fun, requiring some extra effort from you and being vital to proceed the game. You can pick these powers when you collect enough light seeds – you have to backtrack along a level you have healed to get them. You might consider this boring, but it’s fun — I didn’t even mind backtracking some really old levels in search for more light seeds to activate another power. You choose which power, therefore you choose in what order the story of the game happens — not that the experience changes much, but it’s well adapted to the plot.

With a cliffhangey but almost poignant ending, “Prince of Persia” is a fun game, acceptably original gameplay-wise and visual-wise, that suffers from sub-par, careless writing but that survives thanks to an excellent presentation. The replay value is non-existent – at least I didn’t want to play it all over again just to try the same story in a different order – so it’s better for you rent it, in my opinion. But DO rent it — it’s worth a look at the very least.

Game Review – Dead Space (PS3 version)

(Now THIS is a fucking cover, goddamnit.)

Produced and developed by EA Games. Cast and Crew: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1267296/fullcredits#cast

One of “Doom 3″’s many flaws was that it never provided you with enough reason to finish it. The story could be summed up in three words: “Hell Invades Mars”. The dialogue was shitty and the scares were ridiculously predictable – every vent and hole in the floor gave them away about a minute before they happened. And now, with the latest “Silent Hill”, “Homecoming”, having sucked even at the series’ specialty, the story, the horror genre in gaming was well on its way to kingdom fuck.

Enter EA Games and its fabulous “Dead Space”.

I wouldn’t have expected a game like this from EA, since violent horror is not what they’re famous for. The team responsible for putting this game together should form a subcompany within EA, because they’re just too talented not to. I don’t remember the last time I loved a game with a completely silent protagonist (no, I did not love Half-Life 2 – I just liked it).

The future has arrived. Earth’s resources are gone, but there’s a whole universe’s worth of planets to explore and suck dry. Having mastered space travel, the human species created the procedure known as planet crack – where the planet in question is broken in order to form a ring of debris around it, which can be mined for resources (this concept is probably writer Warren Ellis’ doing – he was involved in early stages of production and this sounds like him). That’s when the greatest planetcracker ship of them all, the USG Ishimura, loses communications with other stations. Assuming it’s a mere comms problem, a crew is sent to do the necessary repairs. You are systems engineer Isaac Clarke – a silent man who not only is the one who knows how to fix comms but also wants to find someone very important to him in the ship, Nicole, who sent him a desperate message from the Ishimura. But when the Ishimura does not help with the docking procedure, Isaac’s ship crashlands on the hangar. Upon further investigation, the crew finds out, in the worst way possible, that it’s far from a mere comms problem: it’s an alien infection that drove mad and killed everyone in the Ishimura and brought them back as zombies known as Necromorphs. Isaac and two survivors, Sgt. Hammond and Kendra, try making it back to the ship, but it’s destroyed by the necromorphs, leaving them stranded in a huge, broken and infected planetcracker.

The game cleverly makes the most out of this premise. The necromorphs are fascinating enemies with a disturbing life cycle. Their methods to infect human hosts are tremendously cruel: causing severe dementia on them, so they will eventually kill themselves – which is when the alien virus can act and use the corpses to breed new lifeforms. There are several kinds of necromorphs, all of them with their strenghts and weaknesses. There’s even babies, necromorphed into tentacled, wall-crawling little beasts. And none of them can be killed with a headshot. This is where “Dead Space”’s true genius comes in: in order to kill the necromorphs, you have to dismember them. You can kill them by shooting their torso, yes – but you’ll waste an entire clip of ammo. Aim for the limbs, and they’ll be slowed down until death. And fortunately, the right analog stick has been perfectly calibrated by EA – aiming with it is surprisingly easy and intuitive.

But how does a system engineer hold his own against hordes of necromorphs? Isaac is no soldier – he’s a techie. But he needs to find Nicole above all else, so he uses mining equipment – plasma cutters, force energy, line guns – as weapons. Designed to cut asteroids, mining equipment proves to be an efficient weapon against the necromorphs, and Isaac knows how to handle it. Most of your objectives revolve around fixing things, since Isaac is an engineer – but this is always done differently, with new enemies or in a varied context in order to keep the game fresh – and a GPS system ensures you never get lost. Just press R3 and a line will be displayed showing you where to go next. Isaac’s health points and other information are NOT displayed in a HUD – the developers incorporated all that information in-game: the health is in Isaac’s back, his inventory is projected holographically in front of him, as are the video messages from Hammond or Kendra (the game never pauses, therefore never breaking the tension). There’s also two futuristic concepts Isaac uses to his favor – Stasis, the limited ability to slow things down (which helps solving environmental puzzles and fighting fast enemies) and Kinesis, that manipulates objects like the gravity gun in “Half-Life 2″.

So the question is: how does a mute protagonist ever become important to the player?

This is where “Half-Life” fucked up. Silent protagonists have the personality of a bucket of shit. It’s infuriating to see people monologuing with them as if they’re somehow telepathically answering. But surprisingly, it works well in “Dead Space” because as silent as Isaac is – he feels human. We hear his nervous breathing, his moans of pain when hurt. From the excellent third person perspective, we see him move and shoot. You can trade items in Ishimura’s store, and buy yourself new armor and new weapons with credits from fallen enemies (which were previously human and therefore had money with them). And there’s a workbench which you can use to upgrade your weapons, your oxygen supply (there are gameplay sequences out in space – and they are fantastic) and overall health. And the secondary characters are interesting enough to make up for his muteness. Sgt. Hammond is captivating in his courage and dedication to saving you and Kendra. Kendra also is in her fear of the necromorphs and her desperation to find someone to blame – in this case, Hammond.

In fact, “Dead Space”’s story is very well-written and coherent – proving once again games are a new artform. The plot twists are surprising and the one in the ending is incredibly touching and powerful. The game touches on religious subtexts like fanatism (“Unitology” sounds like a reference to “Scientology”) and creates a threatening villain out of it, Dr. Mercer. The developers have a huge notion of cinema, creating a hostile, disturbing environment within the Ishimura and some sequences that can only be described as “fucking awesome”. With several ventilation ducts on the walls, you never know from which a necromorph can come out of – and often, not a single one does, or if it does it falls from the ceiling right in your face: the game plays with your expectations and usually succeeds to surprise you. There’s some flaws, like Necromorphs playing dead (you can easily make them out among real human corpses and shoot them before they rise), but the developing team has a great sense of timing and knows when to put you into combat and when not to.

In fact, “Dead Space” is more disturbing than it is scary. The game makes you feel uneasy in its cruelty – like shooting a necromorphed baby in zero gravity and watching it float, blood spurting out of his severed limbs, while its innocent face is intact and staring blankly ahead. Or seeing a shadow up ahead in the end of a corridor, and finding out its a human who went mad and is hitting his head repeatedly against the wall while giggling – until you come too close, when he finally hits the wall too hard and breaks his head open, falling dead on the floor. There are several moments like this – one of the saddest ones is when a character dies gruesomely right in front of you, when you are unable to do anything to help.

And even if the horror doesn’t work with you, “Dead Space” still works wonderfully as an action game: the boss fights are insane, with enormous beasts that you fight in several different manners. Always avoiding repetition, the game has many moments that awe you silly – like a sequence involving Isaac, a turret and another ship that has received a distress call from the Ishimura.

Visually, “Dead Space” is magnificent – it has one of the most inspired art directions I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in games. The necromorphs are brilliantly designed in their several races, and watching a corpse turning into a necromorph in a real-time, unscripted event is incredible. The USG Ishimura itself is beautiful from the outside and terrifying from the inside: the previously well-lit corridors and mess halls are now dark and claustrophobic due to the severe damage the ship suffered – but you can still see nostalgic traces of how life used to be before the infection (audio and text logs scattered throughout the level also help with this).

Isaac himself is a work of art. With realistic animation and an unique look, controlling him is a pleasure. Even in zero gravity sequences, it’s easy to move him around and jump from a surface to the next. The game has some interactive cutscenes like a tentacle appearing out of nowhere and pulling you toward a hole, and you need to shoot the tentacle dead before you get there (this happens more than once). All of this is rendered with beautiful lighting effects – and it’s simply phenomenal to fight alien lifeforms in the command bridge, with asteroids floating beyond the window and casting shadows on the floor, with the planet in the background. In the PS3, I didn’t experience framerate problems even once – gameplay bugs were also pretty much absent, showing how much careful optimisation and polishing this game went through before being released.

The sound design lives up to the visuals, with exceptional voice acting and sound effects – like the scream of a necromorph that stays glued to the wall while spurting out eggs. When you are in the vacuum, Isaac’s breathing becomes loud while all the outside effects almost vanish – which creates a powerful atmosphere. The music is a bit generic and bends over to some horror movie cliches, but does its job well.

Disturbing, fun and surprisingly long for a linear game, “Dead Space” is a masterpiece of modern gaming. Even if I wasn’t a space junkie, I’d still have loved it for the compelling story and masterful gameplay. It’s a truly unique experience that also manages to make references to several science fiction films like “Alien” without losing its own identity. Why do you think the protagonist is named “Isaac Clarke”?

Game Review – Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (PS3 version)

Funny. When I heard of Force Unleashed, I was expecting a shitty story as an excuse to excellent, Jedi Knight-level gameplay. Turns out it’s the opposite. “The Force Unleashed” has a brilliant script that enriches the universe created by George Lucas and shows us the birth of the Rebel Alliance, with compelling new characters and the old ones we know and love at their best. Meanwhile, the gameplay suffers from some problems that are indeed annoying, but in the end don’t prevent this game from being a hell of a lot of fun – even if it’s short. I finished the main campaign on the same day I rented it.

The story: the Empire has been hunting the few jedis who managed to escape the “Order 66″ seen on Episode III of the new trilogy. On a mission in Kashyyk, planet of the wookies, Lord Vader kills a Jedi Knight in hiding, only to find out he has a son with great power but no training. Vader adopts the kid as his apprentice, and years later, known by the alias Starkiller, the apprentice becomes Vader’s hitman – in what Vader claims is a secret plot to overthrow the emperor.

It was George Lucas who came up with this plot and its (excellent) twists, which goes to show the neckless old toad still has it in him – all he needs is to let Star Wars behind and move on to other projects, and maybe he can redeem himself in the eyes of all his (millions of) critics. Personally, I had fun with the new trilogy and thought it had its moments, but I admit it has serious flaws (like Hayden Christensen). It’s writer Haden Blackman, though, who wrote this game’s script and his work is truly good, introducing very interesting new concepts, like Saarlacs being cruelly used as military bases. The dialogue is sharp (something I have come NOT to expect from Star Wars recently) and the characters are interesting. Starkiller himself is very charismatic and humane, and his chemistry with his pilot Juno Eclipse and his robot Proxy is very well-developed. Proxy, by the way, is memorable, especially because he was programmed to think up ways to kill Starkiller and execute them – but when he’s not doing that, he’s Starkiller’s friend. This leads to a priceless dialogue when the apprentice notices the ship he’s in is going towards a star. And the well-known characters of the series are brilliantly portrayed. There hasn’t been a Darth Vader as threatening as this one for a long time. Princess Leia also makes a good appearance.

The superb voice-acting helps. Sam Witwer’s voice gives us clues of the good the apprentice has in him, despite having spent his whole life trained in the dark side, and Matt Sloan has no trouble replacing James Earl Jones as the voice of Darth Vader. The entire cast breathes life into the characters, and so do the great cutscenes that add as much expression as possible to their faces and bodies. Loading the levels while the cutscenes play – a technique used in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and Heavenly Sword – is also very welcome.

But, well, this is a game, so how does it do in that aspect? Well, everything that was promised is here. Levitating enemies and throwing them against walls, bombs and each other? Yes. Impaling them with lightsabers? Yup. Grabbing objects, electrifying them and throwing them against waves of stormtroopers? Uh-huh. Only it’s not as well executed as it was hoped. The targeting system is too loose, and it’s extremely easy to force grip something you didn’t intend to. Also, the game often misinterprets where you want to throw an object, and automatically throws it in the wrong direction – usually in an empty wall instead of the several stormtroopers blasting the shit out of you.

But I’ll be damned if, despite those flaws, it isn’t good to force grip a stormtrooper as another one holds on to his hand, then levitating both and throwing them off a chasm. This, combined with other powers like force push, lightning and saber throw, give the player a true sense of power that makes the action extremely efficient. Also, the game uses quick-time-events (QTEs) well, incorporating them into the gameplay so they won’t show up unexpectedly. They’re mainly used as the final blow against a powerful enemy, like a rancor or an AT-ST. If only the mechanic had been better polished, then it’d be perfect. As it stands, some flaws undermine the experience and make you feel like a lesser Jedi sometimes.

The Euphoria engine (same one from GTA 4), also with Havok physics, are very important in making the experience fun. Enemies writhe when held in the air by you, and also when they’re flying to their deaths. They try grabbing on to ledges and colleagues, they truly have a sense of self-preservation. But again, there was lack of polish here. On several ocasions I lifted a stormtrooper ridiculously high and let him drop. He survived falling on the rocky ground. But when I threw another relatively softly on a wall? He died instantly. Also, even AFTER you kill the enemy, he misteriously comes back to life and starts writhing if you force grip his corpse again.

Not to mention the pitiful AI. I lost count of how many times I saw Stormtroopers strangely interested in something on the wall rather than the murdering sith about to cut them in half with a lightsaber. But this resulted in several funny moments, I’ll admit, like when a wave of stormtroopers marched out of an elevator, one of them tripped and all of them fell on each other. Nevertheless, this is STILL the best gameplay of this kind I’ve seen in games. I never played another game where levitating enemies in the air was so intuitive and fun.

As for the lightsaber, its role in Force Unleashed is definitely smaller than in other Star Wars titles. The star here are definitely the force powers, but it’s still good to hit enemies with your saber and make them fly away with a particularly powerful combo. Fighting against other jedis in “Force Unleashed” doesn’t work as fluidly as it should, but it’s very cinematic and challenging all the same. There’s a decent variety of enemies, like rancors, AT-STs, typical cannon fodder, enemies with miniguns, etc. Some of them are infuriatingly annoying though, like a turret that shoots a laser so powerful it sends you flying backwards – usually when you’re on the edge of a chasm.

That’s another of Force Unleashed’s problems: Starkiller is a very powerful jedi, but when it comes to platforming, Prince of Persia kicks his ass. Vader’s apprentice so much as comes NEAR the edge of a cliff, he easily slip and fall. Not to mention his force jump is too fast to actually allow the player to land him in the right place, which often leads to death or having to climb a bunch of platforms all over again.

But here’s Force Unleashed’s greatest quality: it’s straightforward. I didn’t get stuck once. The level design and the art direction are superb (the junkyard planet is a masterpiece), and the game is linear, therefore there’s a lot of enemies all the time for you to battle. The puzzles are simple and intuitive, and try not to take more than two or three minutes to be solved. Force Unleashed doesn’t bore the player: it’s great action from beggining to end, with a very good story keeping you interested. Not to mention some awesome moments, like when Starkiller (i.e. you) has to manipulate a huge Star Destroyer with his force grip power.

Shame it’s too short. It’s worth playing again to see the other ending (which I don’t know because I completed the game only once – and the ending I chose is very efficient and touching). But the lack of multiplayer and other features turn Force Unleashed into a limited experience. So, in a nutshell: DEFINITELY worth a rent, it’s a lot of fun and a great story. But buying it, depends. I can never get tired of throwing stormtroopers around. Can you?

And do I even need to mention how good the soundtrack is?

Game Review – Devil May Cry 4 (PS3 version)

While I get ready for the enormous amount of words that will be necessary to review “Metal Gear Solid 4″, I’ll review another game of the “4″ generation, Devil May Cry, because it’s a game I’ve had no mixed feelings about. I loved playing MGS4, but the story did have its weak points and the dialogue was just too excessive (even more than usual). DMC is quite simpler to define: I fucking hated it and it’s unbelievable this godawful piece of shit has the humungous fan base it has. Actually, I had already played DMC 4 some months ago only to throw it away with the same hatred I have now – but I’m a forgiving person and as the days passed I decided to give it another try, also considering how the entire world except myself seemed to love it. On this recent attempt to play DMC4, I hated it even more. I should have suspected my taste is not like most people’s around the time I started considering Grant Morrison an extremely overrated up-his-own-ass writer.

The story of this game is oh seriously there’s no fucking story it’s just an excuse to put you in room after room full of enemies and puzzles. Also, it’s hard to define the story because I couldn’t play this game past mission 03 due to risk of dying of boredom. So visit imdb.com or something if you want to know the story. Meanwhile, I’ll dive right in the gameplay aspects.

The first mistake of DMC4 is to have fucking awesome cutscenes. You must be scratching your head, so allow me to explain: the cutscenes are so good they actually outshine the gameplay. In the first cutscene, a quite beautiful fight scene to the sound of a touching melody, you see Raiden — I mean, Nero leaping on the heads of his enemies, throwing them around like ragdolls and other extremely cool moves. Now guess if you can do any of that in the game. And that’s one of DMC’s failures: you see the characters kicking arse in the cutscenes and when back to the gameplay you have to conform yourself with repetitive moves and pistols that seem to shoot air for all the damage they do to health bars.

“REPETITIVE MOVES?????!!!!!!1!!” a DMC fanboy would cry. Yes, REPETITIVE. Let me say this again in hopes of causing you a heart attack: REPETITIVE. And no, I didn’t use the “automatic” feature that makes the combat easier. It’s just boring button-mashing (yes, BUTTON MASHING) that requires you to vary your combos as much as possible in order to get higher grades for your ability, which will allow you to buy upgrades, etc. etc. etc. You want a game that requires actual skill and with phenomenal combat? “Heavenly Sword”, an underrapreciated gem that didn’t get the praise it deserved solely for being “too short” – apparently all the other qualities didn’t count, including a good story.

But even if repetitive (and BUTTON-MASHING, don’t forget) and with no physics engine therefore enemies always fall backwards with the same animation, the combat can still be satisfying – in fact, it would be if DMC 4 was a straightforward “let’s kill everything that moves” game. Instead, CAPCOM decided to stay true to tradition (i.e. not innovate) and add PUZZLES. And this is the same thing that caused the doom of God of War 2 for me.

You know what the good kind of puzzle is? The one that takes some thinking to decipher, but it’s actually a wonder to execute. Also, puzzles that don’t take too much of your time while playing. The “Prince of Persia” series is a master of that kind of puzzle: you had to think on how you would climb several stories to reach a door, but when you figured it out doing it was orgasmic: running on walls, jumping from a pole to the next, etc. etc.

DMC 4 (and God of War 2) is the exact opposite. First of all, the extremely dated puzzles from the previous games remain: red-colored doors mean they won’t open until you kill all the enemies around you, and blue-colored doors mean you need to solve a puzzle for it to open. Also, the platforming aspect is retarded: use Nero’s special arm – all you have to do is keep pressing the same button until you’re wherever you need to be – and God help you if the game tries to add a bit of challenge to that formula. In mission 03, there’s a ceiling with spikes – who knows WHY – and the stereotypical hook-points that you need to target in order to extend your arm and go over there. I kept hitting the spikes and falling on a room below where enemies spawned EVERY FUCKING TIME I FELL. I tried getting the timing right so I wouldn’t hit the spikes but enemies spawning every time I failed wasn’t very stimulating.

That’s the kind of shit DMC 4 throws at you. Not to mention fetch quests. Believe it or not, in DMC 4 you need an item to open a door. Seriously. That’s the most CAPCOM can think of, puzzles that were already old years ago, but that remain in DMC 4 because all the previous DMCs had it.

So, as you can probably deduce, DMC 4 is frustrating, thanks especially to the fucking camera that becomes fixed in all the parts it shouldn’t be fixed, like when you need to look around a room to decide how to solve a puzzle or something. The combat doesn’t even come close of making up for it, and the story, as mentioned, is worthless and uninteresting.

Ah yes, the graphics. Shit. Architecture is cliched, character design is pitiful, no charm at all: in a word, dull. Lack of a physics engine for the enemies in this day and age also doesn’t help. Cutscenes are damn nice, at least. As for the sound, the voice-overs are fucking horrendous: Johnny Bosch – who plays Nero – is especially annoying to say the least. The sound effects are acceptable, and the intro music – as already mentioned – is excellent… but the rest of the “metal” soundtrack is quite bland.

So, DMC 4 is yet another game made by people with absolutely no imagination at all. It’s dull, has no charm and is frustrating. The best games of this kind in the new generation continue to be “Conan” and “Heavenly Sword” – the latter might be short, but it’s great to play again.