Pillars of Eternity

There have been many who have argued that there has been a trend to simplify and streamline away much of what used to make RPGs so immersive and hearkening back to games as relatively recent as Baldur's Gate 2 or even Dragon Age: Origin, there is certainly an argument to be made that games now have dropped complexity in the name of accessibility - the results of which have been hit or miss.

This is what has spawned the cRPG subgenre. Games that seek to recapture the look and feel of the Baldur's Gate/Diablo 2... well, seemingly more Baldur's Gate as they owe more to the D&D inspired RPGs, whereas Diablo was always a hack-n-slash.

The first thing to say of Pillars of Eternity is that it effortlessly recaptures the feeling of Baldur's Gate in general look and feel... The game does trick you by seeming to offer voice actors and then making it rather obvious that they are going to be used only sparingly. That's OK but it just highlights how integral voice work has become to modern gaming.

As to the combat... perhaps action RPGs have spoilt me but it just felt like busy work (that said, Dragon Age: Inquisition fighting felt like busy work). You're stuck with D&D style fighting too so... forget mana bars or whatever - you get abilities that can be used a finite amount of times. These will recharge between combat or when you sleep and when you're out in the wilds, you can only sleep with camping supplies annnnnnnnnnnd you can only carry a fixed number of those (upgradable with some skills)... as this is the easiest way to regain health (unless you want to start dabbling in the now mandatory crafting system), you can find yourself tediously shuffling back and forth to inns a lot, which kind of kills the pace of dungeon crawling.

Perhaps it's just nostalgia but Baldur's Gate combat usually felt more interesting too and seldom as unrewarding...

I will give credit to Obsidian Entertainment for creating their own world but that creates some problems in itself - mostly the fact they apparently chose a Welsh and/or Gaelic name generator for everything. Imagine if Lord of the Rings had the first 30-40 minutes of people talking about things with Elven names and you'll get a feel for the kind of barrier Pillars of Eternity throws at you. It's as if it's daring you to give up because you don't want to wade through these gobbledygook names.

Once you manage to penetrate that though, it's not so bad. It's not exactly a world which will make you gasp at is originality but it works well enough. The story is serviceable, although it suffers from leading you along and then just the "TIME FOR EXPOSITION!" in the final act. Granted, it's hard to hint at revelations in these kind of games and those among you familiar with the tropes of science fiction and fantasy will probably have your suspicions but the twist is still neat...

The game's ending also feels like a direct response to Mass Effect 3's clusterfuck...

It was a serviceable game but really only serves to remind me that things have moved on. Given that the Baldur's Gate games are being re-released, it seems strange to want to recapture nostalgia and those more cynical might see cRPGs as a means to justify dramatically reduced production costs... although, if they allow smaller developers a chance to enter the marketplace, then there's nothing wrong with that.

Only recommended for those that actually played the likes of Baldur's Gate and truly want to have something which doesn't feel a need to hold your hand.

Arbitrary Animus

Assassin's Creed had a problem right from the get go (beyond even the snivelling pleas to not be offended because some of Ubisoft's best friends are black/Muslims/Templar/British) in that the "present day" was always linked in the most tenuous way to the actual story.

Outside of one rather clever moment at the end of Ezio's story, there's nothing to elevate the Animus beyond an increasingly irrelevant framing device. With the original trilogy concluded and the world saved, it seems little more than an after thought now - indeed, perhaps in line with the fact these games are now on a conveyor belt... there's not much of anything at stake anymore.

The much hyped (and then relentlessly slated) Unity wasn't even an artifact hunt, you were just looking for a body and (spoiler alert!) you could just have stayed at home but then, that's been a problem since the start. The denouement of the first game is finding the piece of Eden after a big ol' boss battle... and then you're back in the real world and everything is terribly anti-climactic.

It's also a problem because as is often the case, the Animus presents vast opportunities but ends up only being used to find the artifact of the week. Obviously, these searches tend to conveniently tie in with some historic struggle but... well, you somewhat undermine those events when the ONLY reason to experience them is to find the McGuffin.

Whereas AC1-3 let you go around and talk to people, check you e-mails and so on - and in the case of AC3, get a whole mess of backstory about the Precursors - AC4 bumped you down to a silent protagonist, who wandered around an office block between sessions and Unity does away with that entirely... you just get prompting from the Assassins on your mission objectives and occasionally the mandatory banter.

It's clear that the Animus has become an after thought, if not an active impediment to the way the franchise is proceeding. While Desmond was pretty flat, we had at least SOME investment in him and it meant we were invested in what was happening in the present day... It seems pretty obvious that this change of direction is a response to Ubisoft's desire to pump these games out but if that's the case, it seems like abandoning the framing device of the Animus and JUST telling the story would be far more sensible than demoting them to "peace of Eden hunt seven".

The Evil Within

If Shadows of Mordor is the best Assassin's Creed game since Revelations, then The Evil Within is the best Resident Evil game since... the last alright one?

There's so little to say about The Evil Within - you play a generic cop, with a generic backstory and you're fighting through a series of generic Resident Evil/Silent Hill settings. An insane asylum, a spooky village, a spooky mansion (wherein unethical experiments are being carried out and overly elaborate traps abound), some kind of underground industrial area, a deserted city... oh and a spooky corrupted church.

There are no real characters in this game - backstory is related exclusively to you by journal entries for your generic cop that you read before going to your "save game" asylum (no, really). This is also the place where you can upgrade your character and use keys you find to get more gear.

Your main enemies might as well be zombies but as this is 2014, they have to have SOMETHING to elevate them above being JUST zombies. So their eyes shine and you can blow half their head off and they'll keep coming. There's a LITTLE variety, you get fat ones (the game even TELLS you they have more health... and they say it's bad for your health), stabby ones, ones with masks and later on you get some Assassin's Creed cosplayers that can summon an insta-death creature.

The game does have a good number of bosses (although a few you'll face multiple times) but none of them are particularly exciting... and pretty much all of them amount to attack weak points for massive damage, you can use your "agony bolts" to do fancy things like freeze, shock or blind them (it's hard to tell if there's any material difference between as they're basically all different flavours of stun) but firing explosive crossbow bolts at their face seems generally a better use of your time and resources - although, obviously you can stun them and then use your shotgun, which you keep for close encounters.

Perhaps the most jarring aspect of the game (beyond the occasional sudden flip of camera angles when the game gives you instadeath runaway sequences) is the level transition. The game is - SPOILER ALERT! - all in the Matrix (kind of)... but (as oft seems to be the case), there's no particularly imaginative use of that, beyond one moment being in an asylum and the next a spooky village or windowless industrial complex.

That might be why, when a level ends, it feels the need to announce that you've finished it. There's no real point to that beyond explaining the transition.

With unremarkable gameplay, non-existent characters or plot... there's absolutely nothing to recommend this. It does the absolute bare minimum to hold your attention and you'll be waiting for an exposition dumb that never really comes - the ending seems to suggest some sequel baiting or DLC to answer some of the unresolved questions but with such a lacklustre and banal game... why would you care?

Alien: Isolation

Alien: Isolation is a game that gets the Alien franchise. Everything from the art design to the attitudes of the individuals and corporations speak of people who have not just an appreciation but an understanding of what the films (the first two, before it all went downhill) mean.

It's also a game which understands the survival horror genre... Even in its first incarnation, Dead Space put most of the emphasis on run and gun... yes, you sometimes had a situation where you'd be running low on ammo but it was ALWAYS expected that you'd shoot your way out of danger. Alien: Isolation is completely the opposite.

For most of the game, you're helpless. It takes a while for you to get your first gun - which you're very rarely going to have enough bullets for and even if you DO have bullets, the xenomorph just gets pissed off if you shoot it - although, a shotgun round at point blank range is enough to give it pause.

About two thirds of the way through the game you get the flamethrower, which evens up the playing field a little but all it does is make the xenomorph run away for a while and you really can't afford to waste the ammo.

Some games promote stealth by giving you extra XP points or rewards - this game does it by not killing you as much and on the highest difficult, this game is going to kill you plenty... Mostly because the alien is (mostly) a one hit kill and it is FAST. If it sees you, you're dead.

It's not the only danger though, you've got a bunch of human survivors who are either going to shoot you immediately or shoot you slightly LESS immediately and the creepy Working Joe androids... It all plays into shiny veneer of corporate hype over the gritty, dirty, noisy reality.

Sevastopol station perfectly encapsulates the feeling of a future full of broken promises. Sevastopol was a failed endeavour, in a backwater, peddling substandard androids and now in the process of being decommissioned... which is probably why they weren't best equipped to deal with a xenomorph infestation.

So, you're Amanda Ripley - the daughter of Ellen Ripley - and fifteen years after the events of Alien, you're still wondering what happened to your mum... so, you immediately head off when you hear that the flight recorder of the Nostromo has been recovered, along with your friendly android and a corporate lawyer.

You can't dock, so you have to go EVA and things IMMEDIATELY go tits up, when an explosion means you lose contact with your buddies and the ship. From there, it doesn't take long for you to realise that everything has gone to hell on the station but unlike Dead Space, the game doesn't immediately blow its load and have you grappling with a xenomorph.

It lets the tension build, as you find out that there has been a complete breakdown of law and order and everyone has adopted a very "everyman for themselves" attitude because of one certified grade-A alien killing machine but the build up to the reveal is nice, it lets the suspense build.

Unfortunately, once the xenomorph is revealed, it follows you around like a puppy - in that regard, the game could certainly have benefitted from a less is more approach but as soon as it turns up, it's on you like glue for the majority of the game and most of the time, it'll be sitting between you and your objective.

The fact that pretty much all of its attacks are instadeath, combined with the save mechanic (the game has very few checkpoints, the overwhelming majority of saves are done at savepoints but they're fairly liberally sprinkled through the levels... although, their gentle beeping will become a heavenly sound) can make that feel cheap, at times - especially when you've gone through a section three or four time, JUST to get chomped because the alien decided to turn around.

Of course, that's usually the trade-off in this kind of game - much of the tension is generated by the knowledge that the game isn't holding your hand by giving you checkpoints every five steps you go and when you finally get a break and manage to run through that door and lock it behind or get into the lift and mash the button, the sense of achievement and relief is that much more palpable.

Games with checkpoints make death little more than an inconvenience, psychologically at least - Alien: Isolation makes it meaningful and the inclination to hold your breath when you're hiding in a cupboard and an alien is right outside, as well as the way your heart races when you're on the last stretch to the end of a level.

Really, for a franchise which has just had the clusterfuck of Colonial Marines - this was much needed. The story COULD have been a little more involved and there's a tendency for characters to help Ripley only to conveniently get chomped before they might get to tag along... but that's kind of a staple of the horror genre.

The game does end with a shameless bit of sequel/DLC baiting but that seems to par for the course these days and really, while it's cheap - this was such a good game, more is really warranted and purely from a canon point of view - we know that Amanda Ripley dies of old age...

Strange that a developer synonymous with RTS games should be the one to break the run of bad Alien games with an FPS - strange and impressive. The whole game is like a love letter to the film but not in a gormless fanboy way.

Wolfenstein: The New Order

If there's one thing that gaming has done to death its WW2 and particularly Nazis because... who can resist killing Nazis? They're about as close as you get to pure evil in the real world but Wolfenstein: The New Order puts a new twist on things. Your protagonist is involved in a last ditch attack to try and stop the Nazi warmachine, gets knocked out - (actually, it's the third time he's KO'd but this time he's in a coma) and wakes up in the 1960s to find that the Nazis won.

The art design of this Nazi run alternate future is genuinely impressive - mixing the futuristic tech with the retro-60s look... Everything from the big clunky robots to the space shuttle, it all seems nicely coherent... and contributes nicely to that continuous oppressive feel the game has, although the subject matter helps in that regard too. This game doesn't shy away from some of the obvious issues when it comes to the Nazis - one of the missions even takes you to a labour camp but it doesn't really out-and-out confront it either but that works for it.

In this world, the Holocaust is only one of many atrocities visited upon the world by the Nazis - who nuked America, have ongoing labour camps (that are cremating people too weak to work) and are enacting genocide against Africa - the last real place to hold against Nazi rule but that's never really thrust in your face. It's a bit like Half-Life 2 in that respect, although it lets you read full news clippings and get actual audio logs - also, cutscenes.

As far as FPS go, this is rather old school. There are sections where stealth is possible and even advisable but there are other parts where the game flat out says - here's a bunch of Nazis, gotta kill 'em. That's actually entirely fair, you're not in Splinter Cell... you're a soldier, not a ninja... but the game does reward you  for different play styles, as well as giving you successive upgrades to guns... and shockingly, NO TWO GUN LIMIT!

Speaking of shocking - regenerating health is done rather different here. It's not just getting jam on your face or the screen going grey or red or whatever - you lose a wodge of health, it's gone until you get a health pack... of course, the game follows the recent trend of having protagonists who walk through firefights getting injured in cutscenes - in one scene, you're STABBED REPEATEDLY AND LEFT FOR DEAD... but you're fine. The next time that happens (yes, really - it's as bad as getting KO'd) it kind of cripples you... for a few seconds.

So, overall - a pretty fun game. It's a wonderful treat for old skoolers. It doesn't QUITE go back to old skool gaming but it at least pays homage and really, it's just a fun FPS. Which in this age of dull and dreary ones, is sadly exceptional.

Watch_Dogs wasn't worth the wait

You know what? There just isn't a lot to say about Watch Dogs. The best way to describe it is hollow.

At some point - perhaps - there might have been a good idea in there but all we've got in a very banal storyline (which doesn't even include the titular Watch Dogs) and the usual growly, angry and very stupid protagonist (although, obviously his stupidity is what's required to push the plot along) atop gutted GTA gameplay (and we're talking maybe Vice City and that's being generous) with a bunch of random stuff lifted from Assassin's Creed (including actual animations) tossed into the mix, with the addition of the hacking stuff which is mostly mini-games or used to make-up for the inability to fire weapons while driving (hence being sub-GTA as that's something it added several titles ago).

In fact, it's more likely that you can't shoot and drive as that would make the already somewhat extraneous hacking pretty much entirely irrelevant given that about half of your hacking abilities are for stopping cars. In actual combat, it's really only useful if the mooks are near the ubiquitous explodable items that are apparently integral to Chicago's infrastructure... and as soon as you go exploding something - there goes the element of surprise. Which means that - if you're playing on the highest difficulty, where all it takes to kill you is some harsh language - you're going to want to hold off doing that and just go for KOs or stealth kills if possible.

There ARE some interesting ideas used - finding the QR codes by getting the right camera... Using cameras to track down boxes... but the hacking mini-game itself gets old pretty fast... and really, it feels as if the game would have been better had it concentrated on large mission areas, rather than a whole open world. The experience is just so diffuse and while the game is pretty, it feels unfocused... although, with such a bland storyline - that's hardly surprising.

The worst part being that the game seems certain it has this complex mystery plot and when it finally does reveal what set in motion the events of the game, it's such a let down (and especially if you listen to the audio logs) that it makes it that much worse. It also has the bland main character - so we can all pretend we're him - who is surrounded by far more interesting characters... who really don't get nearly enough screentime.

Needless to say, the biggest question there is to ask when it's all finished is - what did they spend those extra eight months on? It certainly wasn't polish.

Bioshock Burial At Sea: Episode 2

Worthwhile DLC has always been something of a rarity but Bioshock Infinite's Burial at Sea Episode 1 was genuinely enjoyable... mostly because the original Bioshock (unlike Bioshock Infinite) never showed you Rapture before the collapse.

Burial  at Sea allowed you to wander around Rapture and get a feel for that city under the sea before it was exclusively the preserve of murderous freaks... which was a pleasant change of pace because, regardless of what people say about Bioshock - it's gameplay is not (and never was) "genre busting".

In fact, Bioshock Infinite marked a fairly substantial regression to the rather wearisome status quo of console gaming by way of Halo's seemingly inescapable two weapon limit and regenerating health - although, there's no regenerating health in Episode 2... but still a two gun limit, although it's rather more stealth orientated and even has a mode focused EXCLUSIVELY on non-lethal takedowns but as with the first episode, it's the NON-COMBAT sections which are that much more interesting.

The fights aren't particularly interesting and in fact for the vast majority of the time, you can effectively avoid them either by being stealthy or simply by running away or using your invisibility plasmid. In fact, you fight generic Rapture (and SPOILERS! Columbia) goons almost exclusively and are even denied the opportunity of a Big Daddy beatdown - the game puts you in an area with a Big Daddy and then goes "Yeah, you can't kill him."

There's one section where there is the arbitrary "kill x many goons to proceed" but that's pretty much the only time fighting is mandatory. The rest of the time stealth or speed are pretty much expected - on the higher difficulties just one hit can be enough to wipe out your health bar - and are helped with the new "peeping tom" vigor/plasmid and the ability to use vents.

The real problem - aside from the lacklustre gameplay - is the story... the ending of the first episode was good but it didn't lend itself to a continuation... and episode two seems to demonstrate that in spades, unfortunately mistaking a lot of technobabble and pseudo-philosophical navel gazing on the nature of choice as an alternative to characters and story.

Between that and some forced attempt to tie Bioshock Infinite to the original and trying to be entirely too clever (and failing) again... it's a rather unsatisfying finish to the franchise and while it's nice to return to Rapture (and Columbia) again... there's nothing of value added... Episode 1 succeeded because it offered an insight into what had been alluded to but never shown in Bioshock... Episode 2 just feels like it's riding coattails.

Forward Unto Dawn

With Halo 4 out this month, now is as good a time as any to mention the Forward Unto Dawn... part of the rather considerable pre-release hype... it's somewhere between a mini-series and a short film, covering events preceding any of the games right at the start of the human-covenant war with short interludes that show the increasingly rampant Cortana (stuck on the eponymous ship - or rather, half ship - with Master Chief following the end of Halo 3) at the start of each episode.

It does start out feeling a little bit generic but given the time they have, they actually do a pretty decent job with the characters and this definitely has the feel of the Halo universe. Also, for a fairly small production it's actually quite impressive. Not only do we get to see Elites and Hunters but also Master Chief himself in an actual Warthog.

This does somewhat highlight that it would be difficult to build a film around Master Chief - what makes him work as a protagonist of an FPS (being a bad ass of few words), makes him rather uninteresting as a character. There's no doubting his bad ass credentials here but as usual, he's just a big ol' power armour wearing glass of water, all of the interest really coming from the students.

A must for any Halo or sci-fi fan.

The Mass Effect 3 Ending And Why Indoctrination Isn't Big And DEFINITELY Isn't Clever.

Let's take the Mass Effect 3 ending debacle as read and jump straight into this, shall we?

The ending to Mass Effect 3 is bad. Objectively, it's bad and it's not a case of people "not getting it" - there is nothing to get. It's riddled with plot holes and from pretty much every technical aspect of writing it's at best a horribly flawed car crash.

Now, in an attempt to cope with this clusterfuck of an ending some have posited that the ending is a hallucination - which would be INCREDIBLY STUPID but could kind of make sense. It would be utterly ridiculous and a complete cop out for any number of reasons but it's an easy fix for the end - you get up, shake it off and go get a REAL ending.

The alternative to this is indoctrination theory - which is basically the same, except it requires Shepard to have been indoctrinated. Beyond the obvious Occam's Razor violation here is the exact same one that faces the end just being a hallucination. It's still STUPID and it still means Bioware shipped an unfinished game PURELY to dick with their fans. That's not genius. Hell, given the monumental furore - so great that even the NON-gaming press have taken notice - and 80% drop in sales, there's a lot of evidence that "there's no such thing as bad publicity" is wrong.

Not just that, for indoctrination to be true, you basically need to put on your confirmation bias blinkers. Yes, there are SOME things that suggest it but then they could just as easily be down to the lazy writing that pervades the game. Especially as the camp is split - either thinking Shepard is (somehow by means unexplained and certainly never shown in the game) being indoctrinated THROUGHOUT the duration of the game in a slow and insidious way (despite at no point showing ANY of the signs of indoctrination expounded in both the codex and ME1, ME2 AND ME3) OR even MORE ridiculous and utterly against canon - he just gets insta-indoctrinated at the end. Neither of these make a lick of sense and are the exact opposite of genius - if Bioware changes the ending to one of indoctrination it WON'T be genius, it WILL be a lazy last minute ass pull to save face.

And the notion that the ending somehow indoctrinated the PLAYER?! Well, I've yet to hear that one explained in a way that doesn't sound desperately like "I DON'T WANT THE ENDING TO SUCK! PLEASE LET IT BE GOOD!"

So yeah, don't drink the koolaid chaps - it's full of bleach.

Bioware and the tale of the ultimate trolling/April Fool's!

Mass Effect 3's release was for literally millions something orders of magnitude more anticipated than any summer blockbuster - hardly surprising given that many consider it the defining science fiction franchise of a generation.

Pretty much everyone squeed as they relentlessly played 20+ hours to get to see trans-galactic bad ass Commander Shepard round up a fighting force almost as enormous as his (or her) big brass balls while the Reapers invaded Earth and inevitably craved the moment 5 years in the making! The finale! The conclusion to the epic! The final showdown! One last epic battle to free the galaxy from the Reaper threat forever, maybe getting some answers along the way and then, finally! Seeing how all those decisions - good and bad, right and wrong - over the 100+ hours of gameplay all panned out. Who lived and who died and what happened to the galaxy for good or ill!

Of course, we all knew that was going to happen, right? Bioware had said repeatedly there would be several different endings! That our choices would have BIG consequences! The whole trilogy was ALL about that - so, it's not like they'd lie or anything, right?

And then people got to the ending! Except, something was wrong. It didn't make any sense. It was wrong. It felt rushed, contrived, stupid even! Surely, this couldn't be real! Surely, millions of this wasn't what they had spent five years anticipating?!

As one would expect in an age where communication is really only limited by how fast people can mash buttons on a keyboard through tears of bitter despair - people started to respond in their thousands and realised they were not alone. It wasn't that they didn't get it or that they hadn't done something right - they hadn't missed some crucial detail the ending was bad not just subjective but OBJECTIVELY!

Hell hath no fury like a gamer scorned, so a movement began - Retake Mass Effect and to show that the Internet is a force for good and not just cute kittens and porn, they even decided to use the opportunity that such a gathering of people presented to raise money for charity!

http://retakemasseffect.chipin.com/retake-mass-effect-childs-play

This has all snowballed now, going beyond even the gaming sites (many of whom are foaming with rage that people dare chastise the people that pay their wages) and reaching the likes of Forbes! It has taken on a life of its own, Bioware say they wanted to polarise fans - mission accomplished! They wanted the ending to be remembered - it's going to be hard to forget now but what's really happening?

Bioware has been EXTREMELY cagey since this all started - there has been nothing said beyond the fact that they're "listening". An equally vague mention that they're waiting for more people to finish and can't go into specifics. So what does it all mean?

Bioware certainly aren't infallible - the utterly dire hack job that was Dragon Age 2 proves that and everyone has whispered of a decline in quality since they were bought by EA. Furthermore, the ending is nigh identical to one from a script leaked last year. Could it be that they just horribly misjudged it all and ruined everything forever with a lazy hack ending that even Star Trek: Voyager writers would think was stupid? It's entirely possible - deadlines are unrelenting and time is money, there isn't always time to put everything in and evidenced by Dragon Age 2, it's clear Bioware will rush out a hacked together game of inferior quality.

The problem there is - most people agree that ME3 is great UNTIL the last ten minutes. Epic, cinematic, emotional and high stakes, everything that was expected - it definitely doesn't feel rushed or slap-dash, just the opposite. That said, it was NEVER going to be easy to come up with an ending to an epic that would be satisfactory. It's really that it feels that Bioware gave us the most brutal ending of all - NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTHING!

No matter what choice you make all that happens is sonmeone shouting"NOOOOOOOOOOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! YOU SO STUPID!"

So, what exactly are the options?

1. Bioware are sitting on a truly awesome ending and are getting ready for the biggest April Fool's joke in history! Come April 1st they'll don their troll face masks and shout FOOLED YOU! Then release a patch that puts in an ending that the series deserves.

Analysis: Definitely proof that collectively the fanbase is still in the "bargaining" stage of grief. The hope against hope that Bioware are a pack of cunts who toyed with our emotions just for a joke. In the short term, it's likely that will get a LOT of negative reaction from the fanbase but if it's free, it's likely all would be forgiven and forgotten in a short while. As with any prank where you're the butt of the joke - you're angry for a while but you can look back at it as funny in the future.

Probability: Bearing in mind the script leak in November - although Bioware went on record as saying that was an old script and things had changed since then - this seems, unlikely. First of all - it's just a huge gamble and given the levels of hate and the actual FINANCIAL damage that has been done, it seems improbable that EA wouldn't have said "YEAH, IT WAS A JOKE!" because they only care about the bottom line.

Not only that, the behind the scene footage in the back patting circle jerk of "Final Hours" shows pretty much the exact form of the current ending. It would be an EXTREMELY elaborate deception and really - it seems stupid. The first time you do anything is always the most memorable, everything is fresh and new - for good or ill, it's human nature to form an impression based on a first impression. So, basically - people walk away with a bad taste in their mouth and the whole game is tainted. Hell, the whole FRANCHISE is tainted.

If they're holding out for the 1st of April they have balls a LOT bigger than Shepard.

2. Bioware have a truly awesome ending but they're planning on price gouging a game that already had Day 1 DLC by making people pay for a "proper" ending DLC.

Analysis: Games ain't cheap to make and companies have bills to pay. DLC price gouging is only going to get more common - especially as physical media becomes sidelined. Fixing a bad ending? That's shooting fish in a barrel.

Probability: Even lower than the first - the negative backlash is already costing Bioware good will that hasn't exactly recovered from DA2. While EA is greedy, they aren't stupid and even a child could see that they'd galvanise opposition and likely be a nice big "company holds fans to ransom" title across the Internet.

3. Bioware for whatever reason utterly fucked up and don't have a clue what to do.

Analysis: Again - Bioware aren't infallible. Deadlines, fatigue, burn out, corporate culture doesn't usually encourage original thought and sometimes people just go "meh, good enough!". It's really the only realistic explanation - Bioware's pleas for patience just a vain hope that maybe people would just simmer down and it would blow over and they could plan some kind of PR spin - with the usual bullshit words like "challenging", "bold", "visionary" or "ambiguous".

Probability: Sadly, close to 100%.

Well played Bioware - it took George Lucas hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of employees to alienate a huge chunk of his fanbase and poison a franchise, you guys did it with one lead writer's half-baked concept and 10 minutes of gameplay!

For over a decade, Duke Nukem Forever has been the punchline of many jokes throughout the gaming community - due in part to its unfortunate choice of name and for the rest of it, the fact it spent twelve years in development hell, repeatedly winning vapourware awards with scarcely anything to show for it didn't help... and then 3DRealms itself went tits up and everyone assume that the forever would become a literal one... but here we are and the Duke has finally returned.

One thing to note is that Starcraft 2 was in development for around the same amount of time as well and while it may seem unfair to compare an RTS and an FPS, there are certain obvious differences... Starcraft 2 FELT like it had been in development for that length of time and it felt like a game that had endlessly been tweaked and polished at every stage of production.

There was absolutely no need for Blizzard to do that, all they really needed was a game that was properly balanced for the obsessive competitive multiplayer market and they'd have coined it in... but they produced a single player game with elaborate cutscenes - a few of the typically gorgeous and amazing fully rendered CGI ones and dozens of ones that were in-game and still managed to look better than most fully rendered cutscenes in other games - which offered a variety of missions in the generally very bland world of RTSs, a few choices, plenty of laughs, an entire soundtrack JUST for the bar! Lots of little extras you could pick up, a whole entirely unnecessary mini-game of Starcraft themed shoot 'em up you could play just for laughs... and lots of character interactions that were entirely optional but all very enjoyable - not to mention a spoof of FOX news. In other words, it felt like the time take had been time well spent.

Why go on about an unrelated game of a different genre? Well, despite their comparable times in development the same cannot be said for Duke Nukem Forever. It's no secret that the development of Duke Nukem Forever was troubled and the final product clearly shows that. The word on the street is that Gearbox pretty much ended up with various bits and pieces of what 3DRealms had made in the past decade and then basically hacked them together to make the game that was just released... that certainly seems about right.

That isn't to say there's no enjoyment in the game - it immediately harkens back to the Duke Nukem 3D with Duke casually relieving himself in a urinal. It takes a while for the game to actually get going after the little opener - which turns out to be a Duke Nukem game, played by Duke (complete with snark about how it took 12 years to make, hohoho). After this, there's wandering around Duke's building which seems to comprise his penthouse, museum, a TV studio and casino... at pretty much every instance, people will gush at Duke and tell him how awesome he is and pretty much everything with a vagina will hit on you - which varies in amusement.

After that, it's straight into the action... which is... unremarkable. This isn't helped by the fact that for reasons best known to the developers, the game decided to limit itself to two weapons and replaced the health bar with a shield... oh, sorry "ego". What is with the aversion to health bars these days? Regardless, it invariably means that shooting involves you running out and then ducking for cover although the game offers you a few power-ups... beer makes you tougher (but makes the screen blurry), steroids increase the power of your melee attacks and you've got the ol' Holo-Duke to distract the enemy... given that you've got a recharging health bar and even on hard, the enemies aren't particularly challenging, these are really more novelty items. Although, the ability to execute enemies is quite useful - restoring your ego immediately.

Your ego can also be supplemented by a number of different items that you'll find around the level. These can be something as simple as looking at pictures of boobs, to bench pressing or getting a good score on Duke's own pinball machine. It's a nice touch but really, it's not that critical to pick these points up - it's just nice to have some interaction with the world... it kind of breaks up the shooter stages...

Not that the standard FPS sections really require any real break, they're pretty much dealt out in bite sized pieces. You run to area A, you fight a few waves of bad guys, you kill them all... and then you run to area B, where you fight a few waves of bad guys, kill them and move on... Rinse and repeat. About the only reason it's amusing is because of what Duke says but even then, as short as this game is you're probably going to get a bit bored of hearing about pork chop sandwiches - that or get hungry... or both.

Of course, there's more than just the mini-games there are two bits to distract from the run-of-the-mill shooter this game is. First off are the driving sections, there are actually two of them. One at the start of the game, where you're shrunken down and using an R/C car to drive around in and another where you're in a monster truck which apparently has the fuel capacity of a thimble. Again, there's nothing much to comment on here... they're pretty standard driving sections - you drive along the road until run out of gas, then fight some bad guys and then run back to your truck... It's neither good nor bad, it was simply... there.

The other notable break in the game is about a third of the way through, where Duke - despite having the ability to shrug off bullets and grenades TO THE FACE - gets KO'd (eh, happens to the best of 'em) and enters a dream sequence which has... well, no bearing on anything. It's a chance to enjoy the strippers that Duke Nukem 3D was so infamous for and play a number of mini-games (notably, air hockey and a variation of whack-a-mole) while essentially doing a fetch-quest that gets Duke out of his coma... this part is really what contributes to the whole thing feeling like some kind of Frankenstein's monster of parts, sewn together to make one uneasy whole.

Yes, it has Duke Nukem being himself and there is plenty of the kind of humour that you'd expect - including copious references to other game franchises and games... but it's more than a little ironic that Duke proclaims "power armour is for pussies", when this game seems like a late to the party Halo clone in many respects. We've got the regenerating health/shield, limited to two weapons + grenades, a very linear style of map progression, the occasional somewhat awkward driving section (Duke even gets to jump out and flip his car, just as if it was a Warthog!) and of course, jumping puzzles... oh, wait - that's really more Half-Life's bag.

It's also incredibly short... which is in some ways a blessing, given that there were a pretty limited number of weapons and enemies, which made it all feel perhaps more repetitive. One of the loading screens tips - if you get to a stage of the game that makes you die a lot, you may want to get a book because the loading time aren't fast - suggests that different weapons do more or less damage to enemies... maybe they do but given the fact more than half of your enemies are "pig cops" and they mostly carry machine guns and shotguns, expect those to be your bread and butter.

Not to mention that all bosses require you to use explosives or a turret to kill them and those are naturally on hand with infinite ammo... which makes them ridiculously easy to kill, especially as the RPG can actually lock-on... Which surely makes the purpose of a boss battle somewhat ridiculous in itself? Oh and the game also bubbles over with such imagination that you get to fight two identical bosses twice. Oh, sorry - did I say identical? Well, they're exactly the same except that instead of just bringing their health down to zero once, you have to do it more than once.

It's really hard to know who this game is aimed at. It's obviously not for anyone looking for a serious FPS game but at the same time - because even the average Halo clone has set a higher bar than this... OK, so maybe nostalgia? Well, it does have Duke in it and the humour certainly hasn't matured in the past decade... but given the fact the single player campaign is so laughably short, even by the low standards of contemporary gaming - even if you love every joke and get every reference and find it hilarious... is that really worth the price of admission? Because this game almost certainly isn't going to have a big multiplayer community and it's hard to imagine people buying the game for the multiplayer because on the PC and consoles... there are just better games you could spend your money on for a multiplayer game.

In short, there's no real reason for anyone except the most die hard fans of the Duke to even consider handing over money for this game. If it wasn't for the titular character and his jokes, this game would be so forgettable you might not even be able to remember what you were playing as you played. As it is, to say that this is an inauspicious return to gaming for Duke Nukem would be a massive understatement. Perhaps if it comes out in a budget pack with some other games you want, then maybe it would be worth considering spending some money on - but really, it's just not that good.

Star Trek: Online had something of a rocky development but has finally finished its beta and is out.

The game breaks down into two sections - space and away missions. Most of the game is you flying around in your ship and ships come in three flavours: escort - damage per second, cruiser - tanks and science - doing buffs/debuffs. In much the same way, classes break down into tactical, engineer and science... which equates to much the same.

Your ship itself breaks down into the the equipment you have on the ship and the bridge officers you use - as well as bonuses your character gets for various starship abilities. Bridge officers provide abilities in addition to the ones you have yourself, the number and type being dictated by the class of ship you have. The abilities can do everything from increase weapon damage to improving the shields of fellow fleet members.

The obvious comparison as regards space combat goes is EVE online, things are considerably more dynamic in Star Trek: Online and you don't need to spend hours working out what kind of weapons are best for your class of ship and so on, not to mention that while in EVE online the destruction of your ship results in its permanent loss, in STO you respawn after 15 seconds. While this might kill the tension somewhat it also means that one can focus on playing the game without developing an ulcer, for fear that your new ship that cost hours of play time to buy and outfit will get destroyed because your connection decided to fail at an inopportune moment. Weapons are straightforwardly divided into energy weapons and torpedoes/mines - energy weapons like phasers and disruptors are better at damaging shields, torpedoes and mines damage hulls.

To make combat more interesting than the usual fare, shields are split into 4 sections and weapons are mounted front or aft and different weapons have different arcs of fire - with arcs of fire tending to be traded off against the damage per second. So, combat tends to require a combination of balancing shields and manoeuvring to hit your enemy's weakest shields and also, changing your power management and using your special abilities to gain advantage - and naturally, different ships manoeuvre differently - meaning that the more nimble escort craft can get away with the more powerful weapons, while more ponderous cruisers require the generous arcs of fire to keep the pressure on their enemies... All of which means that you need to be actively guiding your ship to make the best use of your weapons in a fight.

The missions undertaken in your ship are generally along the lines of the following:

Defend a sector - which entails just slogging through a certain number of random instances by killing a certain number of enemies.

Patrol a sector - which is slightly different as you go to a number of different systems and you can just have to scan for anomalies or beam down to planets or see off some pirates.

Specific missions - these are longer and generally involve more than one part and might require travelling to more than one system and several sections of space and ground combat.

Fleet actions - BIG instances where you have to take on several large numbers of enemy ships in what can amount to pretty epic battles. They even show a leader board at the end.

The other side of game are the away missions, these are carried out in a more traditional MMO manner with a third person perspective, equipment, weapons and what pass for STO's version of potions and spells. The notable difference here is that you have your bridge officers with you - so you're controlling a squad. You get to assign points to their skills for both space AND ground combat - in much the same way as you yourself progress through the ranks and skills. As you'd expect of an MMO, twitch reflexes are now required here - point and click. In truth, most of the killing is uninspiring. You get bonuses for flanking enemies but it feels as if this aspect of the game was tacked on. Granted, it's nice to be able to walk around starbases, your own bridge, explore strange new planets - and not ALL away missions require you to shoot a horde of idiotic Klingons or Gorn... Some involve scanning stuff or talking to people!

Perhaps the problem with the game is that Star Trek was always envisioned as a peaceful utopian future where everyone just gets along and humans are all about lofty aspiration such as peaceful exploration and the like. There are some exploring missions - go out and scan some rocks... but the entire setting of the game - 30 years after Nemesis, tying into the new Star Trek film by having Romulus destroyed because Spock forgot to set his alarm clock and the Klingons running amok and at war with the Federation (again) and the Borg showing up (again) pretty much your standard MMO situation. Speaking of Spock, Nimoy offers some insight (as well as titbits on load screens) into the current situation of the galaxy, when you enter a new sector of space for the first time - which is a nice touch...

Beyond the fact it's the ol' galaxy in conflict type scenario, the game does spend quite a lot of time making sure to reference familiar characters or their progeny. You get to choose from the well known species of the Star Trek universe, familiar designs of starships and they've even got systems referenced from the shows. Naturally, that won't do anything for you if you're not a Trek fan but if you've watched the shows, it's good to see that some deference is shown and isn't just tacking a franchise name onto a game for the sake of it. It's a little vexatious that you can't decide at the start of the game whether you want to create a Klingon or Federation character but given the considerably greater emphasis on PvP in the Klingon game - that makes sense from a logistical stand point.

The game itself is somewhat unusual in that you don't choose a specific server to play on, rather everything in the game is instanced. Rather helpfully - especially when you're starting out - when you blunder into enemy contacts (aka the random instances you have to beat for defend sector missions) these instances add other people, so you don't need to take on a dozen ships at a time, so... there's a greatly diminished need to shout "LFG!", for at least some of the more casual mission... and that means in the big ol' fleet action missions, you can get a WHOLE mess of people with a big range of ability, which is in itself entertaining if nothing else...

But of course, this IS an MMO - and the variety of missions isn't huge and many are just variations on a theme but you NEED to do them, if you want to get the equipment, cash (sorry, ENERGY CREDITS) and XP to progress to better ranks and hence better ships and so on and so forth - so, the grind is there but then, that wasn't exactly going to shock anyone that has played an MMO before... it feels like something of a disservice to call this EVE lite, not to mention a gross oversimplification as EVE represents at higher levels of play a lot of stuff that Star Trek: Online isn't eve trying for but in the sense that it's a space based MMO where you cruise around the galaxy, blowing people up... it probably warrants the comparison at least fleetingly for being in the same ballpark... or at least, in its carpark while EVE bites someone's ear off inside it. It's really nothing exceptional - if you love Star Trek and are looking for a game that allows you to experience Trek with other people, this is definitely the game for you... as far as the average MMO player goes... Perhaps if you have tried EVE but found it an entirely too punishing experience that didn't have a learning curve, so much as a learning suicide cliff (they have actually addressed that issue - although, the game remains insanely complicated and punishing and not overly friendly as regards its interface for the uninitiated) but WANT some kind of space game where death just means a 15 second respawn and not potentially hundreds of hours of work down the drain and combat doesn't require you to spend some time understanding the relative strengths and weaknesses of your race, class, ship and weapons... then this is probably your best bet for the near future... Something like an MMO Freelancer, perhaps?

FEAR 2, eh? Kind of felt a lot like the original FEAR.

Slightly better looking, you can find upgrades to increase the length of your bullet time... the weapons aren't quite the same and you're facing slightly different baddies... oh and you get a few romps in powered armour suits that allow you to mow down enemies with impunity...

Otherwise, there isn't a lot to say. It's still a mix of tactical gunplay, creepy facilities and regular hallucinations that sometimes try and beat you up. The AI is still good... and this time they throw in some bastarding little wretches - well, they're just like the things in Gears of War - that sneak up and attack you... inexplicably requiring button mashing... At least it's not a TRUE quick time event.

If you played the first game... it's very similar. If you haven't... there's no real need to. Although the first one might be slightly longer and more engaging...

Bioshock was one of those strange creatures - the spiritual successor - and has now spawned its own literal successor Bioshock 2. The end of Bioshock (either one) didn't really lend itself to an obvious sequel... and the nature of the game itself - which is to say one that invested itself so heavily in a single locale - rather committed any sequels that might come to again returning to the underwater dystopia of Rapture. Naturally, that's not a bad thing per se because the atmosphere of Rapture was superb but it does mean that the game is going to be covering familiar territory.

And indeed, it does. Despite the fact you're playing as a Big Daddy - the most iconic adversary from the original game - very little has changed. Hardly anything, in fact. You still have guns and plasmids... the place is still full of crazy splicers and you do research with a "genetic camera" but other than that, it's all quite similar. The only big difference is a somewhat insubstantial one - the weapons are different. As a Big Daddy (well, Big Daddy prototype... at the start of the game, you're as weak as a kitten) you get a drill as your default weapon and a rivet gun, later collecting a Gatling gun, shotgun, remote hacking tool, rock launcher and the like. This is really the ONLY area of the game where it feels like anything substantial has been reworked.

Plasmids are almost completely unchanged, there are a few more tonics and unlike the first game, you have a common pool for them, rather than only getting X number of tonics for one type of enhancement... The enemies haven't changed a great deal. There is exactly one type of new splicer - the Brute, who is somewhere between the Incredible Hulk and Mr. Hyde from the lamentable Van Helsing film (or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, take your pick). They're easily the most powerful of the splicers but still some way below a Big Daddy. There is in fact a NEW Big Daddy, the Rumbler - he uses turrets and stuff... and looks kinda different and of course, there's the much touted Big Sister. They're pretty damned rare, while you have to fight a Big Daddy every time you want to get a Little Sister, Big Sisters only turn up after you've harvested or saved about three Little Sisters... so, you'll fight only a handful of them... although, they are considerably more powerful than Big Daddys, with their plasmids and agility, so that's probably for the best... and that's ALL the new enemies, all three of 'em. Oh no! There are two new versions of the Big Daddy, the Rumbler and the Alpha Series. So, four. Four new enemies.

The main change to gameplay - in fact, make that the ONLY change - is that as a Big Daddy, you can now adopt Little Sisters, after you kill their Big Daddy. So, to get more ADAM - the stuff that lets you buy fancy new plasmids to shoot fire, electricity and so on - you have your Little Sister harvest corpses... which leads to the splicers attack and naturally, you need to defend the Little Sister until she's done. In fact, if this leads to you having some deja vu - that'll be because you did this IN THE FIRST GAME. It's just that back then, it was an arbitrary task and had no reward beyond progressing in the game... so, yes innovation ladies and gentlemen!

No, you're definitely not going to be playing Bioshock 2 for revolutionary visuals or gameplay because this is very much more of the same. So, it's fair to say that if you liked the original game, then you will probably enjoy this... if not, then you won't like this. It's hard to say much more about the game - it's enjoyable enough, although even on hard with due diligence, not even Big Sisters or Big Daddys pose any real threat and regular enemies must attack en masse to be anything more than a nuisance. In fact, the game has something of an inverse difficulty curve - at the start of the game despite being a Big Daddy, you can be offed quite easily by a pair of splicers if you aren't paying attention, by the end of the game with the right plasmids (and it seems like the freeze plasmid might be a TAD overpowered when used in conjunction with a fully pimped drill) the only real challenge comes at the very end of the game when wave after wave of high level enemies are sent at you.

If one were to ignore the story, then this might as well be some extra levels for Bioshock, so few and far between are the differences. One might not necessarily see that as a bad thing, of course - Bioshock was an enjoyable game, as is this one and of course, this has the addition of multiplayer, if such things should interest you. So, if you liked Bioshock - get it and if you didn't don't bother.

Mass Effect 2 had a lot to live up to.

Being a Bioware game these days leads to high expectations and being a sequel to Mass Effect - universally loved and well received, or near enough - that would go without saying but the build up for Mass Effect 2 started back in mid-2009 and it didn't stop until the game was loading up.

Must like the first game, you're immediately thrust into action - and a rather lengthy and super special awesome cutscene that sets up the game before you reprise the role of galactic bad ass. Things are mixed up slightly this time around as you're working for the shady Cereberus group, who it was possible to encounter in the first game, entirely as the bad guys. They're a human supremacist group and are very much modelled after every shadowy conspiracy type organisation ever. Regardless, you're working for them to try and put a stop to a spate of colonies disappearing - because as it's an RPG, no one else can ever get anything done.

The major difference from the first game is probably the first one that you'll notice - there is ammo. Given that Mass Effect made a point of there being no necessity for reloading - with weapons just overheating - it can be somewhat jarring and does make the game a rather more generic experience... but in practice, the ammo is plentiful and you're only going to be stretched for ammo in seriously protracted firefights. Beyond this, there is a HUGE simplification of the levelling logistics. In fact, most things in the gameplay department have been streamlined. There is no purchasing or finding weaponary, the number of abilities a character has been reduced to four (one of which is unlocked by gaining their loyalty) and weapons/armour upgrading has been all but scrapped.

This might all sound as if some horrific amount of damage has been done to the game but really, it merely allows for more time to be spent playing the game and focusing on the story - rather than spending hours trying to get an optimal load out for your party. It's perhaps somewhat unfortunate that the system introduced essentially means that you get gun A and then later can get gun B - which is in all ways better - but Mass Effect was never particularly heavy on sitting around and fiddling with stats and so on, so it's not really a loss.

The upgrades in question require minerals, which leads to what is the weakest part of the game - the mining mini-game. Much like the original, Mass Effect 2 lets you fly around solar systems (in this case, you literally direct your ship around the solar systems) and scan planets. The difference here being that you're not arbitrarily awarded stuff for a scan or dropped onto the planet in the MAKO, to spend hours roaming bland and generic landscapes, vaguely hoping to find something interesting. No, your scan will - 90% of the time - lead to the mining mini-game. This involves dragging the cursor over the planet to try and find mineral deposits by using the scanner. It's not horrible but it's time consuming and repetitive... and it seems strange for a game that seems designed with the intent of focusing on the narrative and the action above all else to toss in something that utterly removes the player from both... but about 10% of the time (which is probably an overly generous estimate) you'll get an anomaly and this leads to a unique encounter. These are all great fun and are a country mile better than bumping around in the MAKO for hours on end - so, really a huge improvement over that dynamic from the original.

As this is a Bioware game, it almost goes without saying that the voice acting and writing in this game is excellent. As before, one generally has a choice between a good - or paragon - response, a neutral one or the bad - renegade - responses. This has been supplemented by what could ALMOST be considered a quick time event, if that weren't an insult. In addition to dialogue, at times during a conversation, a paragon or renegade action may be available to you and by clicking appropriately, one can do anything from toss someone out of a high rise to stop someone getting shot. It's a very simple but effective way to increase the involvement of the player in the Shepard character.

The story itself is enjoyable although, despite the disappearance of entire human colonies... the threat never feels quite as imminent as it did before, possibly because of the nature of the enemy... there is no equivalent to Saren here, no nemesis for Shepard to talk with... and it hurts the story somewhat. Saren served to tie the overall thread of Mass Effect together, here we've just got an army of mooks who never really say much. Of course, it's still interesting but they don't quite get the epicness of the first game. That said, the more personal elements of the game are good. The first game only had a few personal sidequests, ME2 has a full one for all the members of your crew - they're all unique experiences and depending on how they play out, you can gain the loyalty of the party member, giving them a snazzy Cerberus jumpsuit and unlocking a new ability.

All in all, an enjoyable game that did what most good sequels should - take the framework of the original game and improve upon it. Other than the mineral mini-game and the initial surprise players of the original will have over having to reload their weapons, instead of just waiting for it to cool down, there really isn't much to complain about. The game balances humour - there are some hilarious conversations in the background on the various worlds - action, story, romance (there are EIGHT love interests compared to the original three) and sci-fi goodness into one easily digestible package. Bring on Mass Effect 3.

Dragon Age - Bioware finally escapes the strictures of licensed properties and establishes its own intellectual property... which is being dubbed "dark fantasy". It's really just takes the traditional fantasy mix and moves things around... and yes, probably slightly more dark in tone that the average fantasy franchise, with the near total destruction of humanity in the past, dwarves locked in a constant battle for survival with the darkspawn (who periodically try and wipe out everything in Blights - which you're trying to avert) and elves are second class citizens, often used as slaves and treated with open contempt.

As a Bioware game, the writing and story is top notch and is the greatest strength in a game that drags on. The reason for this is very simple - the gameplay isn't particularly exciting. It's standard D&D stuff - all tick tocking masked behind a friendly interface and the player able to stop and issue orders at any point to your party. For the most part, the RPG element of the game has been stripped down to bare bones. Rogue, mage or warrior... and depending on your class and racial choices, you have a number of different possible starting missions which make some trifling difference to the game after they're done but it's a nice touch.

Thankfully, the party is not limited to the Mass Effect group of three but rather you get four in your party... not quite at the Baldur's Gate levels but still, an extra party member is always a bonus - especially as there are the occasional interactions between the NPCs... again, it's not on the same level as Baldur's Gate but it's still nice to have it there. Regardless of that, in camp you can interact extensively with your entire party to get their backstory and gain influence with them. Influence is gained by making choices they approve of when they're in your party, saying the right thing to them or just giving them gifts. This is really where the game shines - the characters are all scripted wonderfully and the voice acting is really top notch, making interaction with the characters a joy rather than a chore.

The game almost manages a wonderfully cinematic quality, right from the start. Again, scripts and acting are superb and the action and direction of the cutscenes is great. They seem to almost effortlessly manage to incorporate a sense of epic scale at times and at others, quiet intensity. It's very impressive to see this all done almost entirely with the in-game engine but then, the engine is quite impressive.

Where the game falters is the gameplay... the difficulty randomly varies, meaning sometimes attack will be easy to shrug off and other times, they'll be inexplicably harder, despite a similar number of identical enemies and when it comes down to it - it's also very rinse, wash, repeat. By halfway through the game, the combat are starting to get tiresome and by the end, it's little more than a chore to be rushed through to beat the game. Compared to something like KOTOR or Mass Effect where combat was fun AND challenging, this is a real let down and easily the weakest of Bioware's latest. There are some nice touches - like the ability to have spell effects combine - but really they're just minor and the game is in danger of having grind.

All-in-all it's a good game and worth playing for the story, if not the gameplay.

There is something called an idiot franchise - that is to say, a franchise which has fanboys (or girls) so loyal and unthinking that anything with the right name on it will inspire the easiest of all partings, a fool and their money. There are some obvious candidates for this... EA games and horror films. EA has been pumping out various slightly different iterations of sports games for over a decade now - to the point one starts to feel less contempt for the company and more for the fans... although, as it's EA... there's still a lot of contempt to be felt for them.

Microsoft seem fairly intent on making Halo their torch blazing idiot franchise. Now, some are going to immediately say that Halo was great etc. The first was certainly something that made the X-box a player in the console market - and let's face it, Halo is really much, much more about the multiplayer than the single player, regardless of the orders of magnitude more that was put into that in the second two games...

So, why say this is the dawn of an idiot franchise? First off, Halo Wars... ok, you might say - RTS games on consoles... those are never really going to be great. Some types of game favour a mouse and keyboard, some a controller - and hey, it had some pretty cutscenes and it wasn't actually MADE by Bungie. Sure but it was just a cash-in... and of course, now Halo: ODST has been done... Bungie have bailed, well almost. They're signing off with Halo: Reach - which they've said little about but will presumably be a Halo prequel and FPS.

Bungie can't really be blamed for what went down with Halo - Microsoft bought them and the game concept changed radically and it became the X-box's messiah, very much the Alpha and Omega. ODST was not a high note to finish on - it's a bunch of characters you don't know, doing stuff you don't care about and really, the ODST boys are pussies compared to Master Chief. The chorus of voices on this game echoes much what the developers said - it's not worth full price. It's just an expansion, pretending to be a game... But... in short order, all these sins will be forgotten.

Why? Because... THERE'S A NEW HALO GAME! Which will be the last one to have anything to do with Bungie - all Halo properties henceforth shall be dealt with by a Microsoft subsidiary. Yes. Microsoft want to milk this cow dry enough that they not only bought the intellectual property from Bungie, they're actually making a company to exploit it. A company PURELY to develop Halo titles... the power of fanboys is as awesome as their ability to let fanaticism override intellect time and again... After all, if Halo: ODST being a full priced release when the game amounted to a fairly limited add-on for Halo 3... then it's fair to say the shark has been jumped.

In 1990, back when gaming was played exclusively on screens the size of postcards in darkened rooms, a game was released and - yes, you guessed it... that game was The Secret Of Monkey Island... probably launching one of the most critically acclaimed and well known adventure game franchises of all time. With quirky humour, amusing characters and no fear of sending itself up... it's not surprising that it embedded itself into a certain section of the collective gaming conscience.

So, 19 years on and three sequels later we come to the first chapter of a new Monkey Island tale... appropriately called Tales Of Monkey Island: Launch Of The Screaming Narwhal. Probably the first thing any Monkey Island veteran will notice is that most of the original voice cast returns, most importantly Guybrush is back as if he never left.

All rather surprising, as the adventure genre has all but died out due to the stifling monoculture of FPS games... and MMOs. Regardless of trends in gaming, here we have a spiffy new adventure game. Long story short - it's funny, has a good level of difficulty... Guybrush is the MIGHTY PIRATE and so on... not really more than a weekend of play if you're casual.

Wholesome pirate fun.

Prototype is at it's heart - nothing more than a mish mash of different tried and tested gameplay and story elements. The free roaming owes a lot to GTA, the gameplay and powers are a lot like what you'll get in Devil May Cry and its ilk and the story is pretty much Resident Evil. While not having an original idea in its pretty little head and not being overly pretty... the game is still great.

Alex Mercer is a - sigh - amensiac who wakes up after being dead. He has to piece together his life and work out what's going on with the infection of Manhattan by a virus and yadda yadda yadda. It's not very original but who cares? YOU GET TO TOSS TANKS AROUND. Literally. You can pick up tanks, cars, helicopters.

The story really isn't very much to write home about - government conspiracy, supersoldiers resulting in zombies and that kind of thing. That's irrelevant - although, as a gameplay dynamic you can run around the city and "absorb" people to uncover the backstory of the game. This absorption can also be used to gain and improve skills and infiltrate enemy bases. It's actually a pretty nifty dynamic. Although, the AI in the game is so AWFUL that you can get away with just dropping 100m from a rooftop dressed as a soldier in front of another soldier and he'll high five you instead of shooting you in the FACE.

Not that point blank machine gun fire would do much becuase it's worth noticing even at the start of the game - you're RIDICULOUSLY powerful. Insanely super powerful and that is why this game rocks. On normal difficulty you are as a GOD. Once you kick in your power ups, you can shrug off artillery shells - small arms fire does noticing. You can heal by chowing down on unsuspecting people in most situations. Really only a pack of Hunters will poses a threat. You can hijack tanks and helicopters, fly (kinda), use the weapons of the soldiers and use a variety of abilities - whip, claws, GIANT SWORD ARM and enhanced strength. Plenty of moves to use.

Beyond the usual storyline missions there are GTAesque challenges that... don't really do much, they're just there for extra playtime. Running along the roof, absorbing people and good old fashioned murder. Not to mention you can just go and break into military bases or tear apart the hives.

The game is to be played purely for fun. There is no deep meaning. The game tries to inject some sense of an epic storyline with the "Web of intrigue" backstory mechanic but that's not really that important. Not are the mini-games - this game is about running around and smashing stuff in a number of awesome ways. It doesn't matter that the plot is a big cliche or that the voice acting is Resident Evil level... it's all just a bit of a laugh.

The Fallout series is... one even veteran gamers might consider old. The first game saw an outing back when the number of pixels use to define an entire character would literally not come close to what is in a modern characters little finger. That said, games back then made up for in gameplay what they lacked in graphics - the good ones, anyway.

The premise of the series is a fairly common - if far more elaborately articulated - post-apocalyptic world. The world went the way of nuclear war and everything approaching civilisation as you and I know it, went the way of the dinosaur. Certain people struggled on, in the irradiated world. Various others - lived secluded in big ol' underground bunkers - known as vaults. The first game draws its protagonist from vault 13. Fallout 3 gives us the Lonely Wanderer from Vault 101.

Your father is Liam Neeson - but that shouldn't come as a surprise... This is a Bethesda game! And they're using the Oblivion engine (that being The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion)... And, some jolly good voice actors. In fairness, he doesn't have that much more to say than Patrick Stewart did in the aforementioned... but it's nice that they put the effort in.

So, a Fallout game - naturally, circumstances precipitate your departure from the cosy vault into the rather less hospitable wastelands, this time in the Capital Wastelands... formerly Washington D.C. The post-apocalyptic feel is wonderful, from the ramshackle development of Megaton to the rather more respectable Rivet City... you're never really treated to the kind of visual diversity that you had in The Elder Scrolls but then, this is set in a world approximating our own. So, you don't get distinct designs just for the sake of it - there are differences... but they're just less striking because few of the settlements are really towns, per se.

As with TES games, you're given free reign over what you do. Which means - you can pretty much go off and explore and forget the main quest and explore the wilderness, do sidequests or just mince around to your hearts content. In fairness, the rather limited nature of the main quest - and realistically, the only thing that would stop you from doing it in an afternoon might be the fact you'd need to play for a bit to get the levels and weapons to win through - means that if you want to feel you've got your money's worth... it's probably best you do that anyway.

One of the issues with Mass Effect was... unlike previous Bioware games, you didn't just bump into sidequests in the course of following the main quest - KOTOR is a prime example... but then, it's just to be generally venerated anyway. Now, some might say that in both cases, it's more about freedom. KOTOR was limited to about a half-dozen planets which weren't huge. Mass Effect had literally dozens (excluding the sizeable mission planets) and Fallout 3 has just one big ol' map that you could spend ages combing over but then, that's something of a problem.

After a certain point you have to ask - is it really WORTH it? There are a fair number of weapon types... but one hunting rifle is much the same as another. There is about one "unique" weapon for each type of weapon which will look the same but boast slightly better clip sizes or damage... it won't set your world on fire.

Weapons leads us nicely into combat... This is (sadly) fairly straight forward TES style combat. Which is to say, if you've got ranged attacks - start shooting and if you've got melee... close to bludgeoning distance. It has ALWAYS been the weakest element of TES games but Fallout 3 manages to mitigate it with the staple of the previous two games VATS.

VATS essentially emulates turn-based combat. You have an allocation of action points - different weapons require different more or less - which you can use to target specific body parts of your enemies. These vary depending upon a number of things - your weapon, proficiency with it, its condition and so on. For those that don't care for the not-very-good FPS combat the game offers, this is a very valid alternative... To reference Mass Effect again though, this doesn't offer you fun firefights... because, it's entirely possible to just run out into the open and sit there for a few seconds, in Mass Effect all but the most heavily armoured will die outside of cover. Fallout 3 makes it easy for enemies (and the player) to run at one another. So, there's no real disadvantage to being a melee character. It makes things rather less interesting and realistic.

What is somewhat more interesting is that VATS or no, damage is area specific. Headshots do more damage, you can shoot weapons out of people's hands... impede mobility by shooting their legs. In fact, the game accomodates gory decapitations (because for some reason, a headshot results in a decapitation - mostly) or limbs falling off... or in the case of the "bloody mess" perk. A person being dismembered upon death... that would probably have been more helpful in Dead Space. You're also treated to random slomo shots - everything to the decapiation to a bullets view of the hit. Some people might get bored of it but it's got a variety of different possibilities, so it's not exactly the same thing every time - plus, the laser and plasma weapons have their own special death animations.

Shooting things isn't the only course of action though - at least in quests, during your travels you'll encounter giant critters, Raiders and Super Mutants who communicate exclusive via the medium of stabbings and shootings - many of your tasks will offer you the chance to talk problems out... for good or ill. Naturally, the options available to you are somewhat affected by your stats and demeanour... because Fallout 3 has a karma system.

It's the typical one - where ALL deeds (good and evil) are e-mailed to the entire world. Everything from detonating a nuke in a town to giving water to a beggar or stealing a fork. Something of a standard device but then, if you lose karma for doing bad things when no one is looking... why bother trying to conceal your misdeeds? Obviously, if you go around selling people into slavery and just wantonly killing... that makes sense but it's a common enough game dynamic and not really anything but a niggle.

Fallout 3's problem is that it's never really that... engaging. Yes, it does somewhat tap into the mythos of the Fallout universe but only in the sense of atmosphere. The main quest is of minimal interest and difficulty and of course, once it's done - game over. That's not so surprising though - the level cap for the game is a whopping 20, attributes are capped at 10 and skills at 100 and with even minimal effort, you can max out the stats for your play style long before then.

Most quest rewards are pretty boring and really are only worth doing for the XP. There is the occasional fancy gun or special ability but these tend to be the exceptions. Not quite to the Morrowind level of "Thanks for saving the town... have a paperweight and a punch in the face." non-reward... but sometimes it can feel like it... and the fact that if you REALLY want to explore the game world, you have to just march around and occasionally find camps and such like. There IS the fast travel option but that's only to locations you've visited... and a lot of places you'll have to bump into. It's not MMO grind... it's just a bit boring, wandering through the wastes. There aren't even a half-dozen major settlements... the game considers a "settlement" to be about 3 people. The nature of the wasteland means you're not going to be bumping into big cities... but Fallout 1 & 2 had far more in the way of meaningful settlements and here, they're just... kind of empty and not very interesting.

It's fun for a few hours but games costing what they do these days - not really worth the price of admission. Sure it's pretty and has body parts flying in all directions but we're at a stage where eye candy isn't something to get excited about and ditto flying body parts. It suffers from the flaws of The Elder Scrolls in terms of gameplay but it doesn't really counter with the rich environment and backstory. There are SOME fun quests and it does an excellent job of translating the Fallout world into a gritty first person experience but... wandering around broken cities and ruins is almost certain to make you think of Half Life 2 and Gears of War. It's just... not a lot of anything. It isn't bad, it just lacks anything with which to wow all but the most casual of casual gamers. About all that can be said is that VATS is something of a salve for the very awkward mishmash that TES games call combat.