Genre mixing and versus battles are all the rage these days. Pirates vs. ninjas, zombies vs. anything and now Cowboys vs. Aliens.
There REALLY isn't a lot to say about this film - it's very much a case of "does exactly what it says on the tin". You've got the Wild West setting with cowboys and injuns and then - BOOM! ALIENS!
Daniel Craig - with plot convenient/lazy writing amnesia and a bracelet that fires lasers - and Harrison Ford are the driving forces here but there's no real characterisation. Harrison Ford is a gruff cattle rancher with a pissant son (who gets abducted) and about all his character does is say that he looks at a native American guy is like his REAL son. Daniel Craig is suffering movie grade amnesia and is plagued with a severe case of flashbacks... it's nothing that hasn't been done a hundred times before and as always, it's just a case of the writer either not having the talent or inclination to write something better. He's a bad ass with a criminal past - that he can't remember - and the only weapon that works against the aliens.
After the aliens have abducted a bunch of people from the town, Indiana Jones and James Bond get a posse together and head out to find the aliens and that's really the meat of the film. We find out that the aliens are there FOR GOLD... which... doesn't really make a lot of sense. If you're capable of interstellar travel and can detect gold from orbit... why the hell do you want to waste all the time and energy of going down into a gravity well as big as Earth? Just go asteroid mining! And if you're thinking "aliens coming to Earth for our gold... that sounds familiar!" that'll be because it was the plot for the cinematic masterpiece known as Battlefield: Earth.
Also, the reason for the abductions is apparently because the aliens want to find out our weaknesses. This kind of thing always strikes me as silly. Unless you're going to develop biological agents SPECIFICALLY for humans, it really shouldn't be that hard to work out that humans are incredibly frail. We're meatbags that can die by falling down a flight of stairs - it's not like we're Kryptonians or Terminators, we die REAL easy. There is the insinuation that the aliens will also descend en masse to wipe humanity out - there's no explanation given, that's apparently just how these aliens roll.
So, naturally after following a wounded alien, they manage to find their ship and decide to engage in what might as well have been dubbed "operation suicide", which is basically most of the people riding around outside the ship and getting massacred by the nigh invulnerable aliens, that are apparently capable of just ripping people apart... all of this after they recognise that they want to keep to the high ground.
Naturally though, main characters are immune and Han Solo and James Bond are fine, aliens are killed and that's about it. Very average.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Superman vs. The Elite
So, as we all know - when it comes to live action films, there is no right DC can do for doing wrong... the exception obviously being Chris Nolan's Batman but fortunately, it's continuing to quietly produce animated features.
Superman vs. The Elite is their latest offering and is actually rather good. It's not QUITE in the All Star Superman league but it is good, following - as that did - a pre-existing and critical acclaimed storyline in the comics, which is really how these things should go.
The problem with Superman as a character - regardless of medium - is that a lot of people find him dull. He's pretty much the dictionary definition of a flying brick (or a physical god) and has about a bajillionty superpowers - to the point that he has to have THREE glass jaws just to compensate for it... and a weakness like kryptonite makes things a bit prosaic because, when you know Superman is essentially invulnerable EXCEPT to kryptonite - well, it doesn't take a genius to work out that people are going to have krptonite... It's either that or Superman is just up against someone he can punch a lot and destroy the city.
Superman is generally considered the quintessential boyscout and hence, being a physical god who personifies hope - the polar opposite of the brooding mere mortal Batman, who is the only Mary Sue that it's acceptable to not just like but openly hero worship. This is the real problem with Superman - it's hard to relate to the guy.
Superman vs. The Elite is essentially a response to all the darker, edgier heroes that are (at best) morally grey and will kill and commit questionable acts to achieve their ends vs. Superman's faith in the justice system and humanity. It's exactly what Superman needs - a problem that he can't punch his way out of. The moral quandary is really the heart of the story.
The Elite are four anti-heroes led by Manchester Black - a Mancunian with immense telepathic and telekinetic powers, a big black guy who is superstrong and has some kind of energy power, a horny succubus type girl with the ability to create snakes or something and The Hat, who is constantly drunk and summons demons from his hat and has various other non-specified magic.
The conflict arises from Superman's belief in the rule of law and The Elite's amoral pursuit of who they judge "the bad guys". The Elite are seen as heroes for their uncompromising treatment of criminals and terrorists and while they both seemingly serve the side of right, a conflict is inevitable.
All-in-all, it's a good offering and if you can suffer through all the awful British accents - it's worth a watch.
Superman vs. The Elite is their latest offering and is actually rather good. It's not QUITE in the All Star Superman league but it is good, following - as that did - a pre-existing and critical acclaimed storyline in the comics, which is really how these things should go.
The problem with Superman as a character - regardless of medium - is that a lot of people find him dull. He's pretty much the dictionary definition of a flying brick (or a physical god) and has about a bajillionty superpowers - to the point that he has to have THREE glass jaws just to compensate for it... and a weakness like kryptonite makes things a bit prosaic because, when you know Superman is essentially invulnerable EXCEPT to kryptonite - well, it doesn't take a genius to work out that people are going to have krptonite... It's either that or Superman is just up against someone he can punch a lot and destroy the city.
Superman is generally considered the quintessential boyscout and hence, being a physical god who personifies hope - the polar opposite of the brooding mere mortal Batman, who is the only Mary Sue that it's acceptable to not just like but openly hero worship. This is the real problem with Superman - it's hard to relate to the guy.
Superman vs. The Elite is essentially a response to all the darker, edgier heroes that are (at best) morally grey and will kill and commit questionable acts to achieve their ends vs. Superman's faith in the justice system and humanity. It's exactly what Superman needs - a problem that he can't punch his way out of. The moral quandary is really the heart of the story.
The Elite are four anti-heroes led by Manchester Black - a Mancunian with immense telepathic and telekinetic powers, a big black guy who is superstrong and has some kind of energy power, a horny succubus type girl with the ability to create snakes or something and The Hat, who is constantly drunk and summons demons from his hat and has various other non-specified magic.
The conflict arises from Superman's belief in the rule of law and The Elite's amoral pursuit of who they judge "the bad guys". The Elite are seen as heroes for their uncompromising treatment of criminals and terrorists and while they both seemingly serve the side of right, a conflict is inevitable.
All-in-all, it's a good offering and if you can suffer through all the awful British accents - it's worth a watch.
Friday, June 15, 2012
John Carter Of Mars
John Carter of Mars - the live action Disney adaptation of the oldie timey work of the same name - is likely to be remembered for how catastrophically it tanked at the box office, putting it up there with other similarly high outlay/low return flops as Treasure Planet and Atlantis: The Lost Empire in the Disney hall of shame...
The thing is - as with Treasure Planet and Atlantis which between them pretty much killed off Disney's traditional animated features for a decade - John Carter of Mars... isn't bad. It's actually considerably better than either of those two offerings but it's really not good either.
There's nothing that sticks out as memorable beyond the visuals. Despite clocking in at two hours, there's no real investment in any of the characters and there's never any real suspense or tension. Not to mention that the fish out of water device isn't particularly well used - John Carter arrives on Mars and seems to work it all out pretty quickly and once a magical plot device (never explained) allows him to understand the language of the people on Mars, it's all pretty straight forward. The strange thing about the universal translator is that it doesn't translate the weird words and so, almost half the dialogue is people saying silly words or names.
There's nothing wrong with that occasionally but the words in question are just so ridiculous that it makes it hard to take it seriously... and the film plays it very straight, that alone makes the film feel rather stilted which is worsened by the pacing. Really, the two hour run time does drag and it feels as if this could have been cut down to ninety minutes and it would have been for the better.
It feels as if this really WANTED to be a kind of fun sci-fi romp - possibly in the manner of Pirates of the Caribbean - but it got bogged down in the source material. The plot is pretty straight forward - John Carter dicks around a bit to give us some minor character development and then ends up on Mars, find out he's super strong and can jump like a kangaroo on steroids and saves a princess...
This princess is not only hot (pretty much a given) AND a super science boffin (having discovered the "ninth ray", which is apparently super special awesome) but is also an accomplished sword fighting bad ass, so... she's a keeper. Anyway, evil shapeshifting monks want McNulty from The Wire to marry her, allowing them to rule the planet... or something, the motivations of the "Thurn" are never really explained beyond vague insinuation that once they've got a puppet ruler on Mars, they'll turn their attention toward Earth.
Anyway, John Carter and the princess run away from the four armed green guys, find out the plans of the evil shapeshifting monks (because apparently a race capable of instantaneous interplanetary travel don't know about passwords) and have the mandatory chases and escapes. It's all very paint by numbers and really, there's just nothing to set this apart from the crowd and the ending just feels like clunky framing with obvious sequel baiting for a sequel that will never come.
It's not good, it's not bad... it's just average and despite some nice visuals, it's easily forgettable. Something to watch when you're not really feeling like paying a lot of attention, really.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
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.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
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!
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!
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!
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
Let's give Terra Nova a pass on it being a show that described ITSELF as "Lost meets Jurassic Park". OK, so the temporal whatjamacallit let's them live in dinosaur land and because one of the idiots from Star Trek: Voyager (Brannon Braga) is the showrunner, it's vaguely explained with some technobabble that may or may not become critically important at some later juncture...
But let's examine the idiocy of the show itself, beyond the premise. Now we have our people from 2149 living 85 million years in the past, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth... because dinosaurs are cool! Now, the problem of the week in episode 1x07 is that a meteor went BOOM and caused an EMP - amazingly, this is actually something that even relatively small meteors can do! It's happened a few times and has taken down power grids etc.
This seems to be relatively common knowledge as both Colonel Badass and Data (the brainbox daughter of the protagonist) almost immediately identify it. The first problem we encounter is that while the EMP is created by the meteor "exploding" in an air burst above the ground, the remains still hit the ground and cause a "sonic shock" (presumably, a regular shockwave wouldn't be science fictiony enough). Now, as the barrier for Terra Nova is just wooden bars with great big gaps - this means everyone has to hit the ground... a solid barrier would at least have mitigated that and prevented any dangerous high speed projectiles being hurled into people.
The second - and more obvious problem - is that LITERALLY EVERYTHING has a computer chip in it. EVEN THEIR GUNS! This is a period which had a considerably higher level of meteor activity and yet they didn't think about this? Oh but they might have back-ups, you say! They do! Phew, problem solved! Oh, wait - no. The EMP is capable of slagging ANY circuit in range - active or otherwise... oh, they're kind of fucked then... Oh! No, of course not - they've got a machine to make replacements! Thank goodness all of Terra Nova hasn't been reduced to a pre-electronic age! Wait, what's that? The machine that makes replacement chips itself requires one that was melted by the EMP?! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Hilariously - and for the purposes of dramatic convenience - there is one guy in the whole colony that can fix microchips that have melted. It's the evil Ozzie bartender! Quite how he's supposed to fix something that has presumably melted is never explained - these days, if a CPU breaks... it's pretty much done and these are chips from 150 years into the future (and hence presumably even smaller and more complex), it seems unlikely that even a trivial problem could be fixed - least of all by a guy in a bar with no tools.
But the whole situation is made even MORE ridiculous when we have Colonel Badass pronounce that their perimeter - which is apparently will with microchipped landmines... OK... - is down and that any number of beasties could charge through the barrier like it wasn't there... NO FUCKING KIDDING! If only you came from the future and could somehow make... some kind of METAL WALL! Seriously, what is WITH these people? They've brought through dozens, if not hundreds of lovely prefab buildings, enough weapons and vehicle to supply a small army and a state of the art medical facility and as revealed in this very episode, the sum total of ALL HUMAN KNOWLEDGE (oh, don't worry - THAT was shielded from the EMP!).
Yet, at some point during the planning of this second chance for humanity someone thought they'd just skimp on the walls and just have a bunch of logs a full grown man could fit through - or a dinosaur the size of a full grown man! Oops! In fact, Colonel Badass actually decides that as they're down to a useless barrier and harsh language, they need another line of defence - which turns out to be a big ditch that they fill with petrol or some such and ignite with flaming arrows (naturally when handed a compound bow, Timecop knows EXACTLY how to use it - because... well, because he's a main character damnit! Having one of the minor supporting characters who actually might have been trained to use a bow is stupid!). Hey, you know what would be sensible? Maybe if you hadn't waited until the last minute to dig a ditch to stop the hundreds of different species of 40 tonne beasties that run around all over this place!
Of course, the EVIL Sixers use the crippling stupidity of the Terra Novans to try and get the magical box of McGuffin because the Spineosaurus was just a distraction while the Sixers sneak in to get the McGuffin. They go on to exposition that this surgical strike was clearly the result of a mole - not just the fact the box was in a cupboard and in the most obvious location possible. Which rather begs the question - the mole clearly knew exactly where the McGuffin was - it was easy to get to and there was no one guarding it... it seems a regular occurrence for kids to sneak out of the colony, so you'd assume that as it's essentially just locked in a stationary cupboard the mole could just break in and sneak it out - no need for a potentially dangerous diversion or surgical strike.
Idiotic.
But let's examine the idiocy of the show itself, beyond the premise. Now we have our people from 2149 living 85 million years in the past, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth... because dinosaurs are cool! Now, the problem of the week in episode 1x07 is that a meteor went BOOM and caused an EMP - amazingly, this is actually something that even relatively small meteors can do! It's happened a few times and has taken down power grids etc.
This seems to be relatively common knowledge as both Colonel Badass and Data (the brainbox daughter of the protagonist) almost immediately identify it. The first problem we encounter is that while the EMP is created by the meteor "exploding" in an air burst above the ground, the remains still hit the ground and cause a "sonic shock" (presumably, a regular shockwave wouldn't be science fictiony enough). Now, as the barrier for Terra Nova is just wooden bars with great big gaps - this means everyone has to hit the ground... a solid barrier would at least have mitigated that and prevented any dangerous high speed projectiles being hurled into people.
The second - and more obvious problem - is that LITERALLY EVERYTHING has a computer chip in it. EVEN THEIR GUNS! This is a period which had a considerably higher level of meteor activity and yet they didn't think about this? Oh but they might have back-ups, you say! They do! Phew, problem solved! Oh, wait - no. The EMP is capable of slagging ANY circuit in range - active or otherwise... oh, they're kind of fucked then... Oh! No, of course not - they've got a machine to make replacements! Thank goodness all of Terra Nova hasn't been reduced to a pre-electronic age! Wait, what's that? The machine that makes replacement chips itself requires one that was melted by the EMP?! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Hilariously - and for the purposes of dramatic convenience - there is one guy in the whole colony that can fix microchips that have melted. It's the evil Ozzie bartender! Quite how he's supposed to fix something that has presumably melted is never explained - these days, if a CPU breaks... it's pretty much done and these are chips from 150 years into the future (and hence presumably even smaller and more complex), it seems unlikely that even a trivial problem could be fixed - least of all by a guy in a bar with no tools.
But the whole situation is made even MORE ridiculous when we have Colonel Badass pronounce that their perimeter - which is apparently will with microchipped landmines... OK... - is down and that any number of beasties could charge through the barrier like it wasn't there... NO FUCKING KIDDING! If only you came from the future and could somehow make... some kind of METAL WALL! Seriously, what is WITH these people? They've brought through dozens, if not hundreds of lovely prefab buildings, enough weapons and vehicle to supply a small army and a state of the art medical facility and as revealed in this very episode, the sum total of ALL HUMAN KNOWLEDGE (oh, don't worry - THAT was shielded from the EMP!).
Yet, at some point during the planning of this second chance for humanity someone thought they'd just skimp on the walls and just have a bunch of logs a full grown man could fit through - or a dinosaur the size of a full grown man! Oops! In fact, Colonel Badass actually decides that as they're down to a useless barrier and harsh language, they need another line of defence - which turns out to be a big ditch that they fill with petrol or some such and ignite with flaming arrows (naturally when handed a compound bow, Timecop knows EXACTLY how to use it - because... well, because he's a main character damnit! Having one of the minor supporting characters who actually might have been trained to use a bow is stupid!). Hey, you know what would be sensible? Maybe if you hadn't waited until the last minute to dig a ditch to stop the hundreds of different species of 40 tonne beasties that run around all over this place!
Of course, the EVIL Sixers use the crippling stupidity of the Terra Novans to try and get the magical box of McGuffin because the Spineosaurus was just a distraction while the Sixers sneak in to get the McGuffin. They go on to exposition that this surgical strike was clearly the result of a mole - not just the fact the box was in a cupboard and in the most obvious location possible. Which rather begs the question - the mole clearly knew exactly where the McGuffin was - it was easy to get to and there was no one guarding it... it seems a regular occurrence for kids to sneak out of the colony, so you'd assume that as it's essentially just locked in a stationary cupboard the mole could just break in and sneak it out - no need for a potentially dangerous diversion or surgical strike.
Idiotic.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
The UK has a history of SCI-FI that is chequered.
In recent years about all there has been is Doctor Who and Primeval... which are respectively mostly good and rubbish.
But the BBC will keep trying... and so, OUTCASTS!
A show that is struggling to get as many cliches as possible!
It's post-apocalyptic, it's an off-world colony, they had a virus that killed only kids, that have clones, they blamed the clones for the virus that killed their kids, the clones weren't able to produce BUT NOW CAN and as we're all of two episodes in - you can imagine we'll get some pay off on the vague and mystical notion.
The horrible acting, dialogue and just general tedium does NOTHING to make this show good.
Did the BBC learn NOTHING from The Deep? This is just another car crash. It doesn't matter if you get the budget or the high profile actors if the script is rubbish - it's going to be a bad product.
Why, oh why must the business hate and belittle writers? THEY MAKE THE SHOW.
Perhaps there was nothing to ruin here.
In recent years about all there has been is Doctor Who and Primeval... which are respectively mostly good and rubbish.
But the BBC will keep trying... and so, OUTCASTS!
A show that is struggling to get as many cliches as possible!
It's post-apocalyptic, it's an off-world colony, they had a virus that killed only kids, that have clones, they blamed the clones for the virus that killed their kids, the clones weren't able to produce BUT NOW CAN and as we're all of two episodes in - you can imagine we'll get some pay off on the vague and mystical notion.
The horrible acting, dialogue and just general tedium does NOTHING to make this show good.
Did the BBC learn NOTHING from The Deep? This is just another car crash. It doesn't matter if you get the budget or the high profile actors if the script is rubbish - it's going to be a bad product.
Why, oh why must the business hate and belittle writers? THEY MAKE THE SHOW.
Perhaps there was nothing to ruin here.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Batman/Superman: Apocalypse - let's begin, shall we?
This follows right on the heels of the previous Batman/Superman animated feature - Public Enemies and in much the same way as that, it follows the comics in a general pattern of story... so, if you've read that - you'll know pretty much the entire story.
If you haven't - this picks up almost immediately after the end of Public Enemies, with the giant kryptonite mountain... sorry METEOR impacting into Gotham river. Batman turns up and finds a ship... and in that ship is SUPERGIRL! Except, it's comic book land so... y'know, a fight between Supergirl (only just learning to use her powers) and Batman begins.
Naturally, he eventually just gets some kryptonite out and we cut to some time later. Kara is at the FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE with Bats and Supes... Batman is naturally suspicious about a hot girl with super powers, claiming to be related to Superman and all that kind of stuff... Anyway, Superman trusts her and they take her to Metropolis... whilst trying to fit in, Batman and Wonder Woman essentially spring a trap that shows Supergirl isn't ready and she goes off to the Wonder Woman's magical lesbian island of Amazons for Spring Break for some hot girl on girl action... y'know catfights.
As one might guess, this is all going fine until Dark Seid turns up, abducts Supergirl and brainwashes her.
Supes, Batman, Wonder Woman and Big Barda get together to save her... Batman might be the world's greatest detective but going to Apokolips seems... fairly insane... but as this shows, being THE GOD DAMN BATMAN or his Bat Armour... or... SOMETHING allows him to be thrown against pillars and damage them and still be... well, alive. Most people who get thrown against a solid stone surface with any force would just collapse and die. Batman is fine though.
Anyway, Batman - being THE GOD DAMN BATMAN - basically beats Dark Seid saying "Oh, yeah - armed a bunch of world destroying bombs and if you don't let Supergirl go - BOOM! I'M THE GOD DAMN BATMAN!"
So, everyone goes home and all is well - OR IS IT?! Superman and Supergirl get jumped at the Kent's farm by Dark Seid... who points out that he just said he wouldn't mess with Supergirl... So, I guess he's lawful evil? Amusingly, Supes gets KO'd very early on and Supergirl does most of the punching. Predictably, evil is vanquished and good triumphs!
If you liked Superman/Batman: Public Enemies - this is pretty much more of the same. The story is neither complicated nor deep but it's very tight - that's presumably a function of the limited length of these features - and as far as action goes, it delivers. The quality of animation is impressive... one curious thing is that Granny Goodness not only LOOKS quite mannish... she sounds like a man. That's a minor quibble though, most of character design is great and the voice acting is all pretty good though.
Overall, probably the best DC animated effort thus far.
This follows right on the heels of the previous Batman/Superman animated feature - Public Enemies and in much the same way as that, it follows the comics in a general pattern of story... so, if you've read that - you'll know pretty much the entire story.
If you haven't - this picks up almost immediately after the end of Public Enemies, with the giant kryptonite mountain... sorry METEOR impacting into Gotham river. Batman turns up and finds a ship... and in that ship is SUPERGIRL! Except, it's comic book land so... y'know, a fight between Supergirl (only just learning to use her powers) and Batman begins.
Naturally, he eventually just gets some kryptonite out and we cut to some time later. Kara is at the FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE with Bats and Supes... Batman is naturally suspicious about a hot girl with super powers, claiming to be related to Superman and all that kind of stuff... Anyway, Superman trusts her and they take her to Metropolis... whilst trying to fit in, Batman and Wonder Woman essentially spring a trap that shows Supergirl isn't ready and she goes off to the Wonder Woman's magical lesbian island of Amazons for Spring Break for some hot girl on girl action... y'know catfights.
As one might guess, this is all going fine until Dark Seid turns up, abducts Supergirl and brainwashes her.
Supes, Batman, Wonder Woman and Big Barda get together to save her... Batman might be the world's greatest detective but going to Apokolips seems... fairly insane... but as this shows, being THE GOD DAMN BATMAN or his Bat Armour... or... SOMETHING allows him to be thrown against pillars and damage them and still be... well, alive. Most people who get thrown against a solid stone surface with any force would just collapse and die. Batman is fine though.
Anyway, Batman - being THE GOD DAMN BATMAN - basically beats Dark Seid saying "Oh, yeah - armed a bunch of world destroying bombs and if you don't let Supergirl go - BOOM! I'M THE GOD DAMN BATMAN!"
So, everyone goes home and all is well - OR IS IT?! Superman and Supergirl get jumped at the Kent's farm by Dark Seid... who points out that he just said he wouldn't mess with Supergirl... So, I guess he's lawful evil? Amusingly, Supes gets KO'd very early on and Supergirl does most of the punching. Predictably, evil is vanquished and good triumphs!
If you liked Superman/Batman: Public Enemies - this is pretty much more of the same. The story is neither complicated nor deep but it's very tight - that's presumably a function of the limited length of these features - and as far as action goes, it delivers. The quality of animation is impressive... one curious thing is that Granny Goodness not only LOOKS quite mannish... she sounds like a man. That's a minor quibble though, most of character design is great and the voice acting is all pretty good though.
Overall, probably the best DC animated effort thus far.
Monday, April 05, 2010
Being the massive cultural phenemenon it is, changes in the actor of the eponymous Doctor of Doctor Who are inevitably burdened with people shaking heads and saying doom. So, when Matt Smith was announced - there was a great deal of clucking about him being a mere 27, the youngest Doctor ever.
Needless to say, the first episode Eleventh Hour has silenced many critics because Matt Smith and new head writer/executive producer Stephen Moffat kicked the living daylights out of everything that fanfic writing loser RTD ever did. He's energetic but not like a child sans ritalin (Tennant) and expressive but not gurning (Eccleston) and while it's just the first episode, there is no sense he's going to spend his whole time moaning about how he killed all the Timelords or how he's "so sorry" about absolutely EVERYTHING.
The episode starts right where The End Of Time left off, with the new Doctor, trying to stop the TARDIS crashing into Big Ben... amazingly, instead of crashing into slum council estate to a Billy Piper wannabe, we get him going into a village. A village that is not London... OR CARDIFF. Admittedly, the series has gradually moved away from the extreme constrictions of the first RTD season but this seems a a good fresh start and the Doctor running through a village is distinctly old school Who...
There's no pointless referencing of pop culture, gratuitous injection of homosexuality and no horrible cheesiness that makes you cringe... not to mention that technobabble and ridiculous fixes for problem are nowhere to be seen. In fact, the Doctor himself observes that he saves the day with no TARDIS and no sonic screwdriver. Which is a nice touch - a far more innovative solution to the problem presented than the Doctor simply babbling wildly while jumping around like a jack in the box with ADHD.
There's a great deal more subtlety to both the Doctor and his new companion, Amelia Pond. They are much more understate... the show does not feel as if it is going to lapse into slapstick or schmaltz and the second episode had a chance for both. It's the kind of subtlety that you'd never see in an RTD script and generally struggled to emerge under his auspices and the Doctor has yet to be venerated as some incredible and infallible person - one of the primary flaws of RTD's writing of the Doctor was that in all of three seconds, everyone would think he was the best thing since sliced bread... things with Amelia have been a little different as the Doctor kind of dicked her around a bit... and she's apparently running away from her wedding.
So, thinks are looking interesting.
Needless to say, the first episode Eleventh Hour has silenced many critics because Matt Smith and new head writer/executive producer Stephen Moffat kicked the living daylights out of everything that fanfic writing loser RTD ever did. He's energetic but not like a child sans ritalin (Tennant) and expressive but not gurning (Eccleston) and while it's just the first episode, there is no sense he's going to spend his whole time moaning about how he killed all the Timelords or how he's "so sorry" about absolutely EVERYTHING.
The episode starts right where The End Of Time left off, with the new Doctor, trying to stop the TARDIS crashing into Big Ben... amazingly, instead of crashing into slum council estate to a Billy Piper wannabe, we get him going into a village. A village that is not London... OR CARDIFF. Admittedly, the series has gradually moved away from the extreme constrictions of the first RTD season but this seems a a good fresh start and the Doctor running through a village is distinctly old school Who...
There's no pointless referencing of pop culture, gratuitous injection of homosexuality and no horrible cheesiness that makes you cringe... not to mention that technobabble and ridiculous fixes for problem are nowhere to be seen. In fact, the Doctor himself observes that he saves the day with no TARDIS and no sonic screwdriver. Which is a nice touch - a far more innovative solution to the problem presented than the Doctor simply babbling wildly while jumping around like a jack in the box with ADHD.
There's a great deal more subtlety to both the Doctor and his new companion, Amelia Pond. They are much more understate... the show does not feel as if it is going to lapse into slapstick or schmaltz and the second episode had a chance for both. It's the kind of subtlety that you'd never see in an RTD script and generally struggled to emerge under his auspices and the Doctor has yet to be venerated as some incredible and infallible person - one of the primary flaws of RTD's writing of the Doctor was that in all of three seconds, everyone would think he was the best thing since sliced bread... things with Amelia have been a little different as the Doctor kind of dicked her around a bit... and she's apparently running away from her wedding.
So, thinks are looking interesting.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
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?
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?
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Halo: Legends is to Halo what the Animatrix is to the Matrix and what Gotham Knight was to the Chris Nolan Batman films, a series of animated shorts by different Japanese directors, mostly in a standard sort of anime style.
It's - as with the aforementioned similar ventures - a mixed bag of seven different tales.
Origins is pretty good but really, it's not a story. It's essentially an excuse for Cortana to retell the Halo universe's backstory. Nice art and action but it's really not a story, per se - it just feels as though someone wanted to do a lot of explosions and stuff with The Floor... or that someone felt a person buying Halo: Legends might not have the first clue about the series, so decides to fill them in. Regardless, it's enjoyable but by its nature - is kind of shallow.
The Duel... apparently Elites are Japanese. Down to living in pagodas (seriously) and wearing samurai armour. Maybe that's part of the lesser known canon... regardless, this is something of a disconnect from the rest of the stories as it's about an Elite - apparently the first Arbiter - defying the Prophets. For this heresy, he LITERALLY fights an army. There isn't a lot of sense to this story and it has a weird, kind of blurry almost... sticky animation. Clearly done for stylistic reasons but it doesn't really do much. It's OK for the background and establishing shots but for for action... less so, although the action is kinda cool... but the trite story and the fact you don't really have any time to get to know the character... it's really just action cheesecake with no substance.
Homecoming - pretty standard anime style here. Girl SPARTAN on a planet, has flashbacks to how she escaped from SPARTAN training... again, there is a feeling they're trying to tug on the heart strings when they've just tossed a character at you. The intercutting of the stories - ticking and tocking back and forth between the past and present - is a little jarring too and... doesn't really add much.
Odd One Out - you could be forgiven for thinking that this was someone trying to pitch a Halo Saturday morning cartoon... but basically, SPARTAN 1337 is a gag character and this whole thing is a joke... not a very funny one though. There is the odd titter but really, if they wanted to do a parody of the Halo universe there is so much to do with the existing stuff you don't need to create a deliberately over the top goofy/wacky character who keeps getting punched into the ground etc. So, really - not that interesting.
Prototype - they seem to like their trite messages in this package... I suppose it's hard to get something deep and meaningful into twenty or so minutes... but still.
The Babysitter - this probably comes level with "The Package" as the best of the bunch and really, they're both in a different league to the others. We get some feel for the characters and the animation is good, with some good action and the general awesomeness that goes with having a SPARTAN involved. It even includes one of the characters from ODST... yeah, who cares about that? Still overall, a good effort... again, the Covenant seem to be living in distinctly Far Eastern style housing for no reason but it works.
The Package - naturally, anything involving the ubiquitous Master Chief from the franchise itself is going to get extra points almost as a matter of course... quite WHY the original voice actor wasn't used (it kind of detracts... he did three games just to get shoved aside here?) is a mystery and the guy sounds more like he's trying to do a Batman impression than anything - though, fortunately NOT a Christian Bale Batman. The fact this is a CGI affair may lead some people to think that in some ways, it's more like a cutscene than anything else but that's at least a mite unfair and it's not as if the Halo cutscenes weren't suitably awesome. It's really what a Halo feature should be, people running at Covenant forces and shooting the hell out of them. Also some nice space battles and just general awesomeness. It ties with "The Babysitter"... mostly because it was pretty to look at but invested nothing in the characters.
So, there you have it... really, this is only something a big Halo fan should go out of their way for. Still, at least you get almost two hours of actual material - which is more than you can say for Marvel or DC animated features that struggle to make it past an hour (excluding credits). So, make of that what you will.
It's - as with the aforementioned similar ventures - a mixed bag of seven different tales.
Origins is pretty good but really, it's not a story. It's essentially an excuse for Cortana to retell the Halo universe's backstory. Nice art and action but it's really not a story, per se - it just feels as though someone wanted to do a lot of explosions and stuff with The Floor... or that someone felt a person buying Halo: Legends might not have the first clue about the series, so decides to fill them in. Regardless, it's enjoyable but by its nature - is kind of shallow.
The Duel... apparently Elites are Japanese. Down to living in pagodas (seriously) and wearing samurai armour. Maybe that's part of the lesser known canon... regardless, this is something of a disconnect from the rest of the stories as it's about an Elite - apparently the first Arbiter - defying the Prophets. For this heresy, he LITERALLY fights an army. There isn't a lot of sense to this story and it has a weird, kind of blurry almost... sticky animation. Clearly done for stylistic reasons but it doesn't really do much. It's OK for the background and establishing shots but for for action... less so, although the action is kinda cool... but the trite story and the fact you don't really have any time to get to know the character... it's really just action cheesecake with no substance.
Homecoming - pretty standard anime style here. Girl SPARTAN on a planet, has flashbacks to how she escaped from SPARTAN training... again, there is a feeling they're trying to tug on the heart strings when they've just tossed a character at you. The intercutting of the stories - ticking and tocking back and forth between the past and present - is a little jarring too and... doesn't really add much.
Odd One Out - you could be forgiven for thinking that this was someone trying to pitch a Halo Saturday morning cartoon... but basically, SPARTAN 1337 is a gag character and this whole thing is a joke... not a very funny one though. There is the odd titter but really, if they wanted to do a parody of the Halo universe there is so much to do with the existing stuff you don't need to create a deliberately over the top goofy/wacky character who keeps getting punched into the ground etc. So, really - not that interesting.
Prototype - they seem to like their trite messages in this package... I suppose it's hard to get something deep and meaningful into twenty or so minutes... but still.
The Babysitter - this probably comes level with "The Package" as the best of the bunch and really, they're both in a different league to the others. We get some feel for the characters and the animation is good, with some good action and the general awesomeness that goes with having a SPARTAN involved. It even includes one of the characters from ODST... yeah, who cares about that? Still overall, a good effort... again, the Covenant seem to be living in distinctly Far Eastern style housing for no reason but it works.
The Package - naturally, anything involving the ubiquitous Master Chief from the franchise itself is going to get extra points almost as a matter of course... quite WHY the original voice actor wasn't used (it kind of detracts... he did three games just to get shoved aside here?) is a mystery and the guy sounds more like he's trying to do a Batman impression than anything - though, fortunately NOT a Christian Bale Batman. The fact this is a CGI affair may lead some people to think that in some ways, it's more like a cutscene than anything else but that's at least a mite unfair and it's not as if the Halo cutscenes weren't suitably awesome. It's really what a Halo feature should be, people running at Covenant forces and shooting the hell out of them. Also some nice space battles and just general awesomeness. It ties with "The Babysitter"... mostly because it was pretty to look at but invested nothing in the characters.
So, there you have it... really, this is only something a big Halo fan should go out of their way for. Still, at least you get almost two hours of actual material - which is more than you can say for Marvel or DC animated features that struggle to make it past an hour (excluding credits). So, make of that what you will.
Friday, February 12, 2010
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...
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.
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.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Avatar has been over ten years and $300m in the making and the hype for it was fairly bold, claiming that it was going to revolutionise cinema FOREVER! In truth, the visuals for this film are often very impressive but while the appearance of the film is often astonishing and does mark a watershed in effects, this is offset by the remarkably clichéd and banal story.
There have been been many rather unkind comparisons to Ferngully and many to Dances With Wolves. In fairness, aspects of both are in the film... but it borrows very heavily from the general area of film that equates the military and big corporations as BAD. The scientists are all very reasonable, seeing the unique ecology of the planet and thinking that IT and not the uber valuable unobtanium is the important thing on Pandora... and yes, they called the material they're there for unobtanium... So, they go for a LITERAL connection to the planet... because the Na'vi can literally plug into trees, animals, the big flying beasties... presumably evolution on Pandora has managed to bypass the biological equivalent of not having a laptop recognise the printer that's plugged in. It's ALL very hippy and it's the kind of tree hugging Gaia type claptrap that would have felt dated... well, back around the time of Ferngully.
It's very much set up to make it obvious that the corporation is BAD AND EVIL and the colonel is clearly spoiling for a fight from the get go, complete with his big scar and bad ass attitude. It's very clear that there's no compromise possible, the imperialist forces of capitalism are bad and evil, the noble savages can do no wrong with their hippy ways.
The events of the film are related by a handy capable ex-marine who apparently fell into it because his twin brother got shot and he's a genetic match, blah blah blah and he's there because it pays well and he needs money to get his legs fixed. So he goes to Pandora, which is apparently 5 years away... eh, whatever - this film has giant flying mountains and biological USBs and a military too stupid to know what orbital bombardment is. Anyway, John Generic is on his whole - gain trust of noble savages schtick. Obviously, initially he is working for the EVIL corporation but one he gets himself some sexy blue space babe, he's all about saving Ferngully - uh, sorry the rainforest... or whatever the hell it is he's saving.
So, we basically go through what amounts to about two hours of Pandora's Walking With Dinosaurs. Really, that's literally about it for the first two hours, John Generic just explores the world, the Na'vi and gets it on with hot Na'vi (your mileage may vary). Then the military/evil corporation get unhappy and go to war! This is an action film with very little action, basically this film pulls all the action punches until the final act. It's visually impressive but there's just no real plot here and the characters are all so forgettable. It just goes to show, you can spend hundreds of millions of dollars and never bother with a script... hmm, that sounds like the Star Wars prequels... this is better than them, certainly visually and at least the plot is coherent.
There have been been many rather unkind comparisons to Ferngully and many to Dances With Wolves. In fairness, aspects of both are in the film... but it borrows very heavily from the general area of film that equates the military and big corporations as BAD. The scientists are all very reasonable, seeing the unique ecology of the planet and thinking that IT and not the uber valuable unobtanium is the important thing on Pandora... and yes, they called the material they're there for unobtanium... So, they go for a LITERAL connection to the planet... because the Na'vi can literally plug into trees, animals, the big flying beasties... presumably evolution on Pandora has managed to bypass the biological equivalent of not having a laptop recognise the printer that's plugged in. It's ALL very hippy and it's the kind of tree hugging Gaia type claptrap that would have felt dated... well, back around the time of Ferngully.
It's very much set up to make it obvious that the corporation is BAD AND EVIL and the colonel is clearly spoiling for a fight from the get go, complete with his big scar and bad ass attitude. It's very clear that there's no compromise possible, the imperialist forces of capitalism are bad and evil, the noble savages can do no wrong with their hippy ways.
The events of the film are related by a handy capable ex-marine who apparently fell into it because his twin brother got shot and he's a genetic match, blah blah blah and he's there because it pays well and he needs money to get his legs fixed. So he goes to Pandora, which is apparently 5 years away... eh, whatever - this film has giant flying mountains and biological USBs and a military too stupid to know what orbital bombardment is. Anyway, John Generic is on his whole - gain trust of noble savages schtick. Obviously, initially he is working for the EVIL corporation but one he gets himself some sexy blue space babe, he's all about saving Ferngully - uh, sorry the rainforest... or whatever the hell it is he's saving.
So, we basically go through what amounts to about two hours of Pandora's Walking With Dinosaurs. Really, that's literally about it for the first two hours, John Generic just explores the world, the Na'vi and gets it on with hot Na'vi (your mileage may vary). Then the military/evil corporation get unhappy and go to war! This is an action film with very little action, basically this film pulls all the action punches until the final act. It's visually impressive but there's just no real plot here and the characters are all so forgettable. It just goes to show, you can spend hundreds of millions of dollars and never bother with a script... hmm, that sounds like the Star Wars prequels... this is better than them, certainly visually and at least the plot is coherent.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
So... the first half of RTD's Doctor Who finale of finales has graced our screens... As one would expect, when a much loved character is about to be offed... it's fairly serious in tone but even that can't stop RTD from pushing in some totally inappropriate, unfunny comic relief - including flaming homosexual... As with a lot of two parters, it seems likely that come part the second, it's going to be obvious that a lot of the first part is filler.
John Simms is again wasted as an actor. He's a GOOD actor, whether it's RTD's script or the direction he received... or he's just hamming it up... it's all a bit much... of course, that said - given the visual effects used - it seems likely that most of it is down to RTD... so, it seems fair to give Simms credit for working with what he had.
If precedent is anything to go by, it seems likely that this will have an unsatisfactory resolution though...
John Simms is again wasted as an actor. He's a GOOD actor, whether it's RTD's script or the direction he received... or he's just hamming it up... it's all a bit much... of course, that said - given the visual effects used - it seems likely that most of it is down to RTD... so, it seems fair to give Simms credit for working with what he had.
If precedent is anything to go by, it seems likely that this will have an unsatisfactory resolution though...
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Joss Whedon must be starting to feel like he's not wanted on TV. After the success of Buffy and then not-quite-as-successful-but-almost Angel he went on to Firefly... which was much loved but kinda dicked about and short lived. So, now Dollhouse has suffered a similar fate.
Similar, mostly in dying a death. Dollhouse made it to season 2 only by conceding to considerable budget cuts and it wasn't many episodes into season 2 before the old pattern repeated itself. It disappeared from schedules, got shuffled around and then before the half-way mark... Dollhouse was gone.
Of course, there is an inherent danger to a show by a writer known for his ability to build characters, where at the end of every episode, a reset button is hit and her character is literally deleted... that and the fact Dushku really wasn't a great choice for someone required to show a very large range. Also, Dollhouse kind of suffered from the X-Files Factor - which is to say, there is an enormous global conspiracy... but all we get to see is people sitting in the same office...
For whatever reason, Whedon fails again. Maybe he needs to try something that doesn't involve waif fu?
Similar, mostly in dying a death. Dollhouse made it to season 2 only by conceding to considerable budget cuts and it wasn't many episodes into season 2 before the old pattern repeated itself. It disappeared from schedules, got shuffled around and then before the half-way mark... Dollhouse was gone.
Of course, there is an inherent danger to a show by a writer known for his ability to build characters, where at the end of every episode, a reset button is hit and her character is literally deleted... that and the fact Dushku really wasn't a great choice for someone required to show a very large range. Also, Dollhouse kind of suffered from the X-Files Factor - which is to say, there is an enormous global conspiracy... but all we get to see is people sitting in the same office...
For whatever reason, Whedon fails again. Maybe he needs to try something that doesn't involve waif fu?
Friday, November 20, 2009
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.
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.
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