New Site!

For those of you who missed it, redcoatreviews.com is live! All the posts from this ol' blog have been moved over there. Head on over and get your review on!

Review - Risen 2: Dark Waters

Pros: Solid story line, appealing graphics and well-designed combat controls.

Cons: Dodgy character animation and glaring graphical errors which damage the overall experience.

Final Judgement: Nagging graphical issues can hamper enjoyment but overall worth a play through.

http://www.risen2.de

Available for: PC, Xbox 360, PS3

Oh good times, pirate adventures on the high seas and I mean the fake romanticized pirates with the “arr”, the eye patch and the buried booty on the desert islands. Not the ones in the skiffs with RPG’s, AK-47’s and hostages. Those guys suck, who do they think they are? Destroying all the good work Johnny Depp did as Captain Jack Sparrow… in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie anyway, the last three are another form of piracy all together, but I should focus in here.

"Whats that? You want ANOTHER Sequel? Giddy-up!"

This week I’m looking at Risen 2: Dark Waters, a game brought to us by Deep Silver and Piranha Bites. For starts I’m just going to come right out and say that there is a lot going on in this game.  If you’re a sucker for experiencing the series in its entirety then start out with its predecessor Risen.  However, if you suffer from Attention Deficit or just have better things to do then here is the gist:

Risen came out in 2009 on PC and was a game that received fairly good reviews but as I recall didn’t receive too much hoopla or acclaim. An Xbox port was also released but the game suffered some deep cuts to features and the translation to console left that version of the game as the redheaded stepchild to the original presentation.  So if you are looking to play Risen then stick to the PC.

The game followed you, a nameless hero, who is shipwrecked on an island off the coast of the “old world” throughout the game you are forced to fulfill the role as the salvation of all humanity. See in In the game humanity has banished the gods from the world… I think it was because the gods thought they were better the humanity and were totally all “holier than thou”. This kinda strikes me as a bad reason to get rid of the gods. They’re the gods, of course they think they’re better then you… they made you. It’s sort of how I tend to think I’m better than the sandwich I made for lunch it’s not because I’m a dick, it’s just I know that I’m smarter and stronger than a combination of peanut butter and jelly. In any case operation ‘kick the bus driver off the bus’ somewhat backfired and with the gods no longer keeping shit square in the world “the titans” (powerful elemental creatures) have begun rising up from the forgotten places underground.  So now the titans are totally wailing oneverything in sight and you can’t even scream “gods save us!” because humanity just fucking fired them. Your character, who has learned about the Titan menace and became a “Titan Lord”, is the only person who could save humanity. The game ends rather anti-climactically with you defeating one such Titan and then strutting off in a random direction while some disembodied voice talks about you showing humanity the way.

"Oh heeey."

My only complaints with the first game was that the NPC characters were all so flat boring that trying to give a shit about them was like trying to find flavor in a Domino’s pizza. Fortunately the game play and overall story line made up for the weak cast and was able to keep my interest.

Her expression never once changes from "durrr...".

In Risen 2: Dark Waters the theme of the game has shifted from dark fantasy adventure with swords and magic to a colonial Caribbean type setting with Pirates and guns and voodoo. You play the same nameless hero, as the first game, who doesn’t really seem to have aged all that much over the several years that have apparently passed. The previously clean cut hero is now sporting an eye patch and drinks his face off nightly. Apparently his brush with a titan in the last game bore a heavy price and he is now a shadow of the hero he once was. Humanity has been pushed to the edges of the world by the rampaging titans and the hero is called upon to go undercover as a pirate. The heroes’ mission: To steal a titan slaying weapon from the famous Pirate Lord Steelbeard.   


"Saigon, shit. I'm still only in Saigon. Every time I think I'm going to wake up back in the jungle..."

The change in the setting is night and day between games and is a bit jarring at first. We started with a dark fantasy Dungeons and Dragons-esque hack and slash and now we have a jaunty swashbuckling yard sale from Sid Meyer’s Pirates! It’s hard to get your head around this being a direct sequel at first, but fortunately you will see enough familiar faces from the first game that start filling in the gaps almost immediately so as the drastic change in setting seems more reasonable. After a few hours of game play I was looking at Dark Waters as not so much a sequel to Risen as a reinvention of it. 

AVAST! Yon hero looks far more badass and has even learned to emote!

Piranha Bites isn’t just continuing the story of Risen they also took a good long look in the mirror and did their best to correct a lot of the complainants people had over the previous game. For one they’ve spent a lot of time reimagining the characters and your interactions with them to make them more dynamic and engaging. The love interest from the previous game Patty, who is the daughter of a pirate lord, has gone from being a boring tavern owner that only appeared as “the love interest” in the game because it was spoon fed it to you right before the final battle, to in Dark Waters being a bright, sarcastic partner that your character has. The voice acting has also been drastically improved with characters now delivering their lines with feeling and not as if they were reading from a phone book. Add this all together and suddenly I go from wishing Patty would fall off a cliff giving a damn if she gets the business end of a musket on the high seas.


From the fifteen or so hours of the estimated sixty hour single player story that I’ve experienced so far in Dark Waters, I’m impressed with what Piranha Bites has done. Changing from sword hack and slashing with magic to dueling with rapiers pistols and pirates has really changed the flavor of Risen, taking it from just another decent fantasy game and elevating it to its own niche entirely.  I enjoyed the way that Dark Waters really threw its self in its new found pirate clothing. The new setting really gives the title a dose of vibrancy that the first game lacked.

VIBRANCY!

All that being said, Dark Waters, like Risen, is not given to us without its fair share of problems and bugs, namely in the graphics department.
 

There are two major issues here, the first: Character model clipping. Dark Waters suffers from this chronically, you can’t have one conversation without seeing an NPC’s shoulder pad breaking through his chest a la aliens or his collar clipping through the side of his head. It’s distracting and looks unfinished but again you get used to it after a while. The other graphical issue I had a much larger issues with is with the lush green foliage of the islands you visit. You will find when you walk towards some plants and vegetation they magically expand and shrink with almost a kaleidoscope effect, this wouldn’t be so bad but because the light and shadows are dynamic so the shadows also expand and contact like crazy.  I’m told that this is a result of an issue with the “Depth of field” (-the way the game renders graphics so that the things closer to you are clear while things away from you are fuzzy making for a more realistic representation of the environment. I got used to it eventually but until I did it murdered my enjoyment of the game.

The only other issue I really have with the game and this is more from a humor stand point, is the stilted character model animation. The characters look good, faces are well animated and costumes are detailed, however, the character animations are way off and horribly exaggerated.  It’s like they’re trying to do interpretive dances to go along with what they’re saying. Patty is the worst offender, you ask her what you should do next and she sticks one hand on her hip and cocks out her waist like a hooker trying to get the attention of a passing 747 pilot, she then waves her other hand about like she’s trying to conduct the London philharmonic orchestra from Australia and then rather plainly suggests that you sail for the next island. Good voice acting, terrible character animation.

"HEY YOU GUYS!"

Glaring graphic issues and Thunderbirds style animation aside, Risen 2: Dark Waters is an enjoyable game. The romanticized pirate theme is great and Piranha bites efforts to improve their product add depth to the series. I would really play this title solely for the fun of being a pirate captain in charge of his own ship. After all, who didn’t at some point hold in their childhood place their palm over their eye and let out a hearty “Arr”? Dark Waters may just be the answer to that call.

 

Review - The Darkness II

Pros: All around well-crafted game, dark and compelling story and art style that stays true to its comic book roots.

Cons: Extreme level of violence that some find distracting and short single player campaign.

Final Judgement: Surprisingly excellent; if you’re ok with the violence you’re in for a fantastic game.

http://www.embracethedarkness.com/

Available For: PS3, XBOX, PC

Okay, so about a year ago I picked up a game called “TheDarkness” for cheap, a game by 2K Games and Starbreeze. Starbreeze who you may remember from my Syndicate rant, are the ones that really go for hyper realism in their graphics.  The Darkness for those, like me who didn’t know is a spinoff of Top Cow comics “Witchblade” series. I’m sure you all know Witchblade… the Superhero comic with the heroine clad in barely there bikini armor with breasts that should in all reality be afflicting the poor girl with scoliosis? Witchblade.

I remember looking at the cover of “The Darkness” and thinking to myself, holy shit this game looks really stupid. A goth Fabio impersonator with glowing eyes and demons crawling all over him adorns the front while the back regales you with a tale from the cutting room floor of the worst horror movie/goodfellas clone ever.  Allow me to read you a passage:

“You are Jackie Estacado, a hitman for the Franchetti crime family. On your 21^st birthday, a timeless force known as The Darkness awakens within you. You wreak havoc on your enemies with the powers it bestows. But you’ll quickly learn that The Darkness has a will of its own….”

"Dis Darkness it is so Fabulous... Like me Fabio."

Man… that really sounds stupid, really. It sounds like the pitch for a movie that Nicolas Cage would get excited over, in fact replace “Jackie” with “Johnny” and “hitman” with “motorcycle-guy” and its sounds a lot like the plot of Ghost Rider. Which reminds me, Stan Lee still owes me one hundred and ten minutes of my life back for signing off on that pile of cinematic diarrhea. But I digress, so I bought the game for ten bucks and stuck it in my library for a rainy day.  When that day rainy day came… wouldn’t you know The Darkness was awesome, no… not just awesome, fucking awesome.

Anyway, remarks about buxom super heroes aside, the Darkness was a game about the anti-hero Jackie getting screwed over by his family and in the process the aforementioned timeless force was unleashed. The Darkness wanted to use him as a puppet and it worked like a drug. It made Jackie unstoppable, but the more he used it, the more trouble he had controlling it.  The game was split between Jackie attempting to get his revenge in the mortal world all mafioso while at the same time seeking a way to control the Darkness in a hellish other dimension that resembled the trenches of World War I. The plot was out there, no doubt, but it was original and emotional and while Jackie was an amoral killer who had been capp’in dudes for cash and banging prostitutes since the age of 14, the game made you feel sorry for the guy and his tragic plight.

So February of 2012, 2K games releases, The Darkness 2 and goes in a different direction from Starbreeze instead hiring Digital Extremes to champion this installment. This one I picked up right away and again, wouldn’t you know it, it was fucking awesome.

YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE!

The Darkness II retains its dark and moody roots.  In this installment, Jackie has risen to the head of his crime family and now presides over his “crime empire” as he sits atop his accumulated pile or dirty money, hookers and blow in a downtown penthouse palace. Jackie has succeeded in controlling the Darkness after the end of the first game but is still suffering from the guilt of being unable to prevent his girlfriend’s death. In this game Jackie is battling a shadowy organization that is attempting to steal his powers from him. The game also takes an interesting psychological twist where Jackie keeps waking up in an insane asylum, being told that he’s suffering from schizophrenia. Personally I’m a real fan of the psychological twists on reality and the plotline overall.

Sock puppet Darkness is also the source of some of the games best one liners.

Digital Extremes made some serious changes to the Darkness which may surprise some players as this game is a direct sequel to the original. Amongst other changes, Digital Extremes really jacked up the violence level. This may not mean much to someone who hasn’t played The Darkness but considering one of the highlights of the last game was that the Darkness would tear out people’s hearts and devour them in front of you during game play, to “jack it up” is really saying something. Aside from the violence, Digital Extremes has made a few other major changes to the series, namely in the art style, the narrative framework, and a co-op story that parallels the events of the single player game.

In first installment, under the care of Starbreeze, the Darkness had Starbreeze’s signature realism style of game play.  They really strove to make the game look as close to, say real life or a movie, as they could. In The Darkness II Digital Extremes went in the other direction by embracing The Darkness’ roots by changing the games art style to that of a comic book, with cel-shaded hand drawn environments and characters. The game does loose some of the stark lighting contrast and murkiness that the first game captured, however I found the art style of the Darkness II still fit the overall tone of the game while being a fitting homage to the games comic book origins.

The Cel Shading Technique really pays omage to the Darkness' roots

It’s worth mentioning that many other reviews have cited The Darkness II’s extreme and graphic violence as distracting and even gone so far as to say that it knee capped their enjoyment of the story. It’s true that The Darkness II doesn’t pull any punches in the violence or gore categories. The Darkness has an execution attack when it pulls your victim’s spine out of his still thrashing body through your victims ass which is cringe worthy. The game also features points where Jackie is captured by the secret society and is then tortured, rather graphically and all while keeping you in first person perspective. Maybe I’m just desensitized to it; but I really didn’t find it all that distracting. I’m not going to go so far as to say these critics are wrong, I would  ask what they were expecting?  In my opinion the violence is part of the show that the game was putting on… Jackie is possessed by the incarnation of absolute evil and chaos, you can’t really say with a straight face that you expected the game to be all sunshine, roses and laser beam guns that never hit or harm anyone a la G.I. Joe. You knew what you were getting into when you picked up the Darkness, if not you should probably give the games back cover and ESRB rating more than a cursory glance.

"Blue moooooon, you saw me standing aloooone, with out a love of my owwwwwn!"

Digital Extremes also made a big change from the first game by moving away from the open world concept, where Jackie was free to roam the streets of New York City encountering side missions and story hooks between main plot missions. Instead Digital Extremes went with a linear campaign with short sequences centered in Jackies Mansion and The Asylum. While this may seem like a shortfall for those who really enjoyed the open feel of the previous installment, the linear campaign had a much faster pace to it and I found it made for a more emotional story. For example, one thing I found in open world campaigns is you can more or less pause the action and give yourself a chance to catch your breath. This is achieved by dicking around and doing odd jobs and side missions. In a linear campaign however, you don’t have a choice, you must continue down the story’s path. I’m a fan of both open and linear story lines but for dramatic effect and timing you can’t beat the linear campaign. 

The only drawback I could find with the story was that it was decidedly shorter than the previous game; I can only guess that this was done because they were assuming game play would be fleshed out by the co-op campaign.

 The co-op mode, which was also a new feature in the sequel, entices the player to select one of four characters who have all be touched by the darkness and are in the employ of Jackies crime group. The characters have ridiculous powers and sound like a bad set up for a “guys walk into a bar” joke.  There’s the Black Voodoo Witch Doctor/Real Doctor, the Irish drunkard who hates the English, the Japanese samurai dude and the Israeli special-forces chick who seems oddly out of place and is a bit too “straight man” for the rest of the crew. I guess they thought they should throw in a sobering character to give the co-op campaign some much needed grounding? That or Adam Sandler found out they were going to rip off Zohan and sic’ed his army of studio lawyers on Digital Extremes.  

A Black guy, a ginger, a jewish pincess and a Asian dude walk into a bar...

Whatever the case may be the co-op story-line is a bonus, it doesn’t feel like it was added as an afterthought and the designers clearly took their time to make sure it was a worthwhile gaming experience. The co-op mission can be played solo if you’re a pale, friendless, recluse such as myself but I found that looking for additional players to jump in with me really added to the overall effect of the co-op. The four characters all have their own stories and motivations which come out through interactions that they have with each other.

My only complaint with The Darkness II was that it just didn’t feel as long or as grand a story as its predecessor. The games plot was excellent, in many ways even superior to the previous game. However I felt the game was just getting into its groove when the wrap it music started playing and the “Surprise ending” slapped me in the face. The obvious defense to the short single player story is that the co-op campaign bolsters the play time of the Darkness II because it is, in its own right, a well thought out complementary story to the main plot line.  Although I would have agreed, the feeling of the co-op campaign, while enjoyable, is so different to the feel of the single player that they almost play like two different games entirely.

I wouldn’t recommend The Darkness II for those who feel video game violence should be used sparingly, much like horse radish.  For those that don’t mind an extra helping of the almost cartoonishly ridiculous levels of violence, the kind that hasn’t been seen since Sonny Chiba stopped making films, then you will thoroughly enjoy what the Darkness II has to offer.

Review: Never Dead

Pros: Interesting take on the action game with a character that can’t be killed.

Cons: Predictable plot and game play that starts off strong but lacks variety.

Final Judgement: If you’re a fan of Japanese Action games then it’s worth the investment, but there are far better titles available that will scratch this genres itch.

www.konami.com/officalsites/neverdead

Available for: PS3, XBox

God bless Japanese Action games. So predictable, so black and white, so completely fuck off bat shit insane you can’t help but smile. They’re like that socially awkward friend of yours that always ends up making statements that can only be described as the verbal equivalent of a loud fart in a quiet room.  You play Japanese Action games because they’re fun, campy and over the top.  Unfortunately, they’re also the personification of the developer's sexual frustrations as evidenced by over sexualized women flashing their ta-ta’s around while you awkwardly try to explain to your wife that you’re playing for the game play and not the booty. God fucking damnit, I hate you Bayonetta.

The worst part is, the game play in Bayonetta is actually very, very good

Never Dead, is a gong show of a Japanese Action game, brought to us by Rebellion and Konami, which fits the stereo type very well. Never Dead incorporates the tried and true Japanese Action Game formula of doing battle with various horrors from the beyond while engaged in retina detaching gun battles and sword fights. The game then attempts to spice it up with a fairly nut bar game mechanic in which  you get to give Monty Python’s Black Knight a run for his money. In Never Dead you don’t take damage you just get your  limbs lopped off and continue fighting on until your reduced to just your noodle, rolling about,  chasing down  your various bits which are now strewn willy-nilly about the room.   While this dismemberment wonderland of a game starts off enjoyable and original, the shiny new penny luster of Never Dead quickly fades and the game turns into a death march of one generic monster encounter to the next. In addition Never Dead also features one of the most awkward melee control systems I’ve ever encountered. Well get to all that in due course but first I want to bring you up to speed on the Shakespeare quality plot line of this diddy of a game.

"What ho! Have at thee! En gaurd! Truth and Justice! Pip-Pip, tea and crumpets!"

In Never Dead you play as Demon Hunter / Tortured Alcoholic / Adventure in Alliteration Bryce Boltzman. Heir Boltzman is a 500 year old career douche bag who started out as a total ponce, the type that would make Snow from Final Fantasy proud. Bryce tried to take down the “Demon King” Astaroth with his wife Cypher who had the ability to make demons vulnerable to injury and death – which kinda made her big deal. During the battle Boltzman more or less fucks the dogs and crafts soliloquies about truth and justice instead of laying boot to Demon ass, as a result Cypher ends up getting a discount chest piercing courtesy of the demon king. To add insult to injury Bryce is “cursed” by the demon king to be immortal, and unable to die. Now I say “cursed” with quotation marks, because I think the Demon King requires instruction on what a curse consists of as normally getting cursed sucks balls, kinda like being forced to eternally relive the disappointment at the end of Mass Effect 3, that is a curse, but being made immortal? That actually sounds awesome, so maybe the demon king is an ok dude. 

Bryce post immortal eye ball implantation... significantly less metro.

The game begins five hundred years after the death of Cypher and Bryce has evolved from a ponse douche to a surly bastard who doesn’t care about much beyond the bottom of his drink. Bryce now works for The National Anti-Demon Agency or NADA (tee-hee) with his partner Arcadia Maximille, a responsible mortal and sexual tension provider. Boltzman and Maximille have a love hate relationship, where Boltzman leers at Maximille and she shoots him in the face.  Now I get that he can’t die but simmer down already, maybe if you wore proper business attire you would get more respect.  Then again for a woman in a Japanese action game she more or less dressed like a nun.

If you don't think this is appropriate work atire for hunting Demons, google Ada Wong from Resident Evil.

The game follows the two as they investigate an increase in Demon Activity which unsurprisingly results in a second show down between Bryce and the Demon King who is attempting to get himself resurrected. You know the demon king, who we were led to believe was immortal and who wasn’t actually killed or even badly wounded by Boltzman 500 years ago? You may be asking  “If Bryce never killed him, why does he need to be resurrected?” to which the game replies, “Don’t worry about it ok? He just does, why you gotta ask so many questions?” 

Plot hole that you can drive a burning fertilizer truck through aside; the story of Never Dead is cookie cutter, the ‘plot twists’ are seen coming from a mile away and the story is incredibly linear. If you’ve played Devil May Cry or Gungrave then you’ve more or less experienced what the story of Never Dead has to offer. It’s instantly forgettable, however, as a saving grace the game doesn’t take its self too seriously.  It spices itself up with decently delivered slapstick and dialogue based humor which helps to smooth over the rough edges of the “story by the numbers” plot.
Where Never Dead attempts to set its self apart is in the game mechanics department.  The game has essentially two unique game play mechanics, the first is an analog stick based melee attack system the second is the aforementioned dismemberment system.

The analog stick attack system breaks down like this: To swing Bryce’s sword and attack you have to hold the attack button and move the analog stick in the direction you want Bryce to swing. You must then move the stick in the opposite direction to swing it again doing this in a deliberate manner allowed you to chain attacks together and make each swing more powerful. Sounds simple enough, but I found this very awkward in practice and I had a lot of trouble chaining attacks together. I found that busting out the blade always made for a frantic analog stick swirling episode as I tried to fend off a mob. I would have preferred to see a much simpler attack system.

Swing! SWING DAMN YOU!

The second mechanic, the dismemberment system comes to us by the way of Bryce being immortal. In the game this translates into Bryce not losing life points or health when damaged but instead losing limbs. Interestingly enough you can lose any combination of limbs and still be able to fight fairly well, even when you’re reduced to a severed head bouncing and rolling around the environment you still have a charge up attack that you can use to defend yourself. I gotta say, this is pretty cool, even as a head you can still fuck shit up and ruin a demons day.

...Or you can use it to shoot a few hoops.

Aside from being dismembered from battle damage, you can also choose to rip yourself limb from limb which can then be used to bait enemies or complete puzzles, for example throwing your arm into a fuse box to complete a circuit. As an added challenge as you lose limbs and your head, a particular enemy known as a Grand Baby will continually spawn and lurk around gobbling up your errant limbs and attempting to devour your vulnerable head.

"EAT ARM FLAVORED JUSTICE!"

Overall the dismemberment game mechanic is novel and unique enough to keep you interested for the lion’s share of the games relatively short play time. I will say though, that dismemberment is relied upon so heavily in the game that by the last two or three stages, it had worn its self out and this is where I have the biggest beef with Never Dead.

There is no real variation to game play; every encounter revolves around you destroying waves of demons while protecting Arcadia who can be killed and keeping track of your limbs that repeatedly fly off in random directions. Every encounter starts off fairly straight forward and adds different demon types until you`re just a head getting soccer kicked about the room. Eventually you land away from the mob and you have a small window to regroup and turn the tide.

This especially becomes an exercise in aggravation in the final battle where Bryce’s limbs appear to be held on by wet noodles as he constantly flies apart at the drop of a hat. The battles only challenge is trying to get yourself back together in time to do a sliver of damage during the Demon Kings short vulnerable phase. The only reason I stuck the game out is because I could feel that I was basically at the end of the game, there is really only so many times you can do the same thing in slightly different settings before you stop caring.

Yeah, yeah... shoot demons, protect Arcadia, pick up severed legs... fuck, whatever.

If you judge Never Dead solely on its value as an action game, it’s not the worst game you’ll ever play by far, aside from the awkward melee attack system the controls are tight and the dismemberment system is original and an interesting change of pace. However the cookie cutter story line and noted lack of variation in level design and battles really hurts the games over all enjoyment. I wouldn’t recommend this game for the casual gamer given the far better titles available in this genre such as Devil May Cry, but for those who are looking for a different experience, all be it one that is repeated ad nauseum, Never Dead isn’t a bad option.

Review: Mass Effect 3

Pros: Exciting combat, engaging characters, epic and original story line.

Cons: Confusing and unfulfilling ending, overly simplified exploration system.

Final Judgement:  If you’ve played the previous titles, you don’t need my two cents to decide to play this game.  Even with the ending, Mass Effect 3 is still one of the best games I’ve played.

http://masseffect.com

Available For: PS3, Xbox, PC

Holy Fuck, look out god damn it, its Mass Effect 3! Where or where do I even begin with this title? To pretend that I wasn’t stupid excited to get my mits on this game would be like saying Captain Picard enjoys his tea lukewarm. It’s rare that I get this excited about the release of a title. Oh sure, I look forward to the release of lots of games… X-Com, Bio Shock:Infinite, Halo 4 just to name a few that are coming up. But when Mass Effect 3 showed up at my door three days before its estimated delivery date... I may have pee’d a little. Mass Effect has always been exactly what I look for in a good video game. A great story with well thought out memorable characters that you actually find yourself giving a damn about. A game that tells truly epic space opera that we really haven’t had seen since Battlestar Galactica. Add to that a level of character customization that not only lets you play a hero that looks like you but lets you play anything from a complete fucking bad ass tearing through the universe to a  granola munching kumbaya singing nice guy… or ya know, anything in between.

As I said... or anything in between, seriously what is Shepard doing here?

And so here we come to it, the final chapter in what some are calling “The Reaper War” Saga.  In the lead-up to this title Bio Ware played up the idea that those players who carried forward their characters through the first two games would be able to see the total sum of their decisions in the final show down with the Reapers.  The accumulation of their consequences or actions the mass of the effect on their… oh I get it now, clever. While Bio Ware does a superb job on this third game they fall short in the final fifteen or so minutes of the game. Sorry I should rephrase, it doesn’t just “fall short” it falls face first through a plate glass window in to a pit full of vinegar salt and barb wire.  However, let’s look past this minor faux pas for the moment as thinking about it too much makes me grow despondent and I start staring longingly out the window and singing Usher.  So I’ll come back to it at the end of the review after I’ve thought about all the good times I had.

"We had some good times running around the galaxy didn't we EDI?"
"We Sure did Jeffy, we suuuuure did."

For those new to this series the big thing you need to know about Mass is that there is a continuous story line between the games, a story line that is by in large determined by your decisions as the player. What this means is that two peoples play through of the Mass Effect trilogy will look grossly different depending on how they chose to play the game.  The continuous story line makes for a richer gaming experience then you normally find in story driven games and I would say it’s the Tao of Mass Effect.  Without it you basically have Gears of War with less steroids and characters that didn’t get personality cues from an Ed Hardy commercial.  If you haven’t played the previous two titles do yourself a huge favor, go download or pick up the previous two and play them through sequentially, importing your character. If you don’t you can still enjoy Mass Effect 3 for what it is but you will miss out on all the extra content and tailored encounters that the game affords you for playing the trilogy cover to cover.

Extra content, like sexing up your helmeted alien friend here.

Now, for those of you who have played the previous two titles, there isn’t a lot that has changed from the Mass Effect 2 as far as gameplay is concerned.  The combat system from Mass Effect 2 was one of the best things the developers  did for the series and luckily they continued the same style through to Mass Effects 3.  The primary action and story of the game unfold through third peron, cover based shooting missions, in these missions you select two squad mates from your team to accompany you, which again adds some uniqueness as each squad mate has their own unique reactions to events and conversations that they will have with Shepard and with each other as the mission unfolds adding to the replay value of the game. The other half of the game is an non-linear free roaming type game where you explore the galaxy, your ship and the Citadel (a giant space station which serves as the galactic capital). The combat scenes in each mission are exciting and well-paced.  It’s clear that Bio Ware has improved in the level design with levels and enemy encounters feeling more creative and varied.  The exploration segments however feel more simplified and dumbed down. There is now only one place for you to visit between missions, where in previous titles you could visit four or five areas.

The galactic exploration has also been dumbed down, allowing the player to simply fly around solar systems sending out radar pings and then being told if they found something or not. Now I know the exploration bit is something that by now I’m sure Bio Ware just feels it can’t win on. After all in Mass Effect 1 there was the totally awkward and time consuming vehicle segments in which you drove your six wheeled moon truck around what felt like a million planets trying to find… I dunno, your lost pocket change or some shit. This was considered one of the worst parts of the original Mass Effect.  In Mass Effect 2 they got rid of the moon truck and instead went with planetary scanning bits in which you had to systematically wave your scanning reticule over the surface of what felt like a million more planets in order to collect enough stuff that your crew didn’t die at the end of the game. This was also time consuming and considered the worst part of the second game. So I feel like in the third one Bio Ware just threw up their hands and said “Ok fuck it! Fine no more exploring! Just fly in circles and press a button, we’ll tell you when you get something! Happy?” To which my response is… well, no. Ok yeah, it was time consuming but at the same time it really made the galaxy feel like a galaxy. Now the galaxy feels unfinished and small.  There has to be a medium between painfully boring and stupidly simple, unfortunately I don’t know what that would be so I’ll just move on.

Ahh good times with the ol' Mako moon truck... Stupid truck.

The two biggest advents in Mass Effect 3 from the previous titles is the inclusion of Multi-player and voice commands via the Kinect system. Coincidentally these are also the two things that I was the most skeptical about in the lead up to the games release.

Multiplayer is a co-op game in which you and three other players team up using several different character classes and customizable models. There are five mulit-player maps which are introduced to you throughout the single player campaign. The missions are essentially twenty or so minute matches where you and your allies take on ten waves of enemies that progressively get more challenging. Interspersed throughout the ten waves are moments when you receive special mission objectives that you must complete within a time limit, such as killing off “targets of opportunity” or hacking a console (king of the hill style). Mass Effect 3 gives you an incentive to participate in Multi-player as every mission you complete adds to your “Galactic Readiness Rating” which is a measuring stick for how well your alliance will do against the Reapers in the final show down at the end of the Single Player Campaign. The multi-player was surprisingly fun, though I found participating in any of the missions above the “Bronze” challenge rating punishingly difficult. Even though it was repetitive the matches were often butt clenchingly pitched and exciting, particularly at the end of the tenth wave where you have to hold an area for extraction while your team gets totally mobbed by a seemingly endless horde of bogies. I really enjoyed the multiplayer aspect and it complemented the Single player game well.

YO JOE!

The Kinect commands were also an interesting addition.  The Kinect provided you with the ability to command your squad in combat by telling a squad member what to do for example “Tali, sabotage” or “Squad attack my target” you could also switch weapons and abilities by just saying the type of gun or ability you wanted to use instead of having to pause the action to bring up the ring menu. Out of combat  you can also use the Kinect to quick save, interact with devices and carry on conversations by saying the prompt for what you want Shepard to say next. I didn’t find voice command as useful in these sections as there was no real rush for me to issue a command. As well I found it awkward to be physically saying to a tv screen displaying an image of a person that doesn’t exist “Its good to see you again”  as opposed to just clicking on that selection on the conversation wheel and letting Shepard do the talking. The only real issue with the voice command was that  sometimes when characters were talking it would trigger the Kinect accidentally. There were a few times that a character would be talking to me while I was standing near a computer and they would say something that the Kinect registered as “Use” or “Examine” and suddenly I was purchasing a vacation home on Illium instead of paying attention to what floating jelly-fish man was trying to tell me. Ok on to the story line and in particular the ending… deep breath, Redcoat… you can do this…

Three games and I still can't tell which end their face is.

So… If this game is about fifty hours long, then the first forty-nine and a half hours of it are absolutely amazing. There are moments with incredibly well voice acted and masterfully directed dramatic sequences that had me on the edge of my seat. The introduction to the game, when the Reapersarrived on Earth and laid waste to Vancouver gave me goose bumps. As well one of the main villains in the story Kai Leng, is the type of villain that you just love to hate. He’s the type of douche bag that gets you invested in the game in that way that just makes you wanna keep playing so you can have a chance to really stick it to him.

Ahhh I wanna punch him right in his future goggle eye cover thingies.

All that being said however, the ending to this game was crushing, not because of the way it went down but because it was such a jarring departure from the rest of the trilogy. Minor spoilers ahead…

The game drummed into your head from the minute you started the first title that your decisions would have far reaching consequences and that there would be lasting repercussions to your actions. For the most part this held true, however, in the last scene of the game a decision is put to you where you faced with one of three decisions. A Decision that is available to you no matter what other decisions you made in the rest of the game. You may have saved the Krogan, you may have brokered peace between two bitter enemies, you may have saved a race from extinction because you felt they deserved a second chance, hell you may have helped an AI understand the human condition, but in the end, none of that mattered as all those choices go out the window for three equally unappealing outcomes. Door number one, door number two or door number three… make your choice. Oh and no matter which one you choose, it’s the end of galactic civilization as we know it.  

Now am I just upset because I wanted a happy ending where I got to live as the champion of the universe with my Quarian Girlfriend sipping mai-tai’s while people lavish me with adoration for saving all of creation? Sure that’d be nice, but it’s not required. I’m upset because it felt like all of my work, all the time I had invested into the trilogy didn’t matter. It felt like Bio Ware just didn’t try with the ending.  Like they had really good intentions but then just ran out of ideas or ways to make everything work together and  instead just banged out three similar endings to give the illusion of choice. It felt empty.

Now to the Mass Effect team, I appreciate what you did with this series, and you deserves definite props and plenty of applause for what you created. I would recommend this series to anyone in a heartbeat and still consider it one of my favorite games of all time, I just really wanted an ending that made me feel like I had beaten the odds and saved the universe.

In closing, I’m going to share a few links. Some have come up with well-articulated lists of reasons why the ending is a load of bullocks to which I will place a link to here.

Others have looked for deeper meaning in the ending and come up with a rather interesting theory which I will put here. If they’re right then boys and girls at Bio Ware are some of the craftiest mother fuckers who ever lived, but I think that this theory would just be coming a little bit too much out of left field for it to be true.  

Some people are so upset about it that they’ve started a group to lobby Bio Ware and EA to rewrite the ending and even raised afrightening amount of money for charity to support their cause. To that effect Dr. Ray Muzyka, the co-founder of Bio Ware has released this statement. Very interesting and makes for a very interesting commentary on the relationship between game designers and their consumers.

I’m interested to see what Bio Ware plans to do and will be watching this story closely, stay tuned to my twitter account and the review for updates.

Commentary - Syndicate: How a promising game jumped the plot line shark.

Note: I had intended to review Syndicate initially but found myself far to fixated on the plot line so decided to just go with a commentary on my views on the Syndicate plot. If you’re thinking about playing Syndicate it’s an overall well-designed game and will be appreciated by both the FPS and the science fiction crowd, just be prepared for a letdown in the story department.

I know in my reviews and in conversations about games I oft find myself harkening back to days gone by and games that I grew up with. Reminiscing about the days when the video game market wasn’t the bountiful cornucopia of treats that it is today. The original Syndicate, released in 1993, was one of these games and introduced me to the “cyber-punk” dystopian setting seen in such movies as Blade Runner and games like Shadowrun. For all its redundant game play, Syndicate was an enjoyable game. So when I learned Starbreeze Studios (makers of “Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay”) had been green lit by EA to come up with a modernized version of this classic I was hopeful. After all if the game turned out to be anything like Riddick, we were in for a real treat. 

Unfortunately Starbreeze took a beautiful opportunity and sqandered it.  Instead of taking the opportunity to flesh out the skeletal storyline of a shadowy world run by faceless corporations who fuck the little guy and routinely commit atrocities, Starbreeze decided to mail in the ending of the storyline with a ho-hum predictable off the shelf story of betrayal and changing allegiances.

 As I said back in 1993 I played Syndicate for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed it, to the best of my recollection the story line of the game was this:

It’s the future, the world governments have been replaced by multinational corporations and the world is suffering from over population and pollution. You are some dude in a blimp that’s part of one of these groups. Your job is to take over the god damn world using a cybernetic squad of thugs whom you control. Oh and don’t worry about killing innocents or causing property damage because screw them you have a blimp, a cybernetic squad of thugs, and a multinational corporation backing you with more power than god almighty. Your squad thunders through the different territories killing, capturing and destroying the opposing syndicate’s resources until the world is covered with your corporate logo.

Blimps... because every evil dictator needs a mobile oppression platform.

The thing to take away from the 93’ version of Syndicate was that there were no “good guys” you and every corporation out there were complete ass holes and only concerned with profits and market share. In Syndicate, you were not a hero, in many ways you were the most vile and reprehensible villain. You were the Lex Luthor of the Legion of Doom.  Syndicate didn’t have a super deep or thought provoking plot, but its main theme, that the corporations were ruthless and all powerful shone clearly throughout the game.

So with a clear direction  from the original game and a talented studio like Starbreeze, the reboot of the series could only get better... right?

The modern Syndicate game places you as one of the individual cybernetic agents you previously controlled.  Removing the faceless squad based game play of the original. You play as Miles Kilo an Agent in the employ of Eurocorp, the largest and oldest Syndicate.  The game follows Kilo as he ruthlessly carries out the orders of Eurocorp which are piped directly into his brain via the “Dart 6 Chip” which is essentially a smartphone implanted in his head. The Dart Chip has a symbiotic relationship with Kilo and refers to itself and Kilo as “us” and “we”. The chip also routinely communicates with Eurocorp, seeking direction and revised objectives rather than allowing Kilo to make his own decisions. You as the player are never given an option as far as obeying orders are concerned you just do what the Dart Chip tells you to.

Dart Chip says: "SHOOT DUDES IN FACE!"

The first two thirds of the story are reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984, with Kilo observing a world which is firmly in the control of Eurocorp. Those who have succumbed to the corporate will have been Dart Chipped and live in relative luxury. Those individuals who refuse to bend to the corporate will are cast into decrepit slums rampant with crime and disease. While playing you learn about this dystopian future from various documents and downloads that Kilo can collect.  As the game progresses this information paints a picture of a world suffering under the corporate superpowers.  The game is bleak and depressing.  At first, blush corporate life appears more or less utopian, but you quickly learn of the darker side with invasion of privacy, silent killings of dissenters, and filtering of the media to spin the corporate story.   The developers did well with the design of shiny steel and glass corporate towers where people are supposed to be living the ‘good life’ but upon closer inspection appear more like corporate prisons. 

Kilo carries out the corporation’s orders blasting through everything that gets in his way. Kilo never speaks or expresses his opinions on his predicaments or duties. He just moves around doing his job. Kilo never voices an opinion or even takes action to show that he has a personality which in the context of this game was appropriate for the protagonist. It added to the feeling that Kilo was nothing more than a manifestation of the corporations will. To me it didn’t matter what Kilo thought, because from the previous syndicate I was led to believe that Kilo doesn’t think. He cannot be reasoned with and he cannot be dissuaded by fear or personal feelings. Eurocorp points and Kilo obeys. Playing a blank silent character fit well with the dehumanizing theme of Syndicate where people are referred to as “soft assets” and the amount of trouble the corporations will go to protect their populations is directly linked to how much money they are worth.

IN THE FACE!

So the first two thirds of the game stay true to the original games theme: a world controlled by ruthless powerful corporations,  Any attempt to stand against them or get in their way is met with a response that involves guys like Kilo and high calibre firearms. Unfortunately Syndicate jumps the shark around the last portion of the game, with a fairly predictable twist likely intended to add depth to the Kilo character. 

The change in story line comes during the last segment of the game when the only true voice of descent against Eurocorp, a group of unchipped slum dwellers, has just been wiped out by Kilo alone.  While  The group represented a resistance that was only allowed to continue because it was so ineffective against the corporate power that it was below the corporations notice.  The mission ends with Kilo being injured while attempting to terminate a rebel sympathizer who was a scientist at Eurocorp. The scientist informs Kilo that she triggered a safety protocol in his Dart chip when he tried to kill her and he is now unable to injure her. As she turns to leave she tells Kilo that there is a human in him somewhere and that she hopes he finds it again someday. As a result of his injury, Kilo recovers memories of his childhood in which he learns that Eurocorp murdered his parents and kidnapped him at an early age because they deemed him to be genetically compatible to becoming an agent. To which I remarked, so what? Was this supposed to be a surprise? Did you miss the lion’s share of the game where Eurocorp demonstrated repeatedly that they were murdering dick holes who would sell their mothers eyes?

Young Kilo is taking this very well... after all he did just see his parents get shot, in the face. IN THE FACE!

So out of left field Starbreeze decides to shoe horn a personality into the up until now, silent more or less blank state of a character.  Apparently Kilo, who has been the pointy end of the aforementioned dick holes for his entire adult life, is surprised by the actions of Eurocorp.  He decides to change sides and fight alongside the rebel sympathizer through Eurocorp HQ to the CEO’s office while the building is being attacked by an opposing syndicate.

Kilo preforming brain surgery to steal the Dart Chip of a dude he shot. Why? Because Kilo and Eurocorp are dicks.

All of this just feels out of place and like two different plot lines got spiced together in post-production.  Aside from a single short cut scene where Kilo grabs the sides of his head and appears distressed after killing his former partner Kilo doesn’t do anything to show he has changed or even cares that his parents were killed by Eurocorp. Perhaps if they had from the beginning of the story shown that Kilo had a mind of his own or  reservations about his actions I might have been able to swallow this twist.  However,  as the game stands itfeels like Starbreeze never really knew where they were going with Syndicate and after painting themselves into a corner decided to wrap it up as quickly as possible.

"Ok Kilo, time to learn about your way tragic past and then spontaneously grow a personality, ready? GO!"

Personally, I would have preferred to see Syndicate go the other way and stay true to the 93’ versions roots. Kilo could have learned of his past and battled his way through the forces of the opposing syndicate to the CEO’s office only to have him turn and kill the sympathiser at the behest of the Dart chip and Eurocorp like the good corporate flunkey he is. Stay with the dehumanizing, depressing set up to the game and make the point that Kilo isn’t free, Kilo never was free because Kilo is an agent and an agent is an instrument of the corporation.

There is an adage in movies that says that if you drop the ball in the ending people’s perception of the whole movie will be tainted.  With previous games like Chronicles of Riddick under Starbreeze’s belt, I truly thought that this new Syndicate would easily be able to put forward a story that would do its predecessor proud and With the way that the first portion of Syndicate’s plot was playing out I thought I was going to have one of the top games of 2012 on my hands. Unfortunately the game concluded with an unsatisfying crash landing in predictability with an unconvincing change of heart. Syndicate had an opportunity to tell a thought provoking story that would strike chords with people and draw parallels with current events such as the greed that led to the global debt crisis, or at the very least given us a story that would make George Orwell proud. Sadly all we ended up with was a plot twist worthy of a Michael Bay film.