Review: Aven Colony (Video)

Hey guys! Had a bunch of free time on my hands this week so thought I would experiment with a video review. Haven't done one of these since waaaay back in 2012 with Dishonored so I'm trying the format out again.

I would really appreciate as much feedback as you can offer on this one. Is it too long? Too negative? Is the quality of the video bad? Please leave comments!

Enjoy!

REVIEW: The Last of Us (PS3)

The Last of Us has one of the best written plots I ever have experienced in a video game. Period. It is a fantastic human story that is fascinating from start to end, and that fact alone makes it one of the best games of 2013. So, if you came to this review with the question "is The Last of Us worth it?”, then you have your answer - yes, it is most definitely "worth it". You can stop reading right now, and go and buy the game with my guarantee that it will be an incredibly satisfying gaming experience. However, if you'd like a bit more insight into why I believe it's not quite as deserving of all of the gushing love fans have slathered on it, then please, read on.

Essentially, The Last of Us is a perfect example of how a well-written plot can't (completely) carry a mediocre game, and while it does try its best, the actual, you know, game, behind The Last of Us is what drags the rest of it down. And honestly (well, at least to me personally), that's kind of the most important part of a video game.

But let's start with what The Last of Us did well, because overall, the game generally deserves to be applauded. If there is one award that The Last of Us truly deserves, it is the Writer's Guild of America's "best writing in a video game". I laughed. I cried. I screamed in fear. The Last of Us may be a "zombie game", but like The Walking Dead before it, the real story is the human drama - how low, how high, and how downright horrible human beings become when they have their backs pushed up against the wall. Throughout the game, I was delighted to see Joel and Ellie's blossoming relationship, whether it be from the random little quips Ellie will spout while progressing through a level, or her and Joel’s heart-wrenching cutscene performances. All of the supporting cast you’ll meet along the way also does a great job of helping bring Joel and Ellie's story of survival in this beautiful, yet broken world, to a satisfying conclusion.

And boy, is this world beautiful. I was skeptical, having not played a game on last generation consoles in quite some time, that the graphics would be unbearable, but Naughty Dog has done an amazing job of squeezing those last scraps of performance out of the aging PlayStation 3 hardware. The world of The Last of Us, while not really being anything we haven't seen before in games like Half-Life 2, Resident Evil, or even Fallout, is a gorgeous place to explore. I am a sucker for urban decay, and having Joel and Ellie adventure their way through collapsed skyscrapers, abandoned subways, and cities being slowly reclaimed by nature, made me giddy. It's a lot of the little attention-to-detail stuff that Naughty Dog added, such as Ellie reacting graffiti marking the aftermath of some conflict, or the collectible notes left behind by survivors, that really breathe life into the world.

Unfortunately, the beautiful world turns a little bit ugly when we look at the game’s actual gameplay. The Last of Us' gameplay is split into three main segments: exploration, zombie combat, and human combat. The exploration sections were acceptable, as the only real complaint I had is that the solution to almost every "puzzle" is just finding a ladder or plank and boosting Ellie up to a higher location to use it.

The survival horror-style zombie combat is probably the best-designed of the three. Some levels, such as one in an abandoned high school, were truly, nail-bitingly terrifying. The only problem is, as the game progresses into the later stages, the enemies don't seem to get any harder, and once you can figure out that stealth + melee is king, and that it is impossible for your allies to accidentally trigger a zombie, the challenge kind of diminishes.

But even with the reduced challenge, the survival horror segments are still pretty satisfying. The human combat segments, on the other hand, go downhill real fast. At first, the absolutely shocking gunplay controls (who the hell thinks its a good idea to bind reload and fire to the same godamn button?) really frustrated me, but after a while I learned that, just like in the zombie segments, it's much more effective to hide and punch than shoot and flank. It doesn't help that the human AI is shockingly inconsistent. There will be times when I can strangle a dude while his buddy literally two feet away doesn't notice, and times when I barely pop my head out of cover and someone half a mile away sees me.

The human enemies are also generally, really, really dumb. It's so easy to find a cramped space where guns aren't useful, lure one guy there, kill him loudly, and then just punch all his buddies to death when they inevitably come, one by one, to investigate. And when all else fails, you can just pick up a baseball bat and sprint full tilt at rifle-armed-thugs. All they'll do is look at you, and maybe think about shooting you, right up until you knock their blocks off.

Because I barely used my guns, and almost never used the "special" weapons (such as bombs and molotovs) I always had a massive surplus of weaponry, so whenever a "boss" fight came up, I would destroy him with ease.

Furthermore, the game practically showers you with the materials for medkits. After a while, you learn exactly where to look to find their components, so I always had at least two in reserve. There was one time when I had actually ran out of medkits, and was kind of in a bad spot, when all of a sudden Ellie turns around and says "here Joel, I found this for you" and hands me one. Really?

Normally I wouldn't be so harsh on a game's difficulty, but I was playing the game on "hard" - the hardest difficulty available when you start the game. Yes, there is an additional difficulty level ("survivor"), but it is only unlocked after you have finished the main game once - a practice which I absolutely cannot stand. So yeah, If you are somewhat competent at video games, you will breeze through The Last of Us without breaking a sweat.

The best part of this game, by far, is its story, and I found myself “forcing” my way through it’s gameplay segments just to get to the next cutscene, or see the next area. While you may see this as an almighty praise for its writing, it’s also quite a harsh criticism of it’s gameplay. I shouldn't want to avoid the gameplay segments of a video game.

So while The Last of Us is an amazingly well-written written human story, Naughty Dog forgot to  pair it with an equally well-made game. Despite this, it is still a fantastic experience, and if you just want to sit back and enjoy the ride, by breezing through it on easy mode to enjoy the story, you will be satisfied. But if you came here expecting a challenge, you've come to the wrong place.

Verdict: Buy

REVIEW: Super Mario 3D World (Wii U)

The terms "killer app" and "system seller" get thrown around quite loosely these days, however, It's actually quite rare for a single game to single handedly move a substantial number of systems the way Halo did on the Xbox, or Smash Bros. did on the Wii (there are of course exceptions, such as Pokemon on the 3DS). Furthermore, all three next-gen systems have had incredibly lackluster launches, with 90% of the launch selection either being already available on other platforms, or being "ok, I guess" at best. The Wii U has had a year to find it's feet (and some decent games), and I believe Super Mario 3D World is the console's first steps to greatness. That said it is still not quite a "system seller".

Meow!

Super Mario 3D World is the direct sequel to Super Mario 3D Land on the 3DS (a fantastic game in it's own right). Furthermore, it is the first 3D Mario platformer on the Wii U, and the first major Mario title without Godfather Shigeru Miyamoto's direct influence. So even before it had been released, it had some pretty big shoes to fill.

The feature that sets this game apart from other Mario games (apart from the cat suit, but we’ll get to that later), is it’s co-op (and sometimes, not so co-op) multiplayer. Yes, it has been done before in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, but this is the first time it’s been done in a 3D Mario, and furthermore, it brings back the unique abilities of Peach, Luigi, Toad and Mario from Super Mario Bros. 2. Luigi jumps a bit higher, Peach has her “floaty” jumps, Toad runs faster and Mario is the all-rounder. Even if you’re playing the game in singleplayer, each character feels just unique enough to warrant switching things up from time to time.

The game is best played multiplayer with a group of good friends

But, this game should be played with friends. It is couch co-op at it’s finest. I've always been baffled by most console maker's decision to eschew local multiplayer in favor of online. Online play on any console is always going to be a vastly inferior system to what’s available (for free) on the PC, so why not focus on local multiplayer, something the PC struggles with and fits the console perfectly?

Thankfully, Nintendo is still pushing that agenda, and Super Mario 3D World is very indicative of that. The game is fantastic fun to play with friends, and it works really well. There were very few times where it felt like we were “fighting” the camera, or felt considerably disadvantaged for having multiple players. There’s a nice little competitive element to it too - the player with the most points at the end of each level gets a “crown,” so there is always this mad dash to get the most points. Multiplayer in Super Mario 3D world is a kind of maddening chaos that still somehow feels natural, with a few of the levels in particular even seeming to be designed with multiplayer in mind.

I should take some time to talk about how the game looks, because it is absolutely gorgeous. That 1080p/60fps benchmark that games on the Xbox One and PS4 are struggling to hit? 3D World pulls it off like a boss. The game never once struggled to keep its framerate, despite the fact that it was outputting to both the TV and the gamepad. The cartoony graphics of the Mario universe really pop out at you; characters feel alive, stages feel vast, and the color scheme is a welcome explosion of vibrant yellow and green in the face of the gaming world’s current obsession with brown and gray. When you add a jazzy, upbeat soundtrack that has plenty of catchy, memorable tunes, you’ve got yourself a game that looks and sounds as fun as it plays.

Super Mario 3D World's vibrant colors are a welcome change from modern gaming's obsession with brown and gray.

3D World brings back a lot of old favorite powerups, such as the fire flower and super leaf, as well as bringing in some items from recent Mario games (such as 3D Land’s boomerang suit and New Super Mario Bros.’ mega mushroom). Completely new to the game are the cat suit and the double cherry. The cat suit is the game's "big new item", with many levels, and many, many secrets being designed around it. Basically, it allows you to climb up walls, melee attack enemies, and perform a jump-dive attack. The first two skills are exceptionally useful at finding secrets and defeating enemies, while the third is exceptionally useful at diving you right off the edge of the map. Seriously. I was deathly afraid of using it most of the time because cat-Mario has some kind of death wish that can only be satisfied by leaping into the abyss.

The double cherry creates a “clone” of your character. It appears fairly rarely in the game, and while is a neat new idea, I feel like they didn't take the opportunity to properly explore it. It could have made for some total madness in multiplayer games to have levels just brimming with cherries, generating an insane amount of players on-screen at once.

The double cherry has a lot of missed potential as a power up

The game has the classic Mario difficulty curve, with the first world being complete-able by your grandma, and the final world driving even hardened veterans insane. There is a huge amount of content, with seven standard worlds and three bonus worlds - it’ll take you quite a while to get through it all, and the challenges are surmountable, but satisfying. The only thing that’s a bit lacking is the boss fights, with several of them simply being repeats, and most of them being pretty easy. I beat the final boss, for example, on my very first try.

I also had a small problem with the fifth unlockable character, Rosalina, being made available so far into the game. She is actually a pretty unique character, and is a much more interesting than Toad (sorry, Toad fans!) so it would have been nice to use her in the earlier levels, especially in multiplayer.

The boss fights are not exactly satisfying

Shoe-horned into the game, as seems to always be the case these days, are some social networking features. In this case, Nintendo’s Miiverse network bleeds in, with player’s Miis scattered throughout levels spouting whatever nonsense they last posted in the game’s Miiverse community. I don’t know how it is for English speakers, but for the Japanese version of the game, most of them were just cute pictures made with the game’s unlockable stamps. No real harm done, but it doesn’t really add anything to the game either.

I’m in kind of two worlds on my last point, which is also the reason why I don’t believe this game is a “system seller” for the Wii U. Basically, the game does not really take any advantage of the unique capabilities of the system. The gamepad’s screen simply replicates the action on the main screen for player one, and while there is a “touch baddies to make them stop/touch areas to reveal secrets” feature, it feels more like a last-minute addition than something that’s integral to the game (and it’s certainly not integral to the game). On the one hand, I think this is bad because it really does not “sell” the system, but on the other hand, I honestly don't think the game would benefit from it anyway. It may have even been detrimental to "force" more gamepad features into the game.

The catsuit, contrary to the double cherry, is a great new powerup for the Mario universe

Is Super Mario 3D world a fantastic game? Yes. Does it sell the unique features of the Wii U? No. If you already own the system it’s a no-brainer, but I honestly doubt people will be rushing out to buy a Wii U for it. Furthermore, to your average Joe, it only exacerbates the problem of people thinking the Wii U is just an addon for the Wii, rather than a new system. There’s nothing, apart from the improved graphics (which average Joe doesn't really notice anyway), that distinctly sets it apart from say, Super Mario Galaxy.

That said, you probably should rush out and buy a Wii U for this game, because it’s flipping amazing.

The game, unfortunately, does not take good advantage of the Wii U's unique features

Verdict: Buy

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Have a look at my Escapist articles pertaining to Super Mario 3D World.

REVIEW: Battlefield 4 (PC)

I would like to preface this review by stating that I will, at no point, talk about the game's singleplayer campaign, because honestly, who gives a damn? No-one is rushing out to buy Call of Duty or Battlefield for their compelling, human stories. People buy Battlefield for the multiplayer, and the multiplayer alone, so it only seems fair that I review the game based solely on its multiplayer merits.

So here we are, just two years out from the release of Battlefield 3, and less than a year since the last Battlefield 3 DLC. If you're thinking that the game could not have possibly changed much in such a short time you'd be right. The difference between the games is not like the huge jump between Battlfield 2 and Battlefield 3, and more like the incremental upgrade between Bad Company 1 and Bad Company 2. However, this doesn't necessarily mean the game is automatically not worth your money. There is still an enormous amount of new content, engine upgrades, and gameplay modifications here to satisfy the Battlefield fans, while still being welcoming to newcomers of the series. That said, it is also not without its own shortcomings.

Let's start with the game's much touted new feature, the one that practically screams "next-gen" at the top of its lungs. It's called "leveloution" - the ability to use explosives and interact-able objects to physically alter how a map plays. For example, in Flood Zone, you can destroy a levee, which floods the entire map with water, replacing land-based vehicles with boats. In another, Siege of Shanghai, you can bring down an entire skyscraper, making the capture point (previously at the top of the building) much more accessible.

"Leveloution" can be pretty hit-and-miss.

Leveloution is pretty hit-and-miss. In some maps it is fairly easy to pull off just by a single, determined player, and is a really cool testament to the game's physics engine. On other maps, such as Lachang Dam, it requires several people to fire roughly twelve gazillion rocket at an object for a rather unimpressive effect that only barely alters how the map plays. Fortunately, I would say that overall it is more hit than miss, with at least six of the ten maps making good use of the feature. My personal favorites were the aforementioned Flood Zone, and Parcel Storm - a map which as well as having a periodic storm that whips up the seas, making boats and aircraft a more precarious option, also features a massive battleship that dramatically beaches itself on one of the map's islands.

Maps like Parcel Storm and Siege of Shanghai really show off just how beautiful the Frostbite 3 engine is. I played the game on a pretty beefy gaming PC, and it looked absolutely gorgeous. Those of you who played BF3 on a mid-to-high-range gaming PC won't notice too huge of a change, but the difference between BF3 on the 360/PS3 and BF4 on the Xbox One/PS4 is night and day. The big focus this time around is particle effects and physics, which help showcase the game's dynamic maps.

The game has a good range of map diversity.

So (most of) the maps are good, and the game looks great, but how does it actually play? Very similar to BF3, if I'm being honest. Veterans will be able to jump right into the game without skipping a beat, as the core Battlefield infantry vs. vehicles rock-paper-scissors mechanics are still there. The recon class has had a little bit of a mix-up, with the "spec ops" loadout returning from Battlefield 2, allowing him to equip shorter-range rifles along with C4 and motion sensors, while the other classes have simply been given more toys to play with. The classes have more diversity in weapon choice, with everyone being able to equip carbines, shotguns, and the semi-automatic "designated marksman rifles".

Possibly the biggest change veterans will notice with loadouts is that you can now choose any two gadgets, instead of being "locked in" to a secondary gadget. The engineer, for example, can have both an RPG and a stinger equipped, or the support can pack C4 and claymores.

"Customization" is the key word for Battlefield 4

Also, instead of the personal/squad perks of BF3, each class has a "specialization" they can choose. Each specialization has four "levels" of perks, which unlock gradually as you perform squad actions, such as supplying ammo to squadmates or capturing an objective marked by your squad leader. Everyone has access to the basic offense, defense and stealth specs, but each class also has two of its own unique specs. For example, the assault class has the "combat medic" spec, which increases the effectiveness of his healing abilities. Furthermore, if you entire squad is wiped out, the levels earned for your specialization get reset back to level 1, meaning there is a bigger incentive to work together as a team, and try and survive if you are the last squad member standing, rather than just Rambo-ing everything.

"Customization" is the big word for Battlefield 4, and in addition to the class loadout changes and the plethora of new and confusing weapon attachments you can choose from (what the heck is a "potato grip"?), vehicle customization has received a much-needed overhaul. Gunners for land vehicles now have a separate loadout selection, just like their attack chopper counterparts. Jets have been split into two classes (attack jets and stealth jets) and boats have been completely redesigned to be more than mere transports, complete with their own loadout and unlocks.

The game looks fantastic and plays well.

In order to help deal with the massive influx of new items, DICE has introduced "battlepacks", which are earned at various milestones, and grant three to five random unlocks upon being opened. It's a pretty cool system, but I feel it's missing some kind of trading option, so I can trade with my friends to get the attachments I want for my favorite guns, rather than just hoping to get lucky.

Also new is the "commander mode", which allows one player on each team to be view the game from a birds-eye view, and issue orders, drop supplies, and call in support options such as gunships and cruise missiles. It's a nice little feature, and the fact that it runs on tablets makes it a great little tablet game, but in the end it's just too simple to be more than a temporary distraction. I worry that in the near future the commander population will drastically drop as the playerbase grows weary of it. This is bad, as if one team has a commander and the other team doesn't, it puts the no-commander team at a noticeable disadvantage.

Commander mode is too simple to be anything more than a distraction.

Battlefield 4 is fun to play. It's a good upgrade from Battlefield 3 that fixes a lot of problems players had with the game, and if it wasn't for what I am about to say, I would whole-heatedly recommend it for both veterans of the series, and newcomers looking for a new multiplayer FPS to play on Friday nights.

However. However. The game is absolutely riddled with bugs. Battlelog, which was already a mess in BF3, has not really improved at all for BF4, refusing to connect to games, download updates, or even open at all for seemingly no reason. I was (and still am) unable to get its"battlescreen" feature to work on my tablet. In game, the sound cuts out in certain areas. There are graphical glitches. Weapons sometimes do not behave the way they are supposed to, and then there are the random crashes. When I first started playing, I was lucky to go 15 minutes without a crash. I now crash, on average, every two rounds. It's very obvious that the game was rushed to meet the next-gen console launch, and even now, several weeks after launch, the issues are still very glaring.

Battlefield 4 is a fantastic game, but it's not ready yet. Check back in a month.

Verdict: Don't Buy (yet)

REVIEW: Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (3DS)

Hey guys. I'm proud to show you my first, paid review for the Escapist magazine. This is the first of hopefully many reviews, stay tuned for more:

Review: Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon

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REVIEW: SimCity (PC)

It's time to talk about SimCity. I won’t bore you with the details of the launch day catastrophe. You know it sucked, I know it sucked, even EA knows it sucked. It’s very slowly getting better at an unacceptably slow rate. People compare it to Diablo III’s launch, but that’s not fair to Blizzard. I was actually able to play Diablo III on launch day, and its servers got better within a day. SimCity has been much worse.

But, let’s move on from that, because there are many, many more problems with this game once you can actually log on to the servers. Some people might say that I should wait, and review the game once EA actually get everything running smoothly. I say, no. The game is available for purchase now. People deserve to know right now if the game is worth a purchase or not. I've given EA almost a week to sort things out, and the problems that I have don’t look like they will have any solutions in the short term. The game must be reviewed in its current state, because it is being sold in its current state.

So I’d like to start off by saying what this game did right. At its core, the game is an enjoyable and incredibly addictive experience. EA have taken a lot of the elements of previous SimCities and improved upon us to give us one of the most detailed city sims yet. One of the most impressive things is that every citizen is simulated. If it says your city has 50,000 residents, there will be 50,000 little dudes running around, going to work, shopping at stores, visiting neighbors  It’s very impressive, especially when you zoom down to neighborhood level and can see a living, breathing city.

Utilities have been streamlined to travel through roads, road placement and planning is easier than ever with the new curved roads and road guide tool and city specializations give you choices as to what kind of city you want to make. The game looks absolutely beautiful. The art and animation in this game is amazing, especially when you crank up the graphics to full. It is incredibly fun for about the first half an hour while you are oogling the graphics and the detail. Then your city runs out of space.

Cities are tiny. There’s no two ways about it. 90% of my frustrations with the game stem from this. I don’t have enough room to make new buildings. I don’t have enough room to expand existing buildings. I don’t have enough room to zone more residential, more industrial, more landfill. I want to build a passenger port but there’s no room. I have to demolish existing buildings manually to see if it will fit, and sometimes it won’t, meaning I won’t have my port and I’ll have lost the building I demolished (there is no "undo" function). These problems are supposed to be solved by regional play: having your friends build commuter cities full of residents that travel to your industry cities, or specialize in utilities and send you firetrucks, power, and water. Except that it's completely broken.

Mass transit is a nightmare. For starters, transit between cities is handled completely on EA’s servers. If you lose connection with them, even for a second, guess what? You get no commuters for the entire month. That means no workers for your factory, and no tourists for your casinos. I've had more than one city get run into the ground because of this. But when you can miraculously maintain a stable connection to EA’s servers, commuting still only seems to work "sometimes."

In one region, my friend and I both built several industrial cities. He then tried to make a residential-only city, with the hopes of supplying our cities with workers. It didn't work. The residents of his new city flat out refused to commute, opting instead to sit in their homes whining about not having jobs. He eventually caved and built some industry in his city.

When they do actually commute, the traffic is so unbearable that it’s almost not worth the hassle. Despite having train stations, ports, buses, streetcars, high-density roads and a flipping airport, there is constantly a miles-long traffic jam leading in to my city. Following individual sims often tells hilarious tales of people taking several days to commute to and from work. In the city, cars will drive around in circles, busses will drive to random bus stops instead of travelling in a line, and streetcars will go back and forth between the two closest stops. Sims will also always take the shortest route – even if it means taking a dirt road over a super highway. This makes cities built on trade a nightmare – you can’t make any money if all your trucks are stuck in traffic. It of course also has a negative effect on emergency services.

Unlike real life, ambulances, fire trucks and police cars will politely wait in traffic and stop at stop lights while en-route to an emergency. If you have five fire trucks in a city, they will all go to the closest fire, and none of them will move to the next fire until the first one has been put out. Despite optimizing my grid over and over I never could have a positive effect on traffic in some of my cities. I understand that the game is meant to be about tweaking to efficiency, but as it stands, it’s just not fun.

Sharing of utilities between cities is also bafflingly broken. Cities will just ‘stop’ sending power or water for seemingly no reason. Emergency services sent to neighboring cities only earn a pittance, and just contribute to the massive region-wide traffic jams.

Region wide research, such as unlocking new buildings at a town hall or university, can take several hours to sync across a region, if at all. About the only thing that works properly with region play is gifting money – and even that can take quite a while to sync, even when it is being sent between two cities that you own!

Almost all of these problems (barring the tiny-city size) are a result of the always-on DRM of the game. Yes, I’m calling it DRM, because that’s what it is. It certainly is not a feature, as it negatively impacts my game rather than positively. SimCity is a game that should be offline, or at least have the choice of being offline. All of these fantastic online region features are great (in theory), but dammit, let me choose them. If I want to play SimCity on a long plane ride, or when my internet goes down, or just by myself because I want to meticulously craft my own region, then I should be able to. Don’t force me onto your servers. Being constantly connected offers nothing to SimCity, especially considering the huge drawbacks. It was instated as an anti-piracy method and anyone who tries to argue otherwise is just kidding themselves.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun put it perfectly: SimCity is is inherently broken, lets not let this go. The game is a perfect example of everything that is wrong with forcing always-online onto games. Don’t buy this game. If you have already bought it, make your voice heard for EA. We can’t let this go. Letting this go gives EA licence to keep pulling this shit. At the very least, if you absolutely must buy an EA title in the future - don't buy it at launch. Buy it two weeks afterwards. Those first two weeks are so crucially important to sales, that if enough people hold off, it will make their marketing team take notice.

As well as exposing pretty much every flaw with always-on DRM, this game also exposes a major flaw in the current way the majority of outlets review videogames. I’m talking about the review “score” as a concept – summing up the experience of a videogame with a single number. Videogames, unlike books or movies, are a constantly changing, subjective experience that simply cannot be quantified with a number. Case in point: Polygon’s review of SimCity.

Polygon originally gave the game a 9.5. This review was based on an incredibly closed review copy that was only able to be played at an EA site, and was in no-way reflective of the actual retail game. Most respectable news outlets opted to hold their SimCity reviews until they got a hold of the game, but Polygon, in an attempt to be “first,” published anyway. The score was then downgraded to an 8, and finally a 4, due to server issues. Where does this end? Should a score be altered every time there is a patch for the game? Should it be lowered every time the servers go down?

Metacritic has a long-standing policy to never change the initial score offered by an outlet. Why the hell should we even bother with scores, if the ambiguous entity in charge of collating them won’t even bother to keep track of them? Review scores add nothing to a game review. Their sole purpose is for publishers to show to their marketing team and say "lookit! We got a 7 from IGN!" This review, along with all reviews you will read here on Stevesgameblog will never have a number. I trust you enough to read my review, my thoughts and opinions, and decide for yourself if the game I am reviewing is for you. All I will offer is a very general buy or don’t buy rating, based on my experience with the game. This one is most definitely a “don’t buy.”

Verdict: Don’t buy

REVIEW: SimCity (PC)

I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Verdict: Don't Buy

(A proper review will come when I can actually play the game)

REVIEW: Aliens: Colonial Marines (PC)

Aliens: Colonial Marines is a bad game. Don't buy it. I feel the need to preface my review with this statement, lest anyone accidentally interpret something in my review as 'praise' and rush off to buy the game. I wanted this game to be good. I really did. I'm a huge Aliens fan and I have enjoyed Gearbox games in the past. Even 20th Century Fox seemed to be behind this one, saying that the movie is an official part of the Aliens canon, and signing on the voices of Bishop and Hicks from the original movie. Previous Aliens related games, such as 2000's Aliens vs. Predator and 2002's Aliens vs. Predator 2 had proved that the Aliens franchise was the perfect canvas for a first person shooter. I think the fact that this game had so much going for it made the fall hurt even more.

I should have seen the warning signs. They were all right there in front of me. First, the game has been in development for an ungodly amount of time, originally being slated for the PS2 in 2001, then being scrapped and completely remade several times over before being put on indefinite hold. Just when it looked like it would never see the light of day, Gearbox picked it up, dusted it off and released it. Does this story sound familiar? It's pretty much exactly what happened with Duke Nukem Forever, and we all know how that turned out.

I've seen PS2 games that look better than this...

Second, Aliens vs. Predator 2010. You'll notice that I specifically mentioned the 2000 and 2002 versions of Aliens vs. Predator. That's because 2010 saw a new version of the game, from the same publishers behind Aliens: Colonial Marines. It was pretty awful. That's the polite way to put it.

Third, that so-bad-it's-almost-funny-but-not-quite trailer. You know the one. The writing was so cheesy and over the top that the lead writer for the game actually disowned it.

These should have been huge red flags. But, I was naive and optimistic, and went into this game with high expectations. I could almost applaud the ferocious speed at which Aliens: Colonial Marines shattered those expectations.

One of the first lines of spoken dialogue is 'We're not in Kansas anymore,' and it actually goes downhill from there, with cheesy, nonsensical, drivel being uttered by every character at every opportunity. While the lead writer can disown one crappy trailer, he can't disown the entire game. The Aliens movie had so many countless phrases that will forever stick in the minds of fans: 'Game over man!' 'They're coming out of the walls!' 'Get away from her you BITCH!' In Aliens: Colonial Marines? 'Marines don't leave marines behind!' 'Raider 6-5 will wait for you but goddammit son don't make us wait for you!'

MARINES DON'T LEAVE MARINES BEHIND!

On two separate occasions, you are joined by a character who has been 'facehugged,' yet everyone seems oblivious to the consequences of this, and the game shockingly expects the player to be as well. It's kind of excusable when the first guy's chest bursts, but when it happens again and the marines are just as surprised, it's pretty lame. 'How could this happen!' O'Neal, my muscle-bound meatstick of a sidekick laments a comrade's death-by-bursting-chest. 'Well O'Neal,' I want to tell him, 'A facehugger implanted an embryo which burst out of our comrade's chest. Just like what happened earlier in the game.'

The worst part is all the work they put into the character that everyone playing at home knows is going to shoot baby alien worms out of their chest at some point in the near future. Here's a free tip about writing characters: If we know the character is going to die, we won't give a shit about them. The writing is both laughable and terrible, so let's move past that and look at what else is terrible in this game.

The first ten minutes of this game are actually not so terrible. It slowly builds up the tension before revealing the first Alien you have to kill, and follows it up with a section of fast-paced run-and-gun segments that are reminiscent of the Marines desperate attempt to flee the bugs in the Aliens movies. Unfortunately, there are some bugs you can't flee from. Bugs in the game. I'm talking about glitches. There are a lot of them. Aliens clip through walls, allies get stuck on terrain and bosses fail to spawn correctly, just to name a few.

I'd also like to briefly expand on is how terrible the AI for your allies are in this game. They frequently stand right in front of you, fire blindly at walls and deliberately misinform you. 'Area secure,' O'Neal will say, lowering his weapon as three Aliens claw at my face.

O'Neal! Behind you! Ahh, forget it.

After ten minutes, the illusion fades, and you realise how incredibly wonky the weapons and the attacking aliens are. At one point, I shot two Aliens at the same range with the same shotgun. One of them dropped dead instantly. The other took three more shots to kill. The Aliens' wounded and dying animations are so similar that it's hard to tell how much damage you are actually doing. Rather than sneaking up to you, leaping at your face, or running like a wolf on steroids as they did in the movies, the Aliens of Colonial Marines seem to do this kind of slow, non-threatening slither-walk towards you, performing an occasional hilariously animated, hugely telegraphed leap, only to escape, never to attack. They feel like big lumbering apes, rather than the swarming insects that they are associated with.

You have a motion tracker, but it quickly becomes useless as you realise that it only scans aliens that have actually 'spawned', and by the time they have spawned you can physically see them. With your eyes. It gets worse when you realise that a majority of the time, you can just run away. Get to the next checkpoint and all the Aliens chasing you instantly vanish.

I'm not normally a graphics snob but my God. This looks straight out of Doom 3.

But hey, at least at this point we are marines fighting Aliens. About an hour in to the game, it makes the absolutely absurd decision to introduce human enemies. I should have seen it coming from all the chest high-walls scattered around the complex. 'Why would I need all of this cover' I scoffed, 'Aliens can only attack in melee range!' In all of a single cut scene the game degenerates from a story about the most hardened space marines in the galaxy fighting tooth and nail against a race of aliens specifically evolved to be the perfect warriors, to 'call of duty but with pulse rifles'. 

You'll fight waves of human opponents in the same way every god damn cover-based FPS works. Enter a room. Enemies enter from the opposite side. Take cover behind chest-high walls. Wait for enemies to pop their heads out of their own cover before shooting them in the face. Go to the next room. Repeat. It's boring, it's lame, and it makes zero sense. 'Hey, there are about a thousand giant acid-spitting face-raping aliens running around on our ship killing all of our buddies. Let's shoot at the marines that came to help us because GOVERNMENT COVER-UP ' How much is Weyland-Yutani paying these mercenaries to make them continue their mission despite the fact that their spaceship is literally falling to pieces around them?

Weren't there supposed to be Aliens in this game?

The game design is so bad it's actually a little entertaining. Let me give you an example. In one level, you are presented with the trademark Aliens flamethrower. It's a 'limited use' weapon, meaning that it only has one clip of ammo, and if you switch to another weapon, you drop it. The next several dozen rooms are filled with ranged human opponents. The game gives you a limited-use short-range weapon to fight long-ranged opponents. I'm assuming that at one point, the rooms had Aliens in them, so the flamethrower made sense. When they cut the Aliens and replaced them with dudes, no-one stopped to ask "should we get rid of this now useless flamethrower?"

The game runs fairly smoothly on my computer, but that's probably due to the fact that it looks like an Xbox 360 launch title, at best. Character and weapon animations suck, you can count the polygons on the character models, and everything has that trademark Unreal engine 'shine' that I thought we had left behind with Bioshock 2.

Oh, here's one. Looks like he's having a bad day. No, that's just the terrible lighting effects.

Ok. Praise. Here we go. I can do this. Despite my statement at the start of this review, I can actually offer praise to a couple things in this game. First: no regenerating health. It actually adds a lot to the tension. Remember that one of the core themes of the Aliens franchise is 'holding out for rescue' and you'll see how having regenerating health could nullify that.

The XP and weapon upgrade system is also pretty cool. You can collect a whole bunch of weapons from the movies, which include 'legendary weapons' such as Ripley's ultimate-badass rifle-duct-taped-to-a-flamethrower. You can then purchase upgrades for your favourite weapons by spending XP points that you earn from completing a level or performing a challenge. It's neat. But not worth buying the game for. Not even close.

The weapon upgrade system is the cherry atop the shit-sundae that is Aliens: Colonial Marines.

The game has a few multiplayer modes. The first is co-op, where up to four people can be disappointed at the same time. The rest are competitive modes, including team death match and survivor. I only have one word to say to the multiplayer. After being punched in the gut with the unbearable singleplayer campaign, I just flat out refused to play the competitive multiplayer. It might be the greatest thing ever. It might justify the price of the game. I don't care. I'm done with you, Aliens: Colonial Marines. Leave me alone. Go play your own multiplayer.

Verdict: Friends don't let friends buy Aliens: Colonial Marines

REVIEW: Borderlands 2 (PC)

No-one expected the first Borderlands to be as big as it was. The FPS slash RPG hit came out of nowhere, billing itself as ‘Diablo but with guns’ and despite an archaic quest system and an underwhelming finale, it was a very solid game. What Borderlands got right was the very core of the game – you shoot stuff and collect loot. It’s the same carrot-on-a-stick gameplay that caused Diablo to make people abandon their families and quit their jobs. It’s success was rewarded with multiple DLC packs (some good and some... not so good) and last September developer Gearbox gave us a fully-fledged sequel: Borderlands 2.

Let me say this first and foremost, as it’s probably the most important point in this entire review: Borderlands 2 is a multiplayer game. While it is possible to play through the entire game singleplayer, I guarantee you that you will have much more fun playing with other people. If you don’t have any friends, try the online matchmaking included in the game – it works quite well. Even with just one other player, your abilities will synergize well, and you’ll find more loot that people will actually use instead of just vendoring.

You definitely want to bring your friends along for this one

To say that Borderlands 2 plays the same as Borderlands is an understatement. While it has a shiny new coat of paint and a whole new cast of playable characters, explorable locales and killable enemies, at its core it’s the same kill-waves-of-bad-guys-and-check-their-pockets-for-guns that made its predecessor so fun. And I do mean waves of enemies. Oftentimes you’ll find yourself cutting through swathes of psychos and midgets like a hot knife through butter. It feels really satisfying when you get enough gear and just the right skill points that you can become nigh invincible in some circumstances. If brute force isn’t your style you can sit back and snipe enemy weak spots from a distance, attack intermittently from cover, or even use the terrain to your advantage by creating chokepoints to funnel bad guys into your waiting shotgun blast. Like I mentioned before, having teammates with varied play-styles and classes really helps with maximise whatever strategy you choose.

I played the Gunzerker and my main play-through buddy was on the Siren. We worked up a great synergy routine where I would spec myself down the ‘tank’ tree, and he would spec himself down the ‘healing’ tree. Then I would sit there and soak up all the damage while he kept me topped up and took potshots at the baddies running towards me. Another friend of mine played the Assassin, and I also tried out the Commando for long enough to get a feel of him, so between the three of us we have some insights on all four classes. How about some introductions?

Pleased to meet you, Sir. Mailbox

I’ll start with Salvador, the Gunzerker – the spiritual successor to Brick from the first game. The biggest complaint about Brick was that in a game all about collecting guns, his action skill completely forwent the use of his equipped weapon. It didn’t help that his action skill was so powerful and could be upgraded to the point where, by the end of the game, I was throwing more punches than shooting bullets. Gearbox has fixed this problem and then some with Salvador, by giving him the ‘gunzerking’ action skill. Gunzerking makes Salvador pull out a second gun and dual-wield, while regenerating ammo and health. His skill trees augment his guns, his gunzerking, or his tanking ability. He feels really good. The skill is on a long enough cooldown to make it feel meaningful, but short enough that you can have it when you need it. If you want to feel like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the end scene of Commando, the Gunzerker is the class for you.

Salvador's gunzerking is a welcome change from Brick's berserk.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Zero, the Assassin. In the first Borderlands, the ‘Assassin’ play-style was oddly split between two characters, with Mordecai getting the long-range sniping and Lilith getting the turn-invisible melee attack. Thankfully, Borderlands 2 has combined both of these traits into Zero, giving him a skill tree that focuses on sniper rifles as well as an action skill and accompanying skill tree that are all about going invisible and backstabbing dudes with your katana sword. My friend who played him, however, felt that the action skill was a bit underwhelming when you chose to focus on the sniper rifle skill tree.

Maya, the Siren, is the new Lilith, and the ‘Mage’ class of the group. Her action skill ‘phaselock’ can be used to lift up and incapacitate enemies, deal massive damage, or instantly revive fallen teammates depending on what skill tree you go down. She definitely feels a lot more Mage-like than Lilith ever did, being capable of dealing a lot of damage as well as supporting her team, with the tradeoff of being squishy. Again, my friend who played her felt a tad disappointed with her action skill, not because it didn’t feel powerful, but because its cooldown was strange. He said it was too short to simply save for the more powerful enemies, but too long to use on EVERY enemy. It kind of hit this middle ground where it was just being used randomly, instead of tactically.

Lilith's phaselock is great for lining up shots on weakpoints

Lastly, you have Axton, the Commando. Many people, myself included, felt that Roland, Axton’s counterpart from the first game, completely trumped the other classes. He was meant to be the ‘jack of all trades’ class, but he ended up excelling at almost everything. His turret could heal, replenish ammo, and do a shit-ton of damage. Its only real drawback was its cooldown, which could be reduced with class mods and skill points. With ammo regeneration given to Salvador, and healing given to Maya, it leaves Axton feeling a little underpowered. His three trees focus on improving the turret, improving his own gunpower, and improving his survivability. The latter two feel like weaker versions of Salvador’s trees, and the turret feels a bit underpowered, at least compared to the other action skills. He fills a nice niche with events where you have to defend an area, or boss fights, and your teammates will really appreciate your turret drawing fire, but he is in my opinion the least fun class to play.

Axton's Turret is a little underwhelming

Moving on from the characters, the story is a little bit more engaging this time, with a lot of the side quests being well written and filled with more pop culture references than an episode of the IT Crowd, and the main quests having a lot more memorable characters and about 80% less Claptrap. I particularly liked the extremely over-the-top James Bond villain personality of Handsome Jack, the game’s main antagonist, and seeing the playable cast of the original game turn up as major NPCs was always a cool surprise. The only time the writing gets stale is when you get tired of the half a dozen one-liners that your character yells out when getting a kill streak.

Seeing the original cast return was a welcome surprise

The quest and map systems have been cleaned up a lot from the original game, and the addition of a minimap is a godsend. However, it’s still far from perfect. All throughout the game, particularly when I had to drive across the map for a mission, I kept wishing for the amazing waypoint system of the recently released Sleeping Dogs, which literally highlighted the route I needed to take in real time. Sometimes I felt like I spent more time studying the map and figuring out which route wouldn’t lead me to another dead end than I did actually playing the game.

Speaking of the driving, it’s still shit. Again, after having played Sleeping Dogs, and even id software’s Rage, which both managed to have fantastic driving sections, it’s so frustrating to see Borderlands 2 fail so miserably. The game forces you to use the mouse to steer, which is just infuriating, and the vehicles bounce around the map with all the grace of a seven-year-old in a bumper car. Their usefulness has been toned down a little bit from the previous game - you can no-longer instagib every enemy by running them over - and they are fragile enough to warrant getting out of them when under heavy fire. They suffice only to get you from point A to point B, which could have been better handled by expanding the fast-travel network.

The UI, while seeing some improvements, still feels too 'consoley' and difficult to navigate with a keyboard and mouse

One excellent addition is the new ‘Badass Ranks,’ a great little idea that makes your achievements actually mean something. Basically, in the first Borderlands, you had challenges, such as ‘Kill 50 skaggs’ or ‘Kill a midget with a grenade’ or whatever: stuff that you would just kind of get as you were playing the game normally, but were still sort of mini-achievements. They gave you a small bonus of XP when you finished them. In Borderlands 2, instead of XP, they are added to your ‘Badass Rank,’ which is like another XP bar. When you ‘level up’ your Badass Rank, you get a Badass token that you can use to give a permanent boost to all of your characters. The boosts are usually quite small, like 0.7% health, but they add up as you accumulate rank, and the fact that they are shared across all of your characters means that it is quite helpful when deciding to level a new class. The ranks are also infinite, meaning that even after hitting the level cap you have a way to improve your character.

Did someone say 'pop culture reference?' No? Okay, I'll just leave then

Finally, the game looks better graphically, but it’s not that noticeable unless you are really looking. The great thing about the cell-shaded cartoon graphics of games like Borderlands is that they age exceptionally well; meaning that the first Borderlands still looks good and the sequel will look good for years to come. That said, the physics of this game are absolutely phenomenal and if you have a physX capable video card, I highly suggest you turn the advanced physics on. Blood and water ooze and form pools like you would expect them to, banners and cloth tear apart as bullets fly through them, and the terrain explodes and kicks up debris when under heavy fire. It’s one of the first games that really take advantage of the physX technology and will hopefully set the standard for games that follow.

Borderlands 2 is the first game I've seen that really takes full advantage of physX

Borderlands was a game that had it’s flaws, but had a solid engine that was really, really fun. Borderlands 2 is… still not without it’s flaws, but is also still really, really fun. Again, I can't stress enough that playing this game alone and playing it with other players will directly impact on the amount of fun you’ll have. If you like murdering a whole town full of dudes and then checking to see if the numbers on their guns are bigger than the numbers on your guns, Borderlands 2 is the right game for you.

Verdict: Buy

Liked this article? Check out my Sleeping Dogs review

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REVIEW: Sleeping Dogs (PC)

Sleeping Dogs is an open-world sandbox action game set in Hong Kong. I could probably give it a better description, but I'm sure you guys will understand it better if I tell you that it's essentially GTA: Hong Kong. As per my review rules, the main story portion of the game was played to completion. There was no difficulty setting.

In Sleeping Dogs, you play as Wei Shen, an undercover HKPD officer going deep undercover to infiltrate and bring down the notorious Triad gangs. Anyone familiar with Hong Kong cinema will recognize the bog-standard plot, and appreciate that the it's essentially Infernal Affairs: The Game. Stranglehold, the officially licensed John Woo game released back in 2007 was the last attempt to bring the world of Hong Kong action flicks to the gaming world. It succeeded with its flawless combat system, but unfortunately the rest of game was very short and very shallow. Sleeping Dogs has learned from Stranglehold's mistakes and has succeeded in bringing the islands of Hong Kong to life.

Vibrant neon signs help bring Hong Kong to life

This is one of the strongest points of the game. While GTA IV's sprawling metropolis of Liberty City was certainly much bigger than Sleeping Dog's portrayal of Hong Kong, it felt empty. The people were stoic and scripted, the locals were bland and samey, and it was very obvious you were playing a video game. On the other hand, the Hong Kong that Sleeping Dogs presents is very much alive. It's one of the first open world games I've played where the NPC's felt like people, not programs. Pedestrians open umbrellas (or flee if they don't have one) when it rains, street vendors call to you from their markets, and people actually learn your name as your notoriety rises. It really shocked me when I was buying a pork bun from the vendor outside my house, and he said 'Thanks, Wei' instead of his usual 'Thank you!'

Sleeping Dog's representation of Hong Kong is small, but lively

The smaller size of Sleeping Dog's map means that each district feels varied and distinct. As you explore them for the first time, you'll notice a lot of little things that jump out at you. For example, in one of the poorer districts, I spied an NPC reliving himself against a wall... 

Charming...

As you progress through the game, you'll be able to spend your heard earned Triad blood money (or honest policeman's salary) on new, faster cars, clothes that give various social or combat bonuses, and short term 'buffs' to your combat stats. Buffs are collected by drinking energy drinks, eating food, and getting a massage. While this was a cool little concept, it quickly grew old and became tedious, as I felt obligated to refresh my buffs before starting every mission. A simple option to skip the animations Wei performs when getting the buffs would have gone a long way in reducing this tedium.

The 'lady killer' set unlocks additional dialogue options while on dates.

Combat in Sleeping dogs is split into two main areas: martial arts and gunplay. The martial arts fights draw obvious inspiration from the combo/counter systems of games like Assassins' Creed and Batman: Arkham Aslyum. It rewards you for performing flowing combos and punishes you for missing counters. It feels really natural, and when you get a good flow going and start to make use of the environmental takedowns (like tossing a goon into a dumpster) it makes you feel like you're Jackie Chan.

A red flashing enemy indicates a counter oppertunity

No Hong Kong action movie is complete without a fair share of over-the-top gun fights, and Sleeping Dogs is happy to oblige. Bursting from cover offers the gaming staple of bullet time, allowing you to dive over tables, disarm opponents, take precise shots, and of course, shoot many conveniently placed explosive barrels.

Wei does his gunfighting in cemeteries, SO THEY DON'T HAVE TO MOVE THE BODIES

Driving is generally well done - the vehicles handle well and the segments are never too long, but one of the coolest addition to Sleeping Dogs are the free-running sections. Often, you'll have to chase a crook through the side-streets and back alleys, clambering over obstacles and jumping across rooftops. It's really well done, rewarding flow and timing just like the combat system, making you feel like a badass when you can pull it off perfectly.

Sleeping Dogs lets you chase crooks by car, by boat, and now, on foot!

As you complete missions for the police and the triads, you'll gain points that you can learn to unlock various permanent upgrades for the respective skill trees. You can also get upgrades by completing side missions or collecting various items strewn throughout the city. The main story progression was very well done - the game never 'forced' me to do anything I didn't want to, and I never felt 'brickwalled' into doing a whole bunch of side missions to build up my character. I sunk around 18 hours into the game, and actually felt myself hungry for more. This surprised me, as I usually can't stand these kind of sandbox games. I never even finished GTA IV.

Complete Triad missions for triad score, police missions for cop score, and side missions for face score

Sleeping Dogs wouldn't be a GTA clone without an array of useless, poorly implemented mini-games. Wei can go sing Karaoke, bet on cock fights, and hack various security cameras around the city. Just like in GTA, they don't really add anything except maybe a little extra flavour. Hacking is forced on you a couple of times for some specific missions, but it's so hard to fail that it makes me wonder why they even put it in at all. It's an immersion crutch, like the ever popular quick-time events (which are thankfully far and few between in Sleeping Dogs).

1, 2, 3 and uhh.... 4

Sleeping Dogs has been a sleeper hit for me (no pun intended), coming out of no-where and enticing me enough to re-think my views on the open-world sandbox genre. But more importantly, I feel it has accurately captured the feel of Hong Kong cinema. As someone who recently acquired a collection of every Jackie Chan movie ever made (including The Tuxedo) I'm not ashamed to admit I'm a big fan of Hong Kong cinema, and this game had me feel like I was playing through a video game version of Hard Boiled, Infernal Affairs, or Police Story. All it was missing was an explosion of doves every time I entered a room.

Verdict: Buy it

Buy Sleeping Dogs on the Steam store

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