The Resident Evil franchise is built on a number of long-standing tenets: gameplay, graphics, story, among other things; however, like many great franchises, there are hiccups along the way and unfortunately, Resident Evil Revelations is one of those hiccups. This isn’t to say that Revelations is particularly awful, but it in no way lives up to the standard built by previous Resident Evil installments.
The game seems to be caught in an identity crisis. Revelations spends a fair amount of time flirting with elements from Resident Evil 1 and Resident Evil 5, but also dabbles in parts of every game in between. The result is a mixed-up stepchild with no clear goal or destination.
As Obnoxious and Scary as Alf
Revelations takes place almost entirely on a cruise ship retrofitted to be a terrorist attack deployment vessel. You know. . .the usual thing. You take the role of Jill Valentine battling alongside the pudgy—and distinctively not-Chris Redfield—Parker Luciani. You’ll also play as almost every other character in the game in a hectic and cluttered attempt to provide hands-on storytelling. The game uses the over-the-shoulder camera of Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5 with moderate success.
The cruise ship is actually a great setting for the game, and features Super Metroid exploration and re-exploration throughout. The map is helpful and for the most part well designed. You are locked in certain areas until you can find certain keys, and you can always go back with those keys to check out previously unavailable places. At certain points, you will have to take the role of another character and either venture to mountains, another ship, or a floating city. This is a huge drag, because you’re unable to upgrade weapons or carry over inventory during these segments, which means they’re essentially a waste of time for players meaning to max out Jill’s weapons and abilities.
As far as your companions, they’re virtual bumps on a log. Your companions are so useless, weak and underpowered, their presence seems almost obligatory in an attempt to retain parity with RE5. After hearing Parker’s obnoxious Italian accent for the hundredth time I longed for the quieter, solitary, and decidedly tenser environment provided by Resident Evil Code Veronica. I could not figure out for the life of me why my character had a companion through most of the game. They don’t help you if you’re being attacked by a monster, and they don’t heal you or allow for weapon modification. If this indeed was a shot at making the game resemble RE5, it’s more disgrace than homage.
The biggest downfall for Revelations is that the game is simply not scary or tense. The checkpoints are helpful and placed in great spots, but even on the second-highest difficulty I never really needed to use them. I could count the variety of enemies on one hand, and the boss battles lack the panache of previous installments. Instead of tensing my shoulders and screaming when a boss grabbed me and rammed a buzz saw into my spine I simply sighed at the lackluster joystick and tried again.
C’mon Resident Evil, You’re Better Than This
Continuing a general feeling of “meh,” Revelations takes a number of potentially innovative features and wastes them all at a spectacular pace.
One really cool and unrealized opportunity is the addition of a scanner not too dissimilar from BioShock’s research camera called the Genesis. You can use the Genesis to scan either dead or living enemies, gaining a percentage working toward 100 percent. At 100 percent, you are granted a health item. There is no damage bonus for your diligence or a further understanding of the creatures. You can also scan rooms for items, which is helpful in a pinch. Overall though, I was really left wanting a little more out of the Genesis than a health pack.
The touch screen also makes inventory management and selection stupid-easy. Sadly, for collectors and inventory hounds of past installments, Revelations will be a disappointment. Beyond an item cap, inventories aren’t the internal struggle of take-this-leave-that from prior games. You have three guns, a set amount of ammo and health you can carry and that’s it. Maintaining inventory is just about as simple as it is in Modern Warfare 3. Yet again, removing a segment of what made the other games so darn fun/unique.
After beating the campaign in just under ten hours, I headed over to Raid Mode, which is Capcom’s take on Gears of War’s Horde Mode. In this mode, you fight baddies on any of the maps you completed in campaign, hoping to survive long enough to reach the end. You gain bullets and experience depending on the skill of your shot. Later, you can take what you earn and upgrade your character to complete harder levels. Cooler still, you can team up with a buddy online and get in on some great co-op monster slaughter. This mode draws notable attention to the achievement system in the game, with trophies available in both campaign and Raid which allow players to unlock different levels and weapons. Carrying over from RE5, this system retains its coolness and usefulness when replaying the game.
Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Controls
Perhaps the most unfortunate struggle is the hardware. Stuck with one joystick after so many years of using two, Capcom decided to do the best with what they had and try to make Nintendo’s Circle Pad work. Instead of returning to RE1’s set camera (which worked well with one joystick), the player has to either push hard on the stick to move or gently to turn. In the middle of an intense battle, it’s insanely frustrating to be nursing a joystick just to face your attacker.
When fighting at a distance, the controls are rather impressive, and Capcom’s skill developing shooters is clear. When enemies get closer however, the shortcomings of the hardware become glaringly apparent. Baddies disappear behind your character, and spinning to face them is an exercise in futility. The dodge mechanic in the game is unbelievably elusive and if you don’t pick it up in the two line explanation, you’re left to figure it out in-game. Which you never will. Without a doubt, if the dodge mechanic was more responsive, Revelations would be a different game. The few times I accidentally dodged an attack were super cool and helpful. But in ten hours I was never able to replicate it with any sort of consistency.
Other attempts to regain some form of good controls include the strafing mechanism and—for some reason—extensive and mind-numbingly stupid underwater levels. These underwater levels, which occupy a vast majority of a few chapters, made me grit my teeth in frustration more often than not. The controls are no better on land than they are below water, except you can’t discharge your weapon. This wouldn’t matter, except the underwater monsters you have absolutely no way of combatting. Trying to avoid mutated salmon with a shitty control system is like trying to hang yourself with spaghetti. Sad, unsuccessful, and really rather stupid.
Warning: For Your Fans Only
I won’t go as far as to say that Resident Evil Revelations is a disgrace to the series, although I do believe it is an underwhelming addition. Doing a lot of things right comes naturally to Capcom, but with new hardware came a new, unsuccessful, approach. The story is pretty standard fare for a lesser RE title, and the lack of standard features could be excused due to the limits of the handheld. But the abysmal controls and resulting frustrations are unforgiveable. Diehard fans of Resident Evil like me may see this title as just something to tide them over until Resident Evil 6 comes out later this year. But as for anyone looking for a game changer on the 3DS—keep looking.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
NeverDead, Review:
The idea of bringing the campy excess and joyous absurdity of exploitative B-movies to gaming isn't new, although the results have certainly been hit and miss over the years. More recent releases like Shadows of the Damned and Bulletstorm prove that over-the-top violence and dialogue can be great, but there have been far more that just come off as cheap and lame. Konami teamed up with Rebellion studios to create their homage to crazy, gore-soaked horror, and the result is NeverDead--a game as split apart as its limb-rending protagonist.
A Trip Down the Bloody Rabbit Hole
The hook to NeverDead is the absurdly named Bryce Boltzman, an immortal demon-hunter with the ability to lose his limbs and head and then reform. He's an amusing one-trick pony, with a sarcastic and sexist sense of humor, a dark past, and a sexy sidekick in a tight-fitting skirt. If nothing else, NeverDead does feel very Japanese, although that's not necessarily a good thing.
The character design and overall look of the game is like any one of the horde of mostly unmemorable third-person action games we've seen come out of Japan lately. The weirdly effeminate swagger and obnoxiousness of the villains, the overall story of a brooding hero with personal demons to kill, even the dangerous, yet frequently-in-distress damsel. . .it's all been done.
This wouldn't be a big deal except it's just not done well here. The whole dismemberment-based gameplay is a fun cliché, but so clumsily rendered that it frequently leads to more frustration than fun. To put a finer point on it, Stubbs the Zombie did self-dismemberment better. The game is full of clumsy design choices, but the controls are the worst part.
Hack, Slash, Shoot. . .Snore
Bryce can take down enemies with both dual-wielded guns and his fold-away sword. Some enemies can only be killed with a blade and it’s the most effective device for mowing down swaths of mindless lower-level troops. The problem is that targeting is non-existent and Bryce’s sluggish motions make tracking enemies an exercise in frustration. The sword is actually controlled by holding the left shoulder button down while twitching the right analog stick, which seems like a neat way to handle sword play.
With a bit more skill, this control scheme might have worked. Sadly, there’s virtually no finesse to sword swings and it makes the combat feel primitively annoying. The lackluster level design (especially for the first half of the game) and brainless hordes of the same few enemies don’t help either.
Bryce’s partner, Arcadia, fares a bit better. She’s actually reasonably smart and able to fight, but when she goes down, Bryce must race to her before she dies. This sounds simple enough if it weren’t for the absurdly half-assed dismemberment game play. There are times—usually when you need him to separate or reform—when Bryce is stubbornly resistant to control.
Dismembering Bryce
Bryce loses limbs at the drop of a hat during combat, forcing you to either hobble around without the lost appendage, or furiously combat roll in hopes of running over the limb to make it stick again. Enough damage and Bryce is left with just his head, which adds all kinds of problems. There’s no safety mechanism in place to prevent the head from flying into an inescapable section of the map, and at times, it’s painfully hard to get the head to reform with the rest of his body.
The game also throws head-eating monsters at you, which can swallow him and end the game should you fail to complete a quick-time escape. The conversation dialogue is fun and campy, but Bryce’s constant one-liners about his body parts get old in a hurry. Thankfully, the ridiculous story is greatly helped along by the snarky characters, and there are some surprisingly good interludes and bits of interaction that should have set the game apart. For B-movie lovers, there’s a real urge to look past the other flaws simply to enjoy the overall camp.
Bryce also has a decent upgrade system that lets him pull off more wild tricks with his limbs, but the most useful skills are held back a bit too long. The game needed more immediate payoffs to help offset the woeful control issues and repetitive design, but only persistent players will be able to slog through to the last third of the game where the levels and abilities get more interesting.
Mostly Dead
Sticking around that long hardly seems worth it though. Aside from the premise and dialogue, NeverDead does little else right. The controls feel underdone and glitchy, the graphics are lackluster, and the combat and level design for most of the game are just underwhelming.
Editor's Note: NeverDead was reviewed using an Xbox 360 build of the game. We also spot checked the PS3 build of the game. If further investigation reveals major differences between the two platforms, we will update this review to reflect those differences.
Want more information on how we score reviews? Read the "How G4 Reviews Work" article here.
A Trip Down the Bloody Rabbit Hole
The hook to NeverDead is the absurdly named Bryce Boltzman, an immortal demon-hunter with the ability to lose his limbs and head and then reform. He's an amusing one-trick pony, with a sarcastic and sexist sense of humor, a dark past, and a sexy sidekick in a tight-fitting skirt. If nothing else, NeverDead does feel very Japanese, although that's not necessarily a good thing.
The character design and overall look of the game is like any one of the horde of mostly unmemorable third-person action games we've seen come out of Japan lately. The weirdly effeminate swagger and obnoxiousness of the villains, the overall story of a brooding hero with personal demons to kill, even the dangerous, yet frequently-in-distress damsel. . .it's all been done.
This wouldn't be a big deal except it's just not done well here. The whole dismemberment-based gameplay is a fun cliché, but so clumsily rendered that it frequently leads to more frustration than fun. To put a finer point on it, Stubbs the Zombie did self-dismemberment better. The game is full of clumsy design choices, but the controls are the worst part.
Hack, Slash, Shoot. . .Snore
Bryce can take down enemies with both dual-wielded guns and his fold-away sword. Some enemies can only be killed with a blade and it’s the most effective device for mowing down swaths of mindless lower-level troops. The problem is that targeting is non-existent and Bryce’s sluggish motions make tracking enemies an exercise in frustration. The sword is actually controlled by holding the left shoulder button down while twitching the right analog stick, which seems like a neat way to handle sword play.
With a bit more skill, this control scheme might have worked. Sadly, there’s virtually no finesse to sword swings and it makes the combat feel primitively annoying. The lackluster level design (especially for the first half of the game) and brainless hordes of the same few enemies don’t help either.
Bryce’s partner, Arcadia, fares a bit better. She’s actually reasonably smart and able to fight, but when she goes down, Bryce must race to her before she dies. This sounds simple enough if it weren’t for the absurdly half-assed dismemberment game play. There are times—usually when you need him to separate or reform—when Bryce is stubbornly resistant to control.
Dismembering Bryce
Bryce loses limbs at the drop of a hat during combat, forcing you to either hobble around without the lost appendage, or furiously combat roll in hopes of running over the limb to make it stick again. Enough damage and Bryce is left with just his head, which adds all kinds of problems. There’s no safety mechanism in place to prevent the head from flying into an inescapable section of the map, and at times, it’s painfully hard to get the head to reform with the rest of his body.
The game also throws head-eating monsters at you, which can swallow him and end the game should you fail to complete a quick-time escape. The conversation dialogue is fun and campy, but Bryce’s constant one-liners about his body parts get old in a hurry. Thankfully, the ridiculous story is greatly helped along by the snarky characters, and there are some surprisingly good interludes and bits of interaction that should have set the game apart. For B-movie lovers, there’s a real urge to look past the other flaws simply to enjoy the overall camp.
Bryce also has a decent upgrade system that lets him pull off more wild tricks with his limbs, but the most useful skills are held back a bit too long. The game needed more immediate payoffs to help offset the woeful control issues and repetitive design, but only persistent players will be able to slog through to the last third of the game where the levels and abilities get more interesting.
Mostly Dead
Sticking around that long hardly seems worth it though. Aside from the premise and dialogue, NeverDead does little else right. The controls feel underdone and glitchy, the graphics are lackluster, and the combat and level design for most of the game are just underwhelming.
Editor's Note: NeverDead was reviewed using an Xbox 360 build of the game. We also spot checked the PS3 build of the game. If further investigation reveals major differences between the two platforms, we will update this review to reflect those differences.
Want more information on how we score reviews? Read the "How G4 Reviews Work" article here.
SoulCalibur 5 Review - Xbox 360
In 1996, the fighting game genre was at full throttle. Just one year prior, Capcom introduced the first Street Fighter Alpha title in arcades while Midway sought to appease fans with the much anticipated Mortal Kombat 3, so it was in '96 that a new 3D fighter by the name of Soul Edge was released arcades.
It has been said to have been developed by Namco as an experiment to test the feasibility of a weapon-based fighting game. Though Tamsoft’s Battle Arena Toshinden had been released prior and also featured 3D weapon fighting, Soul Edge sought to do 3D weapon fighting justice, something Battle Arena Toshinden arguably failed to do. Soul Edge featured tight gameplay, unique characters and fighting styles, and a spectacular console release with Soul Blade. The game received rave reviews and was considered one of the best fighting game titles available on the Sony PlayStation.
A Tale of Souls and Swords, Eternally Retold
Roughly two years later, SoulCalibur was released. Though the name had been changed slightly, SoulCalibur was developed as a direct sequel to Soul Edge, and built on the success of its predecessor. It featured drastically improved graphics, some of the most detailed character designs at the time, and an improved fighting engine that added stance changes, a relatively unexplored fighting game mechanic. One of the flagship titles during the Dreamcast’s infancy, SoulCalibur was one of the best received fighting games of all time, winning several awards and perfect scores across multiple video game publications.
The SoulCalibur series delivered numerous sequels in the years thereafter. SoulCalibur 2, though not as groundbreaking as the first, was well received and saw a healthy amount of competitive play in tournaments across the world. SoulCalibur 3 saw success as well, but several glitches within the game (including the infamous Variable Cancel glitch that hampered competitive play and a file corruption glitch) served as glaring blemishes in an otherwise well received game. SoulCalibur 4 also did well, but received much criticism from the hardcore fanbase due to its character balance; characters such as Hilde and Algol as well as console-exclusive characters were often banned in tournaments. All in all, SoulCalibur has remained consistent throughout the series. Does Soul Calibur 5 stay true to the consistency found in the previous installments?
Choose a Mode
SoulCalibur 5 retains the tried and true formula of the typical fighting game: choose a character to play as, and then battle until only you or your opponent is left standing. This can be done in several modes in the game. The standard Arcade Mode and VS Battle modes are available, as well as an online mode in that allows you to test your skills against other players from around the world. Quick Battle lets you fight against a challenging CPU foe. Legendary Souls allows players to attempt a series of pre-set challenges.
The game also has a story mode that follows the main characters, Patroklos and Pyrrha, through a 20-chapter story that explains what all the fighting is about. Though the story mode may not be as refined as Mortal Kombat 9’s, SoulCalibur fans should find it enjoyable nonetheless.
My Epic is More Epic
The SoulCalibur series has raised the bar in graphics and presentation with each sequel, and SoulCalibur V does not stray in this regard. Character models are as detailed as ever, carefully crafted right down to the individual strands of Leixia’s tassels. The environments are breathtaking and dynamic; multi-faceted stages take the action from one location to the next. The musical score is particularly epic this time around as well. Composers Junichi Nakatsuru (veteran of the SoulCalibur series) and Hiroki Kikuta (composed the unforgettable Secret of Mana score) are joined by 18-year old prodigy composer Tomoki Miyoshi and Cris Velasco (composer for the God of War trilogy soundtracks), among others. This game does not disappoint the senses.
Old Faces, New Rivals
Veterans of the series will feel right at home with SoulCalibur 5’s cast. Familiar faces from the original are back, including favorites such as Mitsurugi, Siegfried, Voldo, and Cervantes. Though recurring characters such as Taki and Xianghua are noticeably absent from the roster, in their stead are newcomers Xiba, Natsu, and Leixia, who are trained to fight in similar fashion to their previous counterparts.
Patroklos and Pyrrha (kin of Sophitia) are introduced as the main characters of the game, while new characters Z.W.E.I. and Viola bring a unique style of their own to the fight. Viola in particular fights with an orb as her main weapon, a style scarcely seen since Samurai Shodown’s Amakusa. Ezio from Assassin’s Creed joins as a guest character, and fans of the series will find that his fighting style remains true to the series in which he originates from, fitting in seamlessly into the SoulCalibur universe.
Unsheathe Your Sword
As for the actual fighting engine, several additions have been made along with adjustments to previous systems within the game. Gone are SoulCalibur 4’s Critical Finishes and Soul Gauge. Also changed are Guard Impacts, which are no longer performed with forward + G. Instead, a combination of back+A+B+K must now be used to perform one. It also requires a block of Critical Meter to execute, a new gauge found in Soul Calibur 5. This gauge is similar to “super meter” found in other fighting games and can be used not only for Guard Impacts, but to perform Critical Edge and Brave Edge attacks (powered-up special attacks). Timing your guard precisely as your opponent’s attack comes into contact results in a Just Guard, effectively reducing the block stun incurred by the attack (similar to Garou: Mark of the Wolves’s Just Defend mechanic).
These new features add another level of complexity to the fighting engine. Some characters do well using meter for Guard Impacts, while others are better suited using meter for Brave Edge attacks. Familiarizing yourself with several characters’ move sets will bring you success in Just Guard attempts. All returning characters have been newly rebalanced and tweaked as well. Hilde’s controversial Ring Out prowess has been toned down considerably with the properties of her charge moves being changed, though she still remains a threat in battle.
The Power to Create
If you aren’t satisfied with the character roster, SoulCalibur 5’s massive character creation feature should do well to satiate. Rarely before has a fighting game given players such levels of customization to work with. You are given the freedom to edit almost anything and everything: clothing/armor, skin color, weapons, fighting style, trinkets, even your sclera is editable (the white in your eyes, in case you didn’t know).
Surprisingly, Devil Jin’s fighting style from the Tekken series can be applied when creating a character, a nod to Namco’s other popular fighting franchise. Accessories can even be positioned and angled as you see fit. Countless hours will be lost trying to create the perfect character; even more time will be spent trying to make the most ridiculous character ever. Either way, SoulCalibur 5’s character customization is top notch.
Global Beatdowns
Soul Calibur 5 also features a new and improved online experience. Ranked matches are for serious contenders looking to rise in the ladders. Player matches are more casual and do not affect your rank. In the Global Colosseo mode, massive lobbies can be created in which you can trade strategies (or insults!) as well as organize matches with friends and rivals alike. You can download and watch replays of your own online matches as well as those of other players via their player license. This can be used to see your own mistakes as well as learn from others, ultimately fostering a high level of play and competition as the game’s competitive life goes on. Though your experience online with the netcode will vary, the initial response has been generally positive among the hardcore fighting game audience.
And the Verdict is. . .
SoulCalibur V aims to please many different audiences. Casual fans will be in awe at the sheer beauty and polish of the game. Hardcore fighting game enthusiasts will appreciate the adjustments made to the fighting engine. Players looking for the most bang for their buck might be disappointed with the sparse selection of game modes, but should look into the character creation mode to keep them busy.
Long time SoulCalibur fans can enjoy the fact that at the end of the day, it’s definitely SoulCalibur; all new additions to the game do little to change the overall “SoulCalibur feel” of things. And, for a series as consistent as this one, that’s a good thing.
Editor's Note: This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 3. The Xbox 360 version of the game was also played, and no major differences were noted. If further investigation reveals any discrepancies between the two platforms, this review will be updated.
Want more information on how we score reviews? Read the "How G4 Reviews Work" article here.
It has been said to have been developed by Namco as an experiment to test the feasibility of a weapon-based fighting game. Though Tamsoft’s Battle Arena Toshinden had been released prior and also featured 3D weapon fighting, Soul Edge sought to do 3D weapon fighting justice, something Battle Arena Toshinden arguably failed to do. Soul Edge featured tight gameplay, unique characters and fighting styles, and a spectacular console release with Soul Blade. The game received rave reviews and was considered one of the best fighting game titles available on the Sony PlayStation.
A Tale of Souls and Swords, Eternally Retold
Roughly two years later, SoulCalibur was released. Though the name had been changed slightly, SoulCalibur was developed as a direct sequel to Soul Edge, and built on the success of its predecessor. It featured drastically improved graphics, some of the most detailed character designs at the time, and an improved fighting engine that added stance changes, a relatively unexplored fighting game mechanic. One of the flagship titles during the Dreamcast’s infancy, SoulCalibur was one of the best received fighting games of all time, winning several awards and perfect scores across multiple video game publications.
The SoulCalibur series delivered numerous sequels in the years thereafter. SoulCalibur 2, though not as groundbreaking as the first, was well received and saw a healthy amount of competitive play in tournaments across the world. SoulCalibur 3 saw success as well, but several glitches within the game (including the infamous Variable Cancel glitch that hampered competitive play and a file corruption glitch) served as glaring blemishes in an otherwise well received game. SoulCalibur 4 also did well, but received much criticism from the hardcore fanbase due to its character balance; characters such as Hilde and Algol as well as console-exclusive characters were often banned in tournaments. All in all, SoulCalibur has remained consistent throughout the series. Does Soul Calibur 5 stay true to the consistency found in the previous installments?
Choose a Mode
SoulCalibur 5 retains the tried and true formula of the typical fighting game: choose a character to play as, and then battle until only you or your opponent is left standing. This can be done in several modes in the game. The standard Arcade Mode and VS Battle modes are available, as well as an online mode in that allows you to test your skills against other players from around the world. Quick Battle lets you fight against a challenging CPU foe. Legendary Souls allows players to attempt a series of pre-set challenges.
The game also has a story mode that follows the main characters, Patroklos and Pyrrha, through a 20-chapter story that explains what all the fighting is about. Though the story mode may not be as refined as Mortal Kombat 9’s, SoulCalibur fans should find it enjoyable nonetheless.
My Epic is More Epic
The SoulCalibur series has raised the bar in graphics and presentation with each sequel, and SoulCalibur V does not stray in this regard. Character models are as detailed as ever, carefully crafted right down to the individual strands of Leixia’s tassels. The environments are breathtaking and dynamic; multi-faceted stages take the action from one location to the next. The musical score is particularly epic this time around as well. Composers Junichi Nakatsuru (veteran of the SoulCalibur series) and Hiroki Kikuta (composed the unforgettable Secret of Mana score) are joined by 18-year old prodigy composer Tomoki Miyoshi and Cris Velasco (composer for the God of War trilogy soundtracks), among others. This game does not disappoint the senses.
Old Faces, New Rivals
Veterans of the series will feel right at home with SoulCalibur 5’s cast. Familiar faces from the original are back, including favorites such as Mitsurugi, Siegfried, Voldo, and Cervantes. Though recurring characters such as Taki and Xianghua are noticeably absent from the roster, in their stead are newcomers Xiba, Natsu, and Leixia, who are trained to fight in similar fashion to their previous counterparts.
Patroklos and Pyrrha (kin of Sophitia) are introduced as the main characters of the game, while new characters Z.W.E.I. and Viola bring a unique style of their own to the fight. Viola in particular fights with an orb as her main weapon, a style scarcely seen since Samurai Shodown’s Amakusa. Ezio from Assassin’s Creed joins as a guest character, and fans of the series will find that his fighting style remains true to the series in which he originates from, fitting in seamlessly into the SoulCalibur universe.
Unsheathe Your Sword
As for the actual fighting engine, several additions have been made along with adjustments to previous systems within the game. Gone are SoulCalibur 4’s Critical Finishes and Soul Gauge. Also changed are Guard Impacts, which are no longer performed with forward + G. Instead, a combination of back+A+B+K must now be used to perform one. It also requires a block of Critical Meter to execute, a new gauge found in Soul Calibur 5. This gauge is similar to “super meter” found in other fighting games and can be used not only for Guard Impacts, but to perform Critical Edge and Brave Edge attacks (powered-up special attacks). Timing your guard precisely as your opponent’s attack comes into contact results in a Just Guard, effectively reducing the block stun incurred by the attack (similar to Garou: Mark of the Wolves’s Just Defend mechanic).
These new features add another level of complexity to the fighting engine. Some characters do well using meter for Guard Impacts, while others are better suited using meter for Brave Edge attacks. Familiarizing yourself with several characters’ move sets will bring you success in Just Guard attempts. All returning characters have been newly rebalanced and tweaked as well. Hilde’s controversial Ring Out prowess has been toned down considerably with the properties of her charge moves being changed, though she still remains a threat in battle.
The Power to Create
If you aren’t satisfied with the character roster, SoulCalibur 5’s massive character creation feature should do well to satiate. Rarely before has a fighting game given players such levels of customization to work with. You are given the freedom to edit almost anything and everything: clothing/armor, skin color, weapons, fighting style, trinkets, even your sclera is editable (the white in your eyes, in case you didn’t know).
Surprisingly, Devil Jin’s fighting style from the Tekken series can be applied when creating a character, a nod to Namco’s other popular fighting franchise. Accessories can even be positioned and angled as you see fit. Countless hours will be lost trying to create the perfect character; even more time will be spent trying to make the most ridiculous character ever. Either way, SoulCalibur 5’s character customization is top notch.
Global Beatdowns
Soul Calibur 5 also features a new and improved online experience. Ranked matches are for serious contenders looking to rise in the ladders. Player matches are more casual and do not affect your rank. In the Global Colosseo mode, massive lobbies can be created in which you can trade strategies (or insults!) as well as organize matches with friends and rivals alike. You can download and watch replays of your own online matches as well as those of other players via their player license. This can be used to see your own mistakes as well as learn from others, ultimately fostering a high level of play and competition as the game’s competitive life goes on. Though your experience online with the netcode will vary, the initial response has been generally positive among the hardcore fighting game audience.
And the Verdict is. . .
SoulCalibur V aims to please many different audiences. Casual fans will be in awe at the sheer beauty and polish of the game. Hardcore fighting game enthusiasts will appreciate the adjustments made to the fighting engine. Players looking for the most bang for their buck might be disappointed with the sparse selection of game modes, but should look into the character creation mode to keep them busy.
Long time SoulCalibur fans can enjoy the fact that at the end of the day, it’s definitely SoulCalibur; all new additions to the game do little to change the overall “SoulCalibur feel” of things. And, for a series as consistent as this one, that’s a good thing.
Editor's Note: This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 3. The Xbox 360 version of the game was also played, and no major differences were noted. If further investigation reveals any discrepancies between the two platforms, this review will be updated.
Want more information on how we score reviews? Read the "How G4 Reviews Work" article here.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Review:
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is nothing if not ambitious. The game is the initial point of entry into a new fantasy world that promises to span various media and game genres. Made with the involvement of fantasy writer R.A. Salvatore, comic-book artist Todd McFarlane, and Elder Scrolls designer Ken Rolston, and overseen by Curt Schilling’s nascent, but well-funded, 38 Studios, it’s a game whose vast content and open-world design inevitably draws comparison to Skyrim and the Mass Effect series.
My earlier looks and the pedigree of talents involved signaled something fresh, and I started the game excited and eager to delve into the world of Amalur. Unfortunately, the game fails to live up to the promised greatness. The sheer ambition and intent is on display but, outside of an ingenious combat system, the game is incapable of the delicate merging of narrative, gameplay and art direction that is the hallmark of contemporary Role Playing Games. It is mired in design issues that place it more in a league of games from 2004 than as a real contender in this vibrant era of RPG’s.
My Kingdom For An Elf
Reckoning is built on a great concept that highlights the dynamic nature of game narratives. Your character (human or the elf-like alfar) inhabits a world governed by the magical and eternal Fae who live their lives trapped in the mythic narrative that is destined to repeat itself continuously. The status quo of such fatalistic existence is threatened when a Fae lord named Gadflow of the House of Winter – a counterweight to the hippie-like Summer Fae – goes renegade and begins to follow a new spirituality, which foments a great war between Gadflow’s followers and all the other inhabitants of Amalur.
The arrival of your character, who defies the basic tenets of mortal existence by returning from the dead, further disintegrates the idea of inescapable fate. This sudden imbalance and instability in Amalur not only thrusts you into the conflict but positions you as the harbinger of change whose sheer will alone threatens the deterministic nature of this civilization.
Reckoning's Choice
Such a story brilliantly and cleverly cuts to the heart of the unstable narrative that defines RPG’s, where the player, through choices and personal character development, shapes the story as he plays the game. This concept of behavior affecting change – and the existential weight attached to it – is the allure many games, even though many invariably fail to exploit the device beyond a simple good-and-evil split.
Reckoning declines to pursue even such simple binary moralism. Despite the clever narrative set-up that begs the player to feel responsible for the new world that he is shaping, the handful of choices made throughout the game are of little consequence; for example, side with a witch and kill the townsfolk, and you’re left with an empty town. Given the remarkable length of the game (70+ hours after completing every quest I could find), eschewing such player involvement in forming the world that the player is allegedly reshaping seems not only a lost opportunity but one of many elements of the game that keep the player at arm’s length, content to satisfy the experience with only the base mechanics of gameplay.
This is all too apparent in the actual storytelling on display. Interactions with other characters play out in turgid cutscenes that fill only one half of the screen where your character stands rigidly in front of your dialogue partner, enlivened only by arbitrary hand gestures. With little exception, the narrative is advanced through these unendurable sequences that frequently can’t be viewed because the camera is lost behind some object in the environment.
It is possible that the information conveyed is interesting but the plastic character models and wholesale lack of characterization in both the voice acting – which never syncs up with the jaw movement – and animations imbue the information with leaden appeal. (The subpar quality of facial animations is made even more evident in those moments when the voice acting is good, by drawing attention to the dissonance between what you hear – say, nuanced delivery of the dialogue – and what you see – the robotic, emotionless quality of the speaker’s face.) You are offered seemingly inconsequential dialogue options, but your character does not speak, which, lacking the charm of the similarly mute Zelda games, does nothing to assist in bringing a sense of essential vitality to help drive the action.
Quest Love
With the numerous (well over 100) quests available in Reckoning, not giving them a unique flavor through storytelling techniques lets them stand as mere ciphers for getting a player in a dungeon and leveling up through combat. Repetitive behavior is at the core of any game, but with dexterous use of story and setting, a good game can offer the player a promise of something new and remarkable around the corner, the illusory sense of the unique that compels him to continue. Developers such as Bioware, Bethesda and Lionhead have championed this art; it’s unfortunate that Reckoning only highlights their accomplishment.
The world of Amalur fares somewhat better. The vibrant color palette is a welcome respite from the browns and greys of many near-apocalyptic fantasy settings. Beginning in a forest, the game traverses plains, mesas and swampland before succumbing to the bland desolation of its final hours. The art direction is reminiscent of the high-fantasy, fairy-tale world of Fable, with its insistence on refusing right-angles, but it lacks any clear vision or coherence. At times, the various environments feel as formalized as a desert or ice world in a platformer, feeling requisite rather than organically sprung from the logic that underpins the conception of Amalur. It is fun to look at but lacks the awe and mystery that leads a player to check every odd corner or investigate a cave without direction from a quest. The abundant use of the bloom effect provides an ethereal quality but ultimately prevents the player from integrating into the world, like the matte effect of 80’s action movies where the player is in front of the environment, not a part of it.
This Is Why We Fight
What does pull the player in is the combat. Fast-paced and dynamic, fighting enemies has the visceral satisfaction of God or War or Bayonetta but is enhanced through a fluid leveling system that can be restructured at any time in the game (costing in-game money). Allowing two weapons, one to a button and four magical powers at a time, creates a funhouse of opportunities to obliterate enemies. The speed of the combat is essential in establishing the power fantasy that your character is unique and special in a world weighed down by acquiescence. Mostly, it just plain feels good; here, the animations shine in their extreme presentation of physical prowess, coupled with deeply satisfying sound effects; exacting a critical hit can produce a crunch that just drips with success and fills the battles with the excitement that is so lacking in the rest of the game.
Initially simple, the fighting does start to develop sophistication and depth as you grow your character, but gradually enough that those less exposed to the combo-heavy action games should acclimate comfortably. The character skill tree is a mathematical wonder as, being without fate, you are never locked into one class at a time and can spread experience points across the three categories of Might, Finesse and Sorcery as one sees fit; and it works. This is where the game finds its compulsive soul, leveling up and deciding what skill to advance or new skill to acquire creates the motivation for proceeding through the game, just to see how it manifests on the battlefield. For some players, the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction gained in the combat sequences may be enough to declare the game enjoyable. And after investing so many hours, who could blame them for wanting, and finding, value in those isolated moments of pleasure?
Even with such an elegant combat system, however, Reckoning does not know how to indulge it. The actual combat scenarios themselves are painfully pedantic and lose any surprise after the first few hours of play. Certain enemies will always group in certain fashions and the player is rarely challenged to investigate the nuances of the combat system. The available enemies are fully introduced in the first fifteen hours, leaving little discovery for the extensive remainder of the game, and the player is left to experiment for experimentations sake instead of being invigorated to discover the game’s subtleties through challenge and surprise. The combat camera doesn’t help much, as it demonstrates why God of War and Bayonetta use a fixed angle; the action is too fast for the camera to keep up and it will frequently get lost behind objects or pull so far back that you’ll lose yourself amongst the enemies.
We Finish Our Journey
Beyond the camera, a shocking lack of polish is prevalent throughout Reckoning. Missing audio, framerate slowdown, a garish menu and incomprehensible maps are among the strange issues that plague the game and make it stand out from its triple-A contemporaries for all the wrong reasons.
Structurally, the game feels bloated as its middle section all but abandons the main quest and leaves the player trudging through formulaic settings and scenarios to little purpose. There’s a sense of the game wanting to declare itself as epic, but only through the virtue of being large. Ambitious as it may be, Reckoning throws in the kitchen sink but can’t find its structure, wildly borrowing from other games, only to fail in the invited comparison.
For the months leading up to its release, I looked forward to playing this game. The early looks at the game and the people associated with it promised great things, and I still regard the world of Amalur as one filled with potential. Reckoning, in trying to be so much at the same time, seems to have lost that essential identity necessary to drive this franchise. I hope another game will be forthcoming; however, until then, Amalur is awaiting its actual reckoning.
Want more information on how we score reviews? Read the "How G4 Reviews Work" article here.
Editor's Note: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was reviewed primarily with an Xbox 360 copy of the game. If further investigation reveals any key differences in the PC and/or PS3 copy of the game, this review will be updated to reflect those differences.
Adam offers expanded commentary on his review in this week's Sessler's Soapbox:
My earlier looks and the pedigree of talents involved signaled something fresh, and I started the game excited and eager to delve into the world of Amalur. Unfortunately, the game fails to live up to the promised greatness. The sheer ambition and intent is on display but, outside of an ingenious combat system, the game is incapable of the delicate merging of narrative, gameplay and art direction that is the hallmark of contemporary Role Playing Games. It is mired in design issues that place it more in a league of games from 2004 than as a real contender in this vibrant era of RPG’s.
My Kingdom For An Elf
Reckoning is built on a great concept that highlights the dynamic nature of game narratives. Your character (human or the elf-like alfar) inhabits a world governed by the magical and eternal Fae who live their lives trapped in the mythic narrative that is destined to repeat itself continuously. The status quo of such fatalistic existence is threatened when a Fae lord named Gadflow of the House of Winter – a counterweight to the hippie-like Summer Fae – goes renegade and begins to follow a new spirituality, which foments a great war between Gadflow’s followers and all the other inhabitants of Amalur.
The arrival of your character, who defies the basic tenets of mortal existence by returning from the dead, further disintegrates the idea of inescapable fate. This sudden imbalance and instability in Amalur not only thrusts you into the conflict but positions you as the harbinger of change whose sheer will alone threatens the deterministic nature of this civilization.
Reckoning's Choice
Such a story brilliantly and cleverly cuts to the heart of the unstable narrative that defines RPG’s, where the player, through choices and personal character development, shapes the story as he plays the game. This concept of behavior affecting change – and the existential weight attached to it – is the allure many games, even though many invariably fail to exploit the device beyond a simple good-and-evil split.
Reckoning declines to pursue even such simple binary moralism. Despite the clever narrative set-up that begs the player to feel responsible for the new world that he is shaping, the handful of choices made throughout the game are of little consequence; for example, side with a witch and kill the townsfolk, and you’re left with an empty town. Given the remarkable length of the game (70+ hours after completing every quest I could find), eschewing such player involvement in forming the world that the player is allegedly reshaping seems not only a lost opportunity but one of many elements of the game that keep the player at arm’s length, content to satisfy the experience with only the base mechanics of gameplay.
This is all too apparent in the actual storytelling on display. Interactions with other characters play out in turgid cutscenes that fill only one half of the screen where your character stands rigidly in front of your dialogue partner, enlivened only by arbitrary hand gestures. With little exception, the narrative is advanced through these unendurable sequences that frequently can’t be viewed because the camera is lost behind some object in the environment.
It is possible that the information conveyed is interesting but the plastic character models and wholesale lack of characterization in both the voice acting – which never syncs up with the jaw movement – and animations imbue the information with leaden appeal. (The subpar quality of facial animations is made even more evident in those moments when the voice acting is good, by drawing attention to the dissonance between what you hear – say, nuanced delivery of the dialogue – and what you see – the robotic, emotionless quality of the speaker’s face.) You are offered seemingly inconsequential dialogue options, but your character does not speak, which, lacking the charm of the similarly mute Zelda games, does nothing to assist in bringing a sense of essential vitality to help drive the action.
Quest Love
With the numerous (well over 100) quests available in Reckoning, not giving them a unique flavor through storytelling techniques lets them stand as mere ciphers for getting a player in a dungeon and leveling up through combat. Repetitive behavior is at the core of any game, but with dexterous use of story and setting, a good game can offer the player a promise of something new and remarkable around the corner, the illusory sense of the unique that compels him to continue. Developers such as Bioware, Bethesda and Lionhead have championed this art; it’s unfortunate that Reckoning only highlights their accomplishment.
The world of Amalur fares somewhat better. The vibrant color palette is a welcome respite from the browns and greys of many near-apocalyptic fantasy settings. Beginning in a forest, the game traverses plains, mesas and swampland before succumbing to the bland desolation of its final hours. The art direction is reminiscent of the high-fantasy, fairy-tale world of Fable, with its insistence on refusing right-angles, but it lacks any clear vision or coherence. At times, the various environments feel as formalized as a desert or ice world in a platformer, feeling requisite rather than organically sprung from the logic that underpins the conception of Amalur. It is fun to look at but lacks the awe and mystery that leads a player to check every odd corner or investigate a cave without direction from a quest. The abundant use of the bloom effect provides an ethereal quality but ultimately prevents the player from integrating into the world, like the matte effect of 80’s action movies where the player is in front of the environment, not a part of it.
This Is Why We Fight
What does pull the player in is the combat. Fast-paced and dynamic, fighting enemies has the visceral satisfaction of God or War or Bayonetta but is enhanced through a fluid leveling system that can be restructured at any time in the game (costing in-game money). Allowing two weapons, one to a button and four magical powers at a time, creates a funhouse of opportunities to obliterate enemies. The speed of the combat is essential in establishing the power fantasy that your character is unique and special in a world weighed down by acquiescence. Mostly, it just plain feels good; here, the animations shine in their extreme presentation of physical prowess, coupled with deeply satisfying sound effects; exacting a critical hit can produce a crunch that just drips with success and fills the battles with the excitement that is so lacking in the rest of the game.
Initially simple, the fighting does start to develop sophistication and depth as you grow your character, but gradually enough that those less exposed to the combo-heavy action games should acclimate comfortably. The character skill tree is a mathematical wonder as, being without fate, you are never locked into one class at a time and can spread experience points across the three categories of Might, Finesse and Sorcery as one sees fit; and it works. This is where the game finds its compulsive soul, leveling up and deciding what skill to advance or new skill to acquire creates the motivation for proceeding through the game, just to see how it manifests on the battlefield. For some players, the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction gained in the combat sequences may be enough to declare the game enjoyable. And after investing so many hours, who could blame them for wanting, and finding, value in those isolated moments of pleasure?
Even with such an elegant combat system, however, Reckoning does not know how to indulge it. The actual combat scenarios themselves are painfully pedantic and lose any surprise after the first few hours of play. Certain enemies will always group in certain fashions and the player is rarely challenged to investigate the nuances of the combat system. The available enemies are fully introduced in the first fifteen hours, leaving little discovery for the extensive remainder of the game, and the player is left to experiment for experimentations sake instead of being invigorated to discover the game’s subtleties through challenge and surprise. The combat camera doesn’t help much, as it demonstrates why God of War and Bayonetta use a fixed angle; the action is too fast for the camera to keep up and it will frequently get lost behind objects or pull so far back that you’ll lose yourself amongst the enemies.
We Finish Our Journey
Beyond the camera, a shocking lack of polish is prevalent throughout Reckoning. Missing audio, framerate slowdown, a garish menu and incomprehensible maps are among the strange issues that plague the game and make it stand out from its triple-A contemporaries for all the wrong reasons.
Structurally, the game feels bloated as its middle section all but abandons the main quest and leaves the player trudging through formulaic settings and scenarios to little purpose. There’s a sense of the game wanting to declare itself as epic, but only through the virtue of being large. Ambitious as it may be, Reckoning throws in the kitchen sink but can’t find its structure, wildly borrowing from other games, only to fail in the invited comparison.
For the months leading up to its release, I looked forward to playing this game. The early looks at the game and the people associated with it promised great things, and I still regard the world of Amalur as one filled with potential. Reckoning, in trying to be so much at the same time, seems to have lost that essential identity necessary to drive this franchise. I hope another game will be forthcoming; however, until then, Amalur is awaiting its actual reckoning.
Want more information on how we score reviews? Read the "How G4 Reviews Work" article here.
Editor's Note: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was reviewed primarily with an Xbox 360 copy of the game. If further investigation reveals any key differences in the PC and/or PS3 copy of the game, this review will be updated to reflect those differences.
Adam offers expanded commentary on his review in this week's Sessler's Soapbox:
The Darkness 2 Review
There's a scene in 2007's The Darkness where mopey mafioso Jackie Estacado uses the demonic tentacles that have possessed him to reign havoc in his vile uncle Paulie's mansion. Henchmen run and panic as Jackie murders a group of goons in one fell swoop, tosses a guy around like a ragdoll, and creates black holes to absorb his opposition. It was a mesmerizing scene and a fitting climax for a bitter tale of loss and revenge, except there was one problem: it wasn't interactive.
Certain moves like the horizontal tentacle swipe weren't even in the game, and actually playing as Jackie was much slower and less empowering than this cutscene made it out to be. As such, it highlighted what the game should have been all along. Now, nearly half a decade later, development duties have shifted from Starbreeze Studios (The Chronicles of Riddick) to Digital Extremes (Dark Sector) and the potential we saw is finally realized in this hyper-violent, sophisticated sequel.
Skills for Kills
The Darkness 2 takes place a couple years after the events of the first game. Jackie has risen to become a mafia don, but his life of hedonism is hollow, as his beloved Jenny's still dead. It's not all doom-and-gloom though. Jackie has a new found purpose looking after his aunt Sarah along with his wonderfully endearing mob empire. After a hit on an Italian restaurant leaves many of his men dead, Jackie succumbs to the Darkness yet again as he investigates his mysterious assailants.
Perhaps the biggest improvement this sequel makes is its approach to combat. First off, you no longer move like a snail. More importantly, the Darkness techniques are integrated far more efficiently than in its predecessor. Your left tentacle grabs items and stunned enemies, while the right can swipe for a devastating melee attack. Additionally, you have two Darkness powers. One lets loose a swarm of insects ala the wasp plasmid in Bioshock, while the other temporarily boosts your guns' power as they fire off rounds of magical ammo. Both abilities are on a cool-down timer, so they must be used sparingly. There's also an upgrade tree with options for greater health regeneration, deadlier attacks, and the cathartic black hole launching from the first game.
In an inspired choice, how you eliminate enemies dictates what you get out of it. Taking a page from Bulletstorm, every kill grants experience points. Simply gunning a foe down will work, but rewards fewer points. A headshot is better, but dangling an goon by their ankle and ripping their skull out from their anus is best. A clever execution system adds even more depth. Once an enemy's been stunned or injured their heart will be shown like an x-ray. This means they're vulnerable for a grab with ol' lefty and you're given a choice how to execute them. Do you want to rip their heart out and gain health, or consume their cadaver to manifest a shield, more ammo, or a quicker recharge rate on your Darkness powers? Each type of execution comes with their own set of animations based on where you grab an enemy so you won't have to wait through the same ones ad infinitum.
Besides combat, The Darkness 2 is a marked improvement over its predecessor visually. Hand-drawn, cel-shaded textures make the whole thing look like a comic book with subtle use of cross-hatching and thick black lines. This is a vastly more colorful game, where the night sky is always a bold deep blue and a lavish underground brothel is bathed in red curtains. It's a testament to the art direction that a gritty game about darkness contains so few grays and browns.
"I'm a Goddamn Marvel of Modern Science"
Despite The Darkness 2's penchant for ultra-violence, this is a very narrative-heavy game with lengthy sequence where you do nothing but talk to people. There's loads of extra dialogue for patient players who eavesdrop on NPC's conversations, and optional exchanges can go on for some time. The Darkness was already memorable for its intimate character moments, and The Darkness 2 improves on this rock-solid foundation with a well developed cast, beautifully staged setpieces, and some of best voice-acting in gaming. Despite the grim subject matter The Darkness 2 has a lot of heart. And not just the ones your tentacles feast off of.
The Darkness 2 also surpasses its predecessor is in its otherworldly episodes. In the first The Darkness, Jackie's trips to the underworld were portrayed as a crimson wasteland modeled after a hellish vision of World War I. This time around he finds himself a patient in a mental ward that's a cross between One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Wizard of Oz, where characters from the rest of the game reappear in vastly different roles. Here Jackie is told he's delusional and was never a mob boss (let alone one possessed by a demon). In a brilliant ironic twist, the asylum is the brightest environment in the game. Digital Extremes wisely realizes that fire and brimstone are too fantastical to summon real feelings of dread, but the shockingly earnest hospital scenes hit much closer to home, creating a far more believable -- and horrifying -- Kafka-esque nightmare.
While individual scenes sparkle, the overall plot is murkier than the last game's. Rather than an emotionally charged revenge fantasy, The Darkness 2 follows the series' supernatural elements further down the rabbit hole. The main villain and his Illuminati-esque followers are ultimately forgettable, and the final chapter is more confusing and silly than everything leading up to it.
For a game with such a strong narrative pull it's a shame The Darkness 2 occasionally lets its more "gamey" elements get in the way. Each level has a collectible relic or two to find that grant a big XP boost, but seeking them out flies in the face of the otherwise breakneck momentum the story encourages. Also, the addition of boss fights ultimately does not work and feels ungracefully tacked on.
This is the case with multiplayer as well. While the co-op campaign loosely ties into the main story, the writing is several leagues worse where you play as one of four outlandish stereotypes (drunk Scottish guy, solemn samurai, witch doctor, etc.) who have weapons infused with the Darkness. Each one plays like a scaled down version of Jackie with only a fraction of his powers and finishing moves. Watching the same one or two execution animations per character gets old really fast. While a serviceable Darkness-based take on a traditional co-op template, it pales in comparison to the main game.
We Are Eternal
Despite the anticlimactic ending, shoddy boss fights, and lackluster multiplayer, The Darkness 2 is an extremely impressive game. It oozes style, packs an emotional punch, and manages to be effectively balance bombastic violence with understated character development, ensuring that when the Darkness is unleashed you care. Just as Jackie finds himself a puppet of the Darkness's will, I found myself unable to give up its seductive allure when the end credits rolled after a scant nine hours. Instead, I started straight away on new game.
Editor's Note: The Darkness 2 was reviewed using an Xbox 360 copy of the game. If further investigation reveals any differences in the PC and/or PS3 copy of the game, this review will be updated to reflect those differences.
Certain moves like the horizontal tentacle swipe weren't even in the game, and actually playing as Jackie was much slower and less empowering than this cutscene made it out to be. As such, it highlighted what the game should have been all along. Now, nearly half a decade later, development duties have shifted from Starbreeze Studios (The Chronicles of Riddick) to Digital Extremes (Dark Sector) and the potential we saw is finally realized in this hyper-violent, sophisticated sequel.
Skills for Kills
The Darkness 2 takes place a couple years after the events of the first game. Jackie has risen to become a mafia don, but his life of hedonism is hollow, as his beloved Jenny's still dead. It's not all doom-and-gloom though. Jackie has a new found purpose looking after his aunt Sarah along with his wonderfully endearing mob empire. After a hit on an Italian restaurant leaves many of his men dead, Jackie succumbs to the Darkness yet again as he investigates his mysterious assailants.
Perhaps the biggest improvement this sequel makes is its approach to combat. First off, you no longer move like a snail. More importantly, the Darkness techniques are integrated far more efficiently than in its predecessor. Your left tentacle grabs items and stunned enemies, while the right can swipe for a devastating melee attack. Additionally, you have two Darkness powers. One lets loose a swarm of insects ala the wasp plasmid in Bioshock, while the other temporarily boosts your guns' power as they fire off rounds of magical ammo. Both abilities are on a cool-down timer, so they must be used sparingly. There's also an upgrade tree with options for greater health regeneration, deadlier attacks, and the cathartic black hole launching from the first game.
In an inspired choice, how you eliminate enemies dictates what you get out of it. Taking a page from Bulletstorm, every kill grants experience points. Simply gunning a foe down will work, but rewards fewer points. A headshot is better, but dangling an goon by their ankle and ripping their skull out from their anus is best. A clever execution system adds even more depth. Once an enemy's been stunned or injured their heart will be shown like an x-ray. This means they're vulnerable for a grab with ol' lefty and you're given a choice how to execute them. Do you want to rip their heart out and gain health, or consume their cadaver to manifest a shield, more ammo, or a quicker recharge rate on your Darkness powers? Each type of execution comes with their own set of animations based on where you grab an enemy so you won't have to wait through the same ones ad infinitum.
Besides combat, The Darkness 2 is a marked improvement over its predecessor visually. Hand-drawn, cel-shaded textures make the whole thing look like a comic book with subtle use of cross-hatching and thick black lines. This is a vastly more colorful game, where the night sky is always a bold deep blue and a lavish underground brothel is bathed in red curtains. It's a testament to the art direction that a gritty game about darkness contains so few grays and browns.
"I'm a Goddamn Marvel of Modern Science"
Despite The Darkness 2's penchant for ultra-violence, this is a very narrative-heavy game with lengthy sequence where you do nothing but talk to people. There's loads of extra dialogue for patient players who eavesdrop on NPC's conversations, and optional exchanges can go on for some time. The Darkness was already memorable for its intimate character moments, and The Darkness 2 improves on this rock-solid foundation with a well developed cast, beautifully staged setpieces, and some of best voice-acting in gaming. Despite the grim subject matter The Darkness 2 has a lot of heart. And not just the ones your tentacles feast off of.
The Darkness 2 also surpasses its predecessor is in its otherworldly episodes. In the first The Darkness, Jackie's trips to the underworld were portrayed as a crimson wasteland modeled after a hellish vision of World War I. This time around he finds himself a patient in a mental ward that's a cross between One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Wizard of Oz, where characters from the rest of the game reappear in vastly different roles. Here Jackie is told he's delusional and was never a mob boss (let alone one possessed by a demon). In a brilliant ironic twist, the asylum is the brightest environment in the game. Digital Extremes wisely realizes that fire and brimstone are too fantastical to summon real feelings of dread, but the shockingly earnest hospital scenes hit much closer to home, creating a far more believable -- and horrifying -- Kafka-esque nightmare.
While individual scenes sparkle, the overall plot is murkier than the last game's. Rather than an emotionally charged revenge fantasy, The Darkness 2 follows the series' supernatural elements further down the rabbit hole. The main villain and his Illuminati-esque followers are ultimately forgettable, and the final chapter is more confusing and silly than everything leading up to it.
For a game with such a strong narrative pull it's a shame The Darkness 2 occasionally lets its more "gamey" elements get in the way. Each level has a collectible relic or two to find that grant a big XP boost, but seeking them out flies in the face of the otherwise breakneck momentum the story encourages. Also, the addition of boss fights ultimately does not work and feels ungracefully tacked on.
This is the case with multiplayer as well. While the co-op campaign loosely ties into the main story, the writing is several leagues worse where you play as one of four outlandish stereotypes (drunk Scottish guy, solemn samurai, witch doctor, etc.) who have weapons infused with the Darkness. Each one plays like a scaled down version of Jackie with only a fraction of his powers and finishing moves. Watching the same one or two execution animations per character gets old really fast. While a serviceable Darkness-based take on a traditional co-op template, it pales in comparison to the main game.
We Are Eternal
Despite the anticlimactic ending, shoddy boss fights, and lackluster multiplayer, The Darkness 2 is an extremely impressive game. It oozes style, packs an emotional punch, and manages to be effectively balance bombastic violence with understated character development, ensuring that when the Darkness is unleashed you care. Just as Jackie finds himself a puppet of the Darkness's will, I found myself unable to give up its seductive allure when the end credits rolled after a scant nine hours. Instead, I started straight away on new game.
Editor's Note: The Darkness 2 was reviewed using an Xbox 360 copy of the game. If further investigation reveals any differences in the PC and/or PS3 copy of the game, this review will be updated to reflect those differences.
Little Help, Here
The greatness of Minecraft comes from these entirely self-guided experiences. It comes from the primal sense of adventure exploring a deep cavern brings, and the genuine terror when you realize you’re hopelessly lost in that same cavern and giant poison spiders are closing in. Completing a huge construction project is as rewarding as finishing the giant Lego set you got for Christmas that time was, except you can walk through it and “live” there. When it’s at its best, Minecraft blurs the line between toy and game beautifully, and isn’t really like any other game.
With the basic structure of the game complete, the creators of Minecraft have been adding more “traditional” RPG elements to their game lately. First, a hellish plane called “The Nether,” and later, things like enchanting, a leveling system, NPC villages full of silent, random-moving NPCs, potion brewing, and an end-game dimension, The End. The End contains a final boss battle, and even a credit roll, just like, well, every other game. All these newer additions to Minecraft seem thin and listless compared to the original power of the game. The Nether and The End both lack the complexity of the “Real World,” and while they’re OK as a distraction, you probably won’t spend much time in either place, unless you really need to “beat” Minecraft.
With the basic structure of the game complete, the creators of Minecraft have been adding more “traditional” RPG elements to their game lately. First, a hellish plane called “The Nether,” and later, things like enchanting, a leveling system, NPC villages full of silent, random-moving NPCs, potion brewing, and an end-game dimension, The End. The End contains a final boss battle, and even a credit roll, just like, well, every other game. All these newer additions to Minecraft seem thin and listless compared to the original power of the game. The Nether and The End both lack the complexity of the “Real World,” and while they’re OK as a distraction, you probably won’t spend much time in either place, unless you really need to “beat” Minecraft.
I am a golden GOD
Later, you combine your game-given goods into even more complicated, personal creations like electrical systems, railroads, and working calculators. When enough material goods and resources are stockpiled, human aspiration kicks in, and you begin to envision and build a vast palace or city to live in-- either or alone or with your pals if you’re playing multiplayer. Given enough time, talent and dedication, anything can be created in Minecraft, from full-size replicas of Star Trek ships to working computers. Minecraft really rewards creativity. While many gamers might want to create a medieval style houses, Minecraft’s tools proved sufficient for me to build a mid-century, Eames style home to live in instead.
Now that you understand how to get by in the world, you can join a multiplayer server and hang out with other people. Live in a strictly role-playing world, help on a massive building project, build traps to murder the unsuspecting, and basically join a gaming community. While the multiplayer servers aren’t a game per se, players have taken it upon themselves to create puzzle rooms, challenges, and other game-like delights. How much you like multiplayer ultimately depends on your tolerance for other people.
A brief note about game documentation and game community: Minecraft contains no in-game tutorials or help at all. While the huge and loyal fan community has built extensive wikis and guides that cover everything in the game, (and anything its creator, Notch says), in-game, there’s nothing. It’s all but unplayable without online help, but it can be very hard to look for help online without seeing spoilers, and discovering things is the point of the whole thing. A little gentle, in-game guidance could help.
Now that you understand how to get by in the world, you can join a multiplayer server and hang out with other people. Live in a strictly role-playing world, help on a massive building project, build traps to murder the unsuspecting, and basically join a gaming community. While the multiplayer servers aren’t a game per se, players have taken it upon themselves to create puzzle rooms, challenges, and other game-like delights. How much you like multiplayer ultimately depends on your tolerance for other people.
A brief note about game documentation and game community: Minecraft contains no in-game tutorials or help at all. While the huge and loyal fan community has built extensive wikis and guides that cover everything in the game, (and anything its creator, Notch says), in-game, there’s nothing. It’s all but unplayable without online help, but it can be very hard to look for help online without seeing spoilers, and discovering things is the point of the whole thing. A little gentle, in-game guidance could help.
Punch Tree! Punch Tree! Punch Tree! Repeat!
There isn’t a story to Minecraft in a traditional sense, but there is a structure. A player’s journey through the game mirrors the history of human civilization. It’s that epic. The early days are a fight for simple survival against the elements; everything is hostile and every decision potentially life-ending. You fall off cliffs. You drown. You get lost. Like, really, really, hopelessly lost. A Minecraft world can grow to the size of the actual Earth, if your PC has the memory.
Later, as you learn the “rules” of the world, survival becomes second nature, and the game becomes about exploration and exploitation of resources. You make paper and compasses to craft maps, so that every trip away from home isn’t a harrowing adventure tale. You mine iron ore and coal, and combine them to make swords and armor. You build torches to light your house, plant crops so you don’t run out of food, build stone ovens to bake cakes, and surround your house with traps that kill off the accursed and deadly Creepers.
Later, as you learn the “rules” of the world, survival becomes second nature, and the game becomes about exploration and exploitation of resources. You make paper and compasses to craft maps, so that every trip away from home isn’t a harrowing adventure tale. You mine iron ore and coal, and combine them to make swords and armor. You build torches to light your house, plant crops so you don’t run out of food, build stone ovens to bake cakes, and surround your house with traps that kill off the accursed and deadly Creepers.
That Atari Creature Wants To KILL Me
The appeal of Minecraft can be difficult to explain to people who haven’t tried it. It looks like crap compared to the highly detailed graphics of big-budget games, (though the randomly generated world takes on a sometimes eerie beauty.) It doesn’t have a “plot,” as such. It refuses to hold your hand or coddle you. It doesn’t direct you towards excitement or cinematic set pieces. Minecraft, instead, allows you to create your own game experience through providing you with simple tools and a simple framework, and gives you an experience that can only be obtained through playing a game. It’s as pure an example of gaming as a unique form of art as I’ve ever played.
Minecraft PC Review
When I first played open-world sandbox game Minecraft, soon after the first, full survival mode launched, I knew very little about the game. My first in-game day was spent wandering about, admiring the procedurally generated graphics, punching some trees in a sun-dappled forest, digging some aimless holes, and wondering why so many gamers had suddenly proclaimed this uneventful, primitive, goalless game as a masterpiece. Then night fell.
As darkness surrounded me, the previously bucolic world of Minecraft exploded into chaos and horror as skeletons, zombies and strange, detonating creatures called “Creepers” materialized from the darkness and assaulted me. While the MOBs of Minecraft might be 8-bit looking and a little silly by day, at night, if you don’t understand their ways, those things are monsters.
In a panic, I dug into the ground and covered myself with the earth. I was barely alive, but safe. But it was dark. Not videogame-dark, where you can see what you need to after boosting the brightness setting, but complete, black-screen darkness. I was still able to hear the moans and groans of the creatures that wanted to kill me, and had no idea if they could follow, so I started to dig away from the sound.
I tunneled blindly all night, lost and terror-stricken, an eyeless mole-rat. Finally, through dumb luck, I managed to break through to the surface again, the sun was shining now, and my former adversaries were bursting into flames from the sunlight. Good riddance, bastards. I looked behind me to see the results of my evening of fear and darkness: Ugly holes gouged in the earth, a monument to panic. I committed myself to the simple goal of comfortable surviving a night in Minecraft, and so I was hooked into the most addictive game I’ve ever played.
As darkness surrounded me, the previously bucolic world of Minecraft exploded into chaos and horror as skeletons, zombies and strange, detonating creatures called “Creepers” materialized from the darkness and assaulted me. While the MOBs of Minecraft might be 8-bit looking and a little silly by day, at night, if you don’t understand their ways, those things are monsters.
In a panic, I dug into the ground and covered myself with the earth. I was barely alive, but safe. But it was dark. Not videogame-dark, where you can see what you need to after boosting the brightness setting, but complete, black-screen darkness. I was still able to hear the moans and groans of the creatures that wanted to kill me, and had no idea if they could follow, so I started to dig away from the sound.
I tunneled blindly all night, lost and terror-stricken, an eyeless mole-rat. Finally, through dumb luck, I managed to break through to the surface again, the sun was shining now, and my former adversaries were bursting into flames from the sunlight. Good riddance, bastards. I looked behind me to see the results of my evening of fear and darkness: Ugly holes gouged in the earth, a monument to panic. I committed myself to the simple goal of comfortable surviving a night in Minecraft, and so I was hooked into the most addictive game I’ve ever played.
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