Saints Row the Third takes you out of Stilwater, the setting
for the first two games, and drops you into the new city of Steelport. Three
local gangs are well-entrenched, but the Third Street Saints aren't going to
settle for fourth place. Your job throughout Saints Row the Third is to take
over this new city and crush the competition.
The flying city of Columbia
pretty much ensures that the big Bioshock sequel has an even more impressive
backdrop than its predecessor, but can it also build on the FPS mechanics? With
a companion character and some critical choices to be made about the action, it
looks a lot less “would you kindly” than the first game, but it’s hard to know
whether Irrational can really pull off something that will wow the sceptics.
But then when was the last time those guys were wowed?
It’s
a team-based shooter, again, but rather than updating to a modern combat
scenario, this new Brothers in Arms sees a gang of armed-to-the-teeth Yank
soldiers take on those pesky Nazis. The demo we saw involved jetpacks and
demented violence. It recalls Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, with plenty of
gore and Nazi-branding. Like a 1940s version of Bulletstorm.
As
big-haired, sharp-cheekboned cyber ninja Raiden, you’re hunting baddies in the
near-ish future. The emphasis is on quick, offensive swordplay, using the dev’s
terrifying attention to how bodies are sliced and diced. The series is perhaps
best known for its fourth-wall-shattering plot devices and inventive game
mechanics: we’re always happy to see more of that on the PC.
Prototype 2 continues the shape-shifting,
open-world action franchise, this time focusing on Sgt. James Heller and his
mission to destroy Prototype's original anti-hero, Alex Mercer.
Maybe it’s just me, but these days it seems like a lot of
video game protagonists have become — well, kind of a bunch of whiny d-bags.
From Marcus Fenix’s incessant droning on about his old man, to Commander
Shepard’s intergalactic handwringing, toModern
Warfarecommandos waxing poetic on the horrors of war, you can’t shoot an
alien/terrorist in the face without having some brooding anti-hero wallowing in
their own existential angst about it afterwards.
James Heller, the world weary
protagonist ofPrototype 2, is no exception. He literally stews in his
own rage-juices and drops irate f-bombs with righteous indignation. About
halfway through the game, I felt like giving him a big hug and offering a
reassuring: “Dude, you can run up buildings and turn your hands into giant
razorblades. You’re gonna be just fine.” LikePrototype
2itself,
Heller is entertaining in small doses but also gets a little old all too
quickly.
The problem with the hackneyed
narratives of games likePrototype
2is that
you don’t really know what the main character – or anybody else for that matter
– really wants. Nor, in all likelihood, will you particularly care. Of course,
in a game that’s more about jump-kicking helicopters and tearing people’s heads
off like Bud Light twist tops, a meaningful narrative and compelling dialogue
isn’t exactly high on the priority list.
Prototype 2 falls back on the all-too familiar open
world formula of its predecessor and countless other third-person sandbox
shooters before it. Heller’s super-virus infected body allows you to leap (and
briefly glide) over tall buildings in a single bound, in addition to producing
organic claws which can be used to slice and dice both enemies and hapless
civilians alike. You also can absorb any other person you come into contact
with, which serves the dual function of both regenerating health and allowing
you to take on their form. New powers include the ability to produce gooey
tendrils which can bind and crush enemies and a new “hunting” ability that
allows you to emit a sonar-like ping to track down specific high-value targets.
As the game progresses, the powers amp up nicely as you evolve new abilities
and upgrades. As with the first game, the action is also fun and frenetically
violent, letting you slash through waves of enemies like a spastic Wolverine,
punch holes in tanks and suck back humans like they were Capri Sun juice bags.
Jumping two hundred feet into the air and cutting a soldier in half with a
giant Chevy-sized arm-blade almost never gets old.
Where Prototype
2 stumbles, however, is in its repetitive level design. Story-based
missions tend to be broken down into two types: a.) roll into an enemy base and
smash the living crap out of everything or b.) assume the identity of an enemy,
sneak into a base and thensmash the living crap out of everything.
The game tries to add a little extra meat by including Blacknet computer
terminals which offer secondary missions, but these too tend to fall back on
the same stagnant formula. Diehard fans might get a little bit of extended
playtime with the inclusion of Radnet (available only if you bought the game
new) which offers built-in DLC in the
form of mini-game challenges and extra powers – an interesting idea in theory,
but really only a flimsy excuse to try and squeeze in a bit of extra content.
The result is a game that has entertaining enough gameplay mechanics, but is
hamstrung by its lack of innovative level design. Don’t expect any of the
diversity of missions and activities that you’d find in far superior sandbox shooters
like Just Cause 2 or Saints Row 3.
Prototype 2 really feels more like an afterthought than
an evolutionary step forward for either the franchise or the sandbox action
genre. The visuals, controls and bloodsoaked open-world action are entertaining
and polished, but the hamfisted story and repetitive level design means that,
like its superpowered Debbie Downer of a protagonist, Prototype 2is
also one game that can be a bit of a drag.
Prototype 2 was developed by Radical Entertainment and
published by Activision. This review is based on the Xbox 360 version. The game
is also currently available for PlayStation 3 and PC.
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Max Payne 3 continues the tale of former New York City detective, Max
Payne. Still haunted by the memories of his traumatic past, Max begins a new
life working private security protecting a wealthy industrialist and his family
in Sao Paulo, Brazil. When gangs target the family under his protection, Max is
forced to fight to save his clients and clear his name, in a bid to, once and
for all, rid himself of the demons that have tortured him for far too long.
This dark, gritty
action game utilizes cutting edge technology for a seamless, cinematic action
experience. The game boasts highly-refined gameplay with an extensive range of
realistic weaponry, an intelligent cover system and sophisticated Bullet-Time mechanics.
In addition to an
expansive single-player campaign, Max Payne 3 introduce to the series a
multiplayer experience. This online mode dynamically alters maps and mode
progression for all players in a match. Along with traditional multiplayer
modes, Max Payne 3 also includes a deep reward and leveling system, persistent
clans and multiple strategic load-out options.
As Diablo II was wildly successful, Blizzard chose to
make an expansion that will add a fifth Act, featuring six quests in the
Barbarian Highlands. Two unique classes, the female Assassin and the male
Druid, will be available featuring new skills. More monsters, items including
powerful sets and class-specific items, new Horadric Cube recipes, and
interactive environments will all expand the the scope of Diablo.
Game Features
* Tons of gameplay
* 3D graphics
* high AI
* new environments
* multiplayer action via Internet.
G3 processor or better, System
8.1 or later, 64 MB RAM plus Virtual Memory, 650 MB drive space, 4X CD-ROM
drive, 256 color display capable of 800×600, Diablo II
Windows
233 MHz Pentium or better, 32 MB RAM, 650 MB drive space, 4X CD-ROM drive,
DirectX compatible video card, Diablo II
Recreating a classic game in a new genre runs an overwhelming
risk of failure. Not only must the product satiate fans of the original
experience, the new game also needs to stand on its own with successful design
choices and innovation. Oftentimes the redo reflects the exact standards and
formulas of its new genre rather than marching boldly into new territory. Syndicate falls into this trap, telling a boring tale of
swapping allegiances amidst flurries of gunfire. Yet it escapes the "just
another shooter" label by executing an entertaining co-op mode, fun,
manipulative gameplay, and good scoring ideas -- it just doesn't take them far
enough to be great.
Giant corporations rule the
world in Syndicate. Each employs deadly agents to fight over turf and
technology. In this horrifying future, every citizen has a chip implanted in
their head which the manufacturer can access. Eurocorp, the company employing Syndicate's
protagonists, created top tier technology in the form of DART 6, a chip so
powerful it allows its owner to slow down time using augmented vision and break
into other's chips. This shooter draws inspiration and a few details from its
1993 PC origins, but sets itself up as a completely new experience. There's no
isometric strategy here, Syndicate is all shooter.
The single-player plot tells the tale of Miles Kilo, a newly prepped agent who
rediscovers his mysterious origin, and struggles with questions of why he
fights and who he's fighting for. It's a generic story that cycles like an
exercise in familiarity. Regardless of the player's choices at various
junctures, Syndicate follows a singular route that doesn't reflect the player's
behavior. While the lack of control is thematically congruent, all gameplay
indicators point to a more open-ended conclusion which is frustrating. The
co-op campaign takes a different route, opting for a "day in the
life" approach rather than a story, which makes the missions more fun to
fight through as they don't force plot into action.
Bluish hues dominate the
journey through Syndicate's futuristic setting. While developer Starbreeze
Studios paints blinding lights around almost every corner, the world maintains
a clean and simple design, while also mixing styles with New York slums,
Atlantic sea bases, and the alleyways of China. The settings, characters, and
tech elements look really polished -- even if a train station in Los Angeles
looks exactly like one in China. The DART overlay (the chip's analytical
slow-motion view) paints a great sci-fi picture, and the onscreen reflection of
damage marks a great pairing of visuals and context. When the screen scrambles
like a loose HDMI cable, the full gravity of having a chip implant comes to
life.
Manipulating the world using the DART chip is what sets Syndicate apart from
other shooters. Under this shooter's skin, there's a puzzle game hiding amidst
the gunfire -- one of Syndicate's best features. Using a hacking mechanic
called breaching, players can enact horrors upon enemies' chips, making them
kill themselves, shoot their comrades, or drop to the ground, stunned. By
juggling these skills to destroy groups of enemies, there's a strategic
sub-layer of action that goes beyond pulling the trigger.
Unfortunately, the trio of
breach skills all perform in a similar manner, making them less useful than
intended during the single-player campaign. Also, a bodycount-heavy portion of
the campaign removes two of the powers entirely (due to malfunction), leaving
the stun mechanic as the only available tool. Co-op shakes up the skills with
additional features, favoring team-boosting powers like faster breaching and
short-term damage boosters, but won't allow the powerful suicide and persuade
skills into the mix. This creates a more complex balance that leans heavily on
working together as a team.
High scores bolster this sense
of a puzzle game, as each level posts comparative statistics looking at each
mission attempt. Depending on the height of success, Syndicate assigns a corporate-speak ranking on your
performance like Middle Management and CEO. It's too bad these arcade-style
scores don't post to online leaderboards (in single-player, anyway); they're
left as a striking reminder to oneself rather than the world, like a note taped
to the bathroom mirror suggesting you pull off more headshots and pick up milk
on the way home.
When deciding which enemy to
blow up, and which to persuade to fight for you, a shootout reflects a
rudimentary chess match where forethought leads to success. These moments
highlight Syndicate's innovation, but they don't define the entire experience.
Regardless of the ability to breach, every encounter ends in gunfire. To
Syndicate's credit, the gunplay is fun and the weapons diverse enough to keep
fights interesting, but the subtle influence of high scores and creative
breaching mark the more memorable aspects of gameplay.
When the strategic approach breaks down and the guns come out, cover is as
effective as a chain-link fence. No matter what stands between the agents and
an enemy, bullets seem to find their mark -- that's without counting the
lock-on bullets that curve around corners from one particular gun. A simplistic
cover system lets you peer over barricades to fire on enemies, but because
there's no stick mechanic, moving your reticule to the left or right forces the
agent to move in that direction, leaving them vulnerable to attack because
they're standing out in the open. It's difficult to thoughtfully breach through
a large firefight when you're constantly taking on bullets because your agent
drifted into a clearing.
The creative breach element
also dies in the form of single-player boss fights. Where a standard skirmish
relies on multiple means of success, boss fights stick to a single course of
action that requires precise timing, patience, and a lot of luck. Standard
breach skills don't work during boss fights, so DART's slow-motion capability
is the only helpful power in the player's hand. But even at half-speed, boss
fights quickly devolve into running around in circles, avoiding gunfire, and
waiting for the right moment to start blasting away at the baddie. Frustrating
bosses compounded by yawn-worthy jammed doors, sealed grates, and bad story
make playing Syndicate alone forgettable.
But that's where co-op resuscitates the experience. By removing set pieces and
forced plot, Syndicate dilutes into pure action -- and that's where it thrives.
The scoring system, unlock tree with more options than the single-player
campaign, and replayability elect co-op as the better half of Syndicate's
package. Across nine missions, split between normal, hard, and the unlockable
expert difficulty, Syndicate feels similar to Left 4 Dead, a classic in the
co-op game space. Not only do safe rooms full of ammo stagger the action, but
without working together there's no way to tackle the futuristic forces of
evil. The challenge of these missions supersedes the unbalanced single-player
campaign, making replays worthwhile and satisfying.
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You are Alex Mercer. What exactly that means is
initially unclear because this is a man who has lost his memory, but awoken in
a morgue to a world in which he possesses untold power. A viral outbreak has
claimed Manhattan, forcing the island into a military quarantine. The infected
citizens are undergoing radical, monstrous changes -- none more drastic than Alex
himself. This anti-hero finds himself with the ability to shape shift and
absorb other beings. As the most powerful being on a closed island, the entire
city is your playground. And it is a game world that feels unfinished.
Prototype is a single player,
open-world action game in the style of Crackdown or The Incredible Hulk:
Ultimate Destruction. You play as a man gifted with superhuman powers and the
option to go most anywhere you like and do most anything you want once you get
there. It's sandbox gaming with a heavy focus on pure action.
Though you play as a man bestowed with superhero
power, Mercer is anything but heroic. There are no moral choices here. Mercer has
vowed to destroy those responsible for his current situation and he has the
means to do it. To gain new powers or refill your health bar, you'll literally
absorb other living beings. Find yourself a little low on hit points and you
can simply grab an innocent bystander, crush his or her head, and then consume
them for a quick boost. If you find yourself in a pinch with attack choppers
chasing you through the roads, you can absorb a person and morph into their
likeness to blend in with the crowd.
As you work your way through the game you'll unlock
new and ever more exotic powers. There's an air dash and a glide move that help
you quickly travel from one side of Manhattan to the other. There's a massive
elbow drop that can destroy a tank in one hit. There's even a whiplash arm that
can be used to latch onto passing helicopters to hijack them, Just Cause style.
These moves give Prototype its personality. These are what set it apart from
most other sandbox games and make it worth a look. Sure there are a few guns to
fire and some tanks you can drive around, but the real draw here is the fact
that you can turn your arm into a giant blade and then dice monsters with it.
Or, if you're a bit twisted, the draw is the fact that you can grab a person by
the neck and simply run across the city with their flailing body in tow.
But how long can you do flying elbow drops onto tanks
or throw people off of rooftops before it gets boring? The world itself here is
far from the most engaging...
The answer to that will vary by the player, but
obviously messing around with the powers isn't all there is to do in Prototype.
The storyline involves 31 missions including everything from simple seek and
destroy affairs to stealthy infiltrations to escort missions and massive boss
battles. Most of these missions are standard in design. In fact, if you've
played many open-world games, you've probably played identical copies of these
in the past. And since repetition is oftentimes the name of the game here, you
can be sure you'll be doing uninspired tasks over and over again.
Quite often Prototype follows the design philosophy of
everythingand the kitchen sink. Instead of fighting a few enemies, the
game tosses dozens upon dozens at you. Then it throws in a few tanks and helicopters
as well as a couple dozen innocent bystanders for good measure. It's a design
that creates a lot of tension, though I found the action too chaotic at times.
Even the policing system is dialed to the max and too aggressive. You can't do
something as simple as run through the city while leaping off of buildings
without alerting the Strike Teams, at which point you're forced into some shape
shifting or combat. This can make the basic act of exploration more work than
it should be. There is very little downtime to counteract the high stress of
the missions.
Prototype's design leans heavily on the fact that you
can refill your health by consuming victims at any time. Some attacks can drain
half of your health bar or more. Others juggle you in the air leaving you open
to frustrating combos from enemies. And sometimes you'll think you've dodged an
attack only to get hit a few feet away anyway. But it's OK, because you can
always go get more health, right? Not really. The action heavy sequences
involve barely surviving to the next checkpoint or running in and out of the
action ad nausea trying to stay alive. Skilled players won't have too much
trouble, but Prototype's chaos could quickly become overwhelming for others. I
found several points of the game to be unnecessarily aggravating to the point
where I would have turned Prototype off and walked away if I weren't reviewing
it.
Alongside the main quest is a set of side missions
called events to tackle at your discretion. Beat them and you earn some Evolve
Points (EP) used to upgrade Mercer's powers. Radical smartly hands out EP like
candy. Complete just a mission or two and you'll quickly find yourself spending
EP to grab new powers and abilities early and often. It's hard to stop playing
when you know you'll get a new move by making it through just one more
mission.
Unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot of variety in
these events and I often found myself wishing they made better use of Mercer's
vast array of powers. Those included here are dominated by things like
checkpoint races and killing sprees -- things that have been done so often as
side missions in games like this that they're hardly worth mentioning. It's
cookie cutter game design at this point. There is one exception: A mission that
tasks the player with gliding long distances towards a bulls-eye. Why aren't
there more imaginative events like this? You can throw a person hundreds of
yards. Why not include some sort of shot-put event? There was a real
opportunity to get creative here, but instead too many of the side missions
directly mirror the mindless killing or limited stealth of the main game.
More interesting than the halfhearted side events are
the undirected diversions. These don't pop up on your city map and aren't
missions in a traditional sense. These diversions merely exist within the world
-- even while playing through one of the main missions -- for you to tackle.
The concept of collectibles has been extended to what's called the Web of
Intrigue. These are people that, by being hunted down and consumed, reveal
splintered visions of the infection's history. They're slick and wonderfully
tantalizing -- little in Prototype is more exhilarating than being in the midst of
a tough mission only to see one of these targets stroll by.
There are a couple of other diversions that I found
interesting, as well, including army bases that must be stealthily infiltrated
to score weapon and skill upgrades. It's through these that you can even unlock
the ability to call in airstrikes. I quickly had this skill maxed out --
infiltrating the bases is pretty darn fun -- only to learn that the airstrikes
look rather poor. Which brings us to one of the biggest problems with
Prototype.
Even while confined to a relatively small game world
-- Manhattan is not recreated to scale -- Prototype manages to have visuals
that range from bland to downright ugly. The only real savior is the smooth
animations which do a great job towards making Mercer's powers feel real.
Running up the side of a building, doing a flip over a railing, and then
leaping off into a charged drop attack just feels cool.
Unfortunately, there's the rest. The blandness is seen
throughout in a city recreated with few landmarks and instead filled with
generic, lifeless buildings. It's seen in the drab color palette. And it's seen
in a city filled with what appears to be a dozen or so identical clones all
wandering the streets together. Just climb a building or get in a helicopter
and look out at the skyline to get an eyeful of Prototype's ugliness. The draw
distance in Prototype is atrocious. Move quickly along the building tops and
trees, bushes, cars and other structures pop in and out as the game struggles
to draw them. Everything else is shrouded in an ugly fog. In a game where you
spend much of the time pouncing from one roof to the next, this ugliness is
felt throughout.
It isn't just the streaming world that suffers in the
looks department. Aside from specific infected buildings, no structural damage
can be done. You can't even knock over billboards. And when you do take down
the few buildings you're allowed to damage, the resulting explosion is
laughably bad. All of the real chaos you can create is limited to vehicles and
passing pedestrians. Your cool powers don't feel quite so cool when you can't
even break a window by throwing a tank at it.
These technical issues are so severe that they do in
fact impact the game's ebb and flow. There are 250 orbs scattered throughout
Manhattan for you to collect. Unfortunately, you oftentimes can't see them
until you are literally on top of them. The game engine fails to draw them at
any meaningful distance. You can be across a street and not know that you're
within 20 yards of one of these orbs. Without any other ways to find them --
there are no maps or sound indicators -- tracking down all of the orbs is less
fun than it is chore.
It seems Prototype's developers didn't know when to
say when. Tons of enemies are tossed into the mix, and so the visuals suffer
and the gameplay occasionally becomes too chaotic and unfocused. Some cutscenes
feel out of place and pointless while others are well done. Nobody ever put the
finishing touches on Prototype to tidy it up and make it fully
presentable.
Prototype runs smoothly with all of the settings maxed
out on our machine (Core 2 Quad, 2GB RAM, Nvidia 8800 GTX), though the only
improvement in visuals you get over the consoles comes from it running at a
higher resolution. The same draw distance and oftentimes ugly textures remain.
Prototype is playable either with a controller plugged in using the default
console layout or with your own custom keyboard mapping. The keyboard controls
work surprisingly well for a game that was initially designed for a console.
You would be forgiven for saying you've had your fill of tower defense games. The past couple years has seen a flood of these strategy clones filling casual portals like the iPhone and PC. But you know who might be able to bring you back: the people that brought you Peggle. PopCap, one of the best casual developers and publishers around, has delivered Plants vs. Zombies, its first tower defense game. While it uses the basic mechanics of all efforts in this genre, it boasts charm, personality, and gobs of gameplay variety. The result is another addictive experience that will appeal to all walks of gamers.
Zombies are creeping on your lawn, and your garden is your last line of defense against these brain-crazy cannibals. You have some pretty peculiar (but useful) plants at your disposal, including pea shooters that spit green balls at the undead, hot tamales that burn everything in their path, and Venus zombie traps. By planting various seeds in strategic locations around your lawn you may be able to hold off the onslaught and keep them from entering your house and eating your brain.
Unlike many tower defense games there isn't a winding path the zombies follow towards your home. The yard is divided into six rows and zombies shuffle in fairly orderly. They won't cross over into other lanes but you will find multiple bodies coming in on one row. It's a very simple concept and, in fact, when you first playPlants vs. Zombies you may find it to be too laid back; too easy. But the real draw here is the incredible variety of plants (towers) and zombies. There are 48 kinds of plants with numerous offensive, defensive, and production capabilities, and 26 different zombies. Completing each level in the game will unlock a new plant or item to add to your arsenal. These constant rewards really keep you involved and will have you saying "just one more level" long after you initially thought there wasn't much to the game.
At the start of each round you can pick which seeds to take into battle. You only have a limited amount of slots in your inventory, although you can increase your stash over time. With such an assortment of abilities and resource demands, half the battle is in picking effective weapons. The array of choices means you can customize your strategy and confront the undead on your own terms.
There is also a wide variety of gameplay styles. Some levels take place during the day and some at night, which has a large effect on what plants are available to you, how you harvest sunlight (your resources), and what environmental obstacles you encounter. Interspersed among the regular levels are more arcade-like variations on the tower defense formula. You may lose the ability to select plants and instead deal with pre-selected weapons that come down a conveyor belt. Or you may be presented with a lawn full of vases waiting to be smashed – some hiding treasure, some zombies. There are even fun mini-games, a survival mode, and puzzles that let you play as the zombies. You can't go more than a few minutes with this game without discovering something new and delightful.
Adding to the game's charm is the cast of zombies, ranging from dancing Michael Jackson types straight out of the Thriller music video to aquatic zombies that ride dolphins (you have a pool in the backyard). The undead are amusingly animated and the game looks great in action. These aren't your gruesome Left 4 Dead or Resident Evil zombies. This is a zombie game for the whole family (never thought I'd say that).
Plants vs. Zombies also has a catchy, organic soundtrack that becomes more intense as your yard is flooded with enemies. The light voice acting gives the undead character as they lurch toward your house grunting and moaning for brains.
Age of Empires III offers gamers the next level of realism, with advanced battle physics and unparalleled visual detail.
Age of Empires III excites strategy gamers with new game play elements, including the concept of a "Home City", new civilizations, units, technologies and an immersive new single-player campaign that will span three generations.
