Single Player

Everyone must know by now exactly what they are getting themselves into with this series. Modern Warfare 3 is every bit as Call of Duty as the previous entries in the series, so don’t go in expecting a revolution. It’s a totally competent shooter. The mechanics have been defined and redefined to the point of insanity. The campaign is what you’d expect (a reoccurring theme in my review). It picks up right MW2, with Price and Soap on the run from everyone and Makarov still at large while mother Russia and the US duke it out on American soil.

Like every Call of Duty game, you will control multiple characters as you progress through a 4-5 hour campaign packed with more explosions then Micheal Bay could shake a stick at. I think the number of helicopters shot down in this game might reach triple digits, a franchise first I’m sure. Throw in some sneaking/sniper missions, a dash of controversial cut-scenes, a gratuitous amount of turret segments and voila. You’re going to shoot a ton of Russians, some guys who aren’t Russians and probably have a perfectly fine time doing so. But maybe like me, you just don’t feel the wow factor anymore. So that’s where we stand. It was fun in COD4 and has become less so every iteration after that leading up to now. Waiting at doors for the guy with “follow” written above his head to come knock them down is just about the lamest feeling in gaming. How can I be impressed with a game when I literally recognized reused building from COD4, a game that came out four years ago. In no way is it a bad game, but it’s certainly an old game filled with tired mechanics.

It must be a depressing place inside the brainstorming sessions for the Call of Duty games, seeing as how the franchise is creatively dead. If I have to crawl my way out of another downed helicopter while my screen blurs and my characters breathes heavily, I think I might scream. And this isn’t a “once a game” type thing, that type of scenario literally happens at least a dozen times in this game. It’s a mechanic from Call of Duty 2 that remains rampant and unchanged. I think it’s a truly fitting way to start the game actually. It let me know right off that bat that nothing has changed and I’m in for the same exact experience as last fall. I’d like to be a fly on the wall of the design meetings for this game. I bet it gets pretty quiet after the ideas for turret segments and planting c4 are already written down on the whiteboard. It’s moment of high drama in the conference room as the team appears to be all out of ideas until Johnson stands and says “Could we put guys with RPG’s in those windows?”. Heads nod and pens click. Suddenly Susan speaks up “We could do a slow-motion breach and clear section!”. Uproarious applause and the creative ball is once again rolling.

I’ll bet the guy who suggested a new game engine was boo’d out of the room, and this game really needs it. The franchise has screeched it’s way to a stop when it comes to visual improvement. I know I could pass this game off as Modern Warfare 2 to an unsuspecting 3rd party. I bet I could squeeze in some COD4 footage as well and it would go unnoticed. It’s the same engine as Call of Duty 2, and unlike the Source Engine or Unreal 3, this one seems to have hit its ceiling pretty early on. It’s rather depressing to compare Modern Warfare 3′s visuals with something like a Crysis 2 or Battlefield 3. It’s cliche to say, but they make Call of Duty look like a last generation game.

Co-Op

My favorite part of this game by far. While still limited to 2 people (LAME), Spec Ops makes its return. They have added some level progression to the co-op as well as a new survival mode. Basically it’s the Modern Warfare version of Gears Horde Mode. Increasingly difficult enemies come and try to kill you, and you do your best to kill them first. Earn money by making kills to spend on weapon upgrades and such. Call in some help from the air, set up turrets…basically do everything to stay alive. It’s a real shame this is still limited to 2 people, because it might be a ton more fun with a larger group.

The Spec Ops Missions are also some of the best parts of this game. Little bite sized missions, they strip away a lot of the annoying parts of the campaign in favor of the good stuff. Hop online with a friend or go at them yourself. This missions sometimes have interesting connections to the singleplayer story, often putting you in the other shoes for some of the games intense sections. A nice addition,

Multiplayer

This is probably what you bought the game for. COD4 invented it, MW2 refined it….and MW3 rearranged it. Oh sure, they added a few new perks and kill streaks, but really it’s almost exactly like the last game. Now you also earn points on your weapons and that’s how you unlock new sights and attachments, but that’s not a new feature. That’s a different way of handling an old feature. Opening the box of crackers from the bottom is not a new and creative way of opening cracker boxes, nor does it change the payoff.

So I set up your class just the way I like it. Picking my specific perks and kill streaks…boy, this all seems awfully familiar. Ohh, now I can choose to be a support class whose streak isn’t stopped by dying, OOHH well then it’s a brand new game with brand new gameplay! Please. But people eat it up and spend hours and hours running about the same small maps planting claymores and hiding in corners protecting kill streaks. No, the environment still isn’t destructible so every match pretty much plays the exact way and vehicles are still a no show. Tactics be damned this game is still just a lone-wolf sprint fest. The high point of tactics in Call of Duty is multiple people all laying prone by the same flag to capture it faster. That’s where it pretty much ends. Either run around and shoot people in the back, or camp in a spot and shoot the guys who are running around in the back. Level up to 50 or 60 of whatever this years caps is and prestige if you want, go ahead. Predator missiles, care packages..it’s all here folks. It was fun 4 years ago, but after playing a lot of Battlefield 3…it feels ancient. I’m sure tons of people will still play endless hours of MW3′s mutliplayer and love every second of it, but I’ve grown tired of it. After playing it for the review, I don’t ever see myself going back for more.

Nothing new to see here.

Final Thoughts

I’ve heard the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. By that definition I am completely out of my mind. I play Call of Duty games expecting a new experience, what a nutter I must be. You would also have to insane to expect anything different. They don’t have any pressure to change anything. Most reviewers seem to be caught in some sort of trance where they throw 9′s and 10′s at anything with Call of Duty in the title. I don’t get it, especially when the same reviewers crucify the Madden franchise for it’s minimal improvements. It’s not an awful game by any standard and it sells like crack, so why bother? People go so ga-ga over the multiplayer, they will subscribe to a service called Elite to get gameplay stats, a feature that respectable games include for free. Now that’s insane.

To be frank, it’s not going to blow you away visually. The production values aren’t going to win awards, but all together they are passable.  In a world with Civilization 5 and Starcraft 2, the less then amazing visuals become a bit of a sticking point. Not being a particularly savvy RTS player, the game spun my head around to start, then slowly lulled me into a sleepy state of tedium. The false alliances and never really knowing if my troops are actually on my team does create some intrigue and that’s probably the games high point. It’s a shame that it can’t keep up that level of creativity for long.

It might actually be too true to the fiction. The show and the game both kind of play like chess as some points. Making underhanded moves during peacetime to further advance your house is a feature both in the show and in the game. Sending in envoy’s to help convince a neutral town to get on board only to run into an enemy spy or an assassin or…. it goes on and on. I understand there is a lot of strategy to be had in peacetime which can help you conquer you enemy through diplomacy. The problem I have is that it isn’t very fun. If you’re like me, when things go awry in the political world, it’s time to draw your sword. Prepare for generic and boring combat. The payoff you were waiting for after all the political swagger, is a real letdown. Some really bad camera controls and interface issues do nothing to help this games cause. You’d hope an RTS would have both of those things locked down, and not creating frustration for the player.

I think what you have here, is a really ambitious idea falling short. I wouldn’t say it was a complete face-plant, but it definitively missed it’s mark. The worst thing you can say about a video game is that you didn’t have fun playing it, and that’s sort of how I feel about Genesis. All the underhanded political positioning can get results, but it’s tedious to an unpleasant degree. I wish I could say that the actual warfare made up for the snails pace segments, but it just doesn’t. The interface being confusing compiled the problems. The game really tries its damnedest to teach you, but I admit my mind has a tendency to stay while playing video games. Basically the game wants to sit you down and explain every little thing over a very long period of time, they call it the campaign.

Some of the best parts of Genesis happen in the mutliplayer. House vs House is an interesting mode that just might suck you in. Although, finding anyone to play with might be a challenge. Stark vs Lannister in House vs House is closer to what you were hoping for, but still falls into some of the same pits as the singleplayer.

In Closing

I don’t know who I can recommend this game too, other then serious RTS players who for some reason, don’t like Civilzation 5 or Starcraft 2. That’s probably a seriously small group of people. Maybe if you live and breathe Game of Thrones and you’ve memorized the books and need something to hold you over till the next season starts, then this game could be for you. The game does have good ideas and with more time in the cooker or a bigger team, maybe we could have had something special.

Every game has flaws and Arkham City is no different. I could definitely use with a few less gadgets clogging up my d-pad as one example. Also, I enjoyed the Riddler trophies in Arkham Asylum as much as the next guy, maybe more, but sheesh. Arkham City has Riddler trophies virtually everywhere you look. They clog up the map later in the game and once you realize the sheer volume of challenges, you might just throw in the towel like I did. Luckily that’s all an optional part of Arkham City. The actual story line is entertaining and roles along at a nice clip, while throwing curve balls and twists at every chance.

The games very premise is bound to cause some head scratching to those not brainwashed by comic book clichés. In response to Arkham Asylum’s shortcomings, a large chunk of Gotham is simply walled off and filled with criminals. Through some weak exposition this is explained away as the due course of things with some shady people doing shady dealings. Murderers walk the streets (fully armed a lot of the time) in this criminal city and do as they please. Apparently this was such a botch job that the city didn’t even manage to empty the banks or museums inside the walls before handing them over. Seems like a recipe for disaster. I mean, Jokers hiding out in a fully functioning steel mill. Let’s cross out fingers he doesn’t use that steel mill for nefarious reasons, like building something to help him escape. Actually thinking about it, Arkham City backs right up onto the water, let’s hope none of the criminals can swim. What about the people who lived in those buildings before the (awful) decision to create Arkham City? Free apartments for them in metropolis? The more I think about it, the more insane it becomes. Ah, but I digress. It’s a little wonky, but it is a game about Batman, so I can forgive it.

While these riddler side missions might not be great, some of the other optional content is fantastic. Tons of notable characters from the Batman universe make appearances in fun and unique ways. It’s a shame to think that you could complete this game and see credits, without even exploring most of the world. I only had 27% completion when I watched the credits role. A lot of that is due to the Riddler challenges, but not all of it. Bane and Deadshot are some examples of characters you could completely miss if you don’t pay attentions and explore the world. The voice talent is also back for Arkham City. Mark Hamill’s joker is still the best of all time and Kevin Conroy was the Batman of my childhood, so it feels right. Even though the game features a heavy dose of Nolan North, it’s still top notch work. Mr. Freeze’s voice was particularly chilling…pun intended.

The basic gameplay remains the same from the first game, but with more polish. No other game does simplistic fighting as awesome as Arkham City. It’s visually stunning, a ton of fun and just makes so much sense. It’s easy to get the hang of, but mastering it as an art form will take some dedication. Countering, getting a combo going with critical strikes…it really is a symphony of pain when done properly. On the other hand, armed guards will still ruin your day. Luckily Batman is very capable at delivering two kinds of ass kickings. There are the kind you see coming…and the kind you don’t. Use all your gadgets to dispatch of rooms full of machine gun totting thugs, or glide from gargoyle to gargoyle (if they are available) and pick them off with glide kicks. This is when the game lets you decide how to play, offering a ton of different options.

All the challenge rooms are back from the first game, so you will plenty to do once the story is over. Predator rooms or large fighting arenas will push your skills to the absolute max. Also, with lots of DLC available now and in the future, you will want to come back again and knock some heads together as other characters in the not to distant future.

In Closing

Buy this game.

30 Second Review

(+) Playing as different aerial units provides fun break from standard dog fighting.
(+) Battle sound effects do a great job making it feel like a real sky battle.
(+) Dog Fights can provide brief moments of satisfaction.
(-) AI teammates are useless most of the time.
(-) Dog Fighting Mode and other gameplay mechanics become very repetitive.
(-) Constantly being reminded you’re not in control makes it feel more like a movie than a game.

The Story

All locations are based in real locations and are constructed beautifully.

The story for AH is your typical plain Jane war story. Rogue Russians with a bad attitude and personal vendetta for USA want to play war and kill just about everyone. You follow a U.N. Task Force team comprised of several different squadrons, but the majority of the game focuses on the main protagonist, Lieutenant Colonel William Bishop (Call sign: Warwolf 1). While most of the game is spent playing as Bishop, you do get the chance to see and play as the other squadron members. One mission you’ll fly gunner seat of a black hawk, the next you’ll be piloting an apache helicopter covering a ground troop invasion.

The story is set in real world locations which is a change from the usual Ace Combat formula. Previous Ace Combat games have always taken place in fictional locations and are usually farther into the future. In AH you’ll fly over places such as Dubai, Miami, Moscow, and Washington D.C. The details to both the planes and levels are done very well but while it is really cool to fly through the couple of sky scrapers of Miami, most of the action will take place in the extremely open skies above and not serve much of an obstacle while flying making these locations feel more like scenery than actual parts of the level.

Gameplay

Dog Fighting Mode will get you up close and personal.

The gameplay is filled with huge explosions and heavy combat every step of the way. While this sounds impressive at first, the explosive action becomes so standard it eventually fizzles out. One new feature to the game is the Dog Fighting Mode (DFM). While flying your jet, you can get behind an enemy and initiate the new mode. This will lock your plane in a zoomed in “on-the-rails” style dog fight (you will have to move and adjust your speed somewhat to keep on your targets six, but for the most part it’s on rails). Be wary though, the hunter can easily become the hunted! Enemies can start a DFM with you forcing you to try to out maneuver them. Get into the right position and you can initiate another quick time event that will place your plane behind your pursuer. Pulling off one of these moves and then lighting them up with a rocket is immensely satisfying and gave me a smile almost every time I pulled it off. However, the game relies too heavily upon this mechanic and soon almost every battle becomes about entering DFM mode whether you’re targeting a Mig-6, Bomber plane on a bombing run, or a cruise missile. You can always try making things more challenging by not using DFM, but the game seems to discourage this since enemies are loaded with unlimited flares and are extremely hard to target with your gun outside of DFM mode.  

It is this concept of making players do the same thing over and over again that seems to drag down the entire game. While the game is filled with variety of planes to choose, different modes to play, and various objectives to accomplish, everything seems to boil down to a “rinse-and-repeat” format. Flying a helicopter may be very different than a plane, but in the end it is basically the same concept. Additionally, the first half of the game suffers from pacing issues and the missions tend to drag on a little too long. It’s cool to sit as an invincible gunner in a black hawk and mow down targets for a little while, but not for 15 minutes straight. There is a reason popular FPS games only have you do something like this for two to five minutes. Luckily the pacing does improve after the first half but you still find yourself doing the same thing…over…and over…and over.

I find listening to 80's music helps improve my flight skills.

Finally, I want to address the fact that this game does a terrible job at trying to give you the illusion that you are in control and that your skill actually matters. The game plays more as a cinematic movie, moving from one big explosion to the next, rather than playing as a game. During cut scenes, you’ll have moments where you’re watching the scene and are suddenly prompted into an out of place single button quick time event. Not only does this take you out of the game (several times I had placed my controller down thinking it was the end of the level), but you aren’t rewarded with grand spectacles or death defying feats. Instead you are rewarded with events like (and not even joking) pumping your fist into the air.

Even more frustrating are moments where the rules of the game change and you’re not told. You can be the best ace pilot in the skies and shoot a dozen rockets into an enemy aircraft but the aircraft won’t die. Why? So they can take you into a cinematic sequence of your enemy crashing kamikaze style into a ship. Not once but three times. No matter how good or how much damage you inflict, those planes will crash into that ship. I’d rather just have the game go to a cut scene. You’ll find moments like these all throughout the game and like the quick time events make you feel detached from the game rather than immersed.

These moments combined with almost every action in the game being turned into an “on-rails” moment make you feel like you’re in a theme park watching a video of a roller coaster instead of actually riding one.

Multiplayer

The game offers a very wide range of colors to customize your bird in the sky. May I suggest Hot Pink?

The saving grace of this game lies in the multiplayer. This is where the fun really takes off. Multiplayer offers several different modes and styles guaranteed to please almost everyone. If you’re looking for competitive play, you have your standard “Deathmatch” where it’s every pilot for themselves. Entering into DFM here is fun and exhilarating since actual humans tend to be more unpredictable and more of a challenge. “Capital Conquest” is another mode which puts you onto one of two teams and you must work as a team to acquire points on the map and take out your enemy’s base. Here you can choose from almost all vehicle types including fighter pilots, bombers, and helicopters. Each vehicle has its strength and weakness and adds an excellent level of strategy to the game. “Domination” is your standard “King of the Hill” game for planes and is equally as fun as the other modes. Finally, “Co-op Mode” allows up to three of your friends to join you on eight modified mission campaigns. Enemies here have increased difficulty and provide more of a challenge for you and your friends.

Final Verdict

Overall, it seems this game is trying too hard to be a First Person Shooter in the air. It’s not a bad idea but wasn’t well implemented. The mechanics and concepts they tried putting into the game just don’t’ stick and make an air combat game feel very clunky and out of place. In the end, this game seems to be one big roller coaster of big and flashy explosions but little substance behind it. This isn’t saying it’s a terrible game. If you’re the type that enjoys the big explosions and the high speed chase scenes and don’t mind doing repetitive actions again and again, then you may enjoy the overall experience. But those looking for deeper, more involved action may find it best to overlook this game for now.

The best way that I can describe Beat Hazard Ultra is to take Super Stardust HD, put all your favorite dance/electro/dubstep music behind it and put thousands of music strobing lights on the screen at the same time.

When I first looked at a gameplay video of this game I couldn’t even keep track of what was going on, but soon after I downloaded it, I was already playing on Suicidal and it was pure fun!

Overall, graphics-wise I would say that it was pretty well done. I would have liked to see a little more detail on the various ships and bosses, but by no means does this deter me from playing Beat Hazard Ultra.

One thing that did draw me into this game was the fact that you could import your own music and Beat Hazard Ultra would create a level based off of your songs. As far as I could tell, it seemed to be unique for every song that I imported, so it didn’t get repetitive.

Also, as most of you know, I’m a huge multiplayer fan and I was extremely pleased to know that Beat Hazard Ultra supported multiplayer and not only on the same console, but it also has online multiplayer capabilities!

Overall, if I could improve one thing on this game, I would probably put a higher difficulty mode on it. I found that even though Suicidal Game Mode was by no means easy, I was able to jump right into it after just a few play-throughs on some of the lower difficulty settings.

One other thing that could possibly improve or destroy this game, would be to add the 3-D world around it, such as in Super Stardust HD. I think this would allow for a lot more difficulty and also an even more insane user experience regarding all the things that could be done with the strobing effects.

After all this being taken into consideration, I believe that if you love music and you’re a gamer, Beat Hazard Ultra is worth looking into. Not only do you have the option of playing through to beat your high scores, but there is an infinite mode, where you can just relax and listen to your music and destroy thousands and thousands of spaceships and asteroids coming from every direction without the pressure of trying not to die.

Bike Baron is proof that developers really want to sell games at that $0.99 price point. This game is a steal. With 44 levels spanning 4 difficulties you’ll be able to invest a decent amount of time into this game. There is also a track creator which is a great addition. The track creator is very easy to use which is a breath of fresh air because most level-creators on iPhone aren’t very user-friendly. To download and play user-created levels you have to go to TheBikeBaron.com and get a 4-digit code for the level you want to download. To play the track I created (nothing special) use the code ABVN. I’ve listed some of the current top tracks below:

AMBF – Goro 2 – by peta44
AMBD – Up and Down – by FILIPSN007
ABMO – Insane – by FILIPSN007
ABMP – Ooooooo 001 – by oooooomonkey
ABMU – Simple Northshore – (no gc)

I’m not sure why there is no interface to browse and vote on tracks but for right now that’s how it has to be done. As far as graphics go Bike Baron looks great and is super polished.

Like I said, it’s a steal at $0.99 and I highly recommend it to anyone. Hopefully we’ll see some updates in the future.

Anyone who has played Flower knows exactly what I mean. The gameplay is not what made so many people a fan of that game. After all, using the six access controls to move the breeze around never really felt extremely crisp, at least not to me. I didn’t care, however, as the art and styling of the levels kept me coming back for more.

Eufloria is that type of game. Simple yet beautiful art work and great atmospheric music make it easy to lose yourself in its simplistic design. I just never thought I’d be saying that about an RTS.

Real Time Strategy Meets Relaxation

No, you did not read that wrong. Eufloria is a Real Time Strategy game. That is not the kind of game you generally think about when you think of ambient atmospheres,but that is just what you have here. The game is the PSN version of the indie PC game Dyson with expanded levels and music. Question is, how in the world do you create a relaxing RTS?

Eufloria is a very artistic game. You can easily get lost in the art and music.

You start with a deceptively simple premise: you control a group of seedlings, or organic ships, which are trying to colonize asteroids. In order to form colonies, if you want to call them that, you must sacrifice ten seedling ships to create Dyson trees, which will in turn create more seedlings. As these seedlings form, you are given the option to move on to the next asteroid or plant more trees on the current one, up to the maximum limit. Capturing more asteroids will not only give you more chances to build your fleet of seedlings, it will also give you access to more distant asteroids, as your seedlings can only fly so far without being able to slingshot off another asteroid. In most levels, you advance once you control all the asteroids in the level.

It does not take long, however, before you begin to run into resistance. Your first battles will be with the grays, seedlings which have seemed to lose their way and now attack you. As you progress, you will run across enemy seedlings as well, and defeating them will unlock all sorts of new abilities for you, including the ability to create defensive trees and plant beacon plants which can automatically direct newly created seedlings from one asteroid to travel to another.

So you have the basics for an RTS, but where does the relaxation come in? Well, the first thing you will notice is the art style is not what you would generally expect from a game of this genre. The graphics actually take on an artistic appeal which is, for lack of a better way to put it, easy on the eyes. As you continue to colonize an area and build your forces, you will not be able to ignore how fluid and downright elegant everything is. The music just adds to this overall relaxing feel, presenting an ambient, almost soothing atmosphere in which it becomes rather easy to lose yourself as a gamer. I have passed many a stage with no clue of how long I took beating it until I saw the time tally at the end.

So, if Eufloria works so hard to be such an atmospheric experience, it must not be that deep of an RTS, right? Well, while it will not rival the intense strategy of StarCraft or challenge the very way you look at the genre like Achron, you will find there is a little more to this game then meets the eye.

Hidden Depth

I have seen some reviews of Eufloria in which the writer states all you have to do to win each confrontation is build overwhelming numbers of seedlings and perform what would be this game’s equivalent of the StarCraft “Zerg rush.” While this is not entirely untrue, it is unfair to paint that as the only strategy for beating the game.

This particular asteroid is high in strength and speed. You could choose to increase its energy by sacrificing up to 100 seedlings.

Not long into the storyline, you will run across seedlings which are really difficult to overcome. The reason for this is seedlings will take on the characteristics of the asteroid from which they are grown. Each asteroid is rated on three different attributes: energy, strength and speed. Energy determines the health a seedling has, strength the amount of damage it can do and speed how fast it can move. Well, when you are trying to attack several seedlings which have high strength and energy, you can find yourself loosing even if you do severely outnumber the enemy.

So how do you combat this? One way is choosing just what seedlings you send into battle. When you select an asteroid from which you will launch your forces, you can choose to send primarily those with greater strength, energy or speed, making it easier to choose the proper attackers for the proper job. Another way is to try an capture better asteroids so you can build stronger fleets of seedlings. As each asteroid has a cap of seedlings it will produce (set to ten times the number of trees which can be planted on it), you can choose to mass forces on weaker asteroids so you can make sure to have your stronger ones continue to produce units.

There is one other thing you can do once you unlock the ability. At the cost of seedlings, you can “teraform” and asteroid to increase one of its attributes. For example, if you have an asteroid which has high strength and speed but low energy, you can plant a flower to change the asteroid and sacrifice up to 100 seedlings to improve that attribute, meaning the seedlings grown from that asteroid will be truly formidable.

This is just the start. As you gain more abilities, you will have flowers you can pluck from your Dyson trees which can create either Dyson or defensive trees and ones you can pluck from the defensive trees to form mines (think orbital defense platforms as opposed to what we would normally think of as mines). These give you even more options to use in your conquest.

So you have a decently deep RTS combined with ambient atmosphere to create something truly unique in gaming. Only one question remains.

Does It Work?

Eufloria attempts to do something which, to the best of my knowledge, has not been done before: create a real time strategy game which is as relaxing as it is deep. So does it succeed?

The short answer would be yes, though not entirely. While it is true that there is a fair amount of strategy buried in the game, it is also true that the “Zerg rush” tactic generally works best. Granted, you cannot just rely on overwhelming numbers; some levels will require you to be very intentional in both how you divide your forces and what asteroids you choose to claim first, but in the end you will find yourself more often than not relying on having more seedlings than the enemy can deal with.

That being said, Eufloria manages to be a great palate cleanser. If you are looking for a game unlike any you have played recently to kind of break up the monotony, you will probably find this one fits the bill. Add the skirmish levels and a much more difficult dark matter level which you can unlock, and you will find more than enough here to justify the purchase. Eufloria gets a 4 out of 5.

The Story

Admittedly, this is not a story driven game, but I certainly admire the details that Robot Entertainment has placed in the game.  There’s even a digital prequel comic, available for free here, if you are interested in the backstory of the game.  Long ago the world was invaded by the Orc Mob, entering through the Rift they decimated our world, pillaging and burning everything in their path, until the Order was finally able to push them back.  With control restored, the Order constructed fortresses of deathtraps around the Rift locations in the Orc world, to prevent the Orc Mob from repeating their onslaught on the humans.  After your mentor meets a clumsy and tragic end, you step into the shoes of one of the Order’s War Mages–apparently the last one that the Order wants charged with saving the human race.  The growing numbers of the Orc Mob are pressing in on a large scale assault and trying to penetrate the Rift Gates of the Order.  It is the War Mages that are charged with using all of their weapons and spell skills, and an array of Prince of Persia style traps, to prevent the Mob from crossing into the Rift Gates and sealing the fate of the human race.  Your War Mage has all the tact and intellect of a college fraternity throwaway, but with many War Mages fallen around him, he is one of the last chances the Order has to stop the rushing Orcs.  It is a tough challenge for the rarely serious and clumsy War Mage, but this could be your chance to thwart the naysayers and carve a name for yourself in the blood and corpses of the Orc Mob you must stop.  I won’t spoil anything, but there are some interesting story twists and a clever ending to the game.

The Gameplay

As the War Mage, you find yourself in a simple fortress consisting of a single straight hallway.  You grab your crossbow and spear sword, and a couple of simple traps and take a few minutes to plan your defense, before triggering the oncoming Orc horde.  Each level will get slightly more complicated add add a few more goodies to your bag of tricks, but they all revolve around using strategy and your arsenal to allow as few Orcs as possible to pass through the Rift.  Orc death earns you coins, with bonuses given for kill streaks and headshots.  These coins are then traded in to place traps within the level to help thin the Orc Mob numbers and aid you in preventing them from reaching the Rift.  The gameplay feels like the lovechild of Torchlight, Prince of Persia and Wile E. Coyote–and it’s insanely addicting.  Each fortress level tasks you with fending off around 9 waves of Orcs, and, depending on the level, you get a couple breaks in the action to place more traps and take advantage of choke points in the level.  Traps start out simple with spike floor traps and tar pits that slow the advancing Mob, and grow to wall blades, arrow walls and, a personal favorite, spring loaded floor traps that can hurl unsuspecting Orcs into lava, acid or other hazards.  Depending on which of three difficulty levels you play on, you can earn a number of skulls for a good performance in a level, that are used to trade for upgrades to your traps and weapons.  Progress a bit further in the game and you will meet the Weavers, skilled mages who lack the skillsets of the War Mages, but provide fantastic support abilities to make your weapons and traps more effective at leveling the Mob.  The levels slowly grow in size and challenge, and there is a fair bit of replay value attempting to top your friends’ leaderboard scores or master a level at a harder difficulty.

The Verdict

Genocide should never be this much fun–but it is.  I almost feel dirty extracting insane amounts of pleasure from slaughtering the Orcs within the levels, but Robot Entertainment has found the perfect balance of challenge and pleasure.  Orcs Must Die! makes a habit of throwing you a curve ball, every time you think you have discovered a useful tactic.  Other times you will unlock expensive new traps that may not be as effective as your tride and true cheaper alternatives.  Still, no matter how many times you are forced to rethink your plan of attack, the game stays fresh and keeps getting better.  I can’t find a single thing I would have changed or done differently.  I think, as a bonus, it would have been interesting to see a mode where you have a hefty treasury of coins and are given the chance to try and survive the maps using only your traps, in a more true tower defense fashion.  Still, it is the versatility and wealth of options that the War Mage presents the player with that makes this game soar like an Orc flung from a spring board.  I’ve already begun competing with my son for high scores on missions, I’ve got the edge on him for now, but watching him strategize, I wonder how long that will last.  Robot Entertainment struck fantasy gold with Orcs Must Die, it’s well worth the low price of entry at $14.99 .  If you aren’t a PC fan, go check out the game on XBOX LIVE Arcade or Playstation Network, it controls just as well with a gamepad, despite my preference for a mouse and keyboard.  For the Alliance!  Ahem….err…….I mean…..For the Order!

I have to say I honestly wasn’t paying much attention to Rage before it was released. I knew that it had the potential to be a great game but I was a little skeptical due to the fact that we just got over the Borderlands high as well as Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Both of these post-apocalyptic shooters did the setting great. I knew Rage could be on par with both of those games but could it do it better?

Rage is a very interesting game. I think if it had come out before the other two games I mentioned then I wouldn’t be so jaded but Rage doesn’t do anything new except look freaking amazing. Stop and look at the scenery is the first thing any player will want to do as they emerge from the underground. It’s absolutely beautiful. I think it’s safe to say that Rage may be the best looking shooter on the 360 but it is also hindered by it’s texture pop-in. If you stop to look around you’ll notice the final textures popping in and it’s kind of annoying. There are times when I would stop to look at the city skyscrapers and they all look plain as if the textures are still loading. It’s dissapointing because Rage is a game that you actually want to stop and look at when your driving/walking through it.

Rage is not an RPG. There is no experience and there are only minor upgrades to armor and weapons. Most of the loot you pick up (which is scarce compared to Fallout and Borderlands) you will use to either build stuff or use to sell and make money. Part of me wishes it was an RPG to give me the thrill of upgrading and leveling up. Rage is not a very open game either. Basically it is a shooter in which you drive to each level. There is no exploring. While there is the occasional side mission it is a very linear game. Linearity is not a bad thing, you just have to get used to the fact that this is not like what you would expect from a game that is “open world”. When you are not working on a mission you are in Wellspring or Subway Town stocking up on ammo. You’ll want to buy a lot of ammo because you won’t find much during missions and some missions can get pretty long. Enemies take a full clip or more to take down as well. Another thing you’ll want to remember is to save often. I mean, save all the time. If you don’t get in the habit of saving often you will be kicking yourself later. Saving can be your worst enemy. While I am thankful Rage has the “save anywhere” feature it doesn’t have enough auto-save points. It only saves when the game has to load an area. More than a few times I’ve had to play missions over again from the start because I forgot to save and ended up dying at the end. This is very frustrating.

While I may have a lot of negative things to say about Rage the game is awesome. The enemy AI is very impressive and the menus are a breeze to navigate which is great. The main thing is that Rage is fun and having fun is the most important thing for me when playing a game. Sure, maybe it’s not what we expect from a post-apocalyptic shooter but it’s nice to see a developer taking a different approach. If I want something more like Borderlands then I’ll just wait for Borderlands 2 to come out next year. I can honestly say that I think Rage is worth $50-$60. There is no reason not to pick this up if you enjoy Borderlands and Fallout. Is it a game of the year contender? Probably not. Is it a great game? Yes, definitely.

*[UPDATE]* – I had a chance to sit down and play the Legends of the Wasteland cooperative missions and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoy them. Not only do they give you a behind-the-scenes look to some of the stories of the wasteland they are also very fun and well put together. Basically you play through a mission with a friend, if you die you can revive yourself with your defibrillator. You can do this twice but if you die a third time your partner has to come and revive you. If you both run out of defibrillators and die at the same time then you have to start the level over from the very beginning. I have to admit these levels were a little challenging and we found ourselves restarting them a handful of times. I love the fact that Id Software took the time to include splitscreen co-op. I think more games need to do this. There is also the option to play it with a friend over Live. Overall, the Legends of the Wasteland missions are a great addition to the main campaign and I highly suggest playing through them with friend.

The Story

The Third World War started on January the 22nd, 2040. Hot on the heels of am economic and social golden age of nanotechnological marvels, it was fought with devastating ninth generation nuclear warheads that scorched the earth and sky, nanite plagues that stripped entire cities bare, and machines of destruction whose uncompromising ferocity defied the most perverted imagination.

The Nuclear Dawn wiped the slate clean with the wonders and marvels of mankind’s greatest achievements, and reduced the world we know to crumbling ash and ruin. In 2049, the war still rages on, as the tattered remnants of humanity flock either to the blue flag of the Consortium, or to the red standards of the Empire.

I couldn’t transcribe a better description of the game’s story, than the one written by InterWave, so I posted their’s above.  The two warring factions, the Empire and the Consortium, are a mirror of the Democracy vs. Communist themes of the Cold War.  With the Consortium fighting on the side of freedom, and lacking numbers, it also adds a bit of the colonists vs Britain element.  Either way, you must choose between the hell-bent domination attitude of the Empire or the revolutionaries of the Consortium.

The Gameplay

I definitely appreciate the lengths that InterWave went through to create a lore and backdrop for the game, but the story is just that.  It need not take away from the fantastic multiplayer action of the game.  I’ve already written about the game before, so I won’t waste time mincing words–the gameplay is extremely tight already and InterWave is committed to making it better post-release.  Each team has one Commander, who has the ability to build structures on the battlefield with an RTS mechanic.  The Commander can build forward spawn points, defensive turrets/structures and resources for troops to heal and replenish their supplies.  All other players fight it our in up to 32 person FPS matches, in an attempt to wipe the other team out.  You can choose one of 4 classes, each with a variety of pre-made weapon kits.  Both an Assault class or a Stealth class can wield a sniper rifle, and Support class members can be either medics or engineers; the variety is awesome and adds to the strategy of the game.  The classes have a good rock paper scissors mechanic to them-Stealth can backstab the Exos effectively, Exos can deal tons of damage to structures/personnel, etc.  Assaults can use a thermal vision to ferret out cloaked Stealth class players.  All of this plays out over 6 maps, and, as in any multiplayer game, is best when you use teamwork and have strong teammates at your disposal.

The Verdict

Scoring this game is a tough call for me, I love the game but I have to remain partial.  Nuclear Dawn achieves everything it sets out to do, and achieves it to a high standard.  On the other hand, it contains six maps and only one game mode, for a launch price of $24.99.  I can think of a couple other multiplayer games that offer more content at a lower price.  That being said, the gameplay is revolutionary, the team is rigorously dedicated to patching and balancing the game, and there are more maps and game modes promised.  From my experience playing the game, it’s a really strong multiplayer experience, and an easy 4-Star rating.  Although, knowing that there are parts of the game that will be added later, as much as I love the game, I settled on a 3.5 Star rating.  Buying the game this early seems more of an investment than a purchase—you are getting part of a really awesome game, and having to wait for the rest of it’s features.  Nuclear Dawn is a great game at a great price, but it does leave you wanting a bit more.  I think it will be a more complete package after the updates hit.  If you have any doubts or preconceived notions about how well RTS and FPS elements blend, then allow me to put them to rest, the game plays extremely well.  You can tell that it was programmed by gamers for gamers, who knew how to intermingle those elements.  The learning curve for being a Commander can be a bit daunting, with failures being much more center-stage than a mediocre K/D ratio, but working with a team that has a great Commander is just poetry in motion.  I have really enjoyed this game so far, and I can’t wait to see what InterWave Studios will be adding to it with their planned major updates.  Sign up on Steam and report to your Commander!

The Story

In discussing this particular historic campaign of World War II, the thought of incorporating a story is a bit of a paradox.  Known for it’s brutality, the battle of Stalingrad doesn’t lend well for following individual stories or incorporating a more human side by following particular soldiers.  To balance this out, Tripwire portrays a realm of anonymity within the battles, and follows up each campaign with personal letters and journals of soldiers from different units involved in the long campaign at Stalingrad.  The result is a perfect balance of focus, within the heated gameplay, and revealing a more personal side to the grisly battles at a more appropriate time, rather than attempt to shoehorn it in as bullets whiz by.  If that wasn’t enough of an effective way to humanize the struggle of that particular theater of war, Tripwire has made the difficult move of being the first to allow you to lace up the boots of the German soldiers.  If that causes you to be worried, I have to say that Tripwire did it wonderfully and tastefully, by choosing not to make bold political statements, or controversial portrayals, but rather show us that many of the men in the German army were no different from American and Russian soldiers – just men who had to enlist and were simply following orders.  Completion of the German campaign allows for the player to switch sides, and play from the Russian perspective, showing a bit more than just attacking from the other side of the battlefield.

The Gameplay

I know what you are thinking, “Ok, great, they took the time to be tasteful and historically accurate, but how does the game play?”.  In a word – ‘Marvelous’.  Red Orchestra was known for it’s meticulous attention to detail in the realm of it’s weapons, adding bullet drop, spin and allowing the player to change their sights to compensate for enemy distance.  Red Orchestra 2 continues that fantastic trend and adds to it.  Cover fire, adding a cover system and blind fire play a huge role in the game.  Anyone who’s seen Saving Private Ryan will be familiar with the grisly battle scenes and the platoon members who meet gruesome ends all around the main characters.  In RO2, witnessing your squad members meet similar fates will drastically drop your morale and make you more vulnerable.  In addition, if you are pinned down by machine gun fire it will affect not only your morale, but cause motion blur and extra difficulty aiming.  Tripwire went through great pains to portray the detail and stress of being in the battles, attempting to put you in the shoes of a soldier, rather than just provide a really interesting way to play an FPS Whack-a-mole.

As you progress through the campaign, you realize that there is a fairly in-depth squad command system, that will allow you to organize your assault, rather than just grind though and endless array of respawns.  Speaking of respawning, Tripwire took an interesting route by not allowing you to choose what class of soldier you will respawn as-rifleman, sniper or machine gunner.  While it can be frustrating, at first, it gives you the ability to tinker with all of the classes and find their optimized uses within the campaign, before taking them for a spin in the multiplayer.  Lastly, Tripwire has taken their attention to historic and accurate detail into the realm of tank battles.  Jumping into a tank is not a one-man mission, the interior is extremely detailed and you have the option of choosing the position and role you want to play within the tank.  Be warned, loosing a member of the team means you will be stepping up to fill that role, by changing seats within the now more vulnerable tank.  Each tank is recreated accurately to allow for damage strategies, one shot will not bring down a tank, unless aiming for the correct areas.  You can disable a tank’s treads, canon mechanisms or go straight for the fuel tank and the quick kill.

The Multiplayer

The single player campaign does a fantastic enough job of creating a tangible tension, during battles, where most times, one shot kills.  Even if you are lucky enough to be hit in a non-vital area, you still must be lucky to be able to get to cover and patch it up before bleeding out.  The multiplayer, with actual rather than AI opponents, makes that all the more evident.  There can definitely be a bit of a barrier for entry, there’s a steep difficulty to multiplayer matches in RO2, but there is something about it that just draws you back in.  If you are lucky enough to play with good squadmates, that communicate, this is one of the most beautiful and memorable multiplayer experiences you will have.  Matches go all the way up to 64 players, and really capture the stress and feeling of a battlefield where your enemy can be coming from any direction, and your strategic maneuvers are often rewarded.  Lone wolves will not do well here, each map is littered with their corpses, but working as a team, using flanking maneuvers and working towards the map’s goals as a unit will make it tough to steal a victory from you and your team.  Keying up your mic and yelling “I’m pinned down”, and then watching from cover as a rifle bullets rips through the skull of your attacker, is disturbingly satisfying.

Good aim not only has visceral feedback, in-game, but the damage system that Tripwire has created is simply uncanny.  If you hit organs and vital parts, it will take down soldiers much more effectively than random sprays, and discourage the annoying “foot kills” found in other shooters.  Rather than running and gunning, RO2′s multiplayer is all about outsmarting your opponent with careful, calculated maneuvers, even if they still get you cut down by someone quicker and more well concealed.  The difference is that RO2 removes the focus on twitch, rabbit jumping and circle strafing and draws multiplayer shooters back to the basics of careful aim and a quick trigger finger.  If I had a nickel for everytime I was cut down by the very player that I was lining up a shot on, I’d be rich.  Yet, there is more respect for being forced into a respawn by that means, than by having your shields out last your opponents.  For the tanks fans out there, there is the ability to play on massive scale tank battles for multiplayer, and, although I tried it out, that was not what drew me to the game.

The Verdict

I have quite a few great things to say about Red Orchestra 2.  I love the raw, grit of bolt action rifles and one shot kills.  I love the tense feeling of knowing that it only takes one shot to belay your best laid plans.  Given all the wonderful things about RO2, there are some glitches and chinks in the armor.  The framerate, although much better since patching, still can chug in odd spots(noticeable more so in the campaign and not online).  The sound will drop out during multiplayer, which can be a shame in a game with music composed by the same composer from the Mass Effect series.  There’s an odd glitch that won’t save after you finish a tutorial mission, unless you’ve also finished the mission after.  Getting back to the tank missions, I was not a huge fan, but that was the result of my taste and not any choices the developers made.  As for any other faults, they are all fairly minor and do not detract from the awesome and revolutionary experience that Red Orchestra 2 is.  The game engine looks beautiful, and it shows that we don’t need overdone graphical effects inspired by Michael Bay to make a fantastic first person shooter.

The game maps are wide-open, and really drive home the point that on-the-rails campaigns can be fun, but just don’t give the player the same satisfaction as executing an assault that you–and not the game designers–tailor made and succeeded with.  The developers did an amazing job of putting a variety of tools in the hands of the player, and then stepping back, allowing you to choose the ones you like, and not forcing you to use every one of them by shoe-horning them all into the game.  For example, I rarely used the squad order mechanic, they work very well when you do, but you will not hit a wall and be unable to progress, if you don’t.  There is no praise that I can laud on the ballistics that haven’t been said already, the shooting mechanics and weapon detail are jaw-dropping.  I had an amazing time with Red Orchestra 2, and I’ll be continuing my tour of duty long after release.  I certainly hope that other FPS developers are watching and playing RO2, taking notes, and getting back to sharpening basic gameplay mechanics to the finely tuned machines they can be, as evident in RO2.