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Review: Law & Order: Legacies

By
Chris Scott
– February 7, 2012Posted in: Mobile Gaming, PC, Reviews

Note: This review was done using the PC version of the game. It is also available on iOS platforms.

Adventure games, once thought of as a relic of days gone by have been rejuvenated over the past several years by Telltale Games. Their success in the genre is no accident as they combine a volatile formula of great writing, easy to understand gameplay, and strong iconic characters set in beloved franchises. This makes their games stand out from the standard fare the rest of the industry releases.

Telltale’s approach to adventure games lends itself perfectly to the long running franchise, as such Law & Order: Legacies makes perfect sense. For fans of the series, Legacies will follow the movements of Detective Rey Curtis. Curtis retired from the NYPD in 1999 to take care of his terminally ill wife but has now returned to his old job working new cases. Legacies is about more than just the new cases, there is a deeper story underneath it all involving Curtis and his ex-partner, Lenny Briscoe, and a case that the two of them were never able to close out.

As someone that never really watched the show outside of a couple episodes here and there, it all seems pretty convoluted but I expect longtime fans of the show will appreciate the references to past cases and nostalgic touches that are sprinkled throughout. However, as great as the overarching story may or may not be for people, when it all comes down to it, Law & Order: Legacies is a game and it has to succeed on its gameplay merits.

The structure of Law & Order: Legacies is that of its television counterpart. Each case is an individual episode, complete with a cold opening revealing the nature of the case, and a television styled opening credits sequence. The first half of each episode focuses on the police investigation while the second half focuses on prosecution of the suspect and the courtroom drama that accompanies it. The two different approaches juxtapose each other quite nicely.

Police investigations task the player with interviewing suspects and witnesses while also investigating crime scenes. The interviews generally consist of Curtis and his partner asking questions and trying to discern the truth from the answers. While there is no set direction the interviews are forced to go down, the game certainly seems to want you to go in a particular order and sometimes this order does not make logical sense which can break the flow of the conversations. While this may seem like a big deal, it honestly did not detract from my enjoyment at all.

Interviewing suspects and witnesses delivers the sense that you are truly the lead detective on this investigation. Unfortunately, investigating crime scenes does not give you that same feeling. Crime scene investigations are nothing more than elaborate photo hunts complete with a counter of how many turns you have left to find what you are looking for. It is not particularly awful, in fact as a photo hunt it works, but when a game like L.A. Noire has blown the doors off of simplistic investigation, I can only feel somewhat disappointed that Legacies does not do more with its investigations.

Once the police investigation is concluded and the detectives have fingered a suspect, it is up to the District Attorney’s office to do their magic. In a lot of respects, the courtroom drama plays out like the detective interviews but with some added twists that makes this section of Legacies the most enjoyable aspect of the game. That twist of course is the ability to object to the defense team’s line of questioning.

Being able to object is not, in itself, a big deal but needing to know when to do it and why you are doing it is. There is a great feeling of tension that comes from making those decisions and it benefits the game greatly. If your case is going well, the defense may ask to come to the table and present you with a plea deal. Depending upon how strong your case is you can push for a stiffer sentence or roll the dice and let the jury decide. Even more interesting is that sometimes there are strategic reasons to accept a plea deal, such as when I accepted a plea deal from one defendant in return for his testimony against another. Simply put, it is highly satisfying.

Aside from the gameplay being strong, the one thing Law & Order: Legacies had to get right was the look and feel of the show. Each episode lasts about an hour and each case is unique offering something new to the player. From a graphical standpoint, Legacies is highly stylized but I think it works quite well. However, the voice acting is top notch and sounds authentic making the experience that much more engaging. And one certainly cannot forget about the iconic theme song and sounds that are worked to full effect in the game.

As engaging and fun as a lot of the game can be, there are some things that just fall flat and sadly take you out of the experience. Once such issue is that during both the police interviews and the courtroom examinations the game will ask the player trivia questions in relation to the previous line of questioning that have no impact on the investigation as a whole. It just feels like fluff. Another issue is the scoring system, which seemingly seeks to remind you that you did not do that case as perfectly as you could have. It is a problem many people had with L.A. Noire and I feel Law & Order: Legacies suffers even more for it because there is a score sheet for every segment of the game.

Fortunately the problems with the game do not overly detract from the experience and Law & Order: Legacies delivers a solid gaming experience at a budget price.

Pros:

  • Looks and feels like Law & Order
  • Cases are unique and interesting
  • Courtroom drama is finely crafted

Cons

  • Crime scene investigations are simple photo hunts
  • Weird trivia questions that have no bearing on the outcome of the case
  • Scoring system consistently reminds you that this is a game

3 / 5

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PC Review: Unstoppable Gorg

By
Khristopher Reardon
– February 3, 2012Posted in: PC, Reviews

Unstoppable Gorg puts a new spin on the tower defense genre.

It’s a mishmash that brings old school black and white sci-fi serials like Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon to real time strategy.

You are the brave Captain Adam who is fending off aliens that look like runners up at some homemade costume junket and save his hot blonde girlfriend.

Coloured trails allow you to know the path of attacking aliens

The game is an overhead tower defense game using satellites instead of towers.

Unstoppable Gorg doesn’t necessarily reinvent the wheel, in fact, it’s more of a cross between two different types of tower defense games. The kind which allows you to have unlimited control over where your towers are placed and the kind that limits placement by giving you prescribed spots to build towers in.

Gorg isn’t letting you make a maze out of your satellites, but it will let you shimmy in a few satellites where you need them most.

It does this by letting you place satellites in orbits around the defense point. You can spin the different orbits around to put satellites near the invasion routes.

This lets you have the best of both worlds, though the spots along the orbit are limited you’re allowed to spin the orbit however you like allowing you to make the most of the space and resources you have. You can even follow routes with towers for a few extra hits if it follows your orbit.

The orbit mechanic makes this tower defense game unique, the ability to switch tower positions on the fly without having to wholesale rid yourself of the tower and buy it back in another area.

This mechanic allows for a lot of flexibility, you can place fewer more powerful satellites and divide your attention more towards positioning them, or you can place more satellites which will drain your resources faster but won’t require as much ‘shimmy work’ from the player.

The decision is compounded by the fact that you’re given goals every round to acquire a certain amount of money or research. Reaching these goals allows the player to unlock newer satellites and grant them the ability to upgrade the older satellites by distributing research points before each round.

Research is a triple threat of bad game mojo. To acquire it you need to take up one of your available satellite slots at the beginning of the round with a research centre, then place that non-attacking satellite somewhere in one of your orbits essentially taking the spot of a more useful attacking unit and if you don’t bother with it, you lose that research point for future levels making it really hard for inexperienced players to move further into the game.

Three different alien races make you have to plan for different satellite strategies in order to capitalize on their separate weaknesses but the difference don’t go far enough to force the player to think differently about the satellites they’ll have to choose before a round starts. I found much success with the few towers I stuck to throughout the game, I didn’t really feel the need to switch up drastically at any point once I found that groove.

I really wish this guy sounded like C-3PO.

The space setting makes good use of archive footage and cg to create a story that reads and feels like old school sci-fi, it’ll make you feel the nostalgia whether you’re from that time or not.

The campy 50s serial sci-fi look really drove me through this game at top speeds. Actors in knick-knack costumes play up the cheesiness with cliché serial villains and a cliché serial plot.

This all works wonderfully with inserted archive footage and model work (spliced with some CG) to create this 50s aesthetic.

But watching all of these things on a screen inside a screen is a little bit meta, it makes me wonder if Xzibit lent a hand at working on this game. (I put a monitor in your monitor so you can watch while you watch) I’m not sure but this is probably a holdover from the mobile version but it feels distinctly out of place on the PC.

She's hot and heavy, giant brain in disguise or no.

Music and sound effects are great. The cut scenes are announced by someone who sounds like the voice of out old news reels being played in the 40s.

The alien lords have voice work, though if they flubbed a few lines or sounded terrible it wouldn’t be noticeable with the chosen aesthetic of the game in mind. And they look great, one is a garbage can, the other looks like he was lifted from Mars Attacks! and the other is hot.

Unstoppable Gorg has a great in game soundtrack that’s very boombastic. It’s something you’d expect to hear out of a movie like “Mars Attacks!”

The sound effects from the weapons all have that 50s sci-fi feel.

It’s actually quite a feat to carry me into a story I care about in a tower defense game, which more often than not the ‘story’ tends to be an afterthought.

My biggest gripe about the game is reaching the top of the climb so fast. There are 21 levels in story mode and each one will take you maybe five to 10 minutes if you do it in one try.

You’ll be retrying a few levels countless times because the difficultly will spike unexpectedly. It felt less like I was making mistakes and more like the game didn’t want me to progress further a few times and often after making it through those few patches I would be back to cleaning up levels no problem again.

I reached the end in maybe four to five hours and all of those hours I really enjoyed outside of the spiking difficulty. A challenge mode and arcade mode allow you to keep playing through additional content but none of it is as strong and compelling as the main stuff, I gave both a whirl and found myself not really squeezing any more fun out of the game that way.

It’s a relatively short game but a really good tower defense experience. I hope some kind of follow up or additional content is made for this game because that core experience was a blast.

Pros

  • Blends limited unit placement with unlimited field control
  • Great 50s sci-fi vibe with loads of humour
  • Easy to put down and pick-up again for people with limited playing time

Cons

  • Difficulty spiking can leave players frustrated replaying the same levels again and again
  • TV in TV view detract from the action in cut scenes
  • Research satellites put undo burden newer/inexperienced players

3/5

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PC Review: Star Wars: The Old Republic

By
Jeremy Goodson
– February 2, 2012Posted in: Jeremy's Blog, PC, Reviews

A long time ag….ah, screw it. The iconic Star Wars opening text is too overdone.

It’s been about three years since the rumors of Bioware developing an MMO based on the Knights of the Old Republic franchise first found their way onto the Internet. Those rumors made me ecstatic from day one. The original Knights of the Old Republic was one of my favorite games of all time, and Star Wars is definitely my favorite IP. To add nerd cred to my profile on that, I actually read the books, graphic novels, and comics. So, for anyone that knows me, it shouldn’t be a surprise that I was eating up any juicy tidbits that developer Bioware and publisher EA threw my way over the past three years about the game.

Lucky for me (and an estimated two million others who picked up the game on launch day), Dec. 20, 2011 marked the end of our wait. And worth it it was.

Now, you won’t be in for any big surprises with how the game controls. Bioware did a very good job mimicking the overall feel of most modern day MMOs. Everquest, World of Warcraft, Everquest 2, Vanguard, and countless others all use the standard “WASD” movement with “1 through =” for your hot keys. This makes it extremely easy for any MMO veteran to dive right into the game. The movements are very fluid and combat flows very well because of it. While the user interface may seem a bit clunky at first, it’s very easy to get used to. The main aspect that bothered me was the top-of-the-screen placement of the chat box, but it’s easily moved to the bottom where it feels more comfortable.

The lack of a full customization of the overall UI, though, really does hurt the game a bit. By the time you hit level 50 you have almost too many abilities, potions, and stims to fit on the maximum number of four hot bars. According to Bioware, there is a big UI customization update coming in the near future, so I do hold out hope that this will be fixed very soon.

Another guaranteed aspect of any MMORPG these days has to be the PvP, and SWTOR performs admirably. From level 10 on, players can compete in three different Warzones, similar to World of Warcraft’s Battlegrounds. These include Alderaan, which is a capture point system similar to Arathi Basin or League of Legends’ Dominion map; Voidstar, which is a Plant the Bomb and move to different objectives map; and a very unique mode called Huttball, which is basically an updated version of Mutant League Football.

The Warzones aside, there are also two areas in the game that are strictly for open world PvP: Ilum, a planet dedicated to the insanity of PvP, and Smuggler’s Den, a Free-for-All area on Tatooine where anything goes at any time of the day. Both of these areas help fuel a fairly health Open PvP environment that hardcore players are looking for.

A very neat addition to the MMORPG genre that is found in SWTOR is the implementation of Companion Characters. These NPCs are your brothers and sisters-in-arms that join your crew as you progress through your personal story arc. They can definitely hold their own on the battlefield and they bring a whole new perspective to solo leveling and even grouping without a full party.

Crafting is also dependent on your Companions. Instead of the normal MMO crafting system where you gather materials and spend time standing in front of a forge or loom to make your gear, SWTOR has you send your companions out to gather materials and making things for you. At the end-game, you can actually have five of your six companions all out working while you go out and quest or PvP. This takes a major stressor for some people and reduces it down to a couple of button clicks instead of a giant time sinck. As a person who absolutely loathes crafting in most other MMOs, I truly enjoy the system in SWTOR.

While all of the previous systems and gameplay mechanics makeup the basics of SWTOR, the real backbone that Bioware built the entire game around is its phenomenal story system. In most MMOs, you get a quest from an NPC and go out and kill things and return for your reward – never really reading what the quest giver had to say. In SWTOR, every single dialogue sequence is fully acted out for you in a cut scene (and yes, you can skip if you choose to). This really helps to make you feel like you have an impact on the world around you, and that your story matters.

Every class in the game has their own personal story. I have played completely through the Sith Warrior and Bounty Hunter stories, and am well on my way through the Sith Inquisitor story at this point and can say that each one has blown me away. They flow so well that I want to keep playing just to see what happens next. I cannot say that about any other MMORPG that I’ve experienced. On top of that, the actual voice acting is top notch. Bioware really spared no expense.

End-game is another spot that I feel the developers really nailed. Right out of the gates they had two Raid Zones (Operations as they’re called here) in place. The first is Eternity Vault, and the second is Karagga’s Palace. Both of these offer three modes of difficulty: normal, hard, and nightmare modes. As of right now, our guild is full clearing hard mode on both, and working our way through nightmare, so I have seen most of what these have to offer. We are having a total blast clearing these out, and the difficulty scales well, allowing for new raiders and veterans alike to experience the content at their own skill levels.

Many might argue that Star Wars: The Old Republic isn’t a breakthrough for the MMORPG genre. While I agree that the basic gameplay takes aspects from the other MMOs on the market, to say that it doesn’t change the way that gamers will look at MMOs from now on would be a lie. The superb story arcs, the changes to the generic crafting system, the updated PvP system,  companion characters, and voice acted questing all add new aspects to an aging subcategory in the gaming world.

SWTOR is one of my favorite games released in the past few years by far, and is definitely my favorite MMORPG since I first picked up Everquest back in 1999. There are some bugs in the game that need to be worked out (and actually lead me to lower the score of the game a bit), but the overall feel of SWTOR is that it is an MMO that is here to stay, and sets a new bar for what other companies need to aim for.

Pros

  • Story that is the best of any other MMORPG
  • Companion characters
  • Re-worked crafting system
  • Fun Ggameplay
  • Great replayability with different classes
  • PvP is well balanced

Cons

  • Lack of UI customization
  • Annoying post-launch bugs
  • No guild bank
  • Inexcusably clunky guild and auction house tools

Overall Score: 4/5

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Vagary.TV’s 2011 Game of the Year Awards

By
VTV Staff
– January 10, 2012Posted in: Editorials, Guides, News, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, PC, PS3, Vagary.TV, Xbox 360

You don’t need to listen to some of the podcast deliberations on the site to realize that 2011 has been one of the finest years for gaming in a long while. The year had downloadable titles like Bastion sit next to or above high profile retail games like Portal 2 and surprises like Rayman: Origins and Saint’s Row: The Third. The seldom appreciated and often dust ridden Wii was graced with the latest Nintendo dungeon adventure of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

With all of those games in mind, we locked ourselves in a Google Document and threw emails at each other until we came up with a list of Vagary.TV’s games of the year. Enjoy.

 

The Don Parsons Award for Best Flying Game: Ace Combat Assault Horizon

Don comes down from his mountain to review flight games. In his spare time, he reviews flight games

By: Don Parsons

2011 was a stellar year for flight combat game enthusiasts (see: Me). From the great story-telling of Air Conflicts: Secret Wars to the fantastic plane modeling and dog-fighting of Jane’s Advanced Strike Fighters, there was one that really stood out. Ace Combat: Assault Horizon exceeded all expectations, and not only delivered some great combat in the skies, but also gave us an epic and cinematic story. As if that wasn’t enough, it actually had people playing the game online. Both other games had online modes but, sadly, not a soul could be found playing them. Assault Horizon blew me away with its presentation and deserves to be called the Flying Game of the Year.

 

Best Xbox 360 Exclusive: Gears of War 3

Marcus' du-rag finally comes off. 'Nuff said.

By: Chris Scott

No other series, sans Halo, means as much to the Xbox brand as Gears of War. Knowing that, developer Epic Games had a lot of weight on its shoulders for the finale of the Gears saga to begin with, and Microsoft’s first party lineup of games in 2011 was oddly devoid of many big name games.

Fortunately for both Epic and Microsoft, Gears of War 3 not only delivers on the expectations for the series, it handily exceeds them. The single player campaign, which is also playable in four player co-op, is the best in the series and actually delivers some emotional characterizations to characters many people thought had none. Horde mode was drastically remodeled and delivers one of the best co-op experiences this year and is complimented by Beast mode, an incredibly fun reversal of the Horde formula. The competitive multiplayer is deeper, more balanced, and more fun that it has ever been. Additionally, the game controls better than ever, the new weapons are a ton of fun, and it’s more visually improved and diverse than any Gears game to date. Everything about Gears 3 feels incredibly polished. No game offered the complete package that Gears of War 3 did but, most importantly, it was a hell of a lot of fun to play.

 

Best Playstation 3 Exclusive: Uncharted 3 Drake’s Deception

Drenched in hopelessness and vulnerability without a drop to drink

By: Kyle Baron

Uncharted 3 had plot holes and some contrived sequences that existed in service of gameplay, but none of that even entered my mind when I was playing it. Nathan Drake’s latest and possibly last venture on home consoles is a technical marvel that has you travelling across the world through acrid tombs, under the glaring suns of deserts, and through the often exploding and crumbling action set pieces of ocean liners and ancient castles.

Beneath all of that, Uncharted 3 tells a subtle yet pervasive story of Nathan as a man who is always close to what he wants while he’s about to lose everything else in the process. In and out of all of the gunfights, we see that his love for adventure and treasure is threatening to take the ones he loves away from him; it might be a narrow escape by a friend or the love of his life mumbling about her wedding ring, but that underlying battle is what stuck with me until the end of the game. Uncharted 3 beat out Infamous 2 for this award by one measly vote, and that really speaks to the level of emotion that both games subtly meter out with great effect.

Sure, the Playstation Network outage was an absolute mess, but Playstation 3′s had a great year for great exclusives.

Runner Up: Infamous 2

 

Best Shooter of the Year: Battlefield 3

It's best to just vault over single player into the rest of the game, really.

By: Don Parsons

The battlefield for modern shooters was rough in 2011. There were two camps split down the middle, with a small margin enjoying both Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3. After our staff voting, there was clearly one winner: Battlefield 3. While not a bad thing at all, most people feel like Modern Warfare 3 is just “more Call of Duty,” whereas Battlefield 3 took what made Battlefield: Bad Company 2 great and expanded it.

Everything that makes the Battlefield series great is here. The Conquest and Rush game modes, developer DICE-designed maps [that are always amazing], squad-based teamwork, and epic vehicular combat are all great. There’s also been a few changes that are just grand enough to stand out and make this feel like a step forward instead of the “same old thing.” The biggest of those changes is to the weapon progression system, which has kept me personally invested for dozens of hours. Smaller things like jets and being able to go prone also enhance this beautiful collective package.

Runners Up: Gears of War 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Game of the Year:  The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim

Not all of our staff were psyched about Skyrim being our game of the year

By: Tony Odett

Over the past few years, I’ve developed what I like to call “video game restraint.” When I was younger, time seemed to disappear when I put a game in my console. I’d forget to eat and sleep. I’d think about the game I was obsessively playing while at work that day, while of course trying to function on the three hours of sleep I had gotten because I had needed to beat just one more level, complete one more quest, or take one more city.  But then I became an adult with a wife, kids, and a big boy job. My gaming obsession was curtailed, and those feelings of addiction were forever lost. Even Mass Effect 2, which I thought was the best game I had ever played, found itself chopped into two hour increments, and never played past 1:00 a.m. I was until complete control.

Until Skyrim.

The real crux of a game, the thing that really matters, the most important factor for anyone isn’t storyline or graphics. It’s not even gameplay. No, the most important quality a game has, deep down, is how playing it makes you feel. Skyrim makes me feel like a kid again. It takes me back to a place in my life I had thought gone forever, where time melts away and I am lost in a new, amazing world.  Skyrim has moved me from jaded disillusionment to utter gaming joy. With deep lore, an addicting leveling system, loads of quests, and the deepest, most populating gaming world I’ve ever seen, I give you Skyrim, Vagary’s 2011 Game of the Year

Runner up: Super Mario 3D Land

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PC Review: Might and Magic Heroes VI

By
Jeremy Goodson
– January 3, 2012Posted in: PC, Reviews

I have to say that Might and Magic Heroes VI took me by surprise. As an avid lover of RPGs, the Might and Magic Series is one that I strangely overlooked, more so since I don’t play a lot of Strategy games. It is a series that I’ve heard a great deal about, but for some reason or another, always seemed to have an excuse to pass on it. Because of that, though, I was extra excited to give the new game a shot.

I think not knowing much about the series as a whole was a bit of a crutch for me in the beginning. The game is really, really hard. I managed to fail on the first map four times before actually completing it. At first, it was extremely frustrating. Fortunately, as I kept playing I was able to pick up more on the strategy involved. After that, the game became much more enjoyable, and the challenge was something I looked forward to besting.

In fact, as I delved further into the game, I feel that the developers delivered in exactly the way that they meant to. This game isn’t for the weak spirited. It seems they wanted you to strive to do you best, and put in challenges that they knew would give you a sense of satisfaction overcoming. In order to test this theory, and before proceeding further with Heroes VI, I decided to visit my good friend –and wallet’s worst enemy– Steam and test out some older Might and Magic games. (Note: This was a cause of the delay of this review, but I feel was needed to really give the game a fair shake).

The experience was an eye-opener for me, and cleared up any extra confusion that I had about the game and the series. All of the Heroes of Might and Magic games are tough, and also all play very similar. It has now become a series that I’m sorry I avoided for so long.

Might and Magic Heroes VI is a Turn-Based Strategy (TBS) game. Unlike some of its Real-Time Strategy (RTS) brethren, there are rest phases between turns. You get a certain number of moves, and then you rest for a bit while your enemies do the same. The areas are fairly large in size, so you may find this system a little tedious at first. It’s rather easy to get the hang of after a few rounds. This is the case not only during combat, but also on the main map as you’re moving around. This style suits the game very well.

Because of the TBS nature of the game, combat takes some thought. The basic “trash” fights aren’t all that bad and can be fairly swiftly taken out for some easy gold and experience, but the Mini-Boss and Boss fights are where they separate the (figurative) boys from men. This is also where I had really run into trouble even on the first map early on. The developers really but a lot of time, energy, and detail into making these battles seem pretty epic in scale. This is also where that term “strategy” really begins to shine through.

Now, to make this all mean something, there is a story woven into the game. While it is not the most enthralling lore ever created, I found it to be interesting enough to be worthwhile to the overall plot of the game. There is also a build in “Morality” system built in. Some games, like Mass Effect for example, make these choices game altering. In Heroes VI, this isn’t the case. It’s more of a “Do you want this item, or that item?” type of choice. It really just makes for a more customizable experience for your Hero.

My only complaint when it comes to Heroes VI is a common one amongst PC gamers. The DRM (Digital Rights Management) associated with it. In order to play the game at all, you have to log into your Ubisoft account. For anyone whose internet may be down (or in my case, at one point my router stopped working and I had to get a new one), they are out of luck if they want to play. DRM is used to deter piracy, but the problem is that those who pirate the games also use hacks to get around the authentication system. So, forcing people to log into a server just to play your single player game is just creating problems for the legitimate users, not the pirates.

Might and Magic Heroes VI, as a whole, is a very solid game. It introduced me to a series that I had been missing out on for a long time, and for that I am greatful. I plan on finishing up the older games, and will definitely be picking up the future releases. While the DRM has the chance to pose problems to potential players, the story, mechanics, and overall gameplay provide a fun and challenging environment for veterans and newbies alike. Also, there are a few multiplayer modes if you wish to play with friends. For any hardcore strategy fan, this should be towards the top of your lists.

Pros:

- Fun Gameplay

- Looks Great

- Story and Morality system give it a bit of a twist

Cons:

- Can be very challenging at times

- DRM (Requires internet connection for single player gameplay)

Score: 4/5

0

Review: Jane’s Advanced Strike Fighters

By
Don Parsons
– December 12, 2011Posted in: PC, PS3, Reviews, Xbox 360

[Note: This review is for the PS3 version. Multiplayer/co-op may vary per console.]

With the airspace for flying games pretty full this season, what makes Jane’s Advanced Strike Fighters, or JASF for short, stand out from the other flight games? Boasting 30 different jets, online co-op, online multiplayer, and a lengthy campaign to engage in, JASF has a lot to offer fans of the genre.

The campaign takes place in a fictional country, Azbaristan, during a brutal civil war. Your character, a pilot named Razor, steps into the cockpit of some of the worlds finest pieces of machinery to help reclaim the land. The missions mostly range between bombing runs and air-to-sir combat missions, with a few mixing into a “multi-role” format or recon missions. The flow is very back and forth, but the length of them seemed to of dragged on a little too long for my taste. At certain points in these stages I kept thinking “this is a perfect stopping point”, but it turned out to be halfway in.

The forgettable plot is detailed through the voice overs before the missions and through the radio chatter during gameplay. In each stage, you take control of more and more of the fictional country for your side and eventually finish the mission with a “dogfight” against a tank-of-a-plane at the end. Not to spoil things but, sadly, it was far too similiar to Ace Combat for me to take it seriously, and the lack of character during the story segments gave me no sense of emergency for trying to save civilian lives. While the missions themselves are quite fun and enjoyable, the story is anything but.

I played on Normal difficulty and I still died quite a few times. It wasn’t overly difficult, but knowing what plane to choose makes the difference when a 20 minute mission sometimes lasts 40 minutes, especially during some of the early bombing runs. An important part of JASF is picking the right plane for the mission. Doing so will make things a lot easier, which I found out later on. In the beginning, I was simply picking the “coolest looking” plane, which is a terrible idea, mind you.

The planes you choose will change from mission to mission. Later on, you’ll unlock a few amazing multi-role planes that can handle any mission you throw at it. The game advertises 30 planes, but half of them, give or take a few, are variations of the other planes. The variations each have a different paint scheme and different weapon load out, making them usable in other situations. I flew with quite a few different planes, and there are some drastic differences between some of them, but others are similar in certain areas. While they all feel unique enough, it came down to what weapons were on the plane that was the deciding factor. None of them handled or flew bad enough to say, “this plane sucks, I won’t use it.” Instead, I found myself saying “this plane doesn’t have enough ground targeting missiles, I’m using this one instead.”

Some of the best touches in the game are the subtle physics and feedback JASF offers. For example, if you set your controller down, the plane won’t sit on a straight path and just fly. Granted, it won’t veer off in a drastic manner either, but it’s the little swaying motion the plane makes that makes it feel like the wind is a variable. A lot of the missions make you fly under the radar (represented by a fuzzy bar at the top of the screen that starts to turn red when you fly too high), so you’ll be flying low, but if you start getting too low, little vibrations through the controller will scare you into raising altitude just a hair.

Initially, I really disliked the bombing missions. I would pick planes with two different bombs and one set of air-to-air missiles, and the missions would take forever. I fly in third person because, let’s face it, if you’re flying an awesome jet,  you want to see that awesome jet in action. When doing bombing runs, unless you are using guided missiles (which take longer because they are weaker), the plane gets in the way of the targeting reticule used for bombing. Doing some serious dive-bombing, that’s fine, but when fending off other airplanes in the midst of bombing, it gets a little over-complicated. Using the more powerful bombs, I set the view to first-person, which has to be done in the pause menu.

Air-to-air combat is really fun, but the cannons are not only hard to use for a rookie pilot like myself, but the bullets look terrible. Everything else about the game looks fantastic and realistic but as soon as you fire your cannons it looks like the gunfire from a mid-life cycle PS2 flying game. Thankfully, I rarely used the cannons because they were a real eyesore.

Multiplayer is non-existent. Unless you know someone with the game, you won’t be playing online. Period. For the past week, I have gotten online every single night and searched for a lobby, only to find myself creating one. So I would sit in the lobby, and wait five to ten minutes. Nothing. It’s a shame, too, because this game would benefit with co-op. Some of the missions get overwhelming, and having a wingman or two on hand would make things work smoother. Playing through the game, some missions made me think they were designed with co-op in mind, but I never got a chance to test that theory.

On a personal level, it’s irritating when small games like this offer multiplayer and have quite a few multiplayer trophies. I want to play online and I want to accumulate more trophies, but the non-existent online portion of the game keeps me from doing both of those.

Featuring some of the best planes in the sky, and some intense dogfights, JASF flies on its own level in most regards. However, with a plot that leaves a lot to be desired and a lack of active online play, it loses the points that made it special. It still is worth a flight, if flying games are something you enjoy, because the flying is a treat and the planes are top notch.

Pros:

  • beautiful graphics (minus the cannons of course)
  • THE best planes in a flying game on PS3

Cons:

  • lack of imaginative plot
  • no one is playing the competitive or co-op online

Score: 3* out of 5

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Review: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

By
Chris Scott
– December 12, 2011Posted in: PC, PS3, Reviews, Xbox 360

Growing up I read ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books. Forget the fact that they were mostly poorly written garbage; they were great fun because it made me feel like I was in control of the narrative. That enjoyment of being in control of my own adventure and shaping the narrative based on my own choices is the driving force behind my love of role-playing games. It would seem that Bethesda Softworks Elder Scrolls franchise would be my ultimate gaming experience, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

While I appreciate what Bethesda has been attempting to do with the Elder Scrolls series over the last 15+ years, create large sandboxes in which players can create their own adventures, I have never felt that they captured the essence I want out of a role-playing game. For me at least, The Elder Scrolls games have always been too wide open with too much freedom. Playing them was a daunting task and while I had fun in these giant sandboxes, I never felt like I was accomplishing anything in them. And now you are scratching your head, attempting to figure out the logic of having me review The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. To be honest with you, I did that myself and then I played Skyim and everything made sense.

That is not to say that Skyrim has changed my mind on previous Elder Scrolls games but rather to say that Skyrim manages to change the landscape of these types of games while somehow remaining as true to its roots as it ever has been. To put it simply, Skyrim is the ultimate choose your own adventure game and at the same time offers a sandbox for players to create their own adventure if they so choose.

The biggest failing of The Elder Scrolls series, for me, has always been the narrative behind the game. Why am I here in this game world? What is my purpose? Sure the games have always given you a primary quest in the opening sequences but once you are released into the world that primary quest takes a back seat to everything else the game has to offer. Some will say that the main quest in these games is just a guide post, an opening to the experience that the world itself has to offer. And maybe they are right but I have never felt satisfied with that, as those games attempt to make me forget those questions I asked. Skyrim though makes me want to find out the answers.

The narrative in Skyrim, while far more engaging than previous Elder Scrolls titles, is just a small piece in machine that makes Skyrim work. In fact, looking at the narrative separate from the game shows off its weaknesses, it is a fairly generic fantasy tale filled with genre clichés. However when coupled with the setting of Skyrim, a Nordic playground filled with dragons, these weaknesses seem positively fresh.

Bethesda has done a masterful work in bringing the world of Skyrim to life. The art direction is some of the best in any game ever. Every city, every town, every outpost has a unique feel to it and considering the massive amount of content that is in Skyrim it is utterly astounding. Because of this uniqueness to everything, exploration in Skyrim is something special and exploring is something players, regardless of if they follow the main quest or not, will be doing a lot of.

Adventuring in Skyrim is not a safe pastime, the land is filled with many things out to see a traveler’s demise. From roaming packs of wolves to gigantic dragons, Skyrim is fraught with danger. Fortunately, the game gives players a multitude of ways to survive. Nearly everything is an option in Skyrim. Hand to hand combat, ranged combat, and magical combat are all available to the player depending upon their personal play style. And for those that do not want to get their hands dirty unless they absolutely have to, sneaking around conflicts is a perfectly valid choice in a lot of situations.

How the game actually plays during these dramatic conflicts is something that may not please all players though. Melee combat is mediocre at its best and poorly executed at its worst. I never felt like I was in control of my sword as I attacked but rather my arms seemed to be on some weird hinge that reacted to my button presses causing me to flail around in an insane fashion. Magic and ranged attacks however, fare much better and are highly satisfying, once the skills get leveled up appropriately.

Skyrim uses a unique leveling system that is somewhat reminiscent of the one in Oblivion. Using a skill awards it experience points, however unlike Oblivion, most of the exploits have been diminished. Players now have to actively be in the process of doing said action for it to gain levels. For instance, sneaking around an empty field will not award experience to sneaking, one must actually be hidden from view of something. There are of course still ways to fool the system but players will have to work harder to accomplish it.

Taken as a whole, Skyrim is a wonderful game. However, a game as big in scope as this is bound to have its fair share of issues and Skyrim has plenty of them. These issues range in severity from minor engine breakdowns that create strange world instances, such as my companion following me across the open world while lying face down, to hard locks of the game that require a system restart. These technical issues are going to affect players differently but for the most part they did not impact things during this review to call them anything other than a minor annoyance.

Having played Elder Scrolls games for the last 15 years, Skyrim feels like the game that Bethesda has always wanted to make but could never accomplish because of technological limitations. While some will scoff because of the technical issues the game suffers from, but Skyrim is Bethesda’s most polished game to date.

It is not a perfect game, far from it, and a lot of what players will take out of it is a direct result of what players put into it, but Skyrim is an amazing piece of software. Role-playing fans, fantasy fans, and fans of open world games, owe it to themselves to play this game.

Pros: Strong narrative thread, vast open world, stellar art style

Cons: Repetitious dialog, bugs are a nuisance

5* out of 5

There have been reports of the game becoming nearly unplayable on the Playstation 3 after the save file reaches a critical mass. Nothing so dire as that happened during my review session, which was played on the XBOX 360, nor did it affect the play experience of fellow staffer Don Parsons, who is playing it on the PS3,  thus the technological issues of that system did not impact the overall review in any way.

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Review: Nuclear Dawn

By
Magnus Risebro
– December 12, 2011Posted in: PC, Reviews


People who subscribe to a philosophy of sacrifice for eventual greater good will have a jolly old time with Nuclear Dawn. Unfortunately for those with lenient moral principles, the gameplay consists of slightly more “Sacrifice” than “Greater good”, a condition one must accept before appreciating the game.

Essentially, Nuclear Dawn is a 32-player class-based multiplayer shooter where 15 of 16 players on each team play the role of cannon fodder grunts through a Counter-Strike/Battlefield/Team Fortress 2 hybrid  FPS while the remaining two people play an RTS. It’s an undeniably interesting concept, and the fact that it even remotely works is commendable.

As a commander, you place healing stations, spawn points, automated turrets and such on the map. These installations must be constructed within your power network, which is expanded by building power nodes. As an FPS-view foot soldier you pick one of four classes (stealth-guy, shoot-guys-guy, heavy-guy and repairing/healing-people guy) and set out to capture currency-generating stations on the map allowing the team more constructions, while taking out constructions – and combatants – of the enemy team. The ultimate goal is to destroy the enemy team’s main spawn bunker, usually achieved through gradual expansion of territory until one team’s rocket turrets are conducting perpetual – and if you are on the losing team, horribly annoying – spawn killings.

If sending AI soldiers to their deaths does not satisfy your ego enough, get Nuclear Dawn.

The FPS gunplay is surprisingly tight for something constituting only half a game, packing a level of punch and precision above many dedicated shooters. The guns have satisfying visual and audial feedback, and class and loadout is adapted for specific situations without being completely useless outside their niche; the medic’s SMG performs best in corridors but your keyboard won’t suffer your frustrated slammings if you get caught in a long-range firefight with it.

The RTS side of things works moderately well too, though my exposure to it is limited (The highest ranking players are usually selected for the commander roles, and this game boasts a small, but hardcore, community meaning newbies are seldom allowed commander roles). Your success is quite reliant on the underlings (players) obeying your orders, something which might have been a disaster on the douchebag-infested console online services, but is not a problem in the gentlemanly society of PC gaming. The commanders have a disproportionately massive influence on the battle, which is the cause of nearly all of Nuclear Dawn’s issues:

Not only is serving under an incompetent commander caps-lockingly frustrating, even a tactically efficient commander will employ tactics that make playing as a grunt a sour experience. The game is balanced to make it fair with regards to which team wins and loses, not with regards to the FPS player’s moment-to-moment experience. Oftentimes, you are supposed to continually grind your head against the enemy as part of the larger plan. Getting stuck in horrible bullet-hail bottlenecks is a mere side effect for the benefit of eventual victory. You’ll encounter situations whose effect on most FPS players would yield a furious hate-mail in the game’s developer’s inbox, but giving an individual FPS player immediate satisfaction ranks low on Nuclear Dawn’s list of priorities.

This is where the game will lose many people’s attention. Players craving quick-fix gameplay typical of the modern multiplayer FPS will struggle to enjoy it. Unless you get satisfaction from knowing you are helping achieve a longer-term goal, the majority of the time spent in Nuclear Dawn will seem a chore rather than a pleasure.

However, if you do accept these terms and are able to thrive within them, the experience of Nuclear Dawn can be thrilling. Seeing your opponents’ base riddled with explosions, decreasing health bars and soldiers getting spawn-killed is a great reward for having out-cooperated them over the course of a fifteen-minute, highly methodical tug of war. Not to mention that sweet moment when you realize a battle is turning in your favor, or conversely, the sudden panic when things are clearly going sour. The high level of tactical depth (again, on the large scale rather than the small one) ensures these moments keep coming, as there is a near-constant multitude of strategies for a team to consider, keeping things tense and unpredictable.

It’s a nice bonus that the game is up to snuff in terms of presentation, too. The battles are fought mostly in apocalyptic near-future versions of iconic cityscapes such as London, Tokyo and New York, and these settings are created with an air of believability and scale that balances out their relative genericness. Grass stretches up through cracked sidewalks, crumbling skyscrapers tower above you, and the wet floor of a subway station reflects the neon lights above it. It’s lucky the game runs on the highly scaleable Source engine, so even mediocre computers ought to be able to handle it with minimal friction.

Nuclear Dawn is a low-priced and very interesting game being played by a dedicated and friendly community, which might well be worth the high barrier to entry, reoccurring frustration and intermittent technical cock-ups you may suffer.

Pros: Cool, if slightly generic, art style, gameplay rich in depth and originality.

Cons: Moderately hard to get into, requires buckets of patience, intermittent technical issues.

3 out of 5.

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Review: Trine 2 [PC]

By
VTV Staff
– December 10, 2011Posted in: PC, Reviews, Tramell's Blog

Trine 2 Header

Trine 2, like its predecessor is a sidescroller that utilizes brain smoking puzzles, wily platforming and intense combat sequences. Once again, the Trine, a mysterious powerful artifact has taken the three heroes, Zoya the Thief, Pontius the Knight, and Amadeus the Wizard on another fantasy book worthy adventure. With an all new engine, the game environments are absolutely gorgeous. Combine that with the platforming, physics-based puzzles and the interesting combat scenarios you know and love from Trine, this game hits all the right notes.

The three heroes each have their own unique talents and throughout the game you will be able level them up by collecting green bottles scattered across the levels to earn skill point; these points will also be paramount in unlocking additional skills that will help immensely in all aspects of the game.

Amadeus has the ability to create boxes that help you solve puzzles and help you get to places you can’t normally reach. As you level him up, he can create new shapes and will be able to conjure more boxes. Zoya has a grappling hook that allows her to get around, making her very mobile and able to cross long gaps if the prerequisites are met. Her bow you can leveled up to freeze enemies or set them on fire. She is a viable alternative fighter should Pontius kick the bucket. Pontius is your combat specialist. He uses a sword and shield as well as, a hammer to rock enemies who dare threaten the trio. As you level him up, you can upgrade his weapons to do additional damage and grants him the ability to charge at opponents.

Trine 2 Screenshot 01

The meat of the game, the puzzles,  are very satisfying. As your progress through a level, you run along across obstacles blocking your path. Some are simple to solve while others will leave your head smoking trying to figure out what in the world you need to do. As I said, the puzzles in Trine are physics based, so there are multiple solutions to a given challenge. For instance, you could use a plank to manipulate water with a block or use Pontius shield to interact with it and direct its flow.

In the single player campaign you can only use one character at a time providing an extra twist when solving puzzles, combating monsters and getting across a level that requires more than one particular hero’s abilities, it provides that extra hint of difficulty.

In multiplayer, problem solving is a bit more flexible. You will work with other players that play as the different heroes allowing you to create new solutions to the puzzles. For instance, if I was trying to open a gate that required some tricky use of Amadeus boxes to keep it open, I could have a friend use Pontius and partially open the gate so he could use his shield to hold it up so we could get through. Solutions like this makes co-op really enjoyable because the experience is very different than problem solving by yourself.

The second slice of the game involves combat. Combat is not the main focus of the game but they built it up really well. To mix it up you come across waves of enemies you will have to deal with; though you can ignore them if you are quick enough. Sometimes they play a part in some of the puzzles you have to solve. In one part of the game, a giant goblin appears, that has the ability to kill you with one hit and you have to maneuver around to get him stuck temporary so you can use a nearby lever to open the gates and bypass him. In multiplayer, you can strategize a bit more. You can have Pontius keep the enemies busy while you have Zoya pick off Archers from a distance and have Amadeus levitate enemies that get to close to Zoya. Overall combat is simple and solid.

Trine 2 Screenshot 02

Even with the main mechanics of the game revolving around solving puzzles and combat, the atmosphere still needs to be impressive and inspire. The environments of Trine 2 are varied and never fail to impress. Even though the game is a sidescroller each environments offers something unique and always has a three dimension feel. You will find yourself making your way through a forest with fireflies and plants floating in the background, inside a deep dank cave with plenty of spider webs to let you know it is not all sugar and rainbows.

Some of the environments really shine when they introduce weather to the equation. Going through a level during a heavy storm left me gawking at screen. The way they tell the story is also integral to the overall success of the game. In a storybook fashion, a narrator progresses the story between the stages and gives extra insight during certain key moments in the game. The heroes also talk to one another while you go through a stage. The whole feel achieves that fantasy storybook feel the game goes for.

Overall, the game is pretty polished and the only problems I had from a technical standpoint were the jumping mechanics. Double jumping off obstacles felt clunky and took a bit of effort to get it to work as it was intended. The game is beautiful, the puzzles are challenging, the combat provides a nice diversion, and the multiplayer was a nice touch to round out this very well done sequel.

Pros

  • Very beautiful environments
  • The physics based puzzles are challenging
  • Combat provides beaks up the puzzle solving nicely
  • The storybook narration represents the spirit of the game

Cons

  • Puzzle solving is the focus of this game and puzzles may not be your thing
  • Jumping mechanic is a bit wonky especially using double jump

Rating: 4/5

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Review: Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

By
Chris Scott
– December 5, 2011Posted in: PC, PS3, Reviews, Xbox 360

Every gaming generation there are a handful of titles that help to define it. If someone were to suggest that Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed series fit the bill as one of these standout titles, little argument could be made. However, what will the Assassin’s Creed series be remembered for? Will it be the fluid gameplay and superb storytelling? Or will it be that Ubisoft never let the series breathe and eventually destroyed it by making it a yearly release? The answer, surprisingly, may be a touch of one and a touch of the other.

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations follows just a year after the release of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, which in turn followed just a year after the release of Assassin’s Creed II. And after the success of Brotherhood, Revelations has quite a bit to live up to. Like the previous entries in the series, the bulk of the game takes place in the mind of Desmond Miles as he searches through the genetic memories of his ancestors, Altair and Ezio. These memories hold the keys to unlocking something in the present day, if only we knew what that was.

If you are new to the Assassin’s Creed franchise, Revelations is not for you. The game picks up moments after the shocking conclusion to Brotherhood and without prior knowledge of at least the previous two games, you will be at your wit’s end trying to understand all the plot contrivances. For those that have followed along on Desmond’s past forays into his ancestral past, Revelations does a lot to tie up loose ends, albeit possibly not the ones you want tied up.

Due to the events at the end of Brotherhood, Desmond is in a mental state of flux which has him plugged into the Animus for his survival, marooned on what is known as Animus Island. The Island acts as the hub to feed Desmond’s story to the player and its success is somewhat questionable. Ubisoft has painted Revelations as an adventure split between both Altair and Ezio, the two assassin’s Desmond is related to. This is somewhat misleading as Altair is playable for just a small fraction of the game. Make no mistake, Revelations is a game once again centered around the actions of Ezio.

Revelations takes Ezio to Constantinople, in a race against the Templars to find five keys, which will unlock Altair’s library in Masayf. Like all the cities in the game series, Constantinople is an artistic masterpiece. The Eastern and Western influences are apparent in everything and the city truly feels like the meeting place of the East and West. However, because of how the city is designed there is a noticeable feeling of déjà vu as Ezio traverses it. This was obviously the intention of the game designers as they try to tie the storylines of Ezio and Altair together but it also results in a tired feeling for the level design.

Fortunately, the game introduces a few new mechanics to the mix to help spruce things up from the same old, same old. The biggest and most important edition is the hook blade. This blade is a replacement for Ezio’s second hidden blade, and has a variety of uses. Zip lines have been placed throughout the city and Ezio can quickly traverse the rooftops by hooking onto one with his new blade. Additionally the blade provides a handful of new combat moves to Ezio’s already vast arsenal.

Revelations also adds bomb crafting and a simplistic tower defense game called Den Defense. Outside of a few missions, I found little reason to actually spend time crafting bombs. That said, everyone has their own play-style and some are sure to find it more rewarding than I did. While I found little use for the crafting it was non-intrusive and did not hurt my overall experience. Den Defense on the other hand is something I found frustrating in nearly every aspect and nearly ruined the game for me on more than one occasion.

Scattered throughout Constantinople are guard towers controlled by the Templars, these towers can be easily captured by defeating the guard captain and lighting a signal fire. Capturing the tower grants control of a city district over to the assassins, which in turn allows Ezio to open vendors and install guild halls. Doing so though raises the awareness of the Templars and if the awareness level gets too high, the Templars will attack the tower attempting to re-seize control of it, thus the assassin’s den needs to be defended.

Players are tasked with setting up defenses, using various types of assassins and fortifications to stop the incoming assault. Stopping the assault grants the player a reprieve, but failing to do so gives control back to the Templars. At its core, Den Defense is a simple tower defense game. Sadly, the game overcomplicates every aspect of the genre making for a highly frustrating experience.

From a story perspective there is little reason to capture all the towers, however doing so allows for the recruitment of assassin’s which can be called upon in combat. The more towers controlled, the more assassins that can be recruited. Fortunately there is a way to make sure that Den Defense only hinders the experience slightly. Returning from Brotherhood is the ability to train assassins in a menu based mini-game and if one wants complete control of the city without having to run around playing Den Defense, then taking part in Mediterranean Defense is vital. Training seven master assassins will take quite some time but doing so unlocks special in game missions where Ezio will accompany his protégé on a pair of missions. These missions are actually well realized, utilizing all aspects of the gameplay.

Also returning to the mix from Brotherhood in Revelations is the critically acclaimed multiplayer component. The multiplayer has been refined a bit, making the learning curve far less steep than before and in turn making it more satisfying for new players. However, despite being a well-constructed and thoroughly unique multiplayer experience, it will still be an afterthought for most players and Revelations will struggle to maintain its community in an already crowded multiplayer market.

None of the gameplay additions or expansions has changed the core of Assassin’s Creed gameplay though, which is still amazingly fluid. The combat is still some of the best in gaming and the platforming is once again a highlight of the game, with Revelations featuring some of the best sequences not just in the series, but in gaming. Sony’s Uncharted series may grab the headlines for its blend of storytelling and gameplay but Assassin’s Creed is right up there with it, arguably doing many things better.

The problem with Revelations is that for gamers that have been following along with the series, we have done most of it before. Worse still, Revelations does not add anything that feels like a needed addition to the formula. It is still a very good game, that tells a very good story, but it feels tired. It does tie up the stories of Altair and Ezio but it does not move the series forward in any meaningful way. Unlike Brotherhood which felt like a fully featured sequel, Revelations feels like the side story that it is.

Ubisoft has made clear that another Assassin’s Creed game will be coming in 2012. That game needs to get the series back on track because good is just not good enough for this series.

Pros: More Assassin’s Creed, multiplayer is more accessible for newcomers

Cons: More Assassin’s Creed, Den Defense is not fun

4* out of 5

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