With GTA IV having left a slightly sour taste in the mouth of many fans, this left an opening in the sandbox genre for Saints Row 2 to prove that its not just an also-ran.
Once again the setting is in Stillwater which has been totally rebuilt while you have been lying in a coma for 3 years. When you awaken, you are thrown into a gang war for control of the city’s 45 territories against 5 active gangs.
Upon starting the game you are presented with perhaps the most comprehensive character creation mode ever seen. The choices are seemingly endless and can produce some hilarious results. The hilarity doesn’t stop there as the whole game is based on quite lowbrow humour, often filthy and immature which is somewhat refreshing for a game.
Graphically the game is nice but not cutting edge. The soundtrack is superb and incredibly diverse. There’s a lot of niggles though which do frustrate often. Saints Row 2 is huge and as deep as you want it to be and ultimately better than the sum of its parts.
Title: Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway
From: Ubisoft
For: PS3
This WWII shooter is based around Operation Market Garden with the Allies trying to push into Germany through Holland. With this stage being the last major Nazi victory in WWII, the game is bound to be a full-on tactical war experience.
Hell’s Highway is a first-person shooter which emphasises squad placement and tactical decisions to get the job done. Knowing when to flank enemies whilst laying down suppressing fire and the like is supposed to be paramount to success, which is all well and good if your squad mates weren’t complete idiots. They literally need to be told what to do every step of the way. If you don’t then they will either sit there and do absolutely nothing while you’re being shot at, or they will wander aimlessly into a firefight like lambs to the slaughter.This game is no GRAW2 or Rainbow Six Vegas, that’s for sure.
The graphics are mediocre apart from some nice particle effects. The vegetation is 2D and the shadows on faces looks like a tagger has left their mark.
All in all Hell’s Highway is nothing we haven’t seen and done before.
Every now and then a game comes along with an innovative new feature that makes you wonder why nobody thought of it before. But all to often the game itself turns out to be a bit of a dog while going on to attain a certain cult standing for being the first to introduce a feature that became commonplace.
Fracture from LucasArts may well be one of those games. Its terraforming technology breaks new ground (pun intended) and with any luck it won’t be the last we see of it. However Fracture itself just doesn’t do it justice.
The year is 2161 and North America has turned to custard. The Midwest has flooded due to climate change and the resulting sea has divided the East and West. You are cast as Jet Brody of the Atlantic Alliance (East) and are tasked with infiltrating the Republic of Pacifica (West) who have been experimenting with genetic modification. It’s a decent storyline which breaks the traditional shackles of the Axis vs Allies, Aliens vs Humans or Zombies vs Humans fare.
Following in the footsteps of Gears of War and Halo, Brody is equipped with a high-tech body suit which not just protects him but contains a very special tool called the Entrencher. This tool, which can also be used as a weapon, is the main attraction in Fracture and is what lifts the game slightly above being just another 3rd person shooter. The Entrencher allows Brody to raise or lower the ground for a number of purposes. This can’t be done just anywhere, only on bare dirt which is often strategically placed. But in wide open areas of earth you can go nuts and completely alter the level.
The Entrencher is fired like a weapon using the crosshairs. The shoulder bumpers will either raise the ground in a mound (subsequent firing will raise it further), or lower the ground like a blast crater. Raising it can be handy for reaching high places, raising bridges or creating ramps and even crushing enemies against the ceiling if you’re lucky enough to get one standing in the right place. But perhaps the coolest thing about raising the ground is that in a frantic fire-fight you can create instant mounds to take cover behind. It’s something that you’ll use a lot when you’re allowed to. It’s great to create a mound for cover and wait til an enemy flanks the mound only to have you fire up another mound under him sending him flying. Lowering the ground is useful for getting underneath obstacles and sometimes creating cover, but there’s not too many other applications I’ve come across.
Along with the Entrencher there are a number of traditional weapons that you’d expect to see in any shooter. The ALM-37 Deep Freeze has a point of difference though in that it turns enemies into ice so you can proceed to shatter them to pieces. The Rhino fires electrically charged boulders at enemies and is handy when there is a tightly packed group of them. There is also a sticky grenade launcher that can bring down structures if you use it to take out their supports. You can only carry two weapons at once (not including the Entrencher) and four types of grenades which are designated to the D-Pad.
The grenades are anything but traditional. Three of them change the terrain in the form of creating a hill, a crater and a granite spike which is handy once again for raising bridges and getting you to hard to reach places. The fourth is called a vortex grenade that, when thrown creates a mini black hole which swirls around and sucks in everything in the immediate vicinity then blows it to smithereens. It’s an awesome weapon but makes the game a tad too easy as you end up using it all the time when there’s multiple enemies.
The game sounds fun so far, right? Well it does – but it’s not. Fracture is very restrictive in how you approach the game and linear in what you must do to achieve certain tasks. Most of the chances you get to use the Entrencher are in a corner patch of dirt at the end of a corridor to get to another level to complete an objective. This excellent feature just seems to go to waste. There’s very little variation in gameplay either – it’s a case of clear a room/area, run a corridor, clear another room, go outside, clear that area, wash, rinse and repeat. It’s almost as if you’re playing one never ending level like Microsoft’s Too Human. That makes Fracture an ideal rental as finishing the game would take some serious determination. Sure, there are some parts where you have to lower and raise ground in a puzzle-like nature to turn things on and off, but all in all it’s just a bit of a yawnfest.
And then there’s the enemies themselves. Did someone say dumb? The AI is awful in that some enemies will take appropriate cover, but others will stand quite happily out in the open and beg to be plugged. When you hit them, they barely react until you deliver the fatal blow. It’s sloppy and is another nail in Fracture’s coffin.
There is one saving grace however and that’s the multiplayer. While not enough to recommend shelling out cash for a purchase, it’s pretty good fun for a short time. There’s 8 maps and 8 game types for up to 12 players at once. All the usual culprits are here such as Capture the Flag, Deathmatch and King of the Hill but the Entrencher gives them a breath of life and an extra dimension to gameplay. Perhaps the best multiplayer mode though is Excavator. Here, using the Entrencher is paramount to victory. One team must attempt to take several points on the map by lowering the ground and therefore raising one of the opposition’s basalts, you can then choose to defend this point or continue on to another. All the while the opposing team is doing the same to you. It’s a great mode and really illustrates the promise that terraforming weapons have.
Graphically I must liken the game once again to Too Human, i.e. a huge disappointment. Explosions, battles and Brody’s suit all look nice and pretty, but the cutscenes are an embarrassment, the framerate drops dramatically in places and the checkpoint saving makes the game stutter a few frames rather than just pausing play for a couple of seconds.
Overall, Fracture has some nice ideas but doesn’t support them with a memorable game. The whole experience just stinks of mediocre. With any luck someone will pick up the terraforming idea and run with it. I can see it having successful applications in a number of franchises, especially Halo.
Pros: Terraforming is a great idea. The grenades are innovative. Multiplayer is maybe a saving grace.
Cons: It’s repetitive, linear and too easy. Cutscenes are shocking. A boring solo campaign.
Title: Fable 2
From: Lionhead Studios
For: Xbox 360
A few years ago now, the original Fable was a groundbreaking piece of game making. All that time in the making, Fable 2 should once again raise the bar with the power of the Xbox 360 at it’s disposal. It does not disappoint.
I’m not even going to attempt to delve into Fable 2 in this small space, suffice to say that it is a wondrous experience that no dedicated gamer should miss out on in this generation. As with the original, there is a story to follow, but you can do it at your leisure, choosing to rush through it from mission to mission or just live life to the fullest and moving on when you see fit. Once again you can choose the path of good or evil and almost every action has a consequence.
There’s many, many new features but perhaps the biggest is the co-op multiplayer experience which lets you share this monumental masterpiece with a friend.
I could write 2000 words and not do Fable 2 justice, so if you own an Xbox 360 then play this game. If you don’t – then buy a console so you can. This is a definite front runner for Game of the Year.
Title: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
From: LucasArts
For: Xbox 360
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is set in the grey area that is the time between Episode III and Episode IV. You are cast as Darth Vader’s “Secret Apprentice” and are tasked with ridding the universe of Jedi.
This 3rd person adventure game shows off a newly developed physics engine with which objects and bodies react as they would in real life. Wood splinters like wood, glass shatters like glass and so on. The bodies also react as they would when coming into contact with objects.
Combat is two-fold, as you have the option of using your lightsabre and/or using various Force abilities with which you can thro enemies around or use it to throw objects against them. Even though there are a number of ways to dispatch enemies, the combat does become repetitive before too long.
Graphically the game is nice enough, but nothing outstanding in the presence of several recent games. The sound is excellent however and I will never tire of that lightsabre sound effect.
Title: FaceBreaker
From: Electronic Arts
For: PlayStation 3
FaceBreaker is the boxing game you play when you don’t feel like playing a boxing game due to it having very little in common with actual boxing. This is basically a fighting game in a ring with boxing gloves. As one reviewer accurately put it – it’s like a game of rock-paper-scissors rather than the chess match that is boxing.
With comic character styling, you fight using high or low punches with blocks, dodges and a super-punch or FaceBreaker maneuver. The action is fast paced and eventually fighting comes down to mashing the same two buttons again and again. The characters aren’t well balanced in that some have awful moves while others have moves that are pretty much unblockable.
Graphically the game has some nice effects, and you can use EA’s Game Face feature to upload yours or any face into the game. As the faces get battered around, they take on a rather comical appearance which is a nice touch.
It’s easy to see what EA was trying to achieve with FaceBreaker but it comes off as more of a cheap fighter than a self satirical boxing game.
Title: WipEout HD
From: Sony London Studios
For: PS3
Back in 1995 a friend of mine bought a brand new gaming console called a PlayStation. The following night he invited myself and a mutual mate around to show it off. One of the games he showcased that night was WipEout. I literally sat there with my bottom jaw on the floor. Not only were we sitting in a lounge playing high quality games without having to insert $2 every minute, but here was this game with ships racing at breakneck speed with graphics never before seen outside the arcade.
The very next day I shelled out about a thousand dollars for a Sony PlayStation and the game WipEout.
Since that memorable first release from Psygnosis, there have been several incarnations of WipEout including one on the PSP. But what’s noticeable about the whole series is that apart from faster, flashier graphics, the game has remained exactly the same. This rings true with the latest release, WipEout HD, available only by download from PlayStation Store. That’s right – you cannot buy this from a retail outlet. The best thing about this concept is, providing you don’t mind the 1GB download, the bargain price – a third of the cost of a retail BluRay disc. Considering this is also one of the finest looking PS3 games to date – well, you do the math.
The game looks incredible and runs at a blistering 60fps even at 1080p. There was no need to have any motion or blur effects here – you can run over 3 speed boosts then hit your turbo thrust with several other ships on screen with weapons going off and the graphics are crisp, clean and it doesn’t skip a beat. The fact that it’s reading off the hard drive probably helps this a lot.
The futuristic presentation and soundtrack is typical WipEout. I would love a boxed set of all the tracks featured in the WipEout series –it’d be better than many of the compilations released these days.
Unlocks and progression in WipEout HD is easy to begin with – which draws you into the game and the difficulty gets tweaked as your skills supposedly increase, then it gets really difficult to progress unless you get everything perfect by hitting every speed boost and utilising the air brakes properly on the tighter corners.
Progression is linear, but is laid out in a way (a grid system) that gives you the illusion that you’re making your own path through the game. Race types too are varied so the racing doesn’t get stale.
New to the series is the ability to absorb weapons rather than fire them. You always used to be able to dump them (or just use them anyway), but being able to absorb them replenishes some of the valuable energy of your ship – a good option when you pick up a crappy weapon like the machine gun for example. Later on in the game, absorbing weapons for that extra bit of energy replenishment becomes very handy indeed. There is also a new weapon called the Leech Beam which drains the energy of any ship it meets.
The SIXAXIS control method comes into play if you feel inclined and works well on some of the cruisier tracks, but any with multiple tight turns or high density traffic prove easier with the standard control method and timely taps of the air-brakes.
The tracks in WipEout HD are taken straight from WipEout Pure and Pulse – which is both a shame and and a bonus at the same time. Any true WipEout fan has played them before, but it’s also awesome to experience them in HD with such speed and responsiveness. Knowing the tracks somewhat makes getting into the game just that much easier.
Online is excellent for up to 8 players although early on I had trouble finding players regularly. The race options are limited, but it all works brilliantly without any slow-down. This game has been made to work properly in all facets of gameplay. Watch out too for plenty of upcoming downloadable expansion packs.
It’s easily one of the better PS3 games to date and for the price of 3 blocks of cheese is well worth adding to your collection.
Title: Mercenaries 2: World in Flames
From: Pandemic
For: Xbox 360
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, if I may coin a cliché, is a game of two halves. One half is so embarrassingly awful, while the other is addictively brilliant. Now I’m not talking halves in chronological terms, I’m meaning one half being game mechanics and the other being gameplay.
Let me explain. This 3rd-person shooter has more graphical glitches than I have ever seen in a game – and I’ve been playing games a very long time. Characters appear and disappear at random, motorbikes cruise past with no riders and once my boat got blown up, disappeared and my character continued to drive around on the water as if there was a boat still there.
But on the other side of the coin, I couldn’t stop playing it. It’s great fun in a simplistic kind of way. It doesn’t try to be something it’s not and that seems to make all the comical glitches excusable. The online co-op multiplayer is a blast and ultimately all the anomalies become an enjoyable feature in themselves.
Title: Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise
From: Rare
For: Xbox 360
Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise, like the original Viva Piñata is a game that you have to invest some serious time in to make it worthwhile. It’s certainly not a game you can play in 10 minute bursts. Don’t let the bright colours and cartoon characters fool you either, this is a very deep God simulation with simplified controls to make it more accessible to all ages.
The idea is to tend to a piece of garden in such a way that it attracts some of over 100 piñatas. For example, initially you will attract a worm, which will then attract a bird and so on. If you get a pair of one species you can then breed them, using smaller piñata as a food source to sustain a breeding program. The simulation grows in complexity as your collection of piñata species grows with a regime of maintenance, construction and expansion required to progress.
If game such as The Sims, Animal Crossing and even Civilisation don’t interest you then it’s likely Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise won’t either. It’s a fantastic piece of game making though and well worth a look.
Spore is a game of life and you get to control it every step of the way. As a comet crashes into a planet, scattering bacteria far and wide. You take control of one of these cells and swim around in your primordial ooze. This stage takes the form of a top-down view arcade game as you swim around eating and avoiding being eaten. As you eat more and manage to survive, you also evolve and eventually sprout legs and venture out onto the land.
This is called the Creature Stage. Here you also have to fight for survival, but also learn to interact with others. You have two options; be aggressive or be friends, which is a theme that runs throughout the game. The Creature Stage itself becomes a bit of a repetitive chore which has to be completed to evolve to the next stage – the Tribal Stage.
In this stage the focus is on building communities, primitive buildings and once again making friends with neighbouring tribes or trying to eliminate them. If you choose the aggressive route then you’ll need to make weapons to do so. This stage is a real-time strategy game and as you eliminate other tribes you will earn enough points to move onto the Civilisation Stage which is much of the same thing, but on a grander scale and with more evolved technologies and social structures.
When you take over enough of the world in the Civilisation Stage you then discover space travel. The Space Stage, while it does have a finishing point, is completely open to do whatever you wish. Colonise other planets and terraform them, destroy other species or move them around – the choices are as many as the stars in the sky.
Once you finish the game you get to start at any stage you wish, which gives the game a solid lifespan.
Spore had an enormous self-created hype to live up to upon its release and all to often when this happens, the game is a let down due to over promotion. This reigns true to some degree with Spore but it’s still a remarkable feat of game making.
Title: Saints Row 2
