Call of Juarez Gunslinger

A Rage Quit review

FBT gets into the rootinest, tootinest, ragingest game seen in those parts for nigh on a season oldtimer, then goes watch Young Guns.

Call of Juarez has had the weirdest franchise narrative. The first featured two playable characters in a converging western storyline where one tried to solve murders that the other was hunting him for. The prequel Bound in Blood explained the backstory with backstabbing in every cut-scene. Cartel leapt into the present day and centred on three protagonists in an incoherent co-op storyline where they all double-crossed each other. Will Gunslinger finally explain what Juarez keeps calling about?

Sometime in the early 1900s, an ornery old coot ambles into the Bull’s Head Saloon and a young man excitedly recognises him as Silas Greaves, the infamous bounty hunter from his Dime novels. The bar patrons take a knee as Silas relives his legendary career, almost at an end – one more bounty and he’s done.

We open on Silas’ involvement with none other than Billy the Kid. Silas reveals he was one of Billy’s Regulators, helped them escape Pat Garett and won a quick-draw with Bob Ollinger. Thing is, if you’re a student of western lore (or a fan of Young Guns), you know Silas’ stories don’t smell right; the locations, folks and events happened, but not the way Silas tells it, and not with him the hero. One of Billy’s most famous killings was Ollinger (With his own shogun). Silas also recalls how he became a bounty hunter; as a younger man, he and his two brothers were lynched for their money. He survived, the brothers didn’t. Silas swore vengeance and as he hunted the robbers, he fell into bounty hunting and became the legend, driven by hate as the men continued to elude him.

Visually, Gunslinger is close to Darkness II – hyper saturated and hard edged, to reflect Dwight’s dime novels, and the kills have a comic-book look. But it doesn’t forget it’s western cinema influences. The levels recall the romantic imagery of the old west although there’s no involvement the way Gun or Red Dead attempted, it’s practically a rail shooter and you have one mission goal – reach your bounty through a slew of bandits, outlaws, rustlers, robbers, fugitives … I can’t think of any other words to describe bad guys in westerns.

The cowboys we hunt use the terrain well, hidden in bushes or behind rocks and while there’s only three variations, who look like a ZZ Top cover band, they not pushovers – Some prefer running straight towards your muzzle like the psychos of Borderlands (another game whose aesthetic it shares), and letting them get too close is dangerous; they’re dangerous at a distance too but there’s a bullettime where Silas moves faster and enemies are highlighted. That doesn’t make it easier, just a lot more frantic. It might actually be one of the better examples of bullettime, you have an edge not a get out of jail button press. There’s also super-bullettime called Sense of Death. When near death, and assuming it’s not a hail of bullets or dynamite that’s about to take Silas down, everything will slow to the speed of a bullet and you’ll see the kill shot come flying at you. You have a second to move Silas and it’ll either skim past or hit him in the face, and there’s also nice standoff moments where hitting the right keys will make Silas quick-draw his way out. In some of the more brutal fights it all happens at once and coupled with the general frenzy of the fights and the bloody messes you make of the cowboys, it’s all pretty intense. Gameplay wise, Gunslinger is up there; the fights aren’t for the greenhorns, it’s brutal and unforgiving, even after leveling up – although level ups don’t mean the cowpokes become cowboys, they’re constantly a Nightmare mode. Once you level up you have three skill trees dedicated to pistol, shotgun and rifle – He can only carry two at a time though, you’d think a grizzled bounty hunter could manage a third. It’s great fun though, Silas kicks ass. You can see why the bar patrons are enjoying his tales. At least the believable ones.

As Silas continues his story, the patrons become suspicious of his escapades. They point out inconsistencies, question the claims Silas makes and the sheer luck that the bounty hunter seems to keep having; and the game doesn’t seem to believe him either.

When questioned, Silas’ mastery of storytelling comes to the fore. When the patrons rubbish his doubtful tales, he corrects them for assuming elements of his story; when one scoffs that a bounty of his is still alive, he retorts with ‘I didn’t say he died did I?’ – well, no but … and then they reappear alive, having strangely survived – brilliantly, the game reworks itself to match his story; He mentions being surrounded by Apaches and we’re in the middle of shooting dozens of them when we hear someone point out they were never even in that area and Silas says he meant they fought like Apaches – suddenly they all respawn as ZZ Top. In another he claims to have gotten out of a dead end after finding a body with dynamite – but there isn’t one … and then a body drops from the sky in front of him. Once, we battled through an explosive-laden mine, carefully lining up shots to hit cowboys not dynamite but eventually it all goes off and we’re running through tunnels and just as it seems Silas has talked himself into a corner he says, ‘but I realised the futility of that plan’ and the game spins all the way back to the beginning and we replay a more believable route. Everyone tuts, but Silas just carries on, as his story gets closer to his final, personal bounty.

Silas also plays with gaming conventions. Several times he’s trapped until he does an action; kills everyone, stops something happening etc., and then says ‘then I noticed a ladder that had escaped my attention’ or ‘I noticed an escape route’ and the game quickly places them there. There’s sly nods to gaming clichés, such as pointing out how is he carrying dynamite and not getting blown to smithereens when shot – Or constantly surviving getting shot? He also has some cracking death lines, dryly saying things like “I just needed to jump to the cliff *I jump only to fall off* assuming I don’t fall off.” Alright smartarse. I wondered if they were actually scripted fails they’re so well done. You can also find ‘nuggets’ which unlock the real stories behind Silas’ tales. You’re not going to read them, but they carry hefty XP so it’s worth tracking them down. All of this self-awareness though, even with Silas’ unreliable narrator act isn’t quite enough to hold it all together; there’s a serious threat under Silas’ genial nature, like he’s giving them all this hokum to disarm the patrons, play up the harmless old soak routine. You imagine one of his rapt audience is his final bounty but we never see them other than in brief dime novel stills and not being involved in those scenes drains the tension. The episodic, arcade nature doesn’t help either; Silas and his wily ways does, but the story doesn’t follow through. Had it been a mystery where each chapter gave you the opportunity to reveal something about their identity or clues to narrow down the suspects and we cut back to a tension-filled Saloon where we could question or call them out like some Western edition of Cluedo it could have married it all up but you’re just not invested in Silas’ final reckoning.

Gunslinger even manages to do the good old red in’juns about right. One mission has him tracking ‘Grey Wolf’ an Apache whose tribe is causing trouble. After an epic battle, a cornered Grey Wolf points out Silas’ revenge is consuming him, which causes Silas to pause and Grey Wolf escapes; Stricken by his words, Silas gives up saying he realised it was an unfair bounty considering what the Apaches have been through. Take note, Gun. We catch a glimpse of Grey Wolf passing behind a tree – from which a real wolf emerges. Nice touch.

By now Silas has tangled with every famous outlaw in western history; and what an annoying tangle it is. Once you’ve reached a gunslinger of note, the game goes into a stand-off. Using the mouse, you focus your concentration – which inexplicably wanders; if I was facing John Wesley Hardin who killed 40+ men including one for snoring, I’d keep my eye on him. You then have to use two keys to constantly keep Silas’ hand above the gun ready to draw. It becomes the gamer equivalent of pat your head and rub your tummy. Why am fighting Silas’ compulsion to put his hands in his pockets? You can’t watch the percentage of gun grabbing at the same time as keep your eye on your opponent; one will drift. Then once they shot you have to dodge left or right to avoid their shots and keep the gaze on target and you have fire once to pull your gun then again to fire – if he’s not been distracted by something. It’s rage-inducing. You can cheat, pulling before they do but that gets you a Dishonourable kill and zero XP. But it’s worth it, stand-offs are annoying enough to sacrifice XP. Later stand-offs get harder until even cheating won’t do it. It really is something that your heart sinks at the sight of a shoot-out in a western.

Eventually, Silas’ revenge sends him spiralling into increasingly outlandish stories and the game takes on a beautifully surreal edge – at one point he excuses himself and the game repeats the same sequence as we hear the patrons pick apart his legend until he returns; to confront none other than both Butch and Sundance. The man he wants is supposedly part of their posse. We face off and … enter a double stand-off. Not only am I trying to juggle concentration and gun-hand and anticipate a draw but I have to flick between the two of them to work out which will shoot first; that’s another set of keys. To recap, two keys to gauge where the hand should go, two more keys to switch between opponents, and move the mouse to keep him focused. Silas may be the fastest hand in the west but even he doesn’t have three of them. And I have to re-concentrate each time I switch while the gun-hand makes like Thing and takes off and when one does fire I have dodge and fire back AND flick to the other opponent and dodge his bullets while – Or not. That’s four keys, two places to look (three if you can’t touch type) in two QT sequences plus some surgical mouse-movement and timed clicking. And, the story just made clear they were now enemies and he only needed one of them alive. Just let them have the quick-draw and interrogate the other! I just get so angry with it, so annoyed I crash out and never go back. Rage Quit.

So I never found out if Silas was telling the truth, if he got his vengeance, if any of it was true. And that’s really annoying. Silas was great company and I’m really aggravated I didn’t get to see how his story ended because of idiotic over-complicated controls. I don’t know if it’s easier on a console and I don’t care; all the imagination and subversion in this story, the bullettime, quick-shots and Sense of Death and they couldn’t save one for the quick-draw or come up with something else? At the very least, Gunslinger could have worked like Gat Out of Hell or Blood Dragon, a subversive companion to the main series, but it’s an Add without an On and the quickdraw ruins an otherwise brilliant game that could have stood on it’s own. Why can’t PC Gamers have a good western? I loved this game until it went all button-mash.

A narrative thread throughout the JoC games has been betrayal, and this time I feel betrayed. I’m ignoring Juarez’s Call.

2013 | Developer Techland | Publisher Ubisoft

platforms; win | PS3 | X360

Bulletstorm

a second wind review

FBT blazes his way through Bulletstorm, before Gearbox f’ed it up for no reason. Like they did Duke. And aliens. Got Borderlands right though, so silver lining and all that.

killing dick

When Bulletstorm came out in 2011 it disappeared quickly, with both critics and gamers wary – With its throwback box art which recalled the original Doom cover, the trailer aping the Halo 3 diorama and a free download called Duty Calls, Bulletstorm seemed out of place; taking the piss at a time when games took themselves very seriously; it was the prime ‘realism’ era of gaming with COD Black Ops and the Medal of Honor reboot the year before while 2011 also saw Modern Warfare 3 not to mention trifling games like Crysis 2, Deus Ex: HR, Batman AC, Rage, LA Noire and Mass Effect 2 out around the same time – triple A games that strove for realism and here was a linear shooter that rewarded you for sniping someone in the ass. The only other exception was the mighty Saints Row 3 and no one knew what the hell to make of that, dimissing it as a bit of daftness (It’s not). So it’s no wonder Bulletstorm got overlooked. Compounding the gamer nervousness around it, Bulletstorm itself didn’t seem to know its own place – it wasn’t all about kicking baddies into cactus (cacti?), a serious subplot around avenging a death and a sidekick’s descent into madness chafed with the wise-cracking of our hero while the horror of the world you play in and the fate of the hero’s merry band don’t gel with the silliness of the xp system. Was it a giggle-some shooter for after-the-pub or an engrossing survival shooter? Was it the game Duke Nukem Forever should have been, was it actually quite dark beneath it all? It didn’t seem to know itself, it’s like art design, dialogue and story writers all worked in their own vacuum and someone else pulled it together. Not to mention the rage-inducing cliff-hanger ending; it’s one thing to leave fans wanting more, it’s another somewhat arrogant thing to expect them to want more; It’s just a betrayal – revenge story, hardly Mass Effect epic and a clichéd one at that. It does sometimes feel like the devs were mighty pleased with themselves while pulling BS together, like they had something revolutionary, like they were going to beat DNF to the punch and launch the next generation’s Duke. Being bits of everything and nothing, Bulletstorm seemed to cancel itself out and it quickly faded away. Except that, over time gamers got it and BS developed something of a cult following; it was one of the games no one had but there was always someone who said, when you complained about the latest COD being a reskin, ‘you should try Bulletstorm’ and Gearbox’s unexpected relaunch of it shows Bulletstorm was one of the games you lent and never got back.

Bulletstorm opens in the 26th century with ‘Dead Echo’, a Spec-Ops team busily assassinating traitors. Mission accomplished, our hero, Gray, discovers Dead Echo is being used by their CO, Sarrano; they’ve actually been operating as his personal death squad; the list of ‘traitors’ were innocents looking to expose his dodgy side-deals. Barely escaping a trap Sarrano sets as the last link to him, Dead Echo becomes a band of burnt-out mercs with Gray drunkenly obsessed with killing Sarrano, filling his time finding and torturing Sarrano’s men as much for fun as information; a chance encounter with Sarrano’s flagship results in both ships crashing on a nearby planet and in the ensuing fracas, Gray escapes while all but one of Dead Echo is wiped out; only Ishi survives after being cybernetically rebuilt with the ship’s AI to control his bodily functions. And the ship AI has had just about enough of Gray’s shenanigans. Ishi Mk2 attempts to murder Gray, only relenting when they discover Sarrano also survived the crash and is on the planet somewhere. The two remaining Dead Echoes agree to find Sarrano so they can escape and save Ishi before the AI takes over completely. And so begins a solid ten hours of shooting, kicking and brutalising everything between here and Sarrano.

The world Grey lands on is a failed pleasure planet, kind of an amusement park meets all-inclusive holiday resort. But this place was not ‘ATOL protected’; the resort is overrun with dangerous clans of prisoners who were shipped there to build the place then left to rot when the park was abandoned, partly because they discovered too late the planet was filled with carnivorous plants and a huge Godzilla-like species, and because they dumped tons of toxic waste underground that seeped into the water supply and mutated the holiday-makers. It’s this mix Grey and Ishi fight their way through and as a set design, it is brilliantly observed. Beneath the rot and decay you can see an incredibly detailed and believable resort and locations to blast your way through. Much like People Can Fly’s previous effort, Painkiller, the world you inhabit is as beautiful as it is brutal.

As the two make their through the resort, dealing with Ishi slowly being assimilated by the AI they find another survivor from the crash. An amusingly and foul-mouthed female solider, Trishka, who joined Sarrano’s crew for one reason – kill Dead Echo. When Trish isn’t insulting Grey (‘Get any closer and I will kill your dick!’ / ‘Wait, what? You’re gonna kill my dick? What does that even mean?!’) she starts to come around to Grey’s way of thinking on Sarrano, who she blinded followed, not knowing Gray’s the guy she’s trained to kill. Her and Ishi make for interesting companions through this nightmare world.

Fighting through the world is relentless. Not Borderlands relentless, and not the drudge of Painkiller but intense. The different clans you encounter each have different attacks, styles and approaches and they all move fast. In order to counter them, you have something special – Early on Grey finds a strange device which attaches itself to his wrist and has a leash he can use to grab objects and villians with spectacularly gruesome effects. Trishka explains the planet was being used by Sarrano as a training ground and the leashes were to track star soldiers and provide them with ammo – if they managed kills. Quite a severe but effective way to weed out the weak and one of the few times xp is truly woven into a game; the bigger and better the kills, the more skill the leash awards and the more ammo and upgrades you can afford. Usually xp has a hackneyed justification for being but in Bulletstorm it not only feels right but has immediate ‘real world’ consequences if you don’t man-up. Yes, scoring xp with outrageous kills is a great deal of fun but it being your only way to get special ammo and power-ups adds another level to the shooting. Pulling someone towards you with the leash causes them to go into a form of bullettime and you glance around, looking for a cliff, wall, metal post, anything to shoot or kick them into with insane and messy results. It adds a level of thrill and awareness to the world rather than mundanely splattering through and even when overwhelmed you’re still looking for any opportunity to kill by cacti.

The weapons also allow for different kills. The standard weapon, a machinegun has an alt fire that unloads an entire clip in one shot leading you to try and line villains up for a blast. The sniper rifle allows the bullet to be directed mid-flight once it’s locked to a target and soon you’re Wanted-style bending them around corners; pulling the trigger is only the first step to killing in Bulletstorm – a grenades-on-a-chain weapon lets you fire then detonate later but trying to chain-up baddies or chaining them to nearby objects creates all manner of mayhem. Hidden in the madness is a thinking game; in the middle of the kind of mayhem reserved for button mashing you’re planning and looking for opportunities.

While the set design stays mostly within the world of the holiday park, there are some variations such as toxic caves and crumbling high-rises but BS also relies on several QuickTimeEvent set pieces to keep things interesting. Being chased by a huge spinning gearwheel, a Godzilla creature and even a model village set of the park are all stand outs. For one sequence Grey even gets to control a mech-zilla to clear the way and it’s so much fun it’s almost sad when it does down.

Eventually Sarrano is tracked down and we’re forced to work alongside him to get off the planet, only to (obviously) be double-crossed. But Bulletstorm is a great ride start to finish, an exhilarating, breathless race with some insane weapons, set-pieces and characters to enjoy a solid ten hours of gaming palate-cleansing. It is a refreshing change from the dour and seriousness of other shooters. Gray is something of a Duke clone but without the misplaced, misjudged misogynies of DNF. Throughout the levels, you can find beer to drink and like Redneck Rampage eons ago, doing so will make his aim go off (and draw Ishi’s ire – ‘You disgust me’) but it makes the firefights fun and rather than being bombastic, stoic or silent, Grey is often surprised and annoyed at the situations he finds himself in and isn’t above teasing Trishka or Ishi about their predicament – one that he has to take responsibility for, and comes to do so as the game draws to a blood-soaked close. Trishka is a solid female sidekick whose gender is a non-issue and has her own agenda while constantly points out what a dick Gray is. Ishi, heavily scripted with his AI-driven tantrums makes for a different kind of sidekick; rather than just blindly following as most companions do, or just there to remind you what you should be doing, he questions and comments on Gray’s choices and is intending to save Sarrano not get revenge (Ishi has always put down the betrayal as part of the business, unlike Gray who took it personally); early on he tells Gray that Sarrano is under his projection in return for rescue, setting up the potential for a nasty falling-out and adding a dynamic that’s frustratingly never really resolved – it was clearly intended given that goddamn cliff-hanger ending making it even more galling. Sarrano on the other hand, is just the worst villain ever committed to gaming. He’s all ‘shitkickers’ this and ‘grab your ladyparts’ that, screaming insults and sneering contempt. I’ve never hated a character so much. And that’s not good storytelling drawing the hate, he’s just so incredibly annoying, a Poundland R.Lee Ermey. I constantly wanted to murder him just to shut him up and it’s so obvious he’s going to double-cross us it’s the one time the game falters and slows down. The rest of the time it’s exhilarating but once he’s involved it’s ‘been here, done that’ and his character being so frustrating makes it worse. Critics complained about the uneasy balance between the serious story and the knockabout gameplay but really it can be seen as gallows humour in the face of an insanely difficult situation, its only when Sarrano’s on the scene does BS feels tired and unoriginal.

Since Bulletstorm comes from Painkiller creators People Can Fly (which became Epic Poland then became PCF again) it shares a lot of that game’s style and approach. The hordes of baddies rushing at you are straight out of Painkiller and the leash is a techno version of the Painkiller weapon. But Grey, interacting with Ishi and Trish is a much more entertaining character than PK’s Daniel while their escaping this Hell is somehow more interesting than Daniel trying to purge his soul. It’s a brilliant world to kill in. Also great is how Grey continues to make things worse for himself and the others, his temper and machoism getting the better of him – one level sees them navigating through a cave system where something is following. They find themselves an exit but there’s huge eggs in the way. We all know this will not end well, Grey knows it, Ishi begs him not to but Grey merrily smashes them to get through. Of course, something big and nasty isn’t happy but rather than just appear at the end of the level as a boss battle, the huge Godzilla creature just keeps putting in appearances as they progress through the game, eventually appearing in the final third in a great aerial set-piece. Trishka just marvels at how Grey could have willingly upset such a creature.

Bulletstorm is a short game, it does rely on a lot of scripted moments and over time, kills lose their appeal; the plot and gameplay feel at odds often and the open/cliff-hanger ending is unforgiveable – it’s easy to see how it was overlooked not just in the face of some major AAA games in 2011 but also as a cartoony bit of silliness. But it easily surpasses any COD Reskin for sheer inventiveness and pure-blooded shooter fun. It’s just really good. And that ending does suggest PCF knew they had a good game but were over confident, like this was the start of a franchise. Maybe it was publisher pressure to create a story-arc but there’s no reason why Grey couldn’t have gone onto other adventures rather than just drag this slight plot out into a series (That was FEAR’s problem). It’s a shame we didn’t get to knockabout with Gray again.

That is, unless Gearbox’s gamble pays off. They bought up the IP and re-released Bulletstorm in 2017, much to everyone’s surprise, chucking a 4K up-res and some maps in and asking near full-whack for it. Who for? It’s not like the original was aged or unavailable. Bioshock’s remaster didn’t make Rapture any more beautiful or immersive; the Skyrim redo was for the hardcorers – when are publishers going to realise its the experience not the pixel-count that brings us back? It’s a worrying trend; publishers seem to think releasing remasters will push the brands back into the charts, give the IP some value and keep the franchises going while they tried to figure out what to do next. If you’re going to remaster a game, it needs to be a game that needs it, that can capture new fans and let the originals replay it at today’s spec – the Monkey Island series or Broken Sword with its additional scenes rounding out the story; the success of those overhauls led to new adventures. Bethesda should have remastered Morrowind instead. Worse, in Gearbox’s remaster you can swap Gray out for Duke Nukem – complete with re-recorded lines from John St.John. Both Gray and Duke use their foot for a melee weapon and they’re both macho, but really that’s where the similarity ends and this seems like a disservice to Bulletstorm (and both Gray and Duke) and just a cynical marketing campaign to reboot both franchises. Avoid Gearbox’s latest evil plan and stick with the original. Get in there and kill some dick.

2011 | Developer People Can Fly / Epic Games | Publisher Electronic Arts

platforms; Win, PS3, X360 (PS4 & XO for the remaster)

Mafia III

A Rage Quit review

TheMorty had been so looking forward to playing a mafioso.

There must be some kind of way outta here, said the Joker to the thief
There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief…

Well, they can’t say they didn’t warn us. The writing was well and truly plastered all over the wall from the very beginning of the game as Hendrix’ iconic cover of ‘All Along the Watchtower’ boomed over the title screen. Call me nostalgic, but I hadn’t been this excited for a game since Saints Row 4. Nearly 7 years since the last Mafia game and we’re thrust straight into an unexplored era of America. Sure, we’d had the 40s and 50s with Mafia II, the 80s with Vice City, the birth of hip hop with 1990s San Andreas but I always felt there was a big gaping hole where sandbox games had just failed to explore the period in-between. Think of the soundtrack alone, The Beatles and Stones, the height of New Orleans R&B and the astronomic rise of disco and Motown. The announcement trailer alone filled me with anticipation as there was a previously unexplored opportunity to relive a golden period in history and have a break from the comparable norm of what’s been a very generic offering of third person shooters in the recent marketplace.

Perhaps the biggest draw of all was the idea of playing a mixed-race protagonist that carried all the stereotypical attributes of the badass from the Bayou during a period rife with racism. Surely there’s nothing more character defining than overcoming the extremely racist Italian-American mob on their own turf? Hell, the game even carried a warning that it was going to be extremely non-pc and felt it necessary to condone dropping the N-bomb as often as possible to stay true to the abhorrent problems that the character would undoubtedly have faced at that time. I mean wow, that obliterates the feeble cop-out of a warning from the Assassins Creed anthology – “we’ve got Christians, Muslims and Atheists working on this game, honest… ask me mum”. Surely all the above considered we’re going to be in for one hell of a journey… right?

Alas, I was conned. Sucked into the abyss by the siren of Jimi’s wailing Gibson SG Custom. Instead of the thought provoking, immersive story the preamble had promised to deliver – what followed was a hastily-released, buggy and boring mess without a resemblance of substance or stamina. A game that would not only leave me feeling disappointed, but one that made me fear for the future of a fantastic company that has delivered two of this sites all-time top ten games in Borderlands and Bioshock.

The game starts as it means to go on and opens in a tedious method of non-linear storytelling – a Black Mass-style interview with key players some years after the narrative ends. “I knew Lincoln as a boy” queue flash back to Lincoln being a boy… you get the drill. After an overly prolonged backstory about how I was a Vietnam vet (who would clearly suffer from PTSD before the game was out) the tutorial level began. As with all lecture levels, they’re dull – like teaching your granny how to suck eggs or Duke Nukem how to bed strippers. I’m on a job, dressed as a security guard and I get given my first “Choice”, kill a man or wound him. I pondered it. What would a future gangster do; kill him and keep him quiet or show humility. Turns out that what I do here makes absolutely no difference to the outcome (Commander Shepherd, Lincoln is not!) so of course, you pop the guy. Heading outside, we climb into an armoured security van. Grabbing the steering wheel for the first time, I take out a fence, crash through a gate and collide into a tree. Bloody hell, what am I driving? An oil tanker with a caravan hitched onto the back??!! Fair enough it’s the late 60s and power steering was more of a luxury than a standard – but this is ridiculous. On reflection, maybe it was my fault. While waiting for the game’s 30gb download I took a trip to Los Santos and spent three hours messing around in GTA V. Maybe the smooth cornering, quick breaking and responsive handling of my souped up Zentorno was the equivalent of filling up on bread at a nice restaurant and being unable to eat the main meal. Still, it doesn’t excuse how bad the driving mechanics are here. Like GTA IV, there’s two driving modes in Mafia – normal and simulated. Now, one is supposed to be the generic VG style driving mode – except trying a cool handbrake slide at half speed sends you flying into the Lagoon – the other, which per the game menu is a “fully realistic driving experience”, allows you to corner at 100kph without the need to brake. Who wrote that part of the game – the Stig? It’s frustrating given that driving is pretty much the cornerstone of any city-based sandbox game and to get it so fundamentally wrong was always going to make that inevitable time-trial mission even more impossible.

Not wanting to spoil, the tutorial missions end in the all too familiar gangster style. The double cross. Leaving Lincoln angry, bereaved and frustrated as hell. He’s on the warpath and won’t stop until he gets his revenge. Sounds promising, perhaps I can look past the poor driving mechanics…

Once the cut scenes are out of the way and the tutorial mission has been finished, I can finally free-roam. I head to my safe house and notice my wardrobe contains a nice little pre-order bonus pack of outfits. Thanks 2K, very kind of you. Oh, wait, you’ve given me one that makes me look exactly like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson – I’m wearing it. Sod the 70s. This will be fun for the next 20 minutes at least. The generic costume is typical war-vet attire. Dog tags, big boots, green jacket – I’m looking very Travis Bickle (lazy Scorsese reference #2,458).

Sod that, dressed in my pre-order attire I leave the house, jump in my car and head over to the first mission point. As I walk through the door, something feels off, is it a trap? Am I about to get whacked? Nope. I’m dressed like Travis Bickle again for the cut scene. Are you serious? it’s 2017 and you’re still using QuickTime cut scenes? Character customisation is pretty basic these days; I mean most iOS and arcade games can cope with integrating your unique character look into cut scenes – why have bother even having a customised character if you can’t include them into the most powerful and memorable aspects of your story. Two seconds ago, I had a bic’d bonce now I’ve got a full head of hair. You’re beginning to irritate me Mafia and with a full shelf of games on my to-play list, you’re on real thin ice!

One of the new features in Mafia III allows you to have underbosses to your empire of crime (oh yeah, we’re 10 minutes in and have already forgot about revenge – we’re already thinking ahead before we’ve even had chance to spill some blood!). The first of which is Cassandra, a woman with the Haitian Mob who owns a voodoo shop in Delray Hollow. We “rescue” this girl in one of the earlier tutorial missions, not realising she’s the brains of the operation. I’m starting to like where the games going with this. A strong, black female in a world filled with powerful, white males – surely this promises to be tasty.

The first mission for Cassandra fully immerses you in the games fighting system. It’s quite good, but annoyingly you can’t use it unless you’re in stealth mode. I learned this the hard way, walking up to a group of gang members outside a bar thinking I’m going to go full Batman in Arkham City, when one of them shouts “hey, it’s him” causing his crew to whip out their shotguns and with one blast put Lincoln down – costing me a cool 50% of my wallet, Borderlands style. So not only are shotguns pretty much the BFG of Mafia III, but prepare to lose a lot of cash if you don’t make regular trips to your safe house to store the cash in your safe. Oh, that’s right. You must physically bank your cash. Again, something that should have been left behind in the stone age of gaming.

I’m trying to persevere with this so I head to the next mission and with it, a little more of the map is unlocked. I can now do missions to reclaim my turf – like CJ and Big Smoke’s missions to take over the hood for the Grove Street Families. Yes! Let’s make this map a little greener… I dive into the nearest enemy warehouse and enter stealth mode – taking out the lookouts on the door before making my way through the floor and up the stairs to where the piles of drugs are held. I attach some C4 and move on – looting a pile of cash in the head honcho’s office as I choke him out from behind. I wring the place dry, taking out every enemy and watching my XP slowly rise in the process before triggering the C4 and blowing the drugs. I’m a few quid better off and can move on to the next red hotspot on the minimap – this time it looks like it’s in a bar. I sneak around back armed with my signature Colt (avec silencer) and eliminate the guy on the payphone. Once he’s out of the way, I edge into the back room and take out the two guys in the office – helping myself to a chunk of cash and picking up the collectible playboy mag to appeal to the 14-year-old boys playing the game. Moving into the bar, I get spotted. Quick on the draw, I shoot the mobster sipping his scotch before he can even raise his pistol and then take out the other guy just in time before he leaves the building to sound the alarm for reinforcements. Smooth Clay, two hideouts hit, without a single triggered alarm. Maybe there’s some hope for this title after all…

At this point, I’ve been away from the story for a while, so I figure – best head over to Cassandra’s place to start the next story mission. When I get there, I enter the house dressed as Bickle again (FFS!) and Cassandra proceeds to tell me of some pesky drug smugglers holed up in a warehouse nearby (hmm, this sounds familiar…) and how she’d be ever so grateful if I could get rid of them for her. The cut scene ends, I leave the house and I’m dressed as The Rock. I follow the nav-point and as I’d feared – I’m back at the warehouse I’ve just cleaned out 20 minutes previous, only problem being the whole safe house has respawned. Same number of people, same positions, same AI movement. The only difference… no more cash to steal! How dreadfully dull and pointless. So again, I stealth around the room taking much less care than I ever did the first time, expending more ammo and using far too much health than I need as my brain desperately tries to avoid boredom during the repetition of the task. After 5 or so minutes, the coast is clear. I’ve taken everyone out and head back to Cassandra. “Thanks Lincoln”, no bother Cassy – what you got for me now – A high-speed chase… high profile assassination… what’s next on the agenda? “There’s a group of guys in a bar I need taking care of…” You’ve got to be shitting me. The bar I’ve just been in? Now I must re-do that again too? Honestly lads, why even try to be a sandbox game and offer the illusion of choice if all you intend to do is force me to play this as a linear third person shooter – and why am I dressed like Bickle AGAIN!! So not only does the game not reward you financially for doing twice the work, but it makes an open world free-roaming game extremely linear. There’s absolutely no point in exploring any of the map until after you’ve completed the story missions in that part of town – so why bother.

Understandably annoyed, I carry on and complete a few more side-missions before finally getting a unique task; take down Ritchie Doucet. Doucet’s a man aligned to the Dixie Mafia who happens to be holed up at a rundown theme park. Perhaps my favourite mission on the game, I arrive on a boat and sneak into the park. Think Bond if Idris Elba ever gets the gig. Making my way around various obstacles and taking out Douchet’s lieutenants in Deus Ex-style fashion was quite fun, despite the lack of space you can still combining long range shots and short range combat quite effectively without starting World War III. I finally track down the Boss and he takes more than a few bullets to put down but eventually – he’s toast. I’m Lincoln Clay. I’m a man to be feared. I’m again dressed like the love-child of Rambo and Travis Bickle. Sigh.

The game doesn’t progress much past this point, continuing to recruit underbosses while almost always being forced into running errands for them. What happened to the powerful shift in ethnic power? I’ve now got an Irishman and an Italian on the books and no-one gets on with one another. Oh, and why have I become so obsessed with making money that I’ve forgot about my revenge? I thought that was the whole point of playing through the most monotonous of missions in this games?!

The last straw was the hunt for Sal Marcano’s nephew, Michael Grecco (another lazy Scorsese reference). Mission after mission comes and goes as we repeat the same old task reskinned for different locations to hit Grecco in the pocket and force him out of hiding. Finally, he appears and away we go on what should be an epic car chase. As previously mentioned, the car handling is god awful in this game so imagine how bad it is trying to aim, shoot and steer without breaking your thumbs – all while trying to stop Grecco’s escape. 10 minutes later and I’m still nowhere near Grecco as he inconceivably evades Lincoln whenever you get close enough to deliver a meaningful shot across the bow. Despites his motor being the same model as Lincoln’s he somehow manages to hit Mach speeds whenever you’re near. I eventually get close to him, he’s in shooting distance and I’m locked on his driver’s side rear-wheel ready to pull the trigger and blow out his tyres; bringing this dreadful assignment to its conclusion.

Just as my trigger finger is clenched and I’m about to gun him down, out of nowhere and as if by magic, a 20-tonne garbage truck spawns right in front of me. Where on Earth did that come from? I slam right into the back of it and blood covers the screen. Grecco gets away and the mission fails.

Genuinely, I haven’t seen rendering or draw distance this bad since the original Midtown Madness running on my late 90s Pentium 2. The mission restarts from the beginning. I’m furious. I don’t have time for this, I’m out. I quit. It’s just not worth the hassle.

I expect this from the likes of ‘True Crime: Streets of LA’, ‘Sleeping Dogs’ or even from ‘Just Cause’ but to play one of the most anticipated games of the year from a heritage franchise and to be so brutally let down borders on disgrace. The game just doesn’t know what it wants to be. It’s taken the best aspects of several different genres and got them all horribly wrong. No wonder it was down to £19.99 only a month after its release and can now be seen floating around the bargain bins of second hand gaming stores. If you can’t compete with GTA then be different. Something Saints Row have prided themselves on across four wildly different games. If you don’t want to compete, then fine – but at least stick to what you do well. FarCry Primal is a great example of where a copy and paste game can go right, you just need to tap into your consumers longing to be back in the world they love, even if it is just a re-skin of what they’ve played before.

The game just feels like it’s 8-10 years behind the times and while the story feels like it might be going somewhere, the pacing is snail at best. It’s not only seen me question the integrity of a reputable gaming brand, but it’s see me never want to watch another Scorsese movie again. Bravo lads and lasses, you took Goodfellas, Casino, The Departed and Taxi Driver and somehow managed to make Shutter Island. You utter, utter buffoons.

2016 | Developer Hangar 13 | Publisher 2K Games / Take-Two Interactive

genres; RPG, Free-roam, Driving

platforms; Win, PS4, XO

Road Rash

a Blast from the Past review

For saying FBT claims he hates racing games, here’s another one he won’t shut up about.

The Past

Ahh, Road Rash. RR was basically the DGAF of racing games back in the 90s. Before mayhem had to have repercussions, games like RR quietly got on with being really unethical for fun’s sake. You were one of eight or so bikers competing in illegal street races, but this wasn’t cannonball run with some friendly joshing mid trip, there was no Captain Chaos to help; RR contestants hated each other. If you got too close, they’d give you a kick or a punch to send you off and that was if they were being nice. Chains and pipes would often come into play, while CHiPs on Riceburners would clobber you with truncheons and arrest you after you fell off. And it wasn’t just the racers you had to contend with. The tracks which wound their way through close-quarter city streets and open highways were chock-a-block with cars, pedestrians (which you could mow through at the risk of getting knocked off) and other obstacles. It was one of those games you played with mates not against them, all of you going nuts at the screen as you tried to survive a race let alone win it.

I’m going to be in for a rough ride – it’s 25yrs old and all my memories are of moments spent playing it not the game itself. I can’t remember a thing about it beyond crashing and laughing.

Still a Blast?

Yeah, this looks old even though it’s the updated CD version. But the menus are actually kinda cool, someone in the dev team must have got a trial version of that new-fangled Photoshop thingie, as all the screens are morphed and amusingly stretched faces to represent the riders while FMV cutscenes of bikes doing donuts and wheelies set the scene and in no way represent the gameplay.

I enter the bikers clubhouse, pick a race and chat to the other bikers who give comments and advice on how to race. It’s not interactive, they’re all pictures and text but there’s a sense of fun to it, like it knows it’s a joker. I pop into the bike shack and discover a ‘rat’ bike is the best I’ll afford for a while. The superbikes are way beyond my Bad MoFo wallet. Best get some races won then.

Lined up on the blocky road I see my character out ahead of me and the usual heads-up display. A tiny roar of engines and we’re off. And I’m off my bike already. Damn car came right at me. The controls are terrible; it’s largely left or right to get around obstacles that come towards you, a little like a rail-shooter, but I don’t know what else I was expecting.

Back on the bike I race after my rivals and soon catch up and get my eye into it. You can’t really gauge distance or gaps and it moves at such a hectic pace staying on becomes the main source of excitement. Pedestrians hurry across the road and get splattered in a bloodless, basic way and make my bike bounce and I have to recover, but it’s easier than going around them; one touch too far and the bike takes a sharp turn and you’re off again. I do that a lot but always find it amusing. If he hits a car, the rider flies off for quite the distance or slides until a passing car stops him. Once recovered, the rider gets up and trots back to his fallen steed, sounding much like he’s wearing clogs. Another problem / amusement is he’s not very traffic-aware, so will simply run into passing cars or other bikes and get clobbered again. And again. Back on the bike I chase and catch up only to get kicked, punched and smacked with a pipe by my fellow bikers. I respond and fall off again. Kicking tends to throw off the balance when riding at 100miles an hour. But I persevere and amazingly I time a punch as someone swings a pipe and get it off him! Now armed, I take out several riders, watching them fall or go airborne then position myself to run them over as they clog back to their bikes. I also get brave enough to start aiming for pedestrians and timing kicks to send riders into passing cars. It’s mayhem and within seconds I’m off again and I’ve lost my pipe. Good while it lasted. I actually manage to finish Second and think that’s really not bad for a first time in two decades. I’m grinning at how mad that was, the hilarious ‘clonk’ sound the pipe made, the leather-bound punches and yells from riders I kicked, the screams from the pedestrians… It’s all in good sniggering fun. I wanna go again, and chose a longer race, find secret shortcuts and have a really good time being lawless, actively seeking out fights and folks to run over, caring less about winning. I even manage to take out Poncho during one race, kicking him into an approaching car. Such fun.

RR isn’t really a very good game, even for its time. It’s basic arcade level with digitised pictures for car sprites, pixelated messes for pedestrians and basic animation for the riders. The controls are terrible and the physics make no sense; I sent a rider off his bike and watched him sail into the distance until he disappeared. I’d forgotten about him until I saw him still running back for his bike (as in I swerved and ran him over) miles later. But the game really doesn’t care it’s not immersive or refined. That’s not its spirit, not what it’s trying to achieve. This is not a realistic depiction of bike racing or a game for winners, it’s for sinners. What RR wants to achieve is exactly what I’m doing now; Grinning like an idiot.

RR managed 6 games between 1991 and 2000 and there’s been unofficial/inspired-by reboots since, with Road Rage by Maximum Games and Road Redemption from Pixel Dash which was funded by Kickstarter (both 2017) showing it’s a popular underground franchise, and this the original was clearly aimed at the early console era when only one mate had a PS and everyone went ‘round for a laugh. It was the perfect beer and belly-laughs game where a controller would be passed around and everyone gets involved. It was a game for yelling at the screen, accusing it of cheating, watching your mates fail and creasing up at running over a granny.

RR is another one of those games waiting to be rediscovered but only if you discovered it originally, and are tired of moralistic criminal games (GTA5) – it’ll take you back to the time when flattening a granny was okay. For blocky, daft enjoyment, RR hasn’t aged – if you’re willing to go back to that age.

1991 | Developer Electronic Arts | Publisher Electronic Arts

Genre; Racing

Platforms;

Day of the Tentacle

A Blast from the Past review

Well, what possible harm could one insane, mutant tentacle do?

The Past

You can’t seriously call yourself a gamer if you’re yet to embark on a LucasArts adventure. Experimenting without fear of failure, the team behind Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade revolutionised DOS gaming back in the late 80s and early 90s, creating signature point-and-click titles that would go on to inspire generations of developers. George’s development arm wasn’t the flashiest, nor was it the wealthiest but it singlehandedly defined the Adventure genre of games producing expertly written comedy and highly addictive titles that had kids across the world breaking bedtime and gaming curfews for that extra fix. Be it taking down the Nazis, guiding a dead soul to the afterlife or solving crimes as a wacky Rabbit and Dog, the imaginative creators have always been ahead of the curve with their inventive plot ideas. While the classics are often nostalgically the best, I was determined to discover whether their adventure set across 400 years in the home of Fred, Ted, Red, Ved, Zed, Weird Ed and any other rhyming member of the Edison family would hold up as I had so sentimentally remembered; as the craziest and best of the lot.

Still a Blast?

As the MIDI version of Ranz de Vaches from the William Tell Overture sounds irritatingly from my tinny inbuilt PC speaker, I’m greeted with a wonderful life lesson – Don’t drink water that’s been contaminated by industrial waste if you don’t want to turn evil and attempt to take over the world! Alas, Purple Tentacle (that’s right, the games antagonist is a life-size reptilian appendage of a violet blush) didn’t heed the written warnings and is now malevolently intent on enslaving all Earthlings.

While most heroes would crumble at the thought, our three stooge-protagonists are hapless in their pursuit of punishment and need no invite to stick their schnoz exactly where it isn’t wanted. So, when a pet hamster arrives at your door with a note for Bernard from his old pal Green Tentacle (Obviously, because Purple tentacle must have holier-than-thou a brother), nerdy Bernie misinterprets the note and believes Dr Fred is going to kill them both. As Bernard and his band of intellectually challenged helpers head back to the Mansion to save the tentacles from their impending doom, little do we know that Bernard’s act of heroism is about to right, royally balls everything up…

Daft opening cut scene aside, the game holds up well and there’s a real sense of familiarity in operating the point-and-click controls that were synonymous with adventure games in simpler times. While incredibly unsophisticated in style (text based options of Look At, Pick Up, Push etc…) the controls maintain a moderate level of complexity. There’s no modern-day cop-out of just pressing ‘X’ whenever you get near to an object of interest, instead you’ve got to choose your interaction. Millennials may hate it and at first even seasoned gamers might think this is going to get tedious very quickly, but after a while you realise this serves as an excellent vehicle for a major part of the games comedy. I mean, in the real world if you go to pull a door and it doesn’t open, would you just abandon it and walk away or would you try pushing it? In Day of the Tentacle (DoTT from here on out to save the R.S.I.), getting it wrong often rewards you with a condescending one-liner kin to “I’m pretty sure it doesn’t swing that way”, making you want to get more things wrong on purpose in future before you attempt to get it right.

Another aspect of the games controls that has aged very well is the character selection. Over 20 years before the “revolutionary” GTA V was released, we have an original switching mechanism that allows you to shift between 3 very different, insanely funny and unstable characters as you try to work together and get individual aspects of the job done. Prior to Trevor, Franklin and Michael, you have Hoagie the Metal-head, Bernard the computer nerd and Laverne the ditzy student and each are as hilariously stupid as their designs suggest.

After you’ve gotten used to the controls, had a wander around the foyer of Dr. Fred’s mansion and finally discovered the secret passage to the hidden laboratory, Bernard frees the tentacles and the mischievous Purple sets out to try and conquer the planet. Now, you might think there’s a very easy solution to this. Purple Tentacle is very slow, has T-Rex sized arms and no legs. So, we can just run after him, tie him up again and be done with it. Problem solved…. Right? Well no, because obviously the only logical way to fix this is to go back in time and turn off the Sludge O’Matic and stop Purple Tentacle from drinking the raw sewage in the first place. Not my preferred method, but I guess there wouldn’t be much of a game without it. Crazed inventor Dr. Fred has just the thing to help us bend the space and time continuum…

As Back to the Future had the iconic DeLorean and Bill & Ted had the distinguishable San Dimas Phone Booth, DoTT has opted rather hilariously for The Chron o’John – a time-travelling toilet. This game is getting sillier by the minute and I’m beginning to remember just why I recalled it so fondly. The terrible plan goes exactly as expected – terribly wrong! Leaving the three characters stranded in completely different eras. Hoagie 200 years in the past, Laverne 200 years in the future and typically for hapless Bernard – back exactly where he started. Their only method of communication is by shouting into the Port-a-Loo’s bowl and by flushing small, inanimate objects down the pan. So now we have two goals – stopping the tentacle and bringing back our friends! So, with the characters established, the tasks defined and the raw comedy blasting you in the face like the salesman’s exploding cigar, the fun can really begin…

Bernard sets out on his quest to find a new diamond to power the Chron o’John and bring back his friends to the present. As with any adventure game, we set out by exploring our surroundings. In this case, we have the Edison mansion – mind, mansion is a bit of an exaggeration. It’s pretty much just a 5-bedroom Victorian Townhouse, but I’m no snob, so mansion will do. We enter a few rooms and do exactly what any good adventure game tells us – click on everything and pick up any seemingly useless item you can find – even if it is just chewed bubble-gum or fake barf. After doing the rounds and chatting to a few of the games comic acquaintances a hidden gem appears. We stumble upon a room with a big oaf behind a desk – it’s Weird Ed, Dr. Fred and Edna’s son. Weird Ed’s a former member of the Army and is clearly suffering from a severe case of PTSD. He now has two passions in life – his hamster and his stamp collecting (whatever you do, make sure you’re fully prepared for the consequences if you damage his precious stamps!)

In Ed’s room, there’s a computer in the corner and, if used, you can find a neat little Easter Egg. His Desktop contains the fully loaded and original prequel to the game we’re in – 1987’s ‘Maniac Mansion’. It’s such a brilliant and unique moment of in-game inception, as you find yourself playing a game within a game where all the characters are the same. It makes purchasing DoTT almost like a buy-one-get-one-free offer as this delightful throwback allows you to get completely lost and forget exactly what you were playing in the first place. If it wasn’t for the distinguishingly terrible 8-bit graphics, you’d be crying out for Dom Cobb and his totem to know what the hell is and isn’t real. It’s completely opt-in, but you could easily spend hours in this sublime surprise which helps you understand the character backstories – most importantly why Bernard is so painfully untrusting of Dr. Fred.

Now, the difference between Maniac Mansion and DoTT goes deeper than just the aged quality and lack of voice-artistry. The former is brutally unforgiving and a wrong move could be a game ender, so while it’s good fun, you may need to quit out and come back a few times if you want to try and complete it – I learned this the hard way the first time I played wasting 30 minutes in a futile attempt to bust all three of my characters out of an inescapable jail! While the game ending nature can be annoying, playing it gives you a nice reality check and makes you appreciate just how much adventure gaming has improved in such a short space of time. The sequel can be equally frustrating but for the opposite reason – you can’t die. Unlike the remastered Broken Sword, Double Fine have elected not to have an in-game hint system, so if you’re playing the iOS or PSN version – be prepared to be wandering around until that lightbulb moment hits you (or until you lose patience and look up the walkthrough on YouTube).

Unlike other time-travelling games, such as Quantum Break or Bioshock Infinite, there is no deadly Butterfly Effect. If Hoagie steps on a cockroach, then instantly the present isn’t transformed into a ‘planet of the roaches’ where Bernard must lead an uprising against his 10-foot tall insectoid overlords. There are also no worries about meeting your younger selves, your parents or your ancestors and disappearing from existence as the game adopts a less thought-intensive approach to travel where only minor details of each puzzle change through time. Laverne needs a disguise to help her break out of a futuristic prison? Easy. Steal the Doctors tentacle chart, flush it to Hoagie and get him to switch it with the plans for the American flag – hey presto – the star-spangled banner 400 years later is tentacle shaped and perfect to aid Laverne in her escape. While it’s hilarious, the keen sci-fi nerd or historian playing would have to put aside their logic and accept that this has all happened without changing any of the history that would come with such a careless distortion to the fabric of time.

Another thing that I’d forgotten is how purposefully inaccurate the antiquity of the game is. So, don’t play this game directly before a school exam because the game will undoubtedly cloud and reduce your knowledge of history and culture of 1700s America. What… you mean, George Washington didn’t cut down a Kumquat tree by mistake because someone had painted the fruit red with lead paint found in Ned Edison’s bedroom? You must forget the history books and just switch off and enjoy the ride. It’s the fashion in gaming now to see interactions with historical figures – something we see constantly in the Assassins Creed series – and you can never be too sure how well these references have been researched or how true to life the games are that are portraying them. Unlike Connor’s battlefield run in with the 1st President of the United States, Hoagies meeting is so satirical that it wouldn’t be out of place in a stand-up routine. Would Benjamin Franklin have discovered electricity without you? Who knows, but helping you save the world from an Evil Purple appendage was certainly something left out of the American History books. Either way, it’s a brilliant mechanism to fuse familiarity with the creator’s wit and drive the plot forward.

The entire game doesn’t take itself seriously in this respect and the more I switched between the characters the more I remembered just how fun it was solving puzzles through time. Cryogenically freezing a hamster in an ice box and tumble drying a jumper for 200 years to help it thaw was a nice little touch on my quest to gather electricity and as the game progresses, the level of invention in the puzzles increased. However, the game’s greatest strength is also its biggest weakness. I found that it was so enjoyable first time around that most of the solutions were as memorable now as the day of the original playthrough. I remembered the Dirty Harry/Travis Bickle monologue with the inflatable clown and laughing at how Bernard eventually got so annoyed at being bested that he had to stab it in anger. So, when I saw Laverne had the opportunity to collect the scalpel in the futuristic doctor’s office, I instantly remembered its purpose. Not counting the Maniac Mansion Easter Egg, I nailed this playthrough in just over 2 hours which might not be bad value for the price of a pint, but I certainly wouldn’t be rushing back to play it again any time soon. The game has such limited re-play value particularly when you compare it to other remastered adventure games, such as Broken Sword, Monkey Island or Grim Fandango, where after a month or two you could dive back in and enjoy it all over again.

Playthrough value aside, the comedy alone is well worth a punt for first timers or those longing for childhood nostalgia – I mean, which other set of writers would predict an evil genius ready to take over the world would make this their first act of evil…

…Hey, I guess even Hitler had to start somewhere! With complex puzzles, a satisfying ending and the original prequel embedded, this personality exuding, time-travelling title still holds up today as one of the best adventure games on the market. It hands down beats other remastered games of the same genre and for any LucasFilm fan, you can spend hours upon hours picking our Star Wars or Indiana Jones References.

Comedy, simplicity and even a great pause value (where you can make a coffee or smoke a cig without the world ending or being robbed blind) are things sorely missed in the modern, multiplayer generation of gaming. With a re-mastered version available on the market for less than a fiver, it’s well worth getting your tentacles on!

1993 | Developer LucasArts | Remastered by Double Fine Productions

Platforms; Win | PS4 | iOS

Prey 2006

A Blast from the Past review

No, not that Prey, the original Prey. FBT replays the 2006 classic like it’s 1996.

The Past

I have no recollection of Prey, beyond anti-gravity and aliens. I’m not even sure I finished it. That it was finished at all was a miracle. Announced in 1995 by 3D Realms, the shareware publisher who unleashed id’s Doom, Prey was at the very epicentre of the FPS explosion. 3DR had cut their shooter teeth on 1994’s Rise of the Triad and their forthcoming Duke Nukem 3D had everyone frothing but it was Prey, developed by ex-id founder Tom Hall on a ground-breaking engine that seemed to be a serious contender for the ‘Doom Killer’ title. But instead, Hall, frustrated by the engine’s slow progress, left to create Ion Storm with ex-id cohort Romero. 3DR brought in the legendary Corrinne Yu to get the engine started but three development teams later and despite acclaimed appearances at E3, by 1999 Prey still wasn’t released and as the golden era of FPS waned, it joined stablemate Duke Nukem Forever as Vapourware. Finally 3DR called old pals id; Prey was restarted on Doom 3’s idT4 engine at Human Head Studios. It took them five more years. Eventually Prey was released in 2006, 11 years after the announcement. Doom was long dead.

You’d have expected Prey to be at best a throwback; at worst, another Diakatana. But Prey was critically well received – and successful enough for a sequel to be announced; which true to form, went through an even more painful development than its predecessor, while Prey was eventually overwhelmed by other heavy hitters released in 2006 and disappeared. It wasn’t until the 2017 Reboot trailer was released I even thought about the original Prey. I couldn’t recall anything which seemed unfair to a game born in those halcyon days. It may have been released in 2006 but its a nineties game; it was from 3DR, built by ex-Raven developers (Heretic, Jedi Knight II) and conceived by Tom Hall. That’s classic FPS pedigree. Time to jump back to 1995 meets 2006 and see what took them so long.

Still a Blast?

As the menu and opening load up, I suddenly remember Prey’s lead was a clichéd Native American called Tommy. I wonder how well that’s aged. I also recalled his reason for blasting through levels; a girlfriend who was abducted by aliens. The loading screen of a giant malevolent-looking globe, which looked like Pinhead’s holiday home recalled horrible twisted levels to battle through. And that’s it. But what more did I expect from what’s in reality a Doom-era shooter?

There was a lot more it turns out. The opening shows Tommy having a word with himself in a mirror. He looks more like Billy from Predator, just a regular dude who happens to be Native American. Guess that was just my memory playing racist tricks. The mirror is in the toilet in a bar in the reservation, which Tommy hopes Jen his girlfriend will leave with him. I spend a bit of time trying to trick the mirror, turning Tommy away then back but it’s an almost perfect reflection. Even modern games avoid reflective surfaces, showing mirrors as broken or misty – odd considering they often popped up in mid-nineties games; Duke, Wang and Caleb admired themselves in mirrors and it’s interesting to ponder why modern games avoid it, what graphical shortcut denied us our gamer narcissism? Anyway, Tommy dosses about in the toilet for a bit then heads into the bar.

Prey looks really good, it’s detailed and interactive. I can select songs from a jukebox, switch TV channels and play video games (including Runeman, a play on a previous HHS game) before eventually being cornered by the clichéd ‘Red Indian’ I remember.

when's bonanza on

It’s my Gramps, dressed and behaving so typically I’m surprised he doesn’t have one of those huge feather headsets. We have a little argument about my lack of respect for their culture and desire to get off the reservation, then I find Jen and have the same argument with her. Angered, I take it out on two biker boys, beating them with a handy wrench which becomes my melee weapon. Before Gramps or Jen can be react to this expression of just how much Tommy wants to leave the reservation, he gets his wish; aliens arrive and beam us into space. This far enough away from the reservation, Tommy?

We don’t get to see much of the Sphere from the outside but inside, Jen, Gramps and I are stuck in a Clive Barker wet dream. We can hear screams and shouts, and then see what they’re screaming and shouting about. We’re being processed through an abattoir; Machines are rending and mangling abductees, reforming them into the very sphere itself. The sphere is people! Hey look, there’s the two bikers. At least they surviv-oh. Huge bulging tubes process the meat, the walls are skin sown together, there’s flesh and blood everywhere and all around us bikers scream. Quake 4 had some similar nastiness to it, but this really is a sickening place. Helpless and terrified as I approach a machine I just saw suck out someone’s innards, I’m mysteriously set free but it’s too late for Gramps. I watch him turned into mincemeat then chase after Jen, deeper into the bowels of the sphere. Or it might be the lower intestines. I hope the exit isn’t where I think it is.

Prey really does look good, in its horrible way and I’m deeply, unsettlingly immersed in the world. You can imagine the stench, the squelch under foot; idT4 was built for Doom 3’s spookiness but HHS wrangled and mangled a ton of horror and gore out of it. I’d best find my barings.

No sooner have I got my barings than Tommy dies. But instead of a load screen, we’re transported to the ‘land of the ancients’. Seems the afterlife is real and we meet a pre-mangled Gramps, who now makes like a Jedi Spirit and explains I have a special power; Tommy can shadow-walk, which allows him to sneak unseen but also be corporal enough to fire spirit arrows and interact with the tech found around the ship. We also get Talon, Tommy’s childhood pet, a spirit hawk that accompanies him back to the Sphere. Talon comes in handy, distracting the bad guys and perching on things we should take a look at. He flies in the direction you need to take, so he’s a handy mission marker too. We are returned to Tommy’s body and press onwards. And upside down.

Within the sphere, gravity isn’t a hindrance. Throughout there’s tracks that allow Tommy to walk on ceilings and walls and around obstacles, while gravity wells reverse the room and portals allow him to transport around. Those, combined with Tommy’s spirit walk all add up to an alternative take on the shooter genre, and it’s easy to see why 3DR were so keen to crack this element back in 1995; this would have been Doom-killingly cool.

sorry

As I go, I find various other folks from earth who’ve also got free but unlike Tommy, they’re cowering and terrified. Especially after I accidently clobber one with my wrench. Will you put that thing down, Tommy. I do this a lot, anything interactive is triggered with your trigger finger and if you’re off by a pixel you’ll shoot it instead. And you have a lot to shoot with. There are five main weapons each with an alt. fire, they’re half hardware and half some unfortunate reconstituted creature; they move, quiver and breathe as I go. The rifle has a leech-like appendage that leaps out and sticks to my eye for a zoom and when idle, it takes an interest in what’s going on around us, sometimes unnervingly looking back at me. The other weapons are similarly icky; I’m pretty sure the grenade launcher is an anus but I’m not looking at that in a mirror. You can imagine what they feel like to hold.

The creatures you can fire at are plentiful too. You’re never far from a firefight and they’re aggressive, fast and have no sense of humour; Appropriately grotesque, the main bullet-catchers are the Hunters, designed to track any creature that escapes the processing but elsewhere we encounter Harvesters which leap in and out of fleshy pockets in the walls to grab wanderers; If you shoot one they’ll jump back in and you can hear them clattering around between openings and it’s panic-inducing trying to guess which it’ll leap back out of. Reconstituted humans do drone work, skinned wolf-like creatures stalk you, the list goes horribly on and you never feel safe. Mini-bosses like the Centurion and Creature X become new high-end opponents – there’s a lot here that can and will kill you. But dying is no big deal. Just before death, Tommy is transported back to the land of the ancients to fight his evil spirts. Tommy has a short amount of time to use his spirit bow and the more you kill the better your heath once back in your body. A little like Borderlands’ second wind, it’s a nice little way to stay in the game rather than reload or get checkpointed.

After a while though, those gravity dynamics, which seemed exhilarating at first are revealed as typically 90s linear – they’re scripted and always necessary; if there’s a walkway you’ll need to use it, the Portals are basically just doors and the gravity wells are rarely used to upend the bad guys or gain an edge, they’re there to get past an obstacle or puzzle. By 2006 you’d have expected to have those at your disposal and use them to turn battles to your advantage – or expose yourself – but they’re pre-planned events that quickly turn into gimmicks. When you’re not excited about walking upside down you know something’s up. Another aspect betraying Prey’s 1990s DNA is the level design. While an incredible setting, it doesn’t evolve or change in any great way; there’s only so long I can stay uncomfortable sneaking through Sphere’s guts; later levels are industrial and bleak but they’re very samey and unoriginal; it feels like Doom 3 or as if they just ran out of ideas. The one exception is when we pilot an anti-grav moped for some zero-g aerial fighting. The biggest let down though is Spirit-walk. Spirit-walking should be like Max Payne’s bulletime; a superpower you utilise but it’s just a puzzle-solver. Got stuck? There will be a convenient ghost-only route and it’s a shame you don’t really use it to get an edge. All of that would have been accepted in a 1990s game and that’s where Prey is firmly planted at its core; but this was released in 2006 and it should have some of that decade’s sensibility, that freedom. It’s also ironic that those innovations were a key reason for Prey’s delays yet now date it, and it’s truly compelling aspects – a great main character, setting, storyline and a solid goal were lacking in Prey’s 90s contemporaries. Maybe they came along later, but Prey could have been a Doom Killer on an emotional level rather than wow factor.

The game is stuffed with nice touches to break through the monotony though; there’s beautiful vistas of earth and the stars when you pass open areas and there are some knockout mini-moments; Tommy spots a display cabinet holding a mini asteroid. The next portal leads us to a barren area and then a giant Hunter looms over us, peering in at tiny Tommy on the surface of that mini asteroid. Occasionally you’ll pick up DJ Art Bell on Coast to Coast AM, a real-life paranormal radio show, discussing the recent reports of UFOs and chatting with callers describing weird things going on (One caller claims this has been planned since 1995; touché.). During one trek past the edges of the Sphere a jetliner, caught in their transporter beam flies in – Later we find the wreckage. There is a lot going on and Tommy is never at a loss on what to say about it; he’s seen some shit. He’s not Duke, cracking wise, but he’s got that fatalistic, John Carpenter tone to him; in fact, Prey could be a 2000’s remake of a 90s game based on a 80s Carpenter movie and the mash up very nearly works. You can almost pick out which decade aspects of the game were born in; it feels inspired by 80s horror and sci-fi and while the shooting, the levels, the monsters are all prime 90s, the characterisation and immersive plot wouldn’t be out of place in mid-2000 games like Mass Effect and Bioshock.

Hi, I've been living in squallor for decades.

And of course, we have that story to entertain us; We run into a group of humans who escaped the meat grinder after its last visit and survive hidden within Sphere’s own living walls, while Tommy is goaded about the futility of trying to escape by the disembodied voice of its controller, The Keeper (who at one point calls Art Bell to give its deranged view which is awesome). Plus, we have Gramps occasionally prodding us about our heritage and destiny. It’s like an X-Files episode as we uncover hints about the Sphere and its previous visits to earth, the Keeper’s true purpose and what the Land of the Ancients and Tommy’s spirt-walk power really are – at least it’s hinted at, we (horribly) see little children sacrificed until one develops Spirt Walk and becomes a mini-boss from hell and later, Tommy is tricked into revealing the location of the Land of the Ancients and the Keeper’s forces attack. I’m sure it’ll be explained in the sequel, currently slated for a 2012 release.

oh crap a bus load of kids

Finally rescuing Jen, Tommy reluctantly agrees to kill the Keeper so the humans can activate a portal out of this place. After a monumental battle where I spend as much time in the Spirit world regaining health as I do fighting, the Keeper goes down. Except, turns out it wasn’t the boss. There’s tons of those Keepers knocking about. Dagnamit. Another interminable slog and some genuinely painful plot-twists later and we finally we reach the centre of the Sphere. It’s a great moment, partly because Tommy is driven by rage now and we feel for him, but mostly because it’s been toying with Tommy the entire time, testing and manipulating him to reach this moment – giving Tommy a compelling choice to make. If this had truly been a 2006 game, we’d have had to make the choice and trigger a good/bad ending, but this is the 90s; Tommy just readies his grenade anus. Spirit world, here I come again.

Once that’s done, we get a surprisingly dark and emotional ending and as I watch the credits roll, a little shell-shocked, I’m about to congratulate Prey on a brave and honest ending when a franchise-starting twist pops up. In a final scene that in no actionable way rips off Half-Life, Tommy is suddenly and inexplicably placed back in the bar at the beginning, where he’s visited by the leader of those Sphere humans. While earth has dismissed the events as an natural disaster (except Art Bell, he knows the truth), the human explains ‘others’ would like to meet Tommy and opens a portal to the words ‘prey will continue’. And oh boy did it.

If Prey 1 had a tortuous development then Prey 2 was treated worse than Gramps in the Sphere. HHS began work on Prey 2 under the direction of Radar Group, an IP Management company from 3DR’s Scott Miller. Announced as a direct sequel that picks up directly after Prey 1, it went nowhere and was eventually offloaded to Bethesda – who have a habit of grabbing waning IPs and rebooting them (Fallout, Doom, Wolfenstein) and they stuck to what they know best; P2 was announced as an open-world non-linear game with a morality system set on a Blade Runner style planet controlled by various warring factions. Exactly how I envisioned Prey would continue. It even got as far as a (clearly not game-play) trailer. Then things went quiet until 2014 when Bethesda finally admitted P2 was cancelled before uncancelling and parking Prey at their Arkane Studios; Who in 2017 turned out a Bioshock meets Dishonoured reboot. It’s Prey in name only now, which is a shame because there is so much to recommend in the original, be it the 1995 half or the 2006 half. It’s schizophrenic, like a great remake of a game you never played and it does drag, but it’s aged well (twice) and considering its torturous development, Prey is a solid, enjoyable game; Duke Nukem Forever had no excuses. Ultimately Prey feels old-school familiar, new-school absorbing. I enjoyed it, but I would have preferred to play the 1995 version and rediscover it now. Then all my gripes would be put down to age and forgiven. It would have been a great Doom Clone.

2006 | Developer Human Head Studios | Publisher 2K Games / Take-Two Interactive

platforms; Win | X360