Author: fbt

Far Cry Primal

a second wind review

FBT is the missing link in the latest Far Cry spin-off

About the only series to recycle itself more than Far Cry is it’s stable-mate Assassin’s Creed. I’m amazed they’ve not created a cross-over or just merged them; Assaassin’s Cry. Since FC 3, it’s always the same, even repeating the plot – regular guy gets stranded, bonds with locals, sees off oppressor, gets shitty choice at end. But this Far Cry is set in pre-history, it can’t follow the routine that closely, can it? We are Ugg (actually Takkar but I prefer Ugg) who gets isolated when his hunting party is crashed by a Sabre-Tiger. Left stranded, Ugg discovers his people, the Wenja are hunted by other tribes and it’s up to Ugg to drive them off. That’s every other Far Cry. FC is becoming Groundhog Day the Video Game.

Actually, that’s a little unfair. FC:P is easy to dismiss as Far Cry in melee mode, but the setting does demand change and it’s there that Primal evolves into something interesting. There’s no machine guns or vehicles, so being out in the woodlands leaves you feeling exposed; you develop a tense, cautious approach. Whereas in typical FC gameplay you’d stomp through the undergrowth, confident a shotgun volley will put down a tiger or pirate, here you’ve got a bit of flint and a club. It’s a lot more, well … primal.

Ugg rescues Sayla, a lone Wenja medicine woman who explains the local tribe is being hunted by the Udam -for food- and has scattered. Determined to re-establish the clan, Ugg and Sayla begin building a village by saving Wenja from Udam hunting parties and the like. Soon, he’s got a little commune going and convinces a shaman with a wolf’s head for a hat to help. I’m sure there’s a wiki article justifying a caricature from some 80s game like Custer’s Revenge but the witch doctor is invaluable, teaching Ugg to tame an owl, which is the coolest thing in a Far Cry game since Jason had hallucinogenic sex with Citra.

Essentially, Ugg has invented a Drone. The owl can circle ahead, tag objects and animals, roam around and best of all, dive-bomb. Lower-level enemies can be killed by it, while armoured ones weakened and eventually offed too. The Owl can even be weaonised, dropping smoke and crazy bombs which presumably it stole from a nearby Assassin’s Creed Sequence. It can also drop bee-hives and unlock caged animals; Droney the owl is easily one of the best things in FC:P, I can’t wait for it to reappear in every new Far Cry game. But Droney is just the first animal Ugg gets to grips with – alongside his burgeoning village, Ugg is setting up a petting zoo.

In Blood Dragon, our hero Rex could attract Dragons by lobbing a cyber-heart. In Far Cry 4, our hero (whatever his name was, Mum’s Ashes Guy) could attract animals by lobbing meat. In Primal, Ugg can attract animals by lobbing meat – and now tame them. You’d expect it to be a tricky, terrifying affair but it’s easy; just hold down a button. The result is a new furry friend – any equal or lower animal will scarper while you have your pal around, and it’s nice to have company too, I spent more time petting my wolf than I do exploring and I feel a pang of guilt when I upgrade it to a bigger animal (or smaller, in the case of the Crazy Nastyass honey badger. Even the sabre-tigers take off when that maniac is on the loose). They can be wounded but reviving them is possible – even if they die (and I accidentally skinned one of my pets once) they can be brought back with a potion. You’d expect to have to re-tame a downed animal but no, a couple of leaves will do it. I was all upset until I noticed the revival option. Wolfie!

Although there’s no vehicles, you do get to ride the bigger animals you tame. It’s a shame it doesn’t go into third-person when you mount your big cat or bear, it must look amazing, and there’s several alpha versions that can be tamed too, including the uber-tiger from the beginning. They do act a little like classic Fallout 3 companions, taking misjudged routes to reach you, getting stuck or attacking something clearly too big for them, but they’re great. You can direct them, it crouches when you do, they growl at things and see off attackers; they become an absolutely necessity out in the wilds. The only ones you can’t tame are the mammoths, although you can ride the smaller ones, if you can get past the parents …

I really struggled with offing families of Mammoths, orphaning the baby and watching it circling its dead mum; I stopped doing it in the end and part of the reason for that is it has no real impact beyond you stocking up on fur and meat. It’s natural for Ugg to do it, but we should be taking that huge carcass back to the camp or something, make it a bit more meaningful, or at least realistic; why is Ugg taking on an entire Mammoth herd with nothing but a honey badger? Usually out of self-defence; get one pixel too close and its game on. Being chased by the bull is terrifying. Not even running into the water can save you – not only can they wade but the crocs from FC3 are back. It’s just a shame you can’t tame the crocs, surfing one as a reskinned jetski would’ve made Primal the best game ever.

To help fortify the village, Ugg tracks down legendary Wenja; a famed hunter, a crazy craftsman (who introduces himself by pissing on Ugg) and a feared fighter who kills Udam for sport. They have nice little side missions that help Ugg build himself up. There’s even an ancestor of FC3’s Hurk, who has some advanced if idiotic ideas. Aside from the spear, bow and club, all of which can be upgraded, you also get rock shard to stab or throw, including ones tipped with crazy-poison (AC Ugg again) and a sling to lob stones. You’re a back to basics mud-covered Arnie and it’s so much fun; XP rewards are nicely balanced and put you in-tune with the world and the animals. As the little village starts to grow it becomes a lovely little spot to return to, genuinely idyllic and pleasant, with kids running about and folks doing their thing. Naturally it doesn’t last. Having caught the eye (and the stomachs) of the Udam, the boss man, UII, cuts through and threatens to have us for dinner. To protect the village, Ugg kidnaps ‘Dah’, a Udam warrior and from him we learn various skills – and that the Udam are dying from disease; and think Wenja meat will cure them. They’re dangerous and primitive but they’re not savages, we see them caring for their children too and realise they’re just another tribe trying to survive. It’s a nice change from FC’s usual boo-hiss villains and as I soften to Dah, and he explains their plight, I wonder if FC:P will let us make peace with them; nope. That would go against FC policy. Shame.

FC:P can’t quite shake off the FC structure; true to form, the main missions all feel familiar and not doing the main mission feels familiar too – we’re attacking camps and outputs. But, FC:P’s approach is the best we’ve seen for a while. Letting your owl get the lay of the land is a great start, as is using it to pick off lookouts, open cages or do strafing runs. Once Droney’s done his business, send in one of your menagerie and ‘snipe’ with your bow while the Udam freak out. At least, that’s the plan. The Udam seem to have evolved from Far Cry 3’s pirates; one arrow ten feet above their heads and they know exactly where you are, and they’re masters at spear-lobbing. The whole thing devolves into a fun scrap with spears, arrows and clubs flying about everywhere – most of which can be lit too, adding a fiery edge to everything. You’re vastly outnumbered and never better armed but a hard-won victory really makes you feel like you’re establishing the Wenja. I’m devolving and I like it.

Now da (cave)man, Ugg can strike out with some confidence; the world is huge and interesting, with cave formations, valleys, woods and rivers to venture through. Ugg gets a very modern grappling hook allowing him to FC4-it up cliff faces, and like all open-worlds, there’s tons of collectables to ignore. As beautiful as it is, its not the kind of world where you can just wander and see where the day takes you; if nothing else, because you don’t want to be caught out at night. A real show stopper is the night-day cycle. After dark the really big bads show up and facing down a pack of wolves, their eyes glinting in the moonlight is unnerving, scary stuff. You can’t see anything except the occasional glint or hear wolves and cats scrapping. You can use fire to keep things at bay, but only for so long.

It’s a real fun challenge to ignore fast-travel and just try to reach safety. A nice touch is pretty much everything can be crafted enroute, there’s no shops so you’re literally hunter-gathering for specific items – types of wood, rock and skin; there’s a lovely survivalist feel to Primal instead of the standard fast-travel to a shop, restock then fast-travel back again. It’s just you and nature. And those bloody crocs. They didn’t even have crocs in ancient Europe.

One staple of the FC series is its tendency to change up in the final third, but while Primal has that, it’s more on Ugg’s abilities as to when it happens. Besides the Udam threat, Wenja are being sacrificed by the Izila, an advanced tribe established in a tougher region. Once strong enough, Ugg goes to rescue the Wenja but is easily outmatched. After Ugg escapes, the Izila’s Citra-lite leader declares war, forcing Ugg to capture one of her advisors, Roshani, for their agriculture and warmongering skills. The Izlia are very tough opponents, and nowhere near as much fun as the Udam, but they do provide the standard FC fantasy sequences as we dig into their sun-worshipping region. They have advanced techniques and more complex camp layouts, but it’s not really enough; by the time you’re encountering them, FC:P has reached an evolutionary dead end.

Midway through you start to realise this is all there is – roaming the same valley, encountering the same enemies and animals, the same situations. The Izila don’t alter it enough and there’s just not enough going on to cover how light and repetitive it really is. It is an Open World Shooter after all, but it’s reputedly as big as Far Cry 4 and that’s too big when there’s not much in there. It should have been Blood Dragon – a quick, fun romp through 10,000BC – or go more RPG; have Ugg invested in the village, more interaction with the tribe – it would have been great to build up hunting parties to go after a mammoth, take Wenja with you when exploring, help gets crops started; in every other Far Cry you’re trying to escape the region, but here you should be making a home; it’s like playing Skyrim but only doing the main mission; so much is being missed. It could have been amazing to make peace with the Udam, who are also victimised by the Izila, or fall in with the Izila to put down the neanderthal Udam, open it up a little; one tribe could provide better protection, the other advancements; you decide where the Wenja are headed. Anything but another FC with added AC; Ugg even has ‘the sight’, able to sense animals, objects and foes around him. You never shake the feeling you’ve done this before.

Still, there’s a lot of effort gone into FC:P – the representation of pre-historic life feels very believable and the taming animals and the Owl really change the dynamic; the characters are amazing too – Primal is trying, and when we finally take the fight to both the Udam and Izila bosses it’s not FC’s event-driven button mashing; they’re curiously old-school with health-bars and waves of baddies in arenas. But there is a rather effecting end with Dah, which again just makes you wish FC:P had struck out on its own; rather than a spin-off it could have been a reboot. Instead it’s too bedded in the standard FC world and that’s at an evolutionary dead end. Still, it’s the best Far Cry since 3 and until it runs out of ideas, one of the more original open-world FPS (First Person Spearers) of ancient times; go find your inner caveman.

2016 | Developer Ubisoft Montreal | Publisher Ubisoft

Platforms; Win (Steam/Uplay), PS4, XO

Serious Sam

a second wind review

Why so serious?

Why is Sam serious? Sure, he’s the last hope for humanity and is facing overwhelming odds, reasons to be serious for sure, but he’s not taking the situation very seriously – he doesn’t even have a plan other than kill ‘em all and what he faces is so completely over the top insane, his state of mind really isn’t going to change things. It should be Seriously Sam?

SS is one of those games everyone knows, and those who’ve played tend to smirk when it comes up. It’s the standard for describing a shooter’s intensity “well it’s not like Serious Sam crazy, but …” I avoided it originally, it was barely more than an arcade rail shooter. Released in 2001, it’s stripped back nature seemed at odds with where FPS was at the time – it was a Quake Clone in the Half-Life era. But maybe that was point; plots, justifications, moral choices and cutscenes – they just get in the way of what we’re really there for when we load up an FPS. You wanted a shooter, get shooting. But rather than be an oddity, Sam caught the imagination and survived to become a franchise, even getting HD remakes. I figured I’d find out what all the screaming was about.

Kinda like Mass Effect, a previous civilisation left various technological advances lying about. Those allow humans to colonise space; and attract the interest of an alien warlord we dub ‘Mental’. He sends monsters to wipe us out and heads for Earth. Desperate, humans decide to use the ‘Time Lock’, which can send a single, serious solider back to ancient Egypt where Mental and the other species were fighting over Earth’s resources. There, the idea is, our Sam can put a stop to Mental before he’s even begun. Great plan.

Of course, none of that matters – we’re dropped into ancient Egypt and then … Serious Sam actually broke my mouse. I have never clicked so furiously before. Not even google knows how many creatures appear in the game, but it’s a lot. And a lot quickly becomes too many.

It’s simple to play; kill everything in the arena, door opens, reload, next arena. Just follow the screams, grunts and growls. The AI is firmly set to ‘kill that guy’ and they just bolt towards you in their dozens. I could be describing anything pre-Half Life but the Doom era hid the basic AI and repetitive gameplay with clever level design and pacing. In SS there’s no hiding; literally. Its sheer perseverance; yet, after a while, you sort of key into its style.

You turn Sam into a violent ballet dancer while using their tactics to your advantage, circling to bunch them together and leading bombers into their midst; timing leaps and sidesteps to avoid charges, you can find some poetic moves amongst the mayhem – for all its brainless behaviours, there is an art to being Serious, and Croteam somehow found the sweet spot between ‘what the hell?’ and ‘woohoo!’. But, within a few levels, that subtlety within the silliness wears off and I switch off – I’m surrounded, overwhelmed, in danger and … bored. I keep expecting it to get going, but instead it becomes exhausting. Seeing huge hordes of creatures approaching should make you panic not just wait placidly until they’re within shotgun range. And when you put them down you’re not triumphant because you can already see the next batch headed for your muzzle. Sigh. I get that’s the point to Serious Sam, and one or two levels are ace, but more than that and you burn out.

A similar game was Painkiller. But while that had incredible gothic designs, freaky creatures and a semblance of a plot (plus Eve in the cutscenes as a reward for the endless battles), Serious Sam goes for the jokey, brightly lit daft approach. And that works well for an hour or so; the headless suicide bombers are at first hilarious. You hear their shout and instantly start trying to spot them in the fray – but the shout becomes a bit of a nag, hearing ‘agggggggggg’ especially when there’s about ten of them. The clip-clop of the Skeletons causes you to panic, but after a while you just think ‘Meh, I’ll deal with them when they get here’ and so it goes on. There is a nice sense of anarchy as creatures takes out their cohorts as much as you do, like an old-school deathmatch with everyone just going mad, but it never changes. SS is as much an assault on your ears as trigger finger and eventually you realise the screaming you hear is your own.

Quickly, I fall into a style of shooter gameplay I wouldn’t usually employ unless I was in bad shape – speed run. While certain elements have to be met to progress, if reaching somewhere is the goal, I just take off, hopping and side-stepping the whole way to get it done. Discretion is the better part of valour. As I dash through the levels, trying to convince myself the challenge is in not killing anything, I wonder what’s the point of this game.

SS was actually intended as a tech display of Croteam’s engine. But such was the reaction to the demo, it gained a reputation as a carefree antidote to the humourless shooters that followed Half-Life. The demo was eventually extended into “The First Encounter” while the Second debuted a year later. I’d better buy a new mouse.

First Encounter ends with Sam boarding a ship headed for the homeworld of the aliens that left all the trouble-making tech in the first place. Second Encounter picks up after this ship is shot down over a South American tropical rainforest. Sam has to fight to reach various portals, bouncing him around earth’s past to reach a ‘backup’ spaceship. Second Encounter does sort of change things up and works better than the first. Freed of the repetitive Egyptian backdrops, we’re in slightly more complex level designs and locations, and have some new weapons including a sniper-rifle (like you ever get a chance to be that subtle), but the tsunami-sized waves of creatures is just as unforgiving, with a few new additions. Great, more creatures.

You can see how this is began as a demonstration for the Serious engine. The draw distance is still impressive; seeing tiny dots appear over a sand-dune accompanied by a distant yell, the flying harpies, the size of the arenas we bolt around in and the sheer number of nasties, it all flows really well and Serious handles the intensity better than many modern engines that start to flap when things happen – I’m looking at you, Bethesda. But as a game it never gets past that proof-of-concept feel. Still, Serious is a hell of an engine – it might not have the over-sophistication of the idTechs’ or the immersive quality of Unreal, but the Serious Engine is a tank – it solidly gets the job done and should have led to more mad games.

The series has enjoyed huge popularity but I’m struggling to see why. The screaming villains grate, I’m bored of the samey locations, annoyed at the mobs and the repetitive gameplay – but even though I’m not enjoying SS, I realise that’s because I’m not supposed to. We’re supposed to. It’s a game you and your mates get into and see how long you can survive, before handing the controller to your mate and watch him get cut to pieces, laughing at just how ridiculous it is, how ridiculous we are, how ridiculous gaming is. A few levels of Serious Sam is great fun but like the creatures we face, SS is best played in a crowd.

First Encounter 2001/2009 HD Remake | Second Encounter 2002/2010 HD Remake

Developer; Croteam | Publisher; Gathering of Developers / Devolver Digital (HD Remake)

Platforms Win/Steam, X360

Far Cry 3

a second wind playthrough special

FBT reviews Far Cry 3. Or 4, maybe 5 – I’m not sure.

*This is a playthrough review – there’s spoilers *

If you’ve played one FC you’ve played them all. You expect a sequel to not stray from the original, but Far Cry’s 4 and 5 (plus the spin-offs) have all followed FC3 down to the pixel – FC1 was the blueprint for 3 and no one talks about FC2. So is 3 the best Cry there is?

Jason, a slacker whose girlfriend Liza has grown tired of his man-child antics, is on an adrenaline-junkie holiday, cut short when they sky-dive over islands controlled by pirates; their very psychotic boss, Vaas, decides to ransom then sell them into slavery. Can Jase save his friends and prove to Liza he’s da man? Nope, it’s Jase’s big brother who breaks him out. As I’m thinking ‘why aren’t we playing big bro?’ he’s killed and Vaas makes Jase run into the jungle for the sport of his dogs. This was not in the holiday brochure.

One of the biggest issues with the similarly themed Tomb Raider (2013) was that cut-scene Lara constantly asserts she must rescue her friends, then we ignore them and gad about chasing dreamcatchers and exploring tombs. But FC3 neatly sidesteps the free-roam vs main mission conflict by establishing Vaas as very dangerous – and Jase as a wet sop. Escaping by falling into a river, Jase is picked up by Dennis, a drifter who joined the Rakyat, the indigenous people Vaas is rounding up to sell as slaves. No match for the pirates, Jase agrees to help the Rakyat regroup in return for helping rescue his friends, including little bro Riley. And whinging Liza too, if we must. It just takes the pressure off knowing the friends are beyond reach and more realistic than a preppy city-slicker suddenly going Rambo.

Although the tropical island is huge, this is no RPG. About the only on-going side-mission you’ll encounter is Hurk, an idiot straight out of Trump’s ‘Merica. He’s either a fun diversion or an irritant depending on how you take to him, but Ubisoft love Hurk; he’s the series’ own Claptrap. Or maybe they just can’t be bothered to scrub him out of the code each time they do a reskin … I mean sequel. There’s a few ‘find my daughter’ random quests, timed delivery distractions and the odd collectable or crate but that’s about it. FC3 is a rich and detailed world but a lean game, and all the better for it. Most of the areas you find are abandoned, showing the pirates’ impact; we’re a long way from the gentrified Starbucks of Jase’s world.

The pirates roam – either on foot or in vehicles – and make very short work of Jase, leading you to run for your life early on, but often you’ll just run into more problems. Furry problems usually, ranging from pack hunters like Dogs, easily irritated Cassowaries and Bears who have a mean temper and a meaner right hook. There’s also big cats … there’s nothing more upsetting than setting up a sniper spot then turning to see a Tiger giving that little shimmy, about to pounce. There’s Boars, snakes, Komodo Dragons and the coast is patrolled by marauding Bull sharks, but the real ‘oh come on!’ is the Crocodiles. Being dragged into the water and put in a deathroll isn’t something you forget and even when you’re being chased by a dozen pirates you’ll still desperately scan the water before leaping to maybe-safety. A few times I saw animals get pinched by crocs. Predators can be fended off with some nifty button mashing but you’re not Tarzan, it’s more Jase of the Jungle; getting mauled is par for the course. Better learn those skills quick sharp.

While weapons and items can be upgraded or crafted as usual, the level-ups are a nice, nature-orientated skill-tree. ‘Spider’ is ambush and hunting, ‘Shark’ is strength and brutality while ‘Heron’ is about speed and planning – each level up gets Jase a new ‘tatau’; a tattoo that marks Jase’s warrior status and gives him cool tattoo sleeve. The largest XP is gained from comms towers and outposts. The towers are locked to a frequency only the pirates can use, so you have to reach the top and remove the scrambler. They’re sort-of puzzles, each with a different route and opportunity to fall off. They reveal the map and local shops can now trade – rewarding you with a weapon for unlocking their tower. You can only manage four weapons but you’ll need them for the outposts; driving out the Pirates means Rakyat take over the area, plus you get a fast-travel spot, a shop and a nice XP bump – especially if you can do it unseen. Good luck with that.

Alarms can be shut off completely by hand if you sneak into the outpost or taken out one at a time with gunfire, but even using a silenced sniper 200yards away at night from a bush they still spot you. Ducking behind something will break their line of sight but they have remarkably good visualisation skills – and they’re incredible shots. Occasionally they’ll have dangerous animals caged which you can snipe open as a distraction – once a tiger took out an entire camp; I was waiting to pick off the survivors but it killed all of them. Then I shot it for its fur. The outposts are all different and you can attack any way you like – until you fire a shot and they see you somehow. Those pirates must kill it at Where’s Wally. Claiming an outpost also unlocks big game hunts and missions to kill pirates using only a knife. Jase has a digital camera, which he can use to zoom in and tag enemies; thinning down bodyguards before sneaking in for a stealth kill is awesome.

After a few fun tutorial missions, Dennis discovers one of the friends has escaped. It’s Daisy, big bro’s girlfriend, recovered by a doctor who makes recreational drugs for the pirates and enjoys his work too much. Beneath his house is a flooded cave with an old boat Daisy decides to fix up for them to escape on. It’s here you bring back rescued friends, have flashbacks and fall out with Liza, who’s the next rescue mission. I’d expect her to be the final prize, but we get her out the way early, in a great mission that Jase completely f’s up. Still, Liza sees how focused Jase has become and changes her tune. Thing is, Liza’s got some competition.

Dennis invites us to meet the Queen of the Rakyat, Citra; she’s unconvinced Jase will stop Vaas, but she’s willing to give him a chance – and some terrifically powerful hallucinogens to help him see his true spiritual path. While Liza represents a safe, structured life, Citra is passionate, primal; it’s not hard to see why Jase starts to waver. The whole game is filled with believable characters; Dennis is a nice guy but it becomes subtly apparent he’s merely tolerated by the Rakyat, not part of the tribe as he’d like to believe. But just as Citra’s body language and attitude is alluring, Vaas is terrifying; it’s not his raving that puts you on edge, it’s when he’s calm – there’s something in his eyes, his poise that just makes you uneasy. The inhabitants are as believable as the island. Which for Jase, is becoming home.

While the friends finish up the boat and bang on about getting back to civilisation, Jase is unsure; but is it the island life or is he enjoying the killing a little too much? He says his actions are necessary but after a while that excuse rings hollow – Dennis discovers one of our pals, Oliver is about to be shipped off. It’s a typical rescue mission, but we really see how … effective Jase has become. Both Liza and Oliver’s missions end with a chase where Jase explosively deals with the Pirates, but whereas Liza’s mission was a mess, in Oliver’s escape, Jase is Liam Neeson. He’s getting good at this and after Citra I’m a lot less inclined to care about this bunch of entitled brats. But saving Keith is possibly the highlight of the game.

It turns out that Vaas isn’t the boss. He actually answers to Hoyt, a drug and slave peddler with his own private army on a nearby island. Hoyt sold Keith to Buck, a sadist who’s keeping him as a pet. When Jase mutters “I’m gonna kill that motherfucker” after a Buck encounter, you really want him to. This game keeps turning out top-notch bastards; whereas Vaas might snap at any second, Buck wants to make you snap. Walking around with an open shirt showing his Iggy Pop physique and chest ink, he re-enacts abusing Keith just to see Jase in pain too. He sends us off to explore long-lost tombs (Tomb Raider, this is how you do it) to find a lost Rakyat knife, and they’re great missions; but the real treat is Buck and Jase’s scenes together. It’s a critical turning point for Jase; he begins answering back (not that Buck appricates it – “I should cane you for that, I really should. But I won’t. I’ll cane Keith instead. Now then,”) and when Jase’s rage boils over, you’re up for it. Buck underestimated Jase; he’s gonna kill that motherfucker.

As Jase delivers a shattered Keith to the gang, he discovers little bro Riley was killed trying to escape. With no one left to save, the gang agree to leave, but Jase refuses, much to Liza’s teary annoyance. Whatever. Instead, Jase gets high with Citra again and re-enacts the legend of how the Rakyat were born – by killing a huge demon. As far as OTT mini-bosses go, this one is epic enough to let slide, partly because the final scenes intercut with Jase and Citra having sex. Now that’s an incentive to get through a staged boss fight. It turns out we were doing it in front of the entire Rakyat tribe too. Who da man! Afterwards, Citra asks us to kill Vaas, who happens to be her brother, and free the Rakyat so we can be together. Jase excitedly agrees. Okay, I excitedly agree.

This is it, come on Vaas, I’m gonna kill you then sleep with your sister. It’s a trippy, rage-fuelled fight but finally, Vaas is down for good. And so is the game. Shame it’s nowhere near over yet. Jase wants to prove his worth to Citra and get revenge for Riley by taking out Hoyt too. A pointless subplot featuring a CIA guy ends with him giving us a lift to Hoyt’s personal island. I’m coming for you Hoyt! Then I’m doing the sex again!

Except, I’m not. Hoyt’s island is largely the same, but rather than ramshackle villages and forests, it’s open grasslands and fortified bases – and tougher mercs. The entire game essentially resets; I just had druggy sex with a queen and killed a Pirate Lord, and now I’m running shrieking from the mercs like the brat I was at the start? All that momentum, emotion is dropped. I’m no longer da man. Damn.

Eventually, having enrolled in Hoyt’s mercenary intern scheme to get closer to him I discover Riley is alive – and I’ve been ordered to torture him about the whereabouts of this Jason guy … It’s true that FC3 does prick at some of FPS and RPG’s established tropes; not just Jase’s story and how a character can shrug off the acts we commit in a shooter, but little nods like Buck appearing like a convenient quest-giver, or the CIA merc who disappears after our cutscene and Jase mutters “where’d he go” – very meta. But FC3 isn’t as smart as it thinks it is. The Riley torture scene thinks it’s a brilliant commentary on CoD’s more distasteful sequences but it’s not because Riley agrees to it to keep up the pretence. It would have said something if we realised with horror Jase had become so unhinged that beating his little bro wasn’t a big deal, but Jase hates himself for it; FC3 was sold on the idea that it explores what a FPS would really do to someone but that’s simply not true and it’s glaringly obvious in the final scene – we make a moral choice, not Jase. Having offed Hoyt, who was a huge disappointment after Vaas and Buck (they really should have had their own sitcom), our ex-friends are nowhere to be found. Pirates? Nope, Citra. She has one final test – Jase has to literally cut all ties to his past life.

I get that Citra might be thinking if I’m willing to go through all that to save them I might want to return to my friends one day, but to leave the final choice to me doesn’t work. I’d stay with Citra, but I’m not gonna slaughter my friends and I never saw Jase become blinded enough to do it either. He’s traumatised but not insane. Second, all of Jase’s darkness came out of the extreme situation not a belief, so if the game thinks it’s provided enough evidence that Jase’s devolved to this extent then he should do it not me; let me watch in shock as I realise how far he’s fallen. It goes back to the Riley sequence; the game thinks it’s being devious forcing us into obviously amoral situations but it’s not because I shouldn’t have a choice. I didn’t go through what Jase did.

Worst of all, the game punishes you for choosing Citra, who reveals a pretty extreme plan to bring the Rakyat back to glory, while saving Liza is a disappointing non-ending that conflicts with Citra’s true intentions – she claims she loves Jase if you pick Liza, but the ‘Citra’ ending is not exactly loving. That’s two seperate narritives, two different worlds.

It’s also an uncomfortable moment to watch how animalistic the Rakyat are; they’re all cheering as I hold the knife. This is off. The Rakyat might be ‘primitive’ but they’re not prehistoric; a sacrifice? Citra is welcome to believe in old legends of the Rakyat’s mystical birth, but this display, and Citra’s later act are outdated and bordering on racist. We just spent the entire game saving 1940’s WB Cartoon-style savages? I’m surprised they don’t have bones through their noses and cauldrons for us to cook the friends in.

But, FC3 started to cave in on itself before this. The game creates this amazing dynamic between Vaas and Jase; losing him causes FC3 to slip into the generic when it could have gone in so many ways. We needed to know Vaas better. His extreme actions against the Rakyat are explained by Citra mumbling about Hoyt ‘poisoning his mind’ with drugs; hang on love, you keep doping me with hallucinogens then raping me; if we’d interacted more, if Vaas warned us about her true motivations, revealed an obsession with bringing back the Rakyat ‘warrior’ it all would have had much more impact; we recognise she’s dangerous, but not insane and there’s no hints – at least none we believe, since the few clues come from Vaas. It could have worked if we’d just seen the signs and Jase and Vaas’s relationship should have been so much more than ‘I killed you/I escaped’ – Vaas makes at least five serious attempts on Jase’s life but he always survives which drives Vaas mad – well, madder. He even shoots Jase point blank, but the bullet was deflected by a lighter; which Vaas had put in his pocket earlier. That’s no coincidence and there are implications of something otherworldly going on; the Tatau magically appears on Jase as you level up, his hallucinations give him tangible foresight and Dennis remarks that Citra is a Goddess; had it all been Citra’s spiritual doing rather than half-baked machinations, that she had some mystical power then Far Cry 3 could have been a trippy game that challenged the shooter norm, explaining if not satirising much of what we just accept when shooting. We just needed more Vaas, as insane as that sounds.

FC3’s loading screens are populated with quotes from Alice In Wonderland, implying more dream-like fantasy, but it’s not. Instead of down the rabbit hole FC3 heads into a dead end, and the irony of the FC series is in FC3’s best moment – where Vaas claims the definition of insanity is repeating the same event and expecting a different outcome; then repeats it over and over; that is the entire Far Cry series – everything you experience in FC3 is the structure of every other FC game; the series has turned reskin into an art-form, but FC3’s story and characters make it stunningly original and fascinating; it’s easily one of the best open-world games of all time – until you reach Hoyt’s island. Then it’s one Far Cry too many. Quit after killing Vaas and it’s an extraordinary experience. All hail king Jason.

2012 | developer Ubisoft Montreal | Publisher Ubisoft

Platforms; Win (Steam/Uplay), X360, PS3

Medal of Honor: Airborne

FBT jumps out of a perfectly good aeroplane in the name of honor

The Past

Medal of Honor Airborne was a marmite of a game, either a realistic war experience or a plotless offline multiplayer.

I landed in the ‘really love MoH:A’ camp when it first came out. The parachute sequences where you looked down and realised nothing could stop you from landing right in the middle of a raging battle was thrilling – tired of the spoon-fed linear shooters but finding non-linear shooters too meandering, MoH:A seemed the perfect compromise. Everything was against you, but it was on you to find a way, not follow a path and it taught you war was hell. Or maybe it was just a bot-controlled offline multiplayer now I think about it. I rinsed it back in the day, earning every medal and star. Time to re-earn my paratrooper wings.

Still a Blast

There is something very classy about MoH:A. It looks good for its age and there’s some great detail to it – according to a nice behind-the-scenes on the DVD, developers EA LA (who were DreamWorks, later Danger Close and now DICE LA) took it very seriously, recording the real planes, weapons and even the boots of the different factions (Not that I ever heard footsteps and thought ‘ahh yes, that’ll be the Italians approaching’). Although there’s not a lot of character or scene-setting, once we’re aboard the plane it’s tense. Your fellow grunts have a well-observed bravado-meets-fear feel to them and more often than not, our plane gets battered while reaching the dropzone. We’re flung out and there’s a horrible silence until we’re close enough to hear the guns and shouting. There’s an excitement in seeing the scale of what’s below; that’s missing in linear games’ walk-in events. I have to survive that?

I float down trying to spot an edge, or a ledge I can land on to strike from but its mayhem down there and I always change my mind as I get closer. As I land (usually a ‘Botched’ landing where I get pulled by my chute or stumble while getting my bearings) I’m right in the heat of battle or at some Nazi’s feet and get shot to pieces while trying to recover. It is instantly intense. Unfortunately, I can’t desert. Once in, its non-linear but fairly close-quartered. Each mission has a different layout – an early level is an Italian village and we’re sliding across pottery roofs, through tiny alleyways and in and out of houses while troops on both sides tear about, while later locations are set in old ruins or camps behind enemy lines – it’s never the same experience twice. Unless you get killed.

Every time you’re shot, stabbed or blown up, you return to the plane to try again. Although we’re always playing the same silent hero – Boyd Travers – the constant respawn feels like a new grunt thrown into the fray and that sheer numbers will win this, not a lone hero. That’s lucky because I get through a lot of Boyds.

Part of that brutality is we’re always outnumbered, but really it’s down to the sheer confusion – in a realistic way; I have no idea what we’re doing; the mission briefings are little more than pep-talks and once down all we have is a mission marker or a radio message telling us to ‘secure’ something as the mission parameters change.

As you use weapons they gain XP, awarding you better magazines, reduced recoil, accuracy etc. which feels right, representing a more experienced, aware soldier who finds and utilises anything they can on the battlefield. You’ll need the edge; the AI of the Axis is either brutally efficient or vacantly scripted depending how you look at it. They’ll run to you as you land, bayonets and rifle butts at the ready and dart about aggressively giving it an edgy, unknown feel, but that also makes them appear set in random mode and you rarely feel like you’re fighting something that’s aware or making decisions. But then again, that’s just how I’m behaving; barrelling around like an armed headless chicken, I imagine this is how a lot of war goes – a perfect plan descending into chaos as soon as a shot is fired.

Most of the moments we face are drawn from real battles and how the Paratroopers aided the war. Early on we’re taking out anti-aircraft guns before moving onto spotting-towers, radars and eventually work up behind the shoreline of Normandy to knock out the pillboxes. It’s all thrilling, realistic stuff. At least until Operation Market Garden, when it seems we’ve parachuted into Call of Duty.

While cutting through a decimated village trying to avoid a tiger tank and more troops than seems fair, we reach our objective; keep a bridge open for our tanks. It’s under attack from Nazis trying to blow it up by using RPGs which they fire at us too, even in close quarters. There’s just something ‘game’ about a battalion of RPG troopers and it starts to lose that realism. I can’t parachute in behind them; once you get midway through you stop dropping as it becomes a linear push. Can’t get more linear than a bridge filled with RPG troopers firing annoyingly accurate rockets at you point blank.

And the CoD-style OTT continues. There’s a nice mission in a munitions factory at a rail station, which is spoilt by the arrival of ‘SS Storm Elite’ troopers who wear gas-masks and wield the kind of firepower that reminds you of that scene in Predator after Blain gets it. They’re fun to take down, but hardly believable. Then the final mission has our multiple-hero assault a huge flak tower which is a great bit of business but doesn’t make a lot of sense since the goal is to reach the basement and blow it up. Couldn’t we just land at the base then? We did walk out of an open door at the end.

Those final few missions really do take the edge off MoH:A – I’d forgotten how silly it got, but the biggest disappointment in this Blast is how the respawning removes the camaraderie we see aboard the planes; once, one soldier got shot yet refuses to stay behind, insisting he’s ‘jumping with you guys’ – really bringing home that brotherhood sense, yet Boyd is frustratingly hollow; there’s no cut-scenes, no characterisation – all we get is his ‘after action report’ voice-over as we pan over the dozens of Boyds strewn across the battlefield. Most of the MoH games have stoically silent, emotionally absent heroes, but MoH:A spends a lot of time personalising if not deifying the Paratroopers; each mission opens with a quote about them, we see the sheer stress and danger they’re put through, understand that every jump is a suicide mission; in-game there’s some horrible moments like getting close to a burning tank and hearing the men inside screaming. Yet Boyd is absent, a Doom-era arm when he should be Private Ryan. Most games have respawn and autosaves but their characters appear in cutscenes, you inhabit them and when you die, you start again whereas here, the battle continues below – it feels like an endless respawn rather than an adventure and that turns MoH:A into an offline multiplayer game which is frustrating.

MoH:A is a good game with tons of effort and consideration built into it, but it’s a game of two halves – the in-game action which is mostly brilliant, and the build-up which is affecting. Instead of coming together, they cancel each other out like you parachuted into the wrong game.

2007 | Developer; EA Los Angeles (DICE LA) | Publisher; Electronic Arts

Platforms; Win (Origin), X360, PS3

Far Cry Blood Dragon

a second wind review

FBT is Rex Colt. And the dragons have lasers for eyes. What?

The year is 2007. From the ashes of the last nuclear war arose the Cyber-Commandos; dead soldiers resurrected using cybernetic technology. They were our last line of defence. But Colonel Sloan, the cyber-soldiers’ commander has gone rogue on an island populated by the legendary Blood Dragons. Now, our only hope is Sloan’s greatest pupil, U.S. Military Mark IV Cyber-Commando Rex ‘Power’ Colt. Get ready for the Power…

Opening with a 4.3 screen, vhs tracking bar and fuzzy credits, if you’re not from the 80s this game could be confusing. Being built on Far Cry 3, everything you expect is here – main mission, side missions, things to kill, places to explore and bases to take over; standard open-world shooter, but that’s where the familiarity ends. This makes me want to dig out my Vic-20. But if the 80s setting and in-jokes are lost on you, there’s always the gaming piss-takes …

Rex and “Spider” Brown (who is days from retirement and has a wife and kid waiting for him at home) are sent to the island where Sloan is holed up. Having become disgusted at America’s soft-stance on war after Vietnam II, Sloan plans to fire missiles (filled with the blood of Blood Dragons by mad scientist Dr Carlyle) at every nation and send us back to the stone age. Or something; it doesn’t matter. No match for their old mentor, Rex is left at the mercy of the Blood Dragons which can shoot laser beams from their eyes. What? Escaping, Rex takes over a nearby base, earning the gratitude of a bunch of nerds and Carlyle’s disillusioned assistant, Dr. Darling decides to help Rex stop Sloan, but warns only the ‘Killstar’ can beat him and in order to wield it, Rex has to become more than his cyber-programming.

Gruffly voiced by Michael Biehn (so perfectly you’ll have to watch Terminator, Aliens, even The Rock again), Rex is the ultimate 80s action hero. Whether it’s doing cool moves like giving the devil’s horn when he levels up (and the finger when you melee out of range) or reloading the shotgun by throwing the shells in the air, Rex is the hero we watched as kids, sitting a foot away from a square telly. He loves his country, his job and paintings of dogs playing poker. But Rex is not just a manly man’s man type, he’s also us gamers. Going through a tutorial (“to look up, look up”) causes him to yell “for fucks sake”, his HUD constantly annoys him with pointless info, he complains about missions and the logic behind them (like having to dive into cyber-shark-infested water to turn a fuse on), gets bored by exposition and questions collectables – “Great, found another one. What the fuck am I doing?”; what gamer hasn’t muttered that?

Explained as an evolutionary throwback, Blood Dragons are massive and lethal. They glow different colours depending on mood and they’re huge … fun to get killed by. They roam the island taking out anything they find; getting chased by one while in a jeep is the stuff of Jeff Goldblum’s ‘must go faster’ nightmares. You can rip out the hearts of downed cyber-baddies to decoy the dragons with, and getting them to attack bases is great, even if it means decoying it back out again or killing it afterwards – if you can.

BD is all about the fun of playing a straight-to-VHS action hero; the heroic cut-scenes, dramatic dialogue, it’s perpetually set at neon-night, the creatures are shiny chrome-coloured, the bases have that 80’s sci-fi atheistic and they’re filled with cyber-baddies in crash-helmets that talk in robotic voices. There’s a cold-war attitude and the assumption that the near future will be a ravaged, nuclear hell-hole – they’re not far off – and the score is by a synth band called Power Glove. Items we collect include VHS videos, and the titles are so spot on I swear I watched them as a kid. But it goes further than that, you really need to know your 80s to get the references built into it – missions are all movie quotes or titles, there’s Jaws and Blazing Saddles refs – wrong decade, but we all rented those in the 80s, long tall sally plays during the helicopter ride, when you fire a mini-gun Rex lets out a roar, and his sidearm looks very familiar. There’s classic training montages, Rex goes into the sewers to take out some mutated turtles, Dr. Darling looks like Bridgette Nielson while Slone bears a striking resemblance to Bennett. There’s a classic 80s sex scene and the final shot is straight out of a video that defines the eighties. It’s a joy to play your childhood – we are Michael Dudikoff.

While the 80s theme and humour are the most memorable thing, BD gets the open-world shooter bit right as well. The main mission is centred around dismantling Sloan’s war machine and Carlyle’s labs, while the side-missions fall into two categories – animal hunts and scientist rescues. Standard Far Cry stuff but this is more than a reskin; all the bases are different and require planning, especially if a Blood Dragon is about, while the missions are designed to have fun with and there are some great set-pieces – taking out the Blood Dragon’s nest is a standout (complete with an Aliens in-joke). And then, once we get the Killstar and assault Sloan’s base … whoa; its pure actioner wish fulfilment like you’re re-enacting the ending to Commando – except Arnie never rode a tame Cyber-Blood Dragon (which is self-aware and has its own 80s movie quotes), while the final fight with Sloan somehow mashes together every action movie you ever watched. You will be cheering like you did when Matrix said “Remember Sully, when I promised to kill you last?”

At face value, BD lazily takes aim at a decade that can’t be taken seriously anyway – just look at the 80s. But there’s so much to it – it’s as much a homage as parody and while 80s actioners are squarely in its firing-line, so is gaming; Rex constantly responding to the game’s logic with a befuddled ‘what?’ is all of us – but he’s no hero, he’s just your everyday U.S. Military Mark IV Cyber-Commando doing his job. It’s a genuinely funny game – “Tell my wife … I died fighting for my country!” / “You can tell her that yourself” – it’s like Naked Gun the Video Game.

This is another Far Cry; there’s nothing here you’ve not done two or three times before in a FC game, but Blood Dragon’s style and sly comedy raises it above the series’ diminishing returns and makes it a classic in it’s own right – I’d look forward to a BD2 way more than an FC6.

BD is short but it’s perfectly timed and doesn’t outstay it’s welcome – it’s one of those games you get tempted to replay immediately – not because you missed anything, but because you really want the exact same experience again.

As soon as I’ve re-watched Cobra.

2013 | Developer, Ubisoft Montreal/Shanghai | Publisher Ubisoft

platforms; Win, PS3, X360

Mass Effect playthrough – Pt3

a second wind special

In this final part of FBT’s Mass Effect playthrough, he and Ash get into it, Tali breaks his heart and Javik pays the kind of compliment you can’t come back from. Oh and Reaper stuff too.

So far, ME3 has been an up-and-down game. It’s not followed through on any of ME2’s promise but it’s a tight, fast moving game that keeps the pressure on. With all the ME2 deaths and impacts indifferently accounted for, all’s that left is the Reapers. And Ash.

DGAFShep and Ash haven’t really been seeing eye to eye. When we draw our guns on each other, it hits home; Ash would believe we’re behind this attack, all her fears realised. I’m dreading this; if it doesn’t go the way DGAFShep needs it to, chances are I’ll shoot Ash like she’s an Asari – on top of which, this time Udina has Kai-manipulated footage of me killing the councillor. Ash takes aim, I have no choice but to Renegade interrupt and … she backs down. I have no idea why, or what I did (or what more I could do to provoke her), but after I shoot Udina, which I really enjoy, I dismiss Ash with a curt ‘told you so’ and leave.

Later, I find her outside the Normandy and we have a tense conversation where I insist she join Hackett. It makes more sense. It’s selfish to keep her there when Hackett needs a Spectre and I’d be holding her back. She’s outgrown Shep. We firmly handshake and I never see her again. Not even at the Citadel party (Sorry James, DGAFShep is also CockblockerShep), but it feels right. DGAFShep might not care, but I do. Hope she makes it.

Oddly, I disagree with the survival of one squad-mate; Grunt. It’s such a great moment when he chooses to stay and give Shep a chance to escape, and his fight-to-the-end is a startling moment that brings home the sacrifices Shep is asking of people. That he rocks up again is great, but it just undermines that moment. He does have one of the best moments in the Citadel DLC so I’m looking forward to that but still, he should die. That’s Loyalty for you. Also, for DGAFShep the non-sacrifice doesn’t really add up to much. Since I gassed the Rachni Queen in ME1, the game has to explain all the Reaper forces and it turns out they just cloned a Queen to produce foot soldiers. This is turning in Borderlands with its respawning mini-bosses. This time I save the Queen and send her off to the Crucible project – where she becomes dangerous and the Alliance kill her. Well done DGAFShep, you wiped out the same species twice. And it causes my War Readiness to drop. More bloody work to do.

Despite that staffing issue, the War Readiness is growing nicely. Without even realising, it gets past ‘minimum’ which feels like DGAFShep’s target. A large reason for that is my new appreciation for ME3’s missions. I avoid the random and emotional stuff but if the Alliance needs boots on the ground I seem to find myself doing them, rather than working through a list of mission-triggering chores like ME2 just to get things moving. And they just get more and more epic like the Asari home-world and the Reaper fights; it’s exciting and fun (not fun as in causing all those Asari deaths, honest). Before I know it, DGAFShep has inspired the universe and aced the war readiness; I even managed to save Miranda from her dad (And another Kai fail). This time I let her hug her sister. DGAFShep is getting soft in her old age.

Nearing the end, we’re off to Rannoch to help Tali reclaim her homeland. I’ve already tangled with the Quarians but managed to keep them on side – by punching that war-hungry General. I even get to dish out some sass to the downed Reaper, taunting “Tell your friends we’re coming” before another bunch of rockets hit it and I mutter “Never mind, I’ll tell them myself.” Badass.

The Quarian’s planet reclaimed, I meet an excitable Tali. I always felt bad about Legion but it’s a great sacrifice – once, I lost Legion in ME2 and another Geth took its place. Despite all the Paragon chat and doing its side-mission it still tried to kill the Quarians and Tali killed it while saying “Legion would have understood” which was affecting; this time though, with Legion loyal and the Quarians onside, we should be good. As I watch Legion upload the code, I start to notice the dialogue is different. Still, sure there’ll be an interrupt where I force that punched general to stand down.

He’s not standing down. Legion’s going to attack the Quarians. My Mass Effect life flashes before my eyes and I realise that without her ME2 loyalty mission, Tali has no sway with the fleet, that she and Legion didn’t patch up their differences, that I didn’t do Legion’s trip into Geth subconscious; because of me, Legion and Tali don’t understood each other. Oh … oh shit. I only have a millisecond to interrupt – but which? For DGAFShep, the Geth are a better option; they have the Reaper code and stronger military. I don’t stop him and the Quarians are wiped out. As I stare at Legion’s body, Tali looks at her beloved planet littered with debris from the fleet … then removes her mask and -just to make it ten times worse- apologises before she jumps.

Tali must really regret throwing in with Shep. In ME1 she brought us the proof of Saren’s treachery which justified Shep’s actions – she gave us what we needed to get here and she’s been by our side from the start, but I never let her complete her pilgrimage or exonerate her father; because of me she gets excommunicated then sees her people destroyed. She’s easily the most tragic of all DGAFShep’s followers and it’s a horrible moment. But, this is how all of ME3 should have gone – that impact, the repercussions of our actions. ME3 should be Shep’s choices coming back tenfold, and narrative wise, the only time we really see tragedy is the fall of Thessia, which is a distant event. Tali was up close and personal. This was Shep’s fault. Seeing Tali die affected me for the rest of the game. I don’t want to be DGAFShep anymore.

What I need is a party to cheer myself up. But who is going to come?

The Citadel DLC is completely justified for DGAFShep – she’s hardly going to turn down a free apartment and some shore leave. The entire DLC is wicked fun; yes, it’s comedy is at odds with the rest of ME3’s stoic, stone-face nature, but on this playthrough I’ve noticed some gallows humour in Shep and this is just an extension of that. It just works so well, you can feel the steam being blown off. You can play it a hundred times and still catch new moments (This time I realised Javik refused to be in Team Mako or Hammerhead and is just Team Prothean, which still gets more kills than the other two). We get to partner with ‘Uncle’ Rex and every character gets their own great moment; when they grumble about never getting picked for missions the meta-humour gets almost too much. There’s loads of jokes and in-jokes, Shep and her ‘dancing’, the digs about breaking the fish tank, EDI going screwy when she loses connection to the Normandy, and the line ‘if you told me this morning a toothbrush was going to save the Normandy, I’d be very sceptical’. And when the caper is over the party begins; no other game gave the characters -or the fans- this much love. There’s more characterisation in this one DLC than most games manage in a GOTY edition.

One of the most amusingly harsh moments for DGAFShep is no one contacts her to hang out. Because I never bonded with them, I didn’t get the main-game moments either; Liara’s star-chart, Garrus’ shooting practice; even DGAFShep feels a pang of guilt for not making more effort now. I’m tempted to just have a party with Glyph and his bow-tie, who needs them anyway. I can’t even invite my clone or Brooks because I killed them both. But I figure this is the one time I’m allowed to have fun; they’re an alright bunch. No crew stopping by means I miss not only Miranda in the red dress and Grunt’s pub-crawl, but one of my favourite observations of Shep across the entire trilogy. When James and Cortez make a bet on the game, regardless of the outcome they both win; they weren’t betting on the winner, they were betting on Shep being able to spot a winning team. It’s a perfect nod to Shep’s inherent leadership. DGAFShep didn’t get that complement, but she got complemented by Javik – for her sexual prowess when they wake up together the morning after the party … Citadel might be my favourite DLC of all time. That group-photo is what it’s all about but for DGAFShep, it’s a harsh reminder of those she’s lost; there’s a lot of empty spaces.

As we reach the staging ground in London I don’t say goodbye to anyone. As they explain the scale of the attack, the odds, the forces we’ll be facing, it makes the Suicide Mission seem like a tutorial. This is gonna be … a standard two teammates mission? There’s a Reaper in the way and you think two followers will cut it? Everything has led up to this, every squad-mate would demand they do their bit just like happened at the end of ME2 but bigger – they wouldn’t just abandon their commander, DGAF or not – we’ve all come too far and it’s the first of many missteps ME3 takes as it reaches the end.

As Harbinger blows everything sky high, I say a goodbye to James – no cutscenes, no romance but the goodbye is still affecting. Both he and Javik survive (also, how come the Normandy doesn’t get involved earlier? You’d expect it to swoop down Millennium Falcon style and take out Harbinger while Joker tells me the blow this thing so we can all go home) and we’re zapped into the citadel. For various reasons, I don’t have paragon or renegade options during the Shep-Anderson-TIM showdown so I’m pretty much just along for the ride. I think this sequence (along with the next) coloured most of my previously negative opinion of ME3, and it’s doing so again.

Playing as DGAFShep has really brought this moment into a sharp focus. It’s gutting that TIM wasn’t an actionable alternative to the Alliance – their attitude is as single-minded and unshakable as TIM’s, and that’s what ME3 should have been about, the lesser of two evils; the true horror of war. This moment should have been Shep’s final decision, not the one that’s about to come. ME2 made Cerberus a tempting alternative and then ME3 pulls all that away and turns him into a boo-hiss villain; worse, it’s not even TIM and his ideals because he’s indoctrinated. He should never have been taken over by the Reapers, it should have been both of them trying to sway Shep to their side. Shep just mindlessly kills TIM and comforts Anderson; yes, yes it’s sad he dies, he was a father figure and a supporter but he could have been less than that, and TIM could have been more.

The Catalyst does have a Matrix Architect vibe about him, but it’s still compelling stuff. I like how an AI endlessly judges us, the irony of it killing trillions over and over to protect the universe is huge – on a galactic scale the individual is reduced to less than zero yet it falls to one to make the choice. Step forward DGAFShep. Uhho.

This has always been the real ME killer for me. The entire series is about choice, even if most of them didn’t really matter as it turned out, but this is one choice Shep shouldn’t make. Even Shep says it’s a decision no one person can make and the game should never have let us. Kid Catalyst should assume you are the best of us to reach here, and take Shep’s choices throughout the series to decide what happens next. It would have been truly stunning reaper-what-you-sow moment. Instead, even if you brokered peace between the Geth and Quarians, helped Legion understand humanity, taught EDI how to love, you have to kill them to destroy the Reapers? They’re not the same, the Reapers aren’t sentient, the fact that the Catalyst can’t be reasoned with proves it. Instead we’re supposed to sacrifice ourselves? A Renegade wouldn’t. This ending assumes you’re a selfless hero and yet, if we’ve learnt one thing, it’s that the universe can’t be boiled down to personal choice – there’s too many variables. That’s what ME is supposed to be about. The only way ME3 could work is if your actions speak for you. It’s an infuriating, simplistic cop-out to leave it up to you then make every choice have a downside.

Symbiosis is not what DGAFShep would chose, she wants to survive, and she wouldn’t want to become their consciousness either. That’s a full-time job. Plus, do we want DGAF Reapers? Those endings completely discount all of Shep’s actions, her attitude. Why would you risk a Renegade running the universe? What to do. Then I realise Destroy is also the only one where Kid Catalyst doesn’t imply death. Since DGAFShep only cares about herself, that means…

I chose Destroy and along with the Reapers, EDI – although I don’t see a death scene for her, which I kinda did and didn’t want to see, I’m gutted to have killed her. Everyone else survives and I watch Hackett give a surprisingly upbeat voice-over about rebuilding with a promise not to repeat our actions. I doubt it and wonder what will happen when another AI war wages and the Reapers aren’t there to stop it. For the first time really, I get that the Reapers were right and all it took was not caring.

As the Normandy blasts off, we pause at the wall of death. So many names this time – Cortez is on there too, which is saddening. Anyway, Garrus goes to place Sheps name alongside the (large) number of crew casualties – but pauses. What’s that all about? I’m a goddamn DGAF hero! Get my name up there! It’s sobering they chose not to honour her. Yes she shot people in the face, destroyed the Quarians and ignored a crew that constantly laid down its life for her, but she got the job done. Well shit. But then, the shot pans through the rubble of the Crucible to Shep’s N7 tags and … she takes a breath!

Holy shit DGAFShep survived. I had no idea there was even a survival option but I’m pleased. She deserves a beer. She may owe the Asari one too. I guess Garrus paused because he suspected I’d survived. Well why didn’t you rescue me instead of getting my name printed for the dead-board?! You’d better not have the wake at my apartment.

And that was DGAFShep’s playthrough. It was a huge red-eye-opener. ME1 is still a brilliant, pure sci-fi game. One of the greats. ME2 is epic in scale and impact, but arguably, it’s where the rot sets in; if only we could have sided with TIM it would be beyond brilliant. As it is, it’s just brilliant. And ME3 … it had an impossible task bettering ME2’s legacy, but I’m undecided on if it even really tried. Once it settled on the idea that we were saving the galaxy, it relaxed, as if that was enough – it wasn’t; ME was about how Shep would somehow find a way to cure the genophage and still think to check Liara wasn’t upset about something.

And then there’s the choices we’re tricked into stressing about. Everything we did in ME1 and 2 should count towards how easy Shep’s mission is in ME3 – the only reason to send Shep on her fundraiser is because she has history and sway with everyone. Past interactions should be their first reaction to her requests, not ‘go do this chore and we’ll give you troops’. Some don’t even make sense – why cure the genophage to get Krogan on Palavan so the Turians can bolster earth? Just ask the Krogan to help earth. And what the hell did TIM do with the Human Reaper? It’s easy to argue the sheer number of interactions, dialogue choices and Asari to shoot would make the final stages impossible to pull together but really, that’s as bigger lie as Garrus claiming to the best shot on the Citadel. A few more dialogue choices, some additional side missions and a few alternative cutscenes and it would have all pulled together. Other series’ have managed branching storylines and impacts but ME3 just doesn’t want to be bothered – it’s as DGAF as Shep was, and you often see little nips and tucks, shortcuts and reskins. It’s a good try though, and at least we have the Citadel, which is the best afterparty ever. The only thing that could have made that DLC better is if Conrad turned up.

Despite all the hardships (mostly around not sleeping with crew mates; I’m amazed I resisted Trainor, no idea how I kept her out of my shower) playing as DGAFShep really refreshed a series I’ve played about as many times as the Reapers visited. I thought I knew it but I don’t – and when I consider all the fantastic moments, intimacies and friendships DGAFShep missed (and I discovered this time) I wonder what else there is to discover; this was just one playthrough, there’s hundreds more – TheMorty talks about his experiences as if we played different games, and he had no idea about some of the impacts and issues I faced – Mass Effect is a series that can be played forever.

There is a galaxy out there and no matter your disposition, it’s great saving it.

Mass Effect 2007 | Mass Effect 2 2009 | Mass Effect 3 2011

platforms; Win/Origin, PS3, X360

Mass Effect playthrough – Pt2

a second wind special

Part two of FBT’s Mass Effect playthrough sees DGAFShep thin out her team and gets angry playing hide and seek with a kid in a forest instead of stopping the Reapers.

So far, despite not caring in the slightest, DGAFShep has stopped Sovereign and is about to stop the Collectors.

Here we go – Goddamnit I need to do a side mission to trigger the IFF. Begrudgingly I do Miranda’s loyalty mission, as she’ll make a good consigliere for my gang and looks better in the black outfit – but I force her to kill that guy and cut her sister out of her life; once you join The Red Sheps, you join for life.

With less than half the team loyal, I know this will be a blood bath. I’d upgraded the Normandy (self-preservation) but expected someone to get offed on the approach. All present and correct. As we head into the base, it’s as tense as my first playthrough – it really is a suicide mission. Ironically, not doing the loyalty missions has distracted me as much as they are; I want to work out how to make everyone survive but DGAFShep wouldn’t care so I pick who I think is best suited and hope for the best. As we cut through the Collectors, I’m on edge – each cutscene is fraught as I watch to see who falls.

It’s not until the seeker level that the team starts to fracture. As my consigliere, Miranda was constantly in charge of the fire team so I didn’t have a loyal biotic. Jack did her best but eventually dropped her shield and … Thane didn’t make it, swept away as we reached the door. One down, loads to go. I always felt ME2 was overstuffed with squad-mates anyway … Not bothered. Don’t care. Sniff. I didn’t even let him connect with his son. I’m a monster.

This is it. The final push. I chose Samara and Jacob, while Grunt takes the crew to safety – I’d default saved them by immediately going to the base. The biotics take care of the collectors and I take out the giant Terminator. TIM pops up to plead for the Collector base. I’ve always destroyed it and earned his wrath, but this time I think he’s right; let those deaths count for something … okay, the base is yours. Anything to get DGAFShep out of this.

The base falls apart and Jacob goes sliding off the edge of the platform and … I catch him! I expected him to fall but no. Wow. Maybe it’s not going to be as harsh as I – Oh. In the aftermath I find Jacob’s body. Poor Jacob; he was a character I always struggled with. A committed soldier throwing in with Cerberus, it seemed as if he was supposed to be a friendly face versus the ultra-loyal Miranda, but it never quite gelled; he always seemed too straight-laced to defect; he was deluded if anything, so I never saw him as a Shep-lite. As I help up Samara, I figure one out of two isn’t so – Samara dies in my arms. I should go. As I escape, I ask for an update and … Mordin didn’t make it either. Harsh, but not as bad as I expected. Okay, I lost a third of the team but DGAFShep did what she set out to do, and made TIM very happy. I wonder if there’s a romance option with TIM in ME3?

I have mixed feelings about ME2 now. It started well, but TIM-related Renegade options are for rebelling against him rather than aligning and that makes them Paragon from an Alliance perspective, while Paragon options just have her forgiving rather than siding with him. A renegade should fall in with Cerberus, become what Ash alluded to. Instead, they just part on wary terms; TIM should want Shep to stick around and Shep knows nothing’s changed with the Council; why give up when things are just getting started? It’s fine if Shep is a girl-scout at the end of the day, but ME1 had a lot of grey areas – If she’s a linear hero then really, Renegade and Paragon are just cosmetic choices and TIM’s sermons hollow. Choosing Cerberus could still mean reaching the end goal – stop the Reapers, and being a Spectre allows Shep to take whatever route she sees fit, not try to earn Anderson’s approval.

DGAFShep in ME2 wasn’t really evil enough to warrant the glowing eyes either; even the people she kills deserved it. Her Renegade interrupts are more DGAF than ‘you die now’ – One time, I get a renegade option to shoot a mech. Wow. Instead of visiting my favourite store on the citadel I just bully the owners into a discount. Shep’s just indifferent; I didn’t stop that kid while taking down Archangel (Garrus shot him not me) and I let that high-as-a-kite Volus get killed.

ME2 assumes I care and want to help squadmates gain closure. Yes you can mess their missions up but that’s not Renegade, it’s just petty. Surely Renegade is a dangerous option, not just a bit stroppy. Shep’s refusal to interact does impact the characters though; Jack and Miranda never get into it and neither do Tali and Legion.

Focusing purely on the main mission, I more readily noticed that ME2 lacked a clear villain. TIM isn’t revealed as such and the Collectors aren’t really doing much for most of the game – a human reaper is terrifying but rather than just a larva I’d have loved to see that thing blast out the Omega 4 relay and attack like Sovereign did, or speak up – The Reaper is people; it might have an interesting take on things given Harbinger was just a disembodied voice.

The biggest let down though is the lack of impact from ME1 moments. I got stopped by an ex-ExoGeni employee to tell me how well the colony is doing (Colony of one with no water or food you mean?) and that’s it, other than a few ‘remember me?’ moments. Also, I find it hard to believe the Alliance would still trust Shep. I sided with avowed terrorists and Saren would be proud of how I abused my Spectre status yet Hackett still sends Shep to sensitive bases full of stuff Cerberus would kill for. I would have loved to see the ME story branch out – Miranda gives you Cerberus tasks instead, exploring their goals and ideals, let you to decide if TIM maybe has the right idea – or at least a more effective end-game than the Council’s ignore it until it goes away.

Oddly then, I’m really looking toward Mass Effect 3 to pull it all together. For all its faults, ME3 relied heavily on ME2 actions – what about Thane stopping TIM’s prancing emo sidekick? What will happen in the Asari monastery with no Justicar? Who’s going to cure the genophage? And Jacob? Erm … I’ll get Miranda to hook up his girl with iPartner Connections. I also realise DGAFShep has made things more difficult – I missed Arrival, and Liara never became the Shadow Broker (why would I ask her about her personal problems?) Also, David is still trapped in the Geth AI machine somewhere – and it’s a testament to that mission’s moving story that I genuinely feel bad about it. It all has an impact in ME3, not to mention I left Reaper tech intact for TIM to sift through; that’s new and now he owes me one, surely? Coming for you, TIM. I mean the Reapers, I’m coming for you, Reapers.

I’d forgotten about Mass Effect 3’s cherubic, innocent child that gets offed then haunts Shep’s 80’s music video dreams. A wise man (TheMorty) once said that the role would have been better filled by whichever character you let die on Virmire and that made sense. There’s millions Shep can’t save, but Kaidan represents what she sacrificed and to have her guilt actually explored with a familiar face instead of chasing a brat around a forest would have been more interesting and tied it all in. But ME3 is less about tying in, it’s about tiding up.

Anderson pulls us from jail to speak to Earth defences, and just as I start thinking ‘why would they want to see a renegade terrorist traitor’ Anderson bellows “I don’t know why they want to see you after all the shit you did!” Oh. Finally, an impact. Sort of. As I tell the earth council they’re idiots for not listening to me two games ago, the Reapers attack. We leave earth and Anderson expects us to get help. You thought that through Dave?

Hey, TIM! Hows it going, you mounted that Reaper head in your office? Remember the time you and I – wait, why are we villains to Cerberus now? Shep’s done nothing but make him proud. It’s the first flag that ME3 doesn’t care so much about your choices as it does keeping to its own narrative. Even if TIM’s indoctrinated by this stage, the Reapers would be desperate to do the same to Shep. Hero of the Citadel as a Reaper spy? Regardless, there’s no reason why ME3 couldn’t have split into two plots, Cerberus and their Reaper-control plan vs Alliance’s destruction – ME3 should be a constant emotional battle for Shep; she wants to save the universe, but it’s going to cost. Going free-agent and having Cerberus missions as well as Alliance could have created entirely new experiences; the foxy Eva instead of EDI for one. Switch allegiances back and forth as you gather forces before committing to one side’s solution. Skyrim did it. But not Mass Effect; a game renowned for it’s choices and impacts. TIM hates me for no reason other than the plot demands it and we blindly support the council who caused this mess. But I shouldn’t be disappointed in the linear story – not when I have choices to be disappointed by.

It would be great to see one seemingly small ME1 event having huge impact, but ME3 doesn’t really have time for that. The war has levelled everything, and nothing except stopping the Reapers really matters – I guess that works for DGAFShep, she’d ignore the repercussions anyway, but it would have been nice to see the actions Shep set in motion become sizable barriers or shortcuts now. Least we still have the old gang, right?

I accept most of the ME2 Dirty Dozen have moved on but Miranda? This will not stand. She was a Cerberus loyalist and we followed the Cerberus party line to the end. There’s zero reason why Miranda would go on the run in this playthrough. Imagine Miranda in the Kai Leng role, hunting us down. Whoa. The game is quick to replace dead characters with clones, there’s no reason Miranda couldn’t have been the one to try and stop us. It would have been amazing!

First off, Kai is a terrible villain. He fails in every encounter until he has a gunship behind him; you wonder what TIM sees in him. He usually gets beaten by a bedridden lizard who can’t breathe – He even got shot by Anderson once; well, twice. Miranda as the antagonist would be a viable threat; she knows us – inside and out, literally. It would turn ME3 into something much more wrenching and intimate to see them go at it, tied into choices with her loyalty mission. Given the unending adulation the rest of the team doles out, can’t just one of them not fall in line? The only time I seem to really piss off the crew is during the Leviathan DLC; I force the daughter to maintain her connection even though James warns me I’m killing her. Afterwards he stroppily marches off grumbling I went too far (and it’s implied she died later, whoops). Aside from that, I can’t bolt around the Citadel let alone the Normandy without some squad member wanting to reminisce about stuff we didn’t do and make deep, meaningful observations. Except Ash.

One of my favourite moments in ME2 is Ash rocking up just to tell us to piss off. I loved that Ash was angry Shep fell in with Cerberus – she was right to be. Ash was pro-human until Shep influenced her (DGAFShep didn’t but still) and in ME3 it’s awkward – Ash says ‘I used to’ when asked if she knew the commander; the tension continues and DGAFShep’s STFU responses don’t placate her (and I don’t visit her in hospital either). We’ve seen Ash grow; she was full of self-doubt in ME1, found herself in ME2 and in ME3 it’s like we’re equals; and DGAFShep has done nothing to convince Ash she’s still the skipper – but I’m getting trigger-happy-ahead of myself; Shep’s barely warmed up.

The renegade options do make Shep see red again, but rather than murdering people, DGAFShep’s rants are just taken as inspiring honesty; I don’t think rousing a squad of Turians with tough talk really deserves glowing eyes. There’s one flash of genius where we go round two with al-Jilani, who ducks a punch so Shep headbutts her. Nice. I have that General on the Citadel assassinated to save running about and as I issue the kill order, he thanks me for helping him see sense back in Cora’s Den. I never spoke to him before. People just can’t stop crediting Shep for stuff she didn’t do. Maybe I have a clone running about somewhere.

As I accept that my previous actions don’t really count in ME3, I concentrate on uniting the universe – and realise that means doing everything since it all relates to the war effort. Still, with the straight-arrow mindset and avoiding small talk, ME3 accelerates as fast as ME1 did; I hadn’t really noticed it before but everything has a dangerous or desperate feel to it. The losses, the determination, it really starts to grip when you’re not scanning for a Volus’ missing laundry; DGAFShep’s ‘get the job done’ attitude works so well – there’s fricking Reapers landing Joker, haven’t got time to groom EDI for you.

The fights are gritty stuff. When the shuttle door opens and we’re dropped into the LZ Shep is agile and responsive while the squad-mates follow my lead even more effectively than in ME2. It’s a tight shooter when considering the size of the missions which all have great, epic moments and explosions. Shep is a hero no matter how DGAF she tries to be. The various Reaper and Cerberus forces are a challenge; it’s a fast, focused game and in the heat of battle I lean towards thinking ME3 might be my favourite. Then it does something to really annoy me.

Because I didn’t do Mordin’s loyalty mission, it could be assumed Maelon completed his cure. But no. He failed and new guy Wiks took over the project. So we go through the same plot with a reskinned Mordin. Although I feel cheated it just reworks his story to hit the same beats, I’m asking too much of ME3 – it would be a shock to not be able to unite the Krogan but really, that’s a dead-end story-wise and would only have worked if it had been set up in ME2 – If I knew Mordin had the cure and still let him die, then I would expect repercussions but it makes sense someone else would try. I would have liked to see it be Maelon and all the conflicts that would bring but Wiks does a good Mordin impression (doesn’t sing though). Despite it being a rework, there is an impact – Eve dies and Rex laments that without her, uniting the Krogan will be hard. Ultimately, the choices of ME2 don’t alter the outcome just how we reach it – there’s still a sense I didn’t have to import my character.

We head off to the ‘so hot they’ll kill you’ Asari monastery. This is where Samara takes care of her other Fatal Attraction daughters, but without her … it’s the same mission; apart from daughter Falere making a snide comment about if we couldn’t protect her mother we can’t save her daughters. Which is … true – once the monastery is destroyed, Shep rightly says she can’t risk letting Falere go free and choses to kill her in the face. She doesn’t even get to turn her back like the other Asari I shot. Jeez DGAFShep hates Asari’s – she let Samara’s killer daughter go, let Samara die then after one daughter dies at the hands of a Banshee, I shot the last one. I couldn’t have failed Samara any harder if I tried. Annoyingly though, Liara does nothing. You’d think she would plead Falere’s case; being the Shadow Broker’s changed you. Wait, what?

I check I’ve not accidentally imported DoGAFShep. How in the hell did Liara pull that off without my help? Liara explains it with ‘oh I just tracked him down and took over so I’m now an inter-galactic secrets trader’. Liara has a bigger character change than Billy in Beverley Hills Cop 2. It’s makes no sense, feels wrong for Liara and really draws attention to ME3’s unshakeable story. It’s not like her being the SB really has an impact anyway. Also, she still comes in for a hug – DGAFShep is not a hugger.

Missing Jacob seems to have no impact at all; we still save the Cerberus traitors and a scientist takes his role. I do briefly meet the doctor who was forcing his autistic brother to drive an AI machine but since DGAFShep never met him I don’t get a Renegade option. He only mentions a project that went badly wrong and how Cerberus was forced to nuke an entire planet to contain it. Sorry David. Shame he didn’t reappear HAL2000-style, or as the king of the Geth. Real shame.

I was excited to see how the game handled Thane’s death though. I shouldn’t have been. The only real impact is Kai manages to kill the councillor; Captain Kirrahe would have taken Thane’s role but I killed him too so no chance for the counsellor. Oh wait, an ME1 impact! Talking of which, what about Udina? And Ash …

Like a Renegade interrupt, we’ll pause here. Read the third and final part of FBT’s DGAF playthrough to see if Ash and Shep patch up their differences …

or if one of them is patching up bullet-holes.

Mass Effect playthrough – Pt1

A SECOND WIND special

In a special 3-part playthrough, FBT takes on an unconventional approach to the classic sci-fi series; FBTShep is Bi-Paragon and Renegade-curious

I’ve played the Mass Effect trilogy more times than I can remember. But never as a Renegade; all my Sheps have been good Sheps. Not intentionally, but the unfolding of a galaxy-wide threat drew you in as you grew into the role of saviour – playing any Renegade options just seemed a dick move. About the only renegade thing I do is dump Ash for Miranda and be rude to Udina. Thing is, even Renegade Shep wants to save the universe, but what if Shep didn’t actually give a shit? If they were good or evil, just indifferent? If the series is all about choice, how easy would it be to save the world if the only person for the job threw a sickie?

I was also curious about how the Reaper invasion would play without any distractions, romances or side-missions. Should Shep really be wasting time chatting to adoring fans, trying to bed the crew and doing personal admin while Reapers are decimating the universe? A large part of Mass Effect is the experiences, the moments, the family feel that comes from Shep’s George Bailey impression. What happens if the universe is in the hands of a DGAFShep?

I decided a few rules – I know how this story plays out, but DGAFShep doesn’t, so;

  • unless it’s described as Reaper-related Shep isn’t interested

  • I use Renegade options if a situation threatens the mission otherwise it plays out as neutral.

  • I use Paragon if it gets Shep what they need to progress – otherwise neutral.

  • no conversations, side missions or loyalty quests

  • no romances.

  • DGAFShep isn’t renegade/paragon, they just wants to get this done and crack a beer.

  • I should go.

Mass Effect 1. DGAFShep is an Earth-born orphan who ran a street gang before joining the Alliance to escape. I chose femShep to avoid the Ash v Miranda trap again (just have to resist Trainor). Anderson describes me as a soldier who gets the job done no matter the consequences – in reality I don’t care, but a bad rap helps cut to the chase. I even adopt a skinhead look, just to appear meaner. Don’t mess with DGAFShep.

It’s been a few years but ME1 has held up really well. Now a decade old, it’s basic but a detailed, convincing future. And being rude in the future is easier than I thought. There’s some good cut-the-bullshit lines, and it’s fun to not put up with Joker’s shenanigans. Mostly though Shep just holds everyone to an impossibly high standard; she has no time for the crews concerns and is pissy with an unarmed dock worker who smartly ducked a fight between Spectres. I also feel a bit lonely; I miss chatting with the excitable Tali, reassuring Liara and breaking down Garrus’ cynicism. One thing I hadn’t counted on; is DGAFShep pro-human? Paragon Shep put human interests aside in favour of the galaxy, whereas the Renegade options turn her into UkipShep. That’s not DGAFShep, she just wants out, so I take John Lennon’s approach – ‘I don’t believe in Beatles, I just believe in me’. Didn’t imagine her as a Beatles fan.

If missing the gossip speeds up Shep’s progress, avoiding the side missions and searches has turned ME1 into a speed-run. Suddenly it’s all about the Reaper threat and I quickly stop pining for missed missions and moments; this is intense. Events like Virmire come up so much quicker when I’m not spending hours staring at the Mako’s arse, while avoiding chat and side-missions makes stuff like Noveria race by – I develop a sense of urgency that wasn’t there when I was off looking for that Admiral’s team then figuring out where he’d gone too. Finally, Shep’s “I should go” sounds right; I should. When I make my stop at Feros I drive right past the ExoGeni group and just drop off the daughter and depart. I only picked her up because it’s scripted, otherwise I’d have left her to the Varren; Shep’s not bad, she just DGAF. But when Shep is bad, she’s very very bad.

Killing the Rachni Queen was harsh. I coincidentally took Rex and he made a compelling case for wiping it out so I had to go through with my first truly DGAF choice. She was a possible risk, so I gassed the bug. The Thorian Asari tries to convince Shep she’s as changed on the inside as the outside by turning her back and kneeling, letting Shep decide. Seems like proof enough to me that she’s innoc – Shep just executed her! Holy shit. In the back of the head, while kneeling. She was a danger hence following Renegade but I thought we’d arrest her, not blow her head off.

Only one Feros colonist survived and I don’t fancy their chances since I didn’t do any of the side-missions there. On Virmire Shep shoots another Asari in the back as she runs off. No wonder Liara always looks worried. Sometimes it wasn’t even my fault; it was a complete coincidence I took Rex on the Fist mission, forgetting he was contracted to kill him. Rex is clearly a bad influence.

Playing as a complete git wasn’t my intention, but quickly I’m consumed by the chase – anything that might distract from stopping Saren gets put down quick. I barrel through speech options, don’t get emotionally involved and it becomes much easier to make the tough calls. I don’t even know why but at Peak 15 the security guards turn on me. Obviously I said or did something I shouldn’t but that never happened before, and it doesn’t bother me; they’re between me and my goal of leaving work on time. I’m unstoppable, and this new-found personality really comes into focus on Virmire; I expect to put Rex down – I never spoke to him so not like we’d built a bond and I don’t have time for his tantrum so use Renegade options, but after some home-truths he backs down; it’s brilliant. I don’t even have the option to talk Saren around, we just insult each other. Oddly though, Captain Kirrahe died? Not sure how I contributed to that; I sent a team member with him as always. It’s interesting how those subtle changes to Shep’s approach have larger impacts. I picked Kaidan to die simply because Ash was guarding the bomb (convenient). This play style also has an impact on me; I’m nowhere near the usual XP levels so we’re getting through a lot of medigel and I don’t have the cash to buy the high-powered weaponry. Not caring takes a lot of work.

While I get into Shep’s Dirty Harry-style approach and the new-found urgency, what is disappointing is how everyone just takes the rudeness on the chin. Shep criticises Ash for losing her team on Eden – where Shep herself just lost a squad-mate – but I’m still the best commander ever, and I tell Liara her psychic link is a waste of time but she does it anyway. Anderson just nods sagely at my extremism (tellingly, Udina is the only one to call me on my bullshit). They just don’t get shirty or in my face – I was expecting more backchat, or a questioning of my orders. No time to care what they think though, I’m right on Saren’s tail and so caught up nothing else matters. When we get grounded in the Citadel, I’m actually furious and tear Udina a new one. DGAFShep smirked when Anderson laid him out.

The ending though. I didn’t have the option to convince Saren to kill himself, so I had a fight with him that I’d not had before, and let the council die to concentrate on Sovereign. Not because I dislike the council but if Sovereign goes, I go home. I chose Udina to lead the council because I thought he’d protect me. It was the best/worst choice I’d ever made. He hilariously/terrifyingly turned into The Emperor, raging about how the galaxy will bow before humans and his new council will wage war on the Reapers as we dominate the galaxy. It was great if ominous, and instead of walking off heroically, Shep just stood there giving the best DGAF face I’ve ever seen. It’s beer o’clock.

While I didn’t miss scanning the collectors or spend hours dressing each crew member, it was tough to pass up missions and moments; but it was worth it to discover the backbone of ME1 is a pure thrill-ride that didn’t sag; it became as exciting as the first time I played, and I can’t wait to see how this attitude plays in ME2 – and how DGAFShep treats The Illusive Man (aka TIM).

In ME1 Shep was a borderline psychotic. She wilfully murders people, even when it’s certain they’re no longer a threat. DGAFShep is more dangerous than a Renegade, so I wonder how she’ll fit into TIM’s ranks. He likes things just so. In that mindset, I look for a way to leave Joker to his fate at the start of Mass Effect 2 but I have no choice. I’m not happy about killing myself to save Mass Effect’s Claptrap, but it’s worth it for the medicinal sponge baths I imagine Miranda gives me during my rebirth. As the memories come flooding back, I worry it’s going to be hard work to be indifferent in ME2’s world. Even though I’m now a terrorist.

This whole aspect of ME2 always sat a little uncomfortably for me; Cerberus was extreme in ME1 and it always felt wrong that Shep wouldn’t just return to the Alliance – that the Council refused to accept the invasion, leaving the Reapers as Shep’s personal battle and Cerberus her only option always felt a bit convenient, but this time that won’t be a problem after Udina’s crowning; I’m a war hero, an icon, the council’s champion … right?

Wrong, and that annoyed me. The Reapers have still been suppressed by the council who send us on a dead-end mission to get us out of the way. What? What happened to Udina using the Reapers to exert power? I was hoping to see the Krogan statue changed to Udina, a militaristic council with him as a power-mad dictator and Shep feted as a beacon of human might rather than hope. It feels a bit of cheat, something I never thought I’d say about ME2. It also bugged me that the crew fell in with Cerberus just on Shep’s say-so, especially Joker who’s argument that he joined a despicable terrorist group because they rebuilt the Normandy makes him more DGAF than I am. Thankfully, it works perfectly for DGAFShep too; she only cares if the cheque clears.

Dealing with TIM is strange this time around. Normally I tolerate him with a few put downs, but he actually works for DGAFShep in a way that I never got as Paragon Shep. TIM thinks –or wants me to think– our goals are aligned and that suits DGAFShep. After a while, I become indoctrinated. We both have a goal to reach and the quickest way is a straight line. Even when he sends us into traps, I have to agree with the plan and I start to see the Cerberus light. I’m not pro-human, but his ‘sacrifices must be made’ approach is compelling. When I visit Anderson I defend Cerberus and slap Ash down for her naivety. Later, DGAFShep shares some Fake News posts on Facebook with a fumin’ emoji.

ME2 does look and play as beautifully as it did on release. It’s streamlined yet feels so much bigger. Shame I’m ignoring most of it. Still, I realise what a task DGAFShep has ahead of her; ME2 is where Shep evolves from solider to hero, how is it going to play out if I’m anything but a hero? It’s a lot tougher to keep focused – you gain missions just walking within earshot, you’re constantly pestered by Hackett and Kelly, and Shep’s become a control freak; why in the hell am I piloting the ship around? And scanning the planets? What do I keep EDI and Joker around for? As DGAFShep it’s insanely frustrating and makes no sense the ship’s commander would be doing those chores.

I avoid everything I can; those Krogan will never know if there’s fish on the Citadel, Chakwas never even gets to ask for brandy and the crew continue to eat slop. I can’t resist taking down al-Jilani though – Shep gives the gutter-press harridan an actual bloody beat down. But the biggest issue with not caring is everyone assumes I do – even the game.

While Shep’s Renegade interrupts are occasionally a bit mean, the Renegade dialogue options aren’t anywhere near as spiteful or fatal as ME1; they’re more Tough Love than Tough Shit. I have to be actively mean; it takes more effort to let the guy in the Omega slums die than save him – which is then excused by a team mate saying ‘doubt they had any useful info anyway’; whoa, is my DGAF rubbing off on the others? No. Regardless of my behaviour in ME1 the crew all greet Shep like we spent most of ME1 having Pyjama Parties and promising to be BFF’s. Liara comes in for a hug, Ash exclaims Shep’s more than a commander to her -even though I never once talked to her- and Rex uses me as an example of a selfless leader. Even Garrus explains that without my example, he became a burnout. Who are you again? Even sending someone to their death is tough; I leave Reegar to provide cover, assuming he’ll die – yet he limps in at the end. Dunno if he made it home though, I never went to visit the fleet. But, as my Renegade slowly rises, Shep’s brutality literally shines through.

By not bothering to fix my scars (I’m not scanning a dozen planets to get a nose job), red light bleeds through and her eyes start to glow. She looks dangerous and that starts to inspire me to behave even worse. I’m so evil I let my fish die – only kidding; I didn’t even buy any. Kelly still offers to feed them though. DGAFShep starts to teeter on a real Renegade playthrough; I’m actually nasty to Tali. What a monster. I have to keep reminding myself I don’t care rather than I’m a bully. But the game has ways to corral those urges.

Unlike ME1, the main mission – stop the collectors – is often stopped in favour of being nice. TIM won’t give me new missions until I complete side-quests, forcing me on detours. ME2 assumes I care; I don’t. As a result ME2 doesn’t have the zip that ME1 did. Occasionally events happen and you can’t get out of them, which always sent me into a panic originally but now I’m like ‘finally, some action’ – ME2 teases who the collectors are and what their Reaper connection is which is a very different experience to ME1; I’m clawing rather than chasing.

Still, the main missions are solid fights and the companions much more aware and involved, firing and flinging biotics all over the place; in ME1 they would often wait for commands and get shot but this time, picking your pals is much more critical and exciting on the battlefield. To DGAFShep they’re just bodyguards, picked for their prowess not because I want to hang out, and if they fall, I often leave them to smear their own Medigel. They’re not having mine.

Eventually I reach the infamous IFF Install mission. But I can’t trigger it until I’ve done missions and don’t have any Collector-related ones. I’m stuck wondering where DGAFShep is going to have to compromise, until I remember she came up from a street gang; I’ll rebuild it. I chose to make loyal the criminal element only, so Zaeed gets his brutal day in the Blue Suns while Kasumi gets her revenge – although I force her to destroy the Grey Box; I want her thieving for me, not having VR sex. I contemplate Thane and Jack but they’re looking for absolution and there’s no place for that in my gang. Still no IFF so I do Legion and Grunt, figuring they’d make great Enforcers for the Red Sheps. I wanted Samara’s daughter as well, she’d be our assassin but DGAFShep would be unaware of that option and no way she’d want the sanctimonious mum in the gang. Just as I’m contemplating turning Mordin into the gang’s torturer, EDI pipes up that the IFF is installed. Finally. With Shep looking like a Terminator and backed by a team of scoundrels, we start the DGAF suicide mission.

Read part two of FBT’s brutal Mass Effect playthrough – will the entire team commit suicide? Will ME3 be any better on a DGAF playthrough? Can’t be any worse.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein

A BLAST FROM THE PAST REVIEW

FBT stops to ask directions to Castle Wolfenstein

The Past

The whole point of Previous Weapon’s Blast from the Past is to recall an old game, have an opinion of it then replay and see how badly wrong you were. Problem is I can’t recall anything about Castle Wolfenstein, other than some sexy leather-clad Nazis which is weird, for both the game and me. But beyond that, I can’t remember a thing. If anything, for a long time I mixed this up with the other reboot, Raven’s misfire Wolfenstein (2009) which is so embarrassing it’s not even available on Steam or GOG. But I still have my Return to Castle Wolfenstein DVD so I must have played it. Guess there’s only one way to find out. B.J. Blazkowicz to the rescue. I’m assuming he’s in it.

Still a Blast?

During a flashback, Saxon mentalist Heinrich lays waste to everything before being tricked and imprisoned alive. Flashforward and Himmler, the occult nut, sends a group of Nazis to find and release Heinrich, to inspire the Nazis and destroy the Allies. Isn’t that the plot of Blade 3? BJ and another agent are sent into Castle Wolfenstein where the experiments are being carried out, only to be captured. Rebooting the original, BJ fights his way out of Wolfenstein, reports on what they’re up and is ordered to stop the Nazi’s resurrection plan.

Wait, I thought we were returning to Wolfenstein. Did we just leave? The first post-Wolfenstein level, battling through catacombs filled with zombies, the undead and those leather-clad Nazis I so well-remembered is great, but soon we’re assaulting labs, bases, foiling a V2 attack, stealing an experimental jet plane, saving Nazi-defectors in bombed out cities, protecting a tank and trying to stop a u-boat. You could easily mistake RtCW’s middle section as Call of Duty 2, in both style and approach. We jump out of planes, have stealth missions around outposts, get cut-scenes where bosses discuss the war effort and it reaches the point where Wolf-style scenes with experiments and abominations seem at-odds with the military tone instead of the other way around. There’s a strong feeling this is Wolf in name only, and it’s trying to reboot as a standard WWII shooter.

Wolf created FPS – indomitable hero cuts through baddies, puts down bosses, reaches finale. This is supposed to be Wolf not a distant relative and it becomes just another shooter without the castle – yes, the original left the Castle too but tonally it was all the same whereas here a screengrab could be mistaken for Medal of Honor; there’s nothing Wolf about it really.

We do get some fantasy-based baddies once we face Deathshead’s lot, legless ‘Lopers’ which leap about, and the stalwart of genetic modification, Super-Soldiers; armoured behemoths with mini-guns and rocket launchers. But again, we’re fighting them through bleak labs and boring bases. Had this all happened in a dark, gothic castle filled with secret passages, outcroppings, spires and old brick and cobwebs, it would be something much more pressured and intense, and we’d feel more progression as we cut our way through. I’m not pining for a gothic shooter, just the old-school only-way-out-is-through attitude of Wolf3D. Jumping from cut-scene to new mission doesn’t have the same building intensity or overwhelming odds that the original tried to present. A mission where we skulk around a village assassinating key generals is not Wolf or BJ’s style. It’s just a war game, with BJ doing little missions to slow the Nazi war machine.

With Deathhead’s Uber-soldier defeated he fecks off for the rest of the game (to become the main villain in the other-other reboot) and we return to Castle Wolfenstein finally. Well, the castle grounds mostly to stop Himmler’s high priestess from summoning Heinrich – for some reason she needs to do this in a bikini.

RtCW is a good shooter, but it’s not Wolf. I didn’t expect this to rewrite the FPS genre, but I also didn’t expect it to ignore its namesake. There’s Wolf references; Hitler posters reveal secrets, there’s gold and objects to collect and we can eat dinner off tables for health bumps, but it’s just fan-service rather than part of its DNA. When it’s not trying to be a CoD game it’s juvenile and misjudged – besides the leather-clad Nazis and bikini’ed Priestess, there’s a NOLF-like moment towards the end where we watch an extended argument between a guard who has orders from a General not to let any vehicles through, and a driver ordered to bring the General some cheese. The random and inane chats of HARM Henchmen I can giggle at, Nazis, not so much. Playing it now I can see why I completely forgot it; the foes, the weapons, and the levels are so early CoD I just merged it into that period. Now I understand why busty, leather-clad Nazis were the only thing I remembered.

Really, RtCW’s legacy is stepping up multiplayer; so much so that Enemy Territory, a planned RtCW add-on sequel was abandoned due to lack of interest but it’s multiplayer levels released for free – and was so successful, it was remade into Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.

Wolf has been rebooted three times, yet none of them stick to the the one thing that made Wolf Wolfenstein. I want the close-quarter intensity of the original, the desperate fight through a castle like a medieval die hard. Had it rebooted that, become a claustrophobic, intense fire-fight just trying to escape the Castle that built FPS it would be great. In RtCW there’s not much to return to.

2001 | Developer, Gray Matter Interactive | Publisher Activision

Platforms; Win | Xbox | PS2

Blood 2

A RAGE QUIT REVIEW

A Bloodless FBT dies a slow slow death

Blood is my favourite game from the Doom era, the only one with a true original anti-hero – his put-downs, meta-refs and bleak outlook sounded theatrically real compared to Duke’s hyperbole or Lo-Wang’s Benny Hill impression. It referenced practically everything I was in to; it even had my Elvira calendar on the walls. It was one-part gothic horror story, one-part fanboy fun-fest but still managed to have its own identity – and a true storyline, a rarity during that FPS era. But the best thing about Blood? It still runs.

Blood 2 however, doesn’t. Even though both GOG and Steam merrily sell it. No matter how many times I change the compatibility mode, run as admin, alter the settings, I get that goddamn ‘MFC Application has stopped working’ message. Hundreds of forums, politely unhelpful Microsoft tech support plus dismissive ‘read the small print’ from GOG and I’m no nearer understanding what an MFC is and why it hates early noughties gaming. The answer is seems, is Lithtech. Monolith’s engine, intended to sit alongside id’s Tech and Epic’s Unreal powered a fair few games from this era, all of which collapse when you try to run them on modern systems. Somehow, it just doesn’t gel with later Windows and no one’s found a DOSBox-like one-size-fits-all fix.

And so, I dive into the world of free patches and fixes, following links I hope are not adware while Chrome and McAfee panic like parents spotting their kid poking his fingers in a socket. Why must I be forced to risk my PC’s health and my personal data because GOG and Steam can’t get their shit together? But someone did, and they created something that makes Blood 2 work. Good on yer.

But I don’t really know what I’m doing, even when the instructions are on the screen. I download anyway, using Internet Explorer which seems to have a laissez-faire attitude towards dangerous sites with hidden agendas. Or maybe Chrome is being too nannying. I just hope my nudes aren’t being hacked. After downloading zip-files galore, blindly opening, running and installing without the faintest idea what I’m doing, I start randomly changing everything in the launch menu, making up new and creative ways to murder the inventor of MFC each time it pops up when suddenly … it worked! I’m back in Caleb’s world!

It wasn’t good. I did play Blood 2 when it was released but I don’t recall it being this bad. This is from Monolith; they knocked out classic after classic – Blood, FEAR, NOLF 1 & 2, yet Blood 2 is a mess. This is what all that effort and pop-ups telling me my PC was infected and I need to call a toll-free number to fix it was for?

In the years since Caleb avenged his wife and friends by killing their dark god and destroying the Cabal, the remnants of Techenborg’s followers did a corporate restructure and became an omnipotent mega-corp. One day, Caleb is taking a trip on a Cabal Co. subway when some bloke called Gideon takes control and crashes the train, sending various baddies after Caleb to finish him off. Presumably Gideon is up to something and doesn’t want Caleb getting in the way. Too late now. Caleb arms himself and goes after Gideon.

There’s nothing of the original’s gothic horror tone, the plotting is confused, the art design nonsensical and it looks like it was built on a trial version of Quake. You’re often backtracking in a way that suggests padding and exits turn up in random places. What happened to levels like the Overlooked Hotel, the Friday the 13th woods, the tundra? Where’s the Elvira love, the John Carpenter refs? How does a game made five years after the original, and with that background wind up this anodyne and lazy? The original looks better than this, how is that possible? I get that Cabal has gone corporate but the suits and soldiers are boring and they have two lines of dialogue – “come out, we won’t hurt you” when they can’t see you and “You will die a slow slow death” when they can – and they have one tumble move they all do in unison. Nowhere near as much fun as the cloaked priests who looked like evil Jawas. Elsewhere we’re running into sub-par monsters which remind you of creatures you’ve fought before in better games – little grubs in the sewers latch onto victims and transform them; Headcrab-lite anyone? There’s sketchy little bird-reptile things and floating wizardy types but nothing like the stone gargoyles and that amphibious fish nightmare. There’s NCPs running about with stretchy faces and random behaviours but it’s a very empty, straight game. If it wasn’t for Caleb you’d not know you were in Blood-land.

Aww man, Caleb has been neutered too. Now he’s glib about the situation rather than the murderous manic of Blood 1. A rift has opened up and Gideon wants to control it; that’s where the creatures are from, and only Caleb with his Techenborg powers can close it, hence Gideon wanting him dead. Each time we close a portion of it, one of Caleb’s old friends appears, somehow trapped. Caleb realises this means his beloved Ophelia might be trapped in the portal too, so now he has a real reason to keep fighting – this emulates the original where he was driven by pure rage to avenge her death and now he’s driven to save her, but that’s barely explored and when they do meet they’re indifferent to each other. They just have a domestic that’s left unresolved. It’s hugely disappointing. You can play as any of the Chosen, but doing so idiotically causes all the cut-scenes to skip since you can’t be Ophelia and save her – way to manage your narrative. It could have worked as a reverse of Blood 1 where Caleb brings them all back, but it’s plot is one of many signs that B2 is an unfinished game.

Blood supposedly went through a torturous development process but even with the basic level design, confusing plotting and chaotic feel, this isn’t Blood. It’s not just the look it’s the feel; it’s missing the narcissistic tone, the clever references – the original Blood bled horror-geek, you knew the devs were just like you, watched the same films, listened to the same soundtracks, had the same t-shirts, fancied the same Elvira. I don’t know who Blood 2 is, but I wouldn’t have a pint with them. Even after all that mucking about, I can’t really be bothered with this. When I face-off against dismembered Evil Dead 2 hands, it’s too little too late, it just reminds me of what could have been.

I rage quit, then convince myself I’m being hasty – this is Blood, I will force myself to love it. But when I try to load it up again, the final boss, MFC Application returns and despite not having changed anything I can’t get B2 to run again. The combined rage at MFC and B2’s crappiness mean I can’t be bothered to keep trying. Rage Quit. And I bought this off Steam and GOG when I could have downloaded for illegal-free? FFS.

As much as I love them, I blame GOG and Steam for not getting their act together and ensuring the games they sell will run on modern rigs. Those platforms have brought back many a good old game, but it’s no good absolving themselves with a disclaimer about requirements – who has Win98 anymore? They need to step it up or stop selling it. Retro games need retro attention; if GOG are still ‘Good Old Games’ they need to make them Playable Good Old Games. They’re missing a trick not creating their own emulators. If they did a LithtechBox or a MFCBox they’d clean up. Short of going on ebay and buying rigs for each windows iteration I’m out of luck and that’s a shame. How is it even possible that I have an emulator that lets me play SPECTRUM games on WINDOWS 10 and I can’t play this? If GOG and Steam don’t start future-proofing their old games they won’t have a future either.

I can’t say I was enjoying Blood 2; it’s a huge, bitter disappointment but I would have liked to finish it; I can’t even get the Nightmare Add-On levels to run, where the Chosen sit around a campfire and tell tall tales which Caleb winds up stuck in. That sounds more like the original Blood but I’ll never get to find out. Damn you MFC; it’s a real frustration but the real Rage Quit is GOG and Steam, leaving it up to enterprising modders to do their work for them while I’m left to download files from dodgy sites. If you see me naked on the net forward it to Steam.

1998 | Developer, Monolith Productions | Publisher GT Interactive

Platforms; Win (Steam/GOG)