Call of Duty Playthrough Pt8 – WWII

A second wind special review – Call of Duty

Part eight, WWII

This is it, the final part of FBT’s epic run n’ gun through CoD.

So, full circle. We began in the trenches and that’s where we’ve returned. It’s been an odd playthrough. I always described CoD as a by-the-numbers series, a story-less slog of samey retreads. But I was wrong. Mostly. There are compelling narratives in the series; it’s what drove the MW trilogy just as much as the light-speed firefights, while Black Ops was a master-class in twisting, compelling stories.

Still, later entries like Ghosts and Black Ops II were exactly what I complained about; if you missed the opening titles you’d struggle to say which game you were playing. With the outstanding exception of Advanced Warfare, recent CoD has been exactly what I thought it was – repetitive retreads that only served as multiplayer tutorials. Story matters.

Really though, I originally disliked the modern era because it’s not what we signed up for. I loved the original WW-set CoDs and I’ve been looking forward to WWII all along. WWII must be perfect – modern graphics, classic setting and a more up-to-date handling of the events. This is the game that got me through those reskins – just a few more CoDs and it’s WWII-time I’d tell myself. Here we go! Except … this playthrough is ending on a Rage Quit. Goddamnit Activision.

Private “Red” Daniels signs up for the war to live up to his big brother. Embodying America, Red talks with a farmboy accent and through letters he writes to a sweetheart, we get to hear choice lines like “I hope I make it home for Christmas” and other heavy-hearted and heavy-handed lines about life on the frontlines.

Life on the frontlines is staggeringly uninspired. Every level ends with either ‘we gotta defend this x’ or ‘watch my back while I do y’ and of course, we have to keep back two or three waves before they retreat or someone saves us or they get the engine running or some other prime 2000-era event happens. That’s when you finally reach the end of the levels. They’re not just unfair, they’re not fun. The first, a re-enactment of the opening of Private Ryan (rather than an actual D-Day level) is a misstep – rather than being dumbstruck by the ‘spectacle of war’ we just get killed over and over, the game is gleeful about how impossible it is to survive. For sure, this is what actually happened but since we don’t actually die, just just pop back to our last autosave you end up doing repetitive learning like you did playing games 30 years ago – move here, cross there, die. Okay, move here, cross there, duck here. Yep I’m okay, now … dead. Okay, move here, cross there, duck here … It tries very hard to show the event in intense detail, but you’re not looking at all the work that’s gone into it, you’re just looking for the next auto-save. We’ve already did this 20 years ago, in earlier CoD games, it immediately makes the game feel familiar instead of fresh.

And that sets the tone for the entire game. WWII rehashes the levels, setting, objectives, the entire gameplay from the original. Yet it’s not a reboot it’s a reskin; we’re still doing crappy dated stuff like jumping into a tank and … I’m the driver as well as the gunner? Why am I the only one winning this war?! Okay, but wait, why can’t I turn the turret independently of the tank? That’s basic controls, I’m playing cat and mouse with two Panzer tanks by driving into walls while trying to aim and just getting stuck and killed. This pissed me off 20 years ago, why am I doing it now?

It’s just so old-school; when we face off against Germans with dogs, the woofers only target me, running past my fellow soldiers, and why am I the only one with the explosives to stick on a passing tank, the only one who can collect explosives to take out a pill-box, the only one to use a sniper rifle, the only one who can take out gun emplacements? I get that I’m the player/hero but a little help here chaps? There’s hundreds of G.I.s knocking about, if this is supposed to be about the men of war, the pals at your side as the game demands I consider, why am I winning WWII alone? This is so dated, so tired. The only help comes from fellow soldiers reminding me every two seconds what the mission objective is. I know to shoot the fricking ammo dump, STFU! At least the original CoD has a sense of adventure, of heroism; war really is hell in WWII.

On top of that, health packs return. Very retro and also very annoying because you have to chose to use it, which causes a short QTE of Red self-administering which breaks the action – and he can die while doing it. If you’re going for realism I’m either wounded or critical; if I’m wounded I’d ignore it, if critical I’d just fall down. The replenishing health concept does not suggest our hero is Wolverine, it just takes it as read he’s patching himself up when he can. And since two or three shots puts Red down, you can’t use the old trick of tactically taking hits then recover; you become scared to stick your head out; again, realistic, but boring to play and Red loves a QTE; a nasty Nazi will get the drop on you and you’re furiously mashing a key, then lining up the mouse then hitting a random button to pull out a knife then another to kill him. What the hell? Why? That’s not realistic. No one consciously makes considered decisions in life-or-death situations, it’s automatic or dead. Why am I looking for the Q key?! It completely undermines the supposed realism.

There’s more real-ruining elements; Red’s buddies carry supplies. Health, Ammo, Grenades, etc., which is a nice bros-in-arms thing, but since you need to activate them up close, they have big markers over their heads to spot them and stay in your POV, completely ruining the look. It’s like your squad is running around with balloons. It’s a genuinely beautiful game; there’s not a pixel out of place in the battlefield, it’s unnervingly realistic and the cut-scenes are just extraordinary looking – but what happens in them is very ordinary.

Red is caught between two commanding officers – Lieutenant Turner who believes the men come first, and Sergeant Pierson who thinks only the mission matters. Except, Red’s not really caught between them; this isn’t channelling Platoon, and Red doesn’t get to chose which CO he follows, have his own war experience; he just mumbles something to his sweetheart. We have zero impact and so as a story we just observe it and it’s incredibly derivative of Spielberg’s war era – if it’s not riffing on Private Ryan, it’s wholesale lifting from Band of Brothers. The key element to those men-in-war stories was that those men all had a voice, an opinion, a personal experience; a choice. Red is just an NPC in the cut-scenes – he, and by extension us, isn’t experiencing war, he’s not making decisions he’ll have to live with – he’s just watching it.

Further reducing the emotional impact of Red’s journey is us jumping out of his boots and into others; or in one case, High Heels. As French Resistance soldier Rousseau, we wander a German garrison. It might be grand that we’re playing as a female for a change, but she doesn’t do anything other than sneak and the level is little more than filler – most insultingly, it transpires Rousseau watched her family slaughtered by a Nazi who happens to run this garrison and she gets to kill him in revenge. It would have been far more interesting to see her realise he’s here and you chose to jeopardise the mission to exact her revenge – or not. But, WWII is just by the numbers.

Another missed moment comes when we find German civilians hiding in a hotel we’re supposed to defend. The COs get into an argument about what to do with them and does Red have an opinion? Nope. The decision is made without our input and all Red does is write to his sweetie that tension between the COs is rising. If I was her, my reply would be ‘Dear John … I’m rage quitting you’.

And that Rage Quit eventually arrives. I really wanted to see this through but when I’m bounced into a pilot I just lose it. Everything in WWII has been a frustration up to this point; the tired missions, the lack of interaction or influence, Red’s lack of character, the whole cliche of it all, but this …

It looks fantastic and really tries to bring home to intensity of a dogfight. Except, whereas other CoD games kept flying simple and effective, this is infuriatingly haphazard and fraught. This should be exciting not aggravating. Even if I master the plane, which has the aerodynamics of a 5-year old’s paper plane, I have to avoid hitting our planes, of which there are dozens. And none of them are doing anything to help. Protect the bomber the mission guy yells. Everyone else just pisses off or gets in the way. After hours of struggling I get through it, only to discover yet another squadron approaching. On top of which, this is to provide support to Red’s squad, essentially a reheat of the tank mission. I just hate this game. Rage Quit.

WWII is just a flashy, hollow, lazy game filled with completely outdated levels and basic gameplay; to play it is to be totally at odds with the mini-series cutscenes. I didn’t think it was possible to get WWII so wrong. But the biggest let-down with raging quitting at this stage is I know what follows; a sequence where one of my buddies is captured and taken to a concentration camp. I don’t know if that would wind up coming across as a No Russian moment, but I do know games have matured enough to tackle such troubling subjects. I also know WWII isn’t the game to do it. It’s far too generic to really do such an experience justice; if Red had been involved, if we’d actually had our own war to fight, I might have applauded such a moment. I’ll never know, because I have no intention of playing this again. If CoD wants to step foot in a concentration camp, it needs to put every foot right leading to that moment, and WWII just followed in CoD1’s footsteps.

And so ends my CoD playthrough. It’s been eye-opening, rage-quitting mayhem. I was wrong about much of the modern era; MW as a trilogy is absolutely fantastic; the first Black Ops is one of my new all-time greats, and Advanced Warfare is an absolute blinder. But what marked them out was the story, the reasons for shooting. Whenever CoD slipped into the generic, it was when the story wasn’t compelling enough to drive you forward. With Black Ops IIII multiplayer only, it does seem if as Activision has finally dropped any pretence of the storymode meaning anything to them. I always thought story didn’t matter in CoD either, but this playthrough has proved it’s not a war without a reason.

We’ve answered the call enough times now though. Activision’s duty should be to let Treyarch, Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer loose to create their own franchises; in those later games you get the sense that they want to be doing something else; IW was a prime example. I’d love to see what those devs can do when their tour of duty is up.

After all this, the original still reins in my eyes. It’s one of the exceptions that proves the rule; CoD 1 has no story to speak of, but it’s just a great shooter filled with exciting missions, clear objectives and lets you be a war hero. I know games can’t come close but they can channel the most heroic, selfless elements of war and despite its age, CoD1 came closest to that.

Call of Duty Playthrough Pt4 – The Black Ops Trilogy

Second Wind Playthrough Special – Call of Duty

Part Four, The Black Ops Trilogy

Yes Russian.

So Modern Warfare as a trilogy was way better than I expected. Somewhere in this seemingly endless playthrough, is the game that turned me against CoD. WaW came close with its by-the-numbers gameplay and lack of story; the only good thing about that game was Reznov, and he’s in Black Ops. If this ruins CoD and Rez I’ll be pissed.

Black Ops I – CIA Operator Mason is strapped to a chair, an unseen interrogator screaming ‘what do the numbers mean’. Told in flashback, BO1’s 60’s real-world conspiracy theory plot sounds like an Oliver Stone movie. Numbers stations, MK Ultra, the Space Race, Nazi Scientists, the Kennedy Assassination, the CIA, the Bay of Pigs – we’re in a 60’s era Assassin’s Creed. I’m looking forward to this. Don’t fuck it up, CoD.

Mason begins his tale as he and fellow Operators Woods and Bowman infiltrate Cuba to assassinate Castro. Starting off easy then. And starting off well. We’ve got detailed cut-scenes, great art design and interesting characters right off the bat. The shooting is similar to MW and the sixties look and weaponry gives it a nice edge; it’s pressured and dramatic, plus I’m gunning for Castro which gives it a realer feel. I’m liking this. I feel a story coming on.

Mason gets captured by Red Army General Dragovich and we find ourselves in a gulag in the midst of a fist fight with an insane Russian demanding we hit him again. That sounds familiar … Reznov! The best thing in WaW is back in action and as insane as ever. Rez has an escape plan in mind. And in Mason’s mind. The two stage a daring and incredibly thrilling escape – we’re unarmed, vastly outnumbered and against the odds, just how Rez likes it. I am in The Great Escape; we’re even on motorbikes like the Cooler King, except while Mason escapes, Reznov doesn’t. Aww man.

Back in the CIA fold, Mason and his handler Hudson meet none other than JFK who gives us an off-the-books mission to kill Dragovich, who has a nerve agent. Red numbers fill the screen and Mason imagines holding a gun to JFK’s head. What the hell was that? Mason begins his private little war while Hudson is tasked with tracking down the nerve agent. It’s really nicely done, with Mason’s black op interfering with Woods and Bowman’s missions. They’re unaware of the depth of Mason’s hatred for Dragovich, but then even Mason’s unaware how deep that hate goes.

Yay! Rez re-escaped to begin his own revenge mission against Dragovich; playing as Rez, we get to see how he wound up in the gulag. He is a bit of a disappointment, I thought it would be like inhabiting a Russian Deadpool but it’s no different. Mason begins going off-mission to follow Rez but within the interrogation sequences we realise things aren’t quite what Mason thinks they are. We blast our way through a mission only for the interrogator to rip Mason’s recollections to pieces. But we just saw it? What do the numbers mean?!

I all-time-great loved this. This isn’t just the best CoD, it’s one of the best shooters I’ve ever played. The levels are all brilliant and never repeat themselves; and that’s because of their contribution to the story. Yes! A CoD with a strong, detailed plot. I knew it! It just gives the levels a grounding not just FPS intensity – Hudson outrunning Spetsnaz soldiers in Hong Kong slums, a detour through Viet Cong tunnels after getting tangled in the Tet Offensive, a mission to disrupt the Russian space race; they all have a narrative impact and intensify Mason’s interrogation – What happened to Mason? By now, even he’s not sure, and neither are we because we’re not just watching or shooting, we’re in it with him.

BO1 is the proof I was looking for; story in an FPS works. That we spend most of our time as Mason adds to the immersion and brilliantly, Hudson’s levels provide a counter-point to Mason’s, revealing more of the conspiracy; exactly how character-hopping should be. Most CoDs feature interchangeable heroes who are a small cog in a big machine, this time it’s all about Mason’s mystery and it makes all the difference.

BO1’s characterisation even extends to the NPCs; Rez is great as always, but Bowman and Woods (who has a great scene where, as POWs he and Mason are forced to play Russian Roulette and he screams “you can’t kill me!” before pulling the trigger) are believable allies, while Hudson is untrustworthy and likeable at the same time, constantly hidden behind his mirrored Aviators and stoic look.

B1I isn’t CoD with a sixties soundtrack; it’s so removed from their standard structure it’s almost a lie to call it CoD. No other CoD game digs this heavily into a character, gets inside his head – although it’s fairly crowded in there – or gets invested in a storyline. I can’t believe BO is part of the CoD assembly line. How can BOII top this?

Black Ops II shapes up to be an exploration of the Cold War, regime changes and meddling in the Middle East. But, BOII’s secret mission is to see the franchise back in the CoD fold.

So Woods survived BO1. His death, along with Bowman’s was caused by Mason’s obsessive quest for Dragovich; their deaths were on him and their sacrifices meant something. Is Bowman going to pop up complaining of a headache? Turns out Woods withstood the grenades, ended up in the Hanoi Hilton, escaped then got captured again – where he survived for weeks with no food or water. He wasn’t kidding when he said ‘you can’t kill me’.

Meanwhile, Mason had a child. And we have two plot lines; Mason Snr and Mason Jnr – Snr goes Rambo Part II to rescue POW Mason from a jungle, then Rambo III in Afghanistan before turning his attention to Panama. Meanwhile, Jnr is after terrorist Menendez, who in Snr’s timeline was a drug and gun peddler. Snr gamely shot him in the eye and Woods accidently blew up his sister, giving him the myopic focus to turn his criminal empire into an anti-US terrorist group and seeks revenge against the BO boys. It might be a subtle nod to how America creates its enemies, but BOII doesn’t really explore that – let alone BO1.

Apart from a Rez cameo that makes no sense and a red numbers moment, there’s nothing of BO1 here. Snr’s not a man with a mystery anymore or even on a Black Op; we’re in Afghanistan but avoid any of the obvious implications there, and we tangle with General Noriega but he’s just part of Menendez’s plan; it’s frustrating, all the more so because Jnr’s mission has no intrigue or conspiracy. It’s two separate games bound by the now standard sneering CoD villain who wants to trigger a war. Only the accent separates him from Makarov, Shephard or even Dragovich. I can feel CoD slipping into the generic.

As a shooter it’s great though, particularly in Jnr’s section; a fight through a flooded city avoiding drones, a hectic Humvee chase, a showdown in a floating hotel, burning Michael Rooker’s face off – or not; Black Ops now comes with moral choices. Choices that affect outcomes? How does that work with dual timelines? It doesn’t.

The whole concept is squandered – Snr’s timeline doesn’t alter Jnr’s narrative while in the future the choices just impact how well we do in the final battle – but you can’t anticipate or understand those choices so they’re not tactical, it’s coin flipping. Most insultingly, we play as Menendez – he’s been causing as much pain and destruction as possible and now we decide if he has a conscience? And then it makes no real difference anyway.

The main reason your choices don’t really have an impact is the Strike Missions. A sub-section of the future timeline, you can command bots, drones and men in battles against Menendez’s invasions. I ignore all of them because they’re terrible and not what I signed up for, but they have huge impact on how the final battle plays out. It just doesn’t make sense for Jnr to be pissing about playing Command and Conquer.

I really enjoyed BOII as a shooter but the irony here is there’s too much story. Snr has no real impact or narrative other than being messed about by Menendez and is effectively another CoD character-hop to provide filler. This is all about Jnr, and his story is standard CoD chase the bad guy stuff that comes across as a warm-up for the next wave of CoD. Woods, who in Snr’s timeline got shotgunned twice and left to bleed out (but of course survived) tells Jnr about Snr’s missions but we don’t gain any insight or edge on Menendez by listening to Grandpa Simpson-Woods when it should be choices we make as Snr alter the cut-scenes and how Jnr can operate.

In fact, BOII’s future section would have made a great Ghosts II – just change Menendez to a brain-washed Logan and it would have worked insanely well. If BOII had just stuck to Mason’s murky missions in the Middle East or putting Noriega in power it would have worked fine too. Instead, BOII is classic FPS; you’re skipping cut-scenes and enjoying the spectacle. I ended up with the worst possible ending and didn’t really care.

Still, I wanted story and there is one, and for the first time it was one we could influence. That’s something at least. Let’s see how BOIII handles my natural aptitude for bad choices.

Black Ops III – It’s 40 years later not that it matters, and we’re fighting the Common Defense Pact for earth’s resources, which doesn’t matter. My BOII choices didn’t matter either; BOIII ignores everything we did. What was the point of all that? WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?! It’s my first CoD rage quit.

Our Hero gets graphically ripped apart by robots from Infinite Warfare while trying to rescue a Prime Minster from the tutorial in Advanced Warfare. Rebuilt with cybernetics, Our Hero learns Cyber Ops from Robo-CO Taylor within a simulation of recent battles; we can use augmentations and are able to run along walls and make huge leaps; but not in originality.

Oh, here’s something new; you get upgrades to your suit that allows you to shoot secondary weapons out of your fingers – like fire and little bugs; or as I like to call them, PLASMIDS. The only game BOIII doesn’t rip off is BO.

Our pal Hendricks also goes along with cyber augmentation and together we become the last kids picked in PE. Hendricks and Hero are like some Cannon Films rip-off, Robotcop and we behave just like regular troops. Why am I in a specialist team if we’re not assigned to anything special? We’re supposedly doing wetwork but all we do is get dropped off and fight through a standard CoD level. Except this time, we can’t pick up other weapons; no more scrounging for a replacement, hazarding a shotgun over a sniper rifle, getting suspicious when you see RPGs just lying around. You get a loadout at mission start and stick with it. The Plasmids don’t change things up enough and half the time I forget I have them.

What’s frustrating is BOIII has a story and it has huge potential; it’s Robocop meets Vanilla Sky and it could have worked brilliantly if better developed – or been a great Advanced Warfare sequel (it’s basically AW reskinned); make the CDP into Atlas and the AI into Irons and drop the crappy end twist and it would have been awesome. A real frustration is we’re battling a Triad group who are pissy with the US after Nova-6, the gas from BO1 was released in China – by the CIA. You set that up then just ignore it? That’s Black Ops! Why aren’t we following that plot? Why isn’t Woods involved? The guy’s like Keith Richards, he’s bound to still be alive. So frustrating. Instead, we’re in every other CoD game we’ve played. It’s like the game refuses to be original even with all this story potential.

I’ve found the game that ruined CoD for me. No wonder I didn’t remember it, it’s every game I’ve already played, it’s the worst of CoD. But what really gets me to rage quit level is it’s unconnected to Black Ops I or II; Activision slapped Black Ops on this for the marquee value and that makes it the most cynical game I’ve ever played; Rage Quit.

How did we get from JFK to this? The series goes from a deep, complex, thrilling adventure to the most the basest level to ensure sales, plundering every ‘in’ thing to maximise the chance idiots like me will buy it and play mindlessly. The trilogy could have been a dark, mature series exploring patriotism; aka power. There are so many real covert and corrupt ops the BO sequels could have plundered; Oliver North appeared as himself in BOII – how do you not build on that?!

I don’t think I’ve ever been through so many gaming emotions – from a new GOAT game to a rage quit. Black Ops 1 should be considered alongside Half-Life, Bioshock, Mass Effect 2; it needs to be played. BOII and BOIII need to be redacted.

Up next, FBT chases Ghosts.

Carmageddon Max Damage

a rage quit review

Carmageddon is FBT’s Spirit Animal. The reboot puts it down.

In the late nineties, there was a new breed of unapologetic video games; they didn’t signal the end times as the media and parents feared, they did something better – agitated the bland gaming landscape and forced it to grow up, get good. And now, yet again, the game industry has become corporate, cautious, careful. While most games from that original era sold out or burnt out, we have the return of the baddest of them all – the first game to be banned by the BBFC, the game that sent the Daily Mail into meltdown, the game that let you run over pedestrians – Carmageddon. When Carmageddon Regeneration was announced I was more than a little excited. Time to kick modern gaming in the cunning stunt.

I was more than a little disappointed when C:R was released. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it but it was … meh. How could Carma be meh? Everything was there yet my beloved free-roaming, ped-killing, opponent-exploding Die Anna had become … inoffensive. I got bored. Bored! The power-ups were cartoony, the level design dull, the cars lacked that oomph, even the peds seemed indifferent to being run over. The original was Never Mind the Bollocks, this was Flogging a Dead Horse. I didn’t Rage Quit, I just got fed up and never went back. Until I saw Carmageddon Max Damage. A second chance. I was buying this.

Yes, I was stupid enough to buy the Carma Reboot twice. Max Damage is the premium version of Kickstarter’s Regeneration. Damnit. Is this karma for liking what the Daily Mail called a ‘sick death game’? Let’s see if Max Damage hits the spot.

The cars are all there, and the first track is the original’s Maim Street. Get in. I chose my beloved Die Anna, rev the Hawk and aim for the flag-waving guy. As I sail over the first hill, ready to become death … it feels a bit pointless. I’m having an existential crisis. Was the Daily Mail right? Have I become so desensitised that I’m unmoved when I run over a cheerleader? Have the past 20 years of ultra-violence been a gaming form of Ludovico? I look for Anna’s grinning face. Having a compatriot to all this mayhem will bring me back – no in-game Anna? Whoa. I hit the handbrake to swerve into the Peds. The car comes to a slow stop like I just performed an emergency brake in my driving test. The Peds all saunter off. Okay. Time for extreme measures.

I find the stadium and the electro-bastard ray is where I left it; but taking out the NFL teams and the crowds isn’t doing it either so I decide to get into it with the other cars to see if that livens things up, but it takes an age to find them let alone get into a fight, and I don’t get that screaming, out of control feel as I pootle along – you used to build up insane speed, bounce, careen, flip out of the map, land on a passing grandad or take out an opponent by accident; it was raucous, unruly, exhilarating, and Die Anna would woo-hoo along with you. Now neither of us are.

It’s a very empty game and nothing much happens by accident, but the problem is the original Carma’s attitude has become part of free-roam driving the same way Doom’s once dizzying action and grisly violence are embedded in modern FPS. Saint’s Row already aces this. It’s not dated, it’s just not necessary. But it’s not just an age thing. It’s also a not-very-good-thing.

The levels are boring to drive about in – they’re fun-looking, like the Area51 or the reworked classic levels, but miss that gritty, grimy feel; they’re much bigger and expansive than the original but that makes them less intense, unfocused. You don’t have those death-runs, those games of chicken. They’re also cluttered and uneven, causing the car to bounce around and that’s when it really starts to grate.

The Eagle and Hawk always felt like they wanted to get away from you in the original, and they were sturdy enough to let them. But now, with their wafer-thin build, they handle like they’re filled with helium. There’s no torque or grip, no sense of weight; how did a game released in 1997 better realise banger cars than the remake 20yrs later? You’re forever missing targets and sticking the corners, never just taking off. Getting a powerup requires a careful three-point-turn. Suddenly I’m being … careful. Still, we’ve still peds to kill. Well, no, because the cars have the turning circle of an oil tanker and alongside the ‘careful now’ handbrake you can’t lob the car about and catch peds on the fly – it’s rare see grandad fly off the bonnet in C:MD. On top of that, and this is a real Rage Quit moment …. it’s not about running people over anymore. Yes, a Carma game that’s not all about running people over. Did the Daily Mail develop this?

To have any real chance of progressing you have to play challenge missions; reach a ped or location first, destroy the most cars – basically all the stuff that requires precision driving and responsive cars. Great. All that happens is an opponent, who is a precision driver in a responsive car, reaches the goal first and the new target is halfway across a map that isn’t much fun to drive across and you’ll get beaten to anyway. FFS. What else?

In the original, you got money in-game and the time you finished with was converted into more to spend on car improvements. Now it’s transformed into XP which unlocks the levels, while upgrades are purchased with coins hidden in the game. Coins?! I’m Die Anna not Mario. I’m on a treasure hunt?! Plus, in the original, unlocked improvements could be attached to any car you stole. Coins upgrade cars individually now, which is a waste because most of the opponent’s cars handle worse than the Eagle. That it, can I quit now?

Thanks to the crappy cars and uneven levels, when you do get a Power-Up it’s over before you’ve had a chance at some fun, and the actionable powerups are no better. Because Anna is seemingly in a neck-support (understandable) you can’t aim them, only fire from the bonnet of your impossible to manoeuvre car. Why can’t I free-look/aim!? And the reward bonuses are thin on the ground, as if the game’s less aware of your actions; ‘Nice Shot, Sir!’ is a rarity no matter what you send flying into Peds, while ‘milk it’ pops up every time I hit a cow and ‘recycled!’ gets yelled when I knock a ped off a bike. I get it. And “wrecked’em” wasn’t funny the first time, let alone on every opponent kill, in every level, every time.

That’s it, I can’t take anymore. They got running over people wrong? They had two goes at this! Modern gaming can relax, this isn’t going to shake things up like the original did, even when you have the option to run over a man in a wheelchair – outrageous! Nope. Maybe in 1997 but now its desperate. I’ve done worse in better games that didn’t depend on outrage to be relevant. I would consider myself immature, juvenile, a man-child at a push but this just doesn’t work anymore as a concept, and as a driver game it’s pretty poor; the original still works because it’s a better game and because I remember when it was wrong. I love a throwback, a retro, a return, but if you’re going to return, have something to say. Something other than “I was in the war!” and think that’s still funny. It’s not Rage Quit, it’s Age Quit.

2015 Regeneration | 2016 Max Damage

Developer / Publisher Stainless Games

Platforms; Win (Steam/GOG)

Hard Reset

A Rage Quit Review

FBT gets his retro-on with this Quake-era throwback. And throws it back.

Set in a cyberpunk world and harking back to the Quake era, Hard Reset is one of those games described as ‘over the top’ and ‘old school’. It’s so old-school and over-the-top that you buy it for a while, before realising what’s missing from the good old days is a good game.

The year is … oh who cares. Our hero, Fletcher is a grunt working for a private security firm in a dystopian Mega City One. Fletch is assigned to investigate something and discovers sentient machines are attacking the city. Or they’ve been attacking for years, I don’t know. All of this is half-heartedly explained during static Max Payne style cut-scenes where people growl and grumble about the state of the world and you stop listening. I think there’s a mad scientist involved, or he might not be; if it was being a parody or a self-referencing homage I’d be into it, but it comes across as serious so it falls into the trap of feeling dated rather than retro, which is hard to come back from. Instead of reminding me of the classic FPS shooter era, it’s making me want to go back and play it, which is a very different reaction.

Unlike classic era shooters, Fletch only has two weapons at his disposal, one firing shells and the other an energy weapon – it’s actually quite nifty; you unlock upgrades as you go, getting multiple attachments that alter their firepower or change it to shotgun, grenades, electro-arcs, EMP blasts, all sorts. Except … it gets insanely frustrating in-game swapping to the other weapon with one key, then cycling through its options with another, trying to find the shotgun or whatever you need; it’s not until I played this game that I realised how much you rely on visual cues to know which weapon you’ve brought up – I don’t have time to read the HUD, it should be obvious but the amount of times I think I have the shotgun and I have the grenade launcher instead. You can guess how that ended.

The world does look really good – it’s run down, rainy and neon with huge buildings bearing down on you. It feels enclosed but although we’re working our way through alleyways, corridors and warehouses it’s not rail-shooter linear. There’s lots of exploring, basic puzzles and doing things that unlock things. And they always unleash lots of metal things to shoot. Lots of them.

Fighting robots has never been interesting. But this game adds a level to them – annoying. Every shooter starts you off small, gives you opponents that quickly become easy before retiring them for the big-boys. But Hard Reset loves these little guys on two legs and a buzzsaw for a nose, and they just run and leap at you like crappy little Skag pups. They suck like the frogs in Daikatana, constantly getting in the way. And then it’s bigger robots and there’s so many and they’re all firing at you and there’s strobes and tracers and the screen shakes when you get hit and turns red and eventually it’s like looking through one of those kaleidoscopes kids had in the 70s. It just gives you a headache. There’s no intensity just confusion.

Even games like Doom were better paced and those games knew to pummel you then reward you; HR just tires you out, you just stop and hold down fire. You’re so blinded and swamped you don’t have time for any flair, for clever attacks, to get lucky, to be heroic … you’re just cornered and unable to swap weapons or attachments because letting up on the fire-button means death. It’s not unbalanced, it’s just no fun. Borderlands (the yardstick for unfair) at least gave you special powers and insane weaponry to go down fighting with, and it made the firefights thrilling; you knew you were walking into certain death so took that attitude with you – the other yardstick of ‘calm down’ was Serious Sam, and that was just so ridiculous you enjoyed the scrap, but in HR you’re facing off with some dangerous robot yet what kills you is one of those fricking BB8 buzzsaw bugs cutting you off at the ankles, and it gets annoying.

We’ve got all the classic shooter era elements here – hidden areas, explosive barrels, ammo lying around, and nice environmental options like explosive cars, vending machines that electrocute robots when shot and other elements that give you in-battle options but they so rarely come together and half the time take you out. No battle is hard-won or leaves you feeling bloody but victorious, and you tend to be fighting waves which just doesn’t do anything to draw you in, make you suck it up and dive back into the fray. When I reach an obvious arena area, I kinda sigh, double-check I have shotgun settings on and wait for the buzz-kills. Combined with the irritating story and cheap cut-scenes, what could have been an energetic underground bullet-brawl just becomes a slog.

Realistically, Hard Reset is a showcase for FWH’s engine, Roadhog and to put it mildly, it’s a killer engine. The world looks fantastic, it’s detailed, fast, and it handles all the crap flying about effortlessly; I never had a judder or frame-drop. It’s a solid engine. Just a boring game built on it. Thankfully, Flying Wild Hog excelled themselves next time around with the Shadow Warrior reboot, which is a beautiful game to look at and play.

Eventually, I lose it when I keep getting killed during a mini-boss battle with a buzz-saw robot dispenser machine. What the hell? Oh sod this. All it’s doing is reminding me the Classic Shooter era ended for a reason. Rage Quit.

It is a pure shooter and that’s great, as is the fact that it came from an indie developer, but they should know what makes a shooter tick isn’t the basics, it’s the spirit, the experience, the feeling of victory. Because there’s a lack of self-awareness it all feels dated and frustrating. It’s one of those B-Side shooter-clones you played at the time thinking you were getting another Quake but instead you never finished it. It’s a shame but I get the feeling I’ll forget all about Hard Reset soon enough.

2011 | Developer/Publisher Flying Wild Hog

Platforms; Win/Steam 2011 | PS4 & X0 2016 (Redux version)

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)

Mass Effect Andromeda

A RAGE QUIT REVIEW

FBT wishes ‘destroy Andromeda’ had been an option at the end of Mass Effect 3

Sometime between Mass Effects 2 and 3, several ‘ark ships’ depart on a one-way trip to Andromeda. But after a 600-year voyage, a disaster costs us our ‘pathfinder’ – the survey specialist who claims new planets – and the system turns out to be hostile and dangerous, not the ‘golden world’ we were promised. Up steps one of Pathfinder’s off-spring to lead the rag-tag crew to a new home. But all I can think is ‘Wonder what Shep is doing’ because unlike the plot, ME:A doesn’t break new ground, it just reminds you of better ME moments.

Once our ship has reached the Nexus, a mini-citadel for the various Arks that launched, we find it barely hanging on; it’s become a powder-keg of tension as the inhabitants went stir-crazy waiting to get onto a planet. As the other arks are still AWOL, it falls on us to get the Nexus shipshape and the inhabitants a home. We’ve got dozens of planets to explore and at first it’s exciting. But we’re rarely doing Neil Armstrong impressions. Most of the time Nexus scouts already tried to settle the planets and it turns out an ancient civilisation of Poundland Protheans did all the hard work (most of the missions are restarting their old machinery). I’m less Pathfinder and more path-follower.

Adding to our woes, the ‘kett’ rock up. An invading force which takes entire populations never to be seen again, they’re hilariously cliched (the boss wears a cape) and look like a mix between Saint’s Row’s Zinyak and those aliens from Galaxy Quest – you can’t take them seriously as what amounts to fun-size Reapers. There’s also the annoying, characterless Remnant, hostile Geth-a-like tech left behind by pretend Protheans who also caused ‘The Scourge’, a dark energy fallout from a bomb, trapping us here. So we’ve got not-Reapers, not-Geth and not-Protheans. All we need now is a not-Shepard.

Stand up Pathfinder Ryder. And … sit down again. Scott or Sara, you can pick either Ryder (the other one joins in later) but it doesn’t matter, they’re as middle-of-the-road as it’s possible to make a hero. The Pathfinder has an element of Spectre-like adulation but it’s undeserved; they blandly defuse problems and just bum about – this is supposed to be an adventurer, a heroic leader yet if they make a movie, you can picture Owen Wilson as the lead. There’s some commentary about trying to live up to Dad’s legacy, but there’s a problem with that – Dad chose this area, put everyone in hibernation for 600 years and is then shocked to find its all changed? Well, yeah? We picked the wrong family to follow. Shep felt the pressures of command but was outwardly a decisive, natural leader and you got behind them; Ryder just acts like he’s got a bong hidden in his quarters. It would have been better to play as Dad for a while, build up and get to know the Ryder twins then chose one to play once he pops off; one naturally Renegade, the other Paragon in nature. But no. We don’t even get Paragon vs Renegade, which really has more relevance here than it did on the Normandy; conquering or colonising, displacing or bonding with locals, do we make this an exploration or an invasion? None of that happens; choice is the one thing they don’t bring from ME?

The squad-mates we get are equally second-rate. Cora the explorer, our second in command is supposed to be an Asari-trained Commando but rather than dangerous or cool she’s a brittle character missing Ash’s warmth. There’s Liam, a too-cool dude who sleeps on a sofa he sneaked onto the ship. Idiot. We have a Wrex-lite Krogan and a female Garrus, who behave exactly like their epic counterparts. We’d already had those squad mates, it just invites comparisons. And then there’s ‘Peebee’ an Asari adventurer who comes across like Annie from the 80’s musical. She’s a romance option which feels off given her prepubescent look and attitude; she’s hardly the coquettish Liara or the experienced, older-woman fantasy of Samara and Benezia. It would have been far more interesting to deal with a bratty teen Asari growing into herself rather than this ‘carefree’ annoyance with sub-Joker comments. As an afterthought, there is one local that joins the crew, Darav, the only interesting one out the lot – and a Javik replacement, given to pointing out how idiotic and naïve humans are. We know. Our first contact with his species is epically fumbled; it should be a startling, amazing moment but no – the crew makes jokes like a new fricking species isn’t a big thing and Ryder saunters out to meet them in his off-duty attire, which in my case is a Blasto vest and some Beats. Just checking, you’re Scott Ryder, son of the Pathfinder, right? We didn’t accidently thaw Shaun Ryder?

The ship’s pilot is a Salarian and actually one of the better characters, while our Dr Chakwas is an Asari who’s been around the block – why are the two best characters non-squad mates? I’d take the doc over sofa-boy any day. Can’t romance her either, so if you’re into Asari it’s baby Peebee or nothing. Romance is odd. Luckily for our drippy hero, it seems the name Pathfinder opens a lot of legs. I get locked into romances without even realising that’s where the convo was headed, while twice I was just talking to crew members and got a variation of ‘I have a boyfriend’. I wasn’t asking. Seems like everyone on the Ark was a nympho. Guess that’s one way to colonise quick and the romances are the one time ME:A doesn’t follow ME – instead it goes for Witcher ‘adult’ scenes which feel a little gratuitous.

We’re also supported by a god-bothering scientist and have a commando team to do … stuff. No idea what, it’s the multiplayer mode but in single-player, it’s the trading sub-game in AC Black Flag. Finally, we’re accompanied by the voice of ‘SAM’, a male EDI who controls everything and is linked to the Pathfinder. Whereas EDI had that voice and her curiosity, SAM is a know-it-all (even in a new galaxy) and about as compelling and real as that voice telling you ‘unexpected item in bagging area’.

It’s also needlessly complex and over engineered. When Shep said “I should go” there was nothing stopping them. In ME:A there’s so much fiddling and viewing and clicking and choosing and researching and – I’m supposed to be exploring the star system not the menu system. Ryder has more choices than planets to tinker with making it slower to get going than in ME1 where you’d spend hours tidying up everyone’s lockers. Even when you do get out into the great unknown, SAM is badgering you about this and that while the game helpfully tells you stuff like ‘press to slow the mako’ endlessly. Another problem dragging the game down is the number of places you knock about. In ME, the Normandy was your centre, in ME:A you start aboard the Hyperion – the ark ship – then transfer to the Nexus, the mini-Citadel, and finally get your Normandy-lite, the Tempest. And then spend forever staring at the backside of the new Mako. You’re just lacking that grounding, that place to strike from. There are tons of planets to explore and each looks beautiful but there’s nothing on them. And why do we plant a flag on one tiny speck of land then have to move onto the next planet? There’s entire continents being ignored yet I’m being pestered to provide space for all the colonists. ME:A isn’t sure if it’s like the original trilogy where you had some freedom but focus, or Skyrim in Space and everything cancels everything out being so epic but empty.

The fights themselves aren’t much but Pathfinder and the others have a mini jetpack to scramble about with (which means watching squad mates leaping like they’re on a trampoline as they try to follow) and you can use it to pause in mid-air to fire over cover, but the biggest leap is you don’t control squad mates as you did in ME. No control wheel – which is a massive trampoline backwards. Take Cora – a honed, precision killer. What does she do? Charges into a huge group of bad guys and gets overwhelmed – and the others aren’t any better, having panic attacks or choosing your gun muzzle as a good spot to stand. I thought we left that kind of follower idiocy back in the Goldeneye era? Get out the way. It’s also repetitive. Rather than constant kett, why not have individual villains dedicated to each system which we chose to bargain with or beat up, apex predators, hell even a Thresher Maw if pressed, instead of always arguing with the kett over it? We tangle a little bit with a Cerberus-style group who want to drive all not-them folks out of the system but otherwise, it’s the kett and they’re just an annoyance when we could be doing so much more.

It’s also hard to believe. Why the citadel races would go for this when the milky way is still half undiscovered is one thing, but four huge ark ships plus a mini citadel have embarked on this venture, which happened just after the Reapers were exposed? Isn’t that precisely when you’d not spend trillions sending folks to a new galaxy? It’s semi-explained in a side-mission which ultimately makes Pathfinder Dad an even bigger coward and idiot; plus, the revelation isn’t explored in a way that lets it resonate. It’s a half-baked attempt to separate ME:A from ME but that doesn’t ring true when ME:A seems unwilling to break away, and the twist is hidden in a side-mission you’ll almost certainly not bother doing – it feels like a cheat. Plus, who’s smart idea was it to fill a ship with Krogans? They’re still dying at this point, not too smart for a colonisation is it. Bet it was Dad again.

If you’re going to call this ME then go all the way. Imagine the possibilities; it’s not an ‘ark’ it’s a refugee ship running from a Reaper. It reaches a Relay just as Shep’s Catalyst choice hits, sending us and the Reaper millions of miles into uncharted territory. Shep’s choices then affect the entire game – if they chose destroy, then the ship and it’s AI are dead, leaving you to rebuild from scratch. If they choose symbiosis then we have to deal with having circuits and full-realised AI – and a cautiously friendly Reaper as a huge side-kick. And if they chose control, the Reaper has Shep’s personality; a Renegade Reaper that can’t be trusted would be awesome. Okay, drop the Reaper idea but at least by having ME’s impact feed in, ME:A would be an adventure in its own right but still explore the repercussions of Shep’s actions. That’s a Mass Effect game. You can’t simultaneously ignore and rely on past triumphs. Just have the ship crash on a planet like Normandy did, make it all about surviving a huge, unknown planet; hell, let’s just pick up where the Normandy crashed and play as your grieving lover dealing with your choice. Anything but this load of empty space.

Like space, the entire game is a vacuum; it has its moments, looks good and plays really well. If it was only brave enough to drop the ME adulation and dig into what colonising a new star system would really be like, you’d have something. Even when we colonise the first planet it’s not celebrated – we just leave. Epic, memorable moment there. ME:A is scared of its own potential and intimidated by the original trilogy – it'[s so vacuous you just lose interest, kinda just stop playing and forget about it. It’s so bland I Rage Quit out of indifference. The best I can say about ME:A is it’s not a bad game, just a bad Mass Effect game.

2017 | Developer, BioWare | Publisher Electronic Arts

platforms; Win/Origin | PS4 | XO

DOOM

A Rage Quit Review

FBT gets mad at DOOM. Not Doom, DOOM.

Doom changed my life. It turned me from a gaming fan into a gamer. It was the vanguard of grown up gaming and the games that followed it were something else too – the Tomb Raiders, Elder Scrolls, GTAs, MoH, Max Payne, CoD and so much more all sprung from Doom’s quantum leap of an experience; it didn’t invent FPS – but it was gaming’s Jaws.

Aside from the ill-judged Doom 3 in 2004, Doom has been dead a long time, talked about only by aged hardcore gamers as where they made their shooter bones, and ignored by pubescent brats who scurry about in CoD Online. But in 2011 amid stories of failed restarts, id’s new owners Bethesda announced ‘DOOM’, a sequel-reboot that would return to the classic FPS era. That era died for a reason, but if any franchise can breathe new death into FPS it’s Doom. Or can it? No.

Since Doom II’s ending, UAC has found a way to provide alternative energy for earth by syphoning power from Hell while bringing back various trinkets, including a mysterious sarcophagus. One scientist makes a deal with the demons and opens a portal letting them invade. The sarcophagus opens to reveal ‘Doom Slayer’ (Doomguy to you and me; I think). And with the story crap out the way, let’s get knee deep in the dead.

I can see why this game required specific driver updates and the soul of your first-born to run. It looks utterly fantastic, practically photo-realistic; a real Doom? Bring it. It’s one of the most grotesquely beautiful games I’ve even seen, like an Iron Maiden album cover come to life. The detail is extraordinary and it ‘feels’ solid to play (especially for a Bethesda game). There’s brutally quick fights, the demons are relentless and you don’t get a moment’s peace, but then – and I never thought I’d say this – DOOM gets boring. Not boring in the sighing, fed up kind of way, just so relentlessly repetitive that I start to see past the shouting and growling and realise there’s nothing here, just the same fight over and over and I kinda just … switch off to it.

It’s certainly loud enough and busy enough to keep your attention; instead of Doom, DOOM calls to mind Serious Sam or Painkiller and while the creatures (including a few old buddies) are noisily aggressive, all their clowning about trying to be scary means the exact opposite happens. They not intimidating, they just get progressively bigger and the once hellish mixture of flesh and mechanics is now like a Halloween party at Cyberdog. On top of which, there is nowhere to hide, nowhere they can’t get you, nowhere to be tactical, no opportunity to actually be a badass Hellkiller and act heroic – it’s a party with a bunch of goths; I just hold down fire until it’s done.

Despite the sense that DOOM is trying to be a desperate struggle to survive, it’s novelty driven. You’re in the middle of a brutal fight only to be pulled out of the moment to trigger a ‘Glory Kill’ where you over-murder an Imp. They’re annoyingly insistent. The Imp crumples then flashes, demanding your attention. I don’t have time, I’ve got a hundred more of the screechy little divas to deal with, just die already. Knowing they’ll recover – especially the bigger ones – means the Glory Kills become your focus and you get cut to ribbons just to reach it and perform the kill. And doing so gains you health and ammo – both of which you sacrificed to reach the fecking half-dead undead in the first place; you’re just maintaining a status quo when this was supposed to be Iron Maiden. They are brutally cool once you get there but somehow they should be more automatic, like Indy making short work of the sword guy not reliant on you reaching them in one piece; Bethesda’s Skyrim/Fallout managed wicked little animated kill shots, why can’t those happen mid-DOOM? Bethesda’s games are incestuous enough as it is, they didn’t think that moment would carry over? Doomguy kicked Hell’s ass twice already (I’m pretending 3 didn’t happen), why isn’t he cooler? If he can pause to fist-bump an original Doomguy toy he finds, why can’t he dispatch a downed Imp from a distance? And … Collectables? In Doom? FFS.

Glory-Kills are not the only way DOOM distracts you; there’s transporters that send you to an Arena to do battle and unlock upgrades, while weapons can be upgraded by accepting challenges. Why the hell am I trying to kill 100 imps in a minute with a shotgun just to unlock faster shotgunning? Doomguy can unlock upgrades for his suit by pillaging the bodies of other Doomguys; Doomguy never got better, he was the best, I don’t want to piss about looking for inconveniently placed dead buddies. I thought this would be a brilliant, well-observed retro throwback not Call of Duty Zombie mode full of distraction fodder.

There’s the original weapons, including the BFG – which is hobbled by a lack of ammo – and some new toys but the biggest insult is the chainsaw is now a standard weapon you need gas for – using it gains a much higher yield of health and ammo; which you lost by equipping the Chainsaw and meleeing in the middle of a moshpit.

For those who argue FPS is a very narrow genre and you can’t expect more than point and shoot, I have one word; Bulletstorm. It may have been uneven, unoriginal, daft and had an idiot for a main villain, but it did this kind of frantic firefights right – and kept it fresh; if I can be completely overwhelmed and still trying to kick an opponent into a cactus, that’s a good shooter. And Bulletstorm had better glory-kills. It’s about balance; if you’re not going down the Bioshock route, a pure FPS should be traumatic but you come out the other side with boasts, with hard-won victory stories. DOOM is just a loud, overwrought arena fight that thinks calling itself DOOM is enough. It’s not unfair, it’s just not fun; in Doom you had fun kicking ass. This is just endless ass.

After reaching another hellish location, and disinterestedly fighting my way through, I find a secret – much like Bethesda’s Wolfenstein easter egg, the secret takes me all the way back to where it started; an original Doom level. I enjoyed playing the original level so much, going back to the reboot was too much to bare. It’s a sign when a game reminds you of how bad it is. Rage Quit.

DOOM was the darling of the critics on release, who argued it recaptures FPS’s 1990’s glory days. No it doesn’t. It really doesn’t; it’s the biggest insult to Doom’s legacy; it’s derivative, not of Doom but of modern shooters, which is unforgivable. This is the house that Doom built and this game is just squatting in it. You can’t recapture Doom, but this isn’t even Doom-era, it’s the kind of corporate nonsense that the original id would have pissed all over; it reeks of market research and focus groups – it’s as shiny as it is shallow – it doesn’t even have those jokey insults when you tried to quit. Quit? Yes, with added Rage.

2016 | Developer id Software | Publisher Bethesda Softworks.

Platforms; Win, PS4, XO

F.E.A.R 3

A Rage Quit Review

The psychotic psychic is back and she’s expecting. FBT didn’t expect this.

FEAR Alma for a third time? FEAR forced us to survive little Alma’s rage after being turned into a monster and FEAR2 turned Alma into a Video Vixen, so what does Alma have instore for us in FEAR3? Morning Sickness.

By now, the series has completely jettisoned the idea behind the First Encounter Assault Recon team. FEAR might as well have been called Project Origin since the entire franchise has centred on Alma rather than a Spec Ops team investigating paranormal activity; they’ve had one case. In the original, F.E.A.R investigated Fettel, a rogue commander in ATC’s army-for-sale who’s looking for Alma; a hugely powerful psychic who, after years of abuse by ATC’s science team (including her own father), went Carrie on her tormentors. It was a great game; full of awesome firefights, a terrifying but complex antagonist and a twisting plot. The perfect shooter. In FEAR2, a new Spec Ops team were tasked with finding ATC’s boss, Aristide only to get caught up in Alma’s explosive family reunion. Alma’s interest was piqued by ATC science project Sgt Becket, and she developed a big crush on him. Despite Alma changing her little girl image to an Instagram Model look, Beckett left her on Read and enraged, Alma took matters into her own hands. Not only was FEAR2 a sub-CoD horror-shooter, it ended with a bun in the oven for Alma; it wasn’t just morally dubious, it didn’t make a lot of sense; but presumably FEAR3 will reveal what the hell it was all about and what Alma’s end-game is.

I really wasn’t sure the FEAR franchise could withstand another round with Alma but FEAR3 does something unexpected with the demonic hellcat; puts her on Maternity Leave. It’s unexpected because all the trailers, the box art, the opening, even PR quotes from the studio promised Alma was back and badder than ever. Yet Alma is out of the picture for the entire game, save for a few non-threatening cameos. What the hell? While her contractions threaten to merge her nightmare world with ours, practically nothing Alma-related happens in FEAR3. We’re supposed to stop her giving birth because reasons, but first we’ve got bigger questions – like why is Fettel back in ghost form, and how come Pointy can’t think of a THING to say? He’s still silent despite finding out he’s a lab experiment, ATC have manipulated his entire existence, his Mom is a vengeful spirit and he shot his own brother in the face – who’s back from the dead. Not even a quietly muttered ‘FML’?

We first meet Pointman while he’s being beaten up by Mercs in a ATC-controlled town. No idea why, it just seems they’re knocking him about for fun; he was a considerable asset, a first blood of Alma and they’re beating him to death? You’re wasting your time guys, he’ll never talk. Thankfully, Fettel appears, possesses one of the soldiers and frees him. Without explaining himself, Pointy resolves to escape, link up with Jin from FEAR1 – who for some reason has spent the last nine months kicking around the decimated city doing nothing – and finally close a FEAR case by ending Alma. Fettel meanwhile also wants to find Alma, claiming he’ll join the family together like an R-rated version of the Munsters. Since their plans roughly align, the two siblings agree to work together.

As far as Pointy’s plan goes though, why does he want to kill Mom? She was as much a victim as he was, and why isn’t his rage directed at ATC? It could have turned it all on its head and have the bros protecting Alma’s newborn from ATC, or the three of them destroying Aristide and ATC once and for all; can you imagine Alma as a follower?! Holy shit. No. But we’ve got Fettel along for the ride; he’s an Alma-lite but still, packs a cannibalistic punch and that’s gotta be fun – get to know my undead bro on a road trip! Apologise for shooting him in the face, bond over our mummy-issues and all that? Nope. None of that either. He’s not even following.

The implication seems to be ‘will you rescue Alma (Fettel) or kill her (Pointy)’? But it doesn’t set that narrative out in any meaningful way and missions don’t impact your choices – it boils down to differing play-styles. This has several increasing levels of frustration; first, you don’t even have your brother as a follower. Once you’ve made the call on who you play, the other disappears until the next cut-scene, having reached the same spot somehow. Playing as Pointy means the same old same old – two guns, bullettime. But to have Fettle alongside doing supernatural stuff on command would have been awesome. And to play him should be awesome too, but it’s supernaturally disappointing. He’s a ghost who can get shot for starters. He’s already dead! But he can be deader? It’s idiotic, did not one person in the dev team go ‘hang on…’ At the very least Fettel should have been a stealth character, or capable of ghosty stuff. Instead, he can possess ATC troops but that just makes him Pointman without bullettime – pointless. Fettel can use telekinesis and fire bolts of evil but they’re nowhere near as awesome-destruction as they should be. He’s also not doing any of the cannibalism he used to get up to (health bump at least? How is biting not a weapon of his?) and lastly, why don’t we at least perceive the world from his POV – it is literally the same play through, different arm. What is the point of Fettel? What he is changes based on the story needs. He’s dead, undead, real or a ghost, depending on plot points. We can’t even walk through walls like he does in the cutscenes; Fear3 made playing a ghost boring.

Another frustration is the continuity cracks. Since Pointman refuses to talk to Fettel and they have no bearing on each other’s actions, there’s no reason why they team up. They have zero use for each other and nothing to say despite there being a huge depth to their backstory as explained through tons of cutscenes. How come the troops can tell when one of their buddies is Fettel? And where’s Aristide? She was the series’ The Smoking Man but she’s nowhere to be seen in 3 so who’s controlling ATC? They’re a major thorn in Pointy’s side but serve no story-purpose. What are they even doing? The Replicas also put in an appearance but who’s controlling them, and why can’t Fettel imprint on them like before? And, if this is nine months after FEAR2 (ignoring the fact that at the end we saw Alma about ready to drop, implying a supernatural birth) why is Jin just knocking about in a warzone; and why has that ruined city been left to fester, how are the zombies still alive, why are people possessed – and by who, Alma? Why? Where is everyone else? Why did this start in Brazil then never reference it again? WHAT IS GOING ON FEAR3?

Not even the gameplay can distract you from those petty plot points. The ATC soldiers don’t have anywhere near the flair of the original Replicas and they’re boring to engage with, as are random supernatural creatures that make no sense. The levels are linear, and the mission goals feel more like we’re being ordered about (by who?) and those classic scared-to-death FEAR moments are a thing of the past. I’m not even scared of ladders this time. And another gameplay annoyance is both Pointy and Fettel start out as newbies, gaining XP as they go. Why?! And why have we got to piss about hunting collectables to gain XP when we’re supposed to be hunting our own mother, let’s focus on – wait, COLLECTABLES?! What?! We can find little mini Alma dolls for extra XP. You turned her into a toy? Why does FEAR3 hate FEAR so much?

Anyway, we track down Mr Lover-Lover Boombastic Becket, who isn’t nervously pacing outside the maternity ward. His reaction to meeting his step-sons is extreme to say the least, screaming they need to ‘kill the filthy maggot inside her’. That’s a tad harsh but not as bad as how FEAR3 resolves his storyline; by having him explode from the inside out during Fettel’s possession/interrogation – and Pointman does fuckall about it. What was that?! FEAR2’s rape scene was always incredibly contentious, not least due to its ‘but she was hot so clearly he was up for it’ subtext, but to horrifically kill off a rape victim who’s been imprisoned just to further the story is unpleasant in the extreme; you couldn’t find you way to freeing him? Or maybe just ask him? It just resolved FEAR2’s story by punishing the victim – and our hero didn’t stop it. FEAR3 already felt cheap and nasty, now it’s reprehensible.

So, with Alma busy at Lamaze classes, we get no scary little girl appearances, not even an attempt to kill you for old times’ sake … instead we get ‘The Creep’, a manifestation of Alma’s own fears of her father. Fear has fears? It literally behaves the way Alma did in the first game, appearing at opportune times to wipe out the bad guys, take an interest in us and kindly creates pathways with its destructive behaviour. But unlike Alma it’s not scary. Also unlike Alma, it’s the final boss. We can literally kill a ghost now? Who you gonna call? Monolith, who developed the original, to sort this crap out. Day 1 Studios made this, and they previously worked on ports of the original so they knew what FEAR was; what were they thinking? At the very least you’d think only Fettel can take down the Creep but no, bullets can kill an imaginary friend too. Also, Alma Feared her Father? In FEAR she dissolved him alive with just her brain; she’s over her daddy issues. This is so shit. Once the brothers dispatch The Creep, we finally reach Alma, who decided to give birth at Pinhead’s maternity clinic. Clearly something’s up.

Then the game goes multiple endings on us. Pointman favours ‘Bullet to her belly’ while Fettel wants to call it ‘Junior’. Which is a huge crock of shit. We haven’t been given any context, a chance to draw our own conclusions on Alma or the brothers, what could happen and neither brother makes a case or grows during the game in a way that makes you ponder the choices; AND we still don’t know Alma’s intentions – why she wanted the child, what it means, what her plan is. But never fear, we reach Rage Quit level when the game just makes the call based on which bro you played as so it’s all redundant anyway; we watch as Pointy changes his mind and becomes a brother-dad and Alma fades away peacefully. What?! That was it? She … Fuck you FEAR3. It’s a muddled, unresolved ending to a pitiful, half-baked, hateful mean-spirited, confused, lazy, tame, boring game. And Pointman still doesn’t say anything.

FEAR3 sucks on every level – it’s a dull generic shooter, makes a mess of the FEAR narrative, removes its iconic villain and makes the entire game about one non-event without any resolution or explanation. It also forces the franchise into a co-op mode when the central thing to the original was you were alone – and even fucks that up. No way I’m going through that again to see what Fettel does. Rage Quitting the shit out of this abomination and googling ‘completely remove game from Steam’. I’m updating my bio’s most hated games list.

The worst thing though is Day 1 Studios wheeled John Carpenter out for PR points. Clearly they were just interested in his marquee value not input because pre-release, Carpenter and writer Steve Niles talked about how dangerous Alma is in FEAR3, now a protective mother, and that’s what FEAR3 should have been; everyone knows you don’t get between a bear and its cub and that’s exactly where Pointman should have been instead we’re her midwife.

Alma is Fear. This isn’t.

2011 | Developer; Day 1 Studios | Publisher Warner Bros. Interactive

Platforms; Win | PS3 | X360
Genres; horror, shooter, fps

Batman Arkham Knight

A Rage Quit review

Batman Arkham City was one of FBT’s favourite games. Will the Knight ruin it for him?

Rocksteady’s Arkham Asylum finally allowed us to say ‘I’m Batman’ and mean it. Bats was largely grounded and faced appalling boss battles but AA was brilliant – gaming’s Batman Begins. And then Rocksteady gave us The Dark Knight as a follow up; Arkham City. Freed of the boxed-in Asylum, it was Escape from New York and you were Snake in a Cape. With the exception of yet more infuriating watch-and-learn-with-Bats boss battles, AC was one of the best games of all time, a towering achievement of gaming and story-telling worthy of any graphic novel. And now, Arkham Knight – Dark Knight Rises or Batman and Robin? I’ll give you a clue; Robin’s in it. Oh yeah. I’ll give you another clue – this review is filed under Rage Quit.

After the ending of AC, Gotham is bracing itself after the power-vacuum left by Bats and Joker’s epic battle. This time it’s Scarecrow, who was roundly beaten by Bats in the previous games – well, beaten, inhaled his own fear toxin and chewed on by Killer-Croc – Understandably pissed off, Scares unleashes a toxin causing Gothamites to go murderously insane. Everyone except the law-breakers scarper. And Bats.

The city is extraordinary to look at, like it was designed by a fan of The Crow having a fever-dream after reading a book about Art Deco while watching Metropolis and listening to the Bladerunner soundtrack. Its twisting labyrinth streets, uneven rooftops, modern-on-gothic look makes for a rainy, gritty, dirty maze of crime and grime. It’s perfect. It’s perhaps the most beautiful and detailed game world I’ve ever seen, decay and misery included. Never mind you had to own a Sunway to run it (Ok Google, what’s the world’s most powerful supercomputer?) – this is worth upgrading for. Gothman is sheer rotting beauty.

From a lithe and leafy Poison Ivy, Bats learns that Scares’ toxin is only the start; he clubbed the Rogues Gallery together to support him in destroying Gotham. Before Bats can even grimace at the idea of Gotham dying, a militia force rolls in, tanks and tech’ed to the teeth and starts pulling the town apart looking for him, commanded by the mysterious Arkham Knight, who has the kind of hatred for Bats that borders on the fanatical, becoming fantastical, eventually farcical. Time and time again he has the chance to kill Bats but doesn’t take it, conveniently says it’s not time for him to die, or leaves him alone to escape; “I’m going to place him in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death” – Arkham Knight is Dr Evil. But for now, we’re only concerned about the tanks rolling in. Of course, this Bat doesn’t take things lying upside down.

Bats in AC was fear gliding over the city. In AK he’s a bus driver with a grudge, the one that waits till you nearly reach it then shuts the doors. Once you get control of the beast-like Batmobile, it’s the only way to travel. It’s a monster and better than the Tumbler – It is. It’s a terrifying joy just to look at, Bats’ mood rendered in cold dead steel. It looks like the kind of thing Death would drive – talking of Death, there’s no way Bats’ no-kill policy extends to the Batmobile, without doubt that thing kills people. Aside from that, the sheer destruction you cause just turning a corner is doing Scarecrow’s work for him. It has two settings, pursuit and battle mode. Battle mode works yet doesn’t. The BM basically becomes a crab, able to sidle side to side, spin around, but why turn into a merry-go-round when under attack? Bats has always been about Arrive, Express how much he hates crime, Leave. Why is stationary is the best defence? Is it because the tanks stay still once they see the BM? That’s lucky. The pursuit mode lets you fire disabling rockets at vehicles but it handles like a caravan and goes like a rocket so it’s all so fraught and crashy until you activate battle-mode and it turns into a ballerina. It’s just not the assured, dominant pose you expect from Bats; the thugs are more scared of Bats behind the wheel than the wheel itself.

It’s great to drive once you get used to it, assuming you have enough fingers to operate all the options, but within the game it’s a gimmick. Rather than a complement to his crime-fighting ways there’s convoluted reasons to use it, and everything is solved by either gliding or driving – not both, you don’t get to choose how to approach a problem. You’re also confined to close-quarter chases when it should be GTA Gotham; you never really open it up, let lose. You can remote control it too, but that’s irritatingly underused or forced in as a problem-solver.

So, apart from Knight and his boo-hissing, Scarecrow’s open-season means we also tangle with Azrael, who’s interesting appearances in AC are completely undermined, mockney Penguin doing something or other, Two-Face for padding, and then there’s helium-voiced Harley Quinn; she should be a loose-cannon threat given Mr J’s fate but she’s got nothing to do and only there because we’d complain if she wasn’t. There’s a ton of filler-villains too; zeroes like Man-Bat, Professor Pyg and Firefly are crammed in (Can’t we find something better to do than chase a fly? You don’t even get to smoosh him on the BM’s grill). But the real rager is Riddler. Taking convenient advantage of the Batmobile, he sets a route of time-based chases around Gotham’s sewer system for Bats to conquer. There’s a city filling with poison, do you really have time to play Mario Kart, Bats? Yes, because Riddler has kidnapped Catwoman. She’s not key to the poison plot or anything, but we’re all a sucker for Rocksteady’s Catwoman. The issue is though, Bats always out-thinks his opponents – sure he’s got the gadgets, the cash and the bod, but his mind was his super-power. Yet in AK he just goes along with Riddler’s demands, jumps through his hoops to save Catwoman. He doesn’t outwit him, figure ways around the problems, he just solves them. Boring. And reducing Catwoman to a damsel in distress is a huge disservice to one of the more interesting female characters in Batman. In AC she was hot and formidable, Bats’ equal. Riddler may be helping Scarecrow to distract Bats, but he would have known that – plus Catwoman is imprisoned, not in danger so from our perspective it’s filler and annoying for it. I get so bored with Rids’ games I leave Catwoman chained up.

While the thugs are largely the same, the Knight’s men are anti-Bat trained; electrified fields, the ability to revive fallen comrades, armed with mini-guns, tasers, blades, they can also counter Bats’ moves and scan to spot where he is. The best thing about AC brawling was Bats had the tactical and technical superiority; they just had numbers. Now they have both and the fights turn into button-mashing scraps. It was fun to fight in AC, test Bats’ mettle; now it’s an annoyance. I once played AC for so long the entire city was silenced. I’d offed every thug in Arkham. There’s so much locked down arena fighting in AK it’s more Tekken than Taken; Bats should be brutal and efficient, not hopping around in the background like Pumaman. Bats can be accompanied by Catwoman, Robin or Nightwing and reaching a certain streak-count allows you to body swap; sounds cool but it’s a bit gimmicky and who cares, I’m Batman; just make fighting more satisfying.

We’re also supported by Gordon and his daughter Oracle as well as the occasional dry comment from Alfred. We even get to use the police precinct to doss about in, pick up crimes in progress and drop off the side-villains we take down. AK has some RPG DNA in it, and you wish Knight and Scarecrow would naff off and let us tidy up the city in the Batmobile instead of all this ominous stuff. There is one ominous element that almost saves AK though.

Bats has another side-kick … The Joker. This is a brilliant dynamic. Bats and Joker have always had a complicated relationship, so to have Joker in his mind, reminding him of his failures and his guilt is proper stuff. It’s the best thing in the game as Joker corrodes Bats’ mind and looks set to take over completely, intertwining with the main plot (until Knight’s histrionics make everything daft again) and its really good when Bats conveniently needs to get a little crazy (It’s a shame it’s scripted though, would have been great to get Joker-time as an option like bullet-time). They have some great moments together.

The plot of AK is huge, epic and a fitting end to the trilogy; everything that is happening is Bats’ fault – Scarecrow’s revenge has been a thread throughout the series and more and more people get pulled into – or pay for – Scarecrow’s obsession and Bat’s actions. The game asks if Bats is really doing the right thing, or just making things worse. And it’s played out in the most beautiful environment, by a Bats at his most grizzled and agitated, with all the usual suspects, and the Batmobile – and we’ve even got the Joker doing a Tyler Durden. AK is pure class, and I’m still giving up on this gem? Hell yes.

AK has a lot of annoyances – the fights aren’t fun, the Batmobile has a puncture, Riddler is an idiot and Knight is Widow Twanky with a painfully obvious secret identity. But the real rage-quit is AK’s habit of rug-pulling. The plotting is like one of those old 30’s serials where each episode ends with certain death then the next tells us Rocketman or Flash actually escaped in time. There’s some real mouth-hits-the-floor, eyes-wide, ‘holy shit’ moments where you really think Bats can’t come back from this. Game-changing, narrative-impacting, how-you-play and how you feel moments. And … then it undoes the moment. This happens at least three times – as far as I got anyway, who knows if there’s more.

At the risk of a spoiler, a perfect example is the fate of the Batmobile. After a huge (and daft) fight with Knight in the sewers the Batmobile is destroyed. DESTROYED?! No! OMB. Now what? I feel naked, worried about how I’ll get about town, the toxin everywhere, the tanks, this is real hell-no, game-changing stuff. I’m terrified and excited, and we’re stuck trying to rescue someone, surrounded by tanks and … wait, Bats isn’t worried … oh yeah, just call Alfred and get Batmobile Mk2 delivered. Which is actually a meatier and better version. What?! Fine that Bats has a spare, but games always put you in extreme situations and you go along with it because that’s the world you’ve been told exists – it was Bats, trapped in the city, alone. If Bats can just call in backup, if Alfred can pilot a replacement then the world changes; roll everything out – get the Batwing to take out the militia, have Nightwing rescue Catwoman, Robin can chase Firefly; let me and Joker go get a beer. It sounds like a whinge but it changes the reality we trusted the game to maintain. The other twists are even more of a betrayal because they undercut emotional reactions. They’re soap-opera twists. In AK it turns out J.R shot himself.

Another example of the game’s treachery; when the militia’s commander-in-chief is run off, what happens? Another Merc rocks up and takes over. Where did he come from, why didn’t he get involved earlier? What, he was just sitting in the super-villain waiting room?! You kept a spare henchman, Scarecrow? It’s exactly the same, just different voice goading you. The game can’t let things change too much because there’s so much non-linear stuff going on it would impact – Bats needs the BM outside the main mission, so it has to reappear and that’s a cheat, like Skyrim had Dragons that don’t damage anything and a civil war you never see, AK gives you show-stoppers then restarts the show rather than having the guts to let it stay changed. Each time you think this is the boldest, bleakest, bravest Bats ever and then it double-crosses you. I can’t believe AK became a let-down, especially after how AC played out. That game stuck to its shocks. I’ve had enough. To the Bat-Exit.

Arkham Knight opens with the line ‘this is how the Batman died’. This game pranked me so many times I suspect Bats doesn’t die either. AK gets so much right; it can make you gasp in shock, at it’s beauty, the story, but eventually you’re gasping in annoyance.

2015 | Developer Rocksteady Studios | Publisher WB Interactive

platforms; Win | PS4 | XO

Call of Juarez Gunslinger

A Rage Quit review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2013 | Developer Techland | Publisher Ubisoft

platforms; win | PS3 | X360