Tag: openworld

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)

Fallout 3

A blast from the past review

FBT falls-in with Fallout again.

The Past

It’s odd to do a Blast from the Past on a game that’s only a few years old. Sorry? Released 2008? TEN YEARS AGO?! It can’t be, Fallout 3 can’t be a decade old. Have I been frozen in a vault for all that time? I hope not, that would make a terrible basis for a Fallout game. Ten years…

For the longest time F3 was one of my fave games, easily in the top five, but over time it slipped away as I just couldn’t face repeating that huge slog through the wasteland, the impossible scale of it. Until Bethesda took free-roam indulgence to 100 with Skyrim, I couldn’t imagine a bigger game (other than their Morrowind). But although I call it a masterpiece, I just recall endless rubble, raiders and botflies, have flashbacks to never managing to reach my destination without being distracted. I remember having a crush on the off-kilter girl writing the Survival handbook, wearing a ghoul’s face for a mask and everyone chatting to me like it was normal to be walking about like Hannibal Lector. Wasn’t there a giant robot at the end? I know it was all to do with water and my Dad but the more I think about it, all I remember is that rubble, those raiders and damn botflies. I played it multiple times but I think I only finished it once; once all the DLC was added it never ended. It’s time to go be Liam Neeson’s sonaughter again. Ten Years!

Still a Blast?

Oh wow I remembered my own birth. As I go through the classes and appearances it’s a nice character build sequence. Bethesda always did those well, from Morrowind’s immigration questions to this glimpse into who I’ll be as we go from cute toddler to a bratty teen taking their aptitude test. It’s a nice way to get to know myself without being a preachy tutorial. I don’t get to know Mum, who dies in childbirth. Least I still have Dad though.

Dad’s gone! And somehow it’s triggered a riot. I escape the vault, my home for the last two decades, and it’s an oddly bitter-sweet moment. On my first playthrough TEN YEARS AGO I blazed through this sequence itching to get going but this time I’m a bit more relaxed about it. Vault life isn’t so bad. I even try sticking around after the riot but eventually everyone just tells me to leave. The party’s over. Wearing my Fonzie leather jacket and a birthday hat I got for my tenth birthday, I’m well prepared.

Following the original games’ overall story-arc, in 2077 a short-lived nuclear war broke out, with predicable results. Playing off paranoia and threat, “Vault-Tec” had begun building shelters all over the country (in this case, Washington DC) and now they had a captive audience. Vault-Tec added additional tests, events and scenarios to better understand human nature or something probably more insidious. Those in the vaults created their own societies for two hundred years, while outside, survivors and Vault-escapees did the same.

Stepping out into the wasteland still packs a punch. For a decade old F3 still looks great; games might have more pixels now but it’s all about belief and for all its sci-fi, F3 feels real. This is the aftermath of a nuclear war. In this reality though Apple never got out of Jobs’ garage; their style over substance approach is nowhere to be seen (maybe somewhere there’s a Vault that looks like an Apple Store). F3 is one of those fifties ‘the world of tomorrow’ films come to life. An over-designed, art deco, Vic-20 meets Nostromo world buried under an apocalypse. Ten years on and I’m still marvelling; Bethesda know how to build a world. Fallout 4 might have watered down the memory with its retread but this feels more gritty, more real; the immediate danger has passed but there’s no real hope of rebuilding. Instead, folks are eking out a living the best way they can; I just came from a vault which while restrictive, was safe and had water that wasn’t eradiated.

It turns out that’s what Dad was after all along. He was a huge fan of bottled water and his project, Purity, was a way to cleanse the area’s water and the first step towards rebuilding civilisation. But it’s taken a huge amount of steps to reach this point. Like all good RPGs, you follow the mission marker less ‘how the crow flies’ and more like ‘pissed bumble bee’. It’s impossible to walk in a straight line. There’s hundreds of things to go look at and those things have things in them that you spend hours ferreting through or send you off looking for other things that you don’t reach because other things. I’d forgotten how hard it is to get anywhere without being pulled somewhere else. What’s that?

The main mission is brilliantly done; our character has questions, there’s a nice tension between me and Pa, and Dad realises his kid doesn’t need him anymore. You can play the character as pissed off, indifferent or desperate but no matter how you react, nothing will be the same again. As you attempt to finish Dad’s Purity Project, you draw the attention of the Enclave, a remnant of the previous government who realise controlling the water is a means to reasserting power – coincidentally that’s the plot to Tank Girl and both antagonists are played by Malcom McDowell. I’m also dressed like Tank Girl.

It’s fun to dig into your inventory and work out what items you can cannibalise, although it’s not as detailed as I remembered, especially with the weapons. Similar items can be folded into others to raise their stats, but you never really alter or jury-rig stuff the way you should, leaving you to carry multiples of everything, weighing you down. Mostly you’ll be carrying junk, digging through everything like Steptoe in the hopes of uncovering something valuable – or a bobbypin so you can unlock items to find more junk. Although this does feel a bit endless and slows everything down, I’m still enjoying wandering eerie old schools and decrepit Nukacola factories hoping to find something. Usually bloody radroaches. Usually.

There’s a whole host of beasties to battle, and to help there’s the VATS system, which stands for something. You can pause and pick where you want to aim and you’re given a percentage of how likely the hit is. It’s a bit like an intellectual’s Bullet-time but fun watching the shootout in slow-mo. It’s also fun using VATS to fatboy a botfly. Swatted the bastard.

But, the botflies and radroaches soon give way to speedy giant scorpions and Guai; I’d forgotten about those werebear things; but I hadn’t forgotten about the bloody Deathclaws, apparently a war-time super-weapon gone awry. Also very awry are those Super-Mutants and their side-kicks, those nightmarish Centaurs. There’s also the ghouls, folks who survived the nuclear fallout but lost their sanity (and looks, but not their clothes. Even zombie America is concerned with modesty), and giant ants referencing the infamous fifties movie Them! but mostly we’re fighting raiders who figure the best course of action is swing a lead pipe at the gal in power-armour. When Fallout was adopted by Bethesda, there were grumblings from the original series’ fans that it would become The Elder Scrolls, and to be fair, it has. This is Oblivion without spell casting, but it’s a lot more focused and you do more digging around, and the setting is much more relatable. Plus, no Oblivion gates popping up every ten feet. It is its own game and ten years on I’m still finding new areas, new experiences and loving the post apocalypse.

The good thing is, unlike more recent RPGs (like Fallout 4), the main story is nicely non-urgent. Almost from the outset Dad says the water purification project won’t save the world and it’s freeing to not be that heroic, to not have pangs of guilt when I return to Megaton again to offload junk then go do something for folks who need this, want that, send you there. We’re getting a priest to realise he’s in love, putting a stop to cannibals (or not), and researching lovely Moira’s Wasteland Survival Guide. We’re looking for old civilisation artefacts, rescuing folks from Super Mutants and Slavers – unlike Fallout 4 and Skyrim’s disheartening ‘radiant missions’ this feels more realistic than endlessly visiting a smug Jarl who’s yet again bitching about a Dragon that’s outstayed it’s welcome. Instead, there’s just enough to lone wanderer into. Unless your lone wanderer prefers company.

Unlike Oblivion, followers are more than bullet-catching NCPs. The best is Dogmeat. A mutt we rescue, he becomes a doggo liability, running off to attack something ten times his size, falls off cliffs and constantly get in the way. After a short while I leave him at my digs in Megaton, terrified I’ll lose him. There’s various mercs, thrill-seekers and more than a few quest-related folks who make life interesting by following then disappearing, getting stuck or dying and leaving the mission unfinished forever. Followers haven’t been quite perfected in F3 and they kind of undermine the ‘Lone Wanderer’ shtick our character is rocking, but at least they can carry stuff for you. Just don’t give them anything valuable.

Another Oblivion nod is the Karma system. This was much better utilised in New Vegas, here it means getting pestered by do-gooders and having marginally better dialogue choices, but also draws the attention of mercenaries who don’t like nice people. If you decide to be a mercenary yourself, the ‘Regulators’ come after you instead, and being a dick doesn’t block you from mission opportunities, just more evil options once you’re mean enough (bye, Megaton hovel, hello penthouse in Tenpenny Tower).

I’d like to say a lots happened since F3 was released, but … has it? Playing this now, I realise RPG hasn’t moved on, it’s just repeated itself. F3, along with Oblivion, got it perfect and as I play and remember moments, events and set-pieces I realise how much Fallout 3 informed my expectations of RPG. It’s good. When’s the last time you had a hundred-foot-tall robot as a follower? F3’s scenery does become samey but there’s so much layered into the game that it becomes more than endlessly clambering over a tip. The loose societies and clans that have sprung up, the communities like Megaton or Rivet City and heavy-handed groups like Enclave and Brotherhood of Steel – this is how its going to go when someone finally presses the button.

When you add in a compelling but unpressured main story, tons of side-missions and events, and some stellar characterisations and observations, you’ve got a decade old game that’s timeless. Graphics might continue to impress and advance, and one day Fallout 3 might seem creaky and basic, but it’s spirit will still be indomitable and that’s missing from modern RPG; Fallout 4 and Skyrim included.

Like lovely Moira’s Wasteland Survivor’s Guide, Fallout 3 should be required gaming for anyone planning on taking up RPG so they understand how it’s done; and it should be a tutorial for anyone planning on developing one – and that includes Bethesda. Fallout 3 is back in my top games list. Play Fallout 3; make Liam Neeson proud.

2008! Developer; Bethesda Softworks | Publisher; Bethesda Publishing

Platforms Win, X360/One, PS3

Far Cry Primal

a second wind review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2016 | Developer Ubisoft Montreal | Publisher Ubisoft

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

Far Cry 3

a second wind playthrough special

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2012 | developer Ubisoft Montreal | Publisher Ubisoft

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

Medal of Honor: Airborne

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

The Past

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

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

Still a Blast

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Platforms; Win (Origin), X360, PS3

Far Cry Blood Dragon

a second wind review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As soon as I’ve re-watched Cobra.

2013 | Developer, Ubisoft Montreal/Shanghai | Publisher Ubisoft

platforms; Win, PS3, X360

Test Drive Unlimited

a second wind review

FBT lives the driving-sim dream

I avoid dedicated Driving games – I’m a strictly Carmageddon, Driver, Saints Row and GTA driver; games where I can go off road and over pedestrians. I can’t stand track-games, winning by going round in circles. I want my car to be a weapon. And I really can’t stand the idea of Driving Sims; why would I digitally behave? TDU seemed like GTA without the GT. But I’ve come to accept I’ll never own a Bugatti Veyron, so the closest I’ll get is a game like TDU, putting me behind a wheel I’ll never afford.

Doesn’t even look like I’ll get to drive a digital Veyron. TDU is, or was, bolted to Gamespy and once that went, so did the servers and ability to connect. Although TDU can play offline, it was very insistent about being logged into Gamespy – encouraging me with the warning “you won’t be able to finish the game completely”. Well that sucks. Luckily, I can skip by assuring TDU I’ll never be good enough to reach the end anyway.

We open with a nice little scene-setter – picking my character from a passport line, I’m flown to Hawaii to rent a low-end car then purchase a house. No reason, no backstory, no further plotting. We literally have $ to spend and time to fill. With what I have left I pick my first car (should not have bought the most expensive house) – a dinky Golf R32. If I squint it kinda looks like a Veyron.

Although the map is open, I can only trigger missions/races by discovering them. It’s kinda like a car-based Skyrim. I put my foot down and … nothing. Turns out I have to turn the key with a separate button, something that will constantly infuriate me as I get into it. The first icon I discover is a Ben Sherman shop – at first I assumed product placement but I can actually visit and buy clothes. I’m not racing for Ben Sherman shirts. I consider rage quitting but you can’t really rage quit in a Golf, and once I zoom into the map I realise there is a lot to do here; challenges, races, missions, plus dozens of very posh looking houses and what seems like hundreds of cars. Everything way out of my price range. I have a purpose. This really is feeling like an RPG but instead of bringing peace or justice to the land I’m buying it up like some tax-dodging absent landlord who gets his Veyron towed and just buys another one. There’s also clubhouses where you can hang with other drivers, buy and sell cars, and the island itself acts much like an online world with other drivers logging in. Except not anymore. It’s just me and the AI.

The main issue with TDU is your fellow drivers. They’re not dangerous but they are stupid. They will indicate, which is helpful, but often make last minute lane changes, break suddenly or just pull over. It’s fraught. Although your cars can’t be damaged, the worry is a bump slows you down and every millisecond counts; winning means $ and when granny decides to change lanes it’s the difference between affording a Cadillac and a Veyron. I can’t be sure if they’re reacting to me, other drivers or just doing random stuff, but it can be frustrating. The game also cheats to keep up with you so once you have a speedy little number you’ll suddenly spot some titchy little car scream across the intersection to catch up, making it hard to anticipate. But you can anticipate the cops blaming you for it.

Although the cops don’t seem concerned with speed – I’ve passed them at 400kph before (Not in my Golf, mind) and never gotten a flash but if I clip an AI’s wing mirror they’re on me like it’s GTA5. And they’re tenacious. You’ll hear the call go over the radio then have to avoid them until the heat dies down. The more mayhem you cause (Or the AI Cars cause for you) the worse it gets until they’re throwing up roadblocks and cornering you. It’s not like Driver where it turns into Car Wars, if you keep out of sight long enough they’ll give up, but every time they spot you it’s reset and a lot of the roads don’t have many options. Going off road pauses the meter so the second rubber touches asphalt again they’re on you. And getting pulled over means a hefty fine. It’ll take two or three races to make that back.

Money is as free-flowing as the game is free-roam. Most races will net you from $1,000 up to and beyond $100,000 – soon you’re buying up the most insane houses and filling the garages with cars and bikes and it becomes more than just race, race, race. Well it is purely racing, but if you get your head into an RPG state of mind, TDU is something special. It’s not just a driving sim, it’s a lifestyle sim. I am a Rockstar sauntering out, staring at my motors and deciding which to take for a spin and see where the day takes me. I didn’t expect it but there’s something incredibly cool about swaggering into a dealership, your wallet flush, and buying your first hyper-car. When the cut scene plays of you driving it out, it’s as cool as leveling up or upgrading a weapon – you smirk and can’t wait to take it out for a spin.

The ‘quests’ are usually pretty cool, stuff like “160mph in heavy traffic” or go quick enough to set off speed cameras. You can pick up rich wives (well, ‘Models’), assuming you have a cool enough car and they’ll give you their unused Groupons for clothing stores if you didn’t ruffle their hair. It’s a bit of a low prize, especially considering how rough some of them are. The routes, not the wives. Hitchhikers don’t care what jalopy you’re in but like the Model Wives, too much jostling and they’ll bail. I’ll never get that Ben Sherman shirt at this rate. Courier missions are a bit more GTA-like; while the package doesn’t care about being lobbed about, you will care about the cops on your tail and the tight time limit. There’s also missions where you rock up to some rich dude’s house and drive his car to his other house. Those are high-earners, but they come at a high cost; if you chip his car your earnings will take a beating. So go easy, obey the Highway Code and all is well, right? Wrong, because there’s a car out there all TDU drivers fear … The Ghost Car.

Endless amounts of time I smack into a car that isn’t there. It triggers police interest, costs me valuable credits, ruins my speed laps, has cost me 1st. It’s costing me a Veyron. You’ll have no inkling, just a sudden cloud of smoke, sparks and police sirens. They don’t even appear afterwards, a victim of slow-ass Draw Distance. They’re just not rendered, only the collision. You’re concentrating on passing one car only to hit one you didn’t even know was there – they’re like Velociraptors. I had a perfectly good Sunday afternoon bike ride ruined by a ghost car. Wound up costing me nearly $100,000 in fines by the time the police had caught me – and how did they catch me? I ran into another invisible car.

‘Side-quests’ aside, the races and high-performance challenges are where the big money is, and in order to do them you step up in classes; designated by the cars you buy. The higher the class, the classier the car required. While the physics and handling are very 2006, the cars do all differ, and it’s also about getting to know the island. Like an RPG, know what you’re driving into, start getting tactical with your car choices. Then you’ll start earning. It’s so much fun getting enough money to rev out of the showroom with something as beautiful as a … well, they’re all beautiful.

The Ferrari Enzo, Pagani Zonda, Koenigsegg, the Vanquish; they’re eye-watering. The Maserati MC12 might look like art incarnate, but it handles like it’s on ice. Still, look at it. But for me, it was the Saleen S7 Twin-Turbo. That thing GOES. I passed 430kph before losing it. It was exhilarating being in the driving seat. You can change views, from behind to driver’s seat to basically sitting on the bonnet and they all provide a different experience. But if you want to just to pootle around town, I recommend the McLaren F1 GTR, a snip at $1.5 mil. Sounds like the devil’s having a coughing fit when you floor it. It’s no Veyron, but damn.

But it’s not all hyper-cars – I’m not compensating for something. There’s classics in here. Maserati 3500 GT, Lambo Miura, E-Type Jag and the Aston Zagato. When you get in one of those you feel like 60’s-era Michael Caine, James Bond, The Saint (hang on, he drove a Volvo) – you get a real sense of accomplishment, excitement – when you drive those cars into your eight-garage house with an infinity pool, you’ve arrived. You earnt this. Stroke the dash, rev the engine, peal out of the driveway, and smash into a Ghost Car.

Muscle cars are taken care of too; Camaro, Mustang, Firebird, the Ford GT and the Shelby GT. Plus there’s concept cars, AC, TVR, some oddities and the low-end starter cars which shouldn’t be ignored. Who am I kidding, they’re totally ignored but you’ll buy them anyway because you’re so freaking rich.

Once you’re in the top-class cars, the games really step up. It’s cool to come across a race for just Ferrari’s, like an exclusive little club. Best thing though, it goes by make not model, so get yourself the best of the bunch, then pile it over to a garage and get it pimped. My fave was finding a race for Alpha Romeros and rocking up in my Competizione, unlocked only by completing the Tour of the Island challenge. It’s a zippy little filly but luxurious too. I feel like I should be wearing driving gloves and a flat-cap playing this game.

There’s bikes too, which for the most part just show how basic the physics are. Ranging from Triumphs to Ducatis, riding them does call to mind GTA VC-style cornering and steering. As in, they don’t do either. But I bought them all anyway because I look fabulous in leathers.

Some of the cars have hidden qualities, especially if you upgrade them; a middling c-class is suddenly a dark horse that can trouble a Ferrari, but it’s here that the game struggles. Each house you buy has a number of garages, and while you can tour the garage of the home you’re in, you only get a text list of the others, which doesn’t compare cars at a glance. As such, that XJ220 that can ruin anything else in the B-class is constantly missed because you’re flicking back and forth trying to remember what it’s called or track all their stats – that’s one hell of a first world problem to have, too many houses and cars but it’s an annoyance when you know there’s the perfect car and you can’t find it.

Unlike it’s cars, TDU hasn’t aged that well, the ghost cars are a major frustration as is the bloody start button and the menu sucks, plus there’s the coupons – since you only see yourself lounging or getting into or out of cars it seems a bit redundant; I get that I have to look the part but do I need to scroll through 24 Ben Sherman shirts? To be honest, there’s nothing in TDU that we haven’t played in other racer games, and many have done it better. Without Ghost Cars. And now Gamespy is no more, TDU is unsupported; some cars are missing due to online activation and there’s no DLC to download anymore – But, by the near-end of it all I had amassed the kind of car and house collection only billionaires dream of.

Because you’re not battling a leader board or trying to win a season, losing doesn’t matter so much. Just go back to one of your ten garages and pick one of two dozen cars and try again. Some of the races and challenges are insanely hard/unfair, but as a sim, a genre I avoid, it’s brilliant. In real-time, I drove my Enzo on a Cannonball Run called the Millionaire’s Cup around Hawaii’s coasts, bringing it 1 minute 10 seconds under the one-hour limit. That meant something; I drove a Ferrari for nearly an hour straight and loved every minute. And netted $1Mill in the process. It’s awesome.

While I tried very hard to turn TDU into GTA, eventually I realised I was missing out on the sheer joy of just driving. I still drove like a loon, but there’s just something classy about TDU, taking the scenic route in a E-Type is pure wish fulfillment. It’s one of those laid-back games that doesn’t put pressure on you yet makes it very hard to leave.

Just one last tour of my garages, maybe a quick drive into the mountains with some Frank playing. Think I’ll take the …

Wait, there is no Bugatti Veyron. I bet that’s the Ghost Car …

2006 | Developer, Eden Games | Publisher, Atari Inc.

Platforms; Win | PS2 | X360

Crysis

Most games, you’ve either played or haven’t but this was one you either played or couldn’t.

The Past

Crysis set the bar for non-linear shooters, itself a relatively new sub-set of FPS at the time, popularised by Crytek’s previous effort Far Cry. That game showed non-linear shooters could work but Crysis, it’s ‘spiritual successor’ showed how they should work. If you could make it work; Crysis’ specs were so high, it melted even the most high-spec PCs. No one played it on Highest Settings and four years after release, the only way to make it even run on Consoles was to hugely reduce the spec and dumb-down the AI (ideal for console players). But all that OTT tech was up there on screen; it looked and felt real – you believed you were on an island to stop a renegade Korean army intent on claiming some powerful discovery. Which turned out to be the squiddys from Matrix and after that it went downhill faster than the Matrix sequels (while the Crysis sequels were as well-received as The Wachowskis’ subsequent films). Still, the Nanosuit was a game-changer – it was thrilling to cloak and get this close to the enemy; and that was if you played as a coward; you could also be an armoured tank, a zippy shock-trooper – the Nanosuit was the character choice menu rolled into one. The AI, the open environment, the boats and Humvees to barrel around in; Crysis was a huge leap for FPS – after this, linear was suffocating.

But for all my fond memories, I never actually finished it; my PC fell at the final battle, dropping to a frame-rate slower than a PowerPoint slideshow. As much as I loved playing it, when you know you’ll not win, you give up – it’s been years since I had a Crysis but now I have a better PC. I hope. Time to don the Nanosuit and save the day. On Highest Settings.

Still a Blast?

Opening on a group of soldiers so cliched they should be in a CoD game, we launch ourselves over an island where a research group uncovered something – I know what it is; disappointment. I never got on with the aliens once they were out, partly because everything that happens before was so good. Let’s get to the good stuff.

Before I can though, I have to go through a ‘systems check’ which I can’t take seriously because it reminds me of the ‘tutorial’ at the start of Blood Dragon. I’m Nomad, one of Raptor Team, the best of the best of the best who are outfitted in Nanosuits, the latest in military tech armour. Basically the Batsuit, it can make you run faster, jump higher, go more invisible than ever before. The only flaw is the suit is fitted with an iPhone battery; you have just long enough to get going before the battery is at 1% and you have to wait for it to recharge. If you sprint, Nomad turns into a gazelle with asthma; a quick dash and he’s wheezing to a stop. Invisibility is great – if you’re one of those street-performers who stand perfectly still; move and it’s gone in seconds. Strength allows you to leap higher and throw/punch at far greater levels. But only once. Armour deflects gunfire – but moving while armoured means Nomad gets over-taken by the tortoises that meander around the island. The suit does recharge quickly but when it’s down you’re also unarmoured and exposed. For all its apps, the iSuit isn’t best suited to close-quarter fighting. I remembered it a lot differently but you do start to think tactically. Should I circle around using Speed, then Stealth up behind and use Strength to hurl this tortoise at him … or just shoot him straight away?

Unfortunately, it seems none of this tech works in the cutscenes. Something is stalking the Raptor team and we’re dropping like flies. At least one Raptor would have survived if he just turned on his invisibility. After we lose Prophet, our CO, it’s down to me and some bloke off EastEnders as we continue to push forward.

Actually, we can push in any direction we want. Crytek have made everything an option. I can clamber up cliff-faces, get into thicker bush, go into the water, circle around for miles, squirrel through placements unseen – there’s no game-dictated barriers, no corralling, no ‘you’re leaving the mission area’ within reason. It’s a very realistic setting within a believable island – there’s even wildlife. Thankfully nothing dangerous like the later Far Cry games (didn’t you just love lying in wait, sniper trained on a distant camp’s look-out only to hear a growl and while you desperately try to swap for the shotgun to see off the tiger, the shots attract the nearby soldiers costing you the ‘no alarms’ bonus and one of them is the Molotov guy and he burns the place down and you lose the bulletproof vest running from fire and your entire plan is ruined?) Where was I?

Oh yeah, no nasties on the island but it is teaming with life. The tortoises, fish, chickens, wader birds; I was once terrified by a frog that leapt at my scope as I was lying in wait, sniper trained on a distan – anyway, Crysis provides an amazing environment and gives you the freedom to solve the problems within it.

Although your missions never get beyond ‘reach this dot’, it never feels repetitive; you’re working out routes, choosing approaches and being as Ninja or Michael Bay about it as we like. We start on a beach using Humvees and boats (or not) then the terrain subtly changes as we push further inland through rivers and forests. Those give way to valleys and lush grasslands, mangrove-style swamps eerily covered in fog and abandoned townships surrounded by wide-open paddy fields, before a harbour being used as the Koreans’ staging ground. They are heavily dug-in on the island, and its surprisingly tense engaging them.

Out in the woodland you can never be sure you’re alone. Sometimes you catch the glint of their scopes, hear them chatting or see a flashlight but other times I’ve just stumbled into squads not realising they’re there. I had a soldier trip over me as I was prone, looking at frogs. If they see you cloak they panic fire, but they’re aggressive and smart, circling, kicking the bushes and flushing you out. I’m not sure modern games know how to do this kind of thing anymore, it’s all scripted and planned but in Crysis it all happens naturally – well, usually because you’re dicking about.

Eventually though, once the scale of the Korean invasion is realised, the US Navy decides to invade too and the game shifts focus. Soon our missions change from black-ops to charging AA Guns and assisting in the US deployment and it escalates into shooter silliness; I was enjoying the at-my-own-pace style and subtle build but now, for no good reason, the million-dollar suit wearing infiltration specialist is the only one around who can operate a tank. But, no sooner have I grumbled about this mission being out of character when I somehow manage to flip my tank – and Crysis anticipated this contingency/my idiocy; the ground troops conveniently have RPGs so I can bolt around taking out the Korean tanks on foot. Not easy, but Crysis is one of those rare games to really consider how you’ll play instead of forcing you to play their way. Eventually we reach the mountain where the Research team are. And the Squiddys. Think I’d rather stick with the tank vs foot fight.

Inside we discover the research team were actually CIA who’d uncovered an ancient hibernating alien race and decided the best thing to do would be to wake them up. The only way out is through the Squiddys ship. Or the exit menu.

I’d forgotten about the zero-g level. Inside the alien ship thing, Nomad floats about while seeing the aliens wake. They rush at you shrieking and clawing or firing annoying ice darts. Tumbling around the alien spaceship is different after all the tactical stuff but it’s a shame Nomad didn’t retain the zero-g ability once back outside – if the squiddys can float about naturally in the real world why do they need zero-g in their spaceship? It would’ve been awesome to add ‘zero-G’ to the Nanosuit’s abilities. Later, Nomad flies a VTOL in another unnecessary CoD level so it’s possible. What really annoys me about the zero-G sequence is I know once I escape I’m in another game. The look, the enemies and most importantly, the game-play all changes up; yet Nomad is no better prepared.

I’d hoped that years of more brutal shooters would soften the squiddys but no, they’re worse than Borderlands’ Skags. We’re basically in a race to reach an evac area except it’s not a race, it’s a slog. The Squiddys are out in force and they take a lot of force to get past, reducing it to a shotgun game as they constantly charge like tentacled zombies. There’s no anticipating or tricking them to get an edge and the open spaces have changed to a tighter path. There are hair-raising moments but whereas getting spotted by the Koreans was just the beginning, now it’s just turn-on armour and hope you have enough shotgun shells.

There’s nothing wrong with refreshing a game, but everything that came before was still working. It feels unnecessary – we only ever saw one Squiddy before this and we took out the Koreans before entering, so you assume the zero-g moment is leading to a boss fight; it feels tacked on like a post-ending DLC. And because the squiddys prefer it cold, their ship snap-froze the island which is now bright white ice. It’s an interesting look, but has drained the deep, layered environment. The whole game has gotten flat. Then it gets daft.

Prophet survived somehow and now has an anti-Squiddy gun and some weird connection / understanding of them. He also needs to pause to recharge every two minutes, usually wherever Squiddys hang out. Now a babysitting mission? Why has Crysis gone from staggeringly original to hitting every shooter cliché? We reach the fleet which of course is overrun. We fight off a wave, then suit-boy is the only one who can fix a problem, then fight a wave, go fetch something. It’s turned into Half-Life.

And then the big daddy Squiddy appears for a monumentally cliched boss fight. I’d never seen this before, originally my PC died during the waves and it totally ruins what I thought was a subtle, intelligent game; it was all on you and how you read the situation but this is a scripted, bombastic mess. It’s as epic as unnecessary. Another thing I’d missed was the ending, which I won’t spoil. You’d never guess it – because Crysis 2 ignored it.

This has been a weird blast from the past. The first two thirds were even better than I remembered. The suit’s power is frustratingly short but then if I could have permanently cloaked I would have just enjoyed a stroll through paradise or sat on the beach having an invisible beer. I still struggle to figure out how a game that is essentially trudging and occasionally shooting can be so compelling – Crysis is as a much a work of art as it is a shooter; most of its attitude and style has been copied but it’s not been improved on; Crysis’ greatest strength is it builds a believable world and leaves you to work out how to get through it. It’s still one of the best thinking-man’s shooters I’ve played. But … I’ve also never played a game with such a disappointing final act. There’s nothing wrong with it, it just completely undermines everything leading up to it.

Crysis spawned two sequels and an add-on, focused on the Danny Dyer sidekick. While the add-on Warhead is hugely underrated and equal to the original – better in places, with great characterisation and a more even Squiddy experience but the sequels were a mixed bag; and by mixed bag I mean horrible; only the FEAR series tops Crysis for going so badly off the rails. But we’ll always have two thirds of the original. Quit at the spaceship and it’s one of the best non-linear shooters of all time.

2007 | Developer Crytek | Publisher Electronic Arts

Platforms; Win/Origin, PS3, X360

FBT

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

Just Cause 3

a second wind review

FBT plays the video game adaption of Cool Guys Don’t Look at Explosions

Just Cause 3 is not only a retread of the previous JC games, it ticks every open-world box that’s been ticked before – Far Cry meets GTA meets Borderlands meets Saints Row. Yet for all its seen-it-all-before, meet a really good game.

The Just Cause series has always been the underdog. Constantly overshadowed by bigger Open-World experiences, it didn’t help itself stand out by dropping Rico, a Che Guevara meets El Mariachi gun-for-hire, into the same situation over and over; in JC he helped rebels overthrow a dictator who’s taken over a peaceful island to produce WMD, in JC2 he helped rebels over throw a dictator controlling a peaceful island’s oil wells; but this time he’s going home. To help rebels overthrow Di Ravello, a dictator mining his peaceful island’s natural reserves. Rico heads home in style – from the top of a plane while firing rockets. This is not a subtle game; JC3 is a shower not a grower.

The place is huge, and calls to mind Far Cry 3 if Jase had lasted long enough to westernise it. Made up of several islands, each has multiple areas Rico must disrupt to weaken Di Ravello’s hold, allowing the rebels to move in and flush out his troops. Although the islands are generally similar there’s a lot to them, and it has a really beautiful, detailed and realistic feel to it; open roads, quaint little villages, you can see why Rico wants it returned to its former glory – by destroying all the concrete checkpoints and military installations. Not sure wanton destruction adds to the beauty, and maybe the rebels could have used the infrastructure but hey, let’s not sweat it.

Rico, much like the plot, hasn’t changed a great deal, we’re an adrenaline junkie, too-cool-for-school Antonio Banderas dude. With a saviour-like reputation amongst his fellow Medicians (they’re often excited when he jacks their car or ask for autographs when he swaggers by) Rico is the islander’s poster-boy and rallying call. And the game makes damn sure you live up to that legend. Heath replenishes as you’d expect from someone this heroic and while he can manage a sidearm, main weapon and explosive weapon, if he’s caught short, unlocked weapons or vehicles can be airdropped – a shipping container will fall out of the sky and open (with confetti) to reveal whatever insane thing he’s requested. While every open-world game nowadays features a delivery service, it works well in JC3; getting a helicopter dropped in a container doesn’t make a great deal of sense, but at least it arrives intact unlike Saints Row or Sleeping Dogs where you’d watch an overzealous NCP destroy your vehicle on-route, leave it somewhere inaccessible then get run over.

In order to drive Di Ravello’s army off, Rico has a bunch of insane tricks up his double-denim outfit. The wingsuit and parachute make a return and they’re a lot easier to use, calling to mind Saint Row 4’s flying dynamics and it’s great to have a game that wants you to fling yourself off buildings and cliffs. All the vehicles can be stolen including tanks, boats, helicopters and planes, and when you’re not making like it’s GTA you’re making like Batman – Rico has his trusty grappling hook and this thing never gets a rest once you get the ‘hang’ of it. It’s so handy, using it to grapple along the streets to get somewhere quicker, leaping onto or off cars, from ground to roofs and up the side of buildings, hang upside down, latch onto passing helicopters, make your way up cliffs, just about everything is traversable, including gravity itself; fall out of a plane or off a high-rise and just before hitting the ground a quick grapple onto the pavement will leave Rico unscathed somehow. The grapple gun can also let you tether things together and once you nail that, there’s nothing left standing. Gas canisters are conveniently everywhere and latching one to people or passing cars provides hours of sky-high fun as do later explosive upgrades while tethering cars to cars, or people to cars or boats or helicopters or anything to anything brings out the ridiculous in you. Not unlike Red Faction or Stranglehold, absolutely everything is destructible, and you will destroy it. In fact it’s a mystery how the island is still standing. It’s one of those games were you emerge from the rubble and think ‘Am I actually helping or making things worse?’

Taking out the army strongholds calls to mind Far Cry (again) but instead of outposts we liberate suppressed villages, army-controlled infrastructures and utilities by destroying various items; propaganda in the villages or supply dumps in the installations. The outposts also include SAMs – if you attempt to attack via the air they’ll make short work of your whirly-bird unless you reprogrammed them. While every liberation is great fun, including the troops calling in increasingly powerful support that can force you to retreat (Rico retreat? Never! Vive Medici!) the liberation missions are all the same; it’s usually fatigue or boredom that pushes you back to the main mission. But that’s a little boring too.

As is often the case in Open-World games, the biggest failing in JC3 is reason we’re there; the main mission. You should be constantly torn between a gripping main mission and the fun stuff, but JC3 doesn’t pull it off; this being Rico’s homeland isn’t really a compelling enough reason to get stuck in and the dictator is the same confidently evil guy we’re always facing; the missions while bombastic aren’t that whoa to play, and Rico himself doesn’t seem that invested; he’s too cool for that, he just smoulders and cracks Arnie one-liners as he destroys everything in sight. Medici itself can get a bit disorientating, leaving you struggling to recognise one place from another, and it doesn’t come across as a place that really needs saving; it’s lovely looking, with the rolling fields full of sunflowers, coastal roads, clear warm water and winding villages – I’d be quite happy to be oppressed here. But it does heat up; it ends in a helicopter fight over a volcano.

There are niggles; the ground vehicles are easy to crash compared to GTA V or Saints Row’s smooth, intuitive rides – you never keep a car for long – while battling in the choppers or boats means you’ll not be in them for long due to the lack of free-look, so you can’t anticipate attacks and the aiming is impossible – and everyone is a better shot than Rico is. One of the biggest annoyances is Chaos rewards you get – rather than XP unlocking upgrades, it’s adds to a pointless leaderboard score; who cares if I’m blowing up more crap than some kid halfway around the world? Upgrades are gained via a score system tied to challenges, which is another annoyance – Rico, hero of Medici can’t even precision aim until he’s unlocked it by winning a few races. Huh? And there is an argument that Medici is beautifully generic; if you’ve seen one island you’ve seen them all, it looks like the kind of thing Crysis aced a decade ago and what you do on one, you explode on another so nothing really changes. But grumbles aside, and despite feeling like it should be dismissed as derivative, JC3 works. It throws so much freedom and possibility at you, the sense of fun saves it. The challenge isn’t in saving the island, it’s finding hilarious ways to muck about in it. There’s so much of everything you’ve done before it’s like a Best Of compilation but somehow, it’s not a cash-in, it’s fun.

We’ve still not had a good guerrilla game; Boiling Point tried and failed while Homefront The Revolution just failed. One day they’ll get it right but JC3 isn’t aiming for that; it has a rideable pogo-stick, that’s what it’s aiming for and it aces it.

in 2017 Jason Momoa was announced as Rico in a JC film. But personally, and nothing against the mighty Momoa, I think only Dwayne Johnson could carry off the straight-faced insanity of Just Cause; JC3 is Dwayne Johnson The Video Game. That’s how good it is.

2015 | Developer Avalanche Studios | Publisher Square Enix

Platform Win | PS4 | XO