Tag: scifi

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

Hard Reset

A Rage Quit Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2011 | Developer/Publisher Flying Wild Hog

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

Aliens: Colonial Marines

a second wind review

“Marines! We. Are. Leaving!” What about FBT? “Leave him, he likes Aliens Colonial Marines”

There’s few recent games with such a bad reputation as Gearbox’s Aliens: Colonial Marines. Except Gearbox’s Duke Nukem Forever. Some games fail because they don’t live up to the hype, some are mauled for being dated or half-finished and some are rightly slated for being shit, but A:CM was like a GOTY disaster; all fails included. Announced in 2008 and released in 2013, it was hammered by critics as an unfinished, generic FPS that skated by on the good will of its inspiration, it looked bad and it played worse; a buggy, glitchy CoD-wannabe wrapped in a hasty, nonsensical story – the whole thing stank. Then it got worse.

Those involved protested their innocence even though they looked more guilty than Burke holding a Facehugger over a sleeping Ripley; stories of a tortured production involving multiple developers and a Borderlands-distracted Gearbox there were recriminations, lawsuits and insider-leaks that made A:CM less a game and more an exposé of game production processes; developer hyperbole, publisher pressure and sly marketing culminated in a class-action that saw Sega paying a $1.25 million settlement to customers who bought it in good faith.

But, despite all that, I was curious about the Howard The Duck of gaming. Finding it on Steam for a fiver with all the DLC, I decided to try it for a laugh; expecting a quick Rage Quit, I was all set to ask “How do I get out of this chickenshit game”. And then …

Set as a sequel to Aliens, we open on a garbled distress call from Hicks, explaining the Aliens backstory. Several months later, a Colonial Marines rescue ship, the Sephora finds Sulaco, mysteriously back in orbit around LV-426. All right sweethearts, what are you waiting for, breakfast in bed?

To look at, you can see why folks back in 2013 were a bit disappointed. It does look very 2005. Even though it was built on Unreal 3 – the graphical marvel that powered worlds like Bioshock Infinite – this is a bit rough (one of the biggest criticisms; the trailers looked next-gen). But while it’s not breath-taking it’s not bland either. There’s references to Aliens’ Art Design, the layouts are nice and not too linear, there’s good light effects and detail. I do feel like I’m in Aliens. I’m Corporal Winter, just a grunt. No offence.

Expecting a bug-hunt, aboard the Sulaco we’re in a stand-up fight. Xeno’s come running, leaping and scratching consistently; it almost reaches Serious Sam levels of hissy mayhem. Don’t get attached to the armour you find, it lasts for seconds and health even less. Not sure if it’s the game being unbalanced or I’ve just gone full Gorman but I die a lot. We’re equipped with a motion sensor, but there’s so many aliens you rarely need to use it. Instead, it’s a handy mission marker as we scramble our way through a completely FUBAR’ed mission. Let’s just bug out and call it even.

As if dozens of Xenos weren’t enough, Weyland-Yutani got to the Sulaco first, diverted it from Fiorina and returned to LV-426, using it as a self-contained research base for Xenomorphs. Do they ever learn? The outbreak is one thing, but WY are more concerned with Public Relations. They don’t want news of this getting out, and the Sulaco begins firing on the Sephora. Winter, along with Hudson-a-like O’Neal, Vasquez-a-like Bella, Apone-a-like Cruz and Bishop-a-like Bishop escape as both warships explode, stranding the Marines in the ruins of Hadley’s Hope. Which has become prime Xeno real estate.

I keep expecting this to get really awful or just really crappy but it’s not. It’s not without it’s fair share of ‘quirks’; the Aliens tend to target you over any other marine – who don’t even block their path; the Aliens just pass right through them. Maybe because Marines haven’t fully woken from cryo-sleep. Often they stand placidly as Aliens pass by or fire at a distant Xeno while one slashes away right in front of them. There’s times where Aliens just pop into existence if I get past a trigger point before the game is ready, and I lost a lot of ammo firing at my own troops when they’d suddenly transport in in-front of me. This isn’t Star Trek. Stuff sinks into the floor, NCPs get stuck, ammo is unreachable and once I passed through a doorway only to see my team running against thin air, unable to catch up – it wasn’t a door, I’d walked through an unbreakable window. It is buggy but this is Aliens where it counts; Hadley’s Hope is a murky, rainy, muddy place full of tension and the Xenos are unforgiving foes – they seem to come from everywhere; indoors they’re bursting out of the vents and from the shadows, while outdoors you spot them clambering over rocks and walls, leaping across buildings; there’s enough to keep both your inner grunt and geek happy; we visit Bishop’s lab, spot the open floor Hudson got pulled through and even find Casey’s head. It’s not exactly taxing to add those iconic elements, but when you consider most game/movie tie-ins, A:CM is trying. At least this isn’t Starship Troopers the game. There’s even Prometheus references, thankfully subtle enough that you might miss them.

Structurally the game is broken into levels with performance results, book-ended by cut-scenes. How retro. The levels always work well though, be it the close-quarters of Sulaco or Hadley’s Hope (check those corners), or the open-space of LV-426. The Aliens always have the upper hand, but even when it falls into ‘watch my back’ waves to fight off, it’s still freaking Aliens and there’s some great cinematics including kills if you melee just at the right moment, and some nice scripted events too, like when an errant grenade in an umbilical tunnel causes it to ripple while you’re trying to run through it. Each level includes a legendary weapon like Hudson’s Pulse rifle that fires in short controlled bursts while DLC also gives us Ripley’s Pulse/Flamethrower combo, the phased plasma rifle (not sure if it’s within the 40-watt range), and the best backup weapon in the game, the ‘SHARP’ Rifle (aka “sharp sticks”) which fires explosive bolts; Alien Goo a-plenty (which of course, burns your armour). Although Winter can only carry two main weapons the entire loadout is available throughout, and level-ups allow attachments like grenade launchers or a shotgun under the rifle for close encounters.

There are some new encounters too, courtesy of WY’s labs. There’s the Spitter alien who snipes you with acid, and the insane Crusher alien, a huge bull that charges – the one time I was thankful for a glitch, it got stuck in the scenery letting me circle around and sharp stick it from behind. A standout moment is a sewer level that features husks of long-dead aliens. Except not all of the husks are quite dead. Movement causes some to shamble around looking for the source of the noise; if they get too excited they explode. It’s a really good level that starts with an unkillable alpha Alien known as the Raven – avoiding it isn’t exactly the stuff of Alien Isolation but there’s some hairy moments as you desperately cut open/weld shut doors as it chases; that’s after a Newt reference where you scuttle through under-floor tunnels while Raven rips open the vents; it culminates in a mano-a-mano with you in a power-loader. You can take those references as derivative or a homage but either way, you can’t deny how much you wanted to experience Aliens as a kid; that’s what A:CM is, wish fulfilment. I LOVE the Corps!

Occasionally we get a break from the Aliens, only to have them replaced with WY Mercs. Then we’re into standard CoD fare with missions like take out AA Guns; certain levels are generic but the WY shenanigans turn the final quarter into a great little actioner. Turns out WY captured a survivor from Sulaco’s crew and we’re tasked with recovering them for their intel. The Aliens are also headed into the complex, creating some fun cross-fire battles between them and WY as it turns out our target is not the only prisoner WY has; there’s a new Queen on the block.

While the gameplay isn’t new it is an effective shooter, and as a continuation of the Aliens narrative, anything is better than Alien 3. While the new Queen reveal isn’t so much a shock as it is expected, the prisoner we free is a huge surprise. Because they’re very dead. It’s made worse by the game papering over the huge continuity hole it’s just created with ‘that’s a long story … anyway,’. As it happens it’s not a long story, it’s a DLC; ‘Status Interrupted’ where you play three different (and tragic) characters caught in events that led up to the Sephora’s arrival – it is a brave bit of retcon but it must have really pissed off the reviewers and fans who played the game on day one. Being expected to buy the Season Pass to find out how this reveal makes sense is not how you win back fans.

Our new friend explains our only chance is a supply ship that services the research base, which of course is next door to none other than the Engineers’ space craft. It’s is a great mash-up between Kane’s tense walk through the egg-filled mist and “they’re coming out the goddamn walls!” panic. This game is like an Aliens Greatest Hits Compilation. It might be the source material triggering the thrills, but A:CM never feels lazy and the final is a hectic chase to stop WY’s plans; it’s no spoiler to say it comes down to Winter vs the Queen – how could it not be? It’s a well-done boss battle (except if I get far enough away she uses the Marine’s teleporter …). As the credits roll I’m still waiting for A:CM to suck. This was worth waking up to Drake’s face for.

This doesn’t feel like the thrown-together cash-in originally reported. Perhaps the stories of its tortured development coloured the early reviews, but five years on, A:CM seems to have been unfairly judged. Its heart is in the right place even if it’s a little buggy and under developed in places, especially the storyline; having one of our team slowly succumbing to an alien embryo doesn’t land quite as emotionally as it should, and the prisoner recovery falls flat narratively (they just become a follower and an exposition expert) and the reveal takes you the gamer completely out of the moment because you’re going ‘wait, what?!’ While it’s a welcome return from the dead, there were other Aliens characters that would have made things more interesting when considering the WY element.

Based on the extended WY Merc scenes (and the open ending), clearly Sega wanted a CoD franchise; they also invested heavily in multiplayer (most of the DLC was MP levels including recreations of the movie locations) but we’re just here for the Aliens and it does succeed at putting you right in that hectic Hive scene. You’re never safe, never on top of things and almost everything goes wrong; A:CM takes the scene where Hudson says they won’t last 17 hours and makes a game of that panicked thought. I lasted 10 hours, and I had fun start to end. Get on this express elevator to Hell.

2013 | Developer Gearbox Software / TimeGate Studios | Publisher Sega

Platforms; Win (Steam), PS3, X360

SOMA

a second wind review

“who thought sending a Canadian to the bottom of the sea was a good idea?”

FBT thinks it was a very good idea.

In 2015, comic-store clerk Simon Jarrett is involved in a car crash, losing his sweetheart and some of his skull; left with pressure on his brain that might kill him at any moment, Simon meets not-yet-a-Doctor Munshi, who is developing a radical way of scanning the human brain. Ignoring the suspect office and equipment, Simon agrees to be a lab-rat hoping the scan will allow surgery by revealing the pressure point. Unfortunately, Simon wakes to discover he’s under even more pressure – the entire Atlantic Ocean.

Worse, Simon’s not just woken up in the wrong place, he’s in the wrong time. It’s now 2104; contacted by a scientist called Cat, she explains things are even worse; a year earlier, a comet impacted earth and caused a nuclear winter. The only life left is what’s on Pathos-II, the undersea science lab they’re in; but is that life friendly … or even human? Doesn’t seem possible but I get the feeling it’s only going to get worse for Simon.

It’s an obvious comparison but SOMA does remind you of Bioshock, and other psychological games like Alan Wake, Silent Hill, Alien Isolation, Prey (both versions), System Shock pop into mind; we’ve got machinery moving suddenly, glimpses of things, doors opening, lights flashing, eerie noises, jump moments, dark rooms to enter; all very Survival-Horror, but rather than derivative, SOMA is something different. It’s in the story that SOMA steps out of those games’ shadows and into it’s own horrible place. It’s closer in experience to Hollywood’s recent spate of subtle-horrors; A Quiet Place, Cloverfield Lane, Annihilation; SOMA messes with your head not your trigger finger.

Taking in the desolated and decaying station, Simon quickly discovers it is not a nice place to be. The walls are covered in some encroaching, living goo that makes Pathos-II look like a mash-up between the Alien Hive and the Borg’s gaff. Early on I find a machine covered in the gooey tendrils, and disconnect it to turn on a switch. Then it cries out it “Don’t, I need it!” before dying. Should … should I have not done that? That wasn’t a machine’s voice that was … Human? Then I find a crippled machine that’s convinced it’s a man who suffered an injury and needs a medic. You need a mechanic, mate. But he thinks I’m the crazy one. Am I? What is going on here?

After the comet impact, Cat’s idle hobby – digitising brain patterns – became Pathos-II’s sole focus. They created the ARK, a digital representation of earth where their personalities can live for eternity and preserve something of humanity. Cat was almost there when survivor-guilt, psychosis and understandable madness overwhelmed the crew. Meanwhile, when Pathos-II’s AI, “WAU” learnt of the comet, it tried to fulfill its prime directive – protect mankind. Problem is, WAU couldn’t understand human nature, only survival so it used ‘Contact Gel’ – the goo we’re seeing – which is like a liquid circuit board, to bond the crew to life-supporting tech and keep them living, whether they want to or not. As if that wasn’t horrific enough, WAU also began activating ARK files, building the transferred personalities into the circuity and machines instead of their digital reality; anything to keep humanity going. The station is people.

WAU is arguably the main antagonist but it’s not evil like SHODAN or GLaDOS and we never converse with it; WAU is just desperately trying to save humanity and wants to help; humans are living, but you’d not call it life. But what is life? What are we trying to save? We’re leaving all those people to this agony? It looks like Cat and Simon will end up joining them anyway. The ARK runs on solar power, and thanks to the nuclear winter there’s no sun. If they leave it on Pathos-II, the power will eventually fail – or WAU will reach it. That means using a supergun at the end of the lab to fire the ARK into space. Easy. Except Cat doesn’t even know if it’s still here. If it was launched, they can’t Tron themselves into it and escape – if it’s still on Pathos-II, can a scientist and a shop clerk finish the ARK, digitise themselves, load it into a rocket, fire it out of the Atlantic Ocean through the nuclear winter to reach space and hit a safe orbit so they can live forever? They have no chance! But what else can Simon do but try? Because it was all too easy, turns out he can’t even take out WAU’s monsters.

Like Frictional’s previous game, Amnesia, when you do face off against a creature, your wits are your weapons; the best Simon can do is escape. Several of WAU’s abominations roam the station but it’s refreshing that they’re not common, keeping their impact at maximum ‘oh god!’ when they do appear. An early goo-filled machine is standard, but human-creatures are just … no. Some listen for you, or you have to stay out of their eye-line, others follow you unceasingly and you never really see the same monster twice, like you only meet mini-bosses. You never go ‘oh it’s a so-and-so, I just need to do this’. Each has its nightmarish ways to out-smart and they look so maddened and tortured you feel pity as much as fear – but the real monster is the story.

Simon’s situation, how he got there and the overwhelming odds he’s facing are the game’s biggest scares and Simon is not helping. Realising the human race is in the single digits, it’s not long before he’s on to the really big questions. Is the ARK immortality? Is it life, living in a machine? Will they be much different from what WAU is attempting? Are we just electrical impulses really? Is life just our perception? What is humanity? Does it matter, who cares? What is the point of it all, Goddamnit?! Simon’s frustration is palatable, his breakdowns understandable, but thankfully we have Cat to give some perspective. As in, Cat really doesn’t have time for his crap. Hurrying him through his realisations, getting exasperated at him for pondering the meaning of life when we have stuff to do, she’s like an impatient Alyx and easily one of the best sidekicks in a long while. The philosophical banter between the two is spot-on and her sark provides some very welcome comic relief. Simon wants to give meaning to all this; the only thing Cat clings to is the possibility that the ARK is still there. She’s even blunt about how Simon wound up here.

SOMA knows that question needs to be answered so rather than dragging it out, it’s revealed early – but SOMA doesn’t just do the reveal then expect Simon or us to shrug it off; instead, the revelation affects and alters everything, becomes the central theme. Plus, SOMA is packed with enough twists and tough choices that Simon’s situation is the least of our worries; there’s moments so debilitating I just walked off, needing a minute. SOMA really nails surviving death only to face no future. We’ve gamed through the Fallout-style apocalypse before but SOMA instead calls to mind the Cormack novel The Road, that sense that it’s just … over. Simon’s situation is so frustrating; he’d come to terms with death; now he has to survive? He’s a likeable guy, give him a break FFS. The shit he goes through …

Still, while Simon might be faltering, for us, progressing through Pathos-II is very focused. You’re not spoon-fed solutions, Simon needs to get his shit together sharpish. Nothing comes across as convenient or outlandish, the lab is a logical place and you do get a sense of progressing, even if it’s all on you – no mission markers, no hints, just you. Early on, interacting with the world is frustrating; Simon must be precise to progress, to the point of pushing or pulling doors – given my real-life inability to push/pull a door correctly even when it’s written on it I’m just adding to his woes. But after a while you get into it. The puzzles too are cleverly frustrating. Never explained, it’s up to you to figure out the process before you even attempt a solution.

The station is split into separate research labs Simon needs to navigate between; as in, across the seabed. And that bloody WAU-infested Gel has leaked into the ocean; as if deep-sea fish weren’t freaky enough. We even have a mutated giant squid circling while belligerent rovers and mechs chase us about. Or try to chat to us. Both are terrifying. There’s guide-lights that keep the fishes at bay, but storms swell up causing the lights to go out making it a terrifying, confusing trek along the sand; oh, I can see a light. Nope, that’s the lure from a goddamn mutated angler fish…

Reaching each lab we discover new horrors, and how each isolated group handled the event; some joined the ARK project, some just lived out what time they had left while others carried on as if the apocalypse would pass. Every new area is a new take on what humans would do in that situation.

Reaching the ‘abyss’, a deep-sea trench where the final lab and the likely resting place of the ARK are, Simon and Cat activate a deep submersible – and activate it’s personality; who, terrified, takes off. Can we just get a break?! Cat’s solution is f’ed up, but it’s not like Simon has a choice. On the plus side, what happens afterwards is far, far worse. And then it gets worse. And worse, and worse until you’re staring at the end-credits, aghast. This game should end with “if you’ve been affected by any of the subject matter …”

If you do make it, make sure you stick around until after the credits for the very definition of ironic bitter-sweet endings. SOMA is a very troubling game; you don’t want to say good bye to Simon and Cat, but you’re not sure you want to experience that again. If you do, you’ll spend forever trying to force a different outcome. But it was never going to go any other way.

It’s been weeks since I finished SOMA but Simon and Cat are still in my head, arguing over the definition of life – and death. And as a testament to that narrative, Frictional released an update called ‘safe mode’ that stops WAU from killing you. You’d think a God Mode would remove all the intensity but it doesn’t – it makes it worse because all you’re focused on is what Simon has to go through. A new entry in my all-time great games, SOMA might not reinvent the gaming wheel but as a thought-provoking experience, it’s as close to Cinema as gaming has gotten; SOMA is the game Stanley Kubrick would have made.

2015 | Developer/ Publisher, Frictional Games

Platforms; Win, X0, PS4

Serious Sam

a second wind review

Why so serious?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Platforms Win/Steam, X360

Mass Effect playthrough – Pt3

a second wind special

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

platforms; Win/Origin, PS3, X360

Mass Effect playthrough – Pt2

a second wind special

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mass Effect playthrough – Pt1

A SECOND WIND special

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • no conversations, side missions or loyalty quests

  • no romances.

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

  • I should go.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alien vs Predator (2010)

a second wind review

FBT cheers for the underdog in Aliens Vs Predator

Somewhere in space, the Weyland/Yutani corporation has uncovered a Predator training ground. Activating the Pyramid and triggering a huge EMP blast, Weyland sets in motion a series of events – well, one event told from three points of view; the eyes of a colonial marine, the infrared of a Predator, and … however it is that Aliens can see without eyes.

Starting out as a Colonial Marine, we’re circling a planet after a distress call about a research lab being overrun – and a xenomorph may be involved. As our drop ship departs, another ship decloaks and attacks. Crashing on the planet – which does a brilliant job of calling to mind LV-426/Hadley’s Hope – the survivors are scattered. Our hero, ‘Rookie’ is ordered about by Corporal ‘Tequila’, a Vasquez-lite who needs us to find our CO so he can order a rescue. As soon as we’ve done all the usual ‘turn this on’, ‘shut that down’ missions while fighting through Xenos, Tequila realises the only way out is through – as in, the Alien nest, and we all know what’s in one of those.

The Marines section is ultimately a by-the-numbers horror FPS that coasts on our love for Xeno, but the Aliens do elevate it, as does the attention Rebellion gave to reflect the original movies; there’s tons of references, nods and subtle reminders of where all this started. It doesn’t help that our hero is about as generic as you can get though; Rookie should have been cut from the same cloth as Hicks – at the very least, Hudson – but he’s largely Freeman with a pulse rifle. He gets the movie-standard flame-throwers, Smartguns and motion trackers – sometimes blips will disappear and you can’t be sure the aliens have left or just stopped moving; but it’s standard FPS fare – if it wasn’t for those movie-moments that motion-bleep wouldn’t be half as scary.

There’s nothing wrong with the Marine section, but throughout the checkered history that is AvP, humans were always the bridesmaid, never the Queen. They’re not who we’re here for. The Aliens are fast and scary, use stealth and sheer-number attacks, skulk in shadows, run along the walls and ceilings, but it’s not all shock-scares; there are some great stand-up fights to please the Hudson in all of us. Problem is, we never really feel like we’re in an Alien movie (and even less a Predator movie – they barely feature); just a regular shooter and AvP relies a little too heavily on button-mashing – Aliens recoil from a bop on the nose? – have Rookie do an auto-fire with a shotgun while yelling ‘eat this!’ when you hit melee instead! If Shepard can auto-melee when Geth get too close, why can Rookie? And you get pop-ups telling you to ‘hold’ to dish out a pistol-whipping – how much more of a hint do you need than huge teeth rushing at you?

Strangely, the nest isn’t the end for Rookie’s run-through. Once out the other side we have Weyland-Yutani to stop, further removing it from the AvP stars we bought this for. It’s just about getting the hell out of there. Meanwhile, the Predators are trying to get in.

Pred’s mission is fairly straight forward – to contain the outbreak. Of course, it’s not as easy as it seems, but not because of the Marines, Weyland’s plans or even the aliens. It’s because for a Predator, it’s not very good at predatoring. They’re all about tactics, yet there’s nothing subtle about constantly going back to the menu to figure out which button does what – everything requires a button, everything; nothing’s automatic or intuitive – to even leap you have to press two buttons; the Predator is a stealth hunter, a master tactician – it should be fluid, automatic, a pleasure to kill – you’re a creature who’s turned hunting into an art-form but it’s like the Predator’s suit is running Windows 98; “aim the shoulder cannon – Are You Sure?” Oh, and the Aliens can see through your cloak. They’re supposed to be the ultimate prey, their rite of passage, how are the Predators not better prepared? They’re not even acid-proof so you’re constantly taking splash damage.

And when it’s not the woeful under-preparedness, it’s personal admin. Weapons, shield and cloak all pull from a central power source which drains so rather than treating this like a sport, you’re distracted looking for power outlets. Is Pred wearing a Nanosuit from Crysis? And when it is powered up, it’s useless – in heat mode Pred can’t see Aliens, but in ‘Alien vision’ it can’t see Marines. Normal vision makes it hard to see either. How is that super-predator behaviour? You’re always flicking, it’s like watching an 80s music video. I’m constantly taken out of the “Predator” moment – no marine is going to mutter “She says the jungle … it just came alive and took him” when they see me flaying about and falling out of trees. Dillon had it right; bullshit, it doesn’t make any sense. Neither does Pred’s plot.

As other Predators go off to conveniently act as mini-bosses in the other storylines, Pred gets off easy; he’s tasked with destroying the Aliens which Rookie did for him, then turns his attention to destroying the Pyramid for no real reason since it’s all destroyed anyway – one of his pals gives birth to a Predalien and that’s the only bit of business Pred has really; and it turns into a platforming bounce-around over lava. Tactical.

The only thing that makes the Predator stand out is its spectacularly OTT trophy kills. Get close to a marine/alien and you can execute the kind of kills even the movies avoided, with blood and vertebrate spraying everywhere. But even that seems a bit daft. The skulls are trophies of the hunt, not the kills.

The Alien on the other hand, doesn’t have anything to prove.

It’s odd that the Alien is given the best storyline out of all of them. It’s even odder that they’re the best character, the best gameplay and the best reason to even bother playing this. I expected old hissy to be the least satisfying but it’s a whole other level. Referencing Alien Resurrection, we’re in a clinic breeding Aliens. As the scientists collect chestbursters from test-tubes attached to the victims, they notice the sixth specimen is missing. Turns out ‘Six’ smartly chose to burrow back into its victim and leaps out of the mouth to escape. Although the attempt fails, Six catches the eye of Weyland and is spared, only to grow up as a lab rat, trained as a bioweapon for Weyland.

When Wayland opens the Pyramid and triggers the blast, it shuts down the lab and Six breaks out, frees it’s stable-mates and decimates the facility. Then we’re off to rescue the Queen and create a new colony where we all live happily until some marine decides to come clomping through looking for the exit.

Six is just brilliant to play. Being an Alien is constantly thrilling, clever and tactical; the Predators are, when not player-controlled, a serious threat to Six as are the Marines – in the open Six is exposed, but it’s not a stealth game. You have to be as aggressive as strategic and lying in wait for a Marine then leaping out is the stuff of Dietrich’s nightmares. Obviously, it’s all close-quarter fights, flinging claws, tails and teeth but it’s so clean and efficient. You can crawl over walls and ceilings (either auto or triggered, take note Predator), see through walls (again, Predator?) and be an ambush predator (Predator). It is so much fun and to top it off, Six also has an army of Facehuggers. If you pin down a human you can impregnate it instead. Eugh. Six also has ridiculous trophy kills, a POV shot from inside the mouth. Where are their eyes?!

Conveniently, Six is distracted by the Predators (not our Pred; no idea where he went during Six’s mission, likely stymied by a four foot-high wall or gone to charge his suit) while Rookie takes a shortcut through the nest, and due to his actions, recapturing Six becomes Weyland’s focus as everything goes to hell – the scene is set for our generic hero, anti-hero and non-hero to finally meet as we all head to the same final showdown. In the sequel. Which never happened, leaving our heroes on aggravating cliff-hangers. Sure that layabout Predator was happy about that.

Six itself is constantly referred to an exception and more conniving that it’s brethren, and the ending implies a reason for that increased intelligence; it’s annoying that Six was only one third of the game, it’s the absolute star of the show. It’s as if Rebellion took Ash’s line about Kane’s Son having a hostility matched only by it’s perfection and made that its character-arc; I become death, playing more dangerously than I have in years, bolstered by the sheer reputation of the Xeno. It’s completely impossible for me to relate to or impress emotions onto it, and usually I’d complain about not understanding a character’s motivations, but here it’s freeing and compelling. It is the ultimate non-human character to play, literally alien, and that you’re tortured and manipulated in the opening scenes gives you a revenge angle that lets you be a total badass.

While Rookie is a seen-it-all-before shooter with just enough franchise cap-doffing to get away with it, Pred’s should have been like the original movie, with one squad to take out in a game of cat and mouse, or at least a black-ops cover up, leaving no witnesses. He’s cool-AF in the cutscenes but clunky-AF when it comes to game-play. I’m supposed to be ‘El diablo cazador de hombres’ not ‘el diablo jugando como mi madre’.

Another frustration is how linked yet unaffected the separate missions are. They do all impact each other but only in the cut-scenes – Rookie’s faceoff with the Queen has a huge impact on Six, who derails Pred by facehugging one of his pals while Pred … actually not sure Pred does anything to inconvenience the others. It would have been much more interesting to see choices you make affect the others. I’m not asking for Aliens Vs Predator: Mass Effect edition, but a little cause and effect would have gone a long way – we know the Aliens and Predator universes; we know what’s in the nest, what Pred has on his wrist; the idea seems to be you need to play all three stories to get the whole picture, but it’s obvious. We’ve seen it all before. Except Six. It was something else. AvP would have worked better as just A.

An Alien-only game where we have to establish a nest, cocoon folks, raise kids, control lower-caste drones while keeping the colonists unaware and later keep the marines at bay would be awesome; so many ways this could have gone. As it is, AvP is a 3 out of 5. Occasionally a Six.

2010 | Developer Rebellion Developments | Publisher Sega

Platforms; Win/Steam, PS3, 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