Mass Effect Andromeda

A RAGE QUIT REVIEW

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2017 | Developer, BioWare | Publisher Electronic Arts

platforms; Win/Origin | PS4 | XO

Star Wars Republic Commando

A Blast from the Past review

FBT goes back to a more civilised time

The Past

Funny how things come full circle. Dark Forces was Star Wars’ answer to Doom, and the most common complaint was it lacked Lightsabers and force powers. A decade on, Dark Forces’ Lightsaber and Force-heavy sequels had run their course. What followed was Republic Commando, a run n’ gun FPS aiming to join the ranks of Call of Duty and Medal of Honor.

There’s only two things I can remember about Republic Commando; Droids and those crappy Aphids from Attack of the Clones. I do remember it was interesting playing a Clonetrooper and then being disappointed when I realised it was pre-Order 66, so I was a good guy. But I do recall liking it. Time to get my Clone on.

Still a Blast?

The mid-noughties were a more elegant, civilised time. 2004 had been a watershed in gaming – Far Cry, GTA SA, World of Warcraft, Manhunt, Doom 3 and of course, Half-Life 2. They set a very high bar but 2005 met the challenge with FEAR, Gun, Battlefield 2, Quake 4, two Brothers in Arms and Call of Duty 2; I guess it’s easy to understand why I can barely remember anything about Republic Commando in amongst all that lot. But then again, it’s Star Wars, and it’s from LucasArts. You’d think some of it would stick. But I don’t really recall any of it.

Beginning on Geonosis at the start of the Clone Wars, I’m clone ‘1138’, aka Boss, assigned to command Delta group – ‘Scorch’, the wiseacre, ‘Fixer’ the quiet one and ‘Sev’, who loves his job a bit too much. This group, by virtue of their additional training, aren’t just mindless clones. They’re exceptional soldiers but also individuals, having personal opinions and unique markings on their uniforms (Sev has a bloody hand-print on his helmet, pre-dating Finn’s image at the start of Force Awakens). As the Boss, I can control Delta with the standard commands, but there’s also specialist elements like hacking, while actions like breaching doors can be done stealthily or explosively. I still don’t remember any of this. I didn’t get my memory wiped at the end to preserve hokey continuity did I?

It’s odd I wouldn’t have a better memory of RC, simply via repetitive training. Spanning three deployments, each is a never-changing environment and Delta trudging along a strictly linear path; mindless it becomes. There’s no great game-changer or thrill, no standouts or changes in approach; it’s purely clear the same room, complete an objective, loading screen, repeat and the only thing between you and those objectives is endless Geonosians and those grasshopper-looking droids from the prequels. It’s hard to take them seriously as combatants and you’re only in danger because of their huge numbers, not threat – completely un-intimidating, the droids mutter in that high-pitched gabble, run around after their heads have been shot off or just do the robot before exploding, while the Geonosians are annoying bugs flapping about. The larger Battle droids get a look in (referencing their behaviour in Phantom Menace, shoving aside the wimpy droids to get a better shot) and those roller-droids, but you just whittle them down, and when you combine the forgettable firefights with the same location, look and level design it’s no wonder the game starts to slip your mind. Even while you’re playing it. I’ve not had to remind myself of mission objectives this often since Skyrim.

Your camaraderie with the Deltas is minimal too so they don’t even stand out; their AI is passable although it’s not uncommon to see one staring at a wall, miles away as a dozen droids run around behind him; guess he forgot why he’s here too – Although once I caught Sev teabagging a Droid. Although you can direct them you rarely do because it’s so linear there’s nowhere to send them apart from highlighted cover spots which they use automatically anyway. You do have to wonder what they think of Boss; they all sensibly take up defendable positions and I run in blindly into everything. The good thing is if Boss or another clone dies they can be revived, which keeps the pressure on rather than a checkpoint system (although I did get caught in an infinite loop of me and Sev reviving each other then getting killed by the same Battle Droid over and over) and for once, having replacements drop in would underline the disposable nature of the clones. If you can’t be reached it’s reload time though and there were a few times where I watched each Clone try to revive me only to go down before I could get up, until all four of us were lying in a heap.

In later levels there’s equally annoying, chubby little slavers to deal with and Bossk’s species the Trandoshans, but they don’t last – soon you’re literally fighting vending machines as they spit out those bloody droids until you shut them down. In the final mission, we’re on Chewie’s homeworld of Kashyyk; aside from a few amusing Wookie moments, it’s the same environment and the same fights again; Trandoshans, Slavers and droids – Most shooters stick to two or three adversaries to be fair, but this was prime military/tactical FPS era, which RC is trying to emulate, where a combo of clever AI scripting and inspired level design kept you on edge and in the game no matter how many times you seemed to shoot the same bad guy – RC doesn’t have either, and it exposes how plain a shooter can be without some flair; it’s literally and figuratively flat and just isn’t up there with the heavy hitters – it’s more 1995 than 2005. When you consider something like FEAR or Max Payne and how they kept the same environment/baddies interesting, RC really starts to drag.

The biggest problem though is the universe it’s set in; no matter how many hands get cut off, Star Wars just isn’t brutal; there’s some attempts – blood splatters on your visor trigger a great little laser window-wiper across your screen, Boss is indifferent to the deaths of standard Clones betraying his completely compliant nature, and the Deltas all have cool little finishing moves but it’s still a Star Wars game and by not replicating the realism, the harshness that other military shooters dealt out, it feels a little like a kid’s game. Especially with those clown droids for opponents. Even the Trandoshans are a bit boo-hiss panto, only the Wookies show any characterisation; when a sidekick has more personality than your lead, it’s a worry.

For a while I thought the reason I forgot RC wasn’t bigger, better shooters, but bigger, better Star Wars games – Knights of the Old Republic II was released Dec 2004 and Battlefront II in Dec 2005; maybe it was just too much Star Wars for one year. But really, it’s just not a very memorable game. And of course, there’s Order 66; or rather, no Order 66 – throughout, we get our orders from a bland clonetrooper via a hologram – if instead we’d been a detachment assigned to a Jedi on the ground, worked with them, built up a relationship with them (as the TV series explored), then one Order 66 later RC might have become something – or maybe Boss didn’t turn on them, depending on moral choices; a key element in Star Wars as a whole. Imagine choosing to disobey and being turned on by the Deltas, whom you’d grown fond of as pals. Boss becomes part of the Rebellion! Becomes a tragic character, or just a straight baddie, it could have gone so many ways. Without anything to set it apart, RC is just a clone. Amongst the many Easter Eggs, Boss finds a Lightsaber and it’s a nice, ominous reference that should have been the coda to the entire game, not an in-joke – I am the bad guy, I just don’t know it yet. That would have been memorable.

2005 Developer LucasArts | Publisher LucasArts/Activison

Platforms; Win | Xbox

DOOM

A Rage Quit Review

FBT gets mad at DOOM. Not Doom, DOOM.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2016 | Developer id Software | Publisher Bethesda Softworks.

Platforms; Win, PS4, XO

Half-Life 2

FBT half-returns to half-life with a half-baked conspiracy theory and gets so annoyed he has a psychotic episode or two. But not three.

The Past

If I’m honest, I always had a nagging doubt that HL2 was the Avatar of gaming. Greeted orgasmicly by critics -Maximum PC gave it ‘11 out of 10’- us gamers were whipped into a rabid fury; we auto-loved it and it was gamer-suicide to say otherwise. Even now, nearly 15 years later HL2 is the God of gaming. But was it really all that?

Part of the appeal was Valve and its emperor, Gabe Newell. He put himself about as a geek like us, claiming Valve is a loose collective of developers; it wasn’t some evil mega-corp like EA or Ubisoft, it was by gamers for gamers. Never mind Valve insisted we install Steam, a more intrusive and invasive DRM platform than anything previously to play HL2; they’re geeks like us. Meanwhile we screamed the place down any time a competitor tried a similar platform. GFWL? Spam! Origin? Malware! Uplay? Ransomware! GOG-Galaxy? … okay, they’re cool. You either accepted Steam or didn’t play HL2. It was emotional blackmail but such was our desperation we sucked it up and Steam has been on our machines ever since.

I was caught up too. Overwhelmed, I contemplated a Crowbar tattoo. But after a few replays, HL2 started to feel contrived. At the time it wasn’t the insidious Steam install that made me suspect Valve’s intentions; HL2 felt like a demo for the Source engine, like playing through a showroom. It was a façade and like the emperor’s new clothes, HL2 hasn’t got anything on.

You just don’t dislike Half-Life 2 though. I kept my doubts quiet and ensured no one suspected me by constantly replaying it, buying the Episodes and looking forward to HL3 like all the other sheeple. Then, the magic bullet; the more successful Steam got, the less HL3 was mentioned, until Valve stopped acknowledging Half-Life at all. It had served its purpose. But Gamers aren’t stupid – and they’re not forgiving either; one wrong sidekick and you’re into Daikatana territory. HL2 must be doing something right. It is more than just hot air?

Still a Blast?

While Xen’s invasion was contained to Black Mesa, the world is now under the control of interplanetary strip-miners the Combine. Turns out Nihilanth, the big baby baddie from HL1 was holding open the portal so the Xen lot could escape them. Instead, killing it drew their attention and the Combine rocked up and took over. Thanks, Gordon.

The world does have a grim Orwellian feel to it, with masked cops, screens displaying reassuring messages from earth’s ‘administrator’ (Breen, our unseen boss from HL1), processing areas and propaganda on the walls. This is an occupation, an oppressive hellhole that brings to mind real-world ‘internment’ camps; or at least a glimpse of post-Brexit Passport lines. I’m taken away by a guard – who offers to buy me a beer. Barney! You look a lot more detailed. Although the graphics are over a decade old, HL2 holds up insanely well, although that might be the constant updates and refreshes Source goes through. Can’t complain about that. It’s detailed, rich and real. I like HL2 so far. A solid looking game set in a compelling, tyrannical world. Time to Free it, man. I don’t last long. Trying to quietly pass through a depressed town, I seem to have become Harry Styles; we constantly hear ‘It’s Freeman!’ – that’s not helping. I get tasered, then I come around and fall in love.

Alyx Vance, daughter of a scientist we saved, has returned the favour. Alyx is both in awe of Freeman and way cooler than him. To be fair to HL2, Alex did change sidekicks and female characters in games. She’s not wearing an armoured bikini for starters and isn’t a Vasquez-clone either. She’s just a capable character and half the time we’re her sidekick. Having grown up during the occupation she’s excited to have found the man everyone expects to save the day. Freeman however, doesn’t even say thanks.

In the original, it made sense to have a silent hero; not a lot to talk about, or talk to other than the headcrabs, but HL1 did occasionally imply he spoke or at least gestured; NCPs would respond with ‘yes lets go’. But in HL2 it seems odd Freeman isn’t talking; it’s cleverly done, people chat in a way that his silence can be taken as an answer but why doesn’t he tell them where he’s been, about the G-Man? Instead, characterisation is filled in by the support cast. Besides Alyx and Barney, who has a nice line in cynical backchat, there’s absent-minded professor Kiener, who keeps Lamar, a ‘debeaked’ headcrab as a pet (“she’ll try to copulate with your head, fruitlessly”), Alyx’s dad Eli and Dr Mossman, who Alyx dislikes so we do too. They’re kind of a rebellion Gordon joins – well, he never agrees to it. But first, I’ll need a HEV suit. Wait a second, am I naked? Why did G-Man strip Gordon before placing him in status? That explains why Alyx keeps making small talk and glancing down.

Now suited up and set free, I’m off to reach Eli and help take down the Combine using a mix of shooter and adventure experiences. We make our way through decrepit buildings and sewers which give way to a barren countryside and receding seas, all of it layered with Combine machinery and industry as they tear apart earth for resources. It all looks very real. Between us and Eli are dozens of Headcrabs, now a Combine bio-weapon. There’s a more skittish version that grows into the Xenomorph-like Fast-Zombie, or as Alyx might say, a Fambie. Those spindly things go. Spotting them leaping across buildings headed for you is exhilarating stuff. Then there’s their poisonous siblings – the rattle-hiss signifying one’s about is so terrifying; a bite reduces your health to 1, which is a brilliant/evil trick. We also meet poor, horrible, groaning victims who are covered in them. Those things really get under my skin with their pitiful, pained calls as they’re eaten alive and I waste valuable grenades making sure they’re out of their misery as soon as possible.

The Combine are out in force looking for Freeman – they are scripted and samey but as far as human-type villains go, they do the job. They also have machinery-infused creatures, including a gunship that can shoot your missiles out of the sky – being tactical with an RPG is a nice touch – and Striders, War of the Worlds Tripods. We also deal with ‘Antlions’, the bugs from Starship Troopers which are swarming pains. So HL2 looks good and fights well; what was I bitching about? After we escape the slums, Freeman gets an airboat to cut across country. This is what I was bitching about.

The boat sequence is all fine and dandy, but it fast becomes filler. It goes on for ages, and we only have Source’s rendering for company. It just feels like it’s showing off, demonstrating different abilities; I have to dive into a pond and place a load of floating barrels to make a ramp so I can jump a wall. It’s just a Source buoyancy showcase. Later I have to swing a girder to knock open a floodgate. During the similar go-kart level, I stop to use a magnet crane to move the kart. It works, but it just feels like I’m playing a demo. And it’s incredibly linear, so those moments feel like I’m at some tech-convention moving between booths; pause to get harassed by magnetic beach-balls that don’t do anything, try to balance cinder-blocks to reach higher levels, look at this magnifying glass; the puzzles, the physics, the locations – those are key to any game but in HL2 it just somehow feels like we’re pausing for a word from our sponsors.

There are standouts to be sure –Ravenholm is still a creepy, horrible, brilliant place while Nova Prospekt, the prison we try to recover Eli from and a suspension bridge we need to clear are great set-pieces, as is the final push to the Citadel, guarded by the huge Striders. There are more subtle elements worth applauding too; Alyx, who is a work of art in every way possible isn’t the only notable character; Ravenholm’s last (human) resident, Father Gregori is an insane change from the usual support acts and his presumed fate is horrible and brings home what’s happening to earth. We get to turn the Antlions into manic soldiers we can order about too, they’re great fun and like Gregori, should have been around for a lot longer. The lolloping Vortigaunts are our pals now, having been oppressed by the giant baby it turns out, while the Human resistance is very believable. But the real stand-out is D0g.

D0g is a great side-kick’s side-kick. Scripted to be adorable and heroic, it’s a huge Gorilla-like mech bodyguard for Alyx and even better than I remembered. The scene where we get the gravity gun and ‘play’ with D0g is the best hidden tutorial of all time. His scripted sequences, leaping onto Combine vehicles and knocking the shit out of the troops are great, but it’s his undying love for Alyx and somehow emotive face that stays with you. Good boy.

But as always, every time HL2 convinces me it’s all that, I see through the lies. For every drainpipe ominously rattling in Ravenholm there’s a moment that feels forced. The gravity gun; critics wet themselves over it, like it was gamer sliced bread. It’s shit. I barely used it first time and this time I’m determined to unlock its secrets. Still shit. The amount of times I try to attract a Buzzsaw blade to eviscerate a zombie only to grab a coffee mug instead. It’s great, if you’re looking to showcase your physics engine; lots of smugly-clever physics puzzles pop up once you get it. Man, Source is cool yeah?

Eventually, we’re inside the Citadel gunning for Breen. Except we had all our guns taken off us. But the G-Gun can now grab and fling Combine soldiers about like ragdolls – all right I get it, Source can ace physics. And to ensure we don’t Skip the Ad, the Citadel vaporises the Combines weapons too. What happens if a soldier puts theirs down? It’s just too convenient. When we finally reach Breen, we stop him escaping by … playing Pong. What the hell is this? This is heroic, flinging balls at a tower? I miss the giant floating baby of HL1. But it’s not over, Freeman’s about to have an episode or two.

Episode One picks up as the Citadel explodes – and it’s about to explode more. So Freeman caused an invasion that decimated humankind and then triggered a blast large enough to finish the rest? Why is this guy our hero?

Hang on, the Combine’s guns are still dissolving, why doesn’t Alyx’s gun? While escaping the Citadel and the G-Gun shenanigans, Alyx uncovers a message about Combine reinforcements leading them into a running firefight with Combine as well as a Ravenholm-style sequence with Zombies, Xen critters and Antlions as we try to escape the city. Ep1 is a quick and clean race once we’re out of the Citadel and a nice little set up Episode Two, where we rejoin Alyx and Freeman freed of the city and lost the countryside. And it does look beautiful. But then Alyx is maimed by new villain, the imaginatively titled ‘hunter’. It’s basically an evil D0g. Thankfully a Vortigaunt is on hand to react more emotionally than Freeman does. We’re then sent into an Antlion nest to evade a marauding Antlion solider until we can reach their ambrosia, which the Vortigaunts need to resuscitate Alyx. It is a beautiful underground labyrinth and a refreshing change in both look and play-style, playing hide and seek with the solider, but it’s followed by a wave battle against now pissed off Antlion drones that feels really dated (there was a similar one at the end of E1). Never fear though, G-Man appears to imply some greater galaxy-wide conspiracy without explaining anything. It’s like one of those middle-management meetings where you realise nothing’s getting done and everyone’s just saying stuff to justify the meeting.

After using the gravity gun to rebalance a swaying bridge (‘Sponsored by Source, for all your gaming needs’) we’re in what looks like the car from Driver. Alyx and I go on a lovely tour of Source’s environmental rendering and blunder into Combine traps before a fantastic scripted moment when D0g puts in a surprise appearance just as we’re about to get stomped on. Finally we reach Eli and the resistance and it all gets really annoying. Hot on our heels are the Hunters and they brought their dads; Striders. Now this should be exhilarating but … it’s an irritating chore.

In order to take down the Striders we have to use a ‘Magnusson Device’ which requires you to drive to Device points, get out, grab it with the G-Gun, load it in the boot, drive to the Strider, get out, pick it up with the G-Gun, fire, swap to weapon, hit and explode the Strider. Now, repeat. If you miss or a Hunter hits the device you start again, while keeping up with the Striders before they reach the base. It’s not a race against time it’s a race against the save button, incrementally improving your odds as you watch in awe at all the physics going on. And why has Alex decided to stay behind? Now she chooses to catch up with Dad?

So we discover Episode 3 (slated for a December 2007 release date, can’t wait!) is going to take place in the Artic, but a Combine Advisor (another steal from Starship Troopers) rocks up and leaves us on a heart-breaking cliff-hanger. I may have been largely unimpressed with the game, but I loved the characters and that is affecting. I want to see it through. I want Episode Three. Goddamn Valve. Good guys my ass.

I’m conflicted. HL2 does have some genuinely great moments. D0g, the headcrab victims, the decaying world and misery of those surviving in it but Freeman’s silent act dates it and it all feels at arms-length because he’s not involved. I feel like an observer and it’s frustrating, because it’s a believable world you want to save from the Combine. It’s like having Star Wars toys you don’t take out of the packaging. Alyx is a quantum leap in companions; she’s not a follower – we’re a team. And she’s such a fangirl. Anything remotely heroic triggers a coo’ing comment and you often catch her glancing at you, smiling. But why? Who is Freeman really? He’s not much of a hero in HL2 – In HL1 he was a regular guy but why did G-Man defrost Freeman for this? He doesn’t do anything in HL2 that required a theoretical scientist and he has no personal part to play. G-Man should have unleashed Shepard. Plus there’s the confusion between HL1 and 2, the neatness of it all, that feeling that HL2 just kinda sails along. Nothing actually happens, nothing is resolved, the Combine aren’t exposed and we don’t get anywhere. It’s a really vague game that at best is setting up for a finale we didn’t get. Arguably it doesn’t even really get going until the end of Episode 2, where we prepare to take the fight to the Combine. Let’s do this! Oh.

I’m not conflicted. HL2 is style over substance and all about Source. It’s as epic as it is empty and it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. But I’m still desperate to know how it ends and it’s insanely frustrating that Valve couldn’t see their way to ending it. It’s a huge betrayal of the fans that made Valve what it is. HL2 certainly made enough money to justify HL3 or at least Ep3 (or both, given Gabe occasionally claims the Episodes are HL3; he just wants shot of it). Come on Gabe -the G-Man- give us back our Freeman. Just one more moment with Alyx.

But it won’t happen. The lack of Ep3/HL3 despite HL2’s success proves Valve just didn’t care – if ever. It might have been all about Source, but in the end it’s all about Steam. I’ll never get over the way Steam was forced on us but now I live on it, and until I and the millions of other gamers log off, until we stop Steam accounting for 75% of all digital gaming, Valve will have no reason to resurrect Freeman. But we won’t. I can begrudgingly live without Freeman but I can’t live without Steam. It keeps prices low(ish), there’s support and links and forums; it’s a gamer community. I have over 250 games knocking about in there; I don’t have that kind of shelf space. The best thing about Half-Life 2 was Steam.

Half-Life 2 – 2004 | Episode One – 2006 | Episode Two – 2007

Developer/Publisher Valve Corporation
Win/Steam, PS3, X360

Borderlands

an Agree To Disagree review

TheMorty and FBT take very different trips to Pandora.

While TheMorty gets robbed by the locals and leaves a negative review on TripAdvisor, FBT comes back with a Claptrap figurine and a tattoo from Mad Moxxi.

Vault Hater – TheMorty

Borderlands. Bore-derlands more like. Never have I played a game with so much promise that delivered so little. For a game given a sequel, a pre-sequel and a TellTale spin-off, it must be good, right? At the time of release, there was only really the Fallout series in terms of post-apocalyptic RPGs and Borderlands offered a comedic alternative where you could just have a blast. I was full of hope. Not just from the fast-paced, hell-for-leather trailer detailing an hilarious, action packed comedy, but this was in FBT’s top 5 of all time! What higher honour could be bestowed upon a title? Sadly, the slow and repetitive gameplay, the uninventive antagonists and a variety of weapons that you simply couldn’t use was a major let down and made Borderlands less of a gore-fest and more of a snore-fest.

The game starts with giving you four seemingly great characters to choose from. Your friendly bus driver gives you some god-awful advice that brute force won’t cut it in Pandora and you must be smart. So, I figured, okay, I’ll pass on the walking tank, the hot-shot sniper, the jack-of-all-trades soldier and go for Lillith. The girl who’s about stealth and whose special power is to Phasewalk to go invisible. What. A. Mistake. I had made such an error and by the time I realised how bad her power was, I was hours in and couldn’t stomach a re-start. Borderlands is not a stealth game and what I had was essentially a twilight-tween who glittered whenever trouble was near. In arena type battles her power was useless and put me at a serious disadvantage. By the time I realised how maniacal the game was, it was too late. I needed brawns not brains and I was stuck getting battered like a cod.

Borderlands is so generic with the character choice that bar that one special ability, the differences between who you play as are irrelevant. Sure, there’s the odd one-liner and the QuickTime of you getting in and out of a tank, but otherwise there’s nothing that showcases personality or that tailors the gameplay to the character you choose. The replay value really is minimal. Take Lilith, she’s portrayed as the sexy siren, but not once does she use her beauty or allure to get results and without the 3rd person view of her scantily-clad design, you might as well be playing as Princess Peach. To put it bluntly, would you play a first-person Tomb Raider? No. Because that’s just Mirror’s Edge and no-one wants to play Mirror’s Edge.

Something else that hacked me off was the lack of game saving ability. Sure, there’s a Save option, in which you can bank your XP whenever you quit out. But be warned, the next time you load you’ll be back at the beginning of the level and all the enemies will have re-spawned (oh, and they’ll also have levelled up, just to make it a bit more inconvenient). I lost count of how many times it got to 2am and I was still battling past hordes of henchmen trying desperately to complete the level just so that I could finally get some kip before getting up at 6 to go to work the next day. Borderlands isn’t a game you can just dive in and out of, having a quick 30mins blast to kill some time here and there. Playing Borderlands is a slog in which setting aside nothing less than an entire day to play will cut it. Traversing through a wasteland for hours just to ensure that you get to that heavenly safe spot coveted more than Pandora’s Vault itself is really your true goal – just to avoid tediously re-doing the same level all over again the next time you pick up the controller. While that’s not something new in gaming and you’d expect it from Destiny or any online session game, it’s far too much for an offline Role-Playing Shooter that marketed itself on being “Fun”. The beauty of games like Bulletstorm is that you can dive in, have a blast for as long as you want and then quit out. With Borderlands, it just feels like more work than it’s worth.

Its not just the characters that are one-dimensional, the missions are too and often you find yourself in a state of repetition, having to clear the same areas again and again. Meeting residents of Pandora that give you the same old mission time and time again…

Dr Zed: Alright mate, I need you to kill this bloke in Skag Gully, Nine-Toes

Me [4hs later, tired, covered in blood, all ammo spent]: It’s done.

Dr Zed: Thanks, have a crappy pistol from the vending machine.

Me: You’re kidding… That’s it? What’s the next mission?

Dr Zed: Can you get me this key?

Me: Okay, sure. Where is it?

Dr Zed: Skag Gully

Me: Oh FFS!

Worst part of it is that when you eventually Kill Nine-Toes for Zed, he has the audacity to demand that I buy HIM a drink? The cheeky bas-

There’s 87 bazillion guns apparently, at least that’s according to the sticker on the box. Though, you can only carry a handful. The best of which you can’t use until you level up another 20 times so best to sell everything you find. Meaning that you’re essentially a scrap man, trawling around the streets in your van asking the residents of Pandora if they’ve any old iron. If not, kill a few Skaggs and you’ll find they’ve swallowed a gun that can be ground down and sold for next to nowt. It goes on and on and on, constantly exploring the same bit of map where all you get is guns you can’t use and the same villains to put down. Think it’s a good money-spinner? Think again, it’s rare you’ll survive without a respawn or two which, naturally, takes a tax on your hard-earned cash. The more you have, the more you’re taxed meaning you don’t really get a great deal out of playing the boring missions. Literally, just XP.

The comedy’s decent, I’ll give you that and the comic-book style of gameplay was certainly unique on its release. However, if you’re looking for a cross between Fallout and Bulletstorm, you’ll be disappointed. It’s more Starship Troopers meets Beyond Thunderdome where giant insects and overtly camp topless dwarves in hockey masks run amuck. Maybe one day I’ll dive in, play as Brick and enjoy it, or maybe I won’t. One things for sure, not only are the titles in my Top 5 safe as houses, it’s not even troubling those in my Top 50.

Vault Hunter – FBT

Borderlands separates the men from the claptraps. It’s a leveller, a palate cleaner (with bleach), a reset on every game that ever put a gun in your hand. Go big or go home.

The best way to play Borderlands is the way the raiders in Borderlands play Borderlands – run straight at an enemy laughing. It’s designed to be played with a death wish, every encounter a breathless Second Wind followed by a ‘fuck that was close’. Try playing it like Fallout and you’ll be back at a cloning station quicker than you can say ‘now come on, that was just unfair’. It’s a RPG for those who don’t give a shit – once you get your head out of the RPG space, Borderlands becomes something very special. There’s side-quests and a larger story but really, you’re after fame and riches. TheMorty can sit there planning his approach – do you have a good spread of weapons, are all the elements covered, what kind of shield do you have – and I’ll launch myself into the fray like Leroy Jenkins.

Having a quick save just removes all that intensity; saving is for pussies and it’s about the visceral moment not incremental baby-steps. The creatures only respawn once a day; if you get put back at the beginning and they’re back too, you’re too slow. Borderlands is head-long or head-off. It’s all in the reflexes – you’re Jack Burton and you’ll not get through it without a hefty dose of bravado. A couple of skags aren’t going to stop us. Unless you’re TheMorty

No character? Your lead isn’t lacking in personality, they’re lacking in morals. Lilith often dissolves into giggles after kills or asks “that was it? Well it acted tough”, and she pays no attention to anyone’s plight – even the mission-givers are selfish, like Scooter asking you to save a guy so he can kill him later (he “ruined my mama’s girl parts”) or people stiffing you on the reward – everyone’s out for themselves and life is cheap.

Even money’s cheap. The counter goes up to $9,999,999 and you still earn more. It’s everywhere. Sure, it’s galling to get charged a mill after getting offed because bullshit, but it doesn’t actually matter – there’s nothing to buy except bullets and medkits and they’re like $40. Only cowards buy guns. Play the gun-hand you’re dealt and dig up something better. There’s a bazillion weapons, another bigger, better, madder gun is just around the corner letting you evolve your approach, and winning a high-powered corrosive revolver, a rapid-fire sniper or a rocket-firing shotgun keeps the battles fresh and gets you excited about the next fight; I wanna shoot something with that! Both weapons and missions are locked by XP, so stop fannying about and go out there and get some level-ups. They represent confidence; soon you’re laughing at the Skag Pups you ran from a few hours ago – now you’re facing huge Elemental Alpha Skags like they’re no big thing (They’re always a big thing but the mad fight and huge XP bump is worth the blood). Start building your skill tree, find some brutal weapons and go from Welp to Warrior, pushing until even Lilith can punch out a skag without breaking a sweat.

How can I even be friends with TheMorty, slagging off my girlfriend like that? Lilith is a beauty to behold and to play. She’s not stealth, creeping about like a wuss is not going to impress Lilith. Her phasewalk is only for retreating at first; she is under-powered early on, but that just forces you on the offensive. Get in there, get her hands dirty and once her skill tree start to warm up? Whoa. She goes from Valley Girl to Sarah Connor faster that you can say “I have angel-wings that set people on fire as I pass by?” Lilith’s phasewalk starts killing people, she can strike while invisible, enter and exit with elemental powers, absorb bullets and shot them faster; all automatically – she’s brutal. She’s the most constantly evolving, rewarding lead in a shooter I might have ever played; if you come out swinging instead of sneaking. You become a God, instead of just shooting more bullets than everyone else.

Borderlands is for the fearless, but it’s also just for fun. Once you start seeking out the worst that Pandora has to offer, you really get into the lawless, Tom & Jerry tone of it. Whereas Dark Souls thinks it’s funny to kill you, Borderlands lets you die laughing. You’re not saving the world like in a regular RPG, you’re looking to own it. TheMorty says Borderlands would never land in his top 50. I’m betting he’d never survive level 50 (let alone Mad Moxxi). I could go on but this response is longer than he lasted in Skag Gully. And that’s just the tutorial area; let’s not even tell him about Playthrough 2.

2009 | Developer Gearbox Software | Publisher 2K Games

genres; shooter, RPG, Sci-Fi

platforms; Win, X360, PS3

Alien Isolation

A SECOND WIND REVIEW

FBT plucks up the courage to play Alien Isolation. You have my sympathies.

Insanity is repeating the same event and expecting a different outcome. But it’s always tail-gutting, claw-shredding, inner-jaw death. ‘This time, I won’t get killed’. You will. Alien Isolation should be called Alien Insanity; it is death on repeat and, at the risk of being insensitively glib, playing it is denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Fifteen years after the Nostromo disappeared, it’s flight recorder turns up at Sevastopol Space Station. Weyland-Yutani sends a ship to retrieve it, and invites Amanda Ripley to go along and gain some closure on her missing mom – but she and a couple of W-Y suits arrive to find Sevastopol damaged and drifting. During an ill-advised spacewalk, Ripley is separated and enters the ship alone. Only she’s not alone.

Isolation bleeds not only the original’s atheistic but also the era. 20th Century Fox’s logo is a fuzzy, played-too-often VHS image and Sega’s is rendered like the green monitors (humourless AMD keep their logo shiny and HD). The menu background is a huge planet surrounded by the blackness of space, a speck of a ship orbiting while the text is in the original font and the music a rework of Silvestri’s original score. I am in Alien. There’s that nodding bird, the padded walls, the clicky buttons, huge passkeys, CRT monitors. Although Sevastopol is in ruins it’s not the Marie Celeste; occasionally we see people. They never stop to talk though. Or stop running. I wonder why.

Creeping along, we find locked doors and items that require things we don’t have, suggesting this isn’t linear and we’re going to be doing some backtracking. Nope, not doing that, I’m getting my closure and getting out. Ripley doesn’t know about the Starbeast but she’s hesitant, muttering to herself and scared; a twenty-something grease-monkey, Junior is reminiscent of the rebooted Lara but more consistent; she doesn’t switch from blubbering Lambert in cut-scenes to Ripley in-game. She’s shit-scared throughout and so are we . Although we don’t learn a great deal about her as a character, we gather she’s never given up on looking for her mother, and the pain of not knowing her fate drives Jnr. Right now I suspect the pain she’s focused on is backache. I’ve never crouched so much in my life. Thank God the Crouch button toggles otherwise I’d pull a muscle in my finger.

Eventually we meet a tetchy local who explains the horrible truth – which we bought this game for. The ship that found the black box backtracked Nostromo’s route to LV-426, hoping for some prize salvage and … Yup. Arriving at the station, they asked for medical assistance and we can guess the rest but the local insists on taking us on a tutorial tour. He explains that the ‘Working Joes’ -android caretakers- suddenly started preventing people from escaping or sending distress calls (Ohho) and survivors became unstable while trying to protect themselves from a ‘monster’ stalking the station. Can I crouch any lower?

When I do pop up to take in the surroundings, I’m reminded of Bioshock. The Sevastopol has the ‘used future’ feel but also Rapture’s rotting, uncared-for look, with (ironic) health & safety posters and corporate propaganda on the walls; the departure boards all say ‘cancelled’ – it’s got that abandoned, trapped feel like there’s no (Hadley’s) hope of escaping. Then there’s the exploration element, the hacking and crafting plus we contend with Bioshock Splicers in the panicked human survivors, and the Joes are like Big Daddys, harmless unless provoked and doing so risks death. But if they’re the Daddy, what’s the Alien? Please don’t say it’s a Queen.

So, as the local finishes his tutorial and his exposition, we realise we’re trapped, have to contend with hostile androids, insane humans and HOLY SHIT A FRICKING ALIEN. Its first appearance is (thankfully) a cutscene that lets you in on the horror gently. Too late. The cutscene over, we’re right where the Alien was. It’s coming back. F’ing run!

Kane’s Son isn’t just a tough little son of a bitch, it can’t be killed; if the keyboard and mouse would reach, I’d be playing this from behind the sofa. It’ll patrol around, sometimes you’ll just hear it and sometimes you’ll see it. And you’ll always be paralysed, dumb-stuck, in denial that it’s actually there, in front of you. If you do snap out of it in time, you have seconds to find a hiding spot and wait, wondering if it’s really gone or will reappear like it popped back for its keys. You quickly flick on your motion sensor and gingerly step out. Then back in; give it a minute. What’s worse than seeing a shark’s fin while swimming? Seeing it disappear. You know it’s still there, but where, and that unknowing becomes unbearable. You slowly build up the courage to – Oh shit it’s here! Don’t run it can hear you. Where’s the tiptoe button? I don’t wanna crouch I’m moving too slow. Did it follow me in, maybe it didn’t notice me, I can’t hear it, okay I’ll just take a peek to see – waa! The Alien is relentless and the experience exhilarating, terrifying – it is. And isn’t.

The Xeno slithers out of the vents like a snake, then stalks around, checking and searching while you stare, frozen, trying to work out an escape. It provokes the most preternatural fear-response I’ve ever known; I’m almost relived when I get killed, it’s a break from the tension. And this is where I get a bit conflicted. Xeno is the office cold – no matter what you do, who you avoid, you’re gonna get it eventually; I never stop being terrified, but I get used to the sensation – slowly you start accepting it’s gonna get you. It becomes an inevitable thing to deal with while doing other things; extras to unlock, schematics to build, relevant junk to find, secrets to explore, archive logs to find and crewmember ID tags to collect (Collectibles? Who the hell cares?!) And that’s while dealing with the Working Joes and Humans, tracking down the W-Y suits – who are injured; guess who has to reach the med bay? – not to mention the discovery that (surprise) Weyland-Yutani hasn’t been entirely honest about its intentions. Plus, resolving my mummy issues. Oh, and escaping. While being constantly eaten. I feel like an overtaxed parent, trying to get chores done while my toddler keeps demanding attention. A bitey toddler. In the end, you just suck it up and chance a run, hoping you’ll reach safety but accepting a kill if it means you scoped out what’s ahead. And once you get into that mindset, the Alien isn’t that scary anymore – Okay it’s still terrifying but I just give up and guess which death I’m about to suffer. Being pulled out from under a desk by my feet is a fave. What isn’t a favourite though, is reloading.

Because you can only save at static locations (you can even be killed while saving), getting killed eventually triggers something other than terror – anger. Now I gotta go through all that crap again and because the Alien is entirely unscripted, you can’t anticipate it – which is cool but it means a fresh hell as you retrace your steps. Or don’t even get to take a step – there’s one death where Ripley looks down and sees its tail sticking through her stomach; you didn’t even know it was there. And to make it worse, while you start all over again, the Alien gets to improve. It gets level-ups?!

Each time you win a round of hide and seek, the Alien learns from it. Use distractions too often and it’ll ignore them, hide in the same spots and it’ll realise. Even the tracker starts to attract it. Every edge Ripley gains eventually kills her. Yet she doesn’t have the same learning curve. If it had behaviours, if you could spot quirks (such as Xeno gets enamoured by flashing lights) or routines I could exploit, like it always disappears after feeding then you’d start to feel a bit more confident and use those against it. Imagine being able to lead the Alien to a human so it feasts and leaves you alone for a while. Imagine if you could gain trust then set them up, create bait traps; Jesus, don’t trust me in extreme stress situations. It sounds like I’m trying to bargain for an advantage but it’s not that; hide and seek just isn’t very compelling as a character trait – you survive not by Ripley’s wit or inventiveness but because it didn’t see me. I thought this was Alien not Predator? Who’s got some mud?

Why can’t I hack a Working Joe? The Alien ignores them. Ripley is an engineer, we can kill them, why not reprogramme them? Instead of playing Tag, why isn’t she improving her odds, out-thinking it? She gets better at surviving, but not in the same way the Alien grows more dangerous. It’s just repetitive upgrading her noise makers when you know it’ll become redundant eventually. There’s a couple of story-dependant out-wits but naturally they fail and there’s no reason why the game couldn’t have included free-form attempts at containing it. I keep thinking of the kitchen scene in Jurassic Park; that is Alien Isolation but without the kids’ ingenuity – or a door to escape through, at least until it figures out how to open doors. Instead of building distractions and lobbing flares, why can’t I repair a bulkhead, let it chase me into a trap, sealing it in for a time? It’d be exciting to see if I could make it, if the trap worked or the Alien just escaped, more pissed at me than before. It’s just not tactical enough to keep your interest – even Pacman got to chase the ghosts once in a while.

Ripley just doesn’t rise to the challenge and it becomes depressing dying all the time. She does get a flamethrower but it learns to stay out of range and wait until you turn away. Now what? Why I can’t use the flamethrower to back it into a room and use those deadbolts she finds? Ripley’s so inept at mastering her situation she’d walk past a power loader.

Essentially, Alien Isolation is a one gag game – we’re here to be chased by an Alien and it does that brilliantly, but you’re so insanely focused on Xeno (regardless of if it’s there or not), you never really appreciate the subtleties, the station itself or even the story – which like the Alien, doesn’t know when to quit.

After a good ten hours of gameplay pass, we’re approaching a great ending. Except we’re not. You know how Shawshank ends like 3 times and each ending is better than the last? This isn’t it. I honestly thought I’d finished and triggered the DLCs. After a terrifying, beat-perfect battle it shifts into a completely different, annoying problem-based faff, followed by betrayals, twists, reveals and returns – none of which were necessary even as fan-service – and turns our Lara Croft-a-like into Sandra Bullock in Gravity. It just overstays it’s welcome by a good five hours; that’s too much crouching. More than a few reviews pointed out how much they wanted an alien-free roaming version of the game, just to take in the sheer beauty of the art design and that’s all that’s missing really. If the Alien would get shot just long enough to appreciate the world it’s based in, give you a breather, it would be the perfect game.

But it’s not over yet. The game had a ton of DLC, including two set within the movie, even featuring voices and digitised versions of the cast; ‘Crew Expendable’ reworks the scene where Dallas attempts to drive the creature out of the vents and into the airlock (we can play as Dallas, Ripley or Parker) while the second, ‘Last Survivor’ follows Ripley’s run for the lifeboat. Post-ending DLCs included ‘Corporate Lockdown’ where a Sevastopol-based W-Y employee regrets their career choices; ‘Trauma’ which follows a doctor who realises her research on the Alien could fall into the wrong hands (Like Eric Red’s hands – you read his Alien 3 script?) and must destroy her research before it destroys her, while ‘Safe Haven’ follows a survivor trying to reach their safe room with supplies. The final two DLCs were ‘Lost Contact’ where the local we met at the start tries to survive as the station falls apart while ‘Trigger’ sees you trying to corral the Alien; those two lead up to Ripley’s arrival. While seeing the station pre-riots is interesting, it’s just more crouching and more death. Ripley, signing off.

Putting the Alien encounters aside, there are other issues – too many distractions and padding, and the character animation is so bad I expected Ripley to turn out to be an android. The Joes are annoyances while the humans are there just to provide more obstacles. You can risk luring the Alien to them or use them to distract it – see, told you it was a good idea. But given their desperation to escape, and the fact they can all see Ripley’s ship orbiting outside, you’d think they’d end hostilities; ‘You have a ship? Okay, I’ll stop clubbing you, let’s work together’ – it’s too much Ripley vs everything. Even a bunch of convicts worked together to capture Alien 3 and really, just an Alien is enough to contend with; I would have rather played as the two of us, not getting embroiled in W-T shenanigans and story twists. The DLCs do explore that to be fair though. See, this game has everything. Even free heart-attacks.

Still, in the end, Alien Isolation is a terrific game. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility. It is repetitive but it’s only my fear that causes me to get aggravated with it, get impatient with Ripley. The care, the attention to detail (the Working Joes do Ash’s little warm up jog when idle); it’s extraordinary – you are on the Nostromo in 1979/2137. And the way the Alien just … that thing is real. But, it’s not Ripley Vs Alien, it’s Alien from the POV of its lunch. While I was for killing that goddamn thing right now, the concept of only ever escaping it works brilliantly, and terrifyingly – it’s just not for me; I’m no Ripley, I’m Lambert.

You’d think after their Colonial Marines mishap, Sega would run away from Alien faster than I do, but they let Creative Assembly craft something clever, original and challenging – it’s an hour before you even see the Alien, and it’s not an easy sell; here’s an alien, and you won’t beat it. That’s not the kind of risk you’d expect from a AAA publisher and for that alone Alien Isolation should be played. From the safety of a locker. I am safe in a locker, right?

2014 | Developer Creative Assembly | Publisher SEGA

Platforms; Win, PS3/4, X360/XO

Genres; horror, survival, sci-fi

Fallout 4 – Pt1

a second wind special review

In this special edition playthrough, FBT relives Fallout 3 *spoilers (FBT hates it)*

I loved Fallout 3. There was nothing like it. Okay, there were loads like it; Stalker, Metro and … others but this was from the makers of Oblivion. It was Oblivion after the bombs dropped. That’s got to be good. And it was. I lived in FO3 for an age, explored every irradiated pixel. The world was horrible but the experience was unforgettable. When FO New Vegas came out I explored the wasteland again, loving being back in the world from a different perspective. Sure, it was a little juvenile, a bit repetitive with huge areas of nothing but a radscorpion for company and its story was daft (Romans? Yeah, they’re a good role model) but it had some really good stuff in it especially with the factions, reputation and robot sex. And then it was five long years in the vault until I could strap on my Pipboy again.

Fallout 4 opening with a pre-war scene was interesting, clearly that was supposed to make me feel emotionally connected to the wasteland later but it hadn’t ever occurred to me during FO3 to picture the world pre-war. I didn’t really care then and I don’t care now cos the game is making me go through annoying mundane tasks to build suspense, as if what’s about to happen will come as a surprise during this perfect suburban domesticity.

Cracking wise with my clearly ill-fated other half, rocking a cradle with my sprog in it, watching TV, all I can think about is the scene in Saints Row 4 where The Boss is trapped in a 50s sitcom and you’re forced to ‘play’ eating breakfast and get the morning paper, itself a parody of games like Heavy Rain. How meta. Eventually I’ve interacted enough and we’re running for the vault. I don’t get much time to look around but I do pause briefly to see the bomb land which is amazing, but I’m quickly hurried inside before I can really take it in. Safely vaulted, getting a real sense of the panic and drama, I’m looking forward to starting a life in a vault. I wonder if this will be the first Fallout game to explore the Commonwealth before it started, adventure in a world where the bombs are still smouldering, but no; we’re tricked into being turned into an ice-vault-icle and the years pass. I helplessly watch as my other half is indeed ill-fated and the kiddiewink snatched. Another unknown period passes and eventually I melt and claw my way outside to catch my first glimpse of the world I’ve seen before.

One of FO3’s greatest moments is when you escape the vault and are awed by the world for the first time. FO4’s attempt at awe is seeing my perfect neighbourhood reduced to ruins. But this isn’t as affecting as Bethesda may have intended; I never made a connection to the neighbourhood, I saw it pass by as I was running for my life so seeing it now has zero impact on me. I’ve seen this before – It’s just another Fallout ruin. I go inside my house and because I assume the game wants me to and stare at the empty cot. Sads. I have no emotional connection to the place or what happened or even the kid, because it all happened too fast. To really have given this impact, the game could have done with a few more hours in the pre-nuclear environment the way you spend time in the Vault in FO3. You think you know the world, then step outside and gasp. It could have worked quite well with the right quests. It’s like FO4 forgot about FO3 and thinks I’ll be shocked by what happened to my home.

A short chat with my still operating Mr Handy then occurs and I uncover something startling; The voice is Jack in Mass Effect! This game had better allow tattoos. I adore Jack; Courtenay Taylor did a stellar job grinding out Jack-the-killing-machine’s dialogue with barely contained rage then slowly softening to reveal a fragile and hurting human underneath but in FO4 my voice stays largely the same; indifferent. I’m playing a mother who just saw her hubby shot, her baby taken and the world destroyed and I’m talking and acting like it’s no biggie. The Handy gives Jack a waypoint to begin the search and so, filled with despair, determined to find my son and planning on playing ME2 next, I head Jack off in the opposite direction.

Before I’ve even met my first bloatfly, I’m already a little worried about where this game will take me. It’s forced onto me a very strong reason to drive forward and I don’t want one, I want to wander and discover. FO3 wasn’t about saving the world it was about taking the first steps towards a better one and until I did it, everyone just got on with life. In NV it was revenge and the key to that is preparation. Alongside it you got embroiled in a larger power-struggle, but one that didn’t need a resolution quick-sharp. In FO4 I am looking for my helpless baby lost somewhere in this nightmare world. How can that not overwhelm every other consideration? Why would I explore, roam, build some granny an armchair when my kid could be on a slab somewhere? It’s impossible to wander the wasteland and care about the main storyline at the same time. This is a Schrodinger’s cat of a main mission; the kid is alive and dead until I action it. So I’ll make a player decision not a character one, and ignore a kidnapped baby. Other open-world games have reconciled a dramatic main plot with freedom in far better ways. Far Cry 3 got the recovery of his friends out of the way quickly and focused on sacrificing your humanity in favour of revenge. Perfect for side-questing. Mass Effect 3 had arguably the biggest story driver of all time – a trifling mission to save the earth and then the galaxy – but it encouraged side-missioning because most if not all your actions added to your readiness; You were side-questing to prepare for the main quest. Another open-worlder that stumbled its main mission was Tomb Raider – why am I looking for Dream Catchers when my friends are being held hostage? In FO4 it’s worse; maternal instinct or material instinct?

Ignoring the baby and taking on what FO4 is, it’s interesting and brave that I’m a vault dweller with no knowledge of the war’s repercussions. I have no training, no survival instinct, no idea what’s out there. I’m a fifties housewife. Amazing. Everything my character sees should cause her to breakdown, every item should be a mystery, every challenge an impossible feat and every creature a lethal encounter – but we just merrily crack on, knowing how to read a Pipboy, pick locks, fire guns. I should have screamed the place down the first time I saw a ghoul. But no, I’ve gone full Rambo in one cut-scene and it’s a huge mistake because playing someone completely unprepared and incapable would have been more realistic, more frightening. Why create a character so woefully unprepared and conflicted, then have them handle everything like they’ve been doing this for years? It would have been compelling to find trainers, get experience, learn, barely survive. But no, we hit the ground running and gunning.

After a few hours of barrelling about lost in the world I so loved in FO3, I stop and look around. It does look amazing. It’s exactly how I remembered the post-apocalyptic world looking. Just how FO3 looked. Just how NV looked, when it wasn’t crashing. Exactly the same. Same landscape. Same items. Same everything… Everything the same… Maybe a little more pixel-sharp, but yeah … there it is then, the wasteland. Eight years I’ve been waiting for this. Just how I left it eight years ago. And within the next few hours, the worst thing that can happen in an open world game happens. I get bored. The problem is I’ve seen it all before. The thrill of discovery, of getting into and out of trouble, of finding deserted houses with skeletal bodies, venturing into buildings, we went through that in FO3; it’s just more of the same and the impact is lost. I’m deathly, depressingly nonplussed in a huge apocalyptic world.

Oh look, a factory. I wonder if it’s a nuka cola factory? Yes, it is. I wonder if it’ll be full of raiders. Yes, it is. Water, bring on the Mirelurks. A bog? I can’t even be bothered with the bloatflies. I’ll go around. It’s the same disarray, the same crap on the floor, the same super mutants. Even the Megaton replacement Diamond City just reminds you of Megaton. Bigger but not better, not different enough to get the wanderer juices flowing. Each Elder Scroll fundamentally changed the environment, the experiences, why did Bethesda keep going back to the irradiated well? Surely there could have been other ways to explore nuclear Armageddon; New Vegas was set in a location spared direct hits so NV explored how humanity would survive in an isolated world, not an obliterated one. FO4 could have gone somewhere else entirely but instead it feels like more of FO3. When you compare it to rival Sandbox games it comes across as lazy; Far Cry distinguished itself by never repeating itself, every Assassin’s Creed is unique while each Mass Effect subtly updated, changed and refreshed without becoming too distant from its predecessor; all the GTA’s stay safely within a city, but with new ways to explore it and Saints Row 4 rebuilt Steelport but gave you new ways to abuse it. In those you know which game you’re looking at; I couldn’t pick a FO4 screenshot out of a FO3 line-up.

The only part of FO4 that’s remotely fascinating is the Glowing Sea, a deadly ground-zero for the bomb we saw at the beginning. It’s a horrible place and ironically, given its deadly nature the only place FO4 comes alive. A sick and blighted place, full of seeping decay and absolute death, The Glowing Sea is thrilling, not just in the experience but because it’s new. Had FO4 been set here entirely, it could have been something incredible. We’re constantly injecting radaway and the like, surely we’ve built up a resistance by now? Come on; in FO3 we purified water, no one’s built on that since? Setting FO4 in the Glowing Sea would have been stunning; it could have played like Bioshock – folks safe but rotting away inside great buildings with their own society and laws, surrounded by a lethal environment that only the brave (i.e Jack) will brave and bring the different houses together to fight some larger force or maybe eradicate radiation so everyone can leave. Having the Lone Hero find a city trapped by air would have set a new bar. Anything but just visit the place before returning to the rinse and repeat of FO3.

Worse, if not unforgivable, there’s so much reskinning and recycling going on I’m surprised CoD’s legal team didn’t sue. Who reskins a game nearly a decade old?! If you played FO3, NV or Skyrim then you’ve played in the world of FO4. This is more than just lazy art design on Bethesda’s part. This is wilfully cheating gamers who plonked down a TON of Nuka caps on a new fallout world and got something built in Skyrim’s Construction Set. In years to come, people will discuss FO3 and 4 interchangeably – that’s not good enough. And it’s not just evident in the art design. We’re still lock-picking the same way (and let’s not forget that was reskinned in Skyrim too); Sure, the locks wouldn’t have changed but the mini-game? Come on. Who in the fallout world is still manufacturing bobbypins?! I’m not talking about realism (I have a mini nuke, that should get a drawer open), just give us something new; anything but this again, I’ve been breaking locks the same way for at least four Bethesda games. Each Mass Effect had a different approach to hacking, why am I still playing Boggle in FO4 too? It’s all the same like a place-holder, a mega DLC.

Some creatures though do move in new and frightening ways – the same creatures but you can’t have everything. Deathclaws leaping over fencing and through buildings is pants-wettingly good/bad as is trying to sneak around them, and the ghouls are faster too. And then there’s the Legendary enemies. Random encounters with extra-tough opponents that weld unique and powerful weapons. They’re actually more of a frustration and a distraction than anything exciting. Sure there’s going to be ornery old coots out there that know how to take a hit, and they’re likely to be carrying good loot but they’re barely even an event moment, just ammo-sucking annoyances mixed in with regular bullet-catchers carrying rarely exciting but always heavy goods. Borderlands often battered the crap out of you then dropped something even bigger and nastier on you, but you knew BL was as trustworthy as it was insane. That creature will drop something sexy. You may spend a hundred mill on a reclone, but goddamn that loot will be worth it. So you suck it up and Jack Burton it; Gimme your best shot, pal. I can take it. In FO4 it’s not worth all the Buffout and ammo and they appear at frustrating times when you’re just trying to get some place.

And at first, it seems the place you want to get is home. Largely an improved version of Skyrim’s Hearthfire extension, you can stake a claim on multiple locations, rebuild and attract settlers. Sounds fantastic, and judging by some of the settlements gamers have created, the possibilities are endless. They’re also mind-numbingly boring. Setting up power actually requires you to do the wiring. Well, I’m kinda searching for my son but yeah okay, lemme just rewire a plug. And when I do get settlers in, do they get involved? Yes, if I force them to but only in support roles while I’m out trying to find more logs for their fricking roof. Had the building work been played through a mini-game where you could properly plan, like a Sim City or the way Black & White allowed you to train a foreman to direct the rest of the followers, it could have been amazing. Set plans in motion then return to see how everyone was doing, how your little fiefdom was coming along. It could encourage you to talk to NCPs, finding scavengers to find materials, track down a builder, a planner to design it, artists to decorate it, build a militia, become raiders and attract criminals or a peaceful settlement for families. It could have been incredible. Go from a ruin to a functioning town, become a force in the wasteland! No. And thanks to a build system that’s more infuriating and confusing than picking something up in Trespasser, just trying to put a rug on the floor becomes rage-inducing; my house looks like an art student’s Cubism project. I have to do this for the entire settlement?! I eventually lost it and walked off never to return. And I have to do this for every place I’ve secured?! I’m a slumlord and I’m okay with that. The Fallout society can rebuild itself for all I care. The tenants constantly ask for things to be built; how did they all survive this long without me?! I just woke up, how come I’m a DIY God as well as a survivalist expert? I just give up and let the settlers live in squalor. Get out of my bed.

We’ll leave FBT to his impression of Reg Prescott. Maybe he’ll cheer up when he discovers the romance sub-plot, so check out pt2 to see if FBT forgets his other-half who died a day ago and finds love in the wasteland. Oh yeah, and finds his kid. Keep forgetting about that.

Quake 4

A SECOND WIND REVIEW

This is a review of Quake 4 and FBT still spends most of it moaning about Quake.

If Doom was the Star Wars of gaming, Quake is the prequels; Everything is there, it looks great, but they’re shit rip-offs when you get down to it. Only the multiplayer saved it; and the sequel wasn’t even a sequel – it was a new IP, they just couldn’t think of a better name, which tells you everything you need to know about id by this point. Quake represents where id went wrong and I hate Quake more than the Star Wars prequels. It was a polished turd.

Nothing more than a tech company by 2004, id busied themselves sullying Doom’s legacy with Doom 3, aka ‘buy our new engine’; they off-loaded the Quake franchise to old pals Raven. I have a huge soft spot for them; besides making one of my fave Doom Clones, Heretic, they also hit both Star Trek and Star Wars out of the park with Voyager Elite Force and Jedi Knight Outcast/Academy. But I still avoided Quake 4 because it was a Doom 3 clone. More dark corridors and jump-scares? Naa. But now, a decade on and one Steam sale later, can Raven do what id couldn’t – Make a good game out of the Quake universe(s)?

With id out of the equation and good old fashioned war movies as inspiration, Q4 actually gets the job done right. A military FPS, Q4 picks up directly after Enemy Territory and Quake II – finally, some Quake Continuity. Plus, it’s single-mission driven; the first Quake game which is more than just lip-service for the multiplayer. The Strogg, an cybernetic invading force seen in Q2 has been beaten (well done Doomguy of Q2) and our hero, Kane, is deployed on their homeworld to mop up. But of course, the Strogg aren’t quite as down and out as the military thought, and soon enough we’re in a battle for our lives. It’s got a D-Day meets Starship Troopers vibe, and while it’s standard ‘get this door open’, ‘go find a medic’ orders, the missions often turn FUBAR as the Strogg push back – in Q4 it feels realistic in the way the army has misjudged Strogg forces and you get the sense we’re just being played with.

Rather than be a straight FPS with us wading through infinite Strogg, Q4 goes for the realistic approach; its a CoD-classic era tactical shooter and we’re often accompanied by other commandos, either from our squad or other regiments (Including Raven squad, complete with their logo as their patch) and they’re expendable – losing them is occasionally scripted but not always, and ending up alone can get under your skin; you suddenly feel outnumbered. Still, it’s not all on you; safe-areas where you hang with other troopers reveal missions they’re on, sorties that got their teams cut to ribbons and you pick up snippets of transmissions detailing other events; you get the sense that you’re part of a bigger mission, Q4 really tries to explore the grunt experience and seeing jets scream past in dogfights or troop carriers land or get bombed as they evac makes you think we’re all in it together. We listen to other troops discussing events from the earlier games, worry about ‘the folks back home’. It reminds me a lot of Raven’s Elite Force – no Seven of Nine though, but you can’t have everything.

The game itself has some nice epic moments to give it that war movie vibe; there’s a great moment where you help secure a landing zone for a carrier, then watch it circle and land, then climb aboard, all in one shot. While we wander the ship, it circles to the next LZ and we deploy into another battle zone. You always feel as if you’re pushing toward a goal, doing your bit to stop the Strogg.

The Strogg are basically what the Borg would be like if they assimilated the WWE. Huge cyborg mentalists, sporting the kind of dismemberment and horror that’s usually reserved for Clive Barker; even Pinhead would be like ‘that’s a bit much’ and they provide some great firefights; it’s not a case of who can pump the most bullets into the other first (although it seems to be them generally). They’re formidable. Most of the Strogg’s military is converted humans from past battles, adding a macabre element and there’s the standard gunners but also big rigs like the Harvester, a giant spider-like creature that reminds you of the striders from Half-Life – a scripted moment when one barrels towards you, legs stomping while you and your team are stuck in a corridor is awesome-scary. There’s freaks like the surgeon guys who haunt the medical bays; cut-off at the waist and hovering, they take great delight in swooping down, swinging surgical instruments, while returning from QII, the Iron Maiden has had an upgrade including the ability to teleport, going from nuisance to rocket-propelling threat. Meanwhile heavy-unit The Gladiator has to drop its shield to fire so it’s a quick-draw or run-quick. Q4’s enemies aren’t hugely original but they have some tricks up what’s left of their sleeves and while most of Q4 is close-quarter corridors, they’re nicely laid out with various ways to advance or get the upper hand if you spot them in time; the game balances slow, uneasy exploratory levels with throw-down shootouts keeping it interesting. Progressing often requires a bit of thought and backtracking, rather plodding ever-onward and there’s quite a few outdoor levels, including some vehicular action; hover tanks, exoskeletons and jumping aboard troop carriers to keep the Strogg off our tail. It is industrial in look and without doubt falls into a Doom 3 feel at times, being built on idTech 4 but it’s got some sci-fi to take the dreary edge off and Q4 quickly develops its own personality. Kane himself though is just a Doomguy; it has Doom 3’s weird ‘zoom out of his head’ cut-scenes and he’s the strong silent type, a grunt committed only to the mission – which the marines have started to lose the initiative on. Then, you lose more than that.

Roughly mid-way through, it’s all on you as you reach the final button that’ll stop the Strogg. Yeah, that room isn’t clearly set up for a boss battle is it. But it’s worse than that. What follows is a grotesque trip as Kane is ripped and rendered for Stroggification. At the last second, we’re saved by our squad but a glance in the mirror suggests we’d need more than an analgesic cream to clear that up. Ever stoic, Kane seems largely untraumatized after being buzzsawed to pieces and his head cracked open. While conscious. Without anaesthetic. Man, even Doomguy looked perturbed when he lost most of his health in one shot, but Kane doesn’t even blink when he loses most of his limbs. He doesn’t even check if little Kane is still there.

Once Kane escapes, he’s Robocop with a missile launcher. Faster, meaner, a better shot and you can hear the Strogg talking and interact with their equipment now. It feels like the game just changed, but not enough. Everyone bangs on about Kane now being the army’s most important asset but we’re back to getting doors open and babysitting. It should drastically alter the game but it falls into standard shooter tropes – even his squaddies are largely unfazed by their old pal looking like the enemy. It could have gone in all sorts of ways; Kane cast out to go it alone, or hunted by his own squad, or even have him completely assimilated and turn on his pals – Kane could have been biblical reference (sort of) so to have him start killing his bros would have been sick. At least have him turn into an infiltration soldier, walking the Strogg areas without threat as you try to bring down defences, see how far you can get before that itchy trigger-finger gets too much. It could have gone anywhere but it just keeps going until it becomes standard shooter fare. It just doesn’t alter the gameplay drastically enough considering what we just watched him go through. He’s just Doomguy on Steroids and doesn’t quite feel as key to the mission as everyone bangs on about; it’s all down to Super-Kane in the end, and it’s a good ending with a nice question-mark final shot, and it works, but it feels a little bit of a missed opportunity.

Stroggification disappointment aside, Q4 is a cracking shooter. It’s a real good’un. You feel like John Wayne in some 1940s war movie or western; Q4 holds up as a shooter from a period where all gamers banged on about was Half Life 2 – like Prey (the 2006 version) which this often reminds you of, Q4 has some great moments and it deserves to be played; it’s more than another Quake sequel built on Doom. It’s the Rogue One of the Star Wars movies.

Raven software; always the bridesmaid never the bride, most of their successes have come from playing in someone else’s sandbox; their early games were built with id (ShadowCaster ran on an id engine, Romero exec-produced the Heretic series), while their best games, Elite Force and Jedi Knight were fan-fave franchise licences; besides Quake they also rebooted Wolfenstein and then produced a shooter based on the magazine for gun-lovers, Soldier of Fortune, which is as odd as it was ultra-violent. Then they contracted with Marvel for a series of X-Men games. Everything Raven touches is a solid, likeable game – and in the case of Jedi Outcast, an absolute classic – yet they never had an in-house property; their most recent attempt, Singularity failed and now they just churn out Call of Duty DLC. They deserve better, and it’s a shame Raven got bought by Activision; if only id bought them instead – as each id engine evolved, their games devolved. Raven’s developer genius built on id’s technical genius could have staved both off from being bought out by the kind of soulless companies they once rallied against. Just think what Doom 3 could have been; The Doom Awakens.

2005 | Developer Raven Software | Publisher Activision

platforms; win | X360

Mass Effect 1 vs 2

An Agree To Disagree review

FBT & TheMorty fall out over who has the best Mass Effect

Mass Effect – FBT

This seems like a tough one, but it isn’t. Mass Effect is better than Mass Effect 2. ME3 we’ll leave alone for now, it’s suffered enough but ME2 is a Michael Bay remake of David Fincher’s Mass Effect; it’s all shouty and sexy, missing the subtlety and sinister tone of ME1. In ME2, when we’re not fighting robots (never, ever exciting) it’s oversized midges. When we’re not ignoring the fact that Shep’s thrown in with terrorists, we’re helping our squad get over their daddy issues. ME1 is a slow burn spin through a galaxy that just gets bigger, grander, a true role-playing experience. ME2 is a bombastic, set-piece-driven shooter with too much filler, it’s Independence Day to ME1’s Close Encounters; instead of delving deeper it’s just louder, bigger, shoutier … and it opens with your hero dying but then getting better…

And who are we fighting in ME2? Saren was a complex character aptly supported by the Matriarch, and then there’s the Geth; self-aware machines searching for their God? Brilliant. There was the Thorian and the Rachni, Sci-Fi characters at their purest. ME2 has roaches. We even had a much cooler Reaper; Sovereign. Epic and arrogant whereas ME2’s Harbinger is all off-screen ‘puny humans’ speeches; Sovereign makes good on his threat and rocks up to kick ass, unlike Harbinger, hiding behind a gnat.

And Shep’s taking orders from a bloke called TIM (The Illusive Man’s initials are Tim? Tim?!). We all know Tim’s a villain but what does Shep do about it? Just contemptuously folds his arms at him. Did they forget to clone his balls? This is why I play as Femshep. Cerberus were ultra-evil in ME1, now they’re just misunderstood? Did he forget what they did to General thingie, the experiments? ME1 Shep woulda nicked the new Normandy and hightailed it back to Anderson. And what’s with the Alliance anyway? Shep; ‘yeah, I was dead, I’m not now. I am working with a supremacist group who tortured my own squad’ / Alliance; ‘Oh okay, here’s some side missions’. Shep basically signed up with Britain First ‘cos they gave him a new ship. And Joker too, the voice of sarcastic reason throws in with Cerberus cos he was grounded while Doc Chakwas joined a terrorist group cos she missed serving on a spaceship? There’s a few others knocking about in the Alliance. And Liara sells Shep’s body to them. It’s because I chose Ash isn’t it.

There’s no Ash in ME2! She has one scene before grumping off – it’s great that she refuses to join Cerberus because of the Commander’s influence; She had pro-human leanings, perfect for Cerberus but the cap inspires her to see beyond it and yet here he is; without Ash – Miranda is no substitute for being called Skipper. I can’t even be swayed by her catsuits. I can’t. Totally not swayed at all. Oh, hey Miranda, just stopping by again … so are we flirting yet, cos if not Jack’s looking kinda hot. As is Tali, Kelly, Samara… ME1 is intimate, personal; with six companions, you spend time with them whereas ME2’s frat-party means most get completely sidelined – they’re all great and that makes it worse. You end up going ‘Oh I’d better take Grunt, he’s not been out for a while’. The closeness of ME1’s crew lends itself to the story, this small band taking on the universe – and the relationships that develop feel more natural. In ME2 everyone’s getting jiggy; that place is like Porky’s.

And how does Shep chose to fill his spare time in ME2 when he’s not skulking around Miranda’s office? Scanning planets. He has a ship full of people and an AI onboard, can’t anyone else fire the probes?! Even EDI sounds fed up with it. And what the hell is Joker doing? Why am I piloting the ship about?! ME1 made it all about your command decisions; surprised Shep’s not on latrine duty in ME2. And there’s Mako-time. Granted, most of the time you’re just rolling back down the mountain again and the planets are sparse, but it’s a change of scene and an occasional Thresher. Admittedly, Shep needing to do a hack on a lump of gold you found makes no sense though.

ME2, flying ants aside, is a great thrill-ride but it’s a game trying to be a movie whereas ME1 is a great game, period. Some serious shit goes down in ME1 – you earnt that determined hero-walks-offscreen final shot. ME2 is just padding until a final boss reveal. Okay, I’m not even convincing myself; I’m arguing my Ferrari is better than TheMorty’s Lambo. ME2 is pretty darn close to perfect. But ME1 does get a little closer.

Mass Effect 2 – TheMorty
ME2…or as I like to call it, The Magnificent Seven in Space. Good ol’ Commander Shepard strolls into Dodge to take on the seemingly impossible task of preventing a vicious band of outlaws from enslaving the townsfolk. Of course, he can’t do it alone and immediately sets out to recruit his own band of expendable misfits. His McQueen, Coburn and Bronson are Turian, Asari and Krogan but pack an equally weighted, heavyweight punch in an incredible final mission where one wrong move and it’s more like you’re playing Massacre Effect.

How anyone could dispute that ME2 is by far and away not only the best of the trilogy but also one of the all-time greatest games ever is baffling. Firstly, your squad is over double the size, meaning you can tailor your arsenal to suit the mission – unlike ME1 where you’re pretty much just going into every fight with Wrex and *insert love interest here*. Having the same conversation no matter who you choose and going into cut scenes knowing that they’ll repeat the same Renegade/Paragon drivel like the classic angel and devil on your shoulder. Give me ME2 any day where you have to think carefully about who you take so that Jack doesn’t kick off in the Cerberus base or that two girls you want to sleep with aren’t going to get wise to your polygamous plan.

When you’re not doing very linear missions that are pretty much just a copy and paste job of the last mission you did, you’re travelling in the Mako – the most pointless and boring vehicle in gaming history. I mean, it’s the year 2183, we’ve discovered faster than light travel, have fully aware synthetic AI and can scan an entire planet using a fancy holographic wrist watch. So why in this age are we riding around in a 6-wheeled, saloon version of the 60s moon-landing buggy? It’s so dull but not as dull as the planets you’re driving round at snail pace. I preferred wasting 20 minutes of valuable gaming time trying to take a shortcut over a mountain because it was infinitely more interesting than the unattractive, soulless journey around it – even if that trip would have taken half the time. Never have I played a game where driving felt more slow and painful than the M25 at rush hour. ME2 though, blew that boring piece of scrap out of the water when it gave us the Hammerhead. A hovering jet that was faster, quicker and more agile and manoeuvred with a distinct panache.

Don’t even get me started on the antagonists. A firefight with Saren on Virmire has him running for the hills like Bowser at the end of every Mario level ever – hardly putting the fear of God into the gamer. The Matriarch battle has the most pointless of endings where she dies no matter what choice you make and as for the Rachnii… it just reminded me of fighting radroaches in Fallout. In ME2 you take down a half-human half-reaper. yep REAPER. I mean, beats a bloke possessed. When you take down Sovereign, it’s pretty much just a mind-controlled husk…hardly comparable.

Thank God there’s no Ash in ME2. How on Earth are you supposed to save the universe with a nagging wife over your shoulder… imagine every time you pick Miranda or Jack having her moan “oh, you’re going out with HER again are you?” and making you feel guilty just because you need someone with the Shockwave biotic skill. No thanks. That’s all she did in ME1, whine. About how she got Kaiden killed, about how her father always wanted a boy about how she’s not good enough for you. Have some self-respect woman. I’m the first human spectre, lack of confidence isn’t exactly a turn-on. In ME2 though, you have to work for it as everyone plays hard to get. Much better than fishing in a very small pond where you pretty much have the choice – white or blue…?

Having this argument is like saying Alien is better than Aliens or Judgement Day is better than Terminator. In reality you couldn’t have the action-packed sequel without the taut, suspenseful original that sets the mood. Maybe ME2 is better but even if it is, and it’s a BIG if, it’s only because it had an almost perfect game to pick apart and try it’s best to improve on. At least there’s one thing FBT and I agree on – both are a million times better than ME3.

Mass Effect 1, 2007 | Mass Effect 2, 2010

Developer BioWare | Publisher Electronic Arts

platforms; win, PS3, XBox360

Prey 2017

A SECOND WIND REVIEW

FBT plays Total Recall … in Space.

The Prey franchise has the most convoluted history. The 2006 original started in the 90s as a Doom clone. The trailer for the unreleased Prey II showed a Bounty Hunter chasing aliens through Blade Runner. And now this, the 2017 version, a ‘spiritual sequel’ to SystemShock. It might be Prey in name only, but it’s got a lot to live up to.

In the near future, Morgan Yu is in the final stages of preparing to board Talos I, an orbiting science station managed by her/his brother, Alex. As she performs a psych test, something attacks the testing team, and Morgan finds herself back in her apartment like it never happened; the apartment was just a façade and Morgan a test subject aboard the station. Breaking out, she discovers the station housed an alien species, the Typhon whose abilities Alex was engineering into products sold back on earth. But now they’re loose and Morgan, with no memory before waking, is the only thing stopping them reaching Earth.

Morgan’s missing memory is explained by Prey’s version of Psi Powers/Plasmids/Vigors; this time, Neuromods, implanted into her brain and allowing super-human abilities, but removing it causes all memories since it’s insertion to be lost, hence Morgan not remembering what happened or suspecting she was a lab rat. But who made her a rat? What’s Alex’s role, and what are the Typhon up to? While Morgan tries to make sense of it all, the station’s owners send a team to put down the Typhon threat the old-fashioned way – and silence any survivors.

Exploring the station, which is somewhere between Rapture and 60’s-era Star Trek, Morgan is helped/hindered by Alex, contacting her to claim the station is their life’s work and too valuable to destroy while AI-bots Morgan left as clues insist she realised the threat was too great and everything –including her- needs to be destroyed. It’s up to Morgan to navigate the station, save (or ignore) various other survivors and stop the Typhon however she sees fit.

At times, Prey is the best game ever made; but after every great moment –and there are a lot– it flatlines into a trudge until the next set-piece. And there’s something else taking the edge off Prey; we’ve played it before. Not the original, regrettably, but it endlessly calls to mind other games; Bioshock, Portal 2, Fallout 3, Half-Life, Arkane’s own Dishonored – and that’s before we get into the similarities with System Shock 2 (Let it go). It just all feels so familiar that Prey never quite comes into its own no matter how strikingly original it seems.

The Typhon are awesome to begin with. The smallest, the Mimic are the size of a cat but their ability to morph into any similar-sized shape leaves you nervous about approaching almost everything. Calling to mind The Thing, it’s a great to see one scuttle away then notice two boxes on the floor – wasn’t there only one box there a second ago? NO! It was the coffee mug on the table! Panic! They’re really good – and unscripted, they’ll make their own choices dependant on how you might have altered the room, where you are, and you can return to an area hours later and get jumped, cursing yourself for not noticing a desk has two chairs. But the later and larger Typhon can’t shapeshift; they just attack, and while they unnervingly wander unscripted, they always use the same tactic. The Mimics are the most fun because you swap roles; hunted and hunter. The big boys just treat you as prey so you fight or flee; never getting to turn the tables and it’s odd to be more intimidated by this game’s headcrabs than their big bros; it’s not a horror game but the Mimics keep you jumpy and make you waste a lot of ammo, shooting toilet rolls just to be sure.

What we have to shoot with varies. There’s the security team’s pistols and shotguns which can be upgraded and they have a lovely art-deco fused with tech look to them. There’s that scourge of the office, a foam-arrow crossbow – redundant against the Typhon but invaluable for firing arrows through gaps and triggering touch-screens. The big one is the Goo gun though. Firing fast-drying gel, it can then be used to clamber to hidden or inaccessible areas and momentarily slow down the Typhon, but after a while you kinda wish you could take on the Typhon a little differently than point and shoot.

It’s not all shooting though. The Neuromods are broadly split into two groups, human and alien skill tress. Human level-ups are fairly typical; carry more crap, better hacking, weapon upgrades and so on. But the alien side is both brilliant and woefully underused. Early on Morgan recovers the Psychoscope, which allows her to scan the Typhon and learn its weaknesses – like the camera in Bioshock. Once unlocked, you can gain Typhon abilities such as mimicking the Mimic. Anything roughly Mimic sized you can morph into and fully upgrading lets you move as the item; I even managed to get past a security door by turning into a mug on a shelf then rolling under the security glass. It’s brilliant and a crime this doesn’t become a major part of the gameplay rather than just an alternative or stealth option; others such as mind-control, fire traps and kinetic blast are plasmid-tastic but they mostly support weapons for the guns. Interestingly though, the more Morgan uses those, the more Typhon she becomes; eventually security sentries and the like attack you on sight as Morgan starts to lose her humanity. Not that she had a great deal to begin with.

A standard silent hero, we learn Morgan’s backstory from the AI and snippets of recordings, but she never really comes into her own. Obviously, much like Jack in Bioshock, that allows us to play her as we see fit but whereas Jack was ostensibly a stranger in a strange land, Morgan is tied into all of this, even if her mind is now a blank and we should be discovering as much about her as the world she created. There’s strong implications that she wasn’t the pleasantest of people, but the game doesn’t seem to know if it’s her redemption or not; and the whole piece around her choosing to go through the procedure at the start is muddled; or maybe I missed a diary entry. Additionally, as the game progresses we get some serious Would You Kindly vibes and you start to guess where all this is going but it’s just not paced urgently enough to press on – there’s too much non-linear wandering going on.

The station is huge and varies in look and style, reflecting the station’s history, but a lot of the time you’re not doing a lot. A prominent element is recycling. Morgan can pick up almost any waste scattered about to feed a recycler which reconstitutes it into more useful materials. Those can then be added to a Fabricator which generates ammo, neuromods, and you can create or recycle weapons, letting you change your loadout – if you have the rubbish handy. It’s great at first, until you realise you’re spending hours just tidying up the station; it’s not very heroic to get excited at finding a banana peel, and all the traipsing back to the nearest machine to get some bullets gets wearisome. The idea that you have to purge a space station of shape-shifting aliens intent on invading earth should be a sobering, singular thought. Not checking bins for orange peels. Somehow the RPG elements work against Prey, it’s should have been more urgent; Morgan is trying to convince herself blowing up the station with her on it is the only option, shouldn’t we be focused on that?

Further RPG elements appear in the shape of mini-side missions and helping those you meet, and you return to the same areas often, especially the station lobby – it just makes the game feel meandering. But if you get bored of the inside, you can always pop out. You can shortcut around areas by going outside and using airlocks, fix ruptures to decompress areas to explore once back inside again. Floating around in space is a good metaphor for Prey; that seems to be partly down to the game’s obsession with multiple approaches to problems; that shouldn’t be a criticism but it needs to keep the pressure on – turns out I’m not the guy to save the world from an alien invasion, I’m too easily distracted digging through bins.

There’s one standout though and it’s literally a nightmare; the Nightmare Typhon. I was so thankful I met it after getting the mimic power-up; pretending to be a file binder and holding my breath, watching it hunt the room it chased me into is one of the most thrilling moments in the game. But, even that gets samey after a while; depending on how you best it, the Nightmare can return in the space of time it takes you to walk to a Recycler and back.

Having finally reached the ending, forcing myself to stop recycling and actually shoot something, I was surprised at how it ended. There were some curiously tender moments as I made my choices. It wasn’t what I expected. But then, after the credits, we get the true ending which was exactly what I expected. Who watches game credits? This isn’t Marvel. Escape and quit, that’s the gamer way. It is a much more honest way for it all to end but it’s diluted by being ‘hidden’, as if the game wasn’t sure it should have gone that way after-all. But then, Prey as an entire experience is constantly diluted, either by its lax pacing or being so reminiscent of other games. Still, it’s a great ending, and even if you expected it, the way it plays out is the stuff of Bioshock legend.

On the surface Prey is pure class; the station is astonishingly beautiful, the Typhon are terrifying and it’s very believable; the Groundhog Day moment was so effective I assumed I’d died, placed back at the last auto-save and the overall plot is epic. Had it been a little more linear, made more of Morgan and made the Neuromods so powerful you were fighting the Typhon on their terms instead of popping back to recycle some shotgun shells, it could have been a great game; it just tries to be everything to everyone and ends up never feeling like anything more than a Mimic.

2017 | Developer; Arkane Studios | Publisher; Bethesda Softworks
Platforms; Win | PS4 | XO