Tag: sequel

Wolfenstein

Second Wind

FBT plays Wolfenstein. No, the other one.

This 2009 Wolf effort has seemingly been scrubbed from existence. Maybe because of rights issues; it was released by Activision who own devs Raven, but the franchise is owned by id who were bought by Bethesda; maybe Bethesda wanted it gone so folks wouldn’t confuse it with the reboot; or maybe it’s just not very good. Either way, it’s been MIA since 2014. But I have a copy I don’t remember playing – time to replay Wolfenstein for the first time. Maybe.

A sequel to Return to Castle Wolfenstein, we’re back in the boots of blonde and blue-eyed BJ, except now he’s a brunette as he’s ‘undercover’. Which lasts roughly 5 seconds before he’s discovered and heroically sinks a Nazi battleship, escaping with a strange medallion. BJ is then sent undercover in a Nazi-controlled mining town where crystals within the medallion are found. Which lasts about 5 seconds before he’s recognised; BJ’s surname is ‘Blast’owitz, he was never going to be a master spy.

Saved by a resistance group, BJ begins doing missions for them while investigating the strange crystals and discovers, via another secret group, that the crystals let the medallion connect to ‘The Black Sun’ alternate universe and focus its energy. BJ must stop the Nazi’s experiments before they weaponise the crystals and use Black Sun to win the war.

The medallion is very handy, granting BJ in-game power-ups; Mire, which slows down time, Shield which reflects attacks and Empower which gives weapons a boost. But the best one, Veil which reveals secrets and lets you pass through walls, is so tightly scripted what seems like a great edge quickly becomes a chore. You can only pass through areas marked with a Sigil and naturally, they’re located only where the game wants you to go. Usually to locked rooms with treasure, or a scripted get-around. Often the only way to proceed is by using Veil so it feels contrived, which makes it less of a cool power-up and more of a lockpick. I wasn’t expecting it to let me leap around the battlefield untethered but – okay, that’s exactly what it should have done.

There’s a strange sense of conflict within Wolf. It looks and feels like a game that has a lot to say but doesn’t, ending up frustratingly unrealised, and it also feels a little old-school. The cut-scenes and plotting jar with the linear, mow-them-all-down tone of the missions, and that’s most evident by the free-roam town we doss about in.

Isenstadt, the town, has two areas each with a resistance base you strike out from. Within those bases you can chat to forgettable characters and pick up missions, several of which can be active at once but the two camps, ‘drive out the Nazis’ and ‘uncover the secrets of the crystals’ don’t converge or conflict so there’s no emotional investment in their plotlines, no final choice for BJ. They don’t even coincide within a location, so Isenstadt ends up like a multiplayer lobby. A really confusing, easy to get lost in lobby with loads of dead-ends, confusing paths and pointless areas. The whole town is one big empty frustration that slows the game to a crawl; I’m too heroic to ask directions, but the marker is no help and neither is the map.

Isenstadt isn’t just a chore to walk through, it’s filled with respawning Nazis. They constantly repopulate, obsessed with finding the world’s worst spy, yet stop shooting if you enter a safe-house then resume when you leave. At the very least we should be either sneaking (like, with a medallion that can let you pass through walls) or killing all witnesses before entering a safe house? At one point we enter a bar and not one Nazi in there reacts – I was literally followed in by Nazis trying to kill me but now they’re all like ‘will ein Pint?’

You can upgrade weapons and the Medallion by using gold and trinkets, but that causes you to waste time searching instead of shooting and Veil just becomes a metal detector. Intel and “Tomes” (from Heretic, why no return to Heretic, Raven?) will unlock some of the upgrades and finding all of them makes upgrades free. I never find them all.

Once you’re finally free of the town, you’re into familiar shooter levels. A hospital, farmlands, mines, a dig, the standard paranormal base filled with freakish experiments, an airfield and a castle (not Wolfenstein), before a zeppelin and a detour into Black Sun which feel very cut-short and reveals nothing about the Medallion. It’s just such an ‘almost’ great game.

Thing is though, it’s a great shooter and loads of fun. The levels, while linear are all epic both to fight through and look at, and once you get your aim in, it settles nicely between modern shooter sensibilities and retro mayhem; there were times when I was just blastowitz’ing everything in sight and loving it. The Nazis are strictly Indiana Jones types and BJ is a bit of an Indy himself, cock-sure and one-liner driven. He can even pick up sledgehammers and axes to throw; that’s never going to get boring. Firefights are given a nice edge by canisters filled with the crystals; shooting them causes Gravity to take a short break which is great, while the medallion’s powers also add levels to the mayhem.

It does show its age occasionally – the Nazis are not as clever as they make out, they’ll yell out my position but not react, shout ‘flank him’ and not move or ‘he’s reloading!’ and not take the opportunity to fire, revealing they’re scripted rather than AI led, including tell-tale signs like sniping one Nazi only for the other to carry on talking like he wasn’t covered in his mate’s brains. But still, I never got bored and they’re varied enough to keep it interesting, going from grunts to SS troops; in one level I sneak into a house at night and get confronted by Nazis in their PJs, which is a different look for the master race.

In later levels we face off against armoured sons-a-bitches, scampering experiments, invisible assassins and a wicked crystal-using Nazi who makes like those twins in the Matrix sequels and is great fun/annoying to fight, especially as they can also pass their powers onto nearby troops. We even have the catsuit-clad female Nazis from Return, which is a welcome sight, as is a Nazi dominatrix complete with whip, while in the Veil there’s odd aphid critters which you can shoot to create electric storms. Pisses them off though, as you’d expect.

All in, it’s a fine shooter, you just get the feeling it was intended to be more; there’s a subplot of not one but two betrayers in Isenstadt and we don’t get involved in that, let alone Black Sun; a big bad from there pops up, makes like the Alien Queen then it’s never mentioned again, and there is a good mini-boss fight where you can only damage them while in the Veil, where it’s revealed they’re actually a monster – but it’s unexplored; is he just an experiment too, or are the Nazi elite actually from another dimension? Wolf just seems headed for something bigger but doesn’t get there, and it’s frustrating because you’re up for it. Maybe it was all being set up for a sequel; if they’d revealed more there might have been one instead of the oh-so-serious second reboot.

Ultimately, Wolf is derivative and half-realised and I can see why it’s forgotten. But I really got into this; Wolf deserved more than just being wiped from alternate history and I won’t forget it this time. I’m brunette BJ all the way. Easily my fave of all the Wolf reboots and it deserves a rediscovery if you can find it. It deserves a Steam sale at least.

2009 | Developer; Raven Software | Publisher; Activision

Platforms; Win, PS3, X360

Carmageddon Max Damage

a rage quit review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2015 Regeneration | 2016 Max Damage

Developer / Publisher Stainless Games

Platforms; Win (Steam/GOG)

Far Cry 3

a second wind playthrough special

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2012 | developer Ubisoft Montreal | Publisher Ubisoft

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

Return to Castle Wolfenstein

A BLAST FROM THE PAST REVIEW

FBT stops to ask directions to Castle Wolfenstein

The Past

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

Still a Blast?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2001 | Developer, Gray Matter Interactive | Publisher Activision

Platforms; Win | Xbox | PS2

Blood 2

A RAGE QUIT REVIEW

A Bloodless FBT dies a slow slow death

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1998 | Developer, Monolith Productions | Publisher GT Interactive

Platforms; Win (Steam/GOG)

Contract J.A.C.K

a second wind review

No One Lives Forever is one of FBT’s fave games. Contract JACK isn’t.

There’s many games I’ve disliked, loads I’ve given up on and a fair few I hated for what they were, but Contract J.A.C.K. is the only one I hate for what it isn’t.

There’s two things that set NOLF apart from any other FPS game; it’s celebration of the Sixties spy genre, and Cate Archer. CJ doesn’t have either and does nothing to replace them. It is a spin-off without the spin. It’s just off.

Set before / alongside NOLF2, John Jack is ‘just another contract killer’ who escapes a bunch of Mafioso thugs only to be tricked into a to-the-death shootout with waves of HARM troops – the super-villain group Cate fights – and discovers it’s actually a fairly extreme job interview to work for HARM itself. Hired, JJ is sent to uncover what ‘Danger Danger’, a rival super-villain group is up to. Essentially our mission is to stop them finding a mad scientist and deliver him to HARM instead, and that means us raiding military bases, a secret rocket facility, NOLF1’s Moon Base and assaulting Danger Danger’s headquarters in Italy. Considering the universe CJ is set in, you can’t help but think you’re in for some fun with the eccentric, surreal inner workings of HARM; at least more of the sixties tv love and silliness. Nope, nothing. Not a thing. Amazingly, what sounds like a fun romp and reboot of NOLF’s plot is a straight shooter without any of of NOLF’s charm, ingenuity or commentary.

There’s nothing to this at all but shooting. Endless, repetitive shooting in badly paced missions that just won’t end, facing waves of henchmen like some close-quarter Serious Sam. CJ has none of the spirit of NOLF, it just happens to look like it, and so you’re constantly reminded of how sublime that was. Cate Archer was a brilliant character. Smart-as, beautiful, capable and able to bat away rampant sexism with a deft one-liner. In her place we have JJ, a standard silent hero – an opportunity to explore the inevitability of being a nameless NCP? Surely he’s called ‘just another contract killer’ for a reason? He should be Sam Rockwell’s character in Galaxy Quest, constantly terrified of getting killed because his character doesn’t even have a name. Or continue NOLF’s commentary on sexism, and parody the unbeatable male hero? No, none of that, JJ isn’t just another killer, he’s just another arm in a shooter.

CJ doesn’t even take the opportunity to repeat Cate’s experiences from the POV of the villains. Hang out with the henchmen, suck up to the Director, observe key moments in the background, getting involved in/ruining HARM’s schemes, meeting Isako, recruiting the villains Cate later faces, the creation of the Supersoliders – there’s a whole subplot about Abigail they could have explored. All ignored. We don’t even get to play with the Man-Handler. So much opportunity and instead we have nothing to do with HARM at all, just a self-contained plot to stop Danger Danger – mostly humourless Italian clichés who aren’t a patch on the French Mimes or Indian Evil Alliance. NOLF parodied generic FPS (remember the sewers?) and now here we are in a master-class of what NOLF aped.

There’s so little of NOLF here it’s like a mod (except the fans would have done better). No stealth, gadgets, puzzles, Santa-style Quartermaster; also missing is Cate’s travels as she dismantles HARM. Admittedly, NOLF2 overdoes the India location but CJ is essentially three locations – the base, the moon and the lair (from the outside) and each outstay their welcome, over-long and over-populated with the same villains doing the same things. It’s so repetitive CJ almost ruins NOLF; there’s so many henchmen to fight you notice how scripted they are when they’re not talking about their mother in law or the causality between villainy and alcoholism. It’s just no fun; how do you miss the fun? Why don’t we have a mission where we (try) to silence Armstrong or recruit Pierre the Mime King? Failure could have been a fun option for this game, an anti-hero in the literal sense, but no.

What about something to tie it in? Naa – when CJ does reference the original it’s getting it wrong; the moonbase is a repeat of NOLF’s trip but without any of the cool 2001-inspired spacesuits or, unforgivably, the nightclub. JJ gets blasted into space and has to fight off other space-villains, repeating the fall from the plane in NOLF, except there’s no henchman yelling ‘please be full of hay’. It’s just a straight shooter using NOLFs assets. There’s no quotable lines, quirky behaviours, in-jokes, references. The only reason I’m persevering is in the hopes Cate might make an appearance. And kill me.

And then, after a too-little, too-late fun ending where we use cannons to take out Danger Danger’s base (which was a slog to get to, enlivened only by a short ride on a Vespa), JJ gets double-crossed by HARM and takes his revenge on Volkov, explaining his pained reappearance in NOLF2. It doesn’t even make sense, other than to explain why Cate doesn’t face off with JJ in NOLF2. Plus, JJ is supposed to be a stone-cold killer and his revenge is ruining Volkov’s holiday? That’s our NOLF payoff? There’s one scene where we torture a Danger-Danger henchman but although it’s played for laughs it’s actually more painful for us, and not an ounce on the scene where Cate tricks a HARM henchman into telling her where their base is.

What were Monolith thinking with this? I can understand some other developer being given the franchise and missing the point but this is inexcusable – they made the original. I mean, CJ is built entirely on NOLF2’s assets, so why did they drop the one thing that made NOLF special? Everyone in HARM is an eccentric, why is JJ a cliched silent hero? He should have been a parody of ill-fated henchmen, or a Frank Drebin type, at least a satire on the silent, masculine heroes. At the very least, it should have been a NOLF game. Contract JACK is one of those straight to video sequels starring Joe Estevez and Don Swayze. It’s Highlander 2.

The most annoying moment is during the opening of JJ’s first mission where, from the back of a truck, we briefly glimpse Cate on her way somewhere far more interesting than we are. That’s like briefly seeing the shark from Jaws then realising you’re in Sharknado. Contract JACK is just a loud, relentless, mindless slog of a shooter and aside from being thankfully short, there’s nothing redeeming about it – I was even more pissed off when in researching this, I discovered something I didn’t know. The PS2 version of NOLF contained an additional level called ‘Nine Years Ago…’ which featured The Fox, Cate’s burglarising alter-ego before her capture by Bruno. How do we have Contract JACK and that’s not available? How could they not have made that prequel instead of this ‘side-quel’? I can’t think of a game that has more spectacularly backfired – and I’ve played Mass Effect Andromeda.

2003 | Developer Monolith Productions | Publisher Sierra Entertainment

Platforms; Win/Internet

Crysis Warhead

A BLAST FROM THE PAST REVIEW

FBT dons the Nanosuit and a cockney accent. You muppet.

The Past

Having replayed Crysis, I was curious about this add-on. I remember playing it, but I don’t remember it being any different, other than we played Psycho instead of the might-as-well-be-silent hero Nomad. Given Warhead doesn’t have any notable changes from the original and is set parallel to those events, can it be headed anywhere but the same place? We see Psycho at the end of Crysis so I know he makes it. Not exactly setting us up for a one-way mission is it. He does do a disappearing act for the final third of Crysis, but it’s that third where Crysis ran out of steam once everything turns to ice. Let’s go see if Psycho can warm things up a bit.

Still a Blast?

Opening after Nomad assaults the Harbour in the original Crysis, Psycho is on the other side of the island. It’s the same look, but even now, some ten years later the detail packed into this game is insane. I get tempted to go for a swim, wandered the jungle and get a Pina Colada at the beach bar. Why am I here?

There’s no great change to the process, style or gameplay of the original. This time though, we’re in the shit from the get-go; whereas Nomad’s game was, for the first half anyway, a slow and steady stealth-based mission as we tried to extract the research team, Psycho’s story picks up at that mid-way point where the US invade and the Koreans fight back and the Squiddys get involved. I should stop crouching then and get stuck in. The Nanosuit’s cloak, speed and strength settings are all very fancy but the island has turned into a war zone so a lot of the suit’s capabilities seem redundant other than armour.

Psycho’s missions are largely supporting the Military, taking down detachments, clearing paths for our boys and generally repeating the same beats of the original. Often I forget I’m playing as Psycho and keep thinking I’m still in the original. An early assault on a beach café the Koreans are dug into is great fun, but nothing unique. Eventually though, Warhead distinguishes itself by giving you sequences that make the Nanosuit redundant – we drive an armoured RV protecting a downed pilot, and later we pilot a hover craft – those Koreans brought everything. Warhead is more of a military, set-piece driven actioner as opposed to the original’s more subtle, tactical approach, it’s so firefight-friendly I keep forgetting to use the suit but rather than start grumbling this is a Call of Duty knock off, I realise that does make sense; the war is in full swing, we know there’s Squiddys in the mountain and the Koreans are up for a fight; no point repeating the original’s slow burn and after-all, we’re playing as a guy called Psycho – not going for subtle here. Warhead is a lot more scripted but it does pick up the pace and becomes very focused, no small task for a non-linear game, and although there’s an air of Modern Warfare about it, the suit (once you remember to use it) comes into its own and Warhead shapes up to become a really good shooter. And then the Squiddys break lose. Thanks Nomad.

I never liked the Squiddys. They just weren’t fun to tangle with. Once you get spotted they rush you like a floating bull, all horns and hooves. When Nomad sets them free and the island freezes I’m all set to get grumpy, but Warhead cuts them down to size and makes it much more interesting to fight them. There’s open space, easier routes and more opportunities to take them down. It’s still a bind and keeping the shotgun loaded is your best route – just wait for them to get in range – but they tend to appear in nice, well designed areas you can at least have some fun tackling them in, rather than the original’s tendency to just put them in the way, and now they have more room to move, they take on a more sinister, alive feel – putting on Cloak and just watching them mooching around is quite scary. Especially when the suit battery gets low. The game also mixes them up with the Koreans who survived the ice blast, making it less of a Squiddy slog and it’s fun to watch them slug it out while you sneak past. Of course, the Koreans are sneaky too.

Although we occasionally tangled with them in the original, this time the Nanosuited-Koreans (Nanoreans?) are all over the shop. Arguably tougher than the Squiddys, Nanoreans are on an even level with Psycho and go invisible, leap and lob stuff about and have much more powerful weaponry than the grunts – they also work as teams, flanking and distracting you. Facing them means you’ve lost the superiority so it’s all down to your battle smarts. Great. They also have e-grenades that knock out your suit giving them a serious edge – thankfully we get them too, leading to both sides lobbing grenades willy-nilly like some snowball fight. They’re tough but it’s not one-sided, which is a mark of a good shooter; it’s only as unfair as you are incapable.

Eventually we discover the Koreans have captured Squiddys and are trying to get them off the island – we’d already seen torn up containers in the original and Psycho reappeared in that game with a new pet, so we know where we headed, but to get there Warhead takes some unexpected turns. Having secured a Squiddy Container, Psycho draws the attention of both it’s buddies and the Koreans, leading to a standout moment battling on a moving train and seeing how Psycho got his name; he’s more emotional than the name suggests – it’s a great character moment you rarely see in shooters, let alone a second-tier add-on. Nomad was a boy-scout but Psycho is a much more rounded, interesting arm to play.

If Warhead has it’s flaws, they’re mostly inherited from the original – the suit’s battery is frustratingly under-powered, often ruining plans – which are much more critical in this hot-zone, and being powerless and surrounded by Squiddys means you’re dead quick, while Psycho can only manage two main weapons which is a real hindrance in this scrambling to survive environment; just stretching to three would have really opened things up – it’s one thing to never know what’s around the corner, but it’s a real frustration to dump a sniper for a shotgun then one cutscene later find yourself with no need for a shotgun and no way to return for the rifle. The Squiddys are still simple on or off threats and the iced-up island is flat-looking, but Warhead explores this event much more successfully and there’s areas untouched by the freeze, giving us a nice reprieve from the relentless bright ice. There’s also a whole subplot with the pilot, who is pissy with Psycho because he washed him out of the Nanosuit selection process. By the end they settle their differences and fight the Squiddys together but it feels undefined. I’m sure the Crysis sequels will treat Psycho with respect.

I half-expected Warhead to be a rage quit once the Squiddys arrive, but it’s a good scrap and thankfully avoids getting itself involved in the original’s ridiculous ending, instead going for an almighty firefight with the Squiddys before the Koreans turn up and we get an awesome movie-style ending that reminds you of how convenient the Nanosuits are. The island is a lot better planned out too, it has a more rugged feel which reflects the aggressive, pressured feel. Psycho, for all his cockney-geezer bants is a great lead and much more interesting than Nomad. It’s rare that a sequel surpasses the original, but although it’s shorter, Warhead is a better game and one of the better shooters out there, a stealth-tactical experience in a full-scale war setting and a thinking-man’s shooter. Warhead is criminally underrated and shows what an Add-On can do instead of modern DLC reheat cash-in’s; this is a treat rather than a retread. Have a go, you muppet.

2008 | Developer, Crytek | Publisher, Electronic Arts

Platforms; Win/Steam/Origin

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

No One Lives Forever 2

A Blast from the Past review

FBT reviews the return of Cate Archer. That’s if he can see her all the way up on that pedestal.

The Past

The best thing about discovering games released on budget labels was you didn’t have to wait forever for the sequel. When I picked up Xplosiv’s NOLF release, A Spy In HARMs Way was only a few months behind so I didn’t have to wait too long before slipping into Cate’s kinky boots again. I loved Cate. I mean, NOLF.

I remember NOLF2 being a huge leap from the first. Graphically it looked amazing as Cate continent-hopped trying to avert a Bay of Pigs event. Great baddies including the mime assassins (who doesn’t want to shoot a mime?), a huge amount of comedy and some commentary on the Cold War. And Cate, being Cate. Lovely Cate. It was just really good; a great shooter with a solid story and good characters; a rarity for any sequel, in any media. It was more of the same without being samey; more outlandish than the original, with hulking super-soldiers to take down – but then the original was all about people mysteriously exploding so where do you go from there? I remembered playing it so much the two games merged into one beloved game. But as I prise them apart in my head, I realise my best remembered moments were from the first and remember NOLF2 getting repetitive and spending way too long in India, like they’d run out of money and just shoe-horned narrative reasons for everything to take place in one or two locations. But it was still a great game, its Cate and it’s still the swinging sixties. I’m excited to go back and see if those Kinky Boots still fit. Everybody’s going for those kinky boots, kinky boots (boop-boop) kinky boots.

Still a Blast?

Our first mission as Cate, looking as lovely and acting as cool as ever, is to infiltrate a super villain convention being held at a Ninja Village. It’s largely a tutorial as we learn the ropes of this more seasoned – but no less perfect – Cate. It’s a great little mission where we learn a few new tricks like stealth-hiding, moving bodies and searching for goodies, and relearn awesome distractions like listening to hilarious conversations and daft moments, and soon enough we’ve lost ourselves in Cate. I mean World, Cate’s world. It’s good to be back, I’m grinning and enjoying it way too much and that’s not just ‘cos Cate’s back and she hasn’t aged a bit. Cate’s back because HARM is up to something with an island called Khios. A speck in the ocean to most, its strategic worth has become a lynchpin in the cold war build-up and HARM offers to help the USSR take it – in return for building the world’s first ‘5star Communist Hotel’ on the island. Stopping WWIII and all-inclusive holidays? Cate has her work cut out for her.

NOLF2 is technically better looking than its predecessor and it’s a good shooter, the goons are quick and hard to pin down, while stealthing is actually fun for the most part, especially when you’ve got the camera disabler and tracker darts – new and improved presents from her Q, Santa; while Cate no longer does runs through his Workshop, Santa is still here, advising via a robotic bird that unnervingly knows where to perch when Cate needs info on the mission and monitors how she’s doing (‘don’t shoot the bloody bird…’). He also leaves dainty little presents for Cate to find, filled with lethal and fun goodies. Cate also gains intel from rifling desks and can trigger side-goals, both of which give xp to upgrade; better weapon handling, health etc., but also how quickly she can hide and use gadgets. We also don’t have the loadout screen anymore, Cate defaults to basic weapons and everything she needs, not that she needs anything, being perfect n’all. I can see why gadget picking was dropped from the first one, anything that was required for the mission you’d find nearby or were default carried anyway and the optionals are now always available. But it does mean your approach is dictated; you can’t pick a sniper rifle if you intend to stealth or the Corrector if you wanted to be anti-stealth. The weapons and the multiple ammo makes a return but there’s new gadgets like a hair-spray that doubles as a welder, nail-clipper lock-picks, a phone bug that looks like a ladybug (which Cate plays with while idle) and a cute little robo-kitty that will attract baddies with explosive results. Not quite as good as the fluffy slippers and belt-buckle grappling hook but still silly yet practical ways UNITY, Cate’s spy organisation, found to equip their first female agent. But Cate’s not a ‘female agent’ anymore, she’s Agent Archer, UNITY Spy; less eager newbie and more company man now.

Being a company man means practically none of the sexism Cate endured in the first. There’s references, comments but she’s accepted and respected. She has a reputation after the events of the first and that’s what they comment on, not her dress sense. Although the catsuits are gone, she’s not been sexed up either; Cate’s no less stylish but she is refreshingly functional. When in Siberia she’s in a parka rather than some barely there outfit (there are some fetching white gloves clutching the gun), around the office she’s in a stylish little V-neck dress and leather jacket, but there’s no cleavage on display. The closest she gets to baring flesh is in India, and she’s only showing a midriff. She still has her charm and playfulness (‘can you stop fidgeting?’ / ‘no’ ) but less of the sharp putdowns because she’s no longer enduring the sexist passcodes or fending off security guards belittling her for being on the shooting range and then asking her out on dates.

But then, what looks like NOLF2 topping NOLF’s sexism and misogyny by exploring feminism and patriarchy is actually a missed opportunity in the form of Isako, a female Nina Master whom Cate spends much of the game battling. Isako’s indebted to the HARM Director who toys with her, promising Isako freedom if she brings him Cate’s head then says she is his and he’ll never let her go. That’s the kind of thing Cate would not have taken kindly to. Isako is the only non-jokey mini-boss of the entire series and Cate’s equal; recognising Isako’s predicament, Cate tries to reason with her even after Isako puts her in the hospital -twice- and it feels like their relationship and Cate’s influence was intended to weave into the plot as if Cate, having won her personal battle must now step up and fight for other women but it doesn’t really happen. While their resolution technically works, it’s solving the problem not the issue and it’s a let down after the searing commentary on sexisim in the original.

NOLF2 just doesn’t explore empowerment as it should have, like Cate ‘proved’ herself in NOLF1 and that’s enough but being capable isn’t the same as equal and I expected NOLF2 to satirise the fact that Cate had to save the world to get respect. There’s none of that in NOLF2, but it’s good to see Cate simply treated as an Agent rather than judged as a woman, even if it’s ironic that she’s accepted as an equal and that feels like a fantasy.

The biggest (well, smallest) foe of Cate’s adventure is an assassin called Pierre the Mime King. The little theatrical brat has been tasked with stopping Cate from interfering with HARM’s plans, and he unleashes a group of mimes on her trail. Who are a work of genius. They hunt you down, invisible walls notwithstanding, tip-toeing despite their huge size, yelling in ‘Allo-‘Allo accents. You never get tired of them – it’s really saying something when you’re pleased to see more of an enemy. Less welcome are the Russians you battle, who aren’t quite on the same scale as the original HARM goons – they’re a lot more shooter-typical, although they have their fair share of comments (‘This is the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics – People don’t just disappear without a trace!’) and at one sneaky stage I caught them dancing to an evil capitalist radio station, but overall there’s a lot less of the conversations going on; NOLF2 feels shorter than NOLF1 because you’re not wasting hours listening to them complain about mothers-in-law or discussing the moral implications of providing beer to HARM’s ranks. Volkov is back too, spending the entire game in a head-to-foot plaster cast and not in the best of moods, while Armstrong returns as an ally. Drafted in for his intel on HARM, Cate and Armstrong constantly bicker and argue to cover their mutual respect; that there’s zero implication of an attraction makes it even better. The big lunk is one of the best things in the game, constantly pissing and moaning before doing something hugely heroic, or really dumb. He was always an ambiguous character in the first game and in NOLF2 those flashes of a moral code come to the fore. But, he’s not above winding Cate up – and she responds by making him hold her handbag. They’re great.

We also fight HARM’s soldiers, who are somewhere between the Mimes and the Russians and do have some awesomely inane conversations or spend time practicing their evil laughs, and perhaps the most surreal baddie of any shooter is the ‘Man-Crates’ – Volkov punishes HARM thugs by turning them into crates who remain committed to the HARM cause, rolling towards you trying to get in a bite. There is one absolutely beautiful moment when, if you’re quick and sneaky, you can hear two HARM goons discussing something (‘Like all quantities, horror has its ultimate. And I am that.’ / ‘Hey! That’s from The Brain that wouldn’t Die, I love that movie!’) and it turns out one of the goons is actually just sitting on his crate-friend as they chat. Nobody does it better than NOLF. But the real big bads of NOLF2 are the Super-soldiers. Genetically engineered hulk-meets-Big Daddy, they are HARM’s present to the USSR to secure Khios and not to be messed with.

After Cate survives the Ninja Village and her first encounter with Isako, it’s off to Siberia where we learn more of the Soviet’s plans. It’s a huge and mostly fun mission, with lots of infiltration, skimobiles and explosions. And save our drunk pilot twice. Later we investigate double-agent Tom from the first game, learning how he’d been conditioned by HARM. What follows is a running fight with the Ninjas, spilling out into a nearby trailer park as we try to outrun an approaching Tornado. Until Isako blocks our exit. Cate asks if we can possibly postpone considering the tornado is ripping up trailers all around us, but Isako thinks the storm adds a level of excitement to their duel. We wind up fighting with Katanas inside a trailer spinning in mid-air inside the storm. Although Isako uses flashbangs to stealth attack, it’s one intense, close-quarter scrap (and maybe a Kill Bill reference) and the game’s standout. Only the graphical limitations stop this from being heart-attack thrilling as the trailer disintegrates and Cate has to avoid the swirling winds and Isako’s attacks. Awesome stuff. And I’m sure there’s a Mary Poppins – Wizard of Oz reference in there.

NOLF2 does run out of steam a little after the trailer park fight; the extended stay in India is even longer than I remember and it’s a bit of a slog; infiltrating HARM twice, putting down a HARM rival (Unlike HARM and UNITY, they don’t have an acronym, they’re just called Evil Alliance …) It also hits the same beats as the original – a rescue mission, a sneak mission that’s mission-fail if you get spotted, it starts to feel a little familiar. Things pick up with a ‘The Thing’-like exploration mission in Antarctica to discover HARM’s ace in the hole – the Super-soldiers – then it drops again when HARM field-tests them (in India, again) and it’s a ‘save the population while avoiding death’ mission which just feels forced. But we’re back in the saddle when the mimes attack UNITY and Cate goes on a rescue mission inside HARM’s underwater base. While it’s always fun, NOLF2 is mostly Cate just playing catch up, whereas in the first she foiled plans and was a thorn in HARM’s side.

There’s nothing wrong with NOLF2’s middle section, there’s tons of gags, in-jokes and bullets flying about but it’s largely padding – Tom’s house and The Thing base are essentially the same for instance – find enough clues to trigger the next scene – while India outstays it’s welcome. You get this feeling we’re just kicking our heels until the final mission which slowly builds during the cut-scenes, as a warmongering US general pushes for war – and straight into HARM’s hands.

The finale, escaping HARM’s (amusingly fake) volcano base, resolving Cate’s differences with Isako and stopping the Super-soldiers on Khios is all good fun – and there’s even time for a touching moment with one of the super-soldiers, who retained some memory and thinks Cate is its daughter – but NOLF2 doesn’t quite have that warmth of the original, that love for its sixties TV inspiration. Instead it ramps up the humour, almost reaching screwball comedy; I’m not saying Cate jumps the shark here, but it’s definitely going for the silly. I have nothing against chasing a three-foot-tall unicycle-riding mime through the backstreets of Calcutta while riding on Armstrong’s back as he peddles a kid’s tricycle, who can argue with that, but NOLF2 is more an absurdist experience compared to the subversive tone of the first. Okay, so NOLF1 had an opera-warbling mini-boss you bested by turning off her radio so she walked into electrified puddles, but NOLF2 is The Monkeys to NOLF1’s The Beatles.

The unrealised potential of Isako and Cate’s relationship does sour things a little, and the subplot of the Super-solider searching for his daughter is another aspect that could have been explored instead of more India shenanigans, but NOLF2 is still a far better realised game than most. It’s not NOLF1 but few games are (almost none to be honest) and pacing and plotting aside, there’s a lot of fun to be had in the world. Around HARM bases there’s constant reminders to the staff ‘remember what HARM stands for’ – even though no one knows (Unless you play Monolith’s FEAR…) Games could learn a lot from Cate; they don’t all have to build social or gender commentary into their narratives or feature men turned into crates, but the NOLF games show it’s possible to deliver so much more than a reskin. The energy, excitement, wit and fun on display in NOLF2 reminds you why you love gaming so much; this is a game that loves to be played. Cate is lovely too.

The real heartbreaker here though isn’t the unobtainable, perfect Cate, it’s that the NOLF franchise is so mired in copyright issues it’ll never see the light of day or manage a re-release let alone a third game. And so, the NOLF games remain the very definition of a Blast from the Past – a real, genuine contender for the ‘they don’t make them like that anymore’ crown. Cate would look great in a crown, but only if it had a grappling hook hidden in it.

2002 | Developer Monolith | Publisher Sierra

Platforms; Win

F.E.A.R 3

A Rage Quit Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alma is Fear. This isn’t.

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

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