The Scoop: Created by the two man indie studio known as MinMax Games, Space Pirates and Zombies puts players in control of a group of space pirates, and just like the pirates of old, your goal is to explore, search for treasure, and fight against the zombie apocalypse.

The Setup: Space Pirates and Zombies (which we’ll refer to as S.P.A.Z.) is set in the near (or not so near?) future, where humans have taken over the galaxy and can travel between hundreds of stars and star systems by using the travel technology of warp gates.  You play as a member of a group of space pirates who travel between these star systems in the mothership known as the Clock Work, with the ultimate goal of reaching the center of the galaxy in hopes of finding the motherload of Rez (a space mineral used as currency).  Each of the star systems that you’ll travel to are randomly generated and are occupied by two warring factions: the civilians and the UTA (United Terran Alliance).  As you make your way through each star system you’ll have to make decisions and take on missions which will affect your relations with both the civilians and the UTA, which will ultimately have an impact on who you can buy technology from and who you can trade with or bribe.

Along your journey in S.P.A.Z. you’ll work on mining resources, expanding your fleet, and leveling up your technology.  Random side missions found in each star system will help you gain favor from each faction as well as provide you with the resources, crew, and technology to build new ships and outfit them to your hearts content.  The galaxy truly is your playground and the deeper you go, the further the game and its plot expands.

What’s Hot: S.P.A.Z. is played as a top-down shooter , you’ll use your mouse to aim the front guns of your ship, mouse buttons to fire your weapons, and the WASD keys to fly your ship.  And even though you’ll only be able to pilot one ship at a time, you can quickly switch between the ships in your fleet as well as give some basic orders to the AI controlled ships on your team.

The gameplay is  retro and is very similar to Star Command in many ways, so old school gamers will definitely appreciate the action in the space combat.  It does take some practice to get the hang of piloting your ships and effectively using their weapons, but learning to fly these ships is all part of the fun and made me realize how much I miss playing these types of games.

The RPG and customization elements in the game add a great layer of strategy as you’ll be able to choose which technologies to level up as well as which equipment to use in your ships.  It’s a fun thought to max out your weapons, but you can’t forget about your shields, armor, and engines!   Just like any RPG there are no right or wrong answers on how you spend your upgrade points, it all depends on how you want to pilot your ships and what your battle strategies are.  Another great feature of the customization options is the ability to refit your existing ships on the fly or completely change out the hull to a different ship type.

And while we’re on the topic of ships, you’ll get the chance to unlock new ships as you defeat them in battle and collect their black boxes.  As you collect these black boxes, your Clock Work mothership will use these black boxes to reverse engineer their blue prints, eventually unlocking the ship to add to your fleet.  The toughest part will probably be actually wanting to change your ships, as you’ll have your favorites and get used to how they handle.   But S.P.A.Z. offers a great variety of ships and you should definitely try and fly each ship at least once to see what it has to offer.

The story isn’t anything ground breaking, but offers enough substance, humor, and surprises (there’s a hint in the title!) to keep you interested and motivated to keep on going.  The story is all text driven with some voice narratives, and it all works out well for this type of game and I couldn’t wait to reveal the next part of the plot as I played the game.

And if you found a bug, find something you don’t like, or have a suggestion, the guys at MinMax Games are here to listen.  The S.P.A.Z. forums are pretty active with the two developers always checking in on threads and listening to the community feedback.  They’re even checking the Steam forums for questions and feedback, so your voice will be heard!  And if you’re wondering about updates and patches, the MinMax Games team are a couple of steps ahead of you.  They have recently released a Halloween patch and are working hard on a Holiday patch.  I’ve also heard some rumors about a large free expansion that is also in the pipeline.  These guys are keeping busy and have great things planed for S.P.A.Z., and it’s great to see such support from the developers.  Much appreciated guys!

Publisher: Red Redemption
Developer: Red Redemption
Platforms: PC, Mac
Genre: Strategy
Players: Single Player
Purchase from: Steam, Official website

The Scoop: If you ever thought that you could solve all of the world’s problems caused by global climate change and make the entire planet one happy place, here is your chance.

The Setup:  Fate of the World: Tipping Point is a strategy game which uses real climate data based on the research of Professor Myles Allen of Oxford University.  This real life data is used to create over 1,000 possibilities/situations/disasters and over 100 real-world policy decisions.  In Fate of the World: Tipping Point, you are seated as the head of a world government known as the GEO.  As the President of the GEO you’re tasked with the burden of dealing with the social and environmental impact of global climate change and make the best, or worst, decisions to try and solve the the problems that arise.  You’ll deal with protestors, resource shortages, welfare issues, animal extinction, and the fun list goes on and on.

The entire game is played by using the mouse, and the GUI is pretty simple with the view of Earth being dead center, with buttons to access different global stats and charts.  From here you can spin the Earth around and select one of the 12 regions, which will then bring you then let you view news and stats for the region, as well as set policies.  Speaking of  policies, you will use a deck of cards to control which policies you have access to and want to play.  Each card has a cost associated with it and some cards will help unlock additional cards.  And cards are spread across different categories such as political, agriculture, technology, energy, and social.  So if you want to declare Martial Law, head on over to the political deck!  Most cards can be completed in one turn (which is 5 years in game time) while other cards may take longer (ex: 50 years to complete).

To play a card you have to recruit an agent for that particular region. Agents cost money to recruit and you are also limited 6 agents per region, and each agent allows you to play 1 card for a particular region.  You’re limited to the amount of funding that you earn each turn, and some global events may cause you to not bring in as much on a particular turn, so you’ll have to be strategic in how you recruit your agents and which cards you need to play.

What cards you “should” play on each turn is pretty much dictated by the news events for each particular region.  If the news feed for South Africa says that people are rioting, you should focus on playing political cards.  Or if the news feed for Latin America says there are issues with poor standards of living, you will want to focus on cards that will help make living in this region more enjoyable.  You get the idea!

When you’re happy with the selection of cards for this turn, you will big purplish button in the bottom right hand corner to play the cards and advance to the next turn, which increases the year by 5.  Each scenario in Fate of the World: Tipping Point has a number of objectives or win conditions that you need to achieve to win the game, so you will continue to play cards until you’ve reached (or failed!) your goal or reached the time limit for a particular scenario.

What’s Hot:   Fate of the World: Tipping Point is a very tricky game, and one of the important things that you have to watch out for is not just the win conditions of the scenario, but also the lose conditions.  More often than not you will find that you’ve reached your win condition, but lost the game due to a particular lose condition.  This really adds to the overall challenge of the game and will keep you on your toes through each scenario.

Speaking of tricky, limiting the amount of cards or policies that can be played per turn to the number of agents a region has really adds to the strategic nature of the game.  You’ll find that you need to balance your funds with the number of agents you have to hire as well as which disasters or situations need to be high priority.  Sometimes a particular region may have a handful of issues that just occurred, yet you only have enough resources to deal with 2 or 3 of the issues.  What do you do? Which comes first? Is it OK to sacrifice the political instability for a turn and hope chaos doesn’t ensue to take care of a critical healthcare issue?  I’ve found myself in this situation multiple times and so will you!

The news feeds and data for each region (and even on the global level) are your vitals.  Keeping an eye on these will help you reach your win conditions as well as keep you from reaching those lose conditions.  You will want to get familiar with the different buttons and know where certain data lives pretty fast.

The Scoop: Duke Nukem 3D helped to add on an extra few years to my virginity.  It was released in 1996 during my teen years when I should have focused on doing something cool like learning the guitar or how to be nice to girls.  Instead I was busy saving my pennies to get my hands on a PC sound card just to hear Duke Nukem.  At the time, aiming up or down with a PC mouse and hearing the protagonist speak during gameplay, where still revolutionary elements in a FPS.  I was glad I was sitting when I ran into my first “Pig Cop” that ducked to avoid a blast from my shotgun, then hear Duke affirm this was cool with a “Come get some”.  My knees surly would have buckled if I had been standing.

Duke Nukem Forever is the sequel to DN3D and the story of its long development has become a joke in the gaming world.  That was until last October when publisher 2K Games freed it from legal troubles.  Veteran FPS developer Gearbox Studios (Brothers in Arms, Borderlands) were put in charge of bringing together scattered chunks of an unfinished game from the past 15 years together.  As it turns out, not even they could save DNF from being an unfocused mess.

The Setup: DNF’s premise is simple.  Since he last “blew up aliens good”, Duke has become a fulltime playboy living in the penthouse of his Las Vegas casino.  When the aliens return to earth but initially does not attack there is some political debate on how to handle the situation.  It is believed by some, including the President, that Duke was the cause of the last attack by striking first.  Just as it looks like DNF’s story might be getting heavy, the aliens launch an assault, Duke punches of them in the nads, and we’re back to killing anything that isn’t human.

What’s hot: An hour into DNF I was having a rocking time as the first few levels are a fun, campy ride.  Like Adam West’s Batman from the ‘60s, Duke is self aware of his legendary status and the writers run away with this.  Duke’s face and name is used to endorse more products than Krusty the Clown and some can be interacted with to increase Duke’s “Ego” which acts as the game’s health bar.  It is a great way of including these elements into the gameplay rather than simply having them exist.  The more complicated interactions, like clearing the pool table or winning at air hockey, is a clunky experience, but I did have fun with most of them.  I got a kick out of getting Duke’s “Ego” to increase from looking at himself in the mirror or flipping through a dirty magazine.  Pinball machines, weight lifting, and even microwaving popcorn for a stripper can increase “Ego” and I liked having the freedom to skip these if I wanted too.

Unfortunately it appears that Gearbox focused a little too much on these distractions because little can be said for DNF’s core gameplay.

Killing this guy twice was fun, but there needed to be more of it.

What’s not: DNF very much attempts to do what Goldeneye Wii did with its own counterpart,  the N64’s classic Goldeneye 007.   Goldeneye Wii was able to recreate that experience in a modern way by blending in elements from the original that were worth keeping and dropping the other dated material.  Having the option to play Goldeneye 007 by using stealth or guns blazing was a big part of what made it a classic and this element was kept in the Wii version.   The dumb enemy AI was dropped for a smarter one that use a cover system and so it made sense for James Bond to have regenerating health.

DNF borrows a lot from modern shooters, like regenerating health and only carrying two weapons at a time but doesn’t mesh it well with the old school elements leaves in.  There is no tension in fighting aliens who stay out in the open on the other side of environment when I can heal by hiding behind a rock.  And I never sweated over which weapon to bring because I knew the enemies were dropping them like f-bombs out of an angry Mel Gibson.  The whole experience adds up to a bizarro game of “Whack a Mole”, where Duke is the only mole who sticks his head out for a second, takes a few shots, and then hides again.

Getting Duke's 4X4 stuck on nothing was the most exciting thing I did with Duke's 4X4.

DNF does break up its monotonous gameplay, but only with ancient ideas that bring nothing new to the genre.  There is some FPS platforming that is frustrating to get through like most FPS platforming.  Some levels have you drive around in Duke’s weapon-less 4X4 truck so you can platform in bigger environments with a third person view.  But the best example of how DNF has a dated mentality is its use of the gun turrets.  Gun turrets still pop up in modern FPS, but I have found that they have become an optional tool instead of a center piece for an action sequence.  DNF still treats these relics to a large build up like it will be the first time you eat ice cream.

At the beginning of one level, Duke is thrown from a crashing helicopter, into the side of the Las Vegas Stratosphere tower.  As I started down the tower, I came across the helicopter’s gun turret that was now stuck on one of the large alien tentacles wrapped around the tower.  The game throws Duke behind it and after all of this build-up I was expecting something great to happen, like the reintroduction of a classic boss or something completely new.  But, after shooting down some of the same enemies I have been seeing countless times already, it was over.  Duke was forced off of the turret as it fell off of the side of the tower.

The graphics are surprisingly bland, too, considering the number of engine overhauls this game went through.  The first few casino levels aside, the majority of the game looks like unfinished portions of Half Life 2 with a lack of any texture or detail.  Take a look at the inside of a helicopter Duke is being escorted in:

Who puts a gun on a pole?

It adds up to nothing more than a square box.  There should be a look inside of the cockpit, or a bench or something.  And what is holding up that Gatling gun?  A pole?

DNF multi-player is the standard fare but I didn’t get much out of it.  I am completely fine with games adopting Call of Duty 4’s upgrading system where you can earn points from playing; but you do need a sophisticated match making mechanic to go along with it.  Watching the bullets from my entry level pistol bounce off of an opposing player while he uses an upgraded perk to turn me into wall paste is not my idea of fun.  I understand COD games have a large pool of players to draw from, but at least give me a choice to enter a room full of experienced players instead of just throwing me in.

Is that a missing level from 2004's Half Life 2? No, it's 2011's Duke Nukem Forever.

Final Verdict: This is not the solid reboot of the Duke Nukem franchise you were looking for.  The first few levels do have some campy fun and I did enjoy a couple of the boss fights; but these are sparse moments that do not make up for the game’s overall arid gameplay.  Duke is a classic character in video gaming history and does deserve much more than this.  Hopefully the next effort (and you know there will be one) will be a focused reboot of what made the original games great and not a celebration of what wasn’t.

Publisher:

The Scoop: Codemasters brings us the third installment in their acclaimed rally racing series, Dirt 3.  This time, they’re bringing some new features and improvements to the series to freshen things up a bit.

The Setup: Dirt 3 allows players to race in venues and locales around the world, including the Summer and Winter X-Games, in a wide variety of vehicle types.  Races can be as simple as a point-to-point time trial or as hectic as an eight-player circuit race.  Dirt 3 also institutes new weather scenarios and a brand new event called Gymkhana.

What’s Hot: The Dirt series has always been praised as a racing game that has been accessible to racing game fans of all backgrounds.  Dirt 3 is no different than any other of the entries of the series.  Players can become a master of the driving controls in just a few races.  As with other Codemasters racing titles, the difficulty and assists can be tailored to accommodate any racing fan’s wishes.

Gameplay is as good as ever, too.  Tight controls allow for precision on the track, dirt, snow, etc.  Being able to pull off a power slide or maneuver around a tight corner might take a little time to perfect, but it is quite gratifying when you succeed.

Wait, did I just say “snow”?

That’s right, weather conditions make their debut in the Dirt series this year.  Snow and rain will even have the most confident Dirt players question their skills as they take the track.  You won’t be able to get away with some of the things you do on a dry track when you take to a track that glistens with a fresh coat of snow or a quick shower.  It adds a bit more skill and concentration on the player’s behalf in order to dominate a track already dominated by Mother Nature.

If you just so happen to underestimate the power of Mother Nature or completely have a mind numbing moment while behind the wheel, feel a bit at ease knowing that the Flashback system is back in all its glory in Dirt 3. For those new to the series, the Flashback will allow you to rewind a few seconds back during a race to correct yourself after a mistake.  It’s great to have when you don’t hit a turn right or end up getting spun out by your competitors.

Dirt 3’s single player campaign, the Dirt Tour, is broken down into four “seasons”.  Each season contains three race events and a season finale.  To move on in a season, you have to earn enough progress points in each race.  You can earn up to a maximum 50 progress points for each event, which in some cases can allow you to skip certain event styles that you don’t find particularly fun.  Each race event has a finale, in which upon its completion will unlock the next event in the season.  The season finale is usually the biggest race event in the season.  Do well in the season finale and you’ll move on to the next season of your Dirt career.

The single player campaign does a good job of mixing events up.  There are many different paths to getting to the end of an event, which will appeal to a lot of gamers who just don’t like certain event types.  For rally racing fans, it might give the vibe that rally isn’t as big a part of the game as it’s been in the last two editions of the series.  I can say with complete honesty that your fears need to be put to rest.  Rally is still a huge part of the game.  However, the game also includes the debut of another event:  Gymkhana.

Publisher:

Here’s Brink‘s story in a nutshell: Set in the near future, the completion of a man-made, floating continent called the Ark had the world celebrating. But that celebration was cut short as the Earth’s waters slowly rose. Tens of thousands of refugees began settling in, and it quickly became apparent the Ark could not sustain these numbers. It’s been twenty-five years, and with the Ark’s renewable resources fading, the island has been thrown into chaos. Not only are the high-tech machines failing, but a civilian resistance has formed to take over the Ark and use the last remaining power to search for any other human life. They just have to get through the Security forces first.

Brink is a first person, class-based, action shooter that sets itself around other class-based shooters like Battlefield or Team Fortress. But what makes Brink stand out is that it places more of an emphasis on completing objectives than just simply attacking the other team and see who gains the most points. In a “Beat the Clock” gameplay, objectives can vary from “Blow up this Door” to “Escort this Person to Extraction,” while the opposing side has the exact opposite objectives. While you do get to shoot the other team, mission objectives give a real sense of teamwork and breaks the monotony of combat. And if you forget what your mission objective is, don’t worry! Instead of navigating a pause menu to look at your objectives, Splash Damage maps a button on your controller to pull up a selection wheel that points you in the direction of said objective.

What in-game combat looks like

There are four character classes to play in Brink: Soldier, Medic, Engineer, and Operative. Just like every other class combat game, Soldiers hand out ammo and can set up explosive charges, Medics heal and revive characters, Engineers build turrets and can disable bombs and mines, and Operatives can hack databases and disguise themselves as an enemy player. Brink also introduces an experience system that will unlock further abilities for each class that players can choose from and equip. Players are rewarded experience points for completing objectives, helping out an ally, or just simply hitting an enemy. It should also be noted that characters can be fully customized. There has been a lot of negative debate about this, but customizing your character makes you stand out, especially when playing with friends in competitive/cooperative multiplayer. A green mohawk or bright orange vest makes you stand out to other players so at-a-glance they know it’s you and not an enemy.

Customize your character anyway you want!

Brink also introduces an interesting feature called SMART: Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain. While holding your sprint button, you can easily perform parkour-style feats,such as sliding into cover, climbing up walls, or running along a wall to get to the next platform. While easy and great, sometimes the map is just too cluttered to use this style, or can just be confusing on where to go to next that it tries to force players to use this system. Other times you’re indoors without any clutter, which makes the SMART system just not seem that important.

Brink’s campaign, though short, can be played off line or online with seven other players against the computer. Slight problem: the maps and objectives are exactly the same in 8-on-8 as they are in the single player. So if you know the map, then you know the objectives; they don’t change.

As the player levels up and gains new abilities, the computer will match the player’s level and abilities, which will always make the game a challenge. The problem with this is if you’re soloing, or not with a full team of friends, your friendly NPCs don’t have the same intelligence as the enemy NPCs. It’s almost as if the enemy AI is working on his Master’s Degree while your friendly AI sits in the corner eating paste. Teamwork is crucial in Brink, but when your friendly AI starts shooting walls and walking into crates, completing objectives can be frustrating.

Then again, if you’re playing with a full team of friends, the enemy AI is simply too difficult. No matter how stealthy you try to be, the enemy AI will always know exactly where you are. If you try to take up a sniper position, they’ll snipe you first with their shotguns. It’s not impossible to beat the computer, but it sure seems that way at times.

There also an issue with verbally communicating with other team members. Brink follows Battlefield’s School of Communication: you can only voice chat with your squadmates. But if you happen to be a lone wolf on a team, while the other team has, say, five friends, you won’t be able to talk with them. This works for Battlefield, considering there’s massive groups of people all battling each other at once. But in a game with only sixteen players total, being segregated from other players isn’t fun nor helpful.

Another problem are the respawn zones aren’t accurately noted nor can you choose to respawn at command posts. One objective you have throughout the campaign is to take over command posts that can either boost your health or give you an extra gadget slot. But they don’t actually act as a respawn zone. If your team makes it to the end of the map, try not to die; you won’t respawn anywhere there them.

All negativity aside, Brink is a great first person, class-based, action shooter. It has the potential to grow and rank itself in the Top 20 games of this year. They just have a couple kinks to iron out and level out the AI to be fair on both sides of the battlefield. If you’re into team-based shooters like Battlefield and Team Fortress 2, look past the negativity and give Brink a chance.

The Scoop: I love the Ghostbusters.  The original is my all time favourite movie and it is still the best way for me to forget that my wife drinks and I’m thirty pounds overweight for an hour and forty minutes.  I looked at all of Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime previews online through rose coloured Ecto-goggles and it seemed like it had a lot going for it.  The team that writes the IDW comic book series were creating a special story just for Sanctum, Atari developer Behaviour was aiming for Castle Crashers like pacing and the campaign could be played on the couch or online co-op with up to four players.  Sadly, the twin-stick shooter is a huge letdown: it doesn’t deliver any of those things well and, for the first time in a long time, bustin’ didn’t make me feel good.

The Setup: Sanctum takes place following the second movie and the Ghostbusters have just defeated a painting of Vigo the Carpathian.  Vigo’s unstable human servant, Janosz, is still driven by his love for co-worker Dana Berett and is sent to an insane asylum.  There he meets up with another demon-god who, like Vigo, promises him what he most desires.  The game then jumps to present day where Dr. Venkman and crew are a little past their prime to be handling another unusual P.K.Energy spike in the New York City area.  They recruit some new cadets to take care of the heavy lifting and these are the characters you’ll be playing.  It probably turns out that Jonosz and his new boss are responsible for chaos surrounding NYC, but honestly I did not get far enough into the game to find out for sure.

When it comes time to bust some ghosts they will disappear after you drain their P.K. Energy using the proton stream, and the ghost trap will only be needed for some end level bosses.  Eventually different types of attacks will be added to your proton-pack, which uses a colour system to help you bust most effectively.  So, if you’re in a room with a bunch of blue ghosts you can still bust them with your red proton stream, but using the blue shotgun like weapon will wear them out quicker.

What’s Hot: Although not sung by Ray Parker Jr., the “Ghostbusters” song is used in the game’s menu.

What’s Not: I played Sanctum alone for the game’s first nine levels and the teammate AI did an okay job of keeping up with me until it lost its mind at the graveyard on level 10.  The number of ghosts on screen increased and they became powerful enough to knock you down with one hit.  The AI became unfocused and started using the wrong attacks, or made halfhearted attempts to revive me.  It took the wrong or longest route to get to me before deciding to stop and take out some yellow ghosts with a blue stream.  The ghosts would eventually take out all of my teammates while I lay helpless like a marshmallow man floating in hot chocolate.

Graveyards are supposed to be spooky, not frustrating.

After repeated attempts I thought Sanctum was challenging me to get some friends and play some co-op with other humans.  There were not a lot of people online, but if they didn’t quit early because of lag, we’d end up stuck in the exact same spot.  It didn’t matter how many teammates weren’t AI-controlled, this game only wanted to spank frustration into me.

I did eventually give up on the game because the prior nine levels were not exactly the Castle Crashers paced fun-zone that was promised.  The gameplay is a shallow experience where you enter a room, bust all of the ghosts, and move onto the next.  There are a couple of rides on the Ecto-4WD and some Stay- Puft dolls to collect but they do little to break up the monotony.  Even brief moments of goodness, like a ghost possessed NYC subway train boss, was only a tiny nugget of tasty in a sea of solid waste.

Fighting the subway train was cool.

To add to the boredom, environments like the Sedgewick Hotel and the NYC sewers get reused on a couple of levels, and it is tiresome clearing out areas you’ve already done.  Even the game’s characters were confused by the steps they were retracing:

Cadet #1: “Why did we come back in here?”

Cadet #2 “I don’t know.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

That sums up the game’s terrible writing style too.  There is an achievement/trophy given for sitting through every e-comic style cut scene,  I thought this would be one of the game’s easier ones and instead I lost any desire to get it.  I know the IDW writers are not the movie writing team of Aykroyd & Ramis, but you would think they would bring their best to attract an audience to their books.  In all fairness, the story itself is okay and does a nice job of tying in some more obscure moments from Ghostbusters 2, but every character, including their versions of the original cast, is dull.  Its humour belongs on a bad Saturday morning cartoon and Venkman comes off as a jerk instead of a dead panned master of sarcasm.  An argument could be made for the content being targeted towards kids, but with many references to a twenty-two-year-old movie it’s hard one to buy into.

Final Verdict: I cannot recommend you strap on a proton-pack for Sanctum of Slime, if you don’t get bored with its repetitive gameplay and reused environments you will eventually be frustrated with the clunky AI and unbalanced difficulty spikes.  At the risk of having every molecule in my body explode at the speed of light, I am now crossing the streams to force this game back into the dimension from which it came.  See you on the other side.

The timing of Sony’s Playstation Network security breach is on par with a fart in an elevator.  It was April 19^th when Sony discovered the PSN’s security has been compromised and they were forced to shut it down one day later.  It fell right in between the release date of three big titles for the PS3 (Mortal Komat, Socom 4 and Portal 2) and the Easter long weekend.  Unfortunately, the hacker(s) couldn’t be clever and worm levels of E.T. for Atari 2600 into the XMB or change the Playstation Store’s login chime to say “boobies”.  Instead, they had to be crooks and we have a possible ID and/or credit card theft of epic proportions.

I had just finished Portal 2’s stellar but short single player campaign on the night of April 20^th and was looking forward to what could possibly be the best gaming co-op experience on this side of Gears of War.  Instead, like everyone else, I got to stare at a login error.   So, rather than leave you Level Up News readers hanging without any kind of Portal 2 review, I’m going to break it up into two parts and we’ll focus here on the single player campaign.

Stephen Merchant is genius as Wheatly.

The Scoop: One of the biggest selling points for picking up Valve software’s Half-Life heavy box-set, The Orange Box was the addition of the greatest throw in title of all time, Portal. It was an intense, physics based puzzler that trapped you like a lab rat in a maze under the eye of a psychotic artificial intelligent, GLaDOS (Ellen McClain).  The experience was a memorable one for most, but in the end added up to a short two hour ride that was not all that difficult to get through.  So now, Portal 2 comes along promising a deeper story and extended gameplay.  It is like a SNL skit getting the big screen treatment and so far we have a delightful Wayne’s World and not a forgettable MacGruber.

The Setup: You are back as the silent protagonist Chell from the original game.  The story begins with her awaking from a stasis sleep at Aperture Laboratories many years after the defeat of GLaDOS.  A core meltdown has triggered Chell’s arousal and she is soon greeted by Wheatly (Stephen Merchant), the AI who is in charge of getting her to safety.  Aperture Laboratories has become quite rundown without GLaDOS to keep it in check. It was once a sterile doctor’s office type of environment that has now rusted out.  Wheatly has a tough time dealing with these changes and accidentally brings you back at the starting point of the portal test labs.

I think someone forgot to pay the maid.

If you played Portal a while ago or only the Orange Box version and are confused by this setup, it’s very understandable.  Valve recently patched the downloadable version to change the ending to show Chell after her escape being dragged back into Aperture Laboratories.  There is a rather good free to read online comic book that bridges the gap between the first and second game that you can get here. But it is completely unnecessary to read, though you may miss some references along the way. Portal 2 is perfectly enjoyable even if you haven’t played the original.

Entering into a test area, seeing the exit, and discovering the way to get there is what this game is about; though, admittedly the beginning stages are a little too easy.  It is done to benefit those who haven’t played the game before or wanted a reintroduction to the portal gun, but it would have been a nice option to skip the tutorial and get right to the action.  Eventually you’ll run into some pre-GLaDOS parts of Aperture Laboratories (then called Aperture Science) when the ship was steered by the founder and CEO Cave Johnson (J.K. Simmons);  it is here where the game really starts to pick up.

What’s Hot: Elements like Repulsion Gel, Propulsion Gel, Thermal Discouragement Beam and Excursion Funnel are brilliantly setup.  Cave introduces them to you through overhead speakers and tells not to worry about their impracticality because Aperture Science’s little regard for safely protocol makes them legit.   Repulsion Gel will have you flying through the air, Propulsion Gel will let you run at great speeds, Thermal Discouragement Beams are deadly lasers used to power equipment and the Excursion Funnel will have you hovering over endless falls.  Valve nails the balance here between challenging and fun, by introducing the new mechanics one at a time.  This gives you the opportunity to become better acquainted with them and will give you confidence when you will need to use their combinations to get through the more difficult areas.

The Excursion Funnel. Don't look down.

Finding solutions to some of the puzzles was like discovering what the inside joke in the room is instead of outsmarting the game.  Having several gun torrents tell you matter-of-factly they will kill you, then finding out a way to drop a ton of Repulsion Gel on them by creating an Excursion Funnel above them is very rewarding.

The voice acting is the best I have ever heard in any game.  The actors inject a huge amount of personality into the characters they portray and it ranks as high as any Pixar Animation Studios movie.  Without giving away too much, Ellen McClain is the only woman to make me feel emotionally attached to a potato, J.K. Simmons’ Cave Johnson had me giggling at his cavalier attitude towards human life and Stephen Merchant’s Wheatly may not have nailed the creepiness at times, but did have me laughing out loud more than once.  None of these guys phoned in their performances because it was “just a video game”.

As you can imagine, GLaDOS wakes up in a bit of a mood.

What’s Not: Some of the extras that were in the original Portal such as the advanced and time trials are dropped leaving you with only a six to eight hour single player campaign with little reason to play again.  It is a bit of a downer for a full priced title.

Final Verdict:  Portal 2’s story is not all that original, but brilliantly told.  The characters are more than memorable and the gameplay still remains completely unique to this series.  It is a gaming experience that should be had by everyone who likes games, but if you are only planning on playing the single player campaign, it is okay to wait for a price drop.

I have no problem with Portal 2’s length.  I applaud Valve for not falling into the trap of adding filler to only make the game longer, but it would have been nice to have some reason to go back to a least some of the levels.  Recently, Valve sent out a press release stating that the first downloadable content pack will be free single player content at no additional cost.  Sweet Valve, always thinking of the customer; but until that is the case we do have a game that is asking for $10 an hour for those who are not inclined to have any friends.

Part 2 preview… For those that do have friends there is still so much to discuss!  The co-op campaign for this game looks like killer fun.  Once Sony dusts themselves off I’ll be taking an objective look and compare it to what I consider to be the grand-daddies of action co-op fun: Gears of War 1 & 2, Resident Evil 5 and Lara Croft: Guardian of Light.  We’ll see how the campaign story and characters stacks-up, and check out how well the cross-platforming with the PS3 and PC works.  Sony will have the PSN up and running more sooner than later so keep checking in on Level Up News for Part 2!

The Scoop: For the first time since People Can Flyhelmed the original Painkiller in 2004 the franchise is taking a step in the right direction.  The original was a brilliant salute to early FPSs and their worship of the three G’s: Graphics, Gore and Gameplay.  When PCF were picked up by Epic Games to make extra content for Gears of War and then eventually Bulletstorm, Painkiller was left to rely on a mixed bag of fan based content to keep it alive.

Although its title may suggest it, Painkiller Redemption is not the title that will return this franchise back to its former glory.  It too began as a fan made mod of 2009’s sloppily done Painkiller Resurrection before getting the nod from publisher Dreamcatcher Games to become an official release.  What has changed for the better is Redemption is not another attempt at a triple-A title for a triple-A price.  Following the trendy path of other retro-themed games, it is available as a digital download on the Steam Network for only $5.  The result is a shorter, more digestible version of Painkiller that does make it easier to overlook the game’s shortcomings.

The Setup: Painkiller Redemption is not a finished product.  Like Minecraft, all of the game’s content has yet to be released.  The parts of the game that are now available are done and provide a full self-contained experience; but the developers, Eggtooth,are promising more.  Those who have already purchased the game will get new co-op missions and multiplayer maps at no additional cost.  Hard to say how much material will be added on in the future or if the game will be better for it.  After all, the co-op missions added onto Resurrection ended up being a complicated mess to setup.  This should be improved with some Steam Network support, but let’s leave the predictions to Dionne Warwick and look at what we have so far.

Redemption feels like an add-on to Painkiller Resurrection.  All of its environments are recycled multiplayer maps from Resurrection, but you are fighting through waves of enemy bots instead of other players.  It can most closely be described as a single player Gears of War-style of “Hoard Mode”.  You do move through the environments and there is a hint of a story; but progression cannot be made until every last monster is slain.  This setup works out well since the Painkiller games have been more about gameplay than story and none of Resurrection’s game crashing glitches are present.

What’s Hot: There is something mystically fun about Painkiller’s focus on mindless fast-paced killing action and Redemption delivers this to the power of 10.  As a result of using Resurrection’smultiplayer maps, the environments are the size of a broom closet as they are meant for about 6 to 8 human players instead of hundreds of enemy bots.  That may sound like a complaint but Painkiller’s weak enemy AI works well in small rooms.  It does make for some of the toughest Painkiller moments to get through, but the solid checkpoint system and easy-to-learn small maps keep the experience an intense, but rarely frustrating, one.

We're gonna need a bigger boat... I mean room.

Redemption also mixes up the types of enemies you’re fighting at any time.  Traditionally in Painkiller you’ll fight waves of one or two types then move onto the next, but Redemption will throw enemies with ranged and melee attacks at you simultaneously. There will be some enemies with shielding, some with flying abilities and they will all move at different speeds.  You are constantly on the move, picking out who needs to go out first, then pick off the slow pokes later.  Using one of my tried and true strategies of letting the flood of enemies come to me while I cut them off with the Painkiller’s secondary laser attack will work for a much shorter time then the previous games.  The AI, while still quite dumb, has become better at flanking you.  This forces you, the player, to constantly switch strategies.

Daniel Garner makes his first appearance since the original Painkiller and you get play as him for half of the game. He is pretty much the only one of Painkiller’s protagonist that I have ever had any attachment to, so it’s nice to see him rockin’ it again.  The other half of the game you’re Overdose’sBelial, who is now palatable since he is a silent protagonist instead of one with four repeated one liners.

What’s Not: Overall Redemptionfeels flat.  Its gameplay is straight forward but it is to a fault as it never makes any attempt to add any kind of variety.  The few bosses towards the end of the game, for instance, are only larger versions of enemies you have already fought.  I get that Painkiller has always been about being retro and staying true to its roots, but even Mario eventually got Yoshi to mix it up a bit.  The weapons are the same, enemies have the same look and the soundtrack is metal.  These are great things to revisit but it would be nice to have some new elements added in to enhance the gameplay.

Shurikens and lightning is back! ...and so is everything else.

A few times after I had cleared an area of enemies, the checkpoint to progress to the next area failed to appear.  It was a little annoying but, again, the checkpoint system is well balanced so only a few minutes of gameplay was lost when loading up the previous one.  Unfortunately, the ridiculously long load screens that have plagued this series since the original are back, so going back to those checkpoints can take a while.  An Intel Core i7 processor should not take more than a few seconds to load a game as basic as this.

Final Verdict: I did have fun with Redemption when I was able to get over its short comings.  Although the $5 price tag does help justify it, depending on your skill level, it is quite possible to zip though this game in about six hours.  Adding a functioning co-op into the levels would definitely add some replay value and make up for its overall lack of depth; but until that day comes we still do have a solid Painkiller game.  It’s tough-as-nails style may not make it an ideal starting place for newbies, but veterans will gladly accept the challenge.  I’ll add up all the positive baby steps Redemption makes towards the good and give it a recommendation; but I want to see large leaps towards greatness for the next one.

Publisher:

The Scoop: Essentially hyped as Red Dawn the game, THQ’s Homefront intends to compete with the juggernaut series that is Call of Duty by supplying a dark and patriotic single player campaign and an ambitious 32 player online multiplayer mode. But can Homefront give the rabid first person shooter fans a worthy competitor for Call of Duty, or will THQ be thrown down like those that have tried before it?

The Setup: Written by John Millius of Red Dawn and Apocalypse Now fame, Kaos Studio’s Homefront takes place in a terrifyingly realistic near future in which the entire U.S. economy and infrastructure has collapsed allowing a newly unified Korean army to occupy the west coast. The game takes place in Montrose, Colorado, a sleepy little mountain suburb which has been walled in by the Korean People’s Army. You play as a former U.S. pilot who is on his way to a Korean re-education center when he is rescued by a small resistance movement bent on driving the Koreans outside of Montrose and eventually the United States.

The familiar third world landscapes from most first person shooters have been replaced with the pre-fab designs of suburbia. High schools now serve as work camps and detention centers, while department stores are used as weapon and fuel depots. Combat is mostly resigned to moving from house to house or store to store in an attempt to push forward, that part isn’t too unlike games like Call of Duty.

The promo screens don't show, but the final game uses all real world brand names to give it a larger sense of reality.

Also in the package is a very well rounded yet simple multiplayer mode. There are basically only two modes, which are team death match and ground control, though there are other mechanics outside the norm which I will explain below. Character advancement is also present, you gain levels and with them new weapons and perks. Scoring kills with each weapon will unlock upgrades like different scopes and load-outs. Instead of having just one or two perks at a time, each perk is worth a set number of points and you get more points to use as you raise levels. This means you can have 2 really good perks, or 6 lower end perks, though I did notice they are a little unbalanced, most of the better perks are only one or two points. As you meet certain objectives (usually kills) you will earn battle points which can be used to purchase either upgrades, like a flak jacket or a rocket launcher, or allow you to summon vehicles and drones.

Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Crytek
Platform(s): Xbox 360 (Reviewed), Playstation 3, PC
Genre: Action
Rating: M for Mature
Players: 1, 2-12 online

The Scoop: Swept up in an alien invasion, you have to go against all odds and prevent both the invaders from destroying New York City, and a paramilitary corporation known as C.E.L.L. from killing you just because they mistook you for a different super-powered soldier they don’t like.

The Setup: Welcome to the Force Recon unit of the United States Marines. You’re being sent in via submarine to New York City where an alien race known as the Ceph have started a full-on assault of the city. Even worse, a Crynet corporation laboratory has confirmed a bio-hazardous virus, dubbed the “Manhattan” virus, was released from containment into the city; the virus causes a complete cellular breakdown within the body and is incurable. You are sent in to rescue Dr. Nathan Gould from the quarantine zone and assist him in any way possible. Unfortunately the Ceph have destroyed your submarine, killed the majority of your squad and left you clinging on to the last bit of your existence. Welcome, to Crysis 2.

Crysis 2—which has got to be the best graphical game to come out on any console or PC since the original Crysis three years ago–is set three years after the events from the previous installment. If you haven’t played the first game, don’t worry; you don’t have to have played the first game in order to understand the second. Besides playing as a different character, events from the first game are explained in subtle detail, and at the end everything pieces together.

The broken city sidewalks, destroyed city scape, the background environment, and even the broken arm of Lady Liberty looks amazing.

Your main weapon is your armor: the Nanosuit 2.0. There are four main suit functions: power, stealth, armor, and speed. Power can help you use a powerful melee attack to guarantee a kill from any grunt, speed allows you to run faster and jump higher, stealth makes you invisible allowing you to sneak behind enemies for stealth kills or to avoid conflict altogether, and armor doubles as a “shield” and protects you from incoming fire or falling from high areas. When you kill a Ceph, you’re also able to take pieces of their nanotechnology into your armor and use it to access new upgrades for your character, such as a faster recharge of energy or a way to see cloaked enemies.

What makes Crysis such a fun series is it’s up to the player how they want to play the game. I’m used to playing games like Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell, so I went the majority of the game in stealth mode, sneaking around enemies for stealth kills or sometimes just sneaking past them and getting to the waypoint. For those that want to go in guns a-blazing, you’ll probably want to keep the armor function on most of the way. The game also gives you multiple options to handle a situation. For example: there’s an enemy tank in your way. Instead of a full-frontal gun-blazing assault, there may be a path on the side you can use to flank the enemies, exposing them to you but keeping you safe from return fire.

There is an angry alien with a Gatling gun. What would you do?

The multiplayer takes a page out of Call of Duty, kill-streaks and all. You’re given all of your suit functions as per the normal game, and you can unlock customized classes. However the leveling system not only affects what guns you acquire, but as you use your different suit functions in combat, those powers will also level up and allow you to perform better at higher levels, such as your armor absorbing more damage than normal, or your stealth using less energy to function. Plus, it will also show other players what kind of play style you prefer. The only function that serves is when you’re killed by another player, you can see if he favors more stealthful approaches or something else, so that you can adjust. For example, if someone keeps using stealth, use your thermal vision so you can still spot them. There are also different challenges that will help you gain experience to rank up even faster.

What’s Hot: Crysis 2 has one of the best campaigns I have played in a long time. Spanning at least ten hours, the game constantly has you guessing what will come next, and just when you think you know what’s going to come or think you’re at the end, the game throws you a curveball and you’re once again at the edge of your seat.

Fans of the first Crysis will be glad to hear that the Nanosuit 2.0 has been completely reworked. You no longer have to cycle between the different suit functions in order to use them as they are assigned to specific buttons. As far as the console side your two shoulder buttons acts for the stealth and armor, so it makes it a lot easier to access while in combat.. What’s better, the speed and strength abilities can now be mixed in with your normal armor and stealth functions, whereas in the first one you were not able to mix abilities together at all. The binoculars now also act as a real-time tactical positioning system, you’re able to tag enemies or helpful items such as reload stations and when you exit out, those indicators will remain on the map. The binoculars also give your character different tactical options, whether to show you a good sniping position, a good flanking position, etc.

The multiplayer side kill-streaks (like in Call of Duty) are present in each map but they are not customizable. Each map does have its own set of rewards for kill-streaks, but Crysis 2 adds in one nice little touch. In Call of Duty, once you obtain at least three kills, you are awarded a bonus item to the game, whether that is a radar detector, jammer, or even air strikes. In Crysis 2, not only do you have to kill the enemy, but you have to collect a dog tag that drops on the ground. The player can pick it up in any amount of time, so if you manage to kill someone halfway across the map you can get to it eventually, but are not pressured to do so right away. Honestly, I like this system better because for those people that want to get their rewards for their kills, it prevents them from just staying in one spot and picking people off.

Surprise!

What’s Not: The problem I have with voiceless protagonists is simple: they can’t interact with the plot in any way. Throughout the game, C.E.L.L. constantly mistakes you as the previous user of the Nanosuit. At one point, you actually get up close to the leader who is about to put a bullet in your face. I just wanted to scream at the TV and tell him that I’m not the guy they’re looking for, but alas it would do no good as they would not be able to hear me. No one, even your ally at the time, seems to want to speak up and tell them the truth.

Crysis 2 also feels a bit claustrophobic compared to the open environments from the first Crysis. Crytek said they did not want to make another jungle environment setting like Crysis or their first game, Far Cry. But where the first game had a lot of freedom of where to go and how to enter a compound to complete your objective, Crysis 2 is limited by the city landscape; however it does its best to make you climb around the broken debris and tectonic shifts. Though sometimes it just comes down to there being only one or two ways you can clear a room instead of several ways.

Final Verdict: It may still be early in 2011, but Crysis 2 is already a strong contender for Game of the Year. A nice, lengthy story and multiple ways to play the game, plus a strong multiplayer make this a great choice for any fans of action first-person shooter games out there.