Someone To Drive You Home

So they released a new syndicate and its a FPS oh noes! Which basically sums up the majority of the internets reaction to this game. The close mindedness behind this game has been infuriating to me. While I concede that the first person shooter is one of the lowest common denominators of modern games, nobody should have expecting the studio who made Escape from Butcher Bay to make a isometric shooter in 2012.

The main themes in Syndicate for me was always control and perception of reality. I always go back to the intro for Syndicate wars and the reveal when the pristine 1950s town façade dissolves and the target sees the world how it actually is. For me it’s never 100% been about gameplay more the atmosphere of that world and what it would be like to be in it. With this in mind Starbreezes commitment to the first person perspective is ideal for what I want from a Syndicate game.

The game itself has you carving through levels as a highly effective tool of destruction. Your cybernetic implant (The DART-6 chip) allows you to slow your perception and gives you access to gnarly abilities like making a dude pull out a grenade and blow himself up by hacking his chip. The combat allows you to shoot and perform hacks simultaneously, although it doesn’t really require it , it does make you feel like Robocable.

The story has you running missions for Eurocorp a Mega corporation in a world where governments have disappeared and cyberpunk tropes have taken over the world. There are some great nods to the original games as this is technically set before them. I especially like seeing the Church of the New Epoch titbits in there and the Leonardo machine. The levels where you are attacking other corporations really stand out as super stylish and in general in Syndicate has a undeniable cool factor associated with the industrial design of most of the assets.

Once your done with the single player portion of the game I highly recommend you check out the co op as its where I think this game really shines. A four player vs the A.I. affair with persistent levelling. I honestly had a blast playing through the levels on all the difficulties and actually was pretty bummed out when I hit the level cap.

I really think this is a fantastic game that’s crying out for a sequel but it’s legacy is more than likely going to be dictated by the peanut gallery who instead of playing the game and making comments from the sidelines.

Syndicate (360) is available for around £24 at the time of this article.

Pure driving and racing games have never really been enough for me. I’ve always needed another focus like combat or destructibility.

It’s not that racing can’t be fun. I just don’t think that it can sustain for any substantial period of time, Games like Forza eventually get to the point where you’ve played the seven or so tracks and the only difference is the cars. What does this have to do with Driver … well nothing really but you know a bit of context to explain where I was coming from when I picked up Drive: SF.

Let me just say that you never walk around and there are no god awful shooting sections in Driver San Francisco. This doesn’t continue the Driv3r tradition of failing to be a GTA clone.

You are Tanner the undercover cop who at the start of the game has already caught the big bad guy Jericho (who actually looks like the dude from Kane & Lynch). However just before you and your cop partner take off on a well earned holiday Jericho escapes from his prison transport and puts you in a coma and this is all in the first five mins.

After you reawaken unscathed in your car you find that you can leap into other peoples bodies, known as Shifting in Driver : SF. Taking control of their cars to do bananas stuff ram criminals head on to take them out. Kinda goes against the old protect and serve mantra but you know what they say about eggs and omelets.

The quantum leap mechanic feeds into every other game mode and feels like they built the entire game around exploiting it, which is no bad thing I found it to be fun for the duration. There is something to be said for running a bus head on into a criminal and ruining his day which is perpetually satisfying. Although it does feel a bit like cheating in the race modes where you can just wreck you opponents instead of racing them legit but I’m sure the designers tried it both ways and made the concession to fun.

So the progression of the game sees you investigating Jericho’s plans now he’s on the loose. These missions are gated behind you completing a few parallel story lines all of which are linked to the main story tangentially (two kids who accidentally get wrapped up in a illegal street racing gang run by Jericho). With you doing a few of these before progressing to the next story beat.

This is the point where I realised that I had been writing Jericho’s name down as Kane incorrectly.

The story starts off as kind of plodding with you chasing up leads following people around and other tasks you will have seen in previous Driver games. Once Tanner begins to realise where he is and the reason why he can shift between cars the story goes straight off the deep end but in a good way. I can’t spoil it because it would defiantly ruin your enjoyment but seriously its worth sticking with the games slow start.

Personally I really enjoyed my time with Driver : SF and would recommend it although I did at a certain point give up doing all the side activities and just mainlined the story but that’s more a comment on what a half hearted completionist I am.

Driver San Francisco – Classic Edition (Xbox 360) is being sold for about £11.00 at the time of this article

With the year over I’m going to quickly churn through some of the important games of 2011 that I missed out.

The problem with most sequels is that they are basically the same with a few tweaks and portal 2 defiantly has that but it brings a great cast along for the ride this time which makes a massive difference. Wheatley was a fantastic character and maybe my favourite of 2011 in any medium. Stephen merchant out did himself and if he doesn’t turn up elsewhere in the half life universe I will be very disappointed.

The gameplay itself remains largely unchanged with portals being your bread and butter. The extra tools like bridges and gels where cool but nothing as mind blowing as the portal gun was. While I realise it’s unrealistic for me to expect lightening to strike twice you always hope a developer can pull it off.

The story stuff is fun although I think they could have done away with the whole visit the old parts of aperture labs and had a much tighter game. Not to say its padding the game out it justifies it’s existence but I didn’t really enjoy the Cave Johnstone jokes as much.

All in all it’s worth playing if you enjoyed the original. I never got a shot of the co op(such is the lot of a rental gamer) but I’ve heard it was really fun. As a rental it’s really a no brainier.

XBLA titles are generally quite throwaway. I say this as someone who originally was quite keen on Arcade stuff at the start of this generation. If they’re not twin stick shooters then it’s a puzzle game or a really shit platformer (which is a genre which needs to go away). Anyway originality are not XBLAs strong suit. Iron Brigade however has originality in spades.

Blending tower defence and mech gameplay with some great manly humour means that the time I spent with it I really enjoyed. In a alternative take on world war one two soldiers get zapped with a alien broadcast one goes on to invent evil tv robots and the other invents the mobile trench. So that’s a trench on legs with guns strapped to the side it’s a wacky premise but double fine commit to the ridiculous of it so hard they pull it off. It’s the antithesis of something like armoured core which takes itself totally seriously. I’ve got room for both in my Xbox but I appreciate the fun double fine have injected into affairs.

The gameplay is wave based tower defence with you planting turrets and collecting tv tubes from fallen monovisions using the giant magnet built into your walker. While turrets help you’ll do most of the heavy lifting with your guns of which the game gives you quite a few to choose from shotguns , machine guns , sniper rifles to artillery cannons that look so big as to be completely impractical. Your encouraged to switch it up as the game as mini challenges for using the different weapon types and rewards you with new weapons and options for customising your marine. It’s a nice touch and gives you a reason to dive into co op as solo play using only artillery would be pretty rough but as part of a team it makes a nice addition.

Customising your mech is a big part of this game with options for the chassis , weapons , turrets and legs. There isn’t much scope for change in terms of chassis you can either have lots of guns and a few turrets or a few guns and lots of turret options but when it comes to guns your spoilt for choice. Machine guns , shotguns , sniper cannons , artillery pieces all sorts of stuff they are also distributed through the games loot mechanic.

Iron Brigade is a great downloadible game it plays to the strengths of the platform. If it was a retail release I’d say that it was a little light on content but the campaign and playing in co op is great fun even with randoms. Give the trial the shot it’s good honest.

Child of Eden is one of the worst games ever made, yeah I know pretty hyperbolic right but allow me to elaborate. Not only is it not very good but it has made me question if Rez was actually any good. This is the videogame equivalent of a existential crisis.

My line of logic on this one is that Rez and Child of Eden are basically the same aside from minor aesthetics and a complete soundtrack swap. I know Rez was was all about synesthesia so it’s not really mean to be deconstructed to it’s parts but still the gameplay is largely similar. Ultimately I still think Rez is fantastic but the fact Child of Eden would lead to me questioning it’s quality was worth mentioning.

So why didn’t I like Child of Eden it pretty much boils down to the fact I loath J-pop. Now don’t get me wrong I’m not a massive music snob, I actually think of mass Market pop music as a sort of fascinating brain washing experiment, but J-pop just goes right through me. The gameplay addition of having two firing modes with certain enemies only susceptible to one of these as a bit pointless and immersion breaking.

I gave the kinect support a try and it was ok but limited the amount of time you could play in one session. I’d say the controller was the way to play but you really shouldn’t play this game at all. Honestly if you’ve not played Rez just play that and if you really like Rez and J-pop then try this but this isn’t the sequel to Rez anyone I know wanted.

Brink

There’s a dearth of multiplayer shooters in this generation. Brink aims to snatch you away from those with a combination of class based shooting and a unique traversal system. The game technically has a single player component but it’s just the MP with bots which brings me to my first point.

It’s a risky proposition to make a FPS that only has a multiplayer component. The only examples of it that I can think of is unreal tournament (later ones especially) and those game never really felt “complete” to me.

Thinking about it I think I need to get interested in the fiction and be shown why the game is cool before wanting to spend hours in a MP mode. As much as it makes most gamers roll their eyes a set piece can teach you how/when to use a games mechanics to win. Although when the pawn hits conflict most of the tactics that defeat AI are useless and that’s maybe the idea behind Brink.

The game itself is a objective based shooter with classes. With the majority of levels involving one team attacking while the other defends a specific location(s). Some objectives are class based meaning you may need a soldier to blow open a door or a hacker to steal a passcode but that’s about as deep as it gets. The one divergent feature of Brink is it traversal system which allows you to vault and mantle ledges. The game offers you three body types with higher ledges only accessible to light characters. These shortcuts could allow you to sneak behind the enemy lines but as you have less health as a light character it’s a risk reward situation.

Being a while after the games release there’s not many players on at any given time which is disappointing.

It’s hard to recommend a multiplayer game with virtually no other players but Brink is really good. If you can bring your own team of players I’d recommend it.

I’m including a bit about the narrative here as this is how it’s presented in the game. As you play you are rewarded with audio logs which are really well written but totally buried in the menus for some reason.

While I finished the first Dead Space I wasn’t too excited about the sequel. The first game traded in isolation, busy work, backtracking and tank controls. If you think resident evil in space with a better story and controls you’d be on the right track. It was in no way a bad game but not exactly my cup of tea. The sequel goes a long way to improving on the first and is pretty much successful in every way.

First off the controls are greatly improved having the ability to use telekinesis on a pole and have a gun out so you can poleaxe the first necromorph you see then start putting rounds into the second never gets old. It also means you don’t feel as stressed, you’ve got options running out of ammo stasis a bad guy shoot off his pincer and TK the sharp end back at him. The slant towards action means you don’t feel as threatened but that’s totally fine with me some people might say this is in congress with the main character (Isaac Clarke) being a engineer but at this point he’s been through the events of the first game.

Intact Clarke is much more of a character in DS2 you see his face at numerous times in the game and the range of emotions displayed in the animations is impressive (although it’s mostly him being mentally and physically broken). The story goes some cool places and I might pick up one of the books this is in contrast to the first game that had a lot of what is to be done rather than why. The characters are pretty well fleshed out and likeable (although the main bad guys motives where never really explained in my two play throughs).

People will tell you it’s a short game which is true. My first run on normal took about 8 hours with finding all the logs and exploring. My second run on hard was about four and a half hours but that was with the powered up guns on a new game+ run.

There’s a multiplayer mode but I didn’t touch it so I can’t vouch for it. All in all I’d recommend it on a rental or for cheap its a well produced fun jaunt.

In other news I’ve swapped to lovefilm for my rentals and so far so good. The reason I left swapgame was the turn around time for shipping games back was getting worse. With me waiting over a week to get items sent out despite having quite a few things on my list. Thus far lovefilm have been pretty good so here’s hoping. I’m a bit sad about leaving swapgame as I thought someone who specialised in games only would be better that a general rental company or at least cheaper but seems I was wrong.

Isn’t a great game, hell it isn’t really even a good game. The first problem you’ll encounter is the controls there seems to be some sort of lag with the jumping that makes it initially difficult to get a handle on. I eventually compensated but I would still miss jumps and fall into a pit constantly. Which brings me to my second complaint each time you die the game kicks you to a loading screen which sucks. Now this isn’t as bad as too human it’s only a few second but it occurs with enough frequency to be annoying.

The combat is pretty dull with a standard combo augmented with a few special attack disks none of it feels as cool as it should. One thing which is defiantly missing is the ability to block at any time if you throw your light disk to attack you’re a sitting duck till it gets back to you. Another way to die easily another trip to the loading screen.

The levels themselves are linear with the way forward denoted by marks on the wall (much like the new prince of Persia games). It looks cool enough in black and neon but really for me it’s all a bit samey. There is one puzzle later on that is nigh impossible where you pinball between two Walls while avoiding fire. It is like a sheer cliff in terms of difficulty and isn’t something the game or controls train you to handle.

TRON:Evolution has a few driving sequences a couple in a light cycle or tank. With the tank sections being the only parts I would consider fun. The problem with the light cycle sections are that it encourages you to go fast to clear jumps. Meaning that you’ve got no time to react to hazards on the roads it’s just poorly executed. Which is a sentiment that I’d extend to the entire game.

Ask me about the multiplayer.

Oh yeah I don’t know because literally nobody is playing it. So even folks looking to bag some achievements will have to bring their own posse.

Theres almost no situation that I can recommend this game. Ok well I suppose If you have to see digital Jeff Bridges then this is the game you need. The story stuff is kinda fun but it’s utterly crushed under poor game design and average gameplay.

Phew That was rough. Anyway I’m plying dead space 2 now and I’ve swapped to LoveFilm as swapgame where taking ages to send out more games (we’re talking a week). As a upside I might right about some of the crap films them have on instant streaming

Where to start with this one? The first thing I should mention is that it’s completely off it’s rocker in the best possible way. I can’t applaud this game enough for it’s use of absurdist humour it makes the cut scenes that punctuate this game are a joy. Bayonetta herself is a fantastic character strong , sassy and intelligent. The game almost pulls this off without being exploitive but realistically even this done in such a way to seem ridiculous.

The game itself? It’s a third person brawler with emphasis on dodging and twitch controls. Combos check , juggling check , ranged attacks check , guns check , melee weapons check… All of my favourite mechanics are present and correct. The ability to cancel out of attacks with the dodge is one that I really appreciate with bullet time if you pull it off at the right time. This isnt a new mechanic but so many 3rd person games leave you stuck in animations when you can see a attack coming that I feel like it’s worth mentioning.

They’re are limited platforming sections aswell which aren’t bad especially compared to the other game I’ve been playing recently (TRON). If you fall off a platform it just dumps you back on the platform with a bit less health. A bad game designer would kill you outright and send you back to a checkpoint or a load screen. It’s refreshing and this sort of design philosophy is replicated throughout the game.

Bayonetta still includes rewards skillful play at the end of each level you receive a grade which it generates from your longest combo, how much damage you took, time it took you and controversially how many healing items you used. At first I felt this was a bad move like the game was silently judging my play in a micro fashion, to some extent I still feel like that , but I eventually conceded that it is possible to play without healing items.

So do I recommend it? Well I had a good time and actually decided to buy it from swapgame for about £7. I might go through and play on the harder difficulties in a fallow period. It’s really gonna depend on your tolerance for nonsense but then isn’t it always.

Next up I might write about Tron but it was a bit shit so I don’t know.

Soo I’ve not written anything for a while (on here atleast) reason being I’ve not been able to get anything finished. Right now I’m still working through bayonetta, I’ve got a rough draft of a article for that so expect it soon, been playing EDF:AI which I’ve co reviewed on Peoww.co.uk and I’ve just started from dust for XBLA.

So I’m not procrastinating just busy I’ve also just received Tron : Legacy (?) in the post from swapgame so il have something to say about that once I clear my backlog.