All Points Bulletin (Arcade)

Yeah Bob, before I fire your ass.

There was a time when running around, or driving for that matter, jumping out of cars and baseball-batting hookers wasn't considered the done thing in games with robbers and cops. Before it was cool to be the criminal, glorification of being a police officer was the in thing and few games managed to do it with a sense of humour as APB did.

You won, this is a rare sight later on.

APB stars you as Officer Bob, you're a cop on the beat in your lovely car on the job to bust punks, ticket asshats and make people who've broken down get tickets as well... Ok perhaps not the cop with the cleanest nose and interrogations are certainly more than you think they'd be. But you're the cop on the case, you get to travel the usual daily routine of driving around and ticketing perps before getting back to base. Every few days you'll be given a mission to take down a specific criminal which may or may not involve blowing up their car.

This guy is a dick. Arrest him.

You have the wheel, a pedal, a gun button and siren button. People won't commit crimes while the siren is off but when the siren is on you can bump, crash and do whatever you want. So you can't just leave it switched on the whole time. Each time you balls it up, you get a demerit and too many of those will get you sacked, aka game over. Fail to reach all your quota for the day and you'll get more demerits.

Suspect threw himself down the stairs 14 times.

The game plays quite fast, reaction times for turning corners and adjusting to changes in the level and layout can be difficult to make in time and usually you'll not get back to the HQ in time, but if you've met all your objectives then that won't matter. Interrogating a suspect involves you beating the shit out of them before the boss gets to the door and sees you before you get the confession out of the asshole. Later levels give you a gun to take down the more difficult and determined enemies (if you can buy it at the right place) while doughnuts will give you more time in a level. (Shouldn't they be taking away time while you eat them? I don't really know on this one.

Your new target, requires 2 hits.

There's a LOT behind this game, there's new criminals introduced every few levels and such, with new ways of combating them but the time limit is still very tight in getting to acquire all of your objectives AND bonuses AND not cause problems like crashing the car and screwing everything up while the siren is on, but while it's on the criminals won't commit the crimes that will gain you the points you need to progress. It's a little balance on things but it's done rather well.

Congrats, you fucked up.

Later levels ramp the difficulty up with having some oddly placed barriers and a whole host of different criminals to catch while also keeping an eye on the time and the fuel. That said it's never really an easy game and after about day 4 or so, the difficulty spikes and just keeps on spiking. Though it does strike me as amusing to see other cars on the road move aside when you slap the sirens on so the AI is rather impressive in that regard.

You REALLY fucked up.

The audio is rather impressive as the game has a lot of digitised speech. "Not you again" for when you're picking up hitch-hikers, "pull over, buddy" for some insults and others like "No way!" for stubborn asshats that won't get out the way. It adds to the experience but still leaves the game somewhat lacking with little in the way of a solid tune to accompany it.

No, you can't "take down her particulars".

It's a fun little spin every now and then but the way it's presented leaves a little to be desired and it soon becomes a coin-drainer for the credits.

Retro, Generations and more bitching from me

"Retro - defined as being involving, relating to, or reminiscent of things from the recent past."

But what does it really mean to us in the gaming communities. Retro graphics, retro games, retro styles and jokes, are they really being "retro" with new games designed to look like old games or are they just going for the cheap buck "ooh it looks so old" like some hipster pricks jumping on a bandwagon because they can't cope or manage to do current generation graphics and effects like their friends are doing from the same graduation school of game making. So do we judge by generation? But that itself is a tough one to define.

Is it anything on previous generation consoles? Do some consoles get to be called "retro" or having an interest and preference in such consoles, become a retro interest? Consoles are much easier to define in generation thanks to the improvements in bits from 8 to 16 to 32 and such. Or simply the consoles released close together defining them as a generation of consoles. Easier but still some gaps in the net slip through there. While PC gaming is still PC games but do we judge them on how old the game is? The style of the game? Whether it uses the latest bollock-crushing graphics card capabilities? Or if the internal programming architecture uses specific graphic libraries or not?

It's a bit of a conundrum and no amount of debate and rationalisation is going to fix it for the masses, there will always be ill-informed opinions, people supporting those with even less knowledge on the subject and then it becomes accepted as truth within that community which then clashes with another community when the two become aware of each other.

Taking consoles into consideration, one could argue that various consoles pair up with each other to form "generations", an example being the 8bit era of NES and Master System, 16bit having the SNES and Megadrive, 32bit having the Saturn and Playstation and so on. However the pairings and groups fall apart when there are inequalities in power under the hilt. Such as the involvement of the N64 against the Playstation, do they get accredited as being the same generation? Are they grouped as being the similar time span or should they be separated on account of being 64bit and 32bit respectively. The lines begin to blur with the release of consoles being intermittent and jumps in technology taking different routes and directions.

If one were to say that generations of consoles are taken as the next sequential console for a company, then we could argue that Famicon and NES are 1 generation, SNES is another, N64 is next, then GameCube, Wii and Wii U. Comparatively PSX, PS2, PS3 and soon at the time of writing PS4 would only be 4 generations of console assuming we're looking at this like some technological family tree. It doesn't match and it doesn't pair up comfortably with newer consoles like Xbox, Xbox 360 and soon the Xbox One, 3 generations but nobody is going to say that the NES and Xbox are the same generation.

Sega doesn't help matters by having released a 32X add-on for the Megadrive, to then release the Saturn before bumping up to 128bit with the Dreamcast before the end of SEGA's home entertainment career in consoles, arcades however still thrived for significantly longer and software began developing on other consoles but I digress. The timing of such releases stopped the synchronicity of generations and threw a lot of it into disarray, grouping consoles into generations would be more an arbitrary process determined by one to two individuals with pandering groups following their decisions. Much like fashion, one or two pricks determine what is in fashion, but rather than ridiculing these people, flocks of sheep bray praises and hand over money to them. Not quite the same situation here, but people are enabling this kind of decision making.

Consoles can be grouped in the means of processing power, or in terms of technology, which is ease with the 8bit era, 16bit era etc, though lines blur with the 32bit and 64bit tech before it steps up to the modern tech where diversification has made it almost impossible to compare consoles because of the differentiation from one console and another. While I also admit that discussing 8bit consoles and talking from the 1980s point of view is easy enough, I'm neatly sidestepping Colecovision, Atari 2600, 5200, C64, ZX81 and now throwing home computers into consoles/game machines. While I'm at it, let's discuss Jamma boards and arcade technologies from late 70s to mid 90s and lump the Neo Geo into the discussion for someone to organise and determine which generation matches what.

How would we go about that?

Home consoles started as lights on a screen before catching up and surpassing arcade technologies. Eventually getting to the point where you could put a credit in a machine for 10mins of amusement or go BUY the game in a store for your home console and play it for as long as you want with likely, more content. Which generation of console pairs up then with various makes and models of arcade machine? Some will prefer to keep them distinct from each other but then consoles like PSX and Dreamcast seemed to have direct 1 to 1 conversions of arcade games, while the Megadrive port of Bubble Bobble is almost indistinguishable from the arcade.

I could argue the same distinctions for mobile phones. If I JUST look at Apple and its series of pods, touches, phones and pads, each one has several generational iterations with usually little difference between each stage of "evolution" for want of a better derogative term. Few would argue the differences between iPhone 3 and iPhone 4 but the differences between iPhone4 and iPhone4S however, are they worthy of being similar generation or next generation and to which generation of iPads do compare or even iPods for that matter. Then take into account the other smart phones such as Samsungs, Blackberries, Androids and the organisation becomes less apparent and clear. Given some of the apps and games available out there, such as Infinity Blade when it was first released and was mind-blowing to be shown working on apple machines, where do we place the machine in the generational divide?

Would it perhaps be better to say that a Game or Software is retro when hardware becomes too awkward to determine it as such?

Does a game become retro because it uses less advanced technology than the games available at the time? Some would argue that with flash games being made that are more in focus with using limited colour ranges, blocky graphics but are superseding the retro framework by having advanced effects and calculations in the game that wouldn't have been possible at the time when the game appears it COULD have been made. Does that still make it retro?

In a games market of First Person Shooters, does having top-down shooters make you retro? The uses of sprites over polygons make you retro? Not really, no. Given some of the hand held games consoles are still using sprites to make games, allowing companies that don't want to utilise 3D graphics the chance to make sprite based games instead, letting them get a foothold in the industry with the ability to draw instead, cannot be a bad thing and doesn't decry it as retro. Merely as a sensible alternative choice.

Taking a step back, looking at the PC generation of gaming. It could be considered easier to determine generations of games by the Operating Systems on which they're programmed. But that falls apart for the Linux systems and not everybody wants to discuss Dos and Windows even though they're at the forefront of most Personal Computers in the home. Though even with DOS, games from Space Invaders to Doom have been programmed for it, up to Duke 3D and Blood. Are these retro by definition of the engines they use in their games or that they're run on DOS? So do 3D games like Quake, which run through DOS primarily before we even start talking about ports to later OS's, still count as retro or just "old".

Going further into issues, do 3DFX games count as retro, compared to OpenGL or DirectX backing libraries? What of games designed to run on DirectX 6, or 8? Or 9? Before we get into the field of DirectX10 and DirectX11 and beyond? At which point does a game become retro there? And furthermore, if a game is taken such as Doom, is modified with custom made files that give it 3D rendering, light sourcing, pixel shading effects and so on, does it cease to become old and retro in the new light? Assuming it was sufficiently retro in the first place.

Some will argue, some will debate but there's always going to be loopholes and differences in understanding and appreciation. Some will happily determine that their favourite old game is "retro" because they think that's what it means, and will debase older games as being too old and new games as "not retro".

Is there a time limit on games and consoles before they become old/retro? Does it mean that it has to be a game or machine that's between x and y years old? Or something modelled on the style of x and y years old? But if Retro is reminiscent of something old, could all modern FPS being retro imitations of games like Doom? Or is doom too far gone to be considered retro in the fast moving pace of progression in technology these days?

Would a round number be sufficient? For example, retro in gaming and technology is any tech that was made more than 10 years ago? So for any modern games and machine to replicate styles of gaming and designs of hardware, from 10 years back, are retro in consideration of today? Or is it just old shit that needs to move the fuck along?

But then, there's the problem. Retro is to be styled on something that is old. Not to BE old in itself. Retro fashion is modern fashion designed and based around old fashion, it is not in itself, OLD, but new designed to look old.

The very argument that old consoles are "retro" is entirely backwards, they are just OLD. Retro games would be modern games that look or are styled on old games, rather noticeable on the indie development scene where a lot of games are made with more fresh looking graphics and slight game play modifications, but ultimately are new games that look old. Whether intentionally looking that way or through limitation of the programmers abilities (not to say they're incompetent, but just lack the resources to produce their vision). Few games these days ARE retro, these are games made in recent memory that deliberately use old graphics, audio processes etc, to make an old looking, old styled and old ambience within a game. These games are the true retro, not banding around the word like it's some sort of fashionable shield to defend that these people don't have the current systems and games and claiming that liking old stuff makes them "retro". It doesn't. It makes you someone who likes OLD stuff.

Retro City Rampage, is a game that is just as retro as you could actually get. A modern game, using antiquated graphics imitation (new but looks old). Plays like an old game, looks and sounds like an old game but was coded and produced recently, is the exact definition of Retro in gaming. Anybody claiming retro for old games, is claiming it incorrectly, they're just old. That's not a bad thing in itself; liking old stuff isn't an issue (unless you're into granny porn but that's another problem in itself) and shouldn't be shunned or hushed down because it's old. But calling old stuff "retro” is just a smack in the mouth waiting to happen.

And before anyone asks, no, Duke Nukem Forever is not retro, it just took a long time to make and looks old.

Things games should not do, part 2

More gripes coming up


Ultimate versions of games:

Setting: You spend £40 on a game, you get it home and play it, it's fun and fast paced, you're enjoying it and after a while you hear they're releasing new characters for the game which will be (assumedly) moderately priced, new people to play as with new move sets and new tactics to learn and discover. THEN, a month or so after you bought this, you hear they're releasing an ULTIMATE version of the game that has all the stuff you bought and bought extra of, in one game with MORE things to buy and download that will only work for the ultimate version.

This is one big dick-slap to the face for all players out there. You blow cash on a game, then the DLC THEN have to blow cash on the new game, thus negating your original purchases, followed by MORE cash on the DLC that will only function on the new game.

This is not the first time this has happened, but back when it began, it wasn't such a concern because of the manner in which games were being made and distributed. Years back we had similar with Street Fighter 2. First was SF2 sporting 8 chars, 4 bosses. Then came Street Fighter 2 Turbo, faster, 8 chars AND bosses to select from, some key differences between fighting and moves (i.e. Ken and Ryu being functionally different). Then came SUPER Street Fighter 2 Turbo, with more differences, 4 extra characters not seen before, spruced up graphics and refined engine for combat.

Each game was released full price. Back then, at least you got the extra stages for the 4 characters added, use of bosses, new characters and so on with the games that were released and the advent of super moves and power bars etc. Back then you couldn't download the games or install updates, there was no other way to release the extra characters other than to have a new game (or some odd mix up with connecting cartridges and I'm only really looking at Sonic and Knuckles here).

THe problem with this is that today, you CAN get new DLC rather readily online for people to download and install and don't have to buy games. Which does make the football/sports games redundant as you can download lists of players for teams and perhaps likeness of players instead of buying a new game. Keep the machine online and you can change the stats on the fly or even if they're injured in real matches, keep them off the game at the same time. Potentially, just ideas here.

But to release an "ultimate" version these days when DLC can be installed and updated, is only a means to rip off customers and force them to spend more of their hard-earned (or easily pocket-monied) cash. The only way this is viable is if there's people that cannot, for whichever reason, gain online access to the game and its functions and would have to purchase the ULTIMATE version, although other games sell the DLC as a cheap off-set anyway... Fallout 3 did it... Why not here? I'm guessing it's because of a want for cash after some other games by the same company didn't quite perform as adequately as they'd originally thought that they had.


Restarting the skill set:

Setting: You've been playing the game for a while, gathered the weapons as you've gone, powered up your character, levelled up through the systems and amassed a wealth of cash and abilities the likes of which have taken you a considerable amount of effort and difficulty. You move onto the next chapter but that's when it happens. Your powers are gone, your weapons removed, your levels reduced, your bank account bankrupted and you're back to square one in the game as if you'd never even played it in the first place. Frustration sets in, the futility of everything hits hard when you realise that the hard work you just put in, has been abitrarily removed.

It's a simple and quick way to pad a game out. Falsely pad up the game to get the player to work a little harder because as a game, it's run out of ideas and the only route now is for making it more difficult to the player by limiting the very skills and strengths they've been able to win and learn. Games will try to justify it "you got captured and all your gear is removed" or "your life is over, now your son/daughter takes up the mantle" or "you awoke from the dream and none of what you did actually counts or matters" or even the more insidious "You had to drop your weapons to run through a desert and carry the bare minimum". In some cases it would make sense, but then why have that whole situation before this event if you're only going to drop stats, weapons, skills and send them carrying on into the ever increasing, exponentially curving, difficulty? To make the game last longer.

Most annoyingly (And I'm citing Fallout 3 add-on, The Pitts) when you're high level, wearing the armour of a TANK in bipedal form, you've gone toe to toe with hundreds of enemies, many larger and more powerful than yourself and you've come out wearing their skulls as an ill-fitting hat. To then go to a new place and meet people that DECIDE to capture you while armed with nothing more than a few ill-fitting jeans and t-shirts whilst wielding a few iron bars. People and enemies you've obliterated in droves were stronger than these munchkins and you've been accosted by far worse, carrying far more powerful weapons while you yourself were armed with less deadly weapons and armour than you have at this current point in the game. It's like taking on the entire enemy army, complete with tanks, choppers, jets, boats, nukes etc, surviving it like a bad-ass only to return back to your own team and get mugged by someone holding a fish as an offensive weapon.

This is just how it is done badly and something like this is just arbitrarily shoe-horned in like this.

In a storyline setting, it's feasible to see WHY it would need to be done if moving from one character to another, but then why not have that story as another game? Or reassure us that the new character won't be all we have next and we'll be moving back to the other, the original character, in the near future?

Yet games like Infinity Blade do the generation game/cross over and has the stats of the character move with the new character (The game does explain the situation in a roundabout manner but until THAT point, it's all about generations and kids coming along to kill a dude)

Things games should not do.

In a recent review, I might have touched upon the idea of games companies doing certain things in certain ways that might make games a little more appealing to the consumer/gamer of today. Or more specifically, where I believe games companies are falling down and, whether rightly or wrongly, doing things that show them up to be lazy or giving the player the feeling that things were rushed before finalising the game and kicking it out the door to die in the cold.


End of game Gauntlets:

Setting: You've played the game, got to the final levels and discovered the dark secret of Person X, you've saved the nearest and dearest, you've fought your way past insurmountable odds towards the inevitable showdown between yourself, the plucky protagonist and the asshat, the evil antagonist, only for them to run off and you're instead facing a horde of enemies. Most of which you've killed already in some fasion.

It feels cheap. So much potential in having a satisfactory big bust up with the final boss and instead you get to fight an army of low level shitheads that you can easily one-shot or insta-kill thanks to either your high level of capability, massively over powered weapons or common-place experience through playing the game to this point and having a fine understanding of the intricacies of the games control system.

Admittedly, sometimes it's hard to shoehorn in a decent boss fight. Most games will take the "giant boss" option instead where something demonic rises up, or a robot suit, or something that gives the final boss a boost to make them worthy of being a final boss. But more on that later.

The biggest grievance is not that there's a gauntlet at the end of the game, but that it IS the end of the game. Nothing wrong with having a mad dash where the last person throws every single remaining grunt and solider at you THEN having themselves stand up and fight you personally. But having the grunts taken down and there being no final payoff other than a cutscene, robs the player of that final great satisfaction and epic beat-down the final boss deserves in a game. Particularly more so in games where there's such conflict built up in the story telling.

Would Star Wars been as impressive if instead of fighting Darth Vader, Darth Maul, The Emperor etc in a one on one epic fight, they just threw a few hundred troopers and robots at you and then either run off or killed themselves? No, of course it wouldn't have.


'Not quite the ending' games:

Setting: You've run the gauntlet (maybe killed the boss - see above), you've placed the magical item in its rightful place, you've hit the power switch and diverted power from the over class to the underdogs, righted the wrongs and emerged triumphant atop the still-charred remnants of your enemies bodies and now you're here to watch and recieve, closure. That last cut scene where you see the fruits of your labors, the pay off after so much hard work and the end to all the strife and struggling those you have fought for, have suffered. Except you're left with an ambiguous little scene that shows that something has happened, but not exactly what and in such little detail that the game COULD be continued or not... For Fuck's Sake.

There's little more annoying than not getting the full story, especially in a video game. If the game designer is FULLY AWARE of the intention of making a game, they can at least put in "Continued in Generic Game #2" or such at the end, but there's a growing number of games being made where the ending is not absolute, there is nothing ultimate about the final scene and there's that idea another game could be made to continue the ending of the story. Usually by this point, nobody will give a ripe shit about it.

Game's makers seem to be in a limbo where a large number of games WON'T end the story as they could milk it for more, and leave it in a state of near-finish so that we could get more out of it. Though just as equally we could have a different storyline in the same universe/world, or a prequel or dare I say it... a DLC add-on (Asuma's Wrath might get away with that one as they allegedly ran out of space on the disc to include the final few chapters... not sure which side of the anger I sit there).

Ending a game completely in plot, stops games makers from being able to milk an up-coming franchise for what it could be worth and instead force closure (or not at all, an even bigger crime to be made there) so that people will know it's the end and that's IT. Publishers likely won't want that so there's the chance of milking it further if the game becomes an unexpected success. For players it will mean games will end and everything tied up neatly and that once a game has ended something NEW will have to come out instead of "Captain BuggerBollocks 6: We thought up a few more shitty plotlines" is forced to be spewed out of whatever orifice the devil is jackhammering at that point.

Various sequels did it well, games that were made that were not so much a continuation of the original story but more a side-line to the original. Prototype managed it by having it as both of these things, a continuation and a different main character to the original. While games like Grand Theft Auto have the name as only the thing that links the similar concepts and games like Final Fantasy are only tied together by the fact they're made under the same company heading and very few have any actual sequels or set in the same universe at all. (Except there's chocobos and Cid... usually). Which takes this point so far in the other extreme that the games could be NAMED properly and would still be effective as stand alone games. The Silent Hill games set around the eponymous town but with different stories happening at different times, all of which can reference each other but remain firm as stand alone stories and the end of the game being the end of THAT story, are another good example of how to do sequels without bullshit endings.


Excessive DLC downloads:

Setting: The game is there, you've paid £40, $60 or however much you normally pay for the price of a game and then left to take it home, slap it into the console (or install it) and then play the game. All is fine however until you realise that there's possibly something missing, so you head over to the game's DLC section or whichever market place there is for the game and realise that the character you've been playing as, could look better in 1 of 47 different outfits and get ups. Now you realise your character WOULD look better dressed up as a cowboy (in a space age game) or a disco diva (in Hell fighting minions... sounds good actually).

It's more common place in beat-em-up games to have this odd abundance of clothing outfits for the all the characters. Particularly the women, particularly the young women, and wearing less clothing than a porn star mid-coitus. Seriously, I've seen naked people with more clothing than some of the outfits in these games. In some DLC sets, the entire cast gets an alternative costume but in the extreme cases, you can buy hundreds of outfits for one character at a time.

Looking at the DoA5 set, I'm going with the assumption that you'll have purchased the game for around $40, as a rough middle-ground figure. And for further assumptions, only to include sets of DLC i.e. A 3 in 1 pack rather than buying 3 packs if all 3 are found in the 3 in 1 pack. So pack 1 is free for now, pack 2 is $12.99 as is pack 3, so another $12.99, swimwear pack as an optional $12.99 depending upon whether you have the collectors edition, costume pack 4 at $7.99, pack 5 at $12.99, $7.99 for the pack 6 christmas set, another $7.99 for a 2nd xmas pack making pack 7, $12.99 for the swimwear set and bonus level (level is free anyway), $4.99 for pack 9, a cheerleader set for $8.99, hotties set for another $12.99 which makes up the 10th named pack. Now... bit of maths... $144.86... add on the total for the game in the first place, $185 roughly.

Some people will argue, pointlessly, "You don't HAVE to have it" which begs the questions, Why would it be there in the first place then? Why couldn't it have been included with the game in the first place, particularly if it's ALREADY on the disc and just being unlocked/accessed and more importantly, why not have something worthwhile on the DLC than just a remapping of textures and a few model changes, when nothing fundamental changes as a result of the installation?

I could understand if there was insufficient room on the disc, or the content being provided was of significant change to the game, such as a map-pack (which can get quite large with some of the more detailed ones out there) or a new High Def texture pack for EVERYTHING, but this is a cheap and shitty attempt to milk money by making people flash cash for flashing flesh back at the player.

Yes, I've turned every player that purchases this, into a punter at a strip bar.

Unreal

Few games were ever so ambitious as EpicMegaGames (now just Epic... a rather modest title) and their attempt with Unreal. A wide open series of expansive levels, gorgeous scenery, various races of enemies, native creatures and a sprawling planet wide enslavement force that you just so happen of which to be caught up in the middle from the peaceful emaciated and pseudo aboriginal/ethinic-minority aliens and the techno advanced oppressors with their larger, faster, deadlier, creatures and weaponised technology.

You play as Captain McNoFace, a generic 100 hit point wonder with a background of pointlessness and has key useful skills in moving and using weapons, crash landing his way on a prison ship into an odd gravitational field of a planet and wake up on your cell floor as the only survivor of the ship. After a rather atmospheric and dark exploratory check around the wreckage, grab yourself a gun, escape from the shadowy INHUMAN thingies and step outside into the bright world of Unreal while your jaw hits the floor at the sheer size and scope of the first outdoor arena being larger than anything most games bothered to even make in their entirety. Yes, Unreal is an epically large game, particularly for its time.

As FuckHead McNoBrain, you will travel here, there and everywhere trying to get back off the planet by scouting mines, enemy ships, other human ships that crashed nearby (read: fucking miles away, as in, half the game away), sky lands, mother ships and final bosses sat right beside the highest point of escape, the pod.  On the way you'll encounter a myriad of helpful aliens (try not to shoot them, it makes them less amenable to your cause), guns of all shapes and sizes from a gem-shooter that fires like a machinegun or shotgun depending on your alt-fire. Miniguns (compulsory in 90's shooters) multi-load rockets, explosive grenades, 1-2-combo laser cannons, sniper rifles (pop those heads off) and a bogey gun with explosive bogies. I wish I was making that last one up, though it's called a different name and lets you fire rapid pulses of explosives bogies or charge up to hock a fat sticky mucus ball that slides down a bit on walls before detonating into lots of bogies.

Story/plot is told through a translator GUI that beeps when you walk past the relevant message prompting box to get you look and read the events occurring around you, much like Marathon did with its view screen/terminals. Each one will likely give you helpful information on your objective or some developing lore regarding the game's plot and such.

While it all sounds nice and pretty, get ready. Each enemy within the game acts like a death match bot, perhaps rather fitting and preparing for the later instalments of Unreal Tournament series, but every enemy will try to side-step, dodge, flank, use the level around themselves to hide, take cover, attack from vantage points and such. Most notably the predator-esque creatures that have claws on their wrists and fire energy balls, seen to be diving and dodging like mad-things much in the same way the player can (and should).

From huge fat lumps with rocket launchers, to the Predator guys, to suited and booted alien marines with lasers and grenades to the flying demon monstrosities, every creature is carefully sculpted and crafted to be physically unique and identifiable, yet seems to adhere to the same movement rules as the player, except the titans which act as the games "oooh fuck" element whenever you encounter one. (and as an "ah shit" when you meet two at once).

With such a size and scope, this game seems and feels empty at times. There's the occasional hut and so here and there, castles and outposts, a village at one point, but with so few people and enemies occupying the game (until the bigger battles at least) the sparse landscape and it's pretty appearance, are very devoid of life, perhaps as a limitation on the engine at the time or being traded for the processing power of the large scale maps and carefully intricate details. It just feels empty, even back in the day of playing the game.

Though when I say that the game is huge, you really do get the feel of being on a massive (if a little linear) planet, travelling across wastelands, lush meadows, canyons and caves, climbing towers to find sky-lifts into airborne towns, battling through giant spaceships and destroying power sources to enjoy pitch-black levels that atmospherically incorporate the flashlight into the fray. That said however, sometimes the game is TOO big and level design can leave a player very disorientated and confused, particularly in the more dungeon based levels where backtracking is expected and does occur. It can leave a player rather daunted as to where to go next and whether or not they've hit the right switches to open the levels up and unlock essential doors.

The controls of the game are the much used 8 way direction, mouse look, fire and alt fire, while using inventory spaces and extra navigation for items and extra buttons for using such items or bringing up details like the translator, it can take a little while to get used to where to use things and being in an intense and fast paced battle, mean the difference in winning and reloading with annoyance. Oddly, there's a dodge system in the movements, allowing players to spring in one of 4 directions to avoid attacks, which is great when fighting in an open landscape but a cause of death if trying to navigate narrow walkways and double tapping a direction sends you FLYING off the fucking edge into lava.

Bit of a balls up there.

Graphically the game is gorgeous, there's no doubt on that account, sound-wise the game sports a rich host of fine effects and audio garble from the inhuman creatures, though sounding more like foreign speak than something truly alien in presentation. The musical accompaniment never really gets beyond being a background ambience, the occasional pseudo-techno tracks during high speed/action areas which doesn't stop once you'll killed everything, can kill the atmosphere and plunge it into the shadowy, stinky recesses of dullness.

The unfortunate part of the game, is that you won't meet another character that helpfully explains the plot, or tells you why not to shoot everything, or where to go next, it's done entirely through finding the relevant hieroglyphs and in some cases, deciphering the details to ascertain where upon one might find the next snippet of plot or direction. Further confusion being raised when one is told to power something up (hit a switch) or depower something (hit another switch) with no indication on the location of the button or what it even looks like, which results in some awkward trial and error game play mechanics. Some piss-poor level design allows for you to jump ahead to a button or switch you WILL have to push but not yet, to be told "not yet" in far more descriptive terms with no real guidance on where the switch you NEED to press now is currently located.

But what is Unreal, ultimately? An experience more so than a game, it's an adventure into the alien architecture of unreality (geddit?) and the fruits of labour of some visionary individuals, culminating in a slightly off-centre aim leaving an audience with its breath-taken one moment and frustrated in the next.

I still don't get why the last boss would be so close to the escape pod that it cannot fit inside...