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.

Morrowind

I really should have thought about reviewing this one sooner rather than later as this is a game I've found to be one of the main reasons I upgraded my computer's graphics card just to get the pixel shading effect on the water surface and was amazed by it as the first true example I'd witnessed of what a decent/good graphics card can DO to a system. (Back before the internet was common place to buy stuff online and having to purchase items based on whether a store had one and the hefty price tag accompanying the graphics card too). But in having played Daggerfall previously to Morrowind, I'd had an idea of what they were going to do with the game and the size/scope but even then, I was still blown away by the openness of the game.

It starts, as almost all Elder Scrolls games do, you wake up somewhere and realise "Oh shit, I'm here and this is a thing now". Daggerfall had you shipwrecked, Morrowind has you as a slave on a ship, Oblivion as a prisoner with no past and Skyrim you're on your way to be executed for the crime of having your head and neck firmly planted on your shoulders. In Morrowind's case, you awaken next to a nearly naked man who may or may not have recently decided you were the prison boat’s bitch, it's not entirely clear, but he does seem rather overly concerned to the point of asking how well you slept and what your name is... Some sort of "hump first, question later" approach it'd seem.

Before stepping off the ship, a guard approaches to check names etc, then you're frog-marched into a registry office and further details are asked of who you are, your star sign (generic stat boost/drain) and what kind of person you are either through generic questions like "If you were an animal would you be a) a pig, b) a cat or c) An Ocean Sunfish" which somehow concludes that your character class is nothing akin to what you answered. I prefer to pick my own for the fact I like to hit things with swords and clubs and knowing that some people out there will hurl fireballs at me, be a little resilient to magical attacks. You could go the potion making route, or thieving bastard route and pinch everything not nailed down, though you tend to find you do that anyway.

Here you can also select your race with its own racial bonuses ranging from being rather strong but dumb, to being gifted with magical power but unable to regenerate it or just being small and very annoying. In tandem with this, not every creature/race can wear every piece of armour either (unlike later Elder Scrolls games) and as such the beast type races can't wear standard boots or full helmets. Probably because the models would look dumb if they did that.

Once you're out the building, that's it. Save for a message saying to meet with Mr "X" in a town at some point, and this is where the game can be a make-or-break situation. You're free to do what you want, when you want and how you want with usually very few consequences. Want to do the main quest? Go ahead. Want to join up with various bands and groups and do odd-jobs and chores for them? Do that instead. Want to go raiding temples and burial chambers? Do that. Want to serve the dark gods and become their champions? Do it. You can even decide that living is for the strong, you're the strongest so GENOCIDE is the best course of action and can systematically slaughter EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER in the game... though some will put up a staunch defence even when you're maxed out on levels.

While you progress through the game you'll level up skills by using them successfully, slashing with a sword does very little, but striking someone will gain some exp. Running everywhere will drain stamina but you'll gain running exp and level up there, likewise with jumping until you're able to leap over buildings and take big falls with minimal damage. Need to learn how to use light or heavy armour? Get hit while wearing it to increase effectiveness on using it but you'll need to repair it soon too.

This can be a case of falling at the first hurdle though, with some people not realising that having level 15 swords is NOT a good thing if you want to actually hit people with the swords. Thankfully there's places to learn and level up skills for cash to save you wasting your time flailing like a madman on fire while a worm systematically kills you via death by head-butting your ankle. Incidentally, the same can be said for throwing items, archery etc. There's a LOT of levelling to be done here and gaining levels in sub categories counts towards the bigger character level upgrades where upon you can designate boosts to other aspects of your character with extra bonuses depending on what you did a lot in the previous level upgrade. Just be warned that short sword skill and long sword skill are 2 different skills and you need to be careful which weapon you use, it can be fatal to be mistaken in that regard.

Main plot wise, you're "possibly" the new born arse-kicker god in "mortal" form. If you're really the god re-born, you cannot be killed, but that doesn't stop people trying/failing. You will investigate into various factions around the volcano-island of Morrowind and meet with various Gods and Demons to try and work out if you are the reborn god, reunite the parted Houses of the Island to then wage war (by yourself) on the demon-god and his immortality machine. With lots of backstabbing, skulduggery and walking around the lush countryside and burnt out ash plains of the land.

And fight Cliff Racers. The game's constant harassment in the form of a flying bird that can follow you anywhere.

There's a whole host of guilds to join from Fighters Guilds, Mages, Thieves (honour even amongst them), Assassins, Temples, Imperials and such all having their own jobs and systems, ranks and privileges and rewards upon reaching the upper echelons of the system. Though the jobs can be rather unbalanced or unfair in that the first mission for one guild can be just to kill some rats (and it's always rats) to using unheard of stealth skills to steal something in which you'll invariable fuck it up and look like a prick while running from the guards or losing some stats in prison.

Amongst all this are the specific missions from people you'll meet and encounter. The odd pervert that wants to see you naked. Someone that wants his ring found. Taxes and debts to be collected. Dungeons to be braved. Slaves to be rescued. Floating rocks and prisons to be visited. Mad cults to be torn apart and rent asunder. Flowers to be picked.

And Cliff Racers to fight.

As a character though, you can do a whole host of things. Become a magician and cast various types of magic from destructive fireballs and ice-blasts, to lock picking and telekinesis, addle people's minds, turn invisible, and negate damage and case shields of elemental types. Make and mix up potions to boost stats, or create poisons. Begin your own line of enhanced magical armour or clothing. Develop magical weapons and shields. Repair everything and sell it. Steal EVERYTHING. There is very little limit in what one can do within the game and even going so far as to explore the more seedy and darker regions of the game to own your personal slaves (and liberate them too). Travel from one place to another and...

Kill Cliff Racers...

That is a rather large gripe in the game. You can't sleep (and heal... usually..) if there's enemies nearby and with Cliff Racers they can fly and therefore follow you a long distance and over most terrain obstacles that every other enemy cannot do. They tend to attack in swarms and with the repeated hitting and staggering, will knock seven shades of shinola from your body and kill you before you can even begin offering a retort. Some gamers will employ the use of a mod that removes them completely from the game and find it becomes and much more enjoyable experience. Though I personally found it hilarious when meeting several barbarians in the game that had encountered a witch and needed help, one was basically an obnoxious man who "claimed" she was a witch, another actually was a witch, and the third took the piss out of me for assuming there's always a barbarian fighting a witch. A wonderfully amusing inside joke within the game at itself.

Getting married to a cat-girl however was a bit odd. Though I can think of a multitude of idiots that would relish that prospect. While rising to the head of a guild only to fight and kill the leader was a good chuckle. Incidentally, the conversation aspect of the game is all based around talking to people and clicking keywords they (might if they like you enough) tell you about and inform you of upcoming events. Alternatively you can scare them if you're convincing enough but they'll hate you later, and bribe them a lot of cash to make them like you like some sort of emotional happy pimp. Or taunt them into fighting you and making it easier to kill them for free with no consequences (unless it's someone key to the story/plot) in a sort of "you swung first, I get to do what I want" kind of ruling.

The game however, for all its flaws and bonuses, reeks atmosphere almost from every pore of its fine and slightly pock-marked skin. The ambient music adds almost perfectly to the theme and setting of the game and giving a subtle grandeur to the game's production, to the point that the key theme features in later games too, most noticeably in the Skyrim add-on that takes place in an Island just off Morrowind itself, a wonderful little throw-back nod to this game. Music changes gradually to fit pace and setting, so a quiet wander through the lush forests and mountains will be rather soft in approach, while combat and fighting takes an almost faster pace with heavier drum accompaniment but nothing that ever becomes overbearing or taking the forefront in the game, always as a quiet aside to whatever it is featured before yourself.

The game does leave us with various choices throughout, some of which are obvious, others are a bit more judgemental and not as clear cut black/white in the morality issues. Most people will free every slave they find though one or two might play as in character as they can and keep slaves for themselves as pack mules in carrying around large amounts of loot and treasures from the dungeons. Other choices may leave you racking your brain over whether either decision is really the "better" choice, especially if there's not a clear cut solution to the situation and very little indication to the rewards either. "Take this diamond to my sister" and get mugged by their compadre who lifts the diamond back and returns it in a sort of star-crossed lovers idea. You can look past the misdemeanour and help them, or butcher the pair of them in their sleep, steal all their items and clothes and sell it for profit at the local trade/exchange for a nice new pair of shoes with +1 "fuck you" factor. (And -2 charisma, berk). But maybe helping them out well enough will net you a perfect, flawless diamond and their grace and favour.

Or kill some cliff racers.

Invariably some will compare this game to Oblivion and to be fair, that is the next game. But we can't compare an old game to a new game like that; we can only really compare to the previous game and showcase improvement. From the generic lands and awkwardly broken realms of Daggerfall, we've now this fully mapped, fully 3D world (Island...) with some of the most mind-blowing views and visions to grace a computer at that time (more so with the better textures sets available out there) While I shouldn't strictly do this, but the involvement of further add-ons that are officially made, open the game up into looking into the 2nd and 3rd of the "mortal" gods and their involvement and development since the end of the main game (or not as the case may be), or a huge sprawling Island just off from Morrowind where it's based more around a colder climate with its own setting featuring werewolves that haven't really made a return since the Daggerfall game, until the final big update from Morrowind's extra mods.

It's said that variety is the spice of life and there's certainly a lot going on in this game, various different weapons and materials to make those weapons from iron, steel, glass, obsidian etc, long swords, short swords, daggers, knives, axes, spears etc, magic as mentioned before, potions to boost any and every statistic, armours and makes of armours in great variety while also there's every precious metal one could expect to locate and find from steel plate to "demonic" sorts of armours (weapons too for that matter). A virtual library of ingredients to play around with to make potions, and all within a solidly made, gaming environment that doesn't utilise randomly generated areas.

Enemies range from worms and bugs, to larger lizards and beasts, to ... Cliff Racers... demons of fire, ice, storms, poisonous creatures, draining creatures, enemies to be made and defeated, of which, each have their own strengths and weaknesses. Buildings to take over and purchase, populate with your own decor and use their bonuses and extra features to impress... yourself. There's no online function or series here it's just you and the game and while in this age of online participation and social gaming, it can be a little daunting to be JUST yourself in this situation and nothing really coming in from the outside world.

Though to others, it's ideal.

There is a lot of game under the surface with a very well written storyline and plot progression if you can stand to read it, rather than being told it through voice actors. Meaning there is likely a LOT of information regarding the story on the assumption the gamer has the patience to read, tolerate, comprehend and deduce the situations. Such a sentence likely scares off a lot of people but that's how it goes here. It's not for everyone and will require some people to accept some big initial failures until they realise the way they wish to play and tweak boosts and initial staring points until they get the character that works best for them.

And killing Cliff Racers.

Rage

Now for a more modern, more recent, First Person Shooter. ID software seems to fall into a trap of their own making in which each game they make looks nice, looks lovely in fact, is developed on a very impressive engine (aesthetically impressive at least) and falls down with the game in so far as plot/story and the delivery of which. Doom was a wonderful little game with atmospheric delivery, doom 2 was very similar and became and much more action orientated game with cut scenes/text plots. Quake was more of the same but in full 3D mapping and modelling. Quake 2 had the same with more detail and animations in models; Quake 3 was a fast and fluid multiplayer experience of dropping the single-player mode in favour of bots in multiplayer. Doom 3 was a wonderful experience in a technical engine but still falling flat with the delivery of storyline and plot development. Quake 4 was a more open Doom 3. I'm Not going to touch Daikatana, for now... I'll suffer that one another time.

So what's RAGE got to offer? More of the same. But at least there's an attempt at doing something with some plot beyond "Turn up and shoot stuff until everything's dead". Doesn't sound like fun but works well in Doom and Quake, in this case there's more than that available to everyone playing.

The game kicks off with you, Captain Anonymous, unrecognised regenerating hit-point wonder with an affinity for carrying lots of weapons and ammo types, making things from scrap (if you've the blueprints) and mad driver extraordinaire from buggies to quad bikes, cars and more, including able to operate guns, rockets/missiles and weapons from the future (by your perspective). The Buck Rogers of this game, waking up in the future and being attacked by assholes and then in turned saved by John Goodman. (Genuine Celebrity Voice).

With Mr Goodman's guidance, he'll help you as long as you go and slaughter locations filled with fuck-heads. John kills 2 mutants and in exchange for helping you, he wants you to (as a one man army) kill an entire tower block of ass-hats with a crusty old pistol and some of those bladed boomerangs from Mad Max 2. It's in this first area that a rather interesting element of the game comes to the fore in the form of your regeneration and health. Not only do you have the red-mist of damage descending over your screen, but in being taken down, you can force your heart to restart itself with a small mini-game of push the analogues in the right place, then hitting a button. The more you get right, the higher the health regeneration will be and the more powerful the output, meaning you can electrocute people with your own personal defibrillation kit.

After a while it'll regenerate sufficiently enough to let you do it again. Though oddly, getting blown up with a rocket sometimes bypasses this. But a shotgun round to the face won't bypass the heart restart. At the risk of becoming far more cardiologically focused, I'm going to move on to the game again.

The first act of the game is John Goodman asking you for help, getting you new weapons, medical supplies and opening up routes and access points where everything is very 'by the numbers' in the form of gaming, go to point a, do mission, go to point b, do mission, go to hub b and do missions c and d, get cards, shoot guys with bad accents in the face. It's not until the big breakthrough into the 2nd area that the game opens up a little more (not entirely free range but sufficient enough a step up from Doom games) where players can visit a lot of locations and do very little until they're supposed to be there on specific missions.

Eventually you'll become saviour of a town, move on to another town, save that one too and then go fight the big bad group that has a lot of futuristic tech and beat them at their own game. In the meantime you'll get to play an odd form of cards akin to battle cards, racing cars and upgrading cars (limited options in the form of engines, wheels, armour etc, and very limited in that there's an obvious BEST to have and you'll just use that), stab your own fingers in reflex games, play duelling banjos and do a few missions consisting of turn up to a place and kill dudes. One particular mission is to turn up to a place, grab the things someone stole and kill everyone, the mission provider doesn't even want those things back and you can sell them. So basically you turn up to slaughter a load of people on the whim of some guy who could easily have said that inside location X is a Thing that was stolen.

Great. Freedom to kill based on generic bullshit. But at least it's more of a reason than some other games provide.

The driving in the game is simply a means to get from one location to another because doing it by foot will get you killed quickly when the first cars turn up and either run you over or cheese grate you out of existence quickly and regenerating will get you stomped shortly after again. Though at one point I was successful in running myself over and having to regenerate back into my own car, score 1 for Twit Of The Year. There are races against other players in the online mode or races against the AI which thankfully doesn't do the whole rubber band difficulty thing and if you're a big distance ahead, you'll STAY a big distance ahead unless you just stop still like a prick. All of which gains you tickets to buy more things so you're forced to win races if you want upgrades and forced even more to win races to progress the plot at various points too.

This is never fun. "You must do this before you can kill more dudes!" makes me wonder why there isn't a response of "....fuck off" and then smacking him over the head and stealing all the fun toys before driving off into the sunset laughing like a nutcase.

There's an odd duality in the game too, there's this fun side of the game that's rather jumpy and fun, light hearted despite being about killing things mercilessly and then there's the darker more foreboding side of having to wander through derelict cities and being attacked by the dying remnants of the world's infected/mutated individuals. Some of the settings and scenery really conveys the sense of depression and hopelessness while you're scavenging through a dead city. Given that until a few moments ago you were running around a town pissing off the Mayor and playing games of "my card kills your card", it's rather a sudden twist and the shock can come a little too suddenly, breaking you out of the atmosphere and plunging you into another one.

In fact that's this game, two halves that are one side light and peppy despite the apocalypse and the other just full of doom, gloom and depression and the switch between the two is an express elevator to hell. Almost immediate switches with little build up between and as the game goes on, becoming further and further apart from each other with the darker side of the game taking almost the forefront until you're saving the day up to the cliff-hanger that few will expect to happen.

Yes it ends on NO closure at all. Pods open, you're stood atop a light-barrier tower and ... that's it. No final boss, just a final gauntlet. I'm tired of seeing shit like this in games, where designers couldn't find a suitable ending point so they just don't use one. It's annoying. When the first few games did it, it became edgy, but when it becomes the standard it becomes fucking stupid and unfulfilling. Try cooking a meal, the best meal you'll ever taste, you get to sample the ingredients, slap it in the oven and cook it to the point you open the oven, smell the finished dish and slice it perfectly to place onto a plate and then you leave the shop after paying and not eating it. That's how these kinds of endings feel. Anticlimactic and I really shouldn't write a review just before dinner.

The game looks impressive, not great because we've gone the route of the doomed world in brown and grey, which is a great reason to NOT throw in lush green fields, flowers bursting into colour and instead pretend everything is doom and gloom and slap a few brown filters atop the lenses to make it murky and dank. Movement in the game seems to suffer the Doom experience of feeling like you're running slightly too fast but that could just be down to not having faster movement in other recent FPS games, I'm not going to criticise there on being different, it just takes a little period of adjustment.

Co-operative mode is entirely disjointed from the game, which is disappointing, it'd be nice to run through the game with a colleague/partner but instead you get a series of 'legends' about events that happened before the proper game takes place. Rather than having to bring in experience or setups from the players, the level itself determines the weapon load out, and inventory load out (and places things in different places on the quickslots... Left on D-Pad will be bandages in one level and sentry bots on another, with similar for the weapons too!). Players will have to work together to kill lots of dudes and score points and multipliers to boost themselves up onto higher echelons of video game scoring.

I'd rather have had a colleague with me in the main game, because once the levels are over, there's only the harder difficulty to try and that's it. Co-Op done, dusted, finished and completed. Thanks for playing, sod off, now drive cars at each other for hours. It's a lacklustre addition and while there is the possibility of using DLC I shouldn't have to wait for someone to add it when they feel the need to later on, just so I can get the full experience once someone gets off their fat arse and types a few keys on a keyboard.

I'm done here, now to drive off into the sunset, laughing... for some reason...

Resident Evil 6

This game interests me on various levels. For a game with this much clout to it, I find it surprising but entirely unjustified that people are going in with attacks on its presentation; it changes and deviates from a supposedly socially-accepted norm for a genre that, as a series, it created itself; it has fallen into the 'marmite' selection of games where people either love it or hate it (and one or two spread it on toast). It also has zombies in it and other such fun monsters that need a royal arse kicking, preferably with a magnum or something more lethal.

In essence, we've 5 games in one based around various levels we get to see during the game. 3 games are the main story mode where you'll progress from A to B, killing the infected, undead, brown bread and done-up-like-a-kipper enemies that need more than just a smack in the mouth to fix and solve the situation of "how to get from living enemy to dead enemy" which has plagued almost every video game villain/opponent since day 1.

Control wise, it plays very much like a third person shooter in that "over the shoulder" view used within the series back with Resident Evil 4. Items and weapons are on two inventory wheels and the new addition to the system is the advent of health pills that can be popped in rapid succession for oneself or a downed partner to get them back in action more quickly. Weapons effectively remain with the characters the entire time rather than the inventory switching around used in RE5 between rounds, opting instead to have things bought through experience points gained including infinite ammo for each weapon type. It does take a short while to get used to the new system but feels a lot more intuitive than RE5 managed to make itself but not as efficient in its deliver as RE4 was when it adjusted to the 3rd person camera approach.

The first story is the campaign with Leon Kennedy and generic new face mcbreasty having shot the president in the head (after becoming a zombie, sadly) and taking the slowly building and suspenseful approach to a long build up to an actual zombie attack with the obligatory jump scares. The first run through of the first level takes elements from previous games and even self-references situations from the first game Leon was in, where in people are fighting through the streets against zombie infections. It takes roughly an hour or so to get from the start of the first level to the end of the first level and packs in so much that it would have been most of a game in its own right back in the mid-late 1990s.

Large building, check. Sewers, Check. City scapes, check. Meeting other survivors, check. Watching them get killed horrifically in nasty attacks as a result of their own stupidity, check. The only thing missing from the first level is the underground huge complex that turns up in level 2. Then we hit the plane in a rather jaunted fashion to China and blow up a dinosaur that sprouted out of a man and back again while juggling a forced little 3way situation between Leon, McBreasty and Ada Wong. Nobody really wins on that.

This particular game is set and based around gradual and slow builds towards the medium level enemies that result in being challenging, if only because of the lack of availability of higher power weapons, which can be seen in other sessions. The main focus is on the zombies as the slower and more predictable enemies and leaves for the game having a slower felt pace towards the general feel. Almost as if it's a "beginners" session for the game, and becomes a little jarring in the cross over sessions with the faster paced characters that have fought tougher opponents (i.e. the ones with real guns or can do instant-kill moves against our protagonists).

As a campaign, it feels more of a return to the original games (barring the helicopter/train crashes and huge monsters fighting around buildings with lightning strikes from the heavens. It's the big budget Hollywood special remake of the gritty original B-Movie, no cast, games.) If anything it feels like a subversion of the movie industry doing big money remakes of films and losing all the tact and subtlety of the original games. Most noted when the plane crashes in China, fire-balling everything out, spotting another character UPON a train, before walking out and meeting 2 other characters involved in the plot and fighting the big stalker monster of the game, before meeting the other characters in a fight then riding another train out while battling a giant monster.

After the 3rd act it goes WAY overboard compared to the first two acts that manage to build suspense and give a slow rolling inertia to the pace and setting of the game, then it goes all Michael Bay on us and loses its integrity. But still pretty to watch the CGI fireworks. It depends on your preference, yes the genre has changed from what it originally and occasionally dips into the Hollywood banding and because of the way CGI can be made, there's little limit on the excessiveness of what can be achieved.

Second story is the Modern Warfare take on the zombie invasion, with no zombies. Starting off instead in China with Chris Redfield, series staple rock punching hard case, and a new guy, Mr ArmyYoungDisposableMan who looks better on the cover of magazines advertising 'generic new man' specials. Following the two on a mission to rescue people while blowing up buildings and shooting idiots with spider like faces in masks that shoot back. Very little to do with zombies and almost entirely apart from Umbrella and other such previously established names and organisations. Yet this makes sense, we're DONE with Umbrella, and we're looking at the world wide view and other companies taking the remnants of Umbrella and making their own contraptions and creations/creatures. Going beyond Raccoon City and STARS to the BSAA and the world wide prevention of B.O.Ws and punching them out (if you're Chris at least).

The 2nd story runs a bit of the back-story showing the former group of soldiers with Chris and FreshFaceMan taking on small militias of enemy soldiers and giant monsters too large and impractical to develop and use in small skirmishes as overkill, and too large to use pretty much anywhere else as being too big and inviting tanks, choppers and planes to open fire on them.

This might be expected with the key players armed with machineguns, rifles and the more heavy duty weaponry and as such, get to have the fun time of taking on the greater number of enemies and the more gung-ho approach to the gaming, in their quest to find the villain that caused all the big problems in the flashback and turned Chris's team into a bunch of muppets with a few syringes in a grenade. (Yep... makes sense in ... never), before enjoying a pointlessly destructive fight with a giant snake, chases through cities against a sports car that would destroy the speed limit while in a Humvee. Attacking an aircraft carrier, attacking ANOTHER aircraft carrier with a Harrier, then going deep underwater to battle the big bad monster to end the world, and having a very long-winded battle against what is more accurately described as a translucent foetus.

Again, the story escalates from being pseudo realistic/appreciable, to becoming full on crazy-bullshit within a level and a half and never going back on that. It's a shame when the game forgets the situation that it has started upon and whether through the use of too large a department in making the game, or some people just not getting the right memo about consistency.

The third story starts off as possibly the more interesting of the 3 main games with the storyline being that Sherry Birkin (daughter of the great inventor/asshat, William Birkin) has gone the super powered healing route and now not under government surveillance, is allowed to roam free in working for the government to find and locate Jake (Wesker's son) whose blood holds the cure to the current virus outbreak. Basically, she needs him to come along and play nice, everyone else is not playing nice, so he's a ninja with speed and power moves while she's got a stun rod.

It basically sums up the start.

Through their story they get chased down by one HUGE son of a bitch that makes Nemesis look like a midget, with interchangeable guns and a cage. Most of their story is running from this guy or other indestructible creatures (like the creature with the chainsaw of flesh... yes...I said that) and fighting various troops or monsters. Or running from a tank, before they too end up underwater and fighting the big guy again in a fist fight brawl that apparently works despite spending the whole game and a 6month period of imprisonment, shooting him with Gatling guns, shotguns, explosives barrels, dropping buildings on him, ramming him with an industrial drill taken from Total Recall, dunking him in lava for yet ANOTHER return (instant bad guy, subtract legs) to the final magnum in the face.

There's an attempt to highlight how a bad guy can be money grubbing one moment, human the next and not having to be tied down to whomever his father was and how avenging death is not necessary when there's guys to shoot that explode into insects and various monsters that can worm wriggle their way back together and give you an Alien Chest burst death if they get close enough to kiss you. By the time the "story" comes about, you won't give two shits and you'll be busy running up combos that Bruce Lee would have called bullshit upon.

And that seems to be the biggest issue with the game. Part way through the story, plot and everything that has been built up, is thrown aside and destroyed by the urge to one-up itself in a poor display of disregarding everything previously established to show a wank-fest of explosions, big special effects and the like of which would have cost millions in a film. Which in itself is destroyed when things like this in the game DON'T cost that much to make. But with the emphasis on this supposed big-budget situation, atmosphere and plot are shoved aside and relegated to the back seat.

Given the game has that co-operative function, used again since the RE5 attempt, there's pros and cons to the involvement of other people. A good partner can aid the game and blitz through the system with remarkable ease and battling bosses can be made easier (depending upon the boss). The AI can have issues with trying to get back to yourself to get you picked up and healed, while another player will (usually) put it in higher priority. Though you could get some boneheaded player that will be walking around every situation and taking their sweet time and eventually fall into various traps over and over. While the AI won't do that. They could also fail Quick Time Events while the AI never does. The use of another player can speed things up with considerable difference to not using them, IF they know what they're doing.

At various points in the plot, the game will pause for approximately 60 seconds, at points where multiple characters intersect from other storylines, to find other players who are at that point as well. Case in point: After Leon and Busty McTitty crashes down from a jet-plane, they encounter Jake and Sherry and a fight kicks off with the giant Nemesis-Wannabe in a scrap yard where a double-decker bus is sitting. At this point, the game will try to connect with someone else playing the game, in the same point on the Jake and Sherry team, and combine the 4 together for the fight, including having a person from each pairing, having to combine forces in a Quick Time Event. Incidentally, anyone dying fails it for everyone. It's an interesting way of engineering this all together though the costs for failing are rather high where someone random is joining the game. This has everyone joining up with everyone else at least once (if the game permits this in the settings) with Jake and Sherry teaming up with Chris and NewbieSoliderMan three times during their respective campaigns.

This however does run nicely into the much more interesting aspect of the online mode where the game has bottle neck points of enemies attacking which can be populated by other players, playing as the monsters. Ranging from zombies (with an assortment of weapons) to dogs, lizard beasts, fly-people, worm-filled monsters, powered zombies, knife-wielding troopers, mutant crows, walking pustule bombs and armour-plated goliaths, all with the sole purpose of screwing up the players by attacking and hopefully killing the main heroes. You can respawn as many times as you want until they heroes leave that particular area.

In easy mode, it can be a real chore to batter someone down to the critical point and then deliver a killing blow, more frustrating when you do all the work and the AI makes the kill and even MORE frustrating when the other player quits like a pansy. A good team up with another player allows for 2 people to stalk and try to kill the hero player(s) and although only one of them can make the final kill, it's actually a very rewarding feeling when one of you distracts the player so your partner can sneak up behind them and deliver the killing blow.

Personal preference goes to the worm-filled skins that can effectively instant-kill someone if they grab a hold of them and then it becomes instant worm-face snogfest death. Hilarious and you know it's just pissed off someone else's day.

Other vs. modes include the mercenaries modes where players pick a character and try to survive and score as many points as they can within an arena until the time runs out or they kill everything, including the involvement of hidden bosses or super monsters such as fatty-boy zombies, lizards and a whole host of nasty pieces of work. Modes where you take control of the biggymonster of the game and try to kill everyone else within an allotted amount of time or playing a sort of vs. mode where the more monsters you kill, the more spawn in your opponents arenas. They're an interesting subset of the game and have a level of appeal but to be honest, I'd much rather have more of the Trolling Mode where you get to be the monsters. It's a lot more fun, in some cases more fun than the story mode, trying to hunt down and kill someone else and ruin their fun.

It's a very mixed bag for the game, it has good points, it has bad points, and it has terrible banging-skull-against-wall points. It can be appreciated if you can REALLY suspend your belief for some of the cut scenes but that's going quite a stretch for the game that already has the supposition that not only do zombies exist, but people are freely making monsters in competing companies/organisations. It's the attempt to make a move into a bigger and more expansive world within the Resident Evil franchise but it's taken in far too wrong a direction akin to the excessive sequalisation. If Resident Evil 1 is the same as Saw, then Resident Evil 6 is Saw with people lobbing nukes at each other while dropkicking helicopters of explosives towards Blue Whales. It's only really the name that's keeping the same and the use of a few characters from earlier instalments, but the game isn't the same.

Not to say it's a bad game, it's a responsive game, it's a good co-operative experience, it's a great trolling-session with the bad guy mode, but it is a bad addition to the established order of the franchise. It's the difference between Alien and Alien 3, some good ideas and most of the film done really well but very different over all in sense and feeling that the film tries to stay loyal to the roots but goes about it in such a convoluted way, that it misses the point it tries to make and might have fared better as a stand-alone experience rather than part of the series.

At the very last, naked breasty boss with tentacles for the shot gunning! Will the next game just have full on mutant porn?