Grrr, me gruff man with weapon on video game box.

I had a handful of issues with Resistance: Fall of Man. I’d have to say many others did to, despite its release to critical acclaim. I say this because Resistance 2 rectifies every issue I had with Fall of Man and does so on a much more epic scale. Nathan Hale speaks more in the first few minutes than he did in the entirety of the first game. Even so, it’s apparent he’s not the star of the game – the locales and boss battles are. More importantly, the campaign difficulty is balanced much better. Every decision Insomniac Games made culminated in a more entertaining first-person shooter compared to the original.

While Resistance 2 picks up immediately where Fall of Man left off, most of the game takes place two years after the events of the first game. It’s 1953 and the Chimera have practically overrun the United States – the last bastion for humanity. Salvation rests in the hands of a few U.S. soldiers who were infected with the Chimeran virus during government studies. Sentinels, as they’re referred to, possess superhuman abilities and regenerative health. They’re not immune to the virus living within them though, and must take injections frequently to inhibit the spread of the virus.

The U.S. studies which created the Sentinels were carried out by Fyodor Malikov, a Russian scientist seeking a way to combat the Chimeran forces and cure the virus that transforms humans into the alien scourge. One of his failed test subjects has since become known as Daedalus. Formerly known as Jordan Shepherd, Daedalus is a hovering blob of Chimera that operates as a hive mind commanding the Chimera. The game begins with his escape from a secret base in Iceland at which point he begins putting a hurting on the remnants of America. Nathan and his new Sentinel buddies know what needs to be done and set out to kill Daedalus.

Anyone else remember Sony’s E3 2008 press conference?

The forward momentum in Resistance 2 was always the destruction of Daedalus. However, with Malikov’s presence came much back-story and in retrospect, it seems like the game was most concerned with filling the player in than topping off the Chimeran threat for good. Whether it was in regards to the Chimera and their origin or the experiments that Malikov did, I never felt like the overarching conflict was moving towards closure with Nathan’s actions. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Most series’ seem to be trilogies nowadays so even if major story beats happen in the middle games, it usually doesn’t represent a major amount of finality for the series. I’m not too bummed because I was consistently mesmerized by the locations and set piece battles I encountered.

Nathan’s journey saw him traveling across America, through both scenic settings like redwood forests and southern swamplands and notable cities like San Francisco and California. Each level felt unique thanks to the vastly different settings and the varied enemy types. These two facets were major improvements over Fall of Man. It was the boss fights that truly shined though. These end-level nuisances were hulking mammoths, the scale of which I don’t think I’ve seen in another first-person shooter, were unbelievable to see and fun to conquer. I especially like how they were foreshadowed throughout the levels. Catching glimpses of the skyscraper-sized Leviathan in Chicago set the mood for the remainder of that level.

I’m sure San Francisco will be just fine.

The stages and bosses were very cool, but thankfully the campaign difficulty was balanced so much better than the original. First off, the health system was slightly revamped. Recharging health was still in effect but instead of a tiered health bar, damage was indicated by the amount of blood splatter on the screen. I prefer this shift from the tiered health bar because it saw me getting in less binds where I had a sliver of health; I could regenerate Nathan’s health fully by taking cover instead of only up to a point. The biggest improvement in my eyes was the less stringent checkpointing. After every battle or story event, I was greeted with a checkpoint. No longer was I forced to battle dozens of enemies again if I was killed after a few minutes of progression. This was such a relief and helped me enjoy this game much more than the original.

One of the bigger gameplay changes between these two games was Nathan’s ability to carry weapons. In the original, I had access to each weapon I came across; the game adopted an old-school approach, favoring a personal armory. This game opted for the now common two weapon limit. At any point, Nathan could only carry two weapons, meaning I had to make decisions as to what I wanted. My decision was usually influenced by Insomniac’s weapon staging. Weapons were placed in key points along the linear pathway, and like the boss battles, usually foreshadowed an impending battle. I really thought they did a great job at this since it got me alternating weapons and going outside my comfort zone.

I’m surprised the Predator hasn’t sued for likeness infringement as Lady Miss Kier did with Space Channel 5.

It might be cliché to say, but Resistance 2 was a roller-coaster ride. Nathan’s travels took him throughout America at a break-neck pace, and usually I didn’t quite understand why. It all seemed to be in service of exploiting the locales for interesting settings and epic boss battles. I’m cool with that though because Insomniac played with a scale unseen in first-person shooters. Best of all though, the game was actually enjoyable to play. With the revisions to campaign difficulty, this game was challenging – not brutal. For these reasons, and the shocking ending, I was jazzed for Resistance 3.

This is a game you can judge by its cover.

Resistance: Fall of Man is a game of banal hues. Whether I’m referring to the grayish picture it paints of Great Britain circa 1951 amidst the invasion of alien forces, the grim outlook for humanity, or the game’s stiff difficulty, it’s not in high spirits. It was a game that I had a hard time getting drawn into. Sgt. Nathan Hale, the game’s protagonist was unrelatable as he was mostly silent, uttering a handful of words throughout the four days covered. The third-person “past-tense” storytelling also didn’t help draw me in, although it was unique and fitting. Lastly, I just didn’t think the campaign was balanced well.

What’s initially distinguishing about the game is its alternate historical setting. Presumably, World War II never happened as the alien Chimera were ravaging the Soviet Union for decades. The rest of Europe was most likely wary of what was happening behind the Iron Curtain and preparing for the worst, as Great Britain had done. After overtaking Europe, the Chimera crossed the English Channel and all preparations went out the window as the country was lost in a matter of months. Afterwards, the United States sent in a large task force to seek out a secret weapon the Brits claim will save humanity; enter Nathan Hale.

The game gets props for its new game plus features such as additional weapons, like this one.

For most of the introductory sequences I was under the impression that Nathan was a silent protagonist. He might well have been as he spoke, like, three times throughout the ten hour campaign. Instead, most of the story was told by Captain Rachel Parker, a British soldier who determined there was something amiss with Nathan immediately – he had been infected by the Chimera. It was of little consequence in the game ultimately, although it was always a pressing concern for her. With Nathan hardly speaking, he really wasn’t characterized, he was little more than the player’s avatar. But through Rachel’s recounting, he was given a story, at the very least.

The narrative cutscenes had Rachel talking about the game’s events in the past-tense, as though they had happened only a few days ago. As she was the one narrating the story, all references to Nathan were in the third-person. I thought these two storytelling mechanics distanced me from Nathan even more than him being a (near) silent protagonist. Nathan’s survival took him all over Britain, but I found the campaign to be relatively event-free and ultimately forgettable.

There were a lot of enemy types to contend with.

Gameplay was standard fare for a first-person shooter and it encompassed sequences common across the genre. There was a driving sequence or two including an expletive-inducing tank sequence that had me banging my head against a proverbial wall for countless attempts. What set it apart the most from other similar games was its armory, which makes sense as Insomniac earns high praise for their innovative weaponry. Many staples were present although I felt the game was at its best when I was utilizing a secondary feature or dispatching enemies with a weapon unlike anything I had used before.

Bringing down the enjoyment I had with the game was its difficulty. I’ll start with the health system. Nathan had four chunks of rechargeable health. When one was depleted, I was no longer able to regenerate it. This is highly prevalent nowadays (and it was seven years ago too (I can’t believe this generation is that old!)) but I’ve never played a game where recharging health took so long! On the other hand, the enemies are bullet sponges. I love that the M5A2 Folsom Carbine, the standard human assault rifle, has a 50 round magazine, but dumping into enemies yields a few kills before needing reloaded. Finally, the biggest offender was the checkpoints. I found them so infrequent; I’d have to do battle with dozens of enemies multiple times thanks to a single mistake. Between the three difficulty levels available to me, I chose normal but in many parts, it felt more like hard. This probably earns kudos from some hardcore shooter fans out there, but for someone just wanting to enjoy the game and have a decent amount of challenge, it was off-putting.

It can’t be sci-fi horror without face hugger clones.

The game’s difficulty had me frustrated on many occasions, but I persisted and still think Resistance: Fall of Man was a solid FPS. The story and characterization did very little for me, although the alternate historical setting was plenty enough to start me off. I remember very little astonishing moments or set pieces, but the core gameplay, excluding the difficulty, was really good. I even jumped into the multiplayer for a few matches and had fun, despite a losing streak. I wasn’t exactly raring to jump into Resistance 2 after completing it, but I’d take the plunge anyways.

Dog the Bounty Hunter ain't got nothing on Jack Seaver.

I’ll often times try to find a game that my friend Jeff and I can play through. I’ll look for something that’s not very long and will provide some form of entertainment. When we last hung out, I came across a copy of Fugitive Hunter: War on Terror and I knew it met these criteria. Fugitive Hunter: War on Terror was developed by Santa Monica, California based Black Ops Entertainment, and released for the PlayStation 2 on November 18, 2003 courtesy of publisher Encore.

Fugitive Hunter: War on Terror follows the exploits of one man, Jack Seaver and his travels to hunt down fugitives. Before beginning the game I thought he might’ve been a bounty hunter, but he’s actually a member of a fictional government agency whose responsibility it is to hunt down America’s most wanted fugitives. Jack travels around the world hunting fugitives who pose increasing amounts of risk to America’s safety.

Most of the game was a first-person shooter. Controlling Jack, I’d venture through straightforward levels taking care to mow down every baddie I ran into. These thugs ranged from local gang members to Al Qaeda. There was a variety of weapons and many alterative fire options, although I mostly stuck with shotguns which obliterated enemies from far away.

Like Jack, I also like to use sniper rifles at close range.

An interesting feature to the FPS gameplay was the ability to lock-on to enemies. By pressing the square button, my reticle would automatically hover over an on-screen enemy. Aiming and moving was a little too sensitive, so I appreciated this feature, but I did over utilize it. I refrained from manually aiming unless the lock-on feature wouldn’t target an enemy. This simplified the game and made it seem like a guided experience; linear levels coupled with intense auto aiming meant all I had to do was move and pull the trigger. It didn’t always target the “best fit” enemy. While my reticle might have been right next to an enemy, it might target someone in the corner of the screen. Instances of this happening led to a few deaths.

Besides tracking down Jack’s target, I’d also have a few secondary objectives of finding or destroying important items. These were sometimes hard to locate even though the levels were linear. I nearly gave up in the first level until I realized my objectives were represented on my radar by a white dot. I was surprised by how competent the gameplay was, with the exception of items being too nondescript. Black Ops Entertainment had a solid track record up to the game’s release; having developed the PlayStation James Bond games they had much experience with the genre.

A gameplay element that didn’t stand up to scrutiny was the fighting. Before Jack could capture the fugitives he had to wail them into submission. At this point the gameplay switched from a FPS to a fighting game. I had a limited selection of moves and the most viable way to deal damage was with combos. After I hit on the fugitive a little, his health bar would flash indicating I should do a combo. It’d take a few combos to capture a fugitive and these weren’t always guaranteed; even though they were simple combinations of two buttons, combos didn’t seem to register all the time. Plus, the final fugitives attacked ferociously and didn’t leave much time to get hits in. Regardless I beat the crap out of and CAPTURED OSAMA BIN LADEN! How many other games can lay claim to that opportunity?

How's your ribs?

There’s a lot I like about Fugitive Hunter: War on Terror, albeit ironically. The whole premise of being able to beat up and capture Osama Bin Laden is weird, maybe a little exploitative considering what America had gone through a year or two prior. Jack constantly spewed awful one-liners and when he’d fight fugitives, he’d converse back and forth with them. After he’d capture the fugitives he’d perform an unnecessary and outlandish attack on the enemy; much of the game makes it seem like it’s a ten year old’s interpretation of a bounty hunter. But, the premise is unique and the gameplay – with the exception of the fighting – is solid. Good for a couple of hours of laughs with a friend.

1/5

See that guy on the box art, that’s a hell knight and he’s one tough demon.

Released about a decade after the previous installment, Doom 3 reset the series but maintained its place as a forerunner for things to come in terms of technical specs. But it wasn’t just a technical powerhouse in its day; it has solid gameplay with many neat features.

Doom 3 was originally developed by id Software while the Xbox version was ported by Vicarious Visions. It was published by Activision on April 3, 2005, eight months after the initial PC release. Flipping through the manual I also noticed that Raven Software received a credit for additional Xbox development and that Splash Damage was credited for additional multiplayer design; many people worked on this game for sure.

As you can see from these screenshots, the UAC complex is a very dark place.

Doom 3 is set on Mars in 2145. The Union Aerospace Corporation has a research facility there and they have been conducting many experiments, and a lot of things have been going wrong. Enter Councilor Elliot Swann. He has been sent in to conduct a review of the UAC, primarily the facility’s head scientist, Dr. Malcolm Betruger. The nameless marine that I played as arrived on Mars with Swann and his bodyguard, Jack Campbell, a beefed up marine. Pretty much as soon as we landed all hell broke loose, literally, and from then on I was always trying to catch up to Swann and Campbell.

As I’m sure you can imagine, Betruger has gone crazy and is behind the strange occurrences happening. He had been working on teleportation technology and in the process opened a portal to hell. After sending marines in to bring back demons to research, Betruger went in himself and lost it. With the UAC facility running wild with demons and zombies, it was up to Swann, Campbell, and me to get to Betruger and close off said portal. This was easier said than done.

I began the game separated from Swann and Campbell and spent the rest of the game playing catch up. I made my way through hallways upon hallways of linear stages attempting to reunite with them. There weren’t any open environments or differing paths to take in Doom 3. I simply followed the path and whenever I reached a locked door or something that hindered my progression, I found the key card or whatever it was I needed and kept on.

The UAC facility wasn’t empty though. I’d run into the random straggler who had somehow survived and they’d usually provide me with important information. But the most common residents of the complex were demons. There were tons of demons throughout the complex, often time hiding in what has since been termed “monster closets”.

The designs for these creatures are absolutely grotesque. The more common Imp was humanoid but had a dirty looking exterior and ten eyes. Worse of all, he could leap at me or throw fireballs. These were all over the place and not that tough, I eventually just shotgun rushed them. There were many more demons however and plenty of them took a lot to take down. I have to mention the final boss and just mention that it was epic and a fairly tough fight.

There were plenty of weapons to choose from and all the staples are accounted for: the pistol, shotgun, machine gun, etc. But the weapons I really loved (although I really loved the shotgun) were the super powerful weapons. A hallmark of the series, the BFG 9000 is present and it’s devastating. It fires a green orb that destroys pretty much everything in the same room. The chainsaw was interesting and fantastic to use against the weaker enemies. Another noteworthy weapon was the Soul Cube. A remnant from a lost civilization, it was super powerful and when used, restored my health completely. But I had to get five kills before I could use it. I do have a complaint about the weapons. I didn’t like the way they felt; it didn’t feel like I was bludgeoning a zombie with my flashlight when I hit them; perhaps this had to do with the otherwise exceptional sound design.

I’ve heard many complaints about the flashlight not being attached to a weapon but I was fine with it.

While I mentioned earlier that game is linear, and it is, I still got a minor sense of exploration. As I searched every nook and cranny with my flashlight, I was usually rewarded with extra ammunition or health supplies, very nice. Usually I was also rewarded with a few extra demons to fight too. One moment that sticks out in my mind: I was walking through a server room and I spotted some armor shards in a completely black corner, as I picked them up an Imp appeared in front of me and spooked me. I felt like I was getting rewarded for having a keen eye, while also getting more out of the game in the way of enemies.

Another exploration aspect of Doom 3 was the PDAs. This UAC complex was recently inhabited by many people, what’s left of them, besides zombies, are their belongings, namely their PDAs. Contained on their PDAs are emails and voice recordings filling me in on what happened before I arrived. I was always stoked to find a new PDA because I wanted to see the info it contained.

The flashlight played a major role as I made my way through the complex. As I stated before, I used it to explore every dingy corner of the complex. But usually it was necessary just to make it to the next door. If Doom 3 is remembered for any technical aspect I hope it’s its lighting effects. The lighting system in the game did a great job of creating areas that were completely dark, even in the same hallway or room that had some light in it. When demons spawned from pentagrams, the lights would dim and turn a bloody red. What I found fascinating was how well the flashlight cut through the darkness and how much of a necessity it was. There were a few instances where I had to dredge through pitch black rooms, and it was a spooky experience.

Especially towards the end, the UAC complex was a very bloody place.

Doom 3 kept me entertained. I was interested watching the plot unfold, and even though its linearity was more apparent than it is in other games, I still enjoyed making progress. The game is very dark, definitely a horror story, but outside of its many jump scares, I didn’t find it too scary. Although playing with the right mindset and the lights out made it a tense experience. I enjoyed the gameplay, but it’s a unique FPS in that the single player is the main draw, which is okay with me. I loved the lighting system and the flashlight (even if it wasn’t attached to a weapon) and special mention should be given to the atmospheric sound design, very creepy. I’ve been to hell and back and I believe Doom 3 is a worthy game in an iconic series.

5/5

The question is, will the game actually keep a bodycount?

Do you remember Black? It was a first-person shooter released for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in 2006, and it attempted to do something different with the genre. The developers behind it were Criterion, known for developing the Burnout games, a series of racing games that emphasized crashing as much as racing. With Black, they put an emphasis on destruction and explosions. For instance, instead of just shooting your enemy, shoot the explosive barrel next to your enemy. Besides that, Criterion lovingly recreated real life guns, eventually labeling the game as gun-porn. Well Black 2 never materialized, but some of the former developers of Black are getting a second chance with Bodycount.

The demo for Bodycount opens up with a brief mission summary for my character. A militia has massacred some army soldiers in a West African city and I’m being sent in to find out why, and take them out if they use force. Naturally they attacked me and I was forced to take them out.

As I meandered through a slum, I occasionally noticed red barrels and other explosive containers, conveniently located next to militia members. I of course decided to shoot these instead of the bad guys and received points for doing so. I believe killing my enemies in special ways built a multiplier, implying that levels can be replayed for higher scores, although the demo wasn’t long enough for me to get a good sense of this.

There weren’t a lot of obvious opportunities for me to take out these militia members in creative ways though. Sure there were explosive barrels scattered around, but there weren’t really a ton of them, at least easily noticeable. I also increased my multiplier by getting headshots and killing enemies through cover, but if I want to play a first-person shooter with a score mechanic, Bulletstorm from earlier in the year seems like a better option.

Prepare for explosions, you'll being seeing them a lot.

The area I played in was very run down with debris and shoddy buildings all around. It looked very nice, but this area seemed like pretty much any other war torn ghetto from a first-person shooter. Same goes for the weapons I used. I had a machine gun and a shotgun and they operated as one would expect them too. However as I killed enemies they dropped pickups that would fill up special skills. The only one available in the demo was incendiary ammo, which I think was more powerful than normal ammo, but I couldn’t really tell.

While the premise of Bodycount is interesting: kill in creative ways and destroy your environment, it’s my belief that there are other games that do it better. I found the other aspects of the game pretty middling. The area I played in was terrible looking (in a good way) but it looks like many other first-person shooters. And it controls like them too, albeit, my character moved around rather slowly, and I just didn’t care for the overall feel of character movement. That said, it’s still seems like a pretty good game, but not a day one purchase for me. Bodycount is to be published by Codemasters and being developed by their Guildford Studio. It’s scheduled to come out on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on August 30, 2011.

Racking up the points by toasting an enemy.

Bulletstorm is the next game from Epic Games, the studio behind Unreal and Gears of War among others. It’s being co-developed by a subsidiary of Epic Games, People Can Fly, themselves known for the PC first-person shooter, Painkiller.. As the demo starts Grayson Hunt, the main character, introduces himself and a little about the game, all the while harassing the player; from the get go, Bulletstorm looks to be a dumb, offensive, madcap, and ultimately, fun game.

The demo consists of one level, and as Grayson Hunt and crew make it to the end they have to kill with skill. Instead of playing out like a standard FPS where you’re solely focused on getting from A to B, Bulletstorm is more interested in you killing enemies in creative ways and giving you more points for doing so; it’s more about getting a high score, then reaching the end of a level. I can tell that the leaderboards will be one of the more interesting aspects to Bulletstorm and will keep players coming back. There will be a story mode, and while I assume from the demo that the story will be over-the-top zany and provide an entertaining experience, what draws me towards Bulletstorm is the potential competition between friends, and if there were to be a challenge room type mode where you play individual levels, attempting only to best your friends’ scores, that would be very appealing.

There are only three side arms in the demo, but they are all extremely deadly, and that’s before taking advantage of their alternate fires, producing even more gruesome results. Besides the standard weapons, Grayson Hunt also has a whip-like item that grabs enemies and jolts them towards you, with time slowing down when they’re right in front of you. It’s very easy to utilize and I used it as a beginner to combos. Afterwards, I’d kick the enemy away and unload on them, headshots on their flailing bodies, ripping their bodies apart with explosives, or by just shooting them into some dastardly part of the environment.

Grayson Hunt with the leash in action, yanking an enemy towards him.

The demo took place in a destroyed city full of rubble and debris, which leads me to believe Bulletstorm will take place in war-torn environments. The environment in the demo was quite drab, but the game as a whole looks to be brighter than the Gears of Wars games, a complaint of mine towards them. Bulletstorm will be a very vulgar game, the violence is ridiculous, and the profanity is profound, with the demo combining profanities for interesting results, for example, at the end of the demo Grayson Hunt called me dick-tits and suggested that the game wasn’t going to pre-order itself; yet it’s easy to not take offense at the game’s vulgarity, Bulletstorm is crude, but the tone of everything is humorous and cheeky.

I’d stayed in the dark about Bulletstorm up until now; it didn’t interest me at first glance but after playing the demo I can see that Bulletstorm is a quality game with a unique combination of gameplay mechanics that provide for an enjoyable time. The story looks to be a dumb, over-the-top, fun time, and I’m sure the multiplayer will be seriously good, but the real draw for me will be the competition between friends on the leaderboards.

Box art for the PC release of Call of Duty.

Playing Call of Duty Classic on the hardest difficulty is the worst game experience I’ve had in recent memory, and probably up there as one of the worst mistakes I’ve made playing video games. I suppose the initial reason for choosing this difficulty was the ability to get all of the achievements (playing the Xbox 360 version) on one play through; I didn’t take into account that it would be nigh impossible and make me want to break my controller on multiple occasions.

Going through Call of Duty Classic on veteran reminds me of Call of Duty 3 on veteran, which I did a year or two ago. I had a terrible time, and hindered my impressions of that game, and I actually broke an Xbox 360 controller during that play through. You’d think I’d learn my lesson after that; hopefully I have after this time, what’s the saying again: fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me?

Call of Duty Classic is straight up difficult; your health doesn’t recharge and there aren’t any health pickups, it usually only takes an enemy two shots to take you out, they can spot you from very far away, and they utilize cover, often leaving their heads or arms vulnerable for a few seconds. The checkpoint system is frustrating as well. It seems to checkpoint at certain times, naturally, but only if you have more than half health. I can see how this is helpful, preventing you from continuing a long level with barely any health after getting shot early on.

So that’s how it’s difficult, what makes it frustrating and just a terrible time is the amount of repetition. In many sections, I’d have to repeat them multiple times, with some taking double digit retries. To progress, I’d literally have to kill one enemy and then die by the next, just to figure out where that second enemy is hiding, and then make it one enemy/wave farther, hopefully not getting shot and thus triggering a checkpoint.

It’s not that Call of Duty Classic is a terrible game, it’s probably a very good World War II shooter, and I guess I wouldn’t really know having only played a handful. The game seems to include many familiar scenes, albeit all the highlights it seems that should be in a WWII product; to someone who has played many WWII shooters it probably feels stagnant. Playing the game on the hardest difficulty makes me want to yell as loud as I can (expletives), smash my controller into anything that’ll produce a loud sound, get up and storm around, quit the game in a rage and never play a game on the hardest difficulty again! For some reason I stuck through it all though, but I wouldn’t recommend anyone else to do the same.

XIII

The game is centered on Steve Rowland, aka XIII, who suffers from amnesia. Apparently he has assassinated the president! Things aren’t what they initially seem as XIII globe trots to figure out if he really is the president’s assassin. Along the way he learns of The XX, a group that has ties to the assassination and which he is a member. It’s worth noting that David Duchovny does the voice work for XIII; Adam West and Eve also do voice work for key characters in the game.  It’s also worth noting that they don’t do that great of a job. Adam West gives a performance that seems… like an Adam West performance, the downside of that is that I don’t view him as a serious actor, it’s simply my frame of reference for him, every time he speaks, I hear his dialogue as sarcastic. Eve’s performance wasn’t terrible but David Duchovny’s was, he doesn’t sound committed early on. My biggest problem is there isn’t a ton of exposition that these characters are involved in. Most of XIII’s dialogue consists of one-off questions or statements until the end of the game when he becomes more aware of his past, which is fine for his character but did they really need to get David Duchovny to voice him? I’m sure investing in the game would’ve been better but attaching these “high profile” celebrities probably helped sales in the short term.

Blowing stuff up with the rocket launcher, hopefully a baddie.

Well anyways, the game is an FPS and a competent, if not boring one at that. There isn’t anything I can think of gameplay-wise that it excels at as compared to other FPSes. Nothing in particular was bad about the gunplay and action, but seeing a group of bad guys didn’t excite me, nor did I have different strategies for taking them down. This could be due to the heavy emphasis on sneaking around and a general sense of espionage. Much of the game’s levels require you to remain unseen and this sets it apart from being another “run and gun” shooter, but there is much trial and error and after a while, failing due to something minor gets old. A problem I had later on was hiding bodies. Throughout the game you have the ability to pick up and hide dead bodies, but early on you don’t need to, so towards the end when hiding bodies is a necessity, I found it hard to reprogram the way I had been playing the game up until that point. And with missions that required sneaking, it seems there were varying degrees of AI attentiveness which made it frustrating when something that worked previously, all of a sudden did not.

In gunfights the enemies never seemed lethal and I never felt that I died because they outsmarted me, only ever because they outnumbered me. Whenever I saw an enemy, I just stood in place and shot until he was dead, this method was helped by the abundance of medkits but playing on a harder difficulty would potentially require a change in strategy.

My favorite part of the game without a doubt was the art-style which was brilliant. The game holds up visually and I attribute this to the cel-shading. While nothing in the game is very detailed, the art-style helps offset this and lets everything pop. The graphics weren’t the only thing inspired by the comic book though. Whenever you get a headshot, a three part comic book panel pops up showing in detail the projectile entering the targets head; similar to this, if an enemy falls from a high location another panel comes up showing their descent. In parts that require stealth you’ll need to sneak up on enemies and when you move slowly or stop, you can see their footsteps as indicated by comic book onomatopoeias.

What happens when you get a headshot.

The last thing worth noting is the multiplayer and the exclusive modes depending on which console you purchase the game for. Anyone purchasing XIII this long after it’s come out, I imagine isn’t purchasing it for the multiplayer. It’s competent but not high on my list with friends over, but the game has bots and plenty of maps so it’s worth trying out alone. One big concern of mine is the lack of a dedicated grenade button. Throwing a grenade requires switching from a gun proper to the grenade, and this creates a different dynamic that I found unappealing for a multiplayer match.

The Xbox version (which is backwards compatible with the Xbox 360) has an exclusive mode titled Sabotage. This is a class based mode where one team plants bombs on three bases and the other team defends. The GameCube has The Hunt, which has everyone chasing around Death and shooting him to get points. With each shot he gets smaller and faster and if he touches you you’re instantly killed. The PlayStation 2 has Power Up, as well as The Hunt. Power Up plays out like a normal deathmatch except crates throughout the levels hold everything, from weapons and health to random power ups like invisibility and invulnerability. Although I didn’t play the PC version, it includes all three “exclusive” modes. Overall I found The Hunt to be the most fun and it’s something different from other games; unlike the rest of the multiplayer, this is something I want to try with friends.

XIII was a short and overall mediocre game. It ended with a sense of satisfaction although it does have a cliffhanger ending that leaves many questions unanswered, but for those dedicated enough to want closure, there’s the comic book. The art style was fantastic and while the gameplay isn’t the best, it’s competent enough to stick with it to see the end.

Taking out Mantel soldiers as a rebel.

My first impressions of Haze were disappointing: after the initial setup for the game I get thrown into the main menu which looked like something from a last-gen game and once I’m into the actual game, I’m introduced to some stereotypical characters. Thinking about these and other lows early on upset me; I grew up with loving TimeSplitters 2 and TimeSplitters: Future Perfect and to think that Free Radical (the developers) had fallen this far since then was depressing. However, as I got farther into game, I enjoyed it more.

I’m not sure why I began enjoying it more though. An hour or so in you defect to the rebels, but the mechanics didn’t change very much, at least enough for me to think “wow, now it’s better.” I think I just lowered my expectations by then. I think a big problem with the game were the expectations for it prior to its release; they were out of proportion. When it was announced that it was a PlayStation 3 exclusive, people began to latch onto it and want it to be great, like with most console exclusive games. Once I lost the mentality that this game had to be great because it was a console exclusive, I enjoyed it more, but that’s a backhanded compliment and not to say the game isn’t good.

The gameplay, like the game overall, is decent. I thought the controls were too stiff, especially for vehicles. I do like that the game doesn’t feel super arcadey like TimeSplitters games do; even something as minor as that adds weight to the story, after all, it seems like Free Radical wanted to make a more serious game, but that’s part of why I think this game is just decent. It seems like Free Radical wanted to make a game that told a story, but the characters weren’t believable and the majority of them feel like cheap jokes on played out stereotypes. Even the main character is hard to like; Shane Carpenter rarely seems like someone who should be in the position he’s in. Throughout the game he consults everybody but himself on what to do next, all the while asking himself who he should be fighting for.

An example of what it looks like when using Nectar.

I interpreted the game as being about the Iraq War. You initially fight for Mantel, a large corporation that produces Nectar, a drug that enhances their soldiers’ abilities in battle. Through some errors you begin seeing that Nectar might not be so great while learning later on that you’re in this country because the natives have begun harvesting a key ingredient in Nectar and this would be bad for Mantel’s bottom line. Taking into account that some believe the Iraq War started in part over oil, we can replace all instances of Nectar with oil and it seems close, or perhaps I’m looking too deep into it. The game does touch on some other topics: free will in a very small way, anti-drug sentiments and that people, no matter their differences, are alike.

I found Haze very enjoyable a few hours in, whether this is due to me lowering my expectations or just playing for another side I’m not sure. I only played a few minutes of the multiplayer and thought it was great that they melded it into the fiction but at this point, there aren’t enough people to make the game exciting for me to put any serious time into. Haze was a disappointment compared to the TimeSplitters games, but as an FPS, it gets the job done.