Doom 3 (XBox)

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

I’m not scared. I’ve been through this before. I’ve got the weapons. I’ve got the skills. When they come for me, I will lay them down. Equipped with the most powerful weaponry known to man, I laugh at them as they hide in the shadows. I’m not scared of the dark. I laugh, cursing under my breath as I pull the trigger. I keep pulling, they keep falling, but more keep coming.

I hear the screams. Slowly, my mind unravels. They are coming for me. I am not scared. I glance around. I am NOT scared.
I run.

—-

Doom 3 for the Xbox is a technical marvel. Fantastic graphics, tight controls, and bone-chilling sound effects make Doom 3 a slick, easy-to-play, production. After you play try it for a few hours, you’ll have no doubt that you’re in for a fantastic experience. Unfortunately, while there is nothing that feels wrong about the game, when you beat it, you’ll find yourself thinking, “well, that’s over with finally,” more than “wow, that was fantastic!” Doom 3 can be a lot of fun, and oftentimes, downright creepy, but there’s something missing from the gameplay that would make the game truly memorable.

Doom 3 is a sci-fi horror first person shooter (fps) from ID Software, the makers of the Doom (of course) and Quake series. When you first start the game, what immediately stand out are the incredible lighting effects. As you get farther in the game, the lighting does more than hide creatures or make things tough for you to see. Shadows convincingly create a certain mood in the game, and shadows are used to frighten rather than just look good; when you see a shadow of a swinging body overhead before you actually see the body, you’ll understand what I mean. The character models are well-detailed, while the faces and mouth-syncing look realistic as well. Overall, Doom 3 looks spectacular, and you’ll marvel at a lot of the special effects (all in-game) that you’ve seen before in movies but not video games.

The sound in Doom 3 is very good, but doesn’t distinguish itself as the graphics do. For the most part, I didn’t notice the 5.1 effects that much, though the surround definitely establishes itself more towards the end of the game. I liked the bass effect used to create a feeling of tension and unease. Music isn’t really part of the game, but like the surround effects, is more present at the end. Voice acting is solid as well- most of the voice acting is used in voice and video logs rather than in character interaction.

As mentioned before, there is nothing inherently wrong with Doom 3. It looks great, sounds great, and the controls are tight. When you first start the game, everything seems great. As you progress in the game, though, nothing much changes. You’re essentially going from corridor to corridor, room to room, clearing each room of monsters, then moving on. I suppose this sounds like every fps out there. After all, what fps game doesn’t involve shooting everything in sight? I think the best way to explain is that 75% of the game feels exactly the same. What you do in hour two is what you do in hour eight, and if you asked me to plot out the game, I would just say, “That’s all I really did the entire game- I cleared a room, the lights turned off, a demon spawned out of nowhere, roared, and I shot it. The lights came on, I got some armor, repeat cycle.” There’s no real feel of progression in the game other than a new loading screen. It’s fun, but straight-forward.

The last parts (10-25%) of the game are slightly different though. The pace picks up, ammo is always a problem, and there’s a constant feeling of unease. The best parts of the game are definitely towards the end. For some players, however, they may find themselves not caring enough to keep playing past the first few hours.

There isn’t much of a story to the game. You’re a nameless marine who’s just arrived on Mars. Things are kind of weird, and suddenly you find yourself in the middle of a disaster. As you progress, you’ll pick up logs from dead characters and by reading their emails or listening to their logs, you can learn a little more about what’s been going on. Essentially, though, there’s nothing interesting in all the extra stuff you pick up; they all say the same thing: there’s been a lot of weird stuff going on, and people are scared.

The monsters that you can encounter can be genuinely creepy. While I didn’t find myself in spots where I was “scared,” the art design, screams, and creepy laughs all helped me feel a little antsy at times. I would find myself thinking, “What is that dripping down?” look up at the ceiling and think, “Oh,” and then “Ugh.”

Doom 3 is not a game for kids. The violent and demonic themes present throughout the game definitely make it a game suited for mature audiences only. The game is of medium length, and while I enjoyed the game, I can’t imagine wanting to play through it again. I might want to take on the later levels on a higher difficulty, and a nice feature that the game has is a level selector that enables you to do just that. Based on my experience with the single player, I would recommend this game as a rental or a discounted purchase ($30). If you have Xbox Live or are interested in the bonuses present in the Limited Edition, Doom 3 may warrant a full-priced purchase for you. It’s a very good game, with outstanding production values, but it doesn’t do quite enough to establish itself as a must-buy.

Note: I didn’t try the Limited Edition version that comes with Doom 1 and 2 or any of Doom 3’s online modes.

(originally published in GamersInfo.net)

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Doom RPG (Mobile)

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

When I was growing up, Doom was the PC’s equivalent of the Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat franchises- it didn’t matter where you lived, you knew of Doom. Even if you weren’t fortunate enough to have a PC to play it, you knew someone who had it. Before the days of multi-player gaming over the Internet and $500 video cards, Doom was a shining example that computer games could offer an experience not replicable on consoles and in the arcades.

Doom RPG (role playing game) in many ways retains the uniqueness of the original PC games in the transition to cell phone gaming. It keeps the original’s graphics, plot, enemies, and first person perspective while converting the shooter into a turn-based role-playing game. The control scheme has been perfected for the platform, removing the original’s emphasis on twitch-based gameplay. Yet, as well as the game plays despite the gameplay redesign, its decade-old source material also becomes a hindrance the father you progress in the game.

In most facets, Doom RPG can be considered a near replica of Doom PC. You take the role of a marine exploring a military base in Mars, which basically means you go into a level, clear everything that moves, and find an exit. It’s pure, simple gunplay. There won’t be any stealth or strategy involved and you’ll have a wide assortment of weapons to choose from, including the standard Doom pistol, shotgun, plasma gun, rocket launcher, and infamous BFG. Compared to the original games, Doom RPG places a greater emphasis on encounters with non-player characters. As you travel through the base, you will learn more about the game’s story through interactions with these characters and computers. While the overall story isn’t particularly interesting, the writing in these encounters is often laden with inside jokes, so talking to people and using computers is one of the better aspects of the game.

The RPG gameplay revolves around your character being able to make one move at a time, in which firing a weapon or moving 1 step counts as a move. Enemies generally follow the same rules as well. You can use the joystick on your cell phone for movement if you have one, but the keypad works just as well. As in most RPGs, as you progress through the game, your abilities will increase- you will gain additional hit points, your aim will increase, etc. Unfortunately, the leveling aspect of the games seems shallow as you never feel that you’re actually getting stronger. It’s more that as you get farther in the game, you get access to better, cooler weapons. This is why someone’s enjoyment will come from how much he was a fan of the original games in the first place. Doom RPG is extremely long (the game lasted 8+ hours for me) for a cell phone game, and while I was glad of this at first, I was tired of the game by its end. The switch to turn-based gameplay removes much of the tension and anticipation I felt playing the originals. Most fights feel the same, and there’s no particular difference in excitement in fighting a dog versus fighting the last boss in the game. The shooter gameplay in the original was repetitive as well, but this problem is highlighted more in the RPG.

Graphically, Doom RPG looks like Doom, for good and bad. The good is that the original’s 3D engine has been moved to the cell phone display perfectly, down to the limited animation of the sprites. Aurally, sound effects are usually only present when you’re firing weapons and there isn’t any music in gameplay. While it may come from a limitation of the cell phone platform, the absence of in-game music contributes greatly to the lack of atmosphere in the game and the monotony that builds over time.

Ultimately, your enjoyment of Doom RPG will depend on your past experiences with the game. The more you enjoyed the originals, the more you will like the cell phone version. Doom RPG really is Doom PC in RPG form. It is an excellent translation of the originals and the optimization for the cell phone platform is clearly evident. The original’s weaknesses are bigger problems in the RPG, however, because of the length of the game and the slower pacing of the gameplay. I didn’t feel much sense of accomplishment when I finished the game, and I don’t think I would be too excited to go through it again. Nonetheless, Doom RPG is a great value and worth checking out.

Test System: Sony Ericsson W800i

(originally published in GamersInfo.net)

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Halo (PC)

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

While I was busy saving the universe at 15 frames per second, I wondered why anyone would even care to attempt to do so, especially on a world as ugly as the one I was on. But when I found myself sitting back and watching the credits roll for Gearbox’s PC port of Halo, I realized that, despite whatever sluggish graphical performance the port suffers on its introduction to PC gamers, Halo for the PC still retains its original magic that made the Xbox version quite possibly the best first person shooter of all time.

In Halo, you are Master Chief, the last surviving member of a group of super soldiers the human race developed to help fight off the Covenant, an alien species attempting to destroy humanity. You are resting in a hibernation-like state on the starship Pillar of Autumn when the Covenant catch up to your ship and prepare to board it. Captain Keyes, the captain of the Autumn, has you woken up so that you can help the ship fight off the Covenant boarding parties and prevent them from grabbing Cortana, the ship’s AI. And so as you wake up, your adventure in Halo begins.

Halo is a direct port of its Xbox counterpart. While multiplayer now supports online play, and the control system is now mouse-driven (though the game supports game pads and joysticks as well), the game is essentially the same. This, as with most ports, is both good and bad.

Halo run at its highest detail settings looks the same as the Xbox version other than for the fact that PC Halo at high resolution looks extremely crisp. You won’t find, however, anything like improved textures or better special effects. Fortunately, that doesn’t mean Halo looks like trash. But while Halo was the best looking FPS ever upon its release for the Xbox, it now ranks only slightly above average for a PC FPS.

The real issue with I had with Halo is on a performance level. I don’t have a strong gaming PC, but I can run most games moderately well. For me, Halo, despite it being released close to a year ago, runs on par with games that were just released (Doom 3). I ran the game at the worst possible detail settings at 1024×768 (with low sound quality as well), and I averaged 15 fps (for comparison, gamers consider 30 FPS playable with 60 FPS being optimal) throughout the game. While I found that I could play through the game at that rate even though I was playing at a harder difficulty level, this may have been because I know the levels of the game well. The loss in visual quality for me was quite significant as well. The game at its lowest settings often looked like an early Quake 3-engine game, which is to say that it can look like a 4-5 year old game at times.

The visual quality settings actually have a significant impact on gameplay. On high settings, in a situation where you have a Covenant who is partially invisible and difficult to fight, on low settings, that same Covenant becomes gray and easily dispatched of. Lighting and special effects are affected so drastically that explosions don’t really explode (you cannot see explosions or fire) and the flashlight, which is supposed to be absolutely necessary in some levels, becomes an afterthought. Halo actually becomes easier on its low detail settings. Some might say these types of issues occur with all PC games; if you don’t have the power to run a game, you’ll have to sacrifice certain things in order to play it. I would argue, however, that because Halo runs much more sluggishly than it should in terms of its ratio of performance to visual quality, this is an important issue that needs to be voiced. If you have a slower PC, the performance is definitely something you should consider because it may really damper your enjoyment of the game.

Unlike Halo’s graphics, its music, sound effects, and voice acting don’t suffer in the transition to the PC. While Halo supports surround sound, I ran the game in stereo and found the sound positioning to be very strong. I actually heard a lot of sounds I had never noticed in the Xbox version as well. Sound effects and voices are crisp, in sync, and distinct.

Having mouse control, as you might expect, is a huge advantage over the analog sticks of a gamepad. In the Xbox version, the aiming reticle was slightly magnetized; as you got closer to placing your reticle over the enemy, your aiming sensitivity would get slower. Therefore, it was easier to “lock on” to an enemy once you got your aim onto him. For mouse control, Gearbox just removed this aiming help. I did notice that when you’re manning a turret, you’ll still get a little bit of help, however, and so I’m not sure how much exists (if any) in other situations. Mouse aiming controls well as you might expect for any PC FPS. An odd thing is that the maximum mouse sensitivity that you can set through the game menu will likely be too low for the experienced PC gamer. This, however, can be tweaked externally through information you can find on the Internet. If you’re migrating from the Xbox version, you’ll find that sniping and grenade throwing is significantly easier with a mouse despite how well the Xbox version controlled.

Halo separates itself from other games due to the level it immerses the player in. From the start when you wake up on the Autumn, the game setting almost seems realistic, or at least plausible. You can only carry two weapons, just like a normal person might. You’re a super soldier, part man, part machine, so it’s no wonder you’re stronger than everyone else. You have a rechargeable shield which allows you to survive encounters that would normally wipe out an entire human squad. The characters around you act real and treat you like you would expect for a person of your stature. If humans are fighting around you, you’ll notice that their mood picks up when you arrive. They recognize who you are and what you’re capable of. They’ll chatter during fights and you’ll know it when they’re scared or confident about the current situation. They’re human.

Enemies are no different. There is a hierarchy system where if you show the lower grunts that you can defeat their higher ranked warriors, they’ll become scared of you and try to run. If you throw a grenade at them, they’ll panic in an attempt to escape from it. You’ll always feel that you’re powerful, but that doesn’t mean you can just walk in and kill everyone Rambo-style. The enemy fights you together as a coordinated team, not just a bunch of AI bots trying to kill you on their own. It’s hard to understand what this means until you play Halo. In other games, it seems that characters fight you the same no matter what happens around them. In Halo, however, the environment and situation always dictate how the other soldiers and enemies fight.

The sci-fi storyline is great, and the dialogue is consistently good as well. The voice acting is never cheesy, and the music always creates a great sense of atmosphere. The soundtrack picks its spots; it’s not just always looping in the background. Instead, it always seems that, at the game’s most exciting moments, that’s when the soundtrack is primed and getting you ready for what’s coming.

The magic of Halo is that it never lets you break from its grip. There’s nothing that reminds you that you’re just playing a game. From beginning moment to end, you are Master Chief, the super soldier. You’re fighting an alien species for the survival of all mankind. It’s all perfectly normal, perfectly natural. When you die, you won’t think “Hey! That’s CHEAP!” Instead, and even at the hardest difficulties, you’ll always know you can beat a particular section- you just need to limit your mistakes. And as a super soldier, that’s all you’ll ever want because, after all, you can only control what you do.

What makes Halo such a great game is that it is the closest thing to a cinematic experience in gaming. Usually, a “cinematic experience” means heavy use of beautiful pre-rendered cut scenes and high production values, such as what you’ll see in the Final Fantasy and Lord of the Rings games. In Halo, however, you’re not playing the movie or reliving the movie, you are the movie. If you’ve ever watched movies like Predator, or Aliens, or even Starship Troopers, the pure adrenaline rush you feel in the best moments of those movies is what the entire Halo game creates. In Halo, there are no puzzles or slow moments- Halo is pure action (without boring repetition) mixed in with a fantastic storyline, strong AI, excellent voice acting, and an epic score. Like Half-Life and Goldeneye (N64), Halo will always be considered one of the true classics of the genre.

Test System: Windows XP SP1, Intel M 1.5MHZ (approximately equivalent to a P4 2.0-2.2), 512MB, Radeon 9200 (64MB).

Note: Multiplayer was not tested

(originally published in GamersInfo.net)

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Enter the Matrix (XBox)

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

Enter the Matrix (ETM), written and directed by the Wachowski Brothers, is the most serious attempt at bridging the gap between Hollywood and the video game industry. Over 20 million dollars was allocated from the Matrix sequels’ budgets for the game, and Shiny, the developers of ETM, were given full access to everything involving the movie, including the sets and actors. To paraphrase ETM Lead Designer David Perry, no matter what, Enter the Matrix will have a huge impact on the gaming industry. Either, no one will ever make a game this way again, or it will open the floodgates for the infusion of Hollywood into video gaming. Fortunately for gamers, ETM is actually a pretty good game. While it does have significant flaws, one walks away from the game getting a good impression of what it would be like to “experience” the movies, and it is definitely worth playing for fans of the Matrix movies.

The game starts slightly before the events of Matrix: Reloaded. You can choose to take control of either Niobe or Ghost in the game. While both characters’ missions are generally alike, each has enough unique missions that make finishing the game with both a worthwhile experience. There are also different cutscenes, both filmed and in-engine, unique to each character. In the vehicle based missions, Niobe drives while Ghost shoots. Otherwise, every other mission is of the action-based run/melee/shoot variety. The story line is completely original and complements Reloaded perfectly.

The most obvious problem with ETM is the control. ETM asks for use of virtually every button on the X-Box pad. Unfortunately, since ETM is an action game, it can be difficult to shift your fingers all over the pad, particularly switching between the melee and fighting controls. The melee attacks use the XYAB buttons, and weapon manipulation is with the white and black buttons. I had tremendous trouble with this, and I felt like it any success I had was random button mashing. I tried both the original and S-controller, but both were extremely uncomfortable. Eventually, I was able to use a Playstation Dual Shock controller via an adapter, and that felt very good because of the 4 shoulder buttons. Other people’s experiences haven’t been quite as negative as mine, but nor were they extremely happy with the control. Even after completing the game, using a X-Box controller for ETM is still awkward for me, despite understanding how to play the game. The control issues extend pass just the button selection, however. Almost every single part of the game feels like it should have been tweaked. First person control is mostly frustrating. It’s strange that you can choose between inverted and normal looking in the Options menu, yet in the vehicle shooting missions, you only have inverted. In first person and the shooting missions, the cursor feel is very poor, and it is difficult to accurately target something. It’s also strange that you can choose first person by tugging on the right control stick, but you have to aim with the left when most first person shooters today use the right stick for aiming. The control in the driving missions is ok, but the vehicle physics are just awful. It’s almost impossible to really predict how the car will control, and the collision detection is simply ludicrous.

The Wachowski Brothers directed each cutscene as well as the camera angles in gameplay. Normally, set angles in an action game are a horrible idea, and combined with my early control problems, I found myself extremely frustrated with the game. As I adjusted to the controls, however, I found the camera to be actually pretty good. It can be a little difficult at times to deal with, especially when enemies are around you in multiple directions, not just in front of you. However, the auto-aiming when using lock-on does a good job of taking care of people whether you see them in clear sight or not, taking care of a lot of possible frustration.

The combat in ETM is the real highlight of the game. With Max Payne out, one had to wonder how bullet time would be handled, and if it would simply be a copy of Max Payne’s. Thankfully, it is not, and improves on Max Payne greatly. Bullets create the same ripple effect in the movies, and use of bullet time, or “focus,” as it is referenced to in the game, is activated by a simple press of the L trigger. Different moves can be created within focus, by pressing jump, punch, kick, or disarm, or a combination of them. It takes very little practice to do great looking moves, and often, fights often compare positively visually with the ones in the movies. You will find that virtually every jaw dropping move you see done in the original movie doable in the game.

Another aspect that overshadows ETM’s control issues is the difficulty of the game. Saves are usually frequent, keeping the pace of the game fast. Also, health and focus regenerate pretty quickly, always giving you a chance to live if you play carefully. Overall, the game is of moderate difficulty and probably around 8-10 hours the first time though.

The excitement of the movies is recreated well in the game. The cutscenes are well done as you might expect. In-engine action cutscenes are well framed, and filmed scenes have no trouble retaining the high production values of the movie. The story actually adds a significant part to the movie, and fans will be excited to know that particular details quite important to the movie are only available here. The missions themselves seem to make sense in relation to the storyline and the movie, and some of the most exhilarating moments of the first movie are recreated to be experienced in the game, such as one on one fight scenes, the chase by agents, and a lobby scene, complete with destructible scenery. Overall, it really felt like I was in the Matrix universe.

A unique feature of the game is the ability to hack into the Matrix. The hacking mini-game, while fairly simple, adds some value to the game. Among the unlockables are a multiplayer fighting mode, and several bonus features you might normally expect on a movie DVD, like concept art galleries. While it’s fairly simple to unlock these, it still adds an interactive element that helps the player feel just a little bit closer to the Matrix universe.

Graphically, ETM is definitely a mixed bag. Shiny’s hyped Messiah technology was promoted as the cross-platform engine, able to automatically adjust to a system’s capabilities and correspondingly optimizing the graphics to the strengths of each system. What make the fight scenes so great are the outstanding character models and animation for the moves, as well as the bullet time effects. All the moves were choreographed and motion captured, and the combat in ETM is the first time I’ve seen martial arts combat in a 3D game look so seamless. The character models, in particular Niobe and Ghost, in general are quite good. Their movement in general also look fluid. Aside from these positives, ETM is a real disappointment. Lighting and any type of special effects are generally bland, and one wonders if they could have been recreated on a last generation system. The game’s textures, are also well below average. Textures are simplistic, often repeated, and create the sense of a plastic-looking world for the indoor levels. Banding is readily seen in the textures, and one has to wonder if the game is even rendered in 32 bit color. Overall, it’s not the artistic sense that’s lacking, it’s the technical application of it. I liked how the levels would have looked had there been better textures, but the drab nature of the game world is very depressing.

Since the Matrix movies are so impressive aurally, one might expect the same for the game. This is generally true, with the music and voice acting as highlights. The voice acting is just as good as in the movies, and the music, especially in the 1 on 1 fights, is outstanding. However, and I’m not sure if this was a bug, but I noticed in some levels that the music would feel disjointed, like it was repeating every 10 seconds. ETM supports 5.1 sound, but, unfortunately, for the most part it is not used well in the game, even in the filmed cutscenes.

Enter the Matrix was released with great expectations, just like Matrix: Reloaded. Just like it, there will be probably be mixed reactions to it by players. Similarly, though, the game is much more good than bad, and will be a thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable experience for any Matrix fan. While non-Matrix fans will be obviously less motivated to try out the game, the combat and bullet time sequences are worth playing on their own. Hopefully, ETM’s success, both as a critical and financial success, will encourage Hollywood to engage in closer collaboration with the gaming industry. Of course, if this means more “interactive movies,” this may be a bad thing.

Graphics 7.0/10
Sound 8.5/10
Control 6/10
Gameplay 8/10
Overall 8/10

(originally published in GamersInfo.net)

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The Hulk (XBox)

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

As every summer rolls along each year, this usually brings the good memories of the summer blockbuster. Unfortunately, along with every summer blockbuster comes a video game somehow “inspired” by the movie. Movie games have traditionally been known for their less than stellar quality, but this still has not dissuaded many uninformed consumers from risking their hard earned cash each year for these video game disasters. The Hulk, unfortunately has to deal with 2 barriers: the movie game AND the comic game. One only has to look at the Batman: Dark Tomorrow or the infamous E.T for the Atari 2600 to understand why many games cringe at the potential of a comic or movie based game. Surprisingly, The Hulk is actually quite good, and not simply for a comic or movie game, but just plain good. Despite its simplistic gameplay, The Hulk is a great beat-em-up that lasts long enough to give you some fun action packed hours, but ends before things get monotonous.

“Hulk Smash!” This famous Hulk line is a great way to describe the game, and there is a lot of smashing, and smashing is incredibly fun. In the Hulk, you will switch between The Hulk, and his not so hulking alter ego, scientist Bruce Banner. In the Banner missions, which make up about a quarter of the game, you help Banner sneak around and solve various puzzles. The stealth element in the game is very simplistic, and so are the puzzles. Each puzzle is the same, and require very little thinking ability. It’s not very exciting, but thankfully, these levels are not too difficult and fairly short, so it’s back to “Hulk Smash!” fairly quickly.

As the Hulk, the missions basically involve destroying everything in sight, or chasing after someone so that you can destroy him. The control system uses two different attack buttons, along with a grapple button. There is also a rage meter, which increases each time you get hit or get a rage powerup. When this bar is full, Hulk is invulnerable for some time and can unleash special attacks. There is a basic combo system, but it is easy and fun to use, like in EA’s Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers. Unlike LOTR, however, there is no rpg-lite element to the game, and the Hulk’s moves are the same from beginning to end. Being the Hulk is so incredibly (pun intended) fun because of the interaction with the environment. Almost everything can be destroyed or picked up and used against your foes. In fact, against some foes, it’s required that your rip up the environment to take them out. The game does a great job of presenting Hulk’s power. You can break through walls, toy with human soldiers, and tanks and helicopters feel like nothing compared to your power. The pace of the game is quite brisk, and the game isn’t too difficult except for the later boss missions.

A lot of the fun destroying the environment, and basically kicking LOTS of tail is being able to see the damage you’re creating. You can always tell the Hulk has been around because whenever you clear an area, it shows graphically. Cracks show where you jump and land, walls are broken down, and there’s a great feeling after you thoroughly trash everything around you. The prerendered cutscenes and in-game graphics both house a cel-shaded look to them. Overall, it’s very nice, although it does seem a bit odd for the prerendered custcenes. There is nothing truly spectacular about the graphics, and there is some slight slowdown occasionally. The set camera angles can also be annoying, but overall, neither problem affects the gameplay much. Objects look nice, if not great, and the same goes for the textures. The Hulk looks great and his moves are animated well, but like with the gameplay, there is nothing noteworthy about Banner, other than that he looks like Eric Bana, the actor in the movie.

Bana does the voice acting for Banner in the game, and the rest of the actors do a good job relative to the plot (more on that later). Jennifer Connelly does not voice Betty Ross, however, but her character is really insignificant in the game. The music keeps pace with the game well, but is not really epic in scale as in LOTR or Enter the Matrix. Hulk supports surround sound and it is used decently in the game, but it is non-existent in the cinemas. Like the graphics, the audio is fine but holds nothing truly memorable.

The storyline for the Hulk game takes place after the movie, but the story seems more in place in a low rate comic book. This is not a bad thing, necessarily, but upon reflection, the plot is insignificant, and really does nothing to enhance or detract from the gameplay. As mentioned before, the game is quite short, and only the boss battles hold any difficulty to them. There are unlockables, like trailers and DVD-type “making-of” extras for the movie and game, similar to LOTR. There are also various cheat codes, including a nice option to play as the Gray Hulk, which I believe is more enticing for fans of the comic. For some reason, I couldn’t quite figure out how to unlock these extras. Beating the game doesn’t unlock anything, and a few of the unlockables are available once you have a saved game. To unlock everything, I had to find out codes through GameFaqs. The only thing adding to potential replay is the addition of a challenge mode, which gives gamers a few missions where basically, you get to smash and smash a lot.

The Hulk is definitely nothing new, but it is refreshing to see a fun movie or comic based game finally. Although the game is supposed to take after the movie, I thought it was a great way to get into watching the movie. The Hulk is similar to LOTR in many ways, from its slick presentation to its simplistic beat-em-up gameplay, but lacks LOTR’s replay with multiple characters, and features much less in the way of bonus unlockables. In the end, it’s a still a great game, but whether it’s worth $50 is probably best discovered through a rental first.

Graphics: 7.5/10
Sound: 7.5/10
Control: 8.5/10
Gameplay: 8.0/10
Overall: 7.5/10

(originally published in GamersInfo.net)

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Darkwatch (XBox)

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

I had a nightmare once. Something about vampires? Some lady kept following me, she was helping me, I think…blood was splattered everywhere, and I had an awful headache. I just wanted to escape….the carnage….and the bodies….I tried to fight those…things(!) off, but eventually, I just grew numb to all the pain. I kept pulling the trigger, trying to stay alive. It was insane, I didn’t know what was going on. When I woke up, I tried to remember the details, but at the same time I was too scared to think about it. With time, the dream faded away from my mind, but the fear and desperation from that night would always be entrenched in my heart.

—-

Capcom’s Darkwatch is a first-person shooter with a western/supernatural setting. This means that while you can expect to ride horses, fight Indians, and use the normal assortment of weapons you would find in the archetypal Western movie, you’ll also encounter supernatural elements such as zombies, demons, and skeletons throughout your adventure as well.

You are Jericho Cross, a disfigured outlaw who hopes to retire from his life of crime with one last big score. Unfortunately, things don’t go as planned, and Jericho instead mistakenly releases a vampire named Lazarus from captivity. Lazarus then proceeds to “reward” Jericho by making Jericho a vampire. The rest of the game revolves around Jericho’s quest to escape from his curse and at the same time, seek revenge on Lazarus.

While Darkwatch’s setting may be a departure from that of a normal shooter, its play mechanics are not. Any FPS veteran will have no problem getting acclimated within the game quickly. Darkwatch is, nevertheless, very challenging. No matter how careful you are, you can die at any moment. That’s not to say necessarily that the game is unfair, however, or very hard overall. While it may seem that certain sections of the game are ridiculous in how easy it is for you to die, checkpoints are given very liberally, and you never have to repeat too much of what you’ve previously accomplished. This avoids creating too much frustration for the player, and allows the game to keep moving. This fast, sometimes frantic pace is what makes Darkwatch in the end, a very enjoyable game. Darkwatch creates a constant sense of desperation by combining a quick, constant-action pace with enemies that while, for the most part, are easily dispatched, come in continuous waves and cause lots of damage themselves.

I often felt that my gun would never shoot fast enough, or I was always getting stuck in some corner surrounded by skeletons and finding myself unable to escape. Darkwatch’s wonderful balance is in making you feel pretty confident one moment, and then fearful and desperate the next, where you then find yourself almost yelling in your mind, wishing you could escape, mashing on the controller just to survive for one more second in hopes of escaping the mad throng surrounding you.

Aiming control is precise, though at times I felt the aiming help impeded me, steering me towards the wrong target. This was never more than a minor irritation, however. For those picky about their control configurations, they’ll be happy to see selectable profiles based on the controls of other popular FPSs, and adjustable reticle sensitivity.

One of the intriguing aspects of Darkwatch is its emphasis on the player’s choice to be good or evil, but this is not done particularly well. All your choices will be obvious- you are explicitly presented with good and bad options, and your decision only affects gameplay in determining the special vampire powers you develop and the game’s ending. The powers, unfortunately, are not that special. While they are somewhat useful in gameplay, their subtraction from the game would not negatively affect it. At best, the special powers and decision to go good or evil add slight replay to the game.

The plot in Darkwatch doesn’t stand up well on its own, but it is good enough to keep the player interested in continuing from one level to the next. A lot of that has to do with the strong voice acting in the game. The soundtrack is another positive, properly reflecting the supernatural atmosphere of the game and the pace of the gameplay.

With so much action going on on-screen, I would often find myself lost, looking around aimlessly, struggling to find my next attacker. Darkwatch, though, has some of the best positional surround sound found in any game- I grew to depend on it as a gameplay aid as I progressed in my adventure. Darkwatch is one of the rare games where sound actually improves the gameplay for a title, rather than merely complementing it.

Darkwatch features excellent graphics as well. I remember being amazed one particular moment upon seeing a ceiling reflection in a water puddle in an underground tunnel. The reflection wasn’t part of eye candy that games will often deliberately put in plain sight to impress you- this was just a subtle thing that I picked up, pretty much on accident, but this example highlights the level of graphical detail found within the rest of the game. Both on an artistic and technical level, everything looks great.

Darkwatch at its core is a frantic action game with supernatural and adult undertones. It is somewhat on the short side, with limited replay value, but it is still an outstanding game. It’s hard to recommend the game as a purchase because it can easily be completed over a weekend, but you won’t be disappointed with Darkwatch if you do decide to buy it. Excellent production values and strong adrenaline-filled gameplay make Darkwatch a game well worth playing.

Notes: Multiplayer was not tested.

Test system: 32 inch non-HDTV, 5.1 Surround System

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Obi Wan (XBox)

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

Anytime a licensed game is released, the general gaming community sighs at anticipation of another poor use of the license. This is especially a concern with movie games like Blade and anything Star Wars. What fans tend to not acknowledge is the difficulty of making a good game that’s fits all the rules of its license and yet remains a good game when separated from the license. LucasArts usually gets the most flak for creating poor movie inspired games, and one only has to look at flops like The Phantom Menace to wonder why. However, if you think about it, it’s pretty hard to make a challenging game with a Jedi in it. After all, Jedi’s are the superheroes in the SW universe. They have Force powers that make them faster and stronger than anything else. They also happen to be equipped with the ultimate weapon of invulnerability, the lightsaber. To make a “realistic” game with a Jedi is impossible, just like it is with any superhero game. In a Superman game, how could there even be a challenge if you’re stronger, faster, and basically, infallible? So, developers have to make sacrifices in their licensed world in order to make their game work. Jedi’s, while powerful, can not be unstoppable, or else the game would be too easy. Lucasarts’ latest effort, Obi-Wan for the X-Box hopes to erase the bad memories caused by Phantom Menace (I had the experience of beating PM, which I would not wish on anyone else). As you can guess from the title, you control Obi-Wan in this third person adventure. The timeline starts before the events of Episode 1 (in fact, you will find out why Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are sent to speak to the Trade Federation) until the final battle with Darth Maul.

Technical Aspects:
No matter how you look at it, Obi-Wan is not a good looking game. Thankfully, however, as you will find out later, it DOES have personality(gameplay). While I thought the level designs were well done, Obi-Wan is a smorgasbord of low resolution textures, low polygon models, and average special effects. What’s strange is that, despite all that, the frame rate doesn’t serve as a positive for the game. I’m not sure what the frame rate is most of the time (my guess is 30), the frame rate will stutter into the tens in heavy battle situations, and a few times I experienced 1 second pauses while playing. Fortunately, while frame rate stuttering is fairly common, I never considered it a hindrance while playing the game, even in the thick of battle. While Obi-Wan is animated pretty well, he still looks a bit awkward in his lightsaber attacks. I guess it’s kind of hard to make everything look choreographed like the movies. While lightsabers don’t look as brilliant as they do in the movies, nevertheless, they’re recreated well. Throughout the game, you’ll see glimpses of things that look pretty nice, like the reflections in the Jedi arenas. Overall, however, these are infrequent and don’t do much to enhance the overall graphical nature of the game. Obi-Wan looks decent enough when you’re controlling him and the camera keeps its distance from you, as almost everything does in the game for that matter. Up close, though, Obi-Wan is very blocky. Some of the more notable model disfigurements are Qui-Gon, who has an exaggeratedly pointed noise, and Yoda, who has some freakishly strange looking ears.
Score: 3.5/10

Traditionally, Star Wars games get high marks in this department. After all, when can you ever go wrong with John Williams’ beautiful scores in all the Star Wars movies? I doubt there are many people, fans or not, who can’t recognize at least one Star Wars tune immediately. Obi-Wan is no exception to the Star Wars standard, and the in-game music is outstanding. Sound effects wise, I didn’t have access to a 5.1 system for this review, so I was unable to judge Obi-Wan’s surround sound capabilities. Otherwise, I thought the standard Star Wars library of lightsabers and blasters were finely recreated. Voice acting, is where Obi-Wan’s Achilles heel lies. Since Obi Wan is the main character in the story, he has the most lines, and the Ewan McGregor impersonator does a fine job of butchering his lines and the Obi-Wan accent. What compounds the situation is a poor script. Queen Amidala also isn’t done very well, but everyone else sounds like a reasonable facsimile to pass as the real thing.
Score: 7.5/10

Gameplay:
As mentioned in the game overview, developers have to draw a fine line between the reality of the license universe and creating a viable game. Obi-Wan does that as well as any of the Jedi-based games yet. The storyline provides a reason why certain enemies can block your lightsabers attacks. While nothing thought provoking, it’s nice to be given a reason for things for some discrepancies between “reality” and the game universe. As can be expected, your lightsaber can’t kill/slice and dice in just one hit. Obi-Wan, in the guise of a 3rd person action/adventure game is simply at its heart, a fun beat ‘em up that hearkens back the days of side scrolling fighters like Final Fight. While much longer than any of those 16bit era brawl titles, you basically go through Obi-Wan mindlessly destroying everything in your path. What makes it enjoyable is the use of your Force powers. You’re given “realistic” (again, realistic by universe rules) control of your Force Powers. You can use Force jump, push objects into enemies, disarm enemies, and enhance your lightsaber attacks. Your force power isn’t infinite, but recharges fast enough so that it doesn’t hinder your enjoyment of the game or use of your powers. In other words, Lucasarts made a good job of making sure the player will always feel powerful like a Jedi should, but at the same time know that he won’t be completely infallible. If that seems a bit silly to you, think of the last superhero type of game you played where you felt that you were super powerful yet challenged at the same time. This type of gameplay balance doesn’t happen often. As you continue through the game, you will get to challenge other Jedi’s (considered training by the game) like Mace Windu. These diversions are fun, but on the whole pretty easy. The main part to get used to in Obi Wan is the movement and lightsaber control. The left analog stick controls your movement while the right controls your lightsaber. How you control the right stick determines how you swing the saber. For example, pulling back deflects incoming fire, and pushing right on the stick will cause Obi-Wan to swing right. While a bit strange at first, after some practice (the training mission is useful here), the control scheme becomes complete intuitive. I hope that any future games use this control scheme as I found it very innovative and fun to use.
Score: 8.0/10

Other (Story/Replay/Multi):
Star Wars games tend to have pretty decent storylines, and Obi Wan has a good one- much better than the one in Starfighter, another X-Box Star Wars Universe game. The plot gives good background information to supplement the movie. There isn’t any real motivation for replay in Obi-Wan except to achieve special medals/icons for beating the level a certain way. All bonus missions are unlocked by the time you reach the end of the game, including a Battle Royale mode where all the Jedi’s fight each other at once. I’m not sure how long the game is, but at most it is 10-15 hours and I felt the game length was about right for this type of game. The game is of medium difficulty, but there isn’t any one part that players will find themselves stuck on for any extended period of time. Multiplayer consists of battles in the Jedi Arena. Each player picks their Jedi and fight each other, similar to the Jedi training/challenge missions in single player. Multiplayer is a nice little feature thrown in but nothing extraordinary.

Wrapup:
A lot of the fun factor of Obi-Wan is knowing what it’s supposed to be and what it isn’t. What it isn’t is some epic adventure in the Star Wars Universe. What it is, is a solid beat ‘em up game that lets you roam around using Jedi powers and clear everything in your path as you get from level to level and hear the latest plot element unfold in the storyline. Simplistic gameplay? Yes. Fun? Yes. Poor graphics and voice acting aside, it’s reminiscent of those 16bit Final Fight days. Plus, it’s an enjoyable way to vent out if you’re a little angry at the world. If you’re a Star Wars fan, Obi-Wan definitely warrants purchasing. Even if you’re not and have been wishing for a fun way to burn time for a few nights, pick this up as a rental.
Final Score: 7.0/10

Review System : 20” Flatscreen SVideo/Headphones

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Batman Begins (Mobile)

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

When it comes to Batman games, I am an apologist. That said, I know the difference between a good game and a bad one, and Batman Begins Mobile is fun game. Begins is able to take the movie’s emphasis on stealth and implement solid action and controls into the gameplay to create an enjoyable experience.

Batman Begins Mobile, like many cell phone games, puts 16 bit graphics and somewhat-mindless gameplay onto the cell phone. In this case, Begins is a better example of the type. Begins features the standard control set used by other mobile action games: use the numeric keypad or if you have one, the joystick on your phone. As you might expect, using the joystick is a much better control option. The controls work fairly well, but I encountered problems during several instances that required more agile control.

You take on the role of the superhero as he looks to bring down Carmen Falcone, the gangster boss in the movie. Although the game’s five missions can be completed quickly, the levels keep you moving, and if you’re familiar with side-scrolling action games of the 16-bit era, you’ll have a good sense of what to expect. Instead of killing your enemies, once you knock them down, you can tie them down to disable them. You have access to several of Batman’s tools, such as batarangs, explosives, and his grapple. You can also glide from building to building once you unlock the ability later in the game.

Stealth is emphasized in the gameplay, and while it isn’t critical to succeeding in a mission, you’re given some interesting options to take down enemies. One move, taken directly from the movie, has you hanging over an enemy, and you can drop right down on him. You can also creep up to someone from behind to take him down quietly. Otherwise, aside from your tools, you will rely on the basic punch and jump kick as your attack options.

Graphically, Begins looks solid, nothing super smooth or impressive, but you can definitely distinguish the world around you. Aurally, the same applies; solid, but nothing to be highlighted.

Batman Begins will be more interesting to existing fans of the license, but stands well on its own. With a solid tie-in to the movie material and fun gameplay, the only detractor for the game is its length. It can be finished in a couple of hours, but it is fun to revisit as a quick-play title.

Test System: Sony Erricsson W800i

(originally published in GamersInfo.net)

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Halo: The Graphic Novel

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

I am a comic fan. While I would never claim to be an expert on them, I enjoy them, and buy some every month, usually in compiled trade paperback (TPB) or hardcover (HC) form. That said, I have never found myself interested in comics based on video games. While there have been commercial successes like the Street Fighter and Tomb Raider series, and while the art within these types of comics are usually satisfactory, I have never found anything I enjoyed on a story level. When I heard about the Halo Graphic Novel (HGN) though, my interest was piqued but I still was not too optimistic about it.

HGN is based on the universe that Bungie created for its Xbox/360 game franchise, Halo. The book is the result of a team-up with comic giant Marvel, the company responsible for comics like the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man. I am a big fan of the Halo games, especially the first, but in the same way with comics, I would never think of myself as a hardcore Halo devotee.

The “Graphic Novel” moniker used to title the book is a misnomer; HGN is actually a compilation of four separate, unconnected stories, with an art gallery collecting contributions from various artists to end the book. The book retails for $24.99, which may seem pricey for 128 pages (a normal comic book runs about 24 pages for $2.99, so the pricing for HGN is about $5.00 for a normal book’s worth of content.). In terms of physical book quality, the pricing fits; the book features a beautiful cover and sleeve and has been constructed for repeated readings. The paper and print quality are outstanding as well.

The stories inside, however, are a different matter. As I read the introduction of the book, it sounded like Bungie agreed with me about previous video game comics, and I might be pleasantly surprised reading these stories. Unfortunately, the stories are lacking. The story I was most interested in reading about beforehand was Sergeant Johnson’s escape from Halo, a story that takes place during the events of the first game. What I found was a series of panels showing Johnson shooting and running until he is rescued. Literally, that is the story, panels of action, little text, nothing of interest going on. There is nothing more to know than what I have told you (and I do not consider this a spoiler).

For the rest of the book, one story is about testing out the Spartan armor (what Master Chief wears), another is about an Elite Spec Ops Commander’s with the Flood, and the final story is about New Mombasa, the Earth city that Master Chief protects in Halo 2.

Of these, the New Mombasa story is probably the most interesting, but still, there is nothing worth remembering from it.

As you can guess, I was very disappointed in the book. It is really not worth purchasing, to the point where it is not worth reading. I would guess that only hardcore Halo fans (people who buy Halo shirts, read the novelizations) would be interested in it. Ultimately, HGN fails to break the pattern other comics have established before it: good artwork paired with uninteresting storytelling.

(originally published in GamersInfo.net)

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Indigo Prophecy (XBox)

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

One of the unfortunate casualties in gaming over the last decade has been that of the adventure game. Some might say that the death of the genre was more of an integration of the genre’s best aspects into others. Perhaps that’s true, but I still feel that the adventure game was the best way you could take part in a story. A great story isn’t a requirement for a great game, but you always knew that a great adventure game would tell a great story as well.

Indigo Prophecy is an attempt to evolve the adventure genre. Doing away with the genre’s traditional point and click scheme, and trashing conventional notions of dialogue trees, inventory systems, and puzzles, Indigo moves the player away from simply experiencing a story to getting the player to create the story. Ultimately, Indigo is one of the best game experiences of the last few years.

Indigo Prophecy is, just, a murder mystery with the innovation that you take control of the suspect, Lucas Kane, as well as the detectives trying to find him. This means that in one scene, you’ll do your best to avoid suspicion, and in the next, you’ll try to uncover clues that you (as Lucas) tried to avoid leaving in the first place. It’s a mechanic that works really well, and as a result, the first 3-4 hours of gameplay are some of the most interesting and involving hours I’ve ever experienced. As the game progresses, the plot develops past being “just” a murder mystery into something more epic/world-encompassing, with tons of character development and hints of conspiracies and science fiction thrown in as well.

Normally in adventure games, you do everything, talk to everyone- the gameplay revolves around exhausting every possibility, oftentimes mixing and matching until something comes out right.

Indigo, though, forces the player to make his own decision within the game. Conversations are limited in that you won’t be able to ask every possible thing- your options are also timed so you need to actively think to choose what you want to say before time runs out. Picking one thing may mean another dialogue option permanently disappears, but it also may allow you to continue the conversation or open up other topics.

Each character you control has a meter that measures his current emotional well-being. If your decisions cause stress for the character you’re currently controlling, the character will get depressed. Therefore, you’ll want to play your character with real life sensibilities. For example, if one character is recently removed from a relationship, encountering reminders of the relationship might cause distress. Or if a character is in a relationship, doing things to jeopardize it will lower his emotional state.

Indigo, more than any other game, puts the player in a realistic setting with realistic choices and consequences stemming from your actions. There are no do-overs, but at the same time, there are few concrete “failures” in decisions. As in life, there tends to be good and bad decisions, but they really all mix in a murky gray in the overall context of the game. Indigo encourages the player to accept his choices. In other games, one might realize he made a mistake, and reload instantly to replay things until he got it perfectly right. Indigo, however, gently soothes the player into understanding that playing a scene out and continuing from there, adjusting to the variables and situation that you have created is the right way.

When you play through Indigo Prophecy, you create your own play experience. In a way, Indigo provides a basic set of characters and settings for each part of the game, but what you do from there in how you interact or make decisions is completely up to you. Each player will have own his unique experience within those guidelines. When I’ve talked to friends who’ve played the game, I’ve always been surprised at the things they’ve seen or done that I had no idea were in the game.

The choices you make are much more of a representation of you rather than a representation of what you think you’re supposed to do.

Comparing Indigo Prophecy to other games is like comparing an essay question to a multiple choice one- Indigo asks what would you do? Indigo provides a truer sense of character role playing, placing the player into the character’s world, much more so than in even the best role playing genre games.

Indigo’s control scheme is a departure from the standard point and click adventure game. What can be frustrating about that scheme is that gameplay can often devolve into pixel hunting, which is running the cursor over every part of the screen until something can be interacted with. Those games can often feel like two-thirds “Where’s Waldo” and one-thirds story and puzzle solving.

Indigo’s control scheme is simple: the left analog stick is used for movement, while the right is used for interaction. It’s pretty original and works well, though I’m not sure it’s really intuitive. The right stick tries to emulate real life motions. For example, if you’re behind a door and need to open it, you would pull down on the stick (towards you, the player) to pull the door open. If you’re sitting at your desk, and you want to open a drawer on the left side, you would hit left on the stick to open it. You won’t need this think this out, however, as the game interface will let you know what you can interact with in which analog stick direction.

Movement control can be an issue at times. Often, controlling your character feels clumsy, and you’ll find yourself needing to completely stop to move in a certain direction.

In action scenes, such as in an escape or fight scene, control is handled through Simon-Says-like mini games. On screen, you’ll see four directional colors for each analog stick, and you’ll have to repeat the patterns shown on screen. Some might say playing action scenes this way is silly or repetitive, but I didn’t mind it. I think it helps casual gamers enjoy the game without needing to be arcade stars, and I think the sequences do still have a way of making you feel that you are genuinely controlling the character as well.

Graphically, Indigo is more impressive on a presentational level than on a technical one. When you go through the intro, David Cage, the director and writer of the game, describes Indigo as a movie, and that’s how the game is presented visually. Sometimes this isn’t perfect for gameplay- for example, the camera angles can be horrible and make things more difficult than they should be in terms of trying to go where you want to be. The awkward character control exacerbates this problem further. Indigo does a great job of creating atmosphere and tension with its visual cues and game world, but the character models can be….inconsistent. I’m not sure how to describe it, but I think there’s just a lack of final polish in the game. Indigo’s graphics aren’t its strongpoint, but I wouldn’t consider them a weakness either.

Aurally, however, Indigo shines completely, from its soundtrack to its voice acting. The strong soundtrack does just as much to manipulate your emotions as the plot and characters do. The voice acting is consistently outstanding and an integral part of keeping up with the movie-like presentation of the game.

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The following may color your own experience with the game, so I have included this slight warning.

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Indigo starts out amazing, but the plot does accelerate and ends sooner than one would expect. My feeling is that the story breaks down from its intriguing premise, becoming too familiar and trite as I reached the end. Indigo does have multiple endings, and with its open ended gameplay structure, one would think that your decisions over the course of the game affect the ending, but the reality is that the endings can all be determined by slightly different actions at the end of the game. This is somewhat depressing to realize because as much as the game tries to reinforce the impression of a unique game experience, your choices really doesn’t amount to anything by the end of the game. When you get to the end of the game, or after some replay, you may feel that there is somewhat of a façade to the gameplay, as if you’ve been fooled into thinking the game was a lot deeper than it actually is.

At the same time, however, it doesn’t really matter how or if a game tricks you, it only matters that you believe it. In that sense, Indigo succeeds.

*********

What Indigo Prophecy does better than any game in recent memory is to give the player the sense that they are creating the story, not merely moving from point to point within the story. Instead of playing to find out more about the story, you play to figure out what you’re going to do next, to see what comes next for you, not simply what comes next in the story. You might feel like you’re playing a choose-your-own-adventure game or taking part in a truly interactive movie.

The initial gameplay experience should last 8-10 hours. It’s fairly short, but the game is still highly satisfying. Replaying the game will be an attractive option to most players as when you’re playing the game the first time, there will inevitably be many moments where you’ll wonder if you could have changed something by saying or doing something different. There are also many unlocks to check out, including behind-the-scenes footage and concept art.

Indigo Prophecy is worth owning, but can be enjoyed as a rental as well. Indigo shines as a highlight of its genre and an advancement in storytelling and I highly recommend it to all game players.

(originally published in GamersInfo.net)

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