I won’t lie. Seeing the phrase "free to play" associated with a game will prompt me to run for the hills more often than not. This is a little odd, as usually the word free draws me in like an ice cream truck to a Weight Watchers convention. In the world of video games, however, I associate F2P with half-assed, graphically challenged boutique games littered with bugs and ads. Due to these prejudices, I approached League of Legends with a bit of trepidation – but its combination of strategic depth and devilishly addicting, competitive team-based gameplay kept me logging in on a nearly daily basis.

League of Legends is the spiritual successor to Defense of the Ancients, an enormously successful mod for Warcraft III which has now spawned its own genre.  (If you’d like to know more about DotA, there’s a detailed Wikipedia entry here.)  League of Legends is a 3v3 or 5v5 team-based game that is played on a map with a home base for each team: one in the southwest corner and one in the northeast corner.  There are “lanes” that connect these two bases, and AI-controlled creeps spawn periodically fight their way towards the opposing base.  These lanes are also lined with turrets, which are defensive structures that fire powerful missiles at any enemy that comes within range.  The goal for each team is to invade and destroy the enemy base.

League of Legends presently features 49 different champions to choose from, though not every champion is available for use at all times.  The way it works is that there are 10 champions that are free to play, and these 10 free champions are rotated every week.  You can unlock permanent access to champions by spending influence points (earned at the end of every match) or by spending Riot points (bought with real-world cash.)  Champions have different pricing levels associated with them, with the most expensive running 6300 influence points or roughly 7 dollars in Riot points.  There are also quite a few “cheap” champs that you can unlock rather quickly.

These champions are split into different categories such as tank, support, mage, and assassin.  You won’t find re-skinned champions with identical skill sets; each champion is unique.  Now balance can be a bit of an issue (from time to time some champions emerge as “overpowered”) but developer Riot Games has been very quick to implement changes to keep the experience as fair as possible.

While champion variety is one of LoL’s strengths, it can also be one of the barriers to access for new players; that long list of champions is daunting at the beginning.  Luckily, LoL has a solid but quick tutorial that introduces you to the game and a single hero.  There is also a practice mode where you can play against other players or AI controlled bots.  Practice games play exactly like the official matches only without the pressure to win.  (I’m a very experienced player with over 250 matches under my belt, but I still play practice matches when I want to try a new champ.)  There is a lively community on the game’s official boards with a plethora of useful information for new players (and the requisite trolling, QQing, and so forth – this is a highly competitive game, after all).

So how do the matches actually play?  At the beginning, your champion starts at level 1 with a set allotment of gold and one skill point to spend on skills.  As you kill creeps and enemy champions or structures, you gain experience and gold.  Each level (the level cap is 18) awards you a stat increase and an additional skill point to use as you see fit.  One important element of strategy in LoL is your skill build order.  Some skills are more useful early in the game, while others don’t really play a major part until later in the match.  Whether it’s best to try to max out one skill as soon as possible or to build your skills in a more balanced fashion depends on the type of hero you have selected.

The next element of strategy is the item system.  Each home base houses an item shop where you spend your gold on items and/or consumables.  The shop interface is very well-laid out with items categorized by the stats they enhance.  Aside from browsing the shop, LoL also provides recommended items for each champion.  Though these builds are not “ideal,” they often get the job done and make a good starting point for new players.  You’ll also find a huge number of build recommendations in the official forums along with the expected debates over which build is best.

I’m a bit of a number-cruncher at heart, and LoL most certain scratches that itch by way of its deep and complex item system.  Two identical champions can play completely differently based on their item choices.  My main champion at the moment is Sivir, a ranged DPS champion.  Some games I elect to focus on damage and attack speed to attempt to squash the enemy, while other times I can choose to build aura items.  Aura items affect all champions within a certain range, and building Sivir in this way focuses more on making the overall TEAM better, and focuses less on my individual performance.

If that’s not enough depth for you, there is the added element of the summoner.  The summoner is a persistent profile associated with your account that levels up as you complete matches.  Your summoner has a three-pronged mastery tree (ala WoW) and the ability to equip runes to enhance your champion’s abilities.  In addition, you select two summoner spells in each match; these are powerful abilities (with long cooldowns) that do things like heal or teleport your champion.

The overall look of the game is excellent.  The graphics won’t blow you away by any stretch, but they are clean and help keep track of what’s happening on the often chaotic battlefield.  I’m sure they could have invested in fancier spell effects, but I believe that would be a detriment to the gameplay.  The interface is well-designed with a bevy of tooltips and hotkeys, with all the information you need is well-placed and easily accessible.

As mentioned in the intro, League of Legends is completely free to play.  You can elect to spend real-world cash to buy Riot Points, but these points can only be spent on optional skins, IP or EXP gain enhancements, or to unlock permanent access to new champions.  You can’t really “buy power” in the game, and people who elect to spend cash on LoL don’t get any sort of preferential treatment.  Now it would take quite awhile to unlock all the champions without spending any money, though I don’t see the need to have ALL of them unlocked.  Since I’ve enjoyed the game so much, I had no problem investing 20 bucks in the boxed collector’s edition, which unlocked 20 champions gave me a few other extras, like a couple of skins and some Riot points.

There are two significant issues I should point out.  Games are joined based on a matchmaking system which, in theory, matches players in such a way to make the game relatively even. While I find it works fine for the most part, there have been times where one side had an obvious, huge advantage over the other.  In my experience, that is the exception rather than the rule.  The second issue revolves around “leavers.”  Success in LoL is largely dependent on teamwork and good team composition.  If a player disconnects, rage quits, or otherwise exits the game, that particular team finds itself at a huge disadvantage.  While there are presently some penalties for players who leave often, they are not significant.  The majority of the time you find yourself in a match down a player or two, you will lose.

Taken together, all of these elements make for an incredibly deep and amazingly competitive gaming experience.  Even six months in with 250+ matches under my belt I still get the itch to log in as much as possible.  If I find myself getting bored with the game, all it takes is a switch over to a new champion to rekindle my desire to play.  Even after all those matches, I don’t see myself ever mastering all the champions, especially since Riot is adding new champs at a steady rate.  Although there are still only two different maps available for play (one map for 5v5 battles and one for 3v3) I don’t see that as a problem.  Because map knowledge and awareness is such a huge factor, it actually helps that the map choices are somewhat limited.  Also, every match plays entirely different as you rarely see the same players or champs on both sides.  And while I’ve had my share of bad matches, the majority of them have been a lot of fun.  If you’re a competitive gamer looking to try something new, I highly recommend giving League of Legends a whirl – it won’t cost you anything to try.  Well, other than the next 6 months of your life, perhaps.

Rating:  

Like a bout of flu in the office, God of War style gaming seems to be going around the development community.  This isn’t anything unusual – when a game gets it right and has great success, it spawns a lot of imitators.  Eventually they become so pervasive (see Mario style platforming, for instance) that we forget they are imitations at all.  Still,  it’s HOW you “re-use” ideas that really matters – you can crib concepts and still present a fairly unique experience.  The difference with Darksiders is that they didn’t just lift the combat from God of War, they also appropriated elements from Zelda, Portal, and even Panzer Dragoon.  There really isn’t a single original element in Darksiders, but perhaps its originality rests in its unique mix of a variety of game play elements.

In Darksiders you play War, one of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse.  It seems someone broke the mythical seven seals by accident, or maybe pushed the wrong button, and the gates of heaven and hell are opened and humanity is wiped out – bummer, I know.  It turns out that the Apocalypse came a little earlier than planned, and War is kinda on the hook.  He’s miffed that somebody managed to fool him into bringing about wanton destruction, and the ambiguous Council (which consists of talking caves straight out of Aladdin) gives War a chance to figure out who hookwinked him and why.

The combat of Darksiders is pure God of War.  You start out with a giant, menacing sword that you swing about willy-nilly, hacking apart enemies and causing many a fount of blood.  You start off with a few basic combos and can purchase additional moves as you progress.  You will also pick up 2 more main weapons along the way, a scythe and a fist weapon.  All three weapons have their own little experience bars and gain levels of power through use.  In addition to power levels and additional combos to unlock, there are a variety of artifacts you find throughout the game that will enhance or change a weapon’s capabilities.  Of course War can also wield a few helpful magic spells, and he even gets the opportunity to “hulk out” into a red demon-o-death form.

I had a couple of issues with the game play.  Changing weapons and items in Darksiders is janky at best.  The weapon switching is fast but not very intuitive, and I often found myself  with the wrong weapon.  This became a real problem later in the game as there are a couple instances where you need to be able to switch up items while in mid air.  This caused me more than one unneeded death.  Outside of the weapon switching system, I also took issue with a few of the platforming sections.  I’m still waiting for that game that gets 3D platforming right and minimizes cheap, instant deaths – Darksiders is not it.

The secondary weapons and items are where the Zelda influences start to creep in.  You’ll find a star that acts an awful lot like a boomerang, a chain to grapple things, a projectile weapon (in this case a gun) and even an ocarina-like horn used to open certain “doors.”  Another component of the Zelda influence is the inclusion of many sections, secrets, and entire areas that are unreachable without a certain item.  You know the type, the old “come back for this later” chest just out of reach, or the wall of crystal that sure LOOKS like it could be broken.  Frankly, I love this type of game design.  Call it what you will, I really enjoy making mental notes to revisit old areas in order to loot them of all available treasure.  It’s the kind of thing that really makes me want to revisit a game I’ve already “beaten”.

Zeldic influences (yes, I just made that up) also play a part in the overall level design.  The story arc of Darksiders sends you on a quest to kill a collection of big, bad demons and gather their still beating hearts.  (Ok, that’s totally not Zelda-like, but bear with me.)  The world is split into roughly a dozen zones, many of which play a lot like dungeons straight out of Zelda.   You’ll cleave enemies and solve various environmental puzzles to progress.  Heck, there is even a little musical jingle that plays every time you solve a puzzle and gain access to a new area; every time this happened, I sang “do, do, do do doooh” to myself.  Along the way you will find things like maps, keys to open locked doors, and of course new secondary items to help you reach new areas.

Each of the dungeons culminates in an epic boss fight.  You fight everything from shining human-sized angels to ginormous, fire spewing demons.  Every boss fight basically boils down to figuring out what the gimmick is and how to exploit it (this is true throughout gaming), but I enjoyed every one.  Each boss fight plays much differently from the one before, and this was key to keeping me interested.  I was also pleased that Vigil Games didn’t feel the need to include long quick time events to take down the big bads.  No crazy X, Square, L1, R2, Triangle combinations here, thankfully.  I love seeing cinematic combat elements, I just don’t want to have to pay attention to which button I need to push to make them continue.  I want to make particular note of the last 3 or 4 boss battles, which really did a fantastic job of pulling the various game play elements of Darksiders together into cohesive, epic challenges.

The overall look of the game is good but not great.  The appropriately destroyed environments have a good level of detail and show a lot of variety, with each new zone featuring an entirely new aesthetic.    My main beef with the look of the game are the character models – most of them have jagged edges and a glassy look, and don’t quite look right on the backgrounds.  War himself also has that overly large shouldered, big hand look sort of like a puppy with its too big paws.  Everything moved at a consistent clip, however, and I never experienced any significant slowdown or glitches.  I would rate Darksiders neither high nor low on the presentation scale, but somewhere in between.  I should add here that I hardly noticed the musical score at all, though perhaps the mix was too overwhelmed by the symphony of tearing flesh and spraying blood.  The voice work was adequate, but beyond Mark Hamill as your companion and “guide”, nothing stood out for me.

The story of Darksiders is on the weak side overall, which is a shame.  The story of the apocalypse should be fertile ground for a gripping narrative, but it starts slowly and stays that way for a long time.  The paper-thin characters and mostly confusing plot left me muddled and confused.  I just knew I had to kill stuff, and I suppose that’s enough.  The story does start to get interesting by the time all the threads start to become clear, and I LOVED the very end, but it took far too long to gain any momentum.

What separates imitation from inspiration?  When you get down to it, how much out there is truly original?  Flower maybe?  Even a universally great game like Bioshock took a lot from games that came before.  Dante’s Inferno and Darksiders were released in roughly the same time frame, and they were lumped into the same God of War clone category.  Having played both, I have to disagree.  Dante’s attempted to mimic God of War completely, from soup to nuts.  Darksiders, while aping the combat from God of War, also drew its inspiration from a LOT of different sources.  Take the combat from God of War, add the level and item design from Zelda, mix in a little bit of 3rd person shooting and just a dab of Portal, and you might end up with something like Darksiders.  The point is that even though the elements that make up Darksiders are not original, the game as a whole is.  Haven’t you ever wanted to play a non-kiddie focused Zelda game with fancy God of War combat and a good old decapitation now and then?  I know I have.  Darksiders isn’t imitating God of War; it’s mixing several excellent elements from some of the paragons of game design, and in doing so Vigil Games has actually created a wholly original experience.  If nothing else, I very much look forward to what Vigil Games will give us next.  A mix of Pokemon and Gears of War, perhaps?

Rating:  

“Derivative” is a term that’s perhaps used too often in reviews. I would argue that a good 90% or more of modern day video games are derivative of something that came before. Rare is the truly original title, and rarer still is the truly original title that’s any fun to play. When it comes to Dante’s Inferno, what you’ll hear again and again is that it’s derivative of God of War – so derivative, in fact, that some would claim it isn’t too far from being a pure, unabashed clone. In reality, Dante’s Inferno is nothing more than a pale imitation of God of War; developer Visceral Games cribbed the basic blueprint, but they also removed key elements like a deep combo system and an interesting narrative, and managed to remove a good deal of the fun to boot.

Aside from its status as a clone, the other controversial element surrounding Dante’s Inferno is its subject matter.  The 14th century poem of the same name is one of those pieces of literature that everyone has heard about but nobody has actually read.  This works in the game’s favor, however, as most players won’t realize how “judiciously” the subject matter is treated.  Many of the characters and locations are pulled from the poem, but I certainly don’t remember Dante as a scythe-wielding death machine.  The liberties taken with the subject matter don’t mean a whole lot anyhow – one of the most beloved franchises of all time centers around a plumber battling turtles and walking mushrooms, after all.

Visceral did use many of the historic figures mentioned in the poem, including details about the transgressions that led them into the abyss.  The problem is that I never felt an investment in any of them, Dante included.  I certainly never cared about saving Dante’s wife Beatrice (the crux of his quest), and received the most enjoyment out of the flowery language and tone of the the spirit/poet that acts as Dante’s guide.

Overall, the presentation is one area where the developers mostly got it right.  The depiction of hell is sufficiently haunting, with creepy otherworldly sound design, crisp graphics and a smooth frame-rate that never chugs.  The level design for the first half or so of the game is strong as well.  The early circles have a distinct look and feel with a nice selection of truly epic boss battles.  The game starts to lose steam in this area about halfway through.  There are times when I press myself to motor through games when I can sense the end is near, and in a way that’s what the back half of Dante’s Inferno feels like.  The devs either ran out of time or decided they just wanted to get through the game, and the quality of the experience really suffers as a result.

Dante’s Inferno comes equipped with a mature rating, and there are times in the game where I felt they wanted to hit players over the head with adult elements.  The boobs and blood flow at a non-stop pace, and some of the enemy design is way, way over the top.  I could have done without the disgustingly fat demons with a bad case of the stomach flu, and when babies with blades for arms started issuing forth from a giant demon’s nipples, I almost turned the game off forever.  I appreciate mature subject matter, and I enjoy the prodigious use of the F bomb, but Visceral crosses the line from cool to ridiculous far too often.

Because they stole the game play from one of the most entertaining action titles in the last decade, you would hope that Dante’s Inferno would provide a similarly deep and satisfying combat style.  While I found the controls lively and responsive, the depth of the combo system wasn’t up to snuff.  In God of War, different combinations of heavy and light attacks could produce very different results; here I found myself mashing the square button repeatedly through 90% of the game.  While Dante’s Inferno features two distinct specialization trees with a multitude of moves and special attacks available, many of the unlockable moves are either very situational or enhancements to existing attacks.

Another issue with the combat system is the exploitable power of certain attacks.  If you grab an enemy, you can choose to punish or absolve them, and during this action you are immune to basically everything.  On top of that, punishing or absolving an enemy kills said bad guy immediately.  Obviously the bigger, badder enemies are immune to this grab, but if I was ever in a tough spot I could often grab a lesser minion to give myself some breathing room.  Dante also has a projectile cross attack that he can fire at enemies on the ground and airborne.  Later battles in the game throw a LOT of enemies at you, but at times spamming the cross attack made it all too easy to survive, especially if you spend the souls (the currency of Dante’s Inferno) to improve the speed and power of the cross.

The issues I have with the combat system are minor in comparison to the roiling sea of hatred I have for the multitude of cheap ways you can die in Dante’s Inferno.  It’s like the developers realized the combat was a little too easy – and rather than make the enemies tougher or improve the combat system, they elected to include a variety of “insta-death” situations.  If you fall into any kind of liquid, you die.  If you get knocked off the edge of a platform, you die.  Many puzzles involve gouts of flame or spiked walls and such that kill instantly.  I lost track of how many times I rolled my eyes at yet another minor mistake that led to my demise.  While I’m not one to throw controllers, I found myself right on the edge of doing just that more than once.

The most damning criticism I can level at Dante’s Inferno (please excuse the pun) is that I completely lost interest in the game in the last half.  The early level design and exhilarating boss battles kept me going in the early circles, but past gluttony I can’t recall a single interesting stage.  And while there were some great boss fights early on, only the final battle with the devil himself stayed with me (though this may only be because of the oh-so-distracting floppiness of a certain part of Lucifer’s anatomy).  When I finish a game like this, I’m usually more than ready to fire it up again for another play through, especially in a game with divergent specialization paths.  But in Dante’s Inferno, once Satan was put back in his place and the credits rolled, I was eager to shelve the game rather than revisit it.

Hell is a potentially great setting for a game (especially with the already existing 9 circles to make designing levels easy), the graphics and sound design are solid, and the combat system, though somewhat shallow, does its job well.  Perhaps the development team felt rushed to get it out the door well before God of War III, or maybe they themselves just ran out of steam at some point.  Regardless of the reasons, Dante’s Inferno is nothing more than a very forgettable God of War clone with over-the-top mature elements, inconsistent level design, and an overall sense of emptiness.  You’d think that carving up Satan himself would be quite satisfying, but by the time you reach that point you may be tempted to just let the bad guy win.

Rating:  

It can be hard to live up to expectations. Heck, just imagine being little Suri Cruise, you’re expected to be both good looking and certifiably insane. Rough. Video game sequels, however, are quite often superior to their predecessors. Developers are able to improve upon what came before, with better controls, more intricate level designs, or higher production values; they also get the opportunity to flatten major faults like a Yankee fan at a Red Sox convention. The problem facing Bioshock 2 is that they are trying to create the follow-up to one of the most beloved games in the last decade.  In a lot of ways it’s like trying to follow up Star Wars or The Matrix – how do you please the ravenous, bloodthirsty fans while at the same time eliciting the praise of the critics?  To further complicate matters, the team behind Bioshock wasn’t even involved in the creation of its sequel, so many fans approached Bioshock 2 with quite low expectations.  Would we end up with a stink bomb like The Matrix Revolutions, or a work of art like The Empire Strikes Back? The answer is neither.  Bioshock 2 is an excellent game, but it doesn’t quite reach the admittedly lofty heights of its sire.

The first thing you’ll notice upon entering the world of Rapture is that it is, well, still Rapture.  Bioshock 2 takes place in a different section of the underwater city, but it has all the charm of the first game.  The game world is rendered in the same art-deco, 50’s era style.  The major details of the environment are the same right down to the security systems and vending machines.  (Am I the only one who finds it odd that Andrew Ryan, in creating his “utopia”, thought it was a good idea to put ammo vending machines everywhere?  He had to know that would be BAD.)  In terms of level design, it gets off to a slow start, but by the mid-game some great set pieces start to pop up, like a ruined amusement park and a giant water tank with a nefarious inhabitant.  Overall the look of the game is great and just as detailed as the first, yet I didn’t find the world nearly as haunting this time around.  It’s most likely just a case of “been there, done that.”  I’ve seen the spider slicers, the Big Daddies, and the creepy Little Sisters – at this point I’m largely desensitized to the denizens of Rapture.

A hallmark of the entire “shock” series (and there are more, try to find yourself a copy of System Shock 2 sometime if you can) is fantastic sound design.  Bioshock 2 is no slouch in this area, featuring the same spooky sounds from the Big Daddies, Little Sisters, and more.  They also utilize the same retro music style, that some love and some hate (I am in the former camp).  The voice work here is also very well done, and the story is propelled again by various audio diaries scattered throughout the levels.

In terms of game play, Bioshock 2 features some genuine improvements.  The idea of using both superpower-like plasmids and classic weaponry has always been great, but its implementation in the first game came up a little short.  In theory, using the two together could make for some great combo attacks, but the limited way you could only use a plasmid OR a gun, and the janky way you switched between them made pulling off fancy combos difficult.  In Bioshock 2, you can thankfully wield a gun in one hand and a plasmid in the other.  It works very, very well, and makes Bioshock 2 a far superior pure shooter than the first game.  At one point, I set a splicer aflame and immediately nailed his still-burning body to the wall with the spear gun.  It was one of the coolest combos I ever pulled off in a video game, and it made me giggle like a Catholic school girl.  I almost wish they could do some super special edition of the first Bioshock with the combat engine from Bioshock 2.

Aside from dual wielding, the way hacking works has also been vastly improved.  The fluid and pipes mingame from the first Bioshock is gone, replaced by a simpler and more efficient system.  The new hacking system consists of a meter with a moving needle, and in order to hack a machine you need to stop the needle in a special green or blue area.  It’s a much more streamlined implementation, but just as challenging.  Besides the actual act of hacking, Bioshock 2 also includes the ability to hack machines from afar with the remote hack tool.  You no longer need to constantly zap machines long enough to hack them, but can now do it from a safe distance, which is particularly beneficial with the nasty turrets.

The selection of plasmids and weaponry is tweaked in mostly minor ways.  The available plasmids are mostly the same, with some minor changes, but as you buy the more powerful versions, they have more significant effects.  The third level of telekinesis, for instance, will let you pick up and throw smaller, live enemies.  The weapons list has been tweaked as well.  Gone is the wrench, replaced by the drill – it can be used as a simple melee weapon or spun (if you have the fuel) for extra gory damage.  I enjoyed the addition of the rivet gun, which is a very accurate, fast firing weapon, and the spear, which can do a LOT of damage if you can hit with it.  One of the biggest improvements in the area of weaponry is the dedicated melee button.  You no longer have to switch to your melee weapon to bash enemies over the head in the absence of ammo.

Another change in Bioshock 2 is the way you collect Adam.  In Bioshock you simply needed to kill a big daddy, harvest or save his little sister, and profit.  Well, those salad days of easy Adam are gone.  In Bioshock 2, you also need to carry the little sister around with you and gather the Adam from corpses.  Well, you know what happens when little sisters are gathering Adam, the junkies come out of the woodwork to try to take her.  Your job, of course, is to keep them at bay.  This proves to be quite difficult early on, as your arsenal is fairly limited, and the splicers come from every angle; but it gets easier as you collect more powerful weapons and plasmids, along with nifty toys like the mini turret.  These gathering events are white-knuckle exciting, and a great addition to the game play.

The difficulty of Bioshock 2 is a bit on the erratic side.  I played through the game on normal, and found it just shy of frustratingly difficult in some of the earlier sections, most notably during the gathering missions.  By the game’s midpoint, though, the difficulty subsided dramatically; this change is most likely due to an increase in weapon and ammo selection as well as ever more powerful plasmids.  I found myself feeling nigh unstoppable in the game’s climactic final battles, and approached each new area with reckless abandon. 

Now, you can’t talk about Bioshock without discussing the story.  I won’t spoil anything here, but the fact is that the story is excellent, but not on the same level as the story of the original.  It doesn’t have the same crazy dramatic turn to make your jaw drop, but twists like the one from the first Bioshock are few and far between.  Heck, M. Night Shyamalan has been trying to recreate the mega-twist from The Sixth Sense for over a decade with little success.  The story still provides plenty of twists and turns, and provides a good deal of insight into just HOW things went wrong with Rapture.  The problem with the story in Bioshock 2 is that it has so much to live up to; if it were to be taken on its own merits, it would garner much higher praise.

One surprise with Bioshock 2 is the inclusion of a multiplayer mode.  I had doubts about it, but I found myself pleasantly surprised by its quality.  It isn’t a hackneyed, at the last minute addition, but a full-featured multiplayer experience.  It has ranks, loadouts, unlockable weapons, plasmids and boosts, and a multitude of maps and modes.  It’s obviously not as complete as Modern Warfare, for instance, but it certainly holds its own.  It also manages to fit the multiplayer into the greater context of the Rapture universe in a believable way. 

I came into Bioshock 2 with fairly low expectations.  The first Bioshock is one of the greatest gaming experiences I’ve ever had, and I had my doubts that a different studio could continue the story in a worthwhile way.  While not on the same level as its predecessor, Bioshock 2 is a brilliant game in its own right.  The uniquely beautiful, broken world of Rapture is a place I could visit again and again.  The developers may not have gone in any original directions with the story or the world, but they got the most important elements just right.  The environments are well-laid out and detailed, the audio is top notch, and the improved game play elements make for potent and enjoyable gaming experience  The addition of a solid multiplayer mode only enhances the overall value.  So while I don’t believe Bioshock 2 is a GOTY candidate, I enjoyed every moment I spent under the sea, and look forward to going back again soon.

Rating:  

Every video game generation has at least a few titles that push the graphics envelope – the kind of visual experience that makes non-gamers stand up and take notice. Games like Shenmue on the Dreamcast, or the Gran Turismo series, for instance. The problem is this: developers can sometimes focus so much on the look of the game that the other elements fall flat. What good is a beautifully realized world if the controls suck, or if it has terrible voice acting? There can be no doubt that Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is dazzlingly beautiful throughout. The real question is, did developer Naughty Dog get anything else right?

The plot of Uncharted follows the adventures of the brash, Indiana Jonesy Nathan Drake as he searches for El Dorado, the legendary lost city of gold.  As is to be expected, undertaking such a quest has more than its fair share of traps, detours, puzzles and enemies.  On paper it sounds fairly typical and uninspired, but the story has enough twists and turns to keep things interesting.  Uncharted also has hauntingly realistic looking cut scenes to propel the tale forward.  Cinematic is a term too often bandied about in the world of gaming, but I would have to say that Uncharted is approaches the quality of a good B-movie in its presentation and plot.  Excellent music and top-notch voice acting complete the presentation.  Uncharted is one of those games where I never WANTED to skip past the cut scenes, which is quite a feat for a busy, time-challenged gamer like myself.

It’s well-known that Uncharted is a heck of a game graphically, but I really had no idea just how crisp it would look.  The characters are as realistic as I’ve seen, featuring expressive faces and true-to-life movements.  My only gripe in this area is the look of hands when they interact with objects.  I have yet to see a game come close to getting this right, and they often end up looking more like paws to me than hands.  Outside of the characters, I was particularly fond of the water effects.  Waterfalls are appropriately majestic, and the various bodies of water (and there are many) are as good as I’ve seen.  Heck, even the “wet” look of Drake as he exits various pools and rivers is just short of stunning. 

Uncharted plays like a platformer mixed with a shooter, ala Tomb Raider.  You work your way through the game shooting and platforming your way through various ruins and structures.  The gunplay here works well enough.  The shooting controls are reasonably responsive, but I took issue with the slow tracking while aiming.  There were quite a few times I found myself assailed by a baddie outside my view, and the painfully slow tracking led to more than one death.  This springs in part from the typical complaint I have about any kind of FPS or shooter on consoles – no controller is as responsive as a mouse.  There is also an adequate selection of weapons ranging from pistols of various power levels along with a host of high-impact firearms like machine guns and grenade launchers.  Each time I found a new pistol variant I could feel the difference immediately, and the same goes for the various shotguns and machine guns.

Outside of weaponry, you can also choose to speak to bad guys with your fists.  The melee combat here, though, is some of the worst I’ve seen.  I never felt like I was actually in control of my punches and kicks, but rather felt like I was participating in glorified quick time events.  I rarely found a use for melee because of this, and only later used it extensively in order to unlock a few trophies. 

Uncharted also uses a cover system.  You can hide behind walls and boxes and such, then pop out and fire fairly easily.  (It’s interesting to note that I could always tell when a room would be the scene of a big firefight due to the presence of obvious cover points.)  The sticky covering system did occasionally cause some irritating issues.  There were quite a few times where I found myself sticking to cover I didn’t WANT to stick to, like right in the middle of a firefight.  There were also many times I found it difficult to get OUT of cover quickly enough to respond to moving enemies. 

As for the platforming sections, I’m being kind by saying I found the controls lacking.  Platformers in the 3D age often suffer from what I’d call mushy controls – which is the last thing you want when perched precariously above a waterfall.  I’m certain the vast majority of my deaths in Uncharted came courtesy of the poor controls sending me over the edge, literally.  The camera also contributes to the troubles.  Quite a few sections required diagonal jumps that were difficult to get right due to poor camera placement.  You do normally have some control in regards to camera positioning, but there are times you have almost no control at all.  It’s just plain difficult to jump at a precise angle with an uncooperative camera.  Another issue is that it isn’t always easy to ascertain where you need to go to reach objectives.  Some things LOOK like you could jump at and grab, but you can’t, and some routes through levels were very easy to miss.

The selection of puzzles in the game really aren’t worth discussing.  They are your typical mix of pushing statues, lighting torches and pulling levers.  I didn’t find any of them particularly challenging.  I suppose if I had anything nice to say about them its that I found them at least reasonably organic.  Nothing I had to do to progress felt completely out of place in terms of the game world.

I don’t have any alchemical formula to tabulate the overall scores I award.  A 5 in graphics coupled with a 2 in gameplay doesn’t equal a 3.5 overall, for instance.  Particularly strong elements can often cancel out bad elements, and vice versa.  What I look for is how I felt once the final bad guy was bested and my proverbial hero rode off into the sunset.  Was I satisfied with how it ended?  Did I enjoy myself most of the time?  Did it leave me wanting more?  Uncharted’s amazing visuals and cinematic storytelling outweigh its shortcomings in terms of overall gameplay, at least for me.  I found myself enthralled by the tale of Nathan Drake, and any misgivings about mushy controls and the like were forgotten by the time I reached Uncharted’s climactic final battle.  I left Uncharted with a smile on my face, itching to rush out and buy the sequel – can you really ask for anything more?

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When I decided to pick up the PS3 Slim bundle from Wal-Mart on Black Friday, it was because I had heard great things about Batman: Arkham Asylum (which is getting well-deserved praise as one of the best games of the past year).  I honestly knew very little about the “other” game that came packed in with my shiny new Slim, and when I first booted InFamous up, I had no expectations.  The inclusion of InFamous was nothing more than the icing on the cake – I had no idea just how good that icing would taste.

At its heart, InFamous is a superhero origin story.  You play the part of Cole Macgrath, a lowly messenger in Empire City.  It seems Cole made a bad choice in which packages to ferry about, and ends up toting some kind of bomb that blows up half the city while simultaneously imbuing Cole with the power to control electricity.  At the game’s outset, you wake up in the smoldering crater of the aforementioned bomb, and from that point onward you try to hunt down the truth about what happened while blasting your way through many a bad guy.

The game play of InFamous has you travelling around Empire City, climbing buildings, blasting enemies, and completing missions.  Cole has the Spider-man like ability to scale nearly any surface.  The environment is “sticky” in that he can jump on and latch onto just about anything, from window sills to telephone poles.  It’s a lot of fun to climb tall buildings and jump from rooftop to rooftop.  You will also unlock additional means of travel throughout the game including the ability to grind power lines and train tracks, and even hover through the air. 

I do have a couple of minor complaints regarding Cole’s ability to move through the environment.  I found things a bit TOO sticky from time to time, and it occasionally caused problems when I was in the midst of combat.  I also found it odd that Cole seemed entirely unable to climb chain-link fences.  I understand that in terms of game play certain areas had to be inaccessible, but it made little sense to me that I could climb a 15 story building but not a 10 foot fence.  Both of these issues are rather small, and I found the freedom of movement a heck of a lot of fun.

The combat system is executed nearly flawlessly.  It wasn’t long before I was strafing and blasting my foes with reckless abandon.  In games like this, things often feel a bit too frenetic when there are many enemies about, but the combat engine here is ultra-smooth and I always felt in control of the action.  You start the game with a basic lightning blast attack.  As the story progresses, you unlock new abilities like a telekinetic push, energy grenades, sniper shots, and other 1st-person-shooter-like weaponry.  Most powers are also upgradeable through experience points.  You gain experience in a number of ways, including downing enemies, completing missions, and collecting various items. 

One of the more thrilling aspects of the combat system is the interplay you can develop between different powers.  Blast enemies in the air with telekinesis and then zoom in for a head shot as they fly through the air.  Grind a power line, zorching fools with electricity while you come at them, then leap in the air at the last minute and do a ground stomp.  InFamous allows you to improvise with your abilities at every turn, and the net effect is a true sense of feeling “super.” 

The world of Empire City is well-crafted and detailed.  There are a number of different building types to keep things fresh.  The city is also split into three distinct islands, each with a different overall look and feel.  I found the character models to be a little lacking for a PS3 exclusive, with a jagged, rough feel.  There are also some occasional issues with pop-in and glitches in the world, but nothing too major.  Overall the game looks very, very good.

I liked the use of comic book-like cut scenes that told major elements of the story.  They were beautifully drawn and enhanced the superhero feel. I did find the narrative a little lacking, however.  Some of the twists and curve-balls in the plot didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.  The characters also suffered from a typical video game problem – a lack of depth and development.  Over the course of the story you don’t learn a whole heck of a lot about any of the major players.  Still, the story was serviceable and kept me playing.

The well executed world map and waypoint system helps keep you on track while allowing the freedom to work at your own pace.  You can rush right through the story missions that propel the narrative, or you can spend time on the side quests or just plain exploring.  Blast shards strewn throughout the world can be collected for experience, and when you get a certain number of them they increase your maximum energy.  Another type of hidden collectible is the Dead Drop, a recording in the vein of the audio logs from Bioshock that fill in the back-story a bit more.

InFamous also has both a good and evil side.  At various points in the game, you are given a very obvious moral choice.  The choices you make will move you one way or another on the game’s morality scale.  Certain powers are only available to you depending on your spot on this scale.  There are also good side missions and evil side missions to help you along.  Different powers are available depending on whether you are playing good or evil, as well.  Good powers generally focus on incapacitating enemies and sparing innocent bystanders, while evil powers focus more heavily on wanton destruction.

Sometimes it’s good to have no expectations for a game.  I went into InFamous completely green, and I enjoyed every minute of it.  The story and presentation aren’t perfect, but the incredible combat engine and the superhero feel more than make up for any shortcomings in other areas.  I enjoyed every battle in the game, and I had a blast climbing, hovering, and grinding through the city.  For me, one sure sign of a great game is whether or not I want to continue playing after I’ve “finished” it.  Well, after blasting the evil denizens of Empire City with lightning rod Cole, I’m ready to hit the streets again with a more evil bent.  Watch out, Empire City, Cole is on his way back.

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Licensed games are a sorry lot, generally speaking. Maybe it’s because they are often rushed out the door to meet a release date to coincide with a movie. Perhaps it’s due to the second- or third-rate studios that churn them out. Whatever the reason, they show a history of suckage that dates back to E.T. on the Atari 2600 and continues today with titles like Avatar. Every once in a long while, though, a real gem squeaks through this gauntlet of trash and surprises everyone with its quality. Goldeneye. TMNT: Turtles in Time. Star Wars: KOTOR. So which camp will Batman: Arkham Asylum fall into? Trash or treasure?

Since it’s a Batman game, we can dispense with explaining the mythos.  The game begins with Batman escorting the Joker to Arkham Asylum for a presumably long stay.  Right off the bat (no pun intended) the high production values are apparent.  It has an excellent, cinematic intro with Batman ushering Joker down to the bowels of Arkham while the credits roll.  The Joker escapes during this sequence, of course, and Batman finds himself deep in Arkham trying to hunt the Joker down to bring him back to justice. 

This opening sequence gives you time to admire the look of the game, which is beautiful and detailed throughout.  The world of Arkham has a dark caste, appropriate to an Asylum for the world’s worst super criminals.  The Batman depicted here is of the gritty, hard-edged variety typical of the more recent films and cartoons.  Rocksteady also used the voice talent from the cartoons in Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill as the Joker.  Thankfully, they didn’t feel the need to find someone to imitate the gravelly delivery of Christian Bale.  And Mark Hamill delivers a superb performance as the Joker, striking just the right balance between silly and sadistic. 

Presentation aside, Batman: Arkham Asylum plays wonderfully.  In my opinion, previous incarnations of Batman games have made the error of trying to be all things to all Batman fans.  They would have combat interspersed with vehicle sequences interspersed with puzzles.  Rarely did they focus on what makes Batman truly great: he flat out kicks a lot of ass.  You’ll get to do that again and again here with the stellar combat and combo engine put together by Rocksteady.  Here you’ll find Batman busting arms, whalloping dudes in the back, and generally humiliating his enemies.  It’s made all the sweeter by the variety of moves you will unlock as the game progresses.  You’ll Batarang fools into oblivion, yank dudes off ledges with your Batclaw, and deliver many a slow-motion, leaping punch or kick to the face.  You just can’t go wrong with a slow-motion kick to the face.

It’s not just a brawler, either.  The game also incorporates a strong stealth element as well.  Let’s face it, if the enemies are packing heat, you’re better off taking them down from the shadows.  Luckily, you’re Batman, and in this game you actually feel like Batman.  You get to grapple all over the joint, and string guys up at your pleasure.  There are a myriad of escape routes in most rooms, including vents to crawl through, high places only you can get to, and even floor panels where you can lie in wait.  Essentially, you’re doing everything you’d want to do as Batman.  Sneaking around, scaring the crap out of your enemies, and then beating them into submission.  They even threw in the enormously useful detective mode.  In detective mode, you can see enemies through walls and even see their heart rate.  It’s helps you find important items and even track a few people here and there..

The story arc of Arkham Asylum is engaging and moves at a steady clip.  The rich mythos of Batman and the huge stable of enemies are well represented here.  Killer Croc is as menacing as he should be, and Rocksteady uses Scarecrow and his toxic tendencies to great effect.  The previously mentioned strong voice acting serves up great tale that just feels right, with one notable exception.  At the very end, the Joker does something very un-Joker-like that causes a typical giant boss battle to close out the game.  Still, the overall narrative is strong and this is merely a quibble.

Arkham Asylum also has a great deal of replayability.  You have your requisite trophies/achievements to unlock if you feel like jumping through hoops.  There are also a number of Riddler’s challenges and trophies scattered throughout the game.  I tend to be a completionist, and Arkham Asylum jerked me around plenty of times with inaccessible trophies that I would have to come back for later, when I sported the necessary gadget.  Lastly, there is the challenge mode, which consists of two different types.  There are brawling stages that focus on combat skills and the predator stages that focus on stealth skills. 

Above all else, Batman: Arkham Asylum delivers exactly what I’d want in a Batman experience. It has a beautifully rendered, gritty world, tight and varied gameplay, an excellent storyline and a good amount of replayability.  It isn’t a perfect game, however.  I had occasional issues with the camera and found the final boss battle lacking.  But I have yet to crack the case of another game since I began my quest in Arkham Asylum, and I look forward to the recently announced follow-up.  This is the most excited I’ve been about a licensed game since perhaps Goldeneye, and that’s saying a lot.  For those reasons and more I give Batman: Arkham Asylum my highest possible recommendation.  You owe it to yourself to play this game.

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