Bioshock 2: Review

So many sequels, so little time. Bioshock 2 is (surprisingly enough) the follow-up to the materialist culture shock that was 2007's Bioshock, which in turn was a spiritual successor to a PC game that I had never heard of called System Shock 2. Got it?

Bioshock 2 returns us to Andrew Ryan's submarine utopia ten years after the events of the first game. This time though instead of a hapless jet-setter/plane crash victim, you are one of the Big Daddies you hunted in the first game. This introduces some new play mechanics as you get to now wield that kick-ass drill that the Big Daddies liked to push through you first time around and you get to find out why Rosie seemed to have such a blast nailing you with rivets. And it is fun.

Being of course a special Big Daddy comes with its perks like being able to use plasmids. Few things are more fun than filling a room with bees and setting splicers on fire when they try to run for it, I'm just saying.

The original story introduced us to the idea that perhaps Randian objectivism isn't the best option for setting life goals as the purely objectivist dream of (I suppose) billionaire Andrew Ryan, the underwater city of Rapture tore itself apart over things like working class rights, the desire (and some (including me) say need) for religion and simple greed. The story of the sequel continues this observation and introduces us to discussions of free will and what constitutes it, and what truly is the meaning of utopia? In some ways it seems simpler and less impactful than the former's story, but it is still thought provoking. The focus this time seems more on the characters themselves than on the city and this is displayed by there being actually quite a few non-splicers milling about nowadays. Most notable being neoantagonist Sofia Lamb who, for whatever reason had the notion to rebuild Rapture into her version of utopia. Chaos ensues, there is fire and bees everywhere, it's a good time. There aren't really any crazy twists in the story this time which is actually a pretty major relief after that whole Modern Warfare 2 fiasco, but the story does manage to stay interesting throughout the fifteen or so hours you'll spend stomping around in wet boots.

The little sisters also return and the bulk of the games choices once again surround whether you'll harvest them for tons of Adam all at once (a process that kills them (you monster)) or rescue them, netting you less Adam (initially), but turning them back into little girls. The dynamic surrounding them is different this time though. Whereas before you found them, killed the Big Daddy, than made the call; this time you can adopt her and take her to find you an Adam filled corpse. Since Adam is the substance that essentially caused the fall of Rapture, as soon as you set the Little Sister to her task, every splicer in town makes a play. These moments definitely add to the difficulty and tension, but I suppose it serves to illustrate the question, how far will you go for Adam?

So if you're the Big Daddy now, who do you have to look out for? Big Sister, that's who. The Big Sisters are Sofia Lamb's answer to you and every so often they make that known by showing up and making you waste all the ammo you've been hording up until then. The fights with them are some of the most intense in the game as they flip around and generally beat the crap out of you and have an incredible tolerance for bullets (and bees). The trouble is that after about the second time you fight one, you know when she's coming so you are totally prepared. It takes a lot of the mystery out of it, but the effect is only somewhat diminished. She's still tough.

A few issues from the last game have been addressed in this new outing, but somehow they don't feel like real improvements so me. There have been lots of complaints about the loss of the ability to backtrack in the game, but personally, I never wanted to backtrack anyway. One change that was welcome was the ability to turn off the Vita-Chambers which instantly respawn you if you die. I never actually turned them off because this game is a pretty good challenge with them on, but I like the option.

There is also technically a lot more water in this game, which is good for a game about a failed underwater city. I say technically because the parts in which you are walking around in the water feel really tacked on and unnecessary. It seems almost like they didn't get around to making those parts until it was nearly too late and they didn't really get to do the idea justice. Perhaps the underwater splicers illustrated in the Special Edition art book is evidence of this. Whatever the case, it was a good idea that didn't go where it should have.

Overall, I must again say that if you didn't like the first game, you probably won't like this one either. It really doesn't feel revolutionary. Having said that, it does feel like a natural extension of what Bioshock brought us in 2007. It's an outrageously fun game. If you like philosophy, art deco, bees, go get this game. It's not an ultra fast paced war game and for the ones looking for a straight up shooter, you may want to look elsewhere, but for those who want more proof that games are in fact art, Bioshock 2 is it.

Played on Xbox 360 on Hard.

Mass Effect 2: Review

Remember how random nerds and some fat guy on TV used to talk over the finer points of Star Wars (and no, in fact Greedo shot first)? We can now rightly consider the throne two-thirds usurped.

Mass Effect 2 is the epic sequel to Bioware's epic 2007 sci-fi odyssey Mass Effect (if you can believe it). What sets it apart from other sequels is that it picks up two years after you left off. To clarify, everything you did in Mass Effect, from seemingly banal choices, to main character deaths, to the look of your Commander Shepard are all transferred to Mass Effect 2. Genius.

That being said, I would find it a hard sell for one who skipped the first game to get into this one. For all the subtleties that crop up from time to time in ME2, probably 70% or so would be lost on those with no context. Good thing the first game is only $20 now huh? I'm not sure if people from the last game still send you messages about how you saved them (I tend to save lots of people), but if they did, that would only make it more confusing.

The menus have been greatly simplified, much to the joy of people who hate the micromanagement that is a signature of JRPGs (Japanese Role Playing Games). Gone are the hours spent finding out who can use what and if they'll need it for this mission, and am I bringing him anyway, and so on... for hours. While the simplified menu is appreciated, at times it seems a little overly simple, almost to the point of seeming trivial. I think I may have changed weapons four times in my entire 30+ hour stint in the ME2 universe. Something so simple could probably have been mapped to buttons or something.

The battle system however has seen only improvements as ME2 takes queues from third person shooters with the requisite cover system to boot. That battles are pretty fast and furious all the while feeling less like Final Fantasy and Star Wars and more like a damned gun battle in space should entice some non-sci-fi fans into space.

The game really shines with the return of the moral system that Bioware is now quite famous for. Whether male or female, Commander Shepard comes off exactly as you'd want someone you're making decisions for to. The voice acting is definitely top notch and the character animations really work to sell the emotions.

There's really little else to say about Mass Effect 2 except that if you haven't played it yet, you're slacking. Get to it. And if you'd like to engage in Star Wars quality nerd talk about the budding Mass Effect universe, come see me.

Played on Xbox 360 on hard.

The Saboteur: Review

Hey, a World War II game! Don't lose interest just yet though, The Saboteur is definitely of a different sort than we're used to on this subject.

The game is actually less about the war than it is a simple revenge mission for protagonist Sean Devlin. You see, Sean is an Irishman who fixes and races cars for an Italian guy and hangs out with a couple of French people; did you get all that? Now some Nazi guy seems to think Sean and his French friend are spies for the British and ends up shooting Jule (the French guy). Understandably mad, Sean decides to kill all the Nazis.

The game's story is almost action movie simplistic and it never really tries too hard to be anything more, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The presentation more than makes up for the lacking story, though it may seem to be spread a bit thick. Taking place mainly in Paris with other parts in small chunks of Germany and some other undisclosed place that I assume is Ireland, the game is first presented largely in black and white. The Nazis have drained all the local color and spirit. It's certainly very stylish, though it serves to contrast with the color you see later on. After you complete some major missions the region experiences an explosion of color with neat effect, though in color the city sort of looks boring. The environment is still interesting though as the people believably populate the city along with the occupying Nazis who will periodically beat up or shoot civilians (Nazis are kind of jerks remember?).

In order to effect these neato color effects and Nazi killing, Sean moves "deftly" about the rooftops of the city. I quote "deftly" because this free running mechanics feels utterly broken. For some reason Sean's climbing ability is linked to madly tapping the A button and in so doing he will climb in seemingly random directions. Poor form, especially right after Assassin's Creed 2. Even when mashing the button, the mechanic doesn't seem to work all the time and there are numerous times when a quick getaway is needed that Sean will simply decide against climbing up the damned rail! Climb! Go you bastard! Maybe the mechanic is hackneyed by the overly slow animations, but it could have been done better.

The stealth mechanic works much better however and it feels genuinely cool to sneak up on a bad guy and punch his head to death so you can take his clothes. Just like in Hitman, it's a good thing all the bad guys wear the same size as the hero. Being in disguise is really helpful in a lot of missions and helps to add depth and alternate routes to mission completion that makes the experience more organic. Most of the missions offer tons of ways to complete them.

It also helps that the Nazis aren't all that smart. When shit gets crazy and you have to run for it to one of the provided hiding spots, so long as a Nazi isn't looking directly at you they'll forget about you. I don't remember hearing that Nazis couldn't see people who were peeing in notice board posts, but that's okay it's at least funny.

Some of the glitches are not as funny however, and the game is pretty buggy. Some bugs are to be expected in a game this large, but there are far too many to excuse, unless floating Nazis and two-headed Nazis that spawned into each other are intentional. Ugh. There are even a few times that easily get you stuck in geometry that may force you to blow yourself up.

Probably the most fun you'll have though is blowing up things. Sean keeps a whole bunch of bombs on him at all time which you use to blast sniper towers, fuel depots, tanks, and all sorts of other Nazi property. The cool thing is that if you blow up enough stuff, there are fewer Nazis around making escapes a lot easier. This is a very cool mechanic that should absolutely be copied.

Lastly, one thing that bothered me about the whole thing is the language in the game. Not the foul stuff, that's okay, but the language in general. The game is all in English (except for incidental German screaming) which is understandable, but which language are they speaking? It should be French, but the Germans understand them. It could be German, but the French don't all speak German. It couldn't be English because it takes place in France. Perhaps I'm just nitpicky, but I like stuff like that to be explained.

The Saboteur is a good game overall. It probably wouldn't win any awards, but it has some good ideas that I hope will garner it a sequel. It also has some troubles that need to be addressed before a sequel would be worth shelling out $60 for. If you are dying in this mini-game drought, pick up The Saboteur, you'll like it.

Assassin's Creed 2 Review

The first Assassin's Creed brought us a whole slew of gameplay innovations, but the sad fact of it is that the game itself was overlooked or disliked by many.

Thankfully though, the game was made by Ubisoft and they have a nice little reputation for taking fan grumblings and turning them into gold.

The story continues on where the first left off with protagonist Desmond Miles and his new Assassin friends making an escape out of Obstergo (the evil company run by the evil Templars). Remember the modern parts of the first game where you could either walk slowly or slightly less slow? Now Desmond can punch up fools!

Ezio DeFiorenze is the main star of the show this time though, having left our more ancient ancestor Altiar behind. Taking place mostly in renaissance Italy, AC 2 adds a few totally new elements to the Creed. The addition of swimming is definitely fitting with the setting and a natural progression, though I can't help but feel that it either could have been fleshed out a bit more or left out entirely. I won't complain too much with how many ninjas in other games can't swim at all.

For all the flying that goes on in the trailers, there is precious little of this actually in the game. Good thing too, the controls for the glider and indeed the mission structure itself really felt hackneyed and tacked on.

Though for all the minor complaints, Assassin's Creed II does a lot more right than wrong. The free running is back in full force with all the runny, jumpy, climby we've come accept if not love. The animations for it are silky smooth too, easily transitioning from one move to the next without skipping a beat. There will still be the odd moment where Ezio will decide he'd rather fall 3 stories to his death than grab the damned ledge, but most errors like that can be chalked up to user error.

The monotony of the previous game has been largely erased with mission structure being less structured with things you must do. This however sort of forces the story to be told through more cutscenes than before, which isn't necessarily bad, but there is something to be said for organic story presentation.

One of the best new additions to the game though is the fact that all the collectibles now actually do something when you get them. They also mostly tie into the story in some way, giving the most time conscious gamers something to sidetrack to for a bit.

The new economy system is worth mentioning. While it's easy to see where the idea was going, one can't help but feel that this system never quite made it. The game tries to emphasize customization, but who is really going to buy anything after they can just get the strongest weapon? Also, about half way through the game, you pretty much have money coming out of your ears, effectively breaking the economy idea anyway. It's nice to feel rich, but it strips away motivation.

Altogether though, Ubisoft really did well with the improvements so the series. If you hated the first Assassin's Creed, this one probably won't make a believer out of you, but if you sort of enjoyed the first, the second is a must.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Review

Modern Warfare 2 is the follow-up to Infinity Ward's seminal Modern Warfare of two years ago. Coming hot on the heels of Activision developed World at War, Modern Warfare 2 brings us back to the future for some more of that soapy sneaky shooting action we loved back in the day.

The first Modern Warfare was a hard act to follow as evidenced by the lukewarm reception of World at War. Who better to do it than Infinity Ward? Following a great act doesn't necessarily mean improving upon it however.

The story of MW2 is quite convoluted and outrageously hard to follow, especially if you didn't play the first story. While the first one made good use of the disparate characters to tell one cohesive story, this time it seems that IW tried to tell three different stories at once. Sure they all sort of tie in, but not in any sort of way that's easy to care about. Also there are some scenes that feel as if they were just put there to try and one-up MW which just leaves you wondering why that happened.

The gameplay is far more intense than the predecessor and the scripted events really help to sell the desperation of the various situations. There always seemed to be something going on at which I wanted to look. Control is tight and immediately familiar making providing the double edge of making the game feel like an extension rather than a sequel.

For most though, all the shine is coming from the multiplayer. This stands as the biggest change to the game. CoD4 and World at War vets will find all the modes immediately accessible and familiar while glorying in the new perks and a larger variety of kill everyone, grab the thing modes. A welcome newcomer is the Spec Ops mode where you and a friend cooperatively complete some mission ripped from the game. It's quite fun to go through an area with a friend that you took solo the first time around and see how your friends go about laying waste to everything wearing red.

Overall, I'm a bit disappointed by the heavy-handedness of the story mode and would have preferred a more natural story flow. Also, it seems weird to me that about half-way through the story *MILD SPOILER* a different bad guy pops up and suddenly everyone is no longer mad at the original bad guy. And no one seems interested in him anymore. *SPOILER OVER* Situations like that that are clear sequel setups anger me.

The multiplayer is something that even the most jaded players can enjoy though, providing some decent justification for the rest of the box.

If I had to give it a number, I think I'd say 8.5ish.

Played on Xbox 360. Beat story mode on Hardened difficulty.

Post Apocalyptia is the New World War II

It had occurred to me rather recently that with development houses (with the exception being Activision) that World War II is beginning to fall by the way-side. Not a moment too soon I might add. At a certain point one begins to think that, although the Nazis are pretty much universally considered evil, after 15 years of nonstop, save France; blow up the U-Boat; can I really force myself to care about the fate of Marseilles when people are trying to convince me to be frightened by nukes people are pointing at me now?

This line of thought is not lost on the development community however as WWII seems to be getting systematically replaced with the future remnants of WWIII. As much as I enjoy the idea of nuclear warfare, until the clock really strikes I sort of don't want all of my games to be about everything being all destroyed. Sure it affords us opportunities to shoot mutants (and sometimes the Nazi zombie as if we hadn't had enough living ones), but I'm starting to think there could be more creative excuses for why that dog is bigger than me.

Having said all that, I have to concede that there aren't really that many scenarios that lend themselves to video games well. Modern Warfare, as fantastic as it is, only escaped public outcry because it called Iraq something different (Autostrad if you're interested). Remember Seven Days in Fallujah? What about Superman Returns? (I didn't mean to bring that one up. Don't be mad.) The point is that if we're not in space (New Mumbasa counts), or in hell, the only place we can go and shoot up some shit is post-apocalyptia.

If you'd like my opinion (and I know you do) video games will be stuck in these places until developers stop listening to Glen Beck and start listening to their own artistic inner selves. If you think Fallujah makes a good setting, make that game. I'll probably buy it just because there aren't any Nazis (and as it turns out no nukes either).

Paranormal Activity: Review

It's tough to watch a movie and not know who to root for. Paranormal Activity's style is definitely appealing to the Blair Witch, Cloverfield crowd (of which I am), but where those movies do things like pick up near the middle or are interesting, Paranormal Activity falls quite flat.

The story is told through the camera of the boyfriend of the haunted girl. Throughout the movie Micah (the boyfriend) continually makes himself as unlikable as possible as a vehicle to 'antagonize' the evil ghost-demon thing. The story itself is relatively simple and quite self contained, which is nice, but to my chagrin never really answers questions like why did all of this take two weeks? Why not sleep with the door closed already? Who the hell just has a glass Ouija board lying around?

The movie itself relies on cheap scares that I suppose are genuinely creepy at times, but if while watching the movie you think of a solution to the problem every time the sun rises, you'll understand my frustration.

Overall this movie is not the worst I've ever seen, but I couldn't recommend it unless you are the cheap scare type.