Game Review: Batman - Arkham City

Note: This review is spoiler free, and was done on the 360 version of the game.

I've just sat down with the new game for more than a few hours this afternoon, and I think I'm at the point now where I've reached the meat of the game, and can make an informed review. First, though, I should talk about the first Batman game made by the same game studio.

When they released their last Batman game two years ago, I didn't exactly run out to buy it. Superhero games usually end up lukewarm for me. They might play alright for awhile, but they wear out their welcome quickly.

Thus, I ended up purchasing my copy of the game much later, during a Steam holiday sale (of course), when I figured I could waste some money on a game that might not be any good. I was wrong. The game was stunning, and was a clear winner. I greatly enjoyed the abilities the developers, Rocksteady, gave Batman in the game. The game mode that stood out for me was the so-called 'Predator' mode, where Batman would enter an enclosed space where enemies are looking for him. As Batman, your job was to pick them off, one by one. You could hide under grates, pop up, and punch them out. You could hide on top of gargoyles, lean upside down like a bat, and string them up. You could drop on top of them. You could use some of your explosive gel to blow up a weak spot in a wall and take some of them out.

As each enemy was knocked out, the remaining men would start to get nervous, wondering where the heck you'd come from next. Using your 'detective vision,' you could see their heart rates begin to go up. All the while, their boss, the Joker (Mark Hamill, AKA Luke Skywalker), or Harley Quinn would ridicule them, exhorting them to catch you. The lines were quite humorous, and added a lot of fun to game.

What was amazing to me about the game was that although there was a lot of violence, they were able to keep the entire story within the bounds of cartoon ethics. Nobody dies, they're just knocked out. Batman never kills anybody. Nobody ever curses. Yet the quality of the game is so high, it would simply take away from the game if any of the characters did.

This is all to say that if you haven't played Arkham Asylum yet, you should go out and get a copy right now. I'm waiting...good! Now that you've played Arkham Asylum, you'll have a fairly good idea of where the series is going next.

Don't worry, however, if you haven't played the first game. Like any good Batman adventure, what's happened before doesn't really matter. He'll fight against the same unkillable bad guys, and they'll constantly try to kill him with their usual Rube Goldberg plots, without ever succeeding. This might seem like it might make the game rather trite, but it turns out it's anything but.

Online Pass

This game is following the unfortunate tendency of other recent games of implementing a so-called online pass. This forces people buying used copies to obtain an extra pass to unlock content that already exists in the game (although given the way this pass is implemented, it was hard to tell if the content was actually on the disk, or in the 200 MB package I was forced to download after entering the code I had). Usually, the company claims that the extra content isn't necessary for full enjoyment of the game. I happen to disagree with this view point, highly. It's plainly a money grab, pure and simple.

Additionally, be aware that a supposedly small percentage of people who bought the game are having problems either redeeming these codes or have the code not printed on their insert at all. If this has happened to you, details on contacting WB games to get this resolved is located here.

In the case of Batman - Arkham City, the on-line pass unlocks the Catwoman levels in the game. The claim is that since you can only play her for only about 10% of the game, she isn't essential to the game's story.

From what I've seen so far in game, that claim is baloney. The Catwoman missions are interspersed with the main Batman story line, and they add a lot to the story. In fact, the game opener happens to be a Catwoman mission (though it's short, it's interesting). Ripping them out of the game is a travesty. I've had almost more fun playing around with Catwoman than I have with Batman, simply because her moves and capabilities are fresh completely different (as well as motivations).

If you want to play this game, you really need to do it with the Catwoman missions. As such, I can't recommend that you buy this game used. Wait for the game to sell for cheap on Steam or Amazon. Eventually one of these sellers is going to be selling a discounted copy (possibly sooner than you might think). Waiting a few months to buy this game is a much better option than buying it stripped of some of its content.

Alternatively, buy the game used at Gamestop, which is supposedly putting unlock codes into its used games (the code is printed on your receipt).

The Starting Plot

In the interests of staying spoiler free, I won't describe the first mission too much, except to say that you begin with Catwoman. Mrrrrow! She's looking quite fine, and has the moves to go with the attitude. Her free form attack style works much like Batman's, the 'X' button doing a normal attack, and the 'Y' button performing a counter. The 'B' button can be used to deploy her whip to lash out and distract them, much like Batman's cape. She fights a little dirtier than Batman does, as her gloves have nasty claws.

Next, we move on to seeing what's going on with Batman. Or, in this case, Bruce Wayne. Apparently, for whatever reason, perhaps due to what happened in the previous game, Arkham Asylum is no longer working out. Instead, they've decided to implement a new plan, called 'Arham City,' where all the reprobates will be segregated and cut off from the rest of the population. Effectively, what this means is that a section of Gotham city has been fortified and turned into a gigantic super prison.

Somehow, Hugo Strange is in charge of this gigantic prison city-state. When Bruce Wayne holds a protest against the prison outside the gates, Hugo's security forces show up and arrest Bruce. They force him into the prison/city through a series of misadventures that force Bruce to beat up several bad guys.

Eventually, he's inside the city, and gets a convenient air drop of all the equipment he needs including his Batman suit and his awesome grappling hook, which you can use to navigate the 'city' at will. It makes you wonder why he doesn't just grapple his way out of the prison, but perhaps his goal was to get inside in the first place.

You're then effectively thrown into the mix, told to go investigate what's going on at the courthouse. You're free to roam the city at will, except for a restricted area, which presumably opens up later in the game. Eventually, you get involved with the Joker. Rumor has it he's not feeling so well, and Harley's trying to cheer him up. In the mean time, Catwoman is off planning some heist, and tries to recruit Poison Ivy, who isn't really in the mood due to events from the previous game.

The City

 Decay wrought by the criminal denizens is rampant everywhere, with graffiti and crumbling structures prevalent. Various districts are setup that belong to criminal organizations, like the Joker's little amusement park area, wherein he and Harley have random spiels over loudspeakers about recruitment drives.

The place is rather oppressive. Hugo Strange randomly announces to the world that getting too close to the outside barrier would be a rather lethal proposition. Helicopters patrol the skies. They put their spotlight on Batman when they spot him, remarking on his activities. If Batman is aggressive towards them, they actively shoot at him (a word to the wise - this is a very quick way to die).

Atmosphere is key in these types of games, and Rocksteady easily pulls off this dystopian dump. Like Bioshock, this game has a lot of character.

Side Quests

While wandering around the city, random side quests can pop up. Maybe you'll be helping out random political prisoners who are being molested by the criminal element inside the city. Perhaps you'll be tracking down the oodles of Riddler puzzles scattered throughout (and I do mean oodles). Or maybe you'll be answering telephones, triangulating the signal and trying to catch the serial killer making the calls.


There are also virtual reality training exercises you can try your skills out on, which consist of trying to glide and dive batman through a serious of hoops overlaid on the city environs. The easier exercises serve to help you figure out how to use Batman's abilities efficiently, which makes sense. However, the later exercises are an exercise in pure masochism. Don't attempt them unless you're willing to bang your head against a door several times. It seriously took me over twenty tries to successfully complete just one of these challenges. A conveniently placed fence or ceiling joist is always exactly where you don't want it to be, and maddeningly Batman will roost on a nearby object much more often than he'll continue the glide like you need him to do. Additionally, it usually takes at least a few grappling hook jumps to get back up to the starting point so you can give it another go, which can get tedious rather quickly. After hearing the computer say that you've failed the fifteenth time in the row, you'll be very pleased that you have taken your Valium.

A note on the Riddler trophies - if you spot one but can't figure out how the heck to get it, if you go into detective mode (left bumper), then hold down left bumper, it will record where that trophy is located on your map so you can go back and get it later. Unlike in the previous game, there don't appear to be maps you can find which reveal the location of all Riddler trophies in an area.

Batman and his Gadgets


If you're wondering if Batman plays any differently than in the previous game, you may be reassured or disappointed. He doesn't play any differently (I was reassured). All the gadgets you know and love from the previous game make an appearance here as well (grapple, explosive gel, remote batarang, etc.), though you have access to them at the beginning of the game (no need to unlock them). There are also new additions to his arsenal, such as an electric charge gun, which can be used to energize engines as well as stun baddies.

Combat is as fluid as ever, with the Bat flying from one bad guy to the other swiftly and assuredly. Nothing is more satisfying than racking up a 31x combo without breaking your stride. The game rewards you for being methodical instead of being a button masher, as pausing between each hit can help you to land the next one properly, as well as give you a chance for a critical hit or a counter. Also note that if two bad guys signal that they can be countered, clicking on the counter button (Y) will automatically counter both of them simultaneously.

Predator mode is much the same as in the previous game, where you can take down the enemies in a myriad of fun and interesting ways. In addition to the take down methods from the previous game (such as dive bombing or stringing them up from above or surprising them from below a grate), they've added a dual take down which is super useful when there are two goons standing right next to each other. Let's just say they like using their heads.

The grappling hook makes a return appearance, and is you main method for navigating around the city. Additionally, an upgrade to the grapple can be obtained by completing the basic VR training courses, which I highly recommend you do. Using the upgraded grapple can allow you to speed up how fast the grapple pulls you through the air, as well as slingshot you over the top of the object you're grappling, which allows you to immediately go into a drift with your cape. With this gadget you can cover large areas of ground quickly, and it's absolutely essential when tracking down ringing phones.

More often than not, stealth is key, as Batman can't take too many hits before going down. When entering a new area, make sure you take out the resident baddies before you setup shop.


Catwoman and her Gadgets

Her combat style is similar to Batman's, and is just as useful. I didn't have any problems getting used to it. She just looks cuter while making it look easy.

Unlike Batman, she doesn't have a cape or a grappling hook, so her method of getting around the city is quite different. What she does have is a whip, and she uses it to her advantage, swinging off objects  around the city. Most of the time, however, she'll be bouncing up the side of buildings like a cat on steroids. Don't be afraid to step off a ledge with Catwoman, as she takes no falling damage, so there's no danger of dying in that way. The game is remarkably forgiving with long falls, including long falls into water (which simply resets you on the nearest dry surface)..


Catwoman also has a few other gadgets she uses - bolas and caltrops. Caltrops can be used to trip up enemies attempting to rush her to give her more time to deal with them. The bolas act much like Batman's batarang, allowing her to trip up enemies at range. She can quick fire them much like Batman does with his gadgets.

Predator mode with Catwoman feels a lot different than with Batman. Unlike Batman, you won't find yourself hiding on top of gargoyles. Instead, you'll be clinging to steel catwalk ceilings. You can use this ability to get the drop on enemies below or above. Additionally, you have the ability to pounce from the ground up to a catwalk and cling to it, then swing to the catwalk using your whip. This is a super useful ability either when trying to evade bad guys or to setup a trap.

She's a lot of fun to play, and I wish I could spend more time with her. Perhaps we'll eventually see a worthwhile Catwoman game in the future? I'd totally buy it...

Voices


 The voice work in this game deserves special attention. As I mentioned earlier, Hamill does an excellent job as the Joker, as always. It's a shame he was type cast as Luke Skywalker, because I think he would have done an excellent job as the Joker on film. Also, this is apparently going to be his last  outing as the Joker, so you won't want to miss it!

Sadly, the voice of Harley Quinn from the previous game did not return, but the fortunately the new voice actor did an excellent job. I didn't even notice the difference while playing.

Also, we have Kevin Conroy returning as the voice of Batman. I'm so used to having his voice behind Batman that any other voice actor just sounds odd. They made an excellent choice here.

Graphics

This game uses the Unreal engine, which I believe the previous game did also. The game itself is pretty gorgeous, the dystopian city rendered in painstaking detail. Be aware that the city itself is pretty dark, befitting the grim environment Batman finds himself in.

I didn't notice any texture issues, or slowdowns while playing the game or while navigating the city. The game runs as smooth as silk, and is a pleasure to play.

Note that the PC version of the game is supposed to have even better graphics/textures. I personally think the graphics on the 360 for this game are good enough, and there's probably no reason to wait just for better graphics unless you can't stand the fact that there may be other people out there who have better graphics than you do.

Overall Score: 9.5/10

The game play remains the same for the most part, but what they added around the game play really enhances the game versus the old Batman. They effectively retained the parts of the old game that were the most fun, then built up more content and a larger supporting cast to make it really shine. The old adage 'don't fix what isn't broken' definitely holds true here, and they really took it to heart.

Catwoman was a great idea, and added a lot to the game. Hopefully we'll see more of her in the future.

I couldn't give the game a perfect score, due to some frustrating parts of the game. Did there REALLY have to be a fence in that spot when doing the advanced VR training? Really?

If there ever was a licensed video game done right, this is it. I wonder if we'll ever see a superhero game in the future that can measure up to the quality bar this game has set. If the past is any measuring stick, Rocksteady is up to the task.

Game Review: Vindictus

I haven't posted in quite some time. A big reason for that is due to the fact that all of my spare time has been eaten up playing various games. You might think the game that would be stealing all of my time would be Gears of War 3, or perhaps Dark Souls, both highly reviewed games that have come out recently.

And you would be more or less right about Gears of War 3 - that was definitely a release day purchase. However, I played that game a ton during the Beta, and now that the actual game has come out, it hasn't taken long for me to play my fill of Horde and Beast mode. Don't get me wrong, I'll be back playing the game again sometime, but most likely as split screen co-op with my brother during the holidays. I'll review the game itself another time.

No, the game that has been literally chewing my time up and spitting it out is a little MMORPG game called Vindictus. Vindictus is an action-adventure third person beat em up known as 'Mabonagi Heroes' in Korea where it was originally developed, where you take your character and beat up the enemies in a dungeon, culminating in a boss battle (player vs. environment). PVP (Player vs. Player) is possible, but it's more of an afterthought, so if PVP is your bag, this game is not for you.

Free To Play

Normally, I have an aversion towards playing MMORPGs in any form, because I really hate paying monthly fees for games. I've never played World of Warcraft, City of Heroes, or any other pay to play games (although note that recently City of Heroes went Free To Play - I want to check it out, but I haven't had time yet).

However, this game isn't a pay per month game. It's also a Free To Play game, like Team Fortress 2 is these days. That always leaves the important question lurking just under the surface - how do they fund this game model? Is it a Pay to Win model, where the user has to pay to get the most powerful items? Or do they finance it via vanity items that make your character look slightly better than other player's characters and via useful items that aren't necessarily necessary to succeed at the game?

I'm pleased to say that in this case, it's the latter. You don't have to pay any money whatsoever to sink gobs of time into this game and be successful. Effectively, if you feel like rewarding Nexon with your money, you can pay them directly, or get a prepaid game card from a retail outlet to buy NX. NX is the internal currency they use to buy items, and is generally sold at 1000 NX = $1. There does happen to be packages you can buy which have good weapons and armor in them, but in no way are they necessary to get a lot of enjoyment out of this game, or to get good equipment. You also can buy health potions that restore more health than the standard potions, and revival items that can revive you if you go down when you're by yourself with no help, but these items only slightly reduce the difficulty of the game, so it doesn't feel like you're cheating when you use them.

When you start the game, there are four character classes you can choose, which are archetypes: Evie (a female magic user), Fiona (a female sword and shield warrior), Lann (a male dual sword wielder), and Karok (a male giant that wields a pillar as a big club/battering ram). If you so choose, you can start several characters simultaneously to play through the game with (much like Diablo II), though you'll want to choose wisely when you first start, since you'll be making a large time investment in a particular character type.

Character Customization

Once you choose a character, the game moves you into an avatar editor. You can't change the features of your character at the granular level like some other games, but the options they give you are sufficient. Certain hair, hair color, skin, and eye color options are available by default, but others cost NX to apply to your character. If you don't have NX when you start, there's no worry, because you can always apply changes to your character later (including other customization options like tattoos and inner armor [under clothing]). When choosing a hair style or inner armor that costs NX, the game gives you the option of applying it for 30 days, or permanently (the 30 day option costs about half as much as the permanent option). I'm not a big fan of a temporary changes, so when I purchased NX I made sure I bought enough to make my changes permanent.

Once your choices are made, the game pushes you into a tutorial mode which explains the different moves your character can do, and introduces the plot of the game. I played through the tutorial the first time I started the game, and I would highly recommend that new players play through it once simply to get a feel for whether they'll actually like the game.

The tutorial is single player, and once it's complete, the player is moved to the game proper. The town area and questing mechanics are introduced at this time. I won't spend a lot of time talking about them, because they don't compose the meat of the game. Suffice it to say that they work well enough to get the job done, and the UI is quite polished.

Game Play

Once you're in the game, to start a mission, you go to the docks. You choose the mission you want to play, then create a 'boat' for that mission. The 'boat' acts as a holding area where you can wait for other players to join you for the quest. Most quests can hold up to four players, though there are some raids where you can get up to six players. However, there is nothing stopping you from soloing any mission if you feel like it. The boat can be a fun distraction for awhile, as there are random items you can throw around and you can practice your moves while you're waiting. After playing the game for long stretches, however, you'll tire of this fooling around. Fortunately, the game is based on the Source engine (Half-Life), and the game is set up such that if you alt-tab out the game continues running. In this way, you can quickly alt-tab out and browse the web while you wait for more players to join.

Once enough players have joined, the boat 'sets sail' to your quest destination, and the dungeon loads. Once you're in the dungeon, you progress with your teammates through several scenes and levels until you reach a boss, which you proceed to beat up on and steal his items. You use these items to complete quests, craft new weapons and armor, or sell on the marketplace in town to get some money (using the marketplace to buy items can also be critical when trying to get certain items you just can't find in a quest). Sometimes, there's a mid-boss in the dungeon to mix things up. Random objects are littered around the dungeons which you can pick up and use to beat up on monsters.

As you complete various goals, you character acquires titles that improve stats, as well as 'action points,' which allow you to improve your character's different skills to make them more powerful. This formula seems very straightforward and boring in theory, but it can be incredibly addictive in practice.

Most of the addictiveness is due to the different moves each character has. After every battle, you character gains 'Action Points' that you can spend to improve those moves/abilities. Fortunately, the game has an easy screen where you can see what each ability does. This screen has mini-video guides to explain how to use each ability, which is super useful.

I've only played as the Fiona, Evie, and Karok characters, so I will review those classes here. Lann will be left as a character for the reader to try out for themselves.

Fiona

Fiona is a sword and shield character, and is the first character I started playing the game with. She's probably more complicated to play than the other two I've tried, but if you're fine with that, it can be immensely rewarding to play her.

After every left button attack you make, you can hit the right button to do a 'smash' attack which is more powerful. Fiona has the capability to chain up to four normal attacks together before doing that final smash attack. In general, doing more normal attacks before the smash attack will do more damage overall (each smash attack is different, and the smash attacks at higher combos do more damage). Each smash attack has the chance of knocking an enemy down (including bosses), which is super useful because that guarantees you free hits.

Fortunately, you don't have to connect with every hit to chain together your combo, so it's perfectly valid to swing your sword four times in the air before executing the final smash on the boss (this is a very helpful skill to use when dealing with higher level bosses).

As you can imagine, most of her style revolves around using her shield. She can use the guard skill to block with her shield, which will protect her from all regular attacks. Additionally, if she blocks a regular boss attack, she has the capability to counterattack, stunning the boss for a period of time while she gets in free hits. In practice, this is hard to execute, because you need to be able to read the boss to see if it's readying a regular attack or a smash attack.

If the boss instead decides to use a smash attack, you'll want to use the 'heavy stander' ability instead, which allows Fiona to raise the shield above her head and take negligible damage from a heavy attack. This won't allow you to get an opening on the boss, but it will prevent you from being knocked on your ass.

Fiona has the capability of grabbing enemies and doing damage to them with various grab moves (try them all, they're fun!), but she cannot grab larger enemies, so it's not an ability you'll be using all the time.

Once Fiona gets around level 30, she can learn the ability to learn a hammer instead of a sword. The play style is much the same, but the hammer gains more area of effect smash attacks at the expense of speed. I personally started using the hammer and never looked back once I gained the capability of using it, since the sword isn't that great at crowd control.

Evie

Evie is a basically a petite sorceress/witch character. Her normal attack is to fire magic bolts from her staff. You need to be a bit careful with this, though, as the bolts have a limited range, so you'll need to time your hits carefully.

She doesn't have a lot of health, but this is balanced by the 'mana shield' she possesses, which allows her to take a certain number of hits without taking health damage. Additionally, when she's not in combat, over time the shield recharges for her. Note that while she still has a shield remaining, while she 'focuses' to cast a spell she cannot be knocked down.

As you level up, you gain the ability to use a fireball, ice field (area effect ice attack that has a freezing effect), ice spear (a longer range ice ability which can even freeze bosses solid), and blind arrow (a multi-arrow attack that does massive damage). Each attack works like the smash attack for Fiona, having a certain percent chance of knocking down the enemy. Unlike Fiona, staff Evie charges up her spells by right clicking, then pressing the correct WSAD key that corresponds to the spell she wants to cast. Each spell can be cast at a different 'focus' level, so for the highest level spell Evie has to charge up four times. Note that if you want to be able to cast spells faster than by simply holding the right button down, you can click the right button again as soon as a focus level is charged to instantly charge the next focus level.

Around level 24, you can choose to become a scythe Evie, whereby she exchanges her staff for a scythe. The play style is completely different (and the abilities are too), so I can't talk too much about that play style. In general, however, the scythe play style is more aggressive and up close, while the staff play style is more about keep away, distance attacking.

Karok 

Karok is a giant of a man, and all of his skills are based around strength and grappling. He's not a subtle character to play, but he's a heck of a lot of fun. His weapon is a gigantic pillar. You start out with a tree trunk, but you can upgrade to an Ionian column, and from there on to more esoteric objects.

His smash system works much like Fiona's, but he can only perform three normal attacks before a final smash attack. This doesn't make him less limited or make him take less time to perform his combos, however. In general, his combos are a little slower to execute than Fiona's are, though you can always always escape out of a combo by rolling away (make sure you have enough stamina to do so before trying, however - see my discussion about stamina later).

While his normal/smash attacks are pretty fun by themselves, Karok really comes into his own with his grappling attacks. Nothing is more satisfying than picking an enemy up like they're a bug, then smashing them into a wall with a crippling blow, or doing a killer suplex on them.

Also, unlike other classes, Karok can gain the ability to to use his awesome grappling against bosses. When a boss is knocked down, he can use the 'boss bash' ability to pick the boss up and punch him a few times - very helpful (especially satisfying when you give them a knuckle sandwich). Additionally, for the larger bosses he can't use 'boss bash' on, he can use another ability called 'clash.' This allows him to grapple with the boss, where you stop him from doing a powerful attack, after which you click the 'E' key fast enough to win the grapple and end it with a head butt. Not only do you do damage when you win a clash, but you also open the boss up to attacks from other players while the boss is occupied.

Later abilities allow you to toss your pillar and engage in hand to hand combat like a brawler, but I've not yet leveled my character high enough to see this in action. I suspect it works much like the alternate weapon for Fiona and Evie, where there are tradeoffs for each play style. Fortunately, unlike Fiona or Evie, you don't lose your pillar permanently, so you do have more flexibility to trade off your play style during the battle.

Overall, Karok makes you feel powerful, and makes your enemies feel puny, which is not at all a bad thing to experience.

Lann

Lann uses twin swords to play, and like the other characters, gains the ability to use an alternate weapons, called twin spears, around level 30. I'm not that familiar with this character, so I can't review him. He does appear to get a pretty awesome attack whereby he can spin around like a top while doing massive damage.

General Combat Abilities

Note that each move you make uses stamina (including running away and dodging), so a lot of the game involves managing your stamina pool to the greatest effect. This can be a little annoying, but it's not too hard to do once you get the hang of it.

All characters can bring secondary weapons into dungeons. These include spears (useful for stunning enemies/bosses for limited amounts of time), bombs (can be used in the same way as spears, but they're times, so it's harder to hit monsters with them), mining bombs (used to mine ore from formations in a dungeon), and chain hooks (used to hold on to a boss, pinning them down while team members get free hits on him). Fine spears, sticky bombs, and 'light of palala' (flash bang) can also be used when the character is sufficiently leveled up.

All three classes share the ability to kick enemies, as well as the ability around level 40 to gain a transform ability. The transform ability allows the character to turn into either a dark knight or a paladin (depending on how the player completed a particular quest). While transformed, the character gains massive offense or defensive capabilities (dark knight is offensive, paladin is defensive). Unlike standard abilities, the transform can only be done once per hour, and every time you transform, you gain experience for the transform ability that you can use to level up the transform ability. This leads to silly cases where players have to transform right before the top of the hour if they want to be able to transform twice in a row quickly to gain experience (once right before the hour, and once after).

This feels kind of cheap, and it's a little disappointing how long it takes to level up this ability. However, it looks so darn stinking cool that I guarantee you'll be back for more (because leveling up the transform ability eventually allows you to level up to the second level transform ability, which looks even cooler).

Graphics

The graphics are not stunning, but they're pretty good. The characters and bosses are detailed well with quality textures. Remember, it's using a modified Source engine, which is now quite a few years old. Also, the game itself is now at least a year old. However, it still does look pretty good, and the UI feels very polished. In the end, it's not the graphics that make this game outstanding anyway, so I'm willing to overlook the fact that they're not cutting edge,.

Stability


The game itself has not crashed, though I've been playing it for far longer than I should. The Source engine has generally been pretty stable. However, this game has lots of connection problems. Every update the team has done recently has drastically increased the number of problems experienced when playing, such as an inability to connect to the authentication servers when logging in, or having simple functions in the game time out. They do seem to be making huge efforts to fix these issues, so I suspect the problems will be sorted out in a few days after the patch has been put out. It's a possibility this occurs during every patch, though, so in the event that it happens again, you'll need to be patient.

Also, lag in the game depends on how good the internet connection/computer is of the host of the game, since their servers don't take the load when you're playing. If you don't have a good connection to the host of the dungeon, things will start lagging out. Fortunately, this can usually be detected on the 'boat' before you leave for a mission, so it's unlikely that you'll have to play through an entire dungeon with terrible lag unless you opt to do so.

Overall Score: 8.5/10

This game might deserve a ten if the connection issues weren't so irritating. Additionally, it doesn't quite reach that lofty height because it can eventually wear out its welcome. Otherwise, it's a game that has excellent gameplay, and is incredibly addictive. Besides, the game is cheap as free, so you owe it to yourself to give it a try.

Final warning: don't start playing this game unless you don't mind losing large chunks of your life to it.

PAX Prime 2011 - A virtual tour, Part 3

I've been meaning to finish this off for awhile, so here is the final part of my tour of PAX.

A costume contest was being held, televised on a big screen. Unfortunately, I was waiting in line for Aliens: Colonial marines at the time, or I would have gotten much better shots.

It's Lollipop Chainsaw, the crazy game where you play as a cheerleader with a chainsaw that saws up zombies!

This game truly is ridiculous. Take a high school cheerleader, equip her with pom poms, a chain saw, and a severed head as her keychain, then throw in a good measure of zombies, zombies, and more zombies, then stir it to perfection. I played a 5-10 minute demo of an action sequence of the game, where I beat up oodles of zombies as well as a sub-boss. Various moves allow you to use your chain saw to decapitate the zombies and do other nasty things to them. Other moves allow you to do less damage to the zombies, but push them away so they can't attack you as easily so you can set up for another combo. If you were able to decapitate enough zombies at a time, you'd get a special move you could trigger to wipe out a large mob of zombies easily.

The game flowed really well, and was fun to play for the little time I had with it. It's a little hard to say if the game play will scale well to full size, but as of right now it's going on the buy list.

Lollipop chainsaw high school lockers. What do you think they had in the lockers?

That's right, Styrofoam chainsaws! Naturally. The chainsaws were a must have at PAX; everyone wanted one.

In the same area, 'Gotham City Impostors' was being demoed, the 'Bats' versus the 'Jokers' in a duel for domination!

An area shot, with 'The Songbird' from Bioshock: Infinite in the background. I was able to go through the line and get a snazzy poster...

...which I was able to get signed by some cool people who are involved with the game. In some fashion. Sadly, I don't know who they are, but they're still cool.

Seen on the skybridge at PAX, where a vendor was selling wooden weapons in the shapes of swords etc. "In Case of Kraken"

More "In case of" weapons. "In case of Nazi," "In Case of Omnipotent Alien Blowhard," "In case of Gorgon."

General scenery in the main exhibition hall.

More cool art from a game I know nothing about.

A robot thingy-majigger. Yeah. I identified that thing real good.

Valve's only exhibit at PAX - Counter Strike : Global Offensive

I sat and watched the exhibit on Counter Strike for some time, since I've played the original to death, for years and years. Sadly, I watched them play yet another remake of de_dust with reskinned graphics and weapons. I've already played the game and that map to death, so I wasn't terribly excited by more of the same, even if they had opened up a few alternate routes in the maps. You'll have to do better than that to capture my attention, Valve.

The facade was all metallic goodness, just like the style from the movies.

I sat and watched a fifteen minute presentation on this game, wherein we were shown a video of the actual game play. We were told that the game studio had gotten in touch with the people who had worked on the original Alien movie, and they were able to get environmental designs that were made for the film but were never used. Their goal, they claim, was to get back as close to the feel of the original films as possible.

From what I saw there, I have to say that they seem to have accomplished it. The aliens are scarier than ever, able to fit themselves into impossibly tight spaces as they close the distance to their prey. I watched as an alien squeezed itself between two crates dynamically. It looks like the AI and the capabilities of the aliens have gotten much better.

We were also told that the game focuses on the marines, as trying to make three complete stories is more difficult to do. While I agree with this in principle, since the last Aliens vs. Predators game felt unpolished, quite frankly playing as an alien has always been the most fun part of playing these games for me, so I'm sad to hear that we won't be able to do that here. Fortunately, it does look like the game will have everything you'd want in a xenomorph horror fest - good weapons, authentic sound effects, and a butt load of evil aliens who want to eat your face off.

Prototype 2! There was a competition on where you could win something if you did an awesome job pretending to kick the helicopter. I didn't do that, but I was able to see a fifteen minute presentation on the game.

The first game did a lot of things right - freedom of movement, mind bending capabilities, utter destruction. Unfortunately, what the game also had was a main character who was an ass, whom you couldn't sympathize with whatsoever. Supposedly, in this game your task is to hunt down the character you played in the first game, because he's an ass. That's a goal I can get behind.

Beyond that, they appeared to have retained the values that made the first game great - graceful movement, crazy unlock-able skills, and, oh yeah, upper cutting a helicopter. Additionally, it appears that you'll be able to combine different skills together to come up with new outrageous combinations, something you weren't capable of doing in the first game.

'Free hugs' people were roaming the halls at PAX. I took this photo, smiling at their energy. I intended to move on, but was told that the price for taking a photo was a free hug. I was then unceremoniously mercilessly hugged by them all. It was a real nice way to wrap up PAX.

And there you have it. PAX, the virtual tour in a nutshell. I hope you enjoyed it!

PAX Prime 2011 - A virtual tour, Part 2

Continuing on...

Upstairs people were kitting themselves out as zombies. They seem pretty jolly, for zombies.

These are new characters from 'Super' Monday Night Combat. Monday Night Combat is yet another game I sadly haven't tried yet, though I do have a copy via a Steam sale (so many Steam sales!)

Step just a little closer...

It looks like it would be hard to clean that pistol. Maybe it's powered by unearthly energy and doesn't need to be cleaned?

Jurassic Park! From Telltale Games! It's coming November 15th.

Jurassic Park games in progress. I DID get a chance to play this one.

From everything I saw before PAX, I thought the Jurassic Park games were just QTEs (Quick Time Events), albeit QTEs in the style of Heavy Rain, whereby missing one QTE wouldn't kill your character outright. This is true in some areas, but not in others. Thankfully, the game doesn't back up too much before giving you a second chance to get it right if you didn't do the event properly and ended up as chunky kibble bits.

However, QTEs are not the only thing about the game. It likes to break up the action with puzzle areas, when you get to explore and solve problems. As an example, I played a scene where the player needed to figure out how to herd the baby triceratops back into its pen. This required you to look around the area for the information necessary to solve the dilemma. In this case, it required a combination of using the manual controls for the gate as well as using the car's horn and lights to distract the dinosaur so I could get it back inside its pen.

This was then followed with a quick time event sequence where a tyrannosaur tried to eat my characters several times, which was great fun.

The graphics are nothing to write home about, and I found myself wishing they had gotten different voice actors, because they sounded incredibly bland. However, those were really the only two blemishes against the series. I'll probably check it out when it arrives.

The Battlefield 3 exhibit. I lost all interest in checking out Battlefield 3 once I found out EA has made it an Origins exclusive. I don't want to install their cruft on my computer. Steam is a known quantity, and EA hasn't proved to me yet that they can be a good citizen.

I *think* this was for League of Legends, but I could be wrong. Cool artwork is cool.

Tanks tanks tanks! It looks interesting, but I didn't try it. It's Free 2 Play, or Freemium, so you can go check it out if you like.

Some shells at the 'World of Tanks' booth. In grand Hollywood tradition, they're Styrofoam (I couldn't resist touching one).

Resident Evil: Operation Racoon City. It's slated for release sometime later this year. It supports four player co-op play, and is supposedly about playing Umbrella special forces trying to clean up the city from the zombie menace!

Is that a zombie? Blam blam blam.

APB: Reloaded artwork. The game is Free 2 Play, and I played it. For about a day. I'll have to post my review of it later. This artwork is neat, though. :)

More neat APB: Reloaded art work.

Upstairs in the console free play lounge. You took a ticket, looked at a list of games, and decided what you wanted to play. Then, you traded a form of ID for the game and went a played it for awhile. A neat idea PAX has done every year. There's also a free play room for PCs as well, where you can play for 45 minutes whatever games they have loaded on the boxes (usually it's a good selection).

The main escalator lobby, crowds going up an down. Up and down. A LOT. :)

A look out at the top of the escalators, from the fifth floor looking onto the fourth floor. The fourth floor had the exhibition hall, while the sixth floor has some more exhibitions as well as BYOC (Bring your Own Computer), various tournaments, and the freeplay rooms.

A view of the exhibition hall on the fourth floor, chock a block full of booths and people.

The really awesome looking 'Rift' booth. Rift is an MMORPG, and I usually don't play them. Sadly, that means I haven't played this one either. But it looks really cool anyway!

A closer look at the vines up top. It was really well done.

That's all I have time for today. Tune in next time for the final and last part of a tour through PAX!

PAX Prime 2011 - A virtual tour, Part 1

Now that I've finally covered all of the special interest areas of PAX, it's finally time to take a general tour through the exhibition hall and talk briefly about the various games I saw while I was there.

FireFall was everywhere at PAX. They clearly had a large budget for advertising this year vs. last year, when they first introduced the concept of the game.

Graphics about the game were posted all over the place in unexpected areas. They even had graphics applied to the sides of the escalators. There was even this gigantic tableau out in the foyer next to the Prototype 2 exhibit (which we'll see later). Periodically an animation would play in this model where the flaps that are currently laying on the ground in this picture would pneumatically lever themselves upward as if the pod was getting ready to blast off.

A close up of the lady figure. Who cares about the guy figure? :)

I didn't spend any time playing this game (shame on me!), but I was able to sign up to be entered into the 'beta,' which is apparently running now. Supposedly you just need to register here and you'll be put into the 'beta' pool, which is to say, you might get a chance to play the game eventually. I still haven't received an invitation, so clearly I am not cool enough to play.

Gears of War 3 is arriving in a few short weeks, so of course we had quite a bit of advertising material for it lying around, including this model of Marcus from the game. Impressive, but silly.

The 'Just Dance' series of games were a crowd favorite, just like they were last year. Elsewhere they also had a 'Just Dance 2' booth. Never underestimate the capability of normally introverted nerds to dance like crazy people in front of thousands if they get to play a game while doing it.

Unlike 'Just Dance 2,' which was a Wii exclusive, 'Just Dance 3' will also be on Xbox 360 and PS3. It's coming this October, so soon you too will have a chance to make a fool of yourself in front of your television.

More 'Just Dance' footage with the destructoid robot this time. Check out my earlier post from a few days ago for video of him dancing.

The scout trooper was getting down with his bad self.

This is what they do in the break room when they're not chasing Ewoks.

I bet he would've beaten Luke in a dance off.

'Guild Wars 2' had a large presence at PAX also. Unfortunately, I didn't brave the long lines to check it out. Some of that was because I haven't yet had a chance to try out 'Guild Wars 1' from when I picked it up during a Steam sale. My excitement should rise once I get a chance to play the first game.

Another shot of the 'Guild Wars 2' goodness with different lighting from later on.

Another shot of the same art flipped, downstairs in front of the t-shirt store.

Bethesda upped the ante for Skyrim by bringing a big old gigantic dragon to intimidate the crowds.

It's too bad it wasn't breathing fire out of its mouth. Better not give them any ideas...

RROAWR! It looked awesome. Sadly, again, I didn't go check out Skyrim. I wasn't overly enthralled with either Oblivion or Morrowind, the last two entries in the series. I think I'll wait and see on this game.

If I knew more about Dungeons & Dragons I could tell you who this guy is. But I don't. Oh well.

Messing with his cat would be a very bad idea, though.

The Songbird, the mysterious villain from Bioshock: Infinite! I actually stood through this line. They didn't have a presentation, sadly, but I was able to get a signed poster out of the deal. I'll post a picture of the poster some other time. Other people took a quiz on some artwork they were displaying to get a t-shirt (I should have taken photos of some of that art!)

Various companies show off their awesome case mods at PAX. I'm not sure I'd want my computer to be 'powered by a skull,' but it does look pretty cool.

RAGE guys! Sadly, yet another exhibit I didn't sit in line for.

Jace Beleren from the Magic universe! He likes to use Blue, which means he's a bastard, unsummoning all your creatures and cancelling all your good cards.

Liliana Vess, black magic witch extraordinaire. Apparently, she's going to be featured in the next magic set.

Time for a change in venue! This year, PAX also had game companies upstairs on the sixth floor. Sadly, they were a little more out of the way than the people on the main exhibition floors, but it did make it easier to get around and look at everything up there. Some really cool indie games were being shown there.

Take 'Uncle Slam,' for example. The idea is to select a president, then knock his teeth out.

"Why are you sitting down on the job, my good chap?"

The game is played on an iOS, so either an IPhone or an IPad. The IPad probably works best. You can maneuver your president forwards and backwards, then touch on the boxing glove you want to use and slide your finger in the direction you want to punch.

"Put up your dukes, I say, we need to decide whether to create a national bank."

If your health bar ran out, you were knocked out. Also, your energy bar would drain when you threw punches.

I turned out to be horrible at this game, unable to really connect properly with my boxing gloves. It was down to the wire, my health almost gone.

"My fiscal policy is obviously more sound!"

Things looked dire until I discovered that if you backed up, then rushed forward, you could knock down the other president, forcing him to get up. I rushed back and forth like a whirling dervish, determined to knock my opponent over.

I had no health left, but the match wasn't over! I rushed forward, pushing him over. I thought for sure he would get up and finish me off, but the bell rang. The round was over, and I was the winner! I'm still not sure how I won. Dumb luck, probably.

If you own the proper IDevice, I would recommend you get this game. The demo I played had around ten presidents, but they claim when they're finished they'll have all former presidents in game, right up to Obama. That will let you choose your favorite president and go at it in a Mike Tyson-esque punch out to the end!

That's all for tonight, stay tuned for a continued tour of the games I saw at PAX!