Games of Christmas: Arkham City
Batman listens to our Podcast. Do you?
So we got behind on Podcasts for a bit there. Here’s our solution: Between now and Christmas we’ll be releasing several Podcasts each about one game released this Q4. Kicking off with Arkham City right here. Heber and Stephen discuss Arkham City and eventually Batman in general for well over an hour. This Podcast goes into heavy spoilers after about 15 minutes but well warn you. Also don’t forget to check out Heber’s weird Bad Photoshop blog thing, Stephen thinks the Harry Potter one is good. Follow Stephen and Heber on Twitter as well.
The Chronic Reload Podcast is our podcast for Irish Gaming News and is released every two weeks. In the weeks between these we talk about everything and anything in The Chronic Rant Podcast. Don’t forget you can subscribe to both podcasts in iTunes here.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (67.0MB)
Continue →Red Orchestra 2 Heroes of Stalingrad Video Review
Chris Slack reviews Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad.
Continue →Review: Bulletstorm
Let me just get this off my chest: I wanted to hate Bulletstorm. I really did. And from the moment the game’s relatively short campaign mode began right up until it’s disappointing ending, I felt like Bulletstorm wanted me to hate it too. In fairness, there really is so much to dislike: it’s crass, obnoxious and altogether pretty derivative. So why the hell do I like it so much?
The answer, unfortunately, is not immediately clear. As Bulletstorm’s relatively brief campaign begins to unfold; we’re treated to perhaps the weakest opening hour of any game in recent memory. An overly long tutorial sequence, laced with unskippable in-game cut-scenes and pointless quick-time events, dominates any first impressions the game might leave. This, coupled with an extremely slow progession of weapon unlocks means one could easily mistake Bulletstorm for a terrible, terrible game.
Then, suddenly, everything falls into place. The game’s “kill with skill” mechanic is introduced - albeit justified with some seriously contrived logic – and everything begins to make sense. Though it presents itself as some generic, run-and-gun first person shooter, Bulletstorm really is anything but.
Continue →Go Ireland: The Video Game – Review
Developed by the Fine Gael DIGITAL TASK FORCE
Last night while browsing the internet for an informative piece on the upcoming election I stumbled upon “Go Ireland: The Video Game.” Somehow I managed to miss an entire Video Game Development studio being set up in Ireland but “Fine Gael” has already released it’s first title. They helpfully reminded me that this was Go Ireland “THE VIDEO GAME” because otherwise I might have gotten it confused with the chant.
Staight away the game plunged me into the shoes of reluctant hero “Enda Kenny” as I ran down the famous Ireland Road and jumped over the famous Ireland Floating Platforms. Enda’s greatest obstacle in the initial stages of the game is a legion of VLC Media Player Logos, Enda must be intimidated by open source because not only can the spikey bits of VLC logo kill him but so can the soft roundy bits at the side.
Friendly Blue Jumpers, EVIL VLC
Dead Space 2 Review
It’s strange to think that it’s been almost 3 years since the last Dead Space was released and yet here we are in 2011 being served up another dish of severed limbs, blood spattered hallways and homage-so-close-to-the-original-it-could-be-copyright-infringement. But does this highly hyped and heavily advertised sequel live up to its critically acclaimed predecessor? The short answer is no.
The original Dead Space was a highly enjoyable affair altogether, it was tense and atmospheric (never quite hit the scary button), had tight controls and was a hell of a lot of fun. Now Dead Space borrowed heavily from games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill and the Half Life Series. It also borrowed from films like Event Horizon, Sunshine and 2001: A Space Odyssey but still managed to feel fresh and original. This is not a surprise however as Dead Space was merely a genre piece and obviously had elements indicative of that genre. If you look at its influences, they also have borrowed heavily. Sunshine from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Silent Hill from Resident Evil. It was using these elements in a way that didn’t feel stale or uninteresting that was the challenge and one I believe Dead Space rose up to and even superseded. (more…)
Continue →Review: Super Meat Boy
For a while now I’ve been worrying more and more about the movement of the games industry towards the casual market. The existence of this trend is pretty much indisputable nowadays, with the introduction of the Kinect and the Move lending themselves all too well to that family-friendly genre of “casual” games. Gone are the days when games were too difficult, too inaccessible to merit a broad appeal. For a growing number of gamers, the opposite is in fact the case: games are becoming too easy.
It’s perhaps as a direct result of this phenomenon that I instantly loved Super Meat Boy. Compared with the current norms of playability and accessibility, SMB stands alone as a tremendously, brilliantly, sublimely hard game. There’s no hand-holding, no “auto-steer”, no checkpoints and definitely no Kinect support; there’s just you, the controller and a whole load of excellently-designed platforming levels to play through.
Super Meat Boy’s premise is a simple one: you play as the lovable-though-slightly-grotesque Meat Boy, as he tries to rescue his girlfriend Bandage Girl (who, as the game’s own blurb helpfully describes, happens to be made of bandages). Her kidnapper is the nefarious Dr Fetus, a character for whom the word “prick” was undoubtedly invented. The game sees Meat Boy navigating through levels filled with rotating blades, homing missile launchers, plenty of lava and many unidentifiable monsters. The levels are short, and you can expect to die many, many times before finishing some of the tougher ones. Despite its difficulty, the game is fun, satisfying and above all completely fair.
This is, believe it or not, one of the easier levels of Super Meat Boy
The game’s graphics are basic. Its cutscenes are low on animation, but still succeed in conveying both hilarious and touching moments with ease. It should be clear by now, but this is a game that depends more on its pure gameplay than flashy visuals or beautifully rendered cutscenes. At times, Super Meat Boy apes the visual style of retro platforms, and this it does perfectly.
Super Meat Boy’s soundtrack is particularly noteworthy. Each world is distinctly themed, and the in-game music plays an integral role in shaping this theme. The music is a brilliantly intense mix of metal, funk, rock and some retro midi stuff. I’d almost say the game is worth buying for the soundtrack alone, with such tracks as the forest boss theme and the cotton alley theme adding so much to an already well-realised game world.
The core conceit of SMB’s gameplay mechanic lives or dies by its controls. In order for a game to rely so heavily on pinpoint-accurate jumps and moment-perfect timing, it needs to have a control scheme that is both intuitive and tighter than tight. Luckily, Super Meat Boy delivers both in spades. I died literally thousands of times playing this game, and not once did I ever feel that my death was the “game’s fault”. The controls are among the best I’ve ever encountered.
As a whole, the gameplay is devilishly addictive. All levels must be completed in a single life, and after you die you’re instantly brought back to the start of the level for another go. When you eventually do complete a level, you’re presented with a replay of all of your attempts played together at once. This is a nice touch that only adds to the immense rush of satisfaction gained from completing any of the games toughest levels.
Dr Fetus lays down the law
The game boasts a huge level of replayability, with “dark world” versions of each level adding an even more difficult challenge to those who complete the main story. User-created levels are being added to both the PC and Xbox versions as time goes on, and owners of the PC version will soon be able to create and share their own levels with the new level creator and portal. Add to this the many unlockable characters (each with their own unique abilities) as well as the collectable bandages hidden across the game world, and you’re left with a game that wont get old any time soon.
So maybe Super Meat Boy isn’t for everyone. The game requires a level of dexterity (not to mention patience) that probably wont be found in plentiful supply in casual gamers. Let’s be honest though, they were never the target market here. If you’re looking for a family-friendly, pick-up-and-play, “hey grandma you should try this” type of game, avoid SMB at all costs. However, if you’re looking for a fun, funny, challenging and infinitely rewarding experience, look no further than Super Meat Boy.
Super Meat Boy is available now to download on PC and Xbox 360
Continue →Review: Fable 3
Fable III is the latest in Peter Molynuex’s series of choose your own destiny, action, swordy, good or evil bang bang, magic fantasy based games. Once again Molynuex has spent a long time harping on about how this game “will do what has never been done before!” And once again what he actually means is “there’s even more bars that slide from good to evil!” Fable III enthralled me in some places and confused me in others. So let’s start with the enthralling bit.
Fable III is all about revolution, Albion has moved on to the industrial age. You play as the son or daughter of Fable II’s Hero, however your older sibling has become a corrupt tyrant. After fleeing the castle with John Cleese and Theóden, it’s time to gain the support and trust of an army of English Celebrities in order to take the throne and do things your way. Albion is a land with a wonderfully British sense of humour, it’s not quite Terry Prachett but it does the job. The world looks lovely and it’s art style and design is spot on. Each village has its own luck and feel, the gloom of industrial Bowerstone contrasts against the glimmering villages outside it. You’ll spend most of your time in villages and towns but when out on the road your character can only walk on the path. Though sometimes you may be looking at a beautiful vista, it’s like being in a zoo, you can’t interact with it. You will however spend plenty of time interacting with characters who have their own silly little quirks. None shows this more than one delightful mission where the player is transported by three “Game Designers” into a “Game Realm” that they have designed. This excellent parody features the three bickering over game design principles, including an important lever which has about fifteen arrows pointing to it and how perhaps they should throw in a standard enemy encounter. Moments like these remain Fable III’s strong point and distinguish it from other games far more than it’s other much touted revolutionary features.
Ugly Bowerstone
Pretty Caves
Fable III attempts to completely remove the standard RPG menu system. Instead of a pause menu from which you can equip items, the player is transported to “The Sanctuary” where they are welcomed by the same John Cleese voice clip every single time… The Sanctuary acts as a Batcave where all weapons and clothes are kept on display, to change items walk up to one and pick it up. Likewise leveling up has been replaced with “The Road to Rule” which can be accessed from the Sanctuary to spend exp. Once on the road you walk up to chests that say things like “Swordplay Chest” or “Landlord Chest” which you then spend exp on to open. It’s a brave move and an interesting one but, in the long run, it’s an inconvenience. Let’s say I want to look at the map, instead of pausing and selecting the map, I teleport to the sanctuary, listen to John Cleese say “ welcome to the Sanctuary, walk to the map, select the map. Really what’s happened is a two step process has been turned into a much longer one. The Sanctuary is an attempt to increase immersion by working the menus into the world of the game but after a while nothing kicks you out of a game than the ability to teleport out of a battle mid fight, change your shoes, then instantly warp back in. The road to rule charts your characters changes and growth in the form of statues as you move along it but aside from this it’s just a big road what you have to run along instead of being able to look at all your choices at once and plan a character. All in all though these Menu replacements are interesting and never really seen before but the advantages of a standard menu system out weight their novelty.
One of Mr Molyneux’s better ideas comes in the form of evolving weapons, as you play your weapon mutates to match your style so by the end my sword had become an arcane, golden rapier because I used loads of fire magic, favoured offense and made money fast. This personalised touch is a rare example of one of Peter’s much talked about ideas actually reaching its potential. My Sword certainly felt like my sword rather than the sword with the highest hit points. Combat itself is adequate, combining swordplay, gun play and magic is fun but as the game goes on its only way to increase the challenge is to add more enemies that can take more hits.
Fancy Fights
If it worked I wouldn’t really have much to say about the dog that follows you throughout your adventures but I feel like whoever was in charge of him must have missed several meetings. The Dog is clearly broken, it’s constantly too close to your character, or getting in the way of you and another character, rather than scrapping it or fixing the problem they seem to have just allowed the dog to no-clip through the player. This happens literally constantly throughout the game to the point that it makes the game feel glitchy all the time. Why the dog wasn’t axed is baffling to me, honestly about 10% of the time you’ll spend looking at the game that dog is glitching up in some way.
Again Fable III is all about choices, will you be a good ruler or a bad one. Again, however, it suffers from these choices being as Black and White as possible. In the second half of the game these choices become so annoyingly super good or super evil that the game begins to force you down one path or the other. As Yahtzee once put it, “it’s always Mother Theresa or Baby Eating”. These extreme choices reach the height of their annoyance when several situations clearly have thousands of shades of grey in the middle but you can only choose one extreme or the other. This is the problem with Molonuex’s hype, he might say “The Expressions system offers an ingenious new Dynamic Touch feature that allows your hero to reach out and embrace a loved one.” Then the game comes out and it turns out “Expressions System” means you sort of play The Sims for a minute and then everyone likes you. I learned one expression, “dance,” and it worked on everyone I needed it to. The Dynamic Touch system lets you take a character by the hand and bring them places, it’s required during the main quest maybe four times and though you could technically use it anytime, you won’t.
"The Expressions System" also known as "The Sims"
"Dynamic Touch" in Use (I did this once)
Fable III entertained me with its wonderful world and characters but it limits my interaction with them to the point that I left annoyed. As the game comes to a close its insistence that I be Jesus or Hitler reached extreme levels. Fable III’s first half is enjoyable for the same reasons Fable and Fable II were but it’s second half utterly fails to convey what you as the player have to do to succeed. I won’t give the context to avoid spoilers but be warned, you’re given a countdown timer and basically told to play SimCity for a while. However the timer isn’t really a timer. It randomly jumps forward by months making it impossible to predict how long you have to do what has been asked of you. Suddenly D-Day arrives unannounced to you, if you did have a grand plan you aren’t even given the chance to put it into effect. When the end credits rolled I had no interest in even checking in on Albion, I could only think about how much time I had wasted planning because I had been asked to plan, only to never be given the chance to put my plan into effect.
Fable III’s inflated opinion of itself unfortunately only takes away from the experience. Behind the funny jokes, A-List cast and good vs evil slidey bars it’s an average game with interesting ideas. Sorry Pete.
7.5 Moral Choices out of 10
Note: Co-Op Play was unavailable at the time of review and as such was not taken into account in this review.
If you’ve any questions or comments about Fable III stick them in the comments and I’ll answer them on tonight’s podcast, where I’ll be discussing the game in more detail.
Fable III is available October 29 in Europe on Xbox 360. Standard Edition £44.99/€64.99, Limited Collector’s Edition £59.99/€84.99. A Windows version should appear before Christmas
Retro Review: The Secret of Monkey Island “Special Edition”
In the winter of 1990 I was six years old and my memories of games from this period (now 20 years ago) has become somewhat faded, but one memory still clear in my mind was the day that my brother booted up the Amiga 500+ and inserted the first disk of Lucasfilm Games (now known as Lucas Arts) “The Secret of Monkey Island”.
Fast forward 20 years and “The Secret of Monkey Island” has returned bigger and better than ever on multiple platforms (Xbox live arcade, the Playstation Network, and on the PC through Steam). This game following the adventures of wannabe pirate Guybrush Threepwood struck such a chord with gamers that Lucas Arts felt the time was ripe to re-release it in the form of “The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition”.
Continue →
Killing Floor Review
A review of Killing Floor I made few months ago on my own site MercuryVision.com Enjoy.
Continue →Just Cause 2 Review
I did a lot of things playing Just Cause 2 so many things that I couldn’t put them in words, which is why I made this video, which barely has any words at all.
Just Cause 2 is insane. If you didn’t watch that video or watched it and simply refused to believe it, then yes, that was me surfing a jet then grappling to airliner mid flight. That was also me quad biking off an exploding crane, driving an ice cream van off a mountain, gracefully base jumping off a skyscraper and down a water fall, jumping onto the roof of my moving truck to clear a road block with a grenade launcher and last but not least, attaching a sports car to an air liner and driving/taking off into the sunset.
(more…)
// Chronic Authors
Stephen Colfer (141)
Neil Fitzpatrick (13)
Chris Slack (10)
Ruairi Burns (6)
Paddy Dunne (6)
// Latest Comments