Forza Motorsport 4: A Final Rev At Victory Lane

'Being second is to be first of the ones who loses.' - Ayrton Senna.

For a long time there has been a duel in a genre that rarely sees much competition. Since Gran Tourismo first graced the Sony PSX, the dynamics of the racing genre altered quite a bit.

Arcade racing was well and truly dead. Realism became a key factor in delivering a racing simulator of the finest quality. Different vehicles, different feel. As much detail and user customization was crammed into each incarnation. The list of playable vehicles just exploded. Gran Tourismo had set the standard and the bars were rather high.

As the console war shifted to new ground and presented a new opponent, the shape of games begin to shrivel. A host of video game genres from the previous generation became extinct. The type of games that dominated the 7th gen consoles had narrowed distinctively. But the racing genre survived, largely remaining untouched.

Owners of the new rival console wanted a racing game that would rival the immortal Gran Tourismo series. No mean feat.

Enter the Forza series by a relatively unknown developer called Turn 10. This motley bunch were engaged in creating a proverbial good racing sim. In lieu of the current crop of 'casual gamers', the game would adopt versatility by including custom built difficulty settings.

Great care had been taken to include a unique scoring system to reward different styles of play. But the bulk of the work went into the game play dynamics along with an easy to use visual aesthetics customization system, and, for players like me, a concise total systems tuning that would allow me to alter engine, suspension, braking, aerodynamics, and steering set ups to improve lap times, driving precision and tire wear.

With Forza 4, Turn 10 has come up trumps.

Different cars do have a different feel about them. And there are a whole lot of cars here.

Many of the real world race tracks are faithfully represented in glorious detail. Each turn feels like the real thing. I was particularly happy to see one of my favorite race tracks possess the near identical rush of excitement as I took each corner perfectly merely from memory on my very first drive. The braking points and exit velocities remained faithfully precise.

The game itself offers a few modes of play designed to cater for single and multi player racing. The single player mode takes the player across a variety of racing locales against CPU possessed opponents who showcase some of the more realistic personalities reflected by their difficulty setting. Another welcomed feature is that each race presents three different challenges that offer another dimension of obstacles that presents a unique set of rewards in itself. The player is free to choose to improve their driver level and/or obtain more prize money. The former will gradually unlock high tier vehicles while the latter gives the player more cash.

The multi player mode presents a host of custom racing challenges over the multitude of racing tracks. One interesting feature is conducting a race that allow cars of differing classes to participate. While it may sound like a handicap mode on the surface, there is a higher level of expertise just beneath it. In the event of any unforseen driving errors, the old Rewind system makes a welcomed return providing minimally exceptional gamers with yet another form of assistance.

One more racing mode is one v one challenge that takes place on a track dotted with slower traffic to hinder the player. There are other racing modes but they become available as the game progresses.

Forza 4 includes improvements to the online mode. The depth of interaction is clearly evident as the level of content takes a sudden leap forward. Players can download user created decals and the like or buy vehicles on sale. There are car clubs to join and a long awaited online race mode that allows a maximum of 16 players at once.

The much touted Autovista mode that helped hype the game prior to its launch is available for players to fool around with. This show room style feature allows the player to showcase the variety of cars displayed with a staggering amount of polygons to provide the highest degree of refined detail. A fair amount of technical wizardry went into pushing the doddering old Xbox 360 to its very limits.

Forza 4 is a step up in a pleasant direction that offers a varied experience combining many of the greatest features from the the Forza series with a sophisticated tracking system that assesses the drivers abilities to determine rewards.

While Gran Tourismo presents itself as rigidly disciplined and high precision driving sim. Forza loosens up its collar and lets players decide how they will play it. It's possesses as much depth and a lot of variety to be able stand up and be recognized as the only other true race driving sim ever made. A genuinely sensational tour de force that's come to say goodbye to the console it owes its success to. Forza 4 is the graphical pinnacle of Xbox 360 racing games. It rightfully boasts of having the best sound effects.

Turn 10 deserves a heartfelt thank you. Make no mistake, Forza 4 should be in every Xbox 360 owners collection.

Categories: 10, 4, driving, forza, gran, microsoft, racing, simulation, tourismo, turn

RISE OF THE TOMB RAIDER

The history of Tomb Raider dates back to the advent of professional 3D development. A few great pioneers from the early days of 8-bit 3D had made great strides in bringing forth bold new ideas that rapidly saw the advancement of 3D animation and environment generation.

Tomb Raider was destined to become a massive success creating a world gamers had never seen come to life with state of the art animation and brilliantly well design puzzles that occasionally encompassed an entire level.

It also introduced Lara Croft to the world. The world quickly embraced her and her digital fate was set. Immortality beckoned.

Last year, we saw a brand new Tomb Raider game taking the origins road. We are reintroduced to Lara once again but at an earlier time in her life, long she became a supreme athlete and a dead shot expert and wielding dual pistols. Like most resilient human beings, we soon discover that Lara has a knack for survival. She is tough and determined and lucky.

The new Tomb Raider introduced many new and not so new elements and meticulously packaged it. The game balanced all these elements seamlessly to give the gamer an outstanding experience. The game world was divided into areas which were filled with challenges and dangers to keep the player on their toes. It introduced a crafting section which gradually provided better upgrades to the numerous tools and weapons available. It also gave the player new skills and techniques to overcome obstacles. This allowed the designers to slowly introduce more abilities to Lara. It was a great touch that was well paced.

Now comes the continuing saga of young Lady Croft and this time she is thrown into a much larger environment compared to her last adventure. As expected, the developers retained all the best elements from the previous game and introduced a host of new ones to enhance the experience.

Making its debut are the tombs. Hidden around the game are an ample number of tombs that draw the player away from the main story and introduces a massive puzzle in the form of each tomb. Each tomb is mentally challenging but not to the point that draws out frustration. Beating each tomb provides it own set of rewards and guarantees personal satisfaction.

Another great addition is the inclusion of sub quests. Lara can take on special missions to help a variety of non player characters that people the game world. While not quite as challenging, they provide a change of pace.

Crafting returns better than ever. Salvaging and scavenging is vitally important if Lara is expected to improve her gear. The game also presents the ability for Lara to craft ammunition on the fly. This an important feature in one of the many life or death situations Lara will be faced with. This on the fly crafting allows her to modify arrows, for instance, to use explosive tips or simply tipped with poison.

Gameplay has been spiced up noticeably. Players can hone Lara with a variety of skills and ability that will make her more silent, cunning and deadly.

Each scenario offers a a few different ways to overcome. Combat can be conducted with a soft or hard approach. But Lara can also use deceptive methods to distract opponents that can be modified to lure enemies into deathtraps. The freedom to tackle each challenge really adds to the excellence that this Tomb Raider offers.



There isn't much originality in the whole damn story. But then again the Tomb Raider games were always well known for the heart stopping action and mind numbing puzzles. Story took a backseat as it does in this new incarnation as well.

Conclusion

While it delivers is the best Tomb Raider title to date it comes highly recommended as a farewell gift to the previous generation consoles and a fitting swansong to the console gamers who have to abandoned the old for the new.

For the current gen, here is a game that has traits lacking many of today's new console games. Substance, great gameplay and that good old feeling of excitement and accomplishment that was thought long dead throughout the last year.

SquareEnix has to be commended for being the foremost publishing software house in the last 10 years. They have boldly backed risque project that would otherwise have not seen the light of day. Their faith gave us gems that includes Rise of the Tomb Raider and hopefully many more memorable giants of the gaming era in the future.

Rating

Categories: croft, crystal, dynamics, lara, raider, squareenix, tomb

Falllout Shelter: Why you should be running away from this app

Fallout is huge. Fans from all over the world waited eagerly for the GamesCon releases and for that, they have the Pip boy and some mobile app that debut on the iOS platform and later Android. 

At first, you might think that you could have played this game as a teaser to its bigger release but it wasn't. It is a standalone freemium game for mobile. 

Freemium. This ugly term is the buzzword of the mobile gaming industry. Free to play but pay to play. 

There has been heaps of success factors for this type of gaming. It is social and friends can help you. Unfortunately Fallout Shelter isn't the case. It is, a freemium game that has no social element and this is why it is going to burn and crash. 

I played this religiously for 10 days, and boy did I waste my time.

First, the game isn't as exciting as it should be. For one you have to play the part of Immortan Joe, where you decide who to keep and who to send out into the vast wasteland while protecting your valuable food and water resources. You need Cap credits to build underground shelters to house your minions and each room or shelter has a function. 

Energy generation is one, the other is food. The last one is food, which is kinda stupid because you operate a diner instead of an underground farm house. You can only have two dwellers in a room and for procreation, you need a living quarters too. The living quarters will also determine how many residents you may have in the shelter. 

Now putting a man and woman together in the living quarters will beget you a kid, who in the radiation age, takes 6 hours to grow from a child to an adult. As a child, you cannot assign any duties to it, that means you have a parasite at best. When it grows up, you could sire another child with it depending on who is expendable. This sort of makes you understand why Immortan Joe of Mad Max always kept a harem of women to sire genetically capable children. Unfortunately, any kid born in the shelter is a dufus and has to be upgraded in terms of experience points. Who they fuck matters too as the kid will exhibit qualities of the parents. Not everything will be passed down to the kid. 

To make things exciting, you have raiders who break into your shelter to steal stuff and when you send your guys to defend it, they have to be armed. Now how to get weapons? Only by picking them up from the wasteland, and that means sending out your best dwellers to get them. Each dweller has a complicated talent tree. You have strength, charisma, etc, etc and the clothes you wear will give you an additional advantage of each task you assign to them. 

Oh, your dwellers can die in the wasteland and there is no action which takes place which you are a party of, you get a status report on how they died and it is up to you to revive them with those Cap credits, which you earn while increasing the experience points of your fellow dwellers. Each time they get an upgrade in experience points, you get rewarded with Cap points as well. So the more people you have at any time, the more Cap points you get to earn and keep. Those points can later go into upgrading the shelter or for reviving dead dwellers from your shelter. Each dweller has a health bar and a radiation bar to watch out for. If the two are weak, any simple disaster can kill them.

I know it sounds boring and it is. I cannot for the life of me understand why they created this game as it just doesn't work. So to summarise the experience.....

#1 Social Element is Lacking

There is no buddy who plays along with you, sends you credits or exchange weapons. You are there with just your dwellers and there will be outsiders who will from time to time come to join you from the wasteland but that is hardly an inducement from a social perspective. The game is solitary, just you and the computer which spits out random problems for you to solve. To keep everything running smoothly, some have said that you need to have 52 dwellers. Then everyone will be happy. It would be more exciting if you could send out your dwellers to raider another's dweller's patch, perhaps steal from them. That would be more fun but nada....it is boring. 

#2 Raiders will find a way in regardless of upgrading your Entrance 

Raiders will break through your front door no matter how hard you try to fortify it. 
There are two fighting scenarios, that is to fight the incoming marauders, and to fight the mutants that come to infest your shelter. Think of it as the only interactive experience which doesn't happen often. Most of the time you end up fighting mutant rats and roaches that infest your cookie trail. Is this exciting? Only if you like watching grass grow.

#3 Shelter disasters are Boring

Fire, fire and more fire. Each time you overwork a room shelter, there will be fire. And the fire can kill the residents if their health points are weak. The only way to avoid the fire is to place your resident in the entrance area which never catches fire. And for that, you are only allowed two to a room. Fires do not harm your resources, machine or for that matter, the store room where you stash all your ill gotten goodies.

#4 Weapons are all bullshit when fighting Mutants

Weapons can only be obtained from the wasteland. There is no other way. You can't buy weapons because if you did, the mutant roaches and marauders won't stand a chance against you. So that is why the fighting is all BS. You can have, for the sake of getting you to buy more cap points, mutant roaches that will kill perfectly healthy residents armed to the teeth. Picking up a good weapon is a lottery. It depends on your dweller's luck. 

What would Immorten Joe say about the Game?

Get out into the wasteland.... and bring me back some grub! And stop wasting time on that Fallout Shelter game!!

 Rating

 

Categories: Android, fallout, Freemium, ios, mobile

Mortal Kombat X Review

'Go home and be a family man.' - Col. William F. Guile.

Its that time again. When inter dimensional portal start opening up and an air of mystery is in the..er..air.

Old forgotten gods maintain the 'Play Fair' code in the tournament that decides the fate of worlds.

The greatest exponents are chosen to partake in a fight of their lives. No duke of Queensbury rules and hitting below the belt is A OK.

The new installment of the beloved Mortal Kombat series is now set in the not too distant future...if you're under 50. All hell has broken loose as the denizens of the outer realm wreck havoc. Time to take the fight to them.

Many old fan favorites have been substituted with new characters. Thankfully they are superbly implemented and fun to play.

Story mode is a real blast to play with smoother transitions between cut scenes and the obligatory fights.

Animation is visibly improved as well.

It seems Netherealms has learn from Mortal Kombat 9 and Injustice. Everything feels so much better in Mortal Kombat X.

There are plenty of game modes that provide a wide variety of challenges. There are lots of unlockables to be had in the Krypt as well.

Ultimately Mortal Kombat is a fighting game. Responsiveness and executing specials and combos with ease is a primary concern which Mortal Kombat X has dealt with very well. Players with different skill levels can truly compete on the same ground. An example would be the inclusion of simplified Fatality moves.

Mortal Kombat X truly lives up to the hype. Netherealms have delivered a game that grabs you which is non existant in many games today.

Here is a worthy addition to any gamers library. And that includes those who have never played an MK game before. Now, GET OVER HERE!

Categories: babalities, combos, fatalities, krypt, mortal kombat, netherealms, towers, x-ray

Why Wolfenstein New Order Missed its Mark

God, please why? Why did they fuck up on such a franchise?

Now I was one of those who played Castle Wolfenstein on the Apple II, and yes, I am that old. That was the first game to have a sampled voice over and we learn to dish out German phrases after spending hours on it. We kicked Nazi ass even before all of those fuckers who reviewed this game were even born. Fast forward to the new era.

For me, I had a pretty good time playing with Wolfenstein PS3 back in 2009. This was an FPS, with the Thule Society and all those badass occult stuff Hitler was famous for thrown in. Now it was a commendable shooter. Nothing great but playable. It had a poor frame rate, gave me a headache each time I played it but still, I didn't say anything bad about it.

As time went on, you got to the point where you start wondering if someone can up the ante, give it a polish and release a new version of the game. So here's what came out of this long wait.

Wolfenstein New Order is a completely new take on the franchise and was one of the most eagerly awaited. Sadly, it just didn't rock my world. First, the story telling was poor. It introduced us to a steam punk type Nazi machinery that was winning the war before moving us ahead to the 60s. The story was all over the place, one moment we are stealing Choppers, next we go to the moon. That holy sort of shit is what made COD franchise stank. The weapons are nothing to shout about, there are some nice touches, like being able to cut through metal and wires but that doesn't happen often or is that obvious unless the game play requires you to do so.

Then we have the sex scenes, well done. So are we suppose to jerk off after mowing down some Nazis? I hope such morbid behaviour will never be adopted in gaming as it is offensive to Nazis and Jewish community at large.

Gamplay

I must say that the melee option was to me, one of the worst in the game. First, all you enemies seem to like turning their back to you. There is no challenge in taking them on as you can suit up with armour to protect yourself. The most creative way to kill Nazis is really to throw them a live grenade. Shooting them is probably part of the fun but with less that enough ammo it doesn't seem all that fun.

The A.I enemies are a little more intelligent that the one found in COD, which often runs in a loop. Here you find the Germans ducking and hiding, without sticking out their body parts for you to shoot at. But there is no challenge after that. The option to carry ammo plays heavily in your game as you don't have much at your disposal.

This is an FPS that is basically a rehash or every other FPS made so far. So don't think for one moment that they have any originality. Then you have the ever boring side missions, like go get a jack hammer or a tool to do something and they send you on a wild goose chase.

The problem with this game is more of the same. There is no cohesive storyline. It gets so boring to the point that you dread playing it after a couple of hours. There is simply no challenge in doing the level as everything is sandboxed so tightly. I even went on to play the 16-bit easter egg version of Wolfenstein twice in the dream sequence!

Now that is pretty sad. The game is huge, but it just lacks the finesse. The gaming stank, the missions were a let down and to make matters worst, the story was assembled by a team of half baked Hollywood wannabes who have no idea what a playable game is all about. To think that this would be a worthy follow up to a grand franchise is totally lost to me. Those critic reviews who loved the game, well I have one word for you....'payola'!

Repeat Play Conclusion

I like weapons, and as an FPS, the whole idea is to have weapons you love using. I hated the weapons choices in this game and yes, that makes this game a real bummer.

The story line is linear, takes you to space and back too. WTF is that all about. Well it might think it was a COD rip off with some sci-fi futuristic stuff thrown in.

As a mindless shooter, it might have some entertainment value for those who are at best...for those suffering from inbred autism. Beyond that, I can't bring up any note worthy points to commend the game past the loading screen.

The deal breaker was the hodgepodge of missions sew together with an even worst storyline. That did it for me. Now I have to find some pill to make me forget this offensive game totally and make believe that in the perfect world, it would never have to exist in the minds and imaginations of the sane.

rating

Categories: fps, new order, shooter, wolfenstien

FC3 Blood Dragon Goes Retro

Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon was a DLC game for the Xbox 360 and PS3 but is it any good. To be fair, it's not really a full blown game which you may like if you enjoyed FC3. So let me explain.

FC3 Blood Dragon is a weird mix of retro gaming on a current console. Though designed entirely to fit HD TV screens, the first thing you realise is that the cut scenes are all done in 1990s style PS2 sequences. Not a bad thing but the retro story telling is kinda weird. It just doesn't feel right and with that, to hell with the story. I came to conquer and satisfy my blood lust. Should I even care about the furry animals that run amok on the island? Afraid not....

Gameplay

Now here is the problem. The game is tiny by comparison to FC3. The map is small and the challenges are even smaller.  You get to hunt animals and destroy terrorist who hold hostages. The game lets you slaughter cyborgs, which sound like the Cylons you find in the 1980s version of Battlestar Galatica. This is as retro as it gets. But for any blood thirsty FPS connoisseur, it's the gun play that keeps everything in check.

The game lets you shoot, kill and send your enemies to meet their lost kin in a futuristic island where wild animals roam free. It just doesn't play like FC3. The shooting is a hit and miss affair as the guns now fire lasers and energy bolts. Weaponizing is relatively easy as you complete some of the side missions at each garrison to unlock weapon upgrades but it is the ammo that really stops you in the long term. You don't get to carry enough of them. What's more there are so many elements that you find in FC4 which was probably copied from Blood Dragon. One of the most noticeable is the Cyborgs constant attack on those outpost (garrison in Blood Dragon Speak) you have conquered. You have geeknerds on your side, scientist who wear white overalls, but you role isn't to talk tech with them but to fight their battles.

The next thing is something I found very annoying, the landscape is in an awful color. I hated it. It's constantly dark and putrid. The only consolation to come out of it is that you can now see the arrows you fire and know their trajectory. In FC3 and FC4, the coloful landscape makes it difficult for you to judge your arrow trajectory as the arrow sort of disappears from view as it goes into the horizon. The arrows's Blood Dragon come in day-glo colors makes it real easy to judge where your trajectory went wrong and lets you correct your aim by compensation.

Besides, the landscape just don't cut it. Remember the time when you played FC3 and do a double take and say 'Wow' when running up that hill just to admire the landscape. Well, fat chance here. By the way, there are no Telco Towers...well there are Towers but they are not for you to take over to get a larger map. I almost threw up each time I was at a high point of the island. Yes, it's that bad. 

Each outpost is now known as a "Garrison". Each garrison is designed differently, with side entrances but there is always an open entrance which you can drive into. Each drive-thru entrance has a force shield to keep the Blood Dragons out. The layout of the Garrison makes it very easy for you to hide within buildings to ambush your prey compared to FC3 where the open layout means you won't know exactly where they are coming from. The other thing with the garrisons is that they don't call back reinforcements once you are discovered shooting at them from a distance. Instead only 2 Garrisons in the whole game would call for some sort of back up in the form of Choppers. Thus your blood lust can't be rewarded even if you lay waiting for more. It is times like these you wish you had a cigarette to kill the boredom. 

Blood Dragons are Super Boring

Yes. These super predators have poor eyesight so you can sneak around them. They can detect movement so it's never safe around them. However they don't seem to take to Cyborgs in the same way they take to humans. There must be a bug in the game where you notice Cyborgs being ignored by such dragons.

The Blood Dragon is attracted to Cyborg hearts, which you rip out of them as a trophy but not all the time.  You can then use them to lure the Blood Dragon to create havoc on the enemy (which was later adopted in FC4 to lure predators to attack your enemies)

Blood Dragon spit fire. So regardless of where you are, they can get you with their pyro-techniques. Killing a Dragon is a waste of ammo. You can sprint faster than they can run so head for the Fortress if you get chased down.

I found the Blood Dragons a total distraction. When you are out ambushing the Cyborgs, you have to watch your radar to see if one is nearby. They can upset vehicles and and turn an ambush into a huge mess. Then when you kill a Dragon, it turns into mush. There is nothing to harvest, no skin, no flesh...nada.

Weapons are Ho-Hum

Your choices are rather limited for this outing so don't hope on getting the full monty like in FC3. The guns don't fire in a satisfying way. I mean, you know what it is like to have an AK-47. How it fires and how it punches holes into your enemy is what makes you want to use one. The weapons in Blood Dragon doesn't have that sort of feel.

What's more your reloading skills can't be improved. You can't get better at it and there is no skill tree to ante up. No way to sell your loot either, so money can be problem if you use too much ammo taking down a Blood Dragon.

You can virtually take any garrison with just your basic weapons. Shotgun, assault rifle, pistol. The sniper rifle is optional since you can sneak up to them once you are in the garrison. 

These limitations is what sets Blood Dragon apart from FC3 and FC4. The weapons are not fun to use. I found more joy using the bow than any other weapon because iyou can see how your arrows landed on your target. 

Should I Buy This?

If you think you are going to have a repeat of that super awesome gameplay in FC3, well I got news for you, it won't deliver that same excitement.

Blood Dragon uses much of the same code to develop this game but it lacks polish. I can live with the retro graphics, and humour which I found very witty but that alone isn't going to keep you glued to the console.

Blood Dragon should have been released as a mobile game since it was developed as a separate entity. The graphics isn't taxing on a GPU and the game itself is a washed down version of FC3. It is playable nonetheless only if you are looking for a cure for insomnia. 


rating

Categories: blood dragon, far cry, fps, Ubisoft

Is Far Cry 4 worth its weight in Himalayan Salt?

For the record, I completed Far Cry 3 and didn't want to shag that bitch who wanted to kill you after a night of hot sex. For my sins, the Ubisoft came out with Far Cry 4.

FC3 was a fantastic game. Simple to understand and with enough slaughtering  to keep even Idi Amin in a coma entertained. To live up to that expectation isn't going to be simple so does FC4 deliver?

Gameplay is more of the Same?

I have no problems with the story line, I really do not care if AJ is a mix breed with Asian blood but he sounds the same as the character you play in FC3—Jason Brody. His voice is the same too, and you could have sworn he can't be totally Asian...so onward to Nepal....ahem....Kyrat. The Kingdom where wild elephants don't get altitude sickness.

Pagan Min is your foe. For his part, he's just a bad ass drug dealer dictator which you need to get rid off. The gameplay is more of the same, where you traverse this strange land which bears a huge resemblance to the landscape in FC3. Too bad there are no gun boats on the lake, or for that matter sharks for the taking.

I don't mind developers reusing the code for the landscape but the fun factor is sorely lacking. For example, there are far fewer outpost in the first half of the game than expected. In FC3, the first half was roughly 70 percent of the game, for FC4 it's 50 percent. The game itself is broken down into 3 segments which opens up once you complete the required mission. Bummer.

The take downs, sniping, killing softly without being heard with a knife or Kukri is now the pillar of the FC franchise. This has defined the game but how much of that is pure genius versus stupidity depends on the size of the game. It has gotten bigger thanks to the variety but much of the parameters in which you execute your bloodlust are restrictive. The mythical Shangri-la challenges aren't much in terms of gun play so let's leave that one out. Aside from that, the killing doesn't really deliver the same sense of relish one gets from FC3.

It's Not Open World

No matter how open world the game proclaims itself to be, the missions are all linear. You can't progress unless you complete the necessary missions and you're locked into the Southern part of Kyrat and the game won't let you progress past the King's Bridge in the norther part. And there are so many side missions that don't quite appeal to you but you have no choice but to do it.

You have to slaughter your way to the north. Earning cash has become far easier as you can virtually kill animals and sell the skins for a good price. But guns and ammo are only available to you when you liberate more telco towers. This is where most of the problem lies. You don't get enough of them to have all the choices open to you.

Too many of the missions are tied to conventional and often dumb pretences. For example there are a few missions where you are not to be seen, of for that matter can't be seen by any of your enemy. This sort of bullshit makes the game very restrictive and shows that the developers were running out of ideas. Previously, FC3 made restrictive use of weapons for some of these side missions. That was enough but when it comes to the main mission, you get agitated as not being seen can mean you can't attack them from the air. Flying is cool. I hate driving as I have to put up with the gawd awful DJ and music on the radio. Turning off permanently would be cool but you can't do that. So the driving experience is annoying. You have to remember to turn off the radio each time you get into a vehicle or get subjected to the evil ranting of an Asian DJ.

There is lots more variety in the game and you go around rescuing hostages, making deliveries and killing the odd Royalist for better Karma.

There are more skirmishes on the roads, and attacks by Royalist on outpost you have captured. Defending them is really up to you but in the end, the gameplay suffers as each of these become very superficial. You can replay the outpost takeover with the Outpost Challenge which pits you with the Royalist once again for points. You can even commander an Elephant to help with the attack, a feat which you must earn in the skill tree.

All this means there is a lot more to do but the weakness here is that each outpost becomes relatively boring to attack. This is where the developers thought of the Fortress. This is suppose to be heavily fortified and before attacking one, you are warned that you risk being wiped out if you don't play it in coop mode with a friend. This is utter rubbish of course, as I sauntered into two of these fortresses in my pyjamas, told them to clear out....which they didn't and proceeded to attack me with choppers and mortars and they in turn felt what middle age angst was all about—with bodies piled high and me smoking a cigar after I was done. Unfortunately, there are only 4 Fortresses so you don't get to exercise your blood lust that often.

More attention is being given to side missions, where you rescue hostages, take on delivery challenges, speed around for an action cam sequence and kill some exotic beast for a fashion quest.   The taking down of the Towers or telco towers is no big shakes as there are far less of it in the first half of the game.

This restrictive gameplay makes this a non Open World concept. FC3 had better gameplay in the first half than all of FC4.

Weapons let Down

I was mildly disappointed that the developers used the same weapons as in FC3. The AK47, SVD, M700 and all its ilk are all there. This time around, they have given you more signature weapons, which are in most cases derivatives of the main weapons.

I would have appreciated better planning for the game instead of reusing the code from FC3 but hey, it's profit before anything else. Each weapon introduced has to be redesigned and its game mechanics coded. So this cost money. Why not reuse the code right? Enough said.

The only noticeable change is that the game opens up in coop mode after the first act. This means you can play with friend in real time. You get to have your partner sit shot gun with you in a mini helicopter to mow down the enemy while you fly and avoid incoming fire.

Embellishing your weapons with upgrades would seem like a good idea, like maybe use an AK 47 with a silencer or extended magazine. But that doesn't happen. Coding is expensive.

In any FPS game, the gun play makes an important consideration in any attack. That's why they call it an FPS? But that concept has been lost with Ubisoft. For example a range finder scope could be used to determine the effectiveness of a particular type of weapon over a distance, but that's too much code to consider in a game like this. Instead they give you range finding between your and your mission objective. If you can be precise...then why not for your choice of weapons?

Conclusion

I am not entirely sold on the gameplay. For that it gets dumbed down a notch. The enemy AI isn't smarter either. They run around more but they often run pass you like they were blind in one eye. The linear type gameplay spoils the game as not everyone will appreciate the variety. For me, taking on an outpost and liberating towers in FC3 did it for me. The story telling in FC3 where you explore the Rook Islands was far more engaging too. In FC4, you seem to be on the receiving end of beggars as everyone has a sob story to share and want you to be part of it.

The border delineation between Royalist or Rebel territory has also gotten murky. You find Royal army personnel patrolling the same roads as the Rebels so it gets a bit jaunting when you see one up the road from the other. This also makes placing mines for difficult as in FC3, the militia versus the native forces are clearly marked by territory you have gained. They don't patrol areas that have fallen. If you kill the rebels in mistake, you get penalised in Karma points.

The only good thing that came out of the developers was the seizing of the Propaganda stations where you need to destroy the base along with everyone in it. This to me was the winning formula for any FPS die hard. You get to place mines, explosives and take out the enemy as the come round to rescue their own. Unfortunately you don't get a lot of that in the game either.

The Pagan's Wrath side mission is hopelessly easy...and stupid too as you only ambush three propaganda vehicles without them calling for back up. So if you have three C4 charges places correctly, you can take them out all at once.

The introduction of the Mercenary Ticket is utterly useless. For a fee, you can summon a mercenary to help you attack a convoy but they can't help in a main mission. Even if you do summon them, the chances of them getting shot in the first five seconds of a fire fight is extremely high and you can't call for more back up coz you're too busy controlling the situation at hand.

This game is too focused on the story telling, which to me gets rather dull towards the end. The alternate endings where you get to kill everyone and spare Pagan Min is probably comparable to what you get in FC3. That said, it was never the ending but good gameplay that gets people coming back for more. The diverse gaming landscape also detracts from its FPS roots, a point often lost in reviews on the game.

I am not totally convinced Ubisoft has done a good job in continuing the successful legacy of FC3. They tried to make it more challenging with more variety but end up messing up that successful formula.

Rating

Categories: far cry 4, fps, open world, Ubisoft

Weapon Up! Borderlands The Pre-Sequel

Pandora's most lovable warlord, Handsome Jack, is no more after Borderlands 2 so someone has to invent a new storyline. Enter the Pre-Sequel. 

To cut to the chase, all you need to know is that the whole game happens on the moon of Elpis, which brings us to the evolution of the entire gameplay. Here you have zero gravity and no air, so for air-breathers, you are pretty fucked when you don't have a canister of oxygen on hand. 

Fortunately, there are plenty to be had in the form of enemies. Picking one up is as easy as killing them. Well, that said, you gotta kill quite a number of them to shore up your oxygen supplies. 

Now, the characters aren't new. All of them featured in this game were Non-Playable in previous Borderlands titles. Athena, Nisha, Wilhelm and, Clap Trap the Fragtrap (no it doesn't kill only gay enemies). This time round you play the role of the bad guys, who aid Handsome Jack in his quest to control Pandora...well on the way to control is as he's nothing but a lowly programmer working for Hyperion. 

How do you kill?

Each character has a special ability and for Athena, she has a shield which can absorb damage and used as a killer frisbee. Nisha is by far, the least gifted as she is just a sheriff with a taste for hunting (reminds me of Zero in BL2 with a totally useless talent). Wilhem has the ability to summon drones, Wolf and Saint. Now Wolf attacks enemies while Saint heals and protects. Lastly, you have Clap Trap. If you ever choose this character from the beginning to play with, the game will ask you "Are you sure?"...TWICE just to deter you from taking it on and there is good reason. Claptrap is the best and most powerful character in the Borderland universe. Its ability range from not having to worry about breathing oxygen (fuck yea...I am a robot) and can summon various subroutines to deal damage to enemies like having a missile turret back you up in a firefight to a Doppelganger Victoria Secrets model of himself with fiery wings that flies against and damages enemies. It can also go into a 'berserker' mode where you do combat arm to arm with a sickle. 

Gameplay

No gravity and no oxygen. Those are the two biggest changes to the game. Aside from that, everything is the same. You get the same open world concept of play, and the game story is like a puzzle where you complete each mission to reveal more of what is ahead of you. 

Along the way, the game is spruced up with a wicked sense of humor. Entertaining nonetheless and a huge distraction when you make your way around Elpis (which rhymes with Elvis...the inspiration for Brick from BL1....geddit?)

Is it fun? Well only if you play with a pal. Most of the missions require you to kill someone or get something. Playing alone will take time and it is far more difficult to do this alone. What's more, you start off with only two weapons on hand and you have to get points to increase the number of weapons you can have at your immediate disposal. Weapons classes are the same, you have pistols, assualt rifles, sniper rifles and sub-machine gun so those familiar with this have no problems selecting what works best for you. 

What are you In for?

Those of you who hated Borderlands previously will not like this one bit. This FPS shooter isn't linear. It's not COD or Halo. It's not about going from point A to point B but rather exploring the terrain to find your mix of missions. The gameplay remans one of the most unique and there is no reason to doubt that 2K Australia could not have pulled this off. 

Story scripting is nothing sort of remarkable, and the whole game will keep you playing for hours on end. 

Of course there are the same annoying aspects of the game such as having the same enemies pop up whenever you re-enter an area which you had previously cleared. This deja-vu gaming is probably the most distracting but you have to remember that every single enemy you kill is rewarded through points and once you get enough of it, the skill-tree opens up many upgrades. 

Co-op play is best. I can't think of a better way to take on this game as some of the missions are very difficult to complete alone. There are no levels of difficulty to choose from as everyone starts off as a neophyte with puny weapons and a immature skill tree. Working your way up to the point where you have access to better weapons is probably the only goal you have in your cross hairs as you take on the big bosses in later missions. 

Borderlands is a great game. It might not be the billion dollar hit of COD but as an FPS, it deserves a place in the top 3. 

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Categories: 2K, Borderlands, fps, PS3, Xbox 360

Sniper Elite 3 is as mediocre as it gets

So you like to play a sniper who goes after his enemy without them ever knowing you were around. Sounds like fun but did you play any of the Sniper Elite games? You have? Then there is nothing new to tell you. Let's get to the jist of this before my fingers fall asleep. 

Sniper Elite 3 takes place in Africa during WWII. Not a fun place to be but it has its moments. There are no rogue camels to shoot or recalcitrant Arabs wanting to declare Jihad on you. All you get are Italian and German troops. I have nothing against Italians or Germans in Africa. I am here to kill them so let's get on with it. 

Now I didn't know that I had completed the game after playing it. That's how bad it was as you meander around the desert landscapes hoping your enemies won't hear your gun shots. The game is surprisingly short for starters. You could order a pizza and finish the game when it's delivered to you. Ok, I am being cynical. I hate the game. 

Why I hate the game is clear. It offers nothing new to the third person shooter genre. What's more it suffers from sloppy story telling. Like the part where you go out to rescue a bunch of English servicemen, and instead of running out of their jail cell, they just stay there and tell you to move on while the have a wank. The lost transitions that connect the story together is very badly written. The cut scenes are no better, it just feels very messy. 

Another problem I had was the load outs are restricted to just your sniper rifle, a Welrod bolt action pistol and a Stern gun. God sakes, those were the guns I got in the previous Sniper Elite. Where is the variety? This has to be a joke. When you up your experience points, you get to choose only from three types of weapons for first, secondary and third. There is no knife for you to melee your enemy so walking close to them would only lead to more fart attacks. 

You are allowed to carry one rifle, which can be upgraded once you have scored enough points to take the Gewehr 43, which remains my favourite rifle of choice. The game hasn't evolved but devolved since the last instalment.  Completely dumbed down for an idiot. You can't melee your enemy while being confronted head on and the only choice is your guns. If you ran out of ammo for all three weapons, you might as well do a river dance to distract them. 

Enemy A.I hasn't changed either. The lot of them you face up to are tone deaf. If you pack a Luger 08, and took a shot at them, it has the same effect as a silenced Welrod. Go figure. 

If you care to look around, the gameplay borrows heavily from Hitman. You crawl around hitting your targets in the most silent manner but even if you don't play that way, the tone deaf enemies you are facing won't know the difference. You can blow up a truck nearby and the guys won't even hear a whisper or bother to check out what the loud explosion was all about. Which lead me to think either they are very lazy or Buddhist. 

The slo-mo sequences where the bullet enters the heard, heart or balls are all there. I don't know why people get turned on by such fetishes but it is a utter turn off for me. And this gets extremely annoying in a action packed sequence, the last thing you want is to see how you blew that guy's left kidney in slo-mo when there are heaps more shooting at you. 

Trusted that you should play this game slowly or risk dying quickly doesn't really apply at all. Instead you have morons who shoot when they are shot at and even if you created a ruckus outside their camp won't even ring a bell for them. 

There are so many ways the game could have improved over Sniper Elite 2 but Rebellion, the coders behind the game didn't think you want them. The lack of firearm choices is one deafening omission. You get to pick a Panzerschreck as a secondary weapon which you know won't work against troops. Creative liberties like this spoil the game experience for the gamer. Also missing from the equation is the anti tank sniper rifles used during WWII. These can be used effectively against a half track but in the game you need the Panzerschreck to snuff out a truck. I do like the idea that mines only damage a Tiger tank, but should dynamite be used to blow it up? Hey, I could write a better game outline than that mute they have who produced this crap. 

There is also the use of trip wires to blow oncoming enemy. Stupid really when they don't really come after you in the first place. The idea of this game is that you shoot them from afar and even if they do come after you. You won't be expecting a huge onslaught. They come at you one at a time, as if ordering pizza.

Ammo is another problem as you pick it off the dead. Now as far as I know, you can't possibly pick off Welrod ammo from a German but in the game you can. I would have preferred that the player discharge all his ammo or pick up Axis gun and ammo instead. There are very few intense moments and your only fear on the field is another sniper with his sights on you. But in the game, even an enemy with a MP40 machine pistol will do you damage from a long distance. Come one! Can't you throw in a Stg44? Was this famed assault rife so difficult to render to the point you had to reuse the old design of the MP40 from the previous Sniper Elite?? 

Conclusion

Being a realist, and an avid vintage gun fan. More attention should have been given to gun dynamics and gameplay. The game's landscaping is beautiful and breath taking, you can't help but admire the talent behind them but the game itself is a huge disappointment.

How many ball busting shots do you have to make before you get tired of the shooting? Or for that matter, the morons who you battle with who have the IQ equivalent of their shoe size?

Morally, the developers have done a huge injustice to the game and they can't deny this rushed effort just to appease the crowds who were happy with their previous instalment. Sorry but I don't buy such crap.


rating

Categories: action, snbiper Hitman, third person shooter, WWII