Daken must deal with the aftermath of his defeat at the hands of his father.

Writer: Daniel Way and Marjorie Liu
Art: Mierco Pierfederici
Letters: Cory Petit
Editor: Jeanine Schaefer
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Daken roams the streets of Rome, struggling internally after his loss to his father. A pair of attempted robberies lead to further introspection.

I wish I could write a bit more about the plot of this issue, but that’s really about it. I can’t really say it was padding either, but the issue definitely seemed to be missing a few things, and was definitely a filler issue, waiting for the upcoming crossover with Franken-Castle.
This isn’t to say that the idea that Daken might have some personal demons to deal with internally after what happened with Logan – in fact, that made me look on this issue with a considerable level of forgiveness. Daken’s defeat and losing his Muramasa claws are certainly worthy of a period of self-doubt and frustration, and that seemed to play out in this issue.
But the robbery attempts were so disjointed, and there were so many things wrong with them that they make you question the legitimacy of the story. I found myself asking questions I realized would never be answered thanks to the upcoming crossover – which made me realize that the questions were little more than gaping holes in the story. Who put the young girl up to rob Daken?Why would a young girl target a man who looks like a criminal element himself – and an especially dangerous one? Would there really be a scam artist that directly targeted homosexuals in that manner? Wouldn’t it be far easy and far more profitable to target straight men with a beautiful woman as bait? And if so, would they really target someone who looks as hardened as Daken? Wouldn’t they go for the more… effeminate types? Someone a little more visibly vulnerable?

The bulk of the issue dealt with the second robbery attempt – and that entire set-up seemed like a very forced way of having the issue center on Daken’s sexual ambiguity. There is nothing wrong with that, if there is a character development point to be made, but with such a weak justification, it felt as if Way and Liu literally had no story ideas for this issue, and instead decided to pad an issue with “he’ll kiss guys.” Seemed kind of shallow.

The art really saved this issue. Pierfederici makes great use of lighting, and really sells a weak story far better than it deserves. It was a little dark at some points – but for the story it worked. If anything, this issue is an outstanding showcase of his work.

This is probably an issue to skip if you are looking to try the book out for the first time – far better to wait until the crossover begins. For longtime readers, this is a definite filler issue, and not an especially good one. Passable – but they could have done a little better. But then, most comic writers don’t seem to be able to tell a good single issue story these days…

STORY:

ART:

OVERALL:

The ghost of Shandor attempts to summon Gozer, and the Ghostbusters have to stop him.

Platform: XBox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii, Playstation 2, Nintendo DS, PSP, PC (Windows)
Developer: Terminal Reality, Threewave Software, Red Fly Studio, Zen Studios
Publisher: Atari
Genre: Action/Adventure
# of Players: 1, Multiplayer online
U.S. Release Date: June 16th, 2009
MSRP: $59.99 ($39.99 Wii, $29.99 PSP, DS & PC, $19.99 PS2)

So what is not to like about this? A brand new Ghostbusters game, reuniting Dan Akroyd, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, and Ernie Hudson in their original roles (not to mention Annie Potts, Brian Doyle-Murray, and William Atherton), with writing guidance from Ghostbuster gurus Dan Akroyd and Harold Ramis? This sounds like digital gold.

Of course, adding to the hype was this game’s long journey to publication, the famous decade-old feud between Harold Ramis and Bill Murray coming to an end, Activision’s Blizzard merger almost killing it – the years it took for this game to become a reality was almost a movie unto itself.

After all the hype, all the anticipation, the game is finally released. And after I sit down to play it, I have to say that my reaction was a resounding “Meh.”

Don’t get me wrong – there is a lot of positives to this game. The nostalgia factor is through the roofs. Some might complain that the developers chose to cram every single possible reference to the films into this game, but I favor that kind of pandering. It’s a Ghostbusters game. I want to fight Stay Puft, chase down Slimer, and confront Eleanor Twitty. Yeah, some of these elements seemed forced into the story, but they are supposed to be there. The addition of the original film soundtrack and the original voices really added to the flavor. The songs set the mood, and the familiar voices help keep you engaged.

The trouble is, the game itself really is boring. The nostalgia factor is the only thing that keeps you motivated to play the game through to the end. The entire game really comes down to a pair of game mechanics – hitting ghosts with the streams long enough that you can trap them (and doing so), or soaking non-trappable enemies with slime blowers until they die. This you do over, and over, and over again. Of course, killing things over and over is the basis of all games, but a weak design amplified the repetitiveness.

In order to properly explain what was wrong with the game, I have to start by explaining how it worked. You are “Rookie,” an unnamed 5th Ghostbuster that is tasked with handling all of the prototype gear that Egan has developed. This includes your proton pack, which actually functions as four different weapons. The standard proton stream, the shock blast, a more efficient slime blower, and the meson collider. You have a PKE meter that is used to scan and log the different entities you encounter, and also can track your target and any bonus items you need to discover.

So far so good – but the health system is where the game starts to unravel. You don’t really have a health-meter per se. You get hit with enough attacks quick enough, and you are put out of action and need to be revived. As you take abuse, the only visible evidence is a bit of blurred vision that you experience until you recover. You are almost always working with at least one other Ghostbuster, however, and they can revive you. You can also revive them if they get incapacitated – revival means a complete restoration of health.

“Oh, that’s easy!” You must be thinking. And I don’t blame you.

Trouble is – there is no rhyme or reason to the damage you take. You can be wrangling one ghost, and another two will hit you from behind. Or a boss will cause the floor to erupt in flames right where you are standing (and you can’t see). I can honestly say that the only things that really did damage to me during the entire game were things I couldn’t see. And you can give up all idea of “battlefield awareness.” You will frequently end up in a room with multiple ghosts and other corporeal enemies – and the ghosts can often move fast. They swirl around the room, going through walls and generally maneuvering faster than you can ever hope to keep track of. It quickly becomes obvious that your only hope of success is to eliminate the corporeal threats (Which, with the exception of fliers, generally directly attack) first, then move on to the main apparitions, all while keeping an eye out for fallen teammates to revive (their icons appear on the upper right of the screen along with a compass – a handy notification).

This tactic works somewhat well – the random shots from behind get frustrating, especially later in the game when you start encountering things that can kill you in a single hit – but even more frustrating is the absolute idiocy of the other Ghostbusters. I can understand why you wouldn’t want to make them too effective – you wouldn’t want to make a game where you could just stand there while your allies beat the game for you. On the other hand, they seem to have no survival instinct whatsoever. While they are virtually useless in every fight, they are your safety valve – if they are dead, you can’t be revived. And they had a maddening tendency to huddle in tight groups to be blown away by AOE attacks, or to simply run into attacks for no rhyme or reason. To lie there incapacitated, waiting to be revived, as you watch your allies fall one by one isn’t exactly fun.

Of course, when you die, you just start over from the last checkpoint. So no big deal! Well, this is where one flaw leads to another. Ghostbusters has the distinction of having one of the best and worst loading systems I have ever seen in a game.

For starters – you never notice the load time during gameplay. All of the loading takes place during the cut-scenes and is virtually seamless. And since a big part of playing this game is seeing those cut-scenes to get the story. Without death, you can get through this game without any visible load time at all. Level -scene – level – a seamless flow.

But you do notice the load time when you start the game. Anytime you have to load from a checkpoint (meaning, you aren’t getting a cut-scene), the load time is unbearable. Its okay when the game first starts up for a session, but heaven forbid you die. Instead of springing right back into action, you get a several minute break while the game loads. Instead of being allowed to jump back in and throw yourself at a difficult target that managed to kill you, you wait – and watch the same loading cut-scene over and over. After once or twice, it literally makes you want to put the game down.

Of course, there aren’t that many moment in the game, but the dreaded difficulty spike hits a few times in this game, almost at random. You will be progressing along just fine, when all of the sudden you will be slammed with an almost impossible assortment of opponents, coming at you from all directions. And these times are never boss fights – go figure – they happen randomly in a few levels. After you finally sit through the loading screen a few times and get through the bad part – the game slips right back into super-easy mode.

The level designs are horrible. For starters, many of the levels are sprawling outdoor areas, but you have no map. Seriously – they don’t give you a map at all. Even when you aren’t in a sandbox, a map can be an incredibly useful tool. And though the levels are incredibly detailed, they are monotonous, so it is nearly impossible to know where you came from. You end up groping blindly along if you don’t have a trail to follow – and if you get lost (which happens a few times), good luck figuring out which way you were supposed to go. The rooms which do look particularly good (like the Sedgewick ballroom) quickly loose their luster when the proton streams are fired. Those are exactly like the movie, have a tendency to wash-out the entire screen, and totally kill the impact of the iconic locations. In the mundane paths, its even worse.

The voice acting is ok – but you can tell it was frequently phoned in. The worst culprit is Bill Murray – who just wasn’t into it at all. Mercifully, Venkman isn’t present for most of the game, but when he is around, his labored part is painful to sit through. Worse – he has the identical role he had in the first movie, the romantic lead – a subplot that should have been dropped all together. It seems almost as if they wrote the game assuming he wouldn’t do it, but then tacked the part on when they signed him to the deal. It was bad – bad – and it would have been better f he wasn’t in it at all. Of course, Alyssa Milano did do a passable job as his love interest, Ilyssa Sekwyn, but I really could have done without her.

Overall, I really have to say this was a great and a horrible game, all at the same time. Which makes rating it a chore. The graphics were good, but washed out, wrangling ghosts is fun, but the revival/death dance was horrible, and the plot was decent and well thought out, but the voice acting left a little to be desired.

If you are a Ghostbusters fan, play the game. If not – stay away from this game. Far, far away. This game is 100% nostalgia hype, and is only enjoyable to those who call themselves fans. The fact that it is Ghostbusters, and the fact that it hits all the right fanboy buttons makes it possible to overlook what is overall a shoddy game.

Rating:

Reviewer:

In the middle of Marvel’s Civil War, an even bigger threat forces the heroes to overcome their differences to save the world

Platform: XBox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii, Playstation 2, Nintendo DS, PSP
Developer: Vicarious Visions, Savage Entertainment, n-Space
Publisher: Activision
Genre: Action/Adventure
# of Players: 1-4, Co-Op Multiplayer online
U.S. Release Date: September 15th, 2009
MSRP: $59.99 ($49.99 Wii, $39.99 PSP, $29.99 DS & PS2)

About 3 months ago I had the opportunity to sit down with this game for a brief period, and was fairly happy with what I saw. As a result, I was pretty eager to get my hands on the full version of the game.

A car accident, a trip out of town, and a broken TV later, I finally got a chance to sit down with this one and give it a full treatment. Honestly, I am not entirely sure it was worth the wait.

The story is a new take on the Marvel event series Civil War. After starting off with events from Secret War , the plot takes us through the familiar catalyst to Civil War – the Stamford Incident. Of course, this leads to the passing of the Superhuman Registration Act, which then requires you (in story) to choose sides. Will you follow Captain America’s anti-Registration Secret Avengers, or follow Iron Man in support of the act?

Your choice really only impacts about a third of the game (the second of three ‘Acts’) because in the final third of the game, Iron Man’s faction loses control of the nanites that are controlling the Supervillains. The nanites’ network has become complex enough to be self-aware – and the two factions must join forces before the entire world is assimilated by the nanites. A little Borgy, but overall, the story ended up being a lot better than its inspiration was, so that is a plus.

The story does make the game a bit short for the price – the fact that you are supposed to play through it twice (once on each side) is supposed to make-up for that, but there really isn’t much more to be had the second time through. At $60… the length is a cause for concern, and might make the game better suited as a rental or a used purchase unfortunately.

Structurally, there isn’t much that separates this game from its predecessor, or even the previous X-Men Legends games. You still control a quartet of heroes as you make your way through the story, smashing opponents and your surroundings alike in an effort to save the day. There are some significant differences that expectedly come from this new console generation, specifically in graphics and the sheer number of opponents you can face at once. The sheer numbers of grunts you face at one time makes the game a lot more palatable than previous incarnations…. you are supposed to be super-powered characters after all, it really never did make sense that 4-8 normal humans would have a hope of beating your team of four, or even coming close.

That does bring me to something I didn’t expect to talk about – power levels. In previous games, the power-levels of all of the playable characters were somewhat homogenized. It made sense – you didn’t want one or two players to totally dominate the game. This formula worked well in both X-Men Legends games and in the previous Ultimate Alliance installment. Things are a bit different this time around – the more powereful characters in comics are quite literally the most powerful players in the game. Utilized correctly, some players end up being almost unstoppable in this game. Hulk and Thor can lay waste to entire boards of opponents in a single stroke. Their durability allows them to stand toe-to-toe with bosses that would flatten “street-level” characters like Daredevil. This doesn’t apply to just bricks – other abilities give certain characters a huge advantage. Wolverine and Deadpool) become nearly impossible to kill thanks to their healing factor. Granted, they can’t dish out the same kind of damage that Thor can, but with a little patience you can virtually solo any boss in the game with either of them.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that the other characters aren’t fun to play, but if you want an easy time beating the game, team selection isn’t that difficult.

The voice-acting is fun, and really helps the game’s feel. As you fight, every character has a series of lines, battle cries, or sarcastic comments they use throughout the battle. Sure, they aren’t infinite, and they do repeat occasionally, but they do a decent job with the characters and that little touch gives the game a good feel. They aren’t always totally on character if you consider the comic, but the game has a wider appeal than the funny-books, and if you are a little forgiving those few lapses aren’t bad. The ultimate in hilarity comes at the end of the game, when you uncover the Hulk-ku Audio Track. Of course, if you don’t like spoilers, don’t click this, but if you want a good laugh, you have to listen. Stan Lee also makes a cameo as Senator Lieber, and as usual his voice is unmistakable.

Sadly, those annoying HQ maps have made their return in this version – and while you aren’t sent on a series of missions where you have to find people to talk to this time around, you do need to have a certain number of “unique” conversations if you want to unlock achievements. As in previous games, the HQ portion of the game is tedious, and really breaks up the flow of the game. There is nothing about these boards that couldn’t be accomplished with menus outside the normal structure of the game.

There are also dialogue encounters in game, where you are given three choices in how you respond to the character – Aggressive, Diplomatic, and Defensive. Honestly, this system really didn’t add much to the game. You do eventually get some bonuses for sticking to one kind of response throughout the game (getting enough “points” in a certain category to achieve the reward), but the conversation plays out pretty well the same no matter how you reply. I could have done without this feature all together. It adds nothing to the game, and really does nothing beyond breaking up the action.

Power Fusions are the core attraction of Ultimate Alliance 2. They definitely added something to the game, but not in the way I expected. The marketing for this game promised unique Fusion combinations for each and every playable character combination, but that isn’t exactly what we got. There are some basic kinds of Fusions – and they are varied, but they are hardly different for every single combination. Two big bricks will invariably jump up and down in a clearing attack, where pairing a brick with Wolverine will almost always give you some variation of a Fastball Special. Yes, there are different animations for every character combination… but only because there are different characters in every one. But more often than not, Hulk is either jumping up and down or picking up a huge rock in his fusions.

While the pairings themselves don’t end up being as diverse as you might have expected, the combinations themselves lead to important tactical distinctions. There are three different types of Fusions – Clearing, Guided, and Targeted – and each has specific situations they are best used in. Each Fusion has a minimum number of “hits” you need to achieve to earn an health pack (which can be used to heal or revive a character), which result is almost as important as the damage you cause. Targeted Fusions require you to hit a boss or leader, where Clearing Fusions want you to hit a certain number of opponents. It does you no good to use a Targeted Fusion on a board full of grunts, just as a Clearing Fusion isn’t much good when it is just your team against a boss. If you don’t diversify your team, you might find yourself in a situation where you don’t have the right kind of Fusion available when you need it.

Of course the save spots from previous games have been eliminated in this version (a positive change), so swapping out a character is as easy as hitting pause, but there is a small element of strategy to be had when planning your team.

Graphically, the game is a lot cleaner than previous incarnations, the powers look more impressive. But there were some definite glitches, to my dismay. I can remember one in particular when you are in Wakanda, and have to face-off against the Green Goblin, Venom, and a few waves of nanite-infected enemies. I remember Goblin disappearing at one point during the fight – I just assumed he was dead, and I missed the normal “boss-pause.” I defeated Venom, and then fought wave after wave of grunts. Eventually the waves ended up being trickles, and I started to wonder what was wrong. I couldn’t get out of the room, and there was nothing to activate.

Finally, changing my team to include a flier revealed the trouble – close to the top of the screen, the Green Goblin, trapped inside the elevator. He couldn’t move, and nothing I could do pulled him out. I couldn’t see his energy meter, so all I could do was find a flying character with an AoE attack and hope that did the trick. Thankfully it did – but I was at the point where it looked like I was going to ahve to redo the boss-fight, something that was most irritating.

That wasn’t the only example, but it was the most glaring. Another instance occurred during co-op play, when as Thing I picked up a train-car, and stuck it into the side of a cave wall, which blocked the board. Thankfully there weren’t any enemies, and the obstruction was quickly passed, but throughout my time with this game there were several similar instances that added some needless frustration to the game.

Speaking of co-op, I did get a chance to try out the co-op mode with our own Mark Blicharz. What did you think of the multiplayer mode Mark?

 

Co-op play is virtually the same as single player mode. The big change is I was able to throw cars and buses at Craig, which was fun. Sure it didn’t hurt him at all, but having a bus landing on his head was amusing none the less. The game does become more fun with a friend.

I couldn’t agree more – co-op play does add a great deal to this game, for more than the fun-factor alone. The AI for the computer-controlled allies isn’t that bright… having an actual human playing along with you does make your team function that much better. Plus, difficult opponents always seem to target the character you are controlling in single player, whereas in multi-player they actually just target whichever one of you happened to be closest. That fact alone allowed for a lot more flexibility in tactics, and made things a little less stressful.

And I have to admit, I did enjoy setting off ammunition piles on Mark… who wouldn’t? 

Though if you do play online a headset is needed or you’ll end up saying to the TV “Why is he going the wrong ******* way?” often as I did with Craig.

This is a must. You don’t have to have the headset, but it is better to have one, simply so you can tell your ally what the heck is going on. In this game it can be easy to get turned around, but sometimes one of you will want to go for the main objective, while another will want to go towards an optional objective or a hidden Rune or something to that effect, and you end up with the inevitable tug-of-war.

If you plan on playing any game co-op, get a working headset. That’s just common sense! 

The biggest downside is if you have Juggernaut and the person playing with you doesn’t, he/she would have to download a patch first. Overall the co-op is much more fun than the single player and is the way I’d recommend this game. Solo the game gets repetitive very quickly.

Once again, I have to agree. This game is a lot more fun in co-op. If you have that option available to you, take advantage of it.

I am not sure if this is the case on PS3, but it is definitely true on X-Box. This does lead me to wonder if that will be the case when DLC characters like Carnage become more commonplace, will you need a patch for each of them? This problem does end up highlighting a problem I have with online content – you should get the entire game when you pay for it. The game cost $60, and was actually kind of short for the price. Instead of working on more content, the developers had to spend time prepping a DLC Pack that included more characters for later, on top of “Exclusives” like Juggernaut if you pre-ordered at Gamestop, or Blade and Cyclops on the Wii. The DS version of the game even has a playable She-Hulk! Exclusive characters and post-release downloadable content have hurt the gaming industry, and this game is a good example of that. We paid for the game, give us the whole game! But I digress.

Where this game is simple, it shines. In many respects, this is as close to a modern sidescroller as we will ever get, but for some reason Activision keeps wanting it to be more, to its detriment. You still have some control over how your character levels up if you so choose, but there is a default “Auto-upgrade” mode which is nice, but not quite enough. The RPG elements of the previous game and X-Men Legends were the biggest weak-points, yet they continue to plague the franchise. This game is a smash-em-up, outside maybe making the characters more powerful as they progress through the game, there is no reason at all to go into any detail with customizable stats and power levels. Pausing to level your character breaks the flow of the game and adds nothing to it in the long term. The same goes for the wide array of team-bonus levels you earn and can use in this game. They add next to nothing to the gameplay, and ultimately end up being a distraction that breaks the flow of the game. In almost every respect, this game would become worlds better if it embraced what it was, and stopped trying to be an RPG. Giving the characters a basic power-set that stayed uniform throughout the game, eliminating needless bonuses (pretty much everything except the perks you get for using the Fantastic Four together, for instance) and upgrading, and cutting out those obnoxious Headquarters maps all together would make this game miles better than it is.

Even with the flaws, this is a fun game – I’d even go so far as to say it is better than the predecessor. Ultimately, though, this game would be ranked much higher if the RPG elements, HQ maps, and Diplomacy Conversations were removed – essentially this is an outstanding game with a bunch of extra stuff added that isn’t so good. If you enjoyed the first Marvel: Ultimate Alliance game, you are sure to love this one. Heck, the Slingers fan in me is happy – at the very least Prodigy is in the game, and a boss to boot! If only we got Speedball instead of Penance…

Rating:

Reviewer: Craig Reade
Quick Rating: Excellent
Rating: T (Teen)
Official Site

Joker takes control of Arkham Asylum, and sets an elaborate trap for the Dark Knight.

Platform: XBox 360, Playstation 3, PC (September release)
Developer: Rocksteady Studios
Publisher: Warner Brothers
Genre: Action/Adventure
# of Players: 1
U.S. Release Date: August 25th, 2009
MSRP: $59.99

The hype for this game has been something else. Sometime a few weeks ago, the buzz about this game went from something you might expect from a decent game, to something people couldn’t stop talking about. I even read a story about it on the Yahoo homepage as the feature story!

Now hype can be a dangerous thing. It has a strange way of inflating expectations, and making a fairly decent game seem like a let-down. So I did my best to ignore the hype, and sat down to play the game. Plenty of time to think about that after I was done.

Obviously, this game is a superhero game, which has its own unique set of challenges. Sometime back in the mid-90’s, game technology advanced to the point where it was no longer acceptable to simply create a basic game and insert a superhero into the lead role. Sure, that worked back in the early days, when you could make a punch-em-up side-scroller and just make the avatar Batman. When you got to the level of platforms like the Nintendo 64, suddenly that formula started to make for a bad game. Anyone else remember Superman 64?

These days, to have a successful superhero game, not only does the game have to be well made, but it has to allow you to in some sense live the comic book experience. Spider-Man 2 (2004) successfully captured the feel of webslinging through Manhattan. X-Men Legends recreated the team-combat dynamic that is so integral to the X-Men comics. In order for Batman: Arkham Asylum to be a real hit, it would have to capture some part of what it is to be Batman – meaning master martial artist, detective skills, gadgets, and shadow-stalking. I am pleased to say that on all counts, this game nailed it.

Combat is fairly intuitive, and well designed. The system is simple – one button attacks, one button does a stun attack, one counters, and one dodges (with a double tap). The system is designed so that you can charge into a group of a dozen opponents, and take them all out without taking a hit. Early in the game, you quickly find yourself just chain attacking, but soon you discover that it is imperative that you not only master the timing of the attacks, but also that you incorporate counters and stun attacks at appropriate moments to keep the combo chain going. You are encouraged not only to win fights, but also to flow from opponent to opponent without taking a hit or missing a shot. The more consecutive attacks you can chain together, the higher your experience bonus is – experience points being the currency you use to purchase upgrades as the game progresses. Without a doubt, the game captures what it is like for Batman to combat multiple opponents that he far outclasses in skill. It really is only the numbers that give the sense of danger – as it would be for Batman. There isn’t a thug in the game that you can’t handle with ease 1 on 1, but in the flurry of combat, one lucky shot can turn the fight around.

Speaking of lucky shots, I can’t tell you how awesome it was to get hit in the head with a pipe in the middle of the fight. One moment you are in control, and then you miss that one counter, and CLANG – the pipe hits. The game actually blurs the screen, almost as if you were looking at something cross-eyed – you see double (maybe triple). You can still fight, and still move, but your vision is disrupted, and you just have to fight through it. An outstanding touch.

Of course, Batman is human, and despite the armor he wears, he is certainly not bulletproof. This game remembers that as well. You should not get shot – ever. Opponents with guns (with some exceptions) are better to take out with stealth – and this game allows for that as well. You can sneak up on opponents and silently take them out, stun them with a batarang or an explosion, or even drop down from a gargoyle and string them up. And yes, there are many occasions where you can drop down on top of a group from above, cape extended, gliding in for the surprise kick. Batman operates well from the shadows – and the variety of high ledges, low walls, and removable floor-crates allow you to find cover easily. So long as you remain aware of your surroundings.

The detective aspect is present as well – and the game wisely handles this in two ways. Of course Batman is a master detective – but how do you incorporate that into a game? Players would want to feel as if they were solving a puzzle the way Batman would, but you can’t translate keen intellect and a talent for observing small details into a series of button presses like you can with combat. Or can you?

Part of the way the game captures the feel of Batman the Detective is with the aptly named Detective Mode. With the push of a button, you engage Batman’s scanner. This will allow you to detect opponents, determine if they are armed or not, find passageways (like vents that can be removed), and even scan for DNA or other traceable elements that will allow you to track a target. If there is something you need to figure out in order to advance the plot, entering Detective Mode will eventually help you find the answer.

Some players might be looking for a little more though – and that’s where The Riddler comes in. Throughout the asylum are the answers to a series of Riddles that Edward Nigma have left for you, as well as some trophies and other bonus items. Solving the riddle requires you locate the solution and basically take a picture of it. For example, the Riddle “This room is the end of days for even the most celebrated killer.” requires that you take a picture of Calander Man’s cell – which you will recognize because it is covered in torn off calender pages.All of the items on the Riddler Grid will give you more experience points, which of course allow you to upgrade your gear. They aren’t required to advance the plot, but they definitely add another dimension to the game, a welcome one if you want

Atmosphere is such a crucial part of this game. To me, the game is somewhat reminiscent of “D” in that respect. Of course, “D” had the misfortune of being released when technology (in particular graphics) were at something of a transitional phase, but one thing it definitely got right was atmosphere. Halo also did this well, particularly when you were first introduced to the Flood. In Batman: Arkham Asylum, atmosphere serves as the mortar that cements all of the great individual aspects of the game together. The sense of danger throughout the Asylum is palpable, and the Joker’s voice taunting you over an intercom as the game progresses really gives the game some meat. Graphics (particularly lighting) and music make you feel danger when it is there, urgency when it is required, and calm when it is time to think. Atmosphere in this sense is something of an intangible, but there is no denying that it was handled masterfully here.

A lot of credit for the quality of this game has to go to the writing and the voice acting. The names might seem familiar to you – Paul Dini writing, Kevin Conroy voiced Batman, Arleen Sorkin voiced Harley Quinn, and Mark Hamill voiced the Joker – a real reunion from Batman: The Animated Series. Of course, this isn’t a game based on that property, but Batman in general, so no worries about the look. Speaking of the look, the folks at Wildstorm were behind Batman’s design for the game – continuing a tradition of comic professionals contributing to the success of games like this. Mark Hamill’s work was key – his Joker has reached an iconic status, and if anyone else was voicing the Clown Prince, it would have been jarring.

The graphics are gorgeous, but the cut scenes can be lacking, especially when you are watching a conversation. They basically use the same models you see in the game during these cut scenes – and that leads to moments of weird stiffness, unnatural eye-movement, and bad lip-syncing. The first instance of this you will notice right away on the opening screen (Press Start!) – you see Batman standing, his cape blowing in the breeze, a real feeling of action. Only his body doesn’t move at all. It is almost like they forgot to put a slight head and arm movement, and the result looks like an unnatural statue wearing a cape. Gotta be honest though – in today’s game industry, too often there is a focus on the quality of the cut scenes, and the game suffers as a result. Far be it from me to complain about a slightly sub-par movie, when the game play is so phenomenal. This game was slightly lacking in the one area where it is perfectly fine to be slightly lacking – there was a dip in quality there, but they deserve points for having their priorities right.

One other bit about the game that was a slightly bigger problem – the beginning. At this point, Batman has captured the Joker, and he is being processed for incarceration at Arkham Asylum. Batman is suspicious because Joker gave up too easily, and decides to accompany the Joker and his guards until he is satisfied that his nemesis is safely in custody. So you walk – and only walk – for at least 10-15 minutes, following the Joker until he makes his move. The voice-work during this time is outstanding of course, but it is long, and quickly becomes something you have to tough out.

Outside the game itself, there are several “challenges” that try your still at both group combat and stalking. I found these to be a blast – but also a great way of honing your skills for some of the more difficult encounters later in the game. The combat challenges were particularly valuable, as they help you get over just mashing X in combat, and actually timing your selected shots. Being able to fight mob after mob without having to die and watch a couple scenes again was a lot of help. Don’t skip these until you finish the main game – you will pick up skills there that will help you beat the game. Plus, its a fair bit of fun. Those challenges also keep track of your scores, which allows you to compete and compare with your friends, or with all online users. A nice couple of extras, and nothing forced.

Is this the “Greatest Comic Game of All Time” as some people are proclaiming it? I really can’t say – that kind of thing is whole lot of hype uttered by some pretty self-important folks.

But there are two things that are absolutely true about this game. One – its an outstanding comic game, that successfully captures what it is to be Batman.

Two – it is plain and simply an outstanding game. You owe it to yourself to check this one out.

Rating:

Buy your comics online from X-World and save!

OVERVIEW 

A runner gets involved in a murder, where her sister is the prime suspect!

REVIEW 

At the very least you have to give EA Games credit for trying something a little bit different here.

Mirror’s Edge has been out for several months now, and the premise of the game should be fairly familiar to most. The game follows a runner named Faith (get it? Leap of Faith? How terrible), who is one of several underground couriers who deliver physical messages to and from people who don’t want to be monitored by a totalitarian government with a stranglehold on electronic communication. These runners traverse the rooftops carrying these messages while trying to stay out of the government’s watchful eye.

Faith gets a call from her sister, a police officer, whom she later finds at the scene of the murder of Robert Pope, a popular “change” candidate for mayor. Kate asks her outlaw sister to help her prove her innocence by unraveling the crime, a quest which sets the story in motion.

To start with, I really have to give this game credit for originality. The setting alone sets Mirror’s Edge apart from just about every other game on the market today. It was almost like someone suddenly noticed that there are other colors besides gray and brown! The city is a brilliant white as this totalitarian future government apparently insists upon cleanliness, something that is truthfully far more believable than the gritty, dirty, nasty post-apocalyptic future we usually get. Everything looks brilliant.

We are also presented with a first person shooter that isn’t a shooter at all, something else that is also quite refreshing. You are extraordinarily human, which means bullets can and do kill. While you can certainly pick up guns and shoot them yourself, you aren’t encouraged to at all. You are a runner, your skills are all about mobility, and the game makes quite clear that you are expected to escape from rather than confront opponents.

So you have a fairly unique approach to game play, with a look that is unlike anything on the market today. This should be a good thing, right? Unfortunately it takes more than creativity to make a successful game, and though the truly great games start with creativity and originality, they never stop there. Mirror’s Edge doesn’t quite make it past those first few steps.

The concept of this game comes from parkour, or a system of mobility which uses the bodies natural abilities to traverse physical barriers as quickly and as smoothly as possible. In this game, you utilize something similar to that art to make your way up, down, and through buildings in order to escape your pursuers and reach your objective. The game helps you out a bit – your first time through, you have something called runner vision, which turns objects you are supposed to use red. You look for the red objects to run through, jump over, climb on, or somehow use to clear an obstacle to advance.

Thing is – not everything is usable. The levels are horribly linear – there is almost always only one way to make your way through a level and that’s it. As the game moves along, you will find yourself stopping and spending a good deal of time in a single area struggling to figure out where you are supposed to go next. This defeats the whole point of the game – movement. You just can’t improvise. You have to quickly find the one way through an area, and since you are almost always being chased during these critical times, you find yourself dying over and over again, frantically searching for the way you need to go in the seconds you are alloted. Remember in the original Ninja Gaiden where you would die over and over and over again in an attempt to make your way through a new level? This is kind of like that, only it isn’t anywhere near as fun.

The game is also very finicky as to when it will actually do what you expect it to do. You will marvel as you find yourself running across a rooftop, and begin what seems like a simple leap atop an ordinary chain-length fence – only the game decides that you suddenly can’t jump high enough to clear it! And when you start jumping up and down in the same place struggling to get your avatar to cling to the ledge just above you, but the dang thing won’t trigger! When you are presented with a game about movement, you expect Sonic the Hedgehog. Instead with all of the stopping you have to do, or are forced to do, you are basically given a clunky first person shooter without the fun of really shooting anything.

A lot of it has to do with poor mechanics programming, but some credit for this goes to the horrible button layout. The jump/leap/climb/wallrun button (all the same), is the left button. Not the usual action button… the left shoulder button. So while you are running along, using your left thumb to control the movement of your player, you are expected to use a shoulder button to perform most of the actions in the game. I haven’t seen a game that promoted carpel tunnel this badly since the original Playstation first introduced the dual-shock controller. Trust me, as you are going through your hours of trial and error, you definitely feel the pain of this game. You hardly use the regular action buttons at all. Horrible marks there.

A word about combat. Now since the game is designed with escaping your opponents in mind, you wouldn’t think that the combat system would be all that important. In fact, when I first picked this game up, I kind of looked at the weaknesses in the combat scheme to be something of a perk. You weren’t supposed to fight, after all, you were supposed to run. But then the game goes and does something utterly ridiculous – it puts you in areas where you have to fight to move forward. Suddenly, the archaic fighting mechanics are no longer a plus.

You can punch and kick your opponents – which works, but will invariably lead to you getting shot by another opponent. You can steal their weapon using a technique akin to a poor quick time event… but like the movement, the game has a nasty habit of failing to trigger, and even in slow motion, pressing the button at the exact required moment, its 50/50 whether or not it will allow you to execute the counter and steal their weapon.

And let’s say you get the gun – even that is no guarantee of success. For some reason your opponents fire their weapons at incredible range with amazing accuracy, and never seem to run out of bullets, while you have to be in their face to even graze them, and for some reason you only have 2 or 3 bullets left in the weapon. Of course, there is no ammo meter, so you kind of have to guess if you have any bullets left or not.

This game makes liberal use of elevators to hide load time – but it doesn’t do a good job of hiding anything. You are stuck in those elevators forever – there is no noise, no rumbling in the controller… heck, there isn’t even anything to listen to. You will occasionally be in an elevator with a screen where a text advertisement of some kind scrolls, adding a tiny bit of color to the game’s setting, but after 3 seconds you are done reading that and find yourself waiting… and waiting… just to burst into a level and sprint through it. There is nothing to explore – this is definitely a linear game – so the game spends all this time loading a setting that you aren’t really supposed to have time to really appreciate.

Then the cut scenes.. Cell-shading? For real? Now as a disclaimer, I liked The Wind Waker. I liked the use of cell shading as a game mechanic. But the graphics in the game play shouldn’t be better than the cut scenes! This game is presented in a crisp fashion… clean, detailed… the look of the cut scenes completely clashes with the world you are presented in the game play. Those horribly flat, poorly animated movies are almost like a broken promise.

Mirror’s Edge can be summed up with two words – failed potential. When this game was first introduced, expectations were high. But like most bad comedies, every good part was in the trailer.

Overall Rating:

Mirror’s Edge Official Site

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 was without a doubt the highlight of their presentation last night. The game is due out on September 15th, and will feature 24 characters in its playable roster. So far, the “revealed” character roster consists of:

• Spider-Man
• Wolverine
• Iron Man
• Captain America
• Hulk
• Human Torch
• Invisible Woman
• Mr. Fantastic
• Thing
• Thor
• Daredevil
• Luke Cage
• Storm
• Songbird
• Iron Fist
• Deadpool
• Venom
• Green Goblin
• Juggernaut
• Jean Grey (just announced)
• Gambit (just announced)

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 Juggernaut in Action

Juggernaut has been announced as a “GameStop pre-order exclusive” character. He was featured in the demo presentation, and was available for use when I sampled the game, and he handles about like you would expect him to. If you want information about the GameStop promotion, it can be found here.

The story itself follows the Civil War event in the comics – basically, you get to choose which side of the Registration issue you fall on, and the story will progress based on your selection. I didn’t get the sense that they were incorporating a moral choice engine here, instead I just got the sense that there were two paths you could follow in this game, so you would have to run through it twice: once from each perspective.

Running through the game for the first time, I have to admit that I feared a repeat of X-Men Legends II here. As many will recall, the basic form of this game traces its lineage back to the original X-Men Legends game (4 heroes at a time, top-down point of view, destructible environment) which was outstanding. The sequel to this game, while fun, did suffer a bit from “too much stuff.” By trying to make the game bigger and badder, they made it more complex, and muted some of the things that made each character special. In releasing the original Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, I felt some of these problems were corrected and was a bit wary about what they might bring in the sequel.

Thankfully, my fears seem mostly unfounded. There is a new game play feature to the game, “Power Fusions.” If you will recall from the last Ultimate Alliance game, each character had their own special attack that could use to lay waste to a field of enemies and cause massive damage. That seems to have been replaced with the Power Fusion concept here. Each and every character has a special joint attack with every other character in the game – that is some serious variety. I played on the X-Box 360, and to activate these Power Fusions you would pull the left trigger, and hit the button corresponding to the character you want to use in the pairing. During the ‘event,’ you can often guide the course of the attack, increasing the speed, size, and direction of the elements involved.

During my time with the game, I got to experience several of these Power Fusions – Deadpool and Thor had an interesting combo where Deadpool chucked a bunch of grenades in a tornado to destructive effect. Iron Man and Wolverine had an odd one were Iron Man reflected a beam attack off Wolverine’s claws. Many of the combos involved reflecting attacks off Captain America’s shield – Storm’s Lightning and Human Torch’s flame come to mind there. Juggernaut could do what amounted to a Fastball Special with Wolverine, and Wolverine and Deadpool had this odd tandem charging attack. Clearly there are many, many more combinations, listing them all here would get redundant. I found this change to be a pretty good one – it encourages using many different team combinations throughout the game.

I have to say that the combat mechanics were changed for the better. First off, there were many, many more opponents on the screen at one time. In the last game you’d encounter maybe 3 or 4 at once… I was easily encountering over a dozen at a time here. It was chaos… you are clearly superior to the opponents you are fighting, but you get so overwhelmed by the numbers you actually feel a sense or urgency and danger. This was missing from the previous incarnations of this game, and I found this to be a huge change for the better (this is thanks to technology above all else). And often times elements of your defeated opponents remain behind – it is kind of neat to stand in a pile of robot pieces after plowing through a dozen or so robots who were trying to dog-pile you.

Utilizing basic attacks and abilities works much like it did in previous games, as does the upgrade system. It was fine in the previous incarnations, so if it isn’t broke, why fix it, eh? The different power-sets for the characters has been tweaked a bit, and it was mostly for the better from what I saw. “Fluid” is a good way of putting it – sometime in the last game, some characters didn’t necessarily fight in a way that you might imagine they would. It made certain characters not quite so fun to play with. Granted, I didn’t get the chance to sample every character in the game, but the ones I did play seem to work quite logically.

One aspect of the combat I enjoyed was the fact that different opponents and characters were resistant to certain attacks. Whether they are robots resistant to energy attacks, or even something as basic as Human Torch not taking damage in fire, at points in the game you find you have to adjust your tactics because some enemies are flat out immune to your special attacks. I believe that element is something comic fans will appreciate in particular.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 Tinkerer Boss Fight

I also rather enjoyed the ability to revive a fallen ally in the middle of a level – it really was a pain to have to wait for a save location to bring your team back up to four. In fact, there were two notable things missing from the demo – any save location, and the “base” levels (you know, those annoying intra-mission levels where you had to walk around and perform mindless errands and get boring side-quests from the previous games?). I have no idea if these will be in the final version of the game, but if they aren’t, good riddance. The bases were always the most annoying part of Ultimate Alliance and Legends, I can’t say I would be sorry to see them go.

The look of the game is improved, but there were also some elements that were difficult to get used to. Obviously the graphics have taken a step up from the last game, but I was most surprised by the open levels. Both Ultimate Alliance and X-Men Legends had a bit of a claustrophobic feel… it was fun to smash everything around you, but even the outdoor levels felt very enclosed. That wasn’t the case here at all. When you are outside, there is room to breathe. There is a lot going on at the same time still, but the increased number of enemies makes up for the lack of garbage around you all the time.

The voice acting, what I heard of it, wasn’t too bad. They are definitely getting better at portraying these characters over time, and it reflected in my time with the game. Being a Deadpool fanboy, I was excited that I got to play through his boss encounter almost immediately. Of course, many characters start as bosses that will later join your team after you defeat them. Deadpool is no exception. It was difficult to hear, but he spoke pretty well how you might expect him to – rambling, random, and darkly silly. I am not sure about the voice quality, only because I couldn’t hear it too well (what constitutes “speaking yellow” really is something you have to hear to know if it is right), but he definitely broke the 4th wall, displaying his awareness that he was in a video game. Nice attention to detail there.

There is a lot more to see of this game, but from what I was exposed to, it looks like it is going to be a pretty solid game.

Playing Singularity

I didn’t get quite as much time with Singularity while I was there, but I have to say there is some promise there. For those that haven’t heard of it, Singularity is a First Person Shooter that is built around the discovery of an element called “Element 99” (creative, huh!). Element 99 has displayed an ability to manipulate the time-state of objects it interacts with. The Russians develop this element in an effort to change history and win the Cold War. You get sent in to stop them.

One of the game’s taglines is that you get to “use time as a weapon,” which is pretty accurate. You have two specific weapons towards this end. One is your E-99 Pistol, which fires bullets you can steer. More importantly is your TMD (Time Manipulation Device), which uses Element 99 to alter the time-state of your targets. This can be used on some environment pieces, as well as your enemies. In combat, you can use it to age or revert your opponents (reverting your opponent turns them into a placental rebirth that in turn attacks everything around it, including its allies), or fire an “impulse” which is basically a shove that causes varying degrees of damage, and brings some opponents back into phase. Your TMD can also be used to restore stairways that have crumbled, rust away a lock or a wall, or refill empty oil barrels, among other things.

Looking out a window in Singularity

This is one I am going to have to say has potential, but I need to see more of before I get excited about it. The FPS aspect was about how you would expect – though I have to admit switching between your different weapons and the TMD wasn’t very intuitive. This might be something you need to go through the game’s inevitable beginning tutorial to really grasp. The puzzler aspect could go either way. The TMD seems like a fun idea, but the environment items you can use it on are very limited. In combat its utility is varied and ever-present, but there are only very specific things you can use it on that don’t involve combat. This makes sense, but knowing when and where you are supposed to use it is something the game hopefully spells out for you a little better than the single level I got to play around with.

This game isn’t due out until sometime in the beginning of 2010, so I imagine there will be some improvements before the game is finally released. Singularity is developed by Raven Software, which is also behind the X-Men Origins: Wolverine game, both of which make use of Unreal Engine 3. If you enjoyed X-Men Origins: Wolverine, this might be a game you want to check out.

TITLE INFORMATION

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2
Developer: Vicarious Visions
Publisher: Activision
Platforms: Nintendo Wii, X-Box 360, Playstation 3, Playstation Portable, Playstation 2, Nintendo DS
Players: 1-4
Genre: Action RPG
Rating: TBA
Official Website: http://marvelultimatealliance.marvel.com/
Release Date: September 15th. 2009

Singularity
Developer: Raven Software
Publisher: Activision
Platforms: X-Box 360, Playstation 3, PC
Players: 1, possible multiplayer
Genre: First Person Shooter, Puzzler
Rating: TBA
Official Website: http://www.singularity-game.com/
Release Date: 2010 ]]> http://www.stillontheshelf.com/2009/07/24/hands-on-marvel-ultimate-alliance-2-and-singularity/feed/ 0 http://www.stillontheshelf.com/2009/07/23/punch-out-review/ http://www.stillontheshelf.com/2009/07/23/punch-out-review/#comments Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:03:40 +0000 Craig Reade http://www.stillontheshelf.com/?p=813   PLATFORM Nintendo Wii DEVELOPER Next Level Games PUBLISHER Nintendo GENRE Boxing # OF PLAYERS 1-2 Rating E10+ U.S. RELEASE DATE May 18th. 2009 MSRP $49.99

OVERVIEW

Little Mac steps back into the ring to regain his belt!

REVIEW

I must admit that I rarely ever follow E3, or any major news items about what game companies are planning to release. This is in part because everything is so sugar-coated (it is sales, after all), but mostly it is because I simply stopped caring about the number one selling point on every game these days – graphics.

Good graphics are essential – don’t get me wrong. But as someone who has grown up gaming, someone who still owns a functioning Atari 2600, someone who is old enough to have had Pac-Man fever, I find it impossible to get excited about what is really an insignificant increase in the graphics quality between the last generation and this one. Improvements in graphics meant something with the leap from 8 bit to 16… and 16 to 64, but these days? Don’t get me wrong – the X-Box 360 HD graphics are indeed gorgeous, but they are hardly enough of an improvement to sell games when game play and originality is so lacking.

Of course, this is what I suspect is the main reason the Nintendo Wii has done so well this generation. Graphics-wise, it is by far the worst of the three consoles. And since it was unveiled, some hard-core gamers have ridiculed it left and right – but it re-introduced gaming to a huge segment of the population who were left behind as games became more and more complex. It has focused on game play above all else, and in my mind is well deserving of its current status as the king of this generation of consoles.

So, with interest in Nintendo as high as we haven’t seen since the Super Nintendo, the old Ninendo franchises got a lot of focus. Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3 ended up being incredible games, setting the bar for Nintendo’s First Party titles very high indeed.

Glass Joe

I was 11 years old when Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! was first released, and at the time, the game was hard to put down. You knew a good game at that time when you would only stop playing in frustration, only to jump right back in and pump your fist in triumph when you finally figured out how to block Great Tiger’s Tiger Punch, or the timing on Bald Bull’s Bull Charge.

Having missed the announcement that this game would be released (though, I suspected it was in the works when I first saw the Little Mac Trophy in Brawl), I have to admit that I geeked out a bit when I saw my first commercial for this game.

If there is one thing this game got right was its appeal to nostalgia. Everything you remember about Nintendo’s original Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! is there – from Mac’s pink warm-up suit, running after his manager’s bike with the New York skyline in the background, to the music – it was all perfectly calculated to invoke some heavy nostalgia, which made this game a lot of fun. Doc Louis even says “Join the Nintendo Fun Clu- I mean Club Nintendo today Mac!” to you in between rounds, which was good for a chuckle. (Of course, the Nintendo Fun Club became Nintendo Power long ago, but there is a Club Nintendo today).

Naturally, the game features heavy use of the motion controls – it even makes use of the Wii Balance Board if you so desire. It seems like a great fit – the idea of bobbing and weaving on the balance board while the Wii Remote and Nunchuck register your punches should make for a fun game, right? Trouble is – the controls are horrible. The Wii’s Motion sensor technology is terribly weak. It is great for certain things – but for Punch-Out!! they work about as well as they do on Wii Sports Boxing, not very well at all. In Wii Sports, though, the imprecise flailing as two friends attempt to knock each other out is fun. In a game where timing and precision is extremely important, it is beyond frustrating. The Balance Board is equally nightmarish – I swear there was a lag between your bob and what happened on the screen.

Mercifully, the game offers a “classic” control scheme, allowing you to turn the controller sideways and play just like the old NES Punch-Out!! game (or identical to the control scheme on the Virtual Console Punch-Out!! download). Mindless flailing instantly became lethal precision, and the game suddenly became incredibly playable.

King Hippo

The game plays exactly like an updated version of that old classic. It retains the same perspective from the classic, with the camera firmly behind Little Mac. The graphics and music are considerably better – updated while maintaining the classic feel. The boxers are the same as well – keeping the whole line-up from Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, adding Bear Hugger and Aran Ryan from Super Punch-Out!!, and one new character in Disco Kid. Donkey Kong even makes an appearance as a hidden fighter in the Last Stand Mode. The fight progression is familiar, with Little Mac competing in the Minor, Major, and World Circuits of the World Video Boxing Association, winning the title in each before moving on to the next.

Thus far, you probably are thinking that this is a pretty good game, and in a way it is. The trouble is – it isn’t a new game. After a few days of playing, my interest began to wane. In fact, I only stayed excited about playing this game a little longer than I did when I downloaded the old NES version from the Wii Virtual Console. While it is to the developer’s credit that they worked so hard to emulate the original with the Wii version, the trouble is that they did such a good job that they made the exact same game.

Everything about this game is identical to the NES version. You fight the same, you have the same punch repertoire, you block and dodge the same, the boxers have the same weaknesses and tells, and you even get the same red flash when you are supposed to throw a punch to stop your opponent’s attack. In 1987, this made for a great game. In 2009, its a dinosaur.

When Punch-Out!! first came out, this was really what you could expect from a boxing game. But in terms of evolving game play, this just doesn’t cut it for a boxing game. Where is the footwork? Why do we need a boxing game where each opponent throws the exact same punches fight after fight, so that all you need to do in order to beat them is learn their pattern? Staying true to the original is one thing, but if the makers of Metroid Prime had taken it this far, we’d have gotten a 2-D side-scroller with a fold-out map, instead of a first person shooter.

Soda Popinski

The thing is – this is a fun game, in its own way. The nostalgia-factor alone makes the game a blast. But for $50, you are essentially buying the exact same game that you can get on the Virtual Console for 500 Wii Points (or about $5, give or take). Sure, Punch-out on the Wii has a few more features, but they don’t really add much. The motion controls are frustrating and ultimately worthless, the head-to-head more is interesting for a short time, and the challenges and exhibition mode give you a little more to do, but in the end, you are ultimately playing that old original game in a shinier package.

After it is all said and done, it comes down to the argument this review began with. Do graphics make the game? Here we have a case of two games, one brand new, the other 18 years old. They are virtually identical, except one has better graphics. All things being equal, of course the better graphics will make the newer version better.

But, is it better to the tune of $45? I really don’t think so. In a strange twist, the company behind the console that made its mark by laying aside graphic improvements to instead focus on gameplay have given us a game where they copied 18 year old gameplay mechanics, spruced up the graphics, and called it brand new. And to prove my earlier criticisms of todays hard-core gamer, this game has received near-perfect reviews from all the usual sources.

Sometimes it is hard to know if you should laugh or cry.

Overall Rating:

Punch-Out!! Official Site

OVERVIEW

Alex Mercer seeks to regain his memory, and exact vengeance on those that infected him.

REVIEW

The hero is a man with limitless power, a victim of an experiment gone awry, and oh yes, he has amnesia. Sounds a little familiar, doesn’t it?

One thing about video games is that certain ideas get used to death. But in a capitalistic world, a company is always going to go with what sells, isn’t it? And what seems to sell in games is this character type in a world where you can do just about anything you want. The concept familiarity doesn’t stop with the lead character – even the sprawling Manhattan sandbox suffers from the all-too-familiar muted color palate that seems to pervade action games these days. Seriously – no one in the entire city has a flowerpot anywhere? This game could do with a little color.

But then, I am getting ahead of myself.

The game begins in a morgue, where you as the protagonist Alex Mercer awaken on a slab, much to the surprise of the morticians examining you. You find that you have incredible power, and quickly are thrust into a brief combat scenario where you are taught to use a variety of Alex’s incredibly powerful abilities… which you quickly lose as the game rewinds into a standard flashback. Again – extremely familiar.

As the game progresses, you slowly gain access to more and more of his powers. Eventually your strength, agility, and jumping increase several fold, your melee repertoire diversifies and becomes more powerful, you learn to use different weapons and vehicles and your proficiency in using them increases, and you can shapeshift your body into an array of different offensive forms with varied natural weapon and armor types. In true sandbox form, your ability to traverse the city soon grows to the point where you are literally scaling skyscrapers in seconds and gliding across the city, well above the civilians and enemies below.

A standard ability which sticks with you throughout the game is Alex’s ability to absorb anyone in the game and shapeshift into their form. Disguise becomes an integral part of your strategy as there are several occasions where you are expected to move undetected – and disguising yourself as a civilian or a base commander will allow you to access areas unmolested that you would otherwise have to fight to enter.

I mentioned before that Alex has lost his memory – specifically those memories relating to what happened to him and who is responsible. The game actually has a fairly clever way of revealing this information to you – the Web of Intrigue. Throughout the game, there are specific NPCs that you can absorb in order to relive a fragment of their memory. This helps you piece together one of several lines of investigation in which you learn a bit more about the virus that has hit the city, and the players involved. These targets are scattered throughout the game – some you will encounter and absorb automatically as you encounter them in missions, but some you need to find by breaking into secure military bases, and others you stumble upon by exploring the city. After absorbing each, a short movie plays, allowing you to relive that fragment of their memory that deals with the information Alex is searching for. I enjoyed the Web of Intrigue mechanic – it was fairly innovative way of weaving the backstory logically into the game.

There are still more targets that you go after for knowledge – specifically the skills needed to use the variety of weapons and vehicles in the game. Most of the soldiers have a weapon of some kind – a rocket launcher or machine gun usually, that they will drop when they are defeated or absorbed. Alex can pick these weapons up and use them against any target in the game – military, civilian, vehicle – and even some buildings. Absorbing certain targets in military bases will increase Alex’s skill with these weapons, making them more effective. Other targets in these bases allow Alex to use the variety of vehicles – and soon you are able to hijack tanks and helicopters and use them in your fight.

This game has the potential to be wall-to-wall action, but mercifully it has an incredible amount of balance which allows you to approach almost any objective in a variety of different manners. Like GTA, there is a system in place where when you are spotted by the military, they go into full alert and begin to target you. These conflicts can escalate to the point where a Strike Team is called in to take you out. Combat can get quite bloody and chaotic, especially in civilian areas. There are literally tons of civilians so many in fact that in the middle of a brawl, it can be difficult to know who is a bystander and who is trying to kill you. Not that it really matters, since civilians are fair game – your character doesn’t have any problems smashing, slicing, blowing up, or eating civilians – or even grabbing one, running up a tall building with them flailing in your arm, and hurling it as hard as you can at a helicopter trying to kill you. You can also absorb civilians to take their form and to gain a little boost in health. You find yourself frequently dropping into a crowd of civilians just to slaughter them to max out your health meter. Alex sometimes seems sympathetic in the cut scenes, but in reality he is anything but. But I digress.

When you are taking a lot of damage, sometimes it is a good idea to take out the things trying to kill you. In the chaos of some of the brawls, it can be tough to spot exactly who is shooting at you and who is just running around in a panic. There is an ability that allows you to track hostiles that kind of looks like a thermal vision which helps in that regard, but more often than not you will find yourself not using it. When things get too hot, it is often easier to run up a building, take out the helicopters targeting you by throwing air conditioner units at them (or hijacking one, and using it to destroy the others), and hide out until they have lost your trail. Then you can slip back into the mob in your new form, and the military is none-the-wiser. This doesn’t work on infected enemies – these usually take the form of mutated civilians, but sometimes you encounter beefed up hunters which are usually very difficult to kill – they have the ability to sense the virus within you, and will find you whatever form you take. Getting distance from these groups is the key when things get too hot.

The balance here really is the beauty of the game. You can approach just about any fight a variety of different ways – from a complete stealth approach to a full-frontal assault. The side-quests can be monotonous, but the different ways you can approach them keeps things interesting. One thing you will find yourself doing frequently is breaking into military bases (which requires you to assume the form of the base commander, who is usually walking around the entrance, and get to the entrance without setting off an alarm). You find many Web of Intrigue targets and skill bonuses in these, so you usually find yourself cleaning each of these out in between missions. Upon entering the base you are in disguise – and outside the targets I listed above (which you need alive so you can absorb them), you generally want to clear out the base.

After a while, I started getting bored with this, and did what I could to clear out most of the base without actually attacking anyone. You can absorb someone using a stealth technique when none of the soldiers can see you that will avoid setting off an alarm. You can also frame someone, accusing a soldier of being you and causing the surrounding military to open fire on your patsy. This is a source of some entertainment, let me tell you.

The different tactics you can employ to clear out these bases keeps this repetitive side-mission from becoming too mundane. As with many games, you gain powers by spending XP, in the form of Evolution Points, which you gain by random killing or completing side quests. The upgrades become expensive, so doing the side quests is almost essential. Thankfully the skills at your disposal keep things varied, and prevents the game from getting too monotonous.

Combat takes a little practice, but becomes very intuitive as the game goes on. One thing I have to give this game credit for is the consistent and varied power levels of your opponents. You have your fodder, which take the form of infected civilians which usually can’t do much damage on their own and die quickly, but can sometimes swarm you like something out of a zombie flick. The soldiers are also soft and easy to kill, but their weapons do a bit more damage. Hunters can be brutal – so much so that you can’t even go head-to-head with them at the beginning of the game, and vehicles are nearly impossible to kill throughout most of the game without some kind of weaponry – be it a car or some other debris being thrown at them, hijacking, or a missile launcher. Instead of facing increasingly more powerful enemies, everything remains at about the same power level – you just gain more varied ways of tackling each foe. While you eventually become a virtually unstoppable killing machine, you still can take damage – a lot of it, from certain opponents. It does become challenging when you are fighting the military to find yourself near an infected hive. No matter how powerful you are, to suddenly find yourself in the middle of an intense crossfire with small arms fire on every side, the occasional rocket explosion sending you flying, with infected civilians swarming you, one or two hunters chasing you down, a tank lobbing shells at you, and a gunship unleashing on you from above for good measure isn’t a walk in the park.

There is no multiplayer – and while I have seen this game get criticized for the lack of the multiplayer aspect, I have to say that it really isn’t needed. I can’t think of how multiplayer would enrich this game – and an online versus system would just become boring after a while. Some games just don’t need multiplayer to be good, and this is one of them. I am actually glad that they didn’t try to cram that in there just for the check-mark in the game listings. It isn’t needed or wanted here.

Overall, I have to say this game is a lot of fun. It seems made for the console though – not only does the game have very high resource requirements for the PC (check your system before you buy), but the combat is much more natural with a handheld controller. If you are planning on picking this game up, I recommend the Playstation or Xbox versions.

Prototype suffers from some generic themes, a boring color palate, and some fairly monotonous side-quests, but the story is decent and the gameplay is frankly exciting. The variety of tactics at your disposal and the consistent and varied power levels of your different opponents makes each battle you enter into an exciting war. I have to say it is well worth playing.

Overall Rating:

[PROTOTYPE] Official Site