Beaten: Alpha Protocol (PS3)

 I really really need to write these reviews immediately after finishing a game, and not months later.

Alpha Protocol was released in 2010 at the height of the XBox 360/PS3 era (which I call generation nine but the world says is eight) and there was a lot of anticipation for it. It is a full on espionage role-playing game, so a lot of us were thinking "Mass Effect meets James Bond", what could go wrong?

The reviews hit and it appeared that a lot went wrong. There were bugs and glitches of course, but for the most part the consensus was that the action - shooting, hiding in cover, and so forth - was very bad, even if the storytelling and character conversation options were great. So Alpha Protocol came and went, lost to the ages as many much more better games came after. 

There has been, however, an internet wave of nostalgia towards this game that had so much promise, but for me the question was - it is playable enough? Keeping with my recent PS3 love, I choose that version and dove in. 

After enjoying all the conversation options in my recent playthrough of Rise of the Argonauts, I was prepared for it in Alpha Protocol and was not disappointed. It really is deep and complex with options to be a nice romantic bond type or a total douchenozzle. I choose the cold professional but helpful agent. I just did my job and took some weird satisfaction in shooting down all the characters that were clearly hitting on me. "Uh, thanks for the intel, and no I am not interested in a romantic subplot with you" seemed to happen a lot.

The plot is pretty standard - agent gets burned and goes underground to uncover the plot. I loved that the villains are basically flimsy corporate caricatures and the company is basically Halliburton, and that there were little parts of the game where the TV is on talking about world events. There are a lot of small touches here and there that add depth. 

So the reviews were right - the story, characters, and conversation choices represent a part of the game that was clearly designed very well, and for multiple playthroughs. The action though, is so poor that most players wouldn't bother. The player plays in third person, and the aiming is sketchy at best, and the stealth is broken. Crouched behind cover, since Gears of War, usually means the player crouched behind an object is sort of stuck to it, and hidden. In this game, you just crouch near it an obstruction and hope for the best. If a single pixel is sticking out, a guard a hundred feet away will see you.

I had fun in my playthrough, and with a few cool boss fights to break the monotony, even the substandard action was bearable. The concept of an espionage RPG is still out there, but this attempt in 2010 called Alpha Protocol was a step in the right direction. Hopefully, someone will take that concept and run with it someday.

Beaten: Wanted Weapons of Fate (PS3)

Videogame adaptations of movies have earned a pretty bad rap, even though some of the earliest known such games were pretty good (see Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back on the Atari VCS).  Goldeneye 007 in the late 1990s was certainly a high standard, and the first time that I can recall a videogame making me immediately want to see the movie. It should be noted that the movie is adapted from a comic book.

I remember when the movie Wanted came out in 2008 and adding it to a list I had of "get around to seeing it eventually" movies. It had the star power of Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy, and Morgan Freeman, but the wife and I never got around to checking it out, even when it appeared on streaming services we had. I had also heard about the tie-in videogame but it was of course also forgotten about.

That is, until my recent hunt for XBox 360 and PS3 hidden gems, as I am coalescing around the idea that that specific console generation was the highpoint of the entire hobby. I picked up the PS3 version for this as my 360 has been getting plenty of attention this year. Reviews had warned me that it was fun but short, and my expectations were prepared.

Wanted: Weapons of Fate is a third person shooter that takes place five minutes after the movie ended. Having not seen the movie yet was not a hinderance as the game caught me up pretty fast on what was going on. The story revolves around a secretive assassin's guild and the main character's quest to understand both his abilities and history. 

The big hook of these assassins is that they can slow things down and curve bullets, and the game delivers on that cool mechanic. It's really fun once the player gets it going and the controls work well. Other than that, it's third person combat with a story that is a great continuation of the movie - which I watched a few days after beating the game. The movie is also really good.

After finishing, part of me wanted Wanted Weapons of Fate to be a little longer, but that's a minor quibble. Over the last few years I've come to value shorter game experiences, so maybe it was the perfect size. If you're a gamer that can appreciate that too, then this game is recommended.

Just Cause 2 : For The Glory of Panau

I'm still very busy, but I've got to take a few minutes to write about Just Cause 2, a game that I've been playing so much of for the last two months, logging over 120 hours of in-game time and still only reaching a mere 75% completion mark on my main playthrough.

Last year I thoroughly enjoyed the first Just Cause game on my XBox 360, in spite of some repetetive gameplay and a short story mode. Just Cause 2 is a much improved sequel, sporting amazing graphics, tight gameplay, and unquestionably the largest and most amazing open world I've ever seen. The island nation of Panau is truly a gamer's paradise and the greatest electronic playground I've had the joy to explore.

The islands sport beaches, cities, villages, airports, and military bases, and terrain that varies from snowy mountain peaks to dusty deserts. There's a major highway around the main island with exit ramps and gorgeous bridges spanning long stretches between islands. There are dusty roads leading to old ruins, immense fortresses and frozen lakes, and so much more overall variety in sights to see compared to the first game.

The action on the ground is amazing, too, with main character Rico returning with an improved grapple hook. The combination of the grapple hook and parachute are so well integrated that once the player masters their use, it almost feels like one is playing a superhero game. Gunplay is tight and not too hard even on the hardcore setting, but there is no cover button, so cover must be found and utilized naturally.

Different this time in combat is the lack of enemy tanks firing upon the player as they try to take a military base, which was quite a challenge in the first game. Helicopter gunships will fly in and blast the player, but it's really easy most of the time to just grapple up and take over the chopper. There are enemies with rocket launchers and sniper rifles that can do some damage, but I found myself actually missing the one-shot-insta-kill tanks of the first Just Cause. Guess I'm weird.

The vehicles range from scooters to passenger jets, and each of them control so well that it made me a little embarrassed for the designers of other such games I've played (I'm looking at you Rockstar Games). The aforementioned grapple hook can now be used to grapple things two things, so towing a giant statue head with a tank is just another day in Panau for Rico.

Once again, the main story is painfully short, and the cinematics are nowhere near the standards of most other games out today. There are really only seven "Agency", or main story missions, and the first and last two are concurrent. Players must "cause" a lot of chaos to unlock the progression of these missions and finish the game, which in both of my playthroughs I did with only 28% of the whole game being completed. That means that over two-thirds of the game can be ignored to just beat it if that's what one wants.

I don't recommend just skimming it that way, though. There are 49 faction missions which offer some great variety as well as funny mission names (my favorite was "River Runs Red", a reference to a great Midnight Oil song). There are also scores of racing challenges for planes, cars, boats, and even skydiving, all checkpoint-based and fun to try.

More importantly, Panau is in the humble opinion of this gamer, the greatest videogame playground ever crafted. Each time one tries to take control of a small town can end up being an unpredictably wild adventure, so the best thing I can really say about Just Cause 2 is that the action is done so well that the designers didn't really need to put a thick layer of story on it just to motivate the player to enjoy it. I find myself returning to Panau again and again - "just cause" it's still fun.

Demon's Souls - Not For The Innocent

Demon's Souls is the latest RPG offering from Japanese developer From Software, whose repertoire include the legendary King's Field games for PS1 and PS2, which was a game series that myself and maybe ten other gamers in the world just loved. Rarely does a game that is so panned by critics and players find a niche audience that "gets it", but the King's Field games were just that, and the torch has now been gloriously passed to Demon's Souls.

Oddly, though, this time the critics are on board - most reviews are very favorable, but caution the masses that the game is notoriously difficult and brutally punishing. All of this is true, of course, but it's hardly news to those of us who've survived King's Field, King's Field 2, and King's Field: The Ancient City.

And it's not that the challenge comes from out-of-scale difficulty with the enemies you fight, or frustrating game mechanics. From's RPGs are masterpieces of environmental menace, of music and mood mixed to create despairing landscapes and spirit-crushing set pieces. These worlds are then coupled with a disciplined learning curve where no quarter is given to the unwary. There's a short tutorial at the start, but no coddling from that point onward. Each level thereafter is a test of the player's ability to cautiously engage it, study it, and react to it - and it's a pass/fail test.

Failure and death means restarting the entire section in soul form, the big downside of which is that the player has half of his hit points. The other big downside (there are few "small" consequences in this game) is that the player loses all collected souls earned up to that point from killing enemies. To get them back, the player must then fight their way back to the place they fell and touch their bloodstain. Failure to do that - dying again, that is, means all those souls go bye-bye. And resurrection does not mean going back to town and paying a healer. Oh no, the only way to revive and return to full health is either by using a hard-to-find gem or by beating a boss. So, much of the exploration will probably be done in soul form, and most players will just get used to it.

But these are just the rules of the game. Like the game's combat moves, like each enemy's and boss' strengths and weaknesses, once these rules are learned and obeyed, the exploration and discovery that awaits is breathtaking. From a safe central Nexus (which contains the mechanisms for level/spell/equipment advancement) the player goes forth to five distinct sections, each with at least three areas of its own, ending with a major boss battle.

In these areas the player will encounter all manner of menaces, from soldiers to monsters, to mini-bosses, and traps. The first area is one mammoth castle, which in addition to the garrison of guards awaiting the player, has a pair of pesky fire-breathing dragons to add to the mix. They tend to watch the bridges in these areas. Another area is a deep mine, another a swampy pit of poison, and so on. Each is different enough to add to the depth of the game and littered with special surprises.

Along the way there's plenty of loot to be had, some of which encourages exploration and minor puzzle-solving. There are some NPCs left in this broken world, too, some to sell the player mid-level supplies, some to be rescued, and some to be a pain in the ass. There's a loot bank guy back at the Nexus, too, who can store items, but inexplicably none of the shops buy items from the player. The game economy is based on the same souls the player collects from defeating foes, so decisions about levelling, learning spells, or upgrading equipment all must be carefully shared and considered from the same economic pool.

Certain NPC events and expereinces, as well as the use of certain items, are irreversable in a single playthrough, so decisions one makes have a heavier impact. The game's constant autosave system does not allow for saving before a critical moment, failing at it, and restarting at that save. One can quit and save almost anywhere in a section, though, so resuming at a later time doesn't mean restarting that whole section.

All of this standard but harsh RPG stuff is executed quite well, but it's still standard. Where Demon's Souls veers into new worlds of innovation is in its application of online features into what one might otherwise mistake for a single-player game. Assuming the player has the PS3 hooked up to the internet, these features are all there once the game is started up and hooked up to the Demon's Souls server.

Players can see ghost images of other players curently playing in the same section. Touching a player bloodstain on the ground shows the ghost player's death, which can reveal traps and other ways to die that lie in wait. Players can leave messages on the ground for other players, filled with useful warnings and such, and if other players recommend a message one leaves behind, the writer receives a health boost. And there's a really cool hall of heroes display in the Nexus showing the most advanced players in the world. I'll never make it there.

But wait, there's more. Players can travel to each other's games cooperatively, or even competetively. Co-op means sharing the souls and the resurrection when beating a boss. Competetive means that, while playing at full health, other players may invade your game with the intention of hunting you down, taking some of your souls, and resurrecting their own.

Not since the glorious early days of Ultima Online have I experienced such heart-pounding unsolicited PvP action. I've only dabbled in it, been invaded a few times, won a few and lost a few more, but it's an aspect of Demon's Souls that's not to be missed, and adds not only suspense and challenge to the single-player game, but replay value for future sessions.

Demon's Souls is a masterpiece of mood and suspense, a unique gem in a generation of games that while often amazing, are timid when it comes to risky innovation. Only From Software could make a game like this, and only certain players will find the level of commitment within themselves to embrace the unquestionable challenge that this title represents. It's not for everyone, but it is for anyone who wants something different and can approach the difficulty with a cautious level of humility. Players who meet these qualifications will find the rewards that Demon's Souls offers unlike those from any other gaming experience currently on the market.

Fall 2009 Wrap - Up

Let's start out 2010 with another quick review of what I've been playing over the last few months. The fall of 2009 was a hectic gaming season, as usual, and my work schedule hasn't allowed me the time to write an in-depth review of each of these titles.

Mass Effect Galaxy (iPhone)
This top-down, singe-screen-at-a-time shooter from EA was a fun little diversion, introducing players to some new characters that are supposed to appear in the upcoming sequel. The battles are bookended by cut scenes and the same "choose your adventure" conversations that Mass Effect had.

While enjoyable, the adventure was short, and the gameplay suffered from drastic onscreen slowdown when the bullets were flying. While I was able to adjust my playing to the game's loss of speed during those moments, such issues are barely forgiveable in this day and age.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (XBox 360)
This little-known first-person shooter did a lot to recapture the intense action and over-the-top storytelling of its predecessor, and for the most part, it pulled it off. There was one mission, however, that was so over-the-top as to be nauseating, and seems so pointless in the story's bigger picture that it all feels gratuitous.

But everything else about the game, including the extremely accessable multiplayer and the gorgeous graphics, was stunning to behold. More gamers need to to be made aware of this fledgling game franchise, so get out there and tell every gamer you know about Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2!

Assassin's Creed 2 (XBox 360)
Everything I complained about in the first Assassin's Creed game seven months ago seems to have been addressed in some manner in the sequel, which takes place in Renaissance Italy. Assasin's Creed The Next Generation's Ezio can swim, more of the background story in the future has been explained, and the missions seem less repetetive.

There are more combat options, more cinematic cut-scenes, an economic system with shops, the looting of corpses, Tomb Raider style tomb raiding, and some intense observational puzzles featuring classic and historic works of art. I've played about halfway through the game, and am once again having a fantastic time, in what is once again a unique videogame setting with great historic credibility.

Little Big Planet (PS3)
Did I mention that I picked up a PS3 back on Black Friday? Oh, I did, and it came bundled with this game and the next one I'l talk about. Little Big Planet came into my sights with not-so-little amounts of hype, and I've yet to delve deep enough into the game to say for certain whether or not the cutesy 2.5D platformer with questionable jumping lives up to it all.

I understand that it's supposed to be played online, with others, as puzzles start to show up where 2,3,or 4 players are required to solve them. There's a whole custom level design thing, and tools/items are acquired along the way for this, but I haven't the time or desire to get into that either. Nor do I really want to stop and put stickers on stuff in the game, or change my character's outfits every few minutes.

Little Big Planet is a game I may enjoy eventually - but right now the "game" seems like too much "work".

God of War Collection (PS3)
The other game bundled with my PS3 was this compilitation of the PS2 classics, the first of which I had tried a few years ago and found to be to frustrating. I tried again, felt the frustration building again, and haven't picked it up since. Maybe later.

This concludes my lazy half-assed wrap-up article. There was one more major game I've been playing, but it assuredly deserves its own write-up and will get one soon.