Consolation Prize

It seems to be traditional during the festive season to offer up some sort of list, whether it’s the “Best”, “Worst”, “Overhyped” or whatever adjective fits the agenda – well it’s my turn so I’m going to dish up my top 5 favourite games played this year.

There is, however, a small caveat – and that is to be considered for the list I must have at least played the game to completion this year. You will therefore notice that some high profile games like Fable 2 and Fallout 3 aren’t on the list, as even with the best will in the world there just aren’t enough hours in the day to play EVERY game that’s released in the mad rush towards Christmas. This isn’t a vapour-ware list of games I think should be worthy, but just a plain and honest list of games that I’ve enjoyed above and beyond my expectations this year.

5. Castle Crashers (Xbox 360 - Arcade)

There is something incredibly joyous about returning to the good old simplistic hack ‘n slash genre that is so representative of Castle Crashers. It’s as if the shackles have suddenly been thrown off and your inner child has suddenly been released and you’re free to play a game just for fun again - without worrying about “what it all means”. Castle Crashers wraps this shackle free gameplay up with some beautiful art design, adds a smattering of guttural humour and gives you a game that’s a joy to play time and time again.

Read what I thought of Castle Crashers here.

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Mirror’s Edge has a lot of potential. It promises to take the FPS in a new direction focusing on the art of free running - Parkour - and away from shooting. In fact, FPS is probably the wrong acronym to use and it would be best described as a first person action game.

Mirror’s Edge is placed in a seemingly utopian city with clean streets and gleaming skyscrapers. All is not as it seems however, and this perfect society is in fact a mask for a totalitarian government with a penchant for over the top big-brother-like surveillance. The only way to deliver sensitive information in this day and age is to employ a runner - specialists in moving data under, over, and around the radar. This is where you come in as you play the role of Faith.

There are a couple of things that you need to get used to before you can get the most out of Mirror’s Edge. Firstly the controls are a little more complicated than one would usually associate with a first person game. This is mainly due to the fact that Faith can perform a variety of manoeuvres that allow her to traverse the environment with speed and grace or disarm dangerous opponents. But, it is also true that you’re brain will require a minor rewire to automatically associate “jumping” and “ducking” actions with the assigned left shoulder buttons on the controller. Secondly, you need to be aware of your environment and make good use of Faith’s “runner’s vision” which conveniently highlights objects that will be of assistance when traversing the cityscape a bright red.

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Going back a few years to 1996 I remember thoroughly enjoying Tomb Raider on the PlayStation. It was an amazing game to play at the time; full of exploration with intricate platforming levels, featured some truly stunning and varied locations, and was steeped in mythology which enhanced the story. Both gamers and the media alike took to the new English upper class gun-toting-ass-kicking heroine, Lara Croft, like ducks to water. And for a while everything was hunky-dory.

However, after so many sequels it got to the point where the game had moved far away from the roots of its success and had become just another run of the mill action game, albeit with a female protagonist. Thankfully the series was given a much needed reboot by Crystal Dynamics with the release of Tomb Raider: Legend – an enjoyable romp based on the Arthurian legend. And now we’re on the verge of finding out whether the series is going to continue it’s upward ascent, or is about to plummet back down to earth like a fallen angel (of darkness) with the release of Tomb Raider: Underworld

The recently released demo at least gives us an inkling of how the finished game is going to fare, and on the whole I’m pretty happy with what I’ve seen so far. Although there are still some issues that could do with being ironed out.

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Since the “Summer of Arcade” extravaganza came to a close I’ve not really been paying that much attention to the latest Xbox Live Arcade releases. But it’s about time that changed, so I downloaded both Shadow Assault Tenchu and War World yesterday in the hope of finding a lost gem. Did I find a diamond in the rough? Or were they both just plain old lumps of coal? Well today I present my impressions of Shadow Assault Tenchu, to be followed shortly by War World.

Shadow Assault Tenchu is a puzzle action hybrid viewed from a top down perspective. Upon selecting a character - of which only the one: Rikimaru, is available in the trial game - the player is tasked with negotiating a series of levels and completing a simple objective per level such as “defeat all enemies” or “kill the Samurai general”.

However, instead of having equipped weapons at the ready with which to deal out death and destruction you are required to pick up “one shot items” that lie dotted around the map, laying them as traps in strategic positions to eliminate the opposition. Luckily choosing the best place for a trap is a fairly simple affair as the enemy path finding is purposefully rudimentary and it shouldn’t take too long before a set pattern can be identified. To make it even easier to sneak up on your foes the enemy line-of-sight is heavily restricted and is actually shown as a number of surrounding yellow squares giving you a clear indication of how close you can get without detection.

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I finally tried out the Mercenaries 2: World in Flames demo that has been sitting in my proverbial “games to play pile” for over a couple of weeks now. It didn’t give me the sudden urge to rush down to the local game emporium and hand over some hard earned green, but neither did I feel it deserves to be shot down in flames.

The problem with the demo is that it drops you in straight in at the deep end and gives you no time to acclimatise to the controls or the game itself. Given the mercenary Mattias Nilsson, your mission should you choose to accept it, is to install a listening post deep within a heavily defended enemy compound. Starting atop a rocky outcrop as the mission begins it’s only a matter of seconds before you’re under fire and harassed by lots of unhappy Venezuelans leaving little time to scope out the enemy encampment and formulate a plan of attack. Somehow I don’t think Mercenaries 2: World in Flames deals in too much subtlety.

I have to admit that initially Mercenaries 2 proved to be frustrating. The direct approach into the compound didn’t go according to plan, and playing tag with some explosive shells from a light tank patrolling the compound didn’t help Mattias’ complexion. However, after discovering you can hi-jack vehicles - with a press of “Y” followed by a short button pressing quick time like event – I found that I could trundle quite happily into the compound “disguised” as one of the faction’s members allowing me to get closer to the designated objective. This subterfuge only lasts for as long as you’re not rumbled by the enemy, or get out of the vehicle, and is indicated by the use of a gauge which gradually decreases when loitering near enemy troops.

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Too Human is an unusual game to play. Not from the perspective of its genre, as it could be catogorised as a futuristic action RPG dungeon crawler, but in the way that it requires a serious investment of both time and energy in order to fully understand how to play the game and enjoy its full potential.

I’ve not played a game in a long while where I’ve been left feeling completely confounded by a game. It was only through determination - and gritted teeth - that the veil of fog clouding my comprehension of its mechanics began to lift. Only now, after completion, do I feel like I’m starting to get a handle on some of the peculiarities surrounding Too Human.

Finally I’ve grasped how light and dark “polarity” enemies’ work. Virtually impregnable to either melee strikes or ballistic attacks the correct type of attack must be used against these opponents otherwise they’ll benefit from whatever you throw at them. It sounds like a simple rule but as it’s not explained in depth (correct me if I’m wrong) it led to many frustrating encounters where I was slaughtered by these seemingly invulnerable opponents. It was only through enabling the damage meter that I could spot these enemies and witnessed my ballistic attacks having a negligible effect. Thus I needed to switch to an alternative strategy - melee where ballistic resistance was obvious - to dispatch the numerous hordes.

Discovering how to use the dodge manoeuvre effectively is a key skill in Too Human. Not only in the literal sense that it gets the character out of the way of incoming projectiles, but also in the fact that while dodging your character will have a few frames of invulnerability, which if timed correctly will help avoid any knockdown effects from area attacks. Again, this is another aspect that isn’t taught, but learned through trial and error - and numerous deaths. It’s a revelation when you realise those Troll hammer attacks and ground pounds are not to be feared after all.

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I noticed that while searching for the Mercenaries 2 demo on Xbox Live Marketplace last week that a demo for Fracture had been released. Now, I must confess that the idea of this landscape deformation game certainly had me intrigued, so it went straight to the top of the download queue… However, after playing through the tutorial and demo level I have to say that I’m not completely sold on the game just yet.

It all started off very promising with the tutorial; starting aboard an airborne assault craft flying over what looks like was once San Francisco Bay and past the Golden Gate Bridge while the commanding officer explains the fundamentals of your HUD, before finally getting dropped into the incursion point at the beginning of the training level. After my initial disappointment at realising there are design restrictions to the landscape deformation (there were bound to be!), which in reality meant I could only raise or lower the landscape by about 10 foot wherever some “dirt” was present, the tutorial actually turned out to be a pretty good introduction to the controls and the various weapon types and abilities on offer.

The main selling point of Fracture is of course going to be the novelty factor involved from being able to manipulate the landscape using the “Entrencher”; implemented via pressing either the left or right controller bumper buttons which in turn fires off a pulse that will lower or raise the landscape respectively. It’s an integral part of the level design and throughout the demo you’re invited, nay required, to use this ability in order to reach inaccessible higher platforms, jump over or tunnel under obstacles, and even to provide tactical cover. It all works reasonably well, even with the noticeable limitations.

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Star Wars: The Force Unleashed has the heavy burden of expectation laying heavily on its shoulders. It has been a few years since the acclaimed Knights of the Old Republic series from Bioware and the franchise demands another success.

In terms of the time-line the game takes place after Episode III: Return of the Sith but before Episode IV: A New Hope as the new Empire is mopping up what’s left of the Jedi order. The game tells the story of Darth Vader’s secret apprentice named Starkiller, the name of whom is in itself a nice homage to the original draft of Star Wars where the character we now know and love as Luke Skywalker was originally going to be called Luke Starkiller.

Starting out with a cut-scene between master and apprentice Starkiller is sent to an Imperial Shipyard which is under attack by the Jedi Master Rahm Kota. You’re mission is simple; destroy the Jedi and return his Lightsaber to Lord Vader.

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