The math based Risk: Fractions was scrapped due to lack of interest

Not since Arthur Percival surrendered his 138,708 strong army of Allied soldiers to a Japanese force numbering approximately 30,000 has such poor military nouse been exposed on such a large scale … until now.  Risk: Factions is based upon the classic Parker Brothers board game, Risk.  The basic concept of the game is simple world military domination, while smack-talking the crap out your opponents and attempting to rob them of any feeling of self-worth.

Games need a minimum of two players, with a maximum of five, but you can set each game up with a mixture of human and AI opponents.  Each player takes one of five factions: Humans, Cats, Robots, Zombies or Yetis.  In the traditional game you play a board based on a map of the world, cut up into territories and regions rather than the countries.  The gameplay is turn-based, with each player taking turns attempting to attack the surrounding occupied territories to build up their own empire.  At the beginning of each turn you receive extra soldiers based upon the number of countries and continents you control.  A traditional match ends when one player takes complete control, or (unfortunately more commonly) when the last remaining human player  disconnects in defeat.

That’s just the traditional rules, however.  To crank up the pace a little (traditional games can take up to an hour or more to resolve online) Risk: Factions introduces Factions rules.  Factions is introduced in the single player campaign, where your success or defeat relies upon completing various objectives instead of simple domination. There are only five levels, and you’ll play a different army each time, essentially pitting you against the previous armies that you played as.  The levels aren’t overly taxing as they’re essentially a slightly longer than normal tutorial setup, in which the player is introduced to a variety of different additions that have been made for this game.  The general tone is light-hearted, in between each of the levels there are some hilarious cartoon cut-scenes.  On first viewing you’ll probably assume the characters were designed by the Penny Arcade crew, but although these are the same animators who worked on Penny Arcade Adventures, none of the Factions art comes from Mike Krahulik.

Newly introduced "Overkills" allow you to decimate your opponents with a single roll

Once you have worked your way past the single player campaign, then you enter the area that this game is made for: multiplayer.  Having played against others on the same console AND over the internet, there is one truth about this game that is self-evident: I’m not the strategist I thought I was.  It is, of course, partially down to luck when it comes to this game; every battle is decided through a series of dice rolls, and if you’re unlucky enough you can see an attacking force of 20 wiped out by a defending force of 2.

However, the new rules do tend to give those that go hard early an advantage.  In each game, there are bonuses that one can gain by completing required tasks (ie. holding three continents; taking 10 territories in one turn; kicking Matt in the nuts etc.).  The most advantageous of all these are the extra dice, which can give you an additional roll for either your attacks or your defence.  Once you have the defensive die, you’ll automatically become the most frustrating player on the board.  Matt would regularly cock-block  my impending vicotry by sneakily picking up an extra dice and ruining my chances to push forward.  He’s a pain in the arse pretty gool guy (-Ed) sometimes.  Other bonuses range from extra troop movements to region specific dice modifiers.  Certain boards also give bonuses for controlling certain strategic positions, the most overpowered of which would be the Temple, which allows the controlling player to convert any territory and it’s troops to their own team at the beginning of the turn.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that this boardgame remake is geared completely towards it’s multiplayer facet.  Happily, despite being released six months ago, I am yet to have any trouble  finding an opponent  online. The beauty of Risk is that it is a great leveller and, as mentioned in the opening sentence of this article, has been the source of some of the greatest simulated military blunders in history. Perhaps because of this, there doesn’t appear to be any great matchmaking system in place, with regards to who plays whom. Aside from how quickly the game can turn, one of the rules specifically made for Risk: Factions is that all one has to do is keep hold of his capital and take hold of three continents to win the game. This game equalises the foolhardy with the brilliant all too easily.

The game does have a few minor drawbacks, mostly surrounding the questionable actions of the computer AI. If you add AI players with your multiplayer games, they typically fall to in-fighting before they can become any concern for the human players.  They’re also a little obsessed with owning their own capitals, and seem more than willing to throw all of their troops into fruitless attempts at regaining them once lost. I’m not asking to have it based on Robert E. Lee, but at least not on Sean Penn in I Am Sam. Another disappointment is how short the single player campaign mode is. Five levels that you can complete in 2-3 hours is about half the length of what I was hoping for with a game of this calibre.

The Verdict:

Pros: The faction characterisation is great, and lends a personable touch to what can otherwise be a somewhat sterile game.  Factions hasn’t messed with the basic original concept, additions to the game have all been positives with no negative impacts … and if you don’t like the new rules you can always find plenty of people to play a traditional match with.  Multiplayer works well locally and online.

Cons: A short single-player campaign is unfortunate.  “Handicapable” AI.

Overall: This title is exactly what it should be: an enjoyable port of a classic game, with enough updates to keep the attention of the modern day gamer.  It’s a brilliant multiplayer game that allows you to blow the crap out of your friends, but with enough strategy/luck to make your victories/losses worth bragging/complaining about. The sense of humour and replay value make it a very solid purchase on XBLA. If you enjoyed the boardgame, or just greatly enjoy having a mental tussle with your friends then I highly recommend this for you. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Sprinting for your life hasn't been this colourful in a long time

Reimagining a myth is a classic launch pad for entertainment.  The evolution of story, characters and themes nurtures these myths, keeping them alive in a world that can have the memory span of a goldfish.  Sometimes it goes well (the God of War franchise and Dan Simmon’s Illuim books being fine examples) and sometimes it goes quite badly (Clash of the Titans or The Bible … not so much).  Thankfully Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is a member of the former group. It’s not the first modern retelling of the myth of Monkey – you may remember the old TV show and might have seen the recent terrible movie adaptation starring Chairman Kaga from Iron Chef.  These kitschy retellings thankfully were followed up by Damon Albarn’s Opera last year.

Ninja Theory’s game leaves out some of the recognisable markers of the original story, but is thankfully no less enjoyable for it. There’s no Dragon-disguised-as-Horse, no demons, no overall journey to become a great immortal sage or collect scrolls. Monkey certainly can’t multiply himself or change into anything (except maybe from angry man who wants to kill Trip to an angry man who might be in love with Trip), but we do have the Cloud, the headband, the staff. We still have Pigsy and his lecherous ways, and we still have a story that ends in Enlightenment.

As the story goes, the nature of Monkey was … irrepressible.  In this version (written by Alex Garland) Monkey is a large, agile, brutish man, plucked by Slavers from the wasteland of post-apocalyptic North America and held in a an egg-shaped containment unit on a flying transport.  He watches an attractive and early 90’s fashion-inspired young woman escape, and then the ship begins to explode.  Nice timing, really.  Monkey escapes, just barely, in what is a rather nicely done spin on the Tutorial level, and crashes to Earth on the outside of the girl’s escape pod.  He wakes up to find that the girl he followed has now slapped a Slaver control headband on him.

So this is the "unexpected challenge" my horoscope mentioned this morning ...

From here, you’re under the instruction of this girl. Tripitaka (or Trip, as you’ll come to know her) demands that you escort her back to her home village, carrying her, throwing her, protecting her and fighting for her along the way.  While she can’t help physically, Trip is something of a technomage.  She’s hacked the headband to give you a commlink, enemy specs, powerups, upgrade menus and a HUD, but to ensure you help she’s also linked your biosigns.  If she dies, you die.  What a bitch. So you, as Monkey, are now glorified babysitter to one of the most easily freaked out girls in gaming history.  The way she yells ‘MONKEY!’ … well, if you ever start a drinking game for Enslaved, you’d better hope that isn’t the buzz word.

So there’s the premise and the plot remix.  You’re set loose into a world of post-apocalyptic prettiness.  In a wonderfully refreshing move (or perhaps a throwback to the old Utopia’s of the Victorian era), Ninja Theory have created a bright and vibrant world of tomorrow.  The city of New York is overrun with lush vines and flowers, there’s insect life (both organic and robotic) and very little signs of any humans.  There are, however, slavers and Mechs.  Slavers and their organisation PYRAMID are the game’s main conceptual enemy, but the Mechs are the physical enemies that Monkey will fight.  Over and over, in fact.  You’ll meet most of the different varieties of Mech in the first couple of levels and from there you’ll battle slightly stronger versions … in ever increasing numbers.  While the difficulty level does curve slowly but steeply upward, it’s more a case of difficulty via numbers than the enemies or puzzles being strategically harder.  This didn’t really bother me, but I could see it being frustrating for someone who plays this kind of game on a regular basis.

It's also programmed to shock you if you think impure thoughts.

True to the original tale, Monkey is armed with a staff of adjustable length, which doubles here as a bludgeon and long-range cannon. You’re able to pick up ammunition (conveniently placed in areas where it’s going to be needed) that arm it with either EMP or plasma blasts, designed to take down Mechs with shielding and the Big Boss Mechs.  The aiming controls are fluid and targets a forgiving broad area, which is really useful when trying to take down the Dog Mechs.

While the movement and combat controls are simple and easy to work with, they can suffer from some excruciating camera angles.  I was caught a few times by overlapping scenery obscuring where Monkey was, all while getting my arse handed to me by a fairly easy Mech that I also couldn’t see.  It’s more of a problem with the game’s camera-guided spell-every-puzzle-out approach than any real control flaw, but it was random, annoying, and usually only solvable after a bit of button mashing.  In a similar vein, much of Monkey’s movement leaping from handhold to ledge to handhold.  It’s beautiful to watch, really well animated, but the actual mechanics can occasionally get a little iffy.  You really do have to have the directional joystick pointing exactly the right way or Monkey will just sit there while you repeatedly push buttons, which can be highly irritating when you have to do the odd time-dependant jumps.  The controls for Monkey’s ‘Cloud’ were also, unfortunately, a real son of a bitch.  It felt slippery, like I had little to no control over the direction, often resulting in dozens of U-turns just to get up a ramp.

Well if you HAD to enslave someone, you could do worse than a guy who could punch through giant robots

But in the end, what truly impressed me about Enslaved was the obvious work that has gone into the characters.  The voice acting was a great match for what you imagine Trip, Monkey and even Pigsy to sound like.  Monkey’s rough, 2-seconds-way-from-coughing growl expresses his frustration so very well, especially when you have Trip plaintively wailing ‘Monkey! Help me!’ in increasing panic as she gets stuck or attacked.  Pigsy swings between braggart and letch and back like a rusty gate.  The dialogue is definitely up there with the more ‘natural’ offerings out there at the moment and while the plot is sometimes very simplified, the cut scenes are not wasted. While I wasn’t completely impressed with the ending, it didn’t suffer from lack of empathetic characters, I just felt that it was too quick.

Overall, Enslaved is an entertaining and mildly challenging platformer that delivers the level of engagement you want from a game to play in between the dark and super-serious offerings out at the moment. It’s might not be a spiritual journey, but it’s a damn good story.

The Verdict:

Pros: Great characters coupled with a lighthearted, yet complex and interesting plot.  The game world is beautiful,  a welcome change to the bleak post-nuke worlds that seem to dominate games at the moment.  Superb voice acting gives rise to some really nice, natural exchanges between the characters.

Cons: Controls can get a little erratic at points.  The ending is somewhat abrupt.  Not necessarily bad … just abrupt.

Overall: An enjoyable game that will keep you interested until the end.  Definitely worth a play, though probably not a replay.  Pick it up and have it on hand to play between your epic Triple-A titles.  3 and a half stars of out 5.

The colourful cast of Poker Night at the Inventory

All of us here at Armchair Diplomat have spent some time playing poker, at varying levels of seriousness.  While the others have all moved on to other, more interesting hobbies I still play regularly and Matt decided that meant I should be the one to review Poker Night at the Inventory.  Keeping in mind it’s a casual game I’ll do my best not to get all VPIP balanced ranges on y’all… here goes!

The premise of Poker Night at the Inventory is simple.  The Inventory is a club, it’s poker night and you’re there to play.  Your opponents are Max (from Sam and Max), Strong Bad (of Homestar Runner fame), the Heavy Weapons Guy (from Team Fortress 2) and Tycho (from the Penny Arcade series).

Each game has a $10,000 buy in and the winner takes all.  You never run out of money so you can play as many times as you like.  The game keeps track of how far up or down you are and each game shouldn’t take much more than 30 minutes to play.  Forget about all that though because, as we’ll discuss in a little bit, this isn’t really a poker game.  It’s actually a vehicle for getting the abovementioned characters together to engage in some witty banter.

Your opponents never stop talking.  Sometimes it’s prompted by the game and sometimes they just talk among themselves but they’re always jawing away.  Max is the deranged bunny rabbit we’ve come to know and love over the years, Strong Bad is Strong Bad-y, Mr Weapons delivers a good deadpan Arnie-esque line and Tycho’s dry nerdy wit balances things out nicely.  You don’t have to be a fan of their respective franchises to enjoy it but there are some in-jokes there for those in the know as well.  It’s reasonably clever too, and if for some reason the cards interrupt someone’s story they’ll wait until the distraction is over and then resume their story.  They’re not just responding to what’s happening on the table.

Strong Bad claims his winnings... with a shovel

What’s great about this is it means you can even enjoy the hands were you’ve folded.  Sure, there’s a button that lets you skip straight to the next hand after you fold but more often than not you’ll just listen to the banter… for a little while, at least.  While there’s a good amount of material included (apparently there’s more dialog in this game than an average Sam and Max episode), obviously it’s not endless and at some point the characters will start repeating themselves.  At which point you’re left with no option but to concentrate on the poker itself and this, unfortunately, is not such a fun experience.

The interface is clunky and annoying for the most part, which is odd because it’s something that’s been done right forty bajillion times before this game was released.  I’d have thought this was the easy part.  The one that confused and irritated me the most was having to click after each hand to have the next one dealt.  Why exactly was that necessary?

Also, whoever coded the game doesn’t seem to know some of the basic rules of poker.  For some reason the button is on the big blind playing heads up, not the small blind where it should be.  The game also allows under-raises and I can’t work out what’s more stupid – the fact that they’re in the game or the fact that the AI players actually take “advantage” of the fact and make them.  And maybe I’m paranoid, but I’m pretty sure the game handles dead buttons and blinds wrong too.  There’s a bunch of other glitches and niggles that I won’t bother getting into.

Playing Tycho heads up. Little does he know that if he calls here it's gonna be all over, baby...

As for how your opponents play… I can explain that in one of two ways:

For fellow poker nerds: Your opponents are all droolers.  It doesn’t seem to matter whether you have the difficult set on normal or hard, they have zero idea about bet sizing or (seemingly) anything much else.  At best they’re calling stations and most of the time they’re just plain spewy.  Strong Bad once called a three-bet shove on the river, o a 2Q9JT board (four diamonds), holding 64o with no flush.  And that was heads up when I had the chip lead.  At least Max had two live cards when he called my preflop shove with 42o.  Your opponents regularly overbet the pot, they also do other dumb stuff like bet $7000 and leave $300 behind or fold on rivers where they’re getting 16:1 on a call – which is even harder to explain after seeing the Strong Bad hand discussed above.  Employ even the most basic TAG strategy and you should be shipping the nickels most times.  And no, it’s not compatible with PA-HUD, HEM or PT3 but you are allowed to use Sharkscope during the game.

For non-poker players: Max, Strongbad, Heavy and Tycho are all bad at the pokers.  Really, really bad.  This guy (or maybe even this guy* on a good day) could beat them.

Like I said above, I don’t think this was ever really meant to be a poker game.  If it was, somebody failed dismally.  As a vehicle for some amusing writing and jokes it works OK and given the price maybe we can forgive some of the mechanical issues.  But there’s no real point in continuing with the game once you’ve heard all the jokes.  There’s an option for turning the dialog off if the repetitiveness starts getting to you but then all you’re left with is a third-rate poker game and if you want to play one of those there are plenty of options that are cheaper and better.

The Verdict:

Pros : Some of the banter is lulzy, I like the way the characters pick up where they left off if the cards distract for a moment and the whole thing costs less than a $5NL buyin.

Cons: The “game” itself is shit and the lulz won’t last forever.

Overall: If you ignore the poker there’s probably at least $5 worth of entertainment in this package.  Unless the humour isn’t your cup of tea either… in which case there’s absolutely no reason to play this game ever.  2 out of 5 stars and it’s all for the writing.

* Sorry, there was a poker in-joke in there too**.

** LOL, it actually says “toolbox” on the side of the page.

I wonder if the crown would like to hold hands for a while?

The strongest memory I have from the entire Fable series is way back at it’s beginnings.  My hero is old.  Very old.  Deeply wrinkled skin and baggy eyes stare out of a face framed with grey hair and a golden halo.  He stares down at a woman who appears to be around half his age … his mother.

In a title packed with innovative features, it was this moment that defined the game for me, and remained with me all the way through the sequel.  A prime example of a brilliant concept that’s execution was fundamentally flawed.

Which is the stigma that surrounds the series as a whole, if we’re honest, due in no small part to the over-enthusiastic promises of lead designer Peter Molyneux.  After long ago promising not to discuss ideas that he can’t demonstrate, he’s actually said some rather interesting things in the lead up to Fable 3‘s release, but the one that caught my interest the most was the fact that Fable 3 would probably upset a great deal of gamers, most likely because the game has been redesigned to be less of an RPG and more of an action-adventure.

Now although that seems like a very strange thing to admit pre-release, and even though I’m generally a fan of RPGs, I took this admission as a promising sign.  I figured Lionhead finally was sitting down to fundamentally rethink Fable and enhance what worked while fixing what didn’t.

But I guess I figured wrong.

Your collaborators plan their escape from a half-baked plot

Set many decades after the events of Fable 2, players take the role of Albion’s young prince (or princess) and next in line for the throne.  Your older brother Logan is a cold and heartless monarch, and his rather oppressive style of rule has led him to be despised by the people.  After being forced by Logan to choose between the life of your friend and the life or several strangers, the princess (or prince) decides to leave the castle to walk the path of a Hero and overthrow Logan’s rule.  Accompanying you is your long-time mentor Sir Walter and your butler Jasper.

But before you can begin your little revolution you have to recruit allies, which sends you across the entirety of Albion (three cities and a couple of villages anyway) in what seems at times to be more like a campaign trail than a worldwide uprising.  Wander in, beat up some wolves/bats/bandits that have been bothering the locals, make some solid election promises then watch as they join your cause.  Rinse and repeat a couple of times and you’ll be knocking on the castle doors before you know it.

In what could have been a rather clever mechanic, the game measures your progress towards taking the crown on the Road To Rule, a metaphorical path with many gates that you have to unlock before confronting Logan.  Along the Road you can also unlock chests to afford you extra abilities or improve your combat skills.  When you first begin the Road looks quite impressive.  It’s long and winding, and has plenty of gates barring your way.  Once you get going, however, you’ll soon realise that you’ll be opening one of these gates every fifteen minutes if the game has it’s way.  Winning the trust of an ally and gaining their support will unlock a gate … but so will meeting important character or surviving a boss battle.  Consequently the Road To Rule is more like the Highway To Rule, an express route with occasional stops to refuel and grab a snack.

To be fair to Logan, killing peasants was the equivalent of Tivo back then ... only it was more difficult to rewind the action

But that’s fine, because surely gaining the crown is only half the game, right? Once you’ve overthrown Logan, you’re going to have a whole three cities and several villages world to run, right?

Sadly, ruling Albion is something more akin to the game’s epilogue.  You’ll be tested to see if you can keep all the promises you made to your allies with a larger threat looming on the horizon, but even that threat will arrive sooner than you’d expect … and be dealt with before you know it.  All your supposedly big decisions on ruling Albion will come down to money, which if you’ve been a good little real-estate mogul will be easily obtainable.

You might have noticed by now, but I haven’t really been enjoying myself in Albion this time around.  Perhaps my main issue with the game is that everything about the world is so shallow.  If Albion were a public pool, 3 year old toddlers would be happily wading waist high through the supposed deep end.

Lionhead seems attached to this idea of being able to interact with every person in the world, but by offering this level of freedom they essentially shoot themselves in the foot because what they can’t provide is a unique personality for every NPC.  Albion’s inhabitants are uniformly bland, uninteresting characters, who will fall in love with you after two conversations, then agree to marry you if you go and pick up their laundry from the dry cleaners.  The Expression system makes this whole affair extra ridiculous, because instead of talking you have to play pat-a-cake or flex your muscles or some other pointless bullshit that just makes you want to bash your head against a rock.

Which is fine, if all Fable 3 was aiming for was a little lighthearted fun while adventuring.  But the game also wants to have a serious side and the two elements just do not mix.  The game wants to explore the darker elements of morality and politics, something which I was surprised to find it did quite well, but when you can kill a man in cold blood then make up for it by having a bit of a dance with the witnesses then something is clearly out of whack.

The game holds your hand only slightly more often than you hold it's.

The game does offer drop-in/drop-out co-op play over Xbox Live, which can prove to be unintentionally hilarious, but is mildly pointless on the whole unless you’re a completionist.  The mechanic works fine, as players can trade weapons, clothes and even form relationships, but outside of socialising there aren’t many enemies that can stand up to one Hero, let alone two.  It makes an easy game even easier, something which I wouldn’t suggest at least for your first playthrough.

Visually the game is fine, although nothing ever seemed to jump out at me as truly impressive.  The world of Albion has entered an industrial phase, meaning a lot of the larger landscapes have become a little dreary and bleak.  If you played Fable 2 then you’ll know what to expect, but don’t hope for too many improvements.  There are a wide variety of character customisations available, although I found all the male’s options to be better suited than anything on offer for the princess.  My princess ended up being bald and wandering the world in a fur cloak and ugg-boots, because it was honestly the outfit that made her look the most feminine.  Her face is manly enough to begin with, and dressing her up in a skirt and long hair only seemed to make her look more and more like a transvestite.

In the end, Fable 3 is a game about revolution that’s a long way from revolutionary.  In a series that was fairly uncomplicated to begin with, much of the core gameplay seems to have been stripped back (perhaps “streamlined” is a kinder word) to make things even simpler, and the result is a rather bland experience that’s forgettable at best.  Peter Molyneux repeated over and over before release that Fable 3 was supposed to be about making the player feel powerful but all it left me feeling was unimpressed and, just like it’s predecessors, vaguely disappointed.

Oh, and it still doesn’t have acorns.

The Verdict:

Pros: The mechanics linked to the players choices are well oiled as always, Albion inhabitants react to you according to your alignment and past decisions.  There is some superb voice acting on show, although I have to say I never thought I’d see the day when I’d get bored of hearing John Cleese talk.  There are a few quite inspired quests, in particular the one that sees the Hero shrunk down to play through a Dungeons and Dragons table game.

Cons: Most of the elements from Fable 2 have been dumbed down streamlined considerably.  I found myself with little to no emotional attachment to the main character as the plot veers from comedy to tradgedy haphazardly, a decision that by the game’s own admission fails to engage the audience.  The plot is deceptively short, and while there are plenty of side-quests to be had, there is oddly little to do in the world of Albion once you become ruler.

Overall: I suppose it’s actually quite impressive that Fable 3 still has the power to unexpectedly disappoint me, but that’s all it’s managed to do.  It will probably be remembered as a short, silly little diversion that didn’t hold enough entertainment value to make up for it’s shortcomings. 1.5 out of 5 stars.

ADDENDUM:

Oooh, that’s a lovely pie! Pie making perfection that is!  That crust is divine! Ooooh, that’s a lovely pie!  I might have that one for myself! Pie making perfection that is!  Oooh, that’s a lovely pie! Pie making perfection that is!  That crust is divine! Ooooh, that’s a lovely pie!  I might have that one for myself! Pie making perfection that is!  Oooh, that’s a lovely pie! Pie making perfection that is!  That crust is divine! Ooooh, that’s a lovely pie!  I might have that one for myself! Pie making perfection that is!  Oooh, that’s a lovely pie! Pie making perfection that is!  That crust is divine! Ooooh, that’s a lovely pie!  I might have that one for myself! Pie making perfection that is!  Oooh, that’s a lovely pie! Pie making perfection that is!  That crust is divine! Ooooh, that’s a lovely pie!  I might have that one for myself! Pie making perfection that is!

Come on sweetie, we'll bludgeon him to death with a shovel together

It’s been four years since we initially wandered the Willamette Parkview Mall in a dress, guzzling orange juice while gleefully slapping hockey pucks into crowds of zombies, and in four years the world of Dead Rising hasn’t changed dramatically.  Although the zombie infection in Willamette was just the first in a series of large-scale outbreaks, the world has rolled with the punches and simply absorbed the undead threat as a part of everyday life.

Dead Rising 2: Case Zero is our first introduction to the series’ new protagonist Chuck Greene and his daughter Katey.  The pair are fleeing a zombie infested Las Vegas, trying to reach a safe distance before the military cordons off the surrounding area.  Katey has been infected by a zombie bite and now requires a dose of the suppressant drug Zombrex every twelve hours to keep her turning.  If the military manages to close of the area, Katey will be screened and taken away from Chuck as a potential zombie threat.

The escape plan hits a snag when they stop at the small town of Still Creek (population 758) to refuel and someone steals their truck.  This not only leaves Chuck stranded, but also robs him of the supply of Zombrex he’s accumulated.  With the military closing in Chuck has twelve hours to find a way out of the zombie populated Still Creek, while making sure Katey gets her next dose.

Capcom reminds you to drink responsibly while driving your taped together motorcycle

I’ll just come out and say it: The daddy/daughter mechanic is endearing.  There are points where the voice acting can get a little B-grade, but overall the constant need to protect his daughter resonates quite nicely with Chuck as a character.  Although you only need to make the deadline once in Case Zero, I’m liking the concept of the twelve hour dosage clock, something that I’m sure will work quite well to move the action along in Dead Rising 2.

Case Zero also gives you a taste of what to expect when it comes to zombie killing in the sequel.  All the favourites are still there (sledgehammer, baseball bat, hunting knife), but now you’re able to combine certain weapons for even more creative slaughter.  The combination weapons start out simple and become increasingly more outlandish.  Nails and a bat becomes a simple spiked baseball bat, for example, but a car battery taped to a garden rake becomes a cattle prodding weapon of mass destruction.

Also, power drill buckets.

I was a little surprised at how easy this adventure was.  Presumably after four years, Case Zero‘s main job is to gently ease players back into the right mindset to play a Dead Rising game.  While all the key elements of the original Dead Rising game can be found here (schedule juggling, item management and creative zombie horde extinction), the punishing difficulty is absent.  Unlike the first title, it’s quite possible (even probable) to complete every single objective and unlock the best ending within the time limit.  Finding the parts to rebuild the broken motorcycle is the most challenging part of this installment, and even then only one of the five items requires you to find it by yourself.  The others are all discoverable via purchased clues or through interactions with survivors.

Chuck Greene: Father. Motorcross champion. SUV driver.

A survivor on the Still Creek rooftops, Bob, will call out to Chuck to notify him of any new survivors located around town, assuming that Chuck doesn’t find them himself in his travels.  I’m not sure it was strictly necessary for Case Zero to provide you with a quest hub, considering Still Creek isn’t actually that big a town, but a gun-happy yelling survivor is certainly preferable to the unskippable radio messages of the original game.

There have also been vast improvements in survivor AI, which can only be described as a gaming god-send.  Gone are the days where survivors appeared to mindlessly leap into the waiting jaws of zombie packs, replaced with survivors who proactively defend themselves as they move through the world.  There were only a few times for me where a survivor became trapped during an escort, and when they did you could trust the rest of the group to hold a position without being easily overwhelmed.  Given the somewhat limited number of survivors in Still Creek it’s hard to tell if this new found group intelligence will carry over to the crowded Fortune City in Dead Rising 2, but it’s certainly leaps and bounds ahead of the original.

The Pitchfork-Shotgun: First you turn the lawn, then you tell people to get off it

There’s been a great deal of argument online over if Case Zero constitutes it’s stand-alone game status, or if it’s more like paying for a demo.  For once I don’t find myself agreeing with one side in particular, considering there are good points on boths sides about paying for an hour long taste of Dead Rising 2.  The part of me that approves acknowledges that Case Zero does provide a full feature, unique chapter to the Dead Rising story, gives good insight into the new protaganist’s life and provides more content than we would see in a typical demo.  And 400 points Bison Dollars isn’t going to break the bank for even the most frugal gamer.

Case Zero does skimp quite a bit on the extra features, however.  I was disappointed that there was no Infinity Mode to muck about in after I’d completely finished the game’s story mode, and that there were no over-the-top achievements to chase after.  Now that the full game has been released you can also be sure of the fact that once you’ve played it through to completion, you’re never going to come back to Still Creek when you have Fortune City to muck around in.

But in the end my love for this game’s predecessor (and my anticipation for it’s sequel) meant that I couldn’t be anything else but stoked with this bite-sized chunk of Chuck.  Dead Rising 2 was always going to be a release day buy for me, but Case Zero has given me just enough to make the remaining wait that much more painful.

The Verdict:

Pros: Classic gameplay with a selection of new twists.  Weapon combination system is great, although I’m hoping to see a few more novelty combintations in the full game.  New survivor AI removes the majority of frustration from escort missions.  Curiosity friendly price.

Cons: Lack of extra modes is a bummer, and there is only one large block to explore. Case Zero will probably be left to gather dust if you decide to pick up Dead Rising 2.

Overall: While this game does have a lingering case of demo-itis, there’s no denying the amount of content it delivers for the price.  If you’re a Dead Rising fan then it’s points well spent, and if you’re new to the franchise then it’s an inexpensive way to test the waters.  3 out of 5 stars.

Tier 1: Here Be Hirsuitism

While I’m thoroughly sick of first-person shooters constantly returning to World War 2 for inspiration, I have to admit to feeling slightly hesitant when EA first announced they would be rebooting their Medal of Honor series and setting the first new installment in the modern day War On Terror.  After all, you only have to look at the still-definitely-being-released-oh-my-yes Six Days in Fallujah by Atomic Games to gauge the public sentiment about creating games set in current military campaigns.  What I can appreciate, however, is the gargantuan pair of cojones it must have taken both the developer and publisher to say “fuck it” and run with the idea anyway.

The new Medal of Hono(u)r represents EA’s first attempt to wrestle back it’s share of the modern shooter genre, a genre that Activision is still managing to dominate with Call of Duty.  Obviously not wanting to leave anything to chance, they split the game’s development in two, giving the single player to in-house studio Danger Close and entrusting the all-important multiplayer to it’s DICE studio, creators of the addictive Battlefield series.

The fact that EA split the game in two just to allow a “proven” studio to handle the online component should already tell you where the real focus of the game is going to be.  But being a traditional type of lad, I’ll begin with the single player.

The campaign mode gives the player a kind of “day in the life” experience from the perspective of troops on the ground in Afghanistan. It’s almost as if Medal Of Hono(u)r is presenting a documentary, with the action told through the eyes of several different soldiers. Although you’ll periodically take the role of regular ground forces, most of your time will be spent as a Tier 1 operator, an agent in an elite cell of counter-intelligence beard enthusiasts. The game focuses less on large-scale combat and more on the small-arms battle, with elements of stealth and occasional big explosions thrown in for good measure. The whole thing is a touchy subject, when you consider that this is a war that’s still being fought, but the game attempts to treat the concept with respect. A great deal is made about the ongoing challenge of determining friend from foe and the difficulties (and dangers) of unreliable intelligence.

Rangers insert in the cover of nature's beard, the dust storm.

However these are complicated real world issues, and perhaps too complicated to be properly presented in a game that’s 90% about shooting Arabic people in the face (the other 10% is shooting Chechens in the face, if you were wondering). Early missions show Tier 1 operators carefully removing non-combatants from the battlefield, yet later missions allow you to demolish whole villages from the comfort of missle-equipped attack helicopters.  You get the feeling that Danger Close is attempting to present the player with the harsh realities of modern warfare, but has to keep forcing extreme ATV jumping and missle strikes into the equation.  The game is predictably patriotic (I’d hate to see the sales figures of a war game that wasn’t) however the underlying “even when we’re wrong we’re right” message seems to highlight the futility of America’s involvement.

While I prefer this approach over the jetsetting soldiers-on-snowboards setting of Modern Warfare 2, you’re just not going to find anything meaningful on the war against terrorism through the eyes of a first-person shooter.  And on a personal level, the constant change of character means you’re not really with any one soldier long enough to form an emotional attatchment, which ruins any gravitas the game could have delivered.

Who needs cover when you know your chin is well protected?

What you’re left with is a fairly bland experience, which isn’t even particularly challenging for your average shooter player.  The checkpoints are numerous, the regenerative health forgiving, and even on it’s Hard setting this game only took me around six hours to complete … which includes the amount of time I took to stop and collect each bonus campaign achievement along the way.

So EA are clearly taking the Zoolander walk-off approach here: Modern Warfare 2 demonstrates, then Medal of Hono(u)r tries to emulate and elaborate.  Both are modern shooters with a short, forgettable campaign that’s designed to be disregarded the moment you take the title online.  They couldn’t have even set themselves apart from their rivals by favourably comparing themselves to MW2‘s woeful single-player running time?  Why even bother trying to break the chokehold on a genre when you’re not going to offer anything unique or different?

I found the same complaint could easily be applied to the multiplayer mode too.  You know how people constant describe games by using two other games for context?  I’d usually consider it lazy writing, but there really isn’t a better way to sum up Medal of Hono(u)r‘s online than to call it a combination of Modern Warfare 2 and Bad Company 2.  The problem is, these are two games with distinctly different play styles, and just throwing them together and expecting them to gel won’t work.

Creative OPFOR soldiers comb their beards upwards to form a makeshift balaclava

All the basic team shooter elements are there: Multiple classes, rank progression, customisable loadouts, unlockable weapons/upgrades, kill streaks and targeted artillery support.  There are several different modes to choose from, including regular team deathmatch, king of the hill and objective attack/defence.  But where this all falls flat is the map design, which tries to wed the open battlefield style with a continual high-pressure close combat.  After a few hours of playing you’ll have found a preference for one of these styles, which will make you want to stop playing Medal of Hono(u)r and go back to the game it reminded you of.

It’s a typical jack-of-all-trades and master of none.

There’s nothing remarkable visually, nothing strictly terrible either, it’s just one of those games that subscribes to the “many shades of brown” artistic style.  I suppose the potential was there, but the game seemed to lack the big show-reel situations required to flex it’s eye candy muscles.  That said, great work has been done with the sound effects.  Explosions whine in your ears, rifles chug out a bassy metallic rattle and there’s nothing more impressive than hearing a bullet scream past your head when a sniper misses his target by mere inches.

But in the end this is a sub-standard offering, even in a genre where sub-standard is the standard.  The campaign story shys away from confronting the player, concerned that it will stray over the line and offend them, and the multiplayer lacks the strong direction required to distinguish Medal of Hono(u)r from the pack.  There is nothing strictly bad with either, but nothing memorable, which is by far the game’s biggest problem.

The Verdict:

Pros: Documentary style campaign allows the player to view a modern day conflict from multiple points of view.  The American patrotism is kept in check for the most part, which thankfully stops the game from glorifying a questionable conflict.  Sound is top notch.

Cons: Campaign is short, and seems to go out of it’s way to avoid offending the player.  The multiplayer only reminds you of other, better multiplayer shooters, and has also had it’s fair share of edits to avoid controversy.

Overall: I won’t say that there’s nothing to enjoy here, especially because there are few experiences online more hilarious than flying a cruise missile into your opponent’s base and watching the kill-count roll, but for the most part Medal of Hono(u)r is a bland and rather forgettable shooter.  Which I guess when you set your game in modern day Afghanistan is probably something of an accomplishment, considering you could have ended up with a very memorable, highly offensive shooter.  It’s an average 2.5 out of 5 stars from me.

F1:2010 - fans have been waiting years, has it been worth it?

November 3, 2008.  4:30am AEST.  My beloved fiancé is woken by muffled shouts of “Yes, yes, yes… what?!?  Oh you fucker!!!!  No!  No!!!  Eat shit and die Glock you incompetent twat!  Fuck!!!!”

Why begin this review with such a display of rampant retrospective profanity, I hear you ask?  It’s all in the name of context.

Y’see, the above was my reaction to the moment that decided the 2008 Formula 1 driver’s championship.  Ferrari’s Felipe Massa started his home race in Brazil, the final race of the season, seven points behind McLaren’s cocky young upstart Lewis Hamilton.  To win the championship Massa would have to win the race and have Hamilton finish outside the top five.  You’re right in thinking it was a long shot but Massa had pulled it off – he dominated the race, finished in first a full 13 seconds ahead of his nearest rival with Hamilton in sixth.  Until the very last corner, that is, when Toyota’s Timo Glock let Hamilton past to take fifth and victory in the championship by a single point.

The animated gif that’s probably still getting around of Massa’s father celebrating in the Ferrari garage, only to have a mechanic tap him on the shoulder and deliver the bad news, is both hilarious and heart breaking.

This is all a roundabout way of getting to the point that I’m a huge F1 fan.  Ask me who my favourite team is without specifying the sport and I’ll tell you Scuderia Ferrari, not some inferior ball-sport playing bunch of hacks.  I’ve watched every race for the past 14 years, even if it’s meant staying up to ungodly hours.  I’ve been shouting, screaming, fist pumping and even air-conducting the Italian national anthem the whole way. (Trufax. Watched him do that last one not 28 hours ago – Jess)

I’ve also been waiting a bloody long time for a new F1 game.  If we choose to ignore the ugly abortion that was F1 2009 on the Wii (and I certainly choose to ignore it) then there hasn’t even been one released since 2006 and you have to go even further back to find one for PC.  So F1 2010 has some impressing to do.

The game has been developed by Codemasters who have a fine heritage when it comes to racing games dating all the way back to Micro Machines in the early 90s.  More recently they’ve been behind the hit-and-miss Race Driver: Grid and the Colin McRae series (the latest installment of which I quite liked).

Melbourne turns on a fine day to show off Codemasters' fancy weather system

It’s clear Codemasters know what the stakes and expectations are because from the moment you boot up the game, it’s obvious they’ve put a hell of a lot of work into giving you the complete F1 experience.  If you choose to, for any given race you can take part in three full practice sessions, full qualifying (which itself is divided into three sessions) and anything up to a full race distance, which can take upwards of an hour and a half to complete at some circuits.

Depending on the difficult you’ve selected the game fully models fuel loads, tyre wear and car damage.  The sport’s real-life rules are included too so you have to make sure you do things like use both types of tyres during a dry race and not overtake anyone under yellow flags.  You can work your own pit lane speed limiter if you so choose and while gadgets like f-ducts aren’t player controllable Codemasters promise us that they have been incorporated in the car performance models.

F1 2010 also claims to have the most complicated weather system ever featured in a racing game and I’m inclined to believe Codemasters on that point.  Rain can fall with varying intensity and the track dries out gradually once the rain stops, with the racing line being the first area to dry off so you can have the fun experience of being back on a wet track the second you step off line.

All the cars and drivers from the 2010 season (with the exception of latecomers like Yamamoto and Heidfeld) are faithfully reproduced in the game and things don’t stop on the track.  Your trailer was basically a fancy menu in games like Dirt 2.  In F1 2010 the equivalent is the paddock, where you have your motor home and you can do things like answer questions from the press about your recent performance, check out what your team thinks of you and review offers to race for other teams.

When you’re on the track the game looks and sounds fantastic – and I was running the game with most of the visual options turned down.  The cars look great, the tracks look great and the sound… I’m one of those of the opinion that there are few sounds in the world sexier than a Formula 1 engine in full voice.  It’s right up there with the pulse rifle from Aliens and Michael Douglas saying “greed is good”.  F1 2010 doesn’t give you the sheer ear-splitting volume of the real thing but it still sounds just as sweet.

Turn one: let the squeeze begin

Difficulty can be scaled to fairly closely match your driving ability.  A bunch of driver aids are available including a dynamic racing line marker (which will be familiar to anyone who’s played games like NFS: Pro Street), brake assist, automatic transmissions, ABS braking and various levels of traction control.  The game has the same flashback system as Dirt and Race Driver: Grid so you can turn back time and fix your mistakes a limited number of times.  There are also some overall difficulty categories which govern non-selectable difficulty settings.

On easy mode the AI cars are fairly slow and by default all driver aids are turned on full.  After half a lap in this mode I’d turned brake assist off and a few laps later I’d dropped ABS and turned traction control down to medium (both ABS and traction control have been banned in real Formula 1 for a few years now).  Despite this I still managed to put a Virgin on pole and then streak away to a convincing victory – something which those who follow the sport will know is less likely than Tony Abbott converting to Satanism.

For the next race I turned the difficulty up to medium.  The AI cars got a little faster and I had to work a bit harder to keep pace with them.  I was also being given options like choosing my tyres and doing my own race strategy (which for those new to the sport is really just choosing the lap you come in to change tyres).  Otherwise not much was different – tyres didn’t seem to wear at all and fuel wasn’t being modeled so I never ran out and my first lap was just as quick as my last one.  It took more work, but I still managed to put a Virgin on pole and win the race.  I never got a puncture and while I was getting warnings about overheating my engine I never seemed to suffer any damage from it.

Pitting in China - some tracks look really spectacular

Not wanting to spoil my perfect record (and figuring it’d take me months to get to writing this review if I tired doing everything in career mode) I dropped out to “grand prix” mode to try out hard mode.  Grand prix mode is separate to the career mode and lets you race any car at any track (or number of tracks) you want to choose.  I stuck it on hard mode and selected the Korean GP, doing what I figure all fans did by driving the track before the real drivers got to have a crack at it.  Now things were really difficult – the AI cars were fast, full damage modeling was turned on so smashing off your front wing makes a mess of your handling and your tyres can puncture relatively easily.  Here (after about 20 minutes of practice) I couldn’t even get a Ferrari above 22^nd on the grid.  Hard mode also defaults to manual transmission, though you can go back to automatic if you like.

Having had my arse thoroughly kicked on hard mode I didn’t even venture into expert – among other things though you’ll lose all your flashbacks in expert mode.  So unless they’ve hidden them in expert mode there seem to be a few staples of the F1 experience that have been left out of the game, most likely for the sake of players’ sanity.  So far I haven’t seen a single safety car, nor have I suffered a non-crash related mechanical failure.  I suspect the safety car’s absence is mostly a matter of convenience: the rules around how it’s deployed and what drivers have to do behind it are beyond the understanding of a lot of the current drivers, let alone us mere mortals.  And I suspect leaving out random mechanical failures is something few of us will complain about if we’re honest – I mean does it really bother us that we won’t suffer a horrible gearbox failure two laps from the end of an otherwise flawless race?

So like I said, Codemasters have really gone out of their way to deliver the full experience for F1 nerds like myself.  On the track it’s hard to fault the game: you can make the game as easy or as challenging as you like and we really can’t ask for more than being able to do full practice, qualifying and race sessions.  In practice and qualifying you can drive your own in and out laps or you can choose to warp straight to the track and then back to the garage.

There are a few minor quibbles while you’re racing: I couldn’t find an option to configure the time sheet, for example, and it doesn’t seem to default to telling you how far behind the other drivers are – as far as I can tell it was insisting on showing relative sector times which is interesting but nowhere near as useful as time gaps between drivers on the track.  I don’t care if the driver behind me was three tenths quicker than me in the last sector if I’ve got a 20 second lead on him, but I care an awful lot if I’ve only got a three second lead and I’m trying to build enough of a gap to pit.

I seemed to run afoul of the corner cutting regulation a lot in my first few races too – which would be OK, except that often I was being penalised for falling off the outside of the track, which actually lengthens the lap rather than shortening it.  That issue was mostly solved with some improvements in my driving.  It was some of the out of car experiences that really left something to be desired though.

Piloting a Ferrari around the Korean GP track

One example is the way you start your career: in a press conference.  This seems like a nice touch, except it’s nothing that couldn’t have been handled with a simple setup screen where you enter your name and select your difficulty level, career length and the team you’ll start out driving for.  Having a journo ask you “and how long is your career going to be” seems kind of silly too when everybody knows that in reality you, the driver, have absolutely no control over how long your career is (unless you piss developing-world sponsorship dollars or shit world championships).

Another quibble: my name wasn’t on the audio list so I had to choose a nickname.  Which would be OK, except one: my name isn’t all that uncommon and more importantly two: it’s been included in previous Codemasters games.  Like I said, it’s minor, but I’m not really sure why they’ve taken that step backwards.  Or why Tiberius gets a gurnsey but Stuart doesn’t…

The way the camera wobbles about on the menu screens is annoying.  I understand that we’re going for a driver’s eye view thing but it’s just fucking irritating and makes kind of a waste of the great background information that’s been assembled on each team and driver in the game.  You end up not reading much of it because trying to focus and chase it around the screen ends up giving you a headache.

Soccer fans can keep their world cup - we get Monaco EVERY year

Your race engineer seems to stay the same no matter which team you drive for, which is OK if you like his voice and not if you don’t – I guess we had to bow to practicality on that one and not have several voice actors record the same lines over and over.  There’s also only one person that asks you questions in press conferences (and it’s not James Allen) and only one more in the paddock.  So Codemasters obviously decided that voice acting was one area where they could save.  I can understand that there was probably no way they were going to get the actual drivers or team staff to record lines but previous F1 games have had people like the great Murray Walker contribute their talents so skimping in this area seems like a pity.

These are all minor issues though and you can pretty much forgive them all on the strength of the on-track experience.  But the really big letdown is bugs.  They were something I complained about a lot in Dirt 2 and while F1 2010 doesn’t seem to be plagued by anywhere near as many of them they haven’t been eliminated either. And fuck me, can they be frustrating when they crop up.

In an ordinary racer if the game shits itself and boots you out it sucks but it’s not too big a deal – you repeat the last race which was what, about five to seven minutes long?  In F1 2010 if you the game crashes mid-session (as happened to me more than once) you can lose an hour’s work – or more if your save file gets corrupted, which also happened to me less than a day into playing the game, sending me all the way back to the stupid “what’s your name” press conference at the start.  I had to win the opening race three times before I was allowed to go on to Melbourne thanks to bugs.  Codemasters, please listen: if you’re going to give us races that can last over an hour (and I applaud you for doing so) you have to make sure the reliability is fucking bulletproof.  Seriously.  The average F1 fan is already balding, they don’t need game crashes on the penultimate lap of a grand prix making it worse.  A patch has been promised for the save game bug but I’m not holding my breath on the general crashes.

No surprises: when a race is genetically engineered to look spectacular it scrubs up OK in game form too

While I’m bitching, the PC version uses the Games For Windows Live system the same as Dirt 2 did.  This means that people in some countries won’t even be able to play the game and the rest of us have to log in every time we turn the game on and have limited save game options… maybe it’s not a big deal for some people but personally I find it fucking annoying.  Really fucking annoying.

So: are there things I’d like to have seen done better in this game?  Sure.  Are they things a normal person is going to care about though?  Not for the most part.  And despite them all, I still love this game and I’ll no doubt be playing it for a long time to come.  Hell, I’m not even halfway through my first of seven seasons in the career mode.  I suspect the whole thing might be a bit overwhelming for casual racers who just want to have a blast around a track for three laps and bounce off the walls but for fans of the sport and serious racing game enthusiasts I think this title might almost be an essential purchase.

Now c’mon you reds!

The Verdict:

Pros: Codemasters have gone out of their way to give you the full Formula 1 experience, from the paddock to the podium.  It looks great, it sounds great and most importantly, it drives great.  Difficult scaling options are spot on.

Cons: A lot of the off-track stuff feels tacked on and game crashes, while few and far between, were infuriating.  Might be a bit much for casual players.

Overview: If you’re an F1 fan or if you’re serious about your racing games there’s a hell of a lot to like.  4 out of 5.

Of course, the most important part of any home run:

Anyone will tell you that I’m a fan of baseball.  Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and the pre-juice Barry Bonds: these are names I know well and careers I greatly enjoyed following.  Thus, it seems like a no-brainer that when a baseball game came out that I would jump at the chance to play it … but that’s not exactly how this game came to be in my possession.  For you to truly understand, I have to take you back on a trip through time and space: The year is 1998 and the place is my parents’ lounge room.  There, a young Moose is putting in a cartridge into his N64 that would forever change his life and bring out the horrifying OCD side of his gaming: Major League Baseball Featuring Ken Griffey Jr.  The moment I turned the console on and that baseball came flying at me, I was hooked.  I spent hours upon hours slogging through regular season mode, game after game to make my way to the World Series.  This game was heaven.  I played my way through the season mode 3 times; a painful exercise for even the most die-hard fan.  This was the best of times and it was the blurst of times.  The game made me so happy; however, it raised the bar to a level that (apparently) no other baseball game could live up to … until now.

A short while back the Armchair team went to an Xbox event held at the State Library in Melbourne with the express intent of making the building explode with irony.  Once there, Matt and I sat down to one of the few games that had an available console: The Bigs 2. I sat down, safe in the knowledge that Matt was only playing this game to humour me and because there were no other free games.  Then the strangest thing occurred: we got into it.  There was yelling; there was shouting; and most of all there was enjoyment.  But I was wise.  I had been burned before.  So I played it cool, unsure of whether or not this game was actually the real deal.  So when I finally acquired my own copy, with much trepidation, I sat down and prepared to let myself love again.

OK, so love is a strong word, but I opened myself up to the thought of holding someone other than Ken Griffey Jr in my arms.

Actually, now that I think about it, that wasn’t even close to being better.

Uhhh … on to the review:

Hey look, a shooting star! Make a wish ...

2K Sports is a name synonymous with great games.  Their basketball titles alone have made them EA Sports biggest rival.   This game is clearly made by sports fans who have been aching for a great game.  The premise is simple: you’re a former baseball star who has suffered a major injury and has to work his way back up to the top.  Starting in Mexico and playing your way through a myriad of countries and cities, you are working your way to the top to take your shot at the World Series.  However, unlike most baseball games, this title doesn’t end with the World Series … you’re playing all the way into the Hall of Fame!

To earn the skills and Hall of Fame votes required to gain entry, you have to compete in a variety of matches and mini-games.  The matches are the standard fare for this type of game: win and steal 2 bases; win and hit a grand slam; lose because some fat-load in the crowd grabbed the ball from your glove thus costing you the pennant.  The mini-games are where things get interesting: accuracy challenges against legends of the game, sprinting challenges all around (and I mean all around) the ground and home run pinball.  By completing challenges you increase your character’s sporting abilities like sprint speed, throwing power and batting ability.  On top of that, when you complete all challenges in a city or country you are able to recruit your opposition’s best player into your team.  This is the (slightly implausible) reason why your team increases in ability along with you.

A Warriors: Street Brawl crossover character

Onto the gameplay itself, which can be hard to get a hold on in the beginning (especially if you’re Matt).  Most of the time in baseball video games you’re aiming where you think the ball will be pitched and where the ball ends up is dictated by that.  The Bigs 2 is slightly different in it’s batting execution.  Here the focus is placed on swinging at the right time; where you aim with your joystick dictates where you are hitting the ball.  If you are trying to hit a ball on the left side to the right side of the field, it will usually result in it coming off the bat wrong and heading straight to a fielder.  Timing is also important on the field, as the fielding system employs a similar mechanic in defence your score.  I’m sure that had Matt and I bothered to read the manual it wouldn’t have been nearly as ridiculous, but then we wouldn’t be the Moose and Matt that you’ve grown to love.

I will have to say that it’s not all sunshine and lollipops and rainbows, everything that’s wonderful is what I feel … sorry, I’m back.  This game suffers from the same issue as almost every other sporting game: the commentary.  Whilst it’s not as bad as Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 (“He has become a MASTER of the lob shot”) it does become repetitive.  The obvious issue is that they can only record a certain number of commentary statements, which means that after hitting your 20th home run you’re well and truly sick of hearing “And it is out of here!”  This is one of those problems that can never really be fixed, other than the unlikely possibility of commentary DLC.

Relax in Japan by hitting balls into crowds of people

Another issue arises from the controls themselves.  This is one of those games where you learn by doing, not by going through any serious training level.  What little training the game offers in the early stages is not nearly enough, and you find yourself dropping catch after catch whilst Matt throws Doritos at your head and laughs … uhh, hypothetically I mean.  The Bigs 2 strikes me as one of those games where had they walked you through how to specifically do all the basics, it would become very boring very quickly.  It’s a Catch-22 of a level to make Joseph Heller proud.

While the AI can certainly make things difficult for you, throwing another human player into the equation makes it (if you’ll excuse the pun) a whole new ball game.  This game poses a real challenge when you have to take on other people who can adapt to your game play.  The online setup is professional and I’m yet to run into any problems with games dropping out or not completely loading.  And given that players can technically score an unlimited number of runs from one out, there are very few people quitting when the going gets tough.  As a staunch opponent of premature evacuators, this thrilled me no end.

So, what can one take away from this?  What can you truly believe?  Why does Matt only take one shower every 2 weeks?  Basically, just looking at the game’s cover should be enough to answer if this game is for you.  If you are even slightly interested in a baseball game, you will enjoy The Bigs 2.  It’s well put together and accessible even for casual fans.  If you don’t have an inclination to get a baseball game, don’t get this game.  It’s that simple.

At the end of the day, the game is like most dates with me: you’re hitting a ball with a stick and avoiding the men with leather covered hands.

I have … exotic tastes.

The Verdict:

Pros: Well thought out story mode, engaging controls once you get a handle on them.  The replay value does not drop away, especially with the game’s decent online setup.  The word “polished” sums the game up quite nicely.

Cons: Repetitive commentary, and occasionally baseball-specific terms (RBI, designated hitters, etc) lack a clear explanation for players new to the game.

Overall: It’s a smart, well made game that delivers what you’d expect and a little bit more.  The Bigs 2 is at it’s best when played against human opponents, as the ability to be kept guessing really makes for a fuller experience.  If you need a baseball game, get this one. 4 out of 5 stars.

LeChuck's Revenge is a dish best served cold

A year or so ago when I reviewed The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, I tacked a little comment on to my suggestion to purchase saying that we should all buy ourselves a copy to ensure that LeChuck’s Revenge: Special Edition was made.  Given LucasArts’ fine tradition of recycling their IPs I’m not sure what inside me ever considered that they wouldn’t deliver a special edition of the sequel, but a little over a year later and here I am sitting in front of a spectacularly re-rendered version of Monkey 2.

The game begins with Guybrush Threepwood (purveyor of fine leather jackets) stuck on the lawless Scabb Island, continuing his search for the mythical treasure of Big Whoop … but then you already know that story, and I’m sure almost 95% of people who end up buying MI2:SE do too.  The Monkey Island games are undeniably pure genius, but their continued creation relies on the fact that nostalgic gamers like myself will shell out the cash unquestioningly.  Luckily the brand new Monkey 2 will only set you back ~$10 however, a price that more than equals it’s value in lingering nostalgia alone.

But if the nostalgia isn’t enough then what you’ll be paying for is a completely voice acted, re-rendered, re-orchestrated, widescreen version of the original game, with a couple of neat little extras thrown in.  If you played Monkey Island: Special Edition then you know just what to expect … and if you haven’t played Monkey Island: Special Edition then why are you even considering buying it’s sequel?

OK, was I the only one as a child to think that "phlegm" was pronounced "fel-gem"?

But while the Special Edition treatment is identical over both games, there is something a little more … hollow this time around.  I couldn’t really put my finger on it, but I’d imagine it’s because there’s something less iconic about LeChuck’s Revenge, which is why I didn’t feel the same sense of excitement upon loading the game as I did with it’s predecessor.  When you think about Monkey Island as a series, your first thought is almost always of the catchy main theme playing over Secret‘s blue-black title vista of Melee Island, or the witty barbs traded via insult sword fighting.  Both of these feature prominently in the game, and so when they came to life in The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, I was genuinely smiling from ear to ear in appreciation.  My favourite memories of LeChuck, however, are all smaller things: the game’s hilarious end-credits, Largo LeGrande’s “Woodtick” theme and Guybrush’s awesome new beard to name a few.

Which brings me to my disappointment with this game; while all the big stuff is taken care of LeChuck’s Revenge: Special Edition fails to deliver on these smaller elements.  The “Things To Do After The Game” has been cut wholesale from the ending credits (the memorable Map and Dancing Monkeys intro credits too) and Guybrush’s beard is now more of a paltry 5 o’clock shadow.  And while the re-recorded Largo theme is fine, the music for this installment in general is a little bit hit-and-miss.

You know you're a nerd when you can identify the developers from their cartoon silhouette

Possibly these things bother me so much because they’re an indication that not as much care was put into updating the sequel as was used with the original.  Or possibly it’s simply that the new car smell has worn off the Special Edition treatment, and now I’m being more picky about the recreation of an adventure game classic.

These things aside, if you’re like me and bought Monkey 2 just for it’s nostalgia quotient then you’ll definitely want to check out the developer commentary feature, which is well worth your time.  Ron Gilbert, Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer have recorded location specific commentary for most areas in the game, discussing how the game took shape and what kind of planning went into a great deal of the game’s puzzles.  The commentary is often insightful, funny and something that every player (new or old) should certainly switch on.

The only thing that I didn’t like about it was the way it’s integrated into the game.  If there is commentary available the game prompts the player to activate it, but it does so even if you’ve heard a particular section.  For example, there is one commentary section for the main town area of Woodtick, which prompt itself every time you walk through.  I kept feeling the need to press the button in case the commentary had changed since the last time, only to find the same section each time.  Given that you have to make the conscious choice to switch the commentary on in the pre-game menu, it would have been better to simply activate commentary automatically the first time it becomes available.  This way it would play more like a DVD commentary, but still have the option to replay if you missed something.

I'd love anyone who HASN'T played the game to explain this screenshot

Just like the first MI:SE there is a rather robust hint system built into the game, which can deliver anything from subtle hints all the way to a flat-out walkthough.  New to this special edition, however, is the ability to highlight interactive elements in the environment, which cuts down on any pixel hunting you may have had to endure in the original.  Both features are useful for first-time players, but part of me thinks that the convenience doesn’t really help the game.  Monkey Island 2 was originally one of those titles that would confound the brain to breaking point, but eventually solving a particularly oddball puzzle was very satisfying.  Here we’re furnished with an instantaneous solution to any problem, which probably says more about the modern gamer’s short attention span than it does about the complexity of the puzzles.

So while the “wow” factor may have worn off, Monkey 2: Special Edition is still definitely worth a look.  The game’s signature humour and classic puzzles haven’t lost any of their appeal over time, and when someone who knows the game’s solution off by heart can buy it and not feel over-charged then you know it’ll be a decent purchase for new players.

The Verdict:

Pros: Developer commentary was the big surprise here, something so simple yet effective that I’m a little surprised they didn’t think of it for the first Special Edition.  It adds an extra layer of depth for returning players, and gives you a better understanding of the minds that originally conceived this oddball adventure.  Voice-acting is all top quality, and the slightly start-stop pacing has been improved from the previous game.

Cons: Although the new environment visuals all look fantastic, I found the updated Guybrush to be a little out of place.  His new character model is obviously based more off his Monkey Island 3 incarnation (young, slender, bright yellow hair) than what Monkey 2 originally offered, which didn’t sit very well with me.  Music can also be a bit of a mixed bag, the worst example of which can be seen in Guybrush’s dream about his parents’ dancing skeletons.

Overall: It’s probably only because I hold this game in such high esteem that I’m finding fault with it’s restoration, but for whatever the reason I wasn’t as impressed with this installment as I was with the original Monkey Island: Special Edition.  But it’s definitely still worth the asking price, and certainly worth picking up, so I’m giving it 4 out of 5 stars.

Johnson the albino merc gets a bad feeling...

Our regular readers will all know by now what a giant Mass Effect fanboy I am.  Despite that, I’ve found most of the game’s recent DLC packs a tad underwhelming.  What then can Lair of the Shadow Broker, the latest add-on for Mass Effect 2, offer us?

The story begins, as usual, with a message from Charlie / the Illusive Man.  Somehow he’s managed to find information that could lead someone to the Shadow Broker, and there’s no someone in the galaxy more interested in finding him than your old teammate Liara T’Soni.  So you trot off to Illium to share the news with her and thus begins another merry adventure complete with mercenary battles, hostage negotiations and lightning rods.  That’s right – fucking lightning rods, kids.

You’ll find a bit of variety thrown into the 2-3 hours it will take you to finish the pack – obviously most of your activities are still combat-oriented but you’ll get to do a little elementary police work, some tracking and even fly a sky car at different points.  Liara becomes a temporary member of your squad for the mission and biotics are still her specialty.  She’s automatically loyal and has the warp, singularity and stasis abilities.  Stasis is the only “new” ability (those who played ME1 will remember it with indifference) and it’s only really handy if you’re overwhelmed and want to hit “pause” on a particular enemy.  Singularity and Warp both come in handy during the mission though.

Liara and Shepard have a moment

Most of the enemies you’ll fight will be the Shadow Broker’s mercenary army.  They’re exactly like Eclipse mercs, just with white armour instead of yellow, and shouldn’t pose too many problems.  The boss fights are a little more difficult however, especially on the higher difficulty levels.

As the title indicates, you’ll eventually end up in the lair of the Shadow Broker it/her/their/himself (did that cover enough bases that I haven’t actually given away anything?  Good, because for all you know the Shadow Broker isn’t even real, right?) and while you’re there you’ll be able to co-opt some handy resources that you can keep tapping well after the mission is over.  These include dossiers on various important individuals (including your team), archive video recordings, mineral resources and research projects, some of which can take your weapons past the old 5/5 upgrade limit or catch you up on upgrades you’d missed.  You’ll also get access to a facility to retrain the powers of all your squad mates, the same as you can do for Shepard in the lab on the Normandy.

So you’re well rewarded for finishing the pack.  For all the achievement whores out there like Matt there are five new achievements to get over the course of the pack as well.  We may as well talk about price briefly: it’s 800 Bison Dollars points (or about AUD$12), which is more than the previous packs, but it’s better than them as well … so trade that off mentally as you will.  I think it’ll prove to be an important enough part of the game that it’ll be worth it.

Imogen the office OH&S rep will have someone's bollocks for this

The writing overall is very good, as we’ve come to expect from Bioware, but it’s especially impressive given the sheer number of combinations and permutations of events and relationships the game is now dealing with.  So far I’ve played the pack through three times, because I’m just that dedicated to our readers getting the whole story.  Two runs were with characters that were involved with Liara in the first game: one had stayed faithful to her (that’s right, I elected not to get laid before the final mission and stare longingly at a photo instead) and the other had moved on to someone else.  Liara interacted with both characters in different ways.  Some of the differences were subtle, some of them less so, but it all seemed well fleshed out.

The other play through was with a renegade that wasn’t down with inter-species loving in the first game and things felt a little more stilted.  Don’t get me wrong, pretty much everything still made sense, but I kind of got the impression that the game expects you to have chosen Liara in ME1 – in kind of the same way you get the impression you were supposed to let the Council die (oops – hope that wasn’t a spoiler for anyone who still hasn’t played the first game).  I haven’t got any characters mid-game at the moment so I haven’t tried playing it before the suicide mission to see how well it fits in.  Apparently it can be done but it’s largely assumed you’ll be playing this pack after you’ve defeated the Collectors.

Liara's apartment on Illium - fancy, no?

Moving on from the serious stuff, there are even a few humourous moments thrown in.  Shepard and Liara bicker like an old married couple much of the time and it turns out she’s a real Mrs Bucket when she gets in a car with you.  Some of the information contained in the dossiers and videos you get access to by the end of the mission are very funny as well.  Grunt’s extranet search history brings the lulz, for example, as do the video snippets of the annyoing Citadel reporter with the long name.  And I’ve got no idea what Asari Confessions 26: True Blue is, but quite a few of your male squad mates seem to watch it…

I’ve got one minor gripe, the PC version I played did have a bug or two.  The first time I played I had to repeat the first part of the mission after a bug killed the game and judging by the forums I haven’t been the only one.  It only happened the once though, every other play through has been fine.

As an addendum, I downloaded the new Firepower DLC pack at the same time as Lair of the Shadow Broker.  It provides your team with three new weapons – a laser-sighted hand cannon, a Geth plasma shotgun and a new assault rifle.  The hand cannon is largely pointless because you’ve always had a targeting reticle so functionally the laser sight doesn’t add anything.  The assault rifle is powerful but semi-automatic, which in reality makes it either a slightly more powerful hand cannon or a less accurate sniper rifle.  I ditched it at the first opportunity, though I was happy for my squad mates to use it.

Samara models the Mattock heavy rifle

That just leaves the plasma shotgun which, thankfully, is awesome.  It deals loads of damage in a wide area and it’s got an option to “charge up” before firing to deal extra damage (something I found handy in the final LOTSB boss fight).  It’s loads of fun and makes it easily the best shotgun in the game but it’s hardly essential if you’re like me and rarely used shotguns in the first place.  I think it’s safe to file the Firepower pack under “for completists only”.

Lair of the Shadow Broker is great though.  There’s a reasonable amount of play in it, the writing is excellent, there’s a few challenging fights, new locations, new activities, it’s visually impressive and there was at least one moment that made me stop and mutter “Holy shit that’s cool”.  It’s easily the best ME2 DLC pack so far and if you enjoyed playing the base game you’ll almost certainly want to have a crack at this.

The Verdict:

Pros: Great writing, story finally moving towards ME3, lulzy reading and viewing material once you’ve finished the mission.

Cons: Lack of alien side boob will continue to disappoint some, there are minor bugs and it’s more expensive than previous packs.  Firepower pack not really worth bothering with.

Overview: As DLC goes, Lair of the Shadow Broker is bloody good.  Long term fans of the series in particular will appreciate the chance to resume plots from the first game and also start moving towards the third installment.  Some fun boss fights and a few spectacular visual moments round the whole package out nicely.  3.5 out of 5 stars!