STALKER

Thursday, 10 July 2008

Written by: Melaisis

Personally I'm still playing GTAIV, so here's a STALKER review (Its a long 'un!):


Well, I said I was gonna do another review, so here it is! Again, I am typing this in a single-sitting without any actual drafting, so excuse me if it sucks, or seems all ranty, or you find something else distasteful about it (I suppose that's where I come in - Mel). This review will be on the last game I completed, GSC Game World's "STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl". Yes, I know this game has been out since March of 2007, but the prequel is due to come out within the next couple of months, and I just finished it. So if you're the kind of person who will bitch about me reviewing it for that reason, go drool over 3dRealms' table scraps or something instead of pointing it out like it's some kind of damn crime. It's not illegal in my jurisdiction, anyway.

According to the pseudo-intellectual clusterfuck known as Wikipedia, GSC Game World is based in Kiev, which, like Chernobyl, is in the Ukraine. I suppose their proximity to the site of Captain Planet's worst nightmare makes them a good choice to make a game set in that location. Again, according to Wikipedia (ally to those too lazy to do their own damn research) they have had most of their success with some sort of strategy series that I don't remember the name of, about people on horses stabbing each other in squabbles about arbitrary boundaries... or... human history, I guess would be an easier way to say it. I think this is their first adventure into the wonderful world of shooting people with Kalashnikovs in a first-person view.


In STALKER, you play an unattractive Slavic dude who is suffering from amnesia; an affliction about as common among action/adventure protagonists as the common cold. Rescued from a pile of dead Slavic dudes who were in the back of a crashed Soviet-era (old Soviet crap is very atmospheric, right?) truck that got hit by lightning or something... who drives a huge, rickety truck in a lightning storm... damn, this is kind of a run-on sentence now and... dammit. Ok, so another, less ugly Slavic dude rescues you and brings you to an even more ugly, fat Slavic dude with atrocious table manners, and you wake up, and your fancy PDA thingy displays a message in English telling you to kill some other Slavic dude.

There are lots of Slavic dudes, actually. Most are probably Ukrainian, but I'm not sure, some might be Russian, or Estonian. Who knows? They're here for a reason. See, the story goes that sometime in... 2008, I think the game said, but my mind is wandering... there was a second explosion at the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear powerplant, and afterwards, weird shit started going down that could not be attributed to this. Some of this weird shit resulted in the formation of bizarre 'artefacts' which have strange and wondrous effects on human life, and mutant critters that biologists think could lead to new discoveries... and new discoveries can mean big bucks... er... roubles.

You wake up in a camp of 'STALKERs', people who have come to brave the dangers of 'The Zone' in hope of finding stuff that they can sell, perhaps allowing them to at least buy toilet-paper and thus improve their standard of living. As payment for saving your irradiated ass, the fat dude asks you to do some jobs for him, which gradually leads into the game's main story, which I will summarize... at some point.


I should probably make note of the fact that in the cutscenes, which are not rendered with the in-game engine but are actual video (haven't seen that in a while), the lip-syncing seemed off, but since there isn't much of it to be off in the first place, and this is a Ukrainian-made game, and I was playing it on my new laptop which I haven't played many games on (and thus may be responsible for the issue itself upon further investigation), I was willing to forgive that little problem. The cutscenes themselves are quite nice, in my opinion, they have a very cinematic feel to them.

Anyway, one of the first things you will notice about this game is that speaking to NPCs brings up a dialogue thingy, which kind of reminds me of Fallout, but doesn't take up the whole screen. Some of them have a lot to say... but very few NPCs actually voice it... if that bothers you, take some more Ritalin so you can enjoy it, for the sake of gaming... uh oh, am I gonna rant again!? No... anyway, the dialogue is fairly simplistic, but this is an FPS, so that's fine... it gets the job done, letting you ask for busy-work, find out more about the setting, hear rumours, and so on.

NPCs are fairly well done. Except for the most important ones, they speak in Russian, which is very atmospheric, and explains why audio dialogue with the player is sparse. They go about their business, usually sticking in the same area, but not like damn statues... they will tell jokes around campfires, some have guitars they'll play little songs on... they all have names, and they do in fact remember your actions towards them. If you shoot some guy in the ass for... I dunno, maybe you have an ass-shooting fetish... he won't like you, and neither will the people he hangs out with. If someone else does it, and you patch him up, he'll like you. The only problem is that some dialogue is repeated over and over in a relatively short span of time, like this butt-buccaneer in the bar who keeps saying "My information may be of use to you, Stalker," every 15 seconds, and he even says it in English, so you can't even at least start to learn a new damn language! Asswipe. I'm not much good for Eastern European etiquette, but I feel fairly confident saying that's really fucking annoying in any culture.


There are NPC factions; Loners (this is actually the lack of a faction I guess), Duty, Freedom, Monolith, the military, mercs, and bandits. You start out as a loner, and (to my knowledge, though I never tried) can later join Duty or Freedom, but not both, because they don't play nice. Your interactions with various NPCs will change faction opinions of you, so if Duty really likes you, Freedom will hate your guts, and vice versa. If you're a huge arsehole and kill people for fun and profit, the mercs and bandits, I'm told, will not necessarily gun you down on sight, though Monolith and - "MY INFORMATION MAY BE OF USE TO YOU STALKER" - the military will still decide you need some added ventilation. All in all, this is a very cool feature which I feel was under-utilized. Apparently GSC agrees, because they say it will play a major part in the upcoming prequel. Sounds like good times.

I seem to have been interrupted during that paragraph by the most annoying NPC ever. Sorry about that.

Now, it's about time I actually talked about the gameplay, particularly the shooting. This is really a shooter, after all, as much as I want to praise the more RPG-esque parts of it. The combat ranges from "Haha, this is awesome!" to "I think I'd rather get kicked in the shins by midgets". It's interesting to note the fact that although some enemies seem to take bullets to the stomach like they were getting hit with clumps of soggy Wonderbread, a single shot to the head (which can feel like it's the size of a mandarin orange if you take into account the inaccuracy of some weapons) will kill all but the toughest enemies... if it's a sniper round, that will kill anything. Then again, I'm playing through the game a second time and not noticing this on a higher difficulty, so I am now attributing it to a poor choice of weapons and a reluctance to use armour-piercing bullets the first time through. The lesson? Experiment with weapons in this game.

The shooting is nothing special, for the most part, but you do get an impressive array of cool guns, which all have different characteristics which may appeal to different people. The MP5, for example, fires faster than the AKM-74, but - "MY INFORMATION MAY BE OF USE TO YOU STALKER" - is less accurate and does less damage. You can put a silencer on the MP5, but you can't give it a scope and a grenade launcher like the AK. Then again, that scope on the AK may be over-rated, because, as I said, accuracy is an issue; the bullets won't always go exactly where the scope says they will - better switch to semi-auto! Maybe you should hit your 'V' key and use that full-featured grenade launcher? I do like the grenades in this game, something I don't say very often... the launched ones have a small blast radius, but the thrown ones have a realistically large (HUGE compared to the puny grenades in most shooters) range that makes them easy to use unless you decide you want to play catch with flying shrapnel, and neglect to get behind cover. There's a lot of choice in how you kill the bad guys, here, given the setting. No gravity gun or anything, but you'll be surprised how different things will feel going from one assault rifle to another.


You also have a knife, which is VERY powerful if you can get close enough to use it without getting hollow-point brain surgery... much harder than it sounds. For a game called STALKER, it's really hard to sneak in this. Everything you do makes a bit of noise. Draw or reload a gun? Noise. Step through a bush? Noise. The enemies don't see you like some kind of psychic assassins, but with how well they can hear you, I'd expect them to have ears like fucking Dumbo. Did I mention that when they do hear you, they notify the Borg collective... er... each other... of it through telepathy (well, not really, but it sure FEELS that way) and thus ruin your attempts at stealth? Maybe that's a bit of exaggeration, it's ENTIRELY possible to do stealth kills, but for the effort it takes to do so without at least alerting nearby NPCs that something is up, you could be - "MY INFORMATION MAY BE OF USE TO YOU STALKER".

...Nevermind. I hate that guy.

Anyway, you could spend a ton of time just fooling around with the various killing implements. The only problem is that they start to wear down with use... after a while, they start to jam (which forces you to reload... even in the middle of combat) and - "MY INFORMATION MAY BE OF USE TO YOU STALKER" - eventually stop working altogether. This can be a pain in the arse if you've found a really nice weapon and are attached to it... where is this shit made, Hong Kong? I thought most former Soviet countries had a conscription-based military, do NONE of these people know how to fix a fucking gun?

My apologies for the - "MY INFORMATION MAY BE OF USE TO YOU STALKER" - dammit he interrupted me again... see, annoying! Rude!

That leads us to... inventory, maps, and menus. Interestingly, using any of them does not pause the game, so you have to be careful where you do it. This can be irritating, like when you're getting your bearings while a pack of a half-dozen mutant dogs that even PETA would advocate euthanasia decide they want your kneecaps for dinner, with a side of inner thigh. It doesn't help that you can only carry 50 kilograms of stuff before your stamina (used for jumping and sprinting, as usual) starts taking a SEVERE hit, and 60 kg (unless you have strength-boosting armour) before you find your top speed suddenly decreased to approximately that of a tree stump. This means that you may be inclined to spend a - "MY INFORMATION MAY BE OF USE TO YOU STALKER".

...I really wish that guy would shut up.

As I was saying, you may spend a lot of time fidgeting with your inventory... you also need to use it if you want to change your pistol or SMG/Rifle... you can only equip one of each, plus... ah, those artefacts I mentioned earlier? They aren't just good for selling; if you choose to equip them (up to 5), they will affect you in various ways, increasing your resistance to bullets, or things that want to chew on your face, or maybe increasing your stamina. They usually have a negative effect too, though. For example, producing radiation, or making you more vulnerable to fire. It's also fun to experiment with these.

You'll also spend a lot of time using your maps (and using that sprint that begs you to keep your carry weight low), because this is a astoundingly large and open game world by shooter standards; perhaps the biggest I have ever seen in a shooter. It's very well done, with burnt-out villages, swamps, laboratories, factories, forests... you gain access to more of it as you play the main story, but you get so much at a time you won't mind. Really, it's astounding they put this much detail into it, and it never really gets old. It's exactly how you'd imagine the area around Chernobyl looking. You even get to go through the Red Forest and Pripyat (look them up, I'm lazy). Apparently the devs looked at photos and news footage of the area, but it feels more like they arranged to spend some time in the real world location (hey, they let people in there, you just have to make arrangements I guess). Not too far from Kiev, so they very well may have.

Anyway, you've got all of this area to explore, and dead bodies will sometimes alert you to the location of hid- "MY INFORMATION MAY BE OF USE TO YOU STALKER" -den loot scattered... just ignore him, Lord knows I try... erm, scattered across them. The stashes are a bit buggy, though... if you get a note on the same one twice, it will erase the loot and leave the marker on your map. Kinda frustrating. But the stashes aren't the only reason to explore, there are other goodies you can find, and many side quests, which would be a pain in the ass if this weren't such a kick-arse environment to do them in. To make things even more interesting, there are 'anomalies', which will blast, throw, crush, burn, melt, shock, and irradiate you... they're all over the place, and often surround really good stuff or important areas... navigating them is quite nerve-racking at times (but in a good way). They're a new and interesting challenge.


Actually, it's quite overwhelming, especially with the mutants and bandits (who, judging from the rate at which they are able to repopulate their camps, apparently reproduce asexually and take 5 minutes to reach maturity and sprout an AK-74 from God knows where), and that's perhaps my biggest gripe ab- "MY INFORMATION MAY BE OF USE TO YOU STALKER" - Ok, I take it back... second biggest gripe about the game... sometimes it will feel like you're running a marathon to get back to the nearest trader, especially if you're carrying too much and keep running out of breath. A quick-travel would be welcome, and thankfully, GSC says the upcoming prequel will have one.

Maybe I should have done this earlier, but now I'll talk about the story. Remember, you're an amnesiac Russian guy? "MY INFORMATION MAY BE OF USE TO YOU, STALKER!"

SHUT YOUR BORSCHT-HOLE, YOU NEVER HAVE ANYTHING I HAVEN'T ALREADY LEARNED IN THE MAIN STORYLINE!

Ahem... you obviously need to find out who you are, so you need to head deeper into the zone chasing clues, though you can skip a lot of these clues (which I think is worthy of praise, options are good!). This will take you through creepy labs, decrepit forts full of underpaid Ukrainian Spetsnaz troops, mutant-infested swamps, brainwashed and heavily-armed cultists... you'll have to weave your way through the irradiated area around the Chernobyl plant itself as snipers and gunships hunt you down, while the plant threatens to blow a third time. There are parts that are creepy, confusing (usually in a good way... you know, teleporters and such), parts that will have you on the edge of your seat... it's really got everything you could hope for in a good shooter... and then, you will get one of seven different endings (though 5 of them are more or less the same, and result from the same choice at the endgame... you'll see).

So, in conclusion, you can probably tell I really enjoyed this game. I understand that the initial release was horrendously buggy, but I'm reviewing the version which we have NOW. I admit it has some significant faults, but in my view, the pros far outweigh the cons (many of which I can let slide, considering this is a Ukrainian game, and a new genre for its developers), and if you like open-ended, RPG-esque shooters, you owe it to yourself to play it. I don't know about you, but when STALKER: Clear Sky is released, I'll be all over it like no shooter I've anticipated in years. In the meantime, I'll be looking for a way to port that 'information' guy to Garry's Mod, and a mod to let me dismember and impale him. I guess that will have to do for now.


So, I have no clue what to review next. If someone will make a suggestion (no, my computer can't run Crysis at more than 2 frames per second), I promise to be less verbose next time! Honest!

ComradeJim270

Labels: 3scapism, 3scapism reposts, melaisis, STALKER

Author: Melaisis | Comments: | Leave Your Response?

Oblivion

Sunday, 6 July 2008

Written by: Melaisis

I have made it no secret that I have a serious problem with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. More often than not, I will jump on any chance to make a negative comment on it, or those who developed it. But I have never gone into real detail about just how deep the rabbit hole goes, or where it leads. I have never explained the history behind and the nature of these feelings in full detail. Now that we have a forum specifically for user reviews, I see a new opportunity to do so.

Let me first explain that I didn't jump on the bandwagon with the Oblivion criticisms: I always at least try to finish a game before even discussing it, to avoid spoilers and the like, and to develop my own independent opinion. When I did finish Oblivion, and went online to discuss it, I instead found myself cursing the bandwagon for not being nearly big enough, as well as lacking some kind of horrific and murderous device on the front to aid in cutting a bloody swathe through the fanboys, whose lack of taste made my stomach churn.

This review is "Oblivion, As It Was" because I am stating the way I felt about it when it was still new... an easy task, as my feelings towards the game itself have not changed.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is, of course, the sequel to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, a game which I thoroughly enjoyed and praised, and for all its faults, was, in my self-righteous and freely-provided opinion, very good overall, especially with an active modding community to correct the aforementioned faults. True, the dialogue system was reminiscent of a visit to Wikipedia without using the 'search' function, and it wasn't the prettiest game around, but it's a bit silly to expect a steak will not have some gristle in it... and the non-gristly parts of this steak were juicy and delicious. With all the wondrous things Bethesda showed us and told us before Oblivion came out, I expected the next course in the Elder Scrolls meal would be just as yummy, if not more.


Starting up the game for the first time, I immediately found myself confronted by what I can now call a sort of cruel foreshadowing. The slow, moving, and epic theme of Morrowind was replaced by a perverted version of itself that made me imagine Jeremy Soule snorting crushed Ritalin while chugging triple espressos, the same thing it now seems everyone involved in making the game did. I suppose it was supposed to be more powerful, more urgent, more epic, but instead it sounds like the guy running the recording equipment had severe diarrhoea and could only let them have a few minutes at a time before running back to the crapper again. This is personal preference here, of course, but as I said... also foreshadowing, because this ADD-friendly characteristic does not end here.


Shrugging off this change to one of my favourite video game themes as lamentable but ultimately minor, I proceeded to make a new character. Since the unmodded faces in Morrowind looked like they had been worked on by a mildly retarded plastic surgeon with poor eyesight, I was pleased to see I could now customize my character's facial appearance. While my efforts to give my character a beard failed, due to the fact Bethesda apparently thinks making my character look like someone carefully cuffed him around the jaw with a baseball bat will work for that purpose, I was ultimately pleased with the result. I didn't start to subconsciously notice what would turn out to be further foreshadowing of Oblivion's craptasticness until I began looking around the jail cell I found myself in.


Everything around me appeared to have higher graphical quality than the face I had just spent... too damn long, I guess... working on. It all looked very nice, as I had expected from screenshots and video previews. Walls, objects, clothing - very good graphics, except my character's face, which appeared, in contrast, to be of the quality level which would have gotten the same reaction sometime in 2002 or so. I shrugged this off, and decided I had spent enough time indulging my autistic tendencies by fucking around with the face of a character I would mostly be playing as in first-person.


Next thing I noticed? Someone was speaking to me. This was cool, I thought, and preferable to Wikipedia at this point. But then I saw he was a Dark Elf. Why did he sound like C-3P0 with PMS, instead of the awesome "I just swallowed a handful of gravel and chased it down with a quart of gasoline" voice the male Dunmer had in Morrowind? Oh well, I've only seen one NPC so far, anyhow, I thought, and his silver-tongued insults were nicely atmospheric despite his voice being as it was. More characters arriving added to this delightful sense of atmosphere I hoped would continue for the whole game... the voice acting itself was well-done and believable, and made the NPCs feel more alive than the cardboard cutouts in Morrowind. They still looked like someone had assailed them with an ugly stick, but oh well. I don't play RPGs for flashy graphics, and they still looked way better than Morrowind characters.

Unfortunately, my enjoyment of the game couldn't even escape unscathed from that jail you start in. Though Patrick Stewart's voicing of the also ass-ugly Emperor was top-notch, I felt like I was talking to a senile old fart, not a respected leader of an entire continent. Yes, the Elder Scrolls lore says he was probably 80-something, but it's no fun when he acts like it by responding to my character in a manner that screams "We didn't bother to record him responding differently when you say different things", which left me worried the dialogue in the game would continue to be half-arsed and to rattle my suspension of disbelief. This was only in the back of my mind, though. I was still eager to play, mostly dismissive of my worries, and overall fairly impressed with what I had seen.

At the end of the dungeon, of course, an NPC recommended a class to me, at which point I followed in the grand Elder Scrolls tradition and told him to go fuck himself, because all the built-in classes were bogged down with useless skills and I wanted to make my own. This took me even longer than making my face, because now you could only pick 7 skills of equal importance, instead of 5 major and 5 minor ones like in Morrowind. I didn't mind too much, especially since they cut out some skills, and consolidated others into a single skill, I'm just indecisive.


After I finished with that guy, who would not let me take the Emperor's stuff in spite of the fact he had just entrusted me with a sacred imperial artefact and told me to haul my grubby, just-pardoned-from-prison ass off an a mission of utmost importance, I continued through the sewers, fighting suspiciously weak goblins with the game's improved but still underwhelming combat system (more on that later), I finally stepped outside, hoping to see the lush jungles of Cyrodiil described in previous Elder Scrolls lore, but instead getting generic fantasy shit. Oh well, I must have just not found the jungles and stuff yet, right? I didn't see them in the intro movie, and this is a developed area anyhow! Whatever... now to the Imperial City... oh boy, let's see this "Radiant AI" at work!


Oh, what disappointment. Remember when I said that the underwhelming faces were foreshadowing? They were foreshadowing the fact that Oblivion seems to expect you will spend more time looking at things than people... in a ROLE-PLAYING GAME. It's a game about playing the role of a character, interacting with other characters. But the NPCs aren't even half-arsed... more like... I dunno, quarter-arsed, at best. Despite all dialogue being voiced, they apparently fired a bunch of the voice actors at Bethesda, because there are FEWER voice actors now than in Morrowind, where they had a tiny fraction of the number of lines. All male elves sound like the first you see, with that fucked up, achingly stereotypical British accent (female elves lack a British accent, for some reason, just like male Imperials, and unlike female Imperials). Their social interactions are also unbelievably awkward and absurd, like they grew up in their abusive step-father's closet, so you basically hear the same few voices saying the same shit all the damn time. When YOU talk to them, it's still like Wikipedia, except now there are 90% fewer articles, voice instead of text, and each article is limited to one paragraph in length, probably so the 13 year olds apparently targeted by this game don't get bored.

The faces are ugly because you'll want to spend as little time as possible looking at them, and even if you didn't, they run out of things to say almost immediately... except to each other, because they love to make jarringly unnatural small talk. It's like listening to especially eloquent retards carrying on about stuff that doesn't even concern them.

Also, everyone walks like a woman in high heels, with their hips swaying wildly, but since my character did this too, I pushed it to the back of my mind, and reminded myself that in Morrowind, they walked like they were trying to goose-step but didn't quite know how, and ran like... I dunno, Flashdance. So it was still an improvement, and I'd play female characters in the future.

Understandably, I was quick to leave the city, perhaps to encounter something more socially adept, such as a starving, rabid wolf. Lucky for me, that's the first thing I ran into. I was frightened by this at first, recalling how simple wildlife in Morrowind would maul my starting character like he was made out of leftover meat by a deranged butcher whose favourite book was Frankenstein, but thankfully, combat in Oblivion is much better. If you swing a weapon at something, and you are close enough, it will hit. Rather than determining if you hit or miss, the corresponding skill determines how much damage is done. You also manually control blocking, and can do it with any weapon. A hit is assured, as is a block; so my craptacular weapons and blocking skill was sufficient to slay the wolf. I also tried some spells, which are actually very useful now that magicka (you use it to cast spells) actually regenerates, instead of waiting for you to take a nap when it runs out every 15 minutes, like you were 90 years old or something. Spells also work 100% of the time now, with the related skill determining how much it costs to cast them, and whether you are sufficiently skilled to use then in the first place. If you need to be level 50 in the skill to use a spell, it will work 0% of the time until you reach that level, and 100% of the time afterwards. Very cool, and it gives you a real sense of progress in these skills, at least.

Too bad that sense of progress doesn't extend far beyond this. The real reason I could kill wolves and such so easily is that the game makes itself easier for you. The first big battles I fought were disappointingly easy, because instead of nasty, apeshit, demonic invaders with swords as long as my leg, I fought bad guys who looked like the little fuckers in Gremlins... you know, that 1980's B-movie? The evil demon soldiers I faced were apparently interns or something, because I could have sneezed on them and killed them. All the NPCs were telling me "Oh shit, the evil demonic Daedra are invading, and you have to stop them with that rusty sword", instilling a sense of foreboding at a presumably difficult battle ahead, but after killing some gremlins and going TO A BIGASS FORTRESS IN HELL, ploughing through the bad guys (some gave me trouble, until I got used to the simplistic combat), and emerging victorious from a gigantic hell portal, all I could think was "That was it?".


I didn't know about the level scaling until a bit later, but I was righteously ticked off when I learned of it. Why can't I find better armour and weapons? Because nobody will drop them, and no loot container will have them until I reach an arbitrary level, then every bandit and his goldfish will head over to Honest Bob's Loot Emporium (We reserve the right to refuse service to player characters) for free shit (that costs YOU a fortune), then stuff it in chests, wear it, and wield it. Obviously, they will also use it against you, so the bad guys are always a match for you... no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to be powerful relative to the NPCs (the monsters level up too, weaker ones being replaced by more powerful ones), except by virtue of them having the intelligence and combat prowess of a slightly retarded Cocker Spaniel with severe cataracts. You will also never get really great loot before, say, level 20, because it won't exist. Even quest rewards are levelled, so you get the dollar store versions of them if you do the quest too soon... but I guess you could do the main quest in the meantime, right?

Wrong. Even stuff in the main quest is levelled. Some demonic invasion, their best troops are apparently AWOL until you hit level 20. Even their reservists patiently wait for you to enter their glowing orange gates of fiery doom and kill them, rather than overwhelming the cities of Cyrodiil. The NPCs cry about how, any day now, a bunch of evil motherfuckers will swarm over the city wall, and URGENTLY beg you, and only you, to do something, but you can take as long as you like. Goodbye, suspension of disbelief!

When you do go into the hell gates, of which there are MANY (nearly all are optional), you are teleported to one of a comparatively tiny number of "Planes of Oblivion" repeated over and over, which you will have to drag your ass through to get to a stone at the top of a huge tower to close them. You get to keep the stones, and make cool stuff with them, as they create powerful (again, for your level, so it's best just to kill monsters for 20 levels if you want the best stuff) enchantments you can't quite match, otherwise.

Speaking of enchantments, you have to join the Mages' Guild and advance to a certain rank to do them yourself. This is not a problem, because the factions in Oblivion apparently have very low standards, and don't require you to be in any way qualified. You can finish the Mages' Guild questline, and advance to the top rank, without casting a single spell. You can finish the Fighter's Guild questline without using a weapon. You can finish the Thieves' Guild questline with all the subtlety of a main battle tank driving through an art gallery displaying a blown glass collection. You can do all of this, and monopolize the fucking power structure of Oblivion. With one character. Especially since most of these quest lines are short, and you get a promotion after almost every mission, even though there are NPCs who are older than the fossilized dinosaur turd I used to have on my mantle, and have been trying to advance in rank for most of their lives.

Side quests, for the most part, are also a load of shit. Because Bethesda's writers apparently think diplomacy is for pussies, most quests, not counting the ones which you could more or less do in real life by getting a job with UPS, end in you killing someone or something. I suppose that's to be expected when most people in Cyrodiil are too stupid to actually speak... they have to stab each other instead.

That's another thing; there are NPCs you can't kill. Some of them are in escort missions (inexplicably, the hardest escort mission doesn't do this), but most of them are not. If you take their health down to 0, they faint, then shortly get back up. Just for kicks, I once shot about 30 arrows into an innkeeper (who went flying over tables and knocked stuff all over the place, showing off the Havok physics engine, one of the few good things in the game), until they were a walking pincushion, utterly unconcerned they had arrows sticking out of them from different angles all over their body. This is hardly immersing. What if I want to rob these arseholes? So what if they give a quest later on! Bethesda harps about the freedom given to players, but won't let them kill a damn innkeeper.


Back to the quests... to do them, you follow a magical arrow which appears on your mystical fucking Compass of Omniscience (well, they don't actually give you an item like this, it's just part of your HUD thingy), which always knows exactly where to go to proceed with whatever you are doing. No exploration or exciting searching for a landmark in a dangerous (Hah! Not in this game!) place is needed, it even alerts you to dungeons 500 yards away. I suppose this is because those exciting jungles I mentioned much earlier don't exist, and the game just has: generic fantasy mountains, generic fantasy grasslands, generic fantasy coniferous forests, with hills and water here and there so Bethesda can make a claim of some variety being present. Hard to tell one area from another when it's all like that. Or maybe the compass is there because the quests are also half-arsed, having about as much substance to them as a fart, from a role-playing perspective especially, but usually from a gameplay perspective, too.

You can't even decline quests, because your character is only marginally more verbal than most FPS protagonists. When offered a quest, you can only say (with minor variations here and there) "Yes" or "Maybe Later". When you eventually get bored with working for Ye Olde Fed-Ex, and say "Yes", your magical Journal of Telling You What to Do Because You Must Be Retarded will say exactly what's going on and what you're SUPPOSED to do in this game that is supposedly so big on player freedom. You want to turn in the Thieves' Guild? Too fucking bad. The journal says you should join them. Ignore it and do nothing, or obey it. The journal says missionary with the lights out, so you better listen, or you don't get anything. What a bitch!


Oh, you also get a horse. Your horse sucks. It can jump, but not very well, so you usually have to make several attempts to jump over anything, and you may as well try going around, instead. Enemies, no matter how fucking slow they are, will chase you and your horse for approximately the distance between New York and THE FUCKING MOON. If something gets in front of you, even if it's just a damn rat, your horse will run in place until it gets out of the way or you go around it, because apparently things that want to eat your toes have the right of way. Thankfully, there is a quick travel feature that lets you move in simulated real-time to places you have already been, or to cities and towns, though this is probably for the Ritalin-popping crowd, and not because Bethesda realized the horses suck. You can't do this if "enemies are nearby" (for instance, if a small crab is within 100 yards and aware of your presence, prompting a slow kamikaze charge because a huge Orc is invading it's turf, where non-crustaceans are pinched on sight), though, making the horse even more annoying. You could just skip the horse, because running doesn't even tire your Olympic athlete of a character, it only means that the fatigue of jumping and fighting wears off more slowly. Not sure if that's an improvement.


Now, it's not all bad. Like I said, most of the game looks good, and the combat is substantially better than in Morrowind. The few characters who have their own voice actors sound great. And on the rare occasions where I could manage suspension of disbelief, the main story was pretty good, with some really cool parts, and some which I'm sure would have been moving if not for the context (You can't fish a pie out of a cesspool and expect to enjoy it, no matter how nice a pie it would otherwise be). Some quests, particularly segments of the main quest, manage to shine through the dark river of Tdod Howard's excrement here and there, and are quite memorable. Skills and magic use have been tweaked or redone to be more fun and/or more useful, though the replacement of Speechcraft and Security skills being done by the game, to being mini-games, may annoy some, being too easy or too hard or simply unappealing. There's also a lot to do, though most of it is not terribly exciting or interesting, so you can at least get quantity in terms of gameplay, even if quality is generally lacking. You can also turn off the game, then go try to pick every berry off a blackberry bush, I suppose, but will getting jabbed by thorns until your hands are terribly swollen and infected with some horrible flesh-eating pathogen be worth the effort of getting said berries?

I would not say Oblivion is necessarily bad, at least not as a game. As an RPG specifically, it's a blight upon the whole genre, showing what I feel is precisely the wrong direction to go, but just as a game; it manages to have just enough going for it that it can be called decent, on the whole. There are many, many games you'd be better off playing, but it's not really an awful thing if you end up playing Oblivion instead. If you mod it, to at least try and fix the mistakes Bethesda still won't actually acknowledge. or to add some better quests and such, it may actually be quite good. I suppose part of my problem with it is just that I feel the whole thing is a big mistake that nobody will accept as such, but that's not the fault of the game itself.

In the end, I'm just one man with no say in the direction the gaming industry goes. I just hope that Oblivion is an evolutionary dead end... and that someday, I may be able to kick Bethesda in their collective balls and take all their wallets for tricking me into buying it with a mastery of bullshit that should impress even Peter Molyneux. Who knows? Maybe it will happen!

ComradeJim270

Labels: 3scapism reposts, game review, oblivion

Author: Melaisis | Comments: | Leave Your Response?

Medieval II: Total War

Friday, 4 July 2008

Written by: Melaisis

Moar 3scapismness.


The core question for the Total War series is, and always has been; Do you want to rule the world? The answer is also the answer to your question; should I buy this game?

[If_no;goto_"peggle"]

For those of us who have faithfully followed the series through it's three previous instalments - Shogun, Medieval and Rome - the core gameplay of M:TW2 will be immediately familiar. For the benefit of those who don't, the game offers you two meta-games in which you will prove your suitability to the throne of Emperor.

The strategic map, in which you start as one of five immediately available nations*, is where the big-picture game is played. It's not really complicated; the goal is your flag above their cities and castles. But, of course, that's their goal, too. And with the Pope about, telling everyone to just chill and be nice - and you'll quickly find a Crusade knocking on the door of your capital if you don't listen - you'll often find yourself treading a path on the subtle side of Hannibal in your quest.

To aid you in this, you are given four distinct ways of making this all easier; diplomacy, espionage, assassinations and, if all else fails, war. An enemy can often be talked into giving away a city if you offer him a suitable diplomatic incentive. However, if your neighbours remain stubbornly opposed to gentle assimilation, spying out their cities and having their leaders quietly toe-tagged will make your inevitable sieges and field battles dramatically easier.

And once that comes into play, we go into the second meta-game of M:TW2 (or is that M2:TW?)- the tactical map.


The tactical map, commonly known as the combat interface, is where the Total War series have traditionally split paths with other Risk-like games. This is where you start feeling like you decide the outcome of your bid for world control, your choices have consequences and it's your genius or idiocy that conquers the enemy. It distances you from the feeling that you're playing a numbers and odds game, like Civilization, and that's what makes the Total War series special.

(You are, of course, playing a numbers game, but it's one that doesn't wait around every corner to remind you by hitting you in the face with a baseball bat. And it's one that takes the luck and skill factor into account.)

So, as two armies clash on the strategic map, you'll be brought into a zoomed-in version of the map, placing you and your opponent into the context of the map. This is the above-mentioned and aptly-named tactical map, where you're given a bird's eye overview of your army's position and your enemy army's position. You manoeuvre to gain the advantage for your units and to counter your enemy's advantages. Broken down, it's a complicated game of chess with rock/paper/scissor-type units. However, the historically [largely] correct relative strengths of units as well as the impact of terrain and tactics serve to milden the edge of that design, and in some cases it even warps them. Remember; even a pike unit is defenceless against horse when they're charged into from behind.


Once you've grasped the inherent subtleties of the two meta-games, you'll also start getting an appreciation of the bonds between them. For instance, an unit of Sergeant Spearmen bloodied and experienced from a Papal crusade can bring back battle-bonuses like Damascan-steel armour and weapons, high discipline and strong morale. A unit like that will be absolutely brutal when deployed correctly in a battle in mainland Europe. It will also have strategic benefits, like an "honour" bonus to your law and order rating when used as part of a city or castle's garrison. And generals with the same background will become absolutely invaluable, strategically, and a fearsome thing to face on the battlefield.


Now, a lot of this might sound like tedium and details, adding to the already significant workload of micromanaging your cities, fleets and your campaign. And it is.

See, that's why I popped the question in the start of the review. Do you want to rule the world? If you don't - if you don't bring your own motivation - this very much open-ended, story-less game with close to zero explosions and naked chicks will quickly become boring. While you might find the battle sequences interesting and challenging, you'll quickly get bored of those, too, out of context.

And to top that, you can actually get beaten in this game. Trashed. Completely annihilated. Easily. Your kingdom will only be known in history books, as a footnote, misspelled and sadly so very, very alone. All alone. This game is mean.

But if you do bring that motivation - if you're actually genuinely interested in history, crave to try your hand at beating the world, or if you're a sadomachistic nutbag, this game will give you everything you can dream of. The contented sigh of watching opponent after opponent - empire after empire - crash down in a silent, unremarkable, unremembered thunderclap of flames. The visceral satisfaction of brutally tearing apart army after army by beating your opponent in a tactical game to the death - a game that might as well have been reality. The grin-inducing cheer of having conquered the world with Scotland.


And that's why I'll say that if you do, buy this game, if you don't, stay clear. It's pretty - the new graphics are neat and sometimes cinematically beautiful - and well-done, but if your spark just isn't there, find yourself another game.

*More are added to your list of choices once they're defeated in a campaign, or all of them if you manage to achieve world domination.

Pulsifer

Labels: 3scapism reposts, game review, medieval II, total war

Author: Melaisis | Comments: | Leave Your Response?

Mass Effect

Thursday, 3 July 2008

Written by: Melaisis

More 3scapism repostness!


You stand victorious over the hordes of beasts that have clawed at you, come close to killing you, and are menaces to the galaxy. Finally, it's down to you and the last of its species. It shows remorse, it knows why it had to be wiped out. It seems that it has learnt its lesson, it wants a chance to live, a chance to see its children thrive. You alone have the choice of life and death. Kill it, and the entire galaxy will be thankful. Kill it, and you'll effectively be guilty of genocide. Welcome to the world of Mass Effect.

Set 200 odd years in the future, after humanity has discovered new alien technology and hyperspace travel, the plot reads like almost every sci-fi game ever made. You know, there's some kind of threat to the universe and it's up to you as Captain America to end it by travelling about in a spaceship named after an American military victory etc. But a couple of twists on a tried and tested formula make this game compelling and compulsory playing.


First of all, humanity is rather late to the hyperspace game, and it finds itself in an uncomfortable position as an outsider. Humanity is distrusted amongst the other races of the galaxy (this comes up almost incessantly), and is only recently been given a morsel of power in galactic affairs. Every move you make is being watched by others, some wanting humanity to thrive, some wanting it to be subservient.

It all makes for some fascinating game play when faced with the choices that almost every quest brings up. You not only have to think of yourself and the character you're playing, but the consequences of your actions as a representative of the human race.

One of the most compelling aspects of this game are the moral choices that you are forced to make with almost every quest. How you handle any given situation will give you food for thought. Combined with the well drawn characters, this makes for compelling game play. For example, do you try to handle a hostage situation all guns blazing or do you try to resolve the situation peacefully using a bit of the ol' charm/intimidate? The ability to try and talk out a situation rather than go in all guns blazing is a refreshing change from the 'go here, shoot that' linear mentality of most games today.

For example, during the main quest, you not only have the lives of your squad in your hands but often you are forced to choose whether a party member survives or not. It's one of the oldest tricks in the book, but it's still effective in investing the player in the game morally and emotionally and also getting the player to think about the wider scope of their actions.

Much has been made by the tomes of dialogue that the game throws at you, and with good reason. Sometimes the sheer amount of it can seem a little overbearing, but instead, the dialogue system, instead of bogging you down in the mire seems organic and natural because of the conversation wheel. This sees the player giving a response to a particular bit of dialogue not once the particular line of dialogue has been finished, but a few seconds before. This feels more like a natural conversation, as in most conversations, people are busy thinking of a response rather than listening to what is being said. Of course, this leads to missing out on a bit of dialogue, but it's a feature that is remarkably well implemented. You actually feel as if you're having a conversation rather than choosing a response after having a good long while to think about the implications of your choice. Though by far the most impressive part of the dialogue is the superb voice acting.

Almost all of the dialogue is this game sounds pitch perfect for the situations you are confronted with, and this doesn't just cover the main characters. The amount of interesting characters you will meet are staggering, and this can be attributed to the fact that not one sounds like the other. They all have their nuances, and the voice acting reflects this perfectly.By far the most impressive voice acting comes from the male and female versions of the main character, Shepard (played by Mark Meer and Jennifer Hale respectively), with their dialogue spot on for the vast majority of situations, a quite lofty achievement given the reams of dialogue they spout. An honourable mention must go to Steven Barr for creating the enigmatic Urdnott Wrex, who although a murderous alien, is someone you you'd actually want to have a conversation with.

However, if there is one criticism of the voice acting in Mass Effect it has to be directed to Raphael Sbarge and the character of Kaidan Alenko. You see, Alenko's voice seems a little... familiar, and if you've played Bioware's other space Action/RPG Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR), you'd recognise the voice of Kaidan Alenko as the voice of Carth Onasi. I say recognise, but they are the same voice. Exactly. I'm all for voice actors working on more than one project, but there's just no difference between the performances! People who have played KOTOR will become frustrated by the character very quickly.

Another source of frustration for the player lies in the combat. Employing a third person shooter approach, the mechanics of the fighting are simple enough and will take only a short while to become accustomed to. However, what really grates is the way that squad members are used. In a party of three, commands of 'defend', 'attack that guy' and 'go there' can be issued at any given time which is all well and fine...if you could issue the orders individually. You see, when you give a command such as 'go there behind that hyper galactic space crate', both of your allies go. This can be an immense source of frustration if say, you want to issue an order of 'you go there, and you go to the other side. I'll stay here with my sniper rifle while you two flank and draw out the enemy'. I found myself reflecting on how this could be useful every time my character died from being flanked by the enemy.


Those familiar with KOTOR will feel right at home when it comes to weapon customisation and inventory management. A number of upgrades can be applied to items (such as guns and armour) to increase their effectiveness against certain types of enemy, and these upgrades for the most part really help you out.

Force powers, I mean, 'biotic powers' also make an appearance in the game. These cycle through your standard lift/throw with the power of your mind, kind of powers to more advanced powers such as stasis or singularity and how many you can use and their effectiveness depends on what type of character class you choose. For example, you can't run around throwing enemies about like rag dolls if you've chosen the soldier class. There only about seven powers in total and whereas these biotic powers are useful on occasion, one gets the yearning for there to have more powers to play with.

The graphics and sound in this game really do stand out from the pack though.

The former, while not hyper-realistic are something to behold. The light reflecting from the gentle glow of ship navigation systems, the sparkle of water and the dialogue scenes (which at times look pre-rendered they're that good) all combine well to suck the player into the world. However, for some reason the game comes with film grain turned on, which just looks like the dog's breakfast rather than cinematic. Thankfully, this can be turned off otherwise I would have to take vengeance upon the world (yes, it looks that bad).


The sound in Mass Effect and particularly the score are absolutely top notch. This is one of the few games today that you'd want to buy the soundtrack for with the score taking you back to the glorious days of the 80's sci-fi. It really sets you in that world when you hear an awesome synth piece playing in the background. It's pitch perfect every time for setting the mood whether travelling, going into a creepy room or coming up to a major plot point.

Special mention has to go to Canadian indie band Faunts and their song 'm4 pt II' which plays over the credits and captures the feel and tone of game perfectly. It's one of the very rare times that you'll actually want to watch the credits.

Overall, though frustrating at times, its flaws can be overlooked because of the journey the game provides for the player, one that you actually care about (which is a nice change). In a few areas such as character dimension and voice acting it sets the benchmark for all other action/RPGs to follow.

Depending on your disposition, you will either love every minute of Mass Effect, overlooking its flaws or be ultimately frustrated by the fact this could be a masterpiece if not for the couple of things dragging it down.

Hey Joe

Labels: 3scapism, 3scapism reposts, mass effect, melaisis

Author: Melaisis | Comments: | Leave Your Response?

The Fable Series

Tuesday, 1 July 2008

Written by: Melaisis

More 3scapism goodness!


You know the feeling (perhaps). You had a total stunner of a girlfriend, but it ended badly. She was hot, but underneath her dazzling looks, you realized there wasn't a whole lot there. You called the relationship off in a bid to save your sanity, and haven't spoken to her since. Then one day, three years or so later, you bump into her, and my goodness she's better looking than ever. What's more, she wants to try again with you. She's practically begging you to take her back. She's changed, she says. She's matured, she's gotten some depth. You want to believe her, you really do, but still some nagging part of you says 'No, you've been here before, it'll all end in tears...'

Well, seeing as Fable 2 is peeping its head round the metaphorical corner, I thought it was as good a time as any to look back at the heartless strumpet that was the original Fable. Bearing in mind that Yahtzee did a review of Fable a while back, this is meant to read more as a checklist for Mr Molyneux to go through before he releases his latest creation onto the public. Quite why he would be spending his precious time reading obscure forum threads I have no idea, but we all live in hope. Here then, is a list of the good that should be retained in the sequel, and the bad that should never have been dreamt up in the first place, let alone actually put in the game.

Note to any and all readers: this review contains all sorts of plot spoilers and summaries. Therefore, if you haven't actually played Fable and want to keep your virtuous innocence of its plot unspoiled, scroll down to the end of this article to read what little conclusion I can be arsed to pull out.

Firstly, the good:

- The humour. Whereas most RPGs take their end of the world plots all too seriously, Fable is remarkable light hearted, and dammit even funny on occasion. Being able to play football with chickens, the scripting, even the funny accents, though that's probably more to do with the fact that I will laugh at anyone who hails from the West country. Keep the humour intact, Mr Molyneux, and you'll be doing fine. A laugh a day keeps the doctor away, and all that.

- Combat. Or to be specific; melee combat. If Fable can claim to be superior to Oblivion or Morrowind in anyway, it's the sword combat. Combos are easy to pull off, satisfying to watch, and decapitating a bandit and kicking his head around never gets old. There's not a bad selection of weapons either (though by no means fantastic), and it's nice to see that hammers and maces feel slower and heavier compared to swords and katanas. Soul Calibur it ain't, but for an RPG it's not bad at all. Well done Mr Molyneux, you actually beat Bethesda at something. Have a coconut and a pat on the head.


Erm...

Well... Onto the bad then. [Pulls out the goggles and rubber gloves in preparation for some good old fashioned punishment]

- Combat. Specifically, magical combat. Yahtzee may have already pointed this out, but I think it bears repeating so that Mr Molyneux gets the idea. Magic is meant to be a viable alternative to swords and bows. Spells that start off piss-weak and end up mightier than Armageddon itself are NOT a viable option, they are a bloody frustration. If you are going to have magic in the next game, sort out the fecking balance issues so that we can dip into our fecking pools of magic without having to have a fecking war hammer on standby in case it all goes tits up. Ahem...

- The linearity. Fable, despite what Mr Molyneux may say, is actually a very, very, VERY linear game. The story itself doesn't change at all until the final few seconds of the game, where you have to choose between throwing the Sword of Aeons into the Ether, or keeping it and for some unexplained reason gutting your blind sister. The game doesn't care if you're good or evil, your actions will have no effect on any of the main characters or events whatsoever. The blurb said 'for every choice a reaction'. Bugger that, it's a case of the same bloody reaction regardless of your choice.

Example: At one point in the game you have to choose between killing a bandit lord or letting him live, having beaten him in combat. If you kill him, then later you are warned that his followers have hired a bunch of assassins to come after you as retribution for his death. If you let him live, then you are warned that he has hired a bunch of assassins to come after you as retribution for his humiliation. In both cases, the assassins appear in the same places, running headlong towards you screaming in a way Altair would never think of doing, even at his most conspicuous. The developers had a chance to actually branch the story a bit, and they purposely decided against it. This is one example of many within the game.

Mr Molyneux, if you are going to tout Fable 2 as being non-linear, then bloody well make sure it is non linear before you send it to the publishers.

- Good vs Evil. Right Mr Molyneu...ah, bollocks to all the niceties

Molyneux! If you're going to include a moral choice system in Fable 2 then for god sakes man, bloody well make sure it has at least some small vague trappings of depth to it! If you're going to have a bloody Guild that supposedly doesn't care whether its graduates follow the path of good or evil (a highly suspicious arrangement if you ask me), then bloody well stick to that, rather than having the Guildmaster suddenly telling me his surprise at Whats'isface's betrayal and ordering me to stop Jack of Blades 'because he's evil'. That's the point you twit!!! He may be evil, but he's also the most powerful hero you've ever produced and according to your rules you should be bloody proud of him! Continuity, Molyneux, continuity!!!


And that leads me to my next point. The story. My goodness, if I ever see a more generic bunch of characters assembled together I'll have to phone the creators of Fantastic Four to let them know some of their cast has escaped. Would it hurt to give the bad guy a little bit of depth? Motivation? Just a tad of humanity?? Note for next game, Molyneux; choose a bad guy who's middle name isn't 'Generic with a capital 'G''.

And finally, to end this rant and bring up my final point- hype. It killed your last game Molyneux, don't let it kill this one as well. All that talk of growing trees and whatnot. You had our little hearts in your hand like butterflies, and you crushed them mercilessly with your iron grip of Rushed Production. Keep a lid on it this time. Don't promise us the world on a stick, just give us a good time. All we want is a little bit of fun to brighten up our otherwise dull lives. Give us that. Who knows, maybe you'll exceed expectation this time round...


...But wait. You've already been talking to the press about the dog. Spouting off about how it will be the first ever virtual creation to win our unconditioned love. Lecturing us on how we can buy absolutely anything in the game. Oh dear God no, you've even used those cursed words, 'A living, breathing world that reacts to your every move'!

Damn you Molyneux! Damn you!!!

j-e-f-f-e-r-s

Labels: 3scapism, 3scapism reposts, fable, fable 2, fable series, jeffers, melaisis

Author: Melaisis | Comments: | Leave Your Response?

Syndicate And I

Sunday, 29 June 2008

Written by: Melaisis

Hey guys, Mel' here; owner of The Three Rs and (now extinct) 3scapism (amongst other projects). Due to the downfall of the latter thanks to circumstances beyond my (or the rest of The Escapist community's control) I thought it would be a good opportunity to give you guys more content by posting their reviews up here, so all our hard work doesn't go to waste. Hence, over the coming weeks, I'll be pasting (with minor edits) some of the 3scapism reviews from days gone by up here. Here's Syndicate:


Before the original Grand Theft Auto hit the headlines as a glorifier of violence and general bad influence on teens, games like the Ultima series were already allowing gamers the option of random acts of violence on innocent NPCs. Sure, it may have candy coated homicidal tendencies with a fantasy setting, but randomly deciding to walk into a pub and sword the cheerful civilians with not nearly enough consequences to discourage the act was no less malicious (or fun) as running over bystanders with a stolen car. In fact, it was entirely satisfying to engage in conversation with an utter jerk and show your disapproval with a well placed axe before taking the initiative to bequeath all their worldly possessions to yourself. If anything, the Ultima series catered to a far darker level of personal humour as it became my hobby to kill random isolated innocents and carry their body back with me to a small cabin in the woods, which I declared to be my "trophy room". The first trophy in the collection was the poor bastard to whom the cabin belonged.

But as fun as it can be to go on a killing spree armed with a crossbow, spellbook and an army's worth of medieval melee weaponry, sometimes, nothing can truly purge the frustrations of day-to-day life quite so well as open-firing upon a crowd of unsuspecting people, thus making their day decidedly more frustrating than yours.

For a 13 year old kid in the early 90's, this is where Syndicate entered the scene.

The game's layout can be most closely compared to the X-Com series, but everything is in real-time as opposed to turn-based, and cities are vastly populated with urban-levels of inhabitants that you can interact with by either leaving them alone or killing them in cold blood. And the comparison between X-Com and Syndicate becomes really thick once you move away from the action: you'll start with a certain amount of weapons and armour ready to purchase at the start, and new weapons and armour will become available to you either through researching them, or prying them out of your victims' cold, dead hands and THEN researching them. The speed at which you research them is determined by how much funding you apply to the project.


Money for funding and purchases can be raised through taxes in each of the regions that you control. Each region is a level that you must complete in order to take control of it, so the more that you conquer, the more money you make. However, if you tax them too high for too long, they will revolt, and you will have to play the level over again in order to reclaim it. You can also pick up weapons from fallen enemies and then sell them, but the money you make from these means are only helpful early on, and amount to chump change as the game progresses.

A big difference between Syndicate and X-Com emerges in the fact that Syndicate agents are sweepingly generic, the only variable being whether they are male or female, which itself has no impact on the action whatsoever. But instead of having character stats, Syndicate agents are defined entirely based on the armour and weaponry they are equipped with at the time, and each new armour upgrade enhances a respective ability. Improvements to chest armour increases their hit points and the range of their self-destruct radius. Upgrading legs allows the agents to run faster, the heart allows them to run longer, the arms allow them to carry more, and the eye improves their aim.

But the game's depth really kicks in once you start having to micro-manage the agents' abilities within the real-time (but pausable) action. Your agents don't just start aiming better, you have to crank their aiming bar. Your agents run as fast or as slow as you like, based on their speed bar, and their artificial intelligence (allowing them to act on their own initiative) in controlled by the AI bar, influenced by the level of the brain implants you've given them. But, as you set the bars higher, their abilities get tired, and as you set them lower, their abilities recover. In words it sounds complicated, but the execution is perfect.

The game places you in the role of a leader of a team of up to four special agents at a time that are mind-controlled into doing your bidding to accomplish your nefarious schemes in the ultimate goal of conquering the world. You will choose your team from a roster of agents at your disposal that will be sent down to a city with a mission objective, ranging from assassinating a particular target, to killing all enemy inhabitants, to using the Persuadertron to abduct VIPs and escort them safely to the exit point.


Syndicate also has a bit of a Hitman ingredient to it, in that so long as you get your objective accomplished, the game really can't care less how you go about achieving your goals. In fact, at least Hitman used a ranking system to encourage you to kill as few people as possible, whereas Syndicate doesn't shed a single tear if you kill every man, woman and their dog. Wait, that's not entirely true; there are no dogs in this game.

That said, certain actions may prove more beneficial than others. For instance, persuading enemy agents rather than killing them will recruit them to your team, which is quite essential if you're like me, and often enjoy carrying out assassinations in the least subtle manner possible by equipping your character with the best available chest armour, walking right up to your target, and then hitting the self-destruct button. Sure, the number of people who would enjoy that may have decreased since terrorism has become a far more prominent issue in the mainstream media over the better part of the last decade, but when I was 13, it was all good, clean fun.

Another of my favourite activities in the game is to use the Persuadertron during assault levels, gathering as many civilians as I can, and have them gravitate around me as a human shield to absorb enemy gunfire so that my agents don't have to. Then, once the threat is cleared, if I have any shield, I mean, civilians remaining, I hop into a car, run over as many as I can, then have the survivors pile into the vehicle and set my agent to self-destruct. Okay, I know this is quickly deviating from a proper review format, but if you haven't played this game by now, there's a good chance you never will, and I'm taking it as my duty to let you know what you've missed out on.

Now, especially for its time, the graphics were on the cutting-edge of Super-VGA, and as time has revealed, sprite-based graphics (which Syndicate employs) ages a lot less quickly than the innovators of polygons. The only criticisms to the game that I have is that driving in vehicles is cumbersome and very limited in their control (they basically drive along an imaginary rail, so if you miss your turn, you have to take the long way around), and it's humorously awkward to watch as an entire city's population of persuaded inhabitants can all cram into a single car.


However, the most annoying aspect of the entire game is a sound issue. Overall, the sound is good, at least for its time. The music is subtle but sets the tone, the sound effects give nothing to complain about, and in basically, in terms of quality alone, the sound holds its own as one of the game's strengths. The problem emerges with the fact that every time you click the mouse button on anything - ANYTHING - a voice saying "SELECTED!" is played. You select an agent to control? "SELECTED!" You select a weapon for them to equip? "SELECTED!" You choose which mission you want to play? "SELECTED!" It's a good thing that the game is a good source of venting, because the constant playing of the "SELECTED!" sound byte contributes towards your NEED to vent.

Overall, though, the game is amazing, and one of gaming's most overlooked innovators of violence. The levels get to be quite challenging at times, especially depending on how you choose to play them, the micro-management of your agents, and the management of your economic resources, and it all comes together in a solid gaming experience that can not only be fairly long, but with loads of replay value that will keep you coming back to play your favourite levels over and over.

I don't like giving numeric values to game reviews, so I'll just mention that I probably spent more time playing Syndicate and its expansion, American Revolt, than I have spent playing all the Grand Theft Autos, combined. Granted, I have yet to play through a GTA game's story mode, in favour of just amassing weapons and seeing how long it takes for the police to finally take me down.

end_boss

Labels: 3scapism reposts, introduction, melaisis, syndicate

Author: Melaisis | Comments: | Leave Your Response?