xbox 360

Game Corner: Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City (Xbox 360)

Dr. K3 Comments

Released: 20 March 2002
Developer: Slant Six Games/Capcom
Also Available For: PC and PlayStation 3

The Background:
By 2012, the Resident Evil series (Capcom/Various, 1996 to present) had undergone many changes since debuting as a cheesy survival/horror title hampered by “tank controls”; Resident Evil 4 (Capcom Production Studio 4, 2005) famously switched the game to a more action-orientated, over-the-shoulder third-person perspective, which had been expanded upon greatly in Resident Evil 5 (Capcom, 2005) and would basically transform the series into an action-heavy shooter by Resident Evil 6 (ibid, 2012). In the midst of this transition into a more action-orientated franchise, developers Slant Six Games worked alongside Capcom on a spin-off, a squad-based shooter that reinterpreted events from the franchise’s early days. Despite selling over two million copies and being considered by Capcom to be a success, the game was met with mixed reviews perhaps in a reflection of the backlash against Resident Evil’s new direction; some praised the gameplay and mechanics while others criticised it as being inferior to other, similar videogames.

The Plot:
In a retelling of the events before and during the zombie outbreak in Raccoon City, an Umbrella Security Service (USS) strike team, under the command of HUNK, attempts to secure the G-Virus sample from Doctor William Birkin. However, they are soon forced to battle against Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service (UBCS) mercenaries, flesh-eating reanimated corpses,  and the malevolent Umbrella Corporation’s many Bio-Organic Weapons (B.O.W.s), and faced with death and betrayal that cause them to question their orders.

Gameplay:
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is a third-person, squad-based shooter in which players can pick from six members of the Umbrella Security Service (U.S.S.) Delta team (known as “Wolfpack”): Vector, Lupo, Beltway, Spectre, Bertha, and Four Eyes. Once you’ve selected your character, you must then select three others to assist you in the game’s missions to be controlled either by other human players using the game’s online function or assigned to the relatively competent A.I. No matter which character you select, the controls remain the same and will be instantly recognisable to players of similar third-person shooters: press in the left stick to run and then press A to dive ahead, press the Right Trigger to fire and the Left Trigger to aim, B executes a melee attack, you can switch weapons with the Left Bumper, toss grenades and other explosives with the Right Bumper, and press X to reload. The directional pad (D-Pad) also factors into gameplay; you can select from the different grenades available by pressing right, use a First Aid Spray by pressing left, use an Antiviral Spray by pressing down, and toggle through various vision modes by pressing up.

Each character has different abilities that can be used to give you an edge in combat.

Each character does, however, have access to several different abilities, which you can activate with Y for a variety of temporary effects. Vector specialises in reconnaissance and moves much faster, can become undetectable to enemy radar, mimic other characters, and become completely invisible; Lupo focus more on combat and is able to wear stronger body armour, reload faster, and utilise more versatile ammunition; Beltway is the explosive expert and is able to better resist explosions, disarm mines and traps, and utilise a wider variety of explosives; Spectre is all about detection and mapping and is able to expand upon the mini map and detect nearby items and enemies using different vision modes; Bertha is the team’s medic and can carry more healing items, use them more effectively, and reduce the amount of damage taken; and Four Eyes, being more of a virologist, can carry more Antiviral Sprays, detect infected individuals, and both infect and command infected targets. Similar to the more action-orientated Resident Evil titles, much of the game is focused more on combat rather than exploration and puzzle solving; as a result, you will automatically snap to cover when you’re near walls, barriers, or other objects and must often clear a room of enemies in order to progress. The game is surprisingly dark, however, so I recommend increasing the “Gamma” settings in the options to bring a bit of illumination to the darker areas, though the use of darkness is used to create a sense of ambience and dread to the proceedings.

The better you play, the more XP you’ll get and the faster you can upgrade weapons and abilities.

As you defeat enemies, find Raccoon City Mascots and data, destroy well-hidden security cameras, pick up Intel and send it using laptops, and complete missions, you’ll gain experience points (XP); XP is then used to purchase new weapons and unlock and upgrade each character’s Passive and Active abilities. While any character can use any of the weapons you unlock, once again you can only carry two weapons at a time, so you’ll most likely be dropping weapons and liberating new ones from your defeated foes, and you’ll need a great deal of XP to unlock and upgrade everything the game has to offer for its six characters. As is the standard for Resident Evil titles, you can pick up First Aid Sprays to fully refill your health and use green herbs to restore a little bit of health; if you come across a green herb, though, it cannot be stored in your inventory. Unlike most other Resident Evil videogames, though, you can actually become infected with the Tyrant Virus (T-Virus) and, unless you use an Antiviral Spray, will become a zombie and attack your team mates after a short period of time. Additionally, you can be afflicted with a “bleeding” status that will attract (and spawn in) all nearby enemies (though you can also inflict this status on human enemies to zombies attack them as well). Note, however, that while you can pick up First Aid Sprays, Antiviral Sprays, and additional weapons and explosives, you’ll lose all your new held items if you die during a mission.

Take advantage of the stashes of ammo to help stave off the swarms of zombies.

The A.I. is relatively competent in a firefight; if they get downed during combat, you can press A to revive them but you may find that they often wander around aimlessly and tend to shoot through doors and walls before enemies even spawn in. Your mission objectives generally involve holding out against wave upon wave of enemies, reaching a specific destination, and clearing out all enemies but you’ll also be tasked with destroying or locating certain items and objects. Other times, generally during boss battles, you’ll have to hold out until doors are opened, or open them yourself, and the battle becomes much more about survival as you desperately try to stay alive while a seemingly endless wave of enemies attack you. Despite the fact that the environments are littered with an abundance of ammo creates and plenty of ammo and weapons, it’s easy to be overwhelmed, which can lead to some frustrating moments that are probably made a lot easier when playing with another human.

Graphics and Sound:
Resident Evil: Operation Racoon City mostly holds up pretty well; thanks to many of the characters having their faces obscured by helmets and masks, the character models largely avoid resembling action figures and, when popular and recognisable Resident Evil characters do appear, they shine all the better for it. However, I did notice quite a few instances of slowdown and jitteriness when there were a lot of enemies and characters onscreen at any one time and more than a few clipping errors where characters would walk through parts of the environment.

Gore and creepy, recognisable locations are plentiful, if a bit dark at times.

The game’s environments are decent enough; they’re dark and creepy and fully of the usual Resident Evil ambiance, featuring flickering lights, blood trails, and an abundance of gore to punctuate the game’s action-orientated approach. There are a lot of little details here and there (though the dark lightning can make a lot of them difficult to make out) and, once you finally escape from the drab, grey corridors, you’ll get to fight through the ravaged streets of Raccoon City (which was a notable highlight). Other environments include the dark, maze-like offices of City Hall, a creepy cemetery, as well as recognisable locations from Resident Evil 2 (ibid, 1998) and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (ibid, 1999) such as the police station (including Chief Irons’ office) and the prerequisite Umbrella laboratories and facilities. Despite the presence of a number of high-quality cinematics, the game’s cutscenes largely utilise the in-game graphics, primarily to ensure that your chosen character and team mates are properly loaded into each scene. This adds a degree of variety and replayability to the game as different characters have different dialogue in cutscenes, though it does seem as though the game recycles a lot of sounds from Resident Evil 5.

Enemies and Bosses:
As you might expect, one of the most common enemies you’ll encounter in Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City are zombies; zombies are slow, shambling corpses who go down quite easily but generally attack in large groups and will lunge and grab at you to try and take a bite out of you. In these situations, you can frantically wiggle the left stick to try and shake them off and you better make sure you do this as they can infect you or cause you to bleed otherwise. Dead bodies in the nearby area will often pop up as surprise zombies, who can also power-up and return to life as the much faster, tougher, and more aggressive Crimson Heads so make sure you take them out with a good old head shot before they get the chance to do this. Similarly, you’ll also encounter the odd Cerberus; these infected dogs like to pounce at you out of nowhere to give you a good scare and you’ll also have to shake off their bite and have a good aim to take them out because of how fast they can be. You’ll also come up against spider-like Parasites that quickly scuttle across the environment and can also be difficult to hit. These become doubly annoying when they join with a zombie as not only will Parasite Zombies be faster and more dangerous thanks to the Parasite’s extra limbs but you’ll also have to kill the Parasite after taking out the zombie host.

Lickers and Hunters are as formidable a threat as ever thanks to their superior strength.

You’ll also come up against some of Resident Evil’s most notorious B.O.W.s, such as the Lickers and the Hunters; Lickers scramble all over the walls and ceilings, popping out from vents and grabbing at you with their long tongues. Fast and difficult to hit, it’s best to target their exposed brains but they can easily overwhelm with their sheer numbers and ferocity. Similarly, Hunters will often drop from the sky in torpedo-like capsules and attack with an unmatched viciousness; leaping and charging across the place, they attack with large, deadly claws and take a great deal of punishment before going down so you’ll definitely need your more powerful weapons to make short work of them. Apparently because B.O.W.s aren’t interesting and dangerous enough, you’ll have toe exchange gunfire with a variety of living, human enemies; soldiers from the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service (U.B.C.S.) will fire at you from behind cover and other barricades, often to provide support for series staples such as Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield, and are surprisingly durable and difficult to spot. You’re encouraged to inflict them with the bleeding status to send nearby zombies into a frenzy and tear them apart but this can just as easily be bad news for you, too, as the U.B.C.S.’ bullets can cause you to bleed and the final mission of the game is notably frustrating because you end up caught in a crossfire between the well-equipped U.B.C.S. and an endless swarm of zombies.

Keep your distance from the invincible “G” to avoid his swings and hold him at bay.

If you’ve played Resident Evil 2 and 3, you’ll instantly recognise the bosses and larger B.O.W.s included in the game; given that your first mission is to retrieve the Golgotha Virus (G-Virus) samples from Birkin’s laboratory, the first boss you’ll encounter is Birkin in his monstrous “G” form. “G” can’t be killed, however, making this a tense chase down a very narrow corridor as you desperately avoid “G”’s wild swings and slow him down by shooting nearby explosive barrels and pipes. If you linger around too long or get too close to him, it’s stupidly easy to get caught up and glitched on his hit box and the nearby environment so just turn around and run and save your ammo and efforts for when the game tells you to hold him at bay.

Mr. X is bad enough by itself but is accompanied by other enemies and another Tyrant!

Another recognisable B.O.W. you’ll encounter more than once is the T-103 Tyrant known as Mr. X; this massive, hulking figure has a tendency to attack and damage other B.O.W.s in its path and can be briefly controlled by Four Eyes but, for the most part, is indestructible when you first encounter it, leaving you to desperately run around taking out zombies and Parasites as you retrieve key cards to escape the area. In a later mission, two of the damn things attack you at once and you must take them out in order to progress. They’re incredibly strong, leaping and charging at you, pounding you into the ground and squeezing the life out of you with each so it’s best to keep your distance, focus on one at a time, and always aim for the head. One of the most troublesome and frustrating missions of the game sees you staving off wave after wave of zombies and U.B.C.S. soldiers while trying to bring down the Nemesis-T Type, an intimidating creature by itself without all the additional enemies swarming the area. After numerous deaths and failures, I found it was much easy to quickly take out any nearby zombies, grab some restorative sprays, and camp out by the ammo crate and take pot shots at Nemesis until it finally dropped to the ground, taking advantage of the explosive barrels wherever possible. Even then, it can rear up and keep ticking along, all while you’re getting shot to shit and desperately trying to bring it down so you can inject it with the NE-α parasite.

Concentrate your fire on the Super Tyrant’s exposed heart to take it out quickly.

As in Resident Evil 2, you’ll have to do battle with Mr. X’s final form onboard an elevator; again, like Nemesis, the Super Tyrant is powerful and formidable enough without the battle being made more strenuous by the presence of Lickers, flame jets, and being a gauntlet that you must complete without any checkpoints mid-way through. To take out the Super Tyrant, it’s best to camp out by the ammo crate, stay away from it, and shoot at its exposed heart with everything you’ve got. If it’s close enough to the elevator edge, you can knock it off pretty quickly in the first phase of the battle and, as long as you can pick off the Lickers and avoid being roasted alive, you can repeat this strategy for the second phase of the fight where the B.O.W. is much faster and more aggressive.

Claire, Leon, and swarms of soldiers and zombies await you in the final mission of the game.

In a change of pace, however, the final challenges of the game have you taking on Claire and Leon in separate missions; Claire awaits you in an infested train yard and likes to take pot shots at you with a grenade launcher but tags out before you get to make her pay for her insolence. When you get to the end of the train yard, Leon camps out up top and snipes at you while being protected by U.B.C.S. soldiers behind a fortified barricade and zombies roam the immediate area. This, without a doubt, was the toughest and most frustrating part of the game at that point and, in the end, I was reduced to simply tanking damage and running the barricade to reach the ladder and trigger the cutscene that led to the game’s final mission. Here, you’re given two options: one sees you spare Leon and the other sees you kill him as per your orders. If you kill him, you’ll have to take out a couple of your team mates before you can get to Leon, who blasts at you from behind cover and can cut you down with ease unless you bring along or get your hands on the sniper rifle. If you spare him, it’s the same thing but, this time, you’re defending him from your team mates and it’s a far easier fight but, if you want to get all of the game’s Achievements, you’ll need to slog through this final mission at least twice.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
As mentioned above, you have a variety of restorative items available to you in the game; green herbs offer a quick, one use pick-me-up, First Aid Sprays can be stocked and refill more of your health, and Antiviral Sprays will cure you from infection if needed. Unlike a lot of third-person shooters, your health won’t replenish over time so it’s best to keep a First Aid Spray in your inventory and to keep your team mates nearby so they can revive you as checkpoints are often lacking mid-way through the more frustrating missions.

Use XP to purchase new weapons and be sure to shoot open weapon crates whenever you see them.

Each character has a variety of unique Passive and Active abilities; Active abilities also come with a cooldown period so you can’t spam their use over and over and some are, honestly, more useful than others; the mechanics are definitely geared towards human players working together and using each character’s abilities to the best of their advantage and you’ll be grinding and replaying missions quite a bit to unlock everything and make life easier for yourself. Of course, the main power-ups you’ll pick up are the wide variety of weapons; pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, and heavier weapons like grenade and rocket launchers are all available if you have enough XP but you’ll also be able to liberate them from dead U.B.C.S. soldiers and grab better weapons from weapon creates scattered throughout the environments (you’ll need to shoot the locks off these first, though). You’ll also be able to use familiar weapons from the franchise, such as the Samurai Edge and Barry Burton’s magnum, and three different types of grenades (frag, flashbang, and incendiary). Thankfully, you don’t need to use XP to upgrade the proficiency of the weapons and, once you unlock them, any character can use them but you’ll still need a lot of XP to unlock everything.

Additional Features:
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City has fifty Achievements for you to earn; many of these are tied to simply clearing the single player missions but you’ll also get Achievements for purchasing weapons and upgrades, healing a certain amount of times, and killing a certain amount of enemies. Some are much trickier to get and require you to finish he game on harder difficulty modes, purchase and upgrade every ability, and kill enemies in specific ways.

There’s a fair amount of multiplayer and DLC options available if you want more content.

Many of the rest are tied towards the game’s many multiplayer modes; the game’s single player campaign can be played in co-op and it also features a variety of competitive modes, from traditional deathmatches to a survival mode and one that has you searching out G-Virus samples, and the Xbox 360 version also has an exclusive “Nemesis Mode” that allows one player to take control of the Nemesis and hunt down and kill the other players. Unfortunately, I never got to experience any of Operation Racoon City’s multiplayer options as they game cannot be played locally, which is always frustrating and mind-boggling for me, meaning I couldn’t even 100% all of the Achievements even if I wanted to. Operation Raccoon City isn’t an especially long game (I finished it on “Normal” mode in around eight hours), even in its most frustrating moments, but you can extend the game’s playtime by purchasing the “Spec Ops” downloadable content (DLC), which adds six more playable characters, a number of additional campaigns and Achievements, and more recognisable characters from the series to expand upon the game’s unique retelling of the second and third games.

The Summary:
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is a decent enough title for a spin-off of the main series; it takes many familiar characters and concepts from the franchise and reimagines them, fully embracing its more action-orientated mechanics and being a relatively inoffensive third-person shooter. It’s not much compared to the Gears of War franchise (Various, 2006 to present) and lacks a lot of the appeal of main series titles like Resident Evil 4 but, had Capcom kept the more action-orientated, third-person mechanics confined to a side series such as this, Resident Evil 6 might have turned out a little less disappointing. However as great as it is to battle the franchise’s gruesome B.O.W.s with more freedom and more detailed graphics compared to the original PlayStation releases, Operation Raccoon City has a lot of flaws and bugs and frustrating parts that really drag it down; the clipping and frame rate issues were noticeable, the lack of checkpoints and losing all of your inventory after dying can make bosses and the survival missions needlessly exasperating, and the sudden, anti-climactic end of the game really derails what little story is on offer. Overall, it’s a decent enough experience that should satisfy fans of the series, especially the more action-heavy titles like Resident Evil 5, but fans of third-person shooters can definitely find better options on the market.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

What did you think to Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City and how do you think it holds up as a third-person shooter and spin-off of the main series? Which of the playable characters was your preferred choice? What did you think to the game’s minor retelling of the main story and the encounters with recognisable Resident Evil characters and monsters? Did you choose to kill or defend Leon at the conclusion of the game? Did you ever play the game’s multiplayer and, if so, what was it like? Which Resident Evil videogame, character, monster, or spin-off is your favourite, and would you like to see a return to the more action-orientated style the games adopted during this time? Whatever you think, feel free to leave your thoughts down below.

Game Corner [Alien Day]: Aliens: Colonial Marines: Limited Edition (Xbox 360)

Dr. K10 Comments

Audiences were first introduced to the horrific, biomechanical Xenomorphs in the classic science-fiction horror film Alien (Scott, 1979), a tense and suspense-filled monster film that kick-started an entire franchise. In that film, and much of the subsequent Alien media, an unsuspecting cargo crew investigates a beacon on the barren world of LV-426 and, as a result, the 26th of April is widely celebrated as “Alien Day”, a day to celebrate one of the greatest sci-fi/horror franchises ever created.

Released: 12 February 2013
Developer: Gearbox Software
Also Available For: PC and PlayStation 3

The Background:
Hooo boy, where to start with this one? So, if you’ve played games, follow games news, or watch online reviews or videos about games the chances are that, at some point, you’ve come across people talking about Aliens: Colonial Marines, a first-person shooter (FPS) that was heavily pushed as being the official, direct sequel to Aliens. Though originally conceived of by Gearbox Software, multiple development studios worked on the game between 2007 and its eventual release in 2013 since Gearbox was busy dividing their attentions between multiple other titles at the same time. This, perhaps inevitably, led to some disagreements regarding the design and direction of the game. Further compounding matters was the fact that Gearbox were dissatisfied with TimeGate Studio’s work on the PlayStation 3 version and, having already delayed the game significantly by this point, were forced to work against a strict deadline to finish the game for its intended release date. Interestingly, Aliens: Colonial Marines actually sold really well upon its release (perhaps because of the strength of the Aliens franchise) but was the subject of widespread scathing criticism; critics were unimpressed with the graphics, bugs and glitches, poor textures and lighting effects, and its lack of continuity to the Alien franchise. While there were some who praised the game’s aesthetics and features, others criticised the intelligence of the game’s enemies, which had been corrupted and neutered thanks to a simple typing error in the game’s code. For my part, I’d heard all the horror stories surrounding this game and was still intrigued; being a big Aliens fan, and considering the game is dirt cheap and easy to come by, I figured it couldn’t really be as bad as I was being told, especially since I’d heard similar stories about Aliens vs. Predator (Rebellion Developments, 2010) and found that to be nowhere near as bad as I had been led to believe. Not perfect, for sure, but then again I’m not the biggest fan of FPS games so my expectations are quite low by default.

The Plot:
Seventeen weeks after the events of Aliens, the Sephora receives a distress call from the Sulaco, which has inexplicably returned to orbit around LV-426. Corporal Christopher Winter is amongst the Colonial Marines sent to investigate the ship, discovering that it (and the planet below) is infested with Xenomorphs that have wiped out an entire regiment of Marines and that the malicious Weyland-Yutani corporation have once again secretly been plotting to acquire the creatures for their bio-weapons division.

Gameplay:
Aliens: Colonial Marines is, like many titles in the franchise, a first-person shooter that is, for the most part, very similar to the Marine portions seen in Aliens vs. Predator and other FPS games. In a refreshing change of pace, you play as a character who isn’t silent for a change; Winter, like many of his fellow Marines, may look and sound like your typical overly-macho jarhead but it’s nice to actually have an FPS protagonist who isn’t as silent as a graveyard and can actually, properly interact with the game’s other characters.

Blast those Xeno bugs to mush with your FPS skills.

As you might expect, all the typical FPS clichés are present and accounted for: you can carry two weapons at a time, changing between them with the Y button, in addition to a limited number of explosives (frag grenades, firebombs, and claymores, specifically) and a pistol with unlimited ammo, both of which can be accessed by pressing right or left on the directional paid (D-pad). You can jump with A (though, thankfully, there isn’t really much in the way of platforming sections), crouch with B (doing so behind boxes or other parts of the environment to avoid incoming fire), sprint for a short burst by pressing in the left analogue stick, and execute a melee attack (generally bashing enemies with the butt of your weapon) by pressing in the right analogue stick. If Xenomorphs or Facehuggers pin you down, you’ll have to mash X to fight them off and may be reduced to your pistol for a few moments as you struggle to your feet; you can also shoot at explosive canisters to take out multiple enemies at once, which is always handy.

Don’t use the weapon wheel in the middle of combat or you might end up skewered!

Holding down the Y button will bring up the game’s weapon wheel; from here, you can equip different weapons as you collect or unlock them, which is useful but this weapon wheel doesn’t pause the game so, if you need to switch out our Assault Rifle for the Pulse Rifle in the middle of a skirmish, the chances are that you’re going to get injured or killed so it’s best to switch your weapons in safe areas. Most weapons have a secondary fire function as well, ranging from an explosive short or flame burst to a paralysing effect to your shots, and you can toggle your torch (or “flashlight” for you Americans) by pressing down on the D-pad. You’ll want this flashlight activated at all times since Aliens: Colonial Marines is a very dark game and you’ll need all the light you can get in some areas. I knew about this ahead of time and also cranked up the in-game brightness but, honestly, I actually didn’t mind the game’s darker areas and moments as they are all highly reminiscent of the source material and really added to the game’s fidelity to the movies and the sense of mounting dread and tension since you can never really tell what’s lurking around the next corner. Thankfully, you can whip out the franchise’s iconic motion tracker by pressing LB and a mini tracker will beep and appear onscreen when enemies are near. Neither are massively accurate and you can’t shoot and use the main tracker at the same time but it’s a welcome addition and better than nothing since the tracker also points you in the direction of your objective and notable characters/objects.

Gameplay occassionally slows down to have you defending barricades or using stealth.

The game features a relatively simple heads-up display (HUD) which tracks your armour, health, ammo, and experience points (EXP). Each time you kill an enemy or find a collectable, you’ll gain EXP and can spend these points on a variety of upgrades for each of your weapons. Your health is measured in three sections and will automatically refill in each section; however, should you lose a section of health, the only way to refill it is to grab one of the Med-Packs scattered across the game’s locations. Ammo, new weapons, and armour are relatively plentiful, often found stashed in the game’s quieter rooms or dropped by human enemies. The game also features some pretty generous checkpoints and, upon reloading a save, you’ll be gifted with full armour and health, which is always appreciated. The bulk of Colonial Marines’ gameplay is centred around exploring familiar environments from the first two movies, blasting a variety of Xenomorphs and human enemies as they rush at you, and some very basic missions. You’ll be cutting open sealed doors with your blowtorch, interacting with switches and consoles, finding flight recorders, taking out Weyland-Yutani scientists before they can activate alarms and set off poisonous gas, rescuing other Marines and personnel, and generally trying to survive and get to the bottom of Weyland-Yutani’s questionable schemes. Despite the game’s dark areas and the repetitiveness of many of the corridors and locations you find yourself in, the game is quite linear so you won’t find yourself getting lost that often but you can always refresh yourself on your current objectives by pressing the ‘Back’ button and just follow nearby non-playable characters (NPCs) if you get a bit stuck.

Set up and disable sentry guns to help tip the odds in your favour.

Occasionally, you’ll be charged with defending an NPC or holding out against wave upon wave of Xenomorphs as your fellow Marines attempt to cut through doors, signal for help, or start up the iconic Aliens dropship. These sections can be rather tense and frustrating since, while NPCs are helpful and will shoot at enemies (and make for great bait), they aren’t the most reliable computer-controlled allies I’ve ever had and it can be tricky to get a good shot at the agile and stealthy Xenomorphs. Often, you’ll also be tasked with grabbing and setting up an auto-turret in these situations, which can be extremely helpful, but you’ll also have to watch out for these turrets as Weyland-Yutani mercenaries have set them up to fire on you, requiring a bit of subterfuge as you take the long way around to disable the sentry guns. Aliens: Colonial Marines’ main campaign is divided into missions; as you complete each mission, you’ll be awarded with more EXP and given the option to continue or back out, allowing you to play in brief bursts if you desire. The game’s action is further broken up by a handful of instances where you must climb into the iconic Powerloader to open up a blast door and battle a particularly frustrating boss and, of course, numerous interruptions to the flow of the gameplay. These generally take the form of platforms collapsing beneath you, parts of the environment randomly exploding, or the risk of explosive decompression; in each instance, you’ll be forced to wait for the game to return control to you and then continue on though, thankfully, there are no disorientating moments where your senses are thrown off by concussive explosions.

I encountered few, if any, glitches in the A.I. of the bog standard enemies…

Overall, the game isn’t especially difficult; there are four difficulty options available and I finished a playthrough on “Soldier” (or “Normal” for us normal people) in about eight hours. As you might expect, the game lags a little thanks to its long loads times; many of these are unsubtly masked by long, drawn out periods of dialogue between characters or doors that need cutting open but you’ll also notice it whenever you die and reload a checkpoint. Considering all the horror stories I heard about the game’s buggy A.I., I found the enemies to be quite relentless and formidable; I never had any instance where enemies harmlessly ran against walls, got stuck against the environment, or passed right by me that weren’t intentional and I actually found myself dying quite a bit when the Xenomorphs attacked as a group (oddly, I found I accrued more deaths on the game’s easy mode…), though there were instances where the game’s dodgy coding could be exploited to my benefit.

Graphics and Sound:
Aliens: Colonial Marines’ attention to detail is impressive, to be honest; every area looks and feels exactly as it did in Aliens or has been modelled to closely mimic James Cameron’s lived-in aesthetic. As you explore the Sulaco, you’ll find acid burns, claw marks, blood stains, and smashed lighting and other objects all over the place, which really adds to the immersion and the tension. You can even spot the lower half of Bishop (Lance Henriksen) in the Sulaco’s landing bay, alongside numerous Xenomorph husks, bloodied corpses, and dead Facehuggers. However, I will admit that I noticed some poorly-rendered textures, odd graphical hiccups, and that some of the voices would get cut off or be muted during dialogue.

The attention to detail is top notch but Hadley’s Hope is looking a little too intact…

In many ways, this attention to detail actually backfires somewhat as you progress through the game; as ridiculous as it is to conveniently be exploring the Sulaco, I can just about forgive it thanks to the very basic explanation the game provides. What I can’t quite forgive, though, is the fact that, after crash-landing on LV-426, you end up exploring Hadley’s Hope, the colony that was not only the primary setting for Aliens but was also completely obliterated by a nuclear explosion at the end of that film. Here, though, the colony is in exactly the same shape as it was at the start of Aliens; it looks exactly the same as it did when the Marines explored it in the movie, all the consoles work (to an extent) and all the movie’s locations are intact and recreated. You even come across Hudson’s (Bill Paxton) corpse, the medical bay, the area where the Marines set up their turrets, and explore the sewers, all of which show no signs of being vaporised as they surely would have been. This is great in terms of recreating the familiar locations of the movie but not so great when you stop and consider that the colony should have been reduced to a smouldering, highly radioactive crater. You also get to explore the derelict Engineer ship from Alien; similar to Alien Trilogy (Probe Entertainment, 1996), the ship has been quarantined by Weyland-Yutani and they have been investigating it, putting up floodlights and scaffolding and what-not in an attempt to harvest the Xenomorph eggs. This means, of course, that you also get to visit the massive egg chamber and the decaying remains of the Space Jockey from that film, which is always a delight, and I could have sworn that I spied the floating mapping device the protagonists used in Prometheus (Scott, 2012). Although all of the Marines resemble little more than action figures, the Xenomorphs come off looking much better; I always find it odd how games of this generation can render alien monstrosities so well but struggle with human likenesses.

Humans might look like garbage but the aliens look really good, at least.

While the game’s environments are dark, moody, and atmospheric, this all adds to the immersion and the tension since Xenomorphs can pop out from grates or smash through windows and doors at a moment’s notice, which really helps to keep you on your toes. Even the sewer section is made more exhilarating by the dank aesthetic, the presence of numerous, dried out Xenomorph husks, and the fact that you are stripped of all your weapons and must stealthy make your way through to avoid detection. Like many FPS titles, the majority of the game’s cutscenes are rendered using in-game graphics and without deviating from the first-person perspective, meaning full-motion cinematic cutscenes are few and far between. In terms of sound design, though, Aliens: Colonial Marines knocks it out of the park since everything is ripped straight out of Aliens; that means the familiar beep of the motion tracker, the recognisable bursts of the Pulse Rifle, the high-pitched squeals and growls of the Xenomorphs, and even the sounds of the computers and environment are all present and accounted for. Additionally, not only does Lance Henriksen return as Bishop but the developers somehow convinced Michael Biehn to return as Corporal Dwayne Hicks which, while welcome, makes absolutely no sense even in the game and seems to be based purely on the fact that the third movie is so unfairly hated.

Enemies and Bosses:
You’ll never believe this but the most common enemy you’ll encounter in Aliens: Colonial Marines are the Xenomorphs! The regular drones are modelled after those seen in Cameron’s film, sporting ridged skulls and clambering all over walls and ceilings. These guys will pop out from vents, grates, and even from behind doors, slashing and clawing at you, leaping at you, and trying to pin you down to take a bite out of you. Thankfully, though, like in Aliens, these bugs are easily dispatched (and will often blow into chunks) with a few shots and are most dangerous when attacking in groups or from the shadows; while they do bleed acid blood and melt away upon defeat, this doesn’t seem to damage you (or, if it does, I didn’t really notice).

You’ll come up against a few new types of Xenomorph in this game.

There are also a couple of Xenomorph variants to contend with as well, such as the Lurker Xenomorph, which is more akin to the one seen in Alien; this smooth-skulled bastard creeps around and attacks from the darkness before darting out of sight, making it a particularly bothersome enemy. You’ll also come across a number of eggs scattered throughout the game’s environments; you should shoot these on sight with your pistol and be aware of Facehuggers in the immediate area, which are small and particularly difficult to get a good shot at. In the sewers, you’ll encounter the Boiler variants; these are heavily-degraded husks whose senses have been dulled by radiation poisoning and remain completely still until they hear movement. You must sneak past them, stand completely still if they hobble near you, and then activate a series of switches to lure them towards noises, whereupon they explode in a shower of acid. You’ll also have to contend with the Spitter Xenomorphs, which spit acid at you from a distance to whittle down your armour and health, and combinations of each Xenomorph type at various points. You’ll also have to contend with some human opposition as Weyland-Yutani send in a bunch of heavily-armed mercenaries to take you out and secure their investment. These assholes dart around, use cover, and fire at you with the same weapons available to you, packing Pulse Rifles, shotguns, tossing grenades, and even wielding Smart Guns and heavier armour. Thankfully, they go down just as easily as the Xenomorphs and any nearby aliens will also attack these humans, which is helpful, but the mercenaries are a constant source of frustration as they tend to blast you with a shotgun from behind when you least expect it.

The Raven makes for a persistant and frustrating boss.

Aliens: Colonial Marines only features four boss encounters (each of these uses the term loosely since you aren’t given the luxury of a health bar to check your progress) but each one is a little different and frustrating in its own way. The first boss you’ll have to contend with is the Raven, a large, Praetorian-like alien that appears to have burst out of Hudson’s chest. This thing is all-but-invincible and must be evaded and ran from when you first encounter it as you don’t have any of your weapons. Eventually, after darting through the sewers, dodging its wild swipes from floor grates, and racing across the barren wasteland of LV-426 while numerous drones try to cut you to ribbons, you make a final stand against it in the iconic Powerloader for, perhaps, one of the worst and most annoying boss fights ever. The Powerloader is slow and clunky and it’s never made entirely clear what you have to do or if your hits are even landing, not to mention the fact that your turning circle is abysmal and Xenomorphs swarm at you to whittle your health down. In the end, the best thing to do is concentrate on the Raven, whacking it with your left claw repeatedly and try to get it to glitch against the environment in a corner; land a few hits and then try using your right claw to choke it until, eventually (seemingly randomly), a cutscene will play out where Winter breaks the fucking thing in two.

Work your way past the APC’s heavy artillery in order to take it out of commission.

The next boss sees you taking on an Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) that is manned, and protected, by Weyland-Yutani mercenaries. Like the Raven, this thing is completely bulletproof and will cut you in half, or blow you to pieces, in seconds with not only its heavy weaponry but also the firepower of the minions which protect it. I found this section particularly trying since you’re exposed in the open a lot, despite the abundance of cover (bullets and explosions can be seen to penetrate much of the cover anyway) and it’s really easy to get caught in a crossfire. It’s best to find a good vantage point, drive the APC back by shooting the nearby fuel tanks, and pick off the mercenaries (particularly the flamethrower and RPG-wielding assholes) to clear the way to the crane controls and crush the APC once and for all.

Luckily, you can use a game bug to make the Crusher far less threatening.

The third boss is the Crusher Xenomorph, a gigantic bull-like variant with a huge, armour-plated head that charges at everything head-first and will crush you under its elephantine feet. As if that wasn’t bad enough, swarms of Xenomorphs fill the area to distract you, making it hard to get a good shot at the Crusher but, luckily, you can again glitch the boss to make things a bit easier. When you enter the area where the boss spawns, head to the barricade on the left and hop on the crates and then on top of the barricade. The Crusher will stand completely still by the APC and no Xenomorphs will spawn in, allowing you to fire at it with your explosive shots and either significantly wound it or kill it outright to make the fight ten times easier.

It all ends with a game of hide and seek with the Alien Queen.

Finally, as you might expect, you must face off with a Xenomorph Queen. This gigantic bitch is completely bulletproof and you won’t be able to deal any damage to her at all; instead, you must use the conveniently-placed environment to hide and avoid her claws, tail, and sight, working your way around the hanger and towards a series of switches. You must then activate each switch to prime a cargo launcher, rushing back to cover and grabbing the respawning armour if she hits you and trying to not get sucked out into the atmosphere at the same time. Once the cargo launcher is fully primed, simply stand behind it and wait for her to get in front of it and activate it and that’s it. Of all the parts of the game, and the many battles I’ve had against Xenomorph Queens, this was by far the easiest and is simply a question of patience.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Naturally, as both a FPS title and an Aliens game, you can acquire numerous weapons and items to increase your odds against the Xenomorph hordes. When you spot a weapon, ammo, or item, though, it’s not enough to just walk over to it; you actually have to press X to pick them up so make sure you do this or you could enter the next fire fight shorthanded! Winter begins the game with a handy stock of frag grenades, the iconic Pulse Rifle, a service pistol, and a shotgun for close-quarters combat. You can also acquire a number of other weapons as well though, including the Assault Rifle and Submachine Gun, the sniper rifle-like Battle Rifle, and the tactical shotgun. Each one comes with different ammo capacities, firepower, and accessories to purchase and equip with your EXP. These include increasing your ammo capacity, adding laser sights, or underbarrel grenade launchers and flamethrowers. It’s a good idea to swap out for a different weapon when you find a quiet moment in order to preserve your more powerful weapons, though this can result in your shots being a bit less effective and a bit more haphazard depending on which weapon you select.

Grab the Smart Gun and dice those Xenos up with auto aiming and auto tracking!

You can also find three super weapons scattered throughout the campaign, generally right before a story-based objective; these include the Smart Gun (which automatically targets and tracks nearby enemies), the Incinerator Unit (a flamethrower perfect for setting alight groups of enemies), and the RPG Launcher to take out anti-aircraft guns. When you grab each of these weapons, you’ll still keep your existing weapons but won’t be able to use them unless you drop your current weapon; none of them can be reloaded either so choose your shots wisely. Finally, you can also pick up six Legendary Weapons throughout the campaign; once you find them, they are all added to your inventory for regular use (with two exceptions) and, while you can’t modify or upgrade them and they take their own unique ammo type, they generally tend to be a bit more powerful than the standard weapons. You’ll find such memorable weapons as Hicks’ shotgun, Scott Gorman’s (William Hope) pistol, Hudson’s Pulse Rifle, and Jenette Vasquez’s (Jenette Goldstein) Smart Gun; finding all six will net you a cheeky Achievement but, luckily, they’re all pretty much sitting out in the open so it’s not hard to miss them.

Additional Features:
Speaking of which, Aliens: Colonial Marines includes sixty Achievements, fifty of which in the main game and ten more made available through downloadable content (DLC). The majority of these are tied to story progression and the game’s multi-player but you’ll also net them for finding various goodies in the campaign (including a number of dog tags and audio files, the six Legendary Weapons, the head of Rebecca “Newt” Jordan’s (Carrie Henn) doll Casey, and even a stash of Xenomorph eggs painted up like literal Easter Eggs), completing missions under various time limits and restrictions, and for beating the game’s higher difficulty settings.

Pick up the game’s DLC for more multiplayer maps and a whole new solo campaign.

As alluded to above, Aliens: Colonial Marines features a multiplayer component; one allows for two players to play through the main campaign in co-op, which is achieved through a split screen, and the other is a typical deathmatch mode that, for some reason, cannot be played locally. Here, you can customise your Marine and Xenomorph’s appearance (unlocking additional attire, weapons, and attacks through successful play) and take part in various team-based missions across a variety of the game’s maps. Additionally, there’s a pretty decent amount of DLC available as well, including additional map packs for the multiplayer mode and an entirely new single player campaign, “Stasis Interrupted”, which explores the fourteen week gap between the end of Aliens and the start of Colonial Marines. This campaign sees you controlling a new Marine character, features a bunch of additional Achievements, and even has the player journeying to Fiorina “Fury” 161 in a desperate attempt to rescue Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver). Finally, if you own the “Limited Edition” of the game as I (and, I’m sure, many) do, you’ll gain access to a number of classic characters and weapons from the Alien franchise, and some additional customisation options, to use in the multiplayer mode.

The Summary:
Once again, it turns out that all of the horror stories and negativity I’d heard about a game is nowhere  near the truth; sure, Aliens: Colonial Marines is by no means a perfect game but it’s far from the unplayable wreck I was led to believe it was. Instead, it’s a pretty by the numbers FPS title, offering little new or innovative from the genre, but elevated above much of its competition by a fantastic use of the Alien license. The game’s attention to detail is staggering and this very well may be the best one-to-one adaptation of Aliens ever; everything from the sounds, the weapons, and the environments is all ripped straight from Aliens and the game goes out of its way to recreate the look and feel of the film through the use of atmospheric lighting and almost slavish fidelity. It’s just a shame, then, that the developers didn’t think a little harder about the game’s narrative aspects in relation to its source material; as a midquel between the second and third movies, the game makes little sense, favouring fidelity and fan service over a coherent and consistent plot, which honestly drags the game down more than the minor graphical and A.I. bugs (of which I saw very little in the game’s basic enemies).

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

What did you think about Aliens: Colonial Marines? Did you find it to be a broken mess of the game like so many others or did you, like me, find it to be a perfectly serviceable FPS title? What did you think to the game’s story and the way it brought Hicks back? Did you encounter any odd glitches or game-breaking moments? If so, what were they and how often did they crop up? Which of the Alien movies or videogames is your favourite and why and how are you celebrating Alien Day this year? Whatever your thoughts, stay frosty and drop a comment below!

Game Corner: Call of Duty: Black Ops (Xbox 360)

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CODBLOPSLogo

Released: 2010
Developer: Treyarch
Also Available For: Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, PC, PlayStation 3

The Background:
It’s the final week of “CoD Month” here on my site. So far, I’ve played all three titles in the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Trilogy (Infinity Ward/Sledgehammer Games, 2016), Call of Duty 3 (Treyarch, 2006), and Call of Duty: World at War (ibid, 2008) and I’ve been less than impressed with what I’ve seen so far. For the longest time, I’ve never been much of a fan of the Call of Duty titles (Various, 2003 to present), mainly because I don’t really get on with first-person shooters (FPS) at the best of times. The perspective can be difficult to judge, enemies shoot at you from nowhere, and I just find them (especially military shooters) quite generic and uniform and, so far, the Call of Duty games I’ve played haven’t done much to change my views. World at War was probably the one I enjoyed the most and, it turned out, spawned a spin-off series for the Call of Duty franchise that continued with this title. Black Ops was another title that happened to come with the Xbox 360 I bought a while back and I’ve heard a lot of positive things about this title, especially, among all the Call of Duty games. So, one last time, I sat down to plough through one more Call of Duty game simply for the Achievements and to see if my personal bias could be swayed.

The Plot:
Sixteen years after the events of World at War, the United States and the Soviet Union are locked in a “Cold War” that moved warfare away from the trenches and towards more clandestine operations. Black Ops revolves around the discovery of “Nova-6”, a deadly chemical weapon that is in the hands of several Russian sleeper agents placed across the globe, and the race against time to locate, isolate, and destroy it before it can kill millions.

Gameplay:
Call of Duty: Black Ops is a first-person shooter that sees you in the role of SAD/SOG operative Captain Alex Mason; unlike the other Call of Duty games I’ve played so far, you primarily control Mason throughout the game’s campaign but, at various times, you’ll also play as CIA paramilitary operations officer Jason Hudson. Also in a change from the previous Call of Duty titles I’ve played, Black Ops’ protagonists are actually vocal, talking during gameplay and in cutscenes, which is a nice change of pace.

CODBLOPSControls
Call of Duty‘s control scheme was pretty standard by this point.

When it comes to the controls, you know the story by this point and nothing is really different here: you reload with X, jump with A (still as useless as ever unless you’re vaulting over walls), switch weapons with Y, and sprint for a bit by holding in the left analogue stick. Grenades and other explosives are tossed with the Left and Right Buttons, you aim and shoot with the Left and Right Triggers, respectively, and can shoot wildly from the hop or try to be a bit more accurate but pulling on the Left Trigger to aim down your sights. Pressing B allows you to assume one of three stances: standing, crouching, or prone, each of which alters your aim and ability to be stealthy or open to enemy fire.

CODBLOPSHealth
There’s no regenerating your haz-mat suit so stay out of gunfire!

Health still automatically replenishes when you avoid enemy fire, and you still get a generous amount of checkpoints to help you reload when you’re inevitably blown up by a random grenade but Black Ops mixes things up a bit by having a few missions where your health “bar” doesn’t really mean shit: the first is when you pilot vehicles (such as the Mi-24 Hind attack helicopter and an attack boat) and the vehicle’s damage doesn’t auto-repair and the second is when you (as Hudson) must walk through a cloud of Nova-6 in a haz-mat suit. As you take damage, the suit cracks and doesn’t auto-heal so you’re at risk of being exposed to the deadly nerve agent if you linger too long or rely on the traditional auto-heal mechanics, which is actually a nice touch and harkens back to FPS games of old where auto-healing wasn’t a thing.

CODBLOPSMason
Mason’s plight is a central part of the game’s narrative.

A helpful mini map is located at the top left of your heads-up display (HUD); this shows your location, the location of your allies, enemies, and the direction of your objective. Maybe I’m just used to them by this point but I actually found this mini map quite useful as it actually gives you a far better idea of the layout of your current area and where you need to go. As always, the game isn’t all just mindless shooting; in fact, story plays a major role in Black Ops. Having a vocal protagonist really helps with this and Mason is right in the middle of the Russian’s plot to gas their Capitalist enemies as he was captured and brainwashed by the Soviets; the narrative is framed by several cutscenes wherein Mason is interrogated by US personnel regarding his actions and the action frequently cuts away to more of these scenes. Sadly, these cutscenes can’t always be skipped; sometimes, you’re able to skip them by holding the A button but you’ll have to sit through a fair few which is annoying on repeated playthroughs.

CODBLOPSVehicles
Black Ops also sees you piloting helicopters and driving attack boats.

Also breaking up the action are a variety of other gameplay sections; there’s the vehicle-based ones I mentioned above which are basically similar to the tank- and helicopter-based missions of previous games but actually much more enjoyable. When controlling the Hind, you both pilot the craft and shoot with a machine gun and missiles; while it’s quite difficult to manoeuvre and get a good bead on targets (especially other helicopters), it’s still quite fun to be up in the air and have a greater field of view. The boat mission is pretty much exactly the same as a tank-based mission from World at War except you’re on a boat, in the water, and it’s night-time in the jungle; the boat is still a bit slippery and awkward to control but it’s fun just wrecking shit up with its armaments.

CODBLOPSInfiltrate
Guide your ground team from the air and then infiltrate with stealth.

One mission also sees you inside of an SR-71A aircraft; from here, you’ll use a thermal radar to direct your ground forces and then switch down to them to clear out the opposition. Once the mission switches to the ground proper, you’ll have to rappel down to a facility and utilise the same stealth tactics seen in the previous games to progress further. Stealth also plays a big part in another mission where you must first avoid an overhead helicopter, silently dispatch of two guards, and then infiltrate a Soviet missile based while wearing their uniforms. As dark and grave as World at War was, Black Ops is even more so. The game opens with Mason escaping from a desolate Soviet prison where he reconnects with Viktor Reznov from the previous game; Reznov’s edict is literally burned into Mason’s mind as he finds himself compelled to assassinate a number of Axis scientists throughout the game’s narrative. Oh, and did I mention that you end up going to Vietnam? Well…you do. Similar to how the Japanese elements made the last game more brutal and affecting, seeing the Viet-Cong charge blindly into gunfire and try to slice your throat out is legitimately jarring, almost as much as them capturing Mason and his comrades and forcing them to play Russian Roulette!

Graphics and Sound:
Building upon the level of detail seen in World at War, Black Ops is probably the darkest, grittiest, and most detailed of the series thus far (at least, of the ones that I’ve played). Character models continue to be the weakest aspect but it’s easily forgiven when you realise how detailed and elaborate many of the game’s locations are: the Vorkuta Gulag isn’t just a desolate, rust-filled prison; it’s a desolate, rust-filled prison in the middle of a snow-swept landscape that is perfect for a high-speed motorcycle escape to a train. Khe Sanh, and Vietnam in general, is rendered with a horrifically affecting realism that really captures the humid and horrific conditions of that particular conflict and stands in start contrast to the dark urban landscapes you run through in Kowloon City.

The game’s attention to detail and voice cast is just as good as ever.

Voice work is even more important than ever to Black Ops because it actually features a speaking protagonist; Sam Worthington (remember when he was a thing?) takes centre stage as the tortured and haunted Mason, Gary Oldman returns as the revolutionary Reznov, and even Ed fuckin’ Harris shows up to voice Hudson. I also took much greater note of the music in this Call of Duty title; there’s a foreboding, heavy feel to the tunes of this game alongside the traditional stirring military melodies and, in true Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979) fashion, the troops stationed in Vietnam like to blast the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” at full volume in their base camp and when blowing enemy encampments to smithereens.

Enemies and Bosses:
Like World at War, Call of Duty: Black Ops has far more enemy variety than in the previous titles. Rather than simply gunning down Nazis, you’ll mostly be clashing with Soviets, Vietnamese, and even British Commandos. As always, these enemies are formidable thanks to their flagrant use of cover, melee, and explosives to whittle your health to nothing in no time at all.

CODBLOPSFinale
Storm the Rusalka to end the threat of Nova-6.

While bosses aren’t really a thing in Black Ops, when flying the Hind, you’ll come up against a couple of enemy attack choppers that must be destroyed before you can progress and, when in your attack boat, you’ll specifically have to trade shots with another boat to complete the mission. When joining the assault on the Rusalka, you’ll have to provide cover fire from your attack chopper and also bring down another enemy Hind, before eventually confronting and killing Nikita Dragovich, one of the key minds behind Nova-6, in a quick-time event.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
As with other games in the series, Black Ops is going for realism over the more flamboyant aspects of other FPS titles so the closest thing you’ll get to upgrades is when you are able to call in air strikes, take control of armoured vehicles, or happen across an armoury.

CODBLOPSWeapons
Blow enemies into flaming chunks or cut them down with duel pistols.

Despite this, and the setting of the game, Black Ops has some pretty nifty weapons on hand for you to use; though you’re still limited to only having two at a time, some of the stand-outs for me were the Franchi SPAS-12, a pump-action shotgun that can also fire incendiary rounds, the Python (a high impact .357 Magnum), and the Beretta Model 682, all of which are great for close-quarters dismemberment. You can also grab a crossbow (that can also fire explosive arrows) and a couple of nifty grenade and rocket launchers, like the “China Lake” and the M72 LAW, and even duel-wield pistols and smaller submachine guns at various points.

Additional Features:
As with the other Call of Duty titles, you can choose to play on a number of different difficulty settings and earn a fair amount of Achievements. These are generally earned after clearing missions in the main solo campaign but also pop with when find all of the Intel hidden throughout the game, complete certain missions with certain weapons, kill a certain amount of enemies in certain ways, or slaughter some poor, innocent test monkeys as quickly as possible. Multiplayer returns in Black Ops but, this time, you’re able to set-up a multiplayer match against computer-controlled opponents, meaning I was actually able to experience a Call of Duty free-for-all deathmatch for the first time. When in this mode, you can select or create a class where you customise your weapon loadouts, perks, and other aesthetics, which is a nice touch, and you can tweak the level of difficulty of your computer-controlled foes but I was absolutely owned by the computer even on the easiest setting and found it was little more than a standard deathmatch.

CODBLOPSZombies
The “Zombies” modes continue to be a lot of fun.

Returning from World at War is the “Zombies” sub-game wherein you must try to survive for as long as possible against endless waves of zombies in a variety of maps; one of these has you playing as John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Robert McNamara, and Fidel Castro in a fantastic piece of ridiculousness that is massively at odds with Call of Duty’s more serious tone…and I love it! The more zombies you kill, the more points you earn to spend on fortifying your defences, unlocking new areas, or accessing better weapons but the best part about the “Zombies” mode in this game is the inclusion of Dead Ops Arcade, a top-down arcade title that plays very similar to Smash TV (Williams, 1990) and Dead Nation (Housemarque/Climax Studios, 2010) and was honestly the most fun I’ve had playing a Call of Duty title.

CODBLOPSBanner

The Summary:
Call of Duty: Black Ops was far more enjoyable for me than any of the Modern Warfare titles and a fine follow-up to World at War but I still find myself largely unimpressed. If anything, it’s annoying that it took this long for the series to feature a speaking protagonist right from the get-go but, while the game is better for it, I didn’t find Mason particularly compelling; you can see the big twist in his narrative coming a mile away (thanks in no small part to the constant cutscenes that jerk you abruptly from the gameplay to slap you in the face with the twist before it’s revealed), it’s outrageous to me that he was allowed back into active service after the big reveal, and the idea of chemical attacks or sleeper agents isn’t exactly new by any stretch of the imagination. Still, by taking everything that worked in the Modern Warfare games and in World at War and applying them in a more intimate story with greater stakes, Black Ops actually worked for me on a level the other Call of Duty titles didn’t. It helped a lot that areas were far more recognisable, varied, and interesting, that the locations were unique and engaging, and that the developers included Dead Ops Arcade and so many recognisable political figures happily blowing holes in zombies.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

What did you think of Call of Duty: World at War? Where does it rank for you compared to the other Call of Duty titles? Do you think I have committed the ultimate sacrilege by besmirching the good name of the Call of Duty franchise or do you agree that the series is somewhat over-rated and stagnated? Whatever you think, please do leave a comment below and come back for more content and reviews in the near future.

Game Corner: Call of Duty: World at War (Xbox 360)

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CODWaWLogo

Released: 2008
Developer: Treyarch
Also Available For: Nintendo Wii, PC, PlayStation 3

The Background:
At this point, I have played four Call of Duty (Various, 2003 to present) titles and I have to say that, so far, I am less than impressed with any of them, and the series in general. Before I played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Trilogy (Infinity Ward/Sledgehammer Games, 2016), I had little to no interest in Activision’s long-running franchise (that kicked off its first spin-off with this title) primarily because I don’t really like military-style shooters and my love for first-person games died out shortly after Perfect Dark (Rare, 2000). Admittedly, a lot of this is due to my personal bias against being shot in the back or by enemies I can’t see, struggling with the perspective and the controls, and generally just finding first-person shooters (FPS) difficult to navigate at the best of times. However, when I bought my Xbox 360, it came with a couple of Call of Duty titles, one of which was this one and, since I’m doing “CoD Month” on my blog for January and I would hate to waste the G associated with the game, I sat down and rushed through it mainly to see if my bias against the series was justified and to obtain a few extra Achievements.

The Plot:
Despite Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Treyarch, 2007) bringing the series into the then-modern day, World at War returns the plot to World War Two, specifically focusing on the Pacific and Eastern Front skirmishes between the Allied Forces of the United States and Europe against the Axis Powers of Japan, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany.

Gameplay:
Call of Duty: World at War is a first-person shooter that casts you in the role of Private/ Private First Class C. Miller of the United States Marine Corps’ 1st Marine Division, Private Dimitri Petrenko, and Petty Officer Locke. While each character’s narrative sees them fulfilling different objectives in different parts of the world (or at different parts of the same location), each controls exactly the same and just like the characters in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The A button lets you jump and vault over walls, Y switches weapons, X reloads, and pressing in on the left analogue stick sees you break out into a finite sprint.

CODWaWControls
The controls are exactly as established in the Modern Warfare trilogy.

Pressing the B button allows you to either crouch, go prone, or stand to avoid or engage with enemy gunfire while pressing in the right analogue stick allows you to melee kill enemy soldiers. You can toss a variety of grenades and other explosives with the Left and Right Buttons and aim and shoot with the Left and Right Triggers, respectively. Again, you can either shoot somewhat wildly from the hip or snap to the nearest target and aim down the sights of your gun by pulling on the Left Trigger and, similar to Call of Duty 3 (Treyarch, 2006) this can be problematic as you’re aiming without the assistance of modern technology such as laser sighting. As is largely the standard for FPS titles, your health will automatically recover once you avoid damage for a few seconds; the more damage you incur, the longer it will take to replenish. There are a number of checkpoints in the game for when you do inevitably die, though, and there’s plenty of cover for you to duck behind but you have to keep your wits about you as your enemies won’t hesitate to throw a grenade at you or come charging at you head-first with their bayonet drawn.

CODWaWMissions
The action is broken up by some intense missions involving assassination and dog-fighting.

A helpful radar/mini map combination sits in the bottom left of your heads-up display (HUD); this shows you the location of your allies, enemies, and a star marking your objective. Should you forget your objectives, you can bring them up at any time by pausing the game, which you may have to do from time to time as the game can be both painfully linear and frustratingly unclear at times; if you miss a vague order from one of your team mates, you may find yourself shredded to pieces or blow up before you even know what it is you’re supposed to be doing or where you’re meant to be aiming or directing your air strike. Gameplay is broken up a bit through the use of vehicle sections: as Miller, you’ll call in air strikes and jump on a small tank-like vehicle and use remote-controlled rocket strikes to destroy enemy tanks; Petrenko meets up with Sergeant Viktor Reznov in Stalingrad (who promptly wastes a lot of your time lecturing you about the finer arts of sniping and the evils of General Heinrich Amsel) and is tasked with performing a tricky assassination; and Locke later pilots a PBY Catalina flying boat to shoot down Japanese planes and ships.

CODWaWDark
World at War is probably the darkest of the Call of Duty‘s I’ve played.

Overall, the game is far more intense and gritty than the other titles I’ve played; for one thing, the Japanese troops you encounter are far more sadistic and aggressive than those of previous titles, leaping up from hidden bunkers, charging at you head-first, and even detonating themselves and your own dead comrades. Similar to the controversial airport mission in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (ibid, 2009), you’ll also accompany Reznov to Berlin and murder a whole bunch of injured and surrendering German soldiers, which is a bit disturbing. A similar event occurs at Shuri Castle, where Japanese troops appear to surrender and instead assassinate one of your team mates with grenades!

Graphics and Sound:
Call of Duty: World at War is the best of both worlds in this regards as it takes the classic World War Two setting of the original games and applies the modern coat of paint the series had received in Call of Duty 4; this means, again, that locations are recreated with a fantastic level of detail and, thanks to the fact that we travel to more exotic locations (Makin Island, Peleliu, Okinawa, and the Reichstag among others), actually make this game far more visually interesting than its predecessors.

CODWaWGore
Gore is plentiful in World at War.

While character models are still the weakest part of the game, they’re largely garbed in elaborate camouflage outfits or rugged guerrilla outfits that, again, help them to stand out compared to their more uniformed Nazi counterparts but also against their environments. Also, unlike previous games in the series thus far, enemies can be dismembered by your shots; arms and legs will blow off, chests will be blown apart, and large pools of blood accompany the many dead bodies you’ll leave in your wake. Again, though, locations, weapons, and vehicles still have the same high level of attention to detail I’ve come to associate with these games that really emphasises how desolate and horrific the Second World War was.

CODWaWVA
Gary Oldman reassumes his famous Russian accent to bring Reznov to life.

Call of Duty: World at World really brings the big guns to its vocal performances thanks to the inclusion of Gary Oldman as Reznov and Kiefer Sutherland as Corporal Roebuck. Of all the Call of Duty titles I’ve played so far, I had the least amount of issues with World at War’s dialogue; it wasn’t fully of overly macho “Hoo-rah!” or military slang like the Modern Warfare games but also wasn’t repetitive and annoying like in Call of Duty 3, though it still sticks to the stirring military tunes that pepper these games.

Enemies and Bosses:
Call of Duty: World at War has far more variety in the types of enemies you’ll encounter than the other Call of Duty games I’ve played in that you’ll battle both Japanese troops and Nazis this time around. Generally, the enemies you come up against are just as wily as ever; hiding behind cover, tossing grenades at you, and bashing you with their weapons whenever you get close but the Japanese troops are on another level entirely. The Japanese are aggressive, suicidal maniacs who burst out from hidden bunkers in the fields, clamber up and snipe at you from trees, charge at you head-first screaming “Banzai!” and trying to skewer you, or simply blow themselves up to kill you and your comrades. They also don’t hesitate to rush at you in waves upon waves, clambering over their fallen brethren to get to you, and force you into a quick-time event whenever they try and grapple with you.

CODWaWReichstag
The game’s final mission sees you storming the Reichstag.

As always, you won’t really come up against boss battles in the traditional sense. You’ll need to make use of air strikes and heavier weaponry to take out tanks and enemy placements and protect some naval ships from kamikaze pilots, which is about as deep as that gets, and the game’s final mission sees you (as Petrenko) storming the Reichstag in a bid to liberate it from Nazi control. This was easily one of the most frustrating and tiresome missions in the game as you have to disable some anti-tank guns, wipe out the ground forces who pop up out of nowhere, have the high ground, and throw grenades at you, and then try to not get crushed by a falling column or roasted alive by a flamethrower-wielding Nazi.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Call of Duty has always placed a greater emphasis on realism compared to other FPS games and, as a result, your power-ups are largely limited to the lovingly-recreated weaponry and vehicles made available to you. As always, you’re limited to holding only two weapons at a time, some more suitable than others. Given the setting of the game, you’ll often find yourself running through and clearing out trenches, so you might need to Trench Gun or the shotgun to make bloody corpses of your opposition. The Panzerschreck is perfect for taking out tanks and enemy aircraft and you can make use of Molotov Cocktails and flamethrowers to roast your enemies alive if you’re feeling particularly sadistic.

CODWaWTank
Jump in the tank and wreck some Nazi shit!

You also get to jump into a flame tank and use its cannon to blast Nazi bunkers, tanks, and towers while roasting soldiers with its flamethrower and pilot a PBY-5A Catalina aircraft to shoot down Japanese fighters. One thing I did like about this mission was that you had to constantly switch from the front, back, and side turrets as the mission progressed and you really got a sense of the claustrophobic space in this small aircraft but actually shooting at and hitting your targets (especially the planes) as a tall order thanks to the game’s less-than-helpful aiming reticule.

Additional Features:
Call of Duty: World at War features a number of different difficulty settings for you to play on, each one affecting the challenge in different ways, in addition to a number of Achievements. The majority of these can’t be missed as they’re tied to story progression but others will have you performing more specific tasks, like air bombing a certain number of enemies, burning soldiers out of trees, or completing a sniper assassination with a handgun. If you explore your environment well enough, you’ll also find Death Cards attached to makeshift graves; find all of these and you’ll get another Achievement and special gameplay options for the game’s co-operative mode. As with its predecessors, World at War features a multiplayer component that I wasn’t able to fully explore since I don’t have Xbox Gold. It also features a co-operative mode, however, that allows two players to player through the main campaign at the same time, which is a nice touch and I wonder why this wasn’t incorporated until the fifth game in the series. Brand new to the series, though, is the game’s “Nazi Zombies” mode in which up to four players are forced to survive against endless waves of Nazi zombies in a variety of maps. The more zombies you kill, the more points you earn to spend on fortifying your defences, unlocking new areas, or accessing better weapons. While an interesting mode to include, I can’t say that it hooked me too much as you have to play and grind quite a bit to get the most out of it but it’s a nice breath of fresh air after the game’s more sombre main campaign and I wonder how I would feel about an entire Call of Duty game in this vein.

CODWaWBanner

The Summary:
Of all the Call of Duty games I’ve played so far, World at War is probably the best but that’s still not really saying much. The game makes use of all the improvements brought to the series in Call of Duty 4 and applies them to a truly horrific time in the Second World War, offering a greater visual variety to the locations and enemies you’ll encounter. The inclusion of a couch co-op mode and the zombie survival game is a nice touch and I felt this did a much better job at presenting an appealing, intuitive, and coherent military shooter than Call of Duty 3 but, at the same time, it’s still not very innovative. There’s an “x factor” that is just missing for me, mainly because of how bland even this game’s more exotic locations appear. The zombie mode had more promise as it was skewing towards the ridiculous; I get that Call of Duty is a far more serious FPS title, though, but, for me, it’s just not as much fun as other FPS games.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

What did you think of Call of Duty: World at War? Where does it rank for you compared to the other Call of Duty titles? Do you think I have committed the ultimate sacrilege by besmirching the good name of the Call of Duty franchise or do you agree that the series is somewhat over-rated and stagnated? Whatever you think, please do leave a comment below and come back next Wednesday for the last Call of Duty review of “CoD Month”.

Game Corner: Call of Duty 3: Gold Edition (Xbox 360)

Dr. K2 Comments
COD3Logo

Released: 2006
Developer: Treyarch
Also Available For: Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox

The Background:
I know what you’re thinking: Why am I playing Call of Duty 3 when I haven’t played the first two? Well, it’s firstly because, to my great shame, I have to admit that I am not really a fan of the Call of Duty franchise (Various, 2003 to present), which has endured through multiple releases, spin-offs, and other related media over the years and collectively sold over 250 million copies. This is mainly due to two things: I’m not much for military-style shooters and my love for first-person games died out shortly after the release of Perfect Dark (Rare, 2000). A lot of this is due to my personal distaste for being shot in the back or by enemies I can’t see, struggling with the perspective and the controls, and generally just finding first-person shooters (FPS) difficult to navigate at the best of times. Also, a while ago I was gifted a copy of Call of Duty 3: Gold Edition for Xbox 360 and, having recently burned through the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Trilogy (Infinity Ward/Sledgehammer Games, 2016) set that came with my console (and since it is “CoD Month” here on my site), I figured I’d pop the disc in and give it a go if only to see if my bias against the series was justified and to obtain a bunch of Achievements.

The Plot:
Like the first two Call of Duty titles, Call of Duty 3 takes place during World War Two, specifically in 1944 and featuring missions relating to the Battle of Normandy that have you taking control of various silent protagonists that make up the Allied Forces of the United States, Britain, Canada, and Poland.

Gameplay:
Call of Duty 3 is a first-person shooter whose narrative is split between four different silent protagonists: Private Nichols of the American 29th Infantry Division, Sergeant James Doyle of the British Special Air Service (S.A.S.), Private Cole of the 4th Canadian (Armored) Division, and Corporal “Bohater” Wojciech of the Polish 1st Armored Division. While their mission objectives, weaponry, and resources differ, each character basically controls in the same way: you jump with the A button (an action that is largely useless), view distant targets through your binoculars by holding in the left analogue stick, switch weapons with Y, and reload with X.

COD3Controls
The lack of a run option really hurts the pacing of the game.

By pressing B, players can either crouch, go prone, or stand upright and each of these stances will affect your speed, aim, and level of stealth. When standing upright, for example, you’re more likely to be hit by incoming gunfire so it’s best to crouch behind cover or go prone to be largely undetectable to the Nazis. Unlike in subsequent Call of Duty titles, there’s no option to dash here, which is a major drawback when trying to navigate through heavy gunfire or keep up with your squad, so I’m glad that the developers fixed this in the game’s sequel. Pressing in the right analogue stick allows you to melee enemies and you can toss grenades or smoke bombs with either the Left and Right Buttons, respectively. Aiming and shooting is performed the Left and Right Triggers and you can choose to either shoot from the hip or aim down the sights of your gun with the Left Trigger. Given that the game’s setting and weapons are far more antiquated than those in later Call of Duty titles, this can be problematic as you don’t have the aid of a laser sight and the in-game reticule is largely useless, meaning that it can be difficult to get a good shot at your target, especially when they’re effectively camouflaged by the drab environments.

COD3Ambush
Be sure to find some cover to avoid Nazi gunfire.

As is largely the genre standard these days, you can recover your health by ducking behind cover and avoiding damage for a few seconds; you have to be mindful of your surroundings, though, as enemies are known to lob grenades at you and pop up out of nowhere to riddle you with bullets. The game also has an annoying tendency to endlessly spawn enemies into its environments until you reach specific points or objectives, so my usual tactic of clearing an area from a safe distance was largely ineffectual in this particular game. To help you head in the right direction, a compass sits in the bottom left of your heads-up display (HUD); this displays your allies, any enemies in the area, and a star marking your objective. Sadly, though, there’s no mini map and the compass doesn’t really take into account floors or layers, meaning it’s easy to get a bit lost and confused about how to progress (here’s a hint: try using your melee attack to break wood panels). Also, your objectives are only really accessible by pressing Select and they can often be a little too vague at times.

COD3Vehicles
The tank missions are quite fun…the jeep missions are not.

Gameplay is broken up a bit through the use of driving and tank sections; as Doyle, you’ll have to drive your team mates around in a jeep, avoiding Nazi soldiers, barricades, and tanks as you smash through gates and across fields and, as Bohater, you’ll get to control a tank, blasting at other tanks and soldiers. While the tank sections are fun, the jeep driving sections are not; the game defaults to a first-person view (which you can thankfully change by pressing in the right analogue stuck), the controls are both loose and slippery and clunky and stiff at the same time, and the compass is more of a hindrance than a help, especially in the mission where you drive around rescuing Maquis fighters. While stealth is an option in the game, it’s nowhere near as prominent as it would become in later Call of Duty titles. At the same time, the game features more quick-time events (QTEs) as Nazis will sometimes leap out at you and you’ll be forced to mash the shoulder buttons and then press a button to fend them off. The game is also a lot tougher than its successors, featuring far fewer checkpoints and much more durable enemies; these Nazis take a lot of bullets to put down, even on the game’s easier settings, making tasks such as holding out against their vast and infinitely-spawning forces a tall order in later sections of the game.

Graphics and Sound:
Despite rendering many of its locations with an impressive level of detail, Call of Duty 3 definitely shows its age even compared to its immediate follow-up. Character models are off, resembling action figures more than human beings, and the overall presentation of the game’s menus and various screens is bland and leaves a lot to be desired. A lot of this is exacerbated though the game’s use of in-game cutscenes, all of which are completely unskippable, which, while good for character and plot development, really don’t do the in-game graphics any favours. I found a couple of amusing glitches at times, too, that betray the age of the game, such as Nazis running through mid-air, spazzing out half-in-and-out of walls, and blinking in and out of existence. Luckily, though, when playing the game proper, locations, weapons, and vehicles all still look pretty impressive. There’s a definite attention to detail in all of the environments and the way the weapons look and feel to really recreate the feeling of war-torn Europe during the height of the Nazi regime.

COD3Cutscenes
Unskippable cutscenes are the order to the day here.

I’m even far more understanding of the long reload times for certain weapons as it adds to the aesthetic of the period the game is recreating, though it’s still way too easy to get turned around or lost and overwhelmed by the ceaseless German troops that swarm every area. Call of Duty 3 mostly makes use of period-fitting music and rousing military tunes to really set the tone for the game’s setting. Much of this is rendered mute during gameplay, however, when all you will hear is gunfire, explosions, and the inane dialogue of your team mates. There’s not a lot of variety here, sadly, as you’ll hear the same shouts of “Move, move, move!” and “Germans in the open!” and “Outta here!” over and over again, to say nothing of the constant repeated yells from your Nazi foes. During cutscenes, it doesn’t get much better, with the Nazis constantly being referred to as “Jerry” (I get this was a popular slang term for them but having every single character refer to them in this way every single time got old really fast) and a great deal of xenophobia and paranoia on display from your team mates. While this is, again, probably very true to the way things were during World War Two, and it does serve as a character arc for one of your team mates, it’s more annoying than anything and I would have loved to have to option to skip these cutscenes.

Enemies and Bosses:
When you play Call of Duty 3, you’re playing to cut down Nazi scum left, right, and center with no remorse or hesitation. There are literally no other enemies to encounter here, no other members of the Axis Powers to go up against; it’s just hate-filled Nazis from start to finish. Most of these are little more than cannon fodder to your superior weaponry and skills but their sheer numbers and nigh-unstoppable movement can still cut you to ribbons in seconds. This is aided by their ability to hide behind cover, jump out at you without warning, toss a Stielhandgranate at you, or bash at you with the butt of their rifles.

COD3Nazis
Nazis just keep coming in nigh-unstoppable waves until you hit certain points.

Ordinarily, I like to clear areas of all enemies to make for easier progression but Call of Duty 3 doesn’t always let you do that as Nazis continually spawn in until you reach certain parts of the map; at the same time, though, if you spot a Nazi sniper or manning a machine gun, it’s best to take those guys out quickly or you won’t last long. Call of Duty 3 doesn’t feature bosses in the traditional sense; perhaps the closest thing the game has to an actual boss is when you (as Bohater) have to awkwardly navigate your tank through a small village while exchanging shells with Richter, a Nazi tank ace known as the “Black Baron”. The rest of the time, you’ll be holding out against superior numbers, desperately trying to survive, plant explosives, or call in an air strike to fend off the Nazi invasion.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Due to Call of Duty placing a greater emphasis on realism compared to other FPS titles, there aren’t really any power-ups or bonuses to be found in Call of Duty 3 beyond the large array of weaponry made available to you. You’ll be wielding all kinds of World War Two-style guns and rifles, many of which I found burn through their ammo quite quickly and have small capacities, meaning you’ll be liberating fallen Nazis of their hardware as-and-when required. You can only hold two weapons at a time, though, and it seems a lot of the opposition’s munitions are inferior to yours, so it becomes a question of strategy: do you grab a German rifle and risk being caught in a long reload cycle or do you stick with your American-made hardware and hope you have enough ammo? While there are vehicles to make use of, you’re relegated purely to driving duties when inside the jeep, which is a real shame as I much prefer shooting than driving. Luckily, Bohater and his tank are on hand to make up for that but, unfortunately, the game’s controls and environments are largely too clunky and awkward to really enjoy either experience.

Additional Features:
Call of Duty 3 features a number of different difficulty levels that increase, or decrease, the game’s challenge and, of course, a bunch of Achievements. You’ll get a fair few of these simply by playing through the game’s main single-player campaign but others require you to fulfil certain tasks, such as throwing five grenades back at your enemies, driving off a ramp while in your jeep, avoiding damage, or using only German weapons. Given that is an FPS title, Call of Duty 3 also includes a multiplayer component but, unfortunately, it’s only available to those with Xbox Gold so I wasn’t able to see if it’s still active. From what I can gather, though, it sounds like the standard player vs. player death match you can find in any other FPS title, though it seems like an odd decision to not include a split-screen multiplayer mode that you can play offline as well. If you have the Gold Edition of the game, it also comes with five free extra maps for this mode and a bonus DVD with making of features and interviews, if you like that sort of thing.

COD3Banner

The Summary:
I’ll admit, it’s hard for me to get excited or interested in a Call of Duty title; they’re just not that interesting to me and all I wanted to do was burn through and grab the Achievements and call it a day but…man, Call of Duty 3 is not very good at all. It’s so weird how the very next game in the series is leaps and bounds above this one in terms of presentation, options, and accessibility. Obviously, you have to cut it some slack as it’s quite an old game now but, still…I found nothing in Call of Duty 3 that improved my view on the franchise and was more frustrated than anything thanks to the unskippable cutscenes, dodgy vehicle controls, near-useless compass/map system, constantly respawning enemies and graphical glitches, and the sheer mind-numbing repetitiveness of the game’s dialogue and gameplay and I can’t say I’m interested in seeing what the previous two titles were like after slogging through this mess.

My Rating:

Rating: 1 out of 5.

Terrible

What did you think of Call of Duty 3? Where does it stand in your ranking of the Call of Duty titles? Do you think I have committed the ultimate sacrilege by besmirching the good name of the Call of Duty franchise or do you agree that the series is somewhat over-rated and stagnated? Whatever you think, drop a comment below and be sure to check back next week for another Call of Duty review.

Game Corner: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Trilogy (Xbox 360)

Dr. K4 Comments
CODMWTLogo

Released: 2016
Originally Released: 2007; 2009; 2011
Developer: Infinity Ward/Sledgehammer Games
Also Available For: Nintendo Wii, PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

The Background:
This may shock and surprise and annoy a lot of people but…I do not care for the Call of Duty franchise (Various, 2003 to present). Activision’s long-running first-person shooter (FPS) series has seen many releases, spin-offs, and other related media over the years and has, collectively, sold over 250 million copies. Yet…it’s not really for me. As a general rule, I’m not much of a fan of FPS games and my love for them died out around about the same time as the release of Perfect Dark (Rare, 2000). This is simply a personal bias for me; I sometimes struggle with the maze-like nature of FPS games, the restrictive view (I can never seem to see anything and don’t like being attacked from behind), and how many FPS games make the controls needlessly complicated and convoluted. However, when I bought my Xbox 360, it came with a few Call of Duty titles, most prominently the Modern Warfare Trilogy. Therefore, January is going to be “CoD Month” and I’ll be spending the next few Wednesdays going through the Call of Duty games I played to see if my bias against the series was justified and to obtain a bunch of sweet, sweet, Achievements.

The Plot:
In a change for Call of Duty’s traditional World War Two settings, the Modern Warfare trilogy takes place between 2011 and 2016 and is initially centred around a civil war in Russia which eventually (through a series of complex betrayals and double-turns) escalates into a full-on world war between the United States and Russia.

Gameplay:
The Modern Warfare titles are first-person shooters that primarily place players in the role of either British Special Air Service (S.A.S.) Captain (originally Segerent) John “Soap” MacTavish and Captain John Price. While these two are the primary characters of the trilogy, you’ll also take on other roles (such as Sergeant Gary “Roach” Sanderson and Private First Class Joseph Allen in Modern Warfare 2 and Staff Sergeant Derek “Frost” Westbrook and ex-Spetsnaz operative Yuri in Modern Warfare 3). No matter who you’re playing as, the controls and heads-up display (HUD) are exactly the same and very little changes between each title in terms of your abilities and controls.

CODMWTStance
The stance you adopt affects your visibility and aiming.

By pressing B, players can assume one of three stances: standing, crouching, and “prone” (where they lie down on the floor), each of which affects your speed, aim, and level of stealth. Standing up makes you an open target, for example, but going prone can render you almost completely undetectable. You can jump with the A button but there’s very little call for this; you don’t have to do that much jumping and this is mainly used in specific areas to vault over low walls and other areas of cover. Holding in the left analogue stick will see you break into a run (you can’t do this indefinitely, though, and there’s no stamina meter to let you know how long you have between sprints so you’ll just have to guess) while pressing in the right analogue stick allows you to melee attack enemies. You can also reload with X, toss grenades or flashbangs with either the Left and Right Buttons, respectively, switch between your weapons with the Y button (you can only hold two at a time but you can hold X to pick up new weapons as-and-when you come across them), and aim and shoot your primary weapon with the Left and Right Triggers. Shooting comes in two forms: down the sights and from the hip and, by tapping the Left Trigger, you’ll automatically snap on to the nearest enemy in a form of auto-aiming.

CODMWTReload
Be sure to watch out for incoming grenades when reloading.

Generally speaking, the game encourages you to switch weapons rather than reloading as this is faster but, in my experience, this results in you having two weapons that are low on ammo and need reloading rather than just one and considering how long and complex the reloading animations can be (I swear there’s one rifle that takes a good twenty seconds to reload) so either tactic has its pros and cons. One thing that is helpful is the ability to grab and throw enemy grenades back at them; you’ll need to be quick, though, as grenades have a horrible and annoying tendency to simply explode and kill you in one hit if you’re not fast enough. As in a lot of FPS games, you can recover your health by avoiding damage for a few seconds; while you can do this by taking cover, you need to be careful as the Modern Warfare games utilise a bullet penetration system where certain bullets and munitions are capable of penetrating certain surfaces (dry wall, concrete, etc) plus vehicles have a habit of catching fire and exploding when you’re too close to them. Luckily, each game is peppered with checkpoints so you can return to the fight quite quickly after being randomly shot in the middle of whatever you were doing.

CODMWTVehicles
It’s not all ground-based shooting; you’ll also get into some nifty military vehicles.

A mini map sits in the HUD to help show enemy placements and works in conjunction with a small compass that directs you towards your next objective; this system is refined and far more intuitive and user-friendly in the second and third games but you’ll never really have to worry about getting lost despite how grey and brown and uniform a lot of the game’s locations are as each title is very linear in its layout and objectives. Gameplay is further broken up throughout the trilogy by allowing you to pilot and drive a variety of military vehicles; you’ll be driving trucks, tanks, boats, snow-skis, and helicopters. When high in the sky, you’ll switch between different thermal visions and have access to machine guns, bombs, and other explosive rounds to provide air support but, in a lot of cases, these are mainly prolonged gameplay sections that abruptly end in a disorientating in-game cutscene for your character. And make no mistake, the Modern Warfare games love to pull this trick on you. If you’re running through a warzone, you can guarantee that you’ll be falling through a crumbling floor or floored by a sense-jarring explosion, and if you’re driving or flying you’re most likely going to get derailed by a sudden explosion.

CODMWTMissions
You’ll also be asked to take part in some questionable missions.

Gameplay is further broken up by tasking you with some specific missions: in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, for example, you’ll have to man a Barrett M82 sniper rifle and take into account wind resistance (indicated by a fluttering flag) and the “Coriolis effect” in order to get a good shot on your target. In Modern Warfare 2, you can choose to take part in a highly controversial mission that sees you going undercover and taking part in a mass shooting at a Russian airport and Modern Warfare 3 sees you manning both a mortar cannon and a small remote control tank to clear out opposing forces. Each game also features stealth missions, generally when working with Captain Price, that see you having to sneak past guards to take them out silently with your melee attacks or sniper rifles. Sometimes, you’ll also be planting explosives or sabotaging controls panels and such and, though tense and annoying at times, these can be some of the best sections in the game as you’re not inundated with enemies you can hardly see. You’ll also have to take part in a handful of quick-time events (QTEs), generally at the conclusion of each game that sees you grievously hurt or otherwise incapacitated and forced to struggle through the sluggish controls and skewed vision to take a shot at an enemy or rapidly tap a button at the right time to win.

Graphics and Sound:
Generally speaking, the three Modern Warfare titles still all hold up pretty well despite the fact that a lot of their loading times are hidden behind doors and gates you cannot open or pass without someone else breaking them open for you. Locations are varied and take place across the globe, placing you in desolate, uninspiring environments such as the desert but also crumbling cities under a massive assault, on the steps of the White House while it’s under siege, and in the frozen Siberian wastes. You’ll also navigate through claustrophobic submarines, the streets and underground of London, and even a diamond mine. The trilogy does a great job of recreating iconic landmarks, making seeing the White House in flames or the Eiffel Tower collapsing quite a powerful spectacle, but a lot of their environments are still very bland and generic. Luckily for me, the trilogy is very linear but it can still be difficult to spot enemies when they seem to blend into their surroundings and I found myself firing on my own team mates more often than I’d like to admit as a result.

CODMWTGraphics
Weapons and locations are all rendered with a high attention to detail.

The game’s various weapons and vehicles are all extremely realistic and detailed as well, almost to a fault because, as mentioned, reloading some weapons can take a significant amount of time which, while realistic, can be annoying when you’re under heavy fire. Unlike some FPS games, the character models don’t suffer either and actually look quite decent rather than appearing as little more than action figures; it helps that the majority of the game’s story is told using the in-game engine and voiceovers rather than using full-on CGI cutscenes so there’s a lot less of the weird juxtaposition between in-game graphics and pre-rendered graphics. Each game is punctuated by fittingly rousing military music but, for the most part, I found the trilogy’s soundtracks quite underwhelming and mostly supplanted by the in-game sounds of the dead, dying, and maimed. The trilogy features some strong vocal performances (helped by actors such as Troy Baker, Keith David, Lance Henriksen, William Fichtner, Idris Elba, and Timothy Olyphant) but it’s difficult for me to really praise it all that much as it’s absolutely swamped with military slang and expressions that, again, I’m sure are extremely realistic and accurate but end up grating after a while.

Enemies and Bosses:
Primarily, you’ll be blowing holes through innumerable Russian soldiers and various terrorist forces who, while amounting to little more than cannon fodder to your superior weaponry and skills, can still kill you in an instant thanks to their commendable artificial intelligence. Enemies will dash behind cover, shoot over walls, move to flank you, and won’t hesitate to one-shot you with a melee attack of their own or a well-thrown grenade. When entering new areas, it’s best to take cover and scope out the area, picking enemies off from a distance as you’ll also come up against snipers and enemies who are packing rocket launchers. These, like a lot of the enemies you’ll encounter, like to take positions high above you and, while they mostly go down after one or two shots, have a nasty tendency to take pot shots at you while downed, recover and riddle you with bullets from behind, or even explode in your face if you’re not careful.

CODMWTBosses
Tanks and helicopters will test your abilities.

You won’t really come up against boss battles in the traditional sense but you will have to contend with more formidable enemy weaponry, such as tanks and Mi-24 Hind helicopters. Usually, you’re equipped with a rocket launcher or similar weapon to take these down but, other times, you’ll engage them in a similar vehicle of your own and be tasked with clearing the area for your ground-based team mates.

CODMWTFinalBosses
Each game ends in a glorified quick-time event.

At the end of each game, you’ll end up in a confrontation with the game’s principal antagonist; in Call of Duty 4, it’s Victor Zakhaev, in Modern Warfare 2, it’s renegade turncoat Lieutenant General Shepherd, and in Modern Warfare 3 it’s Vladimir Makarov. No matter how good your skills are at moving, evading, and shooting, these final battles amount to little more than an interactive cutscene as your character is incapacitated and you simply limp towards a gun to make the kill shot or hit the right buttons at the right time to put them down once and for all.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Given that the Modern Warfare trilogy is going more for realism over anything else, there’s not really much on offer here besides a bevy of weaponry and military-grade hardware to aid in your mission (such as night vision goggles). You’ll get access to a variety of handguns, shotguns, rifles, heavy weapons like rocket launchers and the like and even riot shields but you can only ever carry two weapons at any one time.

CODMWTResources
You have plenty of modern toys and weapons at your disposal.

While ammo is quite plentiful, it might be wise to switch to another weapon when one becomes available (personally, I quite like a good sniper rifle as it helps to thin out enemies from a safe distance) and some of them are more useful than others; the M200 Intervention rifle comes equipped with a heartbeat sensor, for example, which looks and functions exactly like the motion sensor from Aliens (Cameron, 1987) and is very helpful for detecting nearby enemies, while the FGM-148 Javelin is perfect for taking out tanks and choppers (if a little unwieldy due to its size) and you can even duel wield some weapons.

Additional Features:
Each game comes with a bunch of Achievements for you to earn; many of these are story based, which is helpful, but others will require you to beat the game on higher difficulty settings or perform certain tasks in certain missions. Some even carry over from game to game, such as the “Purple Heart” Achievement, stealthily offing enemies, finding all the Intel hidden through the missions, or killing multiple enemies with one bullet or explosion, while others are slightly more specific to each game. Either way, they’re a great excuse to replay prior missions and increase your Gamer Score but a lot of them are also tied to the trilogy’s multiplayer element. As with any FPS title worth its salt, the Call of Duty series is well-renowned for its multiplayer component. Unfortunately, my Xbox Gold isn’t active right now so I couldn’t really get the most out of this initially but, luckily, Modern Warfare 2 and 3 feature a “Spec Ops” multiplier mode that allows for split-screen, couch co-op and a variety of solo options that see you surviving against waves of increasingly-difficult enemies or performing certain missions across a variety of the game’s maps. As you play these modes, you earn in-game currency to buy better weapons and upgrades, earn points to upgrade your ranking, and also unlock new maps, modes, and missions.

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The Summary:
I went into the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Trilogy with low expectations; I simply wanted to blast through and earn as many Achievements as I could and then put the game away forever and, largely, I succeeded in that goal. While I found some elements of each game enjoyable (the stealth and vehicle-based missions, for examples), I mostly found myself complete underwhelmed with each game’s mechanics, plot, and presentation. Don’t get me wrong; I see the appeal, especially for those who enjoy FPS games (and, specifically, military FPS titles) but, for me, none of the titles are really that innovative or do much to stand out from the many similar FPS titles out there. The games get bigger and more involved as they progress, adding more vehicles and more open locations, but add very little beyond a few bells and whistles. In the end, I find myself wondering why the series is held in such regard when it looks and plays almost exactly like any other FPS title but at least the Achievements were easy enough to get.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

What did you think of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare trilogy? Which of the three is your favourite and where do they stand in your ranking of the Call of Duty titles? Do you think I have committed the ultimate sacrilege by besmirching the good name of the Call of Duty franchise or do you agree that the series is somewhat over-rated and stagnated? Whatever you think, feel free to leave a comment below and check back in next Wednesday for another Call of Duty review.

Game Corner: Rocket Knight (Xbox 360)

Dr. K3 Comments
RocketKnightLogo

Released: May 2010
Developer: Climax Studios
Also Available For: PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox One

The Background:
Mate, how absolutely brilliant was Rocket Knight Adventures (Konami, 1993) back in the day? Back when cute, anthropomorphic mascots were all the rage, Sparkster (the titular “Rocket Knight”) really stood out thanks to some absolutely gorgeous graphics, kick-ass music, and fast-paced, rocket-based combat. I used to play that game so much as a kid but never actually managed to finish it (maybe one day); the game did well enough to receive two sequels, one for the Mega Drive and one for the Super Nintendo, but Konami’s long-forgotten and short-lived little franchise went dormant for far too long after these releases. Then, out of nowhere, a revival of the franchise was thankfully put into production thanks to producer Tomm Hulett. A 2,5D, digital-only title, I first played Rocket Knight on the PlayStation 3 but I didn’t hesitate to snap it up once it went on sale on Xbox One so I could get into it again. It’s not an especially long or difficult game but, as one of my favourite franchises that has been sadly lost to the mists of time, I could never not jump at the opportunity to charge up Sparkster’s signature rocket pack once more.

The Plot:
Fifteen years after bringing peace to the Kingdom of Zephyrus, Sparkster has been living a quiet life as a family possum. His peaceful life is shattered when the Wolf Army suddenly invades the Kingdom; heeding the call to adventure, Sparkster dons his trademark armour and rocket pack and returns to the fight to defend his home once more.

Gameplay:
Rocket Knight is a 2.5D action/platformer in which players take control of Sparkster, a “rocket knight” who seeks to defend his land from invasion. All of Sparkster’s moves and abilities from his debut game return here, meaning he is armed with a large sword for some basic close-quarters action and which is also capable of blasting enemies from a distance as well. Sparkster’s unique selling point was his rocket pack; by holding the B button and pointing Sparkster in a direction, players can blast ahead, mowing down enemies and ricocheting off walls to reach higher areas. Sparkster can also drill through certain breakable elements by tapping B again and briefly hover with a tap of the A button to aid with tricky platforming sections. However, Sparkster’s rocket pack isn’t finite in most stages; you’ll have to keep an eye on the energy bar in the top-left of the screen as you won’t be able to blast away if it’s empty. Luckily, this bar refills quite quickly, meaning you never have to wait too long to burst into action and Sparkster can also blow his energy reserves on a cartwheel-like attack that is super handy for bouncing dynamite back at enemies. Sparkster can also clamber across vines and bars with his tail; sliding down these will allow you to jump higher and further and you can also attack enemies by whirling around in a rocket-powered swing. Stages are generally a simply case of moving Sparkster from point A to point B, with a smattering of enemies and platforming segments to contend with, but every so often you’ll be thrust into a sidescrolling auto-flying stage where you can fly indefinitely.

Blast through enemies with Sparkster’s trademark rocket pack and sword.

In these stages, enemies, obstacles, and mines will try to slow your progress but you can blast at them with Sparkster’s energy shot. You can also hold X to charge up your shot and unleash a screen-clearing beam of energy that is perfect to taking out tricky enemies. Eventually, stages introduce more complex elements, such as when Sparkster finds his rocket pack affected by extreme cold. Your rocket fuel won’t regenerate in these stages unless you pick up a fuel icon or find a burning torch to defrost Sparkster. Other stages have you dodging and ducking fireballs, blasting from airship to airship while massive cannons try to knock you from the sky, hitting switches to open doors or lower energy fields, jumping from precarious moving platforms or navigating short, simple mazes to progress further, or outrunning a massive explosion. Rocket Knight is not an especially long or complex game but it’s simple, easy to play fun that challenges you by increasing the difficulty of its enemies and stage hazards over time. Fortunately, checkpoints are plentiful throughout the game’s stages; Sparkster can replenish his health by collecting hearts, which are sporadically found throughout each stage, and earn extra lives by collecting 1-ups and earning enough points. Points are accumulated by collecting blue and red gems, finding power-ups, and building a combo by defeating enemies in quick succession. Each time you clear a stage, you’ll earn additional points for how fast you completed a stage, encouraging speedrunning and a degree of exploration as you hunt down hidden gems.

Graphics and Sound:
Rocket Knight is not an especially ground-breaking game in terms of its graphics but it has a simple, adorable charm; favouring a 2.5D aesthetic over the gorgeous sprite art of its original games, the game resembles a cel-shaded cartoon more than anything. Characters pop out from the background and are lively enough (though Sparkster could be a little more animated when left idle), appearing big and chunky and almost anime-like in their appearance.

Colourful cel-shaded graphics and pantomime-like cutscenes add to the charm.

The game’s simple plot is told through pantomime-like cutscenes, as in the original game, with a brief synopsis greeting the player as each stage loads. These cutscenes are amusing and quaint, getting the point of the game’s uncomplicated narrative across easily enough and are thankfully not bogged down by copious amounts of voice acting (they are also entirely skippable if you prefer to just jump right into the action). The game’s music is just as good; Rocket Knight wisely opens with a remix of the memorable and catchy “Stage 1” music from the first game (still one of the greatest videogame tracks of all time, in my opinion) and takes its cue from there, punctuating each stage with plucky tunes that could maybe have a bit more oomph behind them but are nevertheless enjoyable.

Enemies and Bosses:
For the first portion of the game, Sparkster will have to contend with the Wolf Army; these are generally little more than cannon fodder, running head-first into your sword and attacks and easily dispatched of. Soon, they start tossing dynamite at your head (though these are easily knocked back with a swipe of your sword) or clinging from walls and ceilings to toss throwing stars at you. They’ll also pop out of the background or try to overwhelm you with sheer numbers, attack with bazookas, or drop bombs on you but are, for the most part, pretty easy to deal with. However, after taking out Ulfgar the Merciless, the King and leader of the Wolf Army, Sparkster is betrayed by former-enemy-turned-ally General Sweinhart and must contend with a renewed invasion from Sweinhart’s Pig Empire. These swines are far more dangerous enemies, taking multiple hits to defeat and blasting at Sparkster with energy pistols, hiding behind shields, erecting electrical force fields, and piloting intimidating mechs to try and squash Sparkster flat. Since Rocket Knight is only a short game (it’ll probably take about an hour to finish on the “Normal” difficulty), you only have to contend with three bosses and two sub-bosses. The sub-boss battles are a one-on-one duel against Axel Gear, Sparkster’s hated rival; Axel has many of Sparkster’s abilities, including his energy beam and rocket pack-based attacks, but also circles the screen leaving damaging clouds in his wake and tosses grenades Sparkster’s way at any opportunity. These are some of the most fun bouts in the game, though, as it’s thrilling to go against Sparkster’s dark opposite; however, they can be frustrating when playing on “Hard” mode.

Sparkster’s rival, Axel Gear, and general Sweinhart’s gigantic minions offer a significant challenge.

The first true boss you’ll encounter is a giant mechanical forest shredder that tries to stamp, swipe, skewer, and explode you at every opportunity. The boss’s weak spot is the big, red metal “mask” on its head and you can choose to either rocket yourself into this or try to reflect the dynamite it tosses your way back at it but you’ll have to dodge its rockets and giant, scenery-destroying buzz saws as the fight progresses. Ulfgar the Merciless is a slightly less straight-forward opponent; impervious to your attacks, you must instead bait Ulfgar into charging head-first into blocks, knock dynamite back at him, or destroy the platforms he is standing on to damage him all while dodging his charging and melee attacks and the debris he causes to come crashing down from the ceiling. The final boss is a battle against General Sweinhart himself and is also, fittingly, the toughest and most frustrating battle of the game. Sweinhart hides inside a titanic mech shaped in his image for most of the battle, randomly trying to squash you (or cause bottomless spits to emerge) or fry you alive with his laser eyes. When comes close, you must quickly attack on his metal nostrils; take too long and he’ll spawn an enemy or three into the arena, which causes more headaches. Land three hits and the mech goes down, spitting Sweinhart out. Here’s where it gets really tricky; you have to dodge Sweinhart’s laser and bombs all while trying not to touch the electrified parts of his downed mech and using Sparkster’s rocket pack to knock Sweinhart from the sky in such a way that he gets fried instead. If you’re quick about this, you can significantly knock a lot of Sweinhart’s health off but it’s so fiddly and tricky to dodge his attacks and get him to land in the right place that you’ll have to contend with his giant mech at least two times in a standard battle. To make things worse, the game is really stingy with health in this battle; when fighting the other bosses, a couple of health power-ups are available in the arena but, here, it seems completely random when one will drop from the mech’s nostrils, making this far more frustrating than it needs to be at times.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
In keeping with the first game, there’s not much on offer to help boost Sparkster’s performance throughout Rocket Knight; gems will add to your score to help you towards earning extra lives, 1-ups are occasionally found in stages, and certain stages will see you get an instant refill of your rocket fuel but that’s about it. There’s no invincibility or speed up, no shields or damage increasers, and no upgrades to get or worry about; it’s just you, your sword, your rocket pack, and your wits.

Additional Features:
As you might expect, Rocket Knight comes with a handful of Achievements for you to earn; sadly, there’s not very many and they’re not especially varied in their content. However, while clearing every stage and beating the game on “Normal” might be easy enough to get, others, like beating every stage below the par time or finishing the game on “Hard” mode, can be a mite trickier. You can select “Hard” mode at any time; however, staying in “Hard” mode is easier said than done. The only way to stop the game from automatically dropping the difficulty back to “Normal” is to land a special attack on each of the game’s bosses (such as damaging the forest shredder with dynamite or causing Axel to fly into his own bombs). Once you manage it, though, you unlock two additional skins: one that lets you play as Axel Gear (which is awesome) and the other is Gold Sparkster, which is also an even more challenging gameplay mode. You can input the famous Konami code on the title screen to unlock these at your leisure but I don’t think that allows you to earn the Achievements associated with them.

The Summary:
Rocket Knight is an extremely enjoyable, if all-too-brief, return to form for one of Konami’s more forgotten franchises. Fast paced and simple to play, there’s not much here to really test your skills or have you pulling your hair out as even the game’s trickier moments are fun to play through thanks to the appealing aesthetics of the game’s graphics and soundtrack. The controls are tight and responsive, stages are short bursts of action and enjoyment, and the gameplay is simple yet easy to get to grips with. It would have been nice to see the three original games included as unlockables or bonus content but maybe one day Konami will remember Sparkster and give all four of his titles a bit of a spruce up for a new generation.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

What did you think of Rocket Knight? Were you happy to see Sparkster randomly return from obscurity or did you have issues with the game’s length and presentation? Did you ever play Rocket Knight Adventures on the Mega Drive or either of its sequels? If so, what did you think of them and would you like to see more games in the franchise? Either way, whatever your thoughts on Rocket Knight, leave a comment below.

Game Corner: Gears of War: Judgment (Xbox 360)

Dr. K1 Comment
GameCorner
GearsJudgeLogo

Released: March 2013
Developer: People Can Fly/Epic Games Poland
Also Available For: Xbox One (Backwards Compatible)

The Background:
Gears of War (Epic Games/Various, 2006 to 2019) is a third-person, over-the-shoulder science-fiction military shooter exclusive to PC and the Xbox series of consoles. Originally conceived as more of a traditional first-person shooter in enclosed arenas, the series has seen numerous sequels, spin-offs, comic books, and action figures since the release of the first game and the franchise is easily one of the most successful on the Xbox. My exposure to the series is somewhat limited; though aware of it for some time, I didn’t actually play a game in the series until I was gifted Gears of War: Ultimate Edition (Epic Games, 2015) and I found it to be extremely enjoyably thanks to it’s over-the-top, overly macho characters and plot, all clearly heavily inspired by films such as Aliens (Cameron, 1987) and Starship Troopers (Verhoeven, 1997). Since then, the franchise has been on the fringes of my mind but somewhat intimidating and impenetrable due to the myriad of sequels. Gears of War: Judgment, however, was a prequel to the first game and, as a result, worked as a not only tentative baby step into this wild and frantic bug shooter.

The Plot:
Some time before the events of Gears of War, Lieutenant Damon Baird’s Kilo Squad, all soldiers battling the marauding Locust Horde on behalf of the Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG), are placed on trial for disobeying orders, with the majority of the game’s story taking place in the form of flashbacks as each COG tells their part of the story that led to them facing a summary execution.

Gameplay:
Gears of War: Judgment is a third-person sci-fi/military shooter; the camera is firmly placed over the shoulder of your character and there is a heavy emphasis on gore, fast-paced shooting and taking cover from incoming damage, as well as some (very) light puzzle solving. Through the course of the game’s story, you’ll play as each of Baird’s Kilo Squad: Augustus Cole, Sofia Hendrick, Garron Paduk, and Baird himself. Each has different personalities (though they’re all mostly infused with the same ultra-macho mindset and physicality as series protagonist Marcus Fenix) but all play exactly the same as each other (in the main story campaign, at least).

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Gear up for a bug hunt!

If you’ve played the first Gears of War, you should be immediately familiar with Judgment’s presentation and controls. You can aim and toss a variety of grenades with the Left Trigger and bumper, blow holes in the monstrous Grubs with the Right Trigger and reload with X. When reloading, you’ll see a little white mark on a bar on your heads-up display (HUD); press the Right Button at the right time, and you’ll reload almost instantaneously. If you miss the window, though, your gun will jam and leave you vulnerable to attack.

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Don’t hesitate to execute your fallen foes!

When enemies are downed, you can choose to finish them off or use them as a shield to stave off incoming fire. Additionally, you can also melee attack enemies with B; if you have the Lancer, you can press and hold B to activate the gun’s chainsaw attachment and slice your enemies in two in fantastically gruesome fashion. Similarly, the Retro Lancer comes equipped with a bayonet-like blade that allows you to charge at Grubs and skewer them by holding B. You can also run, while ducking, by holding A; while this greatly improves your movement speed, it is a bit unwieldy and you’ll find yourself running head-first into walls and other obstacles when using this function.

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Take cover to avoid gunfire and pick off your foes.

Just pressing A allows you to perform a somersault (a manoeuvre that you would think is basically impossible given the heavy armour the COG wear) to dive ahead or away from danger. Pressing A near walls and other fortifications will see you immediately snap to cover; this will keep you safe from gunfire and allow you to shoot out from cover or jump from cover to cover to advance further. As with a lot of shooters, a number of generous checkpoints are scattered throughout each mission and you will automatically regenerate health if you escape from danger for a few seconds. If you’re injured too gravely, you’ll fall to the floor and be forced to crawl away from danger, mashing A to call for help. You can similarly revive your fallen comrades by pressing X when they’re nearby, which is strongly recommended as your fellow COG are instrumental not only to reviving you, but also culling the influx of Grubs and other monstrous aliens.

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Ammo and new weapons are plentiful and often within easy reach.

As you explore the various war-torn environments that make up the Gears world, you’ll find a number of weapons, ammo, ammo crates, and other collectables to aid your mission. Again, like most shooters these days, you can only hold two guns at once; sometimes, you can grab a bigger, vastly more powerful weapon that won’t see you automatically drop your current weapon, which is helpful but these larger weapons are often extremely unwieldy and have very limited ammo. You can also carry a number of grenades; these are great not just for blowing Grubs into bloody chunks but also for closing emergence holes and stopping new enemies from entering the area. Each chapter of the story is divided into a series of small missions that generally involve getting from point A to point B, navigating through dishevelled urban environments, or defending either a robot or an area from waves of enemies. As you progress, killing enemies, reviving your team mates, and staying healthy, you’ll acquire Stars to level-up your gamer profile, earning Ribbons, Achievements, and a variety of unlockables for the game’s multiplayer mode.

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Quite often, you’ll be tasked with fortifying and defending an area against waves of Grubs.

At the beginning of each mission, you’ll find a massive glowing red Gears logo on a wall; pressing X on these will give you the option of tackling the mission with a number of handicaps to earn more Stars. These handicaps vary from reaching your objective under a strict time limit, fighting with either no ammo or certain weapons, having your vision obscured, more enemies being present, or your health no longer regenerating, among others, and are a nice way to add a little more challenge to each mission. Gameplay doesn’t really amount to much more than taking cover, blasting at aliens, and ploughing ahead (unless, of course, you choose one of the aforementioned optional handicaps). However, you earn more Achievements and in-game rewards if you manage to kill enemies with certain weapons, get headshots, blow shit up, or interact with your environment by completing the game’s few, very simple puzzles. These literally boil down to pressing X on a highlighted area of the environment to turn a valve or set a charge and, maybe, pressing A as well. When defending an area, you’ll be tasked with setting up automated turrets or laying explosive trip wires and you’ll also have to defend your robot from being attacked but there are no vehicles or other gameplay styles to break up the action: it’s simply an unapologetic, super macho bug hunt from start to finish.

Graphics and Sound:
Gears of War: Judgment doesn’t exactly move the needle when it comes to its graphics or environments; once again, we have many war-torn, urban environments that are mostly grey or brown, with scattered fire, entrails, and damage all over them. It seems that shooters can’t quite get out of the slump of falling back on these generic colour schemes and locations; every area, whether inside or outside, is deceptively enclosed to localise your firefight to that one area until the danger has passed. This might be in the streets, on a military campus, or on the rooftops over the half-destroyed city but, in either case, you’ll find the same barricades and fortifications to take cover behind.

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Surprisingly, the game’s only female isn’t a hyper-sexualised character.

Luckily, Judgment makes up for this by continuing the over-the-top character designs made famous in the first game; every character is bulging with muscles and testosterone the likes of which made famous by movies like Predator (McTiernan, 1987) and clad in a massive segmented suit of armour that looks completely ridiculous and impractical but it all adds to the elaborate character of the game, and the series in general. This time, the COG are joined by a female soldier, Cadet Hendrick, who, while still hyper-sexualised, is actually surprisingly well-covered for a female character in such a blatantly overly masculine videogame. I mean, she’s the only female in the game (and she of course has a questionable sexual history) and she doesn’t really factor into the plot too much beyond being young and naïve but it’s something, if nothing else.

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There’s little graphical downgrade between the in-game and cutscene graphics.

The majority of the game’s story is told through cutscenes, of course, wherein the characters all growl and snarl at each other with an amusing level of camaraderie; the cutscenes still hold up really well, being nearly indistinguishable from the in-game graphics, and the in-game dialogue between the soldiers helps to direct your attention and further flesh out the characters. Mostly, though, the game is swamped in either silence, the sounds of gunfire and growling beasts and men alike, or sporadic bursts of suitably military-inspired tunes.

Enemies and Bosses:
The COG have a tall order ahead of them as they clash with the seemingly inexhaustible Locust Horde, an army of monstrous aliens of all shapes and sizes who attack using the environment to their advantage and using intelligent swarming and flanking tactics. Locusts fire from behind cover, dash behind pillars and barricades, and clamber out of emergence holes hungry for human flesh but they’re also bolstered by larger, more durable enemies and smaller, bug-like enemies that explode in your face.

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Even regular enemies can absorb quite a bit of damage before finally going down.

You’ll have to contend with snipers, Grubs who fire mortars at you incessantly, floating squid-like aliens affixed with machine guns, zombie-like humans, blade-wielding Grubs, massive armour-plated hulks who wield maces and giant protective shields, and even gaunt Kantus enemies who will replenish the Locust’s health and ranks and explode in a suffocating toxic cloud upon defeat. Even the regular, run-of-the-mill Wretches can be quite tough to put down as enemies can absorb a lot of bullets and even then many of them will crawl around on the floor, leaving themselves wide open to a bloody evisceration, but the bigger, tougher enemies will require you to manoeuvre around them to their exposed behinds or simply toss a grenade at them to blast them to pieces.

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The game’s bigger, more monstrous enemies act as sub-bosses, of a sort.

Technically speaking, Judgment only features one true boss battle, which forms the basis for the game’s final mission. However, as you progress through the campaign, you’ll battle some larger, far tougher enemies who basically function as mini bosses. These include the crab-like Corpsers (which burrow out of the ground and shield themselves with their claws), Ragers (which are regular Grubs that suddenly transform into rampaging, bloodthirsty monsters rather than dying), the Bloodmounts (massive monsters the Locust Horde ride into battle), and the giant, spider/octopus-like Reavers that fly around the air shooting missiles at you and then come crashing to the ground to try and stamp you to death.

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You’ll face General Karn at the game’s finale.

The only actual boss battle takes place in the game’s final mission and sees you battle against the Locust Horde’s General, Karn, who attacks from atop a gargantuan semi-cybernetic spider called the Shibboleth. This battle takes place in a large open area with plenty of massive blocks to take cover behind and ammo to grab and can be made harder to selecting the option handicap, which sees a swarm of Elite Grubs help defend their General. The hardest thing about this boss battle is that Karn doesn’t have a health bar so the only way to you that you’re damaging him is when the HUD says he’s been wounded and you can only damage him when your aiming reticule is red. Otherwise, Karn is a large and lumbering target; as long as you take cover and stay out of the way of his charge attack and missiles (and revive your team mates as needed), he isn’t too tough to put down.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Despite the game’s over-the-top premise and presentation, there are no power-ups to be found in Gears of War: Judgment. You won’t get any steroids to make you faster, no invincibility power-ups, and there’s no beer to chug to send you into a blood rage. Instead, you have to make do with the game’s wide and impressive array of weaponry; the standard weapon is, as always, the Lancer, which is great for ranged and close quarters combat and, of course, has a fuckin’ chainsaw attached to it, making it the best go-to weapon of the game once again.

GearsJudgeWeapons
Snipe from afar or simply blow the Grubs into bloody chunks!

You’ll also get a few pistols, which can be useful in a pinch, some shotgun variants (which are fantastic for blowing chunks into Grubs when they get in your face), and a couple of different sniper rifle-type weapons. Some Grubs carry heavier weaponry, such as the Boomshot (which is, essentially a shotgun-like grenade launcher), giant Buster Sword-like blades, and one particular weapon that burrows under the ground towards its target and explodes in impact. You’ll also get to use some of the COG’s heavier weaponry; automated turrets, mortars, shielded heavy rifles, and massive hand-held weaponry like the Mulcher and the One-Shot, which are so big and heavy that you fire from a crouched position. They also massively slow you down and have limited ammo, forcing you to pick between mobility and power. You can also set up explosive traps, fire a bouncing grenade, roast Grubs alive with the Scorcher (or “flamethrower”), and defend yourself using a Boomshield.

Additional Features:
Gears of War: Judgment has a fair few Achievements tied to it; most of these are tied to story progression and levelling-up your in-game profile but you’ll also earn them by unlocking certain Ribbons and playing the game’s multiplayer component.

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There are many options available in Judgment‘s multiplayer.

Judgment’s multiplayer comes in numerous forms; you can play the main story campaign in co-op, take part in local and offline deathmatches and the like, and even compete in similar matches against computer-controller ‘bots. Alongside the standard multiplayer matches you might expect, you can also play “OverRun” and “Free-For-All”, with OverRun seeing you play as the COG and/or the Locust Horde in pursuit of gaining ground and raking up kills. You can also purchase some downloadable content that adds further multiplayer maps and modes to the game, if you like that sort of thing. As you play the campaign, you’ll find the game keeps track of various statistics (enemies killed, times downed, number of executions performed, etc) and compares them to those of your friends, which is a neat feature. You’ll also find a number of COG Tags scattered throughout each mission; whenever you spot a dark, blood-red Gears logo, a COG Tag will be nearby and you’ll need to find all of them to get 100% of the game’s Achievements. Additionally, once you complete the main campaign, you’ll unlock a bonus story, “Aftermath”, which appears to take place after Gears of War 3 (Epic Games, 2011), which sees Kilo Squad reunited and attempting to prepare for a bigger Locust assault.

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The Summary:
I feel like I came into Gears of War when the series was already deeply entrenched in its lore and nearly impenetrable as a result. While I enjoy the characters and presentation and the gameplay, the idea of playing every single one of the titles is a little daunting to me as there is a lot of content to digest but, after playing first Gears of War: Ultimate Edition and now Gears of War: Judgment, I have to admit that I am tempted to try out more from the Gears franchise. Crucial to this is that fact that, while the game can be challenging, it’s nowhere near as frustrating or aggravating as a lot of similar shooters. Thanks to the game’s optional handicaps, Judgment is only ever as difficult as you choose it to be, meaning you can play as casually or as hardcore as you like. The characters and premise are also massively over-the-top and really appeal to the nineties kid in me, recalling the ultra-macho sci-fi/horror franchises that shaped my childhood and being unapologetically mindless and masculine in its execution. I didn’t see much in Judgment to really make it stand out from the first game or that was especially innovative but there was enough here to appeal to a casual fan of the series such as myself and to inspire me to revisit the title at a later point to try and tidy up a few more of those Achievements.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

What did you think of Gears of War: Judgment? Where do you rank it amongst the other Gears of War titles? Which Gears of War videogame or character is your favourite? Whatever you think about Gears of War, drop a comment below.

Game Corner: Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime (Xbox 360)

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GameCorner
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Released: March 2011
Developer: Behaviour Santiago
Also Available For: PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox One

The Background:
Ever since the release of Ghostbusters (Reitman, 1984), the concept of four somewhat-bumbling New York parapsychologists running around zapping and trapping troublesome spirits has seen some significant success as a franchise. We’ve had the under-rated sequel, a reboot that was met with middling to less-than-favourable reviews, a couple of cartoons, a whole slew of action figures and comic books, and, of course, videogames. A few years after the release of Ghostbusters: The Video Game (Terminal Reality/Red Fly Studio, 2009) was released, Atari made the…interesting decision to follow-up with a straight-to-digital twin-stick shooter rather than continue the adventures of the titular Ghostbusters after the decent reception of that aforementioned, semi-official continuation of the film franchise.

The Plot:
Some time after the events of Ghostbusters II (Reitman, 1989), the Ghostbusters have been run ragged by an influx of supernatural occurrences through the city. Hiring in four new team members, the Ghostbusters send their rookies out to investigate a disturbance and, soon, the greenhorns stumble upon a plot to summon an ancient evil once more.

Gameplay:
Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime is a one to four player, top down twin stick shooter reminiscent of the awesome old arcade game Smash TV (Williams, 1990); no matter which of the new Ghostbusters you choose to play as, or whether you’re playing alone or with friends, you’ll bust various ghosts and other supernatural entities in a constant team of four. The controls of Sanctum of Slime couldn’t be simpler; you control your Ghostbuster with the left analogue stick, fire your Proton Pack with the right, and switch to your different Proton Streams with the Left and/or Right Trigger. When a team mate is downed by an attack, you can revive them by rapidly tapping A and they will do the same to you, with surprising speed and efficiency. Your computer-controlled allies are extremely capable and helpful, to be honest; they’ll constantly blasts ghosts with Proton Streams, resuscitate you and the others as a priority, and are generally much more comfortable at navigating the game’s limited areas than you will be. Technically, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with the game’s controls or settings, there’s just not a lot to it; your character controls quite well, being just slippery enough to move at a decent speed but a dash function would have been appreciated.

GhostbustersSanctumHealth
Watch your health bar as it can drain surprisingly (and frustratingly) quickly.

You and each of your team mates come equipped with a life bar, unlimited lives, and unlimited continues; should you fall in battle and your fellow ‘Busters also be defeated before they can revive you, you can simply continue from the last autosave checkpoint. Unfortunately, these are often placed before gauntlets and boss battles, which can end up with you having to slog through some of the game’s more difficult and frustrating battles again and again as it seems your health can get drained in anywhere from three to one hits with little consistency. There are four playable characters in Sanctum of Slime but there is absolutely no difference between each of the new Ghostbusters other than cosmetic; why the developers felt the need to bring in four completely new characters is beyond me as their word balloon dialogue could easily have been taken up by the original foursome and it doesn’t really add that much to the plot or the lore to bring in four new faces. Even more disappointing is the fact that you can’t even unlock the original Ghostbusters as skins (or anything else for that matter) to play as.

GhostbustersSanctumCharacters
You may as well select “Random” as all the characters play exactly the same.

As you explore the game’s familiar surroundings (we’re back at the Sedgewick Hotel again, a haunted graveyard, and other locations that were rendered far more impressively in Ghostbusters: The Video Game), you can destroy various aspects of the environment with your Proton Stream. Doing so adds to your score and you can gain additional points by reviving your team mates, destroying ghosts, capturing the bosses, and grabbing various power-ups. The score is merely for bragging rights, however, as the team’s performance is ranked (well…not exactly “ranked”…more tallied, I guess) at the end of each mission but you don’t get anything special for getting the highest score. There are no difficulty settings for Sanctum of Slime; the game gets progressively challenging as you venture along, throwing more and bigger ghosts at you and filling the screen with red, blue, and yellow spirits that force you to quickly switch between your three different Proton Streams extremely quickly. This isn’t so bad and things progress quite well until you reach the fittingly-named “Gates of Hell” mission, which sees you having to endure seemingly-endless waves of the game’s most difficult enemies, desperately trying to avoid damage and revive your team mates before you get wrecked and have to restart all over again. As if this wasn’t frustrating and annoying enough, my game crashed on me a few times during one of the more difficult of these gauntlets, which only added to the aggravation in this mission.

Graphics and Sound:
Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime is pretty basic in terms of its presentation; each area is rendered quite well but there’s not much definition in the character models. This is to be expected considering the perspective the game employs and, clearly, the developers put more effort into rendering the game’s numerous colourful and unique spooks and spirits. Honestly, you’re not going to get the same level of graphical quality as in Ghostbusters: The Video Game or most double-to-triple-A titles and nowhere is this more evident in the fact that there are only a handful of environments to explore. You’ll revisit the same locations in the game’s later missions and maybe they’ve been altered a bit and you battle more difficult ghosts but while the game lacks much in the way of level or graphical variety, for a budget digital-only game, Sanctum of Slime does a decent enough job; you simply move from location to location, busting ghosts and trying to stay on your feet and the game’s pacing is fast and frantic enough where you won’t be stopping to examine the intricacies of the little details.

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The original Ghostbusters only appear in the game’s comic book-like cutscenes.

The game’s plot is told using comic book-like cutscenes that use word balloons and the very basics of animation to tell its story; this isn’t necessarily a problem, and you can skip through them (which is always welcome, though you need to watch them all to earn an Achievement), but their visual style clashes somewhat with the more semi-realistic aesthetic of the in-game graphics. Similarly, you’ll hear a bunch of familiar Ghostbusters tunes and sounds in Sanctum of Slime, all of which are ripped or heavily inspired from the first movie to, which adds to the game’s authenticity.

Enemies and Bosses:
As you blast your way through the game’s twelve missions, you’ll come up against all kinds of ghosts, spirits, and supernatural entities. You’ve got the bog-standard flaming skulls, bellhops and chefs who throw luggage and knives at you, respectively, and a whole slew of different slime-born creatures ranging from spiders, to giant hands, to huge, mud-like monstrosities. These basically act as mini bosses, of a sort, as they can decimate you and your team mates in no time at all; as if that wasn’t bad enough, they’re often accompanied by flying gargoyles that spit fireballs at you and a slew of other smaller, more generic spooks. When locked into an area, you’ll generally be tasked with clearing the immediate vicinity out of any ghosts present or enduring a frustrating gauntlet that can wipe you and your team mates out in seconds if you’re not careful.

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Bosses are bigger and tougher and some are more than familiar…

You’ll also come up against some bigger bosses; like most of the other enemies, these have a health bar that must be whittled down with your Proton Streams but, unlike the other enemies, bosses have a far bigger bar and have numerous phases and methods of attack. Whether by coincidence or design, a few of the bosses are extremely reminiscent of those seen in Ghostbusters: The Video Game; you’ll once again find yourself in the kitchen of the Sedgewick battling a demonic chef and tackling demonic spider in a nest of webs, for example (though, to be fair, this latter boss at least looks significantly different).

GhostbustersSanctumFinalBoss
Ah, yes, the tried and true demonic final boss…

There are some more original bosses to contend with, though, such as a monstrous, dragon-like possessed subway train and a massive stone gargoyle. However, Sanctum of Slime commits one of the cardinal sins of videogames but having you battle through all the bosses you previously bested before reaching the game’s final boss (which, as in Ghostbusters: The Video Game, involves battling a possessed avatar and the game’s principal antagonist, Dumazu the Destroyer). Ultimately, none of the bosses pose that much of a problem; you simply keep your distance, keep pouring on the heat, chipping away at their health until they are weak enough for you to toss a trap, and then all that’s left is for you to win a quick-time event and the boss is trapped forever. The final boss itself is large and intimidating and can swipe, incinerate, and crush you and your team mates with ease but, for the most part, its pretty simply to stay out of danger and cycle through your Proton Streams to whittle its health down to nothing.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Every time you destroy an enemy, you’ll earn points; after clearing some areas of ghosts, you can pick various power-ups to increase your score (such as a cash bonus or cash multiplier) but what you really want are the full health and invincibility power-ups, which are few and far between and often dropped by blasting Slimer when he floats into the area. When you start the game, you’re equipped only with the basic Proton Pack and a trap, which you can only use in boss battles. Once you reach the second mission, you’ll receive your first Proton Pack upgrade (the Fermion Shock) and, upon reaching the sewers (because Ghostbusters videogames love a good sewer level), you’ll get the third and final upgrade, the Plasma Inductor.

GhostbustersSanctumRace
Racing missions help break up the monotony a little.

Essentially, these are just different coloured beams or bolts for you to shoot out; the Proton Stream fires in an inexhaustible beam and is most effective against red-coloured ghosts, the Fermion Shock fires out in waves and damages yellows ghosts, and the Plasma Inductor fires blue bolts that rebound off walls and are best used against blue-coloured ghosts. You can’t upgrade any of these or spend your points/cash on anything to increase your performance, meaning you’ve pretty much seen everything the game has on offer by the fourth mission. To break up the monotony of the constant ghostbusting, a fifth rookie comes and picks your team up in the ECTO-4WD, a jeep-like vehicle that you have absolutely no control over; you simply sit in the back and blast at ghosts as the vehicle races at break-neck speed through a questionably-rendered New York City.

Additional Features:
Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime comes with a handful of Achievements for you to earn; honestly, the amount of offer is quite disappointing and the developers simply opted for having you earn them by doing mundane tasks such as beating the first level, the entire game, reviving team mates twenty times, or making it through online with three other players. Yes, the game supports both couch and online co-op and is probably a lot more fun with a few more friends to play alongside. Considering one of my gripes with Ghostbusters: The Video Game was that it foolishly didn’t include a co-op mode for the main campaign so it’s good to see that corrected here but, unfortunately, the game isn’t anywhere near as much fun. Scattered throughout each mission (with the exception of the racing missions and certain boss battles) are a number of collectables; unlike in Ghostbusters: The Video Game, these are all little Stay Puft Marshmallow Men and all you get for collecting them all is an Achievement. They don’t unlock any concept art or skins and the only way to expand upon the main game is to purchase the downloadable content, which consists of a bunch of items for your Xbox avatar and a Challenge Pack that offers you the chance to play completely alone or with a limited number of lives through the game’s more challenging missions.

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The Summary:
Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime is simple, frantic fun; it’s a cheap, digital-only title so you can’t really expect too much from it but, having said that, I have played similar games that have a lot more going for them. Dead Nation (Housemarque/Climax Studios, 2010), for example, is strikingly similar in its execution and presentation but has far more depth to it; in comparison, Sanctum of Slime seems like it was rushed out by Atari simply to maintain the Ghostbusters licence. While there is a lot of arcade style fun to have with Sanctum of Slime, there are a lot of missed opportunities; just adding skins for the original characters or their animated counterparts would have been nice (or, you know, using those familiar characters in the first place) but there also could have been an actual upgrade system or some reason for you to get all those points and collectables. Instead, you’re left with a short, relatively inoffensive little game that is good for a few hours of mindless action but you’re unlikely to come back to it again unless you can find a few other people to play alongside.

My Rating:

Rating: 1 out of 5.

Terrible

What did you think of Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime? Which of the original Ghostbusters and the lame new ones introduced in this game is your favourite? Which Ghostbusters videogame do you have fond, or bad, memories of? Do you think it’s time for a new co-op Ghostbusters videogame? Whatever you think about this game, or Ghostbusters in general, drop a comment below.

Game Corner: Aliens vs. Predator (2010; Xbox 360)

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GameCorner
AVP360Logo

Released: February 2010
Developer: Rebellion Developments
Also Available For: PC and PlayStation 3

The Background:
I’ve mentioned this before but Aliens vs. Predator has been a thing for a long, long time now. These two iconic science-fiction/horror franchises first came to blows in a series of excellent comic books published by Dark Horse comics between 1989 and 1990 and, since then, we’ve seen countless additional comic books, action figures, two divisive movies, and a whole host of videogames based around the concept. In the same year that the exceptional arcade beat-‘em-up was released, Rebellion developments crafted a first-person shooter (FPS) for the short-lived Atari Jaguar (remember that?) that allowed players to take on the role of a Colonial Marine, a Xenomorph, and a Predator in what was, essentially, a reskin of popular FPS games like Wolfenstein 3D (id Software, 1992) and Doom (ibid, 1993). A few years after AVPR: Aliens vs. Predator – Requiem (The Brothers Strause, 2007) effectively killed the concept of seeing the Predators hunting the Xenomorphs onscreen (though I actually quite enjoyed that movie; it was worlds better than the first AVP movie), Rebellion Developments rebooted the concept for then-modern consoles and produced another FPS title that, despite bringing two of cinemas most iconic franchise together for a new generation, failed to really impress players or critics alike. Despite this, and my general disdain for FPS games (I just don’t like the restrictive view or being shot in the back), these are two of my favourite franchises and the game is dirt cheap so I decided to pick it up and see it was really as mediocre as everyone said it was.

The Plot:
The malevolent Weyland-Yutani corporation finds their colonies, laboratories, and spaceships under attack when their experiments with Xenomorphs inevitably break out and the alien Predators become enraged at the corporation desecrating their sacred hunting grounds. Roping in an expendable team of Colonial Marines to secure their sites, the corporation scrambles to ensure that their new cross-breed specimen survives to be sold as a military weapon.

Gameplay:
Like its Atari namesake, Aliens vs. Predator is a first-person shooter than gives players the option of playing as a Colonial Marine (known as the “Rookie”), a Xenomorph (codenamed “Specimen 6” or simply “Six”, and a Predator (referred to as “Dark”). Each story sees you exploring similar environments and the game’s over-lapping story from different perspectives, with slightly different control schemes, gameplay mechanics, and objectives to fulfil as part of your mission.

Block and slash with wrist-mounted blades or make short work of his prey with the Predator’s plasma cannon.

As much as I love Aliens (Cameron, 1986), I have a soft spot for Predator (McTiernan, 1987) so, naturally, upon booting up Aliens vs. Predator, I completed my first playthrough as the Predator character. In an effort to better evoke the spirit of that first movie, you’re dropped into the middle of an alien jungle to learn the many complex controls associated with the Predator, who has access to the majority of his iconic abilities right off the bat. The Predator engages in combat primarily through the use of his wrist-mounted blades; the right bumper slashes with a weak blow, the left with a stronger attack necessary for breaking through an enemy’s guard, and holding them both down allows you to defend yourself from melee attacks. Pressing the right trigger sends out an energy blast from the Predator’s trademark shoulder cannon and holding the trigger down lets you lock on to a target. You can also press the Y button to activate the Predator’s signature cloak, though both of these abilities drain Dark’s energy meter and this can only be replenished by charging up at various electronic panels scattered across the game’s limited environments. Also, it might just be me but I found the cloak almost completely useless; if you activate it and walk in front of a human enemy, they will still spot you and open fire upon you and they’ll still be able to see and track you even if you leap behind cover. Add to that the fact that the Xenomorphs can detect you whether you’re cloaked or not and Dark’s invisibility is all but ineffective in execution and it’s far easier to simply sneak around behind cover than depend upon this mechanic. Dark can also cycle through various vision modes (the usual thermal vision allows you to see human and android enemies but renders Xenomorphs as nearly invisible and the reverse is true for the green-tinted Xenomorph vision) with a press of the B button and you can even lure his prey into an ambush by pressing X and mimicking cries for help. This is the perfect way to sneak up behind your prey and execute a “Trophy Kill” that sees the Predator wrench a man’s head from his shoulders or skewer them with his wrist blades.

Even with all the Predator’s advantages, first-person doesn’t seem to be a suitable gameplay perspective.

You can also execute these gloriously gory kills by stunning enemies through melee combat and can expand the Dark’s arsenal as you progress through the story and acquire other weaponry popularised by the criminally under-rated Predator 2 (Hopkins, 1992). As you explore your environments, you’ll be given objectives and hints through your heads-up display (HUD) and can hold down the left trigger to entire a “Focus Mode” that allows you to see points of interest, your exit, and other secrets and items scattered around the environment. The Predator can also jump with the A button and, when in Focus Mode, will leap to higher vantage points automatically to allow you to take the high ground and pick off your targets. Dark has a health bar in the bottom right of his HUD; he can take a decent amount of damage but falls surprisingly quickly under sustained gunfire or Xenomorph clawing. You can restore your health by holding the Y button as long as you have a Health Shard on hand; you can hold three of these at any one time and will find them scattered sporadically across the game’s locations. Luckily, there are numerous checkpoints so, if (well…when) you die, you can simply load up your last checkpoint. You can also manually save the game at any time but this doesn’t create a checkpoint; also, quite often I found that I would reload a checkpoint only to be dumped in the middle of a full-on gunfight, which was a bit annoying, to say the least. Similarly, for me, the FPS perspective is clunky and awkward for the Predator; since you’ll soon run out of energy for your plasma cannon, you’ll be relying on close-combat melee attacks or Dark’s other, less interesting weapons. It’s also slightly awkward and annoying to have to constantly cycle through the Predator’s various vision modes when dealing with combinations of enemies so you rarely get the chance to properly appreciate the game’s surprisingly detailed environments. Personally, I feel like the Predator would have controlled and been realised better if his gameplay had been rendered from the third-person as in Predator: Concrete Jungle (Eurocom, 2005) though, to be fair, I found that game even more daunting in the vast array of controls and mechanics it used to bring to life all of the Predator’s various abilities and weaponry.

The Marine controls much like a typical FPS, but with poorer lighting and a handful of rudimentary puzzles thrown in.

After finishing the Predator’s story, I next took on the role of a Colonial Marine (known as “Rookie”). The Marine’s gameplay is very similar to a standard FPS videogame, which makes the game far less clunky and awkward when compared to playing as the Predator from a first-person perspective; the HUD is simplified, incorporating the Aliens motion tracker to give you a vague idea of where enemies are and pointing you in the right direction, and the Marine also regenerates a small portion of his health as long as you don’t lose an entire block. You can still pick up health, though, this time in the form of Stim Packs, which operate in exactly the same was as the Predator’s Health Shards, but are afforded far more limited options when it comes to your ability to see and navigate through the game’s many dark and dismal corridors. Pressing B will activate Rookie’s torch (or “flashlight” for you Americans) to bring some light to darkened areas and you even have an unlimited supply of flares that you can toss into the darkness for a brief period of light, which is a nice touch. Rookie’s story is one of survival and meeting many varied objectives; the Xenomorph infestation has left Weyland-Yutani’s many facilities in quite a state so you’ll be repairing power points, activating doors, and setting up automated gun turrets to progress further, fortifying the barricades the few remaining Marines have set up, and mowing down swarms of Xenomorphs. Because of this, the Marine’s gameplay feels far more tense and reminds me of playing Doom 3 (id Software, 2004) thanks to the sparse use of lighting, dark, dank, and dreary futuristic environments, and claustrophobic, mounting horror that fills every area. The Marine is your typical silent FPS protagonist and spends most of his time taking orders from fellow Marine Tequila and being directed by Company android turned good Katya. Generally, this means hacking into terminals and then surviving while hoards of Xenomorphs or Combat Androids (or both) fill the immediate area, which can be a tall order in some situations. Other times, you’ll simply be running from certain death and, while Rookie can jump, he isn’t required to do any tricky platforming, which I am very thankful for, but he also can’t duck and there’s no real snap-to-cover system in place so, in the face of a hail of bullets, you’re limited to taking a more old school approach and simply, awkwardly, hiding behind bits of the environment. You can take advantage of the environment to help clear out enemies, though, as you’ll find explosive pipes and barrels conveniently scattered across narrow hallways and bridges that will help to thin out swarms of Xenomorphs or put down those Goddamn Combat Androids.

It can be disorientating playing as a Xenomorph since Six’s clunky gameplay makes stealth tricky.

Honestly, I dreaded playing as the Xenomorph, Six, simply because I could tell that it was going to be the most troublesome and least fun campaign. Six is the fastest and most agile character, able to clamber over walls, ceilings, and pretty much all of the game’s environments just by moving the left analogue stick. While it’s pretty simple to run up walls and use the Xenomorph’s a panther-like leap to traverse the game’s areas, it’s maybe too easy; you’ll slide up walls when you don’t mean too, slip around like you’re constantly on ice, and it’s more than a little disorientating when you’re scuttling upside down on ceilings. Six attacks entirely with melee attacks; while other Xenomorph enemies spit acid, Six isn’t able to do that so must rely on her claws and her spear-like, whipping tail. By holding down the left trigger, you can engage Six’s own Focus Mode to target specific enemies and leap at them at attack; you can also block, like the Predator, and break an enemy’s block with her stronger tail attack. Sneak up on enemies, or damage them enough, and you’ll be prompted to press X to grab them and perform a gruesome instant kill. Six, apparently, performs best when shrouded in darkness so, during her tutorial, you’ll be asked to smash out ceiling and wall lights to keep her shrouded in darkness. In practise, though, I found few opportunities to really do this and, similar to the Predator’s cloaking mechanism, enemies seem to spot you no matter how deep in the shadows you are. Sometimes you can slowly sneak up behind them, other times they’ll turn around with the slightest press of the analogue stick; one time, though, I snuck up on a Marine and skewered her through the chest as she stood next to her team mate…who just stood there, completely oblivious, and let me do the same to him. Scattered throughout Six’s environments are a series of vents that she can dart through to avoid gunfire; unlike the other characters, Six’s health automatically regenerates after a few seconds and she has no other way of refilling her health bar so it’s crucial that you hit and run if you take too much damage. Similar to the Predator, Six can hiss to attract enemies closer to her and you’ll also find some civilians scattered throughout each mission, helpfully highlighted in green. Sometimes, these civilians will run and cower in a corner but others they’ll shoot themselves or blow themselves up so you’ll have to be quick about pouncing on them to harvest them with the X button. If the FPS view is unbefitting of the Predator, it’s really awkward for a Xenomorph; it’s very difficult to know where you are or how to orientate yourself. It’s like the game wants to be like the Predator sequences from the Batman: Arkham series (Various, 2009 to 2015) but it falls way off the mark as it’s difficult to target and isolate Marines in narrow areas. I can’t help but think the Xenomorph campaign would’ve been better as a kind of top down strategy style of game similar to Aliens Versus Predator: Extinction (Zono, 2003) where you play as an Alien Queen and direct drones and other Xenomorphs from the hive to spread her progeny throughout the game’s environments.

Graphics and Sound:
Honestly, for an Xbox 360 game and considering the age of this title, Aliens vs. Predator doesn’t look half bad; graphically, the game struggles to render human models in a realistic way, once again making them appear as little more than plastic action figures, but the various Xenomorphs and Predators all look really good and are very true to their source material.

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The game’s visual fidelity to the aesthetics of the movies is top notch!

Visual fidelity is key to Aliens vs. Predator’s presentation; the jungle is clearly modelled after the one seen in Predator, for example, and the various Weyland-Yutani corridors all evoke the same lived-in aesthetic as seen in Aliens but there were a few surprising call-backs to Alien (Scott, 1979) in the game’s visuals as well; even Alien3 (Fincher, 1992) feels evoked through copper-tinted, wind- and water-swept areas such as the mines and the refinery. While I expected the game to recycle a lot of the alien and mixed dynasty architecture of the AVP movies (which it did, particularly in rendering the ancient Predator hunting grounds and pyramids, with liberal use of hieroglyphics depicting the two species’ long history), I wasn’t expecting the game to so faithfully evoke the spirit and feeling of any movie beyond Aliens so that was a nice surprise for me. Unfortunately, you’ll be visiting the same five different environments across each of the three campaigns. Sure, you’ll have access to different areas, different objectives, and different options available to you but, essentially, Aliens vs. Predator simply recycles the same levels three times, which is a bit of a disappointment.

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Sounds are all ripped straight from the movies and even Lance Henriksen is back!

Where Aliens vs. Predator excels, though, is in its sound design; the music and sound effects are all ripped directly from the two Predator movies and Aliens, providing a stamp of authenticity that works really well with the game’s slavishly faithful environments. The pulse rifle sounds exactly as it did in Aliens, the Predator’s various growls and ticks mirror those from the movies exactly, and the Xenomorphs even sequel in pain exactly as they did in Aliens. Aliens vs. Predator even brought back the immortal Lance Henriksen as another iteration of the Bishop Weyland dynasty, lending his likeness and voice to the character and rightfully cropping up more than once through each campaign to add a level of malevolence and quality to the product. The game does feature a number of cutscenes but, honestly, they’re few and far between, especially in the Marine’s campaign. The story is quite minimal, to be honest, and mostly related through onscreen text and in-game dialogue as you progress through each campaign rather than being long, in-depth cinematics that cut away from the game’s many and varied gameplay mechanics. Bare-bones as it is, though, the story is serviceable enough and does a far better job of meshing these two franchises together than either of the movies, which made the inexplicably stupid decision to set their narratives on then-present-day Earth rather than the furthest reaches of future space.

Enemies and Bosses:
Typically, the most common enemy you’ll be coming up against as you play through Aliens vs. Predator are the Xenomorphs themselves; these come in a few different shapes and sizes, from the annoying little Facehuggers, which leap out from slimy Xenomorph eggs, to the regular drones and their larger variants that like to block your attacks, to acid-spitting crawlers, all of which can further damage you with their acidic blood so don’t go running over their corpses! When playing as Six, you won’t have to worry about fighting other Xenomorphs; instead, your primary prey are a smattering of Marines who wander around the game’s environments and blast at you with shotguns, pulse rifles, and flamethrowers as soon as they spot you. Combat Androids pop up later in the campaign and are just as bad but the strategy to taking them out remains the same; stay away, strike quickly, and hopefully split them up the middle with your tail.

Xenomorphs and Combat Androids will come at you from all sides!

The Xenomorphs are slippery, agile little devils and will clamber all over the environment to avoid your attacks, sneak in through tunnels, and strike from the darkness with an aggressive fury; quite often, you’ll be faced with endless swarms of the creatures and forced to either run for your life or solve a rudimentary puzzle to escape from them. When playing as Dark and Six, you’ll also have to contend with gun-toting Marines who are far less sporadic than the Xenomorph enemies, moving in specific patterns, taking cover, and blasting to you with their heavy weaponry the moment they catch a glimpse of you. However, while their firepower can easily overwhelm you, they go down pretty easily once you get a good lock on with the Predator’s weapons and you can thin out their numbers by allowing nearby Xenomorphs to run roughshod over them, which is a nice touch. Rookie has a tougher time taking on Xenomorphs, which are much harder to get a good lock on thanks to the Marine lacking the same vision options as the Predator, and, while they don’t have to fight other Marines, they will have to contend with the Combat Androids that patrol Weyland-Yutani’s facilities. When I encountered these as the Predator, they weren’t any different to battling the Marines (except they exploded upon destruction) but the Marine will find himself shot and beaten to death in seconds by these artificial enemies if you don’t attack from a distance with the scope rifle and make liberal use of cover. The androids can only be damaged by shooting their limbs (blow off their heads and they’re still 90% combat efficient) and often suddenly jerk to life and blast at you with a shotgun from the ground; later, they also make use of the Predator’s cloaking technology, practically forcing you to use the scope rifle’s x-ray feature to get a bead on them.

The Praetorian is not as intimidating as it looks whether you face it as the Predator or the Marine.

Bosses, though, are few and far between in Aliens vs. Predator, which is a bit of a shame considering the vast numbers of different Predator and Xenomorph variants there are and even the presence of those mech-like Loaders from Aliens. Each campaign sees you tangling with different boss battles, though, so at least you won’t have to battle the same bosses over and over again. Dark’s first boss battle is within the walls of an ancient and decrepit coliseum of sorts; here, you’ll face off against a Praetorian Xenomorph variant which looks like a smaller version of the Alien Queen. Though the largest and most intimidating Xenomorph you’ve encountered by that point in the Predator’s campaign, the Praetorian is a joke; you simply strafe around, blasting at it with your plasma cannon or chucking spears at it and it goes down fairly easily. Rookie also gets to take on a Praetorian; the first time, it’s a one-on-one battle in a small, enclosed area as regular drones swarm nearby and, the second time, you take on two after mowing down wave upon wave of Xenomorphs. Luckily, the Marine’s weaponry (particularly the pulse rifle’s grenade launcher and smart gun) are more than up to the task of cutting these monstrous bastards down to size.

The hardest thing about these bosses is the environmental hazards and waves of enemies.

Disappointingly, Rookie only encounters a Predator once or twice during his campaign but you do get to battle one in the combat arena as a boss. This generally involves you running around the arena collecting health and ammo and watching out for the Predator’s laser sight; once you spot it, dodge out of the way and trace the laser back to its source and unload your pulse rifle. The Predator eventually (or sporadically) drops to ground level to try and skewer you but just keep your distance and unload with the shotgun or grenade launcher and he goes down pretty easily. The Predator’s campaign ends with him facing off against the Predalien, a monstrous abomination that is a cross-breed between a Xenomorph and a Predator, which takes place on a series of small platforms floating on instant-death lava! Luckily, in this restrictive arena, your energy bar (not your health, mind) regenerates indefinitely so you can simply keep your distance (especially from the Predalien’s devastating pound attack) and blast away to your heart’s content. Don’t even bother trying to jump from platform to platform; simply stay back and shoot him, landing a few melee attacks when it’s safe to do so, and he’ll be done in no time. As the Marine, quite early into his campaign, you’ll have to destroy an Alien Queen; luckily, this is far easier than the fight in Aliens as the Queen is helpless and chained up. You’re simply required to sweep the nearby eggs with a flamethrower, start up the massive furnace, fend off some drones, and then blast at some explosives conveniently located right near the Queen’s head to put an end to her egg-laying ways.

While Six eventually fights an Elite Predator, the Marine’s final challenge is another Bishop android…

Rookie’s final boss isn’t another Queen, a Predator, or even the Predalien; instead, you go toe-to-toe with Karl Bishop Weyland who, as you might have guessed, is actually an android. I found this to be one of the toughest boss fights in the game as Bishop shrugs off bullets, you quickly run out of grenades, and he just runs right at you, spouting megalomaniacal nonsense and blasting at you with his devastatingly dangerous shotgun. Once you finally manage to put him down, you’re then suddenly tasked with shooting him in the head after a cutscene so don’t put your controller down after defeating him or you might find yourself getting shot. Six gets off slightly easier compared to her counterparts in that the only bosses she has to worry about are some Predators. When you reach the now-familiar combat arena, you’ll have to take on two Predators at once; the key here is to target one with your Focus Mode and stalk them incessantly. Once they reach ground level, leap in and strike and then back away and strafe around them, whittling their health down (hard to judge as they have no health bar), and don’t try to go toe-to-toe with them or to grab them and, if they block your attacks, back away immediately as you’ll be made mincemeat of in seconds. As soon as the two Predators are defeated, an Elite Predator enters the arena and the battle begins again. This time, the boss does have a health bar, which makes tracking your process much easier. However, while the Elite is technically tougher, the fight and your strategy are exactly the same; the only real difference is that, once you’ve weakened the Elite down, you’ll harvest it to give birth to the Predalien from the Predator’s campaign.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
As you explore the game’s different locations, you’ll find a number of collectables to flesh out the game’s lore and contribute towards obtaining all of the game’s Achievements; Audio Diaries, Trophy Belts, and Royal Jelly Containers can be found (or destroyed in the jelly’s case) dotted throughout each of the three campaigns but, unfortunately, this is the extent to which additional bonuses and points of interest go for Aliens vs. Predator beyond admiring the fidelity the game pays to the various movies that comprise each franchise. Of the three available characters, the Predator has the most exotic weaponry; you start off with the wrist blades and the plasma cannon but soon acquire proximity mines (that, honestly, I never actually used during my playthrough), the razor-tipped smart disc (which you must awkwardly direct using your laser targeting), and the Predator’s iconic spear (or “Combi Stick”, which deals massive damage when thrown but is incredibly inaccurate and takes some time to return to your hand).

While the Predator and Marine wields a bevvy of weapons, the Xenomorph has far less combat and gameplay options.

The Marine isn’t exactly lacking in weaponry, though; the Rookie has access to a handgun (which, thankfully, has unlimited ammunition) and all the iconic weaponry from Aliens (the pulse rifle, the smart gun, even the flamethrower and shotgun). Pressing the right trigger allows you to perform a melee attack with each of these weapons and they all feature a secondary firing mode as well; the handgun has a rapid fire mode, the pulse rifle shoots out grenades, and the shotgun can fire from both barrels, for example. The Marine also gets access to a scope rifle that is, essentially, a sniper rifle, which comes with a handy x-ray scope that us extremely useful for picking off enemies (and Combat Androids) from a distance but quite tricky to wield in execution as your enemies generally move faster than your eye can track. Compared to the other two, Six gets the short end of the stick when it comes to power-ups and bonuses in that she has no such options available to her. Once you learn everything she can do, that’s all you get; you don’t get taught how to spit acid or do anything new, despite Six metamorphosing into a Praetorian throughout the story, leaving her as the most limited of the three available characters.

Additional Features:
As you might expect, Aliens vs. Predator features a wide variety of Achievements that you can earn as you play through the game’s different modes; the majority of these are tied to unmissable story events or the game’s multiplayer but others will require you to kill a number of enemies with certain weapons or find all of the Audio Diaries, Trophy Belts, or destroy all of those Royal Jelly Containers. The game also features a “Survival” mode where you must hold out against wave upon wave of Xenomorphs for as long as you can using a number of restrictive maps based on the game’s different environments. Unfortunately, you can only play as the Marine in this mode and, honestly, it’s not really all that challenging as your entire health will regenerate in time and there are loads of respawning health packs, ammo, and weapons strewn around the maps. The waves do increase in challenge and aggression as you progress, though, but you don’t really earn anything for playing beyond using the mode to easily grab a few Achievements so there’s not a lot of incentive to revisit the mode. As you might expect from an FPS, Aliens vs. Predator also includes a multiplayer component; unfortunately, I wasn’t able to experience this as there is no couch multiplayer option and I haven’t renewed my Xbox Gold for some time now (if anyone wants to get me a subscription or, better yet, Xbox Ultimate, feel free to drop me a message). The game also apparently did well enough to justify the release of some downloadable content (DLC); however, as this is entirely comprised of additional multiplayer maps and options, I won’t be investing any money into this. How cool would it have been to have an additional single-player DLC that cast you as the Predalien or was themed around the movies? Like recreating the events of Predator or Aliens using the game’s maps, which are already heavily inspired by those movies, or to crawl around in a cobbled together recreation of Fury 161 from Alien3 as a Xenomorph, or even play as the likes of Hicks (Michael Biehn) or Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in a short mission-based campaign?

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The Summary:
With three different campaigns to play through and a variety of different gameplay styles on offer, you’d think that Aliens vs. Predator had a lot of replay value and incentive to keep you playing. Unfortunately, despite is aesthetic and aural fidelity to its rich source material, the game ends up being just another lacklustre FPS title with little to really tempt you back once you clear the three single-player stories beyond tackling a harder difficulty level. I suppose it’s possible that the game’s multiplayer is worth revisiting the game but I wouldn’t know about that and, even if it as, I generally judge a videogame by the merits of its single-player campaign and options since that’s where I spend the majority of my time. While Aliens vs. Predator is nowhere near as bad as I was led to believe going into it, it’s also quite mediocre in a lot of ways. Enemies and environments are strikingly faithful to the movies but incredibly linear; while this works to evoke the claustrophobic and atmospheric moments of the films, it doesn’t do much for the game’s replayability and there are definitely better FPS, and AVP, games out there.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

What did you think of Aliens vs. Predator? Which of the three campaigns was your favourite, or least favourite? Did you also enjoy the level of fidelity in the game’s presentation or were you too put off by the game’s short length and simplistic story mode? Was the multiplayer any better? Which Aliens, Predator, and/or AVP videogame or piece of ancillary merchandise is your favourite? Whatever your thoughts on these franchises, please feel free to leave a comment.