Spoiled Rotten: The Last Of Us

The GameSparked Team

This podcast may contain naughty words and inappropriate content. Viewer discretion is advised.

Also, there are major spoilers for The Last Of Us. Don’t listen to this if you haven’t finished the game.

Mat kicks off Spoiled Rotten with the help of Alyssa Harrison and David D’Agostino. Deciding to kick things off with a bang, they spend an hour and a half discussing every facet of The Last Of Us. If you haven’t played Naughty Dog’s latest, we strongly suggest you do so before listening to this podcast, as you won’t be able to follow along very well — also, the game is really good, and you should probably play it without having it ruined for you.

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Music by Cody DeBoer

[REVIEW] The Last Of Us

Alyssa Harrison

(PlayStation 3 [REVIEWED])

I don’t think there are adequate words to describe my feelings about The Last of Us. After a long two-year wait, I finally got my hands on the game and haven’t stopped thinking about it since. I have had a deep respect for Naughty Dog since they gave us Uncharted 2, and although my expectations for The Last Of Us were astronomical, I knew they would deliver. For a game that has had so much hype and praise, it would have been understandable if it fell short of the high standard it had set for itself. But thankfully, Naughty Dog has done more than deliver an amazing experience.

Starting off, The Last of Us takes ideas that have been seen before and betters them in a way that feels new and exciting. The story takes place 20 years after the breakout of a virus that all but destroys the human race and turns people into the rabid and deadly Infected. The core of the game is about the relationship between Ellie and Joel. Ellie is a foul-mouthed, beyond-her-years teenager who has only ever known the grim quarantine zone of this post-apocalyptic Boston, and Joel is a hardened survivor who has watched humanity crumble, and descend into its darkest form. Together, they set off on a dangerous journey across the ruinous remains of the United States, facing swarms of the Infected, and the ruthless hunters that are what remains of the surviving humans.

Storyline and character development is what Naughty Dog has in spades, and they really raise the bar here for story-telling in videogames. The studio has never struggled with great writing, or voice actors, but The Last Of Us truly floored me with the volume of emotions it made me feel. Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson breathed such life into Joel and Ellie, and if this medium could qualify for an Academy Award, these two would be frontrunners. One of the big things that stood out for me right away was the “filler” dialogue between the two. The cutscenes and in-game moments are fantastic, but it was the little exchanges between them as they walked along, or fought off enemies, that really helped develop their characters and make you become immediately attached — Ellie is a kid who is seeing a lot of what the world offers for the first time and, amidst the terror and ruin of their journey, experiences things that people with normal lives wouldn’t think to appreciate.

There is also no ludonarrative dissonance here. Unlike in Tomb Raider, where Lara would cringe at killing a rabbit for food, but plant her pickaxe into someone’s chin, Ellie knows she has to kill to survive. But it takes its toll every time. There is no glorification of the violence in this game (and there’s a lot) and Ellie often expresses her disbelief at herself, and Joel, for doing what has to be done. It was something I really appreciated, and felt it gave depth to the characters and their struggles. This wasn’t violence for the sake of violence — it was survival. Every character in the game is multi-dimensional, and challenges a lot of our preconceived notions of right and wrong. While still being an extremely fun and exciting game to play, it also gets you to question your own morality, and it left me wondering what I would do if I was in the situation.

Visually, The Last Of Us is one of the best looking games of this current generation of consoles. In almost every location in the game, I took a couple seconds to soak everything in (if I wasn’t immediately being attacked). There are some really, really cool locations in the game, and they’re all crafted to perfection. There are really no details missed anywhere in the game — Joel’s beard has individualhairs. The incredible sound matched the visuals perfectly and, in addition to Gustavo Santaolalla’s beautifully-haunting soundtrack, the sound carries the game’s atmosphere through many swells of emotion. It’s hard to do the game’s beauty justice, as it’s something that needs to be experienced.

The gameplay is thrilling, bearing similarities to Uncharted, but with more layers of realism. Unlike Drake, you can’t leap across twelve-feet cliffs, or jump up a ladder. And you can’t run straight into enemies and take six shots to the chest before punching out an armoured soldier. A couple bullets will drain your health, so stealth and strategy is crucial in order to ambush threats. There are no ridiculous weapons, as there is very little ammunition, especially if you’re playing on a harder setting. You have to scavenge for all of your supplies, and craft health packs or weapons in real time, making every supply and second count. I found myself doing a little bit of everything in this game, as it felt necessary. It definitely takes patience, and my controller almost went through the wall a couple times in frustration, but it still managed to be fun. If I died 10 times in a row trying to fight my way through enemies, I tried sneaking around them (to my success most of the time). You can upgrade weapon strength and skills as the game progresses, but if you want a challenge, leave your healing time at the default speed.

Hand-to-hand combat is incredible. It’s very graphic and realistic — if you’re near a wall or counter, you can crush their face into it, leaving behind a smear of blood. You can also punch enemies in the throat, and it takes some time to choke someone out in a stealth kill. Naughty Dog delivers the most realistic A.I. I’ve ever seen. Enemies react realistically and differently in every situation. They will plead for their life, back off if you hold one of their friends at gunpoint, and even hesitate if you have a weapon — though they’ll attack if they expect you’re out of ammunition. It’s a huge improvement to Uncharted’s A.I. that could sometimes make combat repetitive and overwhelming. 

My only minor criticism is the stealth detection could sometimes be inconsistent, allowing you to walk by unnoticed even though you should have been caught, or vice versa. I would still normally choose the stealthy route over the more direct approach, and due to the A.I. being so good, I was always on the edge of my couch, in constant fear of making too much noise and consequently being ripped apart by a horde of infected.

The pacing is pretty much flawless, delivering the perfect amount of action before giving you just enough of a breather, as well as a tender moment between Joel and Ellie, before raging on again. It ended before it over-stayed its welcome, and the cutscenes never felt tedious. I actually wanted more — if they had five hours of cutscene extras, I would have watched them all. 

Another pleasant surprise was the multiplayer, which I actually enjoyed. It’s nothing new, but it takes the gameplay you know from the campaign and sets it apart from the average third-person, run-and-gun multiplayer shooter — also, the multiplayer makes sense. Factions, the game’s multiplayer, has you choose whether to join the Fireflies or Hunters (two factions explained further in the campaign). No matter which group you align yourself with, the objective is the same: populate and protect your clan. Simply put, you are going to play some version of Team Deathmatch: Supply Raid or Survivors. Supply Raid allows for respawns (though is limited to 20 per team), where Survivor does not. 

Each match you complete represents a day in your camp. A multiplayer cycle is twelve weeks long, and over this time, you have to collect items to strengthen your clan. The storyline is pretty shallow, but the single-player sets up such a real and visceral world that the multiplayer feels like an extension of it. Stealth and limited ammo are present, forcing you to work closely with your team instead of just running and shooting. It requires a good bit of strategy and planning amongst other members, so I would strongly recommend a headset. I played with a couple friends and, adding in the emotional attachment that formed throughout the campaign, I felt like everything I did in a match mattered. With limited supplies and regenerative health the choices I made held weight — can I risk leaving cover to help my teammate, or do I just have to cut my losses and hide? The tense survival-based gameplay crossed over into multiplayer territory, which is a nice addition, especially since I am usually uninterested in most online play. In this degenerate world of people vs. people vs. infected, it added nicely to the desperation of the human race.

The Last Of Us is the first game in a long time that has something to offer everyone — the story alone is worth it. It has many elements that have been seen before, but as a whole, it’s something completely new. Old parts have been put together and re-crafted to turn something ordinary into something majestic. Like using mason jars and sparkles to make outdoor candle lanterns (SO CUTE RIGHT?!). Naughty Dog has proved that video games can be an all-in-one package of entertainment — visually stunning, along with immersive and realistic gameplay. But most of all, a story that grips you tight and stays with you until the credits roll. The Last Of Us is a game that won’t easily be forgotten, and my only wish is that I could erase my memory and play it again for the first time.

[REVIEW] Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Mat Paget
(PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 [REVIEWED], PC)

Far Cry 3 pissed me off. Don’t get me wrong, it was a fantastic game to play, but several story aspects just didn’t work for me. Not only that, but as it progressed, the story actually took a turn for the worse; some of the events that occurred were probably some of the worst choices to be made regarding story in a videogame. I am fighting everything in my body to not spoil what got me so upset. Despite the train wreck of a story, the gameplay is pretty fantastic. It’s what kept me going through its entirety, and even left me wanting more outposts to take over. So, if you were anything like me, then Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is going to make you a very, very happy person.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is best described as a parody of videogames in the form of an ’80s action film… if it were a videogame. As a downloadable game, it is much smaller than the Far Cry 3 you know from 2012, but that doesn’t mean it’s a watered down version of that game — in fact, it’s quite the opposite. The game is infused with the same fantastic action and open-world shenanigans that inhabited its namesake, while adding on a hefty helping of humour, and the sounds and visuals of the ’80s. You can definitely tell that the team behind this misses that decade a lot — everything from the soundtrack, to Michael Biehn absolutely reeks of it.

And the story is ludicrous, but only in the best ways possible. You’re Mark IV cyber-commando Rex Power Colt. Your mission is to stop Sloan from shooting missiles all over the Earth, which is now a ravaged post-apocalyptic 2007. Told in cutscenes reminiscent of 16-bit games like Zero Wing, the game does a lot with a little. The minimalistic nature of these cutscene even lends itself to the comedy, as well as setting the game aside with a fresh, “unique” take on story-telling — at least in this generation of videogames.

The soundtrack by Power Glove is particularly worth noting, as it invokes only the best parts of the ’80s’ idea of a dystopian future. As someone who holds a particular fondness for anything based in a sci-fi inspired future, I can’t get enough of it. Pair it with the game’s astounding visuals–scan lines and all–and you have yourself one killer of an aesthetic. This setting also has a toll on absolutely everything in the game. The guns fit the futuristic setting with artillery such as a laser assault rifle, and a pistol that will probably be familiar to RoboCop fans, while your enemies consist of cyborgs — both human and animal.

Talking about the humour, people shouldn’t expect anything intelligent, but instead very silly, full of one-liners and puns — Rex makes one after almost every kill. The best part of it is that they’re weapon-specific, so if you kill an enemy with a shotgun, Rex will say something akin to, “He called shotgun.” They only get more hilariously dumb, as you go on. If you want more silly humour, and you can’t wait, click in the right stick to perform a melee attack when there are no enemies nearby: Rex will flip the bird, and if you click it in repeatedly, he’ll switch between both hands until you decide to stop. This humour keeps things light, and is often a huge, much appreciated payoff at the end of an action-packed mission — of which some aren’t particularly great.

The action itself is entirely similar to Far Cry 3 — you can still shoot everything you see, or take the silent approach and dispatch of your enemies quietly. The weapons, however, are a little different. First off, upgrading your weapons as soon as possible makes for a much better experience, as the game’s action reaches a high level of insanity and fun when they’re fully upgraded — shooting fire from a quadruple-barrelled shotgun is as much fun as it sounds. You’ll have to go and collect little tidbits, and kill animals, to unlock these upgrades, but thankfully, it’s not as tedious as it sounds. Rex can sprint and swim really fast, and takes no fall damage. Thanks to this, and the small size of the game’s world, it’s not hard to run around the map picking things up like VHS tapes, and shooting evil robotic animals.

Speaking of evil robotic animals, there’s a new enemy that will be pretty hard to miss. The blood dragons live throughout the open world, even making appearances within story missions at times. At first, it’s best to just avoid them, as it’s incredibly difficult to take them out with the weapons you start with. But eventually, you’ll have enough power in your arsenal that you’ll be able to whittle their health down enough to take them out. They’re also extremely powerful, as they shoot laser beams from their mouths that can take you out in one hit if it hits you straight on. It’s a risk vs. reward situation when you take on a blood dragon, but the reward is definitely worth it — upon slaying a blood dragon, you receive 5000 experience points, which fills up your experience meter considerably.

I don’t want to spoil too much of what makes Blood Dragon so great, so I think I’ll end it here. It may not be as polished as Far Cry 3 was (as polished as that game was), but it takes all the good parts from that game and leaves all that left a bad taste in your mouth. Then it throws on a huge heap of hilarity, as well as a generous dab of nostalgia for a sorely-missed decade. Anyone who loved playing Far Cry 3 should definitely play its downloadable standalone expansion, while anyone who just never got around to Ubisoft Montreal’s open-world, jungle shooter should skip it altogether and go straight for Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. It gives you enough opportunities to mess around with the best parts of Far Cry 3‘s combat, and it definitely won’t leave you disappointed.

[REVIEW] Injustice: Gods Among Us

Mat Paget

(PlayStation 3 [REVIEWED], Xbox 360, Wii U)

NetherRealm Studios is back with Injustice: Gods Among Us, the developer’s newest fighting game that isn’t Mortal Kombat — but totally is. There’s no doubting that the similarities between Injustice and Mortal Kombat are striking, but the newest DC fighter does a lot to try to be its own entity. And although it doesn’t exactly work in all aspects, as it’s really easy to put together the pieces and see Mortal Kombat, the actual fighting in Injustice is the best the developer has put out so far–even if you do recognize Reptile’s Slide, or Ermac’s Force Lift–and proves that the developer can create a fighting game that feels great without the need of Fatalities, or intense, brutal violence.

When it comes to the fighting, there are some key differences — like holding back to block instead of a designated button. For instance, when on an edge of the screen, hitting back and the heavy attack button at the same time will trigger a level transition, resulting in a really satisfying, oftentimes hilarious scene of a character being tossed through the environment, hitting pretty much everything on the way there. Once the fighting starts up again, there’ll be a whole new area for you to fight in, giving the players a bunch of new objects to interact with. For example, if there’s a barrel present, a stronger character can throw that over their head at his opponent, while other characters will have to live with rolling it. Some of the more acrobatic characters, such as Batman, can also use these interactive objects to move around the arena.

Those are just two of the things that can turn the tide of battle in a really significant way. If you’re on your second bar of health, you can initiate the Clash system; this combo-breaking mechanic will send both players to opposite ends of the screen, where you’ll be able to wager any number of bars you have filled of your power meter. If you wager more bars than your opponent, you win the Clash, granting you a special bonus that either regenerates your health, or deals damage to your opponent. It’s a really fantastic system that has turned the tables a lot more than once. Of course, this uses up your meter, which will prevent you from being able to use your Super move.

The Super moves are similar to the X-Ray moves in Mortal Kombat in the way they’re triggered in the same way, as well as the fact that a cutscene is played. What’s different is that instead of an intense scene filled to the brim with one of the most brutal, violent beatdowns seen in a videogame, you get an over-the-top, cinematic scene that  demonstrates exactly what makes the hero so powerful. These moves are, at times, awe-inspiring, but some characters do feel like they were given the short end of the stick, even if it does feel like it’s at the character’s fault — a character like Catwoman just can’t perform the feats that a hero like Superman can achieve.

The fighting itself is really great, too. It’s a bit more combo-focused than Mortal Kombat, meaning you won’t be able to get by on just special moves. But saying that, it’s probably the most accessible fighter released so far, as you’re able to tag moves and combos to the HUD in single player; this is actually really helpful, as it’s a quick reference if you just haven’t been able to memorize every single combo. The fighting animations are also very fluid, running at sixty frames per second, and the game looks absolutely marvelous in action. In fact, it actually looks better during the gameplay, then it does in the story mode’s cutscenes. And the arena falling apart in the background looks fantastic, and makes it feel like there’s a lot more weight behind every attack.

The story mode is a lot like the one you’d find in NetherRealm’s previous two fighters, where it moves seamlessly from cutscene to fighting, and then back to cutscene. The new addition to this mode comes in the form of small minigames that take place right before a fight; these games all have to do with hitting the designated buttons that show up on the screen. Every successful button prompt, you take away some of your opponent’s health before the fight, and start with a nice advantage. But if you mess up one too many times, you can lose health before the action begins. These don’t really add much to experience, as they are just minigames, but some of them are actually a bit of silly fun.

The story itself will be a mixed bag for those who come to this game. For fans of the DC Universe, it’s a really great story that is sure to entertain. But for those who aren’t exactly fans of the series, it may not hit in quite the same way. The Joker tricked Superman into killing Lois Lane and his unborn child, pushing Superman past his limits. Superman kills The Joker, triggering a chain of events that eventually turns him into a fascist dictator that isn’t afraid of killing ex-Justice League members if they get in his way. Batman, of course, isn’t too fond of this, so he rebels against the Regime. Also, dimension/alternate timeline-hopping plays a big part in it. The best part of the story is seeing characters like Harley Quinn fight on Batman’s side, as well as characters like Nightwing and Catwoman side with Superman — if you have any familiarity with these characters, you’ll probably find these dynamics pretty interesting as well.

If you’re not one to spend a lot of time on multiplayer, you’ll be happy to know that there’s a lot more than just the story to occupy yourself with. Battles replace what is normally referred to as Ladder or Arcade Mode. The cool thing about Battles, though, is the number of options you have to choose from. You can go with Classic, where you choose a character, the difficulty, and fight through ten characters. Or you can go with one of the other choices, such as Heroes Only, which should be pretty self explanatory; Random Fighter, which forces you to fight each opponent with a randomly chosen character; Speed Run, where you have to defeat all of your opponents in under two minutes; and Impossible, a mode where you only have one life bar for all of the fights. These variations on the classic “Ladder” or “Arcade Mode” seen in other fighting games is really appreciated, and adds a good variety of challenges that are all pretty fun to mess around with, even if I’m never going to be able to make it through some of them.

And the single-player content doesn’t stop there. S.T.A.R. Labs adds 240 missions players will be able to play through, with ten for each character in the game. If you’re familiar with Mortal Kombat‘s Challenge Tower, then you’ll have the basic idea of what this is. This time, each mission has three stars you’ll be able to collect — yes, exactly like Angry Birds. Each star is attained by completing a specific sub-objective, which can include things like “Throw 6 Times,” or “Don’t Move Backwards.” The game challenging you to not move backwards usually happens in some of the more unique missions; these more unique missions include, but are not limited to, moving from one side of the screen to the other without being detected, playing a minigame similar to Asteroids, and cracking a safe by beating it senseless. The only criticism I have is that the mission details for collecting the three stars are hidden away in the menu, and not more apparent when you start each new mission.

Throughout all this, you’re collecting XP which will allow you to unlock Access Cards and Armory Keys, as well as new portraits, backgrounds, and icons for your Hero Card. The Access Cards and Armoy Keys are used for unlocking things like Concept Art, Music, and Costumes in the Archives. Another use for Access Cards is similar to that of what you’d find in a micro-transaction-laden iOS game. Thankfully, there are no actual micro-transactions in this game. Instead, you can just use Access Cards to give you an XP boost for a designated number of matches. Your Hero Card is a customizable card that you can take into the multiplayer to represent yourself, much like Call of Duty’s Player Card.

And the multiplayer is not lacking, either, as you’ll see when first starting it up. The game gives you Daily Challenges to complete online, which normally consist of defeating a certain number of one character with another character — for example, defeat five Sinestro players with Green Lantern for 5000 XP. There’s the classic 1V1, and King of the Hill (or KOTH) returns from Mortal Kombat with a new wager system that allows you to bet on each match, but there’s also a mode called Survivor. Survivor works just like King of the Hill in every respect, but the “Survivor” doesn’t regain his health after every match. And thankfully, the online runs really smoothly and I didn’t experience any lag at all, though I’m sure this won’t always be the case due to varying internet connections with other players.

If you’re having trouble against some characters, online or off, then the Training mode is going to be a lot of help to you. With the ability to record combos and then play them back, you can practice trying to get out of a combo that was put together by a real person, instead of an A.I. sparring partner. This feature alone makes the training mode worth playing in. And for those who get right down to the nitty gritty of fighting games, you can take a look at the information that’s under the hood like frame data, from start-up and recovery frames, to the hit and block advantages. I’m not one to take advantage of information such as this–nor do I really understand how to utilize it in my favour–, but for the players that are looking to be competitive, it’s all there for them.

Let me get this out of the way first: I am a huge fan of DC Comics, Mortal Kombat, and fighting games in general. A DC fighting game that is highly derivative of Mortal Kombat is something I was very interested in upon seeing it for the first time. What I didn’t expect was it to be this good. The amount of quality content this game contains is staggering, the fighting and animation looks just as great as it feels, and the best thing of all is that it’s really easy to jump into and enjoy, so anyone that’s questioning whether or not they’d be able to enjoy a fighting game should stop questioning and start playing. Because no matter who comes to it, Injustice: Gods Among Us is one of the best fighting experiences available today.

[REVIEW] The Cave

Blaine Arcade

(PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U, PC [REVIEWED])

The Cave seems like a product of ‘one of those nights.’  These are the nights where a bunch of friends get together, play or watch something cool, consume a percentage of their weight in sugar that is only appropriate for hummingbirds, and then spend the entire night talking about their own little ideas through the utilization of frantic hand-waving, waiting for your turn to speak, and phrases like ‘that has NEVER been done before!’  Everyone wakes up the morning after and realizes that the ideas which glistened under the moon now look rusty and flat under the harsh sunlight.  Plus, it would be so much work to actually make them.  It’s better to just give up and keep it a dream.

The creators of The Cave, Double Fine, seem to have plowed right through the loss of excitement long enough to create a finished product.  On the surface, they did a decent enough job.  The visuals are simple and occasionally pleasant, the controls are functional, and the brand of humor common to their other games is intact.  The problem here seems to be a lack of passion.  Being known for their creativity, Double Fine needs to be held to a higher standard than many other game companies (I personally think they peaked with the release of the adorable Stacking and its ‘hobo king’ DLC).

Their latest is a subterranean romp through the subconscious of seven characters who each have skeletons in the closet clothed with their dirty laundry.  It’s an adventure game, so you can look forward to plenty of item combination puzzles and traversal of familiar terrain.  This is where the game’s first issue shows up.  Each session starts with the choice of three characters for your party, with each one corresponding to a special area of the cave that only they can access.  Time for some math.  Seven divided by two… whoops.  there’s one left over.  So in order to play through the whole game, you’ll have to repeat the stories of two other characters.

The optional spelunkers did little to impress, either.  They’re all the kind of stereotypes you see in dime fiction or bad jokes: the knight, the scientist, the monk, the adventurer, the twins, the hillbilly, and the time traveler.  While I’ll admit the time traveler is a little unorthodox, the others don’t present much interest.  How hard is it to create a list of professions or characteristics that are underutilized in this medium?  Bouncer, pearl diver, beekeeper, bearded lady, singing telegram, rain dancer, and rodeo clown.  There — was that so hard?

Your party of three roams the cave in search of emotional catharsis for their various transgressions.  It plays relatively smoothly, but there is a lot of backtracking through flat corridors and awkward switching between characters spread all over the cave.  It’s a bit like making toast with cold butter: in principal, you should be able to split up and maximize your effect, but you just end up with a couple of cold lumps in three places.

The story disappoints as well.  Although you play as the characters, they don’t speak, interact with each other, or respond to events in the environment.  Their back stories are told mostly via still pictures you can find and collect.  The only personality comes form the stone walls of the cave itself, which is alive and narrating dryly.  There are binary good and bad endings for each character (don’t get me started on how overrated those are); the method by which you attain the good endings is neither rewarding or mechanically interesting; all you have to do is repeat an action three times instead of one.  For a game that should be built around ideas of guilt, responsibility, and compassion, this little triple-tap may be the biggest letdown of the game.  The passion just isn’t there.

The Cave is little more than an echo.  It’s the last faded waves of what was surely, at some point, a gasp of inspiration.  I cannot say The Cave is a bad game, because it isn’t.  However, when you find yourself talking to friends the day after completing the game and you open your mouth to mention it, you’ll realize nothing is coming out: no stories of awesome little secrets, no stunning character developments, and no gorgeous scenery.  This game might have earned a slightly better score from a new studio, but with the amount of talent I know Double Fine has, I must judge them a little more harshly.  You don’t need your lantern, there’s nothing great inside the darkness of The Cave.

[NEWS] Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon Is Officially A Thing Now

Mat Paget

Something that had been driving us wild here at GameSparked was the possibility that Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon could be a real thing. Far Cry 3 was disappointing, thanks in most part to some terrible choices regarding the story in the second half of the game, and Blood Dragon seemed to encapsulate only the really awesome, dumb, and exciting elements that caused us to absolutely clamber for it.

Well, now we can rejoice, as Blood Dragon has been officially announced via press release. I would re-write the description that was sent to us, but it’s good enough to stand on its own. Enjoy:

“Developed by Ubisoft Montreal, Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon lets players get the girl, kill the bad guys and save the world in a VHS-era vision of the future!  As Sergeant Rex Colt, you are part man, part machine, all American.  You are a state-of-the art Mark IV cyber-commando on a mission…of vengeance.  You’re out to bring down your old commanding officer and his battalion of ruthless killer cyborgs and you’ll stop at nothing to get the job done.  Hollywood action icon Michael Biehn (The Terminator, Aliens, and The Abyss), returns in this explosive 1980s style sci-fi vision of a dark future.  Turn off your VCR, plug in your video game cabinet, and get ready to experience all of the thrills of Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon, releasing May 1, 2013 as a stand-alone digital title. All PC pre-orders will receive a free copy of the soundtrack by Power Glove.  And yes, we do have Blood Dragons shooting lasers from their eyes!”

So there you have it: Blood Dragons shooting lasers from their eyes. Also, yeah. Michael Biehn.

Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon will be released May 1 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. Below, we’ve embedded some gameplay footage. We apologize about the commentary, which we assure you, is not us.

[REVIEW] Guacamelee

Mat Paget
(PlayStation 3 [REVIEWED], Vita [REVIEWED])

Although the charm and humour stay relatively close to what DrinkBox Studios has been known for with the Tales From Space series, Guacamelee is a big step in a somewhat new direction for the developer. DrinkBox has put together a game where you play as a luchador in a Mexican-inspired Metroidvania world. On top of that, there’s a great melee combat system that helps the luchador Juan fight the undead in an attempt to save El Presidente’s daughter, who just so happens to be a woman he’s very much in love with. Humour. Luchadores. Great melee combat. Metroidvania. Sounds like a formula that’s bound to work, right? Not to mention that the title is a play on guacamole, which is delicious.

First up, let’s talk about the game’s combat. Upon receiving the luchador mask, players will be able to attack with the square button. This sets things up for a slew of combos that you’ll discover throughout the course of the game when collecting new powers. At first, fighting enemies consists of hitting, then grabbing and throwing with the triangle button. After unlocking new moves, and powers, there’ll be more variety in the combat; players will be able to grab an enemy, and perform moves such as suplexes and powerbombs. The powers will also give players the ability to perform specials moves, such as the Rooster Uppercut and Dashing Derpderp, that can further elongate the combos you’ll be able to perform. The game’s combat is surprisingly deep, becoming more and more similar to a fighting game, or AAA brawler, as you progress through the game.

The powers that you receive from smashing Choozo Statues–that will probably look familiar if you’ve played a Metroid game–also help you navigate the world, as well as get to new parts of it. This makes backtracking through levels you’ve previously visited worth it, as there are paths you won’t initially be able to take due to not having the correct power — these paths usually lead to a heart piece, a skull piece, or money. There are also a few ridiculously difficult platforming sections that players won’t be able to access, or complete, without some of the late-game powers. These sections prove tricky, and can even be a bit tiring, but ignoring these tests won’t cause you to miss out on the best parts of the game — the game will still deliver a generous helping of difficulty in the form of its boss battles. And if all that is still not enough for you, a hard difficulty is unlocked upon completing the game — and it’s definitely not lying when it calls itself hard.

There’s also a mechanic that switches the world you’re in to the Living version, or the Dead version, of it. This affects the platforming and combat in some pretty meaningful ways. At times, enemies can only be attacked in one of the two worlds, causing the player to have to switch between the two worlds to dispatch of them — enemies can hit the player regardless of the world they’re in. Switching worlds also changes up what platforms are available to jump on. The mechanic isn’t the most complicated, but it does shake things up to add a bit more strategy to the combat and platforming in a really great way.

And the game’s charm and humour are there throughout almost everything. You can learn some of the more complicated combos from a giant chicken, a man-goat will scold you for smashing his Choozo Statues, and there are references pretty much everywhere you look. The dialogue is also quite funny, oftentimes edging on silly, but very rarely serious. The side quests, in particular, hold a good variety of feelings to be had. One quest will have you chase down a treasure-stealing chicken, while another will have you reunite a sad, dead girl with the doll she used to play with as a child. These side quests can actually be a bit tricky to complete, as you may not actually know where to go, or what to do — and the game does very little to throw any hints in your direction.

Assisting the game’s charm are the fantastic sights and sounds of the game. The game’s look is very similar to that of Mutant Blobs Attack!!!, the developer’s last game; it’s a nice, hand-drawn style that looks especially fantastic when the characters are in motion. It makes the flashing neon scenes when unlocking a new power–or starting a boss battle–stand out, and that much more awesome. You really need to see them for yourself.  And the music is fantastic as well; it consists of music that feels authentic to the Mexican setting, heavily involving trumpets backed by the rhythm of guitars. There are even some hints of electronic music in there that really put a nice touch on the game’s already fantastic soundtrack.

Probably one of the coolest things about this game is the fact that you can play it on the PlayStation 3, while using the Vita as a controller. Think the Wii U: the controls are the exact same as the Vita version, but the world map is now on the Vita’s screen, while the television hosts the gameplay. Although the actual way to get this working is longer than it should be, especially if you want to play the game without a co-op partner, it’s a really awesome way to play the game; if you’re looking to explore every nook and cranny the game has to offer, and you already own both a Vita and a PlayStation 3, play the game like this. And although there is some noticeable latency between the gameplay and the touchscreen’s map, there is no latency at all between the Vita’s controls and the game that’s being played on the big screen.

Unfortunately, there are still a few minor issues you’ll experience if you decide to play the game without using the Cross-Controller Play feature. There are times when you’ll be facing off against a giant skeleton that will attack you by smashing his hands against the ground. During these encounters, you might experience the framerate dropping — thankfully, I only noticed this happening in one area of the game. A more serious, yet still uncommon issue is when the game just stops from proceeding during enemy encounters. Enemies will stop spawning, or the next sequence in a boss fight just won’t trigger, forcing you to quit back to the main menu — this occurred only twice during my first playthrough. I did not encounter either of these issues on the PlayStation 3, but they’re so uncommon that they shouldn’t stop you from playing the game however you want.

Guacamelee is a game that not only shines in one way, but in all of them. It’s actually hard to pinpoint the “main attraction” here. Is it the combat with its simple, yet surprisingly deep, fighting game-like combos that never get old, while the game throws new enemies that need to be defeated with different tactics at you? Is it that DrinkBox charm that the studio has taken to the next level? How about the music? Or just the fact that you’re a luchador playing in a Metroidvania playground? It’s rare for a game to exhibit such great gameplay in all regards, and contain humour that is actually laugh-out-loud funny. And despite its very few issues, Guacamelee is a fantastic game that you should definitely play — and that goes tenfold if you own a Vita.

[REVIEW] The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct

Alyssa Harrison
(PlayStation 3 [REVIEWED], Xbox 360, PC, Wii U)

Michael Rooker doesn’t look too happy…

I came late to the party for Telltale’s “Walking Dead” game, finally taking the time to play through it about a month ago. Pretty much everything I heard about it was true — it was emotional, suspenseful, and really pulls you into the universe of a zombie apocalypse. I finished the final chapter sobbing alone in my basement at 1 AM, feeling what I can only describe as post-traumatic stress disorder. After the shattering emotional rollercoaster of Clem and Lee’s journey through zombie town southern USA, I was ready to step into Daryl’s shoes and lay waste to walker herds with bad ass one liners and a crossbow.

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct gave me no such thrill. Cranked out by Activision to capitalize on the show’s success and the recent wave of redneck love for Daryl, the only thing this game achieves is continuing to give licensed games a bad name. This was a disaster. This was worse than the bloated rotting walker found stuck stewing in a well in Season 2 of the television show. This was so bad that twenty minutes in I found my mind wandering to tomorrow’s lunch–tuna or egg salad?–instead of focusing on the painfully boring mission. Was it me? Was I playing it wrong, or missing some vital revelation that would suddenly transform this into something more entertaining than trying to balance a spoon on my nose? The answer, sadly, is no. It’s just plain bad.

To start off, the graphics are laughable. The colours are flat, the lighting is completely unrealistic, and texture is nowhere to be found. The opening sequence is pretty much an exact copy of the show’s, except not really. It’s like when a 14 year old tries to start a rock band, but only knows 3 power chords. It’s pitiful. With such a weak opening that tried so hard to be as good as the show’s, but failed in so many ways, I started to get a creeping suspicion that maybe this game wouldn’t be what I thought it would be. But the optimism and Little Mermaid in me thought, “How could a world that makes such wonderful things be bad?” I mean, zombie, redneck, crossbow — that’s always a good time, right?

Wrong. Wrong in so many ways. This abomination of the Walking Dead universe has literally none of the things that the show is known for. The beginning sequence and its absolute lack of intrigue, or emotion, starts you off on a bland pointless journey that has nothing compelling you to even bother continuing, except maybe the sick need to see just how bad it can get. It tries at “survival realism” by limiting your ammunition and requiring you to scavenge for supplies, but the supplies don’t actually do much and you just collect the same thing over and over again. Gatorade. Gatorade everywhere.

You come across your first zombie almost right away, and after a lame shove/slap with your knife, you stab the zombie through the head. My first thought was, that’s it? There’s no finesse to your kills, no variety — just aim, slap, and eventually impale through skull. Although an early on-screen prompt tells you crouching will help you evade walkers, this is false. The AI is all over the place: in one scenario you can stand behind them undetected for 30 seconds while it eats. In another you can crouch all you want, they’ll still spot you even if you’re hidden in the dark. After accepting the fact that there is almost zero strategy to the kills, I discovered the best way to get out of an attack is to walk right into the middle of a herd and dispatch them one by one. When “grappling” with a walker that comes too close, you enter a weird kind of mini game thing that makes you hover the cursor over its head and stab it repeatedly until it dies. There’s no variety to your hand-to-hand combat except this frustratingly slow and sluggish technique. I tried switching to a gun, but abandoned it early on, as the shotguns were too noisy and there were never walkers far enough away to bother with the long range rifle.

The point of the game is to reunite with your brother Merle; to travel from level to level, you cruise around in a crappy pick up. Cruising around consists of watching a dotted red line on a map move from one check mark to another after deciding whether to take back roads, streets, or highways. Each option will use a different amount of fuel and has a different level of risk to break down. If either of these things happen, you pull over and search around for more gas or a replacement part. These “side missions” are recycled, as you can explore the same diner or environment twice although the map says you are in a different town. 

The environments themselves offer nothing of interest and are so inconsistently laid out that I found myself getting trapped in corners and attacked with no way out. Lame obstacles attempt to push you towards your destination and there is no interaction to the environment. You are streamlined into following the one “right path” and the inconsistencies make finding the path difficult and slow. Doors don’t always open and items can’t always be picked up, so it was sometimes hard to know what to do, or where to go. Almost nothing in this game made sense.

If you’re thinking about trying this out for yourself, unless you’re doing it because you lost a bet, don’t bother wasting your time or money. The pathetic attempt at a game would maybe be more fitting for a $10 iOS download, but for a full $50, you might as well spend the cash on a load of Big Macs, because the end result is the same — a big steamy pile of crap.

I hope the paycheque Norman Reedus and Michael Rooker received for the days worth of work it took to voice this game is big enough to make up for the shame of having their names attached to a product as terrible as this.

[REVIEW] Crysis 3

Christopher Sheridan
(PlayStation 3 [REVIEWED], Xbox 360, PC)

Crytek took the PC gaming world by storm with Crysis, a gorgeous, open-ended sci-fi shooter best known for its prohibitive system requirements. Luckily, it had gameplay to back this up, and ended up gaining a strong following. The sequel appeared on consoles as well, and transferred the large open jungle areas to a more confined, segmented urban jungle. While good, Crysis 2 was not as well-received as its predecessor. With the third game in an apparent trilogy, Crytek seeks to find the balance between the games. For the most part, they succeed.

The story here is commendable for its attempts at deeper characterization, though it loses points for being almost annoyingly convoluted. Nanosuit-wielding soldier Prophet has progressed from a mindless super-soldier to a man on the brink of devastation at his loss of humanity. At this point in the Crysis storyline, Prophet’s human flesh has all but been replaced by the nanosuit, a Ceph exoskeleton that has merged with his body and mind. More than 20 years after the conclusion of Crysis 2, Prophet is awakened from slumber by his old friend Psycho, resurrecting Prophet to take down the remnant of the evil Cell organization, who has used the aftermath of the alien Ceph defeat to wield energy as a means of indebting citizens and forcing them into slavery to pay for it. During a run-in with Cell in their nanodome–overrun with plant life and foliage after 20 years–the Ceph hive-mind is reawakened along with the alien leader, the Alpha-Ceph. In order to defeat the Alpha-Ceph and stop the world’s end as seen by Prophet in recurring visions, the super-soldier realizes that he must unlock the suit to its full potential, at the risk of completely transforming himself into a Ceph.

The storyline has its moments, but it’s ultimately a mixed bag due to requiring a working knowledge of an overly-complex backstory and a very slow first half filled with seemingly inconsequential plot threads. However, the final third or so of the game kicks things into high gear with some extremely intense action sequences that make slogging through the first chunk of the 6-hour story worth it.

While the difficulty is rarely taxing, Crysis 3 does bring a bit of a challenge in the tactical offerings available. There is a multitude of ways to approach a situation, whether it be by stealth, hacking turrets, using brute force, or some combination of the two. The game’s environments establish a happy medium between the almost-too-big levels of the original game and the smaller, more confined areas of Crysis 2. While these levels maintain the mindset of the previous game’s “small sandboxes,” they’re bigger this time around with more options and alternate paths. Enemies, with the vision of hawks, are not always easy to sneak around, but display impressive flanking AI and teamwork.

As before, different modules and upgrades can be outfitted with the nanosuit, and provide small bonuses such as increasing the speed of aiming down the sights, bullet dampening, or being able to see enemy footsteps. The upgrade menu is laid out in a sort of 4-by-4 grid that resembles a slot machine. To make use of a purchased upgrade, it needs to be moved to the bottom row. Four unlocked upgrades can be loaded into a preset. The minor issue that arises with this is that two upgrades that occupy the same column can’t be used simultaneously (for example, the jump-boosting Verticality upgrade and the speed-increasing Light Armor upgrade). Still, up to three presets can be made, and then changed at any time, and switched out on the fly as the situation demands.



Weapons can also be given attachments at any time; holding down a button brings the gun up to eye level in real time so that modifications can be swapped out instantly. Picking up dropped enemy weapons may unlock an accompanying attachment to be used on the gun in the future. Having the versatility to use a scope on a rifle to pick off soldiers from a distance, then switch to a reflex sight with a suppressor for closer range killing is welcome.

In nearly every respect, Crysis 3 feels fantastic. Everything has weight, and weapons and head movement feel natural and realistic.  Guns have a good kick behind them, and everything in the world feels like it actually exists there with realistic heft and weight in relation to the rest of the environment. Bullets and melee attacks have the appropriate weight as well, and feel as though they would definitely hurt. The game finds a mechanical middle ground between looser games such as Call of Duty and tighter, heavier ones such as Killzone.

Crytek, in the months leading up to the release of Crysis 3, was not shy about how great the game looked. The wise among us, recalling the running “Yeah, but can it run Crysis” joke, didn’t retort. As it turns out, Crytek’s confidence was not unfounded. Crysis 3 look terrific no matter which platform it’s running on, with lush environments and robust explosions. While the PC version is leaps and bounds above the consoles, it still looks fine on the PS3 and rarely experienced any framerate stuttering. There are, of course, the requisite masturbatory landscape shots, and they are all breathtaking.

Multiplayer has improved over Crysis 2. That game laid the foundation for a solid multiplayer experience, and Crysis 3 improves on it with better modes and smoother gameplay. Nearly all of the requisite online shooter modes are present, such as Team Deathmatch, but an additional mode called Hunter, in which Cell operatives are hunted down by a couple of nanosuit-wearing stalkers, was a welcome addition that added a nice dose of tension to this side of the game. Multiplayer in general had some questionable hit detection and some severely unbalanced weapons, and there isn’t really enough time in between matches to modify the intricate, Call of Duty-style loadout while remaining in the same lobby, but the mode is still fun to throw some weight around in, particularly with the fantastic map design that features tons of variety.

Crysis 3 is good, but apart from some breathtaking graphics there isn’t much that will cause gamers to fondly recall it at the end of the year. There are some awesome moments, but there are almost as many mediocre ones. Thankfully, the game plays magnificently even if the lack of arcade-y weightlessness takes some getting used to after hours of Black Ops II. Fans of the series, and of the work of Crytek, should certainly take a look, and will likely find much to love. Everyone else will probably like, but not love, this newest sci-fi shooter.

[NEWS] Resident Evil: Revelations Is Coming To Consoles, PC

Mat Paget

Yesterday brought good news for 3DS owners, but this tidbit is going the other way. For those who missed out on Capcom’s survival horror expedition on the 3D handheld last year, you’ll be able to set out on that adventure this year on consoles.

Resident Evil: Revelations is coming out on pretty much everything: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and PC. It’ll go for $49.99 as a full retail product, as well as digital. I personally think it’s crazy to charge more for this game considering it was made for a handheld and definitely did not feel like a console experience, but I digress. We are not certain on the price of the PC version of the game; at retail, it’s not going for the premium $59.99 that most new titles go for, but $49.99 is what most new games go for on PC. We will keep you updated if this detail gets an update.

Changes players can expect are HD graphics, HUNK as a playable character for Raid Mode, a new enemy and difficulty, and a slew of new weapons and parts to be utilized in Raid Mode.

You’ll be able to play Resident Evil: Revelations on pretty much any modern console you like on May 21 in North America and May 24 in Europe. You can check out our review of the game right here.