Reviewed n Xbox 360. Also on PS3, PC Developed by DICE. Published by EA
Back in 2002, Battlefield 1942 shook up the PC multiplayer shooter world with its blend of infantry and vehicle based combat. Carving out a rather large chunk of the market, EA and DICE never managed to achieve the same level of devotion to its follow-ups to 1942 set in Vietnam, the present day to the future. Bad Company was a recent console-only attempt that wowed those who tried it and the free to play PC title Battlefield Heroes hasn’t really found the huge audience was expecting. It’s a testament to the power of the original 1942 title when a downloadable remake using the Bad Company Frostbite engine that only features three (now four) maps managed to spur on 600, 000 downloads in its first few weeks.
So we have three Pacific theatre campaigns (with a fourth now unlocked) which are very close remakes of Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Coral Sea (a plane-only map unlocked after 43 millions kills on each platform) and Wake Island. They are almost identical to those found in the original release but with substantially upgrade graphics and sound. The pace of the gameplay has been upped with infantry weapons actually quite useful and respawns being much faster than the PC original. Regenerating health and explosives are another key difference. The objective of each game is to capture and hold the bases on each map with each capture and each kill removing tickets from the enemy team’s score.
There are three classes to choose from. The Rifleman has a semi automatic rifle, rifle grenade (which is possibly a little overpowered- the opposite of the firecracker in Bad Company’s rifle grenades), bayonet and a few grenades. The heavy assault has a sub machine gun, and a bazooka whilst the sniper has a scoped bolt action rifle, explosives and detonator and a sword/dagger for melee. Of course, any of these guys can get into a tank or plane and ruin the game for everyone else but 1943 seems a lot more fun to play as infantry than some past PC BF games. Tanks aren’t as invulnerable to infantry attacks (well, when I’m in one they seem to be made out of newsprint) and there are many anti-aircraft cannons dotting the maps.
A nice touch is the ability for each team to call in an airstrike. When the airstrike is available, all you have to do is enter the radar bunker and then you can guide the trio of bombers to their target (much simpler than actually flying a plane but more involved than just point a cursor at a map).
Overall, the game does not punish you for being on foot as much as previous BF games which makes this one the BF that managed to get it right on consoles and be recognised. Of course, if you’re like us and gave Bad Company a chance last year, you already know DICE have the console side figured out pretty well. Added to that is EA’s use of server backed games proves that P2P (only Halo’s P2P code has ever been really playable for me) means that this game can hold its head high in the online arena. You still have vehicle campers and people who’s idea of teamwork is to shoot you so that you don’t get the plane but this has been fairly well restrained (but it’s still there).
Of course, Bad Company, the first game to use the Frostbite engine showed that DICE nows how to make a pretty console game that looks sounds and above all runs very well. It’s in no way a primitive looking game and is polished to the extreme. The sounds are impressive in the same way they were on BC. You wouldn’t think this was a re-skin of a seven year-old game just by playing it. There’s obviously been a lot of attention paid to this game and it shows.
Overall, its one of the better online experiences around at the moment. It might even stop me from forking over any more money for World at War map packs.
High recommended if you have Live, PSN (or a PC, whenever that version is released)
Controller1.com Rating: 3/3
PS- I suck at this game but I love it nonetheless
Reviewed on Xbox 360 (Also on: PC, 360, Wii, PS2, PS3, PSP) Developed by Terminal Reality. Published by Atari (Playstation versions published by Sony in Europe)
So Ghostbusters, one of the biggest grossing films of 1984, has made into a 2009 video game. Despite there being a Ghostbusters game on the Comedy 64, Terminal Reality though they could improve on this (get out of my head with your thought control, Cameron!), accquired the license and then made this game thinking they had a deal with Vivendi to publish. Then many things happened. Vivendi merged with Activision and the resulting Activision-Blizzard behemoth dropped a number of titles from their portfolio including 50 Cent, Scarface, Brutal Legend and Ghostbusters: The Game. The developers continue, secure a deal with Activision, show off the cute Wii version, proclaim how much better the PS3 is. And then Five minutes before the release of the game comes the whammy for PAL gamers, Only the PS3, PSP and PS2 versions would be available at first since Sony was now co-publishing this as a timed exclusive. Yada, yada, yada, here we are with a review of this game reviewing the region-free 360 version on a PAL console.
So Ghostbusters is that unique beast. It is very faithful to its source material. So faithful it fails. Rather than tell a new Ghostbusters story with all new and exciting demons, the game sees fit to basically revisit the more popular hauntings from the films and expand upon them. So the first three levels consist of Slimer in the Hotel, Mr Staypuft and the Ghostly Librarian. In other words, its Back to the Future part 2. If this is meant to be the third film, why is it a clip show?
Set in 1991, you play as a rookie Ghostbuster being trained by Igon, Stantz, Venkmann and Zeddimore (all voiced by the original cast members) as you learn the ropes. Of course, this being a game you have more than just a proton pack and trap in your arsenal but can use different element beams, use slime and fireballs and even shotgun-style blasts. you generally find yourself in a linear corridor, using your PKE meter to search for paranormal manifestations before zapping ghosts in various ways with your gizmos, all the while being entertained by a really very dull Ghostbusters outing. It’s like Pirates of the Caribbean. Everyone loved the first one since it was so refreshing and funny, but by the thiurd film it was so bloated and full of itself it forget the funny.
While the graphics, sound, atmosphere, design and stroy are all authentic to the first film, the gameplay is where things start to fall apart. It does play a lot Luigi’s Mansion (ironically) but it’s nowhere near as much fun as Nintendo’s game. It becomes repetitive rather quickly- like Assassin’s Creed. You feel like you’re a Ghostbuster all right but like any dream job, it quickly becomes work.
Also of note, is the lack of balance. Playing this on normal is excruciatingly frustrating due to the ghosts knocking you down and killing you with little chance. Knocking the difficulty down to casual gives you a better chance to experience the storyline (and this means a restart of the game). Of course, that’s when you realise the story isn’t much cop. Comedy is all about timing. The timing here is off. Cutscenes drag and its almost as if the developers left gaps for the laugh track (like they forgot which Ghostbusters franchise they were working on. Larry Storch’s unused voice work for this game was phenomenal)
So while its actually fun to play in short bursts, there’s nothing driving you to complete it, unless of course you’re a huge Ghostbusters fan. It also seems slightly buggy in that it can take an eternity for triggers that allow you to proceed to activate. You can often stand around for a while, waiting for some dialogue to trigger which means you can continue. Then you might have to wait for another interminable dialogue exchange before you can continue.
The graphics are relatively decent and the character models are pretty decent. You hear the actual score of the movie rather than Ray Parker Jr’s song over and over again. The sound effects are authentic as are the voices, as mentioned earlier. The main crime of the game is that it makes Ghostbusters boring. A followup with a different structure (this is crying out for an open world games with lots of smaller missions rather than a few missions strung out past their use-by date.
Controller1.com Rating 1/3 (3/3 if you’re a fan of Ghostbusters II. If you can make it through that, you’re fine to put up with this)
AKA The Plastic Pieces of Crap Show.
We discuss the music controllers, balance boards, vitality sensors and Commodore 64 disk drives clogging our cupboards
