So after a work-induced week away from gaming last week, I’m back into it. And by it, I mean Crackdown 2.
There’s something about the game that isn’t gelling with me. It’s either open-world fatigue after Just Cause 2, Saboteur, Assassin’s Creed 2, Borderlands, etc or it’s just a little lacklustre compared to the original. For me it’s not the similarity to the original, it’s the lack of similarity that gets me. I loved having to work my way through the waves of gang members before attacking the boss in the original and here, the ‘enhancements’ aren’t as much fun. The games’ fun, it’s just not as compelling. I’m a fair way through the game and fully intend on finishing it soon (certainly before Halo Reach), but I’m not getting the urge to play in the morning before work (my metric for HOLY FUCK THIS GAME IS AWESOME).
I live in Australia and of course, aren’t able to buy the same version of Left 4 Dead 2 as the rest of the world due to classifications issues. A friend gifted it to me after it was more or less being given away by Valve in a sale. I mean they almost paid me to download this game. Somehow receiving the game from someone with a US account means you can DL the normal version in Australia and play it without Zombies disappearing before your eyes.
It’s also a case of too little to add to the first game and I do agree with the critics of L4D’s releases so soon after the original- apart from a few enhancements- why wasn’t this DLC or an expansion like HL2 episodes? The new crew don’t have as much charisma as the original crew and yada yada yada.
Grumpy George continues grumpily with a some Grumpy Theft Auto IV. I’ve perhaps played 90 minutes of the PC version multiplayer- and seem to play once every few weeks. I like a bit of structure. this has none. There are several modes and for some reason they always end up with everyone having Bazookas or Helicopters, even if it’s a race.
So two weeks before Halo: Reach and I’d loooove to play some Halo 3 or ODST in the meantime. Approximately two weeks after H:R turns up, I’m off overseas for a few weeks so chances are I won’t feel like playing Halo when i get back. When you were a kid, did you ever have this thing that any fads or lunchtime activities would always be bookended by holidays? In Year 6 Term 2, everyone was into Marbles but gave up in Term 3. In Year 9, everyone was playing cards on the bus after Easter but that stopped the next holidays.
I therefore expect two weeks of concentrated Halo Reach from mid September. If you hate Halo, this site might be one to avoid till October.
Today, I’d like to share with you some of my favourite Videogame Soundtracks for a generation of gamers who think the answer has either Band, Hero or Singstar in the title.
Some of these are title tracks that you hear every time you boot up the game and some from early levels that you play over and over. Familiarity may be a big part of why everyone loves them but they have to be good to start with.
First up is Jet Set Radio (AKA Jet Grind Radio)
Jet Set Radio burst forth in 1999 with it’s infectious mix of remixes and Japanese Electronica. Whilst the sequel has has good tunes in its own right, it’s the original that still sounds the business. The game itself is great but it’s the soundtrack that stands the test of time long after the disc has gathered a think layer of dust.
Medal of Honor
Michael Giaccino (who did ALIAS, Lost, Star Trek, etc) contributed one of the finest WWII themes ever and every time you watch Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan, you wish it had this music appended to it. It’s not just the fabulous theme tunes, but the soundtrack is so old skool you, you can see yourself standing dazed on the beaches of Normandy, looking for your arm.
Next up is the Metal Gear Solid soundtracks
The music for the various iterations has been handled by several of Konami’s internal artists with many of the later games using Harry Gregson-Williams, a respected action-movie composer. The original theme tune is still my favourite though it similarity to a traditional Russian piece of music has meant it is MIA from MGS4.
Donkey Kong Country
Rare appears on lists of best music rather more than they do on lists of best games. But their back catalogue is spectacular. I love the main DK theme but it’s actually the first level music I like the most (mainly from its use in DK64)
Duke Nukem
This is the Megadeth version of the theme tune. Sometimes I find the best way to find out how good an 8bit song is to see if people can update with modern synths/real instruments and not sound worse. This is one case where the original was attempting something very particular with limited hardware.
Guitaroo Man
Catchy as all fuck. Like syphillus in a Bangkok brothel.
Banjo Kazooie
Rare again. About the only thing I liked about Nuts and Bolts was the way the music was redone without the limitations of system memory and MIDI.
Katamari Damacy
This tune brings a smile on my dial whenever I hear it. The game may have gone from masterful to just meh but this music is fantastic. I will never buy a J Pop album but these songs are tempting.
Voodoo Vince
What? Well Voodoo Vince was a decent platformer from Microsoft for the original Xbox with a beautiful New-Orleans style jazz soundtrack. I don’t normally like New-Orleans style jazz soundtracks but this a good ‘un.
Still Alive (Portal)
Big shock this is here. I also like the theme music from TF2 despite despising the game.
No One Lives Forever
so TF2 shows I like faux 60′s spy themes. Sue me.
In the same vein- Space Channel 5
It’s actually remixed 1000 times in Space Channel 5, but Mexican Flyer is by Ken Woodman and His Piccadilly Brass circa 1966.
And how could you not have:
Samba De Amigo
This kind of breaks the rule but I like how music in games can make you like something you previously hated. I despised Samba De Janeiro when it was a huge summer hit in Europe around 97/98. yet I liked it when it was on the Dreamcast. I’d never listen to Offspring, but I can’t image Crazy Taxi without them. And I can’t play Tony Hawk 1 or 2 without those songs.
Yes, I also love Mario and Zelda tunes, but you’ve heard them all a million times anyway. We’ll hear from Cameron in time when he shares his picks. That will be in about two months time once we finish swapping floppies
Available on Apple’s iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch. Developed by One Man Left. Reviewed by LisVender
Dual-stick shooters don’t work so well on the iPhone. Sliding my thumbs around a touchscreen with no physical feedback makes for very imprecise control, which is no good for games that often require surgical precision. Nevertheless, there are many, MANY dual-stick shooters on the iPhone, each one hoping to be the next Geometry Wars. Hell, Geometry Wars itself is available on the iPhone, and it sucks too!
So the iPhone game Tilt to Live, an ostensible Geometry Wars clone, confused me, because of its many positive reviews. Folks were calling it unique, a blast, and perfectly suited to its platform. I scratched my head and wondered how that could be. I decided to take the chance, wire Apple my two bucks, and jump from the airplane. And holy shit, this game is good!
In Tilt to Live, you play a little white arrow in a rectangular arena that slowly fills up with magically-appearing red dots. One touch from a red dot, and you’re history. You move around by tilting the iDevice. Just imagine that your arrow is a little ball bearing that you roll around. It’s simple and intuitive. The tilt, however, is your only control. Touching the screen doesn’t do anything. All you can do is move about. No shooting!
So how do you fight back against the oncoming hordes of evil red dots? You grab pickups, which appear in random locations in the arena and float about innocuously. Colliding with a pickup instantly creates some sort of offensive that lays waste to red dots and clears a good chunk of the screen for you. There are always three pickups onscreen at any given time, and your survival depends on maneuvering through the crowds of dots skillfully to grab them.
Some of the weapons must be unlocked, but the three that are available from first play pack an effective punch on their own. There’s a purple pickup that launches a broad death wave from your arrow’s point, annihilating any dots in its path. There’s the fireworks pickup, which scatters five homing missiles across the screen, and then there’s the radioactive nuke pickup, which creates a large, lingering explosion that roasts red dots while keeping you momentarily safe. Each pickup is powerful and satisfying to use, and it’s especially fun to grab one after another in quick succession, so you can mow down red dots and build up a humongous score.
Tilt to Live has three modes of play: Classic, Code Red, and Gauntlet. Classic is the vanilla game which starts off easy, with only a couple of dots harassing you at a time, and then gets cooking after a couple of minutes. Code Red is Classic without the foreplay; it jumps from zero to intense in a second. It’s great for those times when you’re not in the mood for a gentle upswing in difficulty, and want to get right into the excitement. Gauntlet is a dodging game. You get no red dots or pickups, only a series of deadly obstacles scrolling across the arena. You have wend your way through rotating gears, walls that smash together, spinning blades, and other deadly traps for as long as you can. Thankfully the tilt controls are excellent, and when you die, you have no one to blame but yourself.
Tilt to Live is connected to a network called AGON Online, which not only means that you can upload your score to a leaderboard, but you can also earn achievements. These achievements, here called “Awards,” are pretty silly. One is earned by literally not lasting five seconds, and another is earned by building a kill combo of 42, because it’s the answer to life, the universe, and everything, you know. These awards are good for more than just bragging rights, though, because collecting enough of them will unlock the game’s most powerful weapons, such as the ice blast and the spike shield. Stupid though the achievements are, unlocking them is worthwhile.
Here’s proof that arena shooters can work on the iPhone after all. Tilt to Live, with its smooth controls, wild weaponry, and goofy sense of humor, is a winner. You won’t want to put your iDevice down, even after you’ve died fifty times and picked up the Masochist award.
Controller1.com rating: 3/3
Update: There’s been an update which adds a new game mode called Frostbite. Frozen dots scroll down the arena, and if you don’t touch them and shatter them before they reach the bottom, they’ll thaw and come after you. A powerful firewall pickup will only appear after you destroy a certain amount of frozen dots. Fun!
Available on PC, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3. Developed by Avalanche Studios. Published by Square Enix.
I fucking love this game. Just Cause 2 is one of the few games I’ve played that actually delivers what’s promised on the back of its case: “relentless, adrenaline-fueled action.” The genii at Avalanche Studios have slapped the Rockstar trend of angry, dramatic, and satirical open-world games right in the face, and have given us a boisterous smorgasbord of outrageous excitement that doesn’t take itself seriously at all. Just Cause 2 doesn’t give a shit about providing a powerful, emotional experience, it just wants to make you smile. And smile you will, as you turn acre after acre of banana republic property into a mad and swirling inferno.
Just Cause 2 is the latest and best in the recent line of open-world, gently structured action games with big environments, oppressive governments, stupid stories, and even stupider acting. Crackdown started it, Red Faction Guerilla continued it, The Saboteur took it a few steps further up the silly meter, and now Just Cause 2 has mastered it. The story is ludicrous, but I’ll go over it anyway: The president of the tiny Southeast Asian country of Panau has died, leaving his spoiled son in charge. Unfortunately, this new prez, “Baby” Panay, won’t answer the phone when NATO calls. What’s more, Tom Sheldon, a former US agent who was called out of retirement to investigate the Panau situation, has gone missing. So the mysterious “Agency” sends in Rico Rodriguez, played by Al Pacino, to find Sheldon and, in time, bring the misbehaving Panay to his reward. You’ll take control of Rico as you cut a path across the lovely forested landscapes of Panau, exploring villages and towns, piloting vehicles, collecting collectibles, shooting shootables, and most importantly, completing missions for the Agency and the various local criminal groups who also want to see the government pushed to its knees.
You’ll accomplish this revolutionary goal by causing Chaos. Chaos is your measure of progress in Just Cause 2, and you earn it by blowing up government property, such as gas pipelines, fuel depots, radio antennas, and military equipment. When you see an object with the red-and-white Panuan emblem on it, find some way to blow it up. Shoot it, throw a grenade at it, plant some C4 on it, or crash into it with a vehicle. Whatever suits your fancy. As your Chaos number rises, all kinds of things unlock, from strongholds/safehouses, to new Agency missions which advance the story. If you find yourself unable to push forward with the game, just look around for more things to blow up. You’ll get back on track in no time.
Naturally, the Panauan military won’t appreciate your efforts to destabilize it. You can kill all the civilians you want, but if you so much as shoot a government-issued trash can, look out. As you cause Chaos, the “Heat Meter” fills up, and the redcoats will come after you in droves. You’ll wield the usual assortment of shoot-em-up weaponry (revolvers, shotguns, SMGs, rocket launchers) to battle them. Just Cause 2 features a helpful automatic lock-on aiming system, so you can run and jump all over while you fight, and as long as you keep your finger on the trigger, you’ll probably hit someone. Once you’ve had your fill of gunfighting, or once the odds start to turn against you, head for the hills. Stay out of sight for a while, and the Heat meter will empty. The soldiers will eventually lose interest in you and leave you alone again, so you can plan your next assault.
Alec Mason liberated Mars with a simple sledgehammer. Sean Devlin fought the Nazis with a fistful of dynamite. Rico Rodriguez takes on the Panay regime with two slightly more unusual tools: a parachute and a grappling hook. These two items are a revelation. With Rico’s parachute, there’s never any fear of death by falling. You can leap off of any tall building or out of any high-flying jet, and land safely. Magically, Rico seems to have an infinite number of these parachutes in his little backpack, and they never get caught on tree branches or power lines. The grappling hook is also surprisingly useful. If you can see something, you can get to it with the grappling hook. Just aim at any surface and hit L1/LB, and Rico goes soaring towards it. It works simply and performs beautifully. The grappling hook is great for getting yourself out of enemy firing lines and behind cover, crossing long stretches of land, and for quick escapes to the rooftops.
The hook also has some more creative applications than these. You can fire it at enemy soldiers to grab them and yank them. This is great for pulling them out of cover, or from behind mounted gatling guns, or down from lookout towers. By holding L1/LB to attach the hook to one object, and then releasing the button while aiming at another object, you can tether the two objects together. You can hook a big truck to a statue of Baby Panay, and then drive the truck forward to pull the statue down. You can hook a soldier to the ceiling and then fire at him while he dangles. You can hook a car to a helicopter and airlift it. You can hook a person to a gas canister and then shoot the canister, propelling it forward on a fiery leak and taking its hapless attachment for a wild ride. You can spend hours just dreaming up crazy and cruel tricks to try.
Assault helicopters, the bane of characters like Mason and Gordon Freeman, are but a minor irritation for Rico and his grappling hook. If a tenacious chopper swoops in to strafe you, all you have to do is aim up and grapple onto it, where you’ll hang from the underside. From there, you can climb to the front of the chopper, shoot out any armed passengers, toss out the pilot, and commandeer it yourself! The most satisfying part of this is hearing the poor pilot scream and scream as he plummets to the earth. Truly, the grappling hook is the heart and soul of this game.
If you don’t want to wait for the military to send a chopper after you, you can always call up your black market buddy Sloth Demon, and have one delivered. After completing the game’s first Agency mission, Rico is given a special beacon, which he can use at any time, even during missions, to have armaments and vehicles dropped at his feet. It functions similarly to the air drops in the Mercenaries games. The items aren’t cheap, and the best ones have to be unlocked by causing Chaos, but since you rack up money and Chaos just by blasting and collecting stuff, finances are rarely a problem. Sloth Demon will become your very best buddy when you get caught without ammo during a tense firefight, or when a target on the horizon looks a little too dangerous to conquer on foot. Even a broad and steely military base offers little resistance when you can just order up a tank at will, as I do in the following video:
Yes, Rico can quickly and seamlessly move from one deadly vehicle to another, but they’re not invulnerable by any means. Military installations are often dotted with SAM sites that are just waiting for you to pilot a flying vehicle so they can take you down. Good thing you have your parachute! Remember that cutscene in Uncharted where Nathan Drake and his chick are flying a plane out to an island, when they get hit by anti-aircraft fire, and they have to skydive out to safety? Well, in Just Cause 2, not only can you actually DO that instead of just watching it, you can do it several times in one gaming session!
Traveling is a big part of Just Cause 2, but it’s rarely the chore that it is in some other open-world games. Rico can pilot any of the dozens of motorcycles, sedans, sports cars, ATVs, speedboats, jeeps, tanks, helicopters, airliners, and jet fighters he’ll find around Panau, but even on foot, Rico can maneuver in some nifty ways. One of these moves is the stunt jump, accomplished with a single press of Circle/B, which makes Rico leap onto the hood or roof of a nearby vehicle, even if it’s in motion. From this position, he can fire on approaching enemies, grapple onto a nearby surface, throw the driver out and take the wheel for himself, or even stunt jump onto another passing vehicle! If you’re on a busy highway, you can perform “stunt jump combos” by leaping from one vehicle roof to another.
Rico’s other great trick is the slingshot maneuver, or as I like to call it, “grapplechuting,” which combines the utilities of his trusty parachute and grappling hook. You start it off by firing your grappling hook into a distant surface, and then opening your parachute while you’re being pulled to your target. Then, while your chute is open, aim at the ground ahead of you, and fire the hook again. Rico will keep his parachute open and reel himself forward with the grappling hook cord. If you can repeat this process often enough to maintain your momentum, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you’ll get around.
For all the goodness it provides, I’m nonetheless willing to admit that Just Cause 2 can be pretty annoying at times. The first problem most players will encounter is the surprising learning curve. Rico’s moves aren’t especially difficult to pull off, but he has so many of them, from dual-wielding to grappling around to ordering items, that it’s easy to forget what your options are once the bullets start flying. It will take some practice before your eyes finally open up to Rico’s impressive maneuverability.
Just Cause 2 is also susceptible to a disease common to open-world games, which I call “Who-the-fuck-is-shooting-me Syndrome.” Since the game has no intentional level design, enemy soldiers can and will spawn from just about anywhere, and they’re going to hit you before you can hit them. This is especially frustrating when you think you’ve cleared an area out, and you’re trying to relax or grab a pickup, and then a new horde of bad guys starts firing from behind you.
The game’s health system is also unnecessarily complicated. Rico has the Halo/Gears/Uncharted Healing Factor that refills his health bar if he avoids damage for a short time, but it won’t fill the bar completely. To get all your health back, you need to find and activate first aid kits, and they’re not as common as you might think. This can be frustrating when you complete a tough mission with reduced health, and then have to choose between hunting around for first aid, or beginning your next task at a disadvantage. For some stupid reason, you can’t order up or carry first aid kits with you to use in emergencies. What the hell, man? Even Mega Man can do that!
I should also mention that one of the mandatory Agency missions involves an extremely frustrating escort segment. Rico has to protect some unarmed moron who can’t stop himself from charging headlong into enemy ambushes. I’ve been playing video games for a long time, and I haven’t met a single person who actually enjoys doing escort missions. Pay heed, Avalanche: no one liked escort missions in Wing Commander, no one liked them in Dead Rising, and no one’s going to like them here. I say we put a stop to this escort nonsense right now! Who’s with me?
The Agency missions can be lengthy and complicated, but the criminal faction missions are all pretty brief, and some of them can be completed in a minute or two if you use a good strategy. Unfortunately, one of them, called “Black Gold,” has a serious glitch that makes the mission impossible to complete. Your goal is to fly to a distant offshore oil derrick and blow up a certain number of its fuel tanks. If you destroy only a portion of them, die, and choose to retry the mission from the you-died menu, the mission progress meter will reset, but the fuel tanks you busted in your first attempt won’t return. This means that you won’t be able to perform all the destruction you need to do to finish the mission. Thankfully, this is not a game-killing bug, and it can be resolved by manually aborting the mission and then accepting it again, but it can be maddening if you don’t recognize it as a bug right away.
Funky bugs are all over the place in Just Cause 2. Some of them are frustrating, such as a strange one that causes enemies to spawn within buildings, where they can shoot you but you can’t shoot them, while others are pretty damn funny, like this headless fellow here:
Amazingly, when set against the undiluted craziness that this game is intentionally providing, this sort of glitch isn’t disruptive in the slightest. It’s just another thread in the tapestry, another gift from the game that keeps on giving.
Just Cause 2 isn’t just a gem, it’s a perfectly cut diamond. I know that I’ve been gushing on about it for good while here, but I doubt that I could ever run out of good things to say about it. If you’re looking for your game to deliver something “grown-up” and “meaningful,” go kick a horse around the dull and depressing deserts of Red Dead Redemption. If you want a terrific, beautiful action game that’s just a ton to fun to fool around in, Just Cause 2 is it. From its opening skydive to its hilariously stupid final objective, Just Cause 2 is so far over the top that it really should be called Just Awesome. As goofy as it is, though, I don’t think it goes quite far enough, and that’s what keeps it from dethroning Total Carnage as my favorite video game of all time. What I’d really love to see is a game with the same controls and basic structure as Just Cause 2, but which engulfs you crazy, crooked, sci-fi architecture, hordes of mutated creeps to kill, and towering, bloodthirsty bosses that you have to grapple onto and tear apart piece by piece. THAT would be, quite honestly, the only game I would ever play.
