The Podcats: THREE (Uncharted 3, BF3, MW3)
Why has Uncharted 3 not impressed me? Why has Battlefield 3 not lasted that long? Why has Modern Warf… HOST MIGRATION… Synchronizing Game…are 3 kept peer-to-peer Multiplayer on PC?
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REVIEW: BATTLEFIELD: BAD COMPANY 2
Reviewed on PC. Also on: Xbox 360, PS3. Developed by DICE. Published by EA
Sweden’s DICE are back to the Battlefields with their latest release. It’s an interesting release for various reasons and it’s also one of the better games in the series. The first game in the series came out for PC in 2002 with two decent expansion packs before the law of diminishing returns started to kick in and we had the unloved Battlefield Vietnam and that’s where things went all over the place. There was the somewhat-loved Battlefield 2 with a DLC fragmented player base, its late to the party console versions BF: Modern Combat and the best forgotten Battlefield: 2142 and Battlefield Heroes. The first Battlefield Bad Company was DICE’s first designed for console-only title and was loved by most of those who played it, though the lack of a PC version was bemoaned by many (which is fair considering it was a defining game franchise in the PC shooter space). Bad Company was sold as a single player-focused game with a multiplayer component, but it felt like a single player shoehorned into the wide-open multiplayer maps. BC’s multiplayer was excellent (I played it on PS3/PSN) with its infantry combat now being useful and not 100% dominated by whoever camped long enough for a Tank or can fly a chopper for more than 20 seconds without crashing. It also brought with it the excellent Gold Rush mode, where one team attacks and the other defends its bases. Once two crates in each base had been destroyed, the action moved to the next base until the defender’s bases were all destroyed or the tickets of the attackers had exhausted. That said, it was unfortunately ignored by a lot of long-time BF fans w. many of whom aren’t interested in FPS games on a console. The still console-only but soon to be PC Battlefield 1943, which remade 3 maps from the original game using the Bad Company Frostbite engine, made a of those people sit up and take notice (BF1943 is apparently the first game on XBLA to sell over 1 million units. This also sold well on PSN, so that’s a lot of people taking notice).
BC2 came out early in 2010 and brought with it a PC version. Before release, the PC diehards were still waiting for a true sequel to Battlefield, but having played the PC version to death since release, they need not wait as this is what they need. I do, however, find the need to write a review to attempt to extricate myself from its charms and its vices.
BC2 has several modes. Single player feels like a fun version of a scripted classic Medal of Honor or CoD single player experience, though here, instead of tough and gruff professional soldiers, we have a bunch of whiny slackers. The single player campaign on its own is not worth buying the game for but could be a pleasant enough diversion if you find yourself unable to connect to EA’s servers (which occasionally happens). The real meat and potatoes (or tofu and potatoes for vegetarian readers) is in going online in Rush mode. Yes, there’s BF’s traditional conquest mode, plus Squad Deathmatch, Squad Rush, etc but I’ve only played Rush. It’s a pity that there aren’t more playing Rush on PC (surprise, surprise- more PC players are playing Conquest). Rush offers and intense experience that Modern Warfare 2 removed by going down that arcadey, badly networked path; an experience that targets the action very well, funnels you to the action quickly without having to walk across the entire map due to a poor spawn choice. Squads, first introduced in BF2, allow you to spawn alongside people already in the thick of it which can save valuable battle time. It also means, you can spawn in the middle of a mortar strike or your opponents spawning squad members in the middle of a pistol duel can shift the balance very quickly.
There are four classes you can play as in BC2. The grunt with the assault rifle and grenade launcher is not as overpowered as in MW2, though the grenade launcher is at least usable in BC2 (it was so incredibly weak in BC). The Engineer has a sub machine gun, can repair vehicles and carry mines or a rocket launcher to take out tanks and APCs. The Medic runs around with an light machine gun and drop medkits and later on can revive fallen team-mates so they can go back into battle and get shot again by the same enemy within 3 seconds or resurrection. The last class is the recon, AKA sniper AKA sniping fuckers. Snipers will generally sit back in their ghillie suits and snipe from a very long way away and pepper the field of battle with mortar strikes. Even with BC2 making sniping trickier by having bullets falling away, a good sniper will be able to make a defending team’s life miserable. However, due to the perception that sniping is easy, you sometimes end up in a game where all of the attackers are sniping, meaning no one gets around to setting charges. Oh well.
The more you play the more gadgets and weapons you can unlock. Unlike MW2, if you unlock a new sniper scope, you can equip it the next time you respawn rather than between matches (on PC, anyway). The progress and unlocks does encourage farming. I recall one sparsely populated server where there 5 members of the one clan used a public server to unlock a boating medal. That’s fine, we just used them to farm our sniping stats.
Of course, there are vehicles in BC2. You have a few tanks, armoured personnel carriers, mobile anti aircraft, jeeps, quad bikes, boats, jetskis and helicopters. And unlike previous games, you have far better tools, as ground forces, to deal with them. Some of which are improved by improving your stats to unlock specialties, better vehicle armour, improved reload times, etc. Missing, are the artillery batteries but we have the UAV which is a remote controlled chopper that can be used to send in a missile strike. Fortunately, Tamiya doesn’t build them very strong so a few hits from an M16 should see them right. Engineers can use a variety of rocket launchers to take out vehicles, Snipers can use mortar strikes or place charges on a tank, Engineers can use the LMG to pound the choppers plus there are a profusion of mounted machine guns and stationary rocket launchers dotted around the maps. It’s not like the original game where you were totally fucked once someone who could fly got into a cockpit of a Zero.
An online game is only as good as your community and it seems all popular games are going to be full of dickheads. BC2 started off well in the first few weeks when everyone was learning the ropes, but once the tricks start emerging, most games quickly degenerate. With BC2, it depends on the server you’re on but generally seems to have far fewer abusive players (or maybe the worst ones are the ones with headsets, which I have muted anyway).
The Frostbite engine produces great graphics and the sound for BC has a unique real world sound you don’t hear often in games. It sounds loud even when it’s not.One technical aspect that has cast a vast shadow over this game is network code. It’s just not as god as you’d expect from DICE on a PC title. Back wen I played the older games on PC on bog standard 512k ADSL, a ping of 70 was average for a server in the same country as me. Years later with much much faster ADSL 2+, pings of less than 150 are wishful thinking. That said, you can have a decent game playing with people in other countries, so long as you don’t use sniper rifles. The server browser was not working that well at launch and I took to using the matchmaking for a week or two.
It’s certainly a pretty game that runs well, plays well and you will have fun playing. Until the fucking snipers get you. Spawn and again. Overall, if you like shooting games, BF games and are sick of MW2 and/or the extortionate price of the ‘stimulus to Kotick’s wallet,’ give BC2 a spin.
Controller1.com rating 3/3
Play if you like Bad Company, Battlefield Modern Combat, Battlefield 1943, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Modern Warfare 2
Don’t play if you like: Single player, Final Fantasy XIII, Heavy Rain, Tetris
NOW PLAYING: BATTLEFIELD: BAD COMPANY 2
Currently, I’m playing BBC2 on PC (well, a Mac running Win 7 in its spare time) and despite the typical “EA can’t get their server shit together at launch” deal, it’s quite a blast.
I did play the original Bad Company online quite a bit back in 2008 (on PSN/PS3) and has a great time. I actually am a bit dirty having bought the PC version since I was aiming for a console version this time but several of my now former CoD4 colleagues were preordering with the intention of playing the PC versions on our machines at work during our lunch hour. Away I go to pre-order, ignoring the beta, but these two PC diehards hated the beta so much they went to the trouble of getting a refund from Steam.
So I’m playing the PC version, and it’s a great game. It runs well on my machine but I can’t help thinking some of the issues I’ve had with MW2 are just as prevalent here. We have dedicated servers again, something that MW2 proves is a must for PC games (Hell, they really make online console games light up). But the server browser is a tad ungainly with pings not currently showing up (for me at least) nor is there any way to filter by geographic location (if say, you were sick of being stuck with a US host on MW2, you could stick to servers in or near your country). So in the end I use the quick match option and see where I land. It’s literally Russian roulette since the lat few games were on servers in Europe and one was in Montreal. It was hard to tell because the people who did type messages, typed them in perfect English. No writing as if a text message, 1337speak or barely comprehensible babble. It was a bit hit or miss as far as lag goes (the game seems to cover it up quite well most of the time). You can either hit people or you can’t.
The game offers a very intense dynamic but there are a few balance issues (as there is any game of this sort) as is typical with Battlefield games, some people lead charmed lives. Snipers are the bane of the game right now though this is from DICE, who thought Battlefield Vietnam would benefit from a kit that combined a super accurate M60 heavy machine gun with a grenade launcher.
I’ve not had a chance to play much of the single player, but boy does it feel like a slightly above average Medal of Honor game (oe a slightly below average Call of Duty game). Let’s say it’s a dead heat with World at War and be done with it.
If you’re sick of Modern Warfare 2′s quirks but want something similar, I’d recommend this.
For someone who’s not been much of a PC gamer at home, I’m finding the uber cheap (and ultimately devaluing) Steam sales to be a great way to A) Try out games I wouldn’t have taken a punt on and B) giving me something to do at lunch at work. Far Cry 2 a few weeks ago might have been a waste of $10 but undeterred, I picked up Batman Arkham Asylum and Just Cause today. I’ve been seeing a lot about JC2 that makes me curious so I figure the price is right. Batman AA is recognized as one of the last year’s best games so it can’t hurt if I give it a spin. Even if neither game doesn’t gel with me I can’t complain too much.
So Sony and Microsoft. This is directed to you. You both have the infrastructure on your respective online marketplace mechanisms to offer download versions of your games. Sony’s gone quiet here but MS’s Games on Demand is crying out for two things. Sanity in pricing- especially outside of the US, and sales. I’d buy Saint’s Row 2 as a 360 download in a heartbeat if it wasn’t double the price of the disc version. Both the games I just got on Steam would have been a no-brainer to buy on either HD console if the option had been there.
Back to some more BBC2 and hoping Bioshock 2 turns up soon.
The Top Games of 2009 According to this Site
Controller1.com’s top games of this past year.
Sleeper of the Year (aka The game that came out of nowhere, the one you expected to ignore but couldn’t because of the great word of mouth)
RED FACTION: GUERRILLA. Volition and THQ’s third RF game came out of nowhere to be one hell of a blast of supercharged entertainment. Sure, Volition misunderstood the difference between easy and insane. But the core mechanics of the game and the freedom you had to progress meant few stumbling blocks to gaming nirvana. I have no idea what the story was about so let’s assume it’s rather ordinary and skip to the good bits: blowing things up. I can’t name a game where destruction has been done better.
Runner Up: Borderlands
Overhyped Game of the Year (AKA The game that was expected to make coffee, bend time and rule all but in the end was a bit meh)
KILLZONE 2. Sony and Guerrilla Game’s follow up to the justifiably ignored Killzone was meant to be many things. Here’s what it was and wasn’t.
IT WAS: A decent FPS, put together well and looked beautiful.
IT WASN’T: a system seller, or a particularly great game.
Year of PS3 got off to a false start and was almost disqualified from the race with KZ2.
Runner up: Scribblenaughts
Most Disappointing Game (AKA Games with buzz and hope that just didn’t deliver)
Wolfenstein Coulda, should but didna. Wolfenstein squandered the hope that long term fans had for a worthwhile follow up to Return to Castle Wolfenstein. What they got was a good single player that seemed to need a teeny bit more polish and content and a terrrrrrrrrible multiplayer. Do you get this game? Do you like MP more than SP? Flip a coin.
Runner Up: Modern Warfare 2
MOST IMPROVED (AKA They fixed the shit in the first one that was busted)
Assassin’s Creed II. Oh Lord is it ever so much better than the first game. In every single way, this game is more fun than the original. The content is better organised so that the game is not “here are 10 things you can do, go do each of them 500 times.” The whole concept is still a bit silly and Kristen Bell’s character looks like she had a lip transplant from the original Kryten but overall any game that has Uncharted Guy doing voices is good.
Runner Up: Uncharted 2
BEST DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT: SHADOW COMPLEX
BF1943, GTA episodes and Trials were there but Shadow Complex was by far the best DL only game released in 2009. A Metroidvania that’s probably more palatable to a modern audience (since it has Uncharted Guy doing voices, of course), the game managed to astound, entertain, stir up controversy and offer a good few hours of gameplay.
Runner Up: Halo 3 ODST (no, not really, but it should have been)
Best Game Only on Wii: NEW SUPER MARIO BROTHERS WII
OK, so it was really only one of two Wii games I bought this year. But it was the one I didn’t sell (HotD: Overkill). It’s frustrating as all fuck, has a save system that’s as pointless as the one in Dead Rising and I’m not playing it right now. Why am I not playing this right now? I don’t know.
Best Game Only on PS3: UNCHARTED 2
Sony had two really good games this year. Uncharted 2 and Infamous. Infamous is blown out of the water by Uncharted 2. Uncharted 2 is the quintessential adventure game. Whereas the first game promised platforming but delivered a gears of War Clone, the sequel mixes things up so successfully that you never realise when the game is going to go from one style to another. yes, you know at least once per chapter there will be something you’re standing in collapsing around you leaving you hanging from one arm but that’s beside the point.
Best Game Only on Xbox 360: SHADOW COMPLEX The 360 almost had a gap year with the only big exclusives being Forza 3 (which a LOT of people love and recognise as the driving game of 2009 to play), Halo 3: ODST which really was just a bit too much recycling with such a short single player campaign.
Best Game Only on PC- this is the year 2009.
Best Game on Everything: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. IW may have pissed off as many people as they please with MW2. There’s the story that eschews any semblance of realism for moments of turkey-slapping-a-sleeping-lion thrills, OTT Multiplayer perks and combos, poor matchmaking and the various PC issues that made the game into a must play for many into a meh for some.
Best Pissing Away Goodwill. TIE: Infinity Ward and Activision.
Infinity Ward for doing the dirty on PC gamers and Activision for driving Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero into the ground. Oh, and splitting Starcraft II into three different games.
Most Improved: Sony. They cut the PS3 price from hysterical to merely funny (after three years it’s finally at the PS2 launch price), released the Slim and released Uncharted and Infamous. It still takes way too long to download and install a patch and most people still spend more on Blu Ray than they do on PS3 games, and PS3 ports are still often slightly lagging behind 360 in terms of graphics but it’s basically where it should have been three years ago. Just in time for God of War III
Most Potential for 2010: Microsoft. Really, they sold the 360 well but didn’t release that many 1st party games so you’d think game over, but then you see they have Crackdown 2, Halo Reach and Alan Wake. And then there’s Natal.
Least Potential for 2010: Wii
So we have a vitality sensor as the big piece of hardware? Really? Few games still support Motion Plus. Few gamers care and the signs are than grandma doesn’t either.
Game of the Year: Uncharted 2. Are you at all surprised? Naughty Dog redeem themselves after the disasters that were the Jak and Daxter sequels. This is the only game this year that a non-gamer will sit and watch as if it were a movie and enjoy it.
Runner Up: Modern Warfare 2.
It was a pretty good year overall. The only disappointing part of the year was the end. While we had some cracking titles such as Uncharted 2, ODST, Left 3 Dead 2, Assassin’s Creed II, MW2 and Super Mario Wii it still felt like something was missing.Oh that’s right about 2 or 3 more must-haves in the lead up to Christmas that we wouldn’t get to play till 2010 anyway. Having them all come out in the first quarter of 2010 seems to have upset the natural balance.
REVIEW: BATTLEFIELD 1943
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
Driven into the Ground
Activision have started the PR for what looks to be Infinity Ward’s next Call of Duty game. Whilst other companies seem to have learnt their lesson about yearly updates, Activision obviously haven’t. EA seemed to have stopped the annual release of Medal of Honor games, id aren’t churning out yearly updates to Quake and Doom. Halo, Gears, Resistance and Killzones aren’t being squeezed out every year. But Activision seem content to have a Call of Duty every year, as well as multiple versions of Guitar Hero annually. But curiously enough WoW is still the original with only two expansions in nearly four and a half years.
Iterating till doomsday has seen a lot of game series being ruined, but you can predict when this going happen very easily- People start referring to it as a franchise as if its a frozen yogurt stand in a mall. The more often you make the same game with only minor upgrades, the more likely you are to suffer from boredom and deja vu. With games like Madden, there’s evidence to suggest that many football fans buy the game every couple of years, rather than every installment. With Madden, there’s also no other choice if you want an NFL game.
With shooters, its perhaps more perilous because there is so much more choice. Call of Duty has to compete with Resistance and Killzone on PS3; Gears and Halo on 360; Tom Clancy shooters on all systems; Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress on PC as well as the ancient juggernauts of Counterstrike, Battlefield and Unreal games. Valve didn’t release TF3 a year after TF2, they added new content (free or not) but Activision took the success of Call of Duty 4 and threw it away by release the almost as successful Call of Duty World at War a year after. If there’s a new CoD game every year, how long before people get sick of it? You can argue that they sold a large number of CoD4 boxes and then a year later sold a large number of CoD WaW boxes. But they also had to devote two of their best teams to making a new title in two years, rather than smaller teams making expansions or DLC.
You can tell the tide of the Guitar Hero Rock Band style games has turned a little bit. People seem a little less enthusiastic about those games these days. Perhaps the lure of being a Rock Star fades after a while? Or the sight of fat geeks rocking out gets old after a while? You know how everyone groans about “another WWII game?” That’s because there was a time when you had Medal of Honor, Commandos, Brothers in Arms Wolfenstein, DoD, CoD, plus dozens of strategy titles and smaller PC games set in the same settings. There are dozens of SF or fantasy based games but the difference is they have freedom to make up new worlds whereas games based on actual events or settings (such as WWII or Modern Combat games) have to adhere to a certain aesthetic and conform to real world experience and expectations. You couldn’t have Gaz pull out a BFG and keep a straight face.
Look at Battlefield. First there was a WWII game and some expansions. Then there was Battlefield Vietnam a few years later, the Battlefield 2 with its mini expansions and console versions and then Battlefield 2142. The SF sequel fizzled pretty much and now the series is drifting backwards in time like some kind of ass-backwards Buck Rogers. Bad Company is back in current times and Battlefield Heroes and the new downloadable games are in WWII (ish) times. EA tried to iterate by innovating but really what they needed was space in between releases.
We’ve already mentioned Blizzard and WoW. But look at Starcraft. It was a huge hit in the late 90′ s but here we are, a decade and change later and we’re still waiting for the sequel (Just suppose EA had bought Blizzard in the past. We’ve have had Starcraft 2-5, Diablo 3, 4 and Origins and Warcraft 4-6 before EA shut them down). Of course, they are releasing SCII in three different versions. Kotick, you magnificent bastard! The clamouring for new SC is such that people will buy the three versions and not bitch too much about triple charged. WHy? Because Blizzard let the demand for a sequel build organically over time. Maybe 11-12 years is overkill, but its worked.
Personally, I am happy to have a new CoD game each year. But I know the series probably won’t be what it is if it starts fatiguing gamers to the point Activision mandate harmful changes in order to fix the malaise. “Have you guys considered adding giant robots?”
Mirror’s Edge: Re-evaluated
I recently started the most recent Prince of Persia game and very shortly into it I realised how much I wanted to go back and give Mirror’s Edge another try. I had given up around the 60% mark, sick of the trial and error approach to platforming. Here’s the review written after I had grown weary of the game and Fallout 3 was fast becoming an all-consuming addiction.
Coming back to Mirror’s Edge, it gelled a bit better than the first half of the game. There are still thing not quite right about the game, with waaaaay too much trial and error and combat that’s more frustrating than catering for a Vegan at a Barbecue. But I seemed to enjoy it a lot more, perhaps without the distraction of Fallout 3. The story wasn’t anything much but I did enjoy the cutscenes ending the game. Of course, Portal’s end credits song called “Still Alive” is better than Mirror’s Edge’s end credits song called “Still Alive.”
Would this game be better if it was a third person game? I don’t know, its pretty good as it is and a third person perspective would be a different kettle of fish altogether. Combat in third person would probably be better but then the game would then just be Uncharted. DICE are still to be commended for trying something so radically different from Battlefield and I hope the sequel (we can but hope) takes a lot of the criticism seriously.
Make no mistake, this is a hard game. Since I was so much wanting to see the end of the game, I bumped the difficulty down to easy for the last two chapters. As far as I can see, it made absolutely no difference in terms of making the combat less painful or the jumping (especially the penultimate leap) more predictable.
I’m glad I made the effort to go back and finish the game, despite its difficult last few levels. Even though the levels all seem to be variations on the same thing, it never felt boring apart from those occasions where you are trying a difficult jump. Usually it comes down to you doing it wrong.
I’ve amended our original review to reflect the change in thinking. Its rare that I quit a game because of frustrating gameplay and come to finish it later and actually like it.
MIRROR’S EDGE Review
Reviewed on PS3. Also on Xbox 360, PC Developed by DICE. Published by EA
Parkour is the the buzzword of the moment. So when the first person game Mirror’s Edge was announced, from the makers of the Battlefield games no less, people took notice. Platforming and First Person perspectives have never had a happy home in gaming (c1 has previously reviewed two of these- Duke 3D and Call of Juarez), and most FPS games of the last 10 years have eschewed this style of gameplay, putting it in the “too hard” basket.
Mirror’s Edge is about Faith, who’s a runner who’s a courier. She’s asian, got a tat and has an athletic figure, in stark contrast to what some on the net would prefer. The game is a platform game where you run across the tops of buildings, leaping between skyscrapers, bounding over obstacles, running through corridors, walkways, balconies, up ladders, down pipes, etc. Mostly without a gun. Your runner’s sense will show objects that you can interact with by them glowing red (I’ve made the joke many times how the faceless villains could fuck these guys up with some well placed spraypaint), ie when you need to jump to the next point- look for the pipe that’s now glowing red.
Then there’s the combat. There really doesn’t need to be much of this in the game but it helps if occasionally you knock out a guard or disarm them. Occasionally you can use their weapons against them, though there’s a popular achievement/trophy if you don’t use the guns. The combat is kinda painful though it wasn’t what put me off the game half way through. The actual raison d’etre of the game is the platforming of the trial and error variety. And what kills any joy out of doing this is the fact the checkpoints are rather sparsely placed throughout some of the levels. There are some rather painful jumps that if you miss, the amount of retreading you must undertake becomes rather repetitive.
The graphics in the game are very nice, with a steady framerate (essential to surviving the jumping without motion sickness). Sound is also a high point in the game and I can’t say I agree with some of the common presentation gripes some have with this game- namely the Flash-style animations used for some in-between level cutscenes. Faith is an appealing protagonist but I will have to see if some improvements have been made to see whether the sequel is worth the time. I had to hang up this game around half way through
So I liked the game, to a point. I couldn’t keep up with the constant trial and error and re-doing a big section just to try again and fail again by falling again so I could restart and retrace and re-fail. It’s like watching Groundhog Day in a loop.
UPDATE:
I recently started the most recent Prince of Persia game and very shortly into it I realised how much I wanted to go back and give Mirror’s Edge another try. I had given up around the 60% mark, sick of the trial and error approach to platforming. Here’s the review written after I had grown weary of the game and Fallout 3 was fast becoming an all-consuming addiction.
Coming back to Mirror’s Edge, it gelled a bit better than the first half of the game. There are still thing not quite right about the game, with waaaaay too much trial and error and combat that’s more frustrating than catering for a Vegan at a Barbecue. But I seemed to enjoy it a lot more, perhaps without the distraction of Fallout 3. The story wasn’t anything much but I did enjoy the cutscenes ending the game. Of course, Portal’s end credits song called “Still Alive” is better than Mirror’s Edge’s end credits song called “Still Alive.”
Would this game be better if it was a third person game? I don’t know, its pretty good as it is and a third person perspective would be a different kettle of fish altogether. Combat in third person would probably be better but then the game would then just be Uncharted. DICE are still to be commended for trying something so radically different from Battlefield and I hope the sequel (we can but hope) takes a lot of the criticism seriously.
Make no mistake, this is a hard game. Since I was so much wanting to see the end of the game, I bumped the difficulty down to easy for the last two chapters. As far as I can see, it made absolutely no difference in terms of making the combat less painful or the jumping (especially the penultimate leap) more predictable.
I’m glad I made the effort to go back and finish the game, despite its difficult last few levels. Even though the levels all seem to be variations on the same thing, it never felt boring apart from those occasions where you are trying a difficult jump. Usually it comes down to you doing it wrong.
Original Controller1.com rating 1/3 (This game epitomises ‘Your Mileage May Vary’)
UPDATED Controller1.com rating 2/3
Controller1.com podcast #5 Mirror’s Edge
So this week, Clint surprises us all by buying Mirror’s Edge on Day 1.
BATTLEFIELD: Bad Company
Reviewed on PS3. Also on Xbox 360. Developed by DICE. Published by EA.
Let’s get this out of the way. There is no PC version. Nor is this the free to play Battlefield Heroes. Let’s also get this out of the way: It’s frickin’ sweet!
Battlefield Bad Company has been touted by EA as a Single player Battlefield game with a multiplayer component. The single player is like Call of Duty with longer distances between the objectives. A storyline ripped from the Clint Eastwood classic Kelly’s heroes and some destructible buildings but really the reason to play this game is from some of the best online gameplay for this type of game (PC or console).
The multiplayer was downplayed for whatever reasons EA had, but they’ve made one hell of a game. There are two modes, Gold Rush and Conquest mode (which was recently added in a patch). Conquest mode is the old control the flags while the tickets count down from the original Battlefield 1942 game. Gold Rush is altogether more interesting and truth be told, all I’ve actually played online. You either play as Attacker or Defender. Attackers have to destroy the two gold crates of each base of the opposing team. They can do this by firing weapons, using tanks or missiles or by setting a charge (a la Counterstrike). Once each base has its two crates destroyed, the defenders have to pull back to another base, the attackers inheriting the destroyed base for their next assault.
You have tanks, light tanks, jeeps and occasionally choppers as well as turrets and missile launchers. Its very well balanced unless you want to use grenade launchers which are gimped (to the point of being useless). The choppers don’t dominate like they did in a PC game of Battlefield though they are a lot easier to fly. The artillery also works rather well with some bases having a giant field gun and some classes offering unlockable mortar strikes and guided missile airstrikes. But no class is totally overpowering so it works and works well.
And jeez it works well. I thought it would be a while before a multiplayer game could tear me away from CoD4 for any decent period of time. I’ve been playing this on PSN and the only gripes I have will eventually be fixed the more Sony copies the Live infrastructure. This title apparently uses servers for both PSN and Xbox Live and to be honest, this has been the most consistently playable on line console game I’ve played.
Graphics are very pretty, control worked very well and the sound is suitably huge and excellent (though my amp found the levels too much to handle). Why PS3 version for review? It’s multi region and cheaper for me to import but I played the Xbox demo and it too ran well.
I likes it a lot.
C1 Rating: 2/3
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