Review: Star Wars: The Old Republic

To be honest, I never thought I’d be heading back to an MMORPG. But Star Wars: The Old Republic had the potential to bring something different to a world now filled with copies and generic MMOs. I had to give it a shot. With The Old Republic having a monthly subscription, I played the game for one month to see if it could hook me into paying for a second month.

The Old Republic’s focus - Story

The game is set 300 years after Bioware’s Knights of the Old Republic; the galaxy is divided between The Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire, and war has erupted everywhere. There are four classes on each side, and each one has their own story to tell. I went with the Republic and chose the path of the Force. I mean, this is Star Wars - I just had to pick the Jedi Knight. While each class gets the same side quests, the main story is what sets them apart, and you can slowly see yourself becoming an important figure in your class’ story. It makes you feel epic progressing through the levels and actively deciding how the narrative unfolds. In any other MMORPG out now, the main story is never the focus. Some have tried, but dropped the ball midway. For The Old Republic, however, the devs nailed it. When they said that the whole game was fully voice acted, they weren’t kidding. Every single NPC in the game has a voice, giving each character more personality and making this game the most expensive MMO to date.

The careful attention paid to presentation is the MMO’s biggest selling point, too. It’s refreshing to play an MMO that made me care about the story, going so far as to give you the option to decide the conclusion of each quest you partake in. Instead of the NPC just bluntly telling you who needs to die or what needs to be collected, you engage in a conversation as if you’re playing one of Bioware’s single player RPGs. In every conversation, you are given a set of choices regarding what to say, and each one can give different results. Conversations are not only for shaping the story, but also granting your character access to certain gear in the game, not to mention improving relations between your companions. It’s a good incentive to get involved in each quest. Be good or bad: it’s all up to you.

It felt like I was playing Knights of the Old Republic all over again. Since I played the game with a friend, each conversation was a treat because both of our characters were included in the conversation. In group sessions, individual players pick what to say and the game makes each player involved do a roll from 1- 150. The winner of the roll gets to say what they picked in the conversation wheel. It leaves a bit of suspense, since your friend can pick something vastly different to say to the NPC. In one quest, I had decided to save the remaining refugees left in a building, but since I lost my roll, we went with my friend’s choice, which was to leave them and take the prize money. Yes, my friend is a douche.

The quest mechanics are still not perfect; repetitive questing is still a problem. Having each quest fully-voiced does provide a different experience, but after the talking is over, you are given the same old tasks seen in most MMOs out there now. No matter the depth of the story, the missions themselves felt like chores in the end. Some quests are simply boring, and the fact that they are fully voice acted increases the time commitment factor, further discouraging me from wanting to accomplish that NPC’s particular side-quest. With all that said, the main story itself is well worth sinking some time into, and it comprises the bulk of The Old Republic’s narrative.

Gameplay is nothing new

This was my biggest worry when I first saw The Old Republic – the generic MMO gameplay. Sadly, there’s nothing new at all with regards to the game’s mechanics. There are a few minor changes, but the feeling is still similar to that other MMO people love playing so much. Since there’s not much of a difference, a direct comparison is inevitable. On the other hand, it’s been proven that this type of gameplay definitely works, so veteran MMORPG players will feel right at home. As for the game’s class stories, you have a total of eight to experience, but in terms of variations in gameplay, you really only have four types of classes.

Each class has a direct opposite in the other faction. While their skills and class names are different, they play exactly the same. For example, the Republic’s Smuggler class is identical to the Sith Empire’s Imperial Agent class gameplay-wise, although they have different story lines.

During your travels, you meet up with certain characters that eventually become your companions. These companions fight alongside you as if they are another player. You can gear your companions up, and they have a set of skills that can aid the player. You get different kinds of companions who learn different roles and skills as they progress. A companion can either be a tank type, healer, or a pure damage dealer; it’s all up to you who you’ll need in your travels to better compliment your class. They also have their own hidden agendas, and sometime in the game your companions will request to speak to you, hoping you can help with whatever’s troubling them. Yes, this MMO is such a Bioware game. They are a good addition to the game though, and you really can’t live without them. A companion is treated as one member of the party, so if you join up with one player and both of you have your companions out, you’ll have a party of four. Adding another player will automatically remove one player’s companion allowing a third person to join, and so on.

Not only do you get companions, you even get your own ship! This is pretty much your base of operations and where all your companions stay. You have your very own storage onboard your ship, and with your ship’s world map, you can travel to any planet available. You get your own ship at the end of the introduction planet for your class, and honestly, it’s pretty epic to see your intergalactic cruiser for the first time. The game also has spaceship battles, which are a decent distraction from doing the game’s countless quests. The gameplay in these battles is pretty much taken right out of Star Fox 64. The game even lets you barrel roll by pressing spacebar! Left click to fire your lasers and right click to fire your homing rockets. You have certain objectives to complete each mission, and they were a lot of fun at the start. But as you progress, the missions end up becoming the same thing over and over again. You can also gear up your ship, but the only real benefit to that lies in making your ship stronger in order to sign up for tougher missions, and each mission gives a good amount of experience for some reason. The space battles are completely optional, so you can skip them entirely if you want.

Class customization is a bit deep in The Old Republic. When any class hits level 10, they are given a choice to specialize in a specific advanced class. Each advanced class shifts your character’s focus to a specific role or a specific play style. For my Jedi Knight, I was given the choice of either becoming a Jedi Guardian, which provides you with skills to take hits, or a Jedi Sentinel, who focuses on dishing out a lot of damage and can wield two lightsabers. Once you make the choice, it’s permanent. Once I picked the Jedi Guardian, I had no choice but to wield a single light saber for the rest of that character’s career. The regret came after a few hours when I started seeing other Jedi dual-wielding lightsabers.

Talent trees are present in this game and will only unlock at level 10. From level 10 to level 60, you will be earning talent points that can be spent on the three class trees given in order to further customize your character’s play style. Again, it’s all very familiar, but it works well nonetheless.

The Old Republic is just like any other MMO – group dungeons called flashpoints, PVP warzones, World PVP, and raids called Operations are all present. Flashpoints in the early levels really give you a feel for your role and your class. Some require a bit of teamwork to complete and can be challenging, but what’s lacking in these so-called dungeons are the heavy story elements Bioware keeps shoving down our throats as we head towards the max level. All we get is a small briefing of what needs to be done and that’s about it. While some do have interesting stories, most of them are just a dull ride, seeing you fighting boss after boss.

Warzones (PVP) are accessible anywhere in the game. They unlock at level 10, and you are given the ability to join a Warzone match anytime. I had a blast with the PVP, but the experience can get old real fast. With just four Warzone maps, it gets repetitive about midway through your career. Each Warzone has a specific objective to win the match, but for the lower levels, most players (me included) don’t really give a damn and just end up fighting each other. When you hit 60, it doesn’t get any better since you will be getting your ass handed to you by the decked level 60’s over and over again. And of course, the best way to get gear is to keep doing Warzones. It becomes an endless grind just to be on equal ground with the top PVP players.

Raiding is considered the meat of all MMOs. Of course, raiding is present, but with a different name: Operations. Operations need a group of either eight or sixteen players in order to complete.

The game is new, and the content isn’t as plentiful as other MMO that have been running for years. It’s hard to tell at this point if it’s worth the investment to get the best gear possible, but from where the game stands now, it has a reasonable amount of content for a starting MMO. You will spend the majority of your endgame career grinding for those tokens and dailies in order to get money and better gear. If you’re into that sort of thing, then you might like what Bioware has to offer in the end. For me, the endgame needs a bit more meat in order to justify a real commitment. It’s a good start though.

Star Wars: The Old Republic sounds epic and looks massive… too massive.

Star Wars: The Old Republic’s scale is huge. Like, I’m shocked on how much work and detail they weaved into this galaxy far, far away. The visuals are great, and each location or planet has its own identity. It felt like the devs really took their time in creating each planet, one by one. They created a massive game to explore; in fact, it may actually be too massive. Everything looks amazing, but sadly, it also looks dead. There are NPCs and players roaming around, but not enough to make the universe feel alive. It’s as if Bioware expected millions of people to play their game. This isn’t the case at the moment. A planet can usually have more than a hundred players at a time. But each map is so big that you are lucky to see ten players in one place. Everybody is doing their own thing. The scale of the world is important, but it’s obvious almost instantly that the world is too big even for the NPCs. Some roads are so wide they make me feel like I’m an ant on an endless journey.

Traveling in The Old Republic got painful fast. Just in the first few levels, going from area to area took too much of my time. I quickly became accustomed to the sight of my character running through wide, empty roads. Early on in the game, for instance, there’s an area where once you get to the end of a needlessly long road, you still have to cross a huge forest on foot. There are taxis that bring you from one area to another, but you still need to explore them the first time in order to use that service. You do get a speeder sooner or later to shorten travel time, but even then the traveling takes too long. I don’t even feel the added movement speed when on a ride. You will spend a ridiculous amount of your time just traveling: it’s no stretch to say that the big world they created pretty much backfired.

I’m not sure about you guys, but the iconic soundtrack and sound effects for any Star Wars product is very important. How a blaster fires, how the droids talk, the alien languages, lightsaber sounds, and of course the background music to keep your blood boiling during a fight are all essential towards setting the mood for a successful Star Wars game. I’m happy to report that in Star Wars: The Old Republic, everything in the sound department seems to be in order. It really sounds like you stepped into the Star Wars universe, and that’s how it should be. It’s funny how every time you fight a boss or activate a specific skill, you trigger John Williams’ epic score. I sat up straight and put on my game face every time that awesome music kicked in.

Overall

Where Star Wars: The Old Republic stands right now, it’s a great game. It’s the Star Wars MMO we’ve all been waiting for. Class stories can keep you hooked, and the gameplay can satisfy any MMO player. But the fully-voiced world wasn’t enough to make the experience ground-breaking. It’s a neat addition, but once you take that and the Star Wars license out of the picture, there’s simply nothing unique about the game anymore. Since this is a game that requires a monthly subscription, the biggest question is, is it worth the investment? To the players that are looking for a substitute for better endgame content that is available on competing MMOs, I say no. I actually appreciated the journey to level 60 more than the endgame content. When I hit 60, I had no urge whatsoever to gear up my character. I do think that experiencing the PVE content to level 60 is worth trying, however, so a one-month subscription should be enough to get what you need out of The Old Republic.

Score: 75/100

Pros

-          Great main class stories

-          Fully-voiced world

-          The game looks and sounds amazing

Cons

-          Nothing innovative with regards to gameplay

-          The maps are too big, making it look like a dead galaxy

-          You spend a ton of time traveling

-          Not much incentive to keep playing in the endgame

Review: The Walking Dead - Episode One

Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead: With the graphic novels’ huge success and the TV Series gearing up for its 3^rd season on AMC, a video game adaptation of the Walking Dead world was bound to happen. When I heard that Telltale Games (Back to the Future: The Game, Tales of Monkey Island) was developing the property, they sounded like a perfect fit. However, their past games have been decent at best, leaving me a bit worried on how The Walking Dead would come out. As a fan of both the comics and the TV series, I bought the first episode on the Playstation 3 anyways.  After playing through the first episode of the game in one sitting, I was instantly hooked and left with a strong impression, reminding me why I loved The Walking Dead in the first place. This is Telltale’s best work yet.

The game follows a completely different group of survivors in the Walking Dead world than we’ve seen before. You play as Lee Everett, a man convicted for murder. The game starts with Lee leaving the city in a cop car to go to prison, only to have the trip cancelled thanks to his first encounter with a zombie. He then meets this little girl called Clementine; she is an 8-year-old who has been forced to survive by herself while waiting for her parents to arrive home from a trip. Lee takes Clementine with him, and makes it his goal to keep this child safe at all times. This is where this five-part series starts.

The Power of Choice

This game is all about choices. The choices you’re given create a big impact on the game’s story. The most powerful choices are character-based conversations that can alter an NPC’s impression of you – as you meet new characters in the game, you are given the choice to act as the father of Clementine, but soon find characters seeing through your lie, leading to a sense of distrust towards Lee. This is where the game shines. Your dialogue choices influence the story and the characters’ perception on you, Lee Everett. How you have Lee act during conversations or crucial moments when big choices need to be made defines Lee as a character. Be loyal and honest all throughout, or simply be on guard and not trust the people around you, it’s all up to you. Either way, there will be consequences.

In a game filled with choices, it’s good to see that the player does not have all the time in the world to decide. Each big choice or conversation puts a time limit on the player to make a decision. If a choice is left unanswered, things can get a lot worse.  Play your cards wrong and each choice will be loaded with nerve-wracking pressure.

There are also decisions that lead you to choose one character over the other – Your choice will result in one character’s demise and again you have only a small window to make a choice. These moments happened out of nowhere during my first play-through and caught me off-guard. I actually regret one of these choices because I acted too quickly on it. I felt like I had to make a choice fast. This is why this game works, because it places you in situations like that, and whichever path you choose, you’re stuck with it.

This also brings some replay value to the game. After going through this first episode the first time, I went back at it and picked different choices to see how the story shapes up. But truth be told, this game is best appreciated the first time around.

The controls are quick and easy to grasp. The first part of the game is considered a tutorial that helps the player grow accustomed to the controls. The left analog stick is used to move Lee around while the right analog stick controls the cursor that is used to interact with the environment.

It’s an adventure game at heart. You go around interacting with objects, gathering items, and solving issues within the group. It reminded me of games such as… well past Telltale games, and games like LucasArts’ Monkey Island plus those classic Sierra games – Such as Phantasmagoria and the Gabriel Knight series. But what The Walking Dead really lacks that most adventure games have in spades are puzzles. I believe a few puzzles here and there would have given the game another layer of quality.

Character interaction and molding the story are what this game is all about. You do get to kill some zombies, but it’s quite rare. You will spend most of your time interacting, rather than bashing heads. If you prefer a zombie game that gives you a gun and lets you go all-out, guns blazing instead of talking to survivors and uncovering their stories, this might not be the game for you.

The game does have those intense moments, but again, they are rare. The balance works well since between all the talking and interacting, the sudden moments of action act as wake-up calls to the player.

This game is also a real treat for fans of the TV series or the graphic novel, since it tells a different story set in the same world. Characters like Glenn and Hershel from the original series make appearances; needless to say, that got the fan in me excited to interact with them. Even if you’re not familiar with the series, Telltale’s The Walking Dead could make you a fan, if you give the game a chance.

The game’s visuals are a perfect fit since this game is essentially based on a comic book. It has a cel-shaded look similar to the visuals of Borderlands that brings this post-apocalyptic world to life. Not only that, the audio complements those intense moments in the game and also gives a special kind of eerie atmosphere, one that you’d expect from a doomed world. A few frame-rate issues happened during my play-through, which surprised me, since this game isn’t big on file size or heavy on the graphics.

Overall

This is definitely Telltale’s best work yet, but that’s just the beginning. As the first episode of a five-part series, The Walking Dead is off to a great start. The game is priced at $5 a piece and is quite a good deal since the first episode is worth three hours of your time. Just like any series, you are left to anxiously wait for the next episode to come out. The problem is, there is no announced release date for the next episode. I’m definitely hooked and ready to go for another episode, but the hype can only last for so long and hopefully Telltale won’t take their sweet time releasing Episode 2.

Score: 89/100

Pros:

-          Likeable and believable cast of characters

-          Visuals are a perfect fit for the game

-          Choices you make shape your story

Cons:

-          You have to wait for until the next episode

-          Surprisingly heavy frame-rate drops

-          A lot more talking than action

Review: Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City(PS3)

When I heard about Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, I was instantly excited for its release, since it had two things that we’ve never seen in a Resident Evil console game: four player co-op, and the ability to shoot and move at the same time. Videos and trailers sealed the deal and I saw myself lining up to get my copy with a friend the day it was released. After just a day with the game, I realized that all the reasons why I wanted this game so much combined weren’t enough to swallow this mess.  Resident Evil fans, bear with me.

Story

The game takes place during the events of Resident Evil 2, and for the first time you’re playing as the infamous Umbrella Corporation. You play as either one of the members of the Wolfpack and are tasked with entering Raccoon City and erasing all evidence that could trace the outbreak back to Umbrella.  You witness how the virus was released in Raccoon City. It was a treat to walk through the streets of Raccoon City once again in a different perspective, but the story had no impact at all, nothing to keep me interested in what’s going on. To make matters worse, even if you are interested in the Wolfpack’s experience in Raccoon City, you are only given 6 chapters that will only take around four to five hours to complete. Given that it’s only a four-hour campaign, the plot holes in the story make the whole experience even less appealing, leaving me let down when the credits started rolling.

The characters you play also lack a sense of any personality whatsoever. Actually scratch that, all the characters you meet in this game are hopelessly dull. Most of the team is masked anyways, so when they give us vaguely emotional dialogue scenes, it just comes out awkward.

You meet the iconic characters Leon and Claire from Resident Evil 2 as enemies in the campaign. Umbrella command orders Wolfpack to eliminate the famous characters and you see your squad on the hunt for them. Resident Evil fans will get a kick out of this but they might end up disappointed since the story doesn’t stay true to the events of the earlier game.

The graphics are nothing to write home about, but Six Slant Games did do well in terms of recreating Raccoon City. Did it keep the scary atmosphere of RE 2? Not really. You are mostly on the move and you can tell they weren’t trying to create a survival horror atmosphere. Even the game’s score doesn’t give you that fear that you are in an infected town surrounded by zombies. You do visit the Raccoon City Police station, and seeing it just the way it was way back when is pretty cool.

Gameplay

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City’s gameplay is what caught my eye at first; they had a great concept for a Resident Evil game, but absolutely dropped the ball on the execution. At long last for a major RE game (Resident Evil: Mercenaries 3D for the 3DS non-withstanding), you can shoot and move at the same time, a feature fans have been wanting for over a decade. Another first is the ability to play the game co-op with three other players. You might be wondering: how could that possibly go wrong? Playing with three friends in a Resident Evil game with the ability to shoot and move? Sounds like a winner, right? Wrong. Everything else around and building up to those two features ruins the experience.

My biggest deal-breaker is the cover system, which bothered the hell out of me. To get into cover, you simply go near some cover and your character will instantly stick to it. To get out you simply pull your character away. It becomes more of a pain than an actual tool to keep you alive. It’s also inconsistent, since you find your character unable to stick to some cover environments, leaving you to take a few shots because of a bug. I mostly avoided using the cover and was able to maneuver and protect myself better by doing so.

The cover is so bad that even enemies don’t use it… Just kidding. They use it, but just barely, since they are the worst AI I’ve ever seen in a game. Spec Ops soldiers show up all bunched up together and just stand there, shooting at you. They also at times don’t even notice that you are beside them and still continue to shoot at your allies that are far away. The zombies at least act like how zombies should, but the humans you face in this game feel like a waste of time to encounter. They’re more like a chore, since it takes tons of ammo to take one down. Don’t get me started on how Tyrants act in this game.

Aside from the Spec Ops soldiers, you face: different kinds of zombies, a creature called the Hunter, the infamous licker from the second game, and even Tyrants. I was excited to see my first licker in the game since I remember them freaking me out way back when I first encountered one in Resident Evil 2. Yet even they are a disappointment here, as they feel more like harmless spiders, crawling on ceilings and walls. You see the bad AI in the lickers as well, since you can often observe them struggling to get to you. It’s even common for them to get stuck on a part of the ceiling, leaving them as easy prey.

Don’t think your AI allies (if you really chose to play solo) are better than the enemies - they’re even worse. Your allies don’t revive you; they trigger traps, and hardly kill anything. They even wander aimlessly by themselves or get stuck in environments. AI pathing is bad and you should play this game with friends to save yourself the pain of dealing with these pathetic allies.

The third-person shooting ends up being decent, at least. The controls to shoot your gun are the standard L1 to zoom in and R1 to pull the trigger. The shooting I can forgive but I spent more time looking for ammo than shooting. You burn ammo fast, since enemies you face can take a bullet, as if they are all Tyrants. The gun sounds don’t help the immersion either, since I didn’t feel the weight or power of my gun. Ammo packs are placed conveniently in each area so it isn’t that tough to get more ammo, but be aware that you’ll find yourself doing that a lot.

The melee system here wasn’t bad either, but it gets awful repetitive after you watch the 50th zombie get killed by the same kill animation. Pressing O makes you do a melee attack, and when you get an enemy staggered (usually after the first melee) you can press X to execute him. There are different executions like smashing someone’s head to a wall but it’s still not enough to elevate its being repetitive. Oh, and because zombies often overwhelm you and you burn ammo quick, you’ll be swinging your arms a lot.

Your secondary weapon is a pistol and is actually a bit more useful than your primary at times. It takes longer to run out of ammo and has this auto aim feature that instantly locks on any enemy that’s in front of your character. It’s meant to quickly deal with enemies that would overwhelm you, but I just use it for the auto-aim.

Character progression

When you complete each chapter, you earn experience, which is used to unlock new guns and class skills. Yes, there are classes in this game. Each character in the Wolfpack specializes in a specific class. The available classes are Recon, Surveillance, Demolition, Assault, Field Scientist, and Medic. Each one has three passive skills, and three skills that you can activate. You can only equip one active skill though, so you’ll have to choose which skills you would like to bring onto a session. It’s pretty cool in theory, but I didn’t really see an impact from most of these skills. Each skill in the game has three levels, but most of the improvements when you level them up feel like a waste of experience points. For example - the Demolition class’s timed explosive. At level one it will detonate after 4 seconds, max it and it will detonate after 8. Huh?

On the flipside, some skills can be useful such as the Assault’s incendiary rounds skill or the Surveillance’s Threat Scanner that reveals all the enemies in all the players’ mini-maps. With all the skills, it seems that teamwork is needed to make it worthwhile, but during my first play-through of the short campaign, I hardly used these skills and ended up just powering through. All your unlockables are carried into the multiplayer, which is where I really started to test every skill.

Mulitplayer

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City’s multiplayer is a four-on-four game with around four game modes to choose from, which I’ll get to in a bit. While I was hoping that the multiplayer would provide a better experience than the campaign, all the problems I had during the campaign were present in the multiplayer. The unique thing about this multiplayer is that it’s like a three way battle against the good guys, bad guys, and the monsters of the game. As you worry about the opposing team, you also have to worry about the zombies and lickers out to get you. Again, this is a great concept destroyed by poor execution. Midway through a match, it becomes chaotic. Everybody running for their lives, separated. It is even hard to tell a real enemy player to a zombie, which makes it difficult to get things done for your team to win. It just goes out of control real fast and takes the fun out of the match. You have no idea how many awkward moments I had when I noticed an enemy right beside me, and then discovering that my enemy just noticed it too.

The game modes are Team Deathmatch, Biohazard, Survivor, and Heroes. Team Deathmatch is self-explanatory. Biohazard is like capture the flag but instead of flags, it’s vials and you need to grab four and return them to your base. ‘Heroes’ lets you play iconic heroes and villains like Leon, Jill or HUNK with your goal being to kill all the opposing team’s iconic characters. Players that have already died will respawn as normal characters and will have to defend the heroes left alive in their team. It’s sort of like protect the VIP, with a twist. The last, and actually the worst mode among the four is Survivor. In this four-on-four match you simply have to survive until the transport helicopter arrives to extract four survivors. There are only four seats, so you’ll have to fight for them. The funny thing is, you can die and respawn. So what’s there to survive? You can even share a seat with an enemy already on the chopper, so it doesn’t really make sense. There’s no real point in either going against the enemy or helping your team.

There’s not much to unlock, so the lasting appeal of the multiplayer is not even close to a month at best. Heck, you might see yourself tired of it in two weeks.  I also encountered long game matchmaking and lag that leaves you an easy target.

For the first time, I was deeply disappointed after purchasing a Resident Evil game. I was trying to find something good out of getting this game but the best I can come up with is that you can experience this train wreck with friends. A very short campaign, bugs everywhere, horrible AI for enemies and allies, a painful cover system, and a multiplayer that isn’t much fun to play. The concepts for this game sounded great, but were executed terribly by Slant Six Games. Maybe next time Capcom will think twice of giving one of their beloved franchises to another developer, because I can easily say that this is the worst Resident Evil title that was ever developed.

Score: 50/100 Pros:

-          Revisiting the iconic Raccoon City was a treat

Cons:

-          Horrible cover system

-          Bad AI for both enemies and allies

-          Very short campaign

-          Weak multiplayer

Review: Child of Eden (Xbox 360)

Child of Eden (Xbox 360) Review

When news broke that Tetsuya Mizuguchi was developing another mind-trip of a rhythm shooter, I was on-board right away. Mizuguchi, the genius behind Rez, Lumines, Meteos and Space Channel 5, is a master at combining powerful audio-visual experiences with intense gameplay. No one really knew what to expect from a game called Child of Eden. Then at E3 2010, Mizuguchi showcased the game with the Kinect sensor, surprising everyone with its amazing, abstract graphics, electronic/J-pop soundtrack and a game mechanic that seemed perfectly matched to Microsoft’s peripheral – using one’s hands to control two targeting reticules.

The prospect of controlling a shooting game with Kinect was a little daunting, but I was up for the challenge. After my aunt bought my little sister a Kinect for Christmas, I knew that as a fan of Q Games’ previous titles I simply had to get this game and try it out.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Right off the bat, Child of Eden drops you into a digital wonderland with a stylish live-action intro scene. Story-wise, the game is a prequel to the much-loved Rez, and your objective is to save Project Lumi from a virus attack so that it can create Eden, the AI whom your character must save in Rez. If you’ve never played Rez, I highly recommend the HD remake with extra content (Rez HD) to anyone interested in trying a rhythm-rail-shooter hybrid. It’s available for relatively cheap on XBLA, and if you enjoy Rez, you’re sure to love Child of Eden.

Be forewarned: this is not your average rail-shooter, although it’s easy to miss this fact if you’re not aware of the combo-chain system. If you’re playing it right, it’s a hybrid of rail shooter and rhythm game, rewarding players for releasing the lock-on attack along with the beats of the music. Only full-lock-ons (8 enemies) will build towards your combo, and the only way to lose your combo is to lock on to 8 enemies and release the lock on without hitting the beat. The basic principle is to stay on the beat, and build up your multiplier, which is easy enough since your shots always line up with the music, creating new samples that in turn add complexity to the soundtrack.

The controls are pretty simple. Interestingly, there’s an ongoing argument as to which is the better control scheme, the controller or the Kinect. With the controller you have more accuracy and the vibrating pulse actually helps a lot in keeping the beat, but your reticule moves slower than with Kinect, a disadvantage at some spots.

The left hand (RT/R2 on the controller) controls a pulsing violet laser called the ‘tracer’ and is needed to exterminate missiles, certain enemies and barriers. The right hand (A button) is the main weapon, a lock-on system very similar to the one in Rez. Lock-ons are released via wrist flicks, which can be subtle or exaggerated. Kinect has proven to be surprisingly responsive in its ability to detect wrist flicks, although after an hour or so in Child of Eden’s digital tunnels, your wrists and arms are guaranteed to be sore. Mastering the eight-lock combo system is essential to establishing chains in the game and getting your multiplier up, and the satisfying sounds you create from unleashing lock-on shots add greatly to the experience.

I’ve found that Kinect is a surprisingly solid control choice for the game, despite my reservations (the peripheral has some known lag issues, and is not always perfect). Kinect can be picky with regards to lighting despite the fact that it’s supposed to be infrared, and on some occasions I found my cursor doing things I didn’t want it to. On the whole, however, the Kinect feels like the definitive way to experience this game and I recommend it wholeheartedly. However, I’ve noticed that on the leaderboards, the controller scores are higher than the Kinect scores (they are in separate categories), so for competitive-level play I have to give it to the controller. Patience and memorization are key to improving one's score, as is a good sense of rhythm and timing. I am happy to report that anyone who enjoys climbing leaderboards will find lots of replay value here. Child of Eden is just as much a colorful acid trip and light show as it is a game.

Like many shooters before it, Child of Eden has a ‘bomb’ that can be used to exterminate enemies on-screen should they overwhelm the player. Hitting B or raising both arms in the air activates ‘euphoria’, which creates a trippy laser show that obliterates opponents. I rarely used euphoria, and using it takes some points off your score, but it can be very handy in situations where you find yourself overwhelmed by missiles.

Dreamlike Levels

The six archives in Child of Eden are so epic and differ from one another so greatly that at times it feels like you’re playing six different games. Everyone will have a favorite archive or two. It’s hard not to be taken on an emotional journey while playing the ‘Evolution’ archive, and I’ve taken a personal liking to the ‘Journey’ and ‘Hope’ archives, the latter an extra level with a down-tempo hip-hop beat that remains unbeaten by me despite multiple attempts. A quick glance at the leaderboards shows that not everyone has actually made it to the end of this monstrosity of a level, without a doubt the most difficult in the game.

With no multiplayer to speak of, the leaderboards and unlockables provide the majority of the game’s replay value. I’ve spent a few hours trying to whittle up my score in order to up my rank. Unfortunately there is no ability to save replays, but I find it completely understandable since the archives themselves are quite long – an average of ten minutes each.

It’s difficult to describe too much of what goes on without spoiling some of the game’s many surprises, but suffice it to say you will navigate a wide variety of locations and encounter translucent glowing serpents, missile-firing spaceships, neon fret-boards, a giant clock tower, massive flying whales, manta rays, a flaming phoenix, and enormous flowers, just to name a few of the sights you’ll see. The running boss from Rez also makes a return appearance, this time as two bosses. Not knowing what trippy sights and sounds are just around the corner is a huge part of the appeal of this game. In all seriousness, this is the final nail in the coffin of the ‘games are not art’ argument. Simply put, if this game isn’t art, then nothing is art. There’s enough awesome symbolism here to inspire a master’s thesis at an art institute.

The game flows effortlessly from one locale to the next, subdividing each archive into segments connected by portals that take you ever deeper down the rabbit hole that is Project Lumi. Mizoguchi has said that Child of Eden, like Rez, is an experiment in inducing synesthesia, a neurological state where stimulation in one of the senses creates involuntary experiences in another. This game gets you in ‘the zone’ very quickly, and before long you’ll be playing it on absolute instinct.

The differences between Rez and Child of Eden begin with the latter game’s two-weapon control scheme, longer archives and more layered audio. Rez by comparison is a much more minimalistic game, but not necessarily in a bad way. At times the archives in Child of Eden can be over-long and suffer from a feeling of being stretched out in order to either fit the songs or lengthen the experience, whereas Rez was a perfectly fluid shooter that had a reasonable difficulty with a few challenging spots, mainly during boss battles. By contrast, a few random sections in Eden can be frustrating and kill you quickly, yet most of the game is a total cakewalk. The demanding areas left me scratching my head, since dying really throws off the groove of the game and takes one out of the experience. The easy mode, Feel Eden, is too easy and does not include all the levels, while Hard mode is simply annoying, thanks to missile spam. Next time around, I would rather Mizoguchi either (a) make the entire game with a single difficulty curve, or (b) make the entire game easy with a more complex and less forgiving combo system.

My own opinion is that Eden’s ‘filler’ sections were put specifically to act as buffer breaks for Kinect users to rest their arms, but in all honesty the exhaustion of playing through a level multiple times outweighs the benefits of having rest periods within the levels themselves. It’s the difference between listening to one ten-minute song and two five-minute songs – you’re not always in the mood to play a ten-minute song, but two five-minute ones might be just the right amount.

Similarly to Rez, the multi-form bosses here provide many of the game’s best moments. I would be doing a disservice by describing the specific boss battles, but I think it’s enough to say that you won’t be disappointed.

With all that said, it’s difficult to compare the two games, because of the thematic and stylistic differences. I would say that Rez is a more focused shooter with a low-key dub soundtrack, whilst Child of Eden is more of an intense sensory experience, a viable alternative to going to a rave. If I had to recommend any game from the history of gaming to play in an altered state of consciousness, Child of Eden would be at the very top of my list.

Incredible audio-visual synthesis

This is the type of game that is just begging to be played in 1080p with a surround sound system. I bought an HDMI cable and hooked this up to a video projector with Kinect just to get the full experience. The way the colors pop out and the backgrounds sparkle and teem with life is a sight you don’t want to miss. It’s the closest you’ll get to a laser light show in your own living room, and the many extras including art galleries and visual effects that can enhance your experience go a long way towards extending the life of the game.

The soundtrack, by Mizoguchi’s own group Genki Rockets, is a mix of electronic, trance and J-pop. If you enjoyed their LP “Heavenly Star”, you’ll find a lot to like here, as the archives contain plenty of samples and remixed segments from the songs on that album. Every level has a different sound to it, although it’s not the kind of material you might expect to hear at a club. For the most part the music is actually quite low-key, allowing the sounds you create by ‘purifying’ enemies to lead the mix. Because it’s so difficult to describe how well all these great elements come together to create a unified experience, I strongly recommend viewing a few minutes of the game on YouTube in order to get a good sense of what to expect.

Another milestone in rhythm gaming

I feel that there is still so much to write about Child of Eden, but most of it is based on theory and has no place in a formal review. I do feel it’s important to get the word out there so that anyone with an interest in this mostly overlooked game might be inspired to give it a shot.

Just how much do I, personally, love this game? Three of my favorite types of games are hybrid games, rhythm games and rail shooters, so I might be a little biased when I say that Child of Eden is one of my top three of 2011, just behind Dark Souls and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. It’s not a game I’ve spent more than 20 hours on, but it’s been one of the more memorable games of my life.

However, as much as I wish I could give it a higher score, I have to acknowledge that Child of Eden is not a game for everyone. It’s short, for one, and most players will not have a chance to experience it on Kinect. It’s not as hardcore as most rail shooters (a pro at bullet hell games can ‘beat’ this in a weekend) and its rhythm elements are simple in theory but often difficult in execution, yet this isn’t the kind of game you play for any one reason.

The reason to play this game is that life is too short to miss out on new and exciting experiences. If you’ve ever been to a rave, a laser light show or an electronic concert and wanted to take that intense, euphoric feeling of sensory-induced connectedness home with you, by all means, let Child of Eden take you away.

Score: 90/100

Pros:

-        Unique hybrid rhythm/rail-shooter gameplay with fantastic bosses

-        Epic soundtrack and visuals

-        Trippy sensory experience like no other

Cons:

-        Relatively short

-        Random difficulty spikes in some archives can be distracting

Review: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

After the monumental success of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, a third game was sure to happen. Two years later, Naughty Dog announced Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception and just like any other fan of the series, I was cautiously excited. The bar set by the second game was very high, prompting the big question that’s been hovering in our heads since – could the third game in this epic trilogy possibly top the second?

It’s good to be back!

Drake’s crew is back and this time around it’s a bit more personal. The game once again revolves around Sir Francis Drake, Nathan Drake’s ancestor. The story starts with Drake and Sully meeting up with Talbot (one of the antagonists) to do a trade with Sir Francis Drake’s ring for a huge lump sum of money. The trade goes sour and after a quick introduction of the improved melee system for the game, we are introduced to the true villain of Drake’s Deception, Catherine Marlow, who has a strong resemblance to actress Helen Mirren. Believe it or not, she is actually the best villain to have come out of the series.

Sir Francis Drake’s ring is said to be a key to unlocking one of Drake’s secrets. A flashback happens showing a very young Nathan Drake stealing the ring from a museum 20 years ago. Not only does it show the importance of the ring, it also shows the other focus of the story, the relationship with Drake and Sully. A bromance if you will, rather than the common relationship between Elena and Drake from the last two games. Sully is considered a mentor or a father figure to Nathan Drake and during his attempt to steal the ring, you witness Drake and Sully meeting for the first time. Not too dramatic, but it was great to see how it all started. The third game greatly expands what we know about Drake, a welcome touch.

As expected from an Uncharted game, the story is good, worth experiencing in its ten-hour duration. But this time around, something is a little off. The pacing of this game is completely different from its predecessor. In Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, everything that was happening on-screen was perfectly paced from start to finish. All I had to do was just absorb all the epic moments happening before me. In Drake’s Deception, there were parts in the story that made me go “Wait, why?” I won’t mention the specifics in order to keep the review spoiler free, but some scenes just felt unnecessary, or felt added just for over-the-top scene that came with it. I still came out satisfied with the story. But one thing’s for sure; you can clearly feel the developers’ self-inflicted pressure to outclass their second game.

If you’re worried about polish, don’t be. Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception’s production value is just what we expect from Naughty Dog these days. The motion capture and voice acting are superb. The cinematic feel which makes the game different from others is spot on, plus you can sense a bit of maturity in the characters. Nathan Drake is still the smart-ass treasure hunter with a say about everything around him. Sully is still that guy you can always count on and Elena Fisher is charming as ever. You can tell something obviously went wrong between Drake and Elena in between games two and three, so I like that the devs play around with that and hint at it throughout the story. Chloe from the second game makes an appearance, but sadly, hangs around for only the first half of the campaign. So does the new character Charlie whom I started to like too.

Uncharted wouldn’t be Uncharted without those epic moments and Drake’s Deception delivered on that front. The third has the best ones in the series and can still make your jaw drop. If you think the featured cargo plane scene was epic, wait until you play through the ending part of the game. I had such a huge smile when it ended. That last part of the game literally pushed the PS3 to its limits. These moments defy the Uncharted series, and it’s good to see that after three games, the epic plateaus just get better and better.

The gameplay is still the same with a few tweaks. The climbing system doesn’t have much of a change but is still easy to grasp and is satisfying. As you climb around buildings, ruins, and burning chateaus, it was easy to figure out where exactly to go and not once did I find a bug that ruined the experience. The fact that the climbing was easy allows the player to pay more attention to what Drake is going through and enjoy it. When Drake is near certain death, the simplified controls allow you to maneuver him through the stage quickly, allowing you to focus on survival.

Another two core components of Uncharted 3’s gameplay are the cover and shooting systems, which stay somewhat the same. The cover system is simply one button to either get into cover, or maneuver yourself around the environment to keep yourself safe. The shooting is like any third person shooter, with L1 to aim and R1 to shoot. The aim for the third is said to be completely different for the worse, but I honestly had no issue with it. It’s not even a real issue anymore, since Naughty Dog quickly responded with a patch to improve the aiming.

Brawling 3.0

Melee has been greatly improved in this installment. When engaged in melee combat, the game slows just a bit for you to react and do a counter or a dodge against the enemy. Depending on the situation, every time you counter-attack, Drake will do something entirely different. Press the button when told to do so and if the enemy has a grenade in his pocket, Drake will pull the pin and push him away. When near objects like beer bottles or other objects, pressing the melee button will automatically make Drake make use of it to get the upper hand. Enemies can also two man you (one holding you down) but can easily be taken care of if you pay attention. It a lot more dynamic compared to how it used to be. You can tell they wanted melee to be just as exciting as everything else in the game. They seem very pleased with the improvements and pit Drake into six-on-one situations a lot, forcing the player to use the improved system.

There are puzzles in the game that prove as sort of an icebreaker from all the action in the game. They are quite clever and really make you pause to think about it for a minute. To figure out each puzzle, you are given an option to press Select and bring out Drake’s trusty notebook, which has all the notes needed to solve the current puzzle. All the clues you need are in the environment and on the notes, so all you have to do is think outside the box. Every puzzle has a good balance. Not extremely hard, but clever enough to satisfy you when you’ve figured it out on your own.

You put that all those features together and you get an Indiana jones movie, being played by you. Every element of the game complements each other so well it’s a treat to even watch. In one part you find yourself surrounded by thugs and are forced to brawl yourself out of there, while the next has Drake hanging for his life, trying to climb a rusty boat, but at the same time shooting baddies already at the top. The gameplay never gets dull, but sudden changes in its difficulty scale can surprise you.

In one part you find an area with a reasonable amount of enemies, and then all of a sudden it feels as if you’re fighting a whole army that starts spawning out of nowhere, catching you off guard. It took some time to deal with that part of the game. After I finished that area, the difficulty all of a sudden went back to normal, as if the devs wanted to make that part a nightmare for the heck of it. It then appears again out of nowhere towards the end. Instead of slowly increasing the difficulty in the game as you progress, you are given this sudden spike of increased difficulty in one area that makes you want to throw the controller out the window.

As I said earlier, this game really pushes the PS3 to its limits. Where the game pushes the console is really in the environments and how many elements are moving at the same time. The best example I can give you is the boat stage, making the whole boat sway as it goes through a storm. Chairs, barrels and other objects (even you) start moving around, which also affects aiming, by the way. Not only did it look amazing, I’ve honestly never experienced a stage like that before. The environments in Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception make it one of the best-looking games to hit the PS3. It also performed very well during my first play-through. Not a single frame drop, but I did experience the audio un-syncing from the video a couple of times.  Aside from that, the game ran very well all the way to the end.

Multiplayer

The multiplayer is still around and it’s way better now. There’s a lot more ways to customize your characters now – from clothing, more perks, banners, down to weapon mods. The traditional leveling system of any multiplayer is present and is believed to reach all the way to level 100. So yes, if you get addicted to it, you have tons of stuff to unlock. If you’re into reaching for the max, this multiplayer might take a lot of your time. The multiplayer aspect of Drake’s Deception will still include competitive and co-op modes, so there’s a lot to go around for any player.

There are tons of modes to choose from. The common Team Deathmatch is present and other basics like a domination type of game, they also have a mode that gives you a mixture of different modes in one match. Kickbacks make a return and are special rewards when you earn enough medals in a match.You set what kind of kickback you want in your load-out and when you reach the right amount of medals during the match, you can trigger it anytime.Medals can be earned by doing three assists, running around the map a lot, doing a triple kill, etc. Kickbacks give you an edge in a match - for example, spawning a loaded RPG in your hands to use right away or doing a smoke-screen kickback which randomly teleports you somewhere on the map, which is mainly used to avoid death.

Multiplayer plays differently compared to the single player. In multiplayer, you are given a sprint button. How I wish I had that on the real game. It’s a good addition; the sprint makes the match a bit faster-paced, making it easier to go around each map. Another addition which makes each match intense is the introduction of power plays. These power plays are given to the team currently losing to give them a chance to catch up. There are three power plays given in each match. The first power play is simply a mini objective: one player in the winning team becomes a VIP, and if the enemy kills that player, they earn two points for him. The second power play gives you vision in the mini map where enemies are for a short time. The third and last is pretty painful; it bestows double damage upon enemies. Now if you don’t catch up or even win after all those power plays, your team really deserves the loss.

It’s mostly seen in Team Deathmatch, but the reason why I appreciate this new feature is that it gives the losing team an incentive to keep trying, while at the same time if you’re on the winning team, the game won’t be boring, since you’ll feel the pressure of the added power play. It keeps it exciting for both sides. I’ve experienced catching up and earning the win since we capitalized on the power plays and also felt the win after going on the defense when the team earns the power plays. It only lasts for a short while, so it doesn’t really qualify as overpowered. I didn’t see too many balance issues during my time with the multiplayer. I had a great time with the multiplayer and the connections in each match were pretty solid.

If you don’t like being competitive and just want to have some friendly co-op with buddies, there’s Arena and Adventure. In Arena you play with two other players and fight against waves of enemy AI’s. More like a survival mode, Uncharted style. In Adventure, you ally up with two other players to play a stage to do a set of objectives together. Think of it as another stage from the single-player, but with two other players. It has a small story in it too. Multiplayer was definitely improved this time around and it feels like it’s going to have an even longer lasting appeal than Uncharted 2.

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is a great game, although it fails to surpass its predecessor. Still, this is one adventure you should not miss, an amazing action-adventure in its own right. The thing is, you can feel the pressure it had to surpass its predecessor. The bar was left so high, it seems as if they were only able to reach that bar, but never go over it.

After the credits started rolling, I felt goosebumps running through me. But as I looked back, I knew right away which game in the trilogy I preferred. For the people who are fans of the series, there is no doubt in my mind you’ll enjoy the third installment. For newcomers, I suggest exploring the first two games in order to fully appreciate the third.

Score: 90/100

Pros:

-          The game looks amazing

-          Action scenes that Hollywood should start paying attention to

-          Improved multiplayer

Cons:

-          Story’s pacing felt off

-          Random spikes in difficulty are often frustrating