Driver: San Francisco

Here’s a blast from the past – remember Driver? Well, Reflections (now owned by Ubisoft) have announced that the legendary driving franchise shall return later this year on PC, PS3, Xbox 360, Mac and possibly the Wii at this year’s E3.

I’ve been waiting for this game for just over 4 years and judging from this trailer, it’s going to be a hoot.

But there’s more – gameplay!

From that video, it’s obvious that Driver is officially back. And by Driver I mean the two original PS1 titles, not the God-awful PS2 titles (GTA clones, which is ironic as GTA wouldn’t exist if it weren’t were Driver). I’m not sure about the whole “Tanner-being-in-a-coma-and-having-supernatural-powers-that-allow-him-to-teleport-to-different-vehicles” thing. To be honest I think it’s shit and belongs to Science Fiction version of Pursuit Force, not Driver. But hey, San Francisco is practically a reboot of the franchise so I guess it needs something new and interesting. Lets just hope it doesn’t turn out as shit as it looks/sounds.

So no more GTA knock-offs. San Francisco will take the franchise back to its routes. Which if you ask me, has been a long time coming.

Red Dead: Redemption – PS3 vs Xbox 360

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I honestly cannot tell the difference.

0:06 – The water and the ship look exactly the same.
0:08 – PS3 version is darker, but that doesn’t mean it’s any better or worse than the 360 version.
0:11 – Identical.
0:13 – Darker on PS3, but identical.
0:20 – Darker on PS3, but identical.
0:23 – Exactly the same (The sky looks different on the PS3 version because it was recorded at a different time of day during the game).
0:28, 0:31, 0:34, 0:37-0:43, 0:44, 0:48-0:54, 0:54, 0:55-1:04, 1:04 & 1:05 – ALL IDENTICAL.

For those who say the 360 version looks better, or vice-versa, then you are obviously blind. I bet you’re one of those people who can’t tell the difference between video quality on a DVD and a Blu-ray. Blu-ray is blatantly better than DVD, and Red Dead: Redemption looks exactly the same on both versions. So stop complaining and play the damn game, like we did in the good old days.

Now, if RDR was released on the PC then that would be a completely different story. *hint hint Rockstar!*

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction review – 6.5/10

Like my Heavy Rain review, I’m not sure that this is completely finished as there is quite a lot to cover. Anyway, here’s my (hopefully) final draft.

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction– PC & Xbox 360.
Rating – 17+, M.

At last another chance to play as the legendary Sam Fisher as he embarks on another challenging and exciting mission. But does this mission live up to the hype and the Splinter Cell franchise’s standards? In short: For die-hard fans, no. For everyone else: Yes. Sort of.
I won’t bother getting into what the franchise is about as it’s been around for many years, so I’m sure most gamers are aware of it. I’ll just jump right into Conviction.

Conviction portrays Sam in a slightly different light from previous titles. He’s no longer working for Third Echelon; the sub-division within the NSA, and is tracking down the killer of his daughter Sarah who allegedly died from a drunk driving accident at the beginning of Double Agent. However, he also encounters a huge terrorist threat to the US and must work with some old colleagues, including the infamous Anna Grímsdóttir. So if you thought that Double Agent was a departure from the franchise (as did I), then you’ll be shocked at just how much Conviction throws the entire franchise out the window. They way the story is told reminded me of several episodes of 24. This is both a good and a bad thing. It’s good because the game introduces some new, interesting and well-implemented features and ideas but also takes some of the other things that fans have grown to love over the years away from them.

First, the good stuff – Splinter Cell: Conviction has a totally different art style from any of the previous titles. Instead of using your OPSAT to view objectives, they are now projected onto the environment in big white letters (pictured above). Only Sam can see them so they work well and keep you immersed in the world without removing you by taking you to an objectives menu. Flashbacks and introductions of new characters are also projected onto the environment in movie-form which also work really well.

Another cool feature is the “Last Known Position”. Basically if Sam is spotted and he is able to sneak back into the shadows, a silhouette of where he was once was will appear. This is where the enemy thinks Sam is and they will try to flank it. While they’re doing this, Sam can use it to his advantage and take the enemy out with ease.

Probably the biggest and coolest new feature in Conviction is “Mark & Execute”. Sam can scan a room for enemies and then “mark” them, which places a red arrow above their heads. When he is ready he can “execute” them all by shooting them quickly and simultaneously at the press of a button. Sam looks totally awesome when he does this; kind of like Jack Bauer from (again) 24, and it makes the player feel like a predator. No more hiding in the shadows for uncle Sam. You can also upgrade your weapons so that they can mark more enemies, creating a deeper level of strategy that the franchise hasn’t seen before. However, marking and executing every enemy makes the game pretty easy and the whole feature is pretty much taken right out of Rainbow Six: Vegas; another game developed by Ubisoft Montreal.

As for the upgradeable weapons – they’re pretty pointless. Apart from increasing the number of marks you can use you won’t find yourself rushing to upgrade anything else such as ammo capacity as there’s barely ever too many enemies in a room at once for one clip to take out. Silencers are pretty much useless unless your playing the game in stealth, but why would you need guns for that? And all the pistols have unlimited ammo making all the other guns and grenade-types irrelevant. I mean seriously, does Sam really need proxy mines and an automatic assault rifle?

Those who played the previous titles can expect plenty of sneaking around in the shadows, using enemies as human shields, hanging from pipes, peeking under doors, shooting lights, the works. The game pulls it all off perfectly. In addition, the game switches from colour to black and white whenever Sam is hidden in the shadows. But with the Mark & Execute system, you’ll be tempted to go guns blazing and murder everyone in your path. And with the amount of guns that are on offer, including a new and improved SC30K, that can all be upgraded, Conviction doesn’t always feel like a Splinter Cell game. Or a stealth game for that matter. At times I felt like I was playing Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon or Double Agent again, and that’s not a good thing.

Splinter Cell: Conviction is by no means the prettiest in the franchise. It’s certainly better looking than the first two games, but it simply cannot hold a candle to Chaos Theory or even Double Agent. The character models look good and the lighting can be pretty eye-catching at times. Unfortunately the weapons and environments are a little low-res and the lip-sync is unforgivably bad. Almost as bad as Pandora Tomorrow’s.

Sound-wise however, Conviction is top notch. Explosions, gunshots, shattering glass and music sound magnificent. But where the game really shines is the voice acting. Michael Ironside returns as Sam Fisher and does a great job at it. The original voice of Grímsdóttir, Claudia Besso also reprises her role, and even Don Jordan comes back for a small audio recording of Irving Lambert, Sam’s old boss.

Now for the stuff that simply doesn’t work – opening doors. Yes, it sounds like a simple task. Sam’s never had any trouble with it before. But in Conviction, you need to be looking at a specific spot of a door so that a “open door” prompt appears onscreen. This works for other things too; look at the bottom of a door to display the “peek under door” prompt, a specific spot on a wall to display the “climb wall” prompt, and so on. Those prompts are little too specific for my liking. Whatever happened to the little drop down menu that every Splinter Cell title has had up until now? Why fix what isn’t broken?

I’ve saved the worst ’til last, the AI – it’s dumb. And I mean really, really dumb. When they spot Sam they will immediately alert each other of his presence, attack in groups and attempt to assault his position. That’s all well and good, until they loose sight of him and his position turns into his Last Known Position. They will do everything in their power to empty every clip, lob every grenade and shout every swear word under the sun at this Last Known Position, and when they realise he’s not there they will aimlessly search the same square yard of floor space before giving up. I remember one time after interrogating one of the villains in the game, a bunch of Splinter Cell agents (pictured below) repelled in from the roof to intercept Sam. Not only were they incredibly late, but all I had to do to take them down was remain in the small room I was in, wait for them to rush in one by one and shoot them in the head from around a corner. Talk about unprofessional and moronic. They also appeared to have they’re goggles on wonky.

Splinter Cell: Conviction is one of those games that is good on its surface but once you dig down to its core, it’s just average. Newcomers to the franchise will like what they see and will enjoy the ride, but die-hard fans will no doubt be disappointed with a broken, unfulfilled, basic and fatigued mess.

The Good

• It may be taken straight out of 24, but the storyline is still good and takes the franchise in a different direction.
• Great sound and voice acting, original cast members return with brilliant performances.
• A decent cover system – point where you want Sam to go and press a button, simple.
• When used properly, the Mark & Execute system is brutally effective and deadly.
• Visual effects such as projected text and Last Known Position work well and add a sense of art to the game.

The Bad

• The AI is as thick as pig shit. They also swear far too much (which is fucking rich coming from me).
• Cover system can be clunky and unresponsive.
• Upgrading weapons seems pointless.
• Onscreen prompts make for some tricky manoeuvres such as opening doors or jumping over things.
• Mark & Execute makes the game far too easy and not feel like Splinter Cell at all.
• The DRM that Ubisoft brought out for Conviction and Assassin’s Creed II, while I never had any problems with it as my internet connection is pretty stable, will drive some PC gamers insane. It constantly prevents you from playing the game when the slightest blip in your connection appears.

My Score

6.5/10.

Splinter Cell: Conviction, PC version issues

My copy of Conviction arrived today. So far, the game is good. Apart from the fact that it keeps crashing, constantly. I’ve looked around and it seems to be an issue with my graphics card’s drivers. The front of the box said the game has issues with ATI Radeon HD 3000 series cards, but mine is a 4000 series so I don’t see why it should he having problems. Still, I’m downloading some stuff now that should hopefully fix the problem.

Damn you, Ubisoft. Why couldn’t you just release this game on the PS3 so that I and thousands of others wouldn’t be in this mess?

EDIT: All it took was an update ATI Catalyst Control Centre and the game now runs perfectly. Expect a review once I’ve finished it.

EDIT 2: Review currently being written.

Aliens vs Predator review – 6.8.0/10

Aliens vs Predator– PC, PS3 & Xbox 360.
Rating – 16+, T.

I don’t normally review, or play for that matter, games based on films. Or watch films based on games, or whatever. But when I saw a trailer for the then-upcoming AvP game I was intrigued, and after playing the multiplayer demo I was hooked. So I watched the two AvP movies and then jumped straight into the full version of this game.

The game is divided into three separate campaigns; Alien, Predator & Marine. I’ll review each campaign’s positive and negative points individually, starting with the Alien.

If you’ve ever played a Spider-Man game then you’ll feel right at home with the Alien – moving really fast and being able to crawl on almost any surface. The core gameplay is based around stealth. The Alien may be tough but it won’t survive a few shots from a pulse rifle or shotgun. So you’ll find yourself sticking to shadows, crawling on walls & ceilings and attacking enemies from behind with some extremely satisfyingly gruesome stealth kills. You control the Alien in the First Person view, which takes some getting used to. Crawling on walls in First Person can get a little confusing, disorientating and frustrating at times, especially when you’re trying to run away from some Marines armed to the teeth with laser-sighted M41As and grenades. But the overall experience is fun and quite unique. The Alien has two attacks; a light attack and a heavy attack. Which merely consist of a quick jab from it’s claws and an even harder jab from it’s claws/tail.

With the Predator, you have much more attacks at your disposal. You have your basic light and heavy melee attacks like the Alien, a pulse cannon mounted on your shoulder, proxy mines, a spear for long ranged attacks and a metal buzzsaw that acts like a boomerang. So yeah, a lot more firepower. The game runs on the same basic principles as the Alien campaign – stealth. In order to stay alive, the vast majority of your kills should be made from afar. But that shouldn’t stop you from trying to make all of your kills up close. Because it’s fun and rather challenging as the Predator is slightly underpowered at close range. You also have the ability to cloak yourself so that you cannot be seen as easily. Killing Marines as a Predator is incredibly satisfying. For example you can jump on one from above Assassin’s Creed-style, stick your claws through their back and rip their spine out with their head still attached.

Finally, the Marine. There isn’t really much to say about this campaign really. Except that it’s your basic First Person Shooter. You can use pulse rifles, shotguns, pistols, sniper rifles, grenades and your own bare hands. The gameplay works well, but I couldn’t help but notice that certain features that you’d expect to see in your average FPS were absent. For example, the ability to crouch or lean around corners.

Now for the negative stuff. All three of the campaigns are very short (five missions for the Alien & Predator, six missions for the Marine) and kind of leave you feeling like you’ve been cheated. Especially the Alien campaign. You fight a ton of Marines but only get to fight three Predators right at the end. That’s right, only three. In fact the other two campaigns are kind of odd too; you only fight one Predator as a Marine and you fight a fuck load of Marines as an Alien and a Predator. That may sound like the Predator has the best campaign, and for overall entertainment, it does. But both the Alien and Predator suffer the same problem: the melee attacks just feel like pure button-mashing and the animations that go with them don’t always fit or look right. The AI for the Marines when you’re playing as an Alien/Predator isn’t that great either. On many occasions I have snuck up next to a Marine (making quite a lot of noise and in broad daylight) and been completely ignored. They just walked right past me, giving me an easy stealth kill.

Graphically, the game looks rather good at times. There’s some impressive particle, dust and lighting effects to be found as well as some very good character models. But most of the time you’ll be looking at bland and somewhat boring, colours, textures and level design. You’ll be forever crawling through air ducts as an Alien and looking for switches and buttons as a Predator and Marine, which gets a bit tedious after a while. It would have been nice to explore the Predator’s ship as an Alien/Marine, but unfortunately you’re just confined to jungles, the Predator’s pyramid and some dark & dingy buildings.

Predominantly, Aliens vs Predator is a good game. A very good game in fact if you can look past all the poor design choices, sloppy textures, clunky melee attacks and repetitive animations. Maybe if Rebellion had used Unreal Engine 3, which Sega is using for their next title “Aliens: Colonial Marines“, instead of an engine that was responsible for some not-so-great titles, the end product would have been better.

The Good

- The Aliens & Predators look and sound exactly like they should. All the detail and sound effects from the movies are in there and they work brilliantly.

- Being attacked in a narrow corridor by a group of Aliens or suddenly being shot at by a distant, cloaked Predator really puts you in the shoes of the Marine. Playing as an Alien/Predator feels a little detached but the Marine feels like a more complete game.

- Really, really fun multiplayer. If you didn’t like the three campaigns then you might like the somewhat old school multiplayer. Imagine Doom 3 meets Unreal Tournament.

The Bad

- Bland and boring textures, silly level design and clumsy melee attacks really diminish the game’s overall experience.

- The three campaigns are meant to follow the same path, and they do, to a certain extent. But they don’t really intertwine all that well, creating a rather confusing storyline for those who haven’t seen the two movies. Hell, I was a bit confused and I have seen the two movies.

- The dodgy AI (walking too slowly, ignoring you, getting temporarily stuck on random objects), not-so-great lip-sync and slightly unbelievable animations make you wonder just how much time Rebellion actually put into this game.

My Score
I really wanted to give this at least a 7.0, but it just doesn’t quite cut it. It’s close, but not close enough – 6.8/10

Aliens vs. Predator multiplayer demo

Rebellion Developments have just released a multiplayer demo for their upcoming Aliens vs. Predator game. And I must say I’m quite impressed by it.

I’ve never played any of the previous AvP games and I haven’t seen any of the films, but I know the basic concept of it all. Not that you need to know much about the series to enjoy this game. You just jump straight in and enjoy it. You can play as either an Alien (scorpion-like creature with claws that can crawl on walls and bite people’s heads off), a Predator (tall monster with blades for hands and can turn invisible) or a Marine (guy with a gun).

The gameplay is extremely simple – players must run around a map and kill anything that moves. It sounds almost too simple but there’s nothing more satisfying that playing as a Predator, finding a Marine that’s just killed an Alien, creeping up behind him, stabbing him through the gut from behind and then ripping his head clean off. There’s a somewhat old-school feel to it all. I don’t know what it is, but it makes me feel like I’m playing Doom 3 again combined with Unreal Tournament. And that my friend, is a great combination. It’s available for pre-purchase right now via Steam.

The game will be released on February 16th in the US (I think) and Feb 19th in Europe. It’s quite cheap on Steam, so go ahead and pre-order your copy now. Hell, I might even review it when the time comes.

Console ports

By today’s standards, when a game comes out it is released on more than 1 platform. e.g. PC, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, etc. Most of the time, the game looks and performs exactly the same on every platform. But sometimes, a game is ported. This means that a game is developed for one specific platform and then slapped on top of all the other platforms.

The latest example of a port is Bayonetta. It was developed specifically for the Xbox 360 and was then ported to the PS3. The result? Washed out graphics, less vibrant colours, a lower frame rate and ridiculous load times.

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It’s still the same game, but porting it has really hurt the overall experience.

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Surely the developer could have designed each version specifically for each platform? Porting games just seems a little old fashioned these days, what with the technology we have now. I mean just look at the second Bayonetta picture. What the hell is going on with those PS3 wall textures!?

Another example of a recent port is the critically acclaimed Batman: Arkham Asylum. According to IGN in their Head-To-Head of the game, the PS3 version has screen-tearing and the Xbox 360 version is more detailed and has richer colours. But if you look at the comparison pictures they provided…:

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…where is the screen-tearing on the PS3 picture? I can’t see any. In fact, the PS3 picture looks significantly better than the 360 picture.

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The character models are clearly more sharper (ha, ha) on the PS3, and yet IGN says that the 360 version’s graphics are better. Tut tut.

It seems that nearly all games are developed for the Xbox 360 and then ported to the PS3. However there is a less successful game that was released on the 360 and PS3, and the PS3 version reigned supreme:

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That’s right, Mirror’s Edge. Why is it that all the big budget games look and perform better on the 360 but the PS3 gets the better version of a low budget disappointment? Anyway, the PS3 version of Mirror’s edge is a lot brighter, has far more vibrant colours, a higher frame rate and faster/less load times…

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(360 on top, PS3 on bottom)

…and better anti-aliasing.

Apart from Bayonetta, none of these ports are really that different from one another. Mainly because they’re on the same generation of consoles. It’s the previous generation consoles that suffer the most.

A perfect example is Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Oh dear Lord…

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Need I say more?

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No bump-mapping, no normal-mapping, inferior lighting…

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…less world objects and detail, less complicated level geometry, I could go on and on and on and on and on. It is by far the worst port I’ve ever seen in gaming history. I almost screamed when I purchased my PS2 version, started the first level and turned on Sam’s night vision goggles. It was just abysmal.

All this begs that same question – Why not develop games specifically for each platform instead of just porting them?

Left 4 Dead 2 – Aussie version

IGN AU review.

Those poor, poor Australians. They are seriously missing out. Hopefully some of them can get their hands on an unedited version and play the game to it’s full potential.

Video uploaded by yours truly.

PS3 firmware update 3.10

I just started downloading it now, and it’s utterly pointless. It consists of two things – Facebook and Polish as a System Language.

First off, what’s the point in having Facebook on your PS3? Or your Xbox 360, which also adopted it last week? I have a computer that I can use Facebook on, I don’t need an app on my PS3. I could even use Facebook perfectly well on the PS3′s Web Browser before this firmware update!

Secondly, why have Sony only just got round to adding Polish as a System Language? Surely every available language should have been added on day 1. But no, those racists bastards didn’t even acknowledge the existence of the Poles. It makes me physically sick.

EDIT: Just tried it out now, and Facebook on the Web Browser hasn’t changed one sodding bit. Not only are Sony racist, they’re also lyers.

Left 4 Dead 2 review – 9.0

Left 4 Dead 2 – PC, Xbox 360

Rating – 17+, M

Just one year after the first Left 4 Dead, what some people class as “too soon”, we have Left 4 Dead 2. The second zombie apocalypse simulator from Valve. You play as one of four resistance fighters who must shoot, slice, decapitate and blast their way to safety.

Here’s a message to all the people who boycotted L4D2 – Stop whining, it’s better than the L4D1 in almost every way. The graphics have been bumped up immensely; giving you elegant and vibrant daytime environments (which were completely absent in L4D1 as the entire game took place at night), there’s a hell of a lot more gore, new special infected and of course melee weapons. Instead of just shooting zombies you can now bludgeon and dismember them with axes, machetes, frying pans, guitars, baseball and cricket bats, crowbars, batons, katanas and… chainsaws. *Insert massive homicidal smiley here*

There are also some new modes called Realism and Scavenge. In Realism mode, the survivors play through the campaign with all the coloured lines that highlight supplies, weapons and other survivors removed and all the infected are harder to kill. As if you thought the Expert difficulty couldn’t get anymore… difficult. Scavenge mode has survivors try to fill up a car or a generator with gas whilst fighting off the infected, and it’s the infected’s job to stop them from doing so. The Survival mode from the first game’s DLC is also in there as part of the full game.

Still not convinced it’s better than L4D1? Well like I said earlier, the whole of L4D1 took place at night. But not only that, the environments weren’t all that exciting. You were mainly just running through buildings with the occasional street or rooftop. In L4D2 you get to play through a swamp, an abandoned carnival (complete with a rollercoaster), a parish, a sugar mill (with thunder storms) and a hotel… which is on fire. Each campaign is longer than the ones found in L4D1 as well. Valve really went all out on this one.

The survivors that you help through these environments are also a lot more characterised this time around. I instantly knew that I would like them all when they introduced themselves to each other on the first level. And when I say “all”, I mean ALL. No cocky office workers to be found here.

Shooting zombies is a lot of fun, as you’d expect. And Valve have done a fantastic job of capturing the essence of a zombie apocalypse. If you’ve seen any zombies movies such as Dawn Of The Dead or 28 Days Later, then you’re going to feel right at home. Everything down to how the zombies walk, run, groan and die is absolutely spot on.

I can’t really think of anything bad to say about Left 4 Dead 2 apart from little nitpicks. It’s a sequel that hits all the right notes, bringing a new and exciting experience than the first and is a ton of fun. But if you didn’t like the first game, then I’m afraid you won’t like this one. Seriously though, who didn’t like Left 4 Dead 1?

The Good.
- Tearing up zombies with melee weapons leaving their blood and guts all over the ground is so damn satisfying.
- Better characterised survivors.
- New special infected, new weapons and bigger and longer environments.
- New modes add to replayability.

The Bad.

- The gameplay is almost exactly the same as L4D1.
- I miss Zoey.

My Score.

9.7/10