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SubscribeEinstein taught us that space is both homogeneous and isotropic--that is, on a large scale, the universe is smooth and uniform in all directions. It's empty out there. Like many space games before it, X Rebirth depicts an unrealistically vibrant universe bursting with color and texture, and that's as it should be. A near-vacuum makes a dreary backdrop for a video game, at least for a human observer.
It isn't X Rebirth's inauthentic view of space that should anger you; it's that this sequel is a galactic collision of unparalleled scale, an interstellar parade of bad ideas badly executed. Just as the observable universe has no center, neither does space exploration game X Rebirth find a foundation from which to grow outward, and I am unsure how to begin describing its failures. I can only begin at the quantum level, pulling out each particle and analyzing its deficiencies. And so I start in the cockpit, where most galactic adventures begin.
The Albion Skunk is the aptly named vessel that carries you on this journey. Unless you're peering out of a space port's window or piloting one of the game's different drones, you always see space through the Skunk's front window, and overlooking the aesthetically dull control panel that tells you the ship's condition. In fact, you look at most of X Rebirth's menus in the cockpit, each list pulling up on a digital display viewable by both you the player and protagonist pilot Ren Otani.
This menu integration might have been a sensible way to draw you further into this universe, but no amount of immersion would have been enough to veil the system's grave deficiencies. Pulling up so much as a simple galactic map requires a ridiculous number of keystrokes, with each submenu buffered by just enough input lag and unnecessary animation to cause impatience. Furthermore, the menu doesn't always take up a sensible portion of the screen, making it hard to read intricate mission objectives--and even harder to read them when a particularly garish spacescape shines from behind the Skunk's menu screen.
For a near-vacuum, it sure is busy in space! Garish spacescapes are common in X Rebirth, though there are sights of real beauty. Ships feature a remarkable amount of detail, and space stations and capital ships catch the eye with their intricate industrial designs. Rushing between systems via the game's space highways can be a visual delight, particularly as you watch ships and structures approach and then race by. When the color scheme embraces tranquil blues and developer Egosoft exercises visual restraint, the hazy background nebulae and tumbling asteroids are a treat. All too often, however, the view erupts with harsh orange and turquoise hues, making you wonder if you shouldn't stock the Albion Skunk with sunscreen. A vibrant vision of space is typically pleasing enough, but X Rebirth's depiction occasionally surpasses "meticulous" and surges straight into "gaudy."
Buy low and sell high. It's a solid economic policy, and it forms the backbone of X Rebirth's explore-fight-collect-build gameplay loop. It's an inviting loop, and I found myself pushing onward to collect enough funds, hiring enough ships to join my squad, and building enough structures in the hope of calling the result a true empire.
Sometimes, doing so means shooting spacecraft piloted by members of the slave-trading Plutarch Mining Corporation. Combat is functional, but ship controls are loose, though I never felt as though I wasn't properly directing the action. Regardless, the Skunk is your only ride for the duration, so get used to the way it looks and feels, though you can improve its performance with enhanced weaponry, shields, and so forth. Fortunately, you will build up an entire squad of vessels that perform various vital actions on your behalf, assisting you in combat, erecting structures, and ferrying goods about the sector. Massive battles are visually explosive, momentarily interrupting the slow-paced trading with fiery combat.
This sequel is a galactic collision of unparalleled scale, an interstellar parade of bad ideas badly executed.
Oh God. Just... Oh God. And boy is trading slow-paced. Buying and selling goods isn't an immediate process, or even an efficient one. Instead, you must wait for many minutes on end as your sluggish trading ship edges ever closer to the trade port, giving you an opportunity to poke around the sector, or more likely, to go grab a glass of wine and peruse the latest issue of Science Magazine from cover to cover. You also must maintain fuel reserves, which can come as a shock the first time a hired pilot informs you of his fuel shortage over the comm and has you scrambling to figure out how to rectify the situation, given how ordering your ship to fuel up is not an option you can find in the game's menus.
Building up a fleet takes time and money, and you don't find capable crew members free-floating in space, but rather within space stations, which you explore on foot after docking. First-person exploration could have been a grand addition, taking the X series that much closer to the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink games developer Derek Smart wanted his Battlecruiser series to be, but never was. It soon becomes obvious, however, that traversing cookie-cutter stations sucks the mystery out of space travel, leaving behind horrifying human visages that spout absolute drivel in the most excruciating tone of voice imaginable. You see the same grotesquely scarred faces over and over again, and engaging one of these unblinking ghouls results in absolute nonsense. Any given conversation is utterly devoid of logic. Characters are routinely rude when you approach them, then become delighted, and then lapse into obnoxiousness again. In the meanwhile, female characters frequently whine "Ew! Slimy green lizard things are everywhere!" in the shrillest possible manner, as if they are 1950s housewives from classic cartoons, crying atop the kitchen table and swatting at pesky mice.
Colorful is one thing, but X Rebirth's artists really should have turned things down a notch. That line is shrieked in regard to the reptilian Teladi race, whose existence in the X universe is well established. Perhaps Egosoft wanted to use first-person exploration to further develop the game's tone and deepen its lore. Sadly, a universe full of rude, moronic space travelers barely capable of communicating normal thoughts in a logical order is not a compelling place to be.
Instead, having to dock at a station and walk around looking for the right merchants becomes a chore. My first foray into a station delighted me; I could loot lockers and crates for marketable items, leading me to believe that X Rebirth might spill into role-playing territory. Alas, clicking on lockers becomes monotonous busywork, as does roaming the cut-and-paste hallways looking for vendors and crew members for hire. These places are as lifeless as a white dwarf, even in their underpopulated lounges, each living statue stiffly waiting for you to click on it. Characters speak of their own accord only when prompting you to take part in a ridiculous-beyond-measure minigame in which you engage in surreal small talk to earn a few discounts. It wasn't long before I avoided this minigame altogether, however: no matter how deep the discount, I couldn't stomach the stupid dialogue, which made me question how such imbeciles could have devised any form of space travel.
It isn't just in the space stations where you go hunting for discounts. Out in the black beyond, you glimpse icons that urge you to investigate the objects they identify; examine enough of them, and you unlock discounts and side missions. Little lowercase i's are splattered all over the place, but you have to be close enough to see them, and you must have line of sight. And thus your adventure turns into a vapid Easter egg hunt in which you float around satellite arrays seeking icons, and then soar close enough to them to interact with them. It isn't uncommon to briefly see an icon identifying a side mission only to have it flicker away in a flash, forcing you to maneuver carefully around the starbase hoping to catch another glimpse.
According to the theory of special relativity, X Rebirth stinks. Don't expect those missions to work properly once you graciously accept them from your sneering contacts, however. Each X game has suffered from a certain number of rough edges at launch, and you could be forgiven for assuming that like those games, X Rebirth would be superficially glitchy but eminently playable. Yet no matter how low your expectations might be for the newest X's stability, the game still manages to sink lower. Only a few hours in, and a mission proved impossible to complete, leading me to commiserate with other players suffering from the same game-ending bug in Internet forums. After downloading a saved game file from a helpful comrade, I continued my journey, only to have a side mission task me with destroying a story-critical capital ship, leaving me to wander for hours wondering why I couldn't find my mission objective.
A universe full of rude, moronic space travelers barely capable of communicating normal thoughts in a logical order is not a compelling place to be.
Listing all of the bugs I encountered would take up inordinate amounts of space, and so I offer here a random array. Crashes too numerous to count. Poor frame rates that had me wondering why I'd spent so much money on modern computer hardware. Suddenly unresponsive dialogue that left me stuck mid-conversation. Enemy ships flying around in the middle of space station geometry, keeping me from completing missions. Trading ships that simply wouldn't conduct the assigned transaction. That last one was particularly aggravating, considering how much time you must wait for functional transactions to complete. All too often, X Rebirth had me asking the age-old question: "Is it a bug or a feature?"
The fact that it's too difficult to tell the difference tells you all you must know about X Rebirth. You might assume a bright future for the game, given Egosoft's solid history of supporting its games after release--and given the community's dedication to crafting fixes and modifications that further improve these starry treks. X Rebirth's failings are rooted too deeply to simply be patched away, however. No matter what your level of enthusiasm for the X series is, do your best to escape the pull of Rebirth's gravity. It's only bound to cause a fatal crash.
A high-capacity battery for the Wii U is now available in the United States, promising 8 hours of use with a single charge. The battery is available today through Nintendo's website for $32.
The standard Wii U GamePad battery lasts around 3-5 hours, though all battery life depends on a number of factors including usage of wireless communications and the brightness setting of the screen, among other elements.
You'll need a screwdriver to install the new high-capacity battery. The new high-capacity GamePad battery is already available in Japan and the United Kingdom.
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Huntsman: The Orphanage prompts many questions. Who is the huntsman? How did 12 orphans vanish without a trace from a rural Illinois orphanage in 1897? For that matter, where can I pick up that sweet smartphone that talks to the dead and never loses a charge? Huntsman doesn't answer all of these questions, but some of its chief pleasures lie in rummaging among old suitcases and piles of dusty prosthetics for clues to the answers. When paired with its creepy namesake, it's a premise that manages to deliver some genuine chills, but it's not long before its web of creepypasta stories ensnare you more than any sense of dread. That's both a blessing and a curse.
ShadowShifters, the studio behind the project, created a game that frightens more by ambience than with the jump scares, blood, and violence that define many horror games (and movies) these days. Many of its most effective chills actually spring from the expectation of scares common in horror games that came before it, and indeed, the first tentative steps of the game lead you down a wooded road, past a phone booth, and up to the wrought iron gates of a decaying institution. A casual onlooker could be fooled into thinking you were playing through the start of Outlast.
The huntsman isn't your everyday Slenderman. But there's no blood here, and if there were, it's had over 100 years to fade away. Perfect opportunities for jump scares present themselves and pass, and even 20 minutes into the game you might still believe that this really is just an abandoned complex in modern Illinois, and that the falling crosses and self-closing doors really do owe their existence to nothing besides the wind. By the time I came across the rare wonder of a chalkboard writing a helpful tutorial by itself, I found myself not so much spooked as grateful for the novelty.
Thank goodness you have the best smartphone in the world at your disposal. Its constant presence puts Huntsman: The Orphanage in the same class as "weaponless" horror games in the vein of Outlast and Amnesia, and most of the time you use it as a flashlight but, alas, with none of the dread that springs from losing battery power. The phone's existence comes into its own, however, when the voices and images of the 12 missing children come crackling through it, begging you to find their favorite belongings and return them to their graves so their souls can be free of the dreaded huntsman.
The stories told by the portraits are almost always worth listening to. Sometimes they interrupt you with flashes of video when you get near said items. Sometimes they pop up and tell you stories with clues from their past when you hover the phone over the portraits scattered throughout the orphanage. And in most cases, the excellent voice work for the accompanying stories makes up for some of the limitations of the surrounding visuals. Tales of chopping off hands at the woodpile suggest that these orphans aren't angelic innocents, and some of them speak with just enough hints of menace that you might balk at placating them with gifts. They don't even let up on the creepy act after you've found their junk and tossed it on their hidden graves.
It's fitting that the voice work excels over so much of the rest of the experience. (If there's a drawback to this focus, it's that you have to stare at their photos the whole time to hear the full narration.) The orphans spill their lines, dropping hints based on their histories, and then you set out to dig in and around the inky-dark ruins of the orphanage to find the relevant items. It's tougher than it sounds. The relevant items don't glow or otherwise make their presence known, and since you can't interact with some of them unless you crouch or lie down, you may not even know you're looking at one even though you're staring right at it.
Some of its chief pleasures lie in rummaging among old suitcases and piles of dusty prosthetics.
It's here that Huntsman's overused visual assets unexpectedly come in handy. Dozens of copies of the same Dutch painting and black-and-white group photo litter the rooms of the two-story orphanage, and you grow so used to them and the sight of the same books and blue suitcases that anything else stands out in stark contrast. Good thing, too. Huntsman may be a game about exploring, thinking, and listening at heart, but on many occasions, you find the pieces just by dumb luck. It's sometimes challenging enough with the current design; it might be a nightmare in more detailed environs.
Speaking of nightmares, what of the huntsman? His comparative absence in the review so far may show just how weak of an impression he tends to leave. Oh, he starts out scary enough. You see him first by the light of your phone in the enveloping darkness, with hairy arachnid legs and an upper body that looks like a steampunk dandy sporting a Renaissance plague mask, and his presence is heralded by the sound of what resembles the ticking of a dozen grandfather clocks. Knowing that this fascinating thing awaits somewhere in the dark creates much of the game's early tension.
Regrettably, it's a sensation that doesn't last long. The cacophony of ticking makes him absurdly easy to avoid (particularly when paired with stereo headphones), and once I found him just staring off into space as if ruminating over his poor life choices over the last century. Even when he catches you and sucks you into limbo, the G-rated fade to black might make you wonder if the game's not simply bugging out if you didn't know better.
Get used to seeing this painting. A lot. Once you start to put the children's items back on their graves, however, the experience changes for the better. The catch is that all their graves lie scattered in a sprawling, overgrown hedge maze, and that's when you should look forward to playing in the dark with the door closed and your headphones firmly clamped on. You can always hear the tick-tocking of the huntsman, yes, but the design thrives on the realization that any wrong turn might dump you right in front of its face. With enough repetition--there are, after all, 12 children--it's possible to learn the general layout, but in those early moments, Huntsman: The Orphanage does much to live up to its horror label.
Huntsman: The Orphanage does manage to convey a sense of terror in its quiet moments, but they're more benign chills than you find in bloodier horror adventures that let you fight back or at least present enemies who do more than engulf you in darkness. Its greatest frights lie in the anticipation that anything could lurk in the darkness, but once you realize that it's just you and a clockwork Spider-Man, you might find that you're no longer as afraid of the dark as you once were. And in a horror game? That's just scary.
The new Super Smash Bros. game for Wii U and 3DS will not be released in spring 2014, director Masahiro Sakurai has confirmed on Twitter.
In a pair of tweets (translated by Siliconera), Sakurai said the recent rumor is false and the official release date for the new Super Smash Bros. game is sometime in 2014, as Nintendo has said previously.
Last week, a Nintendo Germany representative said both Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. would launch for Wii U in spring 2014. Nintendo has since labeled this comment a "misquotation."
Nintendo has yet to reveal any footage from Super Smash Bros. on the Wii U outside of a video demonstration from E3 2013. Nintendo is developing the game in partnership with Namco Bandai's SoulCalibur studio.
As of September 30, the Wii U has officially sold 3.91 million units. The company plans to sell 9 million consoles worldwide by the end of March 2014.
Adventure. The word suggests danger, daring, and excitement, perhaps a journey into the perilous unknown. In Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW, you do indeed venture into dangerous realms, but all you find there is unadulterated drudgery. The game possesses none of the whimsy and imagination of the cartoon that inspired it. This is dungeon-crawling at its dullest and most rudimentary.
Princess Bubblegum has summoned the heroes of the realm, charging them with exploring the Secret Royal Dungeon beneath her castle and dealing with the rambunctious monsters who are not so securely imprisoned there. Unfortunately, she doesn't warn Finn, Jake, and the rest of the gang that it's more likely that the boredom will kill them than the monsters. You trudge through floors of the dungeon, hacking away at enemies and picking up piles of treasure here and there. That's pretty much it.
Of course, there are some great games that rely on this basic premise. Some offer you a diverse range of attacks that feel powerful and are satisfying to use. Some pit you against memorable foes who use attacks that require you to play smartly if you hope to emerge victorious. Some include deep character customization options. Some have terrific gear you can find and equip to make your hero increasingly more powerful. Adventure Time has none of this. The game takes a few cues from the landmark multiplayer arcade dungeon crawler Gauntlet, but despite having the benefit of nearly 30 years' worth of genre advances and innovations to draw upon, Adventure Time fails to even be as exciting a game as that old quarter-muncher.
Yes, there are a number of playable characters with different abilities. Marceline can float right over pits and traps, for instance, while the Ice King can freeze enemies. But no matter which character you choose, the exploration remains slow and tedious; the dungeons remain bereft of interesting places, enemies to fight, or items to discover; and the combat remains excruciatingly shallow and simplistic. No subweapon you might find and pick up in the dungeon, be it a kitten gun or a fire hose (that is, a hose that shoots fire) does anything to liven up the process of pushing buttons mindlessly until monsters fall before you. You can play with up to three friends, but then you're all just sharing a miserable experience.
Oh yeah, the boss fights are terrible, too. After suffering your way through a number of levels, you're given the opportunity to return to the surface with the treasure you've collected, but there's little of interest to spend that treasure on. You can sink it into a few absurdly expensive upgrades to attributes like health and damage, each of which can be upgraded only two or three times. The problem with them being so costly is that you can't stash your gold anywhere. When you reenter the dungeon, you must give up any unspent treasure. This is an idea that works well in games like Rogue Legacy, in which there's a satisfying loop of earning more treasure in the dungeon, which lets you strengthen your character, which lets you earn yet more treasure on your subsequent dungeon runs. But in Adventure Time, spending time slogging through several levels of the dungeon, only to realize that you don't have enough treasure yet to purchase any upgrades and must try to slog through several more levels and collect still more treasure, just feels like punishment on top of punishment.
There's the rare moment of humor, like when the vampire Marceline remarks, right after you upgrade her health, "I can't die anyway!" But cutscenes and dialogue exchanges are few and far between, so even the most devout fans of Adventure Time won't find enough entertaining quips or goofy moments to reward them for struggling through the dungeon. The game's title may not provide justification for exploring the dungeon, but the much bigger I DON'T KNOW here is why anyone would play this game.
This week on New Releases, a whole lotta nothin! But we find a few games that decided to release right before the holiday season. Check out Wii U Fit, The Novelist, Rekoil and the infamous Peggle 2.
Over the weekend, Bethesda confirmed that the Fallout 4 teaser website TheSurvivor2299 was indeed a fake. Now, its creator has come forward to explain why he did it. During a recent Reddit AMA titled "Uhm, Hello? I'm the Prick behind thesurvivor2299," the hoaxer said he stopped the campaign after Bethesda got into touch with him.
"Some men just want to watch the world burn," he said, noting that the intent of the campaign was to force Bethesda's hand to reveal Fallout 4 during Saturday night's Spike VGX awards.
The website featured a countdown clock ending on December 11. The hoaxer said he had planned to release a CGI trailer for Fallout 4 when the clock reached zero. This trailer still exists, but he's not planning to release it anytime soon.
"I'm one of these 'selfish bastards with a lot of money' so I wanted to release a CGI trailer," he said. "But [Bethesda marketing executive Pete Hines] killed my plans. Maybe I'll release it later along with the script, so somebody else can use it!"
The rumored Fallout 4 is believed to be set in Boston, Mass., though is is far from confirmed. The most recent Fallout title was 2010's Fallout: New Vegas, which was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and set in a postapocalyptic Las Vegas.
When you hear "minigame collection," the first game that usually springs to mind is Mario Party. The series has been responsible for hilarious memories and strained relationships since the Nintendo 64 era, though the series hasn't always set a good example: some of the installments, like the miserable Mario Party Advance, have dragged you to the dregs of party hell. Fortunately, Mario Party: Island Tour is a raucous portable entry in the series that adds some refreshing new elements.
Island Tour adheres to the same structure as many of the other Mario Party games: two to four human or AI players move around a traditional board-game-style map in a competition, playing minigames for prizes and attempting to hinder other players throughout. Most Mario Party games have focused on the collecting of coins and stars to determine a winner at the end of a game, but Island Tour's boards feature different objectives and modes of play. Some, like Perilous Palace Path, simply require that you be the first to reach the goal, while others have you collecting items to see who can end the game with the most stuff. Even if the boards have a similar objective, there are other factors at play that alter gameplay significantly: Banzai Bill's Mad Mountain might let you summon a giant bullet that sends everyone in its path back several spaces, while Kamek's Magic Carpet Ride forgoes dice and assigns movement to an inventory of numbered cards, making your selections about how far to advance a strategic consideration. There's a nice bit of variety here, and the game helpfully gives ratings to luck, skill, and minigame categories when you're choosing a board to play on (though their accuracy is debatable). Most of the boards don't take too long to run through, but that's probably for the best given that the 3DS is a battery-based console, and nothing kills a party like running out of juice mid-game.
What would a race game be like if you drifted ALL THE TIME? It's pretty easy to get things hopping, thanks to the 3DS Download Play feature. Much like Mario Party DS, Island Tour allows up to three additional players to access and enjoy the full game in multiplayer, even if they don't have their own copy. It takes a few minutes to send the game to other 3DSs--and, of course, they can't keep it once the host disconnects--but after the wait is over, the players have access to the entire game (though the host player controls all the settings and selections). It's a nice way to ensure that there's always an opportunity to get a party started as long as everybody has a system. Unfortunately, there's no way to play online. Yes, Mario Party is more fun in a local, group setting, but the omission of any sort of online option is puzzling, especially given that the 3DS supports friends lists and voice chat.
If you've got a party of one, however, Island Tour has a special single-player mode called Bowser's Tower. In this mode, your chosen character scales a tower, playing a minigame on each floor and winning to proceed. On every fifth floor, you face a boss character, and these fights are minigames in themselves. Compared to the single-player story mode in Mario Party DS, Bowser's Tower is weak: there's no variation on events depending on character choice; it takes a long time to complete a runthrough (and, if you're really unlucky, a bad roulette spin can send you back to the start); and you have to finish it more than once to unlock everything. Yet Bowser's Tower is a nice diversion, and as you play and complete board runs, Bowser's Tower, and individual minigames in either single- or multiplayer, you earn points that you can spend on unlockable content.
You can't always bite the bullet. Sometimes you just gotta run. But the meat of any Mario Party is its minigame menagerie, and Island Tour has more winners than duds in its mix. While you have the expected minigames of the "collect stuff," "knock other players off a platform," and "dodge things coming at you" varieties, there are some more inventive offerings that make good use of the 3DS hardware. Since the 3DS offers a variety of control methods--controller, buttons, stylus, microphone, and gyroscopic motion--the minigames can use one or more of these elements to make more interesting snack-size experiences. This leads to some neat outings, such as Buzz a Fuzzy (a motion- and circle-pad-controlled archery minigame) and Match Faker (a memory-type game that lets you use the stylus to take notes). The game takes advantage of the fact that each player has their own display, resulting in things like the third-person, arena-based blasting in Tanks a Lot and the hyper-gliding ice racing in No Traction Action. There are even a few auxiliary minigames that use the oft-forgotten 3DS AR cards. Unlike in Wii Party, where only one player could use the GamePad, everybody is on equal footing with the same controls and view, and many of the minigames do a good job of both recognizing and taking advantage of that in their design.
But there are still some stinkers in the mix. Strictly luck-based minigames turn up in the rotation frequently, and they're not any fun. A few others feature sluggish controls that hamper your ability to move well. (In minigames that involved moving the system along with another control method, I found that the game had an obnoxious tendency to lose calibration when it shifted back to motion controls, which required an experience-interrupting recalibration.) Though you can switch between preset standard and easy minigames and turn mic-using games on or off, you still can't disable individual minigames or make a custom set, which is a disappointing oversight.
It's not a perfect party by any means, but some good design considerations, better-than-average variety, and always-enjoyable Mario thematics put Mario Party: Island Tour a few notches above your average video game bash-in-a-box. It's nicely portable, uses the hardware well, and has a mostly good minigame mix, making this the easy-to-play multiplayer vacation you've been looking for.
The Crash Bandicoot series is not dead, just resting, Activision has said.
A representative with the company told Game Informer that Activision continues to own the Crash IP and is currently considering potential avenues to resurrect the franchise.
"Activision owns Crash Bandicoot and we continue to explore ways in which we could bring the beloved series back to life," a representative said.
It was suggested last week that the Crash IP may have switched hands and gone to Sony after all mention of Crash was removed from Activision's website.
The Crash Bandicoot platformer series was created at Naughty Dog and has sold millions of copies across dozens of games released to date. The latest entry in the series was 2010's iPhone racing game Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 2.
Crimson Dragon is an on-rails shooter that revives the cherished Panzer Dragoon series under a new name, fitted with light RPG elements and a dash of asynchronous co-op. Unfortunately, these added systems don't make a meaningful impact on the game at large, and the genre's focused action is perverted by wildly concocted paths that send you and the camera into a tizzy. This, coupled with unusually aggressive enemies, makes Crimson Dragon a frustrating experience. There are rare, fleeting moments of greatness near the end of the campaign, but you have to fight the urge to put the controller down if you hope to catch a glimpse of them.
Plot is not Crimson Dragon's strong suit either, but it suffices in so much as it provides an explanation for your ability and need to command dragons. Not long after the colonization of the planet Draco, the inception of the Crimsonscale virus wreaked havoc on the human population and enraged the indigenous wildlife. Some people, dubbed the Seekers, were immune to the Virus. As one of the lucky few, it's your job to fight back against the rising tide, and investigate the cause of the Crimsonscale outbreak.
"Bogey on your tail!" All levels consist of phases that last from one to five minutes apiece. You ride on the back of dragons, fighting swarms of enemies, collecting items, and occasionally facing a boss or a strong group of variations on common enemies. For each phase that you complete, you're rewarded based on your performance with credits or items. Credits can be used for many purposes: acquiring new dragons, hiring AI-driven wingmen, undertaking missions, and purchasing extra-life-like revival jewels. Regardless of how many enemies you shoot down or items you collect, the most important thing is that you survive.
You can attempt to better your chances by recruiting other players' dragons from the game's leaderboard, but these wingmen never make much of an impact. Granted, this fluctuates slightly based on the availability of high-level dragons and your ability to afford their contract, but the difference between low- and high-level wingmen is hard to recognize in practice. Regardless of who's watching your back, you're still the primary target. The most any wingman ever brings to the table is a powerful but limited-use attack that hits every enemy and recharges your health. It's helpful, but there's no reason it couldn't have been a function of your dragon to begin with. At best, wingmen provide you with a last-ditch attack, but at worst, they instill a false sense of security.
It's not uncommon to face streams of bullets from small, common enemies. Though the game tries to instill confidence by offering backup, Crimson Dragon's enemies are ever relentless, even on the easiest difficulty setting. Standard enemies fire dozens of projectiles at once, forcing you to constantly barrel roll to avoid impact in the face of large swarms. In some levels, it feels like all you do is bash the shoulder buttons to barrel roll, and simultaneously hammer on the trigger to fit an attack or two in between rolls.
Ostensibly, your ability to shoot down enemies and minimize damage relies on elemental relationships, which you can alter prior to heading into battle. However, though you're given a readout of the balance of your abilities and enemies' resistances prior to starting a mission, choosing the right dragon and assigning the proper abilities rarely makes a meaningful difference. Likewise, your dragons can evolve twice, but these are mostly cosmetic changes, with an ever-so-slight bump in base stats.
The imbalanced relationship between stat growth and difficulty is disappointing, but struggling to overcome these odds is nowhere near as frustrating as coping with Crimson Dragon's camera. When you're flying in a simple pattern, it's easy to settle in. The left analog steers your dragon, and the right controls your weapons' aim. Free-flying stages, which allow you to control the speed and trajectory of your dragon, turn the standard control scheme on its head by assigning the camera controls to the same stick as movement. It's confusing, not to mention ineffective in the midst of combat when you have to track fast-moving, hard-hitting enemies.
Crimson Dragon's final stages look and play better than the rest. Granted, there are only a few free-flying stages in the game, but erratic paths in standard levels also prove to be problematic. Quite often, you're sent careening around corners, with an unreasonable amount of visual interference, while under fire, without enough time to react to threats. If you submit, you can simply take some damage and move on. If you attempt to kill everything and lose control, you're more likely to be unprepared when the camera finally rights itself.
Fight your way towards the end of the game, and you'll discover stages with greater visual appeal than the initial selection of barren landscapes, and more sound level design, but it's too little too late. Crimson Dragon frustrates more than it entertains. Flying your dragon can feel good, but it's only when the game takes a rare breath and slows down that it feels right. The ability to raise dragons is mildly intriguing, but they take forever to evolve into slightly more effective warriors, making the process more of a distraction than a rewarding challenge. It doesn't take long to realize that for all its efforts to be something more, Crimson Dragon misses the mark. It's occasionally sloppy, usually frustrating, and ultimately disappointing.
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The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 will have roughly a 3.25 software attach rate--that is, how many games are sold for every hardware unit purchased--during their initial launch periods, Cowen & Company analyst Doug Creutz said today in a note to investors.
With 18 retail launch-day titles available for Xbox One and 14 for the PS4, the 3.25 aggregate attach rate suggests an average 20 percent launch window attach rate across all titles. Battlefield 4 will perform slightly better, Creutz said, attaching to Xbox One and PS4 at a rate of around 30 percent at launch. Madden NFL 25 and NBA 2K14 are also expected to attach at higher rates.
Games like Zumba Fitness, Zoo Tycoon, Fighter Within, and Injustice: Gods Among Us will have lower attach rates than the 20 percent average, Creutz noted.
By comparison, the Xbox 360's attach rate was 4.2 during its initial November-December launch window in 2005, while the PlayStation 3's was 1.9 in 2006, Creutz said. The Xbox 360 retailed for $299/$299 at launch, while the PS3 went for $499/$599, meaning the total hardware/software spend for each platform was roughly consistent in the mid-$600 range.
The 3.25 attach rate for Xbox One and PS3 models a more conservative average total spend, even before the 7-8 years of inflation are factored in, Creutz said. The PS4 launched last Friday and sold 1 million units in North America during its first 24 hours. The Xbox One goes on sale this Friday, November 22.
The Mario & Sonic series has always, and perhaps bizarrely, mixed accessible minigames, topical sporting events, and gaming nostalgia. It's an odd but enduring mix, one that's given us Charmy Bee cameos in a stylised re-creation of England's capital city for London 2012, but sadly the mascot duo's fourth outing falls flat.
In Mario & Sonic's first outing on the Wii U, developer Sega starts with a major change for the series: Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games demands that you make use of the Wii MotionPlus across its collection of 20 Nintendo and Sega characters and 25-odd minigames. The hardware boost ensures an extra degree of controller fidelity in new and returning Olympic events including skiing, figure skating, and curling. And while the move creates an additional expense for families with only a few regular Wii Remotes kicking around, the MotionPlus helps bring a touch of finesse to a previously waggle-intensive series.
Don't worry: the Shy Guy is wearing a protective mask. It's the forced addition of the GamePad that serves to complicate matters, shifting the series away from its simplistic roots. At best you've just got to explain each individual mechanic to a group all holding different configurations of controllers, but at worst you've got to contend with groups of irate children arguing over why one gets to have a GamePad and the others don't.
The GamePad is incorporated in various ways, and like with many aspects of the Mario & Sonic series, there are both ups and downs. Biathlon, a new event for 2014, mixes cross-country skiing on the Wii Remote with a shooting range, letting the player at the top of the pack shoot via the GamePad while forcing others to use the more complicated Wii Remote. It's a sporting event that hasn't been well translated into a party game, suffering too much from the fact that it's the person who's already ahead that gets placed in the most advantageous situation.
Bobsleigh is another example of an event that's complicated by the GamePad's involvement, only one that's far more endearingly preposterous. The leader steers the vehicle with the GamePad while barking orders at up to three other players, who lean their Wii Remotes to the left or right to help steer around corners. Sitting cross-legged in a row on the floor isn't required, but it does make this event a lot more fun.
Snowboard slopestyle, meanwhile, has you take turns to get the highest score on a downhill run, with points awarded for speed, jumps, and grinds. You steer with the GamePad, and flick the touchscreen to perform tricks. It's simple but fun, and is pleasantly different from the more traditional downhill skiing.
Many returning events are identical to their previous incarnations, though some have been spruced up a bit. Hockey, a particularly drab addition in Mario & Sonic's last wintry sojourn, fills in the hole left by the absence of soccer and beach volleyball, now functioning as a kind of cut-down NHL that has you darting around a tiny rink making chaotic overpowered shots while a Shy Guy sits in goal at each end. It's a lot more fun than you'd expect from such a rudimentary implementation, but it's also hard to imagine it being something you'd want to play multiple times.
Figure skating pairs easily takes the crown for the barmiest minigame. Two players are judged on synchronising their movements, and while you're each allowed to hold a Wii Remote, it's when you play together by holding hands around a single controller that the real silliness kicks in. Having one player clumsily spin around the other in real life while an onscreen Daisy pirouettes elegantly around Dr Eggman is enough to put a smile on anyone's face, although you might need to encourage your immediate friends and family members to finish a glass of wine before joining in.
There are highlights, then, but too many events prove to be a disappointment. I've always found it particularly difficult to feel anything but boredom for this series' ski jumping and speed skating modes, and the downhill slide offered by skeleton is handled with more panache by skiing and snowboarding. But it's Sochi 2014's Dream Events that are especially lacking, with the series' former fantastical twists now reduced to half-baked spins of preexisting events wrapped loosely in the aesthetics of the Sonic or Mario series. Snowball scrimmage is the worst of the lot; it's a crude third-person two-versus-two battle with flat snowball-firing guns.
The Mario & Sonic series has been an inclusive experience, catering to all players of all skill levels, but Sochi 2014 complicates that simplicity.
Developer Sega attempts to add value with a flurry of other modes, with Legends Showdown acting as the game's campaign. As opposed to the technically involved London Party board game of London 2012, Legends Showdown simply peppers a cluster of events with the odd cutscene, as a quartet of characters face off against shadow versions of themselves. Each area is capped off with a boss battle against one of the Sonic or Mario series' more obscure characters, including E-102 Gamma, Birdo, and Jet the Hawk. The mode is completely dull.
Medley Mania is similar to Legends Showdown, but presents clusters of events without any narrative context, and Action & Answer Tour mixes individual events with a quiz show . You must complete various feats during randomised events, such as exposing a picture hidden in smoke with curling stones. It's the most successful additional mode in the game by a country mile, forcing you to keep a little something extra buzzing around your head while competing.
It's unlikely you'll ever be this delighted when playing the game. The game also adds online competition to the series for the first time, but only via four events: Olympic events freestyle ski cross, snowboard cross, and short track speed skating, alongside multi-vehicle Dream Event winter sports champion race. You can be matched into games alongside strangers or people from your friends list, and online multiplayer is tied together with a national metagame. Winning points in an event goes towards a ranking for your country, with the game displaying the national rankings on the main screen and also via in-game updates on the GamePad.
The Mario & Sonic series has been an inclusive experience, catering to all players of all skill levels, but Sochi 2014 complicates that simplicity. The game's long-winded tutorials have a wearying effect, and the most enjoyable events--which are the simplest, coincidentally--are essentially identical to events from previous years. There are dribs of fun to be extracted from the overall package, but from the outset, it's hard to shake the feeling that this is a series that has now thoroughly outstayed its welcome.
The Mario & Sonic series is the perfect example of the kind of charming, bite-sized, and all-inclusive entertainment that defined Nintendo throughout the Wii's golden years, but a lack of creativity and a poor implementation of the Wii U GamePad ensure that Mario & Sonic's fourth outing in six years fails to secure a podium finish.
Whether it's racing around an ice rink, or blasting down a mountain, it's all about controlling your speed!
The final version of State of Decay for PC will be available tomorrow, November 5, through Steam, developer Undead Labs has announced.
State of Decay originally released for PC via Steam in September through Early Access.
Those who paid $20 for the Early Access version will receive the final version, for free and with no need to restart, when the game officially launches tomorrow.
State of Decay launched in June 2013 for Xbox 360 and has sold over 1 million copies to date across the Xbox 360 and Early Access versions.
Undead Labs teased last month that it is "so close" to announcing State of Decay's first downloadable expansion.
http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Mon, 28 Oct 2013 08:40:06 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/next-pokemon-game-a-3d-detective-adventure-with-pikachu-report/1100-6415812/ <figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1493/14930800/2357462-pikachu+detective.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2357462" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1493/14930800/2357462-pikachu+detective.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2357462"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1493/14930800/2357462-pikachu+detective.jpg"></a></figure><p style="">Following <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/nintendo-hints-at-a-pokemon-game-where-pikachu-mimics-facial-expressions/1100-6415698/">images last week </a>of a Pikachu that would react to a user's facial expressions, new information says that Nintendo is working on a 3D Pokemon detective adventure with a Pikachu as the player's sidekick.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">The game (<a href="http://www.serebii.net/index2.shtml" rel="nofollow">detailed via Serebii</a>) is being developed for 3DS and is targeting a 2015 release. The game is said to feature a rare Pikachu as the game's villain--although there are concerns about the game's audience liking a villainous Pikachu, Serebii reports.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">A special blue Pikachu will also feature, who can speak, though it is unclear if the talking Pikachu is the game's antagonist.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">The information was revealed as part of a Japanese TV interview with Pokemon Company boss Tsunekazu Ishihara.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Two screenshots were shown, with a player holding a magnifying glass and navigating a 3D environment on the search for clues.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">A beta version of a sequel to puzzle game Pokémon Trozei was also shown, along with the information that the game is aiming to be a downloadable release.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6415368" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6415368/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p dir="ltr" style=""> </p><p style=""> </p> Mon, 28 Oct 2013 07:55:00 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/next-pokemon-game-a-3d-detective-adventure-with-pikachu-report/1100-6415812/ http://www.gamespot.com/videos/sim-city-cities-of-tomorrow-preview/2300-6415767/ Kevin VanOrd is joined by Jason Haber from Electronic Arts to show off some gameplay from Sim City: Cities of Tomorrow. Mon, 28 Oct 2013 06:00:00 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/sim-city-cities-of-tomorrow-preview/2300-6415767/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/wwe-2k14-review/1900-6415512/ <p style="">Who's the greatest showman of the 20<sup>th</sup> century? Michael Jackson? Harry Houdini? Or maybe you're partial to Ted Danson. These are all fine choices, if you like going the obvious route. How about someone who transformed the flashy fisticuffs of professional wrestling into an art form? Enter Randy Savage. No one else could have made sequined robes seem like the perfect attire for a burly man. And it's not like my high opinion of Savage is because of my hazy memory. His gruff, stilted speech and deliberate mannerisms enthrall me just as much today as they did so many years ago. The Macho Man was a theatrical genius, and the embodiment of everything that makes professional wrestling so compelling.</p><p style="">When the wrestlers of my youth faded into the sunset, so too did my interest in the WWE. But the nostalgic flame of yesteryear still burns inside me. All of those old feelings were rekindled in WWE 2K14. There's a mode called 30 Years of WrestleMania that focuses on the history of wrestling's Super Bowl. I got a warm glow in my chest when I replayed some of these classic matches. Remember when The Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan exchanged clotheslines in the center of the ring? Oh, how thrilling it was to see these two titans go toe-to-toe to settle whatever feud they had. By the end of the fight, Warrior's face paint had chipped away, and we could finally see what the real man looked like. And then there was the time Andre the Giant callously tossed hundred-dollar bills after triumphing over Big John Studd. Such a blatant and hilarious disregard for money!</p><figure data-ref-id="1300-2355884" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/725/7253563/2355884-wwe+2k14+-+savage+vs+ricky+-+2013-10-23+11-23-1605.jpg" data-size="large" data-align="center" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/725/7253563/2355884-wwe+2k14+-+savage+vs+ricky+-+2013-10-23+11-23-1605.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2355884"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/725/7253563/2355884-wwe+2k14+-+savage+vs+ricky+-+2013-10-23+11-23-1605.jpg"></a><figcaption>Randy Savage will always be a champion.</figcaption></figure><p style="">WWE 2K14's celebration of its prestigious history is very well done. We expect entrance themes and costumes to be ripped from the archives, but the game goes even further than that. By completing historical objectives within each match, brief cutscenes are cued up that mirror what happened in real life so many years ago. Have Hulk initiate a grapple outside of the ring against Andre the Giant, and watch the galoot from Grenoble headbutt the ring post just as Hogan ducks away. These scenarios are so expertly crafted that they drew me in completely to the main event. And even when I had never seen the match in the first place, I was still roped in to the drama because of how well it's presented.</p><blockquote data-align="right" data-size="medium"><p style="">By the end of the fight, Warrior's face paint had chipped away, and we could finally see what the real man looked like.</p></blockquote><p style="">Before I realized that wrestling was scripted, I would recoil when one of my heroes would take a chair to his back or have his head forcibly slammed into the ground. But even once I knew their tricks, I would still wince. My emotions would overwhelm my senses, and I would think how much it would hurt to be thrown to and fro. Have you ever slammed your elbow into a ring after missing a flying leap off the top rope? It must be at least a little painful. WWE 2K14 communicates the dramatic punishment of professional wrestling. Most hits have serious impact, so much so that you wonder how someone could possibly survive some of these moves. Thunderous sound effects and elaborate wind-up animations make you grimace despite yourself.</p><p style="">If only strikes carried as much weight as other moves. When WWE 2K14's wrestlers mimic bar-room brawlers by throwing haymakers, the game's relationship to reality crumbles away. The wrestlers punch and kick so quickly that there's no weight behind them. And considering how often you perform these moves, there's an odd separation that makes matches feel imbalanced. Furthermore, the core action is so reliant on counterattacks that it's closer to a sequence of quick-time events than a body slam ballet. Instead of rewarding positioning or smart tactics, victory goes to the wrestler who taps a button first. This strips away much of the appeal of competitive matches because the same tactics can be used to win, no matter who you are or who you play against. After participating in one clunky, awkward match after another, I longed for the fluid choreography of the real thing. Absent WrestleMania's finest moments, the matches are dry affairs that do little to spark the imagination.</p><p style="">Such issues cut even deeper when more than two men enter the ring. The utter chaos of multi-man bouts never comes close to being captured in WWE 2K14. What should be satisfyingly crazy turns into a series of clunky one-on-one battles with no one quite sure what's expected of him. Really, all of the non-traditional fights lack the excitement that should exist when rules are shaken up. Escaping a steel cage, for instance, requires you to tap a button at the optimal position to go faster. Cramming your main objective into a simple minigames is oddly disconnected from the core action. And if you should climb to the top of a Hell in a Cell cage, don't expect to be able to recreate the infamous match between Mick Folley and The Undertaker. You can neither toss your opponent off nor fall through the cage, and the awkward animations preventing such disasters look hopelessly cartoonish. Stick to traditional fights in WWE 2K14 unless you want to see just how limited the combat is.</p><figure data-ref-id="1300-2355889" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/725/7253563/2355889-wwe+2k14+%28360%29+-+the+shaun+method+-+2013-10-25+03-40-3606.jpg" data-size="large" data-align="center" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/725/7253563/2355889-wwe+2k14+%28360%29+-+the+shaun+method+-+2013-10-25+03-40-3606.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2355889"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/725/7253563/2355889-wwe+2k14+%28360%29+-+the+shaun+method+-+2013-10-25+03-40-3606.jpg"></a><figcaption>An abomination only possible in the character creator. You should see his feet.</figcaption></figure><p style="">If you ever wanted to be Vince McMahon (minus the ridiculous walk), Universe mode lets you tinker with the behind-the-scenes drama. Create feuds between wrestlers who used to be best friends and shake up the calendar if you've ever wished that Raw would air on Tuesdays. Universe mode is certainly interesting if you've ever dreamed of crazy scenarios, but it doesn't make up for the lackluster wrestling once you step back in the ring. At least there's one element outside the ring that anyone could enjoy. Creation mode let's you design an unholy monster to be your champion, which is absolutely riveting if you have a maniacal disposition. Make someone with teeny, tiny legs and cross your fingers that his femur doesn't snap in the middle of a bout. Or maybe you want his bones to break. Whatever floats your boat.</p><p style="">It's a shame the wrestling isn't up to par in WWE 2K14 because the elements surrounding it are so interesting. Though not nearly as captivating as Randy Savage, The Undertaker has a mode dedicated to his undefeated record in WrestleManias. You have the option to knock him from his lofty perch with a willing participant, or fend off everyone clamoring for your throne as The Undertaker. It's a neat mode that embraces one of the iconic personalities in the sport, but none of these activities have lasting appeal because fights are so dreary. When WWE 2K14 does work, its because of its recreation of history. For anyone who grew up loving professional wrestling, be prepared to be swept away in a tide of nostalgia. If only the core action could have been as compelling.</p> Mon, 28 Oct 2013 05:00:00 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/wwe-2k14-review/1900-6415512/
http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Mon, 28 Oct 2013 08:40:06 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/next-pokemon-game-a-3d-detective-adventure-with-pikachu-report/1100-6415812/ <figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1493/14930800/2357462-pikachu+detective.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2357462" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1493/14930800/2357462-pikachu+detective.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2357462"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1493/14930800/2357462-pikachu+detective.jpg"></a></figure><p style="">Following <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/nintendo-hints-at-a-pokemon-game-where-pikachu-mimics-facial-expressions/1100-6415698/">images last week </a>of a Pikachu that would react to a user's facial expressions, new information says that Nintendo is working on a 3D Pokemon detective adventure with a Pikachu as the player's sidekick.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">The game (<a href="http://www.serebii.net/index2.shtml" rel="nofollow">detailed via Serebii</a>) is being developed for 3DS and is targeting a 2015 release. The game is said to feature a rare Pikachu as the game's villain--although there are concerns about the game's audience liking a villainous Pikachu, Serebii reports.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">A special blue Pikachu will also feature, who can speak, though it is unclear if the talking Pikachu is the game's antagonist.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">The information was revealed as part of a Japanese TV interview with Pokemon Company boss Tsunekazu Ishihara.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Two screenshots were shown, with a player holding a magnifying glass and navigating a 3D environment on the search for clues.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">A beta version of a sequel to puzzle game Pokémon Trozei was also shown, along with the information that the game is aiming to be a downloadable release.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6415368" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6415368/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p dir="ltr" style=""> </p><p style=""> </p> Mon, 28 Oct 2013 07:55:00 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/next-pokemon-game-a-3d-detective-adventure-with-pikachu-report/1100-6415812/ http://www.gamespot.com/videos/sim-city-cities-of-tomorrow-preview/2300-6415767/ Kevin VanOrd is joined by Jason Haber from Electronic Arts to show off some gameplay from Sim City: Cities of Tomorrow. Mon, 28 Oct 2013 06:00:00 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/sim-city-cities-of-tomorrow-preview/2300-6415767/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/wwe-2k14-review/1900-6415512/ <p style="">Who's the greatest showman of the 20<sup>th</sup> century? Michael Jackson? Harry Houdini? Or maybe you're partial to Ted Danson. These are all fine choices, if you like going the obvious route. How about someone who transformed the flashy fisticuffs of professional wrestling into an art form? Enter Randy Savage. No one else could have made sequined robes seem like the perfect attire for a burly man. And it's not like my high opinion of Savage is because of my hazy memory. His gruff, stilted speech and deliberate mannerisms enthrall me just as much today as they did so many years ago. The Macho Man was a theatrical genius, and the embodiment of everything that makes professional wrestling so compelling.</p><p style="">When the wrestlers of my youth faded into the sunset, so too did my interest in the WWE. But the nostalgic flame of yesteryear still burns inside me. All of those old feelings were rekindled in WWE 2K14. There's a mode called 30 Years of WrestleMania that focuses on the history of wrestling's Super Bowl. I got a warm glow in my chest when I replayed some of these classic matches. Remember when The Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan exchanged clotheslines in the center of the ring? Oh, how thrilling it was to see these two titans go toe-to-toe to settle whatever feud they had. By the end of the fight, Warrior's face paint had chipped away, and we could finally see what the real man looked like. And then there was the time Andre the Giant callously tossed hundred-dollar bills after triumphing over Big John Studd. Such a blatant and hilarious disregard for money!</p><figure data-ref-id="1300-2355884" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/725/7253563/2355884-wwe+2k14+-+savage+vs+ricky+-+2013-10-23+11-23-1605.jpg" data-size="large" data-align="center" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/725/7253563/2355884-wwe+2k14+-+savage+vs+ricky+-+2013-10-23+11-23-1605.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2355884"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/725/7253563/2355884-wwe+2k14+-+savage+vs+ricky+-+2013-10-23+11-23-1605.jpg"></a><figcaption>Randy Savage will always be a champion.</figcaption></figure><p style="">WWE 2K14's celebration of its prestigious history is very well done. We expect entrance themes and costumes to be ripped from the archives, but the game goes even further than that. By completing historical objectives within each match, brief cutscenes are cued up that mirror what happened in real life so many years ago. Have Hulk initiate a grapple outside of the ring against Andre the Giant, and watch the galoot from Grenoble headbutt the ring post just as Hogan ducks away. These scenarios are so expertly crafted that they drew me in completely to the main event. And even when I had never seen the match in the first place, I was still roped in to the drama because of how well it's presented.</p><blockquote data-align="right" data-size="medium"><p style="">By the end of the fight, Warrior's face paint had chipped away, and we could finally see what the real man looked like.</p></blockquote><p style="">Before I realized that wrestling was scripted, I would recoil when one of my heroes would take a chair to his back or have his head forcibly slammed into the ground. But even once I knew their tricks, I would still wince. My emotions would overwhelm my senses, and I would think how much it would hurt to be thrown to and fro. Have you ever slammed your elbow into a ring after missing a flying leap off the top rope? It must be at least a little painful. WWE 2K14 communicates the dramatic punishment of professional wrestling. Most hits have serious impact, so much so that you wonder how someone could possibly survive some of these moves. Thunderous sound effects and elaborate wind-up animations make you grimace despite yourself.</p><p style="">If only strikes carried as much weight as other moves. When WWE 2K14's wrestlers mimic bar-room brawlers by throwing haymakers, the game's relationship to reality crumbles away. The wrestlers punch and kick so quickly that there's no weight behind them. And considering how often you perform these moves, there's an odd separation that makes matches feel imbalanced. Furthermore, the core action is so reliant on counterattacks that it's closer to a sequence of quick-time events than a body slam ballet. Instead of rewarding positioning or smart tactics, victory goes to the wrestler who taps a button first. This strips away much of the appeal of competitive matches because the same tactics can be used to win, no matter who you are or who you play against. After participating in one clunky, awkward match after another, I longed for the fluid choreography of the real thing. Absent WrestleMania's finest moments, the matches are dry affairs that do little to spark the imagination.</p><p style="">Such issues cut even deeper when more than two men enter the ring. The utter chaos of multi-man bouts never comes close to being captured in WWE 2K14. What should be satisfyingly crazy turns into a series of clunky one-on-one battles with no one quite sure what's expected of him. Really, all of the non-traditional fights lack the excitement that should exist when rules are shaken up. Escaping a steel cage, for instance, requires you to tap a button at the optimal position to go faster. Cramming your main objective into a simple minigames is oddly disconnected from the core action. And if you should climb to the top of a Hell in a Cell cage, don't expect to be able to recreate the infamous match between Mick Folley and The Undertaker. You can neither toss your opponent off nor fall through the cage, and the awkward animations preventing such disasters look hopelessly cartoonish. Stick to traditional fights in WWE 2K14 unless you want to see just how limited the combat is.</p><figure data-ref-id="1300-2355889" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/725/7253563/2355889-wwe+2k14+%28360%29+-+the+shaun+method+-+2013-10-25+03-40-3606.jpg" data-size="large" data-align="center" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/725/7253563/2355889-wwe+2k14+%28360%29+-+the+shaun+method+-+2013-10-25+03-40-3606.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2355889"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/725/7253563/2355889-wwe+2k14+%28360%29+-+the+shaun+method+-+2013-10-25+03-40-3606.jpg"></a><figcaption>An abomination only possible in the character creator. You should see his feet.</figcaption></figure><p style="">If you ever wanted to be Vince McMahon (minus the ridiculous walk), Universe mode lets you tinker with the behind-the-scenes drama. Create feuds between wrestlers who used to be best friends and shake up the calendar if you've ever wished that Raw would air on Tuesdays. Universe mode is certainly interesting if you've ever dreamed of crazy scenarios, but it doesn't make up for the lackluster wrestling once you step back in the ring. At least there's one element outside the ring that anyone could enjoy. Creation mode let's you design an unholy monster to be your champion, which is absolutely riveting if you have a maniacal disposition. Make someone with teeny, tiny legs and cross your fingers that his femur doesn't snap in the middle of a bout. Or maybe you want his bones to break. Whatever floats your boat.</p><p style="">It's a shame the wrestling isn't up to par in WWE 2K14 because the elements surrounding it are so interesting. Though not nearly as captivating as Randy Savage, The Undertaker has a mode dedicated to his undefeated record in WrestleManias. You have the option to knock him from his lofty perch with a willing participant, or fend off everyone clamoring for your throne as The Undertaker. It's a neat mode that embraces one of the iconic personalities in the sport, but none of these activities have lasting appeal because fights are so dreary. When WWE 2K14 does work, its because of its recreation of history. For anyone who grew up loving professional wrestling, be prepared to be swept away in a tide of nostalgia. If only the core action could have been as compelling.</p> Mon, 28 Oct 2013 05:00:00 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/wwe-2k14-review/1900-6415512/
http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Mon, 21 Oct 2013 09:06:14 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/batman-arkham-origins-official-gameplay-walkthroug/2300-6415666/ Check out some of the skills you'll be using to brutal effect as Batman in Arkham Origins. Mon, 21 Oct 2013 08:13:00 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/batman-arkham-origins-official-gameplay-walkthroug/2300-6415666/ http://www.gamespot.com/articles/crytek-s-first-f2p-game-warface-out-today/1100-6415684/ <figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1179/11799911/2349546-warface17.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2349546" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1179/11799911/2349546-warface17.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2349546"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1179/11799911/2349546-warface17.jpg"></a></figure><p style=""> </p><p dir="ltr" style="">Crysis and Ryse: Son of Rome developer Crytek today released its first free-to-play game. <a href="/warface/" data-ref-id="false">Warface</a> is <a href="https://gface.com/" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">available today</a> through Crytek's new online hub called GFACE.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Players must register through GFACE to play Warface and agree to the platform's terms and conditions before they can jump in.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Crytek also announced today that based on feedback from the Warface beta, the game's Medic and Engineer classes won't be unlocked until a certain amount of time has passed.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Gamers must play around 30 minutes in the game's tutorial to unlock the Medic class and around 1 hour for the Engineer class.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">In Warface, players start out with a rank of 1 and can level up by gaining XP through taking down enemies and achieving objectives.</p><p style="">Warface, which runs on the CryEngine 3, will be <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/warface-coming-to-xbox-360-in-2014/1100-6413787/" data-ref-id="1100-6413787">released on Xbox 360 in 2014</a>.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6404598" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6404598/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p style=""> </p> Mon, 21 Oct 2013 08:03:00 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/crytek-s-first-f2p-game-warface-out-today/1100-6415684/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/grand-theft-auto-v-review-southland-sprawl/1900-6415483/ <p style="">Grand Theft Auto V deserves accolades for its innovative triumvirate of antiheroes, its many and varied missions, and the sprawling depiction of Los Santos and the hillbilly outbacks. But to rip off what an erudite author once said about Oakland, there is no "there" there. I can't imagine any scenario in which a literary icon like Gertrude Stein would be critiquing a video game, but that legendary putdown can also apply to the Greater Los Santos Area. There is something missing in GTAV that makes the game less engaging than the sociopathic sandboxes of GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas, the two GTA games that will perpetually be my measuring sticks for the franchise.</p><p style="">What is missing most of all is a solid sense of place. Both Vice City and San Andreas reveled in nostalgia. Vice City reeked of the '80s, from the pitch-perfect radio stations to the Crockett and Tubbs lookalikes that showed up in their Testarossas--er, Cheetahs--when you cranked your wanted level to three stars. San Andreas evoked the early 1990s in a similar way. San Andreas' theme was not as developed as Vice City's, but the game still depicted a recognizable time and place in its grim cartoon look at Los Angeles--with sidelong glances at LA County, San Francisco, and Las Vegas--during the explosion of rap and the racial tension that saw a good chunk of SoCal go up in flames after the Rodney King verdict.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6414795" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6414795/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p style="">Both San Andreas and Vice City seemed like real places. Rockstar's biggest achievement in these games was in creating places that you wanted to visit. Vice City was most successful at this. I practically moved to Vice City; I knew the streets by name and could find my way around there better than in the real world. This devotion speaks to Vice City's power to invade my waking thoughts. Long after the game's release, I would go for long drives around town, listening to the radio and indulging my inner hooligan in a rampage or three. The same is true of San Andreas, although the allure of the '80s theme usually won out before I got the San Andreas disc into the system. Rockstar hasn't forgotten how to do this sort of thing. I liked visiting the faux West of Red Dead Redemption just as much as I did Vice City, and still load up the game to ride around the lonely prairie.</p><p style="">GTAV, much like its immediate predecessor, GTAIV, is too almost-modern for its own good. While the setting is ostensibly today, the plot goes back to the 2008-2009 depths of the Great Recession. The story feels dated, and not in the good way of Vice City and San Andreas, which were intentionally retro. Instead of thinking, "Cool! That Exploder: Evacuator Part II movie commercial perfectly sums up how dumb action movies really were in 1986!" you're thinking, "Man, the developers started writing this stuff a long time ago."</p><blockquote data-size="large" data-align="center"><p style="">Look beyond the jokey stuff, and you discover an unrelentingly bleak, black-hearted look at humanity.</p></blockquote><p style="">Not that the economy is really a whole lot better today, of course. But worries about the housing crisis, the implosion of Lehman Brothers, and the bursting of the housing bubble in the US--all things that clearly motivated a lot of the storyline in GTAV--are not exactly current. We've moved on to new economic meltdowns, like the stateside debt ceiling crisis. It's critique of mainstream media is equally archaic; taking shots at reality television for being crass also isn't cutting-edge comedy. Grand Theft Auto V was a clearly expensive game to make and obviously took a long time to develop, but a story that is only contemporary when work begins in earnest on a project of this magnitude ultimately looks dated. It suffers from the curse of trying to be too current.</p><figure data-align="right" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346987-8904847019-2052375-634490_20130826_003.jpg+" data-ref-id="1300-2346987" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346987-8904847019-2052375-634490_20130826_003.jpg+" data-ref-id="1300-2346987"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/416/4161502/2346987-8904847019-2052375-634490_20130826_003.jpg+"></a><figcaption>The triumvirate of protagonists represents the before, after, and way after of humanity.</figcaption></figure><p style="">Los Santos, at least, is brilliantly realized, particularly as a technical achievement. The city and the surrounding meth-producing rural environs form the most realistic depiction of a metropolitan area to ever grace a game. The whole burg lives and breathes, offering colorful slices of life whether you're creeping through backyards in the dead of night or just wandering down the sidewalk in the middle of the afternoon. I don't think I ever encountered any window dressing; all of the people seemed to be present in their own moments, not just there to serve as my personal backdrop. But it's so damn big. I long for the simpler layouts of Vice City and even the more sprawling San Andreas. You could get to know them in a reasonable amount of time, which added to that easy sense of familiarity that turned them into real places in short order.</p><p style="">This is the most personable GTA game, with a strong emphasis on the three lead characters that delves into their psyches (and even into your own psyche by the end of the storyline). That isn't always a good thing, especially when it comes to Trevor, who's probably the most reprehensible dirtbag protagonist in the history of gaming, if not everything. Still, I couldn't look away. Trevor's most malevolent lines were also some of the most hilarious in the game. He forms a vital part of the triumvirate of playable characters, which are a commentary on life in 2008-era America. Trevor represents bottoming out, while burned-out Michael is the guy who's got it all and is still up to his neck in ennui (he's sort of Tommy Vercetti, 25 years later), and up-and-coming Franklin is the man on the rise who's eager to do anything to make the money needed to be regarded as a success in Los Santos. The three are a before, after, and way after.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346990-6795455625-22383.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2346990" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346990-6795455625-22383.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2346990"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/416/4161502/2346990-6795455625-22383.jpg"></a><figcaption>Scripted missions are the best part of GTAV, especially the multipart heists.</figcaption></figure><p style="">The script is brilliant, from the start with Franklin and his idiotic buddy Lamar, through Michael's spoiled-brat family life, through Trevor's meth-lab murders, through the multiple-choice endings. GTAV gets back to the psychopathic comic strip best represented in the craziness of Tommy Vercetti in Vice City, but with more plot points and tighter characterizations to hold the story together. This game hates everyone and everything, expressing an unrelentingly bleak, black-hearted look at humanity, with even the few rays of sunlight bookended by atrocity. Trevor shows mercy on occasion, though the biggest act of charity he offers in the entire game comes right after introducing a guy to creative uses for a car battery and a monkey wrench.</p><blockquote data-align="left"><p style="">The appeal of exploring the map on your own has been diminished.</p></blockquote><p style="">If you have a dark sense of humor, there are more laugh-out-loud moments here than in all of the previous GTA games combined. Being able to switch between the members of this trio at will is a great mechanic that accentuates the humor. Flipping over to see what Trevor is doing almost always results in tuning in to pure insanity. My favorite such event was dropping in on him just as he was looming over a bikini-clad girl on Vespucci Beach, while wearing nothing but a filthy muscle shirt and tighty whities, saying something about her licking his white bits. Such moments are likely scripted, given how this Walter White moment led directly into a mission opening where Trevor dropped his undies in front of hapless Floyd, but it all seems organic when you're playing.</p><p style="">Missions have also been laid out almost perfectly, with loads of options as to how you play them, especially when it comes to the big multipart heists that see you planning and executing jobs with the help of hired operatives. Events get overly surreal at times, with the trio working together to form something of a James Bond team adept at everything from flying planes to scuba diving. Still, it's all incredibly captivating, and the game does everything at least reasonably well. Flying and landing planes, for instance, still aren't fully enjoyable tasks, but they've come a long way since San Andreas.</p><figure data-align="right" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346995-9641516373-22383.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2346995" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346995-9641516373-22383.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2346995"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/416/4161502/2346995-9641516373-22383.jpg"></a><figcaption>Women have few roles to play in GTA V. Here's the most common.</figcaption></figure><p style="">Unfortunately, the appeal of exploring the map on your own has been diminished. Attempts at free-form chaos inevitably had me switching back to the scripted stories and missions, which yielded far more entertainment. The only thing I enjoyed about exploring was stumbling upon random occurrences, such as robberies, an apparent bus hijacking, and police shootouts with other criminals. Yet even these great little touches paled in comparison with the scripted missions, and core components of the game design have been tweaked to raise the profile of scripted story at the cost of the open-world concept that has powered previous GTAs. You can still go gonzo in style, but it's not nearly as easy to explode in a random manner when the mood strikes you.</p><p style="">One reason the zaniness feels so limited is that the police are extraordinarily good at what they do and extremely aggressive. They arrive on the scene of even one- and two-star wanted level incidents almost immediately, and a police chopper is quick to show up the moment you hit three stars. Police boats roar up quickly if you try to take to the waves, and cops shoot extremely well, to the point where they can tag you with bullets from a good block away. Basic patrol cars accelerate almost as well as the average Pegassi Infernus, and their drivers are expert at cutting you off and blocking you in. If you want to go on a satisfying tear, you need to armor up, make sure you have loads of the best hardware that Ammu-Nation carries, and have a zippy car nearby. Walking out of a hospital in a bad mood and going berserk with cathartic anger generally gets you wasted again in very short order.</p><blockquote data-size="large" data-align="center"><p style="">It's a lot more fun to escape the cops by slamming a car into a Pay 'n' Spray booth at a hundred miles an hour than it is to cower in an alley for five minutes while the police gradually give up their pursuit.</p></blockquote><p style="">You can still go on rampages and evade the police, of course, but you have to do it more realistically by switching cars, hiding in bushes, ducking into somebody's backyard, hanging out in a parking garage, and so forth. This is a more lifelike way of ditching the boys in blue, but it's not very entertaining, especially if you like the intensity of one-man-stand firefights. The best way to eliminate a wanted level now is to hide. I had the most success by driving off-road where the cops couldn't follow me very well. Then I just stuck the car in a gully and sat back until my wanted level vanished completely.</p><p style="">Long gone are the days when you could clock six stars (the game now tops out at five stars), get the army after you, and still escape justice simply by scraping into a Pay 'n' Spray a second ahead of the long arm of the law. Pay 'n' Spray shops have actually been pulled out of GTAV entirely in favor of Los Santos Customs, which is more of a car modification garage than a ready way to escape the cops, since it's useless unless you've already lost your pursuers. Magic car paint in Vice City and San Andreas may have been pretty ridiculous, but it was also a great game mechanism that emphasized the catch-me-if-you-can excitement that made sandbox rampages so integral a part of the GTA experience. It's a lot more fun to escape the cops by slamming a car into a Pay 'n' Spray booth at a hundred miles an hour than it is to cower in an alley for five minutes while the police gradually give up their pursuit.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/mig/6/5/8/2/2236582-gsm_169_gta_v_vr_ps3_091513_m1_320.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2236582" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/mig/6/5/8/2/2236582-gsm_169_gta_v_vr_ps3_091513_m1_320.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2236582"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/mig/6/5/8/2/2236582-gsm_169_gta_v_vr_ps3_091513_m1_320.jpg"></a><figcaption>World-weary Michael is a memorable character who seems like a Behind the Music look at Tommy Vercetti, 25 years later.</figcaption></figure><p style="">This is a considerably different style of game than either San Andreas or Vice City, with more structure and less of that eyes-wide-open world where the most fun was surveying the landscape and seeing what kind of trouble you could get into. This is a new GTA, one that is a great game on its own terms, but also one that fails to capture the magic of the freestyle adventures that set the tone for the series. I can't see myself coming back to GTAV very often now that I've wrapped the main storyline, save to check out the expansions that Rockstar is undoubtedly prepping for 2014, or to get into the multiplayer, if and when it lives up to its potential. Here, because the game's structure is so tight, done is done. That's typical of how I play games. But it isn't typical of how I play GTA games.</p> Fri, 18 Oct 2013 15:29:00 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/grand-theft-auto-v-review-southland-sprawl/1900-6415483/
http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Mon, 21 Oct 2013 09:06:14 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/batman-arkham-origins-official-gameplay-walkthroug/2300-6415666/ Check out some of the skills you'll be using to brutal effect as Batman in Arkham Origins. Mon, 21 Oct 2013 08:13:00 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/batman-arkham-origins-official-gameplay-walkthroug/2300-6415666/ http://www.gamespot.com/articles/crytek-s-first-f2p-game-warface-out-today/1100-6415684/ <figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1179/11799911/2349546-warface17.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2349546" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1179/11799911/2349546-warface17.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2349546"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1179/11799911/2349546-warface17.jpg"></a></figure><p style=""> </p><p dir="ltr" style="">Crysis and Ryse: Son of Rome developer Crytek today released its first free-to-play game. <a href="/warface/" data-ref-id="false">Warface</a> is <a href="https://gface.com/" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">available today</a> through Crytek's new online hub called GFACE.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Players must register through GFACE to play Warface and agree to the platform's terms and conditions before they can jump in.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Crytek also announced today that based on feedback from the Warface beta, the game's Medic and Engineer classes won't be unlocked until a certain amount of time has passed.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Gamers must play around 30 minutes in the game's tutorial to unlock the Medic class and around 1 hour for the Engineer class.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">In Warface, players start out with a rank of 1 and can level up by gaining XP through taking down enemies and achieving objectives.</p><p style="">Warface, which runs on the CryEngine 3, will be <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/warface-coming-to-xbox-360-in-2014/1100-6413787/" data-ref-id="1100-6413787">released on Xbox 360 in 2014</a>.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6404598" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6404598/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p style=""> </p> Mon, 21 Oct 2013 08:03:00 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/crytek-s-first-f2p-game-warface-out-today/1100-6415684/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/grand-theft-auto-v-review-southland-sprawl/1900-6415483/ <p style="">Grand Theft Auto V deserves accolades for its innovative triumvirate of antiheroes, its many and varied missions, and the sprawling depiction of Los Santos and the hillbilly outbacks. But to rip off what an erudite author once said about Oakland, there is no "there" there. I can't imagine any scenario in which a literary icon like Gertrude Stein would be critiquing a video game, but that legendary putdown can also apply to the Greater Los Santos Area. There is something missing in GTAV that makes the game less engaging than the sociopathic sandboxes of GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas, the two GTA games that will perpetually be my measuring sticks for the franchise.</p><p style="">What is missing most of all is a solid sense of place. Both Vice City and San Andreas reveled in nostalgia. Vice City reeked of the '80s, from the pitch-perfect radio stations to the Crockett and Tubbs lookalikes that showed up in their Testarossas--er, Cheetahs--when you cranked your wanted level to three stars. San Andreas evoked the early 1990s in a similar way. San Andreas' theme was not as developed as Vice City's, but the game still depicted a recognizable time and place in its grim cartoon look at Los Angeles--with sidelong glances at LA County, San Francisco, and Las Vegas--during the explosion of rap and the racial tension that saw a good chunk of SoCal go up in flames after the Rodney King verdict.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6414795" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6414795/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p style="">Both San Andreas and Vice City seemed like real places. Rockstar's biggest achievement in these games was in creating places that you wanted to visit. Vice City was most successful at this. I practically moved to Vice City; I knew the streets by name and could find my way around there better than in the real world. This devotion speaks to Vice City's power to invade my waking thoughts. Long after the game's release, I would go for long drives around town, listening to the radio and indulging my inner hooligan in a rampage or three. The same is true of San Andreas, although the allure of the '80s theme usually won out before I got the San Andreas disc into the system. Rockstar hasn't forgotten how to do this sort of thing. I liked visiting the faux West of Red Dead Redemption just as much as I did Vice City, and still load up the game to ride around the lonely prairie.</p><p style="">GTAV, much like its immediate predecessor, GTAIV, is too almost-modern for its own good. While the setting is ostensibly today, the plot goes back to the 2008-2009 depths of the Great Recession. The story feels dated, and not in the good way of Vice City and San Andreas, which were intentionally retro. Instead of thinking, "Cool! That Exploder: Evacuator Part II movie commercial perfectly sums up how dumb action movies really were in 1986!" you're thinking, "Man, the developers started writing this stuff a long time ago."</p><blockquote data-size="large" data-align="center"><p style="">Look beyond the jokey stuff, and you discover an unrelentingly bleak, black-hearted look at humanity.</p></blockquote><p style="">Not that the economy is really a whole lot better today, of course. But worries about the housing crisis, the implosion of Lehman Brothers, and the bursting of the housing bubble in the US--all things that clearly motivated a lot of the storyline in GTAV--are not exactly current. We've moved on to new economic meltdowns, like the stateside debt ceiling crisis. It's critique of mainstream media is equally archaic; taking shots at reality television for being crass also isn't cutting-edge comedy. Grand Theft Auto V was a clearly expensive game to make and obviously took a long time to develop, but a story that is only contemporary when work begins in earnest on a project of this magnitude ultimately looks dated. It suffers from the curse of trying to be too current.</p><figure data-align="right" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346987-8904847019-2052375-634490_20130826_003.jpg+" data-ref-id="1300-2346987" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346987-8904847019-2052375-634490_20130826_003.jpg+" data-ref-id="1300-2346987"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/416/4161502/2346987-8904847019-2052375-634490_20130826_003.jpg+"></a><figcaption>The triumvirate of protagonists represents the before, after, and way after of humanity.</figcaption></figure><p style="">Los Santos, at least, is brilliantly realized, particularly as a technical achievement. The city and the surrounding meth-producing rural environs form the most realistic depiction of a metropolitan area to ever grace a game. The whole burg lives and breathes, offering colorful slices of life whether you're creeping through backyards in the dead of night or just wandering down the sidewalk in the middle of the afternoon. I don't think I ever encountered any window dressing; all of the people seemed to be present in their own moments, not just there to serve as my personal backdrop. But it's so damn big. I long for the simpler layouts of Vice City and even the more sprawling San Andreas. You could get to know them in a reasonable amount of time, which added to that easy sense of familiarity that turned them into real places in short order.</p><p style="">This is the most personable GTA game, with a strong emphasis on the three lead characters that delves into their psyches (and even into your own psyche by the end of the storyline). That isn't always a good thing, especially when it comes to Trevor, who's probably the most reprehensible dirtbag protagonist in the history of gaming, if not everything. Still, I couldn't look away. Trevor's most malevolent lines were also some of the most hilarious in the game. He forms a vital part of the triumvirate of playable characters, which are a commentary on life in 2008-era America. Trevor represents bottoming out, while burned-out Michael is the guy who's got it all and is still up to his neck in ennui (he's sort of Tommy Vercetti, 25 years later), and up-and-coming Franklin is the man on the rise who's eager to do anything to make the money needed to be regarded as a success in Los Santos. The three are a before, after, and way after.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346990-6795455625-22383.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2346990" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346990-6795455625-22383.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2346990"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/416/4161502/2346990-6795455625-22383.jpg"></a><figcaption>Scripted missions are the best part of GTAV, especially the multipart heists.</figcaption></figure><p style="">The script is brilliant, from the start with Franklin and his idiotic buddy Lamar, through Michael's spoiled-brat family life, through Trevor's meth-lab murders, through the multiple-choice endings. GTAV gets back to the psychopathic comic strip best represented in the craziness of Tommy Vercetti in Vice City, but with more plot points and tighter characterizations to hold the story together. This game hates everyone and everything, expressing an unrelentingly bleak, black-hearted look at humanity, with even the few rays of sunlight bookended by atrocity. Trevor shows mercy on occasion, though the biggest act of charity he offers in the entire game comes right after introducing a guy to creative uses for a car battery and a monkey wrench.</p><blockquote data-align="left"><p style="">The appeal of exploring the map on your own has been diminished.</p></blockquote><p style="">If you have a dark sense of humor, there are more laugh-out-loud moments here than in all of the previous GTA games combined. Being able to switch between the members of this trio at will is a great mechanic that accentuates the humor. Flipping over to see what Trevor is doing almost always results in tuning in to pure insanity. My favorite such event was dropping in on him just as he was looming over a bikini-clad girl on Vespucci Beach, while wearing nothing but a filthy muscle shirt and tighty whities, saying something about her licking his white bits. Such moments are likely scripted, given how this Walter White moment led directly into a mission opening where Trevor dropped his undies in front of hapless Floyd, but it all seems organic when you're playing.</p><p style="">Missions have also been laid out almost perfectly, with loads of options as to how you play them, especially when it comes to the big multipart heists that see you planning and executing jobs with the help of hired operatives. Events get overly surreal at times, with the trio working together to form something of a James Bond team adept at everything from flying planes to scuba diving. Still, it's all incredibly captivating, and the game does everything at least reasonably well. Flying and landing planes, for instance, still aren't fully enjoyable tasks, but they've come a long way since San Andreas.</p><figure data-align="right" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346995-9641516373-22383.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2346995" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2346995-9641516373-22383.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2346995"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/416/4161502/2346995-9641516373-22383.jpg"></a><figcaption>Women have few roles to play in GTA V. Here's the most common.</figcaption></figure><p style="">Unfortunately, the appeal of exploring the map on your own has been diminished. Attempts at free-form chaos inevitably had me switching back to the scripted stories and missions, which yielded far more entertainment. The only thing I enjoyed about exploring was stumbling upon random occurrences, such as robberies, an apparent bus hijacking, and police shootouts with other criminals. Yet even these great little touches paled in comparison with the scripted missions, and core components of the game design have been tweaked to raise the profile of scripted story at the cost of the open-world concept that has powered previous GTAs. You can still go gonzo in style, but it's not nearly as easy to explode in a random manner when the mood strikes you.</p><p style="">One reason the zaniness feels so limited is that the police are extraordinarily good at what they do and extremely aggressive. They arrive on the scene of even one- and two-star wanted level incidents almost immediately, and a police chopper is quick to show up the moment you hit three stars. Police boats roar up quickly if you try to take to the waves, and cops shoot extremely well, to the point where they can tag you with bullets from a good block away. Basic patrol cars accelerate almost as well as the average Pegassi Infernus, and their drivers are expert at cutting you off and blocking you in. If you want to go on a satisfying tear, you need to armor up, make sure you have loads of the best hardware that Ammu-Nation carries, and have a zippy car nearby. Walking out of a hospital in a bad mood and going berserk with cathartic anger generally gets you wasted again in very short order.</p><blockquote data-size="large" data-align="center"><p style="">It's a lot more fun to escape the cops by slamming a car into a Pay 'n' Spray booth at a hundred miles an hour than it is to cower in an alley for five minutes while the police gradually give up their pursuit.</p></blockquote><p style="">You can still go on rampages and evade the police, of course, but you have to do it more realistically by switching cars, hiding in bushes, ducking into somebody's backyard, hanging out in a parking garage, and so forth. This is a more lifelike way of ditching the boys in blue, but it's not very entertaining, especially if you like the intensity of one-man-stand firefights. The best way to eliminate a wanted level now is to hide. I had the most success by driving off-road where the cops couldn't follow me very well. Then I just stuck the car in a gully and sat back until my wanted level vanished completely.</p><p style="">Long gone are the days when you could clock six stars (the game now tops out at five stars), get the army after you, and still escape justice simply by scraping into a Pay 'n' Spray a second ahead of the long arm of the law. Pay 'n' Spray shops have actually been pulled out of GTAV entirely in favor of Los Santos Customs, which is more of a car modification garage than a ready way to escape the cops, since it's useless unless you've already lost your pursuers. Magic car paint in Vice City and San Andreas may have been pretty ridiculous, but it was also a great game mechanism that emphasized the catch-me-if-you-can excitement that made sandbox rampages so integral a part of the GTA experience. It's a lot more fun to escape the cops by slamming a car into a Pay 'n' Spray booth at a hundred miles an hour than it is to cower in an alley for five minutes while the police gradually give up their pursuit.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/mig/6/5/8/2/2236582-gsm_169_gta_v_vr_ps3_091513_m1_320.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2236582" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/mig/6/5/8/2/2236582-gsm_169_gta_v_vr_ps3_091513_m1_320.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2236582"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/mig/6/5/8/2/2236582-gsm_169_gta_v_vr_ps3_091513_m1_320.jpg"></a><figcaption>World-weary Michael is a memorable character who seems like a Behind the Music look at Tommy Vercetti, 25 years later.</figcaption></figure><p style="">This is a considerably different style of game than either San Andreas or Vice City, with more structure and less of that eyes-wide-open world where the most fun was surveying the landscape and seeing what kind of trouble you could get into. This is a new GTA, one that is a great game on its own terms, but also one that fails to capture the magic of the freestyle adventures that set the tone for the series. I can't see myself coming back to GTAV very often now that I've wrapped the main storyline, save to check out the expansions that Rockstar is undoubtedly prepping for 2014, or to get into the multiplayer, if and when it lives up to its potential. Here, because the game's structure is so tight, done is done. That's typical of how I play games. But it isn't typical of how I play GTA games.</p> Fri, 18 Oct 2013 15:29:00 -0700 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/grand-theft-auto-v-review-southland-sprawl/1900-6415483/
