Re-Surfacing.

Before I played Bioshock 2, I wasn't sure if sequelizing a masterpiece was a good idea. I couldn't think of any ways to substantially improve the experience, and rather than bring the series down by adding a second, lesser game, I was of the opinion that Bioshock should have stood as the lone entry in the franchise. While my opinion has changed, I still maintain that the tale was already told to my satisfaction the first time around. That being said, Bioshock 2 came relatively close to equaling the magic of the original. Story and gameplay contrivances brought it down a bit, but overall it was rewarding and thought-provoking to see the same Rapture with different ideals making the wheels turn. And it helped that the ending was much, much better.

I was actually going to knock the game for the pacing of its narrative, but it's deceptively simple. For the first 3/4ths of the game, there is precious little in the way of revealed plot points. Mostly, all that is given up is incidental happenings from a wide cast of characters that have no sway in the proceedings. Sofia Lamb, of course, has a lot of preaching to do, and she gets her point across rather well. I'll get into her ideology in a minute, but she's like Andrew Ryan in the sense that they both have no problem giving you an ear-full of why their ideas are so fantastically brilliant and yours are so full of shit. One of the biggest draws to the series for me is listening to these so-called leaders spout their crap about bettering society and our species, while experiencing first-hand just how bad a job they're doing. I mean, seriously. Delusions of grandeur can be quite amusing to observe, but there comes a point when you just want to sit people like Lamb and Ryan down and tell them that the world isn't as black-and-white as they see it. But I'm digressing a little too early; my original point was that the lack of narrative for around 15 hours was disturbing, to say the least. But once it kicked in, it really kicked in. I was also more than a little alarmed at that fact, because I figured way too much was going to be crammed into the end and it would feel slapped-on. Thankfully, I was wrong. Maybe the implementation was still flawed, but the narrative itself wasn't very complicated. Not in a bad way, mind you. There were only a small handful of people to come into contact with, and their roles were pretty straight-forward. Despite my earlier, misguided belief, 2K Marin didn't try to replicate the same character reversal from Bioshock. Instead, they focused more on showing people for who they were - or who they thought they were.

Take Sofia Lamb, for example. She despises everything about "the self", and makes the distinction between intelligence and consciousness. I agree that intelligence doesn't necessitate consciousness in the way she defined it, but it's ridiculous to say that being self-aware is the worst thing that could happen to us. It's an oft-used visual, but would she rather humans were more like Lemmings? It's in being self-aware that we're able to find meaning in life, and seeing her version of utopia serves only as confirmation of that fact. Ironically, Lamb stated that Ryan's vision brought about a sort of religious following, which she detested. Oh, really? That would be nothing like the cult following you accrued by drilling into their heads the ultimate value of being part of a collective, right? This is what I meant when I said the game focused on showing people for who they thought they were. Being self-aware, in some cases, can cause you to ignore reason and logic in the pursuit of personal happiness. Such is the case with Lamb. Her happiness had to do with "curing" society's ills at any cost - even her own daughter's life. She said she would never be able to forgive herself for it, but it was obviously a sacrifice she was willing to make. I guess it's not much of a stretch for her, though, since she was already using her daughter as a tool to further her own cause.

Speaking of Eleanor, the final bits of the game with her in it were a vast improvement on the original game's ending. Bioshock ended with the standard video game boss encounter, and I really hated that. This time, though, 2K Marin addressed that flaw and made the experience much more aligned with the narrative instead of actively working against it. Also, the Little Sister sequence took me by total surprise. It was great to see the world through the eyes of one of them, and there were a lot of little touches that made it rather humorous, such as the Big Daddy posters proclaiming "Daddy is so strong!" And for the most part, when I thought Bioshock 2 was going to re-tread some of the same narrative tricks from the first game, it instead varied the formula in some interesting ways. There's still the hunt for suit parts, Little Sisters are again used as a necessity for escape, and your character is artificially compulsed to complete objectives. But instead of simply powering up for a final, physical confrontation, the build-up felt organic to at least the way I envisioned the narrative flow.

I'm not sure if I saw what I think I saw at the very end. When Sofia Lamb and Eleanor are in the escape pod, Eleanor is talking to you about forgiveness. It looks like she put an oxygen mask on Lamb instead of letting her drown, and that perplexed me at first. I thought to myself, "Why the hell would she do that?" Let's face it, Eleanor hated her mother and everything she stood for. Why ,then, would she start exulting forgiveness after a life spent in captivity? Well, I think it ties back in with Lamb's wrong-headed thinking. She reasons that "the self" is the cause of everything evil inside us, and so she set about completely wiping Eleanor's ego and replacing it with the collective hopes and dreams of an entire civilization. But in rejecting those ideals and then, in the end, still choosing to save her mother, Eleanor exemplified with a single action what Lamb couldn't see within an entire city full of people. It was Eleanor's conscience that allowed her to have compassion and forgiveness, and nothing Sofia Lamb could ever say would change that. So I think one thing to take away from this is how we all have the capacity to do harm, but it's our capacity for individual goodness that makes life worth living. Even if we have a huge propensity towards hurting each other, being at least conscious of that fact and trying to work for a better existence is where human beings shine.

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The Plot Thickens.

As a warning, I'll be going more into specific plot points and characters in this post.


Dionysus Park seems to mark the beginning of the end of Bioshock 2. Before I got to this point, I had received precious few tidbits of story specifics, and I was actually wondering when it was going to get a head of steam going. Well, the steam is starting to build now. I've learned some things about my character and what he did 10 years ago, and also what the catalyst was for the events taking place during the game. I'll guarantee you some douchey self-interest was involved, as well as unscrupulous back-stabbing. But what it basically boils down to is this: someone deserved to get it, and I gave it to him.

The first thing I noticed when I stepped out of the airlock was a sign that instantly brought me back to 2007. I forget the actual name on the sign, but apparently Sander Cohen had an art gallery of sorts, and throughout Dionysus Park there were scratched paintings, broken sculptures and destroyed statues, all pointing to one of my favorite characters from the last game. It just put a smile on my face to see his name again, honestly. There aren't a lot of direct tie-ins to Bioshock in the environments, so it was a nice touch to finally offer something familiar. Obviously, though, Sander Cohen didn't make an appearance. Instead, the deal-maker this time around was Stanley Poole. I had already collected a few audio logs of his beforehand, and he didn't come across as the straightest shooter. That's probably the understatement of the year. Without going into too much detail, Poole is responsible for your situation. He's also responsible for the death of a lot of Sofia Lamb's followers, and for much of what happened to Eleanor. It's all pretty fucked up, and this guy deserved everything that came to him (despite the same binary choice that seems to be the default conundrum in Rapture).

Poole worked as a reporter in Rapture back when it was still kicking, and Ryan had hired him to infiltrate Lamb's cult by pretending to write a tell-all book about the fall of Rapture. Once he got on the inside of the cult, it pretty much went downhill from there. As far as I can tell at this point, no one benefited from Poole's involvement in any of this. I don't want to go into any more details, but suffice it to say this guy is a total asshole. Once I got to Dionysus Park, he was immediately on my case to take care of all the Little Sisters in the area. He felt threatened by them collecting the Adam from corpses because of the DNA memories stored within, and his deal with me was to get them out of the picture. In return, he would open the control booth to get the train started. That was pretty much it, really. Dionysus Park was fun to explore, and so far every area in Rapture has been very noticeably different than the last. And adding to the constant scenery change is the steady addition of more enemies. In Dionysus Park, it was Houdini Splicers, and I made sure I had fully researched them before I moved on to the next area. It definitely pays to do so, because the most beneficial reward is being able to tell where they're going to re-appear much more easily.

In fact, of all the available research subjects, I only need to finish the Big Daddy, Brute Splicer and Security. Unfortunately, I keep forgetting to snap the pictures of cameras, turrets and bots, so I barely have any progress on them. There was even one room with at least 6 cameras and 2 turrets, and I took exactly zero pictures. Way to fail.

But the further I get in the game, the more impressive the presentation is becoming. Not many games can make the lack of interaction a strong suit, but Bioshock 2 does it constantly. It's funny, then, how the simple act of just meeting up with another character gets me all excited to get where I need to go. Like I said in another post, these people I'm interacting with almost don't seem real, so when I get the chance to see them, it does nothing but strengthen my resolve to push forward. Bioshock, in general, is all about conflict and resolution without much in the way of positive reinforcement. You have to get shit done or die trying, which brings me back to another point I made in a previous post. Stanley Poole is another guy I wouldn't mind getting to know a little better, but the game structure doesn't allow for that to happen. The only real way to accomplish that would be to make a prequel, so again, my fingers are crossed for that to happen some day.

I also need to mention that even though Andrew Ryan and Sofia Lamb are both extremists, from time to time they make valid points. I even find myself agreeing with some of the things they say. It's too bad they can't (or more accurately for Ryan, couldn't) get past their own myopic views to see the bigger picture. Both espouse to be working towards that bigger picture, but the only way to do that is through some form of compromise. That's one thing life is full of, and neither Ryan nor Lamb have that quality in them to allow for less than their every desire. I have more sympathy for Ryan, though, because I think he's a more noble person. I'm not saying he's not horribly flawed, but in direct comparison to Lamb, I'd side with him probably every time. Still, that dirty "c" word will continue to inhibit Rapture from ever becoming what it could - and should - have been.


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Cults and Crosses.

Having finished Siren Alley about an hour ago, I'm struck with just how much Rapture has changed. Gone are the statues portraying Man looking up to the heavens, and in their place are shrines for Man to bow in deference to the very thing they formerly aspired to be. It was strange being in a traditional church setting, but the cult vibe permeated the air far outside of the Temple of the Lamb. I think one of the most appealing things about this series is that it makes you constantly think to yourself, "Wow, I'm glad I don't live there." No matter what is going on in Rapture, I can't help but feel the hopelessness and futility of everyone still roaming the once-great halls. The feelings I experience while playing Bioshock 2 are, for some, the same things video games allow them to escape from. I use games for that purpose as well, but it's not often for a world as rich as Rapture to exist in the form it does.

Siren Alley is the sanctuary (or at least one of them) for the cult following of Sofia Lamb, which, it seems, has built itself a strange form of Christianity. There's a lot of talk about The Almighty Lord doing this and that, and sin and redemption. Numerous Holy Bibles are littered around nightstands and counter tops. People seem to want to be forgiven for the things they've done, and in wanting their burdens to be lifted, they've allowed extreme thinking to alter their minds. It's really no different than what happened to Rapture before, but this time it's for a totally different reason. Lamb has some secret stuff going on behind the scenes, which I'm still trying to puzzle out, but I have at least an idea of what she's doing now. All I'll say is that having an army of people convinced of something with everything inside them can be very, very useful for ulterior motives.

The characters in this area, in a way, almost made me wish the structure of the whole game was different. Most of the time in Bioshock, every different area has a sort of "boss" character. They each have their own little block of Rapture carved out for themselves, and the goal of the area basically boils down to exploring their weird little world and then confronting them once you've discovered everything there is to know. The same holds true in Siren Alley, but I really wanted to get to know the central characters better. I could smell a good story coming from their relationships, and I wish there was a logical way to elaborate on it without bringing the whole game to a screeching halt. There's no real way to do it, so it's not something I begrudge the game itself, but I do think it's too bad I'll never really get the chance to explore the lives of these people a little more. In the end, I'd call it a massive compliment to the game world and the ability of the designers who crafted such a believable and interesting narrative. Leaving the player wanting more can sometimes be the best thing a storyteller could possibly do, and in the case of Bioshock's characters, it is certainly the case.

I'm also starting to get a lot more plasmids and tonics now, which is further opening up the gameplay for me to experiment with multiple ways of totally ruining people's shit. Spider splicers seem a lot quicker, but it doesn't really matter when I have a home-made shotgun with tesla coils sprouting from each side. I think I'm going to be using the next few hundred Adam I get to buy up every tonic slot, because there are just so many stackable benefits to be had from them. I don't want to have to be continuously switching them out at the gene banks, so I'll just kick ass and equip as many as possible. I'm not really sure if I'll be able to buy every plasmid in the game, but I've already pretty much found my stable of a few abilities I consistently use. There are quite a few plasmids to be had, but some of them don't seem particularly useful to me, especially with the tonics I already have equipped. For example, there are both tonics and plasmids that deal with elemental damage. Having both equipped would be stackable, but it seems like overkill and a waste to use them at the same time. Needless to say, I have a lot of options in front of me.

The last thing I'll mention is that as I was walking around in Siren Alley, I saw a Little Sister start harvesting Adam from a corpse that wasn't a corpse until I showed up. So, my initial reaction was spot-on: any corpse will do for collecting Adam. Sometimes I hate being right.

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Deeper, Still.

As I played through some four more hours of Bioshock 2, I continued to be in awe of the world Irrational Games (2K Boston) created. I've never played System Shock or System Shock 2, but man, would I love to. The price for System Shock 2 on Amazon is unfortunate, to say the least, so it looks like I won't be playing it in the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, that game's so-called spiritual successor is keeping me plenty busy in the mean time.

Tonight I went through Pauper's Drop. It's where, according to Augustus Sinclair, at least, the dregs of society hang their weary heads. The place is directly under the Atlantic Express line, and everything about it is fittingly shanty'd up. Pauper's Drop is also where the game starts to feel like it's opening up for me to do things the way I want to do them. Bioshock 2 is structured differently than the first game, because once you've left certain areas of Rapture, you can't go back. The game even gives you a warning that if you continue past point X, it's closed to you from then on. The great thing about this new area is that it's a lot bigger than previous areas, and the game's mechanics are starting to gel together to form the bigger gameplay picture.

For one, there is more than one Little Sister in this area, which means twice the amount of protection segments. Sure, they're absolutely, transparently artificial, but it's still fun to set up a fire zone and wait for the horde of splicers to come happily running to their fiery doom. The one thing that bothers me, though, is that other Little Sisters can walk around willy-nilly, jabbing syringes into whatever the hell they feel like without getting so much as a fart in their general direction. Randomly, firefights will erupt between a Big Daddy and some dude with a bandage on his head, but it's nothing near the all-out chaos that occurs when I decide to harvest some Adam. Whatever, I have cyclone traps now, so they can suck it. Besides the added mass splicers-as-lemmings carnage, the research camera becomes available part-way through the area. Just like in the original game, the camera adds a bit of depth to multiple gameplay aspects. Not only is it more fun to take snapshots of enemies before beating them to death, but taking good pictures gives you bonuses such as tonics and added damage against certain enemies. The combat feels like it has more than one dimension to it now, as it should. I maxed out all research tracks in Bioshock, and I imagine I'll do the same again. I wonder, though, if any part of Bioshock 2 will be able to best Sander Coen's game of take-pictures-of-corpses-so-I-can-get-off-on-it, while at the same time wondering if the ash-covered dead people are going to eat your face off. That shit was fucked up.

I also appreciate the scaled-down approach to such a large game world. In Bioshock, there was a lot of running around between areas with tons of real estate. This time around, the world feels just as big, but it's sliced into smaller chunks that the player has to tackle one at a time before advancing. It's nice this way, because it cuts back on the risk of backtracking too much or going in circles trying to find that one door or thing you missed. The map seems to be a little more helpful, as well, but that could just be because there's less square footage involved. Either way, the game feels a little more focused and intent on making sure the player has just enough space to work with. I've heard the game described as more linear, but that's a bunch of bullshit. You're still dropped into a wide-open arena full of things to do, and the ways and means of accomplishing specific goals are totally up to you. I, for one, feel like I have total control over the way I'm playing.

Very briefly, I feel the need to mention something I brought up in my previous Bioshock 2 post. I mentioned the moral "decision" regarding the Little Sisters, and how the choice is nothing more than the simplest of dilemmas, especially when stacked up to what the rest of the story has to offer. I experienced the same sort of thing tonight in Pauper's Drop. There's a character in the game whom you can either kill or let live. It's presented as some big choice for you to mull over, but the whole kill-or-spare version of morality is getting a little stale to me. Why does it have to be such a drastic choice? Why can't the game be filled with smaller, more subtle choices that add up to something in the end? Mass Effect sort of goes down that route, but I also have problems with Bioware's system. All in all, I've yet to see a game fully realize a "moral compass" within the constraints of a narrative. I'm sure it'll happen one day, and I'll blog my happy little ass off about it.

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Journey to the Surface.

Sequels can be funny things. Sometimes they vastly improve upon their predecessors, and other times they take a step backwards. Mostly, however, they're a combination of the two. Take Bioshock 2, for instance. There are immediate and obvious improvements to the game - most of which are mechanical - and they go a long way in allowing me to continue to enjoy my journey into the depths of Rapture. But what is the cost of these rote additions to the nuts-and-bolts of the game? I don't mean to suggest that one aspect of a game has to suffer in order to improve upon another; I'm simply wondering where the priorities were for the folks at 2K Marin while they were developing Bioshock 2.

Don't worry, I'm enjoying the game quite a bit so far, but there are certainly flaws I feel the need to point out. For starters, being a Big Daddy should come with immediate advantages. It certainly does when you're dealing with regular ol' splicers, but when confronted with taking down another Big Daddy, the encounter exposes what's really going on with the gameplay. Visually, you look and feel like a lumbering behemoth that could wreak havoc at will. In practice, you're exactly the same as you were in the first game, only with a different character skin. You'd think that being inside an enormous diving suit would afford you some luxuries in the defense department, but when a crazy lady with a pipe hits you for a quarter of your health in 3 seconds, all pretenses of power are dropped. But my problem isn't really with normal enemies. I noticed this disconnect mostly when I encountered my first Big Daddy/Little Sister combo. When I was about to engage him, I thought to myself, "Alright, Big Daddy on Big Daddy, dueling drill arm action. May the best man win." Once it was over, I was painfully aware there was only one Big Daddy during the fight, and it wasn't me. Why is it that when I swing my gigantic drill with thunderous force against the armor of the Big Daddy, he seems to shrug it off and in one fluid motion knock me half-way across the room, taking half of my health with it? I thought we would be evenly matched as far as brute force goes, but I was sorely mistaken. I'm not complaining about actual difficulty, mind you. I'm noticing the difference between what the game is telling me I'm capable of doing, and what it's actually allowing me to do.

I completely understand that if I were able to just obliterate everything in my path that the game would be a simple matter of pressing the "kill things" button while walking forward. Perhaps, then, the basic concept should have been completely different. Maybe they should have done what I've been wishing for since finishing the first Bioshock: a full-on prequel. I want nothing more than to be able to walk through Rapture at the height of its power and opulence; to be a witness to the unfolding madness and chaos as Ryan and Fontaine battled for control of an ultimately failed societal experiment. I think it's a great idea to take the role of one of Fontaine's lackeys, going about his dirty work trying to throw every wrench possible into Ryan's works. At some point, maybe your character would start to see things differently and a conflict would arise. I haven't put much thought into it beyond that, but I'd call it a pretty good starting point. Anyways, my whole point is that being a Big Daddy for the entire game might not have been the wisest of design choices. The game plays just like the original, which I'm fine with, but it forces me to ask why I can't take (and dole out) the same amount of punishment every other random Big Daddy is able to. I'm willing to forgive this disconnect and call it what it is: a purely cosmetic change. Granted, story-wise it's a genuine difference. But as far as the gameplay is concerned, you walk with a metal clang in your step and grunt when you fall.

Something else that really bothers me is gathering Adam with the Little Sisters. I haven't gone back and checked, but I'm pretty sure Adam can be harvested from any corpse. As long as they're spliced up, they should do fine, right? And if that's the case, then why can't I get it from, oh, I don't know, the hundreds of people I'll have killed before I'm through? Instead, the game only gives me Adam from specific corpses that are labeled as "Adam corpses". I can guess the reason, which is mechanical contrivance. But it makes absolutely no sense to me, and gives me more cause for alarm. A secondary (and far less stupid) bafflement is the sort of mist that acts as an ethereal bread crumb when trying to find the next Adam corpse. What the hell is up with that? I don't remember there being any supernatural means for Adam extraction up to this point. In fact, if you remember when you get your first plasmid in the original game, a Little Sister walks up to you thinking you're dead. When she gets close enough, she realizes you're still alive and says something like "he's not an angel yet." So, she was fooled by seeing you lying on the ground, which means she wasn't being led by some weird fog trail that comes out of nowhere. No, it's another gameplay mechanic that has no weight or meaning to it, and I wish it wasn't there.

One thing I'm glad is available is the ability to change the difficulty setting at any time. I started the game on hard, but after a couple of hours I realized I wasn't having that much fun. There are certain games I'll only play on the hardest difficulty possible, and they mainly consist of FPS or shooters. If you want to count Bioshock as a "shooter", then go right ahead, but the reason I play it is wholly different than why I play most other FPS. I'm not exploring Rapture looking for the hardest twitch challenge I can get, and I don't want my time to be filled with frustration and repetition from dying. What I do want is to feel immersed in the environment and delve deeper into the story behind the fall of Rapture. If I need to scratch the shooting-dudes-in-the-face itch, I'll pop in Call of Duty or any number of other games. But I made this realization after I had my first Little Sister protection encounter. Up to that point, I was pretty much getting devastated by every single splicer I had fought, but I was soldiering on. But when I had to fight like five of them at once, and then five more after that, it clicked in my head that this isn't why I'm playing. Bioshock isn't the most technically proficient FPS out there (I never claimed it to be), and the harder difficulty really highlights this fact. It actually seems quite a bit harder than the previous game's hard difficulty. So, yea, I'm playing on easy now, and I couldn't be happier. I never thought I'd say that about a game, but when the story is more important than the challenge, it makes a lot of sense. One could even say it's a testament to the game that the story is good enough to put the combat on a lower tier, and I really think that's the case here. Either way, for me, easy is the way to go.

My last gripe isn't really a gripe, and it pertains to both games in the series. The issue of morality and harvesting/saving the Little Sisters was never that big of a deal to me. Honestly, it's such a binary decision that morality doesn't really factor into it. The moral choices have already been made in Rapture, and all you can do is look at the outcome. Of course, no one would want to kill a child, but I think the way it's presented is superficial when compared to the rest of the game, and limited agency to such a degree defeats the point. If the developers really wanted the question of harvesting or saving to be a moral one, there should be no tangible benefit to either decision, and no pretense of there being one. The way it's currently set up, it just boils down to a numbers game. Most people will approach the situation by wondering which decision will yield more Adam instead of pondering a mercy killing versus attempted salvation. Giving such a choice a deliberate numerical value takes away from the emotional impact that should occur within the player. But, like I said, I find that emotional impact elsewhere in the game, so it's a minor fault that I'm more than willing to move past. The rest of the world and the people in it are so detailed and thought-provoking that I don't really need this specific mechanic to carry all the weight. I'm just sayin'.

An aspect of the sequel I did move past, or rather re-thought my perspective on, is the way you talk to and interact with Sinclair. Last night I played through the Atlantic Express section, and when I saw Sinclair for the first time, I was a little annoyed. I had thought that his character was supposed to be Bioshock 2's Atlus, and it felt forced. In combination with that, the only time other characters interact with you (excluding enemies) is behind an artificial impasse. There's always something blocking you from fully seeing them, and sometimes even your movement is restricted. For some reason, that really bothered me when I saw Sinclair. I felt like the developers wanted to keep the feel of the first game, but they were trying too hard. I even went to bed thinking about it, but the more I thought about it, the more I saw the presentation of all the characters differently. As I mentioned in the paragraph above, the fate of Rapture was basically sealed a long time ago, and as I'm going through the different areas, I feel like I'm seeing the ghosts or echoes of things that were. In a sense, I get the same feeling from characters like Sinclair, and even Tenenbaum. By effectively cutting you off from most visual contact, the game subtly turns living, breathing people into memories. If you think about it, their most common means of communicating with you is strikingly similar to the audio logs strewn about the environments. And when you actually get to see them, it's only for a fleeting moment from a distance. So as the game presents them, I know they're still in Rapture, but I feel like I'm alone.

The story itself is still up in the air. I like the way the communal, "we are all one" societal structure is shown as a cult-ish religion. At first, I was a little put off by the directness in Sofia Lamb's approach. She's so much the polar opposite of Andrew Ryan that it almost felt like too much. But that's the thing: she's so entrenched in her beliefs that she's consumed by them. Her every waking moment - much like Andrew Ryan's before I clubbed him in the face with a wrench - is spent propagating her point of view. So it makes sense for her to speak in platitudes now and again, and to seem like a personification of an idea. That's exactly what she is, and Rapture is, yet again, the outcome of extreme idealism.

Of particular note so far is the Journey to the Surface section of Rapture. It's a theme park built by Ryan to indoctrinate children against the desire to go to the surface. It's structured like a Pirates of the Caribbean-esque experience, with animatronic scientists, artists and families being used to further his brain-washing techniques. The sets are pretty damn great, because they all have the same basic message: everyone on the surface is trying to do their own thing, but The Man keeps getting them down. To illustrate this point, it shows people going about their business, then a gigantic hand comes down from the sky to stop them in their tracks. The amusing part is how every single display does the same exact thing. Andrew Ryan was not one for subtlety, after all. But this section of Rapture was, by far, the most interesting in my journey and I can only imagine where it's going to lead me in the coming days.

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Visiting An Old Friend.

Bioshock is one of the greatest games I've ever played. I remember the sheer awe and wonderment I felt when I found myself swimming through a sea of fire towards the lighthouse; I was at once both scared and excited, apprehensive about entering Rapture yet compelled to get there as soon as possible. Once I was under the sea, the destroyed beauty of Rapture became a source of instant bliss. Not only the architecture, but also its decaying denizens served as a giant societal and philosophical warning against unrestrained ambition. It was a microcosm of an alternate universe plagued with vanity too large to be contained in the tiny jar it was held in. And when my journey was over, it lingered in my mind for quite a long time. What moral implications were held within the trappings of the game's story? Why did Rapture crumble under its own weight? Those questions and more still swim around inside my head, and two-and-a-half years later, I'm finally able to go back to the source of all those thoughts and questions. It feels like I never left.

I've purposefully stayed away from pretty much all media related to Bioshock 2, and I'm glad I did. I don't know anything about where the story is going, except for a few early clues. The new leadership in Rapture seems to be heading in the exact opposite direction of Andrew Ryan, and that makes me extremely happy. Obviously, Ryan's brand of Objectivist Capitalism didn't quite work out, so bolting to the extreme other end of the spectrum makes a lot of sense. Since the development team isn't the same one that worked on the original game, I don't know how much cohesion the story will have when it's all said and done, but I have a generous amount of faith in them. Ken Levine might not have been helming the project this time around, but the foundations he built are strong. Very strong.

That's Ken Levine's hand on the left.

I was wondering if 2K was going to try one-upping themselves during the opening of the game, but thankfully, they didn't. For sure, there are shocks to be had, but there's nothing artificial about the events that are transpiring. There's no overblown scene showing how much bigger and better this game is going to be over its predecessor. The saga is simply continuing. And right away, I feel at home in Rapture. If anything, it looks even more dilapidated than I remember it, but that could just be due to my time away from the game. Either way, Rapture is still falling apart, but one thing has changed for me. The sense of dread isn't quite the same as it was before. Being a Big Daddy with a huge drill arm sort of takes away the feeling of helplessness the first game so expertly afflicted me with. Even so, it didn't lessen my actual enjoyment of playing. I was instantly transported back to 2007, when my mouth gaped wider with every step forward.


I don't want to talk too much about the gameplay yet, but one thing I do want to mention is a sequence where I had to walk around the ocean floor to get from one wing of Rapture to another. I wouldn't say I ever felt nervous about being out in the open, but my mind traded fear for amazement. The sequence wasn't very long, and it wasn't particularly open for exploration, but being able to walk among the seaweed and fish while taking in the far-off sights of skyscrapers without the visual restriction of glass and steel was breathtaking. It's something I had always wanted to do since the first time I turned the original game on, and it was everything I had envisioned. I'm giddy with excitement to get home and start playing, and this whole weekend is going to be filled with like emotions.

Also, I would like to kiss Ken Levine. Total man-crush.
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Sad Reflections.

It's 5am, and as I sit here, fresh off a couple of hours attempting to subjugate my people in Tropico 3, I happened to come across this post by Michael Abbott over at Brainy Gamer. It's worth a read. But, sadly, it made me think about what the Call of Duty franchise has ultimately become: a five-second thrill rehashed ad-nauseum. My first confession should be that I'm not nearly as big a multiplayer competitor as I used to be. Turn back the clock just a couple of years and you'd be likely to find me playing a lot more Halo 3. But nowadays, I simply can't do it. The experience of standard multiplayer has become so stale and uninteresting to me that the thought of entering a match doesn't usually cross my mind at all. I need something more out of games at this point, and a game like Modern Warfare 2 just doesn't cut it.

You can call me ignorant, out of touch, pretentious, or any number of other things; one thing you can't accuse me of, however, is having a knee-jerk reaction or hypocritically enjoying the game while unabashedly, well, bashing it. My tastes have slowly evolved to where they are now, and I no longer see any value in what the Call of Duty franchise has to offer. In the Brainy gamer post, Abbott gives reactions he's heard, mostly decrying the single-player campaign as an add-on to the real meat of the game: the multiplayer. Curiously, one person said that he would play the campaign "at some point", but directly after said it would be cheap of them not to include it. But if he doesn't really care about it, then why is it cheap? His only care is obviously the multiplayer, so what's the deal? I muddled my point a bit there, but what I'm getting at is that the whole attitude about the campaign being a throwaway for the player to eventually sift through is incredibly disheartening to me.

I remember playing both Call of Duty 2 and the original Modern Warfare and being thoroughly engrossed by both. Sure, they were all about pushing the player from set-piece to set-piece, but I never felt as though I was being talked down to by the developer. I never once felt like they knew I would buy their game no matter what. If they wanted my $60.00, they had to earn it. And earn it, they did. Their stories were powerful not just because of their intensity, but because of the worlds they were grounded in. Things made sense; cause and effect seemed real; I was engrossed in what was unfolding before me, and I couldn't have been happier. Fast forward to Modern Warfare 2, and it's been turned on its head. No longer do I believe what I'm seeing - not in the least bit. No longer do I care - at all - about characters dying. I'm not moved when something supposedly shocking occurs, because I expect something ludicrous to come out of left field.

Why do I expect it? For one, in the industry's current climate, the double-edged sword of great success demands that sequels be bigger and more bad-ass. Take, for instance, the scene in Modern Warfare where your character is slowly clawing his way out of the flaming wreckage of his chopper, only to look up and see a nuclear holocaust whisking its way straight for him. That scene had impact; it meant something. Compare it with the airport scene in Modern Warfare 2, and I think you catch my drift. Again, your character gets killed, but the impact is greatly retarded by the lack of context. Sure, you know you're a sleeper agent of some sort, but who are you? You don't get to find out before the back of your skull meets the pavement. It's just no good. With the narrative style Infinity Ward employs, that very context is integral to leaving a lasting impression on the player. Without it, the meaning behind the action deflates to nothing more than a cheap trick. Anyone can do a cheap trick; it takes real artists to create something worth discussing.

I don't want to give the wrong impression; Call of Duty has never been the pinnacle of storytelling. Far from it. Still, the older games' presentations coupled with how the stories unfolded made for a really great experience. It just seems like Infinity Ward's priorities have changed now. They're not as dead-set in crafting a believable world anymore, and for people like me, that's a sad thing. Good thing there are plenty of other games that at least attempt it.


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The "Airport Level" and Other Musings in Modern Warfare 2 or, What's the Big Deal?

So a friend spontaneously brought over his copy of Modern Warfare 2 tonight, and I played it for a couple of hours or so. I must say, my initial impression of the game doesn't do it any favors. You can say I'm just hating all you want, but I honestly haven't found the experience rewarding enough to warrant a purchase up to this point. For clarity's sake, I just finished the "Wolverines" mission, and I'm playing on Veteran difficulty (which I do for all CoD games).

Now I'm not saying there's a full-on outrage over the airport scenario, but I did read a few articles talking about how controversial it is. Really? I don't see that at all. What makes this thing so different than, say, Kane and Lynch? Or Grand Theft Auto 4? You could say the GTA series has built itself on scenes just like the one in Modern Warfare 2. Sure, Rockstar is no stranger to "controversy", but I can only take so much faux outrage before I throw up my hands and surrender to stupidity. Does the controversy stem from the player being forced to act as a terrorist? I can say that I didn't personally gun down a single civilian in the airport, but I had to protect myself against the S.W.A.T. team with riot shields. Can you name another game that put you in the same scenario? If you said one out of about 800 games, you're probably correct. I just don't see why this even made the news.

My gripe comes in two parts: the situation is set up so poorly that it defies all pretenses of realism and relies solely on shock value, and it also feels like a feeble attempt by Infinity Ward to one-up either themselves or Treyarch in terms of creating the next "wow" moment. No one can honestly argue that this dumb shit is portrayed realistically at all. You're telling me that 3 or 4 armed men would be able to walk into an airport in this day and age and gun down hundreds of people, including S.W.A.T. and police officers, and make a clean getaway? If your answer is yes, then you are full of shit. Sorry. The whole thing is so ludicrous from start to finish that I mostly found myself rolling my eyes and making that "wtf" motion with my hands as I watched dozens upon dozens of people being murdered in a supposedly high security area with no repercussions until we made it to the runway area of the airport. Even then, it was a simple matter of grenading the shit out of the opposition until a suitable path was made through them.


In my mind, in order to make something like that in any way controversial, there has to be an underlying context that warrants emotional investment. You just don't get anything like that in Modern Warfare 2. There's a level of detachment which I find uncanny in its knack for making me not give a shit. Who are you playing as in the airport? I don't know - it's just some dude. What sacrifices did you have to make to infiltrate such a disgusting operation? I don't know - it's just some dude. The stunning lack of context in this game makes it nigh impossible for me to connect with the story in any way. And with that, I'd like to talk about the last mission I took part in: "Wolverines".

First of all, this mission reeks of WWII. I can't be led to believe anything but nostalgia for Infinity Ward's pre-modern era style of games is to blame for being impressed by this. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, you're telling me that I'm supposed to believe any of what's going on is a semblance of reality? There are cargo planes lazily drifting along in the air while hundreds of dudes with parachutes float around like this was still the 1940s. Really? This is, as close as analogies allow, Invasion U.S.A.: The Game. If the baddies came across by means of speedboats and 18-wheelers, the effect would be the same. Modern Warfare 2 is the video game equivalent of a big, dumb 80s action movie. What possible redeeming qualities could it hold? So far, the only thing I can say that I appreciate about it is its graphical prowess and fantastic presentation (rock-solid framerate included). But with so many shooters out there, I need to get something more out of a game. Yes, the gameplay is pretty much as good as it gets, but what's my motivation? Does that sound pretentious? The question itself might be, but at this stage in my life, I'm not impressed by snazzy effects and shock narratives. It's a sad state of affairs when a storyline like this can pass for entertaining. This game is the epitome of that whole "we fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here" line of horseshit that certain people tried to feed us. I'll play the game to completion, but I'm really only getting superficial satisfaction out of it. Oh, well, Bioshock 2 comes out in about 3 months.

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Life Will Find a Way.

Well, I just finished Jurassic: The Hunted. It's a short game; it couldn't have taken me much more than 4 hours to complete. Despite its length, I left satisfied with the experience, and what I'd like to see now is a similar game with a little more time and money thrown behind it. And if that ever happens, it will need a LOT more marketing than this game got.

Jurassic was only about 4 hours, like I said. But I think if the game went on for too much longer with no variations on the gameplay, it would become repetitive pretty quickly. As is, it was a blast to kill dinos, and I was elated not to see any other enemies to distract me from doing so. There are gigantic scorpions, but I lump those into the same category as the dinos. As anyone with any credibility on the subject knows, wherever you find dinosaurs, you'll also find bugs and insects that are at least 10 times their normal size. Durh.

There were a couple parts that were pretty poorly designed, though. First off was one of the most dissapointing sequences in the game: my first encounter with a T-Rex. I knew the situation would inevitably come up, but I was expecting a much more dynamic experience. Instead of having to fend it off using my reflexes and skill, the developers decided a better use of my time would be with a generic turret sequence. The T-Rex charged, and I blasted it in the face. It ran away; rinse and repeat. In-between the T-Rex's charges, flying assholes would swoop down and distract me from my patient waiting. The turret would overheat if used for too prolonged a time period, but it was never very challenging. I didn't necessarily want an uber-challenging fight, though. I just wanted something dynamic and intense. Instead, I got neither. The salt on the wound, however, was that once the fight was over, I had to do it all over again. Ah, but it was different the second time around. This time, the T-Rex was colored red. Thanks, Cauldron. Thanks a lot. King Kong did it a lot better........4 fucking years ago.

The T-Rex sure looks impressive. Too bad the fight was shitty and I did it with one hand while watching water boil.

The game redeemed itself, however, with the next "boss" fight. Forget T-Rexes, this time I was up against a Spinosaurus. The fight actually went almost exactly how I had pictured the T-Rex fight before that debacle happened. I had free reign to run around, dodging the Spinosaurus' lunging jaws of death while popping slo-mo and aiming for his vitals. It was much, much more exhilirating, let me tell you. Again, the dinosaur character models and their movements are a thing to behold.

This guy, however, was bad ass. I RPG'd him like 8 times.

The second obnoxious part was a little sequence involving me running across a bunch of rope bridges while the same flying assholes from the T-Rex bit were flying around my face. Sorry, but it wasn't thrilling at all, just annoying. To kill them, I just had to aim my gun sightly upwards and hold down the trigger. Great. Luckily for me, it was a short sequence, and the only one of its kind.

Oh, I guess I'll tell you about a fantastic death I had. You see, when you're firing a weapon and it runds out of ammo, it will automatically switch to the next weapon in your inventory. Well, the next weapon in my inventory happened to be an RPG. Yea....I was holding down the trigger, shooting a big fucking monster when, oops! I blew myself up. Brilliant, yet again. If a gun runds out of ammo, it should just make that clicking noise and make you manually switch weapons. Otherwise, dumb shit like that will happen. I learned my lesson, though.

Those few points were really the only true negatives in Jurassic. Sure, it's not the most intense game I've ever played, and its budget roots show sometimes, but overall I'd definitely recommend you check it out when you get a chance. Cauldron obviously spent a lot of time and effort on the dinosaurs themselves, because they were fucking awesome. They moved and behaved like I thought they should, and were a little frightening, especially when more than one was running full-speed at me. I guess I wished there were more unique encounters with bigger foes, but I think the whole game would have to be lengthened and changed up a bit more for that to work. And for that to happen, more time and money would be needed, etc. But as it stands, if you have 4 hours to waste with a pretty atmospheric shooter with enemies you don't see very often, give Jurassic a shot.


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"That's a Navy Seal campfire if I ever saw one."

The quote I used for my title is uttered by the main character....Dwayne? Chris?....I don't know his name, but that was the first thing that came to his mind when he saw burnt ash and smoke coming from the ground. Fucking A - you can't make 'em like a Navy Seal. Someone's skull is probably at the base of that campfire. I think my brain is now capable of thinking like Dutch in Predator.

Please, do read on.

In case you were wondering, the game I'm talking about is Jurassic: The Hunted. What? You've never heard of that game? Wow, that comes as such a shock to me. You see, it appears that Activision decided to publish it, despite the fact it didn't put any marketing behind it whatsoever. It's a budget title that released November 3rd for $39.99, but if Activision had its way, I guess you would never know even that much about it. Why? I don't know. It probably has something to do with Bobby Kotick being a fucking tool.

Meanwhile, back in reality, Jurassic: The Hunted is a pretty damn cool game. Yes, the title is pretty stupid and the box art makes it look like a light gun game from 1996. Despite that, it's a relatively unique FPS experience that is highly in danger of going under every single person's radar until it's made obscure by both time and the sheer volume of shooters on the market. But what makes it cool? Well, it sure as shit isn't the fact that it's published by Activision. If you read this blog at all, you'd know that I hate them. I hate them so much, in fact, that I'm currently under a boycott of all their games. Well, until now. You see, this is EXACTLY the kind of game I want to spend my dollars on. And if there were ever a reason to give Activision money, it would be to reward them for publishing a game like this. I bought this game new, and I'm proud of it. But enough politics - what's the actual game like?


Well, for starters, I'll get some of the budget-obvious stuff out of the way. I've only played a couple of hours so far, but I think I have a pretty good handle on how the game feels. One of the first things that clues you in on this being a budget title is the music. The ambient soundtrack is really good; it's suitably creepy, but nice to listen to at the same time. However, when a dinosaur comes into view, a generic rock track suddenly kicks in. Once you kill the dino, the song disappears just as suddenly as it appeared. Scripting like that is just a small indicator of the budget-consciousness of the developers. It's by no means horribly distracting, but it is noticeable. Also, when you switch weapons, you have to wait for the animation to finish before you can go to your next weapon. Again, it's a very minor gripe, but worth noting. If you're used to flipping though your arsenal like a crack fiend in fast-forward, then you might give up a curse word or two. But the rest of humanity can suffer through that slight annoyance. The last critique I have is with the voice acting. But, honestly, I don't know if it's a critique so much as it is an asset. Basically, it's so fucking bad that I think it's intentional. It sets itself up as some sort of sci-fi B-movie. If that was the goal, then mission accomplished. If the developers were trying to be serious with the material, then they just crashed into the fail boat head-on. But either way, we as gamers win. In my mind, whether or not they intended it to be hilarious, it nonetheless is fantastically bad. So that's up to you as to whether it's a plus or minus. It's a plus in my book.

So, now, on to the positives, of which there are plenty. The first thing that struck me were the visuals. Like I said, Jurassic: The Hunted is a budget title, but by the looks of it, you could hardly notice. The textures are surprisingly crisp, even up-close. I dare say they're even better than some full-priced games with highly-touted graphics. Maybe not on the technical side, but artistically, this game goes above and beyond the call of duty (pun intended). To put it plainly, the game oozes atmosphere. The air is thick with anticipation as to when a huge dino is going to spring out of the brush and into your face. Speaking of into your face, there's one thing that this game does not do that another recent dinosaur shooter decided was a fantastic way for players to waste their time: being continuously knocked on their ass by enemies, only to be killed while trying to simply stand up again. Yes, Turok, fuck you. So far, Jurassic: The Hunted is much, much better than Turok. And if random people on Youtube are to be believed, this game also doesn't have annoying human distractions. It's all about dinosaur slaughter. But I've played a couple of hours, so that's second-hand information at this point.


One other cool feature of the game is the slo-mo shooting. Yes, I'm well aware that slow motion is OOLLLLDDD NEWWWSSSS. I know Max Payne came out like 10 years ago or some shit. But I think it's implemented in a very streamlined way that enhances the gameplay while at the same time not feeling like a gimmick. There is a small meter on the bottom left-hand side of the screen that indicates how much slo-mo juice you have. When the meter is full, you'll get maybe 5 seconds of slo-mo out of it. Yes, that's it. There are no upgrades for the power; 5 seconds is all you get. And that's precisely what I like about it. The mechanic seems designed to be a supplement to the normal shooting; if you maneuver around and get a good side angle on an enemy, you can pop slow-mo and take one shot for the kill. Whenever you enter the magical world of half-speed, you can also see the dino's skeletal structure and vital organs. If you aim for the vitals, you'll have a much better chance of killing them. So the mechanic, at least for me, works like a sort of headshot. Get the angle, pop the slo-mo, shoot the vitals and your enemy drops. It's instantly gratifying without even needing to upgrade and get a longer duration out of it. Awesome.

The quicker you finish reading this article, the quicker you can go buy the game, so I'll make these couple of points quickly. The game is obviously linear, but I never felt like I was being funneled though a tunnel. The environments have a little bit of space to them, so whenever I'm in an encounter, I can always run around the area and get good bearings on myself and my enemies. For comparison with another budget title, Legendary gets it all wrong. Oh, wow, that rubble fell in the exact pattern of a pathway for me to follow until I reached a suitably shitty encounter with a minotaur that only charged at me head-on without any other attacks whatsoever. Fuck, that game blew. Jurassic: The Hunted, at least so far, utilizes its space well and just lets the enemy encounters happen. Dinosaurs will run at you and constantly try to leap at you, but you can get out of their way, and if need be, run away like a puss until you get a good angle on them. If you question the difference between these dinosaurs and Legendary's minotaur, I wouldn't fault you. But the difference is in believability. I sincerely believe these assholes are jumping at me and trying to kill me. The minotaur in Legendary was just following a line of sight and bumbling towards me. Big difference.


The last cool feature I'll mention is the weaponry. Due to some amazingly contrived plot sequences, you have access to both modern and old-school guns. See, you're in the Bermuda Triangle, and that place is like a time-warp. One minute you're in the present, and the next you're in 1941. Based on that information, it would seem logical that your inventory might consist of a BAR next to a semi-auto pistol. As I mentioned, you can't take the plot seriously. Instead, you really just need to embrace the fact that the game lets you have guns from different time periods at the same time, and go kick some fucking dinosaur ass. It's that simple. Are you up for it? If not, then go play some god damned Modern Warfare 2. It released today, or so I'm told.


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Killzone 2's Controls Are Fixed!!!!!

Yea, this is old news. I just thought I'd share this bit of information for those who didn't know. I knew about it since the patch went live, but I was waiting for the opportunity to pick it up again cheap used. I already bought it once, so I'll be damned if I'm going to give Guerrilla my money TWICE. Anyways, the controls are totally fixed now, and I'm having a fucking blast with the game. I'm not done with it yet, and I'm not going to review it since we already have an ass-load of Killzone 2 shit up on the blog. I'll only say that my happiness level has increased immensely with this much-needed fix, and now I'm definitely going to finish the game. Kudos do Guerrilla for not being total douches and owning up to the fact that they fucked up. That's something I can't say for every company. Read more...

Conduit Impressions

Let's get this right out of the way. There are sooooo many other FPS games with similar plots. There are sooooo may other FPS games that offer a robust multiplayer mode. The Level design won't blow you away....hallway....open room....bad guys...shoot....repeat over and over. Many games in the genre also look a lot better than what you will get with Wii's "The Conduit", however this little gem boasts one of the most immersive customizable control schemes you have ever played on any system..........period.

I have spent about three hours with the campaign mode so far and it has been an absolute joy to play. There is a huge learning curve while you get use to the motion controls, but once you do.....you'll be pulling off head shots and chucking grenades with relative ease. The big hook in the game is the aforementioned control scheme. Moving a little too slow....change it...don't like where the re-load button is....change it. For the most part, there is no control layout that is set in stone. I've never had such a good time tweaking my controller options in a video game until now. When you are in the menu screen making adjustments you basically stay in the game while taking no damage from enemies. This allows you customize on the fly and should be THE standard for any FPS in the future to follow.

Before the Wii came out, people were anticipating the very thing that High Voltage has created with "The Conduit." An immersive FPS built from the ground up with the Wii waggle in mind. They have proved that it can be done........and done beautifully I might add. Now I still love my standard controller, however it's nice to have something different on the menu when I'm craving that type of experience. If the Wii is your only console.....it is simply a no brainer purchase.

I totally praise High Voltage for what they have accomplished. Now I will admit they did sacrifice things like enemy a.i. and interesting levels, but their focus on making the controls truly exceptional outweigh the shortcomings. Future projects from this developer are already making this Wii owner totally giddy with excitement.

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My take on Killzone 2, a.k.a. "It's Not Fucking Halo So Who Gives a Shit!!!11!!1!! Noob!!1!!"

My first impression of Killzone 2 was pretty much the same as my colleague's - that of utter amazement at the sheer badassery of it all. Everything about the presentation, from the graphics to sound design - the overall immersion - is fantastic. I color myself a pretty well-versed FPS player, at least on consoles, so I think I know a good shooter when I see one. And Killzone 2 definitely looks the part. But once I really dug my heels into the game, all my initial amazement slowly grinded to a halt, and it became more of a chore to play than a wonder to behold.

Don't think I'm not aware of the situation; I'm in the minority here, and that's fine. I don't feel like I should be forced to love a game just because its Metacritic average is 94 (I don't know Killzone 2's numbers, but whatever), or because everyone says you have to play it or you're an idiot. Point of fact, I'm not an idiot, and that's exactly the reason why I traded this game in after two days of playing it. Like I said earlier, when I first popped the game in the disc loader (it's not a tray, so...), I was floored by what I was experiencing. Graphics, and more specifically, graphics in an FPS, go a long way toward pulling you into the moment. Explosions rock the screen, bullets whiz by your head, comrades-in-arms are screaming for help, and a flood of evil Nazi-esque baddies are storming your position. It's fucking intense, to say the least. I was intently focused on everything going on around me, because, well, the game demanded I do so. "Look at me!!!" it screamed, and sure enough, I watched with a smile on my face and an itchy trigger finger.

But as the game progressed, more and more I found myself cursing under my breath at the movements of my character. The simple act of aiming at someone was getting cumbersome and, quite frankly, obnoxious. It's not the slow movement speed that bothers me; if that was the case, I could just turn the sensitivity up and be happy. No - because in Killzone 2, you feel like a real person holding a real weapon. I get that, and I actually like it. The problem comes when I want to move and shoot at the same time. It's hard to describe to someone who hasn't played it, but there is a swaying effect that occurs whenever you look around in any direction. The reticle is not instantly responsive to your input, which makes quickly and accurately aiming at an enemy an ordeal in itself. I said the general slow running speed didn't bother me, but add to that the imprecise aiming, and it gets real shitty, real fast. I felt like I was playing under the influence; like I had somehow lost a step or two. It wasn't fun anymore, so I stopped playing. Simple as that.

And no, the fact that I play Halo 3 does not have anything to do with my distaste for Killzone 2. I've also played Far Cry 2, Mirror's Edge, Bioshock, Half-Life 2, Timeshift, Shellshock 2, Resistance, Call of Duty 2 & 4, F.E.A.R. & F.E.A.R. 2, Left 4 Dead, Portal, Rainbow Six: Vegas & Vegas 2, Prey, and Call of Juarez - and that's just the FPS games from this generation. I judge every game on its own merits, and I think Killzone 2 has many in its favor, actually. Just not the one that makes me want to play it. Does that make me a 360 fanboy? Am I lauding the mechanics of one game over another? No, I'm not. I'm simply saying that if the main character of Killzone 2 was to take a breathalyzer test before firing his weapon, he would fail. And I, for one, can't kill anyone unless I'm sober. Read more...

Killzone 2: quite simply....baaadaaaaassss!

I do not profess to be some some sort of expert gaming guru. My years of reading Gameinformer on the shitter or checking the latest 1UP post does not qualify me to tell you about about pop-in, grain, or anything else you techno-wannabe-whores out there may want to hear about. I'm just your average joe gamer, but I know video game bliss when I play it! In the couple of hours I have spent with it, KZ2 has smashed me in the balls with the fun hammer and all I can say is.......more please!

We all know the game looks fan-fuggin-tastic, but beauty alone does not make a game great. I'm also no FPS authority so I realize that some hardcore enthusiasts may have some trouble with the slightly slower control scheme. To this I must simply say "fuck off and return to the kid's table to play Ha-blow with all the other 12 year olds!" Fighting the Hellghast and using the cover system to set up your "killzone" is a blast! I also love the fact that you are basically only allowed one major weapon at a time. I tend to try to stick to guns that I love, but here comes KZ2 with a big F-U you're out of ammo! This forces you to experiment with different arms that are littered throughout the battlefield..........brilliant. The A.I. will also kick your ass by flanking you and making you leave your precious cover. Being chased out into the open where you'll surely be turned into man-mulch by the enemy is an adrenaline rush. (They are supposed to be even better at higher difficulty) I have yet to play any online modes, but I know I'll be ready to once the campaign is over. So far it's fun, fun, fun, till your daddy takes your six-axis away! An exclusive game like this is the reason I'm a PS3 owner. Nuff said. Read more...

Killzone 2 Demo Impressions: A Very Short, Very Sweet Example of PS3 Development Perfection

It happens by simple chance that I had the privilege of playing through the official Killzone 2 demo (several times). After having a rather pointless conversation about arcade sticks for Street Fighter IV with a local GameStop rep, he ended up offering me one of the download codes for Killzone 2 preorders, with the great exception that he didn’t make me preorder. Free Killzone 2 demo? Sure, why not!

Before saying anything about my actual impressions of the demo, let me say that if you plan on getting this demo early with any amount of anticipation, you should know that it is short. Very short. I don’t think it would be unreasonable for me to say that it might be one of the shortest demos ever produced, for any platform. My first run through the demo took me only 10 minutes and 30 seconds (it will actually provide you a completion time), and it even felt like a short 10 minutes at that.

The demo’s ten minutes basically consist of you storming along a short beach front, and then taking an elevator up into a storage hanger to fight off a few rounds of Helghast soldiers. One that’s over, the demo ends, and you’re simply left with a lingering of wanting more.

That probably works to the developers’ advantage as far as marketing goes, because now I totally want this game on launch day.

After you play the demo, so will you.

That's because what the demo lacks in quantity, it more than makes up for in demonstrative power and quality. Immediately upon booting up the demo and opening cinematic, you will be given a glimpse of in-game graphics posing as a cinematic. Yes, that is correct, I did not write that backwards. After the initial E3 trailer for Killzone 2 came out a few years ago, and touted that the video on screen was in-game graphics, there was a lot of skepticism from a lot of people who weren’t ready to believe it. Now, having experienced the demo, I can safely say that it was all true.

Without a doubt, this game speaks to the development potential that is just now finally being utilized from the PS3’s hardware. If this game is any indication, we have barely seen the beginning of what the PS3 can do, when the system is chosen as the lead platform.

You begin the demo on a flying drop-ship, which is carrying you and several of your soldier brothers towards a war-torn beach, as you witness some of the other drop ships getting blown up and narrowly missing yours as they fall from the sky. As the flying “boat” lands on the beach, one of your fellow soldiers yells at you to get up, and suddenly your HUD appears with gun in hand, and you’re in control. Similar to Metal Gear Solid 4 in the way the game seamlessly transitions from cinematic to gameplay, Killzone 2 never deceives you away from the game engine. There is one exception: Killzone 2 looks even better than MGS4. No, the facial animations might not be quite as robust, but the in game environments and sheer amount of activity on-screen easily outweighs Kojima’s opus.

One thing of note: During my first play-through, I wasn’t immediately blown away by the game’s visuals. At first, I simply just felt they were great, but there wasn’t that initial shock and awe that I was expecting. Then on my second play-through, I realized that the reason I wasn’t blown away was because I had already seen the E3 trailer for Killzone 2, and this looked exactly like it. So in that way, the game’s visuals meet expectations, and actually exceed them at the same time. You will also really notice the difference once you play Killzone 2 a few times, and then try and go back and play another FPS, like Call of Duty. The visuals in Killzone 2 really outclass everything else that’s come before it.

The gunplay has a very different feel from other console shooters. Unlike Call of Duty or Halo, where control and gun response is immediate and fast, Killzone 2 offers a very deliberate weight and delay system to looking and aiming, which adds a sense of realism by accounting for gun weight and movement delay. It will take some time for newcomers to adjust to the changes (especially if you’ve been sinking a lot of time into COD World at War’s multiplayer lately, as I have), but once you get a feel for it, you will be surprised at how “arcadey” and unrealistic the movement in other FPS games feels when compared to Killzone 2. It has similar aiming mechanics to Call of Duty, with the ability to both fire from the hip as well as aiming down the sights, and there are several control options available to where you can even configure the game to share the same button layout as Call of Duty if you’ve already grown accustomed to that.

What remains to be seen is how robust the multiplayer options end up being in the final product. So far, it essentially sounds like a blending of all the previous multiplayer experiences ever made into one game mode. Whether that will make for the most brilliant multiplayer game ever made or a haphazard stumbling of multiplayer chaos will only come with time.

Look for my full review of Killzone 2 shortly after its launch. Read more...