(Xbox, PS3; $59.99; Rated E10+ for Mild Violence; www.blurgame.com)
(four and a half stars)
One of the kings of driving games developers, Bizarre Creations, combines the speed of a licensed-car arcade racer, with the power-up weapons of a console-based kart racer for a game that aims to be as fun as it is cool. Visuals, power-ups, and presentation all work very well and look like the perfect union of skills for the company that created both the drive-with-style "Project Gotham Racing" and the neon-infused "Geometry Wars."
"Blur" is meant for multiplayer, and through online is present, it's almost designed for a split-screen experience - which, thankfully, it has. Kart-racers are one of those games that almost require elbow-jabbing your friend in the side as he strikes you down with a lightning bolt on-screen, "Blur" is no different.
The single-player, however, feels a little by-the-numbers and the ridiculous difficulty and precision of the computer-controlled opponents can really take the fun out of the game after losing to them in a head-to-head race for the 13th time. But again, as far as competitive fun goes, "Blur" fills a hole in the racing genre nicely.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Alan Wake Review
(Xbox; $59.99; Rated T for Blood/Language/Use of Alcohol and Tobacco/Violence; www.xbox.com)
(four and a half stars)
What a long, strange trip it's been.
That's what both gamers and the titular protagonist of "Alan Wake" are saying, considering the game was announced almost five years ago and finally (finally!) released last month.
Though gameplay-wise, "Alan Wake" is a fairly by-the-numbers third-person shooter, and even employs a few passe gameplay mechanics which show just how long the title was in development, the gameplay is really just the vehicle to be pulled into the story. Though a third-person shooter, this is not on the same level as a "Gears of War." "Alan Wake" is clearly a psychological-thriller, first; an action game, second.
Heavily drawing from influences like "Twin Peaks" and Stephen King novels, "Alan Wake" is a story about a famous horror novelist suffering a severe case of writer's block. In order to clear his head, he and his wife take a vacation in a sleepy, Northern-Pacific/Atlantic, lakeside town of Bright Falls. As it goes in stories such as these, Bright Falls is not all that it seems, and from the moment Alan steps onto the docks of their idyllic vacation getaway the nightmares of a shadowy, axe-wielding madman that haunts him begin to appear while he is awake.
Without giving too many spoilers away, Alan's wife goes missing and Alan loses a week of consciousness. As he continues to search for her he begins finding pages of a manuscript from a book of his that he has never written. The pages describe events that have already happened, those that are happening, and some which may or may not foretell the future. All the while, the Darkness continues to pursue him.
All of the action in "Alan Wake" takes place at night when the boogeymen come out, so the isolation and dread of the darkness that surrounds Alan really plays up the nightmarish situation in which the character finds himself. The shadowy figures that attack Alan seem to come from nowhere and from all directions. Though Alan can dodge out of the way of their attacks, he is virtually unable to outrun them and attempting to do so will result in the classic nightmare troupe of moving in slow-motion as the creatures pursue.
Alan's ability to fend off the Darkness is to use light to his advantage- pointing a flashlight at the Darkness to wear it down before filling it full of lead, jumping under lightposts as a temporary force-field from the dangers in the shadows, and throwing down flares to keep the Darkness from sneaking up behind. At all times during the game, players will feel on-edge about what's around the corner, and what will be sure to outnumber them.
Visually, "Alan Wake" looks great in-game. Given that the tech of this game began way before 2005, the polish put on the game, especially the creepiness of a moonlit night, is pretty impressive.
Visuals, however, do not hold up so well in the cutscenes with character models have a marionette mouths when they speak, and the dated technology more apparent. No great shake, but when this game was originally pitted against Sony's "Heavy Rain" in terms of visual appeal, "Alan Wake" ends up looking and playing like a game from five years ago, and "Heavy Rain" feels current.
Probably the best thing "Alan Wake" has going for it, is its overall presentation as a "season" of story episodes. The pacing of the game is superb, with the tension of each episode drawing players into the story. Then, like every great psychological TV show, each episode ends with a cliffhanger, followed by the "Alan Wake" logo (think: "Lost"). At which point, players can press on to the next episode, or feel that they've reached a satisfactory end point for that evening's playtime. The next time the player starts the game, a "Previously on, 'Alan Wake..." summary starts the next episode.
This implementation is perfect and needs to be implemented more for games where particular attention needs to be paid to the story, and for gamers who can only play for an hour at a time. For the intended audience of "Alan Wake," they couldn't have done this any better...
Not to mention, I can't wait to see what Season 2 holds for our hero.
(four and a half stars)
What a long, strange trip it's been.
That's what both gamers and the titular protagonist of "Alan Wake" are saying, considering the game was announced almost five years ago and finally (finally!) released last month.
Though gameplay-wise, "Alan Wake" is a fairly by-the-numbers third-person shooter, and even employs a few passe gameplay mechanics which show just how long the title was in development, the gameplay is really just the vehicle to be pulled into the story. Though a third-person shooter, this is not on the same level as a "Gears of War." "Alan Wake" is clearly a psychological-thriller, first; an action game, second.
Heavily drawing from influences like "Twin Peaks" and Stephen King novels, "Alan Wake" is a story about a famous horror novelist suffering a severe case of writer's block. In order to clear his head, he and his wife take a vacation in a sleepy, Northern-Pacific/Atlantic, lakeside town of Bright Falls. As it goes in stories such as these, Bright Falls is not all that it seems, and from the moment Alan steps onto the docks of their idyllic vacation getaway the nightmares of a shadowy, axe-wielding madman that haunts him begin to appear while he is awake.
Without giving too many spoilers away, Alan's wife goes missing and Alan loses a week of consciousness. As he continues to search for her he begins finding pages of a manuscript from a book of his that he has never written. The pages describe events that have already happened, those that are happening, and some which may or may not foretell the future. All the while, the Darkness continues to pursue him.
All of the action in "Alan Wake" takes place at night when the boogeymen come out, so the isolation and dread of the darkness that surrounds Alan really plays up the nightmarish situation in which the character finds himself. The shadowy figures that attack Alan seem to come from nowhere and from all directions. Though Alan can dodge out of the way of their attacks, he is virtually unable to outrun them and attempting to do so will result in the classic nightmare troupe of moving in slow-motion as the creatures pursue.
Alan's ability to fend off the Darkness is to use light to his advantage- pointing a flashlight at the Darkness to wear it down before filling it full of lead, jumping under lightposts as a temporary force-field from the dangers in the shadows, and throwing down flares to keep the Darkness from sneaking up behind. At all times during the game, players will feel on-edge about what's around the corner, and what will be sure to outnumber them.
Visually, "Alan Wake" looks great in-game. Given that the tech of this game began way before 2005, the polish put on the game, especially the creepiness of a moonlit night, is pretty impressive.
Visuals, however, do not hold up so well in the cutscenes with character models have a marionette mouths when they speak, and the dated technology more apparent. No great shake, but when this game was originally pitted against Sony's "Heavy Rain" in terms of visual appeal, "Alan Wake" ends up looking and playing like a game from five years ago, and "Heavy Rain" feels current.
Probably the best thing "Alan Wake" has going for it, is its overall presentation as a "season" of story episodes. The pacing of the game is superb, with the tension of each episode drawing players into the story. Then, like every great psychological TV show, each episode ends with a cliffhanger, followed by the "Alan Wake" logo (think: "Lost"). At which point, players can press on to the next episode, or feel that they've reached a satisfactory end point for that evening's playtime. The next time the player starts the game, a "Previously on, 'Alan Wake..." summary starts the next episode.
This implementation is perfect and needs to be implemented more for games where particular attention needs to be paid to the story, and for gamers who can only play for an hour at a time. For the intended audience of "Alan Wake," they couldn't have done this any better...
Not to mention, I can't wait to see what Season 2 holds for our hero.
Red Dead Redemption Review
(Xbox, PS3; $59.99; Rated M for Blood/Intense Violence/Nudity/Strong Language/Sexual Content/Use of Drugs; www.rockstargames.com)
(five stars)
For whatever reason, despite the ubiquitous amount of bullets, blood, explosions, action, and adventure that permeates video game consoles these days, one period of history that has seen very little screen time in games is the Wild West. The amount of games taking place in the dusty, big-sky setting have been few and far between and only a few have had the quality to warrant more than a passing glance. In terms of capturing the feel of Cowboyism, no game has really been a showpiece...
Until now.
Leave it to Rockstar Games, the infamous developer/publisher of the "Grand Theft Auto" series, to bring their strength at creating huge, realistic, violent, open-world games to the home where the Buffalo roam and the skies are not cloudy all day. "Red Dead Redemption" is pretty much all that I would hope a Cowboy game would be - a story of a reformed criminal-turned-lone-gunman who reluctantly has to hunt down the gang he used to run with in order to finally free himself and his family from the life he wants to leave behind.
If that sounds cliche, it's likely because "Red Dead Redemption" draws on just about every iconic Western troupe in all it's forms: from Spaghetti Westerns to pulp stories to comics to HBO's "Deadwood." If it has been done successfully somewhere else, it has influenced the direction of "Redemption." And it is all here too: shoot-outs, posses, prospecting, rough-riding, bear hunting, hold-ups, lassoing, locomotive rooftop chases, and the Wilhelm Scream.
Like all open-world games that were pioneered by Rockstar, "Redemption" follows a series of missions that propel the overall story, while giving the player the freedom to complete side missions for more money or respect, explore the vast expanse of the West to collect items or hunt animals, or to just lose oneself in a back-room game of poker. Whether a player wants to truly play the role of the reformed criminal, or be the most rootinist, tootinist hombre this side of the Missisip', "Redemption" gives the playground to be either Wyatt Earp, or Billy the Kid.
And it does so in majestic beauty: whereas "Grand Theft Auto IV" focused on urban density and the hard-angled architecture of a bustling metropolis, "Redemption" features the picturesque expanse of the Great West, and the colors that Mother Nature used to paint it. Full day/night cycles occur in "Redemption" and watching the sunset over an orange-rocked canyon is a technical beauty.
Crossing the prairie or wilderness by horse really gives the sense of expanse in "Redemption's" world, and the solitude that pioneers must have felt when in between towns with nothing but the wolves or the bandits to keep them company.
Mechanically, "Redemption" controls and handles similarly to "GTAIV," which is to say that the gun-fighting and cover-system is satisfactory enough, but really should be overhauled to become more in line with the top third-person action games of the day.
Thankfully, the "Dead Eye" slow-motion effect from the original, related-in-name-only "Red Dead Revolver," carries over to "Redemption," which allows the player more time and precision when trying to make a finesse shot - like shooting the rope of an innocent man who just got "strung up," or taking the knee out of a wanted bandit to collect the "Alive" portion of a "Dead or Alive" reward.
I am also glad that the satire and juvenile humor that features so prevalently in the "Grand Theft Auto" series takes a back-seat in "Redemption." That isn't to say that lewd or adult humor and sexual situations aren't present in "Redemption," after all this is the Wild West and brothels are a way of life, but it is to say that those things aren't the type of things that the protagonist is concerned with and so the player doesn't have to be, either.
Consequently, given the setting, the story, the action, and a multiplayer that is worlds better than anything Rockstar has done before, I'd take "Red Dead Redemption" to "Grand Theft Auto IV" any day.
(five stars)
For whatever reason, despite the ubiquitous amount of bullets, blood, explosions, action, and adventure that permeates video game consoles these days, one period of history that has seen very little screen time in games is the Wild West. The amount of games taking place in the dusty, big-sky setting have been few and far between and only a few have had the quality to warrant more than a passing glance. In terms of capturing the feel of Cowboyism, no game has really been a showpiece...
Until now.
Leave it to Rockstar Games, the infamous developer/publisher of the "Grand Theft Auto" series, to bring their strength at creating huge, realistic, violent, open-world games to the home where the Buffalo roam and the skies are not cloudy all day. "Red Dead Redemption" is pretty much all that I would hope a Cowboy game would be - a story of a reformed criminal-turned-lone-gunman who reluctantly has to hunt down the gang he used to run with in order to finally free himself and his family from the life he wants to leave behind.
If that sounds cliche, it's likely because "Red Dead Redemption" draws on just about every iconic Western troupe in all it's forms: from Spaghetti Westerns to pulp stories to comics to HBO's "Deadwood." If it has been done successfully somewhere else, it has influenced the direction of "Redemption." And it is all here too: shoot-outs, posses, prospecting, rough-riding, bear hunting, hold-ups, lassoing, locomotive rooftop chases, and the Wilhelm Scream.
Like all open-world games that were pioneered by Rockstar, "Redemption" follows a series of missions that propel the overall story, while giving the player the freedom to complete side missions for more money or respect, explore the vast expanse of the West to collect items or hunt animals, or to just lose oneself in a back-room game of poker. Whether a player wants to truly play the role of the reformed criminal, or be the most rootinist, tootinist hombre this side of the Missisip', "Redemption" gives the playground to be either Wyatt Earp, or Billy the Kid.
And it does so in majestic beauty: whereas "Grand Theft Auto IV" focused on urban density and the hard-angled architecture of a bustling metropolis, "Redemption" features the picturesque expanse of the Great West, and the colors that Mother Nature used to paint it. Full day/night cycles occur in "Redemption" and watching the sunset over an orange-rocked canyon is a technical beauty.
Crossing the prairie or wilderness by horse really gives the sense of expanse in "Redemption's" world, and the solitude that pioneers must have felt when in between towns with nothing but the wolves or the bandits to keep them company.
Mechanically, "Redemption" controls and handles similarly to "GTAIV," which is to say that the gun-fighting and cover-system is satisfactory enough, but really should be overhauled to become more in line with the top third-person action games of the day.
Thankfully, the "Dead Eye" slow-motion effect from the original, related-in-name-only "Red Dead Revolver," carries over to "Redemption," which allows the player more time and precision when trying to make a finesse shot - like shooting the rope of an innocent man who just got "strung up," or taking the knee out of a wanted bandit to collect the "Alive" portion of a "Dead or Alive" reward.
I am also glad that the satire and juvenile humor that features so prevalently in the "Grand Theft Auto" series takes a back-seat in "Redemption." That isn't to say that lewd or adult humor and sexual situations aren't present in "Redemption," after all this is the Wild West and brothels are a way of life, but it is to say that those things aren't the type of things that the protagonist is concerned with and so the player doesn't have to be, either.
Consequently, given the setting, the story, the action, and a multiplayer that is worlds better than anything Rockstar has done before, I'd take "Red Dead Redemption" to "Grand Theft Auto IV" any day.
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