Bioshock

Hype is a terrible thing. No matter how you try to escape its terrifying grasp, it always seems to swallow you whole and carry you along on an almost immeasurable wave of optimism. Bioshock has been hyped to the moon and back a thousand times over. Screenshots have dazzled with the kind of astonishing beauty we once could have only dreamed about. Dribbles of information have built up hopes that this could be the game that we’ve always craved.

The recent demo, however, seemed to dampen spirits a touch, with the appearance of being little more than a Doom style FPS with prettier aesthetics. While the demo did assure us that the visual and aural representations of Rapture would indeed be up to the dizzying heights we all wish for, it did not even vaguely begin to give a hint of the sheer talent that the developers previously known as Irrational Games truly possess. Yes, the final game not only looks and sounds incredible, but the overall presentation of this titile will leave fans of the FPS shocked at its outstanding polish.

Despite the dizzying amount of detail ploughed into every square inch of Rapture, it never fails to feel anything other than a truly solid world. While a lot of visually impressive games have fallen into the “uncanny valley” trap, the absolute decay and destruction held in this underwater empire restrict Bioshock from even getting close to the edge, never mind dropping into this potential pitfall. The plasmid system, which could so easily have become nothing more than keys to unlock the next half hour of gaming delight, is so much more. The variety of ways to best one of the terrifying “Big Daddy’s” utilising the many special abilities makes Bioshock stand taller than even the most in-depth modern RPG.

The script takes you out of the action by allowing the story to be told via discarded tapes and your Irish compatriot, all while allowing you to continue pressing on. This only increases the tension and craving to see what devilish delights await you around the next corner. There are moments you’ll freeze in fear as you spot a terrifying shadow lurking around the next bend. You’ll be hit with the sudden realisation that no two encounters with the variety of nasties that populate Rapture will ever be alike. It all culminates in a title created with imagination and unadulterated class.

For once, push your misgivings to the back of your mind and simply dazzle yourself with the first next-gen gaming experience to prove that all the hype has been worth it. The world of Rapture deserves to be experienced time and time again.

Qwak

Addiction can be a terrible thing. It’s ruined lives and torn families apart. So it’s strange how many games have the term ‘addictive’ bandied about so easily when it can have so many detrimental affects. Qwak, from Team 17, the creators of the stunning Alien Breed series, is one such title that can only be labelled as obscenely addictive.

Released on the Amiga way back in the early nineties, it reminds us of that Taito classic, Bubble Bobble. In much the same ilk as that much fondly remembered title, Qwak was much more fun in multiplayer mode. Across 80 stages, your task was simple in essence, but devilishly addictive in practice. Tossing eggs around with the kind of eagerness you only come to expect from the young ‘uns at Halloween, your duck avatar had to collect keys in order to progress to the next more challenging level, as well as bagging as much fruit as possible to up your score. What else would you expect from, erm, ducks?

Simple? Certainly. Easy? Not on your nelly. Though the 80 stages spread across 8 levels were random within each collection of 10, the jump to the next step on the ladder most certainly was not easy. That’s not taking into account the various ways to up your score, the most notable of which was a hefty points bonuses you’d achieve for “peacefully” beating the level.

The levels certainly didn’t lack style, with a sublime explosion of colour adorning each and every stage through the game’s hefty length. There might not have been any of the immense graphical trickery which was starting to make an appearance on the powerful 16-bit consoles of the time, but that never stopped Qwak from being quite an exciting sight to witness in action.

The graphics never mattered though, and matters even less so now in these heady days of quad core processors. What made Qwak was its astonishing ability to keep you coming back for more. You might have failed at a single level a dozen times, but you’ll still find yourself loading it straight back up almost the instant you switched off your Amiga. It’s so good, that a recent mini re-release has appeared for the GBA, which you can find out about at www.qwak.co.uk. It’s firmly restricted to 300 copies however, so you’d better be quick.

To nab the words of Matt Broughton in the original review found in issue 62 of The One Amiga, Qwak is “brilliantly simple, simply brilliant.”

PaRappa The Rapper

Ports of titles that have already made solid homes for themselves on the “big boy” consoles have almost been the downfall of the sleek PSP. Though the power held inside that sexy black casing can’t be questioned, it’s still running too few original titles for my liking. Which all means that I approached PaRappa The Rapper with more than a mere hint of fear. Though a rapping dog proved to be an exquisite title on the PS1 and was successful enough to spawn a sequel, this PSP release is simply a remake of the original with a few added tweaks.

For the uninitiated, PaRappa The Rapper stars a rapping dog by the name of Parappa, who utilises the power of rap to woo a strangely sunflower-like girl by the name of Sunny. It sounds a little hokey, and maybe even obscenely childish for a generation gamers obsessed with Gears, and God of War, but it gives birth to some glorious tunes to hum along to. Released before we were all well aware of what a rhythm action game was all about, PaRappa seems much more simplistic than the current kings of the genre. After first viewing the button presses required, you simply repeat the pattern that the on screen character you’re starring alongside utters. Luckily, the raps themselves, and your fellow characters, are of such a high standard that they make what could have been an incredibly simplistic title into something astonishingly enjoyable.

Released at a price mid-way between full and budget status, Parappa The Rapper on the PSP does exactly what you’d expect. The visuals have been given a slight tweak, seemingly much more rounded than the angular originals. A few extra downloadable stages are available to add to the mere 6 that comes on the UMD, but that’s all in terms of changes. Which leaves PaRappa in a strange state. Fans of the original might crave some “kick, punch,” action on the move, but the price makes the small tweaks seem entirely insignificant for quite a chunky financial outlay. Equally so, those who have never seen or heard of the game previously will no doubt find its simplistic gameplay massively dated, and hence are encouraged to pick up the original for the spare change it regularly goes for on eBay.

Good try Sony, but you might have been better making this available as a cheap download for PS3 owners instead. We might not feel so cheated then.

GameTap for the Macintosh

I write a lot about games for the Mac, because it’s my platform of choice. Within the past several years, the Mac’s transition to the Intel platform has, slowly, begun to yield fruit for the Mac gamer’s table. The most recent evidence of this is that GameTap has brought its “Lite” player to the platform.

What does “Lite” mean? Well, in part it means that the games are launched via a web browser interface rather than through the GameTap “rich client.” As a frequent GameTap user, I can’t complain about this. The practical result is that I can start the games faster, rather than waiting for the fairly heavyweight client to start up.

The other side of “Lite”, of course, is that there aren’t as many games. More or less, the Lite client has access to all emulated games from older platforms, but not Windows, Dreamcast, or Saturn games. Since GameTap is using Transgaming’s emulation technology, you can play DOS games (hey, Betrayal at Krondor!), which is a nice surprise. Yes, I know one could use DOSBox to play those games, but it’s a relief to not have to worry about configuration, performance, or even keeping track of the files: it’s all just click-and-play. If Gametap can manage to roll out the ability to play Windows games in the Lite player, I’ll never have any reason to launch the rich client at all. Here’s hoping.

There are a few other drawbacks to the Lite player, as well. There’s no full screen mode (GameTap says that is coming later in the year), and mouse tracking in some of the DOS games can be a bit persnickety. Performance was not an issue on my MacBook Pro. Those of you with PowerPC based Macs won’t get to join in on the fun, unfortunately, but can instead look at this as yet another good reason to upgrade.

If you already have a GameTap subscription, being able to play on your Mac without rebooting into Windows is a great convenience. If you aren’t yet a subscriber, you should definitely take a look at the list of available games and decide if there are enough titles that interest you to join. If Windows titles were available, this would be a slam-dunk 5 star review, but without that feature I have to rate this as “merely fantastic”.

Carrier At War

Carriers at War is the latest in a series of remakes of classic SSG turn-based wargames. For those of us addicted to turn-based wargames, SSG is the Pablo Escobar of the game industry, known for some of the most famous games in the genre.

If the company’s products have a weakness, it is that the company hails from the antediluvian days of the computer gaming industry, and so, sometimes, do their user interfaces. SSG games range in design from elegant and simple (e.g. Warlords) to unplayably baroque (e.g. Battlefront). Carriers at War, I am pleased to say, is much closer to the former than the latter. It has the accessibility of Panzer General combined with the strategic depth of The Lost Admiral Returns.

The game effectively simulates both of the grand challenges of strategic ship combat in the Pacific. Search is beautifully depicted (reports of sightings come in, but they are uncertain and often inaccurate), as is combat, where with each strike you must balance your desire to inflict a fatal blow on the enemy against the risk of leaving yourself without adequate defensive combat air patrol. The tension you feel after sending out a strike is exquisite.

One aspect of Carriers that it accomplishes grandly is playing the “What if?” game. The included scenarios – Pearl Harbor, Midway, Wake Island, Coral Sea, Eastern Solomons, Santa Cruz, and Phillipine Sea – cover the breadth of the war in the Pacific. A number of the scenarios also have variants (for example, a version of Pearl Harbor where the US was expecting the attack). The game shows the great extent to which warfare in this era was about information. One can’t play as the Japanese in Midway and not know that there are three American carriers out there, an advantage denied that nation in real life. Needless to say, this can lead to dramatically different outcomes than were seen historically.

Is there anything missing? A scenario builder would be nice, but given that most of the great Pacific naval battles of World War II are here, it’s hard to complain too strenuously. On the whole, this is a wonderful game for those who enjoy naval combat simulation games.

Fury

Finally, an MMO where you get to stab people through the neck! Auran, the company that brought you the riveting Trainz series, has created a new online game that mixes the best elements of Guild Wars and Quake into a fast paced, action-packed free-for-all between up to 32 players…or so they claim.

Combat in Fury works like in most other MMOs. Select another player to start whacking them with your weapon, then use hotkeys or buttons to use special moves. Before combat, the player selects the set of skills that they want to use during combat, as well as their equipment. This allows for different skill/equipment sets, or incarnations, to be created for the player to switch between for easy, quick pre-battle configuration.

The special moves also offer a twist. Each skill has one of five elements: air, water, fire, nature, and general. Other than general, skills can either add or subtract charges of the element. Likewise, there are opposing elements (fire and water, air and nature), that cancel each other out when earned. This allows extra flexibility at a price, and motivates the player to keep separate incarnations of element-focused skill sets.

Post-battle, the player is presented with the score screen, which contains a breakdown of performance and how much essence (the equivalent of experience) that each player received. Also, players are given bonus essence for being the most similar to a given archetype (even if that isn’t the archetype of the character), or for achieving certain goals (most kills, etc.). Essence is broken into the four archetypal types (Life, Death, Growth, and Decay), along with a more general Fury essence, and allows for the purchase of new skills and advancement of rank.

Fury’s plot is thin, but decent. The combat itself is rich and rewarding, although players at a much higher level than others are often thrown into the mix and offset the skill level, which is more than just a little annoying, and gets very old very fast. There are hundreds of skills available, and 25 “killing moves”, including one where your character stabs another through the neck, breaks their leg, and backflips them into a wall (!!!).

If Auran can get the balancing issues worked out, I have no doubt that this will be a popular MMO when it comes out of beta, especially now that they’ve announced that you can play for free. In the meantime, I’ll just do my best to stay alive for as long as I can.

Blue Dragon

Everyone’s been talking about it It’s the first RPG for the 360 which captivated Japan, spawning anime and manga. There are already rumours of a sequel in the pipeline. Now Blue Dragon is taking the rest of the world.

As you’d expect from the collective outpouring of the greats, there’s definitely something about Blue Dragon. The talented scenarios of Sakaguchi and the gorgeous melodies of Uematsu combine dramatically with the distinctive character designs of Akira Toriyama, probably best known for his series Dragonball Z. Unfortunately, that’s about it, Blue Dragon is ultimately nothing special, it’s a carbon copy of a Final Fantasy title with a new name and slightly more interesting graphics.

The story follows a young boy named Shu who lives in a post-apocalyptic land where humanity clusters together in tiny villages terrorised by mysterious machines. Ten years ago strange purple clouds appeared, and soon after the villages began being attacked. No one was left untouched. Now Shu has had enough, and when a giant fin attacks his town, he goes out to attack it aided by his friends Jiro and Kluke.

The pair have just managed to stun their mysterious attacker when they fall into a cavern and discover it’s actually a machine. They vow to find out who has been terrorising them. Along the way they gain some unexpected powers in the form of shadows that take on the shapes of mythical animals, including Shu’s titular blue dragon.

The learning curve for this game is so easy it’s almost flat. Anyone who has ever played an RPG will be at home. It’s blatantly clear that this is a game created by the minds behind Final Fantasy; it’s just too similar. That aside, Blue Dragon is the biggest RPG currently on the market. It comes on not one but three discs, a first for an Xbox 360 title.

The graphics and visuals are gorgeous. The music is quintessential Uematsu, and there’s even the much-needed option to experience the game in Japanese or with an English dub. At the end of the day, Blue Dragon is just another RPG hyped to unbelievable levels so whether it will be a success outside of Japan really remains to be seen. If you’re an RPG fan, fret not, everything you like in a game will be here. It’s almost comforting in a way. If you don’t like RPGs, give this a go, but if you’re looking for something different, you’d be better off looking elsewhere.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary

Since Lara Croft’s debut a decade ago, she has become the most well known face in video gaming. When the original game was released, it blew people away and transformed the action adventure into something completely new. Lara instantly endeared herself and has become the world’s most popular heroine. Eidos have finally returned to where it all began with the release of Tomb Raider: Anniversary, a retelling of the original game with updated, well, everything.

Lara is hired by the mysterious Jacqueline Natla to retrieve an artifact known as the Atlantean Scion, believed to have split into several pieces and hidden throughout the world. Her adventures take her to Greece, Peru, Egypt and even the ‘Lost Island’ of Atlantis itself battling mutants, humans and lots of animals who like nothing more than to chow down on adventurers.

Essentially it is the original game crossed with the graphics and score of Legend. Anniversary holds true to the aesthetics of the original; there are tombs to raid, bats and wolves to kill and puzzles to solve. Déjà vu becomes your constant companion as you walk into rooms and wonder why they look familiar. That said, Anniversary’s levels have been vastly expanded, Peru even has sky, and that T-Rex is not just a two second encounter but an actual boss, indeed one of the hardest in the game.

The locations are varied, and each level is a far cry from the boxed linear locales of yesteryear. Peru for example is dominated by that giant waterfall – which you can still swan dive from – but now has dozens of hidden pathways and secret areas which mean you never have to use the same path twice. St. Francis’ Folly also remains the highlight of the game. The original was breath-taking, but this version sends you into full-on shock (swan diving from the top level is also recommended!).

While the creators have returned to the original in terms of the menu system, weaponry and cast of characters, Lara does get plenty of new moves and a grapple hook, but aside from that they’ve stuck to the original. The soundtrack to her adventures contains some of the most fitting music since Okami, and the voice acting, including MI5/Spooks actress Keeley Hawes reprising her role as the titular (pun intended) heroine.

If you missed the original, play this. If you’ve played every single Tomb Raider title since Lady Croft’s debut then you must definitely play this to revel in the unlockable extras including a director’s commentary from Toby Gard himself.

Rock Legend

I never wanted to be a rock star. I always knew that the life of sex, drugs and concert tours could be gained only though many years of practice and obscurity and maybe a little soul selling. Kudos: Rock Legend makes no effort to hide the drudgery and tenuousness of a music career. Finding the right band mates, practice, rehearsals, hand-to-mouth existence and getting squeezed by your record company hardly seems the recipe for fun. Oh, but it is!

You take the role as lead singer and assemble your band. You then have five years to make your mark on the music industry, starting with small gigs in local bars and working your way up to larger venues. Your band will need to stay motivated and free from stress, otherwise they’ll turn on each other or just stop showing up. When your lead guitarist quits because he hates the drummer, your rise to fame may never recover.

Rock Legend is spiced up by a couple of minigames. The songwriting game is a straight color matching exercise, influenced by your “inspiration” level and how much experience you have. It’s not very hard, but it’s nice to see that quality meter go above 80 per cent. The “music practice” game is a memory test that is best handled by simply writing down whatever pops up. You need to “practice” to stay sharp, but there’s a lot of tedium in this part. Maybe that’s the point.

Rock Legend, like its predecessor Kudos, limits you to a single activity a day and keeps the money tight to keep you hungry. It’s a better game than Kudos because the limitation fits the starving artist setting so well. The tradeoffs are compelling all the way through. Should you spend that last thirty bucks for a night out to build buzz for your next gig? When do you invest in a manager or sound mixer? When someone becomes a drunk, can you afford to fire them?

None of these decisions on its own is particularly interesting, but as a series of now-or-later choices that may or may not pay off, a fascinating fiction is created, and all without having to play a note. Getting out of the local band gutter is actually difficult, and almost entirely free of chance. It’s a little idealistic (hard work is rewarded more than hype) but the combination of good humor and delicious options will keep you humming along for a while.

Madden ‘08

I’m a big sports fan, but lately I’ve been frustrated with the genre.  They’re either too easy, too hard, or too buggy.  The last Madden game I enjoyed owning was Madden 04 for the PS2.  However, I’m happy to report that Electronic Arts got it right with Madden 08.

One of the new features added this year are Weapon players, such as smart quarterbacks.  During the game, if your opponent starts calling the same defensive play repeatedly during the game, your Weapons recognize defensive schemes and read blitzes.  Defensively, linebackers begin recognizing formations and can see which direction a running play will go.

The control you have at your fingertips is astonishing.  The sheer amount of pre-snap actions you can take on both sides of the ball is incredible.  On offense, you obviously can call audibles to change the play, but you can also scan the field to check where you might have an advantage.  If a receiver is up against a Lockdown Defender weapon, you may not want to throw the ball to him.  Flip the play in the opposite direction if the running play is going right into Brick Wall Defender lineman.  Defensively, however, is where you have ultimate control, literally allowing you to change your entire defensive scheme.  Shift defensive linemen around, tell your linebackers to blitz, or order your defensive backs to change coverages.  This is just a small portion of the controls; the rest you’ll have fun discovering.

Also added is an extremely detailed Franchise mode, which let’s you control virtually every aspect of your NFL team, from scouting new talent to building new stadiums.  I recommend this mode for the truly obsessed football fanatic.  The other mode brought back from Madden 07 is Superstar Mode, which allows you to create a new player or draft them from the 2007 NFL draft, then guide them throughout their career to the Hall of Fame.  You’ll have to perform interviews, sign contracts, and have different role attributes that can effect your team.  In this mode, you only get to control your player.  When he’s off the field the computer takes over the action.

Lately, there’s been discussion about the differences in framerates between the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, which are 60 vs. 30 fps respectively.  I don’t see what the big deal is; the PS3 plays smoothly enough.  If you’re too busy measuring the frame rates, you’ll be missing out on a really entertaining sports game.

« Previous Page — Next Page »