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• 15Apr 09

  Rainbow Six: Vegas 2

  This is an old review I posted exclusively on my website reprinted, since I've deleted it.

  Just in time for the 4th of July comes some free DLC from Ubisoft Montreal. From what I've read, a deal was worked out with Microsoft (thus the free status) after the newest entry in the Rainbow Six series experienced less-than-stellar sales (I sort of explain why below, teehee). But hey, free! Three new reworked maps are included, featuring dark versions of Murdertown and CQB Training (I'm not complaining; now there's some incentive to use night vision), as well as a remake of a fan favorite from the original, Calypso Casino. Other goodies include 80 extra ranks to the A.C.E.S. system to increase leveling speed (they're also retroactive, so your previously excess points now count for something. In fact, I reached Elite right when I popped in the disc), subtle mechanic tweaks (grenade indicators, faster zooming with scopes) and 99 extra prestige ranks for veteran players (Elite 1-99). Good show, Ubisoft, good show.

  Yeah, so here comes this stand-alone expansion pack simply called "2." They couldn't think of a more clever name than that? I mean, it's almost as if they're trying to pass this off as a sequel! Sarcasm aside, the game's plot simply builds around the original's, with a prequel level, levels taking place during the campaign of the first game and then of course levels taking place after those events. There isn't much additional content, as emphasized by this Gamespot video review, where Joe Dodson can't seem to stop mentioning the fact you can sprint now. "You can also sprint sideways." Awesome, it's like retarded strafing! There's also a neat experience system which rewards you for pretty much everything you do, whether done in single or multiplayer. You'll also be rewarded for taking out specific enemies or taking out enemies in specific ways, unlocking new weapons without forcing you to rank up. This is probably the best part of the entire game and I'm including that incredible final boss battle against an attack helicopter! That was a stupendous way to end a tactical first-person-shooter with a difficulty setting pretentiously labeled "Realistic!" I also love the pseudo-stealth mission where you're forced to lone wolf. They had something like this in the original game: the first and second levels, which were basically tutorials. Here, it's the second to last level, and you're up against a legion of enemies who have been strategically placed to horrendously frustrate you. You'll think you cleared out certain rooms, attempt to move forward and be killed from behind by some jerk who conveniently decided to fast rope down in some room you didn't even think was important. The checkpoints are miles apart and the level design is reminiscent of the worst areas of F.E.A.R. There's also a scripted sequence you can easily break. Check this out: as soon as you open a particular door, a fork-lift carrying an explosive barrel will magically roll toward your position and a terrorist will shoot at the barrel, causing it to explode. Didn't expect that, did you? However, this whole trap can be avoided before it even has a chance to function, just by shooting at the barrel from a window in an earlier room. Does this stop the forklift from doing its thing, or the terrorist from shooting at it? Of course not. The AI refuses to believe you ruined its ingenious plan and stubbornly shoots at the forklift anyway, causing a couple non-explosive barrels to fall pathetically out of it. Hey, this could still work against you! You might get distracted while walking around those objects! And then you clip through them and all the enemies piss themselves.

  The terrorist hunts are just boring crawls through the online maps, sending you against an adjustable amount of retarded terrorists. It's pretty annoying since you can't snake-cam under doors like you can in the campaign. Apparently, doors exclusive to the multiplayer experience have wildly different rules than their counter-parts featured in the campaign. This forces you to blindly storm into rooms without any clue of what's ahead, throwing any hope of tactical advantage or strategy out the window. The AI terrorists aren't smart enough to stay away from a massive pile of bodies in front of a doorway you've been shooting through for thirty minutes, but they're exceptionally good at surprising you around corners and shooting buckshot into your face with a 500 tactical. This mode is mainly there to help you build up your Marksman, Closequarters and Assault points, as well as to unlock a few achievements. Speaking of (or rather typing about) achievements, many people have been wrought with issues in unlocking a couple of them, one of which is for beating the entire campaign on the maximum difficulty setting. I guess none of the testers could accomplish such a strenuous task and were unable to discover this bug! The other is with receiving reward for obtaining the rank of Private I. Annoying, but not a huge deal. Players of the original game are instantly leveled up as soon as they start, so perhaps that's the root of this problem. However, doesn't that mean none of the testers had saves from the original game on their consoles? Now, there's two things I expect from 360 games. One of those things is that the second I pop the disc into my system, the console will instantly red-ring and die horribly. The other is that a game isn't so broken that even a simple achievement system has glitches. I have never seen this screwed up ever before. I've seen people with a full 1,000 points from Tenchu Z. That basic stuff wasn't broken there, so how did a major developer fail on a highly-anticipated extension of a popular franchise? Jeez.

  Yahoo actually had a front-page feature high-lighting the game (right on the main page as a top news story because uninteresting crap about a videogame is pretty important stuff) on the 20th of March. They mostly seemed to fap to a "new" feature allowing you to import a photo of your own face into the game to create a 3D model. Hmm, I seem to be recalling this same feature from the original game! Also, my friend and I both sampled the update of this in-game utility and I can say with the utmost certainty that it produced better results in the last game. Now, you won't get as many annoying error messages as you did the first time around, but the face models extracted from this process now all look greasy, undetailed and most importantly exactly the same for everyone who uses it.

  If you must acquire Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, rent it or buy it used. I can assure you, there are more used copies of this mediocre sequel at your local game store than there are reviews for it featuring "clever" usage of the phrase "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."

  • Posted Apr 15, 2009 8:36 am PT
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• 14Oct 08

  Call of Duty 3: Better Than They Say

  Despite being a little less polished than earlier entries of the series, I actually think the campaign of Call of Duty 3 is a great improvement over the one featured in Call of Duty 2. This was easy for me to decide since I had just beaten 2 (probably my third play-through, this time on Veteran) a few days prior to giving the third entry a go. I hadn't played it in several years, and couldn't wait to re-live the Enemy at the Gates-inspired Stalingrad mission or the capture of Pegasus Bridge. It wasn't until a few hours into the game that I realized, to my dismay, that I had been remembering the best parts of the original Call of Duty. So basically, I now consider Call of Duty 2 the worst entry in the series, especially after re-watching its pathetic ending: "Actually, sir, I think you should consider giving PLAYER 1 dat dere promotion; he sure did done a damn fine job shooting dem Nazis! THE END."

  Treyarch did a lot more in terms of character development and with making battles seem large-scale and epic. In Call of Duty 2, I constantly found my squad of privates getting slaughtered, until I was left with only the invincible major characters watching my back. Call of Duty 3 gives you an incredible amount of friendly firepower, as well as way more enemies to mow down. I also thought the enemy AI was greatly improved, simply due to the fact they didn't constantly focus fire on my character specifically, as if they knew I was the protagonist.

  Though you're now able to play as a Canadian and Polish soldier (something that hasn't been done before in the series), they really don't play much differently than the British. Other than the Pole's tank, they use the same weapons. I was disappointed there was no Russian perspective this time around, but in context with the story, it makes sense why that is. It's all about the Normandy Breakout, so the stories are interwoven. It's pulled off very well, and I feel the narrative is much deeper and way more detailed than any of the stories from the rest of the series, sans the masterpiece that was Call of Duty 4, of course. Though the story jumps from perspective to perspective a lot, I still found it easy to attach myself to some of the characters, like the cynical sergeant in early American missions or the "cowardly" Canadian radio operator who meets a sad fate in the final Polish mission. The fact the developers went to great lengths to explore many side characters is a commendable effort. Finally, I just want to say that the last few missions are simply epic. The final battle which sees the Americans cutting off a Nazi retreat is utterly satisfying and very climactic. Certainly not as satisfying and climactic as flying the Soviet flag over the ruins of the Reichstag, but it's up there.

  Treyarch tried adding a lot of different gameplay elements, such as making mortars and artillery guns usable. There's also added weapon sway (as in, not just for sniper rifles), but thanks to the new aim-assist, it doesn't make targeting enemies any more challenging than in earlier titles. Also thanks to the auto-aiming, fire-fights are a lot more fast-paced and I feel shooting is a lot more satisfying. There's more too. You now have to set fuses on explosives before they're armed. You can cook your grenades and enemy grenades can be thrown back. Close-quarters combat has you dealing with short, scripted quick-time style melee battles against single opponents. The scenes are pretty intense and cinematic, but sometimes you'll be thinking "wait, where the Hell did this guy come from and how did he slip by my squad?" Then, there's driving segments, which while entertaining are a little wonky. The physics could have been a lot better and the camera swings around a bit too much for my liking. I also got lost on a mission that had you driving across town to save French resistance fighters being held hostage by the Germans, and unpassable barricades and invisible walls were primarily to blame.

  The guns are incredibly detailed, their reload animations look great, and they all handle pretty realistically. Every weapon feels different. Sub-machine guns are poor at long-range and with their 9mm rounds are considerably weak. High-caliber rifles and light machine-guns on the other hand will take down Germans in one to two hits. There are subtle differences between weapons of the same type too. I felt Thompsons were a lot better at dealing with enemies at close-range than the MP40 and Sten, probably due to its higher fire-rate. The M1 Garand dishes out more damage than the Gewehr 43. The BAR and FG42 are a little less accurate than the MP44 and Bren. The developers really captured the weight of the weapons as well. Looking at some of the animations, you can almost feel their heft, and using heavier weapons will slow down your character slightly. You really need to choose your arsenal carefully if you want to do well in this game. The only thing that kind of bothered me was a small change to the Lee-Enfield: despite the fact you're loading in 5-round cartridges, you can reload the gun at any time (so if you have six rounds left, you can put in a 5-round cartridge and have 10). Call of Duty 2 only let you pop in cartridges if you had 5 or less rounds. If you put in more ammo with, let's say 3 rounds left, you'd be stuck with 7. I enjoyed little nuances like that. Oh, then there's my favorite thing of all: melee attacks for every single weapon in the game.

  Environments are beautifully rendered, and I was actually surprised at just how open they were. Many missions even allow you to take point and choose a specific route toward an objective. Impressive, I thought, for such a linear FPS. I had some issues in houses when trying to find my way out of them though. Areas you should have been able to slip through just wouldn't allow it, so the game's really picky about exits. Besides that niggling aside, I really don't get the complaints about linearity. I felt a lot more limited in Call of Duty 2.

  The effects look great. When inside buildings, lighting near windows and doors simulates your eyes adjusting to the brightness from outdoors, while blur aiming down the sights simulates your eyes adjusting focus. Explosions look decent enough and create volumetric smoke trails, and smoke grenades create big, billowing clouds of cover. Rain is just as good as it used to be and flowing streams of water (as seen in the mission The Island) look fantastic. There are also a decent amount of breakables, and they're pullled off pretty well. Grenades and tank shells will take out fences and parts of walls. Shooting through wooden rails on stairwells will have them whittle away. Powerful guns like the FG42 and Trenchgun can rip through wooden crates Germans use for cover. Shooting wine barrels will have them springing leaks. Signs will hang after an intense explosion or well-placed gunshot.

  There are also some new rag-doll physics, but it's an inconsistent effect. Watching an enemy go limp and flip over himself two feet in the air after smacking him in the spine with the butt of a rifle is not only laughable, but just makes the game look unpolished. Sometimes Germans would go flying just from being shot. However, there were times I loved this feature. For example, chucking a grenade through one of the window panes in an office room caused a German to bust out another pane before sliding pathetically to the ground. Sometimes it succeeds in making a scene look more awesome, but other times it just falls flat on its face.

  Despite all the positives, there are some truly annoying glitches and graphical issues. Members of your squad occassionally clip through walls or other obstructions just to return to your side. I understand why this would be benefitial to the player when they stray too far ahead, but it certainly could have been accomplished in a much more subtle manner, so as not to kill the player's sense of immersion. I also witnessed floating character models and objects. For example, a lantern placed atop a breakable wooden crate had no physics coded for it, so upon destroying the platform below it, it remained where it was, suspended by an invisible force. There are also issues with hit detection. Bullets will deflect off invisible barriers around trees and vehicles (sometimes these will extend a foot or more from the ends of objects), making firing from behind some forms of cover troublesome. I also witnessed what I have deemed "der Übermensch," a German who spawned in a couple levels that was literally impossible for me to kill. Only my team-mates could eliminate this monstrosity.

  The checkpoint system really got on my nerves, especially on Veteran. The game seems to save only after primary objectives are completed, so it's not very lenient. Basically, you could do a lot, die and then have to re-play a major portion of the level again. Take the last checkpoint of the game as an example. You'll clear two floors of a house, snipe three mortar teams, take out an armored car with an artillery gun, another with a bazooka and then two tanks with another artillery gun after the first is destroyed, with no saves in between. In another mission, after constantly being killed at the last possible moment, I was forced to do all of this about ten times: get past a tank, clear out a trench, eliminate 20 or so Germans in a massive bunker and then secure its roof. Other times, the game would surprise me and give me a few checkpoints very close together, but of course, this was only during lulls in the fighting. God forbid I have to talk to my sergeant and walk through that barn again. No, I have to seal off three spawn points (with help from three quick-time events) while being shot at from every angle again, and again.

  Sound design is incredible, and is stunning with a decent surround sound setup. Rifle shots will echo in the wilderness and ring off buildings in town. I was very impressed with some of the new sounds for firearms, especially the MG42 (it really does sound like a bedsheet tearing) and Gewehr 43. The soundtrack is decent enough, save for a few out-of-place tracks on levels like Fuel Plant and Mayenne Bridge. They sound almost digital, and actually reminded me of the music from the Metal Slug series, just not as good. There are, however, a couple high-lights, such as the final section of the score for The Mace, which features a very depressing medley during what seems like a hopeless battle before a wonderful, high-pitched relief breaks out at the very end, when green flares burst and Canadian reinforcements save the day. I think it's more memorable than the music from Infinity Ward's productions, but definitely a lot less consistent.

  As for the online component, I don't know if it's because it's been two years since the game's release, but I hate it. It's just a cheap rip-off of Battlefield 1942 with ugly map design. Classic Call of Duty gameplay (squad-based Team Deathmatch) has been stripped away. The class-based system is poorly done and tanks are ridiculously overpowered. There's little to no time to take cover when being shot at by unseen opponents, and the focus blur is extremely distracting. The teams seem unbalanced too. For instance, why should one side's rifleman get a semi-automatic gun, while the other gets stuck with a bolt-action? Plus, it's just Americans and Germans again. What gives? On another note, the map packs, still priced at 800 MS points (10 bucks) each are way too expensive. Considering the fact that people picking up the game now will be spending around 20-30 dollars on the product itself (I spent 10 myself on a brand new copy), it's unlikely they'll lay down the same load of cash for some extra multiplayer maps.

  All in all, despite some harsh criticism from the press, Call of Duty 3 manages to be a great entry in the series, and in my view (ignoring the multiplayer), better than its most recent predecessor that many consider a classic.

  • Posted Oct 14, 2008 11:43 pm PT
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• 10Sep 08

  Mercenaries 2: World Ashamed... But I'm Content!

  Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, while not giving you as many possibilities for carnage as its sequel made up for it with mission variety. Since the entire game centered around capturing HVTs (High Value Targets), each one posed a unique threat. The story was also pretty epic, with North Korea hovering world annihilation over everybody's heads. World in Flames' mission variety is severely lacking. You'll mostly capture outposts, which while hosted in unique environments will probably have you dishing out the same attack strategies. It gets a bit tedious after awhile, but at least you're rewarded with fuel upgrades to call in greater amounts of havoc later on.

  The story-driven missions are pretty entertaining, but a few gameplay mechanics interfere with the experience and the promise of non-linearity. Due to the fact that enemy soldiers calling headquarters for back-up results in their faction eventually going hostile, you're probably going to think to take a stealthy approach to take care of business. Problem is, stealth is pretty hard, if not impossible. One mission has you assassinating three Chinese officers. I called in for a Russian sniper drop, equipped the rifle and attempted to find a good location to take out my targets from. Unfortunately, the officers are cluttered into little crevices within and between buildings. Even after calling in a quick helicopter to land anywhere I pleased, I determined drawing a bead on them from a distance was practically impossible. So what to do now? Running in guns blazing will have a guy ringing up the boss real fast, and getting to them before they finish their report can't be done when they're behind a building, rock or other obstruction. Often, I found myself using the powerful, but expensive helicopters like the Ambassador Gunship to quickly take out a target. Going in fast and pulling back seemed to make the threat of angering the faction a little less likely. Even more effective is to simply destroy the target and everything in its radius in one fell swoop with a carpet bomb or bunker buster. As much as I wish the developers could have better structured missions to encourage more tactical choices, the game still manages to give the player more options than other open-world games, like Grand Theft Auto 4.

  The new mechanic which allows you to disguise yourself as a civilian or a member of any faction by driving their vehicles seemed extremely cool at first. It was useful to avoid fire from enemies, but became a problem when allies started sending rocket-propelled grenades my way. However, I eventually realized honking the horn around friendlies eliminated this problem. I guess I'd call that a bit unintuitive, but once you figure it out, it's easy to get used to. The quick-time events to steal vehicles are neat the first time, and it's understandable the developers wanted to make capturing powerful tanks and helicopters a bit harder, but if you're stealing the same types of vehicles over and over, the animations get pretty old. They're also an issue in timed missions or when enemies are calling in for backup as they interrupt actual gameplay.

  Though the game no longer focuses on them, HVTs are still here and joining them are target structures. These side objectives entail capturing the officers or blowing up the buildings of one faction for another faction. You're rewarded for not alerting the side you're attacking, and get paid double for HVTs that are alive. They're not as fun as the stuff from the first game since they lack variety, but they're just side missions. You also get paid for destroying billboards or collecting spare parts scattered around the world. The latter will let Eva, your own hired mechanic build more vehicles you can then buy and call into the field.

  There are five factions in the game, who you'll be introduced to in this order: Universal Patroleum, The People's Liberation Army of Venezuela, The Pirates, and returning from the first game, the Allied Nations and the Chinese. UP, being an oil company usually has you protecting resources or saving high-profile executives. The P.L.A.V. have you sabotaging the affairs of the VZ and UP alike. The Pirates don't have any real missions, but have side quests where you pilot boats or jet-skis and steal cargo. The Allied Nations and Chinese have a similar goal in mind: kill the crap out of the other. You have to side with only one of the two before end-game, which adds some replay value.

  The amount of dectruction you can lay down is limited by the amount of fuel you have access to. Getting a larger supply requires you to take outposts for each faction and then buy upgrades. How to keep your supply intact is up to you. You can blow up enemy vehicles to harvest it, take containers from VZ bases (the easiest way) or steal it from the other groups on the island (the hardest, since you're pissing somebody off). One of my favorite things to do is take a helicopter, disguise myself as the faction I plan to steal from, grab a fuel container with the winch, fly to a safe place and then have it picked up unnoticed.

  Judging from the trailers, I honestly thought the characters would have widely different strengths and weaknesses. Despite each character having special abilities (Mattias gets a boost to health regeneration, Jen sprints faster, Chris receives more clips of ammunition), you're all capable of the same stuff. One thing that kind of annoyed me was the fact that Jen Mui has the only ability that is benefitial in completing some of the wagers your support team give you (timed trials you're paid to complete). Extra clips? Infinite ammo! Health regen? Nothing's even shooting you! Bonus speed? Enjoy completing the challenge a lot faster! A bit unbalanced, I'd say. Also, their stories and dialogue are all nearly identical. I initially figured there'd be a few differences, even subtle ones, but there really just aren't. All in all, who you choose to play as is merely an aesthetic choice.

  Complaints about graphics are ridiculous. It seems even professional critics are just as likely to give in to nostalgia as other gamers. One (Kristan Reed of Eurogamer) even made mention that the fact the 360 and PS2 versions were made in conjunction was obvious, suggesting a lot of outdated graphic elements slipped into the next-gen ports. The games were obviously built up separately, as some mechanics aren't even present in the PS2 version, such as the quick-time events to capture vehicles. In fact, a few seconds of research showed Pandemic hired an entirely different company (Pi Studios) to develop the PS2 version. Way to be incompetent! The 360/PS3 versions of the game do NOT look last-gen. Some particle effects are a little lacking, the art direction could have been better, but the game holds up pretty well. The explosion and fire effects look fantastic. Environments feature a lot of detail, with birds and insects zipping around the jungles. Vehicles sometimes have noticeably low-resolution textures, but the models are awesome. Basic infantry are slightly low-poly, but close-ups of more major characters, as well as the enemies in the quick-time events look great. I noticed a few jittery animations here and there, but most of the time everything looks pretty fluid. My only real complaint is the pop-in. It's noticeable almost all the time, and becomes a problem when civilians fade into existence in front of vehicles you're driving, resulting in their quick deaths and costing you cash as collateral damage. In the end, a lot of what's here couldn't have been done on earlier platforms.

  In conclusion, the game will be disappointing if you played the original, but it does offer its own unique fun. Also, any reviewer rating this game below a 60% is a hack.

  • Posted Sep 10, 2008 10:38 am PT
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