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Mix the Wild West with the high seas and you get Swashbucklers: Blue vs. Grey, an action adventure game about pirates during the Civil War. However, the gameplay isn't as innovative as this offbeat premise, considering that Russian developer TM Studios has simply duplicated Sid Meier's take on buccaneering from his Pirates! games, right down to the arcade minigames. There isn't any amusement to be found in the derivative, go-through-the-motions gameplay that mimics a vastly superior predecessor. The PlayStation 2 production values (the game was apparently designed for Sony's last-generation console), which boast nonstop loading screens and outdated graphics, really hammer home the bottom-drawer philosophy behind this second-rate rip-off.
Nevertheless, there are enough interesting aspects to the story to make you wish that Swashbucklers had been more ambitious with its gameplay. You take the role of Abraham Gray, a pirate plying his trade in the Caribbean and along the southeastern seaboard of the United States during the Civil War. Dropping the usual 16th-17th century piratical escapades for a more modern era is a great idea, especially given how the game dresses up the period with cowboy touches. Gray dresses more like a Texas Ranger than a buccaneer from Havana, what with his beat-up cowboy hat and twirling six-guns. City ports look like refugees from an old oat opera as well, with dirt streets, sheriffs' offices, and taverns. Another nifty touch is Gray's mental state. He's a schizophrenic who hears voices, which comes in handy when this hallucinatory alter ego provides tips on how to play the game. Not much is made of this during play, although the concept is at least an interesting way to handle the pop-up instructions provided during game tutorials.
Depressingly, that's about it for the positives. For starters, everything about Swashbucklers screams bargain bin. The visuals are all washed-out, as if they've been put through the photocopier one too many times. The graphical quality isn't much better than that offered in the PS2 version of the game, although everything is sharper on the PC and it at least offers widescreen support for modern monitors. Visual elements of the game are often repeated, too, which means that ports feature the same dirt streets, the same taverns, and the same sheriff's departments. Every section of the game needs to be loaded, too, despite the dated look. Loads are nearly instantaneous, but they still break up the flow with continual screen fade-outs and transition screens. A comic-book vibe to the visual flair makes the dated stuff a bit more tolerable, but you're still playing a game that looks as if it came out five years ago. Furthermore, the interface is one of those big "designed for a TV set" affairs, which makes it a chore to simply use your inventory.
Audio is an even bigger advertisement for yesteryear. Presumably to avoid the costs involved with recording dialogue and then translating it for different markets, characters in Swashbucklers grunt conversations like angry, drunken versions of the adults in Peanuts cartoons. Unfortunately, this half-baked attempt at simlish doesn't work here, given that you're trying to make sense of a storyline, not groove on the cutesiness of virtual dolls expressing emotions without uttering any intelligible words. You can't get much out of this grunting, either, because it all sounds like a cross between a snore and a belch. Thankfully, there are captions for all of this snorted dialogue, so you can ignore these annoying noises and just read your way through conversations while listening to the pretty good Wild West-style musical score.
It's a pity that you can't similarly disregard the gameplay. This is a clone of Pirates! in every imaginable way, but without the depth and sense of fun that permeated that 2005 remake. Character development has some role-playing game aspects, although they're pretty rudimentary. You level up fairly quickly, but can apply the points gained to only three skills: fencing, shooting, and defense. Perks that provide special melee attacks, defense bonuses, and the like can also be chosen, which gives you at least a little more freedom to build a character. Regardless, there isn't enough choice here to let you really customize Gray. The arcade-style combat is equally straightforward on both terra firma and on the high seas. You move around with the WASD keys and fight with clicks of the left mouse button. Both ways of doing battle are fast-paced; Gray is an expert swordsman, and the vessels at his command are able to rip off cannon fire at Gatling-gun speeds. It's only when dueling enemy captains at the conclusion of boarding sequences that you're required to do any thinking, and this really just requires you to pace yourself by taking breathers every now and again as you run out of energy.
Quests are generally pretty basic delivery runs where you drop off supplies, hand over prisoners, sink vessels, and so on. There is little interaction with non-player characters, and no need to fuss around with loading ships or dumping off cargo. Consequently, in the many Fed Ex quests you simply land in a port, talk to someone to accept a job, sail to another port, and talk to someone about taking your delivery. Wash, rinse, repeat. You can make cash on the side by auctioning off captured vessels, or by running goods from one port to another and doing the old buy-low, sell-high thing. But there isn't any strategy here because the auctions are conducted automatically, and the prices for cargo remain static even when you're buying up tons of stock. You know you've got a pretty simplified market system when it doesn't even recognize basic supply and demand.
Earning money from ship-selling and trading isn't really necessary, either, given that you can make just about all of the cash that you want by taking on all comers in the boxing minigame on offer in various ports' bars. This is a bare-fisted version of the captain duel described above that is incredibly easy to win. All you have to do is pound away for a few rounds and occasionally pepper your opponent with a roundhouse special attack to walk away with as much as a thousand bucks.
If you're looking to recreate the Pirates! experience, just replay that fantastic game. Don't bother with this dull copy unless you've got a fetish for mentally ill buccaneers.
By Brett Todd, GameSpot
Universe at War: Earth Assault is this year's Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends. In other words, it's an attempt to deliver an old-school real-time strategy game that features three incredibly unique and distinct factions. And in that regard, Universe at War delivers because it does introduce three alien races, two of which feel like they haven't been seen before in RTS gaming. At the same time, Universe at War also sports some major flaws that hamper it quite a bit.
This is an alien invasion tale where, refreshingly, humanity takes a backseat. When a malevolent alien race known as the Hierarchy invades Earth to turn its inhabitants and belongings into raw material, all hope seems lost. Then, a crusading army of sentient machines called Novus arrives to battle the Hierarchy. Their fighting awakens a long-lost race that was hiding on Earth, the Masari. And, thus, the stage is set for an intergalactic war on Earth's surface.
The differences among the three factions are deep. The Novus build a network node that can encompass the map, which allows them to quickly shift forces around in the blink of an eye. The Hierarchy is like a destructive force of nature because their harvesters scour the map for raw materials while their lumbering walker war machines are like land battleships. Then there's the Masari, which might be the most conventional of the three because they center on the construction of a powerful base and defenses. However, the Masari have the most powerful and expensive units in the game. They can also alternate between two modes: light and dark. The former lets them move faster to inflict more damage, while the latter grounds all their air units to slow their enemies. When you drill down and get used to them, each faction has a lot to offer. For instance, if you're the Hierarchy, it's a lot of fun to just crush your enemies using walkers, but it's also fun watching those same walkers run headlong into your layered defenses if you're the Masari.
Universe at War's single-player campaign at first follows the traditional scripted campaigns of most RTS games. You begin as the Novus then move onto the Hierarchy as the game's tale of war and betrayal unfolds. When you pick up as the Masari in the third act, things change. Out goes the scripted storyline and in comes the global strategic metagame, which is like a big game of Risk. You decide which territory to invade next and then resolve the battles in real time. It's not a particularly deep strategic layer, but it does help shake up the formula a bit. When you're done with the campaign, there are various scenarios that let you play the global metagame different ways, or you can jump into regular skirmish mode against the system.
The game shines in the multiplayer realm, where a human opponent can exploit each faction's advantage to the maximum. The artificial intelligence in the single-player game can knock you around if you're not careful, but it generally doesn't vary tactics: a human does. Universe at War has the standard ranked and unranked skirmish modes that you'd expect; however, the game's most ambitious online feature is pretty neat. Conquer-the-world mode allows you to try to take over the world by yourself. You try to conquer the individual territories on the planet by battling someone in multiplayer. If you win, you seize that territory in your game. However, to partake in conquer the world, you have to have Games for Windows - Live Gold. This isn't an issue if you already have an Xbox Live Gold account and own an Xbox 360, but if you don't, then you'll have to pay up to become a Games for Windows - Live Gold member.
Universe at War suffers from some key issues. The most noticeable is the zoom level, which is almost nonexistent. If you can imagine playing a game with your face just inches from the screen, that's what Universe at War feels like at times. It's annoying to see a single Hierarchy walker fill up more than half the screen and realize that you can't pull the camera back any farther. It's such an artificial and painful limitation not being able to actually see the battlefield. The controls are also clumsy. If you try to click on a unit, at times, it won't register. Or if you try to double-click on a unit to select all of its type on the screen, it won't register at times.
Graphically, Universe at War has some pretty units, like the aforementioned walkers. They look almost organic in nature, with their glistening skin and bulbous curves. However, the rest of the game's visuals are a bit dated, from the blocky, polygonal look of many of the characters to the generally bland textures. The game does feature support for DirectX 10, but DX10 performance comes to an absolute crawl, even on a high-end PC that can run Crysis at maximum detail. This occurred even when all the graphical settings were dropped to the absolute lowest. Performance in DirectX 9, on the other hand, is excellent and smooth, even at the highest graphical settings. There's very little noticeable difference in image quality between the two.
Upon load, the game starts with a chilling and brutal cinematic scene that wouldn't be out of place in Spielberg's War of the Worlds movie. The scene shows human infantry brutally and mercilessly cut down by relentless, unstoppable alien war machines. Unfortunately, the tone of that scene is quickly lost because the game features corny dialogue that seems taken from a cartoon. The cigar-chewing human protagonist is all macho bravado. Meanwhile, the sentient machines of Novus sound like Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation trying to be cute, the Hierarchy leaders talk like they're dripping evil, and the Masari are haughty nobles. The music can be pretty engaging, but because each faction has its own distinct theme, the rest of the audio is also inconsistent. The background sound effects of civilians fleeing in terror are neat, until you realize they're the same for every single map. So whether you're battling in the Sahara or South America or Siberia, they all sound like Middle Americans.
Aside from the unique races, Universe at War doesn't really introduce anything new to the genre. If anything, this is a very traditional real-time strategy game in the vein of Command & Conquer. Given that Petroglyph was formed by many veterans of the original C&C, that's not too surprising. What's perplexing is that the game seems to miss a lot of the innovations that have rolled into the genre since C&C. These include newer concepts, such as the ability to zoom the camera back and see broad swaths of the battlefield. So while there's stuff to like in Universe at War, there's also stuff to dislike. By Jason Ocampo, GameSpot
For a game franchise in transition, Out of the Park Baseball 9 is incredibly well polished. The baseball management simulation series from one-man development team Markus Heinsohn may have just gone through a couple of tumultuous years due to being acquired and then dropped by the U.K. soccer-game masterminds at Sports Interactive, but you would never know it by the latest addition to the family. This edition of the game might just be the best yet, thanks to quicker sim times, the addition of major league players, and some small refinements that improve the interface. It remains a little too hardcore and stat-heavy for anyone who doesn't have aspirations to be the next Bill James, although the game is nearly perfect for bleacher creatures who have noggins for numbers.
Statisticphobes shouldn't be scared off, though. While you need an affinity for baseball stats to really appreciate the game, the core of the game is all about indulging your inner Steinbrenner and taking total control over the operations of a big-league baseball franchise. You oversee everything from the top down: signing free agents, trading clubhouse troublemakers out of town, inking stars to contract extensions, setting the daily lineups, organizing the starting pitching rotation/bullpen assignments, promoting/demoting players in the minors, and even deciding on an average ticket price. Seasons progress in a turn-based manner, and you can manually sim each game as the dugout bench boss, auto-sim one day at a time, or go for a big-picture approach by simming through whole weeks and months in big chunks. Leagues are just about unlimited in scope. You can play solo running one team, take over all the teams in Commissioner mode, or get into an online league to take on other Branch Rickey wannabes (the multiplayer support is outstanding). Historical database support and downloadable mods that add the entire major leagues from any point in their history let you start a baseball universe at any time from the formation of the National League in 1871 to present day. You can then continue for unlimited decades, moving through authentic league expansion, team movement, and whatever else baseball has grown through over the years.
Attention to detail is incredible, which results in an authentic major league baseball feel. Although the game is mostly text-based, with little visual pizzazz aside from player photos and the big-league ballpark depicted on the simulation screen, the atmosphere is so lifelike that you can almost hear the hotdog vendors. Dozens of stat categories are tracked for each player. So you better have a good idea what ERA, OPS, and WHIP stand for before making a challenge for the pennant. However, there is also a strong human element. Players are given role-playing-game-like ratings that involve such personality traits as mood, loyalty, leadership, greed, desire to play for a winner, and so on that affect on-field performance, as well as come into play whenever you talk contracts. Negotiations are about more than number-crunching because you often wind up with pouting wannabes demanding trades if they're riding the pine too often, happy superstars taking hometown discounts on contract extensions, and free agents who simply won't listen to your offers because they don't want to play for your organization. All of these preferences are communicated in plain old English, too, which makes it seem like you're dealing with real people--not just names and numbers. It might not seem like a big deal, but having A-Rod comment on your smooth negotiation skills while giving him a $120 million extension makes all the difference between playing virtual accounting with baseball stats and feeling like you're actually running a big-league franchise.
But with all that said, there isn't a whole lot in OOTP9 that is completely new. Although this is a more refined, more complete version of the game than its OOTP 2007 predecessor, it doesn't bring any showstopping new features to the table. Streamlining is really the big focus of the design. Gone is the cumbersome Sports Interactive scouting system with scouts all over the world, replaced by a single head scout who does everything. There's also an animated baseball on the game-sim screen so you can watch plays develop. The biggest improvement is probably the simulation speed, which has been dramatically ramped up across the board without any loss in realism. You can now rip through a full season in under half an hour of straight simming and even zip through a year in no more than a couple of hours as a more hands-on manager simming one week at a time. This is a huge plus when compared to the last two OOTP games and arguably worth the price of the new game all by itself. Only an occasional stutter remains to slow you down, such as the near eternity it takes to load up the player award voting screen at the end of a season.
Built-in major league rosters are the other top selling point because previous OOTP games only came with fictional players. Being able to send real contemporary MLB stars, such as Magglio Ordonez, Roy Halladay, and Derek Jeter, onto the diamond is a much more attractive option than having to deal with a bunch of anonymous Joe Sixpacks. But these rosters do need to be tweaked somewhat. Bizarrely poor performances from some of the best in the game are too common. In a year as the Yankees, for example, A-Rod hit just .243 and counted a measly 30 homers (his lowest since 1997), while 2007 19-game winner Chien-Ming Wang finished 6-10 with a 5.51 ERA. Most players are pretty much dead-on, although this quirkiness is pronounced enough to apparently produce some weird contracts. Bona fide big-money superstars sometimes settle for ridiculously low deals, while average Joes wind up making huge bucks. So the Yankees can cheap out when re-upping Hall of Fame closer Mariano Rivera for $3 million a year on a three-year pact (although maybe this was just a huge hometown discount for a longtime Yankee who didn't want to leave town), yet a light-hitting infielder like Chone Figgins somehow gets the Anaheim Angels to give him $10 million a season for three years.
Computer GMs will also lay down big money on past-it stars like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. In the first season we simmed, Bonds somehow got a three-year-deal worth $7.7 million a year from the Cincinnati Reds. Priorities seem to be skewed toward these established diamond dogs as well. While teams are making outrageous deals for washed-up old guys in their 40s, they're also dropping five-star prospects in their early 20s for no reason whatsoever. If you keep an eye on the waiver wire, you'll eventually scoop up enough talent to fill out a pitching staff. In our first season, the Yankees managed to put together the best middle relief in baseball due solely to a pair of killer young waiver pick-ups and score a 21-year-old four-and-a-half star starting pitcher who tore up AA ball.
At least the fictional and historical leagues aren't burdened with this sort of baggage. Starting with completely made-up rosters or going back to a past season seems to result in remarkably accurate player performances based on their skills and stats--whether you're playing on your own or in an online league. This is particularly noticeable if you go back to the 19th century--or the dead ball era--or even the offensively challenged years before the DH was introduced and the mound lowered. Now you can really see how different the game was back then, in terms of such key factors as greater pitcher endurance and fewer runs scored.
In a lot of ways, the above criticisms can be set aside as nitpicky. OOTP9 is a superb game--the closest thing we've got to major league baseball in a box. A few wrinkles need to be ironed out and owners of the previous game in the series might be a bit disappointed by the absence of prominent new features, but there is no doubt that this is the best baseball management sim out there for serious followers of the national pastime
By Brett Todd, GameSpot
Finding some good information on the latest PC games can be quite a difficult task. I've tried to do a Google search with the key words 'latest PC games' or 'current PC games'. I got thousands of replies but most of them were not what I was looking for. I've been keen on playing PC games for a long time and I've always found it hard to come across any decent sites giving updated information about the latest PC games. Nowadays all the attention goes to gaming consoles and thus, finding news on computer games is getting harder and harder.
Probably the most popular gaming platform are computers. So you can look for the latest PC games on websites devoted to them. It is not really difficult to find lists of new games and their prices but it is a couple of times harder to find any good sites which offer reviews about the newest PC games. If I have to recommend you some sites I'd suggest you had a look on my personal favourite ones - Gamespot, Gamespy, IGN, and Gamezone.
You can always find recent reviews of the lastest PC games on them, as well as some information on the most popular and newest console videogames. Even though I sometimes fully disagree with the reviews published, I still believe they are useful, at least you can get some basic info about the game, for example what it's genre is. In my case, if it's not one of the types I like, I don't purchase it and save some money. If I have genuine interest in a particular game I usually read at least a couple of reviews on different sites about it. That way I get all the information I need before going to the store and buying it.
One of the reasons why you should try to get as many reviews as possible about a PC game before purchasing it is because the price of the latest games varies about $50 per title. I cannot imagine anything worse than spending your hard-earned money on a new PC game which might turn out to be a beta program filled with bugs, a game with a poorly conceived plot. However, it is true that most of the latest PC games are no good, as the standard is getting lower and lower.
Being completely honest, I have to admit that from time to time even nowadays a real treasure comes out of the blue. This gem gets much more appreciation and popularity now because the rest of the new PC games are not worth it. I try to regularly check for news on the latest PC games on varies sites with the only hope to find and buy one of these gems. By Morgan Hamilton
War games is one of the most popular PC game genres due to the fact that players like blowing things up, this behavior is seen not only in war games but in RPGs and shooting games which incorporate weapons. There have been great games that incorporate all of these elements in one nice package such as Battlefield 1942, this game has been released in several formats, one of them being PC.
Another great PC game which deals with war and strategy is called "Machines at War", this entertaining real time strategy game allows a player to control an army of forces across a battlefield, compared to other games which claim that an army of 10-15 tanks, Machines at War takes this statement to a whole new level by adding hundreds of these machines which will literally fill your screen.
The main goal of the game is to construct the ultimate machine which will allow your forces to take over the world, however this won't be easy and you'll need to take down several enemy troops to accomplish this task. This game is quite unique because it features a random map system which makes every mission different and the challenges change according to the new arrangement.
Machines at War players will often find themselves building defenses such as walls to defend their position, building bridges to cross fields which are divided by water and even hiding under the trees in order to execute an ambush attack, if you have played other war games then you know the drill; you basically need to use every trick on the book to stay alive and give your army forces a good shot at victory.
There are several strategies you can follow in order to win the game, however not all of them work perfectly, you can choose to build up your offensive forces in order to crush your enemies with unique weapons, this would make your your troops virtually unstoppable, if you are one of those players who thinks that the best defense is a good offense then you will definitively use this strategy to your advantage; another strategy you may use is to strengthen your defenses by building fortified walls and gates to shield you from any attack while you come up with a good plan to crush the enemy.
Machines at War players are able to build vehicles and aircraft in order to take complete control of the field and airspace, some of the vehicles and aircraft that can be built include: trucks, tanks, helicopters, jets, etc. The game also features full scale maps which let the player have a clear view of the terrain and how the units are organized, overall this is a very solid game which should keep you busy for several weeks! By Ivan A Cuxeva
Crysis is not only a stunning visual package, but the game provides excellent game play along with a good, solid storyline. Crysis is based in the year 2020 where aliens have invaded the planet. An archaeological team on a remote tropical island is captured by a north Korean team, and the US special forces are sent into the field to locate and rescue the scientists. Equipped high-tech nano suits boosting strength, speed and armour, you're parachuted into a sprawling tropical jungle to face intelligent enemies of a different kind that are tearing US and Korean forces to shreds.
Missions are allocated throughout the game, but how you go about it is entirely up to you. There is no set path to how you complete missions as long as you cover the objective.
The map consists of a variety of different terrains allowing you to complete your missions uniquely each time. This provides endless replay value.
The weapons and vehicles in the game are well thought through. Almost every vehicle in the game is accessible providing a more realistic and exciting spin to the game.
Crysis is very demanding when it comes to graphics and processing. When the first screen shots of the game were released gamers and editors were blown away with the graphics and attention to detail. More surprising, after the game was released, people realized their system couldn't cope with the high system requirements. Overall Crysis provides thrilling visuals and is a great action packed FPS, and I recommend anyone interested in gaming to give it a try.
By Ryan B
For players new to Call of Duty decoding all the sayings and lingo players use can be a difficult process. Knowing what these words mean is critical to communicating with your teammates and discussing Call of Duty 4 in other venues. To help make it easier I have compiled a list of the definitions of commonly used Call of Duty 4 slang.
Nootube - The grenade launcher attachment for assault rifles. It is called the noobtube because some players feel the attachment is overpowered and only noons use it.
203 - Another name for the grenade launcher.
Martynoob - A player who can only get kills via the Martyrdom perk, which drops a grenade when a player dies.
Juggernoob - A new player who is equipped with the Juggernaut perk. Some players feel the addition of extra health is overpowered or stupid, opinions which are largely unfounded.
Reflex Sight - The red dot sight attachment for weapons.
HC - Abbreviation for the Hardcore game mode where players have lower health and no crosshairs.
TDM - The Team Deathmatch game type.
FFA - The Free For All game type.
FF - Friendly fire, if it is on players can be killed by bullets from their teammates.
These are the most common phrases, but other more obscure ones do exist. If you know all these words already and truly want to flaunt your Call of Duty skills you may consider buying a T-shirt or mouse pad to show off. An example of a funny a T-shirt like this is in the link below, but many others exist.
By Melog Knaj
If you play Devil May Cry 4 on the PC, you should expect all of the same visceral carnage featured in the console versions, but there's a caveat: You'll need a gamepad. If you're a glutton for punishment, you can try using the game's keyboard control scheme, but it's awkward and frustrating. However, assuming that you have a decent controller, you'll find that this excellent sequel is Capcom's finest PC release in years.
It's a challenging experience, though its smoother difficulty curve makes it far more accessible than Devil May Cry 3. In this vein, you're given an excellent number of gameplay choices that help you tailor the challenge to your preferences. You can initially choose one of two difficulties (and if you want to cry like a little kid, you can unlock several more), and you can even choose whether you want the game to perform some combos for you automatically. No, you aren't apt to find Devil May Cry 4 to be excessively tough on your first play-through, although it is no walk in the park, either. Nevertheless, it is generally excessive, and that isn't a bad thing. Stylish action, terrific boss fights, and beautiful, melodramatic cutscenes will inspire you to push forward, and they serve as an appropriate reward for a well-played sequence of demon slaying.
It isn't surprising that a game featuring the charmingly insane Dante would be so over the top, though the series' famed antihero is not the real star this time around. Don't worry; you'll still get to play as Dante, and he brings with him a good selection of weapons and fighting styles, just as Devil May Cry fans would expect. But you'll spend the majority of the game as newcomer Nero, who has a selection of impressive and elegant moves of his own. Nero is an excellent character, capable of delivering a few wisecracks, a brooding glance, and a heartfelt plea of love to his beloved Kyrie in a few moments' time. He's clearly cut from the same cloth as Dante, and it's a bit disappointing that the game doesn't explore this connection in more detail. Regardless, you'll want to follow Nero's exploits as he struggles to learn the truth about his own religious organization, The Order of the Sword, and Dante's apparent murder of its leader.
The story doesn't offer up a whole lot of surprises, but it embraces a certain attitude of self-indulgence. Cutscenes are overwrought, visually stunning affairs, and are among the best you are likely to see in any game in recent years. The theatrical dialogue, impossibly athletic animations, and swooping camerawork make for quite the spectacle, but somehow it's a spectacle that manages to stay on just the right side of cheesy. Devil May Cry 4 takes itself seriously, but not too seriously, so for every shocking, bloody cutaway, there's an equally funny quip that helps keep the narrative in check. There are a couple of cringe-worthy exceptions, such as one scene in which Dante decides he's a tango dancer (don't quit your day job!), but overall, you're apt to find the scenes to be gorgeous, thought-provoking, and emotionally stirring.
Nero's claim to fame is his demonic arm, better known as the devil bringer. With it, you can grab on to distant enemies and pull them in, pick them up, and slam them around for some excellent combos, plus deliver a few other surprises. These mechanics are easy to pull off, and they represent a general shift from the defensive gameplay of Devil May Cry 3 to a more aggressive approach. As you play, you can pull off some incredibly satisfying moves, both in the air and on the ground, and the most violent of these are accompanied by slick, bloody animations and appropriately gory-sounding thwacks and slashes. Timing these various moves can be tricky, but like in the previous games, eventually the subtleties of your combos will click, and in time you'll be pulling enemies toward you, slashing them into bite-size pieces, and smashing them into one another with glee.
The devil-bringer moves go a long way, which is probably a good thing, given that Nero has neither as varied an arsenal as Dante nor access to multiple fighting styles. However, he does have his standard sword, the red queen, and a revolver known as blue rose, and later on he earns another weapon that franchise fans will enjoy seeing in action. As you progress, you will earn proud souls based on your performance in any given mission, and with them, you can purchase new combos and upgrade existing ones. And you'll need them to handle droves of demons that get progressively tougher--and which are awesome to look at, to boot. You can choose these new moves individually, or you can let the game autoselect them for you based on how varied you want your array of attacks to be. It's worth noting that you can't really make a mistake here; if you don't like the move, or if there is a more powerful upgrade available to you, you can unlearn what you have purchased for a full refund and use the souls for something else.
You'll also encounter a number of secret missions scattered around, and you'll no doubt find them to be the most challenging aspect of the game. In some cases, you have to execute a certain move a set number of times in a row, or dispatch every demon within the allotted time. Although those missions are challenging, others require you to have purchased a particular move before you can manage it. If at first it seems that some of these missions are simply unbeatable, have faith and return to it later. There's a good chance that you were simply missing a piece of the puzzle. You aren't required to do these missions, but the orb fragment that you earn is a perfectly fine reward, and accomplishing these difficult tasks is incredibly gratifying.
About halfway through the game, you'll take control of Dante, and you'll likely go through a period of adjustment while you get used to the change in gameplay techniques. Frankly, the devil bringer is a great mechanic, and losing it is a bit of a disappointment, considering that it's likely to be the center of your fighting style. Instead, you'll have a new set of actions and combos to get used to, new weapons, and four (eventually five) fighting styles. Yet once your arsenal of melee weapons and guns expands (Pandora's Box is a favorite), you'll enjoy their cheerful boldness. There's a lot more variety here than with Nero, and it's a lot of fun to switch styles and weapons on the fly, just to find more interesting and flashy ways of crushing demons to a pulp.
In addition to the dazzling action, you'll work your way through some light puzzles and platforming sequences. The puzzles aren't tough, but they do require you to roam around a bit from time to time, bashing on some switches, using a special device to slow down time, and accomplishing some other odds and ends. They help break up the pace, but all too often these breaks result in lulls that last a bit too long, making you long for another crazy demon attack. Some of the platform sequences are fine, requiring you to use the devil bringer as a grappling hook to fling yourself around, though some of the more standard sequences suffer from bad camera angles and an annoying tendency for the camera to change positions in midjump.
Don't let the variety of weaponry and special moves lull you into believing that the rest of Devil May Cry 4's design is similarly diverse. In fact, the many different ways of killing enemies is quite a stark contrast to the repetition at the heart of the experience. It's true that backtracking and repeated environments have been a problem in past games in the series, but the newest entry takes these issues to an even higher level of monotony. Many successive levels take place in the same castle hallways and forest meadows, and when you switch to Dante, you visit them all over again. Granted, most of these areas are easy on the eyes due to their gorgeous architecture and grand outdoor vistas. Yet when you see them over and over again, and when some of the simple puzzles have you traipsing back and forth, you will wish for new sights. It has the effect of making a seemingly grand adventure feel oddly limited.
That repetition even makes its way into the admittedly spectacular boss fights. These battles are easily the shining star of Devil May Cry 4, and each boss is wildly different from the last, requiring split-second timing and good control over your reflexes. From a giant toad to a hulking stone behemoth, these bosses are cleverly designed and a good deal of fun. Yet as Dante in the second half of the game, you'll face all of the same bosses that you fought as Nero. Although the game could have benefitted from some new blood during these missions, the differences in styles between the two at least lend some diversity to the repeated bosses and test the newest additions to your arsenal. However, amazingly (and irritatingly), Capcom brings most of them out for a third time in the game's padded and plodding penultimate mission. Yes, these fights are fun, but forcing most of them on you three times is overkill.
On consoles, Devil May Cry 4 is beautiful; on the PC, it positively dazzles. The game includes DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 modes, and both look spectacular and run beautifully. Both Nero and Dante are fluid in motion, and they showcase a good deal of flair and subtlety in their movements. The more damage a move does, the more astonishing it looks onscreen, and few games can approach the pure razzle-dazzle of Nero jumping into the air, his cape flying and the glowing devil bringer tossing lumbering demons around with matchless grace. From an environmental design standpoint, the visuals can be gorgeous to behold, and moments like your first glimpse of Gran Album Bridge are bound to take your breath away.
The sound design, like the storytelling, is merrily over the top. The vibrant brutality of your most impressive moves is accompanied by equally squeamish and powerful sound effects. Fortunately, the talented voice cast never hams it up, even when delivering the most melodramatic lines. As Nero, Johnny Yong Bosch can be both remarkably sincere and sneeringly sarcastic, and his superb acting makes for one of the most appealing new game characters to be introduced in some time. But you may not find the music as universally appealing. This is the one area where Devil May Cry 4 feels too clichéd; it relies on the standard heavy-metal grinds that accompany most demon-inspired games and films, and replays the same couple of tunes during combat ad nauseam. Luckily, it never gets in the way, so though it may not stand out, it doesn't stick out, either.
The PC version doesn't support online leaderboards, but it includes two excellent additions: Legendary Dark Knight mode and turbo speed. LDK mode fills the screen with insane numbers of demons at a time and delivers plenty of excitement without becoming unfairly difficult. You can turn on turbo speed before heading into a mission, which hastens the tempo and makes for a great thumb workout. All told, Devil May Cry 4 is a great game, and it delivers a lot of quality action that will please fans without alienating those new to the series. If you liked previous entries, you'll find what you're looking for here; and if you were turned off by Devil May Cry 3's insane challenge, then you'll feel a lot more comfortable this time around. By Kevin VanOrd, GameSpot
Describing Avencast: Rise of the Mage is a bit tricky. This role-player relies on WASD controls, but it doesn't have the nonstop action of a typical action role-playing game. Quests feature standard go-fetch objectives, although they're often jazzed up with adventure game puzzles. And while the plot strays into world-saving Dungeons & Dragons clichés, it begins with a bored teen mage doing the Hogwarts thing. With so much cross-genre experimentation, it's difficult to figure out what the developer was trying to get at, although the one thing you can say is that this grab bag of RPG styles comes together remarkably well.
The look and feel of Avencast are pretty similar to that of the original Neverwinter Nights. ClockStone started developing the game four years ago, so it has something of an old-school vibe. This is most notable in the visuals, which are a bit chunky for a modern game. Character and monster models are burdened with boxy features, the animations are just a touch robotic, and most quests take place in run-of-the-mill dungeon corridors. Nothing here is particularly ugly, just uninspired. Outstanding colored lighting at least gives most scenes an eerie glow, a mood enhanced by the often creepy musical score.
Story is par for the course for a traditional role-playing game. You play a young wizard studying at the magical academy of Avencast, sort of a Hogwarts rip-off set in the usual D&D-style fantasy world. There is very little in the way of initial character creation. You just type in a name and go at it, later using skill points from leveling up to augment traits and select spells. The Harry Potter atmosphere is limited to the opening chapter of the game, too. The tale slides headfirst into derivative territory about saving the world from demons right after you prove your wizardry skills by clearing out a crypt and run errands for a few select professors. At least the voice acting is adept for a non-English game (ClockStone is based in Austria), and considerable storytelling flair has been added through the dramatic, sepia-toned artwork used in cutscenes.
Given all of the above, you would expect Avencast to play like the usual dungeon crawl. But here's where the game takes a little walk on the wild side. For starters, combat has been enhanced with dodge maneuvers. Instead of click-killing all of the skeletons, ghosts, giant crabs, golems, and other beasties that the game throws at your humble mage, you roll and tumble through battles with double-presses of the WASD keys. Most enemies have ranged attacks, too, and do a lot of damage in short order during melee combat, which prevents you from playing Conan and hacking your way through the monstrous mobs. Instead, you generally bounce around like an acrobat, avoiding projectiles like flaming skulls and boulders while ripping off magical bolts of your own with the right mouse button.
Your arsenal is augmented with spells from three magical schools. Blood, soul, and summoning spells can be bought with the skill points earned each time you level up, and then employed in battle through the use of key combos. Some of these combinations are pretty tricky, although the less arcade-inclined can skip the whole procedure and just map specific spells to single keys. No matter how you choose to cast them, spells in the main blood and soul categories don't differ all that much. Blood magic is more down and dirty, with spells that force you into melee-style combat, and soul magic is more about killing from long-range, but most of the spell effects are the same. Also, you're a mage, not a warrior, so staying out of harm's way and avoiding heavy melee combat is a necessity for much of the game no matter which magical ability you select.
Combat can be a bit on the tedious side even with all the leaping about. Monsters are generally pretty tough to kill unless you take big risks and get close enough to hammer them with a melee weapon (generally a magical staff of some sort, depending on where you are in the game), so it's easiest to stay away and snipe at baddies with the rather wimpy right-mouse attack. Ensuring victory comes at a cost of really slowing the game down, though. Killing many creatures in the game takes a good two dozen clicks with the right mouse button. Even the more powerful spells have to be cast many, many times before most beasties die. Some compensation is made for this through a reduction in overall enemy numbers, as you don't battle anywhere near the number of monsters you face in action RPGs like Diablo and Titan Quest. Still, getting bogged down in one lengthy battle after another really kills the momentum of quests at times.
Odd interface issues don't help much, either. Walls and landscape features frequently block your view during combat. The camera can be moved pretty easily, or set to automatically follow your back, although battles are so fast-paced that it sometimes feels like you're duking it out with the camera instead of dungeon denizens. Movement with the WASD keys is also an acquired taste, as your character always faces in the direction of the mouse cursor. Once you get used to this idea, you can really whip your mage around in battles. But it's awfully annoying for the first couple of hours, as no other RPG combines the mouse and keyboard functions in quite this fashion. Slight hesitations also get in the way of combat maneuvers. You can't immediately go from firing a right-mouse-button bolt to a drop and roll, so you have to account for a brief pause when going from attacking to dodging. Again, this isn't a big deal once you get used to it, but it can get in the way of conducting fluid battles at first.
Heavy reliance on riddles helps lift this minor monotony. Every dungeon in Avencast is loaded with brainteasers both big and small, so it feels like you're engaged in a more momentous task even when you're really just playing delivery boy or killing a boss monster. You gather the runes needed to complete the inscription on a shrine; tread carefully across platforms labeled with letters and symbols that must be activated in a specific pattern; weaken invulnerable creatures with beams activated by manipulating telescopes. Many dungeons have an adventure game-lite vibe. None of the puzzles are all that difficult, although each requires just enough thinking that you can't sink into the typical action RPG stupor that resembles something akin to a hypnotic state. You're not handed solutions, either, which means you often have to experiment with levers and the like instead of just reading books and scrolls as in so many other RPGs. If anything, the many riddles serve to more thoroughly immerse you in the gameworld and make the game feel like more of a traditional RPG epic than a hack-and-slash, despite the arcade-oriented combat.
Although Avencast: Rise of the Mage hit stores with barely a whimper last fall, it deserves more attention. Some of the combat and interface problems keep the game from reaching classic status, but it's still an entertaining and often innovative take on RPG subgenres that will reward any role-playing fan who seeks it out.
By Brett Todd, GameSpot
There's a blissful nirvana strategy gamers yearn for, even though experiencing it usually involves a considerable loss of sleep along with a steep drop in productivity for days on end. Sins of a Solar Empire is one of those rare games that can deliver an incredibly addictive experience that devours a healthy chunk of your life, and you won't mind a bit. Not bad for a debut game from a relatively small developer. Ironclad and publisher Stardock should be proud, because they've delivered one of the most original, compelling strategy games in recent years.
Let's get this clear: Sins isn't anything like a typical turn-based space strategy game such as Galactic Civilizations or the granddaddy of the genre, Master of Orion. Instead, this is a real-time game--but don't let that make you think that it's Command & Conquer in space. Though it's in real time, Sins unfolds at such a leisurely pace and can happen on such a gigantic scale that you'll easily manage five or six gigantic fleets at a time as you battle across multiple star systems that contain dozens of worlds.
The game is set in a distant future where the Trader Emergency Coalition--an alliance of various human worlds--bands together in the face of two threats. The first is the Advent, an offshoot of humanity that has embraced an alien philosophy and has come looking to spread the word by force. Even direr is the Vasari, a mysterious alien race that seeks the annihilation of both factions. Sins lets you play from the perspective of any of the three factions, which are approximate mirrors of one another.
Like many space strategy games, the action begins with you in control of a single planet, and from there you must explore the rest of the system worlds, locating planets to colonize, as well as resources that you can exploit to fuel your research and ship-building needs. Sins isn't as ambitious as other space strategy games that task you with taking over a galaxy; instead, the action is limited to a maximum of five local stars, each with a network of planets around it. Travel among planets is limited via strict space lanes, so some planets are natural choke points. Planets themselves come in four varieties. Terran and desert planets can be colonized easily, but to settle ice and volcano planets you must research the appropriate technology first. Asteroids can also be colonized, but they're so small that they can support only tiny populations, making them ideal for outposts.
To support your expansion, you'll have to build a plethora of vessels. Scouts explore the planetary systems, locating ideal worlds to colonize with colony ships, as well as providing advance warning on incoming enemy fleets. Warships come in three classes. The smallest are frigates, and they include frontline combatants, siege vessels that can pummel planets with nuclear weapons, and missile platforms. Then there are larger cruiser-class vessels, such as escort carriers that can deploy squadrons of fighters and bombers to heavier warships. The crème de la crème, though, are the capital ships, which you can build only a handful of. Capital ships are huge, expensive, and powerful, but they're also like the characters in a role-playing game in that they can level up as they gain experience, making them more powerful and unlocking unique and potent abilities. The ability to gain experience creates a powerful dynamic, as you want to get your capital ships into fights so they can level up, but you also want to protect them from danger, because the loss of them can be devastating. However, if you get a task force of high-level capital ships and smaller vessels together, you'll have a force to be reckoned with.
Good strategy games force you to constantly make decisions about where to allocate your resources, and Sins does an exceptional job of this, mainly because you'll usually find yourself having to juggle where to invest your precious resources. There are three resources in the game: money, metal, and crystal. Money is generated by having large planetary populations or by building trade stations. Metal and crystal can only be harvested on small asteroids. Building warships or structures, making planetary improvements, and conducting research consumes large amounts of these resources, and usually you'll have a shortage of at least one of them, which forces you to make some difficult decisions.
It's also possible to engage in a bit of diplomacy, though Sins takes a different tack than a lot of other strategy games. You can do the standard diplomatic maneuvers like declaring a nonaggression pact or forming an alliance with someone, but to do so, you've got to prove your worth to that faction by pursuing missions it puts toward you. For example, one faction might task you with destroying a certain number of defensive structures of another faction. Successfully completing the mission will earn you favor, though not completing the mission will earn disfavor. In order to form an alliance with any faction, you'll have to complete several missions for it.
Then there's the pirate system, which is a brilliant way of waging war by proxy. The pirates are third-party raiders who launch attacks periodically. You can influence whom they attack by raising the bounty on one of your opponent's heads. However, this creates an eBay-like bidding war, where factions are trying to either get the bounties off of their heads or put them on opponents they really need attacked. The danger is that when you bid, you actually put money into the pot that you can't withdraw, even if you lose. That means that if you get into an astronomical bidding war and win, the bad news is that in the next round, the opponent already has a mountain of money in the auction that you have to overcome. The other danger is that the more money there is in the bidding, the bigger the pirate attack will be. It's a pretty slick system, though its one flaw is that it requires you to babysit each auction when it happens, a process that takes a minute or two. Given that attacks happen every 10 or 15 minutes, this is an activity that takes away from the overall pace of the game.
All of this sounds like it might be a handful to handle in real time, but Sins unfolds at a stately, almost leisurely, pace. The action is fast enough that you're constantly busy making decisions, but it's rarely frenetic to the point where you're overwhelmed. To help you manage a huge empire, there's an innovative empire tree on the side of the screen that gives you an outline of all of your planets, fleets, and factories. Let's say you have a fleet battling in a distant system and taking losses. Without zooming away from the battle, you can select a nearby shipyard and start ordering up replacement ships that can automatically join the fleet. With the empire tree, it's relatively easy to manage multiple fleets consisting of dozens of warships each.
If Sins has a downside, it's that larger-scale games will easily take hours upon hours to resolve. Medium-size maps will chew up six to eight hours, often to the point where you will be looking at the clock and wondering just how effective you're going to be the next day on about three or four hours of sleep. Larger games can take even longer at the default speed settings. Things would end a lot faster if there were alternate victory conditions or if the artificial intelligence would surrender after it clearly has no chance of winning. Instead, you have to pulverize each enemy position before the game ends, a process that can take a while. One thing that you can do while you're finishing someone off, though, is to work on accomplishing achievements. The game has its own achievement system that rewards you for remarkable performance, such as wiping out a certain number of enemy capital ships or settling a pirate base. One dastardly achievement challenges you to win without researching a single military technology.
The game features random maps and scenarios, but one thing that's missing is a campaign. Still, Sins of a Solar Empire is an excellent single-player game and one that translates well into the multiplayer realm, especially since it's a lot harder to beat a human opponent than it is a machine. The built-in server browser connects to Ironclad Online, where it's easy to create a multiplayer game or join up with others. The one thing to keep in mind is that, for the sake of brevity, it's usually best to go with small maps in order for the game to resolve in one sitting. Though it's possible to save a multiplayer game, it will take a considerable amount of dedication and scheduling by all parties involved to tackle a huge game.
Finally, the game's visual presentation is excellent. It's not a graphically flashy game, but it works on many levels. The ship designs look cool up close, and watching fleets slug it out is always fun. Pull the camera back, and ships and squadrons are replaced by distinctive icons, giving you the big picture even when you've zoomed out and are looking at a solar system as a whole. The interface is also quite elegant, and it scales nicely to a wide variety of display sizes. The audio and sound effects aren't quite as distinctive, and the music provides some decent sonic wallpaper.
In sum, Sins of a Solar Empire is an absolute must-have if you enjoy strategy games. It's an addictive, deep game that elevates space strategy to new levels. At the same time, it provides a fresh, original take on one of the oldest and most revered subgenres in all of strategy gaming. By Jason Ocampo, GameSpot
Since being stuck in a strange place with no idea who you are is such an ancient gaming cliché that it should be drawing social security, it's tough to warm up to The Experiment (also known as Experience 112). But developer Lexis Numerique manages to put together such a unique take on the "Who am I?" story gimmick that this tale feels awfully original. A secondhand control system that essentially breaks the fourth wall, an innovative interface, and loads of spooky scenery and sound land you in an alternate reality that is as strange as it is believable.
The biggest difference between The Experiment and more conventional adventure games is the perspective. Instead of controlling an alter ego as in the usual point-and-click puzzler, here you pretty much play as yourself. You play the role of an anonymous person locked in the operations room of a ruined ship grounded on a tropical beach. Aside from the ability to control cameras mounted throughout the vessel's interior, you have no ability to communicate with anyone to determine who you are, how you wound up in this place, or how you can escape.
But you're not entirely alone. A scientist named Lea Nichols, who was working on some sort of ocean-going research project before it went horribly wrong and everyone was killed, wakes up in a cabin before one of your cameras at the start of the game. She has no idea who you are, though, so all you can do to find answers is to help her flee the corpse-strewn corridors of the vessel. You never take direct control of Lea, however, so you're stuck leading her from room to room by turning on and off lights and various other devices, along with unlocking doors. The idea is to get her in the right position to solve problems on her own, with you monitoring her progress on the many surveillance cameras scattered in every nook and cranny of the ship and chipping in to help by providing computer access codes, answering questions by nodding or shaking cameras, and occasionally operating robot vehicles of one sort or another.
Generally, Lea provides an objective and you then lead her toward it by using lights, computer screens, and the like as carrots. When she reaches a key quest location like a freezer, safe, desk, or lab table, Lea completes the task at hand or prompts you to help her by providing more information dredged up from the research center's computer system. Sometimes you also need to access all of the cameras in a certain area and pan them around looking for clues. As the game goes on, Lea adds more functions to the camera system, such as the ability to light up dark rooms or the ability to zoom in on documents, but you're always detached from your surroundings and doing nearly everything through Lea.
A great control scheme modeled on a stereotypical computer graphical user interface makes it easy to guide Lea. You spend most of your time keeping an eye on a map screen where you can click on the light and object icons that direct Lea forward. Camera icons on this map can be activated by simply clicking on them, which brings up as many as three windows that let you see what your companion is up to. There is a little fussing around with windows, but nothing here is out of the ordinary for anyone who has ever multitasked in Windows.
As you might expect, lacking direct control over a character makes for a few frustrating moments when you're starting out with The Experiment. But this distance also adds a peculiar sense of realism to the game, because it feels like you're actually sitting at your PC helping a companion solve a mystery. Instead of having to suspend your disbelief and buy into the concept that you're a scientist trying to get off a death boat, you can turn the lights down low and slip into a daydream that your PC is connected to a far-off ship's control system. This doesn't exactly create an atmosphere of high adventure, so it isn't ideal for gamers who want to believe that they're some kind of Indiana Jones-style superman every time they sit down at the keyboard. But this conceit works extremely well on an intellectual level, affording you the ability to sleuth it up in a realistic fashion without having to pretend that you're somebody else.
A few design problems interfere with this illusion. The biggest is an awkward translation from the original French. Some of Lea's instructions are odd and can lead you in the wrong direction, especially when you're trying to find the location of a particular code and aren't sure if you should be looking around with cameras or reading through computer documents. Controls are generally quite good, although the frustration factor can be high at times. Some puzzles have you manipulating finicky robot vehicles through tight quarters, and it's a bit jarring to have to take over manually when you've been directing the action from a distance all along. The pace is a little too slow. Lea strolls through the ship pretty leisurely, taking a few seconds to respond to every light cue. She also sometimes takes a little too long to say something after reaching a quest location. If you're not extra-patient in these situations and careful to pull up a camera angle showing exactly what she's doing, you might wrongly assume that there isn't anything of importance in the vicinity and lead her elsewhere.
The visuals and sound effects are a little rough and ready. The graphics are dated, with blocky character models and dark backdrops that are sometimes too gloomy to make out much detail. This can be frustrating when you get stuck, because the murky settings, the limited turning radius of each camera, and the general lack of control inherent in a game where you're directing somebody else's actions all combine to make it seem like you're playing the game with one eye covered and an arm in a sling. Regular hitches in the frame rate are also annoying. The sound effects are sparse and of about the same old-time quality as the scenery. The voice acting is subpar to the point of being irritating, since the actress voicing Lea speaks with all of the emotional gravitas of an operator transferring you to customer service. The music, however, works on a lot of levels. Most of the soundtrack kind of sneaks into your ears, creeping you out with something of an X-Files vibe before you fully realize the effect that the tunes are having.
While The Experiment isn't the sort of adventure that everyone will be able to appreciate, its hands-off design gives it an understated, intellectual realism. If nothing else, it offers a great change of pace from more conventional adventure games. By Brett Todd, GameSpot
When last we left Philip, the protagonist of last year's first-person horror adventure Penumbra: Overture, he had just been knocked out cold in a dank underground lair. This sudden cliffhanger was just about the only truly annoying moment in Frictional Games' freshman effort, though, because the Swedish developer did yeoman work setting up both a macabre mood and puzzles rooted in the real world. Now, the series comes to a close with Penumbra: Black Plague, a superb sequel that continues with the creeps and common-sense conundrums.
As with Overture, the biggest selling point in Black Plague is the physics-dependent design. The Lovecraft-influenced story about a young man investigating an underground base in Greenland--apparently contaminated with some sort of infection--is decidedly weird, but not nearly as original as the puzzle design. Everything in the game is based on real-world logic, but not the Bizarro World nonsense that dominates traditional adventure games. All of the problems here are tied to accurate physics and environments that are packed with objects that can be directly manipulated. There are no pixel hunts, no running around to pull a dizzying succession of levers, no directing laser beams at mirrors, and no slapping tape on a cat to make a moustache. Here you simply explore spooky underground settings to try to escape by picking up and sliding around boxes, rocks, chairs, crates, flares, or other sorts of detritus.
Every action you take is modeled on real-life movements. To open a drawer, you've got to use the mouse to click on the handle and then pull the mouse back to mimic sliding it open. Doors are opened the same way, with a click and a pull. Throwing a switch is accomplished by grabbing it with the cursor and then sliding the mouse downward. Wheels are turned by rotating the mouse. These sorts of motions can be a touch finicky at times, especially when hauling around long objects, such as planks or shelves, that get too easily snagged on doorways and walls, but they do a fantastic job of underlining the reality of your situation. Philip's body is even a part of the simulation because you have to be careful not to step on objects that you're trying to drag. Unlike so many other first-person games where you're basically just a formless mass behind a camera, here your character has real presence.
Puzzles are similarly realistic. Rather than collecting bits of random junk as in a typical adventure, you deal with situations as they come, utilizing only objects at hand to solve problems. This switch can actually be awful tricky to deal with if you're an adventure-game veteran. It's hard to believe that all of the tools needed to get past a barrier like a locked door are laid out in front of you so clearly. So you can spend many minutes crawling around looking for the trick or gimmick that bars your way in traditional adventure games, never realizing that the first step to a solution here is often as simple as picking up a rock to smash open a door, throwing a plank over an abyss, or ripping a wire out of a circuit box to kill the power that is keeping a door locked. You still need to take a good look at your surroundings for hints and MacGyver your way through a lot of locked doors, but there are no ridiculous leaps of logic. Anyone with a dash of patience and a pinch of common sense should be able to finish the game without recourse to a walkthrough.
This true-to-life design also makes Black Plague damn scary. With everything so rooted in reality, it's easy to lose your sense of place and feel like you're really stuck deep underground. The visuals are a few years behind the times, although in some ways, this actually enhances the grimy look of your subterranean prison. Also, most of the textures are reasonable, given that they're not pushed to depict anything more sophisticated than rusty walls and bloodstained floors. Because you spend all of your time fumbling around in the dark, anyhow, audio is more important than the visuals. Black Plague delivers here, with sparse sounds like distant whispers and rattling that could either be right beside you or far off in the distance. Atmospheric effects and music are just disorienting enough to keep you on edge at all times.
All of the irritating cheese from Overture has been stripped away too. Both combat and stealth mechanics have been pretty much entirely eliminated from the game. You can still fight when necessary and duck into the shadows to dodge enemies. But there are no more frustrating dealings with patrolling dogs and no need to try to swing a pickaxe into a skull. The latter is most welcome because the decidedly unfriendly battle interface from the first game made the occasional scrap with those demon dogs a real pain. You do run into hostile creatures every so often, although these occasions are few and far between. Gruesome sentries show up just often enough to maintain tension. Hiding out for a few moments is generally all that's required to ditch baddies, which leaves you alone to deal with puzzles for the most part.
The one big drawback with Black Plague is that it ends rather abruptly. Any experienced adventure gamer can wrap the game up in four or five hours, which makes it a little too brief even for its bargain-bin price tag. Such brevity and a dissatisfying conclusion might be more forgivable if a third Penumbra was on the way, but this sudden finale is a bit annoying given that this is the end of the line for the series. Nevertheless, Black Plague is fun while it lasts and definitely recommended for anyone who enjoyed the first game.
By Brett Todd, GameSpot
Pirates of the Burning Sea isn't World of Warcraft with swashbuckling. In fact, if we were forced to draw comparisons between Flying Lab Software's massively multiplayer role-playing game and another title, it would be EVE Online. Like EVE, Pirates is a complex game featuring an intricate supply-line economy--and like its galactic counterpart, its rewards aren't always immediate or obvious. No, it takes a while for the game to wriggle into your psyche. This isn't because the early hours aren't fun--they are--but because there's a bit of a learning curve to conquer before the pieces all fall into place. That might be enough to turn away players expecting immediate gratification, which is a shame, because Pirates of the Burning Sea is a special, and specialized, game that rewards you with some of the finest moments the genre has to offer.
The year is 1720, and three nations are protecting their interests in the Caribbean while struggling with the constant threat of pirates (and one another). As you would expect, you'll align yourself with one of these entities--either Spain, France, England, or Pirate--and choose a profession. If you're a pirate, piracy is the only profession available, but aligning yourself with a nation opens up the naval officer, privateer, and freetrader professions. The style of play each profession favors is more or less obvious from its title: Officers excel on the high seas, privateers are talented adventurers, and freetraders serve as the backbone of the player-driven economy. Don't take this to mean that your role is as rigid as you would expect in another MMOG, though, since regardless of your profession, you can participate and succeed at all types of combat and trade. This is an important distinguishing feature, because you'll never need to pigeonhole yourself into a traditional RPG role.
Pirates eases you into its more sophisticated facets while keeping you entertained with a variety of well-designed quests, utterly fantastic sea battles, and somewhat disappointing ground combat. The basic questing structure doesn't offer anything unexpected: You chat with various non-player characters, receive a solo or group quest, and then travel to the necessary location to fulfill the task at hand. Sure, many of these are kill-this-and-deliver-that missions, but they stand apart from the usual generic mainstays thanks to well-written dialogue and common narrative threads that contribute to the game's overarching political tug of war. NPCs don't feature full speech, but the stories they relate in text when receiving quests lend them a good amount of character, from captains seeking revenge on their archenemies to drunken swains vicariously living off of your high-seas exploits.
You'll find yourself looking forward to completing quests that send you to sea, simply because battles in your ship are epic in scope and beautifully paced. An enormous vessel takes time to navigate across the undulating waves of the Caribbean Sea, but sea battles are leisurely enough to feel realistic while avoiding any feeling of sluggishness. Waging a sea battle is arguably the finest aspect of the game, as each tactical aspect of the battle demands your attention. You first need to be conscious of wind direction, as it dramatically impacts traveling speed. You also need to ensure your cannons are facing your target or you won't be able to fire them, but you also simultaneously need to protect each side of your ship from damage. Weighing your options in battle thus requires a good amount of finesse. Do you focus on maneuverability and turning speed to avoid damage at the expense of offensive prowess? Do you take the time to change ammo (a protracted task) and risk taking the cannon out of commission temporarily?
You can equip your ship with a variety of different ammunition, depending on whether you want to damage your opponent's sails, hull, or crew--and each type of damage benefits you and your group. This leads to some terrific team-oriented play, with one player focusing on slowing down enemy crafts with another diminishing crew numbers in preparation for boarding. Boarding is an early key to success in Pirates of the Burning Sea, though it focuses on the least interesting aspect of the game: hand-to-hand combat. You need to be close to an enemy ship and traveling at a slow speed to grapple it, and success isn't always guaranteed. Once you've grappled the enemy, however, you and your crew board the ship and participate in a somewhat messy melee that hardly caters to the game's strengths.
Flying Lab certainly tried to add some punch to melee combat with the balance and initiative meters. More damaging attacks require balance, which is built up by performing relatively weak preparatory strikes, while finishing moves require initiative, which also builds up over time. There are also different schools of swashbuckling from which you can earn skills, such as dirty fighting and fencing. Yet these options, as interesting as they sound, can't rescue avatar combat. While ship combat finds just the right balance of deliberate pace and nail-biting excitement, melee battles move too slowly and look and feel dull. Some visual panache would have gone a long way toward spicing things up, but the lackluster graphics and sound of hand-to-hand combat will have you avoiding it whenever feasible.
Both types of combat fit into an overarching player-versus-player mechanic that's as awesome as it is intimidating. As you complete quests at certain ports, you also contribute to regional unrest, which results in a gradual breakdown of opposing national control. Once a region has become unstable enough, pirates can move in for the kill, creating PVP hot zones that make open-sea travel treacherous and further break down port control. After several days of real-time unrest, the original port owner and contesting nation battle it out in an epic 48-ship battle usually (but not necessarily) involving the players that contributed most to their nation during the contesting period. This is where each element of the game comes together in a glorious showdown that shines in contrast to the often lackluster PVP systems of its peers, and sets the bar for future MMOG designers. Your first gargantuan battle is likely to be one of your most memorable online gaming moments, featuring dozens of hulking ships attacking one another in a rollicking oceanic ballet. It's also a remarkably well-balanced structure in which players of any level and profession can make a difference, thanks to the unique features of ship combat. In a genre in which the best, most thrilling moments are generally reserved for top-level players, being able to see Pirates of the Burning Sea's finest feature without having to grind for a hundred hours is a breath of fresh air.
Once a nation has conquered enough territory, ports revert to their original owners and you do it all over again. Your reasons for capturing ports go well beyond simple national pride, however. Certain valuable resources are only available at particular ports, which makes being able to control them key to controlling the complex player-driven economy. Pirates of the Burning Sea falters a bit here, since learning how to take advantage of resources and port warehouses is a bit mind-boggling at first, and the manufacturing interface is hardly intuitive. Yet once you've got a handle on its intricacies, you can take advantage of them to rake in some serious cash, which can be used, in turn, to buy new ships or upgrade existing ones. You can also craft items out of raw goods and put them up for sale on the game's auction houses, which handily averages out standard prices for that particular item so that you can make an educated bid.
Pirates of the Burning Sea has been, for the most part, stable during our testing period. However, it has suffered from its share of launch pangs and occasional lag, and throws some unnecessary obstacles into the mix. Even after a very recent patch, attempting dialogue with a few NPCs results in strings of code rather than actual dialogue. At other times, the game suffers from graphical bugs, ranging from texture load-in to missing geometry and disappearing water shaders. The general interface is also rather clunky, making it a hassle to identify quest locations, or even to manage chat channels. None of these factors make the game fare any worse than most other MMOGs during their initial launch periods, but they are drawbacks worth noting.
Though the game servers feel underpopulated, there's a good deal of community support for the game, best exemplified by content-creation options that allow players to create original flag and sail patterns, and then submit them for in-game use. We proudly created a flag and eagerly watched as other players voted on its quality. Sadly, taking advantage of this feature is limited to power users, since there are some stringent design requirements, and you will need to use a third-party graphical design program like Adobe Photoshop to create them. A simplified in-game creation system, like that employed in Guild Wars for capes, would have been a welcome feature, since it wouldn't exclude so many from participating in this interesting facet of the game. It's also worth noting that once you create your design, you still have to purchase it in-game in order to apply it to your own ships--an odd design choice indeed.
Aside from the aforementioned visual glitches, Pirates of the Burning Sea looks pretty good, if not exactly up to recent PC gaming standards, and the contrast between the tremendous marine battles and unspectacular ground combat translates somewhat into the visuals. The water is truly beautiful and surges convincingly when you are out at sea, which makes the unrealistic way in which it meets the shoreline stick out. Ship designs are also lovely, but player avatars are somewhat flat--though it's worth noting that you can dress them up in a variety of fun and interesting ways. Unfortunately, ports aren't much to look at and suffer from bland street and wall textures. In fact, while you'd think that a game taking place at such a colorful time in history would feature over-the-top animations, replete with swashbuckling deeds of derring-do, character models are stiff and lifeless. Overall, the game doesn't look bad, and it runs well on a variety of machines--it just doesn't meet the joy of its setting with an equally enthusiastic presentation.
The same can be said of the sound design, though it has its delights. Again, the dichotomy between ordinary landlubbing and oceanic exhilaration is apparent, with naval battles coming to life with the din of cannons and the warble of waves. On-foot combat is less interesting to hear, but the battle cries of your crew always are done well, even if they signal enthusiasm for a thrill that never arrives. The music isn't bad though, and exploring ports reveals minor delights, like a barside flute player entertaining patrons or a dockside fiddler providing some jaunty atmosphere.
If you're looking for an MMOG that offers instant rewards, you will probably find Pirates of the Burning Sea's learning curve daunting, but it's worth getting the hang of, because the game showers you with gifts the more you play it. Here is, finally, an online RPG that takes the grand-scheming economics and PVP of EVE and shrinks it into a manageable form, without forcing you to sacrifice the joy of exciting combat in the process. If you've been looking for something a little bit different and a lot more complex than the usual fare, you should give Pirates of the Burning Sea a good, hard look. By Kevin VanOrd, GameSpot
For the fifth game in a series, Conflict: Denied Ops sure doesn't show any signs of evolution. This might actually be the simplest edition of the shooter franchise that developer Pivotal Games has produced, with gameplay so out of date that it might as well be wearing a plaid flannel shirt and listening to Alice in Chains. But even though the action is a good decade behind the times, the game's rapid-fire pace blurs the fact that you're shooting the same bad guys over and over again. Attractive visuals feature diverse terrain spread all over the globe. Co-operative play is another highlight, which earns the game some applause all by itself, given how this shooter feature is so often asked for and so rarely delivered. So even though nothing here is going to slow down traffic--let alone stop it--such a speedy mindless shooter like this is ideal for those moments when you want to switch off the synapses and play Rambo for a few hours.
As with the four previous games in the franchise, the theme here is military. The gameplay is stuck in the neutral zone between one-bullet-and-you're-dead hardcore shooters and the more absurd stuff where you can soak up lead like a sponge before meeting your maker. The story in the campaign is typical to these middle-of-the-road shooters, with you taking charge of a pair of special forces operatives working behind the scenes in 10 missions spread across the globe to unravel a nuclear arms conspiracy. Perspective has been switched to first-person from third-person, however, and your squad cut back to two commandos from the four featured in previous Conflict games. These changes don't make a great deal of difference to how the game plays. Being able to switch between sniper Graves and heavy gunner Lang is actually so seamless that you might as well be playing a single character.
That said, teamwork can be a key component of Conflict: Denied Ops. Your buddy can be ordered around and healed with quick clicks of the right mouse button. The smart artificial intelligence adeptly handles firefights as well. Storming enemy-occupied rooms, for example, is a snap. Just send Lang up to the doorway where he'll automatically lay down suppressing fire while you sit back and shoot survivors with Graves' scoped sniper rifle. No muss, no fuss. You can always count on your comrade to kill a fair number of enemies if positioned correctly and even assign him to take out level bosses like combat helicopters. The only problem here is that your squadmate takes orders too seriously. He typically won't yield the position you've ordered him to assume even if you're trying to get past him, causing congestion in tight corridors until you issue a new movement command. And you have to be careful when directing your pal when he's at the wheel of the hovercrafts or other drivable vehicles in the game because he is more than happy to roll right over you if you get between him and his assigned destination.
Other than the smooth-and-simple buddy stuff, there isn't much here out of the ordinary. Level design is the very definition of routine, although the campaign is jazzed up somewhat with the ability to choose the order in which you handle some assignments. The graphics are detailed and attractive, with the missions featuring varied scenery. These represent such diverse locales as the Venezuelan countryside, a Siberian castle, an icy Russian whaling depot, and the dusty streets of a Rwandan city. However, goals are never more involved than shooting everybody you see and blowing things up. You occasionally steal data from computers and set explosive charges, but generally this is a point A-point B expedition.
At least the pace keeps the proceedings from getting too dull. Even though you're repeatedly gunning down the same thugs and soldiers, you do so at a pretty fast clip. This isn't Serious Sam or anything, but the speed is zippy enough to keep you from feeling bogged down in endless enemies or eternally difficult choke points (although there are quite a few of the latter spread throughout the game's levels). Further excitement is provided by being able to blow up damn near everything. Levels are strewn with barrels, gas cans, and propane tanks ready to go boom at single shot. It also seems like you can't turn around without running into some catastrophic incident, such as a helicopter exploding in your face.
Multiplayer is another plus. A co-operative mode lets you play through the solo campaign with a friend over LAN or the Internet. Because so few shooters offer this feature these days, it's awfully welcome here, even in such a simplistic game. The other multiplayer modes are generic takes on deathmatch, team deathmatch, and conquest, though, so there isn't much here beyond the co-op. And even that is somewhat iffy because there appeared to be very few people playing the game online at the time of writing.
Poor audio quality is another drawback. Environmental effects are way over the top, particularly for voices. Talking in even a small, office-sized chamber is enhanced so that it sounds like the words are booming out across a canyon. Too bad there isn't any way to turn off or at least turn down this echo effect. At least this problem doesn't ruin any great scripting. Dialogue here is confined to awful buddy-movie stereotypes, with Graves being the grizzled veteran who's gruff but lovable and Lang being the cocky youngster who adds "motherf***er" to the end of every sentence. Music is just as obnoxious and so loud on the default setting that it almost drowns out machine-gun fire.
If you go in with low expectations and an appreciation for simple retro shooters, you won't be disappointed with Conflict: Denied Ops. It isn't a great shooter by any means, although it is a competent one for those of you who don't want a lot of interaction or thinking to interfere with senseless mayhem.
By Brett Todd, GameSpot
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