When you play games, read about games, talk to people about games, you begin to notice certain trends in arguments for or against video games either as a whole or about specific titles and franchises. I'd like to talk to one series in particular, Call of Duty and it's goliath publisher Activision.
For those who've been living on the dark side of the moon for the past 10 years, Call of Duty is a First Person Shooter game that has, over the past couple of years, slowly taken a monopoly on the market to become the biggest shooter on sale, and the highest grossing series that makes literally billions with each installment.
Speaking of money, I want to start off by saying that video games are not what they used to be. They aren't cheap and fast to make. They're like movies and the mainstream video game market is like Hollywood. Titles cost hundreds of thousands to millions on average and the production of a single title can either keep a company afloat for years or bring it to financial oblivion. It's no wonder then when games take so much to make and titles like Call of Duty start making billions that the people who are actually in control of the money, the publishers, are going to want to take less risks. Risk means danger. It means you can lose money. If you had two choices; make 250 million or risk losing millions on something that could make triple the normal amount, what would you go for? A lot of people would just take the safe option, the fast 250 mil'.
This philosophy of "take few risks, make more money in the long run" has lead to Activision becoming notorious in the gaming industry. They make damn sure that their flagship title, Call of Duty, takes as few risks as possible with each installment. This is why their engine is years old, in technology terms it's literally ancient, and why they've come under heavy fire for essentially repackaging the same product year after year and selling it at a huge profit. But it's not all they're getting heat for.
Activision are known for having followed the trends that Sports games have always used: yearly releases. A sports game can do this easily because all they need to change are the graphics, the players and some other minor things. They can't change anything because the real sport it's based off of hasn't changed. It's easy and it's faster money. When Call of Duty became a yearly franchise, people got angry. The problem is that you can't do yearly installments with anything other than sports games. A first-person shooter can become stale very quickly and its an incredibly competitive market. Activision and its developers were fast to notice that its incredibly difficult to both innovate and push out a game in such a tight deadline. So, something had to be cut. The former was what they stopped focusing on. Instead of opting for trying to do something new, impressive or otherwise original in any way, they decided to aim for the fastest methods of production and this meant the game couldn't change. They couldn't make a new engine, they couldn't add lots of new features. They had to make minor changes to the existing core game or they'd never do it in time. This has skewed public opinion of Activision, making them appear like rabid money-hungry fiends that are trying to exploit gamers that frankly don't know any better (the vast majority of the Call of Duty community are the 12-16 demographics that may not know that game sequels aren't supposed to be the same game with a different number), however I think those criticisms aren't totally justified. Yes, I agree that Activision should be focusing on quality of product rather than being consistent in release times, but you have to understand that at the end of the day they are a multi-billion dollar business that has a lot riding on the success of the Call of Duty franchise. Without it, they'd still be making good money, but no where near the amount, and now they've established a core fanbase that not only wants yearly releases, but has been made to expect them. Changing their strategy now could diminish sales and cause a loss in product interest. For some companies this means a loss of a few hundred thousand max, but for Activision this means the loss of millions of dollars. It isn't hard to see why they're so terrified of change.
This is problem 1 with Call of Duty; the people that are making it are being put into a situation where they can only do so much, they can't revolutionise the product because they're being forced into restrictive deadlines.
But what is problem 2? Is it the game itself? No. It has problems, though.
For those that don't know, Call of Duty has had a growing history of serious problems. Hacking, cheating, lag, instability. The most recent series, Black Ops and it's counter-series Modern Warfare, have been the primary vehicles for these issues. However, Black Ops, being the most recent, is where everyone's attention is, and the issues only become more apparent.
The first installment of Black Ops was an alright game. It was a standard Call of Duty game in a retro-setting (the 1960s) which, at the time, was refreshing given that the previous titles had been modern shooters. But, one of the biggest problems it had was in its primary mode: multiplayer. You see, Call of Duty is known as a multiplayer game. It has single player modes, but it's entire marketing machine focuses on the highly lucrative multiplayer aspect of its games. So you would think this is where they'd want the game to be smoothest, it's what people are buying it for, afterall. There was one fatal flaw in the game that certainly put a very clear mark on the franchises reputation. The lag.
In online games, the most important thing is having a smooth connection. Obviously this depends on the locations of the other players, the servers hosting the game, and your internet connection. Call of Duty does away with dedicated servers and allows a player to host the game instead. In theory this is good as players in the same region as the host will have better connections. Typically, this holds true. However, your internet connection still has a serious effect. The worse your connection is as a whole (in terms of raw speed it can achieve), the laggier and poorer your game will play as a result. This was, for a long time, considered the way of the world. You can't afford a good internet connection, don't play online. For me, this was the fair way of looking at things. Back maybe 5 to 10 years ago, it sounded more harsh, but today ISPs are providing faster and faster internet packages for lower costs each year, making it, for the most part, your own fault if you've got a bad connection. If your ISP isn't good, you move to a new one. Obviously your area plays a role in connection speed, but for the most part it's the provider that matters.
Call of Duty looked at this concept and said "no." They wanted the game to be more accessible (and yes, this is motivated by money, but again, that's not a good criticism entirely.) To do this, they added a mechanic called Lag Compensation. To speak in simplest terms, if you have a bad connection, but everyone else does, the game will simulate and create lag for other players to compensate for your bad connection. It tries to even the playing field and if done right it goes by unnoticed. But, Black Ops didn't do it right at all. In fact, their lag compensation was notoriously exaggerated. This created a very noticeable advantage for players with worse connections, flipping traditional gameplay on its head -- the worse your connection, the better a game you got. This caused a huge deal of controversy. Treyarch, the developer, were called into question when shown literally hours and hours of recorded footage demonstrating very clearly where the lag compensation was causing issues for players. Treyarch wouldn't accept responsibility. They claimed that viewing the game in Theather mode (a mechanic of the game that lets you record matches for later viewing) wasn't an accurate representation of what happened in games, and sometimes it would not depict what had happened as it may have in-game. This was all they would say on the matter.
For Black Ops 2, the same problem existed but to a far lesser extent. Tarring the reputation of Treyarch further.
So am I saying that what's wrong with Call of Duty is the developers? They are a big problem, but the problem. Then what is?
It's not the publisher. It's not the developer. It's not the game itself. That leaves only one thing: the people playing it.
With gamers all over the world, the name Call of Duty has become synonymous with campers (a method of playing where one essentially sits in the corner of a room and waits for people to come in un-awares, in FPS games it's considered incredibly lazy and unsporting) and quickscopers (a playstyle that once exploited a bug that allowed players to zoom in very quickly with a sniper rifle, fire off a shot and move which, with practice, essentially made the weapon an infinite-range 1-hit kill weapon that, thanks to Aim Assist and other in-game features, became a largely used and widely hated method of player.) It's this association with lazy, unsporting and bug-exploiting that has turned Call of Duty from a once-praised title to a largely despised name. The question you need to ask is this, though: if the players are creating a community that supports playing the game in a specific fashion that is largely seen as unsporting or 'cheap', is it the responsibility of the community as a whole to review itself, or is it the responsibility of the developer to try to fix the problem?
The issue then becomes if it's the communities responsibility how are they going to promote fairer-play and more "sporting" conduct in a game that while it's growing in widespread dislike still remains as the top-seller that's constantly bringing in new players that play the game with the mindset that that's the gameplay that's not only allowed but expected of them.
If it's up to the developers to sort the game, then I see the entire franchise as a lost soul. The developers actively now support quickscoping and know about the problems the community has as a whole (such as the wide use of camping and even being known as a breeding ground for elitism, vitriol and a mindset of "I against all" rather than a community that seeks to better itself and help new players (who, at the moment, are often despised by veterans rather than guided or helped to better learn the game) and to me this says one thing: they don't care. If not that, they're told not to fix the problems. If the game is making this kind of money with the status of being the go-to game for people that like to play in the aforementioned ways, then, as I'ved said before, they need to pander to that. It's money. Activision's chief concern is money.
If you ask me the publisher, developer and community are the triad that make up Call of Duty's core problems. Many people see it differently and views on this differ radically from gamer to gamer. Where do you stand? Do you think the problem with the game is how it's treated by those who make it, or how it's trated by those who play it?
Thanks for reading. There's a comment secton for a reason, if you have issues or an opinion on the article or the topic, don't be afraid to speak about it.
Stay tuned for more 'What's Really Wrong' where I will be going into detail on a wide range of topics involving media (chiefly movies and games, but possibly other things) and media-centric things that have become, in the public eye, notorious for having serious problems. Like EA also known by some as "the biggest fucking problem in gaming and business history ever."
Tuesday 1 January 2013
Thursday 29 March 2012
Source Code (2011) Short Review And It's Ending Explained!
I don't have too much to say about Source Code. Honestly. It's a decent movie. You may find yourself perplexed at the ending, even angry one particular character, but over all, it's a damn enjoyable movie, and I'd recommend it to anyone.
7/10. If you haven't seen it. Go see it.
For the rest of this post, I try to explain the ending to Source Code. If you don't want to be confused or see spoilers, ignore the rest of this post!
--------------------------
Ending Explanation!
Okay, there seems to be some confusion on the ending, so I'll try to explain it in the way I understood it..
The Source Code isn't a simulation. If it was, then the entire thing wouldn't work, you'd need constantly evolving data that the main character didn't have, and thus can't access.
So, the Train is real. It's an alternate plane of reality. Every time the Main Character goes into it, he's moving into the mind of someone in that reality. Every time he changes something, these changes remain constant in the reality. So, saving Christine that one time, in that reality, she survived and witnessed the explosion. We never see the outcomes because Colter always comes back to his Chamber after "8 minutes." (In the movie it's 8 minutes, though in screen time it's obviously less.)
Now, imagine time as a big white piece of paper. Every time something happens, no matter how small, an atom moving one way, the Reality it happened in creates a dot on the paper, this dot represents the new Reality where the atom moved, for example, to the right. Of course, before it, there is a second dot. This is the Reality just before the atom moved and went into it's own reality. So, for every action, no matter how small, reality is, to put it really, really simply, copy-pasted making a new one. For example, you knock over a vase. You're in the reality where the vase has fallen over and smashed on the ground. At the same time, there is the reality where you're yet to hit it. If you went back, KNOWING you were going to hit it, and tried to avoid it, suppose the vase doesn't fall, it just wobbles instead. This is yet another reality that you're now in. So, by doing that, you've got three realities, one where the vase hasn't moved, one where it's broken, and one where it didn't fall. That's this movie.
At the end, Colter stops the bomb plot. So now, there's, to keep it simple, three realities. One where he's sitting on the chair, about to try to stop the bomb, there's one where he didn't stop the bomb, and there's one where he did (the one he's now in.) OBviously there's many more, such as all the realities where he went back to Chamber, but we can ignore that for now.
Now, before Colter stops the bomb, he sent a message to Goodwin, which we heard at the end of the movie. The message continues to live because Colter sent it IN THAT SAME REALITY from another body his consciousness inhabited at that time, which was still on the train.
Skip ahead to the end.
So now Colter is in a new reality where the day is saved. He gets to live on in this reality still in what's-his-faces-head, still kissing Chrsitine, etc, etc. Because his consciousness, as we've seen in the movie, only ever exists in one tangent (every time a new reality was created, he left it, we're left to assume either the original person regains their consciousness as Colter leaves, or the mind inhabited simply has no consciousness left to speak of, I believe the former), he can continue to survive despite Goodwin letting his original body die.
Colter now exists in a parallel universe, the day is saved, AND his unconscious body is living in the parallel universe where he hasn't yet been used in the Source Code Project. We do not know what happens to his consciousness when his body regains consciousness. We can only assume that A) it won't wake up, B) a copy is made, where there were multiple consciousnesses for each instance where he inhabited a body that didn't die, or has yet to die, meaning he awakes as he normally would with no knowledge what had happened in other realities as this copy of his consciousness hadn't experienced it, or C)his original consciousness, unable to be in more than one place at a time, moves from the "Saved The Day" Universe back to the original "Source Code" Universe that we saw at the end of the movie.
7/10. If you haven't seen it. Go see it.
For the rest of this post, I try to explain the ending to Source Code. If you don't want to be confused or see spoilers, ignore the rest of this post!
--------------------------
Ending Explanation!
Okay, there seems to be some confusion on the ending, so I'll try to explain it in the way I understood it..
The Source Code isn't a simulation. If it was, then the entire thing wouldn't work, you'd need constantly evolving data that the main character didn't have, and thus can't access.
So, the Train is real. It's an alternate plane of reality. Every time the Main Character goes into it, he's moving into the mind of someone in that reality. Every time he changes something, these changes remain constant in the reality. So, saving Christine that one time, in that reality, she survived and witnessed the explosion. We never see the outcomes because Colter always comes back to his Chamber after "8 minutes." (In the movie it's 8 minutes, though in screen time it's obviously less.)
Now, imagine time as a big white piece of paper. Every time something happens, no matter how small, an atom moving one way, the Reality it happened in creates a dot on the paper, this dot represents the new Reality where the atom moved, for example, to the right. Of course, before it, there is a second dot. This is the Reality just before the atom moved and went into it's own reality. So, for every action, no matter how small, reality is, to put it really, really simply, copy-pasted making a new one. For example, you knock over a vase. You're in the reality where the vase has fallen over and smashed on the ground. At the same time, there is the reality where you're yet to hit it. If you went back, KNOWING you were going to hit it, and tried to avoid it, suppose the vase doesn't fall, it just wobbles instead. This is yet another reality that you're now in. So, by doing that, you've got three realities, one where the vase hasn't moved, one where it's broken, and one where it didn't fall. That's this movie.
At the end, Colter stops the bomb plot. So now, there's, to keep it simple, three realities. One where he's sitting on the chair, about to try to stop the bomb, there's one where he didn't stop the bomb, and there's one where he did (the one he's now in.) OBviously there's many more, such as all the realities where he went back to Chamber, but we can ignore that for now.
Now, before Colter stops the bomb, he sent a message to Goodwin, which we heard at the end of the movie. The message continues to live because Colter sent it IN THAT SAME REALITY from another body his consciousness inhabited at that time, which was still on the train.
Skip ahead to the end.
So now Colter is in a new reality where the day is saved. He gets to live on in this reality still in what's-his-faces-head, still kissing Chrsitine, etc, etc. Because his consciousness, as we've seen in the movie, only ever exists in one tangent (every time a new reality was created, he left it, we're left to assume either the original person regains their consciousness as Colter leaves, or the mind inhabited simply has no consciousness left to speak of, I believe the former), he can continue to survive despite Goodwin letting his original body die.
Colter now exists in a parallel universe, the day is saved, AND his unconscious body is living in the parallel universe where he hasn't yet been used in the Source Code Project. We do not know what happens to his consciousness when his body regains consciousness. We can only assume that A) it won't wake up, B) a copy is made, where there were multiple consciousnesses for each instance where he inhabited a body that didn't die, or has yet to die, meaning he awakes as he normally would with no knowledge what had happened in other realities as this copy of his consciousness hadn't experienced it, or C)his original consciousness, unable to be in more than one place at a time, moves from the "Saved The Day" Universe back to the original "Source Code" Universe that we saw at the end of the movie.
Sunday 26 February 2012
Net-Some-Flix
I recently decided to take up the offer of a 1-month trial with Netflix. At the time, I was trying to gain some access to a tv series that wasn't available anywhere else on the internet (except on digital download and dvd orders, but I didn't wanna spend any money.) Once I actually signed up, I discovered that not only was the show I wanted to watch no longer on Netflix, but I was now stuck with a 1-month membership that I didn't really want. What do you do with a free thing you don't want? Start chuffing wanting it!
I've had a poke around their service, and let me say this, it's actually very good. The choices of movies, documentaries and TV shows are all absolutely superb, I find myself constantly going "hey! It's that show!" and "Oh man! I've wanted to see that for ages!!"
Aside from a brilliant library that's going to take up a lot of my time for the next month, I have one more thing to say about Netflix: they are far superior to their main competitor, LoveFilm. The quality of service, and the perfect customer service, and the simple fact that they don't make it hard to leave the service, means that I am now, after having my view of on-demand movie services skewed by LoveFilm, seriously considering becoming a full-time member of Netflix.
The next month should be interesting, and it'll give me plenty of material to review.
One note:
Last time I said to look out for more superhero-movie reviews, they won't be coming right away, but they're in the pipeline. Until those come through, it'll be regular reviews of whatever I find on Netflix.
I've had a poke around their service, and let me say this, it's actually very good. The choices of movies, documentaries and TV shows are all absolutely superb, I find myself constantly going "hey! It's that show!" and "Oh man! I've wanted to see that for ages!!"
Aside from a brilliant library that's going to take up a lot of my time for the next month, I have one more thing to say about Netflix: they are far superior to their main competitor, LoveFilm. The quality of service, and the perfect customer service, and the simple fact that they don't make it hard to leave the service, means that I am now, after having my view of on-demand movie services skewed by LoveFilm, seriously considering becoming a full-time member of Netflix.
The next month should be interesting, and it'll give me plenty of material to review.
One note:
Last time I said to look out for more superhero-movie reviews, they won't be coming right away, but they're in the pipeline. Until those come through, it'll be regular reviews of whatever I find on Netflix.
Saturday 18 February 2012
"Superhero-like, even."
Super (2010).
I've literally just finished watching Super. I've gotta say, it was a bit better than I expected. If you've never heard of it, don't go looking for a trailer. Get on Netflix, or The Pirate Bay, and just get the movie. It was marketed in the wrong direction, so don't go and get mislead about the content of this film -- just get it!
Super is one of many movies we've had recently that ask the question, "what if a normal, average-joe tried to become a superhero?" and for the most part they've all been enjoyable. Now, the first thing you're probably thinking of is Kick-Ass a film with the same basic premise Yes, they do start off with the notion of everyday guy-turned-hero, that is where the similarities fade.
Super tells the tale of Frank, a man who's wife has just left him. He's a depressed, weird little cretin that has visions from God. I know what you're thinking. No, this isn't a Bible-Basher movie. The film never explores whether or not he's having a serious delusion or actually seeing Jesus. Which is a good thing.
A little bit into the movie, after a frankly bizarre scene involving tentacles, the finger of God, and the opening of our Hero's skull, Frank, decides to become a superhero. As you can imagine, this doesn't start off too well. When he first tries to fight crime, he gets a good kicking and is sent running for the hills. So, he gets a weapon (a wrench) and goes back to beat the ever loving shit out of a drug dealer and set the tone for the movie.
At first you might think, "but this is a comedy!" and yeah, it does have a good number of hilarious moments, but this movie is a Drama. It's heavy on violence, emotional suffering, and uncomfortable scenes, and an ending that'll tug on your heartstrings just a little bit too hard. Not that I'm really complaining, it was timed perfectly enough that you won't bother that the film is making you weep.
I have no real criticisms of the film. The acting was spot on. I normally can't stand Ellen Paige because she has no range, she's annoying to look at, and she played Juno. But every once in a while she finds a rule suited for a talentless, flat-chested, potato-faced gimp like her and it works wonderfully. This has been one of those occasions. Paige and Rainn Wilson make a fantastic team. I feel that no other two actors could have pulled this off as well as they did. They stole the show. So much so I almost forgot that Liv Tyler was even in this movie, and they almost -- almost -- upstage Kevin Bacon, a man so cool he could stab your kid in the neck with a pen and you'd still ask for an autograph. Speaking of Bacon, I don't really need to tell you that he was excellent in this movie. His role? A smirkin', snazzy-suit-wearin', criminal boss-type. You already know he nailed it that part.
So, now that I've praised the actors, it's time to complain. Above I said that I had no real criticisms of the film, and yes, this is true, there is one thing that definitely irks me: the movie itself. Super is funny, it's sad, it's violent, brutal, dramatic, and wonderful. This might make it sound good, and on paper it works. But in practice, it feels like the film is just trying to do too much. It seems to me that the writers wanted to do what Kick-Ass did, but make it far more realistic, depicting the harshness of actually going around murdering people and the consequences of taking on armed men equipped with shotguns. At the same time, I'm left feeling that there must have been a writer turning this into a powerful rebuttal to Kick-Ass's comic-book gore who had a producer nudging him every 5 pages going "hey, this is a comedy! Make funnies!" The film can't decide if it's a comedy, action, drama, or all or none of the above, only to the detriment of the final piece. I honestly feel that it would have been much better if they had just cut all the comedy out. That being said, the film would have been just as excellent if they had gone into full-comedy, and left out the strong dramatic tear-inducing aspects of the plot.
All in all, I really enjoyed Super. It has a few flaws here and there, but ultimately it's a pretty good movie.
If I had to give it an arbitrary number to score it, I'd give it a 7.
7/10!
PS. Watch this space. I've recently been informed of another similar movie called Defendor, starring none other than Woody-fucking-Harrelson. Since it's another normal-guy-becomes-hero, it'll mark the second review of a movie in that vein. I'll go the whole hog and review Kick-Ass after that I do Defendor. Consider this review 1 out of 3.
I've literally just finished watching Super. I've gotta say, it was a bit better than I expected. If you've never heard of it, don't go looking for a trailer. Get on Netflix, or The Pirate Bay, and just get the movie. It was marketed in the wrong direction, so don't go and get mislead about the content of this film -- just get it!
Super is one of many movies we've had recently that ask the question, "what if a normal, average-joe tried to become a superhero?" and for the most part they've all been enjoyable. Now, the first thing you're probably thinking of is Kick-Ass a film with the same basic premise Yes, they do start off with the notion of everyday guy-turned-hero, that is where the similarities fade.
Super tells the tale of Frank, a man who's wife has just left him. He's a depressed, weird little cretin that has visions from God. I know what you're thinking. No, this isn't a Bible-Basher movie. The film never explores whether or not he's having a serious delusion or actually seeing Jesus. Which is a good thing.
A little bit into the movie, after a frankly bizarre scene involving tentacles, the finger of God, and the opening of our Hero's skull, Frank, decides to become a superhero. As you can imagine, this doesn't start off too well. When he first tries to fight crime, he gets a good kicking and is sent running for the hills. So, he gets a weapon (a wrench) and goes back to beat the ever loving shit out of a drug dealer and set the tone for the movie.
At first you might think, "but this is a comedy!" and yeah, it does have a good number of hilarious moments, but this movie is a Drama. It's heavy on violence, emotional suffering, and uncomfortable scenes, and an ending that'll tug on your heartstrings just a little bit too hard. Not that I'm really complaining, it was timed perfectly enough that you won't bother that the film is making you weep.
I have no real criticisms of the film. The acting was spot on. I normally can't stand Ellen Paige because she has no range, she's annoying to look at, and she played Juno. But every once in a while she finds a rule suited for a talentless, flat-chested, potato-faced gimp like her and it works wonderfully. This has been one of those occasions. Paige and Rainn Wilson make a fantastic team. I feel that no other two actors could have pulled this off as well as they did. They stole the show. So much so I almost forgot that Liv Tyler was even in this movie, and they almost -- almost -- upstage Kevin Bacon, a man so cool he could stab your kid in the neck with a pen and you'd still ask for an autograph. Speaking of Bacon, I don't really need to tell you that he was excellent in this movie. His role? A smirkin', snazzy-suit-wearin', criminal boss-type. You already know he nailed it that part.
So, now that I've praised the actors, it's time to complain. Above I said that I had no real criticisms of the film, and yes, this is true, there is one thing that definitely irks me: the movie itself. Super is funny, it's sad, it's violent, brutal, dramatic, and wonderful. This might make it sound good, and on paper it works. But in practice, it feels like the film is just trying to do too much. It seems to me that the writers wanted to do what Kick-Ass did, but make it far more realistic, depicting the harshness of actually going around murdering people and the consequences of taking on armed men equipped with shotguns. At the same time, I'm left feeling that there must have been a writer turning this into a powerful rebuttal to Kick-Ass's comic-book gore who had a producer nudging him every 5 pages going "hey, this is a comedy! Make funnies!" The film can't decide if it's a comedy, action, drama, or all or none of the above, only to the detriment of the final piece. I honestly feel that it would have been much better if they had just cut all the comedy out. That being said, the film would have been just as excellent if they had gone into full-comedy, and left out the strong dramatic tear-inducing aspects of the plot.
All in all, I really enjoyed Super. It has a few flaws here and there, but ultimately it's a pretty good movie.
If I had to give it an arbitrary number to score it, I'd give it a 7.
7/10!
PS. Watch this space. I've recently been informed of another similar movie called Defendor, starring none other than Woody-fucking-Harrelson. Since it's another normal-guy-becomes-hero, it'll mark the second review of a movie in that vein. I'll go the whole hog and review Kick-Ass after that I do Defendor. Consider this review 1 out of 3.
Friday 17 February 2012
[h+]
Today, after a long period of hush-hush in this blog, I'd like to take the chance to review what has steadily become one of my all-time favourite games:
Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
Before you read on, bare in mind that I have never played the original two Deus Ex games, so I came into this game completely fresh to the series.
I first heard about Deus Ex a while ago, well before the release of the game, while seeing an article on the game. The article was your run of the mill get-some-pictures-out-get-the-fans-excited type of deal. It wasn't a real article, just there to show the game. Given that I knew nothing about the Deus Ex series prior to this, I initially assumed it was a new game. Looking at the pictures briefly, it looked like a run of the mill FPS set in a sci-fi environment that I wouldn't bother buying. Oh, boy, was I wrong!
Fast forward to when the Deus Ex pre-orders kick in, and there's a flood of information about the game pouring out into the internet. I watched a video on youtube where the developers described the gameplay, namely the pillars of the game (Social, Hacking, Stealth, Combat), and that was when the hook went in. I had to know more.
So, I recently got the game. Yeah, it's been out for some time now, but other things had taken hold of my attention, but I saw a copy of the game sitting in a store for just £10, I had to grab it! I'm damn glad I did...
Deus Ex: Human Revolution is an FPS Cyberpunk romp through the world. You play as Adam Jensen, a newly recruited Head Of Security for the mega-corporation Sarif Industries who mass-produce augmentations; the mechanical upgrades and prosthetics you may have already heard of. Early on in the game, while Jensen is doing his own thing (standing around looking tough), Sarif Industries is attacked! Lots of people are killed, Jensen's love interest is slain, and Jensen gets the ever loving shit kicked out of him by a mostly-augmented terrorist. This puts Jensen's life on the line, and rather than let him die, David Sarif (owner of Sarif Ind.), decides to give Jensen a free set of augmentations to save him.
Now, we awake in the game, a semi-robotic Jensen with some really cool shades returns to work 6 months later. This is when the game really begins.
Following his upgrading, Jensen has to deal with one of the biggest themes in the game: the moral issues associated with augmenting human beings. The game doesn't give Jensen the chance to ever explicitly say "I don't like it" or "I do" because you get to pick everything he says. His opinions are your opinions.
Reminiscent of Mass Effect, when you're in participating in speech with other characters, you get a set of various responses to pick from. These choices can ultimately lead you into new areas of the game, or close them off from you, forcing you to find another way in. This brings me back to the topic of the four 'pillars' of gameplay. Stealth, Social, Hacking and Combat. Social is very handy. It's how you talk your way in and out of bad situations, and there's even augmentations to help you examine emotional changes in the person you're talking to to give you better information on how best to actually influence them. Perhaps you're not the James Bond type and don't like talking, well, the game's got you covered. In Deus Ex there are always multiple ways around every obstacle, and if Social interactions aren't your thing, try the other pillars.
Hacking and Stealth were my personal favourite pillars. In contrast to the Combat option, where you blast your way through every enemy and use brute force to smash your way through the game (a very viable solution), Hacking and Stealth is the Metal-Gear-Solution to getting around. If you can't be bothered butchering 30 guards just to rifle in their pockets and get a keycard when they're dead, then it's hacking time. Using augmentations to improve your hacking abilities, you'll be able to hack into keypads to unlock doors, switch off cameras, and, most importantly, turn enemy Robots and Sentries to your side. There is nothing more satisfying than spending half an hour sneaking around guards, sliding into rooms and finally cracking a difficult keypad to finally take control of sentry, why? XP. When you switch that sentry to your cause, you'll suddenly see a stream of kills at the side of your screen. ENEMY KILLED 10 XP! ENEMY KILLED 10
XP! ENEMY KILLED 10 XP! ENEMY KILLED 10 XP! It's very, very cushty.
Of course, there is another far more fun method to getting kills and XP using your Hacking and Stealth skills.
One of my preferred methods was to sneak around, find a sentry, hack it, and then using my augmented strength, physically carry the sentry to any guards I'd previously been unable to kill. Simply plank it onto the floor and watch it go nuts. Best of all, if no one sees you putting the sentry down, you'll still get your end-of-mission XP bonuses.
As I said, the game works on an XP system. You gain XP in numerous ways. From killing enemys, hacking, finding hidden rooms, taking hidden paths to your objectives, and so on. Another interesting way of getting XP is the bonuses you get at the end of your missions. For example, the Smooth Operator bonus will award you extra XP for not setting off any alarms during your mission. Another is Ghost, awarded for not being seen by enemies.
What's XP actually for, you ask? Praxis points, of course! Every time you level up, you gain a Praxis Point. These are used to purchase various augmentations, such as a strength upgrade or an invisibility cloak. As well as unlocking points, you can find and purchase Praxis Kits in various places. Finding them is a hard task, but definitely worth the scrounging around. Of course, if you don't mind forking out $1,000 you can always buy them from your local clinic.
Money does factor into this game as well. Though, don't worry, if you're short on cash, you're not going to feel like you're missing parts of the game. Money is used purely to buy information (there is a woman you can give money to who will allude to various means of progressing in side-quests, such as telling you about the sewers that lead into the Police Station), ammunition, guns and gun upgrades. Every enemy you kill drops a gun most of the time, so there's always something to sell, and if you use rifles or pistols (that is to say, if you prefer going the Combat method), you will simply take the ammo instead of the gun, provided it's the same type of gun as one you already have.
Above I mentioned Gun Upgrades, a very cool feature of the game. I personally only used a Tranq Rifle, Stun Gun and sometimes a Sniper Rifle, but thankfully I had heavily upgraded both rifles. You can buy or find weapon upgrades all over the game. This ranges from simple things such as a laser sight and silencers, to targeting systems, damage and rate of fire, as well as much more. By the end of the game, my Sniper Rifle was kitted out with a silencer, damage upgrades, ammo capacity upgrades, laser targeting, practically everything I could stuff into it. Sadly, though, my Sniper Rifle did get little use. But when I did use it, it was fantastic. Which brings me to my next point...
Boss Battles. This is something I've been dying to talk (or rather, complain) about. The game has a few Bosses littered around the game. Now, the battles themselves are very challenging, engaging and fun. They remind me of Metal Gear boss battles, and not just in terms of the running-and-gunning method of beating them, but because of one small, itty, bitty, detail that really pissed me off: the game forces you to fight them.
Up until now, the game has been fine with saying "hey, take whatever way you want, it's up to you how you beat this." I was used to spending hours sneaking around, hacking, and most importantly, not collecting weapons! Now, the locations for Boss battles always have weapons and ammo littered around, so that isn't a huge concern. It's the fact that essentially, because I had been playing stealth, I was an expert at stealth, and I was virtually useless in Combat. Now, I did eventually manage to beat the bosses using my cunning (which mostly consisted of running like a scared child, throwing mines and using my sniper rifle to deal massive amounts of damage quickly), and at the end of the day, it doesn't change my perspective of this game. I absolutely love this game. And despite the boss battles, it will remain an all time for favourite for years to come.
A quick note: I am aware that the developers tried to address the issue of being forced into boss battles by introducing one you didn't need to kill in the Missing Link DLC. I don't have the DLC so I can't comment on it.
All in all, Deus Ex is a fresh game in the frankly stagnant FPS genre. It's refreshing, it's innovating, it's engaging, challenging, and most of all, FUN.
If you don't already have it, go to the shops, get it, and spend the next few days playing it. You will not be sorry. In terms of re-playability? I'd put Deus Ex on par with Red Dead Redemption. Endless fun that will never get old!
Buy it!
Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
Before you read on, bare in mind that I have never played the original two Deus Ex games, so I came into this game completely fresh to the series.
I first heard about Deus Ex a while ago, well before the release of the game, while seeing an article on the game. The article was your run of the mill get-some-pictures-out-get-the-fans-excited type of deal. It wasn't a real article, just there to show the game. Given that I knew nothing about the Deus Ex series prior to this, I initially assumed it was a new game. Looking at the pictures briefly, it looked like a run of the mill FPS set in a sci-fi environment that I wouldn't bother buying. Oh, boy, was I wrong!
Fast forward to when the Deus Ex pre-orders kick in, and there's a flood of information about the game pouring out into the internet. I watched a video on youtube where the developers described the gameplay, namely the pillars of the game (Social, Hacking, Stealth, Combat), and that was when the hook went in. I had to know more.
So, I recently got the game. Yeah, it's been out for some time now, but other things had taken hold of my attention, but I saw a copy of the game sitting in a store for just £10, I had to grab it! I'm damn glad I did...
Deus Ex: Human Revolution is an FPS Cyberpunk romp through the world. You play as Adam Jensen, a newly recruited Head Of Security for the mega-corporation Sarif Industries who mass-produce augmentations; the mechanical upgrades and prosthetics you may have already heard of. Early on in the game, while Jensen is doing his own thing (standing around looking tough), Sarif Industries is attacked! Lots of people are killed, Jensen's love interest is slain, and Jensen gets the ever loving shit kicked out of him by a mostly-augmented terrorist. This puts Jensen's life on the line, and rather than let him die, David Sarif (owner of Sarif Ind.), decides to give Jensen a free set of augmentations to save him.
Now, we awake in the game, a semi-robotic Jensen with some really cool shades returns to work 6 months later. This is when the game really begins.
Following his upgrading, Jensen has to deal with one of the biggest themes in the game: the moral issues associated with augmenting human beings. The game doesn't give Jensen the chance to ever explicitly say "I don't like it" or "I do" because you get to pick everything he says. His opinions are your opinions.
Reminiscent of Mass Effect, when you're in participating in speech with other characters, you get a set of various responses to pick from. These choices can ultimately lead you into new areas of the game, or close them off from you, forcing you to find another way in. This brings me back to the topic of the four 'pillars' of gameplay. Stealth, Social, Hacking and Combat. Social is very handy. It's how you talk your way in and out of bad situations, and there's even augmentations to help you examine emotional changes in the person you're talking to to give you better information on how best to actually influence them. Perhaps you're not the James Bond type and don't like talking, well, the game's got you covered. In Deus Ex there are always multiple ways around every obstacle, and if Social interactions aren't your thing, try the other pillars.
Hacking and Stealth were my personal favourite pillars. In contrast to the Combat option, where you blast your way through every enemy and use brute force to smash your way through the game (a very viable solution), Hacking and Stealth is the Metal-Gear-Solution to getting around. If you can't be bothered butchering 30 guards just to rifle in their pockets and get a keycard when they're dead, then it's hacking time. Using augmentations to improve your hacking abilities, you'll be able to hack into keypads to unlock doors, switch off cameras, and, most importantly, turn enemy Robots and Sentries to your side. There is nothing more satisfying than spending half an hour sneaking around guards, sliding into rooms and finally cracking a difficult keypad to finally take control of sentry, why? XP. When you switch that sentry to your cause, you'll suddenly see a stream of kills at the side of your screen. ENEMY KILLED 10 XP! ENEMY KILLED 10
XP! ENEMY KILLED 10 XP! ENEMY KILLED 10 XP! It's very, very cushty.
Of course, there is another far more fun method to getting kills and XP using your Hacking and Stealth skills.
One of my preferred methods was to sneak around, find a sentry, hack it, and then using my augmented strength, physically carry the sentry to any guards I'd previously been unable to kill. Simply plank it onto the floor and watch it go nuts. Best of all, if no one sees you putting the sentry down, you'll still get your end-of-mission XP bonuses.
As I said, the game works on an XP system. You gain XP in numerous ways. From killing enemys, hacking, finding hidden rooms, taking hidden paths to your objectives, and so on. Another interesting way of getting XP is the bonuses you get at the end of your missions. For example, the Smooth Operator bonus will award you extra XP for not setting off any alarms during your mission. Another is Ghost, awarded for not being seen by enemies.
What's XP actually for, you ask? Praxis points, of course! Every time you level up, you gain a Praxis Point. These are used to purchase various augmentations, such as a strength upgrade or an invisibility cloak. As well as unlocking points, you can find and purchase Praxis Kits in various places. Finding them is a hard task, but definitely worth the scrounging around. Of course, if you don't mind forking out $1,000 you can always buy them from your local clinic.
Money does factor into this game as well. Though, don't worry, if you're short on cash, you're not going to feel like you're missing parts of the game. Money is used purely to buy information (there is a woman you can give money to who will allude to various means of progressing in side-quests, such as telling you about the sewers that lead into the Police Station), ammunition, guns and gun upgrades. Every enemy you kill drops a gun most of the time, so there's always something to sell, and if you use rifles or pistols (that is to say, if you prefer going the Combat method), you will simply take the ammo instead of the gun, provided it's the same type of gun as one you already have.
Above I mentioned Gun Upgrades, a very cool feature of the game. I personally only used a Tranq Rifle, Stun Gun and sometimes a Sniper Rifle, but thankfully I had heavily upgraded both rifles. You can buy or find weapon upgrades all over the game. This ranges from simple things such as a laser sight and silencers, to targeting systems, damage and rate of fire, as well as much more. By the end of the game, my Sniper Rifle was kitted out with a silencer, damage upgrades, ammo capacity upgrades, laser targeting, practically everything I could stuff into it. Sadly, though, my Sniper Rifle did get little use. But when I did use it, it was fantastic. Which brings me to my next point...
Boss Battles. This is something I've been dying to talk (or rather, complain) about. The game has a few Bosses littered around the game. Now, the battles themselves are very challenging, engaging and fun. They remind me of Metal Gear boss battles, and not just in terms of the running-and-gunning method of beating them, but because of one small, itty, bitty, detail that really pissed me off: the game forces you to fight them.
Up until now, the game has been fine with saying "hey, take whatever way you want, it's up to you how you beat this." I was used to spending hours sneaking around, hacking, and most importantly, not collecting weapons! Now, the locations for Boss battles always have weapons and ammo littered around, so that isn't a huge concern. It's the fact that essentially, because I had been playing stealth, I was an expert at stealth, and I was virtually useless in Combat. Now, I did eventually manage to beat the bosses using my cunning (which mostly consisted of running like a scared child, throwing mines and using my sniper rifle to deal massive amounts of damage quickly), and at the end of the day, it doesn't change my perspective of this game. I absolutely love this game. And despite the boss battles, it will remain an all time for favourite for years to come.
A quick note: I am aware that the developers tried to address the issue of being forced into boss battles by introducing one you didn't need to kill in the Missing Link DLC. I don't have the DLC so I can't comment on it.
All in all, Deus Ex is a fresh game in the frankly stagnant FPS genre. It's refreshing, it's innovating, it's engaging, challenging, and most of all, FUN.
If you don't already have it, go to the shops, get it, and spend the next few days playing it. You will not be sorry. In terms of re-playability? I'd put Deus Ex on par with Red Dead Redemption. Endless fun that will never get old!
Buy it!
Tuesday 31 May 2011
The Sad And Somewhat Disgusting State Of Machinima
Let's not get off on the wrong foot. I love Machinima. It is a great way for people to make movies without the money or gear to do it properly. While it's still difficult, some, myself mainly, would argue that it's too easy. No, just listen. Come on, don't leave.
Please?
See, Machinima has always been made by adolescents, that's just how it is. Adolescents sure do like their comedy, don't they? Well, yeah. And I submit to you it's their love of "humour" that's destroying the once promising face of Machinima, and melting it like a piece of cheese to an open flame.
Take one look at the "director's spotlight" over on Machimina.com's horrid youtube channel. While I stop myself from throwing up over my computer, you can go and watch some of that.
Let's continue.
Eugh.
One thing you'll notice, is that the spotlight is tailored almost exclusively to one thing. A type of comedy I don't like to mention. A horrid beast that was born in the darkest shit-cans of hell. It's name?...
HAHAHAHA OMFG XDXDXD OOOOLLL SO FUNNY AND RANDOOOMMM!!! SSSOOOOO WAACCKKYY XXDDD XD XD XD XDDDD XDDDD ;3;3;3;3;3;3;3;3;3;3 LOLOLOL 3;3;3;X;;XX;X;;X;X;X;
No, really. That's it's name. It's a type of "comedy" that relies solely on having two people scream into a microphone, and make Halo characters jump around. They don't think up plots, or anything really. They just make their "characters" say "random" things in an attempt to be funny.
There's too much of that beast roaming the halls ofHogwarts Machinima. There's just too much "funny stuff." That horrible monster above combined with the non-ending barrage of "comedy" means all the gold gets lost under a steaming pile of shit. And hell if I'm gonna sift through it.
You see, Machinima is making movies. And there is so much wonderful potential, but no one using it.
Machinima needs a new wave of content. The best movies ever made aren't comedies. They're crime films, action films, romance, noir, horror, sci-fi... Everything but comedy. Don't get me wrong, I like comedy. But I don't want it all the time. I'd like to see something new. Something that really pushes boundaries.
If we can get at least a handful of Machinima Projects well written, well directed, and well acted, that are even half of what, say, LOST ever did. Then it could change the face of the community. People might actually say "hey! I wanna do that!" They'll sit down and rather than write down ever fart joke and swear they know, they'll think about what it is they're writing.They'll try to get you to care about the characters and get you involved in the story. And only when M.com finally starts pushing that material, and people make more, will Machinima as a whole be taken seriously as an art form.
Which is what it's supposed to be.
In my opinion.
Please?
See, Machinima has always been made by adolescents, that's just how it is. Adolescents sure do like their comedy, don't they? Well, yeah. And I submit to you it's their love of "humour" that's destroying the once promising face of Machinima, and melting it like a piece of cheese to an open flame.
Take one look at the "director's spotlight" over on Machimina.com's horrid youtube channel. While I stop myself from throwing up over my computer, you can go and watch some of that.
Let's continue.
Eugh.
One thing you'll notice, is that the spotlight is tailored almost exclusively to one thing. A type of comedy I don't like to mention. A horrid beast that was born in the darkest shit-cans of hell. It's name?...
HAHAHAHA OMFG XDXDXD OOOOLLL SO FUNNY AND RANDOOOMMM!!! SSSOOOOO WAACCKKYY XXDDD XD XD XD XDDDD XDDDD ;3;3;3;3;3;3;3;3;3;3 LOLOLOL 3;3;3;X;;XX;X;;X;X;X;
No, really. That's it's name. It's a type of "comedy" that relies solely on having two people scream into a microphone, and make Halo characters jump around. They don't think up plots, or anything really. They just make their "characters" say "random" things in an attempt to be funny.
There's too much of that beast roaming the halls of
You see, Machinima is making movies. And there is so much wonderful potential, but no one using it.
Machinima needs a new wave of content. The best movies ever made aren't comedies. They're crime films, action films, romance, noir, horror, sci-fi... Everything but comedy. Don't get me wrong, I like comedy. But I don't want it all the time. I'd like to see something new. Something that really pushes boundaries.
If we can get at least a handful of Machinima Projects well written, well directed, and well acted, that are even half of what, say, LOST ever did. Then it could change the face of the community. People might actually say "hey! I wanna do that!" They'll sit down and rather than write down ever fart joke and swear they know, they'll think about what it is they're writing.They'll try to get you to care about the characters and get you involved in the story. And only when M.com finally starts pushing that material, and people make more, will Machinima as a whole be taken seriously as an art form.
Which is what it's supposed to be.
In my opinion.
Friday 25 March 2011
Trouble On The Homefront
So, having been bored with CoD, and the lack of imagination in FPS today [a topic for another time] I decided that I would try Homefront. It seemed like it fit into the "we can (and will) do what CoD can do! But better!" cookie cutter style of FPS games, but honestly... I'm going to say it:
Call Of Duty shits all over this game. And rightly so.
(Yes, even the horrible mess that is Black Ops.)
What's wrong with Homefront? Everything.
Singleplayer:
If you're unfamiliar with the plot of Homefront, I'll explain.
Essentially, Korea unites and goes on a bloody revenge-quest against America (presumably because of the Korean War, something Koreans still feel awfully sore about) their attack is successful, and a lot of America becomes occupied by the Korean forces. You are an ex-pilot picked up by the American resistance to help in the fight for the homeland.
This, in theory, is all well and good. A plot that could happen in our lifetime -- it's believeable, gripping, and thrilling. However, in practice it all falls on its arse and fails miserably like a child trying to drive.
While there are good things about this game, the bad far outweighs the good (and even the ugly..)
I'm a fair person. So naturally, I will go over the good points of this game.
Let's start with the first thing you see: the graphics. They're brilliant. It's like a less-attractive Crysis, it is, for a video game, pretty fucking nice to look at.
But I don't think graphics make a game, and such as it is with movies and television, music and audio can make or break a production. Here, it did neither. The audio is superb. The guns sound and feel powerful. When you endlessly barrage the Koreans with bullets from a M60LMG you feel like Arnie in Predator. If there's one thing perfect about this game; it's the guns.
You may be suprised to find that's all I have to say. Yep. That was it. That's all that's nice about this game.
And now for my favourite part! It's the bit where I rant and rave about how shitty the game is! Yay!
The singleplayer missions are boring after the first 3 or so. It's the same old "run here, shoot them, go there" affair that we've been seeing since the dawn of FPS games with a "story." You run around, you shoot Koreans, you blow up some tower/gun things, and then you rinse and repeat. There's some parts where you command a big tank/vehicle with a pair of binoculars, and while it was cool at first, I felt it wasn't needed.
Speaking of the tank, that leads me into my next point. There are parts in the missions where the only you're going to complete them is if you have played it before. For example, there's a scene where you must jump from a burning building, get to the ground, run to a truck and escape with your buddies before they drive off without you. The time you're given is minimal. Literally the only way you're going to make that truck is if you run the instant you hit the floor. So if you've never played it before, you'll have no idea that your buddies are running off while they watch you get shot to pieces by armed forces.
Just after this, while you're on the back of the speeding truck, you have to command the tank with binoculars from earlier, and use it to destroy enemy vehicles speeding towards you. A few minutes into this, a helicopter comes in and attacks. If you weren't already aiming for that chopper, waiting to get a lock, or if you knew it was coming, you were going to complete the mission. If it was your first time, you'll quickly realise that you have no time to find the chopper, aim, lock on, and fire if you didn't already know where it would be. Thus, meaning you fail the mission. And you go back to the burning building.
Multiplayer:
Before anyone says it: yes, I know, this game was made for the multiplayer, as are most FPS games. That doesn't excuse the boring and ultimately frustratingly bad singleplayer, and only makes me more furious when I realise just how bad their multiplayer is.
Yeah, I said it above, this game is a CoD clone at its very core. In the battle, you earn BP (Battle Points) when you kill people, and complete objectives. These points can buy you the Homefront version of Killstreaks, be it airstrikes, or a small toy car that has a useless gun on it.
The moment I heard about the killstreaks, the points, etc, I knew I wasn't going to like it. However, Crysis 2 has killstreaks [or rather, the equivalent of] and it was a fine game. The main difference between the two is balance. Yeah, that old thing. You know, the features that make sure you can't dominate all other players with a simple set-up, trick, or specific gun? Sorry, that's not in this game.
It goes along with the lie [yes, lie] of being "realistic," yet a sniper rifle is useless. I can see why you might want it toned down -- in order to stop quickscoping and all that "trick" jazz -- but ultimately, they made the sniper rifle useless. It requires 2 hits. Anywhere. I shot a guy in the face several times and only got hitmarkers, and before you even try to say its my connection, this is the only game - excluding Black Ops for obvious reasons -- that I have this problem on. It's not my connection, it's the gun.
The maps are tiny and disorganised, poorly designed and have had little to no thought put behind them. Of the maps I played, the enemy team had the advantage due to where they spawned. They had cover, sniper positions that looked over the other half of the map and more cover. We had what we had: a few houses.
While the guns still felt powerful, they were too powerful. A tiny burst to the chest and your opponent is down. You die so fast that the games fall to the same condition that Call Of Duty had suffered from for so many years (and wished to combat with its perks system): you die so fast that it's no longer a game of skill, but chance. You aren't matched against the ability of another player. Who ever saw the other guy first wins. That's it.
Since I just mentioned it above, I'll briefly cover the perks system in this game (yet another bloody CoD staple thrown in.) They're okay. They don't impact the game so much that it's unplayable, but they don't do too much either. I didn't even notice I had perks until I was onto my 3rd or 4th game.
There. That was brief, eh? Two last subjects I must cover before I can end this hate-speech.
The connectivity:
While I absolutely adore that they wanted to use dedicated servers (take a fucking hint, CoD!) they ultimately don't work. The first day I wanted to play Multiplayer, I couldn't. I sat for 40minutes waiting to find a game, but to no avail, all I got were error messages. The following day was an improvement, however, as I only had to wait 20 minutes to find a game. That shouldn't happen.
If Black Ops (notorious for connectivity issues) can make me connect to people with crappy internet connections, then why can't Homefront do the same? With fucking DEDICATED SERVERS.
The Battle Codes:
Something I've not seen people touch on is this battle code nonsense. I bought my copy preowned from GAME, so the price was knocked down just a little (only a few £ difference, but I like my bargains.) I opened the case and there was a code, which I assumed was for the DLC advertised on the back. Since I was buying preowned, I had no delusions: the code would definitely have been used. Lo and behold, it had. Little did I know the code had fuck all to do with the DLC.
The code in question, I assume, is meant to make sure everyone has a "unique" copy of the game. To reinforce this, if you haven't entered a code you have only two avenues:
1. You can keep playing, but you won't be allowed to go over Level 5, thus blocking you off from most of the unlocks.
2. You can buy the code.
Yep, you have to buy it. It costs 800Microsoft Points. Now, I don't know why, but a lot of things are that price. The problem is that you can only buy a bundle of 500MSP or 1,000MSP. The latter being the more expensive, but only option if you lack the other 300MSP. This means you're spending an additional £9 on the game. Which means, yep, you guessed it kids: buying preowned is more expensive than buying a new copy.
What the fuck were they thinking?!
In short, it's a boring, unimaginative game, which does nothing unique or new, it borrows pretty much everything it does from CoD, has terrible matchmaking, and is unbalanced beyond belief.
Don't buy this game.
Call Of Duty shits all over this game. And rightly so.
(Yes, even the horrible mess that is Black Ops.)
What's wrong with Homefront? Everything.
Singleplayer:
If you're unfamiliar with the plot of Homefront, I'll explain.
Essentially, Korea unites and goes on a bloody revenge-quest against America (presumably because of the Korean War, something Koreans still feel awfully sore about) their attack is successful, and a lot of America becomes occupied by the Korean forces. You are an ex-pilot picked up by the American resistance to help in the fight for the homeland.
This, in theory, is all well and good. A plot that could happen in our lifetime -- it's believeable, gripping, and thrilling. However, in practice it all falls on its arse and fails miserably like a child trying to drive.
While there are good things about this game, the bad far outweighs the good (and even the ugly..)
I'm a fair person. So naturally, I will go over the good points of this game.
Let's start with the first thing you see: the graphics. They're brilliant. It's like a less-attractive Crysis, it is, for a video game, pretty fucking nice to look at.
But I don't think graphics make a game, and such as it is with movies and television, music and audio can make or break a production. Here, it did neither. The audio is superb. The guns sound and feel powerful. When you endlessly barrage the Koreans with bullets from a M60LMG you feel like Arnie in Predator. If there's one thing perfect about this game; it's the guns.
You may be suprised to find that's all I have to say. Yep. That was it. That's all that's nice about this game.
And now for my favourite part! It's the bit where I rant and rave about how shitty the game is! Yay!
The singleplayer missions are boring after the first 3 or so. It's the same old "run here, shoot them, go there" affair that we've been seeing since the dawn of FPS games with a "story." You run around, you shoot Koreans, you blow up some tower/gun things, and then you rinse and repeat. There's some parts where you command a big tank/vehicle with a pair of binoculars, and while it was cool at first, I felt it wasn't needed.
Speaking of the tank, that leads me into my next point. There are parts in the missions where the only you're going to complete them is if you have played it before. For example, there's a scene where you must jump from a burning building, get to the ground, run to a truck and escape with your buddies before they drive off without you. The time you're given is minimal. Literally the only way you're going to make that truck is if you run the instant you hit the floor. So if you've never played it before, you'll have no idea that your buddies are running off while they watch you get shot to pieces by armed forces.
Just after this, while you're on the back of the speeding truck, you have to command the tank with binoculars from earlier, and use it to destroy enemy vehicles speeding towards you. A few minutes into this, a helicopter comes in and attacks. If you weren't already aiming for that chopper, waiting to get a lock, or if you knew it was coming, you were going to complete the mission. If it was your first time, you'll quickly realise that you have no time to find the chopper, aim, lock on, and fire if you didn't already know where it would be. Thus, meaning you fail the mission. And you go back to the burning building.
Multiplayer:
Before anyone says it: yes, I know, this game was made for the multiplayer, as are most FPS games. That doesn't excuse the boring and ultimately frustratingly bad singleplayer, and only makes me more furious when I realise just how bad their multiplayer is.
Yeah, I said it above, this game is a CoD clone at its very core. In the battle, you earn BP (Battle Points) when you kill people, and complete objectives. These points can buy you the Homefront version of Killstreaks, be it airstrikes, or a small toy car that has a useless gun on it.
The moment I heard about the killstreaks, the points, etc, I knew I wasn't going to like it. However, Crysis 2 has killstreaks [or rather, the equivalent of] and it was a fine game. The main difference between the two is balance. Yeah, that old thing. You know, the features that make sure you can't dominate all other players with a simple set-up, trick, or specific gun? Sorry, that's not in this game.
It goes along with the lie [yes, lie] of being "realistic," yet a sniper rifle is useless. I can see why you might want it toned down -- in order to stop quickscoping and all that "trick" jazz -- but ultimately, they made the sniper rifle useless. It requires 2 hits. Anywhere. I shot a guy in the face several times and only got hitmarkers, and before you even try to say its my connection, this is the only game - excluding Black Ops for obvious reasons -- that I have this problem on. It's not my connection, it's the gun.
The maps are tiny and disorganised, poorly designed and have had little to no thought put behind them. Of the maps I played, the enemy team had the advantage due to where they spawned. They had cover, sniper positions that looked over the other half of the map and more cover. We had what we had: a few houses.
While the guns still felt powerful, they were too powerful. A tiny burst to the chest and your opponent is down. You die so fast that the games fall to the same condition that Call Of Duty had suffered from for so many years (and wished to combat with its perks system): you die so fast that it's no longer a game of skill, but chance. You aren't matched against the ability of another player. Who ever saw the other guy first wins. That's it.
Since I just mentioned it above, I'll briefly cover the perks system in this game (yet another bloody CoD staple thrown in.) They're okay. They don't impact the game so much that it's unplayable, but they don't do too much either. I didn't even notice I had perks until I was onto my 3rd or 4th game.
There. That was brief, eh? Two last subjects I must cover before I can end this hate-speech.
The connectivity:
While I absolutely adore that they wanted to use dedicated servers (take a fucking hint, CoD!) they ultimately don't work. The first day I wanted to play Multiplayer, I couldn't. I sat for 40minutes waiting to find a game, but to no avail, all I got were error messages. The following day was an improvement, however, as I only had to wait 20 minutes to find a game. That shouldn't happen.
If Black Ops (notorious for connectivity issues) can make me connect to people with crappy internet connections, then why can't Homefront do the same? With fucking DEDICATED SERVERS.
The Battle Codes:
Something I've not seen people touch on is this battle code nonsense. I bought my copy preowned from GAME, so the price was knocked down just a little (only a few £ difference, but I like my bargains.) I opened the case and there was a code, which I assumed was for the DLC advertised on the back. Since I was buying preowned, I had no delusions: the code would definitely have been used. Lo and behold, it had. Little did I know the code had fuck all to do with the DLC.
The code in question, I assume, is meant to make sure everyone has a "unique" copy of the game. To reinforce this, if you haven't entered a code you have only two avenues:
1. You can keep playing, but you won't be allowed to go over Level 5, thus blocking you off from most of the unlocks.
2. You can buy the code.
Yep, you have to buy it. It costs 800Microsoft Points. Now, I don't know why, but a lot of things are that price. The problem is that you can only buy a bundle of 500MSP or 1,000MSP. The latter being the more expensive, but only option if you lack the other 300MSP. This means you're spending an additional £9 on the game. Which means, yep, you guessed it kids: buying preowned is more expensive than buying a new copy.
What the fuck were they thinking?!
In short, it's a boring, unimaginative game, which does nothing unique or new, it borrows pretty much everything it does from CoD, has terrible matchmaking, and is unbalanced beyond belief.
Don't buy this game.
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