Avaialble at Amazon.com

Story
The story is a bit of a casualty to the mission structure and game play to start with, though threads emerge and little plot arcs with the various ‘quest givers’ do emerge. The information about Pandora is there to understand its background but you really have to pay attention as you whisk through the missions to really get an idea of what happened.

Pandora was a mining world run by one of the big interstellar corporations until they decided to pull out. In so doing they left behind a bunch of convict workers and everyone who couldn’t afford to get off world. The injured, the perverse and those who simply enjoyed exploiting a frontier planet. Stories about the vault have brought other mercenaries here, along with members of larger mercenary forces, ostensibly there to keep the peace. A job they fail at.

The planet is a broken down wreck, overrun by bandits, almost entirely populated by men and full of various forms of dangerous animal wildlife to get in the way. As you get closer to the vault – guided by a mysterious ‘angel’ – so do all the other forces of the planet, though many of them don’t understand exactly what it is that they have…

Gameplay
You run around in first person mode, but you shoot. You level up like a regular RPG and this gives you points to put into special class abilities like in Diablo or World of Warcraft. When you shoot people they bleed, but numbers also appear over their head telling you how much damage you do. Weapons are like magic weapons in Diablo or WoW. They have special qualities and variable stats and come in white/green/blue/purple/orange to let you know how rare and powerful they are.

Gameplay varies heavily by class and I haven’t had a great deal of time to play every class yet. The soldier is an excellent generalist with a very useful throw-down turrent that provides cover, healing and ammo as well as shooting anyone who comes into range. The siren can teleport – after a fashion – to get out of trouble and can detonate herself like a bomb while the hunter is hell on wheels with a sniper rifle and has a pet bat-like creature that can be used to attack enemies. The class I haven’t played at all is a hulking great tank of a man that’s supposed to be good in close combat.

There are vehicles, but they’re all identical and a little fragile when it comes to firefights with a tendency to explode around you.

There’s a good variety of enemies, but you will get tired of shooting ’skags’ (wild, feral, armoured rat-dogs) before you’re even out of the first area.

The RPG/First Person hybrid is annoying to start with, but eventually you settle into it and it no longer seems strange. One minor annoyance, though it’s good simulation, is that there’s a slight delay between firing a bullet and it striking the target which, for sniping, makes it much more difficult, especially on a console with the thumbsticks, to hit a moving target.

You can play online or cooperatively on your TV with someone in the same room. It’s hard to see what’s going on with a split screen (they did it vertically rather than horizontally) and online is full of arseholes, but this is true of any game and so Borderlands can’t be told off for it really. I’d love to play a 4 player game with one of each character type, but I simply can’t endure the online duel-spammers long enough to find such a group.

Atmosphere
Pandora is a desolate, desert world, littered with the trash and leftovers of the corporation that upped sticks and left people behind. It feels like a stereotype of a massive, America trailer park. Prefab, rickety buildings inhabited by hicks and freaks and with dangerous, gun-toting nutters all over the place. The overall feel is somewhere between that and the wild west and in some aspects almost reminds one of the old, cheesy SF film ‘Space Hunter: Beyond the Forbidden Zone’.

The desperate feel of the planet is well represented but loses some of its edge thanks to the cell-shaded, cartoony feel of the graphics, which enhance the humour aspect of the game, but detract from some of the scarier moments, the big reveal and some of the aliens.

Overall you do get conveyed the fact that Pandora is a desolate shithole and that anyone who remains there is crazy, but to really get at the meat of the back-story you have to fiercely pay attention and to read absolutely everything you find as well as looking at all the little background details. It’s there, but you have to work at it.

Graphics
The graphics are competent and cell-shaded, giving Borderlands a cartoony feel that’s something like Heavy Metal without the tits. There’s a lot of trash and detritus everywhere and while the scenery is sometimes a bit angular, harking back to 3d games from 5-10 years ago, overall it has a distinctive look and feel that works for the game. I would have liked it if they’d decided to either go a bit more realistic or a bit more cartoony and stylish, but the middle ground, while initially a bit niggling, becomes better as you play on through the game.

Conclusion
I rarely play a game through twice unless it REALLY grabs me. I’m on my second play-through of Borderlands, mostly because I want to use the higher level skill powers on my soldier character but also because the weapons are fun and I want to play with a larger gamut of them. The story and the missions are varied and fun enough that playing through a second time doesn’t feel like a chore but a third time might be pushing it.

The classes are different enough that playing through with a different class may give enough of a different play experience that another play-through could be on the cards. It’s a fun and quirky game and takes a few risks with the genres, something that’s to be encouraged.

The first downloadable content, The Island of Doctor Ned, is a great comedic-horror romp that makes fun of both cheap re-skinned game expansions and horror tropes like zombies and The Wolfman. Well worth a download and a play. The second download – arenas and storage – doesn’t seem as worth it to me.

Score
Style 4
Substance 4
Overall 4

Review by James ‘Grim’ Desborough

Available at Amazon.com

Introduction
This review is unlikely to be of a great deal of use to most people who will have seen the word ‘Bioware’ associated with it, ignored the EA also associated with it, had a happy accident in their pants and bought it anyway. For those of you who’ve been a little bit slower off the mark or have hung back unsure whether to buy it, without having the money spare or who are curious without being curious enough to spend money, hopefully this will offer something useful.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Dragon Age: Origins is the kick off of a new CRPG franchise for Bioware, divorced from their D&D associations (Baldur’s Gate) and that of their old game engine. Dragon’s Age has been sold as a glorious, sexy, blood-spattered romp that tears down preconceptions about fantasy games and worlds, plays about with them and offers a more mature and visceral entertainment ’sausage’ at the end of it all.

The version I’m reviewing is the PS3 one, though I would image the console versions are largely the same and any differences are more likely to be found in the PC version.

Story
The story is fairly standard fantasy tale, but with a darker twist. I’m almost inclined to assert that Dragon Age is, in fact, a horror game rather than a fantasy game per se, just to stir up some controversy but that wouldn’t be entirely accurate. Your character is the hero of a grand tale that sketches out the world – and most particularly the land of Ferelden, which is threatened by a terrible event called a ‘blight’, wherein an arch demon (in the form of a dragon) brings forth an army of darkspawn (pretty much orcs) to the surface and lays waste – unstoppably – to everything for miles with no purpose other than destruction. You gather an unlikely band of heroes and… yadda yadda yadda, lots of side quests, build up experience and ultimately save the day. Huzzah!

The main storyline is pretty hackneyed, standard fantasy fare for the most part, you find yourself calling out some of the plot twists and events like you’d call out lines from a favourite film you’ve seen a million times… “Gordon’s alive?!” …and it never quite plays with your expectations enough to shock or compel you. The far more interesting sides to the story are all the little side plots, schemes and favours for the other members of your party, but you’ll have to work hard at buttering them up to get to all those.

Gameplay
The trailers and clips initially suggested a fairly free-flowing and cinematic fighting experience, but that wasn’t the vibe I got from the combat at all. You have your basic fighting moves and then you have access to special moves, accessed as you level up and then slotted into your remaining action buttons (on consoles this means you can only ever have quick access to six of these powers at one time, I don’t know if this is the same on the PC version). This isn’t free-flowing and cinematic, much like a D&D CRPG it’s a matter of picking a target and leaning on the basic attack button, occasionally triggering a special ability.

The two games that Dragon Age brought to mind while playing were Final Fantasy 12 (with the tactics selection for your companions) and any MMORPG of your choice for the combat itself. Countdown timers on special attacks and timing management definitely brought World of Warcraft more to mind than anything cinematic or immersive.

Otherwise everything was largely as you’d expect, though after playing Mass Effect the old style dialogue trees felt a little old fashioned, as did much of the rest of the game! I did spot a couple of minor bugs, characters appearing in strange locations with dialogue that belonged with them being somewhere else, but overall there wasn’t too much problem with that.

Atmosphere
The game does create its atmosphere fairly well. The graphics hold it back from really drawing you in completely and the animations could have been better but the dialogue is fairly faultless and it’s worth mixing your party around a lot from encounter to encounter just to hear the banter between the various members of your party. Morrigan’s scathing wit is particularly well done and I think only Sten (a qunari, a token new warrior/honour race) ever caused her to stumble.

The world is brought to life but the settlements can’t help but feel a bit empty most of the time, in a game world that includes the crowded, busy and bustling cities of GTA and Assassin’s Creed everything feels a bit staid, dead and dull in the towns of Dragon Age with people standing around waiting to deliver a couple of lines of dialogue or feed you a quest chain.

The game unquestionably has a deep set of background lore and material, on paper it’s very well realised and the story of it certainly draws you in but this is a computer game, not a novel, not a tabletop RPG and while the material is there, is weighty, engaging and interesting the game fails to adequately convey it. It tells you rather than showing you – with a couple of exceptions such as in the Mage’s Tower where you get a first hand lesson on how dangerous magic is.

Graphics
For a new game on a next gen console the graphics are unforgivably crap. I’ll often go off on one about how graphics aren’t all important and gameplay should be king but, really, this looks like a PC game from a few years ago. The textures don’t bare up to close examination, many of the buildings and streets look flat and if you compare it with – even fairly modest – other titles it doesn’t hold up. In my opinion it doesn’t even match up to their older game, Mass Effect.

The characters look somewhat wooden, their motions aren’t quite natural and flowing enough and the underwear makes the character models look even worse during the ’sex’ scenes!

Conclusion
Dragon Age: Origins is a good game, despite the average score I’ve given it and it lays a solid foundation on which to build a franchise but, after loving Mass Effect so much I was left disappointed by Dragon Age. Perhaps, Mass Effect being SF, there were no preconceptions or requirements to the game world and they could play around with what they were making, leading to a superior product. With Dragon Age, despite playing with fantasy preconceptions it never quite paid off, just as the sex scenes never quite pay off. In a blog post while I was playing still I referred to this – somewhat crudely- as: “All boob and no nipple” and this does make a fairly good metaphor for what it is that ails this game.

There’s sex, but not really, it’s neither tender nor titillating. The dwarves are different, but not different enough. The elves are different, but not different enough. The qunari are ‘new’, but klingons with cornrows aren’t really new. All the standard pseudo-medieval claptrap is there, just not necessarily quite where you’d normally expect to find it. Dragon Age tries, but it always stops just short of being truly brilliant.

A sequel, with more effort on the graphics and world and pushing things just that little bit further, could be a truly great game. Roll on Mass Effect 2!

Score
Style: 2
Substance: 4
Overall: A high 3.

Review by James ‘Grim’ Desborough

Available at Amazon.com

Developer: Terminal Reality, Threewave Software

What do you get when you take one of the most popular comedy franchises ever, bring back the original writers and actors who made it so great, and have the original writers come up with a new script tying it all together?

You get Ghostbusters: the Video Game, of course.

Ghostbusters: TVG had been plagued from developmental issues from the start. Passing from publisher to publisher, the game faced cancellation several times despite promising trailers. Eventually managing to be released by Atari, this game features voice acting from the original cast. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson reprise their roles as the classic supernatural investigators and eliminators.

The game expands on the Ghostbusters mythos. Set two years after Ghostbusters 2, the Ghostbusters have managed to stay in business and now work directly for the city. You are the Recruit, a nameless new employee who never says a word throughout the whole game. Together you work as a squad, investigating strange levels and trapping ghosts for money. Familiar faces return to menace New York, including Slimer, Gozer, and Walter Peck. The game’s plot continues with the events of the first two films. Ivo Shandor, a character mentioned off handedly in the first film, has set a chain of events in motion and the secrets behind Gozer, the Grey Lady, and other seemingly minor events are revealed as the Recruit has to work with the team to stop them.

The game itself is enjoyable. The controls are tricky to master at first, mainly with trapping ghosts. Even this is fun, as new ghosts represent new challenges on how to defeat them. The game introduces new equipment as well as your proton pack is upgraded throughout the game, and new weapons such as the Slime Thrower, the Dark Matter Generator, and Meson Collider help solve puzzles and defeat specific ghosts.

It’s not just about trapping ghosts as well. While combat is still a major factor in the game, you have to solve puzzles in order to advance and use your PKE Meter to track down hidden ghosts, Cursed Artifacts, and help guide your way through puzzles. The game is very much like Metroid Prime, as you can solve several puzzles by utilizing the different functions on your weapons or by moving parts of the environment around.

One of the more enjoyable aspects of the game are the cut scenes and the dialogue. Aykroyd and Ramis made the game like a true sequel to the films, with Venkman’s dry wit and the deadpan delivery from Egon helping to make the game more fun. The cut scenes are shown in the same way as the film, and the soundtrack combines music from the original movies and combines them with new mixes.

Now, there are flaws which have to be addressed. While this game is good, it has several important flaws which detract from the overall experience.

For starters, the length of the game was disappointing. I beat the game on basic difficulty within fifteen hours. I had found ¾ of the hidden items and had earned many of the achievements in the process. For $60, I had hoped the story mode would be much longer than that and last me for a while. While the multiplayer is fun, this can be a turn off for some players who enjoyed the single player campaign so much.

The game also suffers from some critical bug issues. I had to reload the game several times on the second level as Ray would inexplicably stop and rotate his torso around repeatedly. One time I lost Egon to a bizarre glitch where he was knocked out and part of him had fused with a nearby statue, and the game would not let me revive him. Perhaps a patch will be released that can correct these issues, but it can prove frustrating while you play. If you ever seem to get stuck and you’ve tried every task, just reload it.

Will the game scare you? Sure, the animated candelabras and Stay Puft Marshmallow Man might not scare you, but there is plenty of room for horror in the game. Shandor’s sinister plot to destroy the world combined with several dark twists in the plot bring fear and dread to the table. Several enemies are particularly terrifying, especially in numbers. Nothing gets your heart pumping like having a ghost leap out of a painting to your left while zombies leap about clawing at your face.

There is an issue on whether or not the game is canon with the movies, and until the new Ghostbusters movie is released this is still up in the air but thanks to Ramis and Aykroyd, this is felt more than a game set in the Ghostbusters franchise. This felt like Ghostbusters: the Video Game in every sense. From the spontaneous one-liners to the ability to interact with your environment I was hooked throughout the game, although very disappointed with how quickly I beat it. Even a casual gamer who is unfamiliar with the series might get excited about pulling on a proton pack and taking it to them.

Rating: 4/5

Review by John D. Kennedy

Available at Amazon.com

Review by James ‘Grim’ Desborough

Review

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past year you’ve probably heard of Mass Effect and, since I’m always late doing these reviews odds are you’ve already played it, or – lacking the luxury I have of spending more time playing games – are still playing it. A brief summation then at the start of this review is ‘buy it, it is good’. Above and beyond Bioware’s existing reputation for creating good computer game RPGs this shows they’re masters of it and, until they perfect freeform AI for running roleplaying games this is about as good as the genre gets.

Collector’s Edition

The collector’s edition for Mass Effect came in a natty looking tin, quite solid compared to a lot of other tin-box special editions with the Bad Guy on the front and the Good Guys on the back. Inside you get your usual controller guide with some basic background on the game, character creation and so forth plus a more in depth Galactic Codex with 33 more pages of slightly deeper information about the various races, planets, technology and so forth from the game. The game DVDs are housed in a slightly disappointing card case and disc inserts in plastic within that. One of which is the game disc, the other is a series of documentaries and art sketches which you can watch and geek out at.

On a side note I would like to mention that it is now around twenty-five years since the Compact Disc made its debut and engineers still haven’t designed a non-fiddly way to get discs out of a package without a) hurting your thumb, b) breaking the packaging or c) breaking the disk. How hard can it be?

Lastly you get a flimsy art book ‘A Future imagined’. When ‘art book’ is mentioned as part of a special edition I tend to think of something a little more expansive and this was just a controller guide sized pamphlet with a few bits and pieces of art within, no larger than postcards. I think I’d rather have had actual postcards of the art if a more substantial book wasn’t a possibility.

Game Story

If you’re not making up your own character you play as Commander John Shepherd of the System’s Alliance Military, the military force of Earth and all its colonies. Earthlings are the brash, up and coming race in the setting, a common SF motif, and they are resented, hated, envied and admired in equal measure by many of the other alien races who are loosely united under the banner of The Citadel Races, a concord of aliens based around a huge alien artefact, left behind – apparently – by the same alien race that left behind massive transfer portals between distant star systems.

These aren’t the only artefacts left behind by this elder race – the Protheans – and rivalry over archaeological finds is great in terms of military action, espionage and science. Any Prothean find can accelerate a race’s development and technology massively creating potential disparities between the races and throwing alliances out of balance. Besides the Protheans there are rumours of an altogether less benevolent elder race, the Reapers, who may or may not be gone and whom most regard as a myth.

With Earth bucking for full Citadel membership and wanting humans within the Spectres (Citadel special forces) you’re thrust to the fore as an example to help the first problem and a candidate for the second. At much the same time an important Prothean artefact turns up with some important new knowledge that could affect the fate of the whole galaxy and you get caught up in the thick of it.

I can’t say too much more without giving away plot and surprises and with a game this good spoilers are a real problem. Suffice to say it is a really good story, albeit your usual sort of galaxy saving fare that these universe spanning games will tend to go in for, it develops naturally and yet contains enough twists and turns to keep you going. There were elements that were left out that I felt could have done with a bit more exploring, I was dying to visit the Quarian refugee fleet but that never happened and the homeworlds of some of the other species, more understanding of the Krogan and more exploration and understanding of The Attican Traverse would all have been nice but understandably there wasn’t room. Still, it felt like a bit of a lie to describe Mass Effect’s universe as huge, there’s a lot that is simply empty.

Atmosphere

Mass Effect plays and feels like a pre-Star Wars science fiction film, or book, with a military slant. If you’ve read or flipped through the old (or new) Terran Trade Authority books that’s precisely what it feels like. A clean and crisp future as imagined in the 70s and 80s and everything from the graphics through to the sound emphasises this. Kudos to Bioware for including at least one truly alien looking race – the Hanar – amongst all their other humanoid species, though I felt the alien sex goddess Asari were a bit of a cheap shot really.

Still, it manages to be engrossing, the effects applied to the graphics – which are mercifully adjustable – can give you a more cinematic feel to the game and the Vangelis style music really does top the whole thing off nicely. It maintains its sense of alienness even when you’re just driving your buggy around the surface of the planet and each location does have a good feel to it.

Gameplay

Mass Effect foregoes the more usual RPG controls for more of a first/third person control setup. Initially I was rather wary of this as, in my opinion, first person shooters and consoles don’t get on, I can’t aim for shit without a mouse and moving without a keyboard just feels… weird. Mass Effect compensates for this with some aim correction – if you’re a spazz like me – and I never felt too imposed upon by the first/third person mechanics. I can see how this might upset some RPG enthusiasts who prefer the character to express the skill rather than themselves, but I don’t think it was too obtrusive and there are enough statistical modifiers as you advance down the skill trees to keep a statistic junkie happy. Hacking is accomplished by dance-dance-revolution style timed button presses, combat is done using the sticks, conversation is handled by a nice and fluid stick-based selection mechanism and everything else is easy enough.

The story is advanced through missions, but there’s plenty of side quests and planets to explore if you want to go off by yourself chasing down pirates and otherwise being a galactic do-gooder or menace. Whether you’re mean or nice opens up different conversation trees and you have the option of two romantic sub plots, at least you do if you’re playing a male character. What’s a lot of fun is just romping around the surface of planets, shooting at giant killer bugs, raping resources and seeing just how many flips you can get out of your Big-Trak looking space buggy before it explodes.

Conclusion

Mass Effect deserves the hype and it deserves a sequel. I’ll be interested to see what additional materials for it come out over Xbox live – if any ever do -and I can see myself putting together an RPG fanbook for Mass Effect very easily. Its a compelling universe and unlike many of these world-hopping, galaxy-spanning adventures this one leaves itself open for future stories very nicely indeed.

Style: 5
Substance: 5
Overall: 5

Look for Video Games at the Flames Rising Amazon Shop.

Available at Amazon.com

Review

Again, probably too late for anyone to really care about the review, but still worth doing I think. The version of Assassin’s Creed that I am reviewing is the collector’s edition for the Xbox360. This is the tall box version that came with the figurine.

Collector’s Edition

We’re suckers, so we bought the collector’s edition. In this edition you get a nice tall box that you feel bad about throwing away, a six inch or so plastic figurine and… that’s it. *rattles the box, turns it upside down* yes… that’s all you get. No art book, no strategy guide or hint booklet. Just the plastic figurine. They didn’t exactly go all out. To make matters even more annoying they’ve plastered a ‘not for resale’ tag across the front of the game box so you can’t even trade in the game. After the wonderfulness of the Bioshock collector’s edition this was… a little aggravating. If you’re going to have a special edition and charge that much more for it you should really push the boat out a little and this just wasn’t the case with Assassin’s Creed.

As to the figure itself, it is lightweight and very plastic, lacking detail and lacking much in the way of close detail. It simply doesn’t look or feel as expensive and worthwhile as the Bioshock Big Daddy figurine and now languishes on our mantlepiece, an unloved white blob. Frankly I feel a little ripped off.

Game Story

In the game you take the part of the young and ambitious assassin Altaïr (Al-Tay-Ear) who chafes at the constriction of his order and competetively tries to outdo the other assassins. At the start of the game this leads to an inevitable balls-up which leads to Altaïr being stripped of his rank and weapons, effectively busted back down to private and having to prove his worth all over again (basically introducing an advancement mechanic where your weapons choices are expanded and improved as you complete your missions.

You ALSO take on the role of Desmond Miles, a bartender in 2012 he is the descendent of Altaïr and a former member of the modern assassins, sharing a rebellious streak with his ancestor that led to his leaving the group. Now he has fallen into the hands of the modern mirror of the Templars who are using him in some peculiar experiment.

Confused yet?

It works like this. The kidnapped Desmond gets strapped down into a machine called the Animus. This is an advanced virtuality suite and genetic scanner which extracts genetic memories from the subject and extrapolates them into complex and involving virtual scenarios which the subject then steers through to unlock and confirm the memories. The Templars are using this machine to unlock memories about Altaïr from the time of the Third Crusade and to confirm information about their own past.

While Desmond chafes against his confinement and tries to find a way to escape he dives into Altaïr’s memories over and over, finding out more about himself, the Assassins, the Templars and the mysterious artefact that they are fighting over all the while unfolding a storyline which is basically about order and chaos, personal choice versus being protected and looked out for.

The storyline unfolds through these memory dives as Altaïr tries to regain his honour and his rank by assassinating various figures in the Middle East of the 1100s. In between these missions you emerge from the machine and spend brief periods as Desmond, uncovering what is going on in the modern part of the game and the correlation with the past.

Atmosphere

The game is, for the most part, extremely atmospheric. The use of distortion effects gives it a washed out, cinematic and desert look which fits the setting and you are surrounded by the sights and sounds of the medieval middle eastern towns as they go about their business. You can also run, climb and jump just about anywhere which gives an amazing feeling of freedom as liberating as playing Grand Theft Auto III for the first time.

There are only a few things marring this atmospheric masterpiece.

1. Voices: The voice acting outside of the major characters is quite limited and so you get a hell of a lot of repetition from the inhabitants of the city. After you hear ‘What is that man doing?’ for the bajillionth time you start wishing for a button you could mash that makes your character scream ‘Climbing a fucking wall, what does it look like you dozy bitch?’. Alas, there isn’t one. I looked.

2. Repetition: There isn’t enough variety in the sub-missions that lead up to the assassination. I don’t think this is as major a beef as many other reviewers have said but a bit more variety and difference in approach to the missions would be extremely welcome as in long playing sessions especially it can start to feel a little robotic and detracts from the game.

3. Flag-gathering Missions: Pretty much all the other sub-missions fit the world and the idea, eavesdropping to hear information, saving citizens from being beaten up by guards or killing a few people and so on. One mission type however is a complete bust. You meet an Assassin agent who, oopsie daisy, has scattered collectable flags in a perfect race circuit around the streets and rooftops nearby and could you possibly see your way clear to grabbing them in the next three minutes? PAH! PAH I SAY! Get your own flags you dozy prick, I’m not running a le parkour race to pick up your litter.

Gameplay

Standard console type controls for the most part, push forward you go forward and so on. You can also sprint or walk, sprinting draws attention and gets you stabbed up by guards quite often while walking slowly gives you a ‘low profile’ and lets you hide more easily amongst the crowds.

Movement is pretty much completely free, you can run, jump, dive of buildings into straw and otherwise free-run just about where you like. What caught us by surprise though was that Altaïr can’t swim for toffee and appears to react to water in much the same way Dracula does to sunlight. That our invulnerable assassin virtually exploded on contact with a bit of moisture was laughable, then aggravating.

Combat is where Assassin’s Creed really shines. Combat itself is a fairly simple button-mashing affair with a bit of timing and manoeuvring thrown in but what makes the real difference is the sheer variety of moves that you can pull. While you’re doing the same sorts of button-mashing, parry/dodge/stab button presses Altaïr is whirling around like a mad thing, stabbing people in the top of the head, running them through with his sword and performing an acrobatic display of cinematic death-dealing that seems to have a virtually bottomless well of different moves that keep what’s happening on screen fresh and interesting. Other games, particularly MMOs where you spend so much time fighting, could do with learning from Assassin’s Creed on this score. Variety is the spice of life.

Stealth is obviously an important issue and the guards can be a bit touchy, especially after you’ve just killed someone important, and come after you for so much as ‘walkin’ kinda funny’. Fortunately you have several abilities to deal with this, walking at a snail’s pace and impersonating a religious scholar is one way, as is hiding amongst them. You can befriend locals and they can hold off guards while you make your escape, or you could hide in a hay bale until the fuss dies down. Alternatively you could slaughter all the people chasing after you are run hell-for-leather across the rooftops to escape pursuit and if you have to kick a few guards down into the street to break their bones, who’s complaining?

Each mission follows pretty much the same format, which has bored some reviewers but which I don’t think is too much of a drawback. You get your mission, travel overland to the destination on horseback, climb to the high ground to scout things out, visit the local honcho of the Assassin’s, gather information and then strike the target. Yes, it’s a bit repetitive but that isn’t the game killing issue that many have made it out to be.

Technical Issues

Occasionally in long sessions the game would unaccountably slow down and start to get all juddery, skipping from frame to frame like a ‘what the butler saw’ machine. This would usually sort itself out within a few minutes but would sometimes require the restarting of the console. This isn’t a game killer but it’s damn aggravating when you’re in the middle of an assassination.

Conclusion

Assassin’s Creed is a great game but lacks replay value and could have done with a little more variety and polish on some aspects. Still, the game world and story are excellent and the freedom of movement (water aside) and the ‘living’ nature of the towns you visit push this over the top into being an extremely stylish and worthwhile game.

Style: 5
Substance: 3
Overall: 4

Available at Amazon.com

Review by James ‘Grim’ Desborough

Somewhere dark and secret a rich lunatic is spending his money to gather a cult-like group of followers all devoted to a libertarian dream of boundless selfishness and runaway capitalism in the mistaken belief that this will somehow fix the problems of the world without any need for that pesky social conscience stuff. Still, enough about the US elections and Ron Paul and let’s talk about Bioshock.

Alright, I know I’m late getting around to reviewing this since everyone and their dog already has but I think you should really get through a game and understand it before putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboards in this case) and I think Bioshock deserves a review from a role-player’s perspective since it has mostly been looked at from the first-person shooter perspective.

Some quick technical notes, my machine is underpowered in some regards and overpowered in others from what Bioshock demands, my processor is a 2.1/2.2 single core processor and my video card is a 512 mb ATI x1300 series, I’m running on 2 gig of memory. Basically all things considered I’m around the minimum spec required for the PC version of Bioshock, which is the version I’m reviewing. Apparently the PC version is capable of better graphics than the Xbox version, I wouldn’t know since I couldn’t run it at full whack and we didn’t buy the Xbox version (I can’t play FPS games with the console sticks for toffee).

Collector’s Edition
We bought the collectors edition and for our extra money we got a rather excellent Big Daddy figure which was solid and weighty resin with good detail and put the Assassin’s Creed collector’s edition figurine to utter shame. It also came in a nice, distressed, tin box (though it was rather spoiled by having all the company info plastered over the rusted effect) a Moby E.P. of his music for the game and a making-of DVD. As I said, the figure was brilliant, the making-of DVD was rather pointless and tiresome, if computer game companies are going to do movie-like things like this they really need to inject some personality into what they’re doing or have someone TV trained doing it for them to hold your interest. The music was nice, but not essential. I think an art book or a version of one of the in game posters, or some postcards from Rapture would have been a better insert than the making-of DVD, otherwise the extra loot was pretty good compared to other games.

Game Story
Bioshock tells the tale of a fallen utopia, I’ll try not to give too much away but you play jack, a survivor of a plane wreck in the mid-atlantic (actually the North Atlantic near Greenland and Iceland where the main plane route is if the coordinates given for Rapture’s location are right) who discovers this rotting vision and plays a key role in breaking a stalemate between two opposing forces there.

Rapture is an underwater city built by a visionary industrialist called Andrew Ryan. Ryan and his philosophy are very much a representation of Ayn Rand and Objectivism/Libertarianism, which, as I noted with the earlier joke, is rather relevant to things going on currently. You could view Bioshock as a scathing critique of the re-emerging fad for Libertarian and Objectivist thought and its place – in the US at least – as the seemingly radical alternative to orthodox politics. It doesn’t save all its social comment for Randroids though, socialist worker’s principles take a bit of a bashing too, as does ardent capitalism and possibly the very idea of utopian ideals at all.

Anyway…

Rapture was completed at the end of the Second World War and Ryan took his chosen elite from all around the world, along with others necessary for the maintenance of his vision, down beneath the waves to start anew. At first everything went very well, science advanced rapidly, artists were free to work without limitation or censorship and without regulation new businesses began to spring up and make great strides in engineering and the applications of the new science. The rot set in rapidly however, a criminal element emerged, smuggling from the outside world, contact with which was forbidden by Rapture’s only law, and creating a black economy which supported a mob boss, Fontaine, who began to challenge Ryan’s power both through his criminality and his legitimate operations, not least of all the advent of Plasmids, a form of genetic modification pioneered by a former Nazi scientist that rapidly began to change the population of Rapture both physically and mentally. At the same time the runaway capitalism and lack of social provision in Rapture rapidly lead to the creation of a resentful working underclass who began to chafe at the injustices of Ryan’s elite.

Under assault Ryan began to compromise his principles, nationalising businesses, instituting methods of social control and propaganda and sending security teams and private detectives after the mob as well as trying to crush the burgeoning workers movement. Eventually things couldn’t hold and, made worse by the insanity the plasmids were causing, things broke out into open rebellion and destruction in 1959 until by 1960 Rapture was a shattered and faded dream, become a place of violence and stalemate between Ryan and his lieutenants and his main opponent.

Enter Jack, the part you play, and the balance tips.

Atmosphere
Even running at the lower end of the graphical specifications in an attempt to compensate for some glitches and a slower processor the game is stunning. Extremely well textured and well realised the graphics draw you in to the game, particularly the water effects which distort the vision and help establish the world of Rapture as truly existing within its underwater setting. The sense of pressure and dank, dark ruin is ever present and very atmospheric.

The style is a peculiar fusion of Art Deco and Cold War era soviet technical aesthetic. There’s a crude functionality to a lot of the machinery on show while at the same time there’s a great deal of ‘forgotten future’ clean lines and Gernsback influence to the detail of the design, a modernist, futurist slant to everything that makes Rapture a sort of archaeological find of an antiquated view of the future. Including modern elements like stem cells and genetic manipulation makes things a little schitzophrenic but does help keep the game relevant to modern ideas and dilemmas even if if does detract from the overall mood of the game.

The real triumphs, to my mind, are the propaganda posters, mini films and radio broadcasts, all done in a 30s and 40s style which, while sometimes comedic, do, somehow, manage to increase the sinister air that the game has about it, even before you run into Little Sisters (and yes, little girls ARE spooky) and the cetacean sounding booms of the Big Daddys.

Gameplay
Gameplay is pretty basic, your standard first-person shooter fare for the most part. Steer with the mouse, move with the keys and blast things with guns or fry them with your plasmid enhanced special powers. The game does handily include an in-game map, which is invaluable, and a compass director in the main screen which, if you have no sense of direction like me, helps you find your way around the levels without getting quite so lost. The main thrust of the game is in one direction, moving the plotline forward, but like Half-Life you don’t feel directed so much since you’re following an engrossing storyline. I’d even say that this aspect of the gameplay is better than Half-Life since you can go wandering off to a limited degree in Bioshock and rummage through rooms and areas you don’t have to before progressing to the next stage.

Technical Issues
Even though I’m running the game close to minimum spec there were a few problems that I felt were worth mentioning. ATI cards and Bioshock do not get on very well, even with hotfixes, patching and updated drivers. I could get the game to run but had to switch off most of the special effects leading to a reduced experience. Additionally there were spots on the map in certain areas where the game would freeze for 10-30 seconds at a time with five or ten seconds of action before the next freeze up. These were mercifully short but since one of the places this happened a lot was in a protect/rescue section this was mind-numbingly tedious.

Conclusion
Bioshock is a wonderfully immersive game that bears comparison with both the old System Shock games (though purists will find it less intense and detailed than those games) and with Half-Life. Rapture makes for a fascinating world, so much so that I’m putting together a fanbook RPG thing for it which I’ll link to here when it is done and the inclusion of both Objectivism and quandries over genetic modification make the game relevant and modern, despite its historical setting and its ‘forgotten future’ style. Do yourself a favour and at least play it.

Style: 5
Substance: 4
Overall: 4.5

Also available at Amazon:

Bioshock (X-Box 360) – BioShock Signature Series Guide

Available at Amazon.com

Sony PS2 console game developed by PUNCHLINE Inc.

Little orphan evil.

Rule of Rose tells the eerie and disturbing story of Jennifer, an apprehensive protagonist who must face the fantastic evil of a child’s imagination. Set in an English orphanage of the 1930’s, the game is a story of social outcasts, cruel violence, strained relationships and prepubescent sexuality. Since the cast of the game are almost entirely children, Sony was hesitant to release the game in America. Atlus, a company with a history of importing niche titles, stepped up and took the risk of bringing a game of challenging issues to the market.

Adults being nearly absent in their lives, the girls of the orphanage form a misguided hierarchy; the Aristocrat Club. Membership is compulsory, and monthly dues must be paid in the form of presents to Princess Rose. A girl who fails to bring Rose what she demands faces shame and abuse from the other orphans. As the new arrival, Jennifer is at the bottom of the pecking order and is mistrusted and humiliated regularly.

The story itself is strongly scripted and plays out in beautifully rendered movies. Each chapter begins with a tragic fairy tale illustrated with children’s scribbles of Mermaids caught on fishhooks, monsters dressed in people’s clothes and so on. Entering certain areas and finishing chapters treats the player to gorgeous movie segments with terrific voice acting and twists and turns to the story that shock and disturb. The story alone is compelling, as frail and weak characters are pushed into relentless confrontations with their supposed betters.

Music is reflective of the setting. Piano and string ensembles provide a mix of stirring romantic melodies and early 20th century insect-like plucks and discordant bangs. Scratchy gramophone recordings of childlike melodies appear as well. If there’s any flaw in the music, it’s that there isn’t enough. Most cues repeat often during long stretches of investigation. Sound effects are also well crafted but repetitive. Even then, there is still a powerful effect to hearing a creature just around the corner whispering to itself.

Controls and mechanics in the game are familiar to anyone who has played the PS2 Silent Hill series or early Resident Evil games. Like most survival horror titles, the focus of the game play is on exploring creepy environments and finding keys and items that will open up the next series of doors into new areas. Here is where the developers have introduced a great innovation: Brown, Jennifer’s dog.

Brown is a gift to everyone who’s ever spent hours in a game walking up to each and every object and using the search command. If Jennifer shows Brown an object she can tell him to go find more. Brown is an excellent tracker and will lead the way and reveal items, doors and even people. Each item also has multiple others related to it, so one search may lead a chain that carry Jennifer and Brown all over a region. Inventory space is limited but dropped items always return to a depository and are never permanently lost.

Creeping through darkened hallways is only scary for so long. Monsters appear, usually after a trigger event, and Jennifer must fight or run. Like the Silent Hill games, Rule of Rose requires angling enemies into striking range while trying to maneuver around their attacks. Jennifer is a very poor combatant, a fact shown in her animations of limp-wrist smacks and stabs that end with flinching. Hit detection is poor in play and uneven collision between characters means that sometimes Jennifer and her enemies will “slide” off each other instead of landing a blow. Jennifer almost never faces a single opponent too, so she is quickly surrounded and overwhelmed. Running often seems like the best option but this means limiting exploration and missing out on items that could open optional paths. Achieving a good ending unlocks weapons that reduce the hazards of fighting but the satisfaction offered by fiercely striking back against fear is never realized.

Survival horror has taken the place of the adventure games of past video game generations with item hunts leading the player through a linear story. Open ended play is not a part of this game and aside from the branching of multiple endings based on discovery of items and places, there is no real influence over the story. Players must be willing to accept this retro approach if they want to enjoy what Rule of Rose has to offer.

I found myself enthralled by the bizarre unwinding story and the slow decay of the surroundings and the children into twisted reflections of innocence. The simple lingering of the camera generates an unsettling sexual tension that shows these children are desperate for love and attention. A steady feeling of dread is built as questions pile up and go unanswered, places and times inexplicable shift and violence looms closer. Combat flaws aside, I found myself pleased with a purchase that I would rate alongside the early survival horror titles as a well made adventure game.

Reviewer: Russell Collins

Available at Amazon.com

…was okay.

There were parts that I loved, terribly, which were almost all thematic and setting/scene based. There were parts that I very very much hated, and that was all gameplay-based.

Here’s what I loved:

The sanity system. If you look at stuff closely (the priest crucified on the cross, for example) you get More out of the game, but you also lose more sanity points (which gradually recover over time). When you’re low on sanity, you start talking to yourself and hearing things. Apparently when you run out of sanity, you take whatever gun you’re holding and kill yourself.

Innsmouth. It really felt like a creepy, cold, windy, unfriendly New England port. Creepy feeling, great atmosphere. The sounds and music worked great. The voice acting was superb, especially the main character.

The crossover: Slight spoilers, but they take my favorite CoC fiction (The Shadow Out of Time: The one with the Great Race of Yith and the Flying Polyps) and blend it with the Innsmouth one (Is it The Horror of Innsmouth? Or the Shadow of Innsmouth? Whatever, the one where the townsfolk turn into deep ones because of a town-wide pact). They did the Yith stuff very favorably, I only wish they had more. And man, the flying polyps were SO FUCKING RIGHT ON, but I only wish there was more (you only see/fight two, but they are freakish and scary). They took some liberties with the Yith mythos (if you get the special ending, and there’s an EXE hack to make sure you do, you find out something written backwards at the bottom of this post).

Some of the gameplay: There’s a big advantage to being sneaky than rushing right in and shooting stuff. The interface was smooth, and very few buttons required to do stuff.

Here’s what I didn’t Love:

Not. Enough. Research: You collect some books and scrapbooks here and there, but you never dig into books. If I wrote the game, I would have had books been some sort of portal, or side game, where you have to “go into them” somehow to retreive the information you need. Whether it was metaphorically and surreal (going into the pages, curcling notes with the mouse), or maybe in the form of taking the form of the author at the time the book was written and going on a quick mini-adventure, I would have had more books.

A little too much fighting: Sure, you can try to avoid it, but chances are if you don’t kill everything you see and try to sneak past it, it’ll just find you later.

There was a subplot with a little girl, who is a ghost. It doesn’t make much sense, feels forced, doesn’t jibe with the mythos in any way, and doesn’t really impact the plot at all. I dunno why they did it, I suspect that this was the producer making demands of the game after hearing that “F.E.A.R.” had a cool scary little girl character.

Here’s what I hated:

The difficulty: I played on the basic difficulty, and it was entirely too fucking hard. I patched my EXE so that I could totally cheat and have no problems with it. There are limited save points, so you’ll restore, and have to go through a high-stress 10 minute segment of doing nothing but running and jumping PERFECTLY, and if you miss one jump or dally for a second, then you die and have to reload from the beginning. It reminds me a lot of the Original old-school Prince of Persia or Tomb Raider, which also drove me fucking nuts.

The worst offenders were a sequence where people come for you in a hotel, so you have to run through a hotel bolting doors behind you while pushing cabinets, running and dodging, climbing on balconies, jumping PERFECTLY to avoid falling and dying, where one single second made the difference between success and restarting. The other one was the end sequence, where true to adventure game form the cave around you starts collapsing and you have to flee: The message boards for the game are filled with people who simply cannot do it because it was like they calculated the absolte time necessary to complete getting out in time if you were a computer, then added 0.5 seconds or something. I got out on my second try only by turning on God Mode. Jumping puzzles in intense time pressure just IS NOT FUCKING FUN.

Another sequence involves the above with Combat: You are in a cave prison and have to sneak out, weaponless and vulnerable. The next save point is like 15 minutes of game time away. If anyone sees you, you’re pretty much dead (unlike Thief games where you can run away and hide somewhere else). But they find you ALL THE TIME.

In the end, I like what they did with the story overall, and the puzzles were just on the fine line between too easy and too hard, which is a very fine line to manage, so for that I give them props. But the gameplay for this kind of game just sucked. It needed less explosions and shooting, and more sinister horror and research: Turning up the creepiness produces as much tension as having to jump on ledges in perfect keystrokes to prevent dying and reloading, but it’s MUCH LESS FRUSTRATING.

Furthermore, since Mike Gentry is working on a text-based-adventure revisit of his excellent Anchorhead, I think I’ll warily pass the upcoming Mountains of Madness CoC video game and just patiently wait for that instead. Actually, Mike, that would be an interesting thing to try: Have books as “rooms”, where you “explore” them for knowledge, or sometimes dive in and take on the role momentarily of the madmen that wrote them as they were exploring dark secrets…

—————-
.naihtiy a yb dessessop elihw rehtom ruoy detangerpmi ohw ,rehtaf ruoy nekat osla dah snaihtiy eht

I know, sounds kinda lame, and not really in line with the Yithian stuff, but overall it felt like it worked, and it also explained the character’s “Frank Black-like” powers. Overall, not bad, and this is from a fan of that short story.

Reviewer: Andy Kitkowski

Available now at Amazon.com

This game won’t win any awards, oh sorry, it’s hard to not blurt that out while playing this game. This commercial on TV for this “treadclimber” says it’s fast, easy, and makes me feel good. Evil Dead doesn’t make me feel any of these, it makes me feel bored, annoyed, and sick. First the CG’s, the pre-rendered’s are pretty good, not OddWorld good, but good none the less. But there are only like 3 of them. Speaking of 3’s, that’s how many bosses are in the whole game, 3, and that’s including the end boss. The game has 5 levels which are massive though.

The story basically finds Ash chasing a man named Eldridge who has the idea of controlling the deadites. Not only does he control them, but he goes through portals back into time. There are 5 levels but they take place in the same town, just throughout the past 100 years. The game tells you what mission you need to accomplish but you always have NO FREAKING IDEA where the item you have to collect is. Half the time you see the item, you just can’t get to it. The last level if you accidently kill one baddie instead of possessing him with magic, you’re screwed and have to start the level over, WHICH is impossible if you saved over you’re previous save between levels, now ask me how you save in the game other than between levels, just ask me. SAVE CREDITS, FREAKING SAVE CREDITS. They’re good when you can save whenever you want, they’re bad when you screw over your game and have to start from the beginning.

Let’s get going on the music, ok the music, IT’S A LOOP! I GET IT, IT’S A LOOP!!!! The music tries to be exciting and a good score but it ends up being an annoying loop as you run your butt off trying to find that one key. This is the only game I’ve ever had to turn down the music volume. The controls are clunky, levels uninspired, and the bosses way too easy. On the plus side, this game has some great gore and the weapons are really cool. If you’ve seen the movies you’ll know Ash has a hand he uses with a chainsaw attatchment, well you get upgrades to that such as a chain gun and a flamethrower (which are missions to find the parts and as we determined, it’s hard to find the parts).

The combat is nice and gory but clunky. To perform more than just a hack or a slash you need to hold the A button down which doesn’t always work, literally, sometimes Ash will just do the hacking motion instead of the ‘windup’ position so the button presses almost don’t matter at all. Also it’s almost impossible half the time when you’re getting smacked in front and taken advantage of in back. Combine this with the other holding problem so when you’re running away from 10 baddies and you stop and hold the button only to do a slashing motion, you get owned when the deadites attack you. Let me use a quote from the game to explain what you’ll get out of this game if you buy it.

“Your mouth is like my ass Eldridge, nothing good ever comes out of it.”

Reviewer: Matt Christian

The plot of this game revolves around a pretty little English schoolgirl named Alyssa. During a stay at boarding school she receives an unsettling message from her mother, which prompts her to run home only to discover a creepy old man and a challenging destiny. Alyssa soon finds herself traveling through different decades in time to solve various mysteries, confront deranged serial killers, and eventually discover the truth behind her family’s unique history.

The concept of this game is quite simple. Run and hide and try not to get yourself killed. Oh, and enjoy the grotesque cut scenes that appear throughout the game to scare the hell out of you. This game is not a confrontational one. The only weapons available to Alyssa are vials of holy water and invisibility bands, and these weapons are solely defensive. If Alyssa stands in front of a monster waving holy water at him, the monster will be stunned for a second, but quickly recover and guess what? Game over. You must use intelligence to survive the game. Finding places to cower in fear is essential. Glowing green orbs denote the designated hiding spots. Unfortunately, you cannot hide anywhere, except these specific spots.

While Alyssa does have a health meter in this game, it’s the panic meter you really have to worry about. The panic meter is used to monitor Alyssa’s terror level, and while it can be quite entertaining, it can also be just as frustrating. When Alyssa is too overwhelmed by fear, the panic meter reaches its limit and Alyssa completely freaks out. When this happens be prepared to start screaming at the screen because all you want to do is make her run and hide, but all she will do is fumble about and fall down. If a psychotic killer hits you during this time, Alyssa meets her maker. If she calms down, she lives to hide another day. Either way it’s highly amusing.

The overall graphic quality and audio of the game is very impressive. The murder cut scenes are very realistic and the audio that coincides is chilling. As in most horror games, the audio intensifies when a killer approaches or an apparition pops out of nowhere. This helps to create an overall dark, creepy atmosphere that will make you jump.

The control setup is very simple. You guide Alyssa through areas of much larger environments with pre determined camera angles set up for each section. This makes for overall easy navigation through each section. Since Alyssa is limited to throwing holy water, running, hiding, and searching, her controls are a piece of cake. Even better, I found no glitches. Fear not, you won’t be chased by a creepy villain into a closet you can’t get out of.

Puzzles are no sweat. Their difficulty level remains fairly linear throughout the game. The boss battles, however, as in most games, become increasingly difficult, and the final boss battle, a little too difficult. But nothing a few bouts of trials and error cannot remedy.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of the game are the stories that develop as Alyssa follows her quest. You meet various victims and get try to solve various mysteries concerning their deaths. Each chapter of the game has a different story, a new mystery and at the end of the game you confront the murder of the victim you are trying to help.

While the game has a many high points there are a few drawbacks. The game is also cut way too short and the final boss battle entirely too challenging.

But despite the couple drawbacks, Clock Tower 3 is a tense and thrilling game that is without a doubt worth playing. And remember to play with the lights out.

Reviewer: Sara Drapp

Available at Amazon.com

What do ten strangers sitting in a bar have in common? They’d all make delicious entrees for a few hungry zombies about to attack the bar. That’s right, in this newest installation of Resident Evil Raccoon City is being rampaged by a plague of zombies. It’s up to you to pick one of ten characters and fight for survival.

The game is set up in different sections called scenarios, each with their own theme and unique location. After you complete a scenario, a new one is unlocked and you are given points for your game play. The better you are the more points you get allowing you to trade them in to unlock bonuses such as CG art and cut scenes.

The scenarios begin with you choosing one of 10 characters to play. Choose, but choose wisely. Each person has his or her own unique tools and skills to help you get through the game. For example, you can choose Yoko, the Japanese high school student who can carry more items then normal, or Jim, the guy who amazingly specializes in playing dead, seriously. Look at the characters traits carefully. Don’t just pick the police officer or the security guard because they can start off with guns. Yeah, shooting a zombie in the face as soon as you can is exciting, but when you can find a gun relatively fast right away anyway, you’re going to wish you’d chosen someone with useful tools you can’t pick up during the game. Which brings me to my favorite character Alyssa the journalist, who is also the lock-picker. When you come to a locked room you still don’t have the key for she can pick the door lock. It may take awhile to unlock, but it sure is a lot faster then searching every room to find that stupid key you missed. All of the characters and their abilities are marked down in the instruction guide.

After choosing your player, you are placed in a unique environment and situation, such as a bar you need to get out of. Thus begins your quest to annihilate zombies, find weapons, and, of course, solve puzzles. But you’re in luck. You are not alone in your endeavor. In each scenario you are paired up with two other characters. You can somewhat control their movement through vocal commands, however, they’re not all that reliable. Most of the time I was very happy to have these other characters around because they helped get the zombies off my back. However, certain characters you team up with are more annoying than others, and I soon had a greater desire to kill my teammates than the zombies. Throughout the levels you can find all kinds of goodies to help keep those pesky zombies at bay, such as pepper spray, wrenches, lead pipes, and of course, my personal favorite, the shotgun. The drawback is you can only hold four of these items at once including each character’s personal item. This is why it’s important to make sure to give extra items you want to keep to your teammates. The puzzles in the game were somewhat irritating, but nothing too difficult. They mainly consisted of wandering around to find all the pieces, mixing them together a bit, and then finding the right location to use them in. Also, there were the puzzles where you had to find the door codes and such. Typical Resident Evil stuff. Nothing revolutionary. The cut scenes were pretty cool, some really reminded me of the movie “Dawn of the Dead.” I also found few glitches.

The only drawbacks I found in the game were the health meter and the saving, The health meter was confusing because it kept changing every time a zombie bit you and I could never really tell how much health I actually had left, which is never good. The way to save is you have to find a computer terminal, save, and then you’re brought back to the main screen. Then if you wish to access the saved material it is deleted. That’s right. If you save and go back to play and then you die, all the things you went through in that scenario up to that save point are deleted. This was very annoying. Still not sure what I’m talking about? Play the game and you’ll know…oh you’ll know.

Overall, Resident Evil: Outbreak was a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. Basically saying, it was a lot of fun to play, but nothing too special that I would consider buying or playing again after beating the game. But if you’re a zombie fan give it a try!

Reviewer: Sara Drapp

Look for Resident Evil games at the Undead Shopping Extravaganza.