Review: Gears of War 3

As a critic, I’ve found the most challenging reviews to write involve games to which I have a particular emotional attachment, and this is certainly the case for the Gears of War franchise. As long as I’ve had an Xbox 360, Gears of War has been a constant and dependable companion. Sure, every once in a while I’d run off and have a fling when a sexy new Call of Duty game came along... but once the thrill wore off, I’d realize all those new frags were meaningless, and soon I’d be stomping Locusts again like I never left.

Now Gears of War 3 is out, the final entry in Epic Games’ blockbuster trilogy. As excited as I’ve been about this moment, I’ve resolved to do my best to be objective. Given all that we’ve been through together, I’m sure my girl will be furious about being treated like any other release. All I have to say is that I’m sorry, babe... but this is business.

Design: 5/5

In any well-established franchise—especially those with a strong multiplayer component—each sequel is a delicate balance between innovation and tradition. Gears of War 3 finds this balance well, leaving the majority of the essential play-control elements unchanged, while making a few subtle yet important tweaks. Pick up a controller, and initially you may feel like you’re still playing Gears of War 2; however, you’ll quickly notice that things feel more refined and responsive. For example, the button mechanics for actions such as picking up weapons and reviving allies have been slightly adjusted, so now the next time one of your comrades takes an unhealthy number of bullets to the head, you’re much more likely to help him up as opposed to accidentally rummaging through the ammo crate upon which he happened to lie bleeding.

Hey, you can cook him, but I sure as hell ain’t gonna eat him.

Of course, there’s the requisite bevy of new ordnance, including the Digger Launcher (which fires small, highly-explosive Locusts that burrow under cover), the One-Shot (a heavy instant-kill sniper rifle), and the Vulcan Cannon (a two-person chain gun setup, where one person shoots while the other feeds ammo using some sort of bizarre hand-crank device that looks like it also doubles as an ice cream maker).  These new additions are fun, and so far appear to be limited enough in power and availability as to not alter the core gameplay too substantially.

One of the biggest changes involves “Horde mode”, a staple of the Gears of War 2 experience. While you and four friends still get to fend off waves of attacking Locusts, you now have the opportunity to establish a dedicated base, complete with fortifications such as razor wire and turrets. Instead of points (and gore and self-satisfaction), killing Locusts yields rewards of cold hard cash (also, gore and self-satisfaction). After each wave, you can use your newly earned wad to repair and upgrade your sweet fort. Oh, one more thing—every 10th wave is now a “boss wave”, which in my experience usually meant that before his gruesome demise, my character spent his last few terrible seconds of life as a pair of Brumak slippers.

Artistic: 5/5

It’s hard to know where to stand with the visuals in Gears of War 3. From a technical standpoint, everything looks jaw-droppingly amazing, but I consider this to be more of an engineering accomplishment than an artistic one. However, in terms of pure aesthetics, I didn’t find most of the locations in the campaign to be all that compelling. One issue is that at this point, the world of Sera has been wrecked more times than I was during my freshman year of undergrad, and thus most areas have devolved into the same uniform collection of gray rubble. Although there are some occasional breaks from this monotony (such as the setting for the last act), for the most part I wasn’t particularly impressed by too many of the new locales. 

It took some hard work, but designers of Gears of War 3 were able to make Marcus look about 20-30% more haggard.

The enemies, however, are a different story. There are a ridiculous number of new foes, and most of them look pretty bad-ass. Particularly impressive are the many new Locusts of the Lambent variety, which are so packed full of Imulsion that upon dying they explode in a spectacular display of glowing ooze, like some sort of toxic piñata.

Narrative: 3/5

In trying to trying to describe the plot and dialogue of Gears of War 3, I felt it necessary to strive for the same delicate blend of dramatic sensibility and elegant wordsmithing that surely went into the game itself. Here’s what I came up with: “It’s okay.” If you happen to care at all about the fate of Sera, then the campaign does offer a few answers and a bit of closure, but don’t expect to see any Marcus Fenix soliloquys showing up in the drama curriculum anytime soon.

In a lot of ways, Gears of War 3 feels like it’s just running down the checklist of action game clichés. Noble battlefield sacrifices? Check. Comic relief through gallows humor? Check. Newly-introduced NPCs dying quick and horrible deaths? Check. On the other hand, perhaps I should cut the writing a little slack. If you consider the characters, perhaps it’s actually spot-on. I mean, these guys are soldiers—and not the macabre “war is a terrible tragedy, but I’ll fight because I must” kind of soldier, but the kind who gleefully crush skulls under their boots while cracking jokes. I have to assume that they’re not too particularly thoughtful or self-reflective, because otherwise I’d start to worry that they were total sociopaths.

Gameplay: 5/5

As I’ve already mentioned, Gears of War 3 sees adjustments to both the multiplayer and Horde modes, and the result is a noticeably improved gameplay experience. Add to this full four-player co-op in the campaign and a new albeit brief “Beast mode” (basically the reverse of Horde, wherein you play as the Locust), and you’ve got a total package that should keep anyone entertained for quite some time. In fact, while playing the game I got a very real sense that the developers tried to make a game that one could continue to enjoy for years, and so far it seems to me like they achieved that goal.

Once you’ve crushed a Locust’s head with a Silverback mech, you won’t want to crush one with anything else.

Summary

When it comes down to it, when evaluating any video game there’s really only one question that matters: “Is it fun?” After all, you can’t spell “video game” without “game”. (Or, I suppose, without “demo”, “evade”, or “amigo”, although none of those words are at all relevant to my current point.)

If you enjoyed playing any of the previous Gears of War games, then you can rest assured that this one improves upon them in nearly every way, including being more “fun”. Alternatively, if you haven’t played Gears before, but the prospect of exploding one of your friends into a pile of bloody chunks with a short-range shotgun blast (and then having a good laugh about it) appeals to you, then now is as good a time as any to jump on the bandwagon.

Merry Gearsmas!

I could barely sleep last night. Laying in my bed, I thought about (of all things) my Google Calendar, and how for months now, the date of September 20th had been emblazoned with the title “GEARS OF WAR 3 RELEASE”. I remembered how I had even typed it all CAPITAL LETTERS, signifying a level of typographic excitation I almost never achieve, not even for special occasions like Christmas or National Fellatio Week. 

Fuck you, Fred Savage. Fuck. You.

I don’t remember ever being this excited about an upcoming video game as a kid. This could be because I have an absolutely terrible emotional memory; perhaps I actually was this excited about every new release, but don’t remember because the 1990’s happened more than a week ago. One of the only cases I could recall was Super Mario Bros. 3. I remember relentlessly begging my mother for a copy, a tireless saga whose finale doubtlessly involved her slugging it out with other guilt-crazed parents in a K-Mart somewhere. I even dragged her to a showing of The Wizard just for a glimpse of the game. In the end, I finally got my copy of SMB3, and learned an important life lesson in the process: watching an autistic kid play video games for 90-minutes does not make for compelling cinema. 

To be honest, I’m not even sure how (or even if) my friends and I found out about upcoming games back then. This was in the Dark Ages before the Internet, so unless we saw a television commercial or read about it in Nintendo Power magazine, we usually didn’t know about games until after they were already on the shelves. Our usual approach to gaming was to goad our parents into heading to Video World, our local “video rental store”. (For you youngsters out there who don’t know what I’m talking about, imagine Netflix were an actual physical store, except with VHS tapes and Nintendo games instead of DVDs and disgruntled customers complaining about price hikes.) Once there, we would descend into intense deliberations over which game we should get, based on esoteric criteria such as coolness of cover art, whether it came with a photocopied instruction manual, and whether they even had a copy available to rent. Then we would go to one of our houses, start playing the game, realize that it was Back to the Future and one of the worst NES games ever made, and go to bed disappointed. Good times. 

Looking back, I realize that the difference between this approach and the current pre-order paradigm is like the difference between awkward teenage sex and that crazy tantric stuff that Sting is into. For months I’ve read the press releases, watched the gameplay trailers, and played the beta, and when I finally get home from work and open that lovely little package from Amazon, it’s going to be amazing. Don’t get me wrong… like any high-school sweetheart, I’ll always hold a special place in my heart for Video World. However, I think both Sting and I prefer the status quo. 

Merry Gearsmas everyone!

PS - I just remembered, Netflix doesn't have DVDs anymore either.  I guess now it's just disgruntled customers.

Matterhorn Screamer

This weekend I went hiking in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, which proudly boast the worst weather in America. Even though we lucked out with a gorgeous day, it was still a grueling hike. We managed to hit three of the Whites’ tallest peaks (Madison, Adams, and Jefferson), covering 14 miles of rocky terrain with about 6,000 feet of elevation gain. 

Upon reaching the first summit, I perched on top of the world like a god, and gazed down at the White Mountain National Forest, spread out below me in a breathtaking panorama of natural beauty. As I sat there upon my mighty throne of granite, I thought to myself, “Jesus Christ, this was a lot of work. Why did I want to do this, again??” Then I tried to refrain from coughing up one of my lungs. 

Catching my breath, I tried to remember what I could possibly have been thinking when I left the house at 5:00 AM that morning. Then it occurred to me that as a form of recreation, mountaineering and video games actually had a lot in common. Perhaps it was these commonalities that appealed to me. 

I’ve actually hiked the White Mountains in the winter, though only after undergoing extensive training using the sophisticated simulation tool shown above.

For example, both video games and mountain climbing deal in well-established and clearly articulated goals. In world where success and accomplishment are typically about as firmly defined as my sagging pecs, it’s nice sometimes to know exactly what it is you’re supposed to be doing, regardless of whether it’s “kill that bad guy” or “walk from here to that high-up place over there”. 

Second, like video games, climbing a mountain yields reliable, tangible rewards for your efforts. When playing a video game, you know that if you do everything it asks of you, eventually you’ll “beat the game”. Likewise, when hiking you know that if you keep going up, eventually you’ll reach the highest point. Just keep on putting one foot in front of the other, and eventually you’ll be able to look down on those puny trees with the same ruthless disdain that a level-30 Dragon Warrior reserves for the average Slime. 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, video games and mountain climbing both understand the importance of engaging the user with visual stimulation. The capabilities of current-generation gaming systems have gotten pretty amazing, and keep getting better all the time. However, while hiking we also saw some pretty nice views... and I have to say that for an old analog system, the graphics were still pretty good.

Review: L.A. Noire

As I continue to work my way through reviewing the substantial pile of games I’ve played this year, this week I find myself encountering another Rockstar Games offering: L.A. Noire. In this interactive crime drama, you accompany detective Cole Phelps he slogs through a morass of dirty cops, corrupt politicians, and mutilated corpses in an attempt to bring order and justice to 1940’s Los Angeles.

Design 3/5

At first glance, L.A. Noire looks like a typical Rockstar Grand-Theft-Auto-style game, in that you have a car and an absolutely enormous city to drive around in. However, that’s pretty much where the similarities end. This is not a sandbox game, so anyone expecting it to be one will be sorely disappointed.

The bulk of the gameplay comprises a linear sequence of missions (“cases”), most of which follow a set structure. Upon arriving at a crime scene, the first thing you do is collect evidence, which basically involves wandering around and randomly picking up objects for Cole to stare at intensely, until he deems them either interesting or not. The second major component of Cole’s detective repertoire is interrogation. Throughout each case you will put a number of suspects and witnesses in the hot seat; after each of their responses, you must decide whether to (1) trust their statements, (2) doubt that they’re telling you the whole truth, or (3) accuse the scumbag in question of being a big fat liar.

Hi!  My name’s Cole, and I’ll be accusing you of murder today.

As game mechanics go, L.A. Noire’s is on the more innovative side, but there’s certainly a lot of issues. With such limited options for questions and responses, the interrogations proceed fairly clumsily, and I usually felt like I was more or less choosing Cole’s responses at random. Furthermore, Cole suffers from what I call the “Renegade Complex”. (The name is a reference to a similar issue I encountered in the original Mass Effect.) Since you don’t exactly know what Cole’s responses will be, you have no idea if an option like “doubt” means “try to outwit a tight-lipped witness with some pointed questioning”, or if it means “start screaming at a 12-year-old girl who just found out her mother was murdered”. In other words, I found it difficult to play Cole in a way that didn’t make him come across as borderline schizophrenic.

These issues are exacerbated by the fact that you’re trying operate within the context of an overarching plot line. Whenever things don’t add up (and often they won’t), it’s unclear whether you missed something in the current case, or if some hidden fact will be revealed in a later one. Put all these issues together and the end result is somewhat unfulfilling, such that even cases I solved “successfully” felt more like a product of luck than skill.

Artistic 5/5

The visuals of L.A. Noire are absolutely stunning. I found the most impressive part to be incredibly detailed faces and expressions of the characters, a product of sophisticated new motion capture technology. I’m not sure exactly how this technology works, so let’s just assume it works exactly like the digitization laser from the movie Tron.

You’ll easily recognize a number of familiar television actors who lent their likenesses to the game, including Aaron Staton from Mad Men (who plays Cole Phelps), Greg Grunberg from Heroes, and the crazy old dude from Fringe.

I’m pretty sure Matt Parkman has the advantage here, considering he’s a psychic and everything.

Unfortunately, the city itself is a lot like a beautiful Hollywood starlet: breathtakingly beautiful, but pretty light on substance. Without the gamut of activities and side quests typical of a sandbox game, the world of L.A. Noire something is you merely pass through, rather than truly engage in.

Narrative 4/5

A lot of critics have compared L.A. Noire to the movie L.A. Confidential. Plot-wise I see some similarities; for example, I didn’t really follow either of them very well. There are a lot of characters, and the fact that most of them are terse, emotionally-repressed assholes doesn’t make understanding their particular motives any easier. The game also seems to presuppose a certain knowledge of historical events (such as the Black Dahlia murder) of which I was clearly lacking. However, the dialogue is well written and well acted, so individual scenes are eminently watchable, even when you have no idea how they fit together.

Gameplay 2/5

And now the kicker… despite all of its polish and beauty, when it comes down to it, I just didn’t find this game fun. The lack of enjoyment could be my fault, because I didn’t know what to expect, or it could be L.A. Noire’s fault, because it doesn’t know what it wants to be. If I had to guess at a genre, L.A. Noire is more like a puzzle game than anything… but with so many flaws in its core gameplay mechanics, it’s hard to feel like there’s any puzzle you’re actually solving.

A riveting scene from an upcoming episode of CSI: Los Angeles. Before the advent of modern technology, crime scene investigation consisted mainly of standing in a circle around dead bodies and talking.

Incidentally, I even bought the “Rockstar Season Pass” and downloaded all the DLC, but by the time I was done with the game, I didn’t feel like playing any of it. I would say that’s not a great sign.

Summary

Just because something’s new and different doesn’t mean it’s good, and just because a studio takes a chance, doesn’t mean it’s going to succeed. L.A. Noire is certainly ambitious, but I feel it falls a bit short, and I’m just not in the habit of giving A’s for effort. The best thing I can say about the game is that it looks like it pushed the technological envelope in a lot of ways, the benefits of which we may be seeing for years to come.

Happy Birthday to Me

Tomorrow I’ll be celebrating the completion of my 32nd trip around the Sun. (Though by the time I finally post this, it might be today.) In regards to this momentous event, my wife posed a question that I expect is pretty commonly asked around such anniversaries. Namely, she asked me, “What would you like for your birthday?”

I responded in the same way I have every year since reaching adulthood: “Nothing”.

“What, there’s nothing that you want?”

Hearing the absurdity of this accusation, I thought that perhaps my original one-word response could do with some unpacking. I explained:

“Of course there are things that I want, but they all fall into one of three categories: (1) things I can afford, like video games, (2) things I can’t afford, like a helicopter or a Japanese sexbot, and (3) things that don’t exist, like hover shoes or an AeroBed that actually stays inflated. Things from the first category I’ve already bought myself, and things from the second you shouldn’t be buying me. Good luck with the third.”

You see, this is the problem with birthdays. When you’re a kid, a gift is like free income, which is why you feel so completely ripped off when someone gets you something lame like clothes or a pencil case. (As my birthday coincides with the back-to-school season, you can believe this happened to me all the time.) When you’re an adult, it’s completely different. A gift from your parents merely serves to decrease your future inheritance by one ugly sweater’s worth, while a gift from your spouse is basically something you bought yourself.

I’m not complaining, mind you. I much prefer it this way, where I get to buy whatever I hell I want, whenever the hell I want it. At this point, I’ve got pre-orders stacked up through the holidays, including Gears of War 3, Saints Row: The Third, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Modern Warfare 3. In other words, I’ve ensured that Amazon will be delivering me a steady stream of gifts non-stop until Christmas.

Happy birthday to me.

PS – I’ve decided that instead of posting blog entries on Tuesdays and reviews on Thursdays, I’m going to post them on Tuesdays and Fridays.  However, I’m going to start posting them first thing in the morning (or the night before), so that you can actually read them on those days :)

Review: Bastion

This week I’ll be reviewing Bastion, an action RPG developed by rookie indie developer Supergiant Games and released for the Xbox LIVE Marketplace (XBLM) and PC. Bastion follows the adventures of an unnamed protagonist (referred to as “the Kid”) as he tries to piece together remnants of a shattered world.

Design: 4/5

I’m really growing to like the “downloadable game” concept, particularly as it’s executed on XBLM. Downloadable titles allow small developers to take solid, innovative concepts and realize them on a limited scale, without having to compete with multi-million dollar blockbuster titles. Sometimes fifteen-dollars-worth is just the right amount of game.

Apparently, the Kid slept right through the Apocalypse.  Typical teenager.

In the case of Bastion, fifteen dollars buys you 5 to 10 hours worth of old-school action RPG gameplay. The basic structure is textbook: go to some location, kill a bunch of things, and eventually collect some magic stone or crystal or whatever. (I honestly don’t remember what your character collects; it could have been ceramic unicorns or virulent STDs. Frankly, it doesn’t matter.) However, there are a few things that attempt to set apart Bastion’s polished but heartfelt rehashing of this familiar formula... though not necessarily all of them succeed. Let’s discuss them, shall we?

Artistic: 4/5

The first thing one notices about Bastion is its look. The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world (presumably because it’s more compelling than a pre-apocalyptic one), rendered in a hand-painted art style reminiscent of the sprite-based gaming days of yore. However, unlike most destroyed game worlds (e.g. Gears of War, Fallout), this one isn’t a pile of monochromatic rubble; instead it’s full of vibrant colors and lighting effects.

Okay, do these people have huge heads and tiny feet, or are they all just leaning toward me?

A main part of the game aesthetic is that as you make your way through this bizarre world, it magically reassembles itself around you. Paths rise up to meet your feet, while trees, rocks, and houses reconstitute themselves in response to your very presence. While the effect can be pleasing to the eye as it happens, I found that the finished product actually appeared over-wrought, almost too cluttered by the revived scenery.

Narrative: 4/5

Another potential selling point of Bastion is its innovative concept of “dynamic narration”. As you progress through the game, your adventures are recounted by a gravel-voiced raconteur reminiscent of Sam Elliott from the Big Lebowski. (In fact, part of me kept waiting for him to ask me for a Sarsaparilla.) In theory, this narrator responds to your in-game actions, telling your story as it unfolds.

If this concept had really been taken all the way, I think it would have been incredible, but unfortunately Bastion just touches the surface. The majority of the time, narration responds more to where you are in the game level than to what you’re actually doing at the time. Compare this to the handful of instances when narration responds to your immediate actions, and you’re left feeling like there were a lot of missed opportunities.

Gameplay: 4/5

Beneath all of its accoutrements, Bastion boasts some fairly solid gameplay. The controls are fast and responsive, which combined with a variety of weapons and enemies keeps the combat from getting too tiresome. One welcome change would be if the game let you swap weapons anywhere (instead of only at “Forge” locations), because by the end of the game I had settled into using the Cael Hammer and Scrap Musket for pretty much everything.

The land reforms under your feet as you move about the world, which I suppose is more convenient than the alternative.

Summary

All in all, Bastion is the video game equivalent of listening to a fun, fresh cover version of a classic song. If you’re looking to pass the time by running around killing sentient plants with interesting weapons Secret-of-Mana style, it’s certainly a reasonable place to start.