Review: Assassin's Creed III

Incoherent gameplay, bizarre design choices, and frequent bugs squander much of the potential of this visually and thematically stunning game. Disappointment, thy name is Assassin's Creed III.

Disappointment is a peculiar emotion. I can be angry without first having felt calm, and I can feel happy without first having felt sad, but to be disappointed, I really need to have experienced something else first, usually "optimism". It is this characteristic that makes disappointment the most insidious form of emotional malaise: we are exposed to it entirely of our own volition, by first allowing ourselves to hope.

My friends, readers of my blog, and even strangers with whom I've made accidental eye contact know how uncontrollably optimistic I've been about Assassin's Creed III, beginning with the moment I first saw the leaked box art. It was then that I learned the fifth major installment in Ubisoft's epic action-adventure franchise would take place during the American Revolution, that it would feature a bad-ass tomahawk-wielding Native American, and that it would likely allow me the unique opportunity to scamper around the rooftops of a colonial-era replica of my hometown city of Boston, using British Redcoats as foul-mouthed, tea-swilling archery targets.

However, the clever reader will have inferred from my earlier ramblings concerning "disappointment" that this optimism was... misplaced. So what went wrong? How did Assassin's Creed III make the transition from my Most Anticipated Game of 2012 to Biggest Letdown?

Assassin's Creed III is beautiful, but unfortunately looks aren't everything.

Let's start with the basics. Assassin's Creed III draws its foundation from the other games in the series, relying heavily on their well-established portfolio of game mechanics. As you step back into the Animus to re-live the adventures of yet another historical Assassin (this time it's Ratonhnhaké:ton, a.k.a. "Connor", Desmond's Revolutionary-War-era ancestor), you'll quickly find yourself climbing, sneaking, and murdering again like old times. In fact, you'll feel almost as though you were playing any other Assassin's Creed game... but unfortunately, the key word here is "almost". In its attempts to build upon the franchise's winning formula, Assassin's Creed III somehow manages to struggle with narrative and design elements that its predecessors handled with aplomb.

Here's an example: in past games, you could boost each mission's completion rating (and take on a bit of extra challenge) through certain "optional objectives", such as finishing the mission without being detected, or without taking more than a certain amount of damage. Although this feature reappears in Assassin's Creed III, this time it feels like an afterthought. One mission asked me to perform a certain number of "corner assassinations", though I'm quite certain I was never told what those were. Another mission told me I should tackle a man I was chasing from above, but even after about 20 tries, I couldn't convince Connor to heed my commands to do so. Instead, each time he stubbornly leaped onto one of the other guards nearby, to the extent that I really began to believe he was being deliberately and spitefully obtuse.

Get used to killing Redcoats, because it's a hell of a lot easier than trying to sneak around without alerting them.

This example may seem like garden-variety nitpicking, but Assassin's Creed III is packed with similarly frustrating cases of mechanics that are poorly implemented, totally lacking any sort of narrative context, and occasionally even downright broken. Whereas in past games your primary revenue stream was a sort of real estate side quest that integrated nicely with natural city exploration, now it's a crafting and trading system that takes place through an interface so tedious and clunky that I literally decided to just endure the entire game with a severe cash flow problem rather than suffer through it. Likewise, the revamped Assassin training missions are designed and motivated so badly it almost seems like they're actively trying to discourage you from playing them. And don't even get me started on the lockpicking mini-game, which couldn't have been more awkward if it had involved using a real pair of tweezers to take apart your Xbox Kinect.

While all these minor flaws conspire to kill Assassin's Creed III slowly via death by a thousand cuts, there are also some major flaws trying to shiv it directly in the kidneys. One notable failing is the stealth system, which one suspects would be a core game mechanic in a series based entirely around secretly killing people. In past games stealth has been handled pretty competently, but in Assassin's Creed III your adversaries seem to be hyper-aware, and hiding from them has become more difficult than ever. On several occasions I walked slowly and carefully by guards only to have them spring into "alert" status without warning, forcing me to run away like a little bitch with half the British army at my heels. (I typically led my pursuers halfway across the city while humming "Yakety Sax" to myself, before inevitably giving up on my attempts at evasive maneuvering and simply murdering everyone.) These issues made any part of the game with stealth components extremely frustrating, and any missions where stealth was mandatory downright infuriating.

Apparently, Connor's primary role as a player character is to convince us that Desmond's vapid personality is a hereditary trait.

At this point, I should probably comment on the plot. Rather than heap more criticisms upon a game that already has endured so many, let's first discuss some narrative aspects of Assassin's Creed III that I don't have a problem with. For instance, I don't have a problem with the bizarre sci-fi turn the series has taken, with its "ancient precursor civilization" (à la Mass Effect and Halo), a concept that will certainly go down as the Biggest Game Cliché of 2012. I don't have a problem with Desmond being such a central character, despite the fact that he's about as relatable as a wax statue of Keanu Reeves, and I don't care that Connor is even worse. I don't even have that much a problem with the ending, even though it totally blows.

What does bother me though, is that all of these elements were combined in such disarray, resulting in a plot so completely full of holes, that eventually it compelled me not to care why anyone did anything. Why does Connor become an Assassin? Why should I hunt and kill the Templars, and why should I help the American patriots? What is Connor hoping to achieve? The answers to these questions were usually poorly explained, lacking completely, or they happened well after I'd spent hours completing relevant missions with virtually no context. At one point, Connor became angry at another character for executing a captured enemy... as though I hadn't just spent 25 hours murdering every person in a red coat and a funny hat I ran into just for the hell of it. When your protagonist manages to convince you that he's so oblivious that you shouldn't care what happens to him anymore, that's not a good sign.

The worst part is, killing Redcoats with a tomahawk really is a ton of fun.

If it seems like I'm being too hard on Assassin's Creed III, it's only because it had so much promise, and because at times it even manages to actualize its potential. Visually, the game is absolutely stunning, and the environments have a wonderfully immersive feel, from the lively mercantile docks of colonial Boston, to the burnt-out buildings of New York after the Great Fire, to the tranquil beauty of the New England forests. Moving through these rich historical worlds is especially enjoyable because of the incredible quality of the character animations, as Connor free-climbs cliffs and leaps through treetops with such fluidity and grace it makes the ninjas from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon look like a pair of drunken lemurs. Similarly impressive are the naval battle side quests, which are fun to play and do justice to the epic scale of the Revolutionary War setting. Even the fractured plot has its moments; for example, one of my favorite scenes in the game was a death monologue so well-written that it incorporated the word "tittie", while still managing to be one of the most profound bits of video-game writing I've encountered.

In closing, I've probably been more critical of Assassin's Creed III than it deserves, though in my defense, the game misses a bar that it largely set for itself. With the high quality of previous titles in the series and the immense potential offered by its epic setting, Assassin's Creed III had some big shoes to fill, and it certainly wasn't up to the task. If you've never played an Assassin's Creed game before, then you might not be as disappointed as I was... but if that's truly the case, do yourself a favor and play Assassin's Creed II or Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood instead.

Review: Halo 4

Although Halo 4 introduces great new enemies, weapons, and environments, 343 Industries ultimately plays it safe with this new chapter by skillfully iterating on the canonical Halo experience. 

One of the most disorienting experiences a critic can have is liking something, but not knowing why. In the context of video games it's an epistemological hazard I usually can avoid, but one series that persistently confounds my critical judgement is Halo.

For example, I've never found myself particularly inspired by Halo's militaristic, technology-driven, human-centric brand of science fiction; I instead prefer games like Mass Effect where you get to explore diverse cultural and sociopolitical relationships between advanced civilizations on a galactic scale, and also have sex with aliens. When it comes to competitive multiplayer, I usually opt for something like the deliberate, hyper-violent, highly strategic combat of Gears of War, which makes Halo and its floaty ragdoll physics look like NBA 2K13 by comparison. And in terms of protagonists, I pretty much prefer anybody to the Master Chief, a character so lacking in charisma he makes Gordon Freeman seem like George Clooney.

However, despite all my arguments to the contrary, I really do like Halo. Perhaps it's all those weapons, scattered around the battlefield with the abundance of dandelions in a glen. Perhaps it's the resulting frenzy of fast-paced combat, which resembles a firefight breaking out at the 2557 NRA national gun show. Perhaps its the panoply of bizarre vehicles, and the unfettered glee that accompanies soaring above the fray in a Banshee. Perhaps I just really like punching diminutive alien zealots in the face.

Given how poorly I comprehend my affection for the Halo series, it was with some concern that I approached this newest installment. Marking a return to the original storyline after a five year intermission, and serving as the first major development effort by the new stewards of the franchise, Halo 4 could have been the key to unlocking what I find so appealing about these ridiculous games, or it could have been enough of a misstep to finally break their spell over me.

Don't worry... even though the Chief has never seen this ancient alien weapon before, he won't let that fact keep him from killing stuff with it.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Halo 4 achieved neither of these extremes. Instead, 343 Industries channeled their obvious devotion to the Xbox flagship franchise and delivered an incredibly faithful reproduction of the classic Halo experience. As far as a casual gamer like myself can tell, the fundamentals of the combat are essentially unchanged; other than a dedicated button for short sprinting and fact that the armor ability system of Halo: Reach has been retained, most of the time I felt like I could have been playing any game in the Halo library. (Incidentally, I was a big fan of the Reach ability system, and was psyched to see that the "hologram decoy" makes a triumphant return.) Halo 4 even takes pains to make sure the 10+ hours of single-player campaign include all the requisite gameplay hooks, from the frantic close-combat battles in nondescript futuristic space corridors to the epic clashes of heavy weapons platforms that are really difficult to steer properly.

Unfortunately, Halo 4's commitment to consistency means that a lot of opportunities for innovation are lost. For instance, even though an entire new civilization is introduced—and with it, a wealth of new enemies and technologies—the resulting gameplay changes remarkably little. The new Forerunner weapons reprise the same well-balanced collection of roles already filled by the existing UNSC and Covenant ordnance (e.g. assault rifle, battle rifle, sniper rifle, shotgun), and despite the few novel twists and tricks they throw at you, any new foes you encounter can usually be dispatched with the same old tactics.

Cortana is pretty much naked at all times, whereas John never even takes his helmet off. And that's the least odd thing about this couple.

I'm not really going to offer a critique of the plot of Halo 4, because frankly the entire mythology of the Halo universe confuses the hell out of me. Over the past 10 years I've managed to grasp that the Master Chief (a.k.a. SPARTAN-II commando John-117) is a biologically-engineered super-soldier whose girlfriend is an artificially intelligent computer program that was modeled after his mother and lives in his head. Also, they've saved the universe a few times. Beyond that I'm fairly lost, so if you're the sort of person who plays these games for the story and you've read this far, I've nothing more to offer than my apologies.

Although the campaign is certainly worth playing, as with past Halo games (and pretty much every other first-person shooter), folks are likely to spend most of their Halo 4 quality time in competitive multiplayer. After haranguing all my regular gaming buddies into dropping a bit of their precious pre-holiday cash on this particular title (as opposed to, say, Black Ops 2), I suppose I was relieved to find the multiplayer was as conservatively designed and incrementally innovated as the campaign. Of course, this means that while Halo 4 does well what Halo games typically do well (e.g. robust matchmaking and well-balanced competitive combat), it also does poorly what Halo games typically do poorly (right down to the clunky menus and the litany of arcane, ill-explained game modes). Then again, one of the multiplayer maps is a visually stunning remake of the Halo 3 favorite "Valhalla", so how much can one really complain?

Home of the gods.

Beyond competitive multiplayer, there's also been a general trend this console cycle towards more cooperative multiplayer game modes in shooters. In terms of quality, they typically range from paragons of game design like Gears of War's "Horde mode" to hokey half-assed pandering like Call of Duty's "zombie mode". Unfortunately, Halo 4's "Spartan Ops" cooperative game mode, which consists of episodic collections of co-op side missions, tends more towards the latter. Most missions are essentially glorified shooting galleries, and since you're free to respawn as much as you like, the primary challenge is how long you're willing to mop up the seemingly endless waves of enemies before you grow too bored to continue. If you're really looking to spend some quality time with your friends murdering aliens instead of one another, then playing the campaign in co-op mode is a much better bet.

In closing, I hate saying that Halo 4 is "basically another Halo game", but no matter how I run the numbers, that's the answer I keep coming up with. In other words, if the whole space marine thing has never really been your cup of tea, then Halo 4 is unlikely to be the game that changes your palate. However, if you're an old-school Halo fan looking to get back in the game or a current Reach regular looking to re-up your multiplayer, then Halo 4 is everything you need it to be, and maybe even a little bit more.

Happy 2-Year Blogoversary!

It seems like a lifetime ago that I sat staring blankly at my computer screen in the windowless copy room at my graduate school that served as my makeshift office. It was then that I decided to launch Applied Gaming, because sanity desperately demanded I write about something that wasn't "high-dimensional approximation of positive semidefinite matrices" for a change.

Two years later—despite a dissertation, a second child, and a new house—I'm still writing about the thing I love most in the world. (At least, the thing I love that isn't my wife or our offspring.) I've posted 56 articles (including 20 game reviews), went to my first PAX East, talked with dozens of developers, raised money for charity, and most importantly, I've successfully validated the hundreds of hours (and hundreds of dollars) I've spent on video games in the past two years.

In fact, it's been such a good idea, I plan to keep doing it. So, thanks to all my friends and readers, and keep on visiting the site!

PS - I finished Halo 4 last night; a review is forthcoming.

Assassin's Creed III: Early Thoughts

One of the problems with writing game reviews is that the process compels you to rush through each game as quickly as possible, so that you have an opportunity to share your opinions on a title while most people are still talking about it. While I enjoy having an excuse to tear through in a week a game that took tens or even hundreds of thousands of man-hours to make, it's very different from the way I used to play games, and also very different from the way most of my friends still play them. In fact, I'm not convinced that game critics should be digesting new games this way either, but that's a discussion for another time.

At any rate, every once in a while I choose a game to take my time with and really enjoy. Given that I'm a fan of the Assassin's Creed series, a long-time resident of the Boston area, and a lover (well, at least a liker) of history, Assassin's Creed III was a good choice for a title to really savor. Since I'm about 15 hours now and I'll likely be taking some time off from the game after Halo 4 drops tomorrow, this seemed like a good time to share some of my thoughts thus far.

To get everyone on the same page: Assassin's Creed III is (somewhat confusingly) the fifth major installment in the Assassin's Creed franchise, Assassin's Creed II having had two of its own sub-sequels within the trilogy. In this latest installment, our pal Desmond once again steps into the Animus to experience events through the lives of his ancestors in the hopes of unraveling secrets about the history of the Assassins and their centuries-long war with the Templar Order. This time the history lessons take place during the American Revolution and follow Ratonhnhaké:ton, a half-English, half-Mohawk assassin who thankfully goes by the more pronounceable pseudonym "Connor".

Don't eat the red snow.

My early impressions of the game are that while the environment is fresh and interesting and there have been some of positive changes to the gameplay formula, I'm surprised at how many parts of the game seem way more rough than they should, especially considering how much Assassin's Creed III draws on the mechanics of its predecessors. Ubisoft's decentralized model of development seems to be once again at work here, with some of the game elements being highly refined, and others feeling incredible awkward as hell.

First, the good news. The movement systems have been improved a great deal, so Connor can scale cliffs and skip across tree branches with the same finesse his predecessors reserved for scaling buildings and skipping across rooftops. As someone who has done a bit of outdoor rock climbing, I can say that all of the climbing animations appear fluid and natural, and are genuinely a joy to behold. It's a good thing, too, because there's plenty of mountains and forests in the New World to climb. Another positive new aspect are the naval battles, a series of mini-game side missions that turned out to be way more fun than I thought they'd be. Also, they've added a hunting mechanic, which (despite being kind of a rip-off of Red Dead Redemption) is a fun diversion when you're roaming the New England frontier.

Now, for the bad news. The stealth systems have taken a step backward, with guards having much more heightened and far more unpredictable levels of awareness. Since there are also seem to be a lot fewer places to hide in colonial Boston, I find that after inadvertently sounding the call to arms, I frequently end up being running around for five full minutes before I give up and just stop and slaughter the dozen redcoats chasing me. The combat mechanics also have ticked up a bit on the awkward scale, and thus the whole "assassin" part of Assassin's Creed III is somewhat less rewarding than it has been in the past.

In addition, I'm a little annoyed with some of the open-world aspects. Since I've been taking my time, I've been doing pretty much all of the side quests and optional missions, but they really don't seem to fit into the story very well. For example, I've been going around and infiltrating various British forts, executing their commanders and blowing up their powder reserves before raising the ol' stars-and-stripes. However, there's been hardly any interaction with American Revolution at this point in the story yet (save a single conversation I had with Sam Adams), so I have no idea why Connor would be compelled to do this. I guess he's just a completionist, jonesing for that 100% achievement.

In closing, so far Assassin's Creed III has been a mixed bag across the board. (Example: new fast travel system, good; new menu system, not so good.) However, if you like the Assassin's Creed series (which I do), the novelties this incarnation has to offer make it well worth playing. At this point I'm really too early in the story to comment on the plot (other than the first big twist, which I did not see coming and really enjoyed), but I'm hoping that in the end it turns out to be good enough to give Assassin's Creed III a winning record overall.

Review: Dishonored

Though it suffers from some of the common issues of first-person stealth games, Dishonored's rich world and engaging gameplay make it well worth your time.

I've always found extremely frustrating the style of gameplay typically engendered by stealth elements. In games like Metal Gear Solid or Assassin's Creed, no matter how hard I try, I find there's a huge gap between the player I want to be and the player I actually am. The player I want to be is a cunning, graceful, and deadly phantom who strikes fear into the hearts of his enemies. The player I am is the guy who accidentally alerts the first guard he encounters and then is forced to clumsily mass-murder everyone in the room.

For stealth to work well, a game needs to be designed with clear, reliable mechanics paired with intuitive systems for player feedback, which is why the XBLA title Mark of the Ninja released earlier this year was such a phenomenal game. These requirements are also why I find first-person 3-D stealth games like Thief and Deus Ex to be problematic—in this setting it's much harder to design good mechanics for visibility and to communicate when the player is hidden and what actions will cause them to be detected.

However, both Thief and Deus Ex are highly acclaimed works, because they create captivating worlds and then give us the breath of gameplay choices to interact with these worlds in a variety of interesting ways. Consequently, even though I suspected Dishonored might suffer many of the canonical pitfalls of first-person stealth games, I felt it only fair to give it the same chance to impress me with its world and the things I might do in it.

Let's start with a bit of background: Dishonored is set in the fictional city-state of Dunwall, a industrial-era Victorian sort of place where everything is powered by magical whale oil. Unfortunately, all this blubber-driven technology has little effect on a devastating plague that is decimating the city, and things quickly go from bad to worse when the Empress of Dunwall is murdered and you, her personal bodyguard and occasional boy-toy, are blamed for it. Shortly before your impending execution, standard video game tropes finally work their magic a grant you a means to escape, new weapons and gadgets, and supernatural powers, i.e. everything you need to go on a murderous campaign to seek revenge on the people that ruined your life and betrayed your country.

Dunwall is like the England of Charles Dickens crossed with the England of Children of Men.

I won't ruin the rest of the story except to say that there are a few plot twists, though I found them all to be fairly predictable. (And mind you, I'm the sort of person who rarely guesses plot twists beforehand.) However, what Dishonored lacks in story it more than compensates for in terms of ambiance and gameplay.

First, regarding ambiance: a lot of games do post-apocalyptic and pre-apocalyptic well, but rarely does one get a chance to enjoy straight-up apocalyptic. Dishonored does a great job of creating a city on the brink of total ruin, from the rat-infested slums to the lavish brothels and mansions where the aristocracy fortify themselves against the diseased masses. While other games might use such a setting as an opportunity for pointed social commentary, Dishonored seems content merely to use this world as a colorful backdrop for your personal quest for justice and revenge. This earnest portrayal, combined with well-written, superbly acted dialogue and a slightly stylized, hand-painted art style (think "disturbed Norman Rockwell"), make the world of Dishonored a very real and very fascinating place to inhabit.

After playing these kinds of games for a while, I find that I check my six a lot more often.

Second, regarding gameplay: as I'd originally feared, Dishonored makes a lot of missteps in their version of the traditional stealth mechanics. It's often difficult to tell at a glance if you're hidden or not, and the visual and audio cues that indicate an enemy has spotted you are subtle and easy to miss. More than a few times, while lying in wait to launch a devious attack on an unsuspecting guard, I was interrupted by being stabbed repeatedly in the back of the head by some guy I didn't even know was there. If you're trying to get through the missions clean, save frequently and be prepared to look at the loading screen a whole lot.

However, in many ways Dishonored is able to compensate for these issues by offering a diverse array of additional mechanics, allowing for the sort of player-choice-driven gameplay that made games like Thief and Deus Ex so successful. For example, imagine you're trying to infiltrate a particular building with the intent of sending one of your former colleagues into forced retirement. You might choose to use your mystical dark powers to (a) possess a rat and crawl in through a broken vent, (b) teleport to a second story ledge and sneak in through an open window, or (c) freeze time and then plant an exploding razor mine on the chest of the guard at the front door. Dishonored also takes great pains to extend this level of player choice to each mission as a whole. Each target has a number of ways they can be dispatched, from a simple knife to the face, to creatively engineered "accidents", to non-lethal (but often far more cruel) methods, which involve dropping the hammer of poetic justice on your adversaries by using the very things that made them powerful against them.

Here's an example of some guards "troubleshooting" a security barrier you've tampered with.

In fact, games elements like these "non-lethal" objectives are indicative of how Dishonored manages to still be successful without "solving the stealth problem". Even though I could have eschewed the temperamental stealth mechanics entirely and just cut a bloody swath through Dunwall head-on, the prospect of secretly getting my revenge without ever being seen or getting my hands dirty held a certain allure. (Also, there was the temptation of getting the "Ghost" achievement for not being detected or taking a life the entire game.) And for an imperceptive stealth-impaired klutz like myself, the fact that Dishonored managed to keep me happily skulking around rooftops for about 30 hours should be pretty high praise indeed.

What I've Been Playing

October has been a hell of a month. First of all, on October 20th I completed the Extra Life 24-hour gaming marathon, and (with the help of some very generous friends) raised $1,462 for Boston Children's Hospital. Other exciting events included catching a debilitating stomach virus during which I literally lost a week down the toilet, my son turning four, and a hurricane. And now I realize there's more excitement yet to come, as I look upon this freshly delivered copy of Assassin's Creed III. Here's a rundown of everything (at least, everything video-game-related) that happened this month.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Xbox 360)

It's hard for a pessimist like me to remember this, but sometimes dreams do come true. XCOM: Enemy Unknown—the recent remake/reboot of the 1994 game XCOM: UFO Defense—turned out to be every bit of the experience I hoped it would be, and then some.

Most of what I needed to say I put in my review, but to summarize: Firaxis did a superb job of translating an 18-year-old PC cult classic to a modern console setting, by staying true to the spirit of the original while making some bold changes to the core gameplay. Perhaps the best assessment of this balance came from Chris Schilling in his review at VideoGamer.com: "Enemy Unknown is respectful of Julian Gollop's 1994 turn-based strategy classic, but it's not reverential." Whether you're a fan of the original, or simply a fan of turn-based strategy, aliens, challenging gameplay, and/or being eviscerated by mutant cyborg space bugs, you should check out XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Bomberman LIVE (Xbox LIVE Arcade)

As I've mentioned in the past, my friends and I have a standing Thursday night Xbox LIVE play-date, brilliantly dubbed "TNGN" (Thursday Night Game Night). Though traditionally staunch Gears of War supporters, we recently began to tire of blowing each other away with sawed-off shotguns, something I genuinely thought we would never tire of.

To break the monotony, last month we dug out our old Halo 3 discs, and soon we were joyriding in Banshees across the Valhalla map like we'd never left. (For a five-year-old game, it holds up incredibly well.) Of course, we quickly realized that with Halo 4 coming out November 6, perhaps we should find another way to spend Thursday nights in October. (Besides, of course, with our families.)

I don't know who mentioned it, but someone pointed out that there was a Bomberman game on Xbox LIVE Arcade, and we were sold. After all, we all remembered that Super Bomberman for the SNES was the ultimate party video game when we were kids. It was easy to learn, difficult to master, fun as all hell, and once the bad blood started to build up after a few rounds of cheap shots and broken alliances, no other game was better at causing a bench-clearing brawl. Good times.

However, before you go out and drop 800 credits ($10) on the XBLA version, a quick word of caution. There have literally been dozens of Bomberman games, and although I'm nowhere near well-versed enough to claim that Bomberman LIVE is the worst among these, I have to believe it's somewhere near the bottom. There's little in the way of single-player options (e.g. no campaign), its menu system is so poorly designed that it almost appears to be intentionally obtuse, and the online support is cumbersome, requiring you to re-invite your party to the game whenever you change the slightest details of the match setup. Having voiced those complaints, I can now say that once you do finally manage to get an eight-player match of Bomberman LIVE working, you realize that playing even a half-assed version of this classic game online with seven of your best friends from around the country is a hell of a good time.

Dishonored (Xbox 360)

I played Dishonored for almost the full 24 hours of my Extra Life marathon, and before I took ill last week, I fully intended to write a review of it. Unfortunately, with Assassin's Creed III now in my hands, a review is seeming somewhat less likely. Nevertheless, I thought it was a high-quality game deserving of some careful discussion, so I'm going to hold off on my comments for the time being, with the hope of publishing a review by the end of the week.

LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga (Xbox 360)

Like music, televison, or film, finding quality video games that are appropriate for young children can be difficult. However, as is true for the Beatles, Sesame Street, or Pixar movies, some of the best video games transcend generations, appealing to kids and adults alike.

When I first played LEGO Star Wars on the PlayStation 2, it was a magical experience. Legos, Star Wars, and video games: three pillars of nerd culture, impossibly combined into a thoroughly enjoyable experience that didn't feel anywhere near as exploitative as it should have.

Unfortunately, like so many wonderful things in this life, I totally forgot about LEGO Star Wars until a friend recently reminded me about it. After spending 60 seconds and $20 on Amazon, two days later my son and I were chasing down our lost droids on Tatooine. Now I get to spend quality time with my son while playing a game that's actually fun for an adult.

The only problem is that now my son believes the canonical version of Star Wars is the one where Jedi use the Force build their own spaceships out of Lego bricks.

So that pretty much wraps up October. Now, I'm off to re-fight the American revolution in Assassin's Creed III. If I'm lucky, I'll be so busy patriotically murdering redcoats for the next week that I won't have to see another political ad between now and the election.

Extra Life 2012 Charity Gaming Marathon: Live Blog

A word of caution: my live updates may contain spoilers for Dishonored, and probably also for Lego Star Wars. If you're worried that discussions of Lego pantomime might ruin the plot of a 30-year-old movie, you might want to stop reading now.

Today's the big day! It's the morning of Saturday, October 20th, and I've got snacks, drinks, a comfy chair, extra batteries, and a freshly-opened copy of Dishonored for the Xbox 360. I'm ready to spend the next 24 hours playing video games for charity. Well... for charity, and because I really like playing video games.

But first, I'd like to thank everyone who donated. Not only did we raise $1,412 for Boston Children's Hospital, but I learned that my friends are way more generous than I give them credit for. Now of course, it's not a competition... but if it was, as of this morning we'd be ranked 84 out of the 15,020 Extra Life participants, and 4th in our "division" (i.e. people who are raising money specifically for Boston Children's Hospital). I'd say we kicked some ass. You know, if it were a competition. Hypothetically.

But enough with the small talk... I came to play. For the children.

---

8:00 AM (Extra Life Complete!)

We did it! $1,462 raised and 24 hours played (and in addition, I got 640 gamerpoints worth of Xbox achievements out of the deal). Thanks once again to everyone who donated! Now, I'm going to nap for a few hours... which is perfect timing, because our kids just got up... in fact, my son wants us to play more Lego Star Wars.

7:00 AM (Hour #24)

This is it! The final hour. I have to say that Dishonored turned out to be an interesting choice for this gaming marathon. It was the right length for this event, and it had a nice, coherent story arc that was fun to experience in a single, continuous session. It was like watching an entire mini-series in one sitting. Despite its flaws, I've really enjoyed it, although perhaps at this point I'm suffering from something like Stockholm Syndrome.

6:00 AM (Hour #23)

Two hours left. I think I've earned a beer.

5:00 AM (Hour #22)

Three hours to go. I think I got my second wind, which I used to dispose of the Pendleton twins a second time.

4:00 AM (Hour #21)

I'm finally willing to admit that even for me, 24 straight hours of video games is a lot.

3:00 AM (Hour #20)

I started Dishonored over from the beginning. With the freedom of being able to murder anyone I please without having to constantly re-load my saved game, I was able to tear through the first two missions in about 1/4 of the time it took me yesterday morning.

2:00 AM (Hour #19)

Well, it took nearly all of the 18 hours I've been playing so far, but I beat Dishonored! What's more, I completed it with the "Clean Hands", "Shadow", and "Ghost" achievements, which means I saved the city of Dunwall without killing anyone and without being seen by a single enemy. It was a fairly frustrating way to play the game (with a lot of re-loading), although it did lead to some interesting problem solving using the wide array of weapons, powers, and gadgets that Dishonored has to offer. I suppose now I'll start over from the beginning, just see what it's like to go through the game while murdering anyone who looks at me sideways.

1:00 AM (Hour #18)

Okay, that wasn't the final mission, but I'm sure this one is. I was cruising right along for a while, but these last few parts of Dishonored have been kind of bullshit. There's enemies everywhere, and they seem to have absurdly large fields of vision. Combined with the fact that the game doesn't notify you terribly well when you've "alerted" a guard (there's a tiny icon and barely audible sound cue), it's been pretty frustrating trying to play through these missions totally clean.

12:00 AM (Hour #17)

Time for the graveyard shift... only 8 hours left! I've got a fresh cup of coffee, and I'm pretty sure I'm nearing the end of Dishonored.

11:00 PM (Hour #16)

I'm facing a bit of a dilemma... I could really go for a drink, but I'm thinking that might not be conducive to gaming for another 9 hours. I probably should have a coffee. Maybe I'll compromise and have an Irish coffee.

10:00 PM (Hour #15)

It's not over.

9:00 PM (Hour #14)

The Lord Regent will... no longer be a problem. It's all over, right? Right??

8:00 PM (Hour #13)

Halfway done! The Death Star has been destroyed, we escaped the Cloud City, and then there was a lot more tears and screaming as bedtime descended. But now the offspring are in their rooms, peace has returned to the galaxy, and I'm heading back to Dunwall.

7:00 PM (Hour #12)

The family's back home, so I've switch to playing some Lego Star Wars until it's time for the kiddies to go to bed.

6:00 PM (Hour #11)

I'm starting to wonder how bad playing video games for 24 hours straight is for my physical health. Better than a hot-dog eating contest? Worse than joining an intramural Beirut league?

5:00 PM (Hour #10)

Food accomplished. After a brisk walk on a beautiful October day and a buffalo chicken wrap, I'm fully recharged and ready to sit on my ass for the next 15 hours.

4:00 PM (Hour #9) 

Eight hours down. I'm feeling like I'm about halfway through Dishonored, or perhaps even a little more. Now would be a good time to take a walk with Ocarina of Time for the 3DS and grab some take-out. I'll try not to get hit by a car.

3:00 PM (Hour #8) 

Wow, it's really nice outside. Perhaps I should take a break and bring my Nintendo 3DS for a walk.

2:00 PM (Hour #7) 

Either it's because I'm getting better at this game, or because my house is actually calm and quiet for a change, but this mission seems a lot more manageable than the last. From the few times I've screwed up, I've found that the combat is actually pretty well done. Too bad I'm trying to get through the game without killing anyone.

1:00 PM (Hour #6)

Neutralized the High Overseer in deliciously ironic fashion. Apparently my next mission will take me to a brothel, to dispose of the infamous Pendleton twins. I'm getting the hang of the controls and mechanics, but they still suffer from a lot of the issues I've found in other first-person stealth games. It's hard to tell when you're properly hidden or not, and things like climbing and jumping tend to be very finicky.

12:00 PM (Hour #5)

After several hours of screaming, the kids are finally out of the house and on their way to a birthday party for the rest of the day. Not a moment to soon, because this no-kill approach to Dishonored is pretty godsdamned frustrating. I may need to start dropping bodies soon.

11:00 AM (Hour #4)

My quest for justice is proceeding well. Soon I should quest for some lunch, though.

10:00 AM (Hour #3)

Stumbled my way through the tutorial mission, and mission #2 is under way. At one point I had to convince my son that the "sleeping" corpse he saw was "playing" with that swarm of ravenous plague-infested rats.

9:00 AM (Hour #2)

Dishonored so far: it seems I used to have honor, but then I lost it. Most of the people in this city seem to be real assholes; it's going to be tough making it through this game without killing anyone.

8:00 AM (Hour #1)

Popped in Dishonored... I'm good to go. Despite being a first-person stealth action game about bloody revenge, apparently there's an achievement if you make it through the game without killing anyone. I've told my wife that perhaps this will help us get through today while minimizing the number of murders my children witness.

Review: XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Remakes are always tricky, but Firaxis beat the odds to deliver a phenomenal game with XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Even those who have never touched an XCOM game before should give it a chance.

Remakes and reboots are a dicey business. Whether you're painstakingly modernizing a beloved classic for the next generation (see: Black Mesa) or engaging in slash-and-burn nostalgia farming to score a quick buck (see: TMNT Turtles in Time: Re-Shelled for XBLA), it's always a delicate balancing act. On one hand, if you stick too close to the original, you risk people realizing how poorly the gameplay of their favorite childhood title has aged. On the other hand, if you take too many liberties updating a cherished franchise, the Internet will spontaneously combust into a ceaseless bitch-fest regarding how much better the original was, and there's a good chance you'll burn for your sacrilege.

Consequently, I was a little hesitant when I heard that one of my favorite games of all time—Microprose's 1994 title XCOM: UFO Defense—was getting a reboot. Then, the other shoe dropped: the new 2K Games-published XCOM wasn't going to be an updated version of the classic tactical strategy game that devoured so many of my adolescent weekends. Instead, it was going to be a first-person shooter. It was official: XCOM had sold out.

Now in some imaginary, fairy-tale alternate universe, a representative from 2K would give me a call to respond to my obvious despair. In a soothing, kindly voice like that of Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman, he'd say: "Don't worry, son... we're also going to publish another XCOM game. It'll be a carefully crafted turn-based strategy game that builds on the original while capturing the spirit of everything you loved as a kid."

However, against all odds, the alternate universe turned out to be this one, because this is what actually happened. I even heard ol' Red's voice in my mind as I read the press release. Even better, development of the game would be placed in the capable hands of Firaxis Games (home of Sid Meier and the renowned Civilization series).

It's a miracle!

By now, the perceptive reader will have gotten the impression that I'm very happy with the game that Firaxis produced. My satisfaction is with good reason, as XCOM: Enemy Unknown is thoughtfully designed and skillfully executed, making several bold changes to the formula while still feeling like the game I've loved for all these years. However, rather than continue to wax rhapsodic, I figured I would instead discuss five specific changes that make Enemy Unknown seem fresh and innovative, yet spiritually faithful to the original.

#1: Streamlined movement and combat systems

Like the original XCOM, all the gameplay in Enemy Unknown takes place in one of two settings. The first is the "world view", where you can manage your personnel and resources, and decide how to respond to threats like UFO detections, alien abductions, and terror attacks. The second is the "mission view", where your forces engage in turn-based tactical combat against a field of alien opponents.

In original game, each soldier began his or her turn in combat with a fixed budget of "action points", which could be carefully doled out for everything from walking to shooting to rearranging the grenades in your fanny pack. In Enemy Unknown, everyone gets to perform at most two movements, and/or one other action such as attacking or reloading.

One thing that compensates for this change is the new cover mechanic, wherein objects in the environment offer either full or half cover, allowing for combatants to be flanked depending on the direction of their protection. The result allows for combat that is just as tactically rich as the "action point" system, while being much faster paced and simpler to control. It also results in combat that looks and feels much more realistic and natural.

#2: Soldier classes and abilities

One of the concerns many fans had about Enemy Unknown was the reduced squad size. Instead of being able to roll in to a UFO crash site with enough grunts to fill out an active baseball roster, Enemy Unknown starts you with only four soldiers per mission, with the possibility of eventually upgrading to six.

The Heavy. (How you like me now?)

Fortunately, the future soldier of 2015 is much more capable and versatile than the future soldier of 1999. For example, your troops in Enemy Unknown are assigned classes that allow them to perform specific roles, namely "Assault" (first strike run-and-gun critical hitters), "Heavy" (machine-gun wielding, rocket-launching human tanks), "Support" (tactical experts and field medics), and "Sniper" (headshotting angels of death). Moreover, as each soldier gains ranks, they can unlock special abilities such as improved defense and extra attacks. Late in the game, having a medic that can carry three medkits instead of one or a sniper that gets to take two shots in a turn can mean difference between your squad heading home victorious and your squad ending up a pile of melted plasma on the ground.

#3: Refined inventory management

Being somewhat obsessive-compulsive, in the original XCOM I used to fully enjoy the 20 minutes before each mission I spent manually placing every weapon, ammo clip, and grenade in every utility belt and backpack my soldiers were carrying. However, I'll concede it did hamper the pacing of the game somewhat. In Enemy Unknown, most of the minutia of inventory management are taken care of for you. For instance, each soldier is limited to two weapons determined by their class, as well as armor and one additional item (e.g. a grenade or medkit). While this may sound restrictive, I found it actually improved gameplay by forcing me to learn the nuances of each weapon type and to be a more careful how I used one-shot items like grenades.

The streamlined resource management extends to the meta-game as well. Gone are the days when you had to order individual missiles for your interceptors, or worry that your soldiers might storm into their next battle with plenty of guns but no ammunition. Such issues apparently are handled automatically by your underlings, leaving you to worry about more important matters like which technologies your labs should research, which vehicles and facilities you should spend your shoestring budget on, and most importantly, how to keep political pressures from tearing apart the uneasy international alliance whose funding keeps the lights on at XCOM central command.

#4: Overarching narrative

One of the things I loved most about the original game were the storylines that emerged directly from the gameplay, like surviving a challenging mission because one of your rookies nails a lucky shot, or botching a routine UFO recovery when one of your senior officers turns out to be a coward. Enemy Unknown has managed to re-create this part of the classic XCOM experience, and even enhanced it a bit with subtle touches like squad member nicknames and a memorial for fallen soldiers. (In fact, you can check out my squad's story in this recent post.)

If "love is a battlefield", then prepare for some of the roughest loving you've ever experienced.

However, Firaxis also has worked to give a sense of narrative to the campaign as a whole. Rather than trying to lead the human race to victory by randomly researching technologies and attacking every UFO in sight, you can listen to your advisors to get an idea of how all these pieces fit together and what primary objectives will move the plot along. As with the extended in-game tutorial (which spans many hours and multiple missions), Enemy Unknown manages to add this extra level of guidance with a light enough touch to keep it from becoming too much hand-holding.

#5: Updated visual design

Improving the look of a game is one of the most obvious things a remake can do. In fact, Enemy Unknown is somewhat modest in this respect, with graphics that are solid but certainly not state-of-the-art.

Where this remake really excels, though, is in its environments and atmosphere. Each mission is a vignette, conveying its own sense of a world under siege through each abandoned gas station, crumbling cemetery, and burned-out bookstore. Even when you finally start to cycle around to maps you've seen before, variables like weather will make them seem fresh.

What didn't work so well?

As a critic, I would be remiss if I didn't point out some of the places where the design of XCOM: Enemy Unknown doesn't quite deliver. One of the things I found bothersome was that you can only shoot at hostile targets within your visual range. This limitation undermines some of my favorite classic XCOM plays, like shooting out a wall to get a better line-of-sight, or taking a Hail Mary shot from across the field.

Another issue is that when you first spot a group of aliens they're allowed an extra, instant move to take cover positions. Aside from being annoying, in close quarters you can end up with your squad standing idly by while a hulking Muton Berserker trots past your carefully organized defenses without encountering so much as a disapproving glance.

Oh... and I almost forgot to mention that the final level is pretty much total bullshit.

Summary

To wrap up this already way-too-long review: XCOM: Enemy Unknown isn't a perfect game, but it may be the best remake I've ever seen. Firaxis took on a huge challenge in updating one of the most beloved PC games in history, and they pretty much nailed it. It's so good that I could see myself never playing the original XCOM again... and when it comes to high praise for a remake, it doesn't get any higher than that.

Extra Life 2012 Is Tomorrow!

The Extra Life 2012 charity gaming marathon starts tomorrow, Saturday, October 20th! Starting at 8:00 AM, I'll be playing video games for 24 hours straight. That should be more than enough hours to log some good quality time with Dishonored, although I'll likely end up playing some Lego Star Wars with my son, and maybe a bit of Bomberman too. Regardless of what I'm playing, I'll be live blogging and tweeting all day, because the only thing more fun than playing video games for one full rotation of the Earth is reading about it on the Internet.

I just want to take a moment to thank everyone who donated. Because of your amazing generosity (the average donation was $78.38!), we absolutely crushed our goal of $1,000, with our current total standing at $1,254. To be totally honest, part of the appeal of doing this charity event (other than the excuse to play video games, of course) is how good I would feel about myself. I wasn't expecting how good it would make me feel about other people.

If you haven't donated yet, there's still time! Here's a link to the donation page: http://www.extra-life.org/participant/appliedgaming.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow! As for a Sunday with two kids and zero sleep... well, that I'm looking less forward to.

Extra Life 2012 Update

Update: we've passed our goal—thank you to everyone who has donated! Of course, $1000 was just an arbitrary number I picked, mostly because it seemed achievable and because it looks pretty in our conventional base-10 number system. There's no reason we can't raise even more!

Just a reminder... the Extra Life charity gaming marathon is this Saturday, October 20th! Starting at 8:00 AM, I'll be playing video games for 24 hours straight to benefit the Children's Miracle Network. So far we've raised $824 to help Boston Children's Hospital treat sick and injured children, and I'm hoping that by this weekend, we'll have raised the rest of our $1,000 pledge.

Of course, that's where you come in. If you haven't donated yet, now's the time! Every little bit helps... sure, a $50 or $100 donation is a great way to both help children and win some brownie points with your truly, but even $5 or $10 gets us closer to our goal. Here's the link to my donation page: http://www.extra-life.org/participant/appliedgaming.

Also, on the day of the event, don't forget to check back here at Applied Gaming! I'll be live blogging with updates every hour, so you can make sure that I'm playing video games non-stop instead of "slacking off".

Diary of an XCOM Soldier

The following is an account of my squad's activities during the first 6 hours or so of gameplay of XCOM: Enemy Unknown. A remake of the classic PC strategy game, XCOM asks you to command an elite international task force defending Earth against a mounting extraterrestrial invasion. Pretty much everything I've written here is exactly how it happened in my game (though slightly embellished). I've included a few very minor spoilers, though there's nothing here that should surprise anyone who is familiar with the XCOM series.

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1 March 2015 — Operation First Vanguard — Los Angeles, USA

First mission with the new squad, though I'm still in shock from my final one with Delta. Wilson, Lebedev, Matusumoto, and I had been training together for months. They were all better soldiers than me, but somehow I was the only one to survive.

Now I'm with a bunch of rookies. Two American women—a chatty one named Payne and a bull-faced brute named Smith—as well as a Russian medic named Golubev. They didn't stop talking the whole flight about how many "greys" they were going to kill. Well, this was my chance to get some payback for what happened in Germany, and I wasn't going to let a bunch of gossiping rookies get in the way.

The mission went pretty much like clockwork. Smith didn't keep her head down and caught a pretty nasty wound for it, but other than that we took out the hostiles without too much trouble. Before we knew it, the last two aliens were holed up in a small warehouse. Knowing first-hand what these things are capable of, I took the whole place down with my rocket launcher. Problem solved.

5 March 2015 — Operation Secret Gaze — Osaka, Japan

Feeling good about the success of our last mission, command sent us to extract a high-value asset trapped in Osaka. With Smith still laid up, they added a Mexican named Garza to our squad. She's a stone-cold bitch, but an unbelievable shot with a sniper rifle.

We contacted the VIP without too much trouble, but on the way back to the ship we encountered some new type of alien—the "Thin Man". At first they look sort of human, but once they move, you can tell they're anything but. Seeing those freaky bastards with their dead lizard eyes must have rattled me, because I got flanked and took some heavy fire. We got out of there alive, but now I've got 8 days in the med bay to think about my mistake.

15 March 2015 — Operation Patient Justice — Undisclosed Location, USA

One of our interceptors finally took down a UFO! They sent us in to the crash site to clean up and secure some of the alien tech. Just when I was getting used to "Sectoids" and "Thin Men", we ran into a new kind of alien, some kind of being made of crystal and energy. Well, Garza showed us that energy or not, a headshot kills it just as dead as anything else. Actually, maybe deader, since there wasn't much left of the thing afterwards.

I guess I've been doing a good job leading the squad, because after the mission the Commander promoted me to Sergeant. The guys have started calling me "Nova"... I assume because of my explosive personality, or maybe just my temper.

21 March 2015 — Operation Crystal Giant — Bangalore, India

We got sent out to check out reports of an alien bomb in the Bangalore subway. This time the brass said they want us to snag one of the aliens alive. They gave us something the lab cooked up to stun them called an "Arc Thrower", but it only works at close range.

Well, we tried getting close enough to use the damn thing, but it wasn't easy since we were also trying to disable enough power sources to keep the alien bomb from nuking the place. We ended up having to shoot to kill, and got ourselves pretty shot up in the process.

Command was not happy about our failure to bring back a live specimen for interrogation. They made it very clear it was a top priority for our next mission.

28 March 2015 — Operation Empty Hammer — Port Said, Egypt

Another report of alien abductions... this time in a cemetery, of all places. The squad was still beat up from the last mission, so we took a rookie with us, a huge Brazilian dude named Guzman.

I thought I had things under control, but then Golubev (we've been calling him "Doc") got separated from us and ended up trapped in a room with three hostiles closing in. Knowing he was probably done for, he rushed one and zapped it with the Arc Thrower. Then, just before the others got to him, Garza dropped one with an amazing headshot, while Guzman took out the other through a window.

We've started calling Garza "Demon", because if she so much as looks at something, it's dead.

4 April 2015 — Operation Lone Savior — Undisclosed Location, USA

Fucking brass. We brought back a live grey for them, so what did they want next? For us to do the same with one of those goddamn "energy beings".

Well, this was supposed to be a routine crash recovery mission, but it all went to hell. We had the energy being locked down, but when Payne rushed in to take it out, it had its plasma rifle ready. Seeing Payne hit the ground with half her head melted off, I said a big "fuck you" to command and shoved a rocket up that thing's ass, or wherever it is you shove things in a being made of goddamn crystals and energy.

8 April 2015 — Operation Cold Mist — Sapporo, Japan

Another alien abduction. I think the squad is still pretty shook up about Payne. We've got two new recruits, VanDyke and Konig, but no one has paid much attention to them, including me.

We ran into some new aliens again—crazy rocket-powered things we called "Floaters". They move so fast, they even got to Garza in the rear guard. She was bleeding out, and there was no way I could get to her, but I wasn't going to lose another soldier. So, I rushed in like a maniac and mowed down the last two. I took heavy fire, but it was worth it... we got her out of there just in time.

19 April 2015 — Operation Cold Gaze — Melbourne, Austrailia

We must have pissed off the bugs, because they launched an all-out terror attack on Melbourne. We were too late for the initial strike, but we dropped in to try to rescue some of the remaining civilians.

We encountered another new alien, some sort of giant four-legged metal bug that turns people into zombies. No shit... actual zombies. Well, they were in for a surprise, because after a childhood full of video games, I'm pretty damn good at killing zombies. Not only did we take out all of the remaining hostiles, we also managed to save all but 3 of the 18 survivors in the drop zone.

20 April 2015 — Operation Banished Spark — Alexandria, Egypt

Who makes up the stupid code names for these operations?

We were still riding high after kicking ass in Melbourne yesterday, when command sent us in to counter yet another alien abduction. I think we'd be a lot better off if we could get these fuckers before they touch down.

I think VanDyke had something to prove after sitting the bench during yesterday's mission, because she went out there guns blazing. In fact, she got a little too out-of-control, because once she started taking some heavy fire, she started to lose it.

The squad was able to keep it together though, and we brought everyone back alive. I even got promoted to Major. I'm really starting to believe that we can win this thing, and send these bug-eyed monsters back to wherever they came from.

6 May 2015 — Operation Broken Bell — Bangalore, India

Things were quiet for a while, but then they sent us in to deal with another alien abduction. It seemed like a routine mission, so I brought along VanDyke and a rookie named Gusev. But instead of Sectoids or Thin Men, we ran into a totally new kind of alien—these giant, hulking green monsters that you could unload an entire clip on, and they still wouldn't go down.

It was a massacre. We thought we had them pinned down, but then one of the brutes threw some sort of alien grenade. It killed Doc instantly, and messed up VanDyke real bad. Guzev totally lost it and ran off in the opposite direction of the ship, shooting wildly and screaming.

I didn't want to leave Guzev behind, but with VanDyke and Garza both in rough shape and those green monsters closing in, I had to abort the mission. A small, dark part of me hoped that Guzev was already dead, so that we weren't really abandoning him... but then I swear I heard him yelling as we took off.

Maybe this war is going to be a lot worse I thought.

Review: Borderlands 2

At times tightly designed and brilliantly executed, while at other times uninspired and juvenile, Borderlands 2 is an idiot savant of a first-person shooter.

On the lawless border world of Pandora, four "vault hunters"—a soldier, an assassin, a brute, and a powerful sorceress—are on a quest to find an legendary alien treasure. Guided by a mysterious artificial intelligence and assisted by a bizarre cast of supporting characters, these four brave adventurers battle feral creatures, psychotic bandits, and the forces of an evil corporation as they search for the mythical Eridian Vault and its promise of immeasurable wealth and power.

This little tale was the premise of the original Borderlands, and having sunk a lot of time into the first game, it is a story with which I am quite familiar. Consequently, I was somewhat disappointed when I realized a few minutes into the introduction of Borderlands 2 that this was also the premise of the sequel.

However, after spending a lot more time with the second game, I realized how wrong I was. Borderlands 2 isn't really about vault hunters, nor is it about "Handsome Jack" (the game's narcissistic, sociopathic, endlessly chatty villain), nor is it a commentary on imperialism and corporate greed, nor is it about murdering lots of dudes to snag color-coded loot. (Well, maybe it's a little bit about that last thing.) Rather, Borderlands 2 is about expectations, and why you should put yours aside when you play this game. It's also about an inbred chubby-chasing mechanic named Scooter.

I'm convinced that understanding this man is the secret to understanding Borderlands.

Like the original, Borderlands 2 is a self-styled "role-playing shooter" (RPS), combining the gameplay of a first-person shooter with the kinds of leveling systems, random weapon drops, and quest structures more traditionally found in role-playing games. Throughout the game's fairly linear mission structure ("go to point A, kill thing B, repeat") you'll encounter a variety of bizarre characters, such as an unbelievably annoying and foul-mouthed tween of a demolitions expert, a cyborg anthropologist who comes across more or less like a black Rudyard Kipling (how's that for irony?), and the four vault hunters from the original Borderlands (formerly a bland collection of nearly mute player characters, now somehow infused with distinct personalities).

However, the character I found most intriguing was Scooter, who reprises his role as the redneck proprietor of the "Catch-A-Ride" vehicle creation system. Scooter is friendly, talkative, funny, secretly romantic, and likely quite inbred, which is unsurprising given the occasional allusions to his incestuous urges. Despite his affable nature, he's got a casual murder or two under his belt, indicating that he's achieved the same level of moral flexibility exhibited by everyone else on this brutal wasteland of a planet. Also, he's a savant when it comes to engineering, and he seems to be one of the only people around capable of dealing with Pandora's incredibly advanced technology. In short, Scooter is Borderlands 2: an uninspired, frequently predictable stereotype full of crass behavior and juvenile dialogue, but one that also exhibits flashes of true technical genius, genuinely funny comedy, and uncharacteristic emotional depth.

Borderlands 2 may be the smartest dumb game I've ever played.

All of this brings me back to my original point about expectations. It would be easy to say that Borderlands 2 is simply "more Borderlands", because on a certain level that's the truth. It would be similarly easy to view it as yet another first-person game with RPG elements (à la Mass Effect, Bioshock, Fallout, or Deus Ex), with a repetitive mission structure and too much hand-holding. Likewise, it would be perfectly reasonable to take in the game's gratuitous violence, meet its over-the-top characters, and listen to their many jokes that fall flat more often than not, and then find yourself turned off by a title that seems like it is simply trying too hard.

A better approach, though, is to put your expectations aside and leave yourself open to the true moments of brilliance that can be found in Borderlands 2. It can be found in the expertly balanced combat, the amazing diversity of weapons (with their impressive array of custom reloading and firing animations), or among the many subtle improvements Gearbox has made to the enemy AI. It can be seen in the franchise's unique "concept art" graphical style, which feels more lovingly hand-drawn yet stylishly hyper-real than ever. It can be found in a ninja assassin who speaks only in haikus and emoticons (which is who I played most of the game as), and in a villain who turns out to be a much more complicated brand of douchebag than he originally seems. And of course, sometimes that brilliance can come from a porn-addicted hillbilly mechanic and amateur poet named Scooter, who helped me save the world of Pandora while making me laugh out loud more than once.