Tag Archive: FPS


Hands-On: Metro: Last Light

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment
April 7, 2013

The Mushroom Cloud Kingdom

Editor’s Note: This preview will reference events in Metro 2033 and might spoil some things for those who have yet to play it. Consider yourselves warned. 

It may not have been the prettiest game, and the AI was definitely flawed, but Metro 2033 was able to immerse gamers in ways other properties only dream of. Because of that, it earned a special place in the hearts of those who played it. In fact, it was difficult not to get sucked in to the hardship of everyday life that our hero Artyom had to go through, feeling like you were indeed living in Moscow’s Metro system after a nuclear holocaust.

You had to keep track of the air in your gasmask filter, scavenge for military grade bullets to use as currency, and use nothing but an old-school compass to navigate the world around you. And then, as many of these stories go, you became caught up in events much larger than yourself.

These events led to one of two endings in Metro 2033. The good ending saw you save the Dark Ones, strange creatures who were desperately trying to communicate with human kind and accidentally harming them in the process, and helping them learn how best to help us. The bad ending, which was much more common for most players, is also the canonical ending that Dmitry Glukhovsky penned in the book the game was based off of. In that ending, Artyom destroyed the Dark Ones, only realizing his blunder when it was too late, and then returning to the Metro, guilt-ridden and dejected.

After Metro 2033, Glukhovsky wrote a sequel titled, appropriately enough, Metro 2034 that took place one year after Artyom’s failure. But instead of having 4A Games craft a game directly around that novel, Glukhovsky wrote a new story, original to the video games, that follows Artyom down a different path. And thus, we have Metro: Last Light, which we were able to finally go hands-on with recently.

Still picking up a year after the events of the first game, Artyom, who was a bit green behind the ears before his encounter with the Dark Ones, has become a grizzled veteran Ranger of the Metro under the careful guidance of Miller, of the Spartan Order, since last we saw him. While going about his daily business, Artyom is confronted by one of his other mentors, Khan, who reveals to Artyom that a young Dark One survived despite his misguided efforts and was seen fending for itself amongst the shattered nest the creatures had once lived in.

Since many still perceive the Dark Ones as threats and that Artyom did the right thing, he is ordered by his superiors to destroy the creature, even if Artyom may have his doubts. Things have a habit of going sideways whenever you venture to the decimated surface, far away from the Metro, though. So, soon after beginning his search for the creature, Artyom runs across members of the Fourth Reich and things just get worse from there.

With the Metro series being so story driven, I really can’t go any further into the rest of the tale I saw unfold before me, but let me tell you, that if you’re a fan of the first Metro’s story, this looks to be shaping up to be even better.

I can talk a bit more about the game play, however. A lot of the great survival features from the first game are coming back. You still have to monitor your air when you go to the surface, ammo is scarce, and you still have to charge your headlamp manually. The entire idea of having to really struggle to survive is still perfectly in tact as you wrestle with situations like only having one clip left in your assault rifle, yet there is a room full of Nazis ahead of you and who are ready to turn their fully loaded rifles on you if you step into the light or make too much noise. Do you run or fight? And if you do fight, do you go the stealth route with your knife or go all out hoping to find extra ammo on dead bodies?

There are some critical differences to these situations as compared to the first game, though. 4A has crafted their own in house engine and have really keyed in on enemy AI with it. Should you alert one foe, the “hive mind” AI where the entire room would be aware from the first Metro is gone. Mind you, if you make too much noise you might alert the entire room anyway, but it makes sense now. Or if you’re too slow to take out the one enemy whose attention you’ve drawn, he will go get his trigger-happy buddies.

But should you choose to not fight and run away, or duck into air ducts or sewer grates and try to hide, the AI won’t stop looking for you after they’ve spotted you. You can’t trick the AI as easily in that regard. Like rabid dogs, if the AI knows there is an enemy nearby, they will continue to think their enemy is there, somewhere, until they get an all-clear from someone who has actually shot you, or you clear them all out first.  Or you keep moving away from where they are and hope they don’t follow, which sometimes they will!

And that is something else the AI impressed me with, even of the new mutant animals you’ll face: it is completely random. No situation will play out the same way twice. Paths enemies will walk around in a room, where monsters will or won’t spring up from, even who will attack whom when different species of monsters or conflicting human groups come across each other. You might be able to sneak by a firefight between the Reds and the Fourth Reich, or a shrimp monster (think of the prawn mutated to the size of a person) sparring with a dragon while on the surface looking for supplies.

The AI isn’t the only thing that is benefiting from this 4A engine, however. The graphics have been drastically improved, especially in terms of lighting effects. You can shoot a lantern and it will start a slow burning fire if it was set amongst dry boxes or kindling. Lighting is also a more critical factor in order for you to take the stealthier route through combat situations, as darkness is your greatest ally when you’re alone in the Metro.

In real life though, I hadn’t been alone and just as my hands started to work a groove into the controller from gripping it so tightly, it was time for me to relinquish it as my time with Metro: Last Light was up. When I was done with my slice of this post-apocalyptic first-person shooter, I was mighty impressed with how far the franchise had come technically in terms of game play, and I couldn’t help but immediately be sucked into the new, original story. Now it’s just a matter of waiting for May to go even deeper into the Metro.

Tags: , , , , ,
Comment

Hands-On: ShootMania Storm

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment
January 2, 2013

There’s a storm brewin’…

Looking to capitalize on the success of its TrackMania brand and expand their repertoire, developer Nadeo looked to put their unique spin on old-school first-person shooters. Thus, we have ShootMania. And we were able to go hands-on with Storm, the first maps of the first environment for ShootMania.

The main theme behind ShootMania, much like it’s sister TrackMania, is providing entertaining head-to-head competition by simplifying things in order to hopefully minimize time spent not actually in game and to make the games fast-paced with frantic action. There are several ways Nadeo is doing that with ShootMania, starting with your primary weapon. Described as a rocket launcher (although it looks more like a beam cannon of sorts), the weapon fires streaking blasts of explosive light and so all it takes is two hits to eliminate your enemies in what feels like laser tag on steroids. Players also can utilize bunkers that they would hole up in to use “sniper rifles” that really just focused their lasers to maximize their blast distance.

This was all we saw in regards to weapon variety, however. This is so that players wouldn’t worry about needing to customize loadouts or the like as everyone basically plays on an even level. This not only gets you into the action faster, but also ensures that the competition comes down more to skill, and maybe a little luck, to determine the outcome.

There were items that weren’t offensive in nature though that could also help to the strategy. Reminding me of Metroid, each player is equipped with an energy-based grappling hook that can attach to several points on each map and allow players to swing across gaps to hopefully set up better positions for later offense. There is a risk to the grappling hook though as you cannot fire while swinging.

If you don’t like the idea of being defenseless when swinging through the air, there is also the wall jump. Not easy to time considering the game is a first-person shooter, players who master this maneuver can completely change matches by luring unsuspecting players into coffin corners and then leaping behind them by bouncing up the walls.

In regards to game modes, we also played a simplified version of Team Deathmatch where there were only three players on each team. Again, this affords faster matches, but also gives you the chance to really gel with a particular group of guys and tests your skill as a group. To make sure you don’t spend a lot of time searching for opponents though, as a 3v3 match doesn’t usually last long, you play a series of games with the same people where the overall match doesn’t end until a team gets three game wins and are up by at least two victories. Should a pair of teams trade wins back and forth, then it is the first to five wins overall.

Another way to speed up the action we found was by activating a beacon in the middle of most maps. This switched on an electrical storm field that starts closing in around the beacon. Anyone hit by the field is immediately eliminated and so your surroundings start speeding up the competition as well until there is a small patch of safe zone left and you are left in a Mexican standoff with your opponents.

Of course, some gamers may not be all about competing with other players. Well, any players who are transition over from TrackMania will be happy to know that ShootMania will have a similar map editor so you can build your own nefarious mazes with Halo-like launchers or camper paradises littered with bunkers depending on your own personal play style and share these with your friends. And considering there is minimal customization you can do with your in-game avatar, putting a kick ass map out into the community might be the best way for you to stand out if your kill/death ratio isn’t up to snuff.

In the end, veterans of online first-person shooters should quickly be able to pick up and play around with ShootMania, but mastering it will prove a bit more difficult considering its unique take on map design and game play pace. If you’re a fan of TrackMania and what Nadeo has done with that community over there, you can expect a lot more of the same user-interaction and strong community to develop here. And then again if you’re just looking for a cheap way to shoot some giant lasers, ShootMania: Storm looks like it’ll be a worthwhile romp when it launches January 23, 2013.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Comment

Hands-On: Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment

You’ll Never See It Coming

When we think of most military shooters, we think of epic, Michael Bay-inspired moments and frantic, run-and-gun firefights, but sometimes you can change the world more with a single, well-placed bullet than a boxload of clips. There’s a stealthy aspect of war that’s sometimes forgotten about in the modern military first-person shooter—the men who, when they do their job right, you don’t even know they were there.

I speak, of course, of the sniper. While they’re commonly relegated to the role of a long-distance throwaway henchman in most games, real-world snipers are some of the most feared combatants in many environments, as they can decimate enemy forces before the victims even know what hit them. That’s why, when I got a chance to go hands-on with a couple levels from the upcoming Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2, I knew I was in for a very different FPS experience.

The first level had me decked out in jungle camo as we infiltrated an unspecified area of the Philippines. Working my through thick foliage and past meager riverside huts, I was quickly introduced to a variety of mechanics I don’t normally see in games. The first was the icon in my scope that let me know where my bullets would hit—and since every bullet is affected by wind and the force of gravity, it was seldom the precise spot where my crosshairs were aiming. With a quick pull of the trigger, I took out a guard smoking a cigarette and was startled as the camera violently shook. I was then informed that a smoother, slower squeeze of the trigger would lessen the recoil and make my shots more accurate, just as if I were shooting an actual sniper rifle.

The Phillippines level was a breeze for someone with as much FPS experience as me, but the devs were quick to note that I was playing on Casual, which means I had access to a few features that wouldn’t be accessible on the higher difficulty levels. On Normal or Hard, the enemies won’t be automatically marked on the minimap—I’d need to spot them with my binoculars. I’d also need to estimate the bullet drop myself, since that handy reticule wouldn’t be there to help.

Even on Casual, however, my skills were put to the test when we took on the next level, a flashback to war-torn Sarajevo in the early ’90s. Here, enemies were more numerous and frantically searching for insurgents, making it much harder to camp and take out enemies one by one. This is where the game’s heartbeat mechanic really came into play. In several instances, I found myself taking enemy fire, which caused my in-game heart rate to skyrocket. As a result, it was much more difficult to steady my rifle for a killing shot on subsequent enemies. And with only a pistol, knife, and said sniper rifle to count on, every time my adversaries tried to rush my position, I was in for the fight of my life.

This is when it really dawned on me, and the concept for the game started to come together. This wasn’t your standard military shooter as much as it was a stealth game. The scenarios you find yourself in may have the window dressing of your other military shooters, but Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 is shaping up into something more akin to Hitman than Call of Duty. Fans of the first game will appreciate a lot of the changes that were made to also prevent this game from heading down that typical FPS path, like the removal of the run-and-gun assault rifle segments in favor of more dedicated sniping gameplay.

All in all, our time with the game was unfortunately very short, but I was amazed at how much fun I was having crawling through the tall grass and lining up headshot after headshot. The new mechanics added interesting levels of nuance to sniping. Fans of the first Sniper will love the new changes, while newcomers will appreciate the breath fresh of air this gives military FPS games. I can’t wait to see the full game when Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 releases in late Q1 2013.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Comment

EGM Review: Call of Duty: Black Ops II

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment
November 20, 2012

Treyarch’s latest answers the Call again

Like the inevitable changing of the seasons, Call of Duty’s yearly release has become an event to which the gaming community can set their watches. In recent years, many gamers have criticized the cookie-cutter formula—the series has almost felt like a yearly “roster update” in the sports-gaming sense. After my time with Black Ops II, though, I can promise you this is one title that finally deviates from that formula.

Right from the get-go, the plot hits with an innovative one-two punch, as the story splits between two time periods. We get to play as both the original Black Ops protagonist, Alex Mason, in the ’80s as well as his son, David, in the near future of 2025. The key thread that connects them? The villain, Raul Menendez—but this isn’t your standard-issue Call of Duty baddie. The considerable talents of writer David Goyer—co-writer of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight—bring Menendez to life, as he exudes a sinister demeanor and delusions of grandeur that remind you of a cross between the Joker and a classic Bond villain. But Menendez also reveals a human side that elicits empathy at times, making him easily the most interesting, entertaining antagonist the series has ever seen.

After years of creative stagnation, Black Ops II’s campaign is a revelation. Once you get past the first couple of missions, the game introduces branching paths that can change the ending depending on how you react to the situations presented before you. This injects a healthy dose of replayability you usually don’t get from a Call of Duty campaign, making a seven-to-eight-hour experience worth going through multiple times.

The main campaign is joined by the new Strike Force missions, which add some real-time strategy elements to the proceedings. You serve as a handler for a squad who must carry out diverse objectives depending on the mission, issuing orders from above or taking over as any single unit and fight the battle in the trenches yourself.

Whether it’s assassinating targets or protecting computer terminals holding valuable information, the Strike Force objectives are supposed to help determine how you play. Unfortunately, once you dig into these side missions, you’ll realize how incompetent the ally AI is; it often ignores your commands, and soon the RTS view becomes null and void. In the end, it’s better to try to supersoldier it and control one character at a time in order to win the day. Strike Force is a great idea that finally brings some new gameplay elements into the mix, but it’s poorly executed, making some of the missions a bit of a chore depending on the parameters.

Aside from this one glaring flaw, however, the campaign is the best since the first Modern Warfare. The story enthralls from the start, and the gameplay is still definitively Call of Duty—especially with some sweet future tech like the Millimeter Scanner that allows you to see foes through walls.

It wouldn’t be Call of Duty if I didn’t mention the multiplayer, though—and in Black Ops II, this element’s better than ever. The new “Pick 10” system works like a dream in terms of customizing your classes, and the user interface simplifies things so that most anyone can use it to maximize their killing potential in any match. Plus, with new modes like Hardpoint (Call of Duty‘s take on King of the Hill), League Play for official competition, and CODcasting for those would-be pro-gaming broadcasters out there, this is the biggest, best multiplayer suite ever seen in Call of Duty.

But if multiplayer helps define Call of Duty, Zombies mode—which now offers three play options—defines Treyarch as a developer. In fact, this mode’s now been expanded to the point where it could almost be its own standalone game. TranZit offers a deeper experience as you explore a variety of locations, ferried from place to place on a robot-driven bus that has clearly seen better days. Meanwhile, Survival is more of your traditional Zombies experience with self-contained levels taken from sections of TranZit mode. Finally, there’s Grief mode, which puts two teams of humans against each other to see who can survive the zombies the longest.

Let’s face it: Call of Duty is a phenomenon beyond our control at this point; the game will sell millions of copies no matter what a reviwer says. But with branching story paths, the most impressive multiplayer yet, and a Zombies mode that’s to die for, I can say that—for the first time in a long time—I’ll be proud when I answer the call with everyone else when Black Ops II releases.

SUMMARY: The first Black Ops put Treyarch on par with Infinity Ward; with Black Ops II, they surpass them. This is the most impressed I’ve been with Call of Duty since the first Modern Warfare; aside from some problems with the Strike Force missions, this is a shining moment for the franchise.

  • THE GOOD: Best story since the first Modern Warfare.
  • THE BAD: Strike Force missions are a great-but-poorly executed idea.
  • THE UGLY: The stunning renderings of Manuel “Pineapple Face” Noriega.

SCORE: 9.0

Call of Duty: Black Ops II is available on Xbox 360, PS3, PC, and Nintendo Wii U. Primary version reviewed was for Xbox 360.   

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Black Light: Tango Down review for PSN

Filed under: CGR Undertow — Leave a comment
November 22, 2010

Originally Published: November 16, 2010, on ClassicGameRoom.com

As a part of CGR Undertow, I reviewed Black Light: Tango Down for PSN from Ignition Entertainment.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Red Steel 1 review for the Nintendo Wii

Filed under: CGR Undertow — Leave a comment
November 10, 2010

Originally Published: November 9, 2010, on ClassicGameRoom.com

As a part of CGR Undertow, I reviewed the original Red Steel for the Nintendo Wii from Ubisoft.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Revolutionary Ravens

Filed under: Written — Leave a comment
April 24, 2010

Originally Published: September 13, 2009, on 1050ESPN.com (now ESPNNewYork.com), Examiner.com, and Lundberg.me

I always love to see a game company take a risk and try new things, especially in a recession when you see most developers avoid risks and just develop more proven franchises in the hopes of maximizing profits.

Of course, they are called risks for a reason. Sometimes people may not be receptive to the idea or the execution isn’t as tight as it needs to be and sometimes the idea sounds great until you actually see it implemented. I think Raven Squad for the Xbox 360 and PC falls into that latter category.

The setting is the jungles of Brazil a couple of years from now and you play as a group of six mercenaries who are broken into two groups of three for assault and infiltrating purposes.

You are on what is advertised as a standard mission to take down some local drug runners. It is only later you find out you have been dropped into the middle of a Brazilian Civil War. Now, you have to try and navigate the lush Amazon Rainforest as you dodge bullets and maybe restore a little peace along the way, as you and your squad mates try to find an escape route that doesn’t involve your heads on stakes.

The plot may not be the most original, but when executed properly, everyone loves mercenary first-person shooters. The twist with Raven Squad is that it is also a real-time strategy game.

What? A FPS and RTS all in one game? I know, I did a double take myself when I heard that since I can’t remember it being tried on this scale before.

The good news is that the transition between these modes is flawless and makes for interesting strategy development as you control one of your three man squads from the bird’s eye view of a RTS and move your other squad along the ground from the eyes of Paladin, the squad’s leader.

The problem with the RTS mode is that you can see the entire layout of the land and therefore make your FPS strategy according to that. Since you see where all the enemies are, there is almost no point to the FPS mode since it is so much easier to take out your enemies from RTS view while the enemy A.I. stays in a FPS state the entire time. This additional mode also consumes so much disk space that the graphics in FPS mode are poor at best and the music and voice acting is abysmal.

The defense for this is that the developers say they were aiming to play off the cheesiness of the 1980s movies this was based off, but I have a hard time buying that because cheesy would be a compliment to the poor acting performances given in this game.

Another poor aspect of the game is that there is a nice co-op mode with each person being able handle one of the three man groups, but there is no versus mode where this game needed a 12 player total team vs. team versus mode to really make it worth more than a once playthrough.

So an unoriginal plot mixed with bad peripherals, no versus mode, and an interesting concept usually isn’t enough to garner a buy for a game, but if you were as curious as I was when I heard they were mixing RTS and FPS elements, Raven Squad would probably be a very solid rental for you.

Ratings are based on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest.

Graphics: 6.0: The graphics are sub-par for a FPS, but pretty solid for an RTS. Since this combines many of both, but the cut scenes look very poor, I can only give a below average score.

Audio: 4.0: The worst voice acting I have ever heard, hands down. The music is alright and the SFX work, but the voice acting is a constant reminder of nails on a chalkboard.

Plot/Plot Development: 7.5: It is hard sometimes to look at the plot objectively since the dialogue drives most of it and the dialogue isn’t bad, just the people delivering it. So when I finally look at the actual plot, I don’t feel bad about giving it an average score. Nothing original about it, but it makes sense and flows well.

Gameplay: 7.0: A few obvious glitches are annoying, but not enough to take away from the overall experience. The smooth transition from RTS to FPS mode and back are nice, but the execution, especially in FPS mode, is average at best.

Replay Value: 4.0: Aside from a co-op multiplayer mode, there really isn’t a lot to bring you back for this game. A versus mode would have been fantastic and no collectibles to speak of really means this game doesn’t offer a lot to bring you back for.

Overall (not an average): 6.0: Like I said at the beginning of the article, I love it when game developers take risks on games with different ideas. Unfortunately not all of them pan out the way they were originally imagined. The concept of a RTS/FPS game is great, but once executed, you see that the game is just too simple as you can use it to basically cheat as the A.I. operates in a FPS mode the entire way through. When you can see the enemy and they can’t see you, it is very easy to win.

Raven Squad is available now for Xbox 360 and PC.

-Ray Carsillo

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Comment