The Last Content Space Marine

Wow. I mean... wow. The Darkness II is actually good. And I mean really good. It isn’t going to go down in history as one of the all time classics but it goes well beyond basic adequacy. I’m actually genuinely shocked by this; I’ve found a modern first person shooter than I actually enjoy.

In my review of Duke Nukem Forever I said that I used to enjoy FPS games, but went off them when realism and multiplayer emphasis took over as the main driving points behind development. Couple this with the grey and brown crap that constitutes the art direction of most modern shooters and you have a recipe for a bland experience that I honestly couldn’t care less about.

The Darkness II does everything right. The art direction uses cell shading to create comic book style visuals which are genuinely stylized (as opposed to the normal use of the term stylized- I.E crap) while maintaining a pretty high base of technical quality too. The visuals fall apart a little when viewed up close, but not horrendously so. Cross hatching as shading also adds to the theme, as do some very nice general lighting and particle effects. The colour palette is bright and vibrant with striking solid masses of colour which play off very well against the black edge lines which are a product of cell shaded graphics.

The end result is a game that looks striking and memorable, as well as displaying excellent levels of polish.

The sound is catchy, visceral and intense. The musical score isn’t memorable, but it is functional and provides a solid background for the gameplay.

Speaking of which, the gameplay is excellent. The Darkness II has to be one of the most interesting shooters I’ve played in years. You start with your basic FPS mechanics and a three gun weapon limit. Wohoo! Weapon limits- because I’ve never complained about those before. Still, in the Darkness II there is a trade off for this arbitrary mechanic in that you can hold two one handed weapons and a single two handed weapon. You can mix and match the one handed guns so you can hold only one and use the iron sights on it, or hold two and lose the ability to aim. In return though, you gain the ability to turn anyone in front of you into a puddle of gore through concentrated fire. Reminds me a lot of Skyrim’s hand allocation system actually...

Trade off! Decision making! Variable play styles, all of which are valid! In a modern FPS single player mode no less!

It isn’t all rosey of course; the guns are the same generic set you get in every modern FPS but hey- at least you have a little choice with regard to how you use them.

Complementing your gunmetal are the Darkness arms- these babies are awesome. One of them is used for your melee attack and eating your enemy’s hearts- which is how you regain health. You do regenerate some over time, but simply hiding behind a wall won’t be enough to get back to full strength. Another modern trend that I hate bucked by this game!

The other arm is context sensitive. If an enemy is stunned you can pick them up and then execute them in a variety of grizzly ways for a number of different effects. One way gives you back more health than just eating their heart, another gives you some more ammo (which raises all sorts of icky questions), a third lets you create a shield and the final one recharges your powers.

You can also use it to grab other objects from a distance such as guns and ammo while you hide in cover, or other more... interesting objects, such as lengths of pipe or fan blades. These items can then be forcefully (and usually terminally) reintroduced to their owners.

Let me describe to you the moment where I fell in love with this game. I walked into a pool hall, totally unarmed bar the Darkness arms.

I knocked the first guy to the floor with one swipe, and then picked up the pool cue he was carrying before it hit the floor. This pool cue was then used to nail one of his mates to the wall (through his face), before he could get a shot off at me. I then grabbed his pistol with the Darkness arm, spun around and headshot a third guy who managed to get a hit in on me. By this time contestant one was staggering back to his feet, so I picked him up and threw him at a fourth guy who’d just burst into the room, killing him and stunning the newcomer- who was then picked up and executed by being held in one of the Darkness arms as the other one re-enacted the dining room scene from Alien on him.

This took place in about four or five seconds and was entirely unscripted.

What I’m trying to impart here is that the mechanics and level design of the Darkness II offers a huge range of options and possibilities that allow you to engage in the sort of awesome badassery that you normally only see in cinematic sequences. Call me crazy, but I find that sort of thing far more entertaining than just running around like a rat in maze trying to shoot someone in the head.

There’s also a levelling system (what game doesn’t have one these days?) which is perfectly executed. Kill enemies, get XP. The more interesting the death, the more XP given. Find a levelling up point; spend XP to unlock talents in one of the trees. Simple, effective and hugely entertaining.

The trees each have their own emphasis. One focuses on the use of guns, another on the darkness arms, another on powers and so forth. Each talent actually offers new ways to play and provides a genuine bonus that you can feel in gameplay. Not one of them is filler or a dud. Genius.

What really impressed me in the Darkness II though was the story. Now, it’s no epic. It’s not a subtle nuanced plot, but it is very well executed and extremely tightly directed. It’s a gangster story with a supernatural element- nothing more. It doesn’t try to be clever, but it takes the time to firmly establish motivations, build up the stakes and immerse the player in the world as well as the entrails of their enemies.

Most of the story is built up in dedicated exposition sequences which you play through (but you can skip most of them if you are so inclined). These are very well put together- long enough to get the point across without rushing, but short enough that they don’t leave you chomping at the bit for more action.

Enemies show very little variation, but the fights remain interesting thanks to varied environments and the game’s use of light as a weapon. When standing in bright light you lose your Darkness arms, the ability to regenerate health and most of your talents are nullified. You also lose the ability to see and hear clearly. Consequently taking out lights and avoiding windows becomes a key part of your combat tactics. And that’s the key- it’s a part of your tactics. The inclusion of the light mechanic never feels artificial or forced; it’s simply another obstacle which rolls seamlessly into your considerations as you get better at the game.

It’s also a nice touch that later in the game you get enemies using flares, as well as giant high powered lights as weapons against you. Enemies attempting to actually exploit a weakness!? The horror! The AI on the light carrying goons is also pretty good- they stay out of your way wherever they can, and position themselves to try and box you in so that their mates can surround you.

Finally the acting is superb. Every actor and actress in this game evidently gave the role their all. I honestly can’t say anything more about the performance, they nailed pretty much every line and I don’t think I could fault a single moment of the story telling.

In closing, if you’re looking for a break from vanilla, beige and brown realistic shooters, then you owe it to yourself to give the Darkness II a try. You won’t be disappointed.

So, I just finished a second play through of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It really is a lot more enjoyable on the second round- and given how good it was the first time that is saying a lot. With a firmer idea of the game's mechanics and what you can and can't do it's much more enjoyable. Strangely enough I also found myself mixing up my play style a little more as I was wasting less augs on things I knew I didn't want, and so could try playing with other ideas. The end result was less stealthy and non lethal and a little closer to how Splinter Cell: Conviction is played, I.E stealth backed up with tactical combat. The Boss fights are also less of a grind as you can actually prepare for them, I visited Barret with a rocket launcher handy and the others got a dose of fully levelled up Typhoon. The ending set up still sucks, but hey, it's just a small nasty barb on the end of a fantastic game.

I also grabbed the DLC package ‘The Missing Link’. It was meh. Reasonably well executed, but it falls into the same mechanical traps as a lot of DLC (I.E stripping you of your kit and skills to balance to the game, as opposed to just... balancing the game). It certainly isn’t bad, but it’s just so unnecessary. It doesn’t square up with the rest of the plot- which is fine in basic principle (Fallout 3 and New Vegas used DLC to tell their own self contained stories)- but given that the DLC is billed as filling in a gap in the story it does a pretty crap of job it. This is especially true when you consider the gap was left in (or more accurately alluded to) specifically for the DLC. All in all, at £8.99 I don’t think it’s worth it.

Removing your augs is also a bit of a shitter. Deus Ex: Human Revolution really comes into its own once you’ve found the play style you like and the augments to make it work. Taking away the augments and your gear is just a lazy way to make you improvise. I get the idea; I really do- force the player out of their comfort zone and create a new challenge in doing so. My complaint is that we’ve already faced these challenges before- at the start of the game when we were finding our feet. Wouldn’t some new enemies, or new obstacles (no, those spinning lasers don’t count) be a much better way to create a challenge? It would be fresh and new as opposed to just treading over the same ground again.

But again the level design remains complex with multiple routes and ways to play, the acting is still pretty good and the artistic direction (while very reminiscent of Doom III), is quite imposing. It’s good, it just feels a little lazy and could’ve been as good as the main game.

The Missing Link is about four hours of extra gameplay, nothing more and nothing less. If you’re willing to pay the better part of a tenner for that then you’ll have a blast. If you wanted something a little more though, you will be disappointed.

I’d like to share something a little different with you for this post. Normally I post about videogames, but today I’d like to talk about another artistic medium I enjoy immensely- comic books. Specifically, a run of comics done by a writer named Peter David (No, not the farther of the celery wearing Doctor).

The series in question is an X-men spin off called X-Factor, and ran from 2005 to 2008 spanning 32 issues. And to be frank it’s some of the best comic book material I have ever read. It’s up there with Transmetropolitan and Ultimates 1&2 as some of my favourite material of all time. Honestly, for a serialised comic it even manages to compete with classic graphic novels like Watchmen.

Yes, I think it’s that good.

The set up is pretty simple. Marvel had a cross over event called M-day (an event being a big development in the Marvel setting which effects every character in some way- usually resulting in crossovers and a core ‘event book’), in which an extremely powerful mutant called the Scarlet Witch driven by grief and pain decided that the world would be a better place without any mutants. The Scarlet Witch’s power was to alter reality as she saw fit. By the time she was done, there where only about 200 mutants left in the Marvel-verse.

Now, anyone with a passing interest in the X-Men is probably aware that mutants are supposed to be representative of repressed minorities and persecuted cultures- often homosexuals (unique character traits that appear at puberty for example). This is a perfectly noble endeavour in writing, but I’ve always felt the message of persecution and bigotry is somewhat diluted when the offended party often has at least one trait which lets them throw anyone who pisses them off through the nearest window.

This is the first of Peter David’s triumphs with the series- the principle antagonist is not a supremely powerful mutant survivor, or an invading alien race- it’s that element of fear, bigotry and hatred that runs through a crowd.

Following M-Day, mutants were not killed or ‘vanished’ but instead the X gene responsible for their powers was turned off, and consequently almost all mutants lost their powers. However, many still bear physical deformities of mutanthood, or are open about their former lives. So suddenly the mutant hating mob has a plethora of targets without eye lasers to vent their hate on.

This leads to many of the depowered mutants establishing a ghetto called ‘Mutant Town’. It is here than the principle protagonist of the series, Jamie Madrox chooses to establish the base of operations for a private investigative firm called X-Factor. Their principle goal is to discover what caused M-Day (the X-men have suppressed the information regarding Scarlet Witch), and to assist the population of Mutant Town any way they can.

One of the chief elements that make this run so fantastic is the characters. Each member of the team is unique, has their own quirks both big and small and every single one of them has a well fleshed out and extremely interesting development arc. Even better than that though, their interactions as a group are extremely well written and very, very genuine.

I think that is the main selling point of this series- it’s authenticity. In much the same way that Alan Moore tried to push the idea of a superhero into a real world setting with Watchmen, X-Factor tries to create the same three dimensional view of each of its characters, showing them as far more than just costumed crime fighters. They have their hopes, fears, and aspirations. They are all fundamentally good people- but the way the world has changed has put them under amazing pressure.

So with that in mind, let’s take a look at the team.

We will start with Jamie Madrox- the Multiple Man, and the group’s leader. Madrox’s power is simple- he can convert kinetic energy in his body into duplicates of himself, and can repeat this process ad nauseam. This power has lead to some very interesting character elements. For one thing, he is terrible at making decisions. When faced with an ‘either or’ situation, he just creates dupes to pursue both avenues. He can also reabsorb his duplicates and gain their memories and experiences. However, memory being what it is he can’t really differentiate between memories that belong to Jamie Prime, and memories that came from dupes.

So naturally he does what any sane person would do with such a power- he creates a small army of dupes and sends them off to join the army, study at universities around the world, compete in sports and develop new skills. Of course, once he reabsorbs them, this knowledge becomes his.

This is what I’m talking about- characters using their super powers in realistic ways. Superheroes don’t need to be arseholes about their power, but honestly can you see Clark Kent deciding to take a bus over flying to an appointment? Do you really think Tony Stark doesn’t use the Iron Man tech to make it to the off licence before closing time? It’s that little extra bit of attention, that demonstration of how these heroes use their powers in their daily lives that helps make X-Factor so interesting.

The issue of creating dupes to lead independent lives and then… well for lack of a better term, killing them is also raised in the series. If that version of Madrox has lived for years, doesn’t it count as its own person?

Of course it isn’t that simple. Each dupe is an element of Jamie’s psyche. The best example is in the Red Dwarf episode ‘Terraform’- each dupe is an aspect of his personality made manifest. Some are his guilt, some his motivation, some his paranoia and some are that little voice you get in the back of your head which tells you to try and fuck things up just to see what will happen… So now you can see why he has learned to be careful how many dupes he creates. Of course, when he creates the dupe, he looses that element of himself and must re build it from scratch. For some dupes (such as aggression) this is easy. For other more abstract ones though, it’s almost impossible. This idea forms the premise of probably the most interesting arc in the series.

Next team member is Theresa ‘Siryn’ Cassidy, daughter of X-Man Banshee. Her power is the same as that of her farther- an extremely powerful scream and the ability to use it fly. She can also modulate her voice to make people listening to her do whatever she wants. As a character she gets surprisingly little development until the end of the run. There’s a very important event in her life in the middle of the series (I won’t say for spoilers), but it doesn’t really go any where. She’s mainly there for other characters to play off. But even so her motivations, fears and dreams are realised and while she doesn’t develop much, she is entertaining to read about.

Probably the hardest hitter in the team is Monet St. Croix, also known as M. She can fly, has super strength and also limited telepathy. Her background is that of a spoiled rich brat, who is with X-Factor more for the kicks than any real sense of duty. Think ‘Common People’ by Pulp (or William Shatner if you’re psychotic) and you won’t go far wrong. However, as the story progresses she is exposed to the real nature of the world beyond the gilded walls of her own lifestyle, and while she never really looses her brat like persona she comes to care about more than just herself. It’s her development that I enjoy the most as it’s the most subtle. She goes from constant put downs and abuse directed at her team members, to just the occasionally snarky remark or backhanded compliment as reality starts to set in.

Lending some Scottish flair to the group is Rhane ‘Wolfsbane’ Sinclair. She’s a werewolf- that’s pretty much her power. Her arc is similar to that of Beast- a battle against an animal inside her. As she says “I don’t know if I’m a woman that turns into an animal, of an animal that turns into a woman.” Rahne is also deeply religious and a devout Catholic- a fact that plays a big role later in the series what the mutant persecution gains religious backing.

The resident bruiser is Guido ‘Strong Guy’ Carosella. Guido’s arc is hard to describe without giving away spoilers, but it’s mainly focused on two ideas. The first is that sometimes you behave in ways beyond your control, and the second is the need to balance penance for said actions, with the acceptance that not everything you did was your fault. Guido is also an example of the beautiful subtlety of Peter David’s writing. Small hints are dropped before Guido’s ‘big moment’ which in retrospect are somewhat obvious.

The final character is easily the most interesting with the exception of Madrox. A depowered mutant by the name of Julio Esteban Rictor. Ten points if you can guess what his power was- and no, being Spanish is not a superpower.

Rictor's arc is about loss. His power to create earthquakes went beyond just simple muscle flexing- he was attuned to the planet and could feel the entire processes of its existence from the trees of the rainforests leeching water, to the shifting of tectonic plates, to life moving across its surface. And now the poor bastard just has the normal five senses like the rest of us. Over the course of the series Rictor has to overcome this loss, and is even tempted with the possibility of having his powers restored. Of course, the cost of doing so is great.

What makes Rictor so interesting is again Peter David’s skillful writing. Rictor is traumatised, spiteful and bitter but he is also a good person trying to do what is right. He lashes out at his friends, is overly cruel to his enemies and has a tendency to mope, but he remains pro active and is there when people need him. He’s trying to deal with his loss, trying to get on with his life, but he just finds it too hard sometimes. This is far better than most comic book writing where he’d either be a whining emo pissant or a paragon of ‘getting over it’. Again we come back to the authenticity that makes the series so great.

Despite all this praise though, the run does have it’s low points- most of them right towards the end. The penultimate arc is a cross over with the ‘Messiah Complex’ story arc that tied into all mutant related titles published at the time.

Frankly, it’s fucking terrible.

The thing that pisses me off is that X-Factor was a ‘street level’ story- it wasn’t about Doctor Doom trying to take over the world, or Galactus trying to eat it. It was about a group of people trying to find out the reasons behind the most traumatic event of their lives and their culture, while dealing with the massive phobic backlash against them. Now they’re up against a nationwide militant group of priests with access to better equipment than the US army, and Madrox is travelling through time. It’s a horrendously jarring disconnect from the stark realism of the first part of the run, and it has no place at all in this sort of story.

To make matters worse the Messiah Complex story itself was utter, utter shit. Well to be fair I haven’t read the whole thing, but what I’ve seen in X-Factor and X-Force turned my stomach. The thing that nailed the coffin shut for me was the characterization of Cyclops and Professor X.

Now, let’s be fair. Cyclops isn’t often depicted as a very nice man. But there’s a huge difference between a guy who engages in a psychic extramarital affair with a former supervillian, and a guy who explicitly orders, authorises and creates a team of mutants with the express purpose of murdering threats, who also have full licence to break the law and even torture people for the sake of their goal. And when Xavier finds out about this Cyclops emotionally blackmails the poor bastard into essentially giving him full control of the X-Men. And Xavier, a highly moral and extremely driven individual- lets it happen.

I could go on for a thousand words about the travesty, hypocrisy and sheer utter stupidity of a brain dead writer who thinks murder is ‘edgy’. I think the scene that sticks with me most is Wolverine heating his claw with a blowtorch so that he can carve off a man’s face to torture him. You can make this stuff work in the hands of a skilled writer, but it’s obvious that the bits of Messiah Complex I read were done by a fool with his head stuck in the Rob Liefeld school of comic design. Violence with no message.

Suffice to say the penultimate story arc of X-Factor is a terrible mess; you also need to read other titles to get the full story as the narrative is interlaced, oh and the entire thing is the complete opposite of what made the story so great to begin with.

The final arc is a desperate attempt to recover from the massive haymaker to the plot that was Messiah Complex. It claws back some joy in the form of more character development, but it’s sadly obvious that the series has jumped the shark and what was a glorious tale peters out into a very definite, if unsatisfying end.

Still, even allowing for the terrible interference from Messiah Complex, X-Factor is a really, really good story with some fantastic characters and great development. The art work is always well done and the way characters play off each other is extremely organic. It’s well paced, exciting and action packed with some great drama moments and well executed comedy relief. If you’re into comic books, or you’re looking to get started, you could certainly do a lot worse than this run of X-Factor.

There have been a few games out recently now that we’re out of the Summer fallow, but to be honest I’ve not been doing much gaming. Between work and well… just work to be honest.

Anyway, I’ve re written this intro five times now and I can’t make it sound right. So bugger that, and let’s talk about some of the games I have been playing.

Gears of War 3
If you want a good time it’s hard to go wrong with Gears. Oh it typifies pretty much everything I loathe in the current crop of action games, but there’s something compulsive in the Gears of War series. Maybe it’s the fact is knows exactly what it wants to be and sticks to it. Maybe it’s the fact that while it doesn’t break new ground any more, it does tread its turf with extreme competence and authority.

It’s just a really well put together game, and provides a few hours of mindless fun. There isn’t much more of a point in talking about it- you probably already know if you want to grab it or not, and if you don’t know then I suggest you grab Gears of War one or two first as the changes between them are relatively minor. I will say this though; Gears 3 is certainly the best of the series.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Anyone who’s dug back in my old posts will know I don’t like Deus Ex. It grew on me slightly when I tried to play it again a few months after making that post, but I still think that it is hugely overrated when considered in today’s market. It has aged very badly.

That put to one side Human Revolution is an excellent game, providing a variety of challenges and rewards all wrapped up in a very neat, extremely pretty package. The graphics quality is high, but for some reason everything is tinted orange. Fallout New Vegas did the same thing and wouldn’t you know- when you mod the marmalade off the camera the game looks fucking gorgeous. Human Revolution has a similar mod, and the effect is the same. Why do developers keep doing this? It’s like painting a beautiful landscape and then covering it in Roses wrappers.

One aspect of the game that really hammers its score though are the boss fights. Aside from being totally unnecessary, they are also phoned in- big time. There are four in total, and not to give away too many spoilers all of them are crap.

First off, if you didn’t pick up any combat augmentations (like me- I play stealth and non lethal), these fights offer very little mercy. There is often nothing to actually complement the upgrades that you do have, which means you essentially need to use some really cheap tactics to get ahead. Also, if you travel light and don’t have much in the way of grenades e.t.c, the fight gets even worse. To the developers credit though, the boss arenas as least have a good spread of weapons and ammo.

My biggest gripe out these boss fights though is that they are totally, utterly inconsequential to the story. You don’t even know their names until the cutscene before the fight, and one boss’ name is never even revealed. There is such a broken, ragged disconnection between the narrative flow of the bulk of the game and the boss fights that it’s truly unnerving.

Eidos Montreal actually outsourced the boss fights to Grip, but even then I would have expected the writers to make use of them as characters. A boss fight should represent an apex of the story, a climax or convergence of plot points. These are just tripwires in the narrative. If you want an example of a boss fight done well as a narrative tool, look at anything by Hideo Kojima. Bosses are established (in some cases recurring) characters with names, histories and personalities. Sometimes one or more of these aspects are terrible, but they are always present. The fights are always interesting, requiring you to think up new tactics and adapt to unique situations. Again, sometimes they are not good, but they are usually memorable little stories in and of themselves. Best of all, when they die they are not shoved back into nowhere and never mentioned again. They are characters and their deaths are as key to the story as their lives were. Hell, Psyco Mantis pops up in MGS4 after being killed in MGS1. And Ocelot? Christ- he’s the axle on which the plot of the entire bloody series turns. He’s as much a main character as Snake.

And who are these nameless goons in Human Revolution? No one. They are totally unimportant. I’m not joking when I say that if you cut them from the game all together, practically nothing needs to be changed. Jensen can get shot by a random mook, or caught in a grenade blast or something. The only contribution to the plot is when the first boss, for some totally insane reason tells Jensen where to go next. Why does he do this? No idea. It’s not like he’s had a change of heart and is trying to atone for his sins or something- he tries to kill you moments later. Okay, maybe he’s trying to coax Jensen closer, but wouldn’t he just lie?

Aside from that though, the rest of the game is exceptionally good and a lot of fun to play. Well recommended.

Tropico 4:
Very little has changed from Tropico 3. There is now a more structured campaign a mode, a few more buildings and some minor changes to the way edicts and policies are handled. The graphics have had a minor update too.

If you enjoyed Tropico 3, you’ll enjoy Tropico 4. But you may feel cheated by the price tag for what really amounts to an expansion pack. Give the demo a try though; it’s better than Tropico 3- just not by much.

Dead Island:
This isn’t what I wanted. I wanted a good, serious, narrative driven zombie survival RPG. What I got was Borderlands with zombies in it. I can’t really say Dead Island is bad, but as I’ve said before in this blog many times, I loathe games that are reliant on multiplayer. It’s just an excuse for the developers to put less effort in, and I believe that Dead Island really makes my point for me. Playing alone, it is nothing more than a sequence of fetch quests. Even when I tried playing it with Betamax I was bored shitless. It isn’t a bad game, and it has many good points (the graphics are nothing short of spectacular) but it totally and utterly failed to engage me on any level. So little effort was put into the way the story was told and the quests to complete that it was almost painful. It was obvious the devs thought ‘parties are going to skip these sequences anyway, so why have them?’ A complete waste of £30 for me, but if you dig the multiplayer co op element on games then you’ll probably have a good time with it.

Love and peace y’all.

Okay so, Space Marine demo. This is only the second non RTS title Relic have ever made, and it shows. The demo is competently executed, but I'm not hugely impressed. It certainly wasn't bad though. The melee combat works, but it begs for a block option, or defensive stance of some sort. It's nice to see the 40k world up close in something that isn't Fire Warrior, but as is usual for this generation of games it's brown. Really fucking brown. In a universe where everyone dresses like an LGBT pride march, I'd expect some bright vibrant colours, but sadly Relic has opted for the usual 'Brown is real' approach. The voice acting on the marines is nice, but it did take me several minutes to differentiate between them and the orks.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but it also needs a cover system. Here it comes, 'waaah waaah you're not playing it properly'-can it. Charging a gun line in this game will get you cut down faster than public spending. Nothing wrong with that, but it means you're in an awkward sort of shimmy left and right while you soften the enemy line before charging. A cover system would make this far less fiddly and more enjoyable.

Healing by executing enemies is a very nice idea conceptually and shows how a game’s mechanics can complement its artistic and thematic direction. And here’s the inevitable however- when enemies can keep wailing on you while you’re healing, it doesn’t really help matters. If you’re low on health, odds are you’ll die while executing the enemy- especially if there’s an ork nob in the area. I can see this working better in co op where agro control can be more easily managed, but from my experience with the demo the ability to fight in a defensive posture would be hugely beneficial.

I had far more fun with the jump pack mission, but at that point the game was so easy it was laughable. Fly up, smash down. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I think the spectacle of the game will win many people over. Hint, if you’re been thinking things like ‘but you get to cut off an ork’s balls with a chainsword’ while reading this, that means you. Spectacle though, is a pretty weak thing to hinge your entire experience on. Still, if all you want is to run around with the most over the top, impractical weapon ever devised while screaming reverence for the Emperor, then Space Marine will probably suffice.

And to be honest the spectacle does help paper over some of the cracks in the gameplay. It’s a lot easier to ignore the fact healing often means losing more health than you get back when it’s done via the medium of, well... belting an orc in the nads with a chainsword so it lifts him up of the ground and then bifurcates him.

Still, I need a little more. Spectacle gets old. Seeing the same kill moves over and over again means that no matter how cool they may be, they're going to get old. Likewise graphics give way to the next generation of technology and become dated. Good gameplay though lasts for a very long time. There's a reason Counter Strike and Star Craft are still so popular.

I’ll probably get the full game, but if I do it will be when it’s on sale.

Alright, so for the last 10 hours or so I’ve been playing The Witcher. This game has come more highly recommended from the gaming community as a whole than Jesus from a Jehovah’s witness.

Honestly? I’m disappointed. Very few games can ever really live up to the hype that surrounds them, but by and large I’ve managed to find gaming communities that are mostly aligned with my own views on the hobby, and as such when they get excited about something it’s usually something I’d enjoy. In these cases, over hyped games usually come out as ‘good, but not excellent’.

The Witcher doesn’t even really make it into the realms of ‘good’. Now don’t get me wrong, it isn’t a bad game by any stretch of the imagination- the graphics are pretty good, the world is well realised, the music is top notch and the gameplay has a few really good ideas under the bonnet. Where it fails is the fact that the really good ideas at the core of the game are packed around with mounds of sloppy voice acting, utterly atrocious quest design and (thus far at least) piss poor characterization and a no brainer plot.

First off though, let’s be positive and take a look at the things that The Witcher does right.

The combat is pretty fun. The fact that The Witcher is played with only one character instead of a party like most RPGs opens up new options and styles I haven’t previously seen in a videogame. You can chain attacks together with careful timing, and spells can also be used to turn the tide of a battle in a meaningful way. Your spell casting is limited just enough that you don’t fire off spells willy nilly, but free enough that you’re never too worried about ‘waiting until you really need it’.

You can also adopt a variety of stances in combat, but to be honest I don’t really regard this as anything other than busy work made to make the game feel more tactical than it really is. Reason being that each enemy is essentially ‘weak’ to one stance. Using the wrong one will either result in you doing piss all damage, or the enemy dodging entirely. It’s no more tactical than ‘use fire on the ice monster’.

The alchemy and potions mechanics are very well balanced and allow for a variety of options. Unlike most RPGs, potions in The Witcher are not simple ‘fire and forget’ consumables that you occasionally use to heal when your mage has hit the dirt- they are a core element of your combat strategy. Potions have wide ranging, noticeable effects, and they last for hours. If you pop a healing potion then for quite a while you are going to be very hard to kill as your health regenerates so quickly that most enemies can’t even hurt you. Likewise, pop a Tawny Owl potion and your endurance will regen so quickly that you can fire off spells left right and centre.

There is a price though- every time you consume a potion, it adds to your toxicity level and as that climbs various effects kick in. They start with little graphical effects, but then quickly climb to health penalties, and eventually if you max the gauge out- death. There are of course many ways to lower toxicity, but if you’re in a dungeon then you’ll want to be careful which potions you are taking. The more powerful potions such as Blizzard can add quite a bit to your toxicity level and don’t last anywhere near as long as other potions. Keep popping them and you’ll be seeing stars.

The setting is very atmospheric and dark, with a grim overtone to everything. It manages to achieve dark fantasy in a very real way, yet also manages to maintain an air of authentic medievalism at the same time.

So then you might ask what the problem is. First off this game has masses- and I mean absolutely masses- of dead time. Out of the 10 hours I’ve spent with the game, I’d say about 50-60% of that (at least) was spent simply running from one place to another. Eventually I got so utterly bored I started travelling at night just so I could at least get some fights. Sadly this just meant that I was spending even longer completing quests, and I was essentially just driving my wheels deeper into the mud. The game begs for a fast travel system. It’s not even like there’s any reward for exploration, the game is just wasting your time, padding itself out.

The quest design is terrible. Irredeemably terrible. Most quests are just ‘go here, kill X, come back’ or even the oft abused ‘Collect X many monster bits and come back’. Seriously? This crap is played out and dead in World of Warcraft and these clowns think they can get away with it? I know when you get down to it there are only so many quests in RPGs, but the difference is in how you dress them up and make them interesting again. Literally no effort has gone into doing this with The Witcher.

Combine that with the amount of dead time and you can see why I’m getting frustrated with this game. That’s not even including the bloody research. I like the idea of research in principle, it adds a level of immersion. However when you need to do this research just to be able to harvest parts from the monsters it gets a mite frustrating. Why can’t we do extra damage or stuff like that? Even Alpha Protocol managed to get that right. Factor in that even figuring out how you’re supposed to do this research can take an age (typically one NPC in the area will have a book on the monster), and the amount of dead time in the game is further increased.

Let me put it this way, it took me over eight hours to get out of the first area after the tutorial section. A level not much larger than the New Vegas strip- and with far less content.

The voice acting is terrible. Doug Cockle as Geralt gives a totally bland, level, unemotional and utterly boring performance. He finds not one trace of emotion or soul in the character, delivering every line in the same coma inducing monotone. I’m not kidding, every line from flirtation to rage is like listening to... well... This. In fact one could argue this performance is at least varied.

Not that Cockle is alone in giving a terrible performance- pretty much everyone has a hard time finding so much as an inflection in their speech.

I hate to rag on the plot, but there’s no excuse for a game to develop at this utterly tortuous pace. Think of everything that happened in the first 10 hours of Final Fantasy Seven. Think of everything that happened in the first 10 hours of Dragon Age: Origins. What happens in the first 10 hours of the Witcher? You’re order of monster slayers has their stash nicked, and you kill a demon dog. I’ve got no problem with a slow burning plot, but this isn’t even smouldering.

Oh, and you’ve visited a grand total of TWO locations. And that’s including the tutorial area.

If anything is going to stop me playing (and believe me I’m considering it), it will be this. I know many people feel that it’s wrong to write off a game’s plot without actually seeing the whole thing, and for the most part you’d be right. But when the way the plot is developing (or rather not developing) is the main thing that’s driven you away- I’d say that’s damning criticism in and of itself. To put in a parallel, if a movie is so bad you walk out of the theatre people don’t say “well you can’t judge the movie, you didn’t see it all”, they ask “was it really that bad?”

Geralt as a lead character is painful. I complain about Cockle’s performance, but really the writing sucks too. It takes a skilled writer to use the amnesia plot device well, and whoever adapted this game just can’t cut the mustard. Geralt has no personality, no motivation (beyond fucking anything that moves) and is just... well... boring. Amnesia doesn’t mean your character doesn’t have any sense of self- it just means they can’t remember anything. It’s also worth noting that this ‘total amnesia’ is complete balls. The complete loss of every single life experience simply does not happen. I can forgive it if it’s used well or built up (E.G Namelss One, Planescape:Torment), but here it just comes across as an excuse to avoid giving the character any actual character.

So ultimately I need to come down hard on The Witcher. It has some really nice ideas, and if the sequel sorted out the problems I’ve outlined above, I think it would be one hell of a good RPG. As it stands though, The Witcher is a few shining nuggets of gold floating in an ocean of filth. I can’t be too hard on it though, as at least it’s trying to innovate within the genre, and that is always worth kudos. As a score, I’d call it a 6/10. There’s some great potential here, but it’s buried under mounds of problems that stop it ever really shining.

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I’d like to make one final note. It’s not really related to the game, but more an observation. The people who are singing the praises of The Witcher, are the same people who have been lampooning Dragon Age 2. And I know people are going to crucify me for saying this, but honestly? They’re very, very similar games. Both are action RPGs with crappy plots and an emphasis on action and killing things over any alternative style of play. Both have underdeveloped, poorly defined leads, both have an oversimplified inventory management system and both force you to keep running back and forth over the same tiny areas.

To be honest, speaking totally objectively- I think Dragon Age 2 is the superior game. I honestly can’t believe I’m saying it myself, but the design remit was to create a no brainer action RPG, and they delivered. The only thing that The Witcher does better is the alchemy system, but DA2 counters that by using powers, stances and companions. Plus the combat is at least more entertaining to watch. I feel dirty admitting it, but Dragon Age 2 was more of a bitter disappointment than an actual really bad game, and I honestly think that if it had been released as a totally new franchise, people would rate it over The Witcher.

DA:O Still wipes the floor with both of them though.

When people ask me about FPS titles I usually say that I don’t like them. This is something of an oversimplification. I used to enjoy FPS games, but over the last six years or so the genre has become more and more unappealing. I think the FPS hit its peak with Perfect Dark on the N64 and after that it all started to go downhill. The idea of ‘realism’ was introduced and while that is not a bad thing in and of itself, devs suddenly seemed to think that the only way to get their games taken seriously was to adhere to this doctrine.

Realism can be fun. Operation Flashpoint for example offered a very different take on the genre and presented the player with a new set of challenges and obstacles to overcome- simply surviving a battle was hard enough- kicking ass required something more than running around and killing anything that twitched.

Sadly realism also tends to lean into other trends which make a game far less fun. For example, in Perfect Dark even crappy guns usually had an alternative fire mode which meant they were still useful up against opponents with better gear. The Laptop gun could deploy into a sentry and the Dragon could become an impromptu landmine. Most of all, weapons had character.

Call me crazy, but up against this sort of variety some assault rifles, a couple of shotguns and a pistol is just a joke.

Put simply, I was looking forward to the return of Duke. I’ve kept this longing under my hat though as- let’s face it- Duke Nukem has always been more known for its puerile, chauvinistic power trip presentation than its gameplay.

Why is all this relevant? Because everything I want is everything that Duke Nukem Forever is not.

The graphics are dire. Seriously dire. Modern ideas as to what constitutes good graphics have polluted the game (there is no colour that is not a shade of brown or black) and half of the game is played in the dark; meaning you need to use the crappy night vision which somehow makes the game look even worse- as well as giving you a headache. The draw distance and distance blur is extremely short, so much so that it is often shorter than the range of some fire fights. Even set to 'Ultra' this game looks like Doom III.

But hey- you can forgive poor graphics if the gameplay is fun right? It isn’t. It’s a horrible mishmash of ideas from the past and the present, and few of them play off well against each other. For some insane reason you can only carry two guns. Seriously Gearbox? You’ve got a game where aliens invade earth to steal our women, where Duke is bigger than Jesus, where one man is more potent than the entire army, where beer makes you invincible and you get a stat boost by admiring yourself in the mirror- yet carrying more than two guns was the point where the silliness went too far?

You have a health bar, but it regenerates and you can expand your maximum life by boosting Duke’s ego. It’s utterly redundant though as most enemies will cause enough damage to send you into recovery right away- that’s right, when you run out of health you just need to find some cover and wait a few seconds and all your health comes back. In short it’s the shield from Halo, and the game even describes it that way on the loading screen hints.

You fight about two different types of enemy with another two occasionally making an appearance as mini bosses. Towards the end of the game a third type is introduced, but it does little to mix up the combat or provide any variety. The AI is terrible. Enemies will try to shoot you through walls in entirely different rooms and regularly throw grenades at you when you’ve three times further than their maximum throwing range. Most of the time all they do is stand there and shoot, making no attempt at using cover or tactical movements.

The level design is a joke. Mediocre action sequences are separated by large tracts of first person platforming which is handled with all the grace and precision of a hippo making love to a ferret. Physics puzzles abound including such brilliant, fresh new ideas as ‘roll a battery into a door to advance’ or ‘pile shit up on one side of a see-saw until you can reach the higher platform’.

Oh yeah, and the devs sometimes make you play through the same level again backwards. This has to be the ultimate cheapshot in videogame design.

Now to be fair, there are some interesting sections which play with the idea of the shrink pads as puzzle elements. However this idea is never really expanded on, basically just resulting in a different type of mediocre platforming experience where a bookshelf becomes an almost insurmountable obstacle.

Button mashing quick time events abound. Can someone explain to me what the point of these is? Beyond fucking over those gamers among us who have problems with the joints in our hands?

It gets worse- much worse. The controls in general stink, and I mean totally reek of console port. I have nothing against porting in general, provided that it’s done well.

Do an experiment for me. Imagine you’re strafing diagonally back and to the left (A and S keys), and if you stop moving in this direction, you get fragged. Now try to press 2 (trip mine). Awkward isn’t it? You can sort of manage it with your little finger, but why, why not just select the pipe bombs with the mouse wheel? Most likely because this sort of setup works well on a controller and Gearbox couldn’t be bothered to change it.

By this point fans of the original will no doubt be asking how the humour and presentation holds up, desperately hoping that there is something that can be salvaged from this train wreck. Sadly this isn’t the case. Jokes are few and far between and the running gag is that Duke is everywhere, and everyone loves him. And this is funny... how? Seriously, the set up could have been funny but there are never any punch lines. It doesn’t even really work as farce- it’s just there. There are many pop/geek/internet culture references in the game, but they are just that- references without any jokes attached to them. Many of the lines are just toe curlingly embarrassing, hamfisted attempts to capitalize on internet memes that died months, sometimes years ago. Hell, my pop culture references are more in date than this.

Maybe it was intentional- a nod to the extreme development time. Given the rest of the incompetence on display here though I doubt it’s anything so deep or clever.

The only thing half decent aspect of the game is the boss fights. Even then half of Duke Nukem Forever’s boss fights are just shameless (and terrible) rip offs off the lighthouse fight with the gunship from Half Life 2.

As a final note I find the timing of the release unfortunate. At a point when gamers are starting to be taken seriously by mainstream culture, something like this (especially given the hype around it) does not help us to avoid appearing as a bunch of sad, sexually starved, trigger happy borderline psychopaths. The fact that it’s a poor game is bad enough. The fact it’s one many of us have been looking forward to only adds fuel to conservative elements who’d rather see videogames banned. In the case of Duke Nukem Forever, it’s hard to argue against that idea when the blatant exploitation in most cases doesn’t even manage to raise a grin. Exploitation is bad enough when it’s intentionally done for laughs, it’s even worse when it’s intentional AND unfunny.

I’m not a particularly politically correct person. I admit I make jokes about race, gender, disability and so on, but even I found Duke Nukem Forever’s attempts at humour to be extremely disquieting. Subjects such as rape and abortion exist beyond the bounds of taste, and are areas even I rarely go near for a cheap laugh. Duke Nukem Forever revels in them. You’re worse than one toke over the line Gearbox, you’re about to see goddamn bats.

At the end of the Day Duke Nukem Forever is just a poor game in virtually every regard. It isn’t terrible, but it’s certainly a subpar, uninspired mess. It wants to try and capture some of the old ideas, but is too terrified to let go of the modern perception of how a shooter should be made. The end result is a mass of half arsed ideas and lack of development in any direction. Instead it relies on horrible, uncomfortable jokes and references to try and save it, which only drive it further into the abyss. Do not waste your money on this game.

LA Noire is a strange beast. I’m really not sure what to make of it. On the one hand I love most of what it tries to do, but on the other hand it gets stale quite quickly thanks to a few glaring issues.

To begin with I was thoroughly enjoying myself. The cases were interesting and the game’s interview mechanics were very rewarding and something I had not seen done so intricately in gaming before. Needing to read your subject’s expressions is a good idea, and the technology used to create the digitized acting is impressive- if a little unnerving. The technology isn’t quite there yet and you can’t get away from the fact that people look like film footage stretched out and stapled over a mould. It certainly isn’t Xbox Live Vision levels of bad, and when the effect works well it looks stunning. However all too often you can see the proverbial strings, usually in the form of a nose or ear not having a hole in it but rather a black coloured patch.

LA Noire’s investigation mechanics can be broadly divided into two sections- evidence collecting and interview. In this way it plays a lot like the Phoenix Wright games on the DS. At first both of these ideas work well- you pick apart a crime scene for evidence, and then question suspects using the evidence to prove they are lying when you feel their story is inconsistent.

I say these only work at first because after you’ve been playing for about four hours, it’s nigh on impossible to fuck this up. When you’ve cleared a crime scene of evidence, the music stops, meaning that provided you are not deaf (and this is a big kick in the nuts to those of you who are), you simply CANNOT miss any evidence.

I get that the actors need to exaggerate the facial expressions to indicate when they are lying. After all most of us are not experts in reading people- so subtle expressions will be lost on us. Sadly though this means that once you get used to identifying the cues, telling if a suspect is being truthful, lying, or withholding information becomes almost automatic. Sadly this leaves you with very little in the way of a challenge.

Consequently LA Noire is very much a one trick pony and once you’ve figured out how the trick is done, it just becomes one long cut scene that occasionally requires you to press a button. The only other curve ball the game can throw at you is visiting locations in the wrong order. But of course, anyone with half a brain cell should be able to figure that out once they realise it’s actually important. While the illusion of interactivity lasts though, it’s a very involving and entertaining experience.

Sadly, LA Noire has nothing else to do beyond these cases. Unlike most Rockstar games which are usually chock to the brim with interesting things to do around the map; random encounters, challenges and well crafted distractions (the comedy club in GTAIV anyone?) LA Noire’s ‘side quests’ are distinctly lack lustre.

Virtually all, in fact literally all of them are Pointless Fucking Collectables (PFCs). If you feel like taking some time off the cases, you can collect cars, film reels, newspapers (which to Rockstar’s credit actually serve a point as they reveal cut scenes giving some back story to the main game), discovering landmarks, or solving street crime- none of which bar the newspapers actually serve any purpose.

By solving street crime I mean you respond to radio call outs which result in a firefight with a handful of gunmen and then getting back to your day. These are just boring by the numbers firefights we’re familiar with from previous Rockstar games, but without any background to give them a sense of urgency, motivation or accomplishment. Well done Rockstar, you’ve found a way to turn what should be an adrenaline fuelled gun fight into another thankless collectable.

I just don’t understand it- LA Noire features probably the most detailed and intricate map Rockstar has yet produced, and they don’t do a damn thing with it.

To add insult to injury, one of the cases pretty much requires you to have behaved like an obsessive compulsive as if you have not found one specific land mark, you can’t proceed. The worst part of this is that the prior to that landmark, others you need to find are revealed to you if you take too long finding them. This last one serves the sole purpose of forcing you to drive around for hours looking for the damn place, killing time. Unless you do what I did and just check the internet for the advice of people insane enough to kill every pigeon in Liberty City...

Beyond the gameplay I also question just how Noire LA Noire actually is. I’m not a huge movie buff- in fact I rarely watch films. However I am familiar with Noir through a friend of mine who has a passion for it, and as such I’m familiar with many of the tropes and trappings of the genre. Therefore I’d question how closely LA Noire actually follows them. Outside of the first hour, there isn’t much in the ways of voice over, femme fatale or anything else I’d associate with Noir, beyond maybe the themes of drugs, sex and general vice. To be honest though it felt closer to 70’s cop shows and Dirty Harry movies (Minus Harry Callaghan if that makes sense) than anything else. Still, I’m by no means an authority here so you’ll need to take that with a pinch of salt.

From a technical standpoint (and this may not be true for the PS3 version; I’m playing it on the 360) LA Noire does have a few issues with loading textures and jittery cut scenes. It doesn’t happen too often, but it does happen often enough to make it worthy of note. Installing the game does seem to make a difference though and the occurrence of these errors is heavily reduced if you do so.

Overall, I can’t really speak against LA Noire in a big way. While its execution has some big holes in it, the ideas presented are interesting and also demonstrate great strides towards truly engaging non combat centric gameplay. The problem is that these concepts age very quickly, even within the lifetime of the game itself.

My final word on the matter would be simple: LA Noire is certainly worth playing, but you’ll want to pick it up cheap second hand and I doubt that DLC will extend your enjoyment of the game. It lacks the entertainment value of games like Red Dead Redemption or the GTA series, but shows some interesting ideas that deserve exploration. If you’re after a murder mystery though, I think you’ll find more mileage with Heavy Rain on the PS3.It isn’t as long or as complex, but it remains challenging and entertaining all the way through.

No, this is not a porno. It is however probably my favourite out of all the Metal Gear Solid games. Plot wise, it’s a prequel set during the Cold War, which establishes the roots of a lot of the characters and plot elements of the later games. MGS and MGS2 often referenced events in the past which were quite important, but never really expanded on. MGS3 ties up some loose ends, as well as establishing many other elements for use in MGS4.

Gameplay wise, Snake Eater is friggin’ brilliant. It is however, a huge departure from the other games. Thanks to a far lower tech level, staying hidden is much harder as you don’t have radars and the like to help you. You do have gadgets such as the motion detector (which picks up animals and does not pick up stationary guards) and the sonar (which alerts nearby enemies and still picks up local wildlife), but thanks to their drawbacks, they will still only get you so far.

Snake Eater is brutal. You need to check where you are going carefully, and move forward slowly to avoid surprises. Keep a detection tool handy as well- just in case. There is very little hand holding here, you’re dropped into the jungle with only a few basic gadgets to get you started, and from there, you’re expected to avert World War Three.

Unlike in MGS2 however, you are given a potent new tool to use in your fight against the Russians (who strangely enough have better eyesight and co-ordination than the genome army)- camouflage. Snake Eater allows you to change your clothes and face paint to better blend with your surroundings. A very helpful meter in the top of the screen keeps track of how well camouflaged you are in your current terrain, and with the correct camo, your enemy will need to walk over you before they actually see you.

It’s not a perfect system though. Changing your camo requires you to pause the game, go into the menu, select camo, select your clothes, select your face paint and then shift back through the menus to get to the game again. On some terrain you’ll want to do this every ten seconds or so if you are paranoid. When you factor in loading times, this can get downright annoying. Still, technical problems aside, as a gameplay mechanic it’s excellent.

Beyond that, the gameplay is largely unchanged bar the lack of advanced tech necessitating extremely cautious play. Oh, there is one other exception- stamina.

Betamax hates this. I love it. Essentially, it adds a survival element to the game. Over time (influenced by your activities and injuries), Snake looses stamina. As your stamina drops, your health regeneration slows down, your hands tremble so you can’t shoot straight, and you can’t hold your breath as long underwater. You can replenish your stamina by hunting wild animals and raiding the food stores on enemy bases.

In many ways it’s the precursor to hardcore mode on Fallout New Vegas. Your stamina degrades slowly enough that you don’t need to constantly hunt for food, but fast enough that you’re still aware of the fact you need eat. Oh, and taking damage can sometimes result in an injury which decreases your maximum health (as with Dragon Age 2. Sort of), and requires special equipment to heal.

All this helps to really emphasise the stealth element of the gameplay, and even sections where you are expected to fight the enemy (including a great piece against an elite Spetsnaz unit), simply running and gunning is liable to get you killed on all but the easiest difficulty settings.

Story wise, I think Snake Eater is probably the best of the series. For one thing, it’s much easier to follow, bar a sudden jolt in a totally new direction halfway through. It’s concise, it’s to the point, and Kojima doesn’t throw new things in so suddenly I get metal whiplash. The ending too, is something special which still brings me to tears. The only scene I’ve found more emotive in a videogame is the death of Aeries. Like most of the series, the message is simple and to the point- politicians are shits, nationalism is bad and of course- war is evil. Of course I don’t agree with Kojima on every point he’s making, but it is refreshing to see an actual message being put across in an artistic medium which is more often than not nothing more than popcorn.

The sound is great too- solid voice acting and a great musical score, including a James Bond style theme song, which makes no sense at all, but is still fun to listen to. It is a little strange though that all the actors are American when the game takes place in Russia, but despite an odd casting choice they still deliver their lines well.

There are some elements of Snake Eater though which are a bit annoying. Wild animals for example, can be used against your enemies if you capture them alive, which is cool. However the best ones are poisonous, and having sneaked past hordes of GRU soldiers only to be laid low by a tarantula you never even saw is pretty annoying. The boss fight against The End is also a major irritation as it takes the form of a somewhat realistic sniper battle (but for some reason he uses tranq rounds), which means it takes FOREVER (although you can save the game, set your Playstation’s clock forward a week and load- he will then die of old age).

Then there are the parts of the game which are just weird. Raiden makes a sort of cameo, and while it’s nice to see Kojima acknowledging him as the annoying watery twat that he is, ridiculing him in his own setting, it is a strange spark of humour against the mainly dark story.

Ultimately, Snake Eater is my favourite of the series. For me it has the best gameplay elements, featuring a very tough challenge, but offering you the tools to overcome them, along with a well told story and an interesting cast of characters. I found it easier to get my head around than MGS2, and once I did it was very rewarding. It’s far from perfect with a few technical problems and a generally very high difficulty (going for zero detections and zero kills in this game WILL screw with your mind), but at the end of the day it’s a great game, and one I always enjoy playing through.