Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

Second one for the night, go me! So yea, a little side note: I was excited to use Kinect for this. It attempted suicide by jumping off my TV for trying to use it. So here we go!

STORY
After a bomb goes off in Nicaragua, costing the lives of one of the Ghost Teams, a second team is sent to track down the weapons origin, nd eliminate any threats along the way. This operation leads the team across Nigeria, Russia, Norway and Pakistan, in hopes of stopping any other bombs being transported or used.

The team is made up of Ghost Leader, Pepper, 30K and Kozak (whom the player controls). This is a fairly standard story when it comes to modern war games. The characters are somewhat interesting, each with their own personality traits, but they're nothing we haven't seen before. Theres the smartass, the hardass leader and.... that's about it. It'll honestly get quite difficult to tell who's who, as their faces are covered and they don't sound that distinct, but it isn't all that important.

The story is a decent enough reason to get players going on a world wide bomb hunt, and it all makes enough sense to sound plausible.

PRESENTATION
The game is a mixed bag when it comes to visuals. The landscapes all look quite fantastic, but when it comes to facial graphics, they look pretty half-assed. Luckily, the protagonists' faces aren't shown often, but when they are, they're cringeworthy.

Animations on the other hand look smooth and visceral, bringing home the point of these characters being the most well trained, awesome soldiers in the country.

The sound effects are really good too, with alot of the gunshots sounding almost as brilliant as Battlefield's. And on a final note, the particle effects look really good too, particularly in an early level where a dust storm hit's the Ghosts' operation.

GAMEPLAY
While the game is a mixed bag as far as story and presentaion go, the gameplay aspect is almost as good as 3rd person shooters get. The controls, for the most part work, and are well thought out. The use of two different zoom functions can be a little jarring at first, but having a 3rd person zoom, then a 1st person iron-sights zoom is surprisingly useful.

Along with the standard (but very well polished) cover-based combat, Ghost Recon hands the player some near future gadgets, and you feel like a mix between a soldier and friggin Batman. They're all quite cool and serve a purpose as well.

The gameplay never really strays far from the squad based tactical arena, but when it does, it just doesn't feel right. A lot of the game depends on having your squadmates, and that formula works.

And on that note, controlling your teammates works suprisingly well, and when you aren't controlling them they're actually quite competant. Score one for the NPC brigade!

REPLAYABILITY
The single player campaign features a co-op mode, and a number of different challenges to complete, ranging from weapon challenges to the ghost challenges (which are based on your accuracy, detection rating and your kill rate).
There is a multiplayer, but it's honestly not that stunning. Try it, but the singleplayer is at least enough to keep most players engaged.

OVERVIEW
Ok, so this game looks suprisingly bad in some areas, quite good in other areas, and the gameplay is slick and fun. Theres a decent amount of variety when different gadgets are employed, but when the game strays too far from the standard formula, it feels a touch too different.
Do I recommend this? Yes. Highly. It's a game where stealth actually seems to work for once, and the NPC Companions are capable during gameplay. For that alone, it's worth a look. But past this, it's a solid game. So yea, check it out.

Starhawk

So I've been quite slack with these reviews lately, for no better reaso than I'm lazy. So to make up for that, I'll do two reviews tonight. Sound good? I'm thinking Starhawk and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. Let's get on with it!

STORY
In the distant future, humans are colonizing planets all across the galaxy, at the same time harvesting a new resource known as Rift Energy. The rift miners (known as rifters) would mine this precious resource, and occasionally become infected by it, turning into monstrous outcasts. The protagonist of Starhawk, Emmett Graves is a former Rifter, who turned to gunslinging after an incident tht left his brother suposedly dead and himself changed forever; becoming half-man, half-outcast.

The game picks up as Emmett and his business partner Cutter help to protect the local Rifter operations from outcasts as they learn more about what happened to the other Graves brother.

The story is a mixed bag, with an interesting premise and setting, but mostly uninteresting characters and very cliched plot twists. The "space-western" setting and vibe are very cool, and the story certainly had potential. But the characters are just very boring, with Emmett being a really angry guy, for almost no reason.

PRESENTATION
While the game's story is largely very average, it's visuals and music are quite awesome. The variety of locations, from desert-like planet's surface, to futuristic space station, to the remains of a gutted mining rig on a very eery asteroid. They all look quite cool, and theres a surprising amount of colour in this game.

The animations are quite smooth, without a whole lot of variation, however the Hawk transformations are particularly awesome.
The music ramps up in all the right moments, giving the game a nice sense of frantic action when the gameplay really picks up. The voice acting is unfortunately not as good, with characters being forgettable and overall quite average.

GAMEPLAY
So at this point, you're probably thinking that I absolutely hated this game. Well, that's not quite true, as much as some things about this game annoy me. I want to get this out there ASAP: If you don't play multiplayer, and you're quite single player focused- STAY AWAY. The gameplay works, but the single player campaign just isn't engaging. What it IS, however, is a decent tutorial on how to play the multiplayer.

Starhawk is an interesting beast; part 3rd person shooter, part RTS. And the strangest thing is, it works. Now because the single player was so meh, we'll just apply everything I say here for multiplayer.

The controls and interface are surprisingly simple, considering the amount of stuff you can do. Let's start with the basics: Shooting and moving all feels really good. Along with this, the vehicles handle nicely too. Then things get strange.

You're able to bring up a radial menu that gives you a number of options to reign down upon your enemies. Armories, landing pads, garages, AA Guns and shield generators are available to fortify your team's base, allowing for a number of ways to approach the battle.

The best thing about this isn't just the variety, but also the surprising level of balance. Yes, people will be flying in jets that turn into mechs, or driving along in machine gun equipped jeeps, but they have their disadvantages, allowing even one soldier on foot to stand up to them. This isn't just me talking in theory. I literally shot down a Hawk while on foot. And it was AWESOME.

Now, you can't just spawn facilities whenever you like. It all depends on your amount of rift energy, and this helps the game avoid being a massive cluster fuck.

REPLAYABILITY
Starhawk has a fairly robust multiplayer, despite it's single player short comings. On top of the fantastic gameplay, there are also a number of cosmetic unlocks and gameplay unlocks (perks) to help you switch up your look and game. I can see people giving this a fairly large amount of time (maybe not as much as CoD, but not bad).

OVERVIEW
To the single player gamer, Starhawk is terrible: it has a short campaign, the story is forgettable despite it's potential ridden setting, and the characters don't evoke any emotional response. The functional gameplay won't do a whole lot to keep players here.
However, if you like to get your MP on, Starhawk is pretty unforgettable. There are some sweet HOLY CRAP moments that can occur, but the tight and balanced gameplay makes this better than many other multiplayer focused games out there.

Best of E3 2012

So I'm going to be lazy (and extremely late) with this entry, and just list my 5 favourite things I saw over the E3 period. Before I start, however, it was disapointing that so few NEW games were announced, with most being at least rumoured at for a few days beforehand. I can safely say that a couple of the things in my top 5 were things I heard about for the first time at E3.

Disclaimer: I do not own the footage seen before. These are all from the youtube pages of Playstation, Ubisoft, IGNEntertainment and GameTrailers

NUMBER 5: Splinter Cell: Blacklist demo
It's no secret that I love stealth games, and the last Splinter Cell game was one of the first things I bought for my 360. So when I saw the gameplay demo for Blacklist, I almost crapped myself with joy. Sam Fisher is back, and he's brought the mark and execute function with him. But it's undergone a serious makeover; where Fisher had to take his shots in a stationary function, the mechanic can now work in motion.

It also looks as if players will be able to chain multiple Mark and Executes together, like some kind of homocidal poetry in motion. While this looks as stealthy as a bear covered in cooking pans, it also looks hella fun.
On the other side of that, however, is the new kinect functionality, where voice commands can be used to distract enemies, and initiate air strikes by your fellow fourth echelon super spies. It looks cool, but like most Kinect functionality, I can see it wearing kind of thin.



NUMBER 4: Beyond: Two Souls reveal
So in 2010, Quantic Dream released Heavy Rain, an interesting experiment that had a great story, but maybe not enough game for most gamers. It was certainly different, playing out more like an interactive movie than a game, though player choice mattered more than most games can ever say they did. But hey, whatever, I still enjoyed it, and I think it's one of those games that everyone should try at least for one chapter.

And how is this relevant? Quantic Dream have announced their first release since Heavy Rain, titled Beyond: Two Souls, and that's damn exciting for me. It's a story revolving around Jodie Holmes, a young woman who is always accompanied by a ghostly presence, whom she calls "Aiden". Aiden can interact with the environment and communicate with Jodie; it's effectively the games second playable character.

Story details are sketchy at the moment, but from what I can gather, Jodie (and by extension, Aiden) are on the run from some form of Law Enforcement, and the pair must use Aiden's supernatural abilities to escape and survive. Having not seen much gameplay from it, I don't know many details for sure, but I would assume that it's somewhat similar to Heavy Rain. Also, Jodie ids played by Actress Ellen Page. Sweet.

Here's a trailer!



NUMBER 3: Assloads of Assassin's Creed 3
So we've known about Assassin's Creed 3 for quite some time. But despite this, how much gameplay have all of us actually seen? Not much, would be the answer. Well, at E3, we were treated to 3 demos, as well as a reveal at some pocket-sized assassin fun.

Now, it's common knowledge at this point that tree running is now an option, but until now, we could only speculate as to how well it works. I can say, quite confidently, that it looks as smooth as any other free running in previous games. Using forks in trees as junction points allows Connor to flow quickly through the trees and to switch paths at a moment's notice. As well as this, we saw some hunting, the effects of snow, and the furious viciousness of Connor's melee attacks.

As well as this, we saw a trailer demonstarting the game's naval combat, featuring Connor in his very own pirate-y get-up. It all looked cool, but whether or not this plays well, or is the new Den Defense (I haven't forgotten you yet, Revelations!) is yet to be seen. Finally, some gameplay of a Boston market showed off some new hiding techniques in the assassin repertoire, as well as some very cool kills (bayonet stabbing one guy and shooting through him into his buddy is sweet!) and rounded out the enormous amount of AC3 coverage.

But then some PSVita footage was shown. Yes, the tiny bundle of gaming joy will feature it's own AC game, featuring a female French-African assassin named Aveline. Sweet. So yea, thats an Assload of Assassins Creed.









NUMBER 2:Watchdogs Demo and reveal
So at E3 this year, there were maybe 2 or 3 new IP's on show. And Watchdogs was one of the best things about the show, as well as one of the newest. It's gameplay looks open-world, and the focus seems to be on taking out targets (like another certain Ubisoft property). What sets this game apart from every other open world game that involves killing, Watchdogs has a focus on hacking, as it's set in a world where so much information and so many process are control by a central operating system (which may be a reality in the near future, if it isn't already).

On top of the interesting premise, the demo suggests multiple player characters, tight cover based combat, and a nice amount of freedom in how you approach situations. I'll leave you with a demo for you guys to see for yourselves.



NUMBER 1: The Last of Us gameplay
The last of Us was announced quite some time ago, and despite this, we've seen very little actual gameplay. If any at all. So it was awesome to actually see something from Naughty Dog at E3, and it was surprising to see how brutal this game is. You can clearly see some of the animations are courtesy of Nathan Drake, but where Mr Drake would crask wise while knocking a guard out, Joel just snuffs a guy out while he struggles for breath. It's certainly a departure from anything that Naughty Dog has done before.

In the demo, we see how the lack of ammunition and the importance of strategy impact this game. Certain approaches to situations will be more difficult than others. We also see that Ellie isn't the hand holding escort mission style of NPC, as she participates in combat, but sticks to the shadows so she doesn't get herself killed. It'll be interesting to see this one when it hits stores. Heres the last demo for the day!



Honourable mentions ironically go to Dishonoured which seems to provide a seriously mental amount of freedom to go about your missions with. Dishonourable mention for Gears of War Liberation, which only had a 45 second reveal trailer with no gameplay. And a big WTF to Rockstar Games who didn't even show up.

See you next time!