E3 2012: Thoughts and Feelings – Sony

Well, we’ve had a terrible Microsoft presentation, a well presented but somewhat vacant EA press conference, and then Ubisoft’s travesty with a surprise ending. Well, now we have the (so far) best presented one. Sony definitely knows what to do when trying to sell their products. That is to say that they try to sell stuff hard between talking about games. But what of these games?

Beyond: Two Souls

Quantic Dream, you’ve hooked me already. Ellen Page as the main character with some beautiful motion capture, impressive graphics, some weird psychic/paranormal shit, amazing atmosphere and some dodgy looking SWAT team. I love it. Everything seems great. Oh, and there appears to be branching paths.

Not much has been shown of this game, but the game looks to be dark, mature and have some pretty cool action. This is one to keep your eye on.

Playstation All-Stars: Battle Royale

Super Smash Bros. for the Playstation? Well, I was previously sceptical, but now I have to say that this game looks pretty damn interesting. The action is easier to see than the Super Smash Bros. games, making things less of a clusterfuck, and the characters are more my kind of characters. The levels seem to change as the matches go on, with games crossing over (the level was meant to be from Ratchet & Clank, but suddenly the God of War Hydra appeared).

Sadly, I can’t quite understand the health system in the game. The HUD doesn’t seem to show what health your character has or if they are using the stupid Super Smash Bros. damage percentage shit. I suppose we’ll find out more as they release more information.

One interesting development with the game is that you can play with both PS3 and the PS Vita at the same time.

Other Stuff

Then the presentation went onto all kinds of other stuff. Cross-controller Little Big Planet 2 DLC was announced, allowing people to play co-op with both PS3 and PS Vita. Seems to be a big focus of the Sony team now. PUSH THAT VITA!

They also announced more things about PS+, which will have new downloadable titles. Also, people in the audience got 1 year free for PS+.

And then we have more PS Vita pushing. Black Ops Declassified has been announced for it, not that we were shown any gameplay, and PS1 classics are coming to Vita. On top of this a new Assassin’s Creed game will come out for the Vita, Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation. This game has the first female assassin and utilises touch screen controls and the in-built camera. Not sure how well this will work, but it looked good.

Assassin’s Creed III

Ah, this again. Surely they aren’t going to show more stuff for this and will just show a trailer. No? Oh, well it will probably just be more of the combat and stuff. No? Well, what is it- Oh my God naval combat!

Okay, this was very gimmicky but it looked good. It looked fun. It looked pretty. Assassin’s Creed III has recognised naval combat as an important part of the American Revolution, and so now you can fight at sea in a ship you control with cannons you can fire yourself. It all looked very good and seemed to imply you can also dock ships, which should be fun.

I almost forgot to notice they were still showing you only fight the British...

Far Cry 3

BOOBS!!!

Wait, no boobs? Huh, odd.

Well, they did show some 4 player co-op. Again, it looked pretty but it doesn’t seem like anything particularly new or innovative. Just your basic co-op. Nothing much here.

Wonderbook

What the hell is this? Why can’t we just read books? This is gimmicky as hell and will probably be overpriced.

But I am somewhat intrigued. It seems to be some sort of virtual pop-up book utilising the Move controller and the PS Eye. “Books” have games or something in them which kids will probably have quite a lot of fun with. Especially with their first title coming from JK Rowling: Book of Spells. It looked fun to an extent, but is definitely something you’d become bored with quickly.

Just read a book.

God of War: Ascension

It’s just more God of War. Not that this is a bad thing. God of War is always fun. Not much story was hinted at, but a new power that reminds me of the Sands of Time from Prince of Persia was shown. It seems to have uses in both combat and platforming/traversal. Looks good.

The Last of Us

If you aren’t excited about this game then I don’t know what’s wrong with you. Naughty Dog have made something absolutely spectacular. If there’s anything I can say good about Uncharted then it’s that the games are gorgeous to look at, and The Last of Us is just that. The environments look absolutely stunning.

But games aren’t all about the graphics. They have gameplay! So what is the gameplay in The Last of Us? Well, amazing, really. There is a stealth element involved which seems appropriate as when the character got shot he took a lot of damage. There are many enemies to contend with, and you need to go about it in an appropriate fashion, especially as bullets seem greatly limited (the guy had 4 bullets, which only went up to 6 when he picked up someone else’s ammo).

So, to combat this you have some hand to hand stuff going on and it looks brutal. Not in a God of War sense, but more so causing you to go “ooh”, “ouch” and “bloody hell” when he dispatches of enemies by repeatedly smashing their heads against a desk or beating them in the back of the head with a revolver. This creates a sense of tension and desperation. This is not from choice; this is for survival.

The AI seems greatly intelligent too, searching for you and attempting to ambush you. The Ellen Page looking companion is also effective, jumping on your enemy as he attempts to strangle you to death and stabbing him in the back.

The game is hard to put in words, so I recommend looking at the demo that they showed.

Ending Thoughts

Kudos to Sony for probably being the only one of the main 3 to actually include new IPs (Nintendo aren’t going to give out anything new). There may not have been too many games on show, but what they did show they showed well and in a way that makes you want to see more. Definitely best presentation so far, and probably the best for all of E3.

E3 2012: Thoughts and Feelings – Ubisoft

Let me start of by saying this: Aisha Tyler is the worst person on Earth. That’s quite a thing to say, yes, but I’m being honest. I swear she takes joy in ruining fun, even more so than clowns do. She presented the Ubisoft press conference and she ruined every second of it. Not to say that the content was good, but my God was she terrible. She over-sexualised everything and told awful jokes. When she says “Let’s play a game: how many times does Aisha get girl wood?” my heart sinks and I go for the knife. This is probably the worst conference so far. There was also some Toby guy who was trying to be funny but I don’t know who he is nor do I think he was funny. (UPDATE: Ah, Tobuscus. I have seen him before, actually. Yeah, I've never thought he was funny.)

In other words, this conference was terribly presented. But what about the content?

Dancing

What?

Singing

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!

Just Dance 4

Oh, the conference started with a song and dance (literally) about Just Dance 4. I don’t think I could tell you what the game has done to improve upon the previous games, but, like Usher, they decided to concentrate more so on the celebrity. So, yeah, can’t talk to much about this one.

Aisha Tyler

Aisha (talking about the dancing girls): “We’re all a bit gay.”

Fuck off, Aisha!

Far Cry 3

So, this all started off with sexualisation. Well, Far Cry 3 should continue with this. In an attempt to show how mature games have got we see gratuitous tits and swearing. EDGY! The game did look quite pretty and I can imagine it’s pretty similar to Far Cry 2 (it looked like it). Oh, apart from these hallucination sequences that were just a confusing mess. Not much was really shown about this game, but it does seem to have stealth elements and highly scripted sequences.

Oh, and you can shoot tigers. Cool, I guess.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist

Nothing was shown here apart from a trailer. Microsoft showed more. The trailer did seem to show that the game loses its stealth element for action, which is a shame, really.

Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth

A trailer was shown, but bugger me if I can tell you what the game’s about.

Rayman Legends

Well, this was finally something interesting. Raymanis going to be on the Wii U. It was nice to finally see a game on the Wii U, and it appeared to make some very good use of the touch screen. It even used motion control, but it was almost exactly like the controls used for New Super Mario Bros. Wii, so is nothing particularly new.

One thing that did annoy me is that Rayman Origins had a very interesting 2D design to it, but Rayman Legends used a somewhat 3D look for some of the characters. This just didn’t mesh with the overall design, in my eyes, and ruined the style that made Origins so pleasing to the eyes. There was some amazing sound design though in a musically themed level.

ZombiU

Shit name, but it’s somewhat refreshing to see a game set in the UK. They only showed a trailer with annoying music, but it might be something to keep your eyes on if you’re into killing zombies (you are).

Wii U

Nothing was really shown here other than titles. Rabbids Land, Your Shape Evolved, Sports Connection, Just Dance 4 and Assassin’s Creed III are all available on the Wii U. No gameplay shown, so nothing to talk about. But wait, what was that last one?

Assassin’s Creed III

Holy crap, gameplay! RUN!

Well, from what I can tell from the gameplay we are still slaughtering only British people because the Americans totally weren’t outsiders. Nope. Apparently not. Hunting seems to be an interesting dynamic, but there did seem to be a thinly veiled QTE in there somewhere.

Movement seems pretty competent, with tree based movement looking wonderful, dynamic movement in the snow and environment seeming a big part of the movement. However, this was never part of stealth, because the gameplay showed no stealth. This is a shame, as that seems to be something that would work well if going through the woods to slaughter all the British.

Okay, okay, the Ubisoft people have said Americans will also be targets, but everything so far seems so anti-British. I know this is always harped on by us Brits, but all I want is some neutrality, really. That’s was the series has always incorporated, but this seems so... agenda based.

Shootmania

What the fuck was this? I cannot tell you anything about this game other than it looks like Quake. The gameplay was shown in a tournament style setting, like what you might get at Blizzcon. But they introduced so much comedy!

“HURR DURR GURLZ VS BOIZ!!!” Aisha proclaims. Because that’s funny.

I think video gaming is dead.

Watch Dogs

Wait, an interesting IP? A new IP? Bloody hell, I might just die.

It’s set in a somewhat generic cyberpunk world where everyone is connected to the network. The gameplay shows and open world like GTA but with on-the-fly hacking a la the new Syndicate or even Mindjack (but done well). The game seems gritty, dark (in a good way) and seems to have a living and thriving world.

Shooting looks competent, the world looks pretty and the voice acting good. The conference wasn’t worth this, but my God am I looking forward to this game. Keep your eyes on this one, it might be a new hit.

Ending Thoughts

Ugh.

E3 2012: Thoughts and Feelings – EA

Well, I’m surprised. EA, I expected very little from you, but you delivered a fairly convincing conference. Not that it was perfect and there was a lot I did not care about, but you got the presentation down perfectly. Maybe it’s just after the Microsoft one you seemed so much more... game oriented. Anyways, my thoughts on the individual elements.

DLC

Oh, fuck off. 

I’m not sure they necessarily said it (I was in another room looking for something at the time but I could hear bits). DLC should not be a focus! Bastards.

Dead Space 3

Well, it definitely looked different. Dead Space was never a game that I got. It wasn’t really the sort of horror game I wanted as jump scares do not make horror for me. So, luckily for them they decided to get rid of all pretence that it was a horror game.

Yeah, it’s now a cover based co-op shooter. You know, what we want from horror. So yeah, it looked like Resident Evil 5 in space. I really can’t say it looked good at all, but maybe it will go more so along the Resident Evil 4 route of going so batshit insane it’s fun. Or maybe it’ll be weird and have drills that are bosses. Yeah, that was weird.

Madden 13

So, this was a very interesting thing to focus on as the other sports games had a lesser focus later. They took it very seriously. But it did have some interesting things, such as a new physics engine. Then a guy came on and gave advice about how to do well in the NFL. Why? Just because.

One thing that did intrigue me though was the story mode, which had a story engine to flesh out the world, as well as having a fake Twitter feed to comment on the season. Seems all very immersive. You can also manage the league online and on a smart phone, which I do think works quite well.

SimCity Social

So yeah, SimCity on Facebook for all you Farmville fans with a hard on for SimCity.

SimCity

Holy shit this looked pretty. I love SimCityand now we have a new one. The art style is very pleasing and the world seems a bit more dynamic. On top of this we also have multiplayer to connect you and your friends. With multiplayer when things happen in your city it effects nearby cities, allowing a thriving SimCityworld thing. I like.

Battlefield 3 Premium

It’s that paid for membership thing that Call of Duty has. EA wants your money. That’s all I have to say.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

This game has always intrigued me and if I played MMOs I’d probably play it. Updates to it do sound interesting. These updates include more PvP areas, a harder difficulty, more playable species, higher level caps and a new planet. Apparently Bioware love the people who play its game because it sounds like some of these are free, if not all. Kudos.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter

Shut up, I liked the first game in the reboot. It had its flaws and was just a Modern Warfare game, but I liked it. Now, this on the other hand this game looks... meh.

Don’t get me wrong, there was a lot I liked about it, such as the HUD and it had some good character animations, but to me it looked so much like Modern Warfare 3. It didn’t seem to try and make its mark. 

Sure, it is interesting that real life events are explored in the game, such as going to Somalia to fight pirates (I was expecting a giant enemy crab, knowing E3 real life events) but it didn’t seem to do anything new or spectacular. It just fits in nicely with other FPS games.

Multiplayer does look interesting though, with lots of different factions over the world and many different weapon types. Ooh, and destructible environments. Otherwise, it was more of the same.

EA Sports

Oh, hello EA Sports games. I thought we were done with Madden. Well, a creepy guy says otherwise.

A lot of games were announced, such as a new Free-to-Play Madden game, NHL, NBA and UFC, but nothing to get excited about, really.

Except FIFA 13 has some cool elements about it. Players carry their level over from your FIFA 12 saves, which is nice, and there’s a whole football club element that carries over. Also, it’s going to be available on iPhone, iPad and Android phones. But nothing too great.

 

Need For Speed: Most Wanted

 

This looked pretty good. The graphics were good, the driving seemed to work well and I think it got away from the hyper-realism that is in a lot of driving games nowadays. It’s open world, which I don’t like in my driving games, but it seemed to carry it off okay. There’s a lot of comparisons with friends as well, which will be good for some but infuriate others wanting to beat their friends but not being good enough to do so.

Oh, and it’s better than the Forza Horizontrailer because the trailer for this one didn’t have dupstep. Instead it had Prodigy. Sweet!

Crysis 3

WHY?! Why take us away from the open world jungle aspect and give us an “urban rainforest” that seems linear as fuck. This did not impress me and I honestly think they need to shut down the Crysis series as they have ruined one of the most interesting IPs out there with its two following releases. 

It looked pretty, though.

 Ending Thoughts 

Okay, I think it was to do with the shitty Microsoft conference that I liked this. Overall there is nothing particularly new. Some interesting developments, but it’s sequel-mania out there. Everything did look quite pretty, but for the most part there is no real innovation out there.

If I could describe this conference in one word it would be “Connectivity”. There was a real focus on connecting you and your friends to create an ongoing experience. It’s something I appreciate from the company. Not that I would utilise it (*sob* no friends *sob*) but I can see people really taking to it.

E3 2012: Thoughts and Feelings – Microsoft

So, E3 2012 kicks off with Microsoft taking the helm. There are many games I’m excited for and I was hoping that maybe they would get shown here. Well, we didn’t really get that, at all, but let’s go through the press conference from the beginning.

Halo 4

At the start we had a trailer/demo for Halo 4. Personally, I’m shocked they didn’t end the Halo franchise at the end of the storyline, which I presume is Halo: Reach (I don’t play Halo), but after the secret ending of Halo 3 (secret only to those who didn’t complete it on Legendary) we now see Master Chief is still shooting aliens on some other planet. Or maybe they are AIs. I don’t know, really, I’m just kinda confused how you can shoot AI with bullets. The weapons looked interesting, but for me it was more of the same. Just more Halo. Oh, and they got rid of the health system again, relying purely on shields. Don’t like it, but I don’t play those games.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist

Then we had Splinter Cell: Blacklist. I don’t really play these games either, but at first I was intrigued.  Then I slowly realised that what they were showing was not the stealth games they used to be but rather HEART PUMPING ACTION! So, yeah, Splinter Cell has become a generic third person shooter apparently with no real stealth element by the looks of things. Shame, really, as the opening of the gameplay intrigued me, seeming almost Hitman-like in the fact you use a disguise.

EA Sports

Well, Ubisoft and EA have shown games real quick. Now we have EA Sports games. WITH KINECT! Yay? Now we can be silly and tell people in FIFA what to do. Because that’s what we wanted in FIFA, right? To not play the game? Of course.

We also got a nice little Maddentutorial. This actually interested me, to be honest, and was the first thing I could see being somewhat good. It was shown that you can call out all of the different plays when doing the hike thing (I know bugger all about American Football). It seemed to work well and looks like it helps the player immerse themselves in the NFL setting.  Thumbs up to that, I guess.

Trailers

Fable: The Journey. Still looks like it’s on rails; still looks pretty crappy. Might be good, but I don’t think it will be. 

Gears of War: Judgementhas Baird being the main character. This was another game series I was surprised is still having games made of it, but People Can Fly might make it good. I’m not really that excited for it, and they haven’t shown much of it, but I suppose we’ll have to wait. Not much excitement from the crowd with this one.

Forza Horizon I was out of the room for as the dubstep was irritating me. I hear it’s open world, but it’s nothing to be excited about. Just another Forza game, really.

Technology

And here’s the main ruination of the Microsoft conference. The technology stuff. My God was it irritating. Most of the conference seemed to be taken up with Microsoft trying to tell us that the Xbox 360 should be used for pretty much anything butgaming. No, instead we should use the Kinect to do what a controller can do and make the Xbox 360 a TV because if we have an Xbox 360 we definitely don’t have a TV, so need to use the console to watch TV on. Wait...

Oh, and sports. Lots of sports stuff.

Also, we have the Wii Fit on Xbox 360. They didn’t really tell us how that would work, but someone from fucking Nike will let us know they are working with Microsoft and that athletes love the measure stuff. Cool, I guess.

But of course, we also have more random shit. This time it’s linking smart phones, tablets and the Xbox 360. Now we can search online on our Xbox, but apparently we all have tablets and smart phones, so why is this? Who cares, Microsoft really want us to use Internet Explorer and Bing. Yay?

All in all, this stuff (called Xbox SmartGlass) is meant to immerse us all in our TV shows, movies and games more by giving us information on our smart phones and tablets whilst we are watching or playing these things. But this all seems rather pointless and nothing that should have this much focus. There was a demo with Game of Thrones which showed a map of things happening as the show bounced from place to place which was kind of cool but it doesn’t seem to have that much purpose.

Tomb Raider

Thank you! GAMES! I forgot about games. So yeah, the new Tomb Raider. This game interests me a hell of a lot and the demo they gave showed off a lot of features. The shooting and stealth looks cool and the destructible environments look great. It’s a very pretty game, but it does seem fairly Uncharted, which for me is a bad thing. I do think it looks more interesting than Uncharted and is a lot more of a human tale, with some good survival elements.

So there we go, another thumbs up for me. The only major complaint I have is they showed a bit too much of the game, but it is looking good and for that I am happy.

Oh, except that they have announced the DLC already, saying it will be Xbox 360 first. Ugh.

More Trailers

So now we finally get some new exclusives. Three games in fact. Nothing much was shown of these, they were mostly teaser trailers. All looked a bit interesting, but I can’t really say what they will be like. The games were Ascend: New Gods, LocoCycle and Matter, a game made for Kinect and from the guy who made Pirates of the Caribbean and Rango which looked like it had the Space Core from Portal 2. Might be an idea to keep an eye on these.

Resident Evil 6

Well, this looks like it sucks. I don’t have much to say about it, other than the guy playing it was awful and it didn’t look like you played the game, it just seemed to have set pieces that you go through.

Wreckateer

It’s Angry Birds for the Kinect. But with goblins. INNOVATION!

South Park: The Stick of Truth

A game I’ve been looking forward to. It’s got good voice work and looks just like South Park, keeping all of its humour and everything. Definitely a game to keep your eye on. Not much was shown of this, but Trey Parker and Matt Stone came on stage to talk about it.

Trey started off by taking the piss out of the tech stuff, saying how this game allows you to connect your Xbox, TV, smart phone, tablet, oven, all whilst in the refrigerator. Good show! There seemed to be many challenges coming with making the game, such as actually having to finally map out South Park (they said it occurred to them they have no idea how to get from Stan to Kyle’s house). All in all, they talked it up quite well.

I think this might be the gameplay, but not too sure...

Dance Central 3

That’s coming and-

Usher

Okay, maybe Usher is going to perform instead. Don’t really know what is new about Dance Central 3or what they are doing with it, but Usher performed a song for us for no reason. Thanks, I guess. 

Call of Duty: Black Ops II

So, I’m actually intrigued by this game. The future tech and the branching pathways definitely look competent and interesting, but the story seems to be lifted directly from theModern Warfare games. The gameplay looks pretty standard for this series and hopefully people will be better at playing the game than the guy who played it.

However, I do have a couple of little niggles. It looks less like an FPS and more of a sight-seeing tour where you tell drones to move around and shoot people. I honestly think other things killed more bad guys than the actual character did with his gun. It looks like an interesting direction for the series to take, but I have to say I’ve lost a lot of my excitement for this game.

Ending Thoughts

Microsoft’s conference was horrible. It was one of the worst I’ve seen. It concentrated more so on the technology than the actual games, which is what people want from a console. Now they want a whole new entertainment system, but the focus on gaming seems to have been lost. There was nothing new on the table and everything just felt kinda bland. Hopefully the other conferences will be better, but this was a bad start to E3.

Worst Gaming Experiences: The Shotguns of Railroading

So, imagine this situation. You’ve been shot on a train full of enemies. You blow up the train in some vague hope you’ll survive because you’ve been able to survive every explosion imaginable and you do, indeed, survive. You climb out of the wreckage, surviving explosions and your body slamming into all kinds of surface. You shoot a few people on a way to safety. You traipse through snow in just a t-shirt and jeans. 

You come across a large group of enemies and you know you can take them out silently. You do so, in the meanwhile looking for an exit. No one has found you and you are pretty sure all enemies have been dispatched of. You find a way you can climb out. Your first instinct is to climb and escape. However, as you are climbing two people appear behind you from nowhere and shoot you before you can react.

Thanks, this guy. You cause me pain and misery.

Now, imagine this in terms of a video game. You think you might not have taken everyone out, so you start trying to stealth kill everyone, making sure to leave none behind. You try to sneak past everyone, taking out no one. Neither of these tactics work: you get shot. Suddenly you think that maybe you should kill everyone. Loudly. With guns. More enemies start coming, so that can’t be the way, surely? But it is. 

In this scenario you have to kill everyone who comes your way, and there are waves and waves of enemies. When you have killed them all, your character slows down, exhausted, climbs up and you get away. The game has artificially constructed a situation to increase tension. No, not artificially, it’s straight up unfair. No game should set you on the rails like that, cheating you out of continuing the game because you are doing to logical thing and trying to get away without bringing attention to yourself and thus preserving your life.

Well, I have to say thank you, critically acclaimed Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. You have possibly the worst moment in gaming I have ever experienced. I am glad I have to understand exactly what the developers wanted me to do because they think action is a better way of dealing with what should be a tense and slow paced moment. You have shown me that instead of giving players a choice you should just shoot them in the back without warning with teleporting, psychic, shotgun-wielding soldiers.

Yeah, I don't like Uncharted 2 that much...

Aliens: Colonial Marines - First Impressions

Having just got back from MCM Expo I have looked back on my time at my first convention. It was extremely fun and I would definitely love to go again. It has certainly given me a taste for the convention atmosphere. However, one thing I remember most about Expo were the several games shown there. Out of these games there was one I played a demo for that really stuck with me.

Aliens: Colonial Marines is a first person shooter, though the demo we got was the competitive multiplayer. This meant that whilst the marines were in FPS mode, the aliens were in third-person mode. When we went in we were shown what the alien side was, watching the SEGA team battle against the normal guys. Xenomorph (the aliens) gameplay looked simply fantastic, with climbing on ceilings and walls being a major part. The entirety of the gameplay looked far superior to the gameplay in Alien vs. Predator, which had the Aliens in first person, making running along walls give you motion sickness.

But the xenomorph side was not the gameplay we got to experience first person. When the game finished (41-37 for the SEGA team) we played against the SEGA team. As marines you are dropped in apart from each other, but it is easy to find each other. A key approach is to take the Left 4 Dead tactic of stick together. Many people would run off on their own and immediately get shanked by a xenomorph. In fact, many of my kills were trying to make sure a person wasn’t on their own, see a xenomorph or two drop down on them, leaving me to try and protect them.

Another tactic that needs to be used for this game has to be one many people did not employ: turn on your flashlight and keep your eyes upwards. At one point four of my team members ran through a door with an obvious prehensile tail hanging from it. A few quick shotgun blasts and I had saved their lives. Of course, I found employing this technique actually heightened my fears, as I was looking out for the xenomorphs so much I kept seeing things.

 

The weapon loadouts given to us were great. My personal favourite was to use the shotgun as it was easier to hit the moving targets, plus xenomorphs need to get up close to hurt you, so a shotgun blast to the head before it stabs you is perfect. The other two weapon loadouts consisted of a machine gun (useful) and an assault rifle that shot in bursts (not as useful). The trailer showed a flamethrower which was not in the demo but I can imagine being extremely useful in the full release.

The game was a paranoia filled bundle of fun and is definitely a game I would like to get on release date. The L4D style of gameplay was absolutely fantastic and made us all work together. On top of this the game is simply gorgeous to look at, albeit it very dark (though a flashlight will solve that). Plus, the gameplay feels very balanced (our side lost 39-38, which is pretty close), even though when playing the game you do feel very vulnerable, which is how you should feel against the xenomorphs.

Aliens: Colonial Marines is out on Microsoft Windows, PS3 and Xbox 360 in February 2013, and Wii U in 2013.

Warp

Reviewed Platform: PSN

Other Platforms: XBLA, PC

Well, it sure has been a while on here. What with all the coursework and general University-ness going on I haven’t really had time to concentrate on something to review it. Luckily, I managed to get Warp a week or two ago and have been slowly playing through it. As soon as I started playing it I knew this was review material. Something about it just said “easily reviewable” to me.

But before we get into that we must ask: What is Warp? Well, Warp is a game I was very much looking forward to. A downloadable title developed by Trapdoor Inc., Warp is about a cute little alien called Zero going through a facility, trying to escape from the scientists and soldiers that have help him captive and tested on him. That’s all. A nice, neat little story and, to be fair, it’s not too bad. Nothing in depth but gives the player enough motivation to get to the end of the game.

The game does have other good parts, but sadly these parts are hampered by the game’s design. Firstly we have to look at the art design. Zero is, as you can probably tell, fucking cute (LOOK AT HIM!). He is adorable. That’s great. But what isn’t great is the fact that his art design is not conducive with the design of the rest of the game. There’s something that seems wrong when looking at Zero near the human characters. Zero’s overly cartoonish style just doesn’t mesh with the slightly realistic looking people and this means that scenes with humans in don’t feel right, almost in an uncanny valley sense. Otherwise, the art design is alright.

The dialogue is actually also somewhat entertaining. I would love to hear more and more of the scientists babbling on about what stereotypical nerds they are. Sadly, I can’t. This is because dialogue doesn’t happen enough and when you get close enough to the characters to hear what they are saying they have usually reached the end of their sentence. Once I just heard “mumble mumble masturbation.” I have no idea what that line is about in context because I couldn’t hear it. A simple fix for this would be to utilise subtitles, but the game sadly doesn’t have this option.

Talking of sound, the game does actually have some pretty good sound design. When you warp into enemies in order to make them exploding there’s a rather satisfying squelch as blood sprays everywhere. But, of course, there’s something to combat this area of sound being good: the lack of music. The game is extremely dull to play through without music. Not enough is going on to keep my full attention and some music would have been enough to keep me going. The design on the game warrants some wacky Splosion Manstyle music, but it’s just not there.

There are some other minor problems. The game doesn't really have a progression in difficulty, so it all seems like a massive grind to get to the end. Field of view from enemies isn't very easy to gauge and sometimes they seem to come out from nowhere. The game also glitched out a few times, not allowing me to go forwards until I ending up killing myself attempting to solve some imaginary puzzle. Also, the load times are horrendous for this title and get especially irritating when getting to sections where you'll die a lot.

There are some interesting powers in the game, but none of them really alter gameplay enough.

But none of these currently listed problems are the biggest. These are simple nitpicks. You might be wondering what playing this game involves. You know, like what you need to do and what the controls are. It is at thispoint the entire game falls apart, and disastrously so.

The controls to this game are HORRIBLE. At first the game seems to be quite good with controls. It you notice how when you are going to warp in a barrel or a person the pointer usually locks on. It’s handy. As the game goes on, however, you’ll find this to be almost irritating. A simple warp from one location to another can be hampered by a stray barrel getting in the way. Or even then the pointer won’t lock on to the barrel, getting you stuck behind it and then getting shot.

For a game that requires such precise controls the game is amazingly imprecise. You’ll find yourself dying over and over and over not because of ineptitude but because of the shite, stiff controls. And there is no place that these controls are more atrocious than at the end of the game.

The final level has a ship rocking from side to side. It is here you desperately need tight controls, but this game doesn’t have any. Instead you’ll find the physics going wild and your ability to accurately move between lasers waning. The gap you need to get into would be fine with precise controls, but nope, this game doesn’t have any. Once you power through all of the shit thrown at you come against the ending boss. If, when playing through the previous section, you thought the controls were being crap then THIS is where they fall apart.

Fuck physics and fuck the controls and fuck this game. The boss just doesn’t work and feels broken. I didn’t complete it. Once I have defeated the boss I have to sit around and not get hit. I don’t have any way of stopping myself getting hit, but I usually get hit almost straight away, giving no time to try and do anything. I just have to pray like it’s fucking Earthbound. Sure, there seems to be a way of doing it, but from looking online there are people who spent 30 minutes on this final boss. I can only suppose this is due to the controls.

If this game was more mechanically sound I’m sure I would love it. People seem somewhat polarised about this game and I can understand why. At first I thought it was OK, but as the game went on I found myself hating it. I was interested in this game for a while and I am disappointed with how it came out. The idea is one that it incredibly interesting and with a bit more polish and playtesting I’m sure it could have been great. Sadly, for me Warp is just... well, shit.