After putting nearly 80 hours into Skyrim, I feel informed enough to give a quality review. Having said that, I could very likely double that amount of time with the quests I have left to do. So I can’t honestly say that I’ve experienced everything this massive game has to offer, but I have experienced all of its core systems and hope that will be enough to give you a fair and informed opinion.

Five and half years after Oblivion, three years after Fallout 3, Bethesda has finally made their triumphant return to video games with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. As technically impressive as those games were when they released, there’s really no contest when compared to Skyrim. Not only is this game world much bigger than its predecessors, it also feels more alive because of an ecology of dragons, giants, mammoths, and dozens of other creatures. And every nook that those beasts find their way into is so unique and visually stunning that you’ll wonder how you ever trudged through Oblivion‘s cookie-cutter dungeons. Every inch of Skyrim begs to be explored so it can tell its story. Like every other Bethesda game, those stories tend to involve crippling bugs, weak characterization, terrible AI, and simplistic combat, but the sheer immersion offered by this colossal world where you can essentially do or be anything you want whenever you want makes Skyrim an unforgettable experience.

Breaking the studio’s tradition of opening in a dungeon of some sort that eventually leads to your first jaw-dropping glimpse of the world at large, Skyrim kicks off out in the open with a wagon ride into a nordic village that’s got a chopping block with your name on it. It’s also being kept warm for Ulfric Stormcloak–leader of a rebellion against the Imperials. Good thing for you, Ulfric’s got some friends in high places and just as your head settles into the bloody stone, a dragon–the first one in ages–swoops in to wreak havoc on the village. The fire-breather’s merciless destruction of just about every building in sight gives you a chance to escape, and from there, you’re free to aid the Stormcloaks or Imperials in their civil war, follow the main story-line to quell the dragon crisis, join up with various guilds, get married, chop wood, become the world’s greatest cheese thief, or anything else you can think of.

What’s truly impressive is that you’ll set out on most of your adventures not because some NPC told you to, but out of an insatiable compulsion to explore all the beauty Skyrim has to offer. With mysterious and ancient monuments shimmering on the horizon, imposing fortresses bordering that bridge you want to cross, icy crevices diving into hidden cities, and so on, there isn’t a game out there that can distract you as well as Skyrim can. And I mean that in the best possible way; delaying the task at hand for what turns out to be an hour long trek through a dank, cobwebbed hideout of vampires can be more rewarding than pushing the plot forward. And it’s precisely because every seemingly trivial cave or fort or campsite is so finely detailed, so distinct from everything else, that exploration comes so naturally. This is to say nothing of the dozens of bustling cities and scenic villages that fill out the landscape. There’s just so much to see in Skyrim–all with its own unique flavor that still manages to conform to a greater aesthetic–that it can feel like the real world sometimes.

Of course, if you take the time to look at textures up close, you’ll ruin the illusion; a game this big simply can’t look cutting edge under the microscope. But Skyrim is a game about the sum of its parts, and when everything’s moving together the way it should, the cold, stony, nordic setting is downright breath-taking. It’s easy to get caught up in Skyrim’s majestic version of the Aurora Borealis, but a dragon’s semi-stiff animations might detract if you let them; the swirling snowdrifts of the north can really place you in the storm, but poorly lit conversations with NPCs can pull you back out. In short, Skyrim isn’t the best looking game out there, but its pervasive and varied art direction never fails to make you feel like a mighty hero risking life and limb by adventuring through grimy sewers or crumbling tombs.

The sound effects also go a long way in establishing that immersion. Whether you’re wielding a sword, ax, mace, or shield, the clangs of combat are always weighty and lethal. The blood-letting sounds especially gruesome when the camera pulls out for special Fallout 3 style kill animations. These slow-mo stabbings and bludgeonings are doled out with moderation, making the squish of an fatal entry wound all the more effective. They usually take place in third-person, but occasionally go in for slick first-person kills that feel really satisfying. And if you’re not hearing battle up close, the twang and thwick of a bow and arrow should satisfy your aural senses from range. But nothing’s more exciting to the ear than the crackles and whooshes of high-powered magic. Casting different spells from each hand can really feel like conducting an orchestra of mayhem sometimes.

The score is equally engaging with its deep drum rolls, exultant horns, and commanding chorus; it really echoes the nordic culture of honor and glory. The only place that Skyrim‘s audio really falls short is in the voice acting department, where roughly half a dozen actors do the voices of every character in the game, and poorly at that. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part, you’ll want to punch every NPC in the face if you have to talk to them for more than twenty seconds because the lines are delivered so lazily. Frankly, Bethesda should be embarrassed to have released such shoddy, repetitive work. And the few times when you actually want to hear what someone’s saying, it’s not uncommon for background music or NPCs to completely overpower the character you’re talking to. This can get annoying during important story moments. Along those same technical lines, you can expect frequent framerate drops, texture pop-in, and more than a few freezes. At least there are some funny bugs and glitches to balance all the frustration out.

For better or worse, Bethesda’s particular brand of RPG has never been about characters and an emotional story. Bethesda games put you in a sandbox and let you fill in your own story while choosing to play virtually any kind of character you can dream up. Skyrim is no exception. The joy of exploration is the real draw of the game, with combat simply giving you something to do while you dive deeper into the world’s rich history, both written and waiting to be discovered. And in a true feat of world-building, that rush of discovery never gets old. There are so many different kinds of enemies that all inhabit their own distinct regions that you might run into new ones dozens of hours into the game. At higher difficulties, different foes can require different tactics, but at the default setting, you may as well be invincible by level 20 (which isn’t that high).

Among the bandits, trolls, giants, witches, wild beasts, werewolves, vampires, and more that you’ll encounter, the headliner has to be dragons. The first time you’re just strolling around some swamplands or plains or mountains and a random dragon swoops down to light your horse on fire, it’s pretty frickin’ awesome. It’s even more insane when villagers run out to help you fight the monster or when you simply come across a dragon already fighting with a giant and his herd of mammoths. Everything about it feels really organic, even if close observation of the AI makes it seem anything but natural. But when you actually man up and go in for the fight, you’ll find that dragons are perplexingly weak creatures that rarely offer a challenge. Whether you’re facing a fire dragon or a frost dragon, they just aren’t nearly as intimidating as those in Dragon Age. And as long as I’m inviting that comparison, it sure would have been nice to have some special kill animations for Skyrim‘s ticket-seller.

The only thing that ever makes a dragon fight difficult is when they’re flying around and evading your hits (this is actually the premise of one of the most poorly designed boss fights I’ve ever encountered). Thankfully, at a certain point in the main storyline you gain access to a special “shout” that can ground the beasts for some quality strikes. But that’s not the only shout. Because your character is a “dragonborn” with dragon blood in his or her veins, you have the ability to “speak” the dragon tongue. Turns out that their conversations usually come down to breathing fire or wind or ice, becoming ethereal, calming animals, conjuring lightning storms, etc, etc. There are dozens of shouts to learn in the game, all unique and all with varying degrees of power that can be mastered. They’re essentially magical attacks that don’t use up any magic, but they’re all kept in check with recharge timers. They can generally help you out of a tight spot when standard attacks aren’t doing the trick, but they never feel especially powerful.

As for those standard attacks, don’t expect many changes from Oblivion. It is true that combat has been reworked so that each hand controls one attack–giving you a wide array of options like dual wielding, dual casting for more powerful spells, a balance of melee and magic, or two-handed heavy weapons–but at its core, you’re still just hacking away without much thought. The animations are slightly better than its predecessor, but they certainly don’t compare with most other Fantasy RPGs. And don’t even think of playing in third-person, because then the comparisons get really embarrassing.

But the combat’s not nearly as bad as the tacked on puzzle-solving you’ll find throughout. Some of it is intentional, like doors that can only be unlocked by arranging stone icons in specific arrangements. The first time you encounter one of these you’ll probably be very lost because without any indication whatsoever, the developers expect you to use a zoom feature to closely examine the key to the door. Hidden away on the underside, as tiny as can be, is the order you’re supposed to use. At least you know better for the rest of the stone puzzles, but that still doesn’t make them any more interesting. Then there are the unintentional puzzles; by that I mean that vital chains and levers are so frequently hidden in ridiculously stupid nooks and crannies that you might mistakenly think a door is glitched shut. I mean, I looked for these things, hard, with night vision on. I still couldn’t find them until I went online and watched videos. It’s certainly not the case for every dungeon, but it happens enough to become a problem. Maybe a hint system could have helped. Or maybe friendly AI that doesn’t just stand in the way with a dumbfounded look on its face.

Where Skyrim makes up for its less than visceral combat is with its breadth of supplemental systems. Fighting gets a lot easier once you start crafting and upgrading your own weapons and armor. Then again, if you don’t want to spend points in the Smithing or Enchanting skill trees, you can always invest in Alchemy to coat your weapons with poison and fortify your own attributes. Or you can avoid combat all together and go the stealth route with Sneak, Lockpicking, and Pickpocketing skills. The point is that you can play how you want, and no matter what path you choose, the systems you’ll use are deep and rewarding. As long as you can find the materials–various metals and leather for Smithing, wild ingredients for Alchemy, etc–you can forge your own equipment. Your abilities at lower levels can be disappointing, but after enough investment in any particular tree, you can start to do really cool stuff.

For example, I invested heavily in Smithing, Enchanting, and Heavy Armor (among others). I crafted my own armor, took a potion to temporarily boost my Smithing skill even more, and upgraded it to “Legendary” levels. I then proceeded to enchant it with magical properties that I derived from destroying magical loot I’d found throughout the world. And in my Heavy Armor tree, I invested in a perk that allowed my unarmed attacks to add my gauntlets’ armor bonus modifier. Because my particular race (Khajiit) starts out with an extra 15 damage for unarmed attacks and my handcrafted armor is so good, my unarmed attacks became significantly more effective than any weapons I came across for a good portion of the game. But then I decided that I wanted to use a sword instead, and before long, I was deadlier than ever.

Conversely, you might invest heavily in Speechcraft and open up economic benefits that I haven’t. You could buy the best equipment at every shop and get by that way. It really is up to you how you want to play. And thanks to some thoughtful streamlining, leveling up and investing in skills is easier than ever. Rather than gaining arbitrary “experience points” and then spending them in a menu, you get better at everything you do by doing it. Wear light armor a lot? You’ll become more effective with it. When enough of your skills have advanced, your character’s general level will go up, giving you the option to upgrade your health, magic, or stamina. After you do that, you get to pick a “perk” from any skill tree you want. Better perks require a higher level in that particular skill, but since each skill increases the more you use it, it’s easy to unlock the coolest perks for things that you actually use. The perks themselves have a wide range of effects, with some simply making your armor or weapons X% more effective, and others doing cool stuff like disintegrating enemies with low health if you use electrical magic on them. You can even save your perk points for later if the specific perk you want isn’t available yet. It’s a really smart, rewarding system that’s all packed into an aesthetically pleasing, if not somewhat difficult to navigate menu.

That menu literally plots your progress as constellations in a colorful, stardust infested sky; it looks wonderful. The other menus are surprisingly minimalist in comparison. In fact, navigating to your inventory or map or magical powers looks so clean and modern that it feels inconsistent with the rest of the game. It’s not a real issue, but the actual navigation can be a bit counter-intuitive at times. Going to your menu takes you to a sort of central hub where you can navigate in four directions to get to where you’re going, and then you proceed from there. It works fine, but for some reason, once you’re in a sub-menu, pressing B or O like you would in any other game menu on the face of the Earth takes you out completely and puts you back in the game world; you always have to use the directional control, sorting through varying levels of sub-menus to get back to the hub. Once again, it’s not a huge issue, but it’s a recurring problem that many gamers will never get used to.

Similarly, there’s a “Favorites List” that serves as a sort of quick pause for hot keys. Most developers have come to realize that consoles are best fit for radial menus that can easily display close to a dozen hot options that can be selected in seconds flat. Skyrim, on the other hand, simply offers a vertical list of things that you can favorite in the main menus. There’s no limit to what you can add to the list (as far as I know), but anything more than five requires scrolling up and down a list (with no continuous scroll) where you can easily mistake one favorite for another. Furthermore, this list provides no information what so ever on what you’re selecting, so you might accidentally select a shout thinking you’ve selected magic. You also can’t tell how much damage anything does from this menu. For that matter, the main menus aren’t particularly informative either; you’ll have to memorize which weapons are one or two handed based on name alone, which isn’t as easy as you’d hope. They also lack crucial sort features, making it a real pain with all of the weight-induced micro-management that’s required.

Ah, yes, inventory management. Some consider it a hall mark of Elder Scrolls games. What would we do without it? While I do agree that it shouldn’t be axed entirely and that it does add a lot of depth to the game, I simply can’t stand spending ten minutes figuring out what I want to drop three separate times in one dungeon. Maybe if there were some auto-sort features that showed what armor configuration is best, or if there were even a simple weight sort or value sort, maybe then it wouldn’t be such an issue. But instead you’ll be spending a lot of your time paused in menus. And when you finally get back to town to sell all of your loot (with the exception of the stuff found in Dwemer ruins, most loot isn’t worth keeping), you’ll find that most shop keepers don’t have nearly enough gold to buy your goods. It’s not uncommon to travel to multiple cities so you can make some money and get back down to your regular weight.

Rounding out your time in menus is the quest log, which quickly fills with dozens of tasks if you don’t manage it carefully. It’s easy enough to deactivate quests so you only have what you’re looking for on your navigation bar, but it’s not so easy to know what you should deactivate. Some quests initially appear as full-fledged side quests or main quests, while others fall under the “miscellaneous” category. Most of the time, miscellaneous quests are simple fetch or kill missions that are procedurally generated to always take you to unexplored dungeons. You do the deed, get paid, and then do some more if you want (the generation is unlimited). However, for some reason, many full-fledged side quests start out in the miscellaneous menu, so you can never really be sure what’s worth ignoring and what could lead to one of the game’s most memorable quests. Why? I couldn’t tell you. But at least there’s in-depth stat tracking so you can keep count of how many innocent souls you’ve slaughtered in trivial fetch quests for fear of passing up narrative material.

Silent monks make for memorable characters, right?

So if the combat’s so simplistic and easy, the pacing is bogged down by an overabundance of micro-management, and the menus are under-informative, it must be a gripping narrative that drives you forward and compels you to keep playing, right? Well, not exactly. Skyrim‘s main story certainly isn’t bad; in fact, it’s pretty epic. But in all likelihood, you won’t be able to remember more than two or three characters’ names a month after you beat the game. Bethesda just doesn’t do interesting characters. Everybody’s an archetype and that’s just the way it is. That’s something that most video games are guilty of, but fortunately for other games, they usually have some semi-interesting set-pieces and halfway decent mission design. Skyrim certainly has some opportunities for awesomeness (there’s a part where you ride a dragon, but you don’t actually get to see or play this), but it doesn’t capitalize on any of them. When put up against some of the more interesting team-based stuff BioWare has been doing with their core missions in recent years, Skyrim‘s “go here, kill this in the same way that you’ve killed everything else, and don’t break a sweat doing it” philosophy is rather disappointing.

Thankfully some of the guild arcs offer more interesting experiences. For me personally, the funnest way to play Elder Scrolls games is stealth, and the Thieves Guild offers plenty of that. It doesn’t really compare to Oblivion‘s Thieves Guild questline (that finale was gold), but it’s still good. More action-oriented gamers will probably enjoy the Companions line, which is essentially Skyrim‘s version of the Fighter’s Guild. This arc is actually better than its predecessor’s, with some cool werewolves to boot. Having said that, being a werewolf isn’t nearly as awesome as being a vamp in Oblivion because they’re super weak, but hey…you know. There’s also the Dark Brotherhood, the College of Winterhold (i.e. Mage’s Guild), a civil war that lets you choose between two sides that are both a bunch of fatheads, and dozens of non-guild questlines or one-off quests. Personally I haven’t run into anything as memorable as Oblivion‘s “A Brush with Death” or “Whodunit?” but I’ve still got a whole lot of side quests to do.

Skyrim is a bit of a conundrum. When looking at it objectively, it’s filled with major and minor glitches, the load times are super long, the combat mechanics are simplistic and grow boring due to lack of challenge, there’s way too much micro-management, there aren’t any particularly memorable quests in the 80 hours I’ve played, it doesn’t do much to push the genre forward in terms of mechanics, and it’s just way too big and unfocused for a healthy adult to enjoy without sacrificing other parts of his or her life (in case this sprawling review didn’t reflect that enough for you). But I love it. I want to play another 80 hours. I want to start new games with different character types. I want to do these things because excepting its predecessors, there aren’t any other games that offer so much freedom in such immersive worlds. Skyrim takes my obsessive compulsive personality’s favorite aspect of RPGs–exploration–and builds an entire game around it. The size and depth of its beautifully crafted game world raises the bar for all other open world games, and realistically, with PC mods, you could play this game for years without getting sick of it. Just don’t stop to compare individual parts to other games, because it’s not Bethesda’s M.O. to do any one thing better than anybody else. They’re a company devoted to the big picture, and Skyrim is a picture that will stay in your head for a long, long time.

"Hold on: I've got to brew a lil' somethin' somethin' to keep from getting distracted."

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In late 2009, developer Rocksteady burst onto the gaming scene with a licensed superhero game that, far from sucking, actually raised the bar for licensed games of any genre. Batman: Arkham Asylum defied conventional wisdom so thoroughly that many critics considered it worthy of Game of the Year honors. So here we are in 2011, and Rocksteady has finally delivered the most feverishly anticipated Batman experience since Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. This time around, the World’s Greatest Detective is in an open-world prison five times the size of Arkham Asylum–more of a slum really. But does bigger necessarily mean better? While Arkham City does offer some thrilling flights over the intricately detailed streets of Gotham’s disciplinary district, it really doesn’t bring much innovation to the table utility belt. In fact, it inexplicably suffers from almost every problem that blemished its predecessor. Batman: Arkham City is certainly an authentic Batman experience that any fan will enjoy, but the unfortunate reality is that it’s more of a sidestep than the leap forward we’d all been hoping for.

Arkham City begins shortly after the events of Arkham Asylum and has one Mr. Bruce Wayne publicly speaking out against the recently formed prison-pueblo controlled by Hugo Strange. Taking none too kindly to the billionaire’s dissent, Strange kidnaps him with all the subtlety of a Mexican cartel and introduces him to the prison’s local population. It turns out that the good doctor is privy to Wayne’s secret identity and has some diabolical plans which require Batman’s presence in Arkham City. It’s not too long before a dying Joker gets involved and an odyssey of interweaving plots and villains ensues, complete with twists, turns, betrayals, and other contrived narrative devices.

Thankfully, the Dark Knight’s newest vacation home is a sight to behold. While it may not feature the sun and sand of a playboy’s typical getaways (in fact, the city seems to be cast in perpetual night), there are plenty of landmarks to see and locals to mingle with. The wintery skyline is riddled with Gotham’s most famous structures and every single building oozes hand-crafted artistry up close. The world is absolutely infested with secrets that make every nook and cranny worth exploring, and thanks to unique shop windows, billboards, graffiti, posters, and more, you’ll always feel like you’re exploring a real and authentic place. Dozens of these locations are considered “Riddler secrets” that can be scanned for detailed information on major and minor characters within the Batman universe. In short, Arkham City feels just as spot on as Arkham Asylum, but it trades guard towers for skyscrapers and barred windows for the neon glow of “LIVE NUDES” signs.

And whether you’re lurking through the industrial trappings surrounding a steel mill or dive-bombing your way to the front steps of a courthouse, there is always an array of tough-talking thugs and goons to take out. And depending on which super-villain they work for, they’re even dressed differently. Some come at you fists first, some are decked out with full body armor or riot shields, and some tote fully automatic rifles (which apparently aren’t frowned upon in this correctional facility), but their bones all break the same. At least practically speaking: when it comes to the specifics of just how that happens, Arkham City offers such an impressive suite of animations that you’ll swear the fights are choreographed better than any big-budget movie you’ve ever seen. What’s really stunning is that the dozens upon dozens of different animations–punches, kicks, pulling guys over railings, crashing into them from a window, etc, etc–dynamically adapt to environmental context. Moving in for an interrogation on a catwalk might trigger a move where Batman dangles his victim over the railing, while doing it next to a brick wall will result in that particular foe getting to know said wall better than he’d ever hoped to.

Top to bottom, this game is a technical and artistic leap from Arkham Asylum when it comes to graphics. Given that, it’s more than a little disappointing that Rocksteady fails to improve upon their previous effort’s biggest visual flaw; for whatever reason, Batman’s “Detective Vision”–a visual filter that grants vital information on enemy statuses and environmental opportunities–still drowns the screen in an overpowering blue that robs the world of all its wonderful texture. It’s beyond comprehension why the mode couldn’t have been altered to simply highlight the information provided without the blue filter. But because that info is so important, and because there’s no check on how long you can use Detective Vision for, you could find yourself sneaking through Gotham’s take on Tron for the majority of the game. There are occasional enemies with jamming packs that render Detective Vision useless, but they’re few and far between and can be easily disposed of.

Worse yet, Arkham City‘s Detective Vision might actually be more obtrusive than its predecessor’s considering the new effects it has on the game’s audio. This time around, whenever you use the mode a sort of distorted humming loops in the background and other sounds seem ever so slightly muted. I couldn’t tell you why this is the case, as Bats’ latest adventure generally features the sort of superlative sound effects expected from such an immersive game-world. The smack of knuckles to flesh literally sounds bone-crunching, the high-pitched zip of your grapple hook sounds too dangerous for anyone but a superhero to use, and the gust of wind beneath your torn cape gives an incredible sense of speed and gravity. But the real star of the concert is the flawless voice-acting of Batman, Catwoman, The Joker, and so many more. Even the henchmen deliver their often hilariously embarrassing lines with conviction. The great Mark Hamill has confirmed that this will be his last rendition of The Joker, so do enjoy it. Rounding out the auditory side of things is a tight score that always raises the tension when the stakes are high.

Given how many homicidal maniacs are out to impress their respective bosses (either by killing you, or on rare occasions, each other), the stakes usually will be high. Unfortunately for them, Batman’s combat prowess is as awe-inspiring as ever. Taking on a dozen enemies at once is as simple and satisfying as it is in Arkham Asylum thanks to the best melee combat in all of video games. By rhythmically stringing together simple attacks and counters, you can easily build up 30 hit combos and look stylish while doing it. And as if the flow of combat weren’t easy enough to grasp, Arkham City has added quickfire controls for a multitude of gadgets, meaning you can seamlessly freeze a sledgehammer-wielding mini-boss, zap a gunman into wildly shooting at his friends, lay down some crowd control with a non-lethal explosive, dish out the pain on whoever’s left standing, and then return to the frozen foe for the final takedown. And that’s not even out of the ordinary. The toughest fights require total mastery of every quickfire gadget and melee attack at your disposal if you want to keep the combo going against enemies that can only be taken down with specific moves; Arkham City truly offers the elusive balance of “easy to pick up, difficult to master.” When you throw in Riddler informants (highlighted in green) that can be interrogated for the locations of Riddler secrets, fights become even more challenging because you have to navigate the battlefield while saving the informant for last.

"My super detective senes tell me that the assault was committed here."

While the quickfire gadgets do make extended combos easier to carry out, Arkham City suffers from the same lack of guidance that plagues Rocksteady’s first effort. You can access tutorials through the menu, but there’s almost no help in the actual game-world, leaving you to figure out the best techniques and what to combine them with on your own. There’s also a good chance that some of Arkham City‘s side quests will leave you feeling directionless, as they can’t simply be activated through a menu; rather, a large section on the map is highlighted and you have the pleasure of gliding around in circles until you can spot what you’re looking for. I suppose it’s more realistic, but finding some of the quest triggers hidden in dark alleys just gets annoying. And it’s a shame, because some of the side quests–like one that has you rushing across the city as quickly as you can to answer payphones before Zsasz can kill an innocent–are great changes of pace. Then again, some of them seem like nothing more than filler, and none of them have satisfying conclusions.

Actually, I can’t truthfully apply that statement to the Riddler quest line, as I’m only about 70% through it. In order to acquire the locations of Riddler warehouses where the deranged genius keeps innocent prisoners locked up in Saw-like death traps, you’ve got to first meet a Riddler secret quota. This means exploring the world and finding Riddler trophies that are usually locked up in environmental puzzles. Some of these puzzles can be pretty challenging, and many of them require certain gadgets, meaning you might not be able to grab the prize the first time you see it. Thankfully, you can easily mark trophy locations on your map to come back to, but with 400 Riddler secrets to find, meeting the quotas for each Riddler warehouse can be a test of endurance. Considering that the puzzles to unlock Riddler trophies are oftentimes more difficult than the actual warehouse puzzles, it’s easy to lose interest.

When you’re not brawling with Two-Face or Penguin or Ra’s al Ghul’s henchmen and you’re not busy following side quest leads, you’ll most likely be putting Batman’s stealth skills to use. Like its predecessor, Arkham City frequently puts you in a room full of armed thugs that need to be taken out quietly. There are a greater variety of “predator rooms” this time around and being out in the open on occasion helps to keep it from feeling like you’re always just swinging from gargoyle to gargoyle in an over-sized box. You can still do inverted takedowns to leave terrified goons hanging upside-down from the ceiling, you can still sneak up behind a foe for a silent takedown, and you can still orchestrate a perfectly timed ambush with multiple gadgets. You can do those things, but unfortunately, Arkham City generally doesn’t require gadgets to get through a room. In fact, with the exception of a few devices like a weapon disruptor (disable up to two guns) and a smoke pellet for timely escapes, the game actually seems to punish use of gadgets; most gizmos end up drawing more attention to you than if you’d just performed a silent takedown from behind. You can even get through the entire game without using every gadget, which just seems like a major regression from Arkham Asylum, where every device acts as a chess piece with a specific purpose in your overall strategy.

Catwoman knows a thing or two about stealth too.

I will say that taking out a room full of enemies one by one until the last helpless soul is shooting at shadows in terror still does a great job of making you feel like the Batman, but the story that drives those sequences isn’t quite as good as its predecessor’s. Some people will love seeing over a half dozen different villains in one campaign, but for me, it feels like a disheveled excuse to cram as many names in as possible. And ultimately, the plot threads don’t hold together so well and it feels like there are two separate endings. Worse yet, one of those endings tries to go for an emotional knockout, but because of repeated fake-outs earlier in the game, I was left questioning the reality of what happened more than feeling any emotional response. And keeping with the going theme, Arkham Asylum‘s weak boss fights carry over (with one exception). There are also pacing issues where the story can move too fast for its own good sometimes, forcing you into the core narrative even if you want to focus on side missions.

One controversial part of the campaign is the Catwoman story-arc, as Rocksteady decided to pack her content into an online pass with new copies of the game. If you’re buying used or renting, you’ll have to lay down $10 for the on-disc content, which is both substantial and trivial at the same time. On the one hand, Catwoman plays completely different from Batman and has her own moves, gadgets, and way of getting around; there are some Riddler trophies that only she can get to; her story arc ties up a loose end that’s never addressed in Batman’s story. On the other hand, she’s not very fun to play as and her four “episodes” only offer about an hour of content. I’m not judging Arkham City positively or negatively for Catwoman’s segments, but it’s certainly something to keep in mind when considering a purchase.

Once you finish the campaign, get every upgrade (which isn’t very difficult), and track down every last Riddler secret, you’ll still have Riddler Challenge Rooms to keep you occupied. Like Arkham Asylum, this game features 12 melee challenges and 12 stealth predator challenges that can be completed for high scores. This time around, there are also Riddler Campaigns, which simply link a combination of three melee and stealth challenges together for an extended test of skill. The campaigns also step the intensity up by adding both positive and negative modifiers such as regenerating health or booby-trapped gargoyles. You get to choose when you want to activate each modifier (there are usually three or more) and can check them off in whatever order or combination you want as long as you’ve used each one by the end of the campaign. And if you’ve already topped the leader boards for the preset campaigns, you can organize your own, picking which levels you play and what modifiers are available.

The Challenge Rooms can be a lot of fun, but like Batman’s last adventure, the core game does a terrible job of preparing you for the level of difficulty found in this extra content. Instead of relying on easy silent takedowns, you have to adhere to certain guidelines like exploding a weak ceiling onto somebody’s head or saving a Detective Vision jammer for last. These restrictions require a lot more thought on your part, and frankly, I would have liked to have seen them worked into the main campaign.

He's thinking about the ice cream Mr. Freeze promised him.

So when all’s said and done, is Batman: Arkham City a good game? Yes. Will it blow you away like the game that came before it? Probably not. Rocksteady’s second crack at Batman is a refinement that makes the combat even smoother while adding more puzzles and secondary distractions that stir together in a beautiful world. It’s also a game that needlessly suffers from an awful visual filter, weak bosses, and an unfortunate lack of player guidance, direction, and preparation. The nagging problems tend to be more noticeable than the minor improvements and the end result is far less memorable than Arkham Asylum. That said, it’s still the best superhero game available.

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The Deus Ex series is one that is defined by choice. Games that are revered for allowing you to play the way you want to. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is no exception to this rule and allows you a level of freedom not seen in many games today. It truly lets you decide how to play. However, while Human Revolution delivers on big promises such as choice-driven gameplay and an engrossing, believable vision of the future, it often falters on some of the more technical aspects: long load times, poor animations, and spotty AI can temper the otherwise fantastic experience of playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Human Revolution puts you in the mechanically augmented shoes of ex-SWAT cop Adam Jensen. After a falling out with his buddies on the force, Jensen lands a job working security for biotech corporation Sarif Industries. As the company is about to make a revolutionary breakthrough in augmentation technology, a group of augmented mercenaries attack and destroy everyone and everything related to the research. In a daring attempt to save the staff and the research, Jensen gets seriously messed up. But David Sarif (CEO and president of Sarif Industries) takes the whole “better, stronger, faster” approach and implants Jensen with a whole bunch of augmentations to save his life. Now Jensen is headed down a road of global conspiracy as he attempts to track down those who almost took his life.

The multiple cities that make up the game’s immersive world, while not as complex and elaborate as, say, Liberty City from the Grand Theft Auto series, are good-sized and contain plenty of areas for you to explore. These “hub cities” have all sorts of nooks and crannies that you can root around in, and the game offers an experience point incentive for intrepid explorers who travel off the beaten path. You’ll often be rewarded with hidden weapons/ammo or pocket secretaries that contain passcodes to safes and apartments for your exploring efforts as well. The one thing that makes all of the adventurous exploring a bit frustrating are the extremely long load times that are encountered between city districts. Given the relatively small size of the hub cities, one wonders why the load times are not significantly shorter.

In addition to all of the aimless wandering you can do, each of the two hub cities also offer multiple side-quests. While some are certainly more in depth than others, they’re all fun to complete. The discovery of these quests can oftentimes feel rather organic as well. For instance, having just recently arrived in Shanghai, I overheard two ladies-of-the night discussing problems between one of their co-workers and their boss, and suddenly I found myself deep in a plot to kidnap a girl. It’s moments like those that really make the game world feel alive.

Conversing with the various NPCs that inhabit the game world will seem familiar to anybody who has played a Mass Effect game. Human Revolution seems as if it attempts to take some inspiration from the abbreviated response choices of Mass Effect, wherein the responses you are shown portray a general feeling of what will be said, but do not share what the entire response will be word for word. Sometimes the responses in Human Revoution work like this, but oftentimes you will find yourself reading a response, selecting it, and then hearing Jensen repeat the exact same thing you just read with maybe a few words added. This can grow tiring as the game progresses and you talk to more and more people.

When you begin a dialogue with a character, Jensen and his conversation partner will share some pre-scripted thoughts and then you’ll often be given the option to ask further questions. However, this is not a time when the choice-driven gameplay I’ve touted so far comes into play. These breaks in conversation are simply a way for you to ask more questions and gain more information about what’s going on. In general, your conversational choices are pre-defined and don’t affect how the game plays out. And this is a reflection of the games stance on choices in general.

Human Revolution is not a game about conversation-driven moral choices, it is about gameplay choices. This is not a game that asks “why,” but, rather, “how.” Not “Why did you decide to commit genocide against that entire species?” so much as “How do you want to gain access to this police station?” There are some attempts at morality, and you can choose not to do certain things that you think may be against your own ethical code, but they seem to offer little in the way of actual consequences. Don’t misunderstand me, though. This different kind of choice is exactly what makes Human Revolution great.

Almost every mission and every obstacle within Human Revolution can be overcome in a variety of ways. “How do you want to access this building?” the game implicitly asks you. Your options are numerous. Would you like to sneak through the sewers? Find your way to the roof and enter from there? Punch a whole through this weak wall? Find the security code for the door/gate? Just hack the door/gate? Or just waltz right in and shoot everybody in the face? On occasion (but not nearly as often as the marketing may have led you to believe), you’ll also have the option of sweet-talking an NPC into letting you in to that building. This, my friends, is real choice.

And the augmentation system is there to help you define your choices even more. You want to sneak into that building (either by the roof or the sewers, your choice) and then sneak past all the guards inside? Then you might be interested in the augments that allow you to move silently, see through walls, and cloak yourself. Want to hack your way through the front door? Sarif industries offers a wide array of augmentations that will make that easier and more rewarding for you. Just shoot your way in? Perhaps some dermal armor will help you from having your own face shot off.

Upgrades to your augmentations are made by gaining enough experience points to earn a Praxis point. Initially unlocking a specific augmentation track generally costs two Praxis points, and then subsequent upgrades can be had for one. Experience is doled out all the time and you are constantly kept aware of how much XP you need until you earn your next Praxis point by on screen prompts. There are many chances to gain bonus experience by completing objectives without being detected or from just exploring off the beaten path. Praxis kits can also be bought from merchants, and these, combined with regularly earned XP, made it possible for me to attain all of the upgrades (and then some) I wanted for my character. You won’t be able to unlock every augmentation, but you’ll certainly have more than enough to define your own character.

There are also other, more universally useful, augmentations offered as well. Such as the ability to jump higher, sprint for longer periods of time, carry more things in your inventory, or pick up heavier objects. But every augmentation will help you cater your version of Adam Jensen to your play style. There’s really no one augmentation that’s overpowered and that will make the game a cake walk, but there are some rather useless ones. As cool as the ability to launch explosive ball bearings in a 360 degree arc around yourself may sound, it’s probably not the best idea given how difficult frontal assaults can be.

Combat is not something that I experienced often during my pacifist minded playthrough, but when forced into it (such as in the boss fights; more on that in a bit) I often found that the controls were inadequate for a shooter. Taking cover during combat felt clumsy, and the absence of any sort of maneuver to help dodge fire (such as the ability to roll) led to multiple frustrating deaths. The enemies are also incredibly adept at killing Adam Jensen. While your health does recharge, it is certainly no crutch you can fall back on to avoid death. If you’re not careful, you will die. And while the game offers combat as a valid alternative to a stealth-based playthrough, it certainly seems to a favor the stealthier player a bit more.

The weapons at your disposal are numerous and varied. Everything from your standard shotgun to a non-lethal crowd control weapon that knocks enemies back with a concussive blast is represented. Each weapon has multiple upgrades which can add interesting new features to your firearm of choice. Exploding bullets and a predictive targeting system that tells you where to shoot in order to hit a moving target are just a couple examples of the way you can upgrade your weapons. And those upgraded weapons become exponentially more necessary in the games few boss battles.

 

This guy really wants to hurt you.

 

The boss battles in Human Revolution are a real low point for many reasons. Firstly, in a game about gameplay choice, the developers corral you into a certain playstyle like cattle being led to the slaughter. But the boss fights may have been a nice change of pace for stealth-minded players if they happened to be enjoyable at all. Every boss battle was an exercise in frustration. The bosses themselves are all extremely lethal and you will find yourself dying numerous times before finally besting them. Not only are you going to die a lot, but while you are actively engaged in combat you’ll find that the controls in Human Revolution just were not made for the intense one-on-one combat the boss fights force upon you. With no ability to quickly dodge out of the way of incoming fire, you will find yourself running around like a chicken with its head cut off hoping you can somehow catch the boss off guard and get in a few pot shots before running in the opposite direction. Once you have finally mercilessly slaughtered your enemy you will feel a surge of excitement and relief that it’s finally over. That these boss fights are mostly few and far between is certainly something we can be thankful for.

 

 

Throughout the game there are also sprinkled a few boss-like conversations. These conversations usually task you with, essentially, winning an argument against another character. These situations generally consist of you guessing the correct responses to choose in order to sway the opposing character to your viewpoint, but there is an augmentation that makes it easier to know what responses to choose. The first of this type of conversation has you attempting to defuse a hostage situation, whereas others have you trying to win an argument against your boss (which is more exciting than it may sound), or proving a character’s entire worldview wrong. These were a nice change of pace from the other combat focused boss battles and a nice addition for more socially minded characters.

When you’re not shooting rockets into overly-augmented mercenaries’ faces (or talking an NPC’s ear off), you may find yourself taking a more clandestine approach to completing your mission. The stealth mechanics are much more well done than anything the combat has to offer, and sleuthing around taking out enemies without leaving a trace just felt right. The enemy AI can be a bit unpredictable in how it reacts to your covert activities. Having set off some nearby mines, I assumed I was done for when the guards started to approach. But all they did was give a cursory glance of the surrounding area without even turning the corner around which I was hiding and which housed the now exploded mines. Yet, on other occasions they seem to react with supernatural awareness. A carefully planned route of stealth can be ruined because an enemy spotted your elbow popping out through a door from across the room. While it’s certainly not impossible to sneak by enemies completely undetected, their preternatural ability to spot you can lead to many frustrating moments. This can become especially frustrating given the reloading that will have to be done after you’ve been filled with lead by the super-guards and the consequent wait through an interminable load time that follows.

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In 2001, Microsoft launched the game franchise that would go on to define the Xbox with Halo. 2006 saw the company using Gears of War in much the same way for the Xbox 360. Both games set the standard for their respective genres and fostered die-hard multiplayer communities. And that’s why, despite the radically different play styles of the two series, there are a lot of comparisons to be made. For all intents and purposes, Gears of War 3 is to the Gears franchise what Halo 3, or perhaps a more recent example in Halo: Reach, are to the Halo franchise. It’s a game with incredibly refined and varied multiplayer experiences that have evolved from a multiplayer experience that was already AAA. It’s bigger, better, and more bad ass. But behind all of the many additions, the core gameplay hasn’t changed at all. Pretty much, it’s exactly what most Gears fans want.

Gears of War 3 picks up shortly after the events of its predecessor, meaning that humanity has sacrificed its last strong-hold on Sera to defeat the Locusts and rebuild. The problem is, the mutated Lambent Locusts have grown even stronger and are terrorizing the weakened and disorganized humans who now scrape out their livings on flotillas of aircraft carriers or, worse yet, in fortified pockets of civilization on the mainland. In steps Chairman Prescott, who disappeared months before without a word. He happens to have some very interesting information on Marcus Fenix’s father, who was presumed to be dead but, as it turns out, has been working on a biological weapon to destroy the Lambent in a secret lab. One giant fish-monster attack later, and the tattered remnants of the COG are launched into an epic adventure to find Marcus’ father and save the world from the Lambent, the rebuilding Locusts and their queen, and most importantly, fungus (no, really!). If it all sounds a little confusing, there’s a brief “Previously on Gears” vignette that will catch the uninitiated up…at least a little bit.

But the first thing you’ll notice before you get caught up in all of that is that this is without a doubt the best looking Gears of War to date. The level of texture detail that Epic manages to squeeze out of a six-year-old console is truly impressive, but it’s actually the imaginative and varied art direction that stands out the most. Nearly every chapter in the campaign hosts a unique and detailed environment, whether it’s the lush jungle foliage of Act II or the tranquil and majestic sea-floor of Act IV. The richness of colors really stands out, even in the dustiest of ghost towns. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the focus on fresh and appealing environments actually detracts from the feel of the universe sometimes.

Meet the Retro Lancer's Bayonet.

Maybe it’s just me, but I always felt like darkness was something to be feared and respected in the Gears universe; I still think that pushing the burning car to avoid Kryll in Gears 1 is one of the highlights of the series. But Gears of War 3, sublime though its visuals may be, spends less than one act in the dark of night (which also happens to be its best act), and there aren’t even any Kryll to hide from. I feel like darkness is both thematically and mechanically important to this universe, yet this game forsakes it for a better first impression. Whether that matters as much to you as it does to me is up for debate, but it’s certainly worth noting.

But regardless of the lighting situation, Gears‘ signature gore is on full display. The Unreal Engine seamlessly renders dozens of meaty humanoids at a time with animations that are more fluid than ever before, and it even manages to do it without too much texture pop-in. And whether you’re up against a lumbering Digger, a skittering Centipede, or a Lambent that’s sprouting tentacles before your very eyes, they all blow up real nice. The new sawed-off shotgun in particular creates a nice “there used to be a guy in that red spot” effect.

But all the quivering chunks of bloody flesh in the world wouldn’t do a very good job of satisfying your bloodlust without an appropriate squish to match. Thankfully, Gears of War 3 sounds about as squishy as swimming in a pool of Locust-flavored jello. This contrasts nicely with the booming thuds of shotguns and relentless chugging of machine guns. The distressing screams of Locusts and humans alike help to round out the sympathy of carnage, and of course, Marcus, Cole Train, and the rest of the gang are always prepared with an enthusiastic quip. Their voice acting is especially important to the campaign, which tries to maintain the COGs’ over-the-top bravado whilst evoking a somber sense of loss and the individual price of war. The score is also very fitting and helps to raise the tension during some dramatic firefights.

And there will certainly be plenty of those. Between the rebuilding Locusts and the growing Lambent, there are literally dozens of enemy types that vary from big to small, strong to fast, smart to dumb, and more. It’s pretty awesome the first time you see a Lambent grow three tentacles that proceed to lob harmful imulsion at you, but by the end of the game you’ll probably appreciate the greater variety of combat situations offered by traditional Locusts. All of the Tickers and Drones and Grinders of previous games are here, plus a couple new types. But the Lambent are certainly a formidable foe worthy of their place in the game.

And thankfully, there is an equally impressive array of weapons to combat all of those hostiles with. Some of the new additions (of which there are close to half a dozen) feel a bit tacked on and unnecessary in the campaign, but their distinct pros and cons quickly become apparent in multiplayer and they earn their keep. All and all, there is an astonishing amount of gun variety in this game that manages to offer enough distinction between weapons to make every one worth trying, if only to see how it uniquely obliterates the enemy.

As with previous Gears games, the vast majority of those guns will be put to use in linear openings that are filled with cover-objects. Squads of grubs or glowies dig in behind their own cover and let their big guys move in for the kill. You have to pop in and out of cover while maneuvering the battlefield and making every last baddie you encounter regret the day he was born. It’s a solid formula that’s carried the series for years now, but it does tend to get a little predictable and boring without a good set-piece to aid it. Perhaps it’s just wearing thin in the franchise’s third entry, or maybe it loses some intensity because of this game’s relative ease.

For better or worse, your AI companions in Gears 3 are extremely capable and will do all the fighting for you if you’re so inclined to let them. Sometimes it’s nice to have a comrade that doesn’t belong in a zoo, but other times it can steal some of your thunder. Personally, I don’t mind their enhanced combat prowess so much (even if they are kind of grenade-happy), but I can’t stand it when I get shot down and they refuse to run ten feet to help me up. It’s a fairly regular occurrence that sort of makes me wish the enemies would just kill me and save thirty seconds of frustrating bleed-out time. Then again, it’s probably easy to forget all the times that the AI actually did help me up.

But AI issues aside, the firefights are generally fun, and they’re often capped with memorable set-pieces and boss fights. The first three acts of the game are really a non-stop, breakneck barrage of progressively awesomer boss fights that pit you against the creepiest and crawliest monsters in the Gears universe. It’s not quite as ridiculous as riding a Brumak or cutting through the four hearts of a Rock Worm (thanks for the memories, Gears 2), but the relentlessness of the assault creates some really good pacing. There are also some slow-burn chapters in there that keep the tension high and your trigger-finger anxious. But unfortunately, Acts IV, and especially V start to lose the game’s previously superb pacing and drag on.

There will be brumaks.

That may have something to do with the developers being unsure of what kind of story they wanted to tell. The first few acts put you in the boots of both Marcus and Cole Train, and effectively use lived-in environments and trippy hallucinations to convey both a sense of the world’s history and the cost of war to an individual. These soldiers had lives before the war, and it’s really moving to see how everything’s changed. And it’s because you get a devoted glimpse into their former lives that the characters seem so much more real than the archetypical caricatures of the previous two games. There’s a real sense of loss for Marcus, Cole Train, Dom, and even Anya to a degree. But the second half of the campaign pulls away from this intimate characterization for a self-conscious save-the-world plot that can’t be taken seriously. I get that “Mad World” is a cool song and Ice-T is a cool dude and that they both have ties to the franchise, but putting them in the campaign, especially at dramatic moments, simply pulls you out of the narrative. It becomes campy and comical, which would be fine if it were consistent throughout.

The divide is probably most apparent if you stop to realize that a great deal of the drama in the game’s first half is conveyed through nothing more than environments, but the second half can’t manage to evoke any feeling without obtrusive cut-scenes that pull you out of the gameplay during critical moments.

The shift from character to plot is really disappointing when you consider the perspectives Baird and Dizzy and Anya could have offered had they been given their own individual segments. Anya lost Lieutenant Kim, who’s never mentioned in this game; Dizzy lost Tai, who’s never mentioned in this game; Baird lost…well I’m sure Baird has some really touching connections with hair products that we could have learned all about. Why Epic thought it would be a good idea to replace Baird and Cole with Sam and Jace (who?) for half the game is a mystery to me. They’re simply warm bodies to move around and fill out an action-oriented plot that falls short in the end because it relies on the thoughts and actions of a cardboard cut-out. And despite some massively unanswered questions, it’s presented like a nice, tidy conclusion that makes everything A-okay. Oh yeah, and the third Carmine brother, who’s probably lost more than anybody in this war, is essentially thrown into a brief cut-scene at the end after barely appearing throughout the game.

All of these complaints might sound asinine to Gears fans who never wanted the characters to offer more than some funny dialogue (which they still do), but the first three acts of this game give a glimpse of how much more it could be. That said, I’ve certainly played worse stories and I’ve definitely endured worse gameplay to reach a story’s conclusion. Some might even say that Gears of War 3‘s campaign is the best of the series.

Put those Silverbacks to use, young man!

Regardless of how much you enjoy the campaign, you’re sure to find something that revs your Lancer in this overstuffed gameplay bonanza. Versus matches, Horde Mode, Beast Mode, and Campaign Co-op each offer such vastly different experiences that you’re sure to find at least one mode you like. There’s also an intricately detailed stat-tracking system for each mode that keeps you up-to-date on your lifetime stats and progress toward medals and ribbons, which are awarded for completing specific tasks such as getting 100 executions or sweeping the opposing team in a competitive match. There’s even an Autolog-like feature that pops up and lets you know how your progress on a particular challenge matches up with friends’.

The competitive Versus mode’s new additions include Gears‘ unique spin on traditional deathmatch and a variation of Gears 2‘s Capture the Leader. The deathmatch type gives each team a set number of respawns that are depleted with each kill, making for some intense, distinctly Gears moments at the end of matches when you’re the last guy on your team and have no respawns left against a full team of five. The variant of Capture the Leader does away with the home base location that you have to drag the other team’s leader to in favor of a 30 second timer that only counts down if your leader is protected while you hold the other team’s. I still love this innovative variation on Capture the Flag, as a human meat-shield is a lot more interesting than a flag, but I must admit that I prefer the old version. These new matches tend to end very quickly and don’t encourage epic stand-offs at home bases. Hopefully Epic will up the timer in the next update. As for the remaining Versus modes, there’s Warzone, Execution, King of the Hill, and Wingman. They’re pretty much unaltered from the last game and just as fun as ever. King of the Hill seems to be the preferred objective game type online.

Horde Mode has seen some significant improvements that make it easy to sink hours into a match without even looking at the clock. The basic concept of five players defending against increasingly difficult waves of AI enemies remains the same, but an in-game economy has been implemented that rewards cash for every kill, assist, or revive you perform. This cash can be spent on better weapons, desperately needed ammo, or a variety of defense barriers that make this seem like more of a Tower-Defense game than a Third-Person Shooter. There are barbed wire fences, wooden decoys, devastating turrets, and eventually Silverback mechs (another one of the campaign’s new toys). All of these defenses can be upgraded once you’ve bought the lower-grade stuff enough times. The defense aspect adds a whole new dimension to Horde Mode that makes it even more addicting than before, if that’s possible. Oh, and also: seeing a brumak rumble into an undersized hotel lobby with its rockets pointed directly at you is a terrifying and ridiculous experience.

Beast Mode is for all of those gamers out there who want to give the humans a taste of their own medicine. It allows up to five players to take control of the Locusts and attack AI fortifications like those you build in Horde mode. Each of the 12 waves has a timer that adds a few extra seconds for every human you take down, which can make for some pretty intense moments when the clock is down to its final seconds. You earn money for every kill or whenever you destroy fortifications, and that money can be used on cheap Locusts like Tickers and Drones, or it can be saved up for the most feared Corpsers and Berserkers. Thankfully, the cash flows easily enough that it’s not difficult to routinely play as the most devastating Locusts. And considering that each of the waves adds more enemies and fortifications, as well as more difficult “hero” enemies that can only be defeated with executions, you’ll probably need to dip into the Locusts’ elite troops. There are lots of Locusts that aren’t available (and no Lambent), but after you decimate a camp of 30 humans with a Berserker, that’s an easier pill to swallow.

Each of these three modes can be played on any of the game’s ten multiplayer maps, which are all pretty solid, but kind of forgettable at the same time. To be completely honest, I have to say that the first two games shipped with more interesting maps that featured a few dynamic environments. Other than one level that kicks up the occasional dust storm, there’s none of that here. Something tells me that a remake of Gears 2‘s Subway will find its way into some premium DLC sooner than later. But hey, dedicated servers and AI bots make up for that. Not to mention the fact that Gears of War‘s multiplayer plays differently than anything else on the market.

Lastly, there’s the four-player online co-op. Up to two people can splitscreen as well. And making co-op more fun than ever before is “Arcade mode,” which is essentially Halo‘s Campagin Scoring. Gears even steals the idea of gameplay modifying skulls from Halo, although these modifers are called “mutators.”

And here we are, back to the Halo comparisons. But that’s a good thing. Much like last year’s Halo: Reach, Gears of War 3 earns its keep with an insane amount of multiplayer depth and variety that makes it infinitely replayable. While this game doesn’t have the technically stunning Forge creation tool or the machinama-friendly Theater mode, it does have the jaw-droppingly fun Beast Mode on Halo. It might not alter its competitive gameplay as fundamentally as Reach‘s armor abilities did, but the defense economy completely changes the way Horde Mode is played. And maybe Reach has got Gears beat on the customization front (by quite a bit, in fact), but Gears has a more action-packed campaign full of memorable set-pieces. These comparisons all bode well for Gears of War 3, considering Halo: Reach was InsaneBear’s Game of the Year for 2010. Epic does the same thing Bungie did by taking what it does best evolving it to become the standard-bearer of the genre. If you have the slightest interest in Third-Person Shooters, you won’t regret buying Gears of War 3.

Bros to the end.

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For many gamers who grew up in the ’80s or ’90s, Mortal Kombat became a staple of multiplayer gaming. Before Shooters had taken over the world, it was up to Sports games and Fighting games to offer up some friendly kompetition, and with its obscene gore and humiliating fatalities, Mortal Kombat set itself apart from more sportsman-like titles and gave the trash-talkers of the world a series worthy of their bravado. Unfortunately, the 2000s brought the franchise to the brink of obscurity until this latest entry (number nine to be exact) kame to kapture the over-the-top essence of the series and elevate it to new heights. Mortal Kombat is by no means a flawless game (in fact, it suffers from numerous little issues), but taken as a whole, it offers so much more than the other Fighters kurrently on the market that it will inevitably become the stick with which the entire genre is measured against.

If you choose to begin your Mortal Kombat experience in the story mode, you’ll be stepping into a fully realized narrative that follows the path of Earthrealm warriors–led by the thunder-god Raiden–as they risk their lives in a multi-dimensional tournament of mortal kombat to protect Earth from Shao Kahn and his Outworld armies. Pretty standard fare, right? On the most basic level, yes; but there’s sub-plot after sub-plot along the way that helps to greatly kharacterize each fighter you take kontrol of (and that’s a lot of fighters) and explain his or her motivations. You’ll begin your quest as none other than Johnny Cage (who happens to add a good deal of humor to the game) but you’ll never be stuck in one kombatant’s shoes for too long.

Regardless of who you’re playing as, you’re going to look fabulous. Every single one of the game’s 27 playable fighters looks unique and true to kharacter. They all animate uniquely and believably with the exception of the death animations, which can sometimes look like bookshelves tilting over (I suppose its an homage to the old games). Additionally, everybody has unlockable alternate costumes that you’ll be able to sneak a peak at during the kampaign and they all show unique battle wounds as the fight rages on. There’s something immensely satisfying about literally beating patches of skin from your opponents and seeing their inner-muscles. It’s almost as satisfying as using the game’s new X-ray attack to actually see their insides krumble as you dish out the pain. The best part is seeing their blood (kolor may vary depending on species) on your tattered klothes after a hard-fought victory. The violence in this game is so visceral that I honestly think some people might have trouble watching it. But that’s what Mortal Kombat has always been about and it’s kertainly not about to stop tearing people in half now!

Somebody stepped into Johnny's klose-up...

And no matter where you’re viciously maiming your foes, you’ll feel like it belongs in the ultra-violent universe of Mortal Kombat. Each and every one of the arenas (of which there are dozens) is interesting in its own way, whether it’s because a sorcerer is resurrecting a korpse in the background or because a slave girl has been khained up and left at the mercy of a rancor-like kreature. Every bloody pixel of this game feels authentic to the Mortal Kombat name and will have you laughing at how over-the-top it is. Obviously, the same can be said for the many, many fatalities. I wouldn’t want to spoil them for you, so why don’t we just say some acid may or may not be vomited into people’s mouths?

Of kourse, the visuals wouldn’t go very far in making you wince if there weren’t some appropriately bone-krunching audio to go with them. Every attack in the game manages to sound like something you’d want to avoid in real life and the kharacters’ grunts and groans all do a good job of konveying that. The voice acting is also top-notch and goes a long way in kharacterizing each fighter. The score tends to blend into the background and go unnoticed, but that’s to be expected when background kharacters are screaming for their lives and the foreground fighters are shattering bones like a speeding 18-wheeler might. There isn’t much to say about Mortal Kombat‘s sounds other than how likely they are to make the faint-of-heart a little queasy. To reiterate, in kase it’s not getting through: this game brings video game brutality to a whole other level.

As important as the gory aesthetic is to Mortal Kombat, it’s the tight, 2D plane, kombo-based kombat that’s at the heart of the fun. While button-mashing is passable against lower-level AI, higher-level fights and human opponents require memorization of advanced button kombinations. Most fighters’ special attacks are relatively easy to remember which alleviates a great deal of frustration for newbies, but to truly master a fighter requires an advanced understanding of what each button does, where it does it, and when to do it. A player who has memorized all of a kharacter’s attacks and knows when to use them will beat a button-masher ten times out of ten. Of kourse you can always pause the game to look at your moves list if you need a refresher.

This is especially useful if you like to frequently sample different fighters. Each warrior’s arsenal of moves varies so widely that your average human being would probably never devote the time to master them all, but this is a good thing. Different kombatants suit different play-styles and their effectiveness varies depending on what sort of style they’re up against. Much like the real martial arts, versatility is king. That’s why a few kharacters (like Scorpion, for example) feel just slightly over-powered. A knowledgeable opponent will always discover a strategy to kounter his enemy, but the extreme variety of techniques available to a select few kombatants makes them more unpredictable and harder to kounter. It’s nothing game-breaking, but if you start to get your butt kicked for one too many rounds you’ll begin to see the kheapness behind kertain kharacters. Similarly, kertain moves are easy to exploit, but a good fighter will always see some sort of kounter. For the most part, though, the game’s balance is more than satisfactory. I should also admit that I’m not a frequent visitor to the realm of Fighting games, so maybe everything’s perfectly balanced and I just don’t know what I’m doing. I mean, air kombos are kind of hard for me to do…

Hot like fire!

Thankfully, you don’t have to be terribly skilled to enjoy all of Mortal Kombat‘s excellent single-player offerings. There’s a tutorial to teach the basics, a standard arcade ladder with unique endings for each kharacter, a “Challenge Tower” consisting of 300 khallenges, and the previously mentioned story mode. The story mode feels like a real odyssey with twists, turns, betrayals, tragedies, and so on that really puts every other Fighting game ever to shame. However, if that’s not your thing and you just want to get to the fighting, for some frustrating reason, kut-scenes kan’t be skipped. And they kan be rather long in komparison to the actual fights. It’s also a little disappointing that you don’t get to play as any of the bad guys. But those are small flaws that kan be over-looked. The kampaign’s biggest issue is that the boss fights are incredibly kheap and essentially force you to exploit specific moves over and over again, which is hardly in the spirit of the game. It also runs a little long, konsidering how many times you have to face the same opponents. Would have been nice to just bust the fatalities out right away and take kare of business.

Mortal Kombat‘s greatest single-player mode is the Challenge Tower because it varies the standard gameplay in interesting and sometimes wacky ways that keep every khallenge fresh. Sometimes you’ll be trying to shoot down 25 rushing zombies before they can get to you, or you might be in a fight where yours and your enemy’s health bars switch every 15 seconds, or sillier still, you kould find yourself able to attack only by throwing your limbs (which regenerate, of kourse) at your foe. There’s truly an incredible variety of imaginative and fun khallenges that alter the gameplay in fundamental ways. It’s also a superior mode to the kampaign because it offers more playable kharacters and puts you in some tag-team matches, which never show up in the kampaign (unless you kount two on one against you). But the koolest part is that many of the kombat modifiers implemented in khallenges (ice balls randomly fall, the lights will randomly go out, fighters are disoriented and the kontrols are scrambled just to name a few) kan be activated in any versus match with purchasable kodes. Or you kould just play “Test Your Luck” and let a random spin determine the factors that will modify your match.

A variety of these modes award koins that can be spent in the Krypt to unlock hundreds of koncept art assets, alternate kostumes, alternate fatalities (including babalities), and the previously mentioned modifier kodes. The interface for this looks kind of kool, as it has you going through various dark and scary killing fields and harvesting bodies for the aforementioned unlockables, but you’ll quickly want to trade in the 3D spectacles for a quicker and more efficient menu. For whatever reason, you’re not allowed to buy things in bulk, which will usually result in you spending more time in the Krypt than you’d like. Still, the krazy amount of unlockables lends a lot of extra value to the game.

Just one of many Challenge Tower trials.

Where the game really earns its worth is in the infinitely replayable multiplayer. Koming back with barely any health against a friend on the kouch is as satisfying as it was back in the Genesis days, and now with the tag-team mode, up to four players kan participate in one match. And if regular versus matches aren’t good enough for you and your friends, the arcade ladder allows for up to two players and the riot that is Test You Luck is multiplayer as well.

If you don’t have any friends locally, you kan always head online and test your skills against the world. Of kourse, if you don’t play two hours a day, you’ll probably get your head handed to you on a platter, but at least it’ll be smooth and painless lagless. Unfortunately, the match-making system in Mortal Kombat doesn’t really take skill into account. In playing ranked matches, I was regularly put up against players twenty levels higher than myself. Unranked matches give you a khoice to accept or deny a match based on your opponent’s record, but most of the people I encountered seemed to have hundreds of matches under their belt (guess that’s what I get for buying the game five months late). There is a general lobby where you kan browse different rooms, and in theory this should allow you to find specific kinds of kompetition, but in practice, everybody just goes to the beginner’s lobby even if they’ve won a thousand more matches than they’ve lost.

The online offering does feature one game type that’s not available offline, and that’s called King of the Hill. It allows up to eight players in one lobby, pits two players against each other, and has the rest of the players watch the match. The winner takes on the next player in line, and the kycle kontinues. At the end of each match, the spectators kan give one to ten “respect points,” which is kind of kool, but I think everybody would rather just be playing. So why didn’t they implement a tournament mode where eight players kould be in the same tourney, fighting their way toward number one? That seems a whole heck of a lot more fun than watching 15 minutes of other people playing before you get two minutes of game time.

But I’m sure the online is great for people who have the patience to get really good at Fighters. And the local split-screen never fails to result in rambunctious hooting and hollering thanks to ridiculous moves like Johnny Cage’s nut-punch. The single-player offerings are more varied and in-depth than any other Fighter I can think of. Most importantly, the fighting is fun for players of all skill. Add in a huge roster, a bunch of arenas, tons of unlockables, and the series’ signature gore and brutality, and Mortal Kombat is a bloody good time. Just like it did so many years ago, Mortal Kombat redefines what Fighting games can and should be.

I have a feeling this isn't Sub-Zero's favorite fatality.

Kan you tell how stupid I think it is to spell “combat” with a K instead of a C?

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You’d be forgiven if you hadn’t heard of Supergiant Games before; after all, Bastion–a $15 downloadable title–is the studio’s first and only game to date. And frankly, if former GameSpot editor and fan favorite Greg Kasavin weren’t the team’s Creative Director, it’s doubtful that Bastion would have received anywhere near the press coverage it has. But if Kasavin and his team can keep up their devotion to utterly unique game-worlds that are both visually and aurally appealing, as well as continue to support them with simple to learn, hard to master gameplay, I have no doubt that we’ll all know this studio very well before too long.

Bastion wastes no time in throwing you into the action. Playing as “The Kid,” a white-haired, hand-drawn throwback to the sprites of yore, you wake from your bed to find it floating in the sky with the remains of your world strewn about the surrounding heavens. “Kid wakes up,” says the gruff narrator. You walk forward and the ground forms up from beneath your feet. Thus begins a quest to discover the mystery behind what later becomes known as “The Calamity.”

The ethereal backgrounds of Bastion give its universe a wonderfully alien feel that helps to distinguish it from other games, but its the lush and vibrant colors of the foreground that truly catch the eye. It’s as if the developer’s goal was to capture the feel of yesterday’s most amazing, hand-drawn box-art and put it into motion. And from the overgrown swamps of Roathus Lagoon to the pristine stronghold of the Bastion to the great unknown of Who Knows Where, every one of Bastion‘s many varied environments upholds this enchanting aesthetic. That Supergiant Games went as far as to build meaningful histories around every environment and the multitude of imaginative enemies populating them just puts these visuals over the top.

But what really personifies this fantastical world that’s always forming before your eyes is what could very well be one of the most memorable scores in video game history. A striking mix of twangy Western riffs, racing trip-hop beats, and some folksy vocals that are nothing short of divine all combine to form a score that is always dictating the emotional core of a scene. Different environments and situations conjure different musical themes and variations in a way that the score never gets stale. The game’s most memorable ballad even weaves itself directly into the narrative and helps to emphasize the thematic importance of something as culturally primal as music in a world of chaos.

But that particular song wouldn’t be quite so moving if the voice acting/singing weren’t so phenomenal. Only two characters speak throughout the entire game, and one of them for only a few lines, but the performances still stand out as superb. The reason why we only hear one voice for the majority of the game is because it is the voice of the narrator, whose story-telling is actually justified within the plot, thankfully making it more than a gimmick. And since that narrator has something to say about nearly everything the Kid does (no exaggeration; you do something and Rucks will chime in with perfect timing), it’s a good thing that his voice is so satisfying to listen to. He’s got the deep and hardened voice of a man who’s seen enough to warrant being heard, and considering how varied his commentary is (even if you die and have to replay a section), most gamers should be absorbed in the story he has to tell.

That feller on the right derr goes by the name a Rucks.

But one of the great things about Bastion is that its story isn’t force-fed to you. Rucks fills us in on what we need to know, but there’s so much history to the world that’s just barely touched on, allowing the miniscule sights and sounds of every environment to tell the story for us. Hearing the terrifying roar of an anklegator allows us to imagine what it must have been like for the Brushers who used to hunt them before the Calamity. That same subtle environmental story-telling hints at the histories of over a dozen other cultures in the world of Bastion, making it an incredibly rich experience.

Still, all of the sublime visuals and sound effects in the world wouldn’t make the game worth playing if the core mechanics weren’t fun. Thankfully, combating the incredible variety of completely distinct enemies is simple, fun, and deceivingly deep. Of the dozen unique weapons that are made available to you throughout the game (ranging from hammers and swords to flame-throwers and mortars), you can carry any two you like at a given time, whether you choose to go for melee, ranged, or a combination of the two. You also have a simple dodge maneuver and a shield to block with. Add in one special skill and you’ve got the five buttons that make up combat in Bastion. It’s very easy to pick up and play, yet it can require a fair amount of strategy and skill, especially with difficulty modifying idols activated. Things can get particularly frantic depending on how much of a challenge you’re praying for.

And that’s one of Bastion‘s most ingenious features. Rather than having pre-set difficulty levels or AI that adapts to you without your blessing, Supergiant decided to make challenge optional. By praying to certain idols at a shrine in the Bastion, you can invoke varying difficulty modifications that give experience bonuses. For example, you might pray to a god that will make enemies strike and move faster, or maybe one that makes them drop explosives upon defeat. With up to ten idols that can be activated simultaneously, this is a wonderful system for setting the level of challenge you want as a gamer. My only gripe with it is that the extra experience gained by activating the idols is hardly necessary. If they’d made it impossible to acquire some of the better equipment and upgrades without enduring the gods’ trials there’d be a lot more incentive to take up the challenge. As it stands, the only real reason to activate idols is because the standard game is a little too easy to maintain interest throughout, especially in New Game +.

You don't want to ride that bull...

If you are activating idols you might run into one of Bastion‘s few issues. If you happen to succumb to the might of your foes, the game will give you an option to either restart the level with no idols active or with the exact configuration you died with. If you want to remove just one or two idols, you have to leave the level you’re in and head back to the shrine in the Bastion to do so. It’s a minor flaw, but one that’s representative of several user interface issues in the game. As a similar example, new weapon load-outs can’t be selected upon death, meaning yet another trip back to the Bastion. It would have been a simple narrative concession to allow equipment tinkering at the death screen, but instead we’re essentially forced to endure multiple load screens on our way to another menu and back. There’s also inconvenient menu-jumping when you’re equipping your character due to a lack of item information. When selecting weapons, there’s no way of seeing how heavily something’s been upgraded unless you either remember or go to the separate upgrade interface. To put it simply, the menus aren’t very cohesive or efficient.

Luckily, those problems are forgivable because, for the most part, every menu is part of a commendable devotion to player progression. As you collect mysterious cores and shards for the Bastion, you bring the stronghold back to life and are able to restore six buildings in any order you like. These buildings all serve varying purposes–weapon and skill equipment, weapon upgrading, skill and upgrade-material purchasing, stat-modifying tonic equipment, idol activation, and the collection of challenge bounties–and offer you a lot of choice in how you want to grow your character. Every weapon has two separate upgrade paths that can be mixed and matched, there are dozens of unique skills to be attained, and the distillery offers a plethora of useful tonics to suit different play-styles. You’ll always feel like you’re progressing in Bastion, even if there are only ten levels and a complete lack of traditional loot.

To attain some of the better weapon skills in the game, you’ll have to quicken your reflexes with some fiendishly difficult weapon challenges that are not only fun, but educational as well; you’ll truly feel like a master of the weapon you’re using if you manage to ace its respective challenge level. But if those rewards just aren’t enough and you need some cold, hard experience points to spend, then you can head to Who Knows Where–essentially Bastion‘s Horde mode. The awesome thing about this mystical trip into the ether is that in addition to the game’s most trying and varied challenges, you also get bits and pieces of the main characters’ histories upon completion of each wave. Keeping with the game’s less-is-more narrative approach, you might be left wishing for more reflections into the past, but what’s there goes a long way in characterizing our hero and his friends.

Getting to know those characters adds a lot of depth to the later stages of the story and makes the couple choices that have to be made rather difficult. While the bulk of the story could be considered a little predictable and cliched, it’s certainly entertaining, and by the end, it manages to plant some very thought-provoking questions in your head. The final choice isn’t the black and white fare we’re used to in most RPGs and will likely stick with you for a good long while. The ending that I picked on my initial play-through had me immediately pining for a sequel, which says a lot about the quality of this universe and the stories within it.

Given how enjoyable Bastion‘s adventure is throughout, it’s a little disappointing that there’s only around ten hours to be had in this memorable world. The length certainly works and doesn’t stand as a detriment to the game’s quality, but if I had the choice to spend another 20 hours in this game learning more of the world’s minutia, going on side-quests, meeting more characters, and leveling up more, I wouldn’t hesitate to dive in head-first. As it stands, it’s worth replaying in New Game + to see the opposite ending, and leaderboards for the different variations of Who Knows Where give some incentive to slap on as many idols as you can and hone your skills to perfection. And at $15, the lasting impression this world leaves is totally worth it.

Ultimately, Bastion is a memorable game with a ton of personality and very few flaws. The colorful world is unlike any other and the music and narration raise the bar for all games, whether they be downloadable or AAA retail products. The gameplay is always fun and intense thanks to the innovative idol shrine, assuming you choose to seek out the challenge for the sake of a challenge. There are a few minor interface issues, but the only real problem with Bastion is that there’s not more of it. There’s the potential for more depth in its systems, more arcs in its story, more of everything. As far as complaints go, wanting a bigger and better sequel because the first game was so great isn’t the worst thing in the world.

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Wading through the mass of human bodies; attempting to avoid blindness and deafness from the various sources of over-stimulation that surrounded me. This was the experience of navigating the show floor at PAX East 2011. Just as the tidal wave of cosplayers and geeks was about to swallow me whole, I saw a glimmering light in the distance. “Safety!” I thought. But as I approached, it became clear that what I thought my savior was simply a large Bastion booth that had sprung up overnight. “I’ve already seen that game, and with a smaller line too!” I thought, as the oppressing odor of gamers who haven’t showered in three days began to overwhelm me again, and I knew I was soon to find myself underneath the blue foot of some Liara cosplayer. “But wait! What’s that? Another glimmer of light! And a short line to boot!” This light was no mere mirage, either. My savior had finally arrived in the form of Outland.

Outland is a side-scrolling platformer developed by Housemarque and published by Ubisoft. And it borrows more than liberally from a few other titles for its core concepts. The slick, stylish platforming is clearly inspired by games such as N+ and Prince of Persia, whereas the color-changing puzzle mechanic is ripped straight from bullet hell shoot-em-up Ikaruga. That’s certainly not to say that Outland is an uninspired rip-off. It is more than the sum of its parts, and it takes these familiar mechanics in a unique direction that makes it one of the most downright fun, and just plain satisfying side-scrolling platformers I have ever played.

But before discussing what makes Outland like other games, let’s talk about what made it stand out amongst the rest of the crowd at this year’s PAX East. Its rich, vibrant visuals immediately catch your attention. At first glance the whole game appears as if it takes place inside of a neon sign. The  bright reds, blues and golds pop out from the screen, making for a stylish aesthetic that is a breath of fresh air from all of the earth tones we see in plenty of games today. But for all of the flare that the foreground graphics display, the backgrounds are subdued and restrained, leading to a nice contrast between the two. While the foreground tells the story of what is happening in the present, the background tells a story of what once was. Silhouettes of destroyed cities and overgrown jungles populate the backdrops of Outland, leading to a surprisingly somber tone for such a vibrant game. While this creates a nice visual contrast, it can also lead to some gameplay difficulties. Foreground obstacles such as spikes can often blend into the background and become hard to see, leading to premature death and frustration.

But moving through those backdrops is so amazingly fluid, elegant, and satisfying that you’ll soon forget about everything else. Outland is one of those rare games that makes just moving around fun. Your character hops from platform to platform with the grace of a ballerina and scales obstacles like a veteran parkour free-runner. Tight, responsive controls only add to the great sense of speed and movement that you experience as you traverse the terrain. In fact, it all feels so organic and fluid that you might feel a bit upset when the game asks you to stop and solve a puzzle or fight off an enemy (good thing there’s one boss fight that has you running and jumping for dear life without ever asking you to slow down).

One might be inclined to feel upset about these intrusions if they weren’t just as equally satisfying as the platforming. Here’s a common combat scenario: running along, hopping over obstacles, you see an enemy, and instead of halting to fight it off you crouch in to a slide, popping the monster into the air while you follow suit by jumping up, slashing at it with your sword until it is no more. Encounters with minor enemies often form just such a wonderful combination of platforming and combat, but there are larger enemies to face as well. And even then, after you’ve been forced to halt your acrobatic platforming dance, you’ll find the combat just as gratifying as you utilize a variety of tools to vanquish your foes.

From your trusty sword to a giant beam of energy that shoots forth from your body, you’ll have plenty of ways to dispatch those who cross your path. But you’ll mostly find yourself sticking with that handy blade of yours simply because it feels so damn good to hit things with it. There is just something primordially satisfying to the sword slashes in Outland. Each hit that rings true just feels good. And there are certainly plenty of enemies to test out your various powers on. From giant spiders, to dragon-like creatures, to energy spewing plants, to little things that scurry after you and try to explode in your face, to various types of the same enemy that all require different strategies to defeat… There’s always something new for you to stab to death. And this is all before you reach the boss battles.

There are four main areas in Outland and each is capped off by an amazing boss fight. The scale in a lot of these fights is clearly inspired by Shadow of the Colossus. The first boss you’ll encounter is a very large golem (some might even call it a colossal golem) that you must scale in order to reach its weak point. Which you then proceed to stab mercilessly until it falls beneath your mighty blade. Other bosses include battles that take place on free falling platforms and the aforementioned uninterrupted platforming section. All of them have great scale and require all of your skills to be successfully overcome. But they’re not without fault. A couple of the tougher boss battles (including the fifth and final boss) are longer and broken up into distinct parts, yet there are no checkpoints during the fight. So every time you die during a boss battle you have to start back at the very beginning, which can be very frustrating when there are at least three distinct sections to a battle.

Outland isn’t all about running around and stabbing things. It also requires you to use your noggin to overcome some very tough, but satisfying, environmental puzzles. These come in the form of the games primary mechanic which has you switching between two different colors (or spirits in the narrative). You can either be red or blue and depending on which color you are you can operate specific devices or deal damage to certain enemies. You can only harm enemies that are opposite you in color and only operate devices which are the same color. And you can only be harmed by things which are the opposite of your color, and this where things start to get tricky. I mentioned earlier that Outland borrows heavily from Ikaruga, and this is where it shows. Throughout the environment there are various sources of spirit “bullets” that you must navigate through, and the game comes to resemble a bullet hell shoot-em-up more than a platformer. But given the games great controls and sense of movement, these environmental obstacles are a joy to overcome. They often require precise timing and you’ll find yourself switching back and forth between colors almost every second sometimes, but they rarely become frustrating. However, there are certain occasions when there is really just too much happening on screen at one time. It becomes easy to lose track of your character and miss a carefully timed jump, leading to death or at least necessitating you begin a puzzle anew.

As you progress through Outland, traversing the landscape, overcoming enemies and puzzles, you’ll find that you’re often rewarded with new powers and abilities just as you have mastered the previous ones you’d been given. So just as you get used to using your slide ability, you’ll unlock a ground pound that lets you access new areas and stun enemies. The rate at which these new abilities are doled out is perfect and you’ll never find yourself getting tired of the same old powers. Though I did find that some were certainly more useful than others, and I began to fall into a rut of using the same ones. But the pacing at which new powers are introduced still helps to freshen things up a bit. And you’ll often be tempted to revisit previous areas as you unlock new abilities that allow you to access previously inaccessible areas. However, the game’s exploration isn’t like that of a metroidvainia and it doesn’t force you to backtrack through areas to uncover new things. It’s there if you’d like to do i (and there are various collectibles offered as incentives), but otherwise you can just keep forging ahead without any negative consequences.

Once you’ve bested all of the bosses in the single-player campaign you can hop online to try out the online co-op with a buddy (or just some random person on Xbox Live). Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work in theory. While Outland has an extensive co-op experience that allows you to play through the entire campaign with a friend, or just certain sections of the game, as well as co-op specific challenges, it was extremely difficult to find anybody to play with. Not having any friends who own this wonderful game, I attempted to pair up with a random stranger to try out some of the co-op challenges. In about an hour and a half of searching I was able to find two people to play with. So my experience with the online co-op is a bit limited. However, there is a simple solution to this problem that Housemarque (and many other developers) seems to have overlooked: LOCAL CO-OP! Seriously, if I can play with a stranger online, let me play with my buddy on the couch. Despite that gripe, what little I was able to play of the co-op seemed fun enough. Implementing specific co-op challenges that could only be solved with the cooperation of a partner. I did experience a small amount of lag which was just enough to make the platforming not feel nearly as fluid as the single player experience. Though that could have been due to my connection.

Outland is a fantastically designed game that makes the simple act of moving from one place to another extremely entertaining. The puzzles are tough but satisfying and the boss battles are amazing in their scale. And if you can find somebody to play with, the online co-op certainly extends the value of this $10 title. Despite a few visual problems and some poor design choices, Outland is most certainly worth your time and money.

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The adventure game genre is one that is steeped in tradition. For good reason too. Many of the best games of the 80s and early 90s were LuasArts and Sierra adventure games. Games like Maniac Mansion, King’s Quest, the Monkey Island series, and Day of the Tentacle defined an entire genre and the experience of an entire generation of gamers. So to release an entirely original adventure game that doesn’t feel like a simple re-hash of those classics is quite the challenge indeed. And to release an adventure game today that actually stays true to its roots while also streamlining and improving upon some of the more dated mechanics found in the genre seems nigh on impossible. Yet, here comes indie developer Amanita Design to renew all of our faith by creating Machinarium, an absolutely gorgeous, quirky, cute, and clever point-and-click adventure game that does just that.

First, a confession. I’m a terrible person. I have never played through an entire adventure game before. I’ve played enough to understand the basic mechanics of the genre, but I’ve never been one to enjoy puzzle-based games (excepting Portal, of course), let alone puzzle-based games where I have to click to go anywhere! So all of those classic adventure games I mentioned in the introduction, and all the tradition that goes along with them? I haven’t experienced any of that first-hand. However! I still have an informed opinion on Machinarium, so continue reading to see what I thought.

First impressions are everything and Machinarium makes a fantastic one with its excellent visual style. The hand-drawn aesthetic is displayed as soon as you hit the title screen and the game’s name is sketched across to the accompanying scribble of a pencil. It’s nothing extravagant (in fact it’s very minimalist), but it really sets the tone well for what’s about to come. And what follows is a completely hand-drawn world that just oozes character and style. Being a world full of robots and other kinds of machines you’d be forgiven for expecting a stark industrial aesthetic with lots of browns and greys, and you’d also be correct to an extent. However, all of it is so beautifully rendered that you don’t mind staring at those earth tones for hours on end. And it’s not all brown and grey. You’ll also see the vibrant green and red of a neon sign, and brilliant blue streaks painted on a police tower. More than any other game I have ever played, Machinarium made me feel like I was playing inside of a painting.

Not only are the environmental visuals impressive, but the various other robot citizens (robotizens as I’ve dubbed them) you run across are all very distinctive and unique. From the members of a street band, to a giant, unhappy fan, to a robot mayor with a giant mechanical head thing, the ensemble cast displays just as much character as the rest of the environment. Which is quite a feat considering that nobody in the game speaks a word of English.

Yup, that’s right. There are no over-talkative blabber-mouths in Machniarium. Mostly because all of the other robots you run into communicate through cute little “speech” bubbles that pop up over their head. Instead of containing text the bubbles show a picture of what it is your new robot friend is trying to tell you. If a member of the aforementioned street band needs an oil drum to bang on, you see the picture of it pop up over his head. If a hulking guard needs new batteries for his little robot teddy bear toy, he conveys that with a little pop-up picture. And a surprising amount of information can be conveyed using these thought bubbles.

The entirety of the story is told through little “flashbacks” using thought bubbles. When you’re first dropped into the game you have little idea of what’s going on. You’re a robot and you’ve been brought to a city and dropped in a junkyard. That’s about all you can gather. However, as you begin to work your way through the puzzles and encounter your antagonists you quickly begin to realize that this is a story of a lost love that you must reunite with. For the most part though, the story is very sparse and minimal. It stays out of your way and is mostly there to give your character motivation to solve all of the puzzles that surround him. So while it’s there, it’s certainly not the most developed part of the game. But that’s a good thing, because this is a game about puzzle-solving, not an in-depth narrative experience.

Keep pumpin' out those sweet jams.

While the robotizens you encounter mostly communicate through pictures, they also have an appropriately sounding mechanical language that supplements all of their pictorial exchanges. That language is just the beginning of an aural experience that draws you even further in to the world of Machinarium. The soundtrack echoes the visual styles emphasis on a quirky, unique, yet somewhat haunting world. It’s appropriately electronic and mechanical sounding, and while there were a couple tracks that could be a bit grating after a while, most of the music fits well with the environment while not getting on your nerves when you’re stuck on a particularly challenging puzzle.

But you will very rarely find yourself stuck too long on any single puzzle due to a combination of factors. The first is a great hint system which I’ll get to in a bit. But the second is simply well-designed and intuitive puzzles. There are basically two types of puzzles in Machinarium. Object-based puzzles which task you with finding an object and putting it to a specific use, and more abstract logic-based puzzles. Most of the object-based puzzles were intuitive and felt very organic. For example: you see that your path is blocked by some rain, so clearly you need an umbrella, and there happens to be a robot standing next to you with an umbrella, so clearly you should help her out to get her umbrella. Or there’s a squeaky robot who can’t move away from the manhole cover that you need to get to, so he asks for some oil. None of these puzzles took you out of the world or felt forced. These puzzles also involved very little backtracking, and did not have you traipsing across the entire world to find an object.

The way that you interact with those objects and the world they inhabit is very streamlined and simple. Instead of pointing and clicking for every step you want to take, there are predesignated parts of the screen that your character can travel to. Your cursor will turn into a little pair of legs to indicate that you can walk somewhere. And if you’re able to get to a certain spot, then you know that there is something to be accomplished there. However, there are a few interactions with the environment that can feel tedious and unnecessary. There are some puzzles that require you to rotate your cursor round and round in order to achieve a result. This action was unnecessarily finicky and often took far too long to accomplish given the mundane nature of rotating your cursor.

The other type of puzzle commonly found in the world of Machinarium is the logic-based puzzle. These puzzles are the more abstract kind that have you doing things like turning dials to get them in the correct order (which is never as simple as it sounds) or manipulating some esoteric (and somewhat contrived) machine by drawing strange shapes without going over the same line twice. I found these to be the most difficult puzzles in the game, and the ones I most relied on the hint system to help me solve.

So rod A goes into slot B...?

As somebody who has never really played an adventure game before, the hint system was my saving grace. Turning what could have been a frustrating experience into something much more enjoyable. For every screen you venture onto you can make use of the two-tiered hint system. You have one clue immediately available to you that is meant to get you started with the puzzle. All you have to do is click a little light bulb icon at the top of the screen and you’ll get a thought-bubble above your character’s head with a visual clue. If that doesn’t help you out, or you get stuck further in to the puzzle, you have a full walkthrough for that particular puzzle available to you at any time as well. The only caveat being that you have to play through a side-scrolling shooter mini-game in order to unlock the walkthrough. The mini-game doesn’t take more than a minute or two to complete and isn’t that challenging, but it’s not very fun to play. And that’s clearly the point. It’s meant as a deterrent; something to prevent you from just taking the easy way out for every puzzle.

As well thought out and implemented as this hint system is, it’s not without its problems. The most glaring flaw being that it’s often all-or-nothing with the hints. That is, when you take the first little hint it is often something that you have already figured out. And when you decide to bite the bullet and play through the mini-game to get to the full walkthrough, the entire puzzle is spoiled for you. I often found myself attempting to only look at the first few steps in the walkthrough so that I would be able to finish the rest of the puzzle on my own. Additionally, there are times when you just want the hint system to tell you how to solve a puzzle and it fails to get you through. This was a rare problem that only happened on a couple of occasions, but it really stands out when you’ve grown so frustrated with a puzzle that you just want the answer, but the system meant to give you that answer fails to deliver. And on some of the more complex logic puzzles there’s just too much information given. The walkthrough will be very detailed and not something you can look at once and remember all the steps to solve the puzzle. Thus forcing you to either write the solution down or play through the shooter mini-game again and again until you have the puzzle solved.

Beyond the core puzzle-solving gameplay there are a few arcade-like mini-games that attempt to add in some variety. There’s the aforementioned side-scrolling shooter to help you unlock the walkthrough, but there’s also a section of the game where you’re in an arcade and you have to play games like Space Invaders in order to earn some coins. And near the end of the game there’s a top down shooter that has you running through a maze in an attempt to kill all of the enemies you encounter. While it’s a valiant effort to mix up the gameplay a bit, most of these little mini-games fall flat. They’re not very fun, and they just get in the way of the excellent puzzles that need to be solved.

All of the problems that I’ve listed for Machinarium are mostly small gripes that don’t detract from the core puzzle solving gameplay. Given how clever, intuitive, and organic that core gameplay is, combined with the atmospheric world the puzzles inhabit, and a well implemented two-tier hint system, Machinarium is a game that newcomers and hardened veterans of the genre alike should play.

Note: This is the first in a series of reviews I will be doing for indie games. Stay tuned for more.

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The release of Duke Nukem Forever probably overshadows the realization of any other notorious vaporware this year (or ever), so it might come as a surprise to some of you that Team Bondi’s L.A. Noire was seven years in the making before it was finally printed on its three discs (360 version only) and shipped. Of course, Team Bondi received more than a little help from publisher Rockstar along the way, and this detective thriller oozes the distinct Rockstar flavor that the company has cultivated ever since Grand Theft Auto IV. So if you value obscenely authentic game-worlds and three dimensional characters over half-way fun game mechanics, then you’ll probably enjoy L.A. Noire; if you want to have your fedora and wear it too, then you might be left wanting more.

The action begins with Pacific war hero Cole Phelps working a beat in the navy blue of L.A.’s finest before a demonstration of exceptional bravery and valor earns him a desk in the traffic branch of the city’s detective department. Phelps’ insatiable drive for success leads him on a transformational journey through traffic, homicide, ad-vice, and arson gigs before the gritty ending, but you’ll learn everything you need to know about searching a crime scene, questioning witnesses, and capturing suspects in the first few patrol calls. The rest of the heroic quest is just about applying those tools to shadier and more dangerous inhabitants of a city that’s corrupt from top to bottom.

The corruption isn’t the only faithfully recreated aspect of 1940′s L.A., though; over eight square miles of the iconic city make up L.A. Noire‘s massive, bustling (with texture pop-in, hey-ohh!) map and give Cole plenty of crime to fight. Dozens of famous landmarks, a gigantic stable of WWII-era cars (that all look disappointingly similar), and a wardrobe straight out of Mad Men all give the city an authentic feel, but there’s a noticeable lack of detail which makes it hard for many environments to distinguish themselves from one another. I can’t help but feel like sacrificing the game’s open-world for a more directed experience would not only have served the style of gameplay and pacing better, but helped to give the developers an opportunity to focus on a more striking visual style and environments as well.

It would have also put more focus on the characters, who are the real stars of the show. Using some impressive new technology involving dozens of HD cameras capturing an actor’s performance from every angle imaginable, Team Bondi has managed to create some of the most impressive facial animations video games have ever seen. The characters in-game are quite literally digital actors with the exact same mannerisms and ticks of their real-life counterparts (Cole is played by Mad Men‘s Aaron Staton). But oddly enough, a lack of good old fashioned polygonal power makes these performances less convincing than those in Metal Gear Solid 4, Uncharted 2, or even Half-Life 2. The animation is phenomenal, but it’s not so far ahead of the aforementioned titles that it makes up for a lack of crisp, graphical detail. Body animation is also noticeably less fluid in comparison to facial animation, creating a slightly jarring disconnect.

L.A. Noire is by no means a bad looking game, it’s just not a fantastic looking game. And weighing the exorbitant cost of the facial motion-capture technology against its minimal benefits, I simply can’t see it catching on. But hey, there’s a hell of a good looking black and white visual filter option that will make you forget all about those little quibbles if you happen to be in the kinds of classic noir settings that so clearly inspired this game (hint: turn it on for all of the desks’ climatic cases).

What actually does a better job of defining characters (as well as being a more reliable crutch in interrogations) is the impeccable voice acting. In a cast of dozens and dozens of characters from varying creeds and classes, all with significant amounts of dialogue, not one performance is sub-par (well, unless you count that awful telephone operator). That said, Detective Phelps is no Bogey, but I think it was intentional for his character to lack the charisma of a Hollywood star. His dialogue and delivery might have you feeling like you’re playing as a square, but I respect the developer’s decision to cast a unique character instead of a noir parody. The only real issue I had with the otherwise authentic and true-to-character dialogue was a noticeable restraint on the racism front. It’s certainly there, but I doubt the power-hungry scum bags of the time were referring to the African-American population as “negros” in a polite tone. Don’t attempt to depict racism if you’re not going to show the reality of it, Team Bondi.

That minor voice acting/dialogue issue pales in comparison to the meek weapon and vehicle sound effects, though. You’d think that a game where gunplay takes a backseat to scouring over crime scenes and grilling suspects might emphasize the thundering power of lead and gun-powder when the bullets do start flying, but the cracks and pops of shoot-outs are rather forgettable. The same goes for a roster of vehicles that sound like they top out in third gear. These things should sound all the more dangerous given L.A. Noire‘s unique structure and pacing, but they don’t heighten the tension at all.

Thankfully, the score is a redeeming gem. The smoky jazz rhythms that permeate the soundtrack give cases a dark, unsavory atmosphere in the slower sections while the orchestra picks up for climatic moments. And if you happen to exchange your squad car for a citizen’s, the CB radio is replaced by some catchy big-band licks that will have you wishing you could turn the police chatter off in your regular ride. The only problems with L.A. Noire‘s musical offerings are that the score is rather scripted and doesn’t react to spontaneous actions, and it can also be a little overpowering when laid over the normal buzz of city life (once again making me question the decision to make this an open-world game). Still, the soundtrack is one of the game’s strong-suits and goes a long way in reinforcing authenticity.

Unfortunately, like almost all Rockstar games, so much time is spent creating a believable world full of interesting characters that the gameplay feels underdeveloped, out-dated, and just not fun. For the most part, cases fall into a repetitive formula of “Investigate crime scene, follow some leads to interviews/interrogations, discover suspect and 1. Chase him on foot, or 2. Chase him by car.” That may be how real investigations play out, but it feels so artificially constructed and predictable in the game that you can’t help but grow tired of it. Returning to yet another Rockstar trademark, this formulaic gameplay template might not be so bad if the developer didn’t feel the need to needlessly inflate the length of the narrative with cases that have no bearing in the grand scheme of things. But I guess they felt like after investing so much money in accurately recreating eight square miles of a city, despite how little of that city is actually put to use in the narrative, that they just had to get more than ten hours out of it.

However long it takes you to beat the game, you’ll spend a good portion of your time investigating crime scenes, which basically consists of walking around a sealed-off area and tapping a button every time the controller vibrates. This vibration indicates that you’ve discovered a potential piece of evidence, which you’ll then be able to investigate further by tapping yet another button. Once you’ve tapped enough buttons, the background music will cease to play, letting you know that you’ve discovered all evidence at a crime scene. Any evidence of relevance will automatically be logged into your notebook with a brief description, and some evidence may lead you to another scene that needs to be investigated. Rinse and repeat. This process is essentially the same as collecting items in classic Adventure games, but instead of saving them to solve puzzles later, you can bring them up when interrogating suspects, which isn’t too far off from a traditional puzzle.

Interrogations always give Cole three speech options: Truth, Doubt, and Lie. You listen to what the person of interest has to say on a particular topic (usually related to the evidence you’ve discovered) and based on his or her facial animations and speech, you have to determine whether he or she is telling the truth, hiding something, or flat-out lying. This can frequently be a tricky endeavor and lends a lot of realism to conversations, but there’s still something very distracting about the unnatural silences in between a suspect’s speech and your response; their faces just stop dynamically emoting and completely throw a wrench in your interpretations. A lack of significant body animation also gives the interviews a slightly artificial feel and makes the voice acting a better gauge of truthfulness.

Continuing the parallels with Adventure games of yore, if you think that somebody is lying, you’ll have to cite evidence to prove it, and there’s only one right answer to the puzzle. This is perhaps the most frustrating part to me, as several pieces of evidence may seem applicable and there’s no way of knowing exactly what Cole is going to say once you select a response. The game really could have benefited from a more informative dialogue tree not unlike those found in BioWare games. It gets more than a little annoying when Mr. Phelps routinely says things that take you completely by surprise. At least there are “intuition points,” which you can use to either eliminate an incorrect response or “ask the community” (gives percentage breakdown of what other players chose) after you’ve earned enough experience to unlock one.

I also have to say that I’m disappointed by the lack of depth to L.A. Noire‘s most vaunted game-mechanic. The three-response formula is all you ever have to go on despite variations in suspect personality or circumstances that in real life, would likely call for differing interrogation techniques and approaches. How is it that a game about being a detective makes no effort to acknowledge the good cop/bad cop act? There really is something unique to L.A. Noire‘s conversation system, but I just can’t see anybody making a case for it being more in-depth than any WRPG of the last 15 years.

The most familiar mechanics of Cole Phelps’ adventure come in the form of the chases and shoot-outs. On-foot chases send you across busy streets, towering rooftops, and even crumbling movie sets, but all actions are forced into a single button. This means that as long as you’re holding the sprint button and facing the right direction, you don’t have to worry about any acts of reflex or skill. You can end some chases prematurely by firing off a warning shot, but this option is only offered on select chases with no explanation as to why you can’t use it on other suspects. Most of the time, the game will force you to run through its entire scripted chase, even if it means giving the AI magical boosts of speed when you get too close. The same goes for car chases, which can become frustrating when your partner is too inaccurate to blow out the suspect’s tires and end the thing early. Sure would be nice if you could shoot yourself…or drive a half-way decent automobile.

When the game does afford you the opportunity to get the lead out–most frequently on the optional patrol calls that end in fatal shoot-outs 100% of the time– it’s the same kind of cover-based affair present in Grand Theft Auto IV. The pathetic ease of that game’s combat transfers over to L.A. Noire as well, with most enemies going down after a well-placed shot or two. Regardless of what weapon you’re using (and there is a nice variety), you’re pretty much invincible, even in the largest firefights. Fist fighting serves as a nice change of pace, but the imprecise, clunky controls that plague everything else don’t spare this feature either. It’s not like any of these core features are broken, though; they’re just so simplistic and forgiving that you’ll never look forward to them like you might look forward to a massive battle in Halo. The game may as well be playing itself.

So much for taking suspects in alive...

But I don’t think anybody is playing Rockstar games to…well, play them. It’s always been the superb writing that’s kept people in these worlds and L.A. Noire certainly won’t disappoint there. While it is true that the story could probably trim quite a bit of fat, and there is a love angle that is so out of the blue that it’ll have you wondering if you missed some important cut-scene, the narrative on a whole is nothing short of excellent. There’s a grand arc that places Cole against several foil characters along the way, allowing us to see his character progression as it happens. His character has depth and varying types of relationships that make him more memorable than most video game protagonists. The sizable supporting cast is often even more interesting than the detective himself, and the plot, despite some occasional meanderings, is a thrilling ride through a world of greed, corruption, and evil that would feel right at home in any noir film. The ending is especially satisfying.

Looking back on my time with L.A. Noire, I think I can sum the entire experience up when I tell you that one case literally has you punching digits and equations onto a calculator in order to find a reference number so you can navigate the Hall of Record’s many shelves in search of a book that you then get to thumb through while looking for the right name. I’m going to go ahead and speak for everybody when I ask, “At what point did the developers go so stark-raving mad that they thought this level of immersion would be anything close to fun?”

A detective game should be about making you feel like a detective. You should use your head to piece evidence together on your own so you feel like a genius when you crack the case. Instead, L.A. Noire plays itself and forces you to get confessions out of people who are later revealed to be innocent, even if you, the player, can see that the evidence points in a different direction. My problem with this game, like many Rockstar games, is that it is so set on telling its scripted story that it removes player freedom and ignores compelling game-mechanics. It might make a great movie, but video games are supposed to be interactive.

Personally, I wouldn’t replay L.A. Noire, even if cases do play out somewhat differently based on your interview responses (responding poorly will result in additional investigating, making cases longer). Getting a five-star rating instead of a three just isn’t enough motivation for me to play a game that isn’t fun again. But if you’re the type of gamer who generally appreciates the Rockstar style of game, then Team Bondi’s noir adventure will probably take you to the moon and buy you a nice pin-stripe astro-suit when you get there…or something like that.

This should be a fun investigation.

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He's crying on the inside.

Back in 2007, a studio that made its name on the open-ended freedom of Far Cry took that formula and applied it to Crysis, a game that many gamers still use as the benchmark for high-end graphics. Fast-forward to 2011 and Crytek has traded the tropical islands of their previous games for the concrete jungle of New York City in Crysis 2. But if the range of gameplay in this game reflects all there is to do in the Big Apple, then I’ve been severely misinformed about the city’s offerings. Quite simply, the urban setting has turned this once proud series into nothing more than a solid Shooter with a stealth option.

Crysis 2 trades in the first game’s protagonist for a devil dog by the name of Alcatraz. One alien attack on your submarine later, and you’ve exchanged your G.I. fatigues for the one and only nano suit of the super-soldier Prophet. Using the suit’s powers of stealth cloaking, deflective armor, and really big artificial muscles, you are humanity’s only hope for defeating the invading aliens and stopping the spread of a deadly virus. If you thought that Michael Bay had purchased Crytek and taken over creative direction for Crysis 2, I wouldn’t blame you.

But Crysis has never been known for its story. No, people flock to this series out of some masochistic desire to belittle their PC’s pathetic processing power (your graphics card is only an 8600GT? HA!). Now I can’t speak to the fully optimized PC experience, but running on the 360, Crysis 2 is certainly a pretty game. The amount of action that can be going on on-screen without the slightest drop in frame-rate is pretty impressive. But there’s no soul in it. Frankly, it’d be surprising if a game released in 2011 wasn’t graphically proficient; creative art direction is quickly becoming the only way to set a game’s visuals apart and I’d have trouble counting the number of memorable vistas in Crysis 2 on one hand. Add in way too much repeated geometry and a bunch of texture pop-in, and it’s hard to call this game’s visuals a strength.

But if Crysis 2‘s graphical muscles are merely adequate then its auditory sinews are best described as suffering from a degenerative disease that will slowly kill anybody exposed to it. To be fair, the guns all sound reasonably gunny, and the voice actors deliver their terribly written lines with as much enthusiasm as one could reasonably expect given the material, but the score is just horrid. Hans Zimmer’s musical stylings have been known to be a bit overbearing in the past, but I honestly had to mute the game whenever I spent more than ten seconds in a menu. Whenever the ear-piercing notes were emphasized in the gameplay, they pretty much distracted from the action and over-dramatized things. Maybe the point was to distract me from the uninspired gameplay.

Unfortunately, though, Mr. Zimmer couldn’t keep me from getting to the truth of Crysis 2‘s game mechanics. While Shooter gameplay isn’t always the most advanced form of interactivity out there, I think it’s fair to expect more than an open-ended shooting gallery. The powers of the nano suit were supposed to provide a range of combative choice like what you find in your BioShocks or Deus Exs, but in reality, the choice boils down to a shoot-out or stealth. If you choose to utilize the suit’s armor ability, you’re essentially giving yourself the extra health needed to tango with large groups of hostiles without getting instantly gunned down. If you go the stealth route, you can bypass firefights completely, assuming you keep your eye on the suit’s draining energy bar and hide out in a few dark corners while it recharges. There’s also a power option on the suit that’s supposed to turn you into a lethal car kicking, ground stomping, pistol whipping son of a gun, but none of those melee options ever work as intended.

Given the lack of challenge in gun fights, mainly due to incredibly poor AI (for some reason the aliens like to stand around doing nothing most of the time) and an utter lack of enemy variety (so we’ve got humans with mid-ranged rifles and aliens with mid-ranged rifles? Great!), plus the over-powered nature of the suit’s stealth cloaking, you’ll probably spend most of your time crouching past enemies and cutting their throats on occasion. It sure would have been nice if the stealth method had been designed in such a way to encourage trap-making and precision planning, but it’s pretty much an excuse not to fight. In fact, I made it through roughly 75% of the final level without firing a shot.

And believe me, I tried to embrace the other two gameplay techniques. I thought that maybe once I’d purchased some upgrades for my suit that I’d be able to combine the incredibly smooth parkour navigation with the alleged melee destruction to become a terrible ninja of death, but it just doesn’t work that way. For starters, if your stealth cloak is off, enemies will almost always detect you, even if they have absolutely no possible line of sight to you. Then there’s the fact that the levels and enemy patrols aren’t designed in such a way to take advantage of or even encourage the parkour element. Lastly, there’s the small little issue of the suit upgrades tending to be trivial little perks or unrealized promises. The armor ability is less affected by these short-comings, but then you’re just condemning yourself to relatively static firefights fueled by predictable and boring weapons. The lack of any usable alien firearms is just flat-out confusing.

The environments are open enough to give the illusion that you’re not merely plowing your way through another corridor crawl, but that’s essentially just what you’re doing. The facade of freedom is more effective during large-scale battles where you can sneak around and pick off engaged enemies however you please, but the majority of the campaign puts you in solo situations that encourage stealth. You’d think that this pacing would emphasize the epicness of the big battles, but only one or two decent set-pieces to be had, it becomes easy to feel like you’re just drifting from shoot-out to shoot-out and losing consciousness at the end of every mission (seriously, what’s up with that?).

Having said all of that, I have to admit that the shooting is certainly solid and if that’s all you’re looking for, it might be fun for a while. What won’t be fun for anybody is the throw-away alien invasion story full of nondescript characters and predictable plot twists. It’s really so forgettable that it’s not even worth bashing, but I will say that the choice to go with a silent protagonist stands out as especially awkward at several points in the narrative and somehow manages to detract from what cliched excuse for a story is there. At least the aliens have a cool nick-name (squid)!

After you experience the very poor ending this game has to offer, you’ll inevitably end up back at the main menu where that infernal music will surely chase you to the competitive multiplayer options. What you’ll find there is a shameless Call of Duty knock-off that manages to adopt all of CoD‘s bad traits with none of the good while hardly even acknowledging this game’s unique hook (the suit). None of the maps are especially good, the unlockable equipment upgrades tend to unbalance things, and the design favors campers. The one good idea Crysis 2‘s multiplayer brings to the table is forcing players to collect dog tags off of their victims bodies if they want to activate killstreak benefits, but you’re probably better off just camping and watching the body count rack up. To put it bluntly, this multiplayer is flat-out boring and brings nothing new to the table.

There's probably a cloaked camper waiting for you to turn around.

Reviewing the total package of Crysis 2, it’s easy to see a copy-cat FPS that is too afraid of being different to take advantage of its one unique trait. From the graphics to the sound to the gameplay to the story, every aspect of this game is doing the bare minimum to meet current market interests and sell another generic experience. As someone who wants to see this industry move forward, I have to condemn that. But I also have to admit that there’s nothing broken about this game and that if you’re just looking for popcorn, it’s a reasonably good time. There’s still potential in this gameplay template and occasional moments of brilliance will shine through to prove it. Hopefully Crytek will realize their mistakes with Crysis 2 and conclude the trilogy with a game worthy of their pedigree.

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