Grand Theft Auto IV - In Brief

(This was my entry for a review competition for the Escapist. The conditions were simple, no more than 500 words. Here's what I knocked up.)

Hype, like many four letter words, carries a lot of negative connotations. Hype suggests that a product might not be as good as we have been lead to believe. Hype suggests that we are being lied to. Hype puts games on pedestals, creating fantasies that the reality often struggles to live up to. This was never going to bode well for Grand Theft Auto 4, as it is possibly the most hyped game in existence. In the eyes of many gamers, Grand Theft Auto 4 is some sort of holy treasure, like the Grail or the knucklebone of a saint. Most gamers seem to be asking themselves what they love most about GTA4 when the real question they should be asking is whether the game deserves such adulation. A worrying number of reviewers have thrown perfect scores at the game and if I hadn’t been honest with myself, I suppose I might have joined them.

I’m not immune to hype and it’s a horrible feeling to have excitement turn to disappointment. I wanted to love this game; I queued up at midnight with my pre-order ticket in my hand hoping it would be everything people claimed it would. In the cold light of day, however, I only like this game, and after such high expectations, I’m not sure that that’s enough.

It’s hard to put your finger on exactly what’s wrong with the game; it’s certainly nothing overt, but as they say, the devil’s in the details. Rockstar North have created a sandbox without equal. Liberty City is a living, breathing place with sweeping urban vistas, glass monoliths that touch the clouds and quick flowing rivers of traffic, but the populous is jarringly low-res and driving isn’t as much fun as it used to be; the cars don’t handle well and are too eager to throw you through the windscreen at the slightest bump. The combat is much more sophisticated and deadly but now every shoot-out is a major engagement with a laboured and tedious pace and it’s all too easy to be gunned down by some nameless ‘gangsta’ before you have a chance to react, forcing you to do the whole thing again. The characters are vibrant and rounded and the writing, freed from the constraints of the movie tributes of past games, has a depth and personality unprecedented in the Grand Theft Auto series; but each set of missions feels isolated and disjointed; the gameplay too nebulous and unfocused for the writing to really shine.

Like many things, the myth is often much more attractive than the reality. The myth of Grand Theft Auto 4 is that it is a flawless, peerless piece of video game art, a thing to be revered and venerated, the pinnacle of gaming to date. The truth is that GTA4 is a well made, if flawed, game that has strayed away from the gleeful escapism I enjoyed most about the series, and replaced it with something I don’t recognise anymore.

(After writing this review, I played a lot more of the game. Sadly, my opinion of it has gone down)

Another crack at this video malarky

I'm a glutton for punishment

A very, very quick audio-visual Portal review

Christ these things take a long time to do.

DMC4 review, video style!

I recently had a theory that due to my background in the performing arts, also known as my drama A-level, my reviews may be better if listened to rather than read. To that end I recorded my Devil May Cry 4 review and added a few pictures so your eyes don't get bored.



It wasn't planned as a Zero Punctuation rip-off, that's just how it turned out.

Dark Sector Review

Dark Sector Review

Dark Sector is a third-person shooter from Canadian developers Digital Extremes, whose biggest claim to fame is that they helped Epic make the Unreal games. They’ve released a few titles on their own, but in all honesty, none of them were very good. Not exactly a great pedigree then, so how does Dark Sector hold up?

Well, I consider it a bad sign when the manual for a game makes no mention of the game’s plot, or even gives the main character’s name, so imagine my trepidation when I started to play. If I lived in a perfect world, all video games would be plot-heavy character pieces with sharp dialogue and gameplay that supports the story like a well-made bra; but I don’t have my perfect world so sometimes I have to make compromises. If a game is fun, then I can forgive weaknesses in the story. This works in Dark Sector’s favour as it seems to have as much use for a plot as Paris Hilton has for a Large Hadron Collider.

Actually, that’s not entirely fair, Dark Sector does have a plot, but it’s very much an excuse for the gameplay. Dark Sector casts you as Hayden Tenno, a reluctant CIA assassin with a murky past who is sent into a fictional Eastern European country to take down a maniac with a man-made biological weapon. Fairly early on, and somewhat predictably, Hayden gets infected and grows a Death-Frisbee out of his right arm, which he makes good use of as strives to complete his mission. Add in a double-cross and a woman from Hayden’s past and that’s pretty much all you need to know. As plots go, it’s no Bioshock, but as a vehicle to drive the game, it does ok.

On paper, Dark Sector sounds like one of the worst games in the world. It takes a dab of Resident 4, a few teaspoons of style from late-eighties anime hero The Guyver, the tiniest pinch of Heavenly Sword, the weapon out of Krull and a couple of massive handfuls of Gears of War and mixes them all together. It would be easy to dismiss the resulting soup as a derivative mess not worth your time, but it holds together surprisingly well.

Now, when I say that Dark Sector has a lot if Gears of War in it, I mean it in the same way that New York has a lot of Americans in it. I’m assuming that Digital Extremes realised that they did their best work with Epic, so they ‘borrowed’ bits of Epic’s recent hit. The resemblance to Gears of War is uncanny, to the point that even the sprinting animation has the same shaky camcorder look. It’s at its strongest in the combat as running headlong into a fight will get you killed very, very quickly, so you have to hide behind pillars, crates, low walls and other bits of stuff strewn about the levels and pop out from cover to fire, exposing yourself to harm with every shot. Luckily for Hayden, a few moments rest will restore him to full health. Sound familiar? I imagine it does to the millions of people who own Gears of War. Dark Sector certainly isn’t going to win many points for originality and that might put some people off, but the game isn’t entirely without new ideas.

Firstly, the Death-Frisbee, which I refuse to call a glaive, because a glaive is a sword on a long stick and not a razor-tipped boomerang, is like the Swiss-Army Knife of weapons, ignoring for the moment that the Swiss-Army Knife itself is a much better contender for the title. Aside from the fact that it’s an insanely sharp whirling instrument of death that can slice limbs off unfortunate foes, it can bust open locks, grab distant ammo caches or weapons and it’s instrumental in solving the assorted puzzles in the game. Utilising the after touch system borrowed from Heavenly Sword and the Death-Frisbee’s ability to store fire, electricity or ice for a short time, Hayden can open malfunctioning doors, burn away the infection lingering on architecture, create makeshift cover out of sprinkler systems or simply, really badly hurt his enemies. The puzzles are rarely difficult, and are often more about aiming properly than really figuring anything out, but it’s a nice break from shooting people or frisbeeing their legs off. The Death-Frisbee also lights up like an Indiglo watch, which is a useful, if odd, power as many of the levels in the game don’t have great natural lighting. Finally, the Death-Frisbee is Hayden’s primary melee weapon, but it seems oddly ineffective when used in this way.

Digital Extremes have added a few more tricks to the combat to differentiate it from Gears. Hayden principally fights soldiers of the fictional country he’s stuck in, but the soldiers have come prepared to fight an outbreak of the bio-weapon, and all their guns are fitted with devices that render then useless after a few seconds when picked up by an infected creature. It adds an interesting dimension to the proceedings, especially in the later levels when ammo is scare. Firing at full auto, desperately trying to get off as many shots as possible before the weapon deactivates is actually quite exciting. This mechanic is supported by Hayden being limited to two guns, a rifle of some description, and a pistol. He has the Death-Frisbee as well, but he can only use it when wielding his pistol, and while it’s undeniably powerful, Hayden must wait for it to return to his hand before he can throw it again and it’s range is rather limited. The only way for Hayden to get a weapon that won’t burn out before he can even fire off a full clip is by buying off black-market arms dealers, who hang out in sewers. It’s also the only place Hayden can install weapon upgrades. The additional level of depth to the weapons stops the game from feeling too much like Gears of War, although admittedly, it does it by making it feel a bit like Resident Evil 4 as well.

The game is also full of nice little touches that show that the design process consisted of more than borrowing Epic’s homework twenty minutes before class. The game use the Havok physics engine, so objects not nailed down move in that pseudo-realistic way that always happens when Havok is involved. You can shoot grenades out of the air, or if you’re a good shot, hit them with the Death-Frisbee. When you burn away the goo that often blocks the way, it burns with a green flame. You can electrify water using stored lightning, killing anything that happens to be stood in it. Basically, it’s full of little things that make you go, “oh that’s cool” in a pleasantly surprised tone. Digital Extremes have also managed to make a game that is simultaneously more and less violent than Gears of War. The curb stomp finisher in Gears was pretty grisly, but Dark Sector ups the ante with dismemberments, snapped spines and slit throats, and yet it somehow manages to feel less gratuitously gruesome. I’ll admit to being baffled as to how they managed it, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t admire them for it.

It’s good news for all the graphics whores in the world too, as the game is simply gorgeous, if a little monochromatic in places. The game’s palette seems to consist of grey, dark grey, even darker grey and black, but every now and then it’ll surprise you with a vivid orange or a warm yellow. OK, it’s not really a big deal but it makes a nice change from the unrelenting ‘grittiness’ that seems to be omnipresent in modern games. Orange is good, I like orange. I like blue more, but I’ve already mentioned that I don’t get to have my perfect world, didn’t I? Anyway, back on topic, the game is dripping with high resolution textures, bloom effects, dynamic lighting and all the other aesthetic tricks that are almost a legal requirement these days. Hayden has quite a fat head, but that’s pretty much the only graphical gripe I have and it gets covered up with a cool helmet later on anyway.

The level design is essentially linear, but the developers have put in lots of little nooks and crannies to explore and secreted ammo, cash or weapon upgrades in many of these crevices. Aside from sounding like a custom official’s best day ever, it’s a nice little bonus for investigating. Sadly, I do have to knock off a few points for the lack of originality. Castle? Check. Abandoned Town? Check. Ruined Factory? Check. Sewers? Alas, check. I can say with some authority that they’re some of the prettiest sewers I’ve seen in a game, but that’s because I’ve seen a lot of them.

There are other problems in the game as well. Probably the worst crime this game commits is letting me make that terrible geometry pun in the review title. There’s also no blind firing, so you have to come out of cover to attack. The black market arms sales, which are a great idea, are hampered by the fact that each weapon is really expensive. I might not have spent hours hunting down every handful of change in the game, but even if I had, I’m not sure I’d have been able to afford too many, certainly not enough to warrant the locker feature in the black market screen, and would it be too much ask for the arms dealers to sell those little metal things that you put in guns, you know, bullets? I said that ammo was scarce in the later levels, but that isn’t strictly true. I had plenty of ammo, just not for the weapon I had. The ammo caches that were so common in the early levels seem to dry up later on and I’m not sure if it’s by design or just an unhappy mistake, and I certainly can’t decide which would be worse. The combat can get fairly repetitive at times, although that is ameliorated by the fact that the game auto-saves after nearly every fight so the game can be played in bite-sized chunks. There are quick time events too, usually when Hayden is grappled by some mutated townsperson, and you have to hammer a button not to get chinned, but irritatingly, it’s a different button each time. It takes the patience of a saint not to propel the game disc into traffic when some stray tentacle kills you near the end of a long boss fight just because your thumb was tired.

To sum up, Dark Sector is a pretty solid game with enough personality to set it apart from the titles that inspired a lot of its gameplay. It looks great and it’s fun to play, and while it’s hurt by its lack of originality in places, it’s certainly worth a look.

Condemned 2 Review

Having received Condemned 2 from my wife for my birthday, I was pleased for two reasons. Firstly, I really enjoyed the first game, and secondly, it gave me something new to review. So imagine my dismay when a certain countryman of mine beat me to the punch and posted one of his amusing video reviews.

I understand that they’re quite popular with the young people.

But one does not get to where I am by being hasty. Knowing full well the value of patience, I bided my time in my secret volcano lair. Here is a picture of it.



After an appropriate interval, I emerged, review in hand, secure in the knowledge that my time was nigh.

Back on topic, Condemned 2, known as Condemned 2: Bloodshot in the rest of the world, is the sequel to Condemned 1 AKA Condemned: Criminal Origins. Apparently we Europeans don’t deserve subtitles, but if that’s the way Sega wants to play it, then fine, I never liked the snooty bastards anyway. Condemned 2, like its older brother, was developed by Monolith, of F.E.A.R. fame, and casts you as Ethan Thomas, formerly of the Metro City SCU and now professional Wino-at-Large.

The plot of Condemned 2 picks up nearly a year after the original. Ethan’s previous misadventures have taken their toll and caused him to descend into alcoholism and poor facial grooming. In brief, Ethan is recruited by his old employers at the SCU to investigate the murder of his mentor and uncle to the dreaded Serial Killer X, Malcolm Vanhorn. After a lot of faffing around in derelict buildings, things go pear shaped as Ethan gets wrapped up in a millennia old conspiracy and no one is quite who they seem, not even Ethan. What I like about the plot of Condemned 2 is that it takes some of the loose ends from the first game, like Ethan’s weird physiology or the guys with the metal mouths, and ties them up like an old shoe, as well as introducing some interesting new ideas, even if a few of those ideas have been ripped of from the movie, and specifically the movie, Dune. What I don’t like about the plot is it pulls a ‘Matrix Reloaded’ by straying too far away from what made the previous instalment so enjoyable. The plot isn’t terrible by any stretch, but it doesn’t compare well to the original and it’s let down by some of the characterisation. It’s pretty easy to work out who is going to be the baddie in Condemned 2, the fact that he is a dick to you throughout the whole game being something of a hint. The ending also contains a cliché older than I am and the same cliff hanger shit they pulled first time round.

Condemned 2’s game play has a different focus from that of its predecessor. The original Condemned had Ethan desperately using whatever solid object he could find to fend off the never ending tide of crazy people, but in Condemned 2 Ethan can now attack with his bare hands, although thankfully you never have to pick teeth out of your knuckles, perform a variety of combos, and do special attacks in never before seen SLOW-MOTION! Ethan has clearly spent some time studying the fighting arts at the feet of the ancient hobo masters and is now like a stinky version of Clubber Lang. If that wasn’t enough, when you’ve beaten a foe to within an inch of his/her life, you can grab them by the ears and get rid of the remaining 2.54cm in a ‘hilarious’ environmental death blow.

The new and ‘improved’ combat system necessitates new and ‘improved’ enemies to pummel into submission. No longer is the carnage confined to derelicts and weird metal mouthed monsters. Now we get to beat up cops, pyromaniacs, medieval knight analogues, monsters made of crude oil, beast men, beast men in armour, giant beast men in armour and a magician. Oh, and a bear. That’s right, in one level you get chased by a bear. Subtlety, thy name is Condemned 2.

So much effort has gone into making a grisly first person brawler that a lot of the amazingly creepy atmosphere that I loved so much from the first game is absent and has been replaced with teeth-scattering violence. It seems that Monolith was aware of this and tried to compensate by making the levels really dark. Not in tone mind you, but in illumination. Someone needs to tell game developers that there is a difference between ‘atmospherically’ dark and ‘can’t-find-my-arse-with-a-map-and-a-torch’ dark. On the subject of torches, the one that Ethan carries with him is useless. More than once I turned the torch off because I thought it already was off. You’d get better lighting from glow in the dark Dracula fangs and while this might seem like a minor gripe it is a gripe nonetheless.

Condemned 2 hasn’t totally forgotten where it came from though, one element that has survived intact from the original Condemned is weapon degradation, which is something of pet hate of mine. I can understand why it’s in there, and I appreciate that a 2x4 might break after you wrap it round some junkie’s head, but a fire axe is designed for cutting through doors and it still breaks after a few hits. It makes suspension of disbelief more than a little difficult when you discover the crowbar you’re carrying is made of fudge.

It’s not all bad though; Ethan can now reload the various firearms that he finds, as apparently in between drinking and waxing on and off, he completed the ‘How-To-Put-Bullets-In-A-Gun’ correspondence course. It’s a good job too, as there are plenty of guns lying around. In fact, in the last couple of levels they are pretty much the only weapon to be had. These levels show how much faith Monolith has in our abilities, assuming that we’d all get head shots every time and so only put in one gun-based death animation, the classic head explosion, and while I’m quite flattered, my aim with a pad isn’t great and I’d often hit enemies in the chest or legs. That didn’t seem to matter though, as apparently, these guys have really high blood pressure. One nice little touch Monolith has put into the gunplay is to reflect Ethan’s alcoholism in his aiming abilities. Basically, if he isn’t liquored up, his hands shake and he can’t shoot straight. This would be an awesome addition if it weren’t for two factors. One, Ethan’s aim is still pretty good when sober and two, there is booze everywhere. Anywhere you’ll find a gun, you’ll find more than enough hooch or bathtub gin to get you through the level. Perhaps this is Monolith satirising their countrymen, but it’s more likely to be really stupid hand-holding. If Ethan was as accurate as a Palpatine’s finest when sober and whiskey was scare, then maybe it would be a good idea, but as neither is true it makes it a rather pointless addition.

The forensic investigation aspect of the game has had an overhaul as well and unlike the revision to the combat, this was a welcome change. A few years back, forensic investigation was a major interest of mine, even to the point of me making serious enquiries about how to go about becoming a scene of crime officer, and I love it when forensics make appearances in games. I even own the first two CSI PC games, and yes, I’m aware that they’re dreadful. In Condemned 2 Ethan has a compact little toolkit that he uses to collect evidence which he sends on to his partner back at the lab, then gets to ask an assortment of relevant and not-so relevant questions about the assorted bloody artefacts that he finds. I want to be perfectly clear on this, if Monolith had made a game filled with just the forensics, then I would have lapped it up like a starving cat. The investigations are the most fun part of the game. My only criticisms are that there isn’t enough of it and some of the questions that are the ‘best’ ones to ask are counter-intuitive. For example, in one level you find a decapitated corpse with terrible wounds on it and using your toolkit, you try and discern where the murder took place and what the actual cause of death was. After finding some bloodied pieces of metal the correct question to ask is to inquire whether they were cut out of the corpse, but to get that right requires knowledge that you don’t get until later on in the game; at the time it seems like a stupid question. It’s aggravating because choosing the right question has an impact on what rating you get for the that level, which in turn has an impact on what toy you pick up for the next level.

Ah yes, the end of level ratings. Gone is the dead bird and scrap metal collecting of the first game and in its place Ethan must hunt high and low for radios to tune in and sonic emitters to smash up. These macguffins are scattered about the levels, meaning that careful exploration is required to find them all. Now, I may be speaking out of turn here, but when I’m fighting for my life against a crazed lunatic who is trying to cave my face in with a brick, the last thing on my mind is fucking treasure hunt. The problem is that if you don’t go hunting for this crap, you don’t get the best rewards at the end of the level and so the game is made harder. The developers have at least tried to work the damn things into the plot, but no amount of chicanery will disguise the fact that it’s all a bit Super Mario. It seems ridiculous to me to reward activities that detract so much from the atmosphere of the game, but apparently Monolith knows something I don’t.

Now some of you may have heard that our hero picks up superpowers somewhere in the game and those of you who are spoiler-phobic should probably not read the following paragraph. Or any of the preceding ones. I think there a few in those too. Ethan does indeed develop abilities beyond mortal ken. Basically, Ethan is the Kwisatz Haderach, the product of centuries of breeding with the ability to shout people to death and limited but accurate prescience. Taken out of context, this seems pretty stupid, but by the time it turns up in the game, you’ve jumped through so many silly hoops that you take it all in your stride. Ethan’s fearsome voice has the knock on effect of making pretty much every other weapon in the game seem pointless by comparison, even taking the cool down time into account. Why bludgeon people with a stick when you can just say mean things to them and watch them die from the relative safety of a few yards away?

I’ve gone on much longer than I meant to, so I’ll quickly wrap up. For all my criticisms, Condemned 2 is an OK game and it’s certainly garnered good scores from a variety of sources. The new combat system will probably be well received by the greater gaming public, and if the idea of bankrupting the tooth fairy and pushing three mortuaries to bursting point sounds appealing, you’re probably onto a winner. But if like me, you enjoyed the original game for its eerie atmosphere and yearn for a slightly less ‘uber-mensch’ protagonist, prepare to be a little disappointed.

Condemned 2 is the ‘Aliens’ to Condemned 1’s ‘Alien’, while it may pick up some stylistic cues from its older sibling, it’s firmly action and not horror. Personally, I’m hoping that the almost inevitable sequel takes the game back to its roots, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

Because I’d die.

Seriously, who do you think I am, Guybrush Threepwood?