If there ever was any doubt that gaming is an art-form, the Shaddow Warrior shreds it to pieces.
The game offers traditional Japanese settings (from the temples and the castles to the mythology and the paintings), rich late 80's environments (from shipyards and inner courtyards to caves and snowy mountains) and a great collection of interesting guns. It may be only 9 in total yet I got more excited when I got the shotgun or the rocket launcher than I ever was finding any one of the bazzilion guns in Borderlands 2.
Each type of enemy has different strengths and different weaknesses so you will have to try to figure out the best and quickest way to put them down. Each gun comes with three purchasable upgrades and augmentations. No sniper rifle because this game wants you to be up close and personal.
The music is sublime, the dialog witty, the atmosphere mesmerizing, the hidden secrets will keep you exploring every nook and cranny (and try again and again to find your way to that impossible to reach bonus statue) and the story unfolds in twists and turns and double-crosses. And the ending will make you misty.
I know it is not fair to this epic game but it does bring to mind the game Daikatana should had been. See, Mr Romero, if you fail to get it right, someone else eventually will. Now, I usually refuse full marks to games that come with an obligatory online digital distribution platform such as STEAM (required here); however, this game is so good I decided to make a rare exception.
I am old enough to have played the original game when it first came out in 1997. I was a great fan of the series that followed and, thus, was very eager to get my hands on this latest installment. In a short sentence: Fallout 3 is a dream come true.
It is a cRPG game in which the player can alternate between the First and Third person perspective roaming a world comparable in size with Oblivion. The action has moved from Vault 13 and Southern California to Vault 101 and Washington, D.C. and the story brakes away from the previous bloodlines. However, the atmosphere of the original has been maintained and its scents sharpened: veterans will find it fitting like and old glove - whereas the new gamers are in store for a bag of pleasant surprises.
The graphics are wonderful, the guns detailed and the environments highly interactive. Short of a screenshot, imagine what would HalfLife-2 would look if released today. And similar to HL2, Fallout 3 does not require an...ΓΌbercomputer to run smoothly. Once you see a NPC move though, you understand where the corners were cut.
Character customization is carried out in great style using the new and improved PIP-BOY at the beginning. You exit the vault and the harsh reality of a world that barely survived annihilation slaps you on the face. Adapt or perish.
The main storyline is there to be followed but Fallout 3offers the greatest number of alternative choices I have ever encountered in a game! There is always a great number of paths to follow in order to achieve any goal - but every choice comes with a consequences tag. This is common feature of most classic cRPGs but in Fallout 3 I saw it implemented like never before. If nothing else, this sends replayability through the roof.
Side-quests offer little besides distraction and experience points (XP) to be spend on character improvement. XP are gained solely by completing quests, emerging victorious from fights, finding locations, picking locks and hacking terminals - and they are not limited by the action they were earned. Levelling up is based on 7 basic attributes [Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility & Luck - acronym?;)] that, in turn, affect your (13) specific skills. Since levelling
up is capped at Level-20, the game designers wanted to encourage replaying the game. On the other hand, it also means that your character will never realize its full potential (in case you are wondering why I withheld a star from fun, that's the second half of it).
The game is violent and gory but well within tasteful limits. Not so with the language - but it is tradeoff with realism. In a radioactive world, Sunday-school niceties are bound to go out the window.
What deserves a special mention is V.A.T.S. (:Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System) which opens new vistas in cRPG design. It is an ingenious system which lets you pause the game and target specific body parts of your opponents. The success of your attack still depends on your skills but the end effect is cinematic and amazing (remember the movie Swordfish?).
After the nuclear summer of 2008 (with all the LimitedInstallation-defective EA releases), this seems like a postapocalyptic dawn indeed! Bethesda decided to listen to the gaming community and did not cripple this beautiful game with any idiotic DRM scheme. Inputting a serial number and a DVD-check is more than reasonable.
The publishers of Fallout 3 understand that there is a fine balance between "protecting the product" and..."insulting your own customers". And they obviously view respect as the two way street that it is - and for this they deserve our support: buy this game, today.
Voting with our wallets is the only argument the gaming industry cannot afford to ignore. And it is about time to cast some well deserved positive votes.
Well, it sure is more honest than the vapid..."Challenge Everything!"
Darkness still spreads on the land of gaming. The number of games that get ruined by the bundled DRM schemes keeps growing. Lord of the Rings:Conquest is just another edition. Burdened with SecuROM 7++, OnLine Activation requirement and Limited Installations it is bound to follow in the steps of Red Alert 3 and Spore: yet another expensive EA flop.
In the spirit of the Tolkien epic, EA is the Dark Lord Sauron that tries to watch everything from its tower of power. Greed in the heart, contempt in the nostrils, arrogance in the eye. Unfortunately for such entities (and contrary to board-meeting projections) not every gamer is either an Orc or a Troll. Some of us decided to take a stand. And fight back. And our numbers are growing.
No matter how many Nazguls EA releases this time around, in the end, the Ring of DRM rule will be cast in the burning heart of Mount Doom.
And the land of Gaming shall be free to dream again.
If truth be told, WWII had been done to death. Ever since the original Castle Wolfenstein: 3D, every war theater, every offensive, every front, every defense line, every battle has been redone again and again. True, some more than others and, yes, a number of great games was produced. Yet, some game developers seem unable to stop whipping a very tired horse..
ActiVision proved it had the guts to break with the mold it had made its Call of Duty franchise a huge success. Call of Duty IV: Modern Warfare is set in a (fictional) present in which American and British agents are called upon to stop a Russian plutocrat with Soviet-nostalgia and terrorist aspirations.
The weapons are new, the gameplay is inventive, the graphics are realistic, the settings are beautiful - a great game all together! And the GOTY edition comes prepatched, loaded with numerous new maps and runs like a dream even on mid-range PCs.
Dark Sector is a beautifully made and well thought out game that should not go by unnoticed. It is what you get if you cross Resident Evil with Max Payne (minus the bullet time): a fast Third-Person Shooter with an immersive story, imaginative weapons and cool moves. Finishing off zombies has never been more fun!
The graphics are detailed yet monochromatically biased: greys, blue and yellow sectors alternate. At first I found this unrealistic (which it is) but it sure fights the well known F/TPS repetitiveness feeling of running in the same corridors for ever.
Since the game enjoys (or suffers) a quick recovery cycle, you are almost never in danger of immediate death - but this hardly impends the flow of epinephrine through your body. Moreover, once our hero (Hayden) gets infected and acquires the glaive, a whole new ball-game opens up: although of limited effectiveness as a melee weapon, this cycle-edged discus will deal devastating arcs of gore and destruction to his enemies!
Oh yes, this is quite a gory game, mind you (I think it was banned in Australia for that). So, unless intended for young children, recommended.
Some time ago UbisSoft had to settle a huge class-action suit brought against the company for bundling (the notoriously harmful) StarFORCE DRM with its released games. So what the geniuses at the helm do next? They decide to make the same mistake yet again - by choosing the same DRM scheme that made BioShock, Mass Effectand Spore infamous: SecuROM 7.xx with Limited Activations!
Mass Effect (a great game in all other aspects) can be fouSpore not only undersold miserably but also made history as the boiling point of gamers lashing back, fed up with idiotic DRM schemes. And the clueless MBAs that run an art-form as any other commodity business decided that, "hey, why not jump into that mud-pond ourselves?"
nd in clearance bins only months after its release;
The original Far Cry was such a monumental game that any sequel of it would have to fight an uphill battle to surpass it (especially without its original developing team). Now imagine shooting this sequel on the foot with a well known, much hated and totally useless DRM scheme that turns it into another Rent-A-Game no one wants. Were I a UbiSoft stock-holder I would be ordering my broker to "Sell-Sell!-SELL!!" instead of posting this...
Ever since its 7.xx version, SecuROM has nothing to do with..."fighting piracy". All it does in this direction (blocking certain optical and virtual drives) is a very old, lame and already bypassed attempt that serves as a thin smoke-screen. SecuROM is, in fact, an intruding and silent Data-Miner and Root-Hijacker that is delivered by means of popular games.
That is why even the STEAM versions as well as the (free) Demos of such games are infected with it. SecuROM will borrow deep into our PC systems and will refuse to be removed completely even after uninstalling the game it came with. It will retain backdoor access and will keep reporting to its mothership.
Lately, these security concerns have been accentuated as known Trojans seem to be exploiting SecuROM's backdoor access for their own purposes. In effect, installing a SecuROM-infected game in our computer will be placing your hardware and data at risk long after having uninstalled the game.
And the latest vehicle to deliver this hazardous snoopware is Far Cry 2 - a game crippled by Limited Installations! No, thanks. I think I 'll pass this one too.
The only people who do not care about SecuROM are, in fact,...pirates! Because cracking games "protected" by this contraption apparently is very easy. Every single game that was supposedly "protected" by SecuROM was cracked hours withing its release!
To everyone else though, SecuROM (or StarFORCE or any other hazardous DRM scheme) is a core issue that needs to be resolved before PC gaming can evolve any further. And the best way to resolve such issues is market correction.
That is why it is important for gamers to keep voting with their wallets. And as with any vote, well informed decisions are paramount in making the right choice.
I am old enough to have played the original game when it first came out in 1997. I was a great fan of the series that followed and, thus, was very eager to get my hands on this latest installment. In a short sentence: Fallout 3 is a dream come true! And now the dream is complete.
It is a cRPG game in which the player can alternate between the First and Third person perspective roaming a world comparable in size with Oblivion. The action has moved from Vault 13 and Southern California to Vault 101 and Washington, D.C. and the story brakes away from the previous bloodlines. However, the atmosphere of the original has been maintained and its scents sharpened: veterans will find it fitting like and old glove - whereas the new gamers are in store for a bag of pleasant surprises.
The graphics are wonderful, the guns detailed and the environments highly interactive. Short of a screenshot, imagine what would HalfLife 2 would look if released today. And similar to HL2, Fallout 3 does not require an...ubercomputer to run smoothly. Once you see a NPC move though, you understand where the corners were cut.
Character customization is carried out in great style using the new and improved PIP-BOY at the beginning. You exit the vault and the harsh reality of a world that barely survived annihilation slaps you on the face. Adapt or perish.
The main storyline is there to be followed but Fallout 3 offers the greatest number of alternative choices I have ever encountered in a game! There is always a great number of paths to follow in order to achieve any goal - but every choice comes with a consequences tag. This is common feature of most classic cRPGs but in Fallout 3 I saw it implemented like never before. If nothing else, this sends replayability through the roof.
Side-quests offer little besides distraction and experience points (XP) to be spend on character improvement. XP are gained solely by completing quests, emerging victorious from fights, finding locations, picking locks and hacking terminals - and they are not limited by the action they were earned. Leveling up is based on 7 basic attributes [Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility & Luck - acronym?;)] that, in turn, affect your (13) specific skills. Leveling up used to be capped at Level-20 (increased to 30 by installing the DLCs), as the game designers wanted to encourage replaying the game. However, with this increase, now your character can realize its full potential. Replaying the game is still a joy though.
The game is violent and gory but well within tasteful limits. Not so with the language - but it is trade off with realism. In a radioactive world, Sunday-school niceties are bound to go out the window.
What deserves a special mention is V.A.T.S. (:Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System) which opens new vistas in cRPG design. It is an ingenious system which lets you pause the game and target specific body parts of your opponents. The success of your attack still depends on your skills but the end effect is cinematic and amazing (remember Swordfish?).
This GOTY edition includes all 5 DLCs released so far: Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta. Compared to the basic Fallout 3 applying the above improves the experience immensely! As mentioned above, since one used to reach the Level 20 cap long before the endgame, increasing this by 10 levels will give you a brand new ballgame.
Augmented weapons, new territories, novel foes and unexpected story branching - all for the price of the original game. I own the original game and coveted after these DLCs in the past months, waiting for a complete edition such as this GOTY one. When it became available I jumped at the opportunity to get them all. And did not regret it for a moment.
After the nuclear summer of 2008 (with all the Limited-Installation/defective EA releases), this seems like a post-apocalyptic dawn indeed! Bethesda decided to listen to the gaming community and did not cripple this beautiful game with any idiotic DRM scheme. Inputting a serial number and a DVD-check is more than reasonable.
The publishers of Fallout 3 understand that there is a fine balance between "protecting the product" and..."insulting your own customers". And they obviously view respect as the two way street that it is - and for this they deserve our support: buy this game, today.
Voting with our wallets is the only argument the gaming industry cannot afford to ignore. And it is about time to cast some well deserved positive votes.
In the past, Bioware has shown a tendency to surpass itself whenever developing a sequel (remember how much better Baldur's Gate II was compared to I - and the original Baldur's Gate was already excellent). Well, compared to this second installment, the original Mass Effect now seems like a typical space-RPG/Shooter.
Having played the original game will not only help you better insert yourself into Commander Shepard's boots (you can actually import your original character form the first game - choices and all) - but also appreciate the improvements more.
The story in Mass Effect 2 is darker and (without spoiling it) the choices harder to live with. Combat has been streamlined, with tactical decisions (using cover, taking the high ground) now being more important, without the game loosing its shooter character though.
Both the visuals and the sounds are exquisite. Not only are the graphics really impressive (and I am running WinXP so that is DirecX-9 mind you) and the sounds dramatic but the voice acting and dialogue integration should be taught in game-design seminars.
In this second installment there is no actual inventory to speak of (more on this later), loading times are shorter and better concealed (remember those endless elevator rides? Now forget about them), and accessing your special abilities menu has been simplified.
In a true Bioware tradition, the available companions all come with their own special abilities and personal stories to explore.
The selection of armor and guns has been reduced. There are about 15-20 guns to choose from and very limited loot. The guns I do not mind. Personally, I'd rather have a small number of well designed and fun to use guns at my disposal than a myriad of guns that in the end make no real difference (I am looking at you, Borderlands?).
Having said that, I missed the thrill of looting and upgrading my equipment (not to mention having a real inventory). I mean, that is a great part of the fun in any cRPG! I am not holding my breath but maybe one of the upcoming DLCs could take care of that?
And if I am to open the improvements-request file, how about speeding up those minigames in the next patch?
Finally, you also get a personal apartment aboard Normandy (an excellent idea introduced in Fallout 3) which you can equip with various ornaments and personal items (from fish for your aquarium to a...space-hamster - I call mine Boo).
As for the DRM scheme used, the game does contain SecuROM but (similar to Dragon Age: Origins and Fallout 3) it only uses a disk-check. Mass Effect 2 neither requires any online activation nor does it limit the numbers of its installations. It is not the best solution possible but it is a compromise I can live with. If you still find this objectionable, you can now make an informed decision.
All in all, I found Mass Effect 2 to be a beautiful RolePlaying Movie of a game, an immersive cinematic-action shooter with limited loot and more story than equipment choices. In other words, Mass Effect 2 may not be a pure cRPG or a cRPS experience (Dragon Age: Origins and Fallout 3 still rule those segments) but nevertheless it is an experience well worth its admission price.
Go for the light-sensors Boo! Go for the light-sensors!!
This is not a game to pick up to have mindless fun. Because everything that can go wrong eventually will. Unfortunately not just in the game.
Metro 2033 is set in a postapocalyptic Russian cityscape where only the lucky(?) commuters in the famous Moscow underground survived the nuclear blasts - and are now tormented by the cruel conditions they have to face. The underground tunnels belong to surviving humans ranging to both ends of the moral spectrum and various mutant creatures, all trying to make the most of their life.
And life is harsh. Ammunition is so scarce it is used as currency. So you have to be very careful with your aim. Having to make every shot count may sound fun but the next time you get caught with an almost empty weapon between nasty mutants and bloodthirsty enemies you may long for a more generous game design.
The weapons are not many but they are well designed. Both the pre-war and the improvised ones offer more or less realistic mechanics and satisfying results.
Light and shadows play an important role and stealth is something you will be thinking quite a lot - especially if you are low on ammunition. The graphics of the environments are detailed and beautiful whereas the movements seem fluid and natural. The game designers aimed in increasing the immersion factor wherever they could (there is no HUD besides your cross-hairs, you have to hit T to take a look at your watch - very important when venturing into the irradiated cities); however, pop-up messages and stuttering take a big bite out of that.
Metro 2033 will inevitably be compared to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. I found S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to be more of an RPG (hence its open sandbox nature) whereas METRO 2033 is more of a shooter with a predestined path to follow.
The PC I run this maxed out is a 2 years old system (WinXP SP3, P7 920 on MSI Eclipse with 3GB of RAM and an ASUS nVIDIA GTX480) and the game showed a proneness to stuttering, especially when enemies swarmed. I guess a future patch could take care of that but I would had preferred to receive a finished game and not one rough around its edges.
The retail version of Metro 2033 comes with Red Faction: Guerrillaas a bonus. It is not a bad game and, contrary to Metro, it offers more fun than immersion.
Finally, even he retail version of the game will require to be tied to a STEAM account. Yes that means ownership of your game will be stolen back and you will be allowed to play with it but not actually keep it. Whether this is acceptable to you or not you can now make an informed decision.
Eastern European gaming companies have came up with some great ideas in the last 10 years (S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and The Witcher pop to mind, to name just a couple). Unfortunately, although it tries hard, You Are Empty, well, is not one of the best examples.
This game's strengths are mainly the story and the settings. Soviet-era mentality had always been obsessed with mind-control sciences, and when something goes terribly wrong the world is turned into a zombie and cyber-entities cesspool.
The graphics are nice (comparable, at least, to those of Half Life 2 - an 8-year old game mind you), the surfaces are not too shabby (notice that they have been done painstakingly in polygons, not bump mapping!) - and the game engine, although previously untested, hardly ever glitches! Now that is solid kung-fu programming!
The scenery, with all the Soviet propaganda posters and the beautifully done cut-scenes, is gorgeous; whereas, the sounds and music have been tastefully chosen, with radio loop-announcements cutting through the cold Russian wind making the power-lines whistle: this is a game that is really easy to get immersed into!
Interestingly, You Are Empty runs for well over 16 hours(!): this is how long FPS games used to last - and not the miserly 3-4 hours the latest over-hyped releases do...
On the down side, the weapons may be realistic yet could not be more generic and unimaginative; movement is slower than flowing syrup, something especially nerve-raking when enemies have the tendency to jump you from all directions; and the damage (both sustained and inflicted) is hardly balanced: it is preferable to get hit by a grenade than to jump a single floor, to absorb several bullets that get bitten by a single rat and to keep using your sidearm than a rifle, since they do about the same damage, appear to have the same range and the sidearm can hold more bullets...!
This is a game that had been available since 2008 in Europe before finding distribution in the US - and, undoubtedly, this is not helping its chances to impress. North Americans should feel lucky though: the European release also featured the infamous...StarForce.
This is a solid first effort by Digital Spray, a newly founded group, that although fails to stand out in this pre-Christmas crowd, lays stable groundwork for its future developments. Let's only hope they do not get outright absorbed into a gaming mega-corporation...
All in all: a creative and atmospheric game that is worth a budget admission price.
Strange things expectations. Receiving the same item may trigger either satisfaction or disappointment depending on what you were expecting. From a game that was developed by members of OBSIDIAN, the people who had released such masterpieces as Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate, one expects lightening to strike yet another time. Unfortunately, they seem to have stroked out.
The first thing that strikes you with Alpha Protocol, however, are how bad the graphics are. Admittedly, great games have worked wonders and have been offering great fun with only limited graphics. There are games that are 10 or even 15 years old, when graphical capabilities were but a fraction of what they are today, and yet they are still more fun to play than most of the vapid eye-candies released these days. Unfortunately Alpha Protocol is not one of them.
The graphics look just bad. From the institutional colors to the awkward movements of the characters and the almost non-existent interactive environment, the game feels like a cookie-cutter Third-Person Shooter game found in a sales-bin.
Of course this is not a simple TPS game, it is rather a Third-Person RolePlaying Shooter (RPS). Your character advances in level and he also has an inventory. There are classes to choose from and skills to add to. There are different weapons and armor to equip with. Stealth is very important yet not the only way to go and there is a spy story unfolding through the dialogue options and cut-scenes. All this looks quite good on paper yet, somehow, it failed to work for me. And I have been an RPG fan for years.
The story is not absorbing and the characters are caricatures rather than the deep, complex characters one enjoys in a good RPG. The RPG elements are all there but they seem to get in the way of one another and work together. Having a time limit on the (Mass Effect 2-short) dialogue options is not a good thing either.
ALPHA PROTOCOL also sports...mini games. With variations of ideas we have seen in Fallout 3 and BioShock, hacking and lock-picking are carried out by completing mini-games that (just like in those previous games) get old and tedious. Fast.
As DRM goes, good ol' SEGA slipped in a Limited Activations scheme - but promised to patch it out in about a year, so the game will stay yours. If promises are kept that is.
An RPG that strives to also be a shooter, a stealth tactical game with the possibility of bullet time, an endlessly bifurcating story that manages to end up predictable. This is a game that takes up a lot of different elements on its brush but the picture it paints in the end is unoriginal if not confusing. Had all the different elements worked together, this would had been a masterpiece. Unfortunately, inspiration alone is not enough.
All in all, Alpha Protocol consists of a lot of good ideas that got thrown together but were then left underdeveloped and unrefined. Maybe they exhausted their A-game on developing Fallout: New Vegas, who knows.
Because of the developing team's history, I will be overlooking this one.
If you are out of ideas guys, I would propose developing a game looking like Diablo III and playing like Baldur's Gate. And if it had a steampunk setting it would be heaven.
Alpha Protocol will be remembered as a bump on the road.
The previous installment of the Fallout series, Fallout 3, was an excellent open-world Role-Playing Shooter (RPS). Although it suffered a far from...happy ending and most of the DLCs offered little more than even more loot and a handful of unique items, it was a game I greatly enjoyed for hours at no end and was more than happy to replay it only to follow different paths every time the story bifurcated. I for one was sure left craving for more and the Obsidian/Bethesda people were more than happy to deliver. Even so, true to Vegas mentality, they seem to have let their winnings ride...
The first thing that hits you with Fallout: New Vegas in the Mojave desert is how...familiar this new world looks like. The graphics, which were excellent two years ago, are still very good - but they are no longer cutting edge. Besides some richer shadowing and somewhat more vivid colors, if there are any major graphical improvements since Fallout 3 I failed to notice them. Having said that, I must admit that I loved the desert skies, especially during sunrises and sunsets!
Although both the story and the location are different from Fallout 3, I was happy to meet old friends: the handy PIPBOY-3000, the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. skill system and the V.A.T.S. targeting aid. The gameplay seems to fit like a favorite old pair of jeans.
Character development has both acquired more depth (with the return of Traits which offer advantages but at a price) but also made easier. There are new guns and more explosive kill-shot sequences as well as more skills and perks but I felt far less pressure to complete quests to gain experience points and translate them into perks, skills and traits as the game is generous in offering different ways to accomplish this.
Notably, with all the conflicting groups and factions angling for an edge in controlling New Vegas, the story seems more byzantine than Fallout 3 and the choices one has to make now cut deeper. Note also that this is a longer game than Fallout 3.
Now some bad news. Whereas Fallout 3 had a simple disk-check, Fallout: New Vegas comes with mandatory OnLine STEAM registration and activation. If you are wondering, the game lost its fifth star neither because of its somewhat dated graphics, nor its numerous bugs or occasional crash but rather its anti-customer DRM scheme. (That was a serious misstep BETHESDA, I was disappointed). Having to activate your game OnLine means that you never actually own the game you paid for at full price. Just try to sell or gift your original version in order to replace it with the Ultimate edition and see what happens. If this does not concern you, well, you can now make an informed decision either way.
This Ultimate editionincludes all of the DLCs, namely Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues, Lonesome Road, Gunrunners's Arsenal and Courier's Stash (consisting of the Caravan, Classic, Mercenary & Tribal Packs). I almost never buy individual DLCs. If I like a game enough, I wait for the Ultimate or GameOfTheYear edition to pick them all up at a reasonable price. Now that the price has dropped considerable, so many hours of fun can be bought at a bargain price.
From the early age of Pong, games have matured into a complete art-form. Story and cinematics are often as important as graphics and gameplay. Video games are the closest we have come so far to creating a holo-deck. You can be anyone and anything you want and you can dive head-first into this myriad of imaginary worlds. We may not realize it but gaming is a major component of what is known as the invisible literature, reproducing themes, memes and emotional states that constantly remodel and reshape our collective unconscious.
The cinematic Opening Sequences are there to start the story and make you want to follow it; to set the emotional framework and, carefully, lay hooks that will lead you to the surface. Some are Computer Generated Images (CGI) while others make use of real actors, making them short movies. These are the very best.
Syberia is a wonderful Adventure game. A young professional arrives in the French Alps looking for the heir to a toy factory. However, just like life, everything is complicated. This is only the beginning.
The dark yet playful atmosphere is set early on. Who really is this girl arriving alone in the rain? Whose is this funeral and why are automata honoring the deceased? Not only is this opening sequence artistically impeccable but it is also effective in reeling you into the world of the game.
9. RIVEN: Through the Linking Book
Riven, another first person adventure, was produced in the wake of Myst’s huge success. Although technically a superior game in every aspect, it did not duplicate the success of its prequel, mostly because a number of Riven’s puzzles were too difficult for the average gamer (in all honesty, I had to consult a walkthrough guide to get past the rotating room!).
This however, can take little away from the hypnotic opening sequence which absorbs you into this beautiful world of magic books, steampunk islands and damsels in distress.
8. EMPEROR - BATTLE OF DUNE: The History of the Houses
The only thing better than an intro with Bene Geserit witches in it, is one where they use The Voice against each other. Emperor: Battle of Dune is a masterpiece of a real-time strategy (RTS) game (Westwood’s swan song, just before it was absorbed and homogenized by EA) is set just after the end of the 1984 movie adaptation of the original novel. The sets and the costumes are very close to David Lynch’s vision whereas the acting follows on the footsteps left on the desert sands by the cast of the movie.
This opening sequence makes the list because it does two things and it does them well: it recaps the history of the Houses (for those unfamiliar with the Dune universe) and it creates the anticipation of the coming conflict. The conflict you are about to get involved in. Because, no matter what, the Spice Must Flow!
7. GRIM FANTANGO: Travel Agent to the Afterlife
Grim Fantango is an adventure game set in a 1920’s noir atmosphere, about the Land of the Dead (where little is actually different from the land of the living), can hardly avoid greatness. And this greatness is more than hinted in its subtle opening sequence. Manny Calavera is a travel agent to the souls, trying to make enough profit in order to move along himself. He may be down on his luck, exploited by his boss and ridiculed by his coworkers but nothing can make Manny loose his Humphrey Bogart cool. And the opening sequence is exactly that.
6. CALL OF DUTY 4 – MODERN WARFARE: Driving to an Execution
CoD4-MW makes the list not because of the graphics or the artwork but because of the ingenious way it was directed. It plays out like an episode out of Homeland and it manages to both set the mood and jump start your adrenaline for the first-person shooter (FPS) that is about to explode on your screen. It can be accused of emotional manipulation but that is only to be expected of games. If an FPS manages to make you angry just before the shooting begins, so much the better! And it is the details, such the authentic interior of the late 80’s Mercedes SL you are transported in to the jailer’s sweat beading on his forehead, that convince you that you are a man about to die.
5. SHOGUN - TOTAL WAR: The Art of War
Shogun: Total Waris the game that started the THQ’s Total Warseries and for that alone, it is monumental. Nevertheless, the game’s opening sequence is included because it is one of the most artistic. By use of a Japanese-accented voice-over the gamer is both immersed into the world of medieval Japan and offered a number of gameplay tips that he or she will need shortly. From the traditional Japanese paintings and the koto music in the background to explaining the turned-based strategy (TBS) of a game structured on bushido, this opening sequence is a masterpiece on its own.
4. MAX PAYNE 2: The Darkness Inside
Sequels always have the not so easy task of bringing up to speed people who missed on the previous installments. Max Payne 2 does this in NYC style. The sad story of Max Payne is outlined in a noir graphic novel that unfolds one frame at a time. The leather clad, back-combed NY detective may have gone through hell but his sufferings are far from over. Because revenge is a tiger; it is easier to ride her than slide off her. And there is always a bullet, patiently waiting in its nest, your number to be called up.
3. STARCRAFT 2 – WINGS OF LIBERTY: The Price of Freedom
The sequel to StarCraft, one of the most popular RTS ever, was years and years in the making. Building on this anticipation (and actually making fun at it) this opening sequence of StarCraft 2: WoL only turns this built up tension into an unbearable desire to finally play the game. The CGI sequence is immaculately made and, even if it does not explain the mechanics of the game (most of us already know them anyway) it does set the foundations of the emotional build up that is about to unfold. “It’s about time” indeed!
2. FALLOUT 3: War. War Never Changes.
This one is beautiful and brilliant at the same time. It is sad and nostalgic of a futuristic world on the verge of extinction. It starts off Fallout 3 with the credits in a series of slides projected on a radiation-hardened screen. Then the Ink Spots sing the 1941 jazz hit “I don’t want to set the world on fire”, the voice coming from a still functioning tube radio in a burned out public bus. The camera pulls back to reveal the world after the nuclear holocaust. That is when the famous “War, war never changes…” monologue can be heard. And, then, in a small number of story interruptions, the gamer gets to make the choices required at the beginning of every role-playing game (RPG). Pure brilliance.
1. HALF LIFE: Black Mesa Inbound
Half Life 2 may be a better game (and one of the best games ever made), however, when I started this list there was not a single doubt in my mind on who would be at the No.1 spot. The opening sequence of the original Half Life, entering the Black Mesa research facility, is, by far, the greatest cinematic opening in any PC game.
It sets the mood and the tone of the game. It allows the gamer to try out the controls of moving around in the confined environment of the train car. Brief credits flash and fade out cinematically at the corners. You are passed by different levels, rooms and environments, all hints of what awaits you in the game about to begin. And yet you are still driven further, deeper into the research facility. You learn that your name is Gordon Freeman, you are a low level scientist. And what is the purpose of such a huge facility? Well, Dr Freeman, you are about to find out.
(NOTE: the game has been recently revived by the – unbelievable! - Black Mesa MOD which is free and can be installed on STEAM).
XIII is a unique game, effectively it is the father of both Far Cryand Borderlands. And it can now be enjoyed worry-free.
The good plot of Far Cry bears eerie similarities to XIII, not in the tropical island setting but in that the hero wakes up with amnesia on a beach (with the roman numeral XIII tattooed on his arm) and than has to feel his through an obsessed assassin and a pack of ruthless mercenaries. The race is on not only to stay one step ahead of his conspiring enemies but also to discover his true identity.
This was the first major PC game to sport the daring comic-book look of cel-shading. Unlike Borderlands, which I found to have done so only halfheartedly, XIII pulls it off with gusto as the comic-book graphics are accompanied with comic-book exclamations and comic-book picture-in-picture format, offering a unique experience. It is like playing inside a comic-book - and it is great fun!
Now, the game is not without its flaws. It has a checkpoint saving system that makes it much harder that it should and the guns (probably to stay faithful to the original comic-book the game was based on) look rather underwhelming. However, although not perfect, this a game that you will enjoy playing and you will remember it for years.
When XIII came out in 2003 I went nowhere near it as it harbored an overzealous DRM scheme (an early version of Tages) that blocked disk drives from working properly and refused to launch the game if you had any form of "suspicious" software installed (let's just say that Ubisoft considered NERO to be...pirateware!). Eight years (and a couple of class-action suits) later, one can enjoy the game DRM-free (just be careful which version you choose).
This is the one of the most original FirstPerson shooter console games I ever experienced. Red Steel 2 is a SteamPunk-Western/Anime and it has been perfectly designed to take advantage of the technological capabilities of the Wii!
SCARE YOUR ENEMIES BY THE WAY YOU CARRY YOURSELF
The controls are a breeze to pick up. You move with the nunchuck and you turn by pointing the Wii-Remote. You fire your gun with the B-button whereas you unsheathe your katana with the A-button and swing the Wii-Remote like a real sword. And the last point is what makes this game so much fun. You slash, stub or hack by simply doing the same movements with your right arm holding the Wii-Remote.
This is not a workout game but after about an hour of having fun slashing and stubbing you will feel your upper arms to burn.
As you progress, there are improvements for your weapons and powers to purchase as well as special moves to learn by the cheeky weaponsmith/sensei.
THE WEST NEVER LOOKED THIS COOL
High-end graphics have never been the Wii's strong suit. That is why the cel-shaded (comic book) graphical style (similar to XIII and Borderlands) fits the gameplay well. Backgrounds, enemies and fighting moves (especially finishing moves) look really cool and crisp and greatly help the player immerse in the Anime atmosphere
The game requires the MotionPlus! extension of the Wii-Remote (usually not included with the game but is now included in most Wii bundles).
They are coming again - keep those katanas high and ready!
The game offers traditional Japanese settings (from the temples and the castles to the mythology and the paintings), rich late 80's environments (from shipyards and inner courtyards to caves and snowy mountains) and a great collection of interesting guns. It may be only 9 in total yet I got more excited when I got the shotgun or the rocket launcher than I ever was finding any one of the bazzilion guns in Borderlands 2.
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