When We Were Afterburning Towards A DRM-Free Future

After Prince of Persia and EndWar, Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. was the third major UbiSoft retail release to come out protected not by any intrusive yet ineffective DRM scheme but simply by gamers' honor. And, on top of that, it was a very good game.

There had not been a similar game released for some time: simplified arcade-like action with easy controls, breath-taking cinematics and impressive graphics - that will run in full even in low-to-mid-range PC systems. My advice: as with any flight combat game, using a joystick will make things so much more enjoyable and intuitive.

If you are more of an authenticity buff (and still have tons of free time to spare) I would advise going with a combat AddOn for Flight Simulator or a good old Jane's title. You will find no realistic cockpit and detailed controls in H.A.W.X. So, is this flight combat game dummied down? Well, yes. But I promise you: you will have fun like never before!

Hammerheading over cityscapes and coming in from the Sun over the desert has never been more easy to master. The electronic aids and bare-minimum controls will let you enjoy the fights and start mastering them early on.

This is a 4star game but I decided to give it full marks just because the Canadians at UbiSoft kept walking the narrow path towards a DRM-free future. It cannot had been easy to take such bold decisions during a bear economy. They deserved our support. Too bad they did not appreciate it

A Gutsy Move

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.

Murphy's Law On Radioactive Tovariches

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: Guerrilla as 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.

Tread with caution.

Workers Of The Outer Worlds, Unite!

The original Red Faction did not only break new ground and bring a number of innovations to the FPS genre - but it was also great fun to play. It was the first game, if I remember correctly, that incorporated damage to the environments that was not just for effect but played quite an important role in the story. Now, its sequels... well, succession in times of revolution is never easy.

Like any revolution, Red Faction (III): Guerrilla, strives to overcome but falls victim to harsh realities - and some bad decisions. But there are also a lot of sparks coming out from under this hammer.

First off, this game tries to be too many things at the same time. It has missions and you get to augment your weapons - but it is clearly not a cRPG. And you get to explore and shoot - but, even if you will find yourself in some hairy situations, the moments of adrenaline rush and intensity are rare. Early on the weapons get too powerful and the importance of explosions overtake the gameplay. Do not get me wrong, I love the smell of a singularity bomb in the morning as much as the next guy - but you can have too many explosions.

Oh, and how come one can blow up building and vehicles sky high but the surrounding rocks remain intact? And while I am poking plot holes: where is all the oxygen coming from since Mars seem as barren as a red desert?

Now, unless the hero were to wear armor we would love to see, why was there a need to go from an FPS to a Third-Person Shooter perspective? There have been TPS games that work great (the excellent Max Payne series spring to mind) but more often than not, the over the shoulder camera ruins the immersion - not to mention your aim.

Finally, there is the issue of graphics. I have an 2 years old system at home (i7 920, nVIDIA GTX480, 3GB of RAM, WinXP SP3), yet, even when all parameters were all maxed out, the graphics were not crisper than Half Life 2 (a 6 year old game). I understand that there are way more particles on the screen and the physics of their explosion would make the game unplayable in 2-3 year old systems but I expected more effort on that department.

On the other hand, driving is great fun! A-la GTA, you can hijack almost anything: from personal vehicles to huge utility tracks. And then there are walkers you can augment. And you can drive them almost over or through everything. The most sturdy of them will take quite a beating before dying on you so I really enjoyed walking or driving through walls and demolishing buildings. Who needs a map if you can plow a path straight towards your destination?!

Did I mention explosions? True, they are a bit excessive, yet there is no denying their fun factor! And what I found particularly impressive is how the choice and design of weapons stay within the story of miners revolting on Mars.

Another piece of good news: the game may not be DRM-free (it is protected by Impulse and WindowsLIVE online saves) but it has neither any malicious form of SecuROM nor does it require any type of activation.

A Rollercoster Of A Game

What you get if you cross Far Cry's endless sandbox and Stranglehold's cool moves with TOCA's vehicle realism and Bionic Commando's grappling hook fun? That's right, you get Just Cause 2. But this is not a perfect world.

Step into the boots of Rico Rodriguez, the luckiest CIA agent ever on a mission to ...liquidate the ruthless dictator, Baby Panay. Said dictator is not the most loved ruler to begin with - hence the three existing (and bickering) factions that oppose him. As Rico you will undertake missions of destruction to help these factions. Completing these missions awards Chaos points that advances the story missions and unlocks better equipment.

The game is just gorgeous! Set in an endless archipelago world of Panau (actually about 1,000km2 or 400ml2) that spans from tropical jungles to snow-caped mountains and dusty badlands you can roam more or less freely. There are seamless day/night cycles but what are really impressive are the weather effects. Like a postal-office worker not rain or snow or sleet can stop Rico - and his clothes will get wet or dusty accordingly. And if you decide to drive keep in mind that cars will handle differently under different weather conditions.

The guns are quite satisfying but what steals the show is the grapple-gun. Grab from passing helicopters and hitch a ride or tie your enemies to exploding gas-canisters and watch them skyrocket to their exploding demise. There are a thousand uses for this weapon - and they are all fun.

There is also an endless supply of vehicles in this game. From rickshaws to super-cars and from jet-fighters to cigarette-boats, you shall not have to walk another mile in your life while in Panau. Crash them and see them accumulate very realistic damages. That's the good news. The bad news is that most of them handle like a semi-deflated boat.

Because not everything runs smoothly in the archipelago. After the fifteenth time you blow up the same tower and the twentieth time you plant explosives on a speeding car and escape with your trusted para-sail, you will start wondering if there is an actual point behind all this mayhem. Then again, is there really a need for a reason to keep blowing up stuff with great style?

To get on this ride you will need either WinVISTA or Win7. I did not notice this until I had already opened the box. I am still a loyal WinXP user at home but, luckily, about two months ago I bought a new laptop and, of course, it came with Win7. I never found gaming to be comfortable on laptops (the keys are closer together and laptop mouses not as ergonomic), but this is besides the point.

The point is that there was absolutely no reason for this game to exclude about 40% of gamers that still stick with their WinXP as they are compatible with all of our classic games.

Moreover, the game requires STEAM to run which means the copy you pay for will never actually become yours to keep. Whether you find this acceptable or not, you can now make an informed decision.

All in all, Just Cause 2 is a game with some flaws but it also offers exhilarating fun.

Samus Returns To Her Roots - With An Overblast

The METROID franchise was slowly going astray, falling "victim" to innovations that mostly worked yet, at the same time, were turning METROID games into a typical space shooter. Don't get me wrong, I greatly enjoyed the Metroid Trilogy - it just did not give off the sense of a classic METROID game. Well, NINTENDO made sure to take care of that.

Metroid: The Other M is an old-school platform shooter, only equipped with the latest innovations that enhance rather than hinder the true character of the game. Samus Aran can now move in 3D (and not only in a sidescrolling manner), yet this is and feels like a classic platform game. There is some puzzle-solving and expect to spend quite some time in the form of a morphing ball, zipping through pipes, bypassing obstacles, unlocking security doors and finding powerups; and the FirstPerson perspective is still available to deliver devastating missile shots (while keeping Samus stationary and vulnerable to enemy attacks, one cannot play the game as an FPS). Nevertheless, this is an pure action-shooter game that is greatly enjoyable.

Visually this must be the best game I ever played on Wii, with beautiful and distinct environments than never get boring and never interfere with the gameplay. And, following the tradition of the classic Metroid games, the The Other M experience is enhanced by great orchestral music. Nothing epic, but it sure fits the mood of the scene it accompanies.

The Other M is a tad story-heavier than I would have liked and the cinematic sequences are unskipable(?) whereas, annoyingly, the story at times throws Samus in the midst of her enemies with minimal firepower and often without her Varia suit. Other than those minor complains (and the game being a bit short), this is one of the best games I have ever played on a console. I would dare say, this is a title that is comparable to the monumental Super Metroid on the SuperNES.

The Suit! My Kingdom For The Suit!

This game took the really scenic route before, finally, finding its way home. Release dates were pushed back, again and again; publishers were changed (from ATARI to SIERRA), like horses while crossing a river: an equally bad idea. What finally reached the shore was nothing to brag about...

TimeShift runs for about 10-15 hours, not short yet not long either by regular standards (I mean "regular", mind you, not HalfLife2 Episodes which run shorter than demos). In all those hours the story never manages to engage you. Time travel has always been a mind bender to grasp - and this is especially true when the story is tissue-paper thin...True, most FPS games do not have thicker stories, yet great FPS games all had a much higher immersion factor.

In the original Unreal you tried to escape an alien planet. In HalfLife2 you either wandered the alien-infested underground Black Mesa or doing Mr Smith's biding in combine-controlled City 17. In Far Cry you investigated the attack on your boat by a group of mutant-creating mercenaries. In Max Payne, oh, don't get me started on Max Payne... In TimeShift you try to, well, get back a time-shifting suit from the evil doctor and then go back in time to amend the bad things he already did. Yeah, really exciting...

TimeShift manages to stay afloat by improving on old idea. Remember Max Payne's bullet-time? Well, in TimeShift you can actually stop or even reverse time. This is not unlimited of course and it has rather slow recharge cycle but it provides with a number of interesting possibilities: dodge bullets, throw back the live grenade, disarm the opponents and then use their own weapons against them...(if you die though, you do stay dead).

AI? What AI? I don't know whether it is due to going back and forth in time, but your enemies never raise above flatlined. Even without slowing time they will just walk in front of your mowing machine gun...

The one thing that did improve by the long wait were the graphics. Compared to early-released demos, there seems that a lot of work has been put into all of textures, surfaces and shadows. Slow time and watch for the explosions: they are really impressive! Combine this with a collection of really imaginative and impressive weapons and you have TimeShift major success. Incendiary projectiles anyone? And I really liked the abundance of ammo! (some FPS are so stingy with their ammo crates, you would think they actually had to pay for them!)

Go Ahead, Make His Day!

Did you ever dream being able to run inconsiderate drivers who are too lazy to signal their turns or lane changes off the road and onto the sidewalk? How about spiral-diving amongst a swarm of black-clad enemies and bullet-time picking them out one by one? How about doing the same while skydiving? Or shooting bullets from your bare hand by simply holding them to the fire?

Shoot 'Em Up is an action movie that manages to both make fun of the action genre hyperboles and, at the same time, deliver a string of explosive action sequences. Sure, the plot is not the most deep but it far from paper-thin and, anyway, these are 86min of your life you will be glad you spent having fun.

The Academy gave ...The Hurt Locker an Oscar and they passed over this movie!!? Shoot 'Em Up deserves an Oscar for just two unforgettable scenes: the packaging-line shootout in Mr Smith's lair and the unique shootout/sex ballet with Monica Bellucci. Now, throw in Paul Giammati's smart-ass one-liners and you have yourself a movie which is great fun to watch.

Giammati may try his hardest to be the usual scene-stealer yet Clive Owen is the one who really delivers this movie. I am sure when they watched this, the producers of the James Bond franchise were kicking themselves for going with...Daniel Craig.

Start your year on the right foot. Draw a line and go after anyone who crosses it.

Playing Inside A Comic Book

XIII is a unique game, effectively it is the father of both Far Cry and 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).

The Eastern Side Of The West

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!