Star Wars: Battlefront (2015)

DICE (EA) - 2015 - PC/PS4/XboxOne

My self imposed policy for writing about games here is that I've tried to complete or at least get close to completing every game I review. For the most part, I've attained that goal with most of the games I've written about here with just a handful of exceptions. Other than I think DOTA 2, this is the first multiplayer-only game I've reviewed so I really can't finish this game. Yes I know, Star Wars Battlefront 2015 has a few training missions you can play offline, but let's be honest. No one is playing them. Just like no one plays DOTA 2 offline. I'm not a huge multiplayer shooter guy, but I am a big Star Wars fan, so I feel obliged to discuss this game a bit but before we begin - Full disclosure - I haven't played THAT much of Star Wars Battlefront 2015 which I will now refer to as just Battlefront for convenience, even though that causes confusion since there is also another game called Star Wars Battlefront that came out in 2004 (I guess we have to call that Battlefront 1 now...?). Anyway, I've probably only played about 5 hours of this game but I still feel like that's enough time to talk about it and have an at least somewhat informed opinion.

First of all the good - this game is gorgeous. EA and Dice have nailed the audiovisual presentation here. I usually play most of my games on PC as I have a fairly high end rig, but even playing on console (Battlefront came bundled with my PS4), this game still looks amazing. The way the sparks fly out of surfaces when laser blasts hit them, the sound effects of the different vehicles, everything combines to make this probably the most accurate and high fidelity recreation of the Star Wars universe in any video game I've played to date. Until I heard the voice acting. Darth Vader sounds ridiculous. And the Emporer too. Like come on, EA couldn't find anyone who could do the voices better than this? I feel like every aspiring soundalike has a good pocket Vader or pocket Palpatine.

So as some people already know, this game was widely criticized at launch for not having enough content. Which I agree with. Not having a single player campaign was a big downer for me especially since I enjoyed the campaigns from the other two games in the series. I read recently that a decision was made to cut single player content from the game in order to ship the game alongside Star Wars Episode 7 - a decision that I think ultimately hurt the game. I believe most people, myself included, would have gladly waiting a few more months for a game with more content especially since Battlefront had almost nothing to do with Episode 7. But I'm not sure Battlefront's problem ends with lack of content. I don't think Battlefront did enough to set itself apart. Yes it has the Star Wars license and did a reasonably good job adapting it to the game, but it still just mostly felt like Battlefield, but model swapped with Star Wars characters, vehicles and guns. In a market that's already heavily saturated with multiplayer shooters, there's nothing that really makes Battlefront stand out from the crowd aside from the Star Wars license which is admittedly the only reason I played this game in the first place.

Summary

Star Wars Battlefront 2015 is a very pretty albeit somewhat vanilla multiplayer shooter that is somewhat light in content. I've heard several rumors recently about EA announcing a Battlefront 2 which hopefully isn't the real title of the game or else everyone will always have to qualify if they're talking about Battlefront 2 2005 or Battlefront 2 2017 (maybe). Hopefully EA and Dice have taken the criticism on Battlefront 2015 to heart and we'll get a more interesting and content heavy game this time around

BioShock

2K - 2007 - PC/X360/PS3

Wooo!! 100 reviews! I figured it would be appropriate to cap off #100 with the original Bioshock since I started back in 2013 reviewing the same franchise with my very first review of BioShock Infinite. I still don't think I'm a great games critic or reviewer and I still have a lot to work on, but in re-reading my first review from two years ago, I can see how far I've come. In addition to more comprehensive and insightful writing, I've started including video reviews with my posts as well, in case you hadn't noticed. Of course having 100+ reviews and a ton of content introduces a problem of content discovery, which I'm attempting to remedy with new features like my games of the year list and my top 10 lists - both of which I intend to add to and update often, so keep an eye on those. Anyway, enough with the housekeeping, let's get on to talking about Bioshock.

I remember seeing Bioshock for the first time at E3 2006 before it was released later in 2007. It was by far the most interesting game trailer I saw at E3 that year. The underwater city setting, strange combat powers and gruesome violence were so unlike anything I had seen in a game before. When I eventually got my hands on the game it also played unlike anything I had experienced before, having at that time never played its spiritual predecessors, the System Shock games. Bioshock's combination of shooting mechanics, light RPG and puzzle solving elements, and high level of audiovisual presentation were unlike anything else around at that time. I remember being struck by how cinematic and directed the game felt. It felt like a movie. It felt like an amusement park ride where you're barraged by an overwhelming presentation of audiovisual effects that all spring to life as you pass by them. Bioshock's atmosphere was so unique and refreshing and it absolutely captivated me.

Bioshock takes place in the 1960s and follows the story of a man named Jack who, at the beginning of the game survives a plane crash that leaves him swimming in the middle of the ocean. You guide Jack away from the burning plane and to a lighthouse, the only structure visible in the vast ocean other than the flaming, sinking wreckage. Investigating the interior of the lighthouse reveals a bathysphere which takes you deep underwater and eventually reveals the massive underwater city of Rapture, where the remainder of the game takes place. The trip to Rapture is accompanied by a voiceover from a man named Andrew Ryan, who introduces himself as the creator of Rapture and conveys that he built the city as a haven free from external social, political or religious influences. But of course upon entering the city, it's immediately obvious that something has gone very wrong in Ryan's utopia and now masked and bandaged psychotic murderers known as splicers roam the remains of Rapture. You're contacted via radio by a man named Atlas who urges you to assist him in rescuing his family who he claims has been trapped in the bathysphere dock by Ryan. Atlas warns you to be wary of splicers who were previously Rapture's human residents, driven insane from abuse of a drug called ADAM.

When processed, ADAM becomes something called a plasmid, which when injected into a user's bloodstram can rewrite genetic code and grant its users dangerous and powerful new abilities. In addition to traditional firearms and melee weapons, pasmids serve as your main defense against splicers and Rapture's other many dangerous inhabitants. The use of plasmids also rewards players for their environmental awareness. For example, the electro-bolt plasmid is extra effective when targets are standing in water. Similarly, the incinerate plasmid is effective when used on oil spills that can be found throughout Rapture.

Experimentation with Bioshock's many plasmid powers is one of the most rewarding parts about the game. In fact, the game seems to reward experimentation and clever planning in general. For instance, when splicers are hurt, they often seek out a nearby health station to heal themselves. In addition to being used by the player to heal themselves, these health stations can be hacked to yield cheaper healing prices and to damage any enemies that tries to use it for themselves. Or the player can choose to simply destroy the station which yields several consumable first aid kits. Rapture's hostile security robots can be simply destroyed (they're weak vs. electro-bolt or armor-piercing rounds) or they can be hacked to aid the player in battle. There's a multitude of options available to the player on how to dispatch enemies and it's fun and rewarding to experiment with the game's many systems to find a playstyle and strategy that best suits you.

There's also a moral choice element to Bioshock. "Little Sisters" human girls who have been inplanted with a parasite and mentally conditioned to hunt for and gather ADAM are plentiful throughout Rapture. They and their powerful "Big Daddy" protectors are neutral to the player upon encounter, but Big Daddies will go hostile if they or the Little Sister are attacked. Dispatching a Big Daddy leaves the player with a choice: rescuing or harvesting the Little Sisters. Harvesting kills the Little Sister and grants the player a wealth of ADAM which can be used to purchase new plasmids and other useful upgrades. Rescuing the Little Sisters yields very little ADAM and gives few immediate bonuses, but rescuing multiple Little Sisters can unlock powerful plasmids later in the game.

BioShock Video Review:

Summary
Bioshock is a wonderful blend of an immersive and atmospheric environment, a memorable story, and well designed game systems that reward the player for experimentation. While Bioshock's sequels improved on some mechanics, I don't think they ever recaptured the brilliance of the original game and its great blend of atmosphere, story and game mechanics.

Mass Effect 2

BioWare (EA) - 2010 - PC/X360/PS3

(On my Top 10 Favorite Games list)

I initially thought it would be a neat idea to close out this year and the month of December by doing a countdown of my all-time favorite games and writing reviews for them. But then I realized that I had already done reviews for some of my all-time favorite games like Project M, Minecraft, and Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. So while this isn't truly a countdown of my favorite games, the games I write about this month are still very important to me and I have replayed all of them many times. 

The first BioWare game I ever played was Knights of the Old Republic. I admittedly picked it up mostly cause, you know, it's Star Wars! But I actually thought it was mostly a pretty good game. Then Mass Effect came out. I freaking LOVED the first Mass Effect game. Even without the Star Wars license, it was an undeniable improvement over KOTOR in every way. It had a much more interesting and engaging combat system, it had more impactful narrative decision making, and it had more interesting characters and better told story. But maybe most important of all is that the in-game world felt so real and immersive. It had massive lore and backstory and I could read as much or as little about all of the locations and technologies as I wanted. The voice acting and writing was excellent and the game pulled off humor and sarcasm better than most other games at the time. Plus the game looked (and still looks) pretty darn impressive.

Mass Effect 2 is all of these things and more. I believe it to be the epitome of the Mass Effect franchise. ME3 is a good game too, but it didn't feel as refined or complete of a game as ME2. It seemed like one of the design goals of ME2 was to trim a lot of the excess fat that was present in the first Mass Effect. Gone are the clunky vehicle sections. Gone are the annoying canisters of useless extra weapons and armor that you trip over every 5 steps. But returning is the excellent writing and character design. The crewmates on the ship were so varied and interesting, even more so than ME1. Arguably the least interesting characters were the ones that returned from the first game which isn't so much a slight of the first game as much as it is a compliment to the excellent character design of the second. I loved that you also got to see some of the impact of the decisions you made in the first game. It's also a nice reminder that the impact of a lot of the important decisions you make in ME2 will be felt in the next game. Or at least felt at the end of ME2.

Perhaps the most notable improvement in Mass Effect 2 is the combat system. Combat in the first game was somewhat clunky and awkward. It was sometimes hard to tell if you were actually hitting your target and shots tended to clip into invisible barriers or sometimes seem to miss for no reason at all. The combat in ME2 is much more polished and visceral. You KNOW when you get a kill and it feels satisfying. My favorite change in the combat system is with the different weapon types. It's much more rare when you acquire a new weapon, so it feels more exciting. And it's not simply a binary "Is this gun better or worse?" like in ME1. The weapons are all different and have varied strengths and weaknesses. They all play and feel fundamentally differently with different reload speeds, ammo clip sizes, range, and also varied damage and accuracy. You have to play around with the weapons a little to see which one best suits your playstyle. And I love that. Also the excellent level design in ME2 facilitates constant changing of weapons. Some levels are close quarters with lots of short hallways that are perfect for strong shotguns while others can be long, open courtyards perfect for sniper rifles. And the refined abilities and powers are a nice added touch that separates Mass Effect from other action-shooter games. 

While the refinements to the combat system are nice, the real reason I come to ME2 is to get my story on. I loved the darker or at least somewhat more mysterious themes of ME2. I liked that Commander Shepard was no longer a pawn of the Alliance, but was a renegade in league with Cerberus who were villains in the previous game. Sure, Shepard sort of takes orders from the mysterious "Elusive Man" throughout the game, but you're always free to pick your own destinations on the map and unfold the story at your own pace. It gives the game a more open-ended "explore the galaxy on your own terms" kind of feel. The game seems thematically closer to Star Trek than Star Wars which is ironic considering the development team's pedigree. But I loved exploring and discovering the game world in ME2 and the set pieces are all so well written and memorable. Especially at the end of the game. I won't spoil what happens for those who still haven't played it, but ME2 nicely and meaningfully wraps up all of the choices and decisions you've made in the game up to that point. And it does it in a way that is both exciting and memorable.

Mass Effect 2 Video Review:

Summary:

Mass Effect 2 is a great example of a perfect marriage between excellent gameplay and storytelling. It's an excellent sequel that refines everything that was good about the first game in the series and trims out everything else that was not. It should be a must-play game for fans of shooters and fans of great storytelling alike

Resident Evil 4

Capcom - 2005 - Gamecube/PS2/PS3/Wii/X360/PC

In order to help commemorate the release of the “Ultimate HD Edition” of Resident Evil 4 on Steam this week, I figured I’d post about how awesome this game is. It's actually difficult for me to put my finger on why I like this game so much. On paper, it seems like a game I would absolutely hate. The story is pretty much ridiculous. The puzzles feel tacked on and unnecessary. There's instant death quick time events in cutscenes. All things I hate. Plus it's a shooter, and I'm not usually enthralled with action/shooters. But somehow this game really won me over and became one of my favorites.

Resident Evil 4 marked a huge shift in the franchise's gameplay. RE 1-3 were really more pure survival horror games. Ammo was scarce. Enemies were scarce, which made it more intense when you encountered one. Aiming was kind of awkward which gave a real sense of vulnerability. The emphasis was on atmosphere and trying to creep the player out. I liked these games, especially the first Resident Evil. RE4 is a very different kind of game. There's enemies all over the place, the controls are tight, and the emphasis is on the shooting and action. It's a different kind of fun. It still does atmosphere sort of well through the first half of the game, but kind of abandons it through the second half in my opinion.

What I think this game does very well is variety. Variety in enemies, variety in weapons, variety in locations and so on. While I think RE4 does some sections of the game better than others, at least you never get the sense that you're doing the same thing over and over which I frequently get while playing shooters. There's the atmospheric lonely feeling of the village in the beginning of the game, the creepy cultists in the castle, the unnerving bizarre science experiments in the laboratory and the over the top action sequences near the end of the game.

There are lots of unique and memorable experiences in RE4. There's everything from being trapped in a cabin with legions of zombies trying to break in to running from an invisible monster through dimly lit sewers. There's even epic gigantic boss fights and a few vehicle sections as well. It's not as nerve-wrackingly scary as the first RE games, but there are a few jump scares scattered throughout RE4. There's a sort of fun metagame of deciding which weapons and items you'll take with you with limited inventory space. And deciding which guns to upgrade and which upgrades to purchase is fun too.

Summary:
It's just good old zombie killing fun. Check it out

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Naughty Dog - 2009 - PS3

A copy of The Last of Us has literally been sitting, unplayed, on my TV shelf for the last 3 months because of Uncharted 2. Not because I've been busy playing Uncharted 2, but because I finished Uncharted 2 a couple years ago and it had to be one of the most overhyped and uninteresting games I think I've ever played. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Uncharted 2 is a bad game, but I don’t quite understand how it won over so many critics and sold so many copies.

The platforming sections are slow and unremarkable. The puzzle solving sections are too simple and usually just involve opening Drake’s notebook to the proper page to find the solution. The cover based shooting is just… cover based shooting. There’s nothing new here, this game retreads ground that many other games have already tread. By the way, I really hope you like cover based shooting because there’s A LOT of it here. Granted, I played Uncharted 2 immediately after finished the first Uncharted, so I might have burned myself out on Uncharted.

But I think the issue is deeper than that for me. I think I’m burned out on shooters. If the 90s were the era of the platformer, the 00s are definitely the era of shooters. I think I’m just bored and ready for something else. Modern shooters have to do something else interesting in order to hold my attention. Tell an interesting story. Layer an interesting mechanic on top of the shooting. I don’t think I can handle any more pure shooters though. Not that Uncharted is a pure shooter, but it feels close enough. The story feels like a script to a typical Hollywood action movie, it’s kind of forgettable and bland. I never felt invested in the story at all or any of the characters in it for that matter. Nathan Drake comes across as very smug and cocky to me which really started to rub me the wrong way after a while. I feel like the player should never be put off by the character he’s controlling unless it’s intentionally comedic or something.

Summary:
There’s really nothing about this game that I found warranted the praise and acclaim that it got at its release. I guess it does look really graphically impressive, but that usually never matters me especially if the game itself isn't that fun. I’m hoping none of the things I've just described are true about The Last of Us, but I've yet to work up the nerve to try and play through that game.

System Shock 2

Irrational Games/Looking Glass Studios - 1999 - PC

I picked this up off Steam hoping to fill the Bioshock void that Infinite left. It actually had a bit of a different feel than Bioshock, but it was just as good. I think this game was a bit ahead of its time and I can see why fans of this game complained that Bioshock was too “dumbed down” when it came out. There’s way more skill customization and RPG elements in System Shock 2 than Bioshock, which I like. You can upgrade your character’s hacking skill or repairing skill or shooting skill etc. to fit your playstyle. Kind of like Deus Ex.

It has the same horror tone and atmosphere from the first Bioshock games, but more futuristic sci-fi Alien-ish horror than 1920s gone wrong. The only sort of problem with this game is that it’ll feel a bit dated. The voice acting is completely laughable and it’s in that early era of 3d PC games where everything looks really blocky and low-res. Which actually can be just as horrifying when you can’t quite tell what you’re looking at when a blocky monster jumps out at you.

Check this out if you like Deus ex, Bioshock, old PC games or horror games in general.

Borderlands 2

Gearbox Software - 2012 - PC/PS3/X360

It’s pretty much more Borderlands. After playing the first Borderlands, I can’t really say there’s a lot of innovation or new content here. More guns, more enemies, bigger environments, stuff like that. But it’s pretty much the same game. I do love how varied and unique all of the different guns feel though. Each gun’s playstyle seems radically different from the last one, which is probably a hard thing to accomplish.

Summary:
I think my main problem with Borderlands is that it’s kind of the same thing over and over again, which usually wears on me pretty fast. To its credit, Borderlands makes doing the same thing over and over again as diverse and as fun as possible, but it still is what it is. I get why people like this game, it’s just not for me. I think part of it is this game being quest based and experience based and all that. It reminds me of playing an MMO, and I usually never find MMOs to be that much fun. This game’s attempts at humor don’t really do anything for me either, but again, I can see why people like it.

Bioshock Infinite

Irrational Games - 2013 - PC/PS3/X360

This, to me, was probably the most disappointing game I played this year. Nearly all of my friends and other people I spoke to who had played this game enjoyed it and the game was critically reviewed well, so I may be a bit alone here. I thought this game took a pretty big step backward in overall game design and pacing compared to the previous Bioshocks. There were large chunks of this game where I did nothing but shoot enemies, then there were large chunks where the game decided it wanted to tell a story for a while and just guided me around Columbia. But the chunks weren't mixed in throughout the game. They were just…chunks. It also took out the excellent level design that I loved from the first two games where upon entering a new area, you had to be aware of your surroundings and the enemies you were fighting and use the appropriate plasmids to lay traps and what not. Infinite mostly just had large open areas filled with enemies that you had to kill with… whatever. Again and again and again.

I didn't think Columbia had the charm, atmosphere and polish that Rapture did so well in the earlier games either. I also experienced some balancing issues with this game. I pretty much had my character maxed out in everything about halfway into the game and was mowing down anything in my way without much thought or effort.

Summary:
There’s so much more this game could have done with mixing up gameplay/artwork/music with their parallel dimensions theme too. A lot of lost potential. To its credit, the ending of this game was pretty cool though.