Alpha Protocol — Endgame.

I managed to finish Alpha Protocol last night, putting duty (mostly) before my own personal needs, although I did romance two women in the game. A lot of what I said about the game in my last post about it still seems to stand till the very end.

The game has a number of bugs that needed sorting out desperately. I couldn’t even progress past an area in the game because the script glitched out and would never load and I was stuck in one area until I completely reloaded the game and manually loaded the save file, redoing the whole mission. Thorton is incapable a lot of the time of throwing a grenade while crouched in cover no matter how far out you try to stick. Sometimes his grenade throws land in the wrong spots, like when they magically stick right next to your cover and deplete a significant amount of your health. Meanwhile, enemies will always know where you will go and throw their own grenades accordingly. This is kind of frustrating, except watching Thorton’s ragdoll body fly all over the map which his incredibly deadpan face in slow motion is one of more hilarious things in the game. Thorton is also incapable of taking cover on a moderate number of flat surfaces. You will find a perfectly flat wall next to an opening, an entrance or a door, and tap A as rapidly as you want but he’s not leaning on it.

I abused this game to no end. You can get by the entire game on mastering the art of stealth and the pistol as I have. Once you unlock the Clean Shot skill in the Pistols rank, you can eliminate pretty much every boss in just two sessions (like Bioware games, skills need “cooldown” time to recharge for another use). Of course, maybe you’re the type to go in guns blazing. Any game that delivers an opportunity to take a quiet approach, I’m going to take it, habitually at this point.

If it weren’t for the dialogue options, and the fact that the order that you play the missions actually affects how events unfold in the game, there would be absolutely no reason to ever go back to Alpha Protocol. It’s interesting at least to see how characters react to Thorton as a character whether you’re deliberately going out of your way to get them to like you or dislike you. The strange thing about these responses is that Thorton still delivers any kind of line in such a deadpan manner it’s like hearing the male version of Daria. Pick an angry, threatening response, and he’ll tell you he’ll put a bullet through your head in the same tone as he’d probably tell someone he’s got a stomach virus or his favorite sports team lost a game.

In the end, I admire that this game tried to bring a sort of different approach to all the spy games we’ve played in the past, and the whole plot is serviceable on the same level as it would be for a major motion picture starring Sam Worthington. I actually discussed in great detail months back that a game like Alpha Protocol, sans glitches and mediocre voice acting, is how James Bond games should play. It would be great. I honestly would play a sequel, but please give it to another team. Obsidian and I are very close to being arch nemeses.

3/5

Oregon Trail — Eagles will take your kids away.

The other day I was watching a rerun of G4′s Attack of the Show when the hosts interviewed one of the actors from film director Zack Snyder’s newest excuse to use slow motion: Sucker Punch. Either I didn’t pay full attention to the interview, or the entire interview was just the hosts asking about said actress’s “love” of videogames which amounted to her saying she loves games on her iPhone, like Oregon Trail. This got my attention in the strangest way that I can’t quite possibly expand on. It was already one thing to say you love videogames then name one that’s exhausted its nostalgia factor and is now just another internet meme, but Oregon Trail just sounded so random to me. Then I remembered I actually downloaded Oregon Trail for iOS but never actually played it until yesterday.

"A broken leg? I hope you like running!"

Well, of course if you were ever a kid in the ’80s or ’90s you probably played Oregon Trail in computer classes or at a public library. Beyond the “edutainment” label, I wouldn’t know what to call it beyond time management although so many events that go down along the Trail feel random and cheat you out at the same time. Instead of the deliciously ugly visuals on the Apple II, we get a cartoony design worthy of a syndicated comic strip. Many options are stripped down, I noticed. From what I remember, you actually decided how many oxen, sets of clothes, pounds of food, bullets you’d take on the trip depending on your profession. In the iOS take, you basically pick a profession, weigh out the pros and cons, and have everything decided by two meters: food and everything else. You can still buy stuff at the general stores at the many settlements you come across during the journey, but now these items affect how ahead you keep to schedule and how often these supplies will be used on the trip. Bullets seem infinite, and simply tapping on the animals to shoot at them takes away the entire challenge of the arrow keys. Everything has a mini-game attached to it instead of what amounted to rolling a die and seeing how your chances held up. You tap berries as they appear on the bushes to collect them in your basket before they disappear. You fling your fishing line and try and capture X number of pounds of bass and Sharktopus-sized catfish. You hammer nails as they align to the circle for the perfect hit a la many music rhythm games. The strangest one is the Simon-like post office game where you tap on different telegraphs in a pattern for experience points and, I guess, contact people back home?

Some strange additions to this game. Some narrator type yokel makes fun of you for declining to hunt for game. If I’m good on food and I need to keep up to schedule, why would I lose a day to hunt? Screw off! Were eagles snatching children a big problem in the 19th century? To be fair, if you tap the screen at the right time you can bring that sucker down and contribute to the extinction of the American bald eagle. Although they’re just relegated to “snakebites,” why in hell are giant snakes eating children? There doesn’t seem to be any way around that. My personal favorite is the family riding you for picking up an extra passenger who just lies on his ass and doesn’t contribute anything to help ease your journey and you get a measly (well, by 2011 standards) $5 that won’t buy much. At least they had the foresight to design crossing rivers in a way that I won’t die from wading in two feet of water.

Honestly though, I CAN, in fact, recommend this 99-cent app at the App Store, if only because they recognized some of the lunacy of the original games and made it just a little wackier and much more colorful.

Infinity Blade — Father, grandfather, great-grandfather, I will avenge you.

I am sadly prone to throw away countless dollars on iOS games. Some of them are good, some addicting, but in the end I’ll play the game for maybe a week or a month and move on. I bought into the Angry Birds phenomenon when I got my iPhone 4 and after a short while I got sick of it while everyone else continues to sing its praises. I have THREE racing games, but the only one that ever got my attention for more than a month was Real Racing. I’m not even bothering with the sequel despite its critical acclaim. Just when I thought I’d be done downloading apps to my phone did I find one so glorious, fun, and frustrating that I’m mad at myself for not having jumped sooner (although I managed to find it on sale one weekend for $3). That game, folks, is Chair Entertainment’s Infinity Blade.

So yes, this is yet another late-to-the-party entry, and aside from Pokemon Black, Infinity Blade is my other mobile addiction at the moment. The premise seems simple: in a land where fake Latin is spoken, you are a warrior on a quest to defeat the God King. I wish I had thought of a name like “God King” back in the days of AOL. Best. Screen name. Ever. Anyway, in a medieval take on Nintendo’s Punch-Out! games, you get into fights with other warriors, which consist of dodging hits left or right and striking when the enemy leaves an opening. Chaining together sword strikes can have devastating effects on enemies. Dodging in the right direction also gives the player a “dodge break” allowing them to get some hits in and STRIKE FOR MASSIVE DAMAGE. You make your way to the God King and his protégé. The God King will undoubtedly slaughter you on your first encounter with him and then, years later, your now grown-up son will undertake his father’s armor and avenge him. Then he’ll probably die, and HIS son will take up the mantle, and if you still can’t bring the God King down then, well, you get the idea. Honestly, thinking about the big picture, I would hate to be part of this bloodline. Supposedly the further the bloodline, the harder the game will get. I’m only on the third bloodline and I STILL haven’t taken the God King out.

 

Infinity Blade: WITH A VENGEANCE!

The game does reward you with money, potions, and experience points. You can spend the points to increase attack power, health, defense, etc. and money on new armor, weapons, and rings that have certain spells like healing or poisoning. It gets quite addicting because there are really so many items to choose from and different ways to equip items that you’re always looking for the best combination possible.

My issues with the game might stem from my own iPhone screen as sometimes my character does not dodge when I need him to, and running my finger up the screen actually doesn’t respond. My giant hands are prone to excessive sweat and all that crap, so take that complaint with a grain of salt. However, if you’re quick enough, you can practically be a ninja in loud-ass armor. I’m certain playing the game for a long period of time will do a number on the iPhone’s battery life, give its impressive visuals and man can that thing get hot.

This experience begs the question: Where the HELL is my Star Wars lightsaber battle game that should play exactly like this?!

Alpha Protocol — Just hand me a pistol.

I am a little late to the party on this one. Thursday I celebrated my 26th birthday and, along with getting Marvel vs. Capcom 3, I got some extra cash and paid Toys R Us a quick visit. Inevitably heading over to the games area, I started browsing until I happened to notice all the way on the top shelf hidden in a corner was a game I had always been curious to experience: Alpha Protocol. The Sega game was developed by Obsidian Entertainment, who brought us the sequel to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and recently Fallout: New Vegas. This is an action RPG game that borrows a lot of its design from Bioware’s Mass Effect titles. One of the more intriguing features in its premise is that this is pretty much a spy RPG, which you don’t see much.

I’ve played through the tutorial and the first two countries and at this point I think I have the mechanics of Alpha Protocol down pretty well. The beginning has you run through an institution that ends up as a test to see how well the protagonist, Michael “I Swear I’m Not Boring Ass Sam Worthington” Thorton, handles himself in the field. One of the more hilarious moments in the tutorial is the agency chief’s way of explaining CONVERSATIONS WITH PEOPLE, and Michael acts as if he’s never had different chats with different people in his life. I don’t know if real spies just have dialogue that’s only relevant to their assignment, or they stop to chat about the latest episode of Dexter in between neck-snapping, but hearing that acting like a douche bag might not always be the best approach to people or that you even have a choice to be nice, sarcastic, or professional/stoic. Although one of the finer points made is that people react to different approaches. One character might actually prefer that you’re a jerk, and flirt too much and you’re just a creepy stalker who needs to keep his libido in check.

 

"No, I was NOT Jake Sully in Avatar!"

 

 

Actually, the conversational system is one of the bigger, more impressive draws of Alpha Protocol. Typically, RPGs that give players the choices to respond to NPC phrases almost always have a black and white approach to them. One response is typically the polite, stoic, harmless response. The other is either incredibly polite, nice, on a knight-in-shining-armor level, or the incredibly evil, mean, plain douche-y response, and of course how you respond affects your relationships with other characters whether in a romantic sense or as allies or whatever. Alpha Protocol follows a milder approach to it, where Thorton’s replies can be aggressive, modeled after Jack Bauer from the series 24. Then there’s a suave response, which takes some phrases after famous spy James Bond, typically used as sarcasm and especially flirting if Thorton speaks to a woman. Jason Bourne of the Bourne books and films inspires the ‘professional’ responses, that tend to get to the point. This apparently genuinely affects the story and how mission circumstances play out, for once. I spoke to a gentleman who appreciated my professional, stern approach, and offered to assist me in my next mission. Apparently had I been an ass to him, I would be fighting his troops at the end. All of this happened because I spared someone close to him rather than shoot her face. I can even buy more weapons from the black market as a result.

When the fun chats aren’t going down, you’re on a mission that will require you to steal information, or kill someone important. After outfitting yourself with your preferred choices or weapons and armor, you can either go on your mission and just shoot up the place or take a quieter approach, sneak up on the bad guys and you have a choice of lethal and non-lethal takedowns. The gameplay is modeled after Mass Effect in that how you distribute skill points across the board affects how effective your weapons and your abilities are throughout Alpha Protocol. I’ve decided I like silence, and a challenge, so I’m honestly putting my points into stealth and pistol rankings. You can also upgrade health/resilience, and melee combat, another field I’m tinkering with. I actually kind of enjoy beating up bad guys when I can, but sometimes the bad guys will take a step back with their guns and Michael apparently has the reach of a nine-year-old.

The shooting can get frustrating if you come in expecting Gears of War style of combat. Your stats and weapon modifications can affect how powerful your gun is and how fast you can take them down. This is primarily why I like to sneak and take down guards. Sneaking is actually pretty easy although sometimes you’ll be forced into firefights.

Sneaking is honestly easy because all of the enemies in Alpha Protocol are, well, DUMB. They have zero peripheral vision, and take a while to recognize you as a threat. Plus if you upgrade your stealth ranking, you can unlock an ability that renders you invisible for a few seconds to get away before it all goes sour. However, in firefights they can get grenade-happy and chug frags your way. This is frustrating sometimes because if you’re crouched against a wall for cover, leaving cover will keep Thorton moving slowly and you have to stand up quickly enough to get far away from the explosion, which can do a LOT of damage. On top of that, the camera gets really stupid and closes up on random things, the wrong locations, and tricks you into thinking you have a shot that will just hit a piece of the concrete or whatever it is you’re using for cover. Bad guys also like to charge, and I HATE when enemies charge at you. Most people wouldn’t mind because enemies in shooting games tend to just stand there and fire away reducing their entire existence to cannon fodder. Luckily you can easily take them down if they charge down your way with a simple tap of a button.

One thing I can’t stop thinking about is that the game is kind of ugly. The cutscenes tend to have a washed out look with strange filters on the screen that’s supposed to emphasize the drama and down-to-earth attitudes of the narrative, but games don’t do this well at all. There’s also the frequent screen-tearing and ugly modeling.

The other thing I can’t get off my mind is that Alpha Protocol has one of the worst title screen tunes ever. It’s not even music. It’s like what evil scientists would blast in your ears to ‘experiment’ on you: just a bunch of random screeching noises with no rhythm whatsoever and I’m always desperate to hit the Start button.

I don’t know how far into Alpha Protocol I’ve reached, but this will be part one of a two-parter.

Dead Space 2: Permanent Markers

It takes a crazy man to face the trauma, horror, and insanity a second time that haunted him years earlier, and Isaac Clarke is crazy enough to do it. He took on monsters that invaded the doomed spaceship the Ishimura in 2008′s Dead Space, a surprise hit from EA and Visceral Games (then EA Redwood Shores). The game drew its plot and mood from films like Alien and Event Horizon. It drew its control from Resident Evil 4 and even improved it in ways. The combination worked well enough to continue Isaac’s troubled journey in Dead Space 2, set years after the events on the Ishimura.

We find Isaac this time in a hospital on a station called the Sprawl. Seemingly, he’s being treated for the trauma from the Ishimura, but his reintroduction is so brief that before you take in the fact that he now has a voice, you’re practically hitting the ground running the moment the game begins. Isaac is strapped in a straitjacket and you have to dodge the game’s enemies, the Necromorphs, as you make your way to an elevator to escape. The game feels like it really starts the moment you acquire the first of a few engineering suits in the game.

Isaac is greeted by an old friend.

Most of Dead Space 2 will feel familiar right away: the RIG (health meter), the stasis function that allows you to freeze enemies in place, the weapons, the overall feel and mood. The gameplay bears the same concept: proceed to an objective, battle the Necromorphs hidden everywhere, get something done, upgrade equipment, try not to die. The kind of game that Dead Space is means it doesn’t require a whole lot of retooling, just a few fixes here and there, a few this game did get.

As you guide Isaac through the Sprawl, you will encounter a few characters along the way: fellow patient and crazy guy Stross, who seems to be the key to destroying the Marker, the symbol of being and hope and life for the game’s Unitology cult that spawned the demonic and murderous Necromorphs. There is also Ellie, a pilot for CEC, the mining company that made the whole “planet cracking” process possible that more or less allowed this whole mess to happen.

Throughout the story, Isaac has moments of hallucination and breaks down as he is haunted by the ghost of Nicole, his girlfriend who served aboard the Ishimura before the Necromorphs took over. One of Dead Space 2′s themes is acceptance, and Isaac is struggling to accept Nicole’s death, but that part of him that can’t let go is infected by the Marker, who wants Isaac to get to it.

Certain elements of Dead Space are gone. In replacement of boss battles and shooting asteroids, the game has ramped up the amount of Necromorphs you fight. There are many moments where Isaac will have to destroy a swarm of them and they come in waves. In one fight, I counted about five or six in one swarm. Sometimes it gets frustrating and can feel cheap, especially when some of the monsters appear from right behind you without you even knowing. The final segments of the game take this to a whole new level, for better or worse. Hopefully you will have enough ammo for your weapons. Speaking of which, in addition to their upgrades, done at benches that can add more ammo to a clip or increase damage, you can actually reverse the process. For 5,000 credits, you can remove nodes from upgraded weapons and place them somewhere else. I didn’t actually use this feature, but it’s certainly nice to have.

The zero gravity areas are back and improved upon. Isaac can now travel anywhere in the Zero G area rather than find hopping points. If he strays too far from a landing point, a simple push of the button will orient him to the ground for landing. There weren’t that many to be found and, although it’s nice to see improvements, add very little to the experience.

Although the game remains identical to the first, the overall plot was underwhelming. Although I truthfully consider the entire Unitology and Marker plotlines to take a backseat to the intensity and fear, one aspect of the plot that was especially disappointing was its exploration of Isaac’s mental stability, or lack thereof. His anguish actually has a purpose, but its primary source feels like a copout. That could have been something, and didn’t deliver. The game also doesn’t do a well enough job to get the player to sympathize with the broken relationship between Isaac and Nicole. We didn’t know that much about them before the Marker entered their lives although we’re supposed to assume they were very close. I actually saw more chemistry between Isaac and Ellie.

Dead Space 2 is an improvement in all of the right places, and leaves alone what isn’t broken. For better or worse, it takes the “action packed sequel” route but does a decent enough job in execution. It is wonderfully produced though. The visuals are some of the most beautifully dreary set pieces in a game, and the lighting is exceptional. Although I find it to be a decent at best sequel, I commend Visceral Games for the effort they put into its design.

4/5

Vanquish: Ballet of Bullets

I do apologize for not having written anything in almost two months. Although I have been playing my fair share of games, I don’t necessarily feel 2011 is starting off as hot as I would have liked.

One of those games I’ve been playing (and playing over) is Vanquish, Sega’s attempt at a Western-style third-person shooter a la Gears of War. It was developed by Platinum Games, makers of Bayonetta (played by millions) and Madworld (played by three people). I only played Bayonetta as a demo and while I did get a kick out of it, at the time I didn’t feel it was for me. It’s pretty cheap now, so maybe I’ll give it a go.

 

Seriously. It's like Iron Man versus Mega-Michael Bay-tron.

Vanquish is the story of a group of Russian ultranationalists (videogames’ new Third Reich apparently) who annihilate San Francisco and seize an American space colony, demanding the surrender of the United States government and oh really who cares? Let’s kill robots!

Yes, in what seems to be a subversion of sorts from other action games that wage virtual human against virtual human, Vanquish launches its own Judgment Day and decides humans should be fighting robots. The Russians have robots, lots and lots of robots. The US has DARPA, the Marines, and Sam Gideon, who the player will be controlling for the duration of this war. Sam is testing DARPA’s new fancy Augmented Reaction Suit that they dreamed up after watching the Iron Man movies far too many times. This suit is so advanced and cutting-edge that throwing a punch overheats the suit, taking too many hits overheats the suit, it allows Sam to fly skate around with boosters on his feet (ROCKET SKATES!), and did I mention throwing a punch overheats the suit? To be fair, he’s using the suit’s boosters to really drive the point home.

More or less the moment you take control of Sam, you’re in what is typically referred to as “bullet hell.” The robots are everywhere firing at you and your squadmates. Sam is armed with a number of weapons, although to be frank I pretty much ran through Vanquish twice with mostly the assault rifle and heavy machine gun. Along the way, you’ll find green cubes that allow you to upgrade the weapon, allowing for more ammo and greater firepower. In a nice addition, if your weapon is fully loaded, picking up the same weapon also upgrades it one rank.

Vanquish features that oh-so-familar cover system that you probably won’t be using that much if at all. Sam’s rocket skates allow him to glide all over the area and fire at enemies. When he does this, he enters into the Augmented Reaction mode, which is the nerdy way of saying “bullet time.” Everything slows down, allowing you, and thus Sam, to get better aiming at his foes without them ever getting a chance to turn their guns to you. Of course, do this for too long and the suit overheats. When the suit overheats, you better take cover immediately because those bullets WILL find you and the game does that annoying thing games do when you take damage, the screen turns red and starts having a seizure. Why do games do this? Hey, your screen is turning redder and redder and pulsing like the human body does! Although it’s now harder for you to see the screen and make out the situation to devise a quick strategic retreat, it’s just going to keep doing this until — ahh, there we go. Dead. Enjoy making up the last twenty minutes!

Speaking of those twenty minutes, it wouldn’t be a Japanese game without ridiculously cheap boss battles! I originally ran through Vanquish on Normal mode, and even then it was pretty damned tough. When I fought the first sub-boss, I was doing pretty well. The bosses have glowing parts that scream “PLEASE SHOOT HERE!” so that their core opens up for the smacking. I had almost taken him out, and then he shot what would be Iron Man’s chest beam times a thousand and boom, I am dead. Despite having destroyed the giant robot’s legs, I had to do it all over. 20 to 25 minutes gone. It wasn’t like the boss was difficult, either. The bosses are bullet sponges for the most part. Hell, it happened AGAIN when I had to fight two of them AT ONCE. Japanese developers love to do that, because they’re sadists. The strange thing is that you will fight some tough bosses, but the final boss is actually a piece of cake.

Vanquish is a pretty fun game for the most part, especially if you don’t think too much about it. I mean, you’re shooting robots in third-person with a regular assault rifle (or a rocket launcher, the “LFE Gun” that shoots like an energy bubble at enemies). It’s not new. In fact, it should be pretty stale, but I loved what a mess the battlefield was and how crazy the fights got. Marines get shot down, and if they’re hurting Sam can revive them for bonus ammo and new weapons. I ended up saving like 10 of 80 or so wounded. I wish the robots had been programmed not to shoot at people being treated like in World War II.

It can have some serious frustration at hand, but Vanquish both drove me crazy and entertained the heck out of me.

Do I have to start scoring things now? I guess if that’s how this goes now. 4 out of 5!