F.3.A.R

The F.E.A.R. series has always been a strange one to me. Advertised as a blend of FPS and horror it’s actually more of schizophrenic, switching between the two. In the background you have this creepy, disturbing story but what you’re presented with is fights with faceless soldiers. Soldiers are not scary.

It says a lot about a developer that they can give you a walking tank and still think they can make a game which terrifies you. Yes there are horror undertones but these are ruined by having two few actual monsters.

For those of you who haven’t played the F.E.A.R. series it centres on psychic warfare. A group called Armachan worked a secret project called project origin where they attempted to create the perfect psychic warrior. They experimented on a girl called Alma who became an extremely powerful Psychic. So powerful in fact that they found it hard to control her and while they managed to imprison her physical form to an extent, they could not stop her psychic abilities.

Considered a failure Armachan looked to her genes, impregnating Alma with genetically engineered embryos with the goal of combing Alma’s psychic abilities with highly skilled soldiers. She gave birth to two children, Fettel and Point Man.

In the first game as Point Man your job is to take down Fettel who had gone insane just as Alma did. Alma still sees herself as a little girl and you are haunted throughout the series by her psychic projection.

The big reveal at the end of the second game is that Alma is pregnant with a third child. You also free the now dead Fettel from his prison cell allowing his to psychically project himself into some sort of Poltergeist.

In this game Point Man and Fettel work together to find their mother and deal with this third child. This leads to a game with two unique first person play styles.

Point Man plays like he always had. Normal First person shooting with a bullet time-esque Slow motion ability thrown in to make it somewhat unique. Fettel on the other hand can possess enemies for a limited time and fire psychic projectiles.

You can tell from the first minute this game is made for co-op play and typically the single player suffers because of it. It always feels like you’re missing something playing alone and you shouldn’t need another person to get the most out of a game.

It has a fairly short campaign but makes up for that with its best feature, the challenges. There are a set number of challenges you can unlock when you play a level ranging for using your abilities completely draining your meter to shooting a certain number of people with each weapon. The goal is to unlock as many of these as possible each level.

The points you earn from challenges increase your characters level and as you level up you earn new perks from increased health and ability meter to additional Melee attacks. I’m a little weary of games adding a pointless RPG element but I don’t particular mind this one.

It’s a little like Call of Duty’s multiplayer and these challenges aren’t all that’s ripped from COD. Shooting feels very like COD, even the basic assault rifle has stolen the exact same holographic sight as most of COD’s weapons. F3AR is basically COD with the occasional horror style fucked up moment.

Unfortunately those are far too few and far too short. For a game series famed for its horror it is very light on it. The atmosphere is there but ultimately it doesn’t feel terrifying. At least this time however the monotony of fighting wave after wave of soldiers is broken up by crazed junkie style enemies and monster dogs. The former behave like the splicers from Bioshock with some suicide bombers thrown in. The latter are your standard avoid their lunges and counter enemies.

The cover system from the previous games is back and actually works pretty well. Like in a third person shooter you can lock yourself to cover and peak around corners. It’s a little different than traditional first person shooters but it soon becomes natural.

The guns are a little disappointing. For the majority of the game you have your standard two assault rifles, shotgun, sniper rifle, pistol, rocket launchers and uzis. Unfortunately the COD influence is in force and instead of using names they use codes. I don’t see why they couldn’t just give them proper names. I found myself calling them after their challenges rather than their actual names (e.g. the sniper rifle being the Ghost rather than the C-3PO or whatever the hell it was).

Another small annoyance is the difficulty or rather how the game treats difficulty and failure. Some developers seem to think if we’re struggling we want the game to play itself. Nintendo are getting to be notoriously bad at this, the White Tanuki suit for example. Ms Splosion man was the same offering the option to skip a difficult section (and since you died a lot you saw that screen a lot).

F3AR however has a slightly more annoying feature where if you die a couple of times it will automatically highlight “Change Difficulty” instead of “Reload Checkpoint”. For any developer reading this, it doesn’t matter how many times I die I NEVER WANT TO SKIP A SECTION OR CHANGE THE DIFFICULTY. I will keep trying a section until I get passed it and I will rapidly tap A until I’m back at the checkpoint, attempting to speed things up as much as possible (especially when I’m getting frustrated). I’ve almost been caught out by this and it is annoying.

The game does feature multiplayer but unfortunately the servers are dead. Shame because Soul King might’ve been fun. You can play against bots but there only seems to be two modes, the Horde/Firefight like contractions mode and Soul King.

Soul King sees you playing as a demon that can possess enemies. You chose an enemy to possess and kill other enemies. For every enemy you kill a skull appears, collect the skull to get points. The harder the enemy the higher the point value of the skull. If your possessed body dies you have to wait a couple of seconds before you can claim another, although once in a body to can move to another without waiting. Die when not in a body and you lose half your points. An interesting mode with some potential, shame no-one wants to play it.

Ultimately F3AR delivers a fairly average experience. For every good idea there is a slight annoyance. The campaign is short but made to be replayed with an awesome challenge system. You never feel like your getting the most out of the game unless you’re playing in co-op, even though both playable characters offer completely different Gameplay experiences. The multiplayer is dead but could’ve been fun, we’ll never know.

For a horror game there is far too much soldiers and Mecha, not enough fucked up moments and monsters, but at least the enemy types this time a little more varied. Plenty of Atmosphere but little horror to utilise it.

It’s a nice short game but feels like a ceramic mug amongst a sea of golden cups. I’ll happily take a drink out of it but I’d rather use one of the golden cups.

6/10

Assassin's Creed: Revelations

As this generation closes we’re seeing the closing chapters of some of this generations best new characters. Already we have seen the Gears of War Delta squad story come to a close, and now we say goodbye to our favourite Italian assassin Ezio Auditore.

Ezio’s final chapter sees him move away from Italy, instead dealing with the corruption underlying Istanbul. Ezio is looking for five keys that will open Althair’s Final Vault in Masyaf, the birthplace of the assassins and home of Althair. Revelations closes both their stories and leaves the series open for a new character to come in.

Expect Assassin’s creed 3 to appear on the next generation, featuring a new character for Desmond to sync with.

Revelations starts immediately where Brotherhood left off (but seemingly ignoring the Da Vinci Disappearance DLC). Fans of the series will be pleased to know the game starts of with a bang. I’m not going to spoil it; I’m just going to say Desmond is starting to lose his mind, to the point where he is actually trapped in the Animus.

If the first game was Althair’s story, the second Ezio’s and Brotherhood about the creed itself, Revelations is definitely Desmond’s story. Yes you play as Ezio but that whole plot seems overshadowed by what is happening to Desmond as he hopes to reclaim his mind.

This is most evident in the first person sections. Yes, assassin’s creed has a whole new Gameplay style added on to the already popular sandbox style game. By collecting Animus fragments you get to explore some of Desmond’s memories on how he was raised to be an assassin and how he ran away from it all.

These sections replace the awesome Subject 16 puzzles from the previous games and the game suffers because of it. This Gameplay style isn’t all that good although it does have some good ideas. You move around a sterile, cold environment in first person. The only tool at your disposal besides a basic jump is the ability to create different shaped platforms.

These rarely challenge and thankfully are over before they get too boring. There are some inspired moments, the way the environment replicates a river in one of them was pretty neat.

Playing an Ezio feels the same as it always has done. Very much a case of if it’s not broken don’t fix it. Very little has changed from Brotherhood. Ezio now has a hook at the end of his blade which is used in a number of inspired ways. You can now travel down zip lines for instance, and those lights that swung you around corners can now be used to perform long jump by using the hook to swing.

The biggest new addition is the bombs. While in previous game you could only use smoke bombs you now have the ability to create bombs with all sorts of effects, both lethal and non lethal. For example you can create a bomb that makes a loud noise that guards will go to investigate, or you can create a bomb that explodes into coins, making crowds gather round them.

You still take over dens to claim control over an area of the city, allowing you to buy shops and landmarks to bring in more money. However this time you need to watch your actions as if the Templars become aware of your presence they will try to take over your dens.

Commiting crimes raises your awareness meter as it always has done, but now so too does buying shops and buildings. If the Templars are alerted to your presence they may start attacking your dens. You will then have to go back a defend them and you do this through a tower defence style mini-game.

This tower defence mini game isn’t all that fun and it certainly isn’t welcome. If you fail the den the Templars reclaim it and you have to kill the captain and light the tower again. Doing so makes the Templars aware of your presence, which leads to them attacking another den, which leads to another mini game, which if you fail means you have to win back the den again.

I have been victim of this loop and it’s not fun. The den defence mini game is very easy to fail and since you can no longer rip down posters, it can take sometime to remove your awareness (You have to rely on bribing heralds and occasionally killing stewards who randomly appear).

The only new feature I liked was the expansion of the brotherhood missions. Now called Mediterranean Defence you send your apprentices to various cities completing missions for Experience and Money. Level your apprentices up and they become more effective when you need them.

What’s new however is that it is more than just missions. Each of the cities has a percentage of control. Completing missions increases assassin control away from Templar control. Failure to keep your control percentage high and the Templars can win back assassin controlled cities.

What I mean is that before when you had a fully training brotherhood you didn’t need to do anything. That element of the game was pointless. Now though if you want to keep control of your cities and the bonus’ they bring you have to defend captured cities using your assassins.

Revelations plays a lot like Brotherhood but with more bad changes than good. For a series that has always pushed forward this is a step back. Like Ezio the series is getting old and all too familiar. Still anyone that has followed the story has to play this, especially the opening which promises so much for the game, but ultimately fails to deliver.

The story this time isn’t all that interesting but it is a fitting conclusion for Ezio and Althair, and a reawakening for Desmond. It is a decent enough game just not one to go mad over.

7/10

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward sword

Since A link to the Past came out in the early nineties the Legend of Zelda series has gone from strength to strength, producing some of the best games ever, including the best game ever Ocarina of Time. Even its worst (if you ignore those awful CD-I games) still has the power to blow you away.

When the Wii came out it promised to revolutionise the way we play games by including games with motion control Gameplay. So far the best uses of this outside mini game collections and sport titles have been just simple shaking your wiimote to attack. Something a button can handle just as well. Even the Wii motion plus has failed to inspire developers to use the technology in a way that works.

While Nintendo dabbled with Motion control with Zelda in Twilight Princess it hasn’t been used anywhere near as much as it has in Skyward Sword, the latest in the series and probably the Wii’s swansong. The problem with motion control is that while it has the potential for unique Gameplay it more often than not just gets in the way.

I have yet to see a game which has actually benefitted from Motion controls, although Skyward sword has come closer than any other game in achieving it. The swordplay is excellent offering all sorts of new strategies when dealing with enemies. They will read your stances and prepare blocks and counters to how they think you are going to attack. Other enemies can only be beaten when you slash your sword in a certain way.

For example the Beamos enemies are towers that you have to cut down first with horizontal slashes. Get the angle wrong and your sword will just bounce off its body. Once you cut it down to just its head you have to thrust your sword forward to stab it in the eye.

This leads to a more challenging game as you have to learn how to fight all over again. It’s not 100% perfect but it works.

Although the Motion controls work really well for some things for others it fails badly. There are parts here where Motion controls are definitely not welcome in particular the swimming. To swim you have to hold A and move the Wiimote to turn. This is hard to get right and something which should be simple, like picking something off the floor becomes a nightmare of hand twisting. They should have just left it to the stick like normal as the motion controls complicate things too much.

You spend a fair amount of time flying a bird and again the same problem rears its ugly head. These flying sections can be just as bad for awkward arm “twisted-ness”. Also to gain height you have to flap the Wii remote like a wing, but the slightest tip to the left or right will turn it in that direction dramatically. Flying straight forward for any period of time becomes a challenge all of its own, an unwelcome one.

The Sky overworld filled with Islands (a bit like Skies of Arcadia) is joined by three areas on the surface world below. To keep the game a decent length each area has new areas that open up when you get new items. The Sky overworld is disappointingly empty and the three Surface areas don’t feel all that big.

Skywards swords biggest failing is the amount of repetition in the areas you visit. There is a Forest, a Volcano and a Desert. That is it, and you visit these areas at least three times each. On top of that there are two bosses you fight three times each, getting progressively more difficult but rarely deviating from the same patterns and weaknesses.

On the other hand the way they have used the three areas is inspired, particularly with the use of water. One area becomes flooded with water completely changing the dynamic of the area. Another uses crystals to change the time of a small area. On later levels these crystals move either by machine or your hand. There is an inspired section where a boat holding one of these time crystals turns a vast desert into a small ocean.

The dungeons are the highlight of the game. Although sticking with the tried and tested formula of holding a key item that opens the rest of the dungeon, they are very well designed. It’s the bit in-between the dungeons that are a little lacklustre.

As is the musical instrument. Previously we had the ocarina, loaded with songs to learn and play through five buttons. Then the wind baton which used C-stick directions determining the differences between songs. This time we have a harp, while there are different songs you can’t choose which to play. They all only open up new areas and so are nothing more than a way to accelerate the plot. Playing the harp is down to Rhythm, you move it in time with an onscreen hint. The Instrument feels pointless.

So for all its inspired hits there are some annoying misses, overall though Skyword sword is still a fantastic adventure and another amazing game to add to an impressive Christmas rush, but it’s not the best Zelda, in fact it is pretty far down that list.

8/10