Dragon's Dogma: Skyrim but...challenging

Capcom can boast a wide variety of games for all consoles since their founding almost 20 years ago and in that time have created some of the more enduring multi platform franchises that are around today. From Street Fighter to Resident Evil and Devil May Cry, they have shown that they know what they're doing when it comes to sequels. It's interesting to note that one of their most marketed games of this year is actually not part of any of these franchises and is instead a game all on it's own: Dragon's Dogma, an in depth, challenging and yet simple RPG.

You can even clamber on cows. Hell yeah.

The crux of this game's story is that your heart has been eaten by a recently revived/summoned Dragon, branding you as an "Arisen" and causing most of the area to deem you as a super dragon hunter (even though you are a fisherman). You proceed to work your way up the monster food chain with your trusty sidekick until you are powerful enough to go and kill the aforementioned dragon. At which point shit gets fucking weird, and you end up becoming some sort of god after half of the city is destroyed. I'm not really sure what happened at the end to be honest, I was tired and it made little sense and after killing a giant dragon I just didn't really care. Kind of like the post game stuff for the recent Pokemon games.

It's this big....and yet there's post game stuff? Spoilers: The post game boss is one guy. One guy.

Now, most of the missions in the game are just "Kill X amount of Y monsters" and don't have any effect on the main storyline other than giving you the experience needed to level up. This is kind of frustrating, because if you play games like me and try to 100% them, then it requires you to constantly run backwards and forwards between towns to check noticeboards for decidedly pointless quests. That you still try and fucking do anyway. The highlight being "kill 40 rabbits". >:( 40 fucking rabbits. Tiny little balls of fur. Why could they possibly need killing, and why don't they just buy some fucking ferrets. The main story quests are actually quite exciting in contrast, having you fight a griffin and then hunt it down to it's nest or butcher your way through a wraith filled swamp. The only problem lies in the fact that there's barely any quick travel, and the only quick travel gems you have only spawn in one place, making it unfeasible. This requires you to spend most of the game running from ONE FUCKING END OF THE MAP TO THE OTHER. You do get to experience a brilliantly varied landscape and fight interesting battle against goblins, chimeras, saurians and dragons, but it's so fucking long! 

Beautiful as fuck, but now you need to run to the centre of town. And this is short, in comparison to the rest.

Repetition is the key in this game, with your sidekicks learning how to fight monsters by finding and killing them. This comes in very handy towards the end of the game where when you come across a troll, you can stand back and watch your allies take him down, whereas before they would flail around like idiots. It makes it feel much more like a multiplayer game even though it's just you playing, by having your team-mates shout out advice they have learnt through playing in other peoples games. That's right: your sidekick can be hired by another player to fill his group of four and then learn from the battles that he fights there, making him even more useful in your game, and vice versa. Soon you'll also learn the best way for you to take down monsters and will be scaling them to get to their weak points like a mini Shadow Of The Colossus. And it feels good. Very good.

Standard enemy. Climb snake and kill, climb goat and kill, batter legs, then smack lion's face in. Easier with 4 of you.

The level up system is decent, with you not only gaining level ups, but also proficiency levels in roles. The higher the proficiency level, the higher ranked moves you can learn which may be key for taking down later bosses. If you then want to swap to a different profession then there are some transferable skills to aid you, instead of you starting as a n00b all over again. Likewise, your sidekick also levels up this way, letting you pick and choose what sort of team you want and allowing you to swap roles accordingly. 

The magic archer fires multiple homing arrows. TOTALLY BADASS.

It's not all good news, though. NPCs sometimes don't spawn causing you real trouble in completing quests, and monsters wander, making you have to run everywhere to find them. Quest explanations cause difficulty as well by being cryptic and frustrating. You do get to explore, but I swear there's an area that I've never been to, even though I tried to do all the quests. In the end, you have to do the old RPG thing of running everywhere, talking to everyone and killing everything. And believe me, there is a lot of running. Fucking loads. And your team-mates shout things out that are really fucking pointless. After the 25th time running through the same canyon, I don't want my team-mates shouting "GOBLINS! GOBLINS! WATCH OUT!". By that point you've killed dragons and griffins. Goblins barely survive you breathing on them.

This guy isn't great, but it sums up how much running is done...Just watch the first few minutes.

Peace.

Cliff Notes: Simple battle system that still provides excitement by giving increasingly fun monsters to fight. Even more fun when you become a L337 monster hunter and can take down Chimeras in less than a minute using your learned tactics. Just wish there wasn't so much FUCKING RUNNING.
Rating: 7/10. Because of the running.
Friend Recommend: Yeah, if you like RPGs then this is a good playthrough, and interesting. Definitely buy if you are a runner.

Shadow Complex: Proving There Is Nothing Wrong With Copying

By this point in your lives, I imagine that you've at least had a passing glance at Metroid and Castlevania. If you haven't, then that's fine, but I reserve the right to judge you. But whether you have or haven't I suggest you pick this game up ASAP. Why, I hear you say? WELL, LET ME TELL YOU:

Shadow Complex follows cheeky Jason (voiced by Nolan North, no less!) as he attempts to rescue his girlfriend who disappeared while they were backpacking through some caves somewhere (unimportant). He quickly finds out she is being held captive in a massive underground facility full of soldiers, experimental weapons, old mines, underground lakes and giant robots. Before you get all iffy about the fact that a Johnny Normalface is able to take down hundreds of enemies and not die, I should mention: he's the son of a top-tier army guy and was been trained in the ways of secret spydom before turning his back on said profession. There's a touching (read: hilarious) moment when he has a flashback to a chat with his dad before saying "You were right, I guess. Thanks dad". So yeah. without spoiling too much of the story: ex-secret spy trying to save Princess Peach from a faceless enemy in a giant Metroidvania underground complex while also saving the world. Standard gaming stuff, really, but that shit never gets old.

See, it's huge. Each tiny square is a screen. And that entire top area is explorable, too. HUGE.

Now, the game itself is incredibly easy to get used to. The buttons are only run, jump, shoot, and use item/melee. You could probably play this game with a Mega-Drive controller. But that's not a bad thing. This game isn't trying to be complex (despite it's name), it's trying to be enjoyable and you don't need complicated control schemes to do that, you just need A GOOD GAME.While exploring the facility you come across gold bars, security keys, better guns and parts of a super suit, much like Metroid. To find these, you are given a flashlight which highlights doors and vents and colour codes them to the relevant destroy method for your ease of opening. With the upgrades and super suit you're given new abilities to help you unlock more areas, until you're essentially Samus (minus the weird squashed up rolling. That makes no sense). This constant upgrade system stops the game from becoming stale and really makes the game fun. At one point you get gloves that let you super-punch people. Trust me, it's good. There's even a running count on how many people you have made scream. For real, they proper "AEEEIIIIGH!" when they get knocked off drops.

As I said: never fucking get's old. THIS. IS. ACCEPTABLE!

Apart from that, the game is played in 2.5D with you exploring in a standard sidescroller style, but having to sometimes shoot into the background. This is actually rather easy and I haven't had a single bit of trouble with shooting into the back. But if you do, you have unlimited bullets. So no biggee. There are a variety of different areas to explore, and some of them actually change as the game progresses (such as flooding an entire office area). Backtracking is on the most part easy, but there are a couple of nags in that a couple of areas become confusing later on, even with such a simplistic map. But there are guides online everywhere to help you find all the little secrets if you are having trouble. 

Pretty sure spy training doesn't cover this...

For those who complete the game quickly: there's a challenge mode that is genuinely challenging, with multiple different types of challenges and time limits. They're actually pretty fun and give you a hand in the main game by teaching you how to more effectively use your super suit to help you in your journey. The achievements are a hodge-podge of easy and hard, with an achievement for completing the game with no more than 12% of the items (which is ridiculously hard. I suggest New Game +ing it a couple of times first). The graphics are also sweet as, using Unreal 3 and being made by Chair/Epic, and the voice acting is perfect, with a script by a comic book writer.

Run super fast and the background blurs. AND YOU CAN RUN ON WATER AND DISINTEGRATE PEOPLE.

Apart from that, I can't mention too much as it would detract from the game and ruin it. As for downsides: there aren't really any. I mean, it is frustrating collecting all the items for a good 100% completion, but if an item is in the game, then the in game map mentions it. It's just a bit time consuming is all. And that doesn't matter when you are zooming around and rocket punching everyone...

Peace

Cliff Notes: Metroidvania in the modern age: sweet graphics, voices, gameplay, exploration...everything is sweet. Genius.

Rating: 9/10 I dropped one because sometimes items on the map are covered by other symbols :<

Friend Recommender: Yes. Of course. Buy it, you tool.

Prototype 2: The Amazing Infamous Crackodown

Prototype 2 is the charming story of a young, naive man searching for his daughter in a Finding Nemo-esque way while gaining powers to casually flit around a city and enjoy the sights. Obviously that's bullshit, but to be honest it'd probably make a better game than what it actually is. I didn't like this game. It was shit. Truly bad. It makes The Room look like Good Will fucking Hunting.

"Alt? There is no alt! I got a fucking squiggly line key, and a fucking key with a blue triangle on it! What kind of fucking keyboard is this anyway?!"

The game itself is a pretty standard open-city experience. You run around completing missions/side quests and collecting evidence. The problem lies in the fact that it's basically Crackdown 2 but melee based. It suffers from the same problems as Crackdown: boredom, repetition and iffy storyline. You pretty much have to play the same half hour over and over again for the entire game. They throw in some stealth missions, but to be fair all you do is scan for people who are out of sight of others, eat them and then repeat. And when the people in the room have gone from 15 to 4, you would think someone would pull the fucking alarm. But no. Everyone in the game is a retard.

"emo mutherfucker"

The AI has even more problems than just that, though. Considering you're the protagonist of the game and EVERYONE is looking for you, almost all the enemies are completely useless. You can sweep through the sky and fall far enough to kill a normal person into the middle of an army base and it only registers mild surprise. You get a "watch it!" and then are allowed to fuck off an hack their system. Which makes no sense. Or if you go on a killing spree all you need to do to lose the tail is run round a corner, transform, and then it's fine. You can be halfway up a fucking skyscraper but as long as you transform off camera, the helicopters won't even care that you are king-konging it around as a ninety year old woman. It ruins any kind of stealthiness you need or any of the challenge.

"Fuck off. I fucking hate computers."

The enemies are...weak. There's no challenge and the only reason I ever died was through fucking about. Fuck, they give you an ability which makes you impervious to bullets. There's no challenge with that kind of power-upping. The only slight challenge comes from the super mutants, and even they just need the right type of attack at the right time to kill them, no biggee. And even if you do have trouble with the enemies, everyone's a health pack. Or you can run away at the speed of sound. Even the last boss is a joke. Considering he's been running around cities for ages at this point he's barely any harder than your standard enemy, and is even less as memorable.

"Oh man, and I thought my balls were big!"

The achievements are worth a quick mention. Because they're quick. It's one of those games where you get the majority of them BY ACCIDENT WHEN PLAYING. They should not be achievements. There is no achievement in doing easy fucking things. Seriously, look it up, most of them are like a tutorial. Fucking pointless.

"Lance Bertram...Blackwatch APC driver. Doesn't sound important. Fuck it, I'll kill him anyway."

Now, I never played the first one so I don't have that to compare it to, but when compared to Crackdown this game does have it's merits. Because it's a melee based game the combat is more fun than Crackdown's primarily shooting based combat. Attacks feel meaty and satisfying and each "weapon" has a special move which devastates humans or allows openings in mutants. The dialogue is hilarious in a bad/good kind of way, with the main character swearing like a beast (as can be seen from the quotes dotted around) and often it's the swearing which stops the game becoming a joke. Or makes it one. Not sure, don't care. There's a decent upgrade system which will have you searching areas (albeit for a tiny amount of time) to allow you to level up all your abilities to their fullest. Running around the city is okay, no fiddly climbing like Crackdown. But meh. That's it on the good side, I'm afraid. From what I've seen, inFamous is way better. But then again, most things are...

"I'm going to skull fuck you & suck the memories out the hole"

Peace.

Cliff Notes: Cut rate city exploration game with a repetitive mission system. Just play the first half an hour...
Rating: 4/10, and I'm being generous.
Friend Recommender: Fuck no. I'd recommend them to stay the fuck away.

Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013: A Magical Gathering

Most of you reading this probably haven't played any Magic the Gathering, either because it's beyond nerdy or just because it looks confusing as fuck. Well, this game is the perfect place to start if you want to see what's involved. For those of you who do play: this game is invaluable in fixing up your gameplans and actually being a good player, unlike me who just throws cards around like a kid on crack.

Firstly, this game tries everything in it's power to help you learn how to play. With a tutorial, three campaign modes and a challenge mode it quickly establishes an easy learning curve. It pretty much holds a tissue to your face and sternly says "spit." every few minutes, but you'll be grateful for it. Battles range from flat out monster swarms (Krenko's goblins) to a race against time (Jace's mill deck) and back to single attacking monsters (Nefarox's exalted deck from M13). Each of these not only show you how to play, but also let you experience what different decks and play styles have to offer. For the ultimate challenge, it also has the Challenge campaign: 10 or so halfway complete matches with a goal of finishing the match in a couple of moves. I'm not going to lie, I had to look up a couple of the solutions...but they show you some of the most technically awkward yet amazing moves in Magic.

For the Pros, the game has been properly programmed with all of the rules of MTG, allowing you to play through scenarios without having to wonder what exactly happens when you play certain combos of cards. This allows you to finesse your game by using odd rulings to get the upper hand in real life (such as what happens when a mix of monsters attack, some with first strike some without). This is invaluable as I've seen friends who know rules like the back of their hand realise they've been playing wrong, or finding out new ways to be a dick and ruining the game for everyone.

As you play through the matches you also unlock cards to add to your deck. In the deck manager you can make a deck of minimum 60 cards, all you need to do is add or remove cards to your deck that you've unlocked for that deck and then the game takes care of how many land are in your deck for you. Each deck is contained to only it's own cards, no mix ups with other decks, which makes it easier for n00bs, and also helps intermediates with learning to deck build efficiently. Deck.

Now, I haven't really talked about the game itself much but to be honest it'd be fairly pointless. If you haven't played it before I would recommend just downloading the trial on Steam for free because otherwise I'll confuse you, and for people who know how it's played: download it anyway, I don't need to explain the mechanics. There's a 90% chance you'll like it. The graphics and artwork is good, flying cards actually fly, and attacks have animations depending on the style of monster (flame elementals shoot fire from the card to the enemy player).

The best thing about the game is the multiplayer mode though. It allows you to play free-for-all matches as standard but there's also a 2v2 match, which is excellent fun and often hilarious. Especially if the right combination of decks come up. There's also a Planechase mode, which has a card in the centre which effects everything in the game and adds a ridiculous amount of randomness to the games, for better or (far more fucking often :< ) worse. There are problems with the match making though, and often the games will bug out and refuse to work halfway through which is frustrating but happens not too often. The only major drawback is people rage quitting. Which is fucking annoying. Don't do it. It makes you a dick.

Peace

P.s. Deck

Cliff Notes: Magic being Magic. Great for newcomers AND returning players alike.
Rating: 8/10 (for nerds), possibly 5/10 if not.
Friend Recommender: If they're nerds, then yes. If they aren't then I probably would try not to talk about Magic around them. Not going to lie. Once you mention mana, card draw or declaring blockers they kind of tune out.

Max Payne 3: Return of the Bullet Time

It's been about a decade or something since I last uploaded a review, but to be fair there's been pretty much nothing good out to play or I've had no money. It's either blank spaces when that happens or just me going "I played Mario on a SNES emulator again. That was...jumpy?", so get used to it. But yeah, review time.

Right, bit of backstory: Max Payne 1 came out in 2001, Max Payne 2 in 2003 and both are generally regarded as good, solid games. In depth, Noir-style, story and monologuing, decent action, well thought out bosses and also the first games to feature Bullet Time, which was a big deal for games back then. It makes sense that Rockstar would revisit the series on the latest generation console after nearly a decade gap to let people know what happened to Max, even without the lead writer from the previous games (instead they have the writer from Red Dead Redemption, which is good enough for me).

So yeah, the game itself. Well as you might have guessed diving slow motion through the air and nailing a guy across the room in the head with dual-wielded pistols before landing in cover behind a sofa and reloading is TOTALLY FUCKING BADASS. Other things that are TOTALLY FUCKING BADASS: running out of pain pills and diving slow mo over your only cover (through hanging pots and pans) to cap a guy with your shotgun, diving slow mo off a stair set and shooting a grenade with a bullet to kill your enemies, diving slow mo round a blind corner and taking everyone out with an AK before they notice you're there. Pretty much anything can be made better with slow mo diving. Except when you dive too far and kill yourself. No, wait, that's still cool. Obviously there's more to the game, but seeing as bullet time was the original selling point for a lot of people, it's just nice to note that it still hasn't gotten old.

The story is fairly standard and lousy with double crosses and people lieing, but it's all set in brilliant environments that make you want to watch more. I even felt compassion towards some of the characters, which I haven't felt since I saw Jaheira cry of Khalid's corpse at the start of BG2. Admittedly the situations are ridiculous, but even the game pretty much tells you try cry it a river before exploding everything on screen. There are the odd twist or turn that I didn't see coming and actually was fairly new. I would tell you and just label it spoilers, but you should just play through it and find out. If you start to get bored then the last line that Max says is completely worth it, trust me.

It's not perfect though. There are so many bits that are frustrating that it's not funny. In some areas, it's almost impossible to progress due to the enemies flanking system, volume, and lack of cover. The game does compensate by actually giving you more health packs when you die multiple times though, so that's always appreciated. The enemies have uncanny aim, as well, even on normal difficulty, but it makes you try harder instead of treating it like CoD. You also get to set the amount of auto-aim you receive as well, so that you can change things if they get too easy/hard.

As a parting note: I never even touched the multiplayer as I bought the game purely for the single player run through, so bite me. The achievements are a mix between playing the game or pretty difficult, which is nice as you can do a second playthrough and feel proud of what you do, or just playthrough once and snag up at least half if you try hard.

Anyway, I kind of lost interest towards the end, but yeah:: it's worth buying if you liked the others, and is a good place to start if you didn't. And once you finish here, go and buy a Blacksad comic because that is equally as Noir/awesome

Peace

Cliff Notes: More of Max being Max, with swearing, drugs, cartels, hookers, booze, bullet-time and shooting. Standard.
Rating: 7/10
Would I recommend it to friends: If they know who Max Payne is, then yes. If not, then maybe. But I would suggest buying it at a discount price just in case.

Continue? 10...9...8.....

Remember that? Remember when you used to go "Oh man, I hope I got enough points for a continue otherwise I am fuuuuuuucked!". Remember when the weight of a dozen enemies or a giant mecha-boss would bear down upon you and you'd go: "Pah! I have a continue! Trollololololol!". Or the "I...I did it. I finally defeated Robotnik! What year is it?!" This is about that.

There was a time before downloads, before CDs, before memory cards when all you would need to play a game was the console, a cartridge, a D-Pad and two or three buttons. And it had the hardest fucking games in the world. Seriously: take any five of your favourite childhood games and think about how many of them you actually completed. Hell, I know I never completed Batman Returns/Mercs/Toejam and Earl/James Pond (without cheats, anyway). The only one of the five that I did was Sonic, and only because I played it hundreds of times. And that's my other point: how many times did you play a game that you got for the Mega Drive or SNES? Each of those times you weren't bored with it, either. You just perfected each level until you got closer and closer to beating the last boss. Take that through to nowadays and count how many games you haven't completed. Not through boredom, or because you put the controller down, but just through sheer difficulty. I can only think of one: Dark Souls. This isn't a review of that game, but I will say that it's worth a look in: genuinely challenging, not because the enemies have a bajillion HP but because it requires hard work, finesse and preparation. Fuck, I know it's joining the "never completed, badass, oldy" game group for me.

But here's the problem: each game you pick up nowadays is designed for you to complete it. There's no: "have you beaten the last boss?", just "have you beaten the last boss YET?" and it's caused the whole gaming experience to change. If you start a game knowing you will finish it then the challenge is partially gone. You are essentially just playing an (incredibly) interactive film and it's caused the game designers to have to make games more interesting or better designed to accommodate that. If you compare retro games with modern games,then modern games have incredibly deep stories and excellent cut scenes that you can immerse yourself into so that you get more satisfaction from playing the entirety of the game. Retro games had none of that. Take Sonic vs Mass Effect: Sonic 1 has zero storyline, it's purely just "run forwards, hit Dr Robotnik/Eggman til he flies away". That's it. But managing that was hard, and each time you beat Robotnik you gave yourself satisfaction with no need for the game to do it for you or for a super cutscene to appear and make you go "shit, that's cool, I want to carry on".

I'm not saying that modern games are bad or easy though, just that it's a completely different experience nowadays, and that's probably why a lot of gamers are disappointed with modern games. If you take away the joy of finishing a game being special then you've taken away a core mechanic of games that needs to be replaced. Bioware has this down good with their personal, tailored, choice based story systems, but apart from that most other games have got achievements and trophies. A lot of reviews ignore these when reviewing the game, but they can make or break some game experiences. All your achievements are logged, so proudly displaying the fact that you completed Dead Space 2 on hardcore (3 saves, no checkpoints, minimal items) setting is something to be genuinely proud of and is an excellent replacement for the old "I won!" purely personal achievements. Where most games go wrong, though, is that the majority of achievement points are given to you on completing various chapters of most games. That's not an achievement, that's just playing the game, just give one achievement for finishing it. But if achievements are done right they bridge the gap between the modern cinematic gaming experience and the butt-fuckingly hard and rewarding retro games scene and give you a rewarding (and challenging) gaming experience. Want to try  some? Go and try to finish off the achievements for Dead Space 2, Super Meatboy, or Portal 2. It will be hard, but fuck: you will feel like an absolute fucking boss if you manage them.


Just saying.


Also, buy Dark Souls. Then sit there and cry while you try to kill the bosses. No amount of grinding will help you here. Dark Souls is to Skyrim what childbirth is to a hug. 

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City (Or: How To Confuse Fanboys)

So way back in September I played this game at GameFest and thought "hey, this is pretty neat!". Since then Capcom basically told everyone a few even neater facts, namely that you can kill Leon and you fight Nemesis/Mr X. Then they released trailers and stuff and everyone thought this game looked mad good. And then they bought the game. And then traded it back in, or would have done if Game hadn't have gone bust. And then I wrote this review.

GOOD SHIT

Right, so, the big thing with this game is that you get to play a squad based shooter against zombies, then against UBCS (Spec Ops people), and then against BOTH AT THE SAME TIME. That might not sound like anything special but when you're in a pitched battle against people who are basically dicking on you and then you get attacked by zombies: fucking frantic fun. Swinging in with that is that if you cause an enemy to bleed, he'll attract almost all the zombies over to him which is pretty much a game winning outcome. And super satisfying. The zombies also infect people sometimes, which for a while will protect you from zombies but also turn you into a zombie if/when you die  (if you don't have an antiviral spray. But they seem to drop out of half the zombies asses anyway). Again, mega satisfying to do to enemies or to do to yourself if you don't like your team-mates online....

That's all the good things about the gameplay, so before I slag it off here are the other neat-oh things: Every level has a "SHIT, I REMEMBER THAT!" section. From the fire escape ladder or chief of police's office in the Police department to the tram lift and round by Kendo's gun shop, there's something for every fan. The fact that the game starts you off with standing outside Birkin's lab while he gets shot up and then running away from his transformation shows just how hard they've tried to make this fit in with the events of Resident Evil 2/3. The part in the Umbrella facility where the security cameras feature is used to see Leon say goodbye to Ada, which almost made me cheer with fan-ish happiness. Hell, they even explain how Leon did that stupid 180 in his car at the start of Resi 2. And that's pretty much where all the happiness ends.

BAD SHIT


So a cover based squad shooter. Seems sound, right? Not if they make it so that to aim out of cover your character has to actually crouch halfway out of cover to do so. In the end I stopped trying to shoot from cover because you leave yourself so exposed. This doesn't make any sense seeing as it is one of the core foundations of this type of game, and they've basically fucked it up. Aiming down sites is piss-poor too, with the sniper rifle not hitting where you aim it or hitting invisible cover instead and the handgun weaving all over the place. Bullet drop shouldn't happen in a Resi game. It just makes everyone angry. Which means fighting the almost invincible Nemesis is fucking hard just because of the core mechanics being terrible.

The AI is fucking awful. Even worse than Sheva from Resi 5. They took her ability level and spread it over 3 people so they're all only 33% as good as Sheva is. More bullets land on them than the zombies. And yet them and their stupid accents still don't die.

Most enemies in the game can be taken down with one or two bullets to the head apart from big names (and lickers, even though it's their weak spot). I was standing at point blank range and emptied 20 shotgun shells into Ada's face and she wouldn't go down. She just wandered off. Nikolai took untold amounts of sniper bullets to the forehead and just shrugged and moved on. Now, I understand the need for bosses to be hard, but maybe the design shouldn't have allowed me to have the barrel of my gun against people's foreheads and them not go down. It just doesn't make sense and in a Resi game just looks fucking stupid.

The big thing about this game is (as I've already said) the appearance of old stuff. Unfortunately most of it is really off hand and is just thrown away. I appreciate that this squad needs to be kept in the shadows for the most part so that it doesn't conflict with the canon of Resident Evil, but every time you see something from the games...you just skip away with a big "lol, fuck that". Examples: You see Birkin, run away, he's never mentioned again. You chase down Nikolai, he runs away, he's not mentioned again. You fix the broken Nemesis, run away, he's not mentioned again. I had no idea what I was doing for most of the game and no idea why there were so many mercs fucking about in a zombie infested town. The real sad point of the game comes at the end when you've hunted down Leon and Claire and have to kill them. For untold reasons Leon is a rookie cop who is now a crack shot with a sniper rifle and Claire could 3 star every Angry Birds level with her ability with the grenade launcher. On top of that is that they are being protected by an army of mercs for no apparent reason. Mercs who can't set up a simple baricade to stop you just running past them in the final battle...

And that's when shit gets weird. You have Leon and Claire at gunpoint at the very end of the game and then you are told to make a decision: Kill them or save them (obviously you kill them, because who wouldn't?). You're magically transported to an arena style area and told to kill off half of your team and Leon/Claire EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE AT GUNPOINT. And when you win? There is a 6 second ending of: "Time to die", fade to black, gunshot. The big selling point of the game was mearly a 6 second afterthought. Disappointing. And anticlimatic. Seems to be a theme nowadays.

Cliff Notes: A squad shooter that fails at both shooting and squading plus a pointless level up system. I didn't even play the versus matches because I honestly couldn't be arsed to play any more of this shit.
Rating: 4/10
Would I recommend it to my friends: GOD NO. But if they got given it then it could make a fun-ish campaign multiplayer mode. Anything's an improvement on having doors blocked by retarded AI just standing there.

MASS EFFECT THREE WAS FUN FUCK YOU (single player edition)

Attention: spoilers!

Now that that is dealt with: let's first have a look at the part of the game that didn't suck, namely: 99% of the game.

Mass Disrespect 3 returns to the series on the slightly confusing note of Shepard sitting in a detention centre. For those who didn't download the DLC Arrival for ME2: everyone got angry that you fucked over a bunch of non-council terrorists (who get destroyed by Reapers anyway) which in turn allows everyone in council space to sit on their arses for a while debating whether or not Shepard is a liar/badman/hero. Cue Earth being taken by Reapers while Shepard learns the basics of shooting a gun and punching things with laser fists.

To be fair, the tutorial is one of the better parts of the game by allowing people new to the series to get acquainted to the control system, old players to go "oh shit, Shepard can now somersault!" and everyone to laugh at the gangly flailing that is Shepard's running animation. However, it kind of also set a bad tone with veteran gamers. Anyone who picked the Ruthless backstory for Shep and played through both games as a Renegade (badman) is forced to look at Shep's tortured face as a child dies, even though you may have let umpteen people dies previously and not given a shit about them. To top it off, the Reaper that kills said child is quite happy taking down taxis whilst the most advanced ship in the galaxy is floating ten metres away with it's hatch open and Shepard staring out with a melancholy expression.

The game proceeds through the established channels of recruiting players and nations, much like previous games, and stays pretty fun throughout. Team mates make welcome returns and have made significant steps forward whilst Shep has sat on this thumbs apparently doing shit all apart from making touching speeches. But: OUT OF THE WAY, FUCKERS! The trick is that most impressive part of the game's characters doesn't lie with the guys in your team. It's about the people you meet who showed up in the other games. The meeting with Thane who now spends all his time in hospital due to his chronic illness (but still gets himself killed fighting an asian cyber assassin ninja from space) is only topped by Legion sacrificing himself to give Geth true AI, finally creating unity and peace between Quarian and Geth. I felt more attached to Wrex and his macho headbutts than to James Idon'tevenknowhissurname who spends all his time cleaning his "gun" and pretending to be a hispanic.

There are so many things thrown in for people who have played the previous games that you can't seem to step anywhere without going "I remember thaaaat" and nodding happily. Fuck, the best bit of the game was a side quest that managed to link in multiple quests, as follows:

A doctor is complaining about broken Medi Gel dispensers and a Cerberus preacher. After fixing the dispensers you find out that the preacher is (REF #1) Conrad Verner, your number one fan. After sorting him out, he calls (REF #2) Gavin Hossle from Feros to give you some bonus data which can't be accessed without the (REF #3) Elkoss Combine license. Then, this can't be decripted without (REF #4) Asari matriarch writings from Mass Effect 1. After changing my boxers, Conrad points out his Cerberus link, who pulls a gun on Shep. Conrad catches the bullet with his chest, Shep punches the guy, I thought it was all over. THEN (REF #5) Jenna from ME1 pops up to say that she put duds in the gun. Mind blown. And the game is full of tiny points like that. You are constantly assaulted emails concerning people from your past who have helped save the day in small ways, or who decide to aid the war effort. It also means that your war assets are through the roof for returning players by the halfway point, even without multiplayer, but heyho.

So, the game is good, the back-referencing is fucking perfect, graphics are good, story is great, the enemies are challenging when placed in certain situations, the final assault on Earth, including the "final sprint" is spafftacular, and then...it ends. Ish. I don't really remember. It's a bit of a blur.

Imagine: you've just spent 40 hours collecting assets and soldiers (and reputation. Still no idea what the fuck that is) from across the galaxy and making Shepard the most holy person since Prometheus picked up some modelling clay and then...none of it makes a blind bit of difference. In ME2 they pretty much play a ticklist of: "Yep, you bought double glazing, that saved a life. Oh, and good job for picking the robot to hack shit, that was a clever move". In ME3 you get nada. No gold medal for your time completing side quests. No Hanar comforting the dying in their last moments. No (and this bit REALLY pissed me off) Elcor charging into battle with mounted chainguns, which the game pretty much promised me. From there, you divert any kind of last boss (sorry, Marauder Shields. You were a worthy opponent) and proceed to having a stand off with the Illusive Man, who appears to be nothing but a pawn. Bit lame, seeing as he was a major character for two games and then gets discarded like a piece of gum when there isn't a bin around. "Uh. Shit. I'll just casually drop this on the floor when no-one's looking. Sweet, no-one saw...think I'm in the clea-" NOPE. Fuck you, Bioware.

The ending's almost redeemed by the sad death of Captain "Token" Anderson, but then plummets straight back into the "eh" regions by the appearance of a psychic ghost robot child who tells you the entire trilogy now boils down to three bullshit choices (destory the bad guys and some good guys, control the bad guys, make everyone semi-robot things). Over a hundred hours (if you did all the side quests in all three games) and the endgame is a choice between three morally questionable decisions? No. And to top it all off, each of the endings look exactly the fucking same. No. What about my Paragon or Renegade points? No.

It's like eating a delicious meal and then having the chef come out and tell you that you've been eating feces all along and that you can't leave until you've finished the meal and licked the plate clean. Yeah, it was a delicious quiche, I can't deny that, but you kind of ruined the entire meal. Now, I don't want to see Shepard baking cookies with the council races, or a Krogan/Salarian marriage, but I cured the fucking Genophage, united every race in the galaxy, gave the Quarians their homeworld and apparently made organic races into semi-robots (still not sure on that one). I'd like some fucking closure. But there was none coming. Apart from some bullshit about Shepard maybe being indoctrinated and that the end was him fighting the indoctrination and Buzz Aldrin telling us all that there will be more shit pie arriving at our tables soon. YUM, GRUBS UP GUYS. Cheers for everything, Bioware, and cheers to you EA for being douchebags with the failing business that is Game PLC.

On a closing note: Marauder Shields will be always remembered, never forgotten. RIP

Cliff Notes: 39 hours of fucking amazing gaming, with a return to ME1's sidequesting roots and an excellent carry on from the level/other shit that you got in ME2. 1 hour of shite.
Rating: Mostly 8/10. I'd give it 9, but they don't put a Krogan in your squad which sucked ass.
Would I recommend it to my friends: If they've not played the other games then probably not. If they have then I would, but I would advise them shutting their eyes and covering their ears for anything after disappearing into the Citadel at the end....

Also, I promise that the next reviews will be more review based, shorter and less tear filled. 

MASS EFFECT 3 WAS FUN FUCK YOU (multiplayer edition)

Before I get stuck into this whole shebang, it's probably worth mentioning that I'm a fanboy and this is my third review or something. So don't expect me to be too unbiased or professional here.

Right, if you've heard of Mass Defect 3, then you've probably also heard the two massive bitchfits that have been going around about it: 1) The ending sucks hard and 2) The only way to get the best ending is to play multiplayer, which no-one wants to play. Both aren't really true. I'll get onto the ending later, but for now there's this multiplayer stuff to deal with.

Before Mass Jizzfest 3 came out, Bioware let us all know that multiplayer was going to be in the game and that it would AID the player (AID) in achieving the best ending in the game. Most of the community became outraged at this because they can't read and thought you had to play multiplayer in order to allow Shepard to be seen planting flowers in his front garden at the end of the game. Now, I got pretty sad at this because all I thought was "holyshitIcanplayasaKroganNrrgghhhh" while everyone else was slamming the game before it even had a chance to apologise.

On a side note: if you've not played the game, then: the galaxy map is split into different areas with a multiplayer match in each one. Each section has a readiness displayed as a percentage, which is bolstered by playing there. These percentages add up to give you an overall galactic readiness percentage. This galactic readiness percentage is basically a marker for how well the war assets you amassed in single player will actually fight (so, say you collected 5,000 assets and have 50% galactic readiness then you will have 2,500 effective troops).

So basically, if you don't play multiplayer it will be harder to completely fill up your war assets to fight the Reapers, but not impossible seeing as there is a literal fuckton of assets in single player campaign. And if you are struggling to amass enough by the end of single player campaign, then you haven't done the side quests. And if you haven't done the side quests because you don't want to, then you've bought the wrong game. This is an RPG, not CoD, now jog on back to Fifa. Multiplayer isn't needed at all to get the best ending (which doesn't even fucking exist anyway), it's just helps the people who are too lazy to play the game go into the last boss prepared.

Apart from that, the multiplayer is fairly solid. The enemies get progressively harder. There are three different difficulties (easy, hard, and gang-rape) and three different enemies (Cerberus, Geth, and Reapersohgodnowhy). Taking these challenges on in squads of four is pretty fun, with an arsenal of weapons to unlock and level up, unique abilities for class and race choices and packages of goodies to buy with your hard earned whore money. And I will tell you now: when you save up for the expensive package and it drops a Black Widow, it's shit-your-pants exciting. The only downside is the proliferation of Krogans and Vanguards, which destroy all hope of getting points/exp for yourself. There's also the problems with melee attacks actually hitting, but that's only frustrating when you are playing a Krogan or Drell, so it's not really that bad.

Apart from that, the multiplayer is good, and doesn't just feel tagged on like it has done in other games, and the fact that it contributes to single player is a nice touch, not necessary, but handy for those people who don't want to play the RPG aspect of an RPG game. Plug in a headset and it's a decent add-on squad shooter to keep people happy for longer.

Cliff notes: Fun, quick to pick up, helps those without the time or energy to explore the galaxy in single player mode
Rating: 7/10
Would I recommend it to my friends: Yes, because the random players I come across online are retards.