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Thursday, September 27, 2007

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary Review

An old game can learn new -- intriguing -- tricks.

Let's get it all out on the table: I'm not the world's biggest Tomb Raider fan. I played Tomb Raider and Tomb Raider 2 when they were originally released, but they quickly became a jumble of jumping, jungles and dinosaurs in my mind that sapped any inspiration to invite Miss Croft back into my home.

Watching the first Tomb Raider movie didn't help her cause either.

That said, when Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary arrived on my desk, I put aside my old qualms about the game -- no action, boring gameplay, bland environments -- and decided to dive into Lara's revamp. I even went back and played Tomb Raider: Legend so I could give you a well-rounded analysis.

The result is a turbulent Greggy.

If you've been living under a rock or in a tomb (damn, I'm witty), Anniversary is Lara's original 1996 adventure re-imagined with the Legend engine. That means you're chasing the Scion of Atlantis through Peru, Greece and Egypt like in the original game but you have access to Lara's grappling hook, 45-degree jumps and shimmy abilities like in Legend.

It's an awesome mix. I distinctly remember trudging through the original Tomb Raider on my PC at a snail's pace and cursing the tank controls for our voluptuous heroine as she fell to her death for the umpteenth time. Now, Lara moves swiftly and nimbly across ancient temples, which are throwbacks to the original levels, and sprawls out to grasp at whatever ledge she can while airborne. Even when you fail -- and you will -- most of the time you feel like Lara's trying just as hard as you are. You're a team this time as opposed to when you were just guiding Lara's brain-dead body in '96. She'll grab edges with her fingertips, and you'll need to tap a button to help her regain her composure, and improvements like that -- taken from Legend -- make moving through Anniversary much easier than the original.

However, that's not to say it's all acrobatics and amazing moves in Anniversary. Although the Croft's skills are hundreds of times better than the original, I still found myself cursing at Lara like she stole my Ghostbusters jumpsuit. Here we are in a cavernous Greek temple filled with columns, blocks and sharp instruments of death, and all I want the lovely Miss Croft to do is jump on a cube. She jumped once and glided along the side of the box; she jumped again and glitched between the top of the cube and the floor; another jump and she slid off the side and impaled herself on a batch of spears.

Really? This is the chick who can drop four stories, catch a ledge, back flip onto a pole and somersault onto a landing without breaking a sweat, but a box will do her in?

These flubs only get worse when the camera gets involved. Plenty of times you'll be faced with a seemingly easy leap from a ledge to a landing, but the camera -- which is almost always in too tight -- will restrict you from being able to take in the whole scene. Most of the time it's just a nuisance, but sometimes it's going to be the motivator behind Lara's grisly demise.

But, hey, that's Tomb Raider, right? Crystal Dynamics has done an excellent job at staying true to the original game -- for better or worse. Legends reinvigorated the franchise with ample cutscenes and combat, but Crystal Dynamics shelved all that for Anniversary because the original game didn't have that stuff. That means you'll get your story cutscenes at the beginning and end of a level in Anniversary and have more platforming and puzzle-solving than you can shake a shotgun at in between.

Action? There's more action in the first ten minutes of Legend than there is in the first half of Anniversary. Whereas you had guards and baddies to shoot it out with in Legend, Anniversary sticks with the original's few enemies and has you capping mummies, wolves and raptors as you uncover new areas. It was a fun throwback to go toe-to-toe with the T-Rex again, but the animal kingdom is just as stupid and easy as its 11-year-old counterparts.

The bear comes at you, you climb up the stairs, it turns out bears can't climb stairs, and you shoot Smokey to death. Repeat for any other savage beast that comes at you.

There is one nice touch to the otherwise mundane battles. When an opponent charges at Lara, you can press a button prompt on-screen, Lara will jump to the side and a Matrix-style slowdown will begin. Two moving targets will appear on the screen, and once they meet and turn red over the enemy, Lara can pull the trigger for some serious damage. Still, that's just one cool tidbit of a boring battle system that has you spend the majority of your time standing on a summit shooting dumbfounded animals below you -- if you can get the camera to pan in that direction.

Graphically, Anniversary looks impressive on the PC. After having fooled around with the console version for a few days, I was knocked on my duff by how good Lara and her environments looked. There's detail in the cave walls, Miss Croft's edges are smooth and the whole thing just looks slick.

Yet what Anniversary lacks in guns-blazing action and gorgeous graphics, it makes up for with mind-maiming puzzles. Each room seems to have new challenges for you to solve whether it's a system of cogs and gears or a weird scale. Most go like this: Ok, I can pull this lever, hop on the moving gate, leap to the ledge and then jump back to safety … nope. That killed me. Ok, I can pull the lever … You'll be pissed that your wasting your gaming time loading the last checkpoint (which are plentiful) and trying to figure out how to just get to the next room, but when the "ah-ha" moment strikes, you'll feel the exhilaration that has made this series a goldmine.

Closing Comments
Yargh. Anniversary is a hard game to score. I liked Legend more, but that was because of the action and story. I can't fault the developers for not including either of those things in Anniversary -- it's a remake. If Crystal Dynamics and Eidos had Lara fighting ninjas or something, I'd have to be upset that they changed everything.

In the end, this is Tomb Raider for better or worse. The controls are light-years better than the original but still aren't solid like Prince of Persia's; the graphics are beyond anything the original could muster and kick the crud out of the PS2 version; and the puzzles are just as tough as the original, but the enemies are just as lame.

Still, it's hard to find a videogame feeling as good as solving a Tomb Raider puzzle that's stumped you for the past half-hour. If you're a Croft fan or someone looking to get into this franchise, this title -- at $30 price point -- is worth raiding your piggy bank for.

I told you I was witty.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Review

Oh, oh, it's magic -- you know.

Harry Potter, you're my hero. Sure, you've defeated a three-headed dog and a giant snake in your movies, but now, you're pulling off magic tricks in real life -- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the first movie tie-in videogame of the summer that I've actually had some fun playing.

Ten points for Gryffindor.

In case you're a big lame-o and didn't know it, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix storms into movie theaters in July and follows Harry, Ron and Hermione through their fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry's keen on the idea that He Who Shall Not Be Named is back and when the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor refuses to teach defensive spells, Harry and the Potter Posse take matters into their own hands.

Take this, statue!
Take this, statue!
Now, creating a game based on Harry's exploits can't be easy for developers. These two-plus-hour movies aren't exactly packed with action what with Harry and his friends always talking, hanging out and going to class. Over the years, game makers have had to figure out what parts of the franchise work in the videogame industry and what parts don't -- the results have been mixed as gamers have been subjected to weak games of quidditch and lackluster fight sequences.

Although it's flawed, Order of the Phoenix touches on what a Harry Potter game should be. Rather than trying to create action, EA tries to focus on making you feel like you're living in Hogwarts. The school's recreated hallway-for-hallway from the blueprints used to mold the movie version, the paintings in the Grand Staircase move, students mingle around the campus and react differently to Harry based on which house they're from, and there are no load times as you go from woods to classroom to Gobstone match on your PC.

Although the movie's storyline is in the mix -- there are more than 35 tasks for Harry to accomplish to keep the tale moving -- the game is geared towards your personal exploration of Hogwarts. You'll learn six non-combat spells: push things backward with Depulso, smash stuff with Reducto, etc. -- that will become your bread-and-butter. See, Hogwarts is one of those sandbox environments us videogame folk like to talk about so much. If you wanted to, you could just wander around the school using Wingardium Leviosa to place paintings on the wall or Reparo to fix broken pots -- each move unlocks some of the 4,360 discovery points hidden around the place that make Harry's spells more powerful and unlock secrets in Moaning Myrtle's Room of Rewards.

Why won't you let me get to the bathroom?!
Why won't you let me get to the bathroom?!
So with the school covered, EA pushed the your-in-the-movie vibe further and did away with any kind of HUD. Order of Phoenix's screen is devoid of any radar, health bar, magic meter or videogame clich¿ you can think of. Aside from the name of whatever room you just entered popping up in the top left corner for a moment, this game looks like you're watching something on TV -- but that's not to say you're completely on your own. Although there's no gigantic arrow pointing out the way you're supposed to run, Order of the Phoenix doesn't leave you lost in the confusing seven-story school -- it hands you your very own copy of the Maurader's map.

If you've seen the movies, you probably remember the Rand McNally version of the boarding school -- a dried, yellow piece of parchment that contains the entire Hogwarts layout and can track anyone in the building. In the game, you'll tap the Tab button to bring up the map and then left (for locations) or right (for people). Once you select the person or place you need to go visit, a diamond pinpoints the spot on the map, you close it via the Tab button and the inky footprints that plotted people in the movie sprawl out before Harry on-screen. You follow the prints to get to your chosen location or person.

Bravo, EA.

Now, the map isn't exactly what's shown in the movie -- when you select the list of folks in the school, you're just seeing people with tasks for Harry. Ginny Weasley might need you to help her pull off a prank with Fred and George, Professor McGonagall might need you to round up some first years, or Colin Creevey might need you to help get his camera back. During the first half of the game -- set before Christmas break -- you'll have around 30 tasks to finish as you assemble members of Dumbledore's Army. After the break, you'll have a dozen or so to finish up as you try to make Professor Umbridge's life a living hell and get ready for He Who Shall Not Be Named.

Order of the Phoenix isn't just tasks, class and footprints -- you will have to pick up your wand and kick some ass. Throughout the roughly 10- to 15-hour story, you'll need to battle unruly kids, Slytherin punks and the dark lord himself with the six combat spells you've picked up with Hermione's help. Stupefy stuns your opponents, Expelliarmus will disarm them and Petrificus Totalus will paralyze them. Because there's no HUD, the only way you'll know if you're hurt or hurting your opponent is by watching them. If Harry's hurt, he'll clutch his side or drop to one knee. When he's defeated -- although it's more likely to be the bad guy who goes down -- Harry will sprawl out face down in the dirt.

Wiggling wands!
Wiggling wands!
Yay, Harry Potter, right? Well, I never said the game was perfect.

Although it's thankfully limited, combat is flat. In battle, you'll need to maneuver side to side and alternate between tossing attack spells at your enemies and protection spells around you. It's slow-paced and generally not interesting.

Next up on my complaint list is the controls. Harry's movements are controlled by the same set of keys you've come to expect in PC games, while the mouse governs the spells and the direction of Harry's movement. In general, navigating as Harry is cumbersome. Like the console versions, the camera in anchored is specific places, but using the keyboard and mouse's loose controls takes you out of the movie experience.

Although moving the mouse to wave your wand and beat up Draco Malfoy is a neat idea, the notion never made me feel like I was actually performing magic -- I knew I was just moving my mouse around until I found the spell that worked in a given situation.

Fear the rainbow attack.
Fear the rainbow attack.
Never pulling a player out of the videogame experience is something this game strives for, suffers for and sadly, falls short of. Although there's no denying that the in-game action in the Order of the Phoenix looks great -- detailed vistas surround the school's stone bridges and the institution's insides look great -- but the cutscenes don't pass muster. Rather than create new models for the cutscenes, it looks like EA used the same ones from in-game action.

The move makes sense -- rather than pull you out of the experience by suddenly changing models, stick with the same images the players have been seeing -- but the implementation suffers. Although the characters look fine running across the screen and interacting with one another, they look downright pale-faced and creepy in the cutscenes, which are oftentimes plagued by a mysterious glow.

Closing Comments
Order of the Phoenix is a lot like Madden. If you dig football, you'll love Madden, but if pigskin isn't your thing, you might not see what the hoopla is all about. A non-Harry Potter fan is going to look at Order of the Phoenix and only see the flaws -- the music drowns out the dialogue, sometimes Harry has trouble opening doors, and there's a graphical glitch here and there -- but if you know what gillyweed does and you don't have one of the better console versions, you'll enjoy this game.

Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword Review

With nearly enough features to qualify as a sequel, this is one expansion you can't pass up.

Sid Meier's Civilization IV has already enjoyed one solid expansion pack, but this week's release of Beyond the Sword brings so much new stuff to the table that it nearly qualifies as a sequel. Adding in a comprehensive new espionage system, a political element to religion, new options for colonies and corporate competition, the expansion energizes an already lively strategy game. Add in improved AI, more combat options, and nearly a dozen scenarios and mods and you've got an expansion that you won't be able to put down for months.

As expected, the expansion includes a whole bundle of new toys: leaders, units, buildings, technologies and wonders. The 16 new leaders (and one reshuffle for Rome) almost bring us up to covering all the trait pairings. Some of these new trait pairings make for exciting strategies. Joao's Expansive and Imperialistic traits make him a powerhouse in terms of quick development while Pericles' Creative/Philosophical combination gives him a definite edge in terms of research. There are other combos that are just as interesting, especially when combined with the new unique units and buildings for the new civs.

The naval units benefit from some gap filling between galleys and battleships but aside from privateers and ships-of-the-line, most of the new sea units arrive very late in the game. On land, siege engines have been taken down a bit in terms of effectiveness but that just means you'll have to plan your assaults more carefully. Fortunately, by the time you'll start planning tank invasions, you'll have much more mobile artillery and cruise missiles that can keep up with your advances. The new air mission system makes air combat a bit more realistic, but you'll need to worry a little more about land and sea units intercepting your sorties.

Firaxis promised us that they'd improved the AI considerably with Beyond the Sword and after playing more than a few games, we have to admit that they've succeeded. Those of us who usually play on Prince have had to step down to Noble just to preserve our pride. Even so, the AI is much better at waging war now in terms of using the right number and mix of units on attack and defense. We've also seen some truly terrifying stacks appear right on our borders with little to no warning. More than once the AI has offered us peace only to gain time to rebuild their army for phase two of the conquest.

The espionage system is one of our favorite additions to the series. You can set aside part of your budget each turn for espionage spending against each of your rivals. The more points you spend, the more you'll find out about your rivals and the more opportunities you'll have for your spy units to perform espionage missions. Knowing just what your opponents are researching or being able to investigate their cities whenever you want is a huge benefit.

Beyond that, the espionage system allows players an opportunity to really hamper their enemies' success without relying on warfare. In one particularly peaceful game we were several turns away from a space victory when we discovered that the English were going to beat us by winning a cultural victory a few turns sooner. All we had to do was send a few spies down to one of their cities and instruct them to start sabotaging any buildings that were producing culture. Sponsoring a quick city revolt kept them from being able to replace the buildings quickly enough to beat us to victory. Of course, espionage can be a vital arm of your military strategies as well. Throwing a city into revolt just before your forces attack is a nasty surprise for your enemy.

The best thing about the espionage system is that it works perfectly well for players who don't want to take much of interest in its finer points. Just by adjusting your new espionage slider, you'll accumulate points that will allow you to spy on enemy cities and will increase the cost of their own espionage missions against you. To get the full effect of the new espionage elements, of course, you'll have to tinker with the balances and use your own spy units to perform missions but players can get as involved as little or as much as they want without seriously jeopardizing their success.

Ever since the first Civilization was released, fans have been asking for ways to split empires up through war or revolution. While we're still not quite to the point where we're likely to see the Confederate States of Egypt or the People's Republic of Portugal, there's now an option for players to liberate large portions of their empire and make them vassals under the AI's control. The only hitch is that the colony has to be on another continent. You can then liberate individual cities and have them join your existing colonies.

Liberating colonies on another continent can definitely help stave off the crippling effects of early expansion but it's also useful to avoid the small maintenance fee that you now incur for any cities you have that aren't located on your home continent. The only real downside to the colony system is that it winds up costing you more in commerce and production than you'll save in maintenance costs. By the time you're ready to develop a substantial overseas colony, you're likely to prepared to produce the courthouses and banks necessary to make it a profitable endeavor.

Ultimately, the best argument for creating a colony is that you'll save the time you would otherwise spend managing it. Since the newly liberated colony starts with a significant bias towards you (+10 just for being granted their freedom, plus bonuses for open borders, etc.), you're bound to have a solid vassal for the rest of the game. If you can manage to spin them off so they share your religion, so much the better. This can be particularly useful if you're head of the Apostolic Palace.

At first glance, the Apostolic Palace seems like one of the more significant additions but its influence is going to vary quite a bit from game to game. It seems like its overall effectiveness is increased when you have lots of different civs that share your state religion and plenty of war between different religious groups. It works a lot like the United Nations, both in terms of passing resolutions and allowing diplomatic victories, but the resolutions require very specific circumstances so you won't be voting on new measures every few turns like you are with the UN.

We like the way that the Palace's powers are balanced. While it's great to be able to declare war against the infidels or to reassign city ownership now and then, the extent of the palace's powers depends on the strength of its members. Of course, the more members you have, the less your own vote will count when passing resolutions. Whatever the extent of its influence, it pays off by adding more interest to the religion system and offering up an earlier (but not easy) shot at a diplomatic victory.

We're less happy with the way Corporations work. In their attempts to model the international aspects of modern business, Firaxis have basically turned corporations into offensive weapons you can use to stifle a rival's economy. Much like religions, corporate influence is spread by non-combat units. You'll want to establish branches in other cities to offset the corporation's maintenance cost and to pass some of that cost on to your rivals. In this way, corporate executives become like chain letters or pyramid schemes between cities. Found a business in a rival's territory and he or she will have to screw somebody else in order to make up the penalty.


It seems weird that you can cripple an opponent's economy simply by selling them cereal or sushi. We can't argue against the benefits that some corporations provide in terms of resources, but it seems like their maintenance penalty is too severe. Granted, you can always rely on State Property to keep rival companies out of your borders but by the time that's an option you'll probably need the extra health allowed by Environmentalism more than you'll need the gold corporations will cost you.

Our only other objection here is the convoluted requirements to establish these companies to begin with. Never mind having to gain access to the right resources and the appropriate technology, the fact that you have to sacrifice a specific kind of Great Person for each corporation you want to build makes the system more complex than is justified by the potential profits. Admittedly, by the time the corporations become available you should be pumping out a regular supply of Great Persons, but as often as not you'll find yourself with an artist or scientist when what you really need is an engineer or a merchant.

The last significant change to the core game is the addition of random events. We've already covered a few of our favorites in earlier previews, but the more we play, the more impressed we are that the events seem to reflect the circumstances we're in. Sure, things like hurricanes and plane crashes are a bit unpredictable, but the game capitalizes on religious friction or lengthy wars to come up with some very specific and relevant events. We're also seeing more and more of them that have lasting effects on the productivity of certain tiles or buildings.

The Advanced Start is a great feature for players who dislike the slow build of the early game, or for those who begin in a later age with a little more control over their starting position. A point system allows players to purchase cities, cultural influence, units, improvements, techs, buildings and pretty much anything else they want for their empire. Unfortunately, the AI doesn't seem as capable of purchasing a setup that allows for early expansion so if you spend more points on workers than population and also load yourself up with galleys and settlers, you can definitely get out to an early lead.

There's not much to talk about in terms of presentation. The new flavored units and buildings add a lot to the visual style of the game, and the new units and leaders are, for the most part, very well done and fit the style of the game nicely. We were definitely disappointed that Leonard Nimoy wasn't used for the new technology quotes. Sid Meier himself provides the new readings but it just isn't the same.

Sadly, the game still suffers from some performance problems, particularly towards the end of the game. There are also, not surprisingly, some definite balance problems that need to be addressed. A few of the values need to be tweaked, particularly with regard to the effects of espionage missions in Marathon games. Luckily, it seems like some of this stuff can be solved with some simple number substitutions.

Beyond the Sword also ships with a number of scenarios and mods. For us the appeal of the expansion is more in the additions to the core game than in the scripted scenarios or non-historical mods. Nevertheless, there are a number of intriguing mods here that are worth trying even for fans of the vanilla game. Rhye's and Fall's unique historical timeline and civ-specific victory conditions make it a lot of fun for players who want to play a slightly more "realistic" version of Civ, while the Next War mod extends the experience into the otherwise ambiguous realm of Future Tech. Final Frontier is a very attractive mod for those who want to experience Civ in a more Gal Civ style setting.

In terms of scenarios, the appeal here will depend on your tastes. Longtime fans will be happy to see a brand new series World War II scenarios focusing on Europe or the Pacific. It's certainly not for impatient or inattentive types but you have to respect the scale and detail of the scenarios. Things get a little weirder with the game's lone fantasy scenario, Age of Ice, and downright perplexing with the X-COM inspired AfterWorld.

Closing Comments
Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword makes an already phenomenal game even better. The new espionage elements and the Apostolic Palace work together to make the game's diplomatic system more interesting and a lot more flexible in terms of projecting your will on your enemies without resorting to open warfare. An improved AI wages war much more effectively this time around which can drastically increase the drama and tension of your games.

Still, it's not without problems. The espionage system is far too effective on Marathon speed, and the way that corporations work doesn't seem to make much sense. The overall presentation or interface of the game hasn't been improved by the expansion either. Additionally, there are undoubtedly small balances and tweaks that are sure to be coming down the pipe over the next few weeks. In the meantime, the new options and increased difficulty of Beyond the Sword are more than enough to justify its purchase by every hardcore Civ fan.

As for the scenarios and mods, some are definitely more interesting and polished than others but your mileage here will vary according to your interest.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 Review

Squad, attack that target. No seriously, do it. Why is everyone standing around?

First off, thanks to Ubisoft and Grin for making a PC-specific version of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2. Anyone who passed on the more forgiving, arcade-like focus of the Xbox 360's GRAW 2 will find a much more challenging, tactical experience with this one. So if you prefer merciless first-person shooting gameplay, the kind where a single mistake will get you killed, then this is your game.

The plot doesn't really matter here, and moreover it isn't very interesting. Basically you have to recover nuclear warheads from a group of rebels, based primarily in Mexico. Over the course of the narrative you'll hear a bunch of "No man gets left behind!" style chatter from your superiors delivered in a forced, unnatural cadence with no real sense of urgency. But that's really not the point of the game here, it's more about action.

And there's plenty of action online and in the single player campaign. Before each sortie there's a briefing screen through which you can customize your squad of three Ghosts with primary and secondary weapons, as well as grenades. Your own weaponry is customizable as well, giving you the power to attach scopes and silencers to whatever rifles you bring out, swap that in for a machine gun, or opt for a grenade launcher.

Regardless of what you pick, expect most of your team to die, particularly in the last three missions of the campaign. This is the type of game where you're frequently going to get shot and killed by enemies you can't see. Foes can be "tagged," meaning painted with a red diamond, if your squad mates can spot them, but often your buddies won't live long enough to pull that off. Their AI just isn't that good, lowering their already slim chances for survival.

There's a few ways to order around squadmates, most of which work well in theory. You can select them from a list using the mouse wheel, click the wheel to bring up commands like attack, move, or cover, and issue them directly from your own first-person view. You can hit G to switch into first-person mode from the view of your squadmate and control him that way. Finally, you can hit Tab to switch out to an overhead map view from where you can queue up movement orders for your troops as a group or individually, then enact them in whatever order you wish. You can see nearby enemies moving around on this map too, which may feel sort of like cheating at first, but eventually you'll find it to be a welcome feature. It's just too bad that squad pathfinding hasn't been much improved from the first GRAW. They'll still get stuck behind items when told to rally on you. It's infuriating having to hold their hands constantly.

Like your teammates, the foes in the game aren't particularly smart; they're amazingly accurate once they've spotted you. But seeing you seems to be a bit of an issue. Many times, there'd be a group huddled behind a bunker or some other type of obstacle, we'd peek out, drill one with a short burst of rifle fire, and duck out of sight. Stealing a second peek at the bunker would reveal none of the living soldiers had reacted to their buddy's death - they just stood there as if he never existed. This goes for pretty much every level in the game.

Once they do spot you, you're kind of screwed. It's possible to try a flanking maneuver once in a while, but the stages are more linear than the game box would have you believe. You do have a certain degree of freedom for approaching areas, but you'll often run into an "exiting the mission area" warning if you stray too far, which will end your game if you're out of bounds for too long. In a few of the campaign missions it's possible to pick different starting points, but it's nothing you can really call an open-ended gameplay experience - more like a slightly varying one.

Your squad also suffers from some AI issues, particularly when recognizing they're being shot at. You hit Tab to check a field overview, tell two squadmates to move in opposite directions around a building to take out a guy on the other side. Sounds like a good plan, since the opponent would have two targets instead of one. Sometimes it works properly, but at others your troops will just stand there absorbing bullets. It's this kind of AI inconsistency that can make the impressive options for squad control and tactical planning sadly irrelevant. After all, if your troops won't shoot when you tell them to, or the enemy won't fire back when you're firing at them, what's the point of strategic planning?

When the AI is working on both sides, the game can be quite entertaining. The single-player campaign isn't all that long, but the last three missions will likely absorb just as many hours as the entire rest of the game. It's not that they're long, they're just jarringly difficult. For instance, in the last stage we were inserted via helicopter right in front of a bank of enemy machine guns. As our team descended the ropes from the helicopter to the ground, two of our teammates got sniped and killed. The mission hadn't even started yet! Gah!

The better reason to get this game is for its online features. You get quite a few modes, including deathmatch, team deathmatch, variations of hamburger hill (king of the hill), and, most importantly, co-operative maps as well as a recon versus assault mode. Without glitchy AI to mar the experience, GRAW 2's solid shooting mechanics and various lean and reflex maneuvers become much more enjoyable. You can peer around corners, dive and slide forward while running and transition to a crouched position, or move quickly while crouched and dive down again to lay prone.

Awful in-game ads
The best part, at least for us, was getting to play co-operatively through the single-player campaign missions with four people. If you're sick of those maps, though, the game gives you even more venues for co-operative, objective based gameplay. These maps support more than four players, so it can get pretty frantic running around with 24 human-controlled squadmates while peppering occasionally problematic AI opponents with bullets and clearing road blocks and such.

Then there's recon versus assault mode, where players split into two Ghost and Rebel teams. You pick a class, each with a specific weapon loadout, and either try and defend or detonate three AA batteries. Each side can rank up as they gain kills and help out with objectives, which adds to your arsenal as the game continues. It's another good reason to play this game online, but unfortunately there isn't much of a population on the servers yet.

Online or offline, GRAW 2's visuals aren't going to blow you away. There are a few nice sunset stages, but in general the maps look fairly bland. The same kind of huts, shanties, and buildings populate each stage, making the levels blend together instead of stand out. Oh, and there's another dam stage - Ubisoft is really on a roll with these things as of late. Making up for some of the underwhelming environmental visuals are the enemy animations. If they're on the move when lead hits their body armor, they keel over and go tumbling across the ground, sometimes weakly getting back on their knees only to absorb more bullets. The gun models look, feel, and sound quite good, though the reload animations lack the sort of urgency and strength you might associate with someone trying to jam more bullets into their gun in the middle of a firefight.

Closing Comments
While GRAW 2’s single-player suffers from some frustrating AI issues, it does have some worthwhile multiplayer modes. It can be an enjoyable game, and it’s got some entertaining gun and reflex movement mechanics, but it’s not all that memorable an experience. The added features for the PC version are certainly appreciated, and the more punishing level of difficulty definitely heightens the intensity of battle, but the AI problems really hinder the potential benefits. Once they get the AI working properly and open up the maps a little more, the Advanced Warfighter version of the Ghost Recon series could be something more noteworthy. Though his doesn’t really affect the score, it’s worth mentioning that this game has some infuriatingly nonsensical in-game ads. The action is supposed to be set in 2014, but you’ll see billboards for The Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, Intel Core 2 Duo processors, and a 2008 car. Come on Ubisoft – at least think to put a 2014 tag on that car, or Intel Core 64 Dodeco processors, and just get rid of Shark Week altogether. It premieres next week, says the billboard. In 2014? In Juarez? Does it?


UFO Extraterrestrials Review

Be careful what you wish for.

For years now we've been suggesting that someone out there needs to update the old Microprose classic X-COM UFO Defense. This game allowed players to manage a worldwide military organization tasked with defending the nations of the world from an alien invasion. Combining intense tactical battles with "big picture" strategic play, it ranks as one of, if not the, most enjoyable PC games ever.

Over the last few years or so we've seen quite a few titles try to recreate the magic and mayhem of the original game. Most have fallen short either by missing the point of the game altogether, or by shifting the balance too far towards an unpleasant extreme. Matrix Games' UFO Extraterrestrials fails with an entirely new third approach, sticking too closely to the original and ignoring the chance to put their own spin on things.

Players are put in charge of an alien-fighting force on the planet Esperanza. The initial base comes equipped with interceptor craft that are used to shoot down any UFOs that come within the base's detection range. Squads of soldiers and armored vehicles can be dispatched to investigate these sites and, later in the game, assault alien installations around the world. Success in these missions causes your soldiers to improve in their fighting ability and nets you some cool alien tech that you can research back at the base.

As you discover the mysteries of alien technology, you can then build advanced equipment to deal with the growing alien menace. The more successful you are in your mission, the more funding you'll get from the nations of Esperanza. Get enough money and you can even enlarge your operation by adding additional radar and intercept bases around the world.

It's a compelling design but its success requires the cooperation of several different elements. In this case, there are definitely some high points. Watching your troops improve with each mission until they develop into a highly effective alien killing force is definitely one of the game's most rewarding payoffs. Unlocking the secrets of an alien technology and then turning it on your foes is another of the game's undeniable joys. Unfortunately, tedious tactical battles and annoying limitations on base management will keep you from otherwise enjoying the things that the game does well.

There's not much of a story beyond the first cut scene and even that's not worth much. This initial cinematic not only makes a space battle between aliens and humans seem downright boring, but it also features some of the worst voice acting we've ever heard in all our years playing videogames. We fact, I hesitate to use the term "acting" here because of the stilted and lifeless performances that we're given by the voice over team.

Still, while a little story would have been nice, you hardly need much of an excuse to defend your planet from an alien menace. Here your xenophobia is pretty much taken for granted so it's assumed you don't actually need to know why the aliens are out to get you. The fact that they keep sending their spaceships flying over your head is reason enough to shoot them down and send a team out to the crash site to kill any survivors.

The turn-based tactical battles definitely convey the right sense of menace. Stepping off your troop transport is incredibly nerve-wracking. Just the mere suspicion that an alien could be waiting to get off a shot at you before you're even off the ramp is enough to get you interested in the action. This is particularly troublesome given that the enemy AI seems to be able to see much farther than you and has weapons that far outclass the ones you begin with. You'll also suffer from the lack of a simple overhead map that gives you the general layout of each level. And don't even get us started on how your soldiers have virtually no peripheral vision and no option to reserve action points for opportunity fire.


You will initially appreciate the variety of the maps but as the number of missions ramp up you'll start seeing lots and lots of repetition. Thankfully, there's lots more variety found among the aliens you'll be fighting. Each level seems to offer a number of different types of foes to fight and the smart player will eventually learn how to prioritize the most important targets. Word to the wise: don't neglect the ones with the huge arm.

The levels teem with destructible objects, which you'll really get to see the benefit of during your more enthusiastic firefights. On the other hand, the aliens don't have too many structures to hide behind and those few that do exist aren't likely to hold many aliens. More likely than not, you'll simply find your foes just hanging out in the wide open spaces of most levels or simply hanging out in the saucer waiting for you to come and kill them.

While the repetitive maps, lack of an overall view, and interface omissions impact your enjoyment of combat, the real kicker is that none of your soldiers will ever die. You can lose them by abandoning them in the mission area but otherwise, not even the most vicious alien attack will ever do more than simply send your soldier to the hospital for a few weeks. It certainly helps you to develop a stronger fighting force by the end of the game, but it also means that much of the tension is completely undone. How much can you really care about putting your soldiers in danger when the worst that can happen is that they have to sit in a hospital for a few weeks?

The only real consequence of having a wounded soldier is that they won't be available for upcoming missions. You should be upset with yourself for leading your troops into harm's way to begin with, but you wind up being more upset with the limitation on the game's recruitment options. Rather than letting you manage your own recruitment, the game gives you a set quantity of soldiers and forces you to make the best of it. You'll get new recruits from time to time, but it's not anything you have any control over. This can lead to situations where you've got lots of cash and the goodwill of the world but can't field a full team because several of your soldiers are still recovering in the hospital.

The strategic portion of the game takes place on a global level. Esperanza is divided into large zones and you'll need to make sure you build enough detection and interception bases around the planet to provide good protection for your most generous funding nations. Unlike X-COM, you can only really have one specific soldier base, so you won't get the same sense of lots of different teams working around the globe.

Many of the functions of the bases are automated for you. We already complained that soldier recruitment is entirely out of your hands. Additionally, hiring and firing of scientists and engineers is tied directly to the presence of your labs and workshops. Money for rearming and refueling comes directly out of your account regardless of whether or not you'll be running a deficit, which can tend to frustrate your economic outlook during the lean months.

The graphics are a bit outdated and suffer from some performance problems. Individual units and environmental assets look decent enough during the tactical battles, but the jerky animation and the questionable effects tend to ruin any sense of realism that you may experience. With X-COM at least you were fighting over towns and cities that gave you a sense that there was something worthwhile at stake. Esperanza has no such effect on us. I mean, why are we fighting for this crummy planet anyway?

Moving past the graphics, the sounds aren't any better and are, in many ways, worse. The voice talent leaves a lot to be desired and the music, if possible, is even more dated than the graphics. If this is what passes for music on Esperanza, the aliens can have the planet for all I care.

Closing Comments
Meh. UFO Extraterrestrials gets a few things right but it doesn't take enough chances or introduce enough conveniences or improvements to make it worth the forty bucks they're asking for it, particularly when you can grab a copy of the original X-COM for less than that. We find it particularly troubling that the few diversions the game does manage to take all seem to be in the wrong direction. Less control over your bases in the geoscape and some poor choices in the tactical system are probably the biggest offender here and it's odd that the designers chose this approach, particularly since everything else in the game is pretty much a direct ripoff of the X-COM gameplay.

The bottom line is that UFO Extraterrestrials is enjoyable only to the extent that it copies X-COM UFO Defense. With that in mind, it's hard to deny that the game has some merit, but it hardly does justice to its inspiration.

BioShock Review

Welcome to Rapture.

BioShock is Irrational's finest offering to date, as well as the swan song for the Irrational brand in a way, since they recently relinquished their longstanding and well-established studio name for the more corporate, faceless tag of 2K Boston and 2K Australia. BioShock is a first-person shooter set in the fantastically unsettling city of Rapture, a metropolis built under the sea by the megalomaniacal Andrew Ryan. Throughout your lengthy stay, you'll find options for combat as intricate and enjoyable as the story and characters are to interpretation, something that only a handful of games can ever claim to offer.

But to call this game simply a first-person shooter, a game that successfully fuses gameplay and narrative, is really doing it a disservice. This game is a beacon. It's one of those monumental experiences you'll never forget, and the benchmark against which games for years to come will, and indeed must, be measured. This isn't merely an evolution of System Shock 2, but a wake-up call to the industry at large. Play this, and you'll see why you should demand something more from publishers and developers, more than all those derivative sequels forced down our throats year after year with only minor tweaks in their formulas. It's a shining example of how it's possible to bring together all elements of game design and succeed to the wildest degree.

Customizing the arsenal.
Things kick off with your plane smacking into the ocean and your character having to take refuge in Rapture to survive. Irrational plays on the conventions of the first-person perspective by thrusting you through experiences that toy with and vastly strengthen that fragile, intangible bond between in-game protagonist and yourself. At times, it forces upon you moments of reflection, which is so important and rare in games, where you contemplate the nature of blindly accepted game conventions, which we can't get into for fear of spoiling things. It lays a relatively straight narrative path for you, but it never feels linear, a result of the gameplay as much as the narrative.

The target in BioShock, Andrew Ryan, is anything but a prototypical villain. He's a man of bottomless ambition who built a city under the sea, obsessed with the idea of what makes a man, what differentiates a man from a slave. He's the Randian hero, a man who holds his own creative vision above all else, and he's Rodion Raskolnikov's exceptional person, someone who can be excused for committing crimes to achieve a goal--and he knows it. His vision, Rapture, is clearly a colossal failure. The driving force behind the game is your quest to discover why this man's alluring vision of an artistic utopia failed so completely and why you've stumbled upon it. Even though Ryan spits out what seems to resemble totalitarian propaganda, you can't help but sympathize with him. He has alluring ideas, speaks them with conviction, and comes off as a sympathetic visionary despite his severe eccentricities.

As you continue through Rapture, you'll discover it speaks to the nature of what a single-player game is--why do we choose to play a game that isn't online, where you can't interact with others? Like reading a novel, it's to form your own impressions, to see the same events, hear the same words, and come away with a unique viewpoint. The thematic blending and twining of BioShock's personalities is so powerful, it acts like any good book or movie, assaulting you with its ideas, popping into your thoughts when you least expect it, and broadening your understanding of what a game can achieve. Instead of painting Good and Evil across the foreheads of Rapture's denizens with a neon brush, Irrational gave everyone murky motives, much like the shadowed, soaking environments you're constantly plodding through, or the blurred vision you get after walking under one of Rapture's ubiquitous waterfalls.

Hey guy, might want to check your pants!
It's the little ideas that pop up from time to time that make this world so believable: the piano plinks that resonate as you browse menu options; the guitars you can actually play randomly scattered around Rapture; the way every room is realistically constructed reflects both the heights to which Rapture managed to climb as well as the decadence and sense of voracious, selfish entitlement that brought it smashing down. You'll hear some of the voice-overs muse, "Why do they wear the masks? Maybe there's a part of them that remembers how they used to be, how they used to look, and they're ashamed." Little bits like that get tossed at you, and you don't necessarily have to absorb them--they're not essential to plot or anything, but they're instrumental in making BioShock as immersive as it is.

The game is broken up into large sections, each separated by load times. Don't worry; these aren't load times like in Half-Life 2 where the game pauses unexpectedly. Instead, the load times are logically placed and never jarringly interrupt the experience or mar the immersion. Each section comes with its own cast of NPCs who aren't mere stage bosses--oftentimes you don't even engage them in combat. Instead, you are battling their ideals and their insecurities, grappling with their motivations as much as the splicer minions who so frequently assail you.

Just because the various versions of the splicers, genetically altered humans, are the standard enemies in the game, they still manage to exhibit as much personality as the rest. They're not zombies; they're totally aware. They're regretful of their condition, yet realize that there's no outlet for them, no opportunity to express themselves or be creative, like an intelligence crippled by hopeless drug addiction. That's true in a metaphorical sense as much as it is in the literal; they're trapped in an underwater city, after all, much like you. It's almost as if BioShock's enemies want you to kill them, to put them out of their misery. Sometimes they seem overly xenophobic and at others whimsical, gallivanting about with an ironic sense of humor.

They're such eerily spirited foes you may even come to pity them. The Big Daddies, for instance, Rapture's lumbering guardians, will wander around stages banging on outlets from where their wards, the Little Sisters, would normally emerge. If you've killed or freed the little girls, as you frequently must, the Big Daddy will invariably knock again and seem genuinely confused over why nobody's coming out as they stomp and groan their way to the next outlet. It's another example of the wonderful details that make Rapture seem so alive.

Giving the splicers what they asked for.
Then there's the actual combat, which presents a huge array of options. Each weapon in the game has three types of ammunition, all with varying effects. Then you've got a range of plasmids, genetic enhancements to your character that allow for magical attacks, as well as myriad types of tonics you can equip to augment plasmids' effectiveness or buffer your character in other ways. This isn't a game where you're simply limited to an SMG or grenade launcher to attack, though you can use those if you so choose. Tell a Big Daddy to protect you with a powerful plasmid and he swats away any attackers. Set up shock traps with your crossbow darts and rearrange them with telekinesis. If that doesn't work, throw bees at your enemies. Use the enrage plasmid and enemies will beat each other to death as you hide in the corner. Then, as they're fighting, set one of them on fire and toss a chair at the other. While some plasmids are more useful than others--electrobolt and incinerate in particular--the number of ways to dispatch enemies is really limited to your own inventiveness. Had this game been rife with AI problems, the combat system wouldn't have been nearly as good. But as it stands, enemies execute interesting attack patterns, and the plasmids that alter enemy behavior actually work, though we did notice one or two occasions when the AI appeared to glitch out, making the splicer stand still as we hit it.

If you wanted to it's entirely possible to plow through BioShock using only the most powerful plasmids, but where's the fun in that? You can set up sonic traps for enemies that fling them into the ceiling with deadly force, attach sticky grenades to environmental objects and hurl them at enemies with your telekinesis plasmid, hack security bots to fight for you, or use the decoy plasmid to keep your enemies constantly guessing your real position as they absorb bullets from your commandeered machines. So while there certainly are methods of attack that can be deemed the most effective, you're really missing out on what makes this game so thrilling if you fail to experiment.

And experimentation is something you'll almost be forced into against Big Daddies, who appear in every stage of the game. You'll find the game is designed to force you to fight these things, and the damage they deal and punishment they can absorb requires quick reflexes and inventive, on-the-spot problem solving. This goes especially for those playing on the hardest difficulty setting, but even on medium Big Daddies put up quite a fight. Should you die, which as long as you're not playing in easy mode you certainly will, you get revived at checkpoints called Vita-Chambers. Though you get back some health and Eve, a bar that governs plasmid use, enemies don't. For instance, if you've been hammering away at a Big Daddy for five minutes and gotten him down to around a quarter of his health, that's exactly how much he'll have after you die and return to battle. It ensures enemies can eventually be killed with enough persistence, which might be a nagging feature for some.

One of many possible scenes of destruction.
Hacking comes into play quite a bit, since through the associated mini-game you're able to control flying bots, turrets, reduce prices at vending machines, and open otherwise inaccessible doors and safes. The mini-game itself requires you to match up sequences of tubes to allow a liquid to flow uninterrupted from one specific point on the screen to another. Various tonics in the game can modify the challenge, and you'll find the system possesses quite a bit of depth. Should you eventually get tired of hacking everything, you can always make auto-hacks through the item invention system or, if you're facing security bots, load up some shotgun shells and blast them to bits. With the PC version, hacking is a more streamlined process since you don't have to move a cursor around with thumbsticks - you just hover over with your cursor.

Besides hacking and modifying plasmids, there are a few other interesting ways to divert your attention. Embedded later on in the game, you'll find a camera that opens up a whole new system of character ability modifications. Scattered around Rapture are one-time use weapon stations that let you further augment various aspects of each armament. These aren't always out in the open, and often you'll need to consult your map to see which rooms in a stage you've missed to find them all. A nice feature of BioShock is you can revisit previous stages at certain points. Enemies will have respawned, so you can pull more money, Eve and health hypos, and various other items from their bodies while backtracking to uncover whatever rooms you may have passed by.

If you're debating which version to get, the PC version handles better. In part it's because of the greater precision with the mouse and keyboard, but also with how the plasmids and weapons are selected. With the default settings RMB switches between the two, LMB fires, and we preferred the mouse wheel to an the Xbox 360 version's bumper clicks for quickly cycling through. By hitting Shift you can bring up a plasmid and weapon selection screen if you so desire, but the mouse wheel scrolled through fast enough to stay useful. Note that you can't set LMB to fire a weapon and RMB to fire a plasmid; there's only one fire function. We also noticed the option to bind the functions "switch and fire weapon" and "switch and fire plasmid," but when we tested it out these only switched from weapon to plasmid and back again, much like the RMB default function. All weapons and plasmids are also bound to the number and function keys, making it even easier to ensure you always have the ideal attack at the ready.

One thing we were delighted to see is how effective the wrench, the game's only melee weapon, remains throughout the whole experience. Through various tonic power-ups it can even become more powerful than a majority of your firearms. Since you swap plasmid powers and tonics in at out at any of the specific vending machines, it allows you to alter your play style on the fly and utilize the full range of what's available.

Grenades are always effective.
Really the best aspect of BioShock is how well all the disparate elements blend together. Story plays out mostly through voice-overs, allowing you to stay immersed in the action as plot and character is fleshed out. The sound design is simply amazing here, from the laments of splicers and the groans and thumps of Big Daddies to the sickening smacks and cries of combat to the startlingly realistic ambient noises and humorous calls of the vending machines. Even the near-death alert, which pipes up when your character is low on health, is expertly woven into the game's overall soundscape, unlike other games that test your levels of aural tolerance with sharp and distracting beeps. Every character's voice is well acted. Andrew Ryan in particular is a joy to listen to, with enough vocal gravitas to give Stephen Colbert a run for his money.

To really appreciate the sound in this game, and not necessarily the frenzy of combat, but merely the ambience of Rapture, just stop moving your character when he's alone. Now crank the speakers, or headphones. You start to hear the metallic clanks, the otherworldly whispers, piping up at various distances away, impressing upon you the notion that this world doesn't stop at the walls around you. No matter where you are, there's always the water, a trickling undercurrent of audio, reminding you of your precarious position within this crumbling city being crushed on all sides by an indifferent ocean.

The visuals too will constantly amaze, from finely detailed industrial structures to the weapon models, the choices of which areas to light and which to leave in the dark, and plasmid effects. And then there's the water. It's so gorgeous, rippling and gurgling through every one of Rapture's hallways, tumbling from ceilings and, of course, encasing the city itself. You get lots of little details to enjoy as well, like the welts on your hand when you boot up the insect swarm plasmid, the steam jets that hiss from Big Daddies after they've taken damage, fish in tanks and in the ocean that dart away as you approach, and the flickering billboards and tattered posters that remain from Rapture's glory days. The PC version definitely outclasses the Xbox 360, mostly because of the ability to crank the resolution to 1920 x 1200. If you've got a Vista rig with a DX10 card, you can expect some heightened particle effects, crisper real-time shadows, and more dynamic water, but the game looks gorgeous regardless. On our gaming PC running a Core 2 Quad processor with a GeForce 8800 GTX, and 4 GB of RAM, it ran very well, with only a few occasions of seemingly random framerate hitches. We also couldn't find an option to switch between DX10 and DX9 modes; the game just seems to default to what's in your system, unlike Lost Planet.

If there's anything disappointing about BioShock, it's the ending. We found the resolution to be somewhat abrupt for a game in which so many things are colliding and bubbling beneath the surface. Nevertheless, it's no reason to be dissuaded.

Closing Comments
There is art here, despite what many would say isn't possible with games, from Roger Ebert to game designers like Hideo Kojima. But it's in BioShock--it's in the gorgeously realized, watery halls of Rapture. It's in a Little Sister's expression of thanks when you choose to save her, or the utter silence if you harvest instead. It's in the way the characters develop, in the testimonials of the recording boxes you pick up along the way. It's in the way the narrative is structured, and the way it blends so seamlessly with the action. Irrational had a clear vision with this game, something pulled off with remarkable precision in every department. They didn't just deliver something that's fun to play, a criterion so often cited as the benchmark of what makes a game worthwhile. BioShock stands as a monolithic example of the convergence of entertaining gameplay and an irresistibly sinister, engrossing storyline that encompasses a host of multifaceted characters. This is an essential gaming experience.


Medal of Honor: Airborne Review

The best Medal of Honor game in years, but not the best shooter in years.

After a long line of disappointing games in the Medal of Honor franchise that just never could recapture the magic successes of Allied Assault, we finally get Medal of Honor: Airborne that combines high presentation values and good, fast-paced fun. While there's definitely some good entertainment value here, the campaign is short, and the multiplayer isn't incredibly deep. Still, it's a good game overall and the best game in the franchise in some time.

Medal of Honor: Airborne takes a different approach to World War II shooters. Instead of starting players out in each linear level on a path where there's no variation, EA LA decided to let us choose where to start each mission by throwing us out of a plane. Once floating in the air, it's a matter of steering the parachute to the best location to start the fight. Where the best location is depends on how you want to play the game, a mechanic that certainly is useful if you want a challenge or find that it's more fun to start out in a certain place on a map. It also provides an opportunity to drop into a new location if the previous one was a little too difficult or even complete one of the five different skill drops (drops in very specific areas).


A compass will show the way to the various objectives so that it's easy to steer in the right direction. It's also nice to be able to land on the high ground to get a good view of the action and shoot a few enemies before jumping down. The main problem is that in some of the missions, landing in those high positions doesn't really mean much. Because of the way the game is structured, enemies will continue to re-spawn in the area of objectives so that the challenge remains consistent. In order for enemies to stop spawning, you'll have to jump down and advance the action yourself. It is possible to kill enough enemies quickly that friendly troops will be able to move forward, but that didn't happen often.

While there's a lot of choices to make about which direction to run and attack a problem from, some of the freedom provided by the paradrop is an illusion in some of the levels. Some of each level's objectives end up forcing you down a direct and linear path like a corridor shooter. It's not necessarily a bad thing since a lot of the action is fun, but the paradrop can sometimes end up feeling more like a gimmick rather than a revolutionary way to approach a shooter.

The level design is pretty good though. Each of the objectives will require some adjustments of tactics and movement. You'll find some of the levels are much more open than others but all definitely have a different feel, good defensive emplacements, and lots of increasingly difficult enemies. I can't help but feel there were some more missed opportunities to stir up more frenetic chaos by implementing bigger weapons or more enemy and friendly vehicles pounding it out. The near constant infantry vs. infantry combat is fun, but a little more variety couldn't have hurt.


When you do fight against vehicles, it's not really very satisfying. Tanks will only drive in circles around track and halftracks are only used to block entrances in the last level and can't actually be blown up. Why even put Panzerschreks in the level if they're not for blowing up the halftracks? Why make it so that they can only be stopped by killing the machine-gunner when we just blew up tanks a couple of levels ago with the same weapons?

As is the case with most EA games these days, the presentation values in Medal of Honor: Airborne are quite good. Everything from the menu system to the mission briefings has been given attention. Each mission starts inside the hold of a drop plane flying over enemy territory full of soldiers in your squad chatting with each other, cracking jokes, getting shot, screaming, and finally, jumping out of the plane. There are some terrifically animated moments in this confined and terrifying metal tube as the plane gets shelled, engines explode in fire, and other soldiers start dying.

Falling into a level is a great way to get a quick lay of the land before the real battle begins. The levels have a lot of great detail to them in the architecture, especially those levels in towns that have been shelled (such as in Operation Market Garden) and seeing the well-modeled soldiers running around shooting at you and at each other definitely sets the mood.

The illusion begins to break down when you land and find that the levels are actually very static. While there are some terrific explosive effects and dirt fountains from grenades, rubble stays attached to the ground, buildings stay upright, and the only noticeable use of physics is in the way models interact with the environment. I'm not necessarily asking for completely destructible environments here (I'm sure that creates a world of trouble for level design), but some level of interactivity would certainly have added to the believability of the levels. It's also a little frustrating that there's basically no ballistics model. Soldiers often hide behind wooden slats and boxes that would be easily chewed up by almost any of the weapons in the game especially at close range. You really shouldn't be able to duck behind a wooden fence to avoid being destroyed by an MG42.


It's probably more annoying because the weapons feel and sound really good. While no guns in a game can (or should) accurately represent the deafening crack of a real gun, it's a treat to hear a good gaming version of that thunder. The right sounds added with the right amount of recoil can help make a shooter much more fun and the guns feel that much more real and powerful, which EA has done an admirable job of here. Helping to make the weapons even more fun are the upgrades that can be acquired through use. Every time you deal damage with a weapon, you'll gain a little bit of experience eventually resulting in an upgrade. These aren't just cosmetic, they're very useful and make each of the guns much more powerful, which in turn makes you want to get them. Comparing the unequipped Thompson at the beginning of the game with a fully upgraded Thompson with a 50 round magazine, pistol grip, and barrel stabilizer is like night and day.


Occasionally, using these weapons can be a treat against the AI, who will often use cover intelligently (though will also run mindlessly at you), but these good moments tend to come more in the linear sections of the game. It's the open nature of some portions of each level that seem to create some confusion causing enemies not to respond even when you're shooting them or just stand out in the open away from any cover though this isn't to say I haven't seen AI acting smartly in more open areas.

One of the most annoying behaviors comes from friendly AI. I can't tell you how many times I've been shooting at an enemy or getting ready to throw a grenade only to have a friendly AI guy step in front of me. When shooting, it really only makes the friendly AI bark a curse or two at you but if you throw a grenade and it bounces off the stupid guy's head back into your lap, that's a real problem, especially if you've cooked the grenade so there's no time to run away.

The mix of enemy and friendly AI creates some fun quasi-squad interactions, but it also creates some ugly situations in more open areas where they often run right by each other in the open, basically stand on top of each other without fighting, or resorting, way too often, to hitting each other with their weapons instead of pulling the trigger. If I were running into a room with a Thompson or an MP40, I don't think my first reaction would be to run across the room (or an entire courtyard full of enemies, as I've seen happen) and try to beat the enemy with it. I'm pretty sure I'd pull the trigger. In fact, I always did in the game since melee combat does very little comparable damage.


The length of the campaign also may be an issue for some of you. My first time through took around 7-8 hours on the PC and second time through only took about 5-6. If you're an accomplished shooter fan, you'll definitely want to turn the difficulty up to high so that your entertainment doesn't end too quickly.

I found that the game was a bit more difficult on the 360 though that may have been relative to my mouse and keyboard skills. The higher difficulty of control also means that the game will take a while longer to complete (depending on your skills with a controller), and also means that you'll likely have to use a more deliberate pace than you might if you played the PC version where scoring headshots are much easier to pull off.

Increasing replayability is a big thing these days so Airborne does come with multiplayer, though the focus is definitely the single-player. Multiplayer action certainly has its merits and is ultimately fun, but it's not the incredibly deep experience that can be found in so many other games. What is there is some fast-paced action with some fun weapons in some small and frantic levels. You'll find your standard deathmatch modes, but the most interesting is certainly objective mode where players have to capture flags in the Battlefield style. There are only three flags around each level and capturing all of them means a win. As usual, the mechanic helps focus the action around certain locations. The most unique part of the MP equation is the ability for the Allied troops to parachute onto the battlefield. It helps create a paranoia that'll have your head on a constant vertical swivel. Any of the games can be played with or without weapons upgrades and can support up to 12 players.

Closing Comments
Medal of Honor: Airborne, while not perfect, is definitely the best game in the franchise to come along in quite a while. It may be fairly short, but those hours are pretty much one non-stop battle with Nazi Germany throughout the various paratrooper campaigns from World War II. The levels are designed well and provide a few different environmental challenges that shooter fans should appreciate. The weapons feel and sound good as well and dropping into each level from the sky adds some interest and replayability through occasionally the feature seems more like a gimmick than something to change shooters for all time. The shiny coat of EA presentation covering all aspects of Airborne certainly help with the enjoyment, but there's not quite as much variety and interaction that we're becoming used to in top-tier shooters these days.


World in Conflict Review

Everybody wants to nuke the world.

When Whitesnake starts playing during World in Conflict's single player campaign, you'll realize that it is love that you're feeling. The love of a perfectly placed artillery barrage; of a city once whole turned to rubble; of maneuvering tanks through debris to attack an important strategic location; of our most favorite nemesis, the USSR. The warmth in our hearts today isn't from family or friends, it's from the tactical nuke that wiped out a group of enemy veteran heavy tanks, mobile anti-air, and infantry that allowed our team to sweep in and claim victory in a multiplayer match of World in Conflict, one of this year's finest real-time war-games. Massive has created an excellently destructive entertainment experience that we think nearly any action junky will enjoy mightily.


Epic destruction is everywhere in Massive's latest. It's a game that's among the prettiest RTSs we've seen offering up detailed units, large well-rendered environments, and some truly spectacular special effects. The visuals in World in Conflict are brilliant on all fronts and provide an easy entry point for all comers to immediately sink in and enjoy some fast-action strategy though the price of entry may be expensive if you're only in it for the big effects. Running everything on very-high at 1900x1200 can cause some serious frame rate dips on even a computer with an 8800GTX, 2GB of RAM and a Quad Core processor when the effects really start flying. Thankfully, the game still looks pretty at medium detail, which most medium range PCs should have no problem with.

Massive has also made entry easier for the average Joe by keeping the army size down to a minimum, keeping base and economy management out of the picture, keeping game times shorter, and the gameplay more immediately aggressive. It's something Massive originally tried in their Ground Control series that they've updated and improved mightily here. It's a completely tactical approach that allows players to focus on unit positioning and the use of unit special abilities. The result is a game that's accessible to all, including that more casual demographic that's used to snorting the instant thrills provided by shooters.


This doesn't mean that the game is simple. In fact, it's not. World in Conflict focuses heavily on team-play in multiplayer (the single-player reinforces through certain mechanics) much in the way that a first-person shooter like Team Fortress or Enemy Territory does with their class balancing. While you can choose to spend your requisition points (the game's easy version of resources) on units outside of your specialty, they're encouraged to spend those points in their domain as the few units for purchase outside of the specialty are expensive. This need to balance units and function within the team, not just within the individual, is what really makes World in Conflict tick so perfectly as a multiplayer game. Players dropping in during the middle of a match, something also unusual for a multiplayer strategy game, will be able to see where help is needed and fill any void.

The paradox inherent in wanting to allow accessibility to inexperienced strategy players and the need to work smartly as a team in a strategic environment may be the multiplayer's one slight weakness. It can be frustrating to be on a team that can't work together at all if the other team is even moderately organized (if you've got a bevy of heavy tanks and no one helping with anti-air support, you're in trouble). It may not be too different from a comparable type of FPS, but those games still have the fun of being able to use your twitch skills to better others. The lack of twitch means more reliance on teammates to make the victory come. Of course, this isn't to say you can't have fun just getting in a game to roll tanks around, fire some rockets, and drop some nukes, but the truly epic gaming experiences come via teams that at least vaguely know what they're doing.

This can be especially important given the massive nature of some of the game's tactical aid devices. As you deal damage, heal units, or capture strategic locations (think Battlefield 1942), you'll gain tactical aid points that can be used on everything from radar scans to the game's delicious tactical nukes. Dropping such ordinances on friendly units is bad for business.

Thankfully, World in Conflict also comes with a crystal clear VOIP system that should help players warn of their impending destruction. It should also be a boon for new players seeking to get in touch with their teammates, learn from veterans, and participate quickly and easily in coordinated attacks and defenses. When it's clicking on all cylinders and everyone on your team is involved, World in Conflict is one of the best multiplayer games of any genre out on the market.

It's good that Massive has spent time trying to make sure their Massgate multiplayer service is clean and feature-filled. Everything from clan support to tournaments is being provided for the hardcore while the more casual player should be able to find others of their ilk quickly via player matching. Add to that the ability to broadcast games via the nifty system of cameras and telestrating tools and you've got a game built for a competitive community.


While the game was designed primarily as a multiplayer game, single-player hasn't been thrown to the dogs. The campaign provides a well presented and explosive spectacle right from the moment that the Russians invade US soil and artillery begins to pummel Seattle. It's a non-stop ride from there with very little down time to gather your wits, which fits the tactical nature of the game quite nicely and provides us adrenaline junkies a constant fix.

The story is consistently well presented from several angles. Massive not only tells the strategic and tactical nature of the Soviet aggression via terrific load-screen briefings voiced by Alec Baldwin and constant radio chatter by the main characters and leaders in the Allied forces, but also the more personal side of war via several well developed characters. Each is quite different in their motivations and the chance to learn more through the art slideshow cutscenes of phone calls home helps you invest that much more. Both the personalities of the characters and tactical information mix together in the well directed in-engine cutscenes in each mission. Finally, there are a couple of FMV cutscenes, both of which you've probably seen by now (check out one of them below) if you've followed the game at all and they mix the music and action very well together. Overall, the story presentation of the single player package is excellent.

The campaign moves smoothly from location to location documenting the war across the American Northwest, New York City, and various parts of Europe. Each of the missions offers something different and encourages players to become more familiar with each of the army types by providing only certain kinds of reinforcements. It's not as rigid as the multiplayer (you'll often have helicopters and tanks under your command simultaneously) but is great for introducing the power of each unit type by offering up opportunities to take advantage of special abilities against the enemy.

It's also impressive how the campaign teaches ideas of teamwork. It's common for your commander to give you an objective only to turn it over to an AI teammate in order to present a new objective. While that AI is guarding a strongpoint, you'll have to press forward to take another strategic objective. It's something that'll become like second nature in the multiplayer game and is offered up smoothly in the single player game. In fact, the campaign is full of the pleasant trickery that makes you feel like part of something huge when you're only commanding a modicum of units. There's so much action and destruction happening all around that you're not directly participating in that it's hard not to feel the intense heat of the explosions when in fact, you're quite focused on a small section of the battle. There were only a few objectives that will push you to split your forces farther than a few hundred meters apart.


Single player also happily provided liberal amounts of tactical aid points on several occasions allowing a huge array of explosives to be dropped near constantly on the enemy. You just don't know how satisfying it is to call in three carpet bombing raids, fuel air bombs, and massive artillery strikes all at the same time. Bliss.

RTS veterans and action fans alike should find this to be an action junky's dream, but those of you who pride yourselves on high mouse click-per-second capabilities and are OCD micromanagers may find it a bit on the easy side. I can't say I was particularly hard-pressed to complete any of the primary objectives (some secondary were more challenging), even on hard, though I've also played a ton of real-time games over the years. I'd recommend any RTS vets to pump the difficulty up to hard for sure. Part of the issue likely has to do with the enemy AI that occasionally showed potential, but mostly ran straight into the line of fire instead of taking advantage of their surroundings and special abilities. It's a little difficult to say what exactly makes the game more difficult on hard as the AI tactics seemed unchanged and didn't make use of unit special abilities like I thought it would.

Closing Comments
It’s not very often that a real-time strategy title comes along and changes the way you think about the genre. World in Conflict is one of those, not because all of the ideas are totally new, but because they’re all put together in such a successful way. This game is unlike most real-time war-games for its tactical nature and reliance on teamwork. Because of this, the multiplayer is one of the best experiences on the market. While the single player plays second fiddle to the multiplayer (at least in my mind), it also provides explosive and well-conceived missions that build up the ideas of team-play through the various objectives given and an exceptionally well-presented story. When all is said and done, 2007 is going to be an amazing year for strategy titles and World in Conflict will be there among the best of them.