Mass Effect 2: Infiltrator Insanity
Posted by brandon in Reviews on Mar 1st, 2012 | 2 commentsJust Another Day at the Office
I started another play through of Mass Effect 2 the other day for some reason. It’s not a save file I intend to carry over to Mass Effect 3 or anything, but I just wanted to play a real Mass Effect game while I wait for Mass Effect 3, I guess. Even more frustrating than the enemies being heavily shielded and armored, Shepard’s a lot frailer than he is on Normal. Maybe the Infiltrator class has less health than a Soldier or a Sentinel, but Shepard gets killed a lot more easily than I’m used to. I used my Lazarus Project power for Barrier. With a maxed out Barrier, it last for 60 seconds, gives you a 100% shield boost and the cooldown is shorter than the 60 second power duration. Unfortunately, using other powers like Tactical Cloak and Incinerate tend to get in the way of using Barrier again right away. After getting used to Mass Effect 3′s weight/cooldown system where I got pistol only, it’s hard getting used to long cooldown time’s again.
At the start of my play through, I cruised along nicely except for the third door on Garrus’ recruitment mission. Grunt’s and Jack’s were relatively easy. Then I got to Horizon. Jesus Christ. The Collectors’ barriers take forever to whittle down, but those Husks kept getting me. I don’t remember them having armor on Normal. It also didn’t help that I put all my talent points for me and my team into offense didn’t give any defensive buffs to my squad mates. I made the bold move of taking Mordin with me to Horizon and Miranda and he died a lot. After a few deaths in the final area of Horizon, I realized that once you take out the Husks, the Collectors tend to stay in their cover. (Also, they won’t come out of cover is Shepard is cloaked!) The fight would’ve gone a lot better if I had some tougher squad mates, but Mordin’s Incinerate was quite useful against the Husks’ armor. (I just wish he hadn’t died so much and so easily!)
After the rest of the world opened up, I went to Illium and bought some upgrades and talked to all the necessary people to get access to the next missions. I’ll probably take on the Shadow Broker mission next or soon so I can get the Insanity achievement for completing it. All that’s left achievement-wise is to finish Shadow Broker on Insanity, finish the story on Insanity and the Brawler (kill enemies while they’re knocked back by a punch) which is proving difficult on Insanity.
Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer Demo
Posted by brandon in Reviews on Feb 19th, 2012 | 0 comments
This past Friday, the Mass Effect 3 demo’s multiplayer mode opened up to everyone. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, and I wasn’t expecting to like it as much as I do. Mass Effect has never had any sort of multiplayer before and I didn’t think it would be very good. The key thing to keep in mind is that Mass Effect 3‘s multiplayer is co-op, not competitive. The same night that I started playing ME3 multiplayer, I also played some competitive Halo: Reach as well. While Reach looks and handles great, getting your ass handed to you by a 13-year old kid with a gamer tag like, “Whompcha(1)” is…disheartening. However, teaming up with three other people and maybe getting your ass handed to you by the CPU is slightly less embarrassing.
The MP plays pretty much like the SP. You pick a class and race, and depending on the combination, you get three possible abilities. I started off with a Vanguard and my only choice was a human female (for that class). It gave me Shockwave, Nova, and Biotic Charge. The Asari Vanguard will give you the Charge, but your other two powers would be Lift Grenades and Stasis. Great thing is, you can maintain all combinations of classes and races. You can switch out your character at the start of every mission. So, depending on what kind of characters your party members bring to the mission, you could choose a character that compliments their abilities (if you have a worthy character available.) Also, I could see bringing a low-level character along with three high-level characters and getting serious amounts of experiments really fast.
If you haven’t played any of the MP demo, I suggest you do so. It’s a lot of fun, and even though I know the levels I build and items I earn in the demo won’t carry over to the retail game, I still keep wanting to jump back into the demo. And if nothing else, it’s a great chance to try out all the different classes before you decide which class to take into your first solo playthrough.
Mass Effect 3 Demo
Posted by brandon in Reviews on Feb 16th, 2012 | 0 comments
It’s been a long wait, but the Mass Effect 3 demo finally arrived a couple days ago. The second half of the demo is pretty much what I played at TGS 2011, but there were a couple new additions in the new demo and the first part on Earth was totally new to me.
Reaper Invasion of Earth
The demo opens on a kid flying a model of an SX3 spacecraft. Right away, I was surprised at how sharp the graphics in Mass Effect 3 are. When they show the faces of Shepard, Vega and Anderson, the awful looking shadows of the first two games were gone. Ashely’s face looked creepy, but that could just be because she’s a freak of nature and I hate her. Kaidan looked fine, but c’mon, he’s dead.
On your way to talk to the Alliance brass, you get a chance to do a little conversing with Anderson, and I got to use my new Kinect for the first time in Mass Effect. The Kinect performed fantastically, and as long as you’re not mumbling (a little mumbling seemed to be okay) then you’ll have great luck with the voice recognition stuff in Mass Effect 3.
Then the Reapers show up (huge surprise!) and you’re given a pistol and a couple rounds of ammo. The game starts you slowing by having you follow Anderson’s lead while you make your way back to the Normandy. I noticed that if you should happen to get ahead of Anderson, the game snaps Anderson forward in front of you again. You have to pop a couple husks with your pistol and then you must melee a couple more.
Then, there’s this awkward scene involving a child (not that kind of awkward) and no matter what you say to him, the result is the same. As you get closer to your destination, you find a radio to call for help, and then you have to defend your position until help arrives. I found out through multiple play-throughs of this demo, is that this defense of your position will not end until you’re out of ammo (or close to it).
Overall, the first part of the demo sets the stage for what should come later, but it’s not fun to play. I wish there was a way to just skip it, because after playing through it the first time, it’s a bother if you’re playing the demo multiple times to try out all the classes and their new abilities.
Krogan Rescue Mission
The second part of the demo (which is mostly what I played at TGS) is the real meat of the Mass Effect 3 demo. You’ve got lots of skill points to play with, and you have just enough to fully max out one skill plus add another skill in addition.
TGS Demo Differences
Not a lot has changed since the demo I played last year. The Cerberus agents have a portable turret that they can deploy, the “gap jump” is used in the newer demo and more classes are available. Back at TGS, only Soldier, Sentinel and maybe Engineer were available. All six are available now.
Vanguard
The first class I tried out was Vanguard. I had never used Vanguard before and was excited to try out the biotic charge. Essentially, you phase shift, passing through solid objects and slam into enemies. It’s very useful, but you often wind up in situations you can’t easily get out of. There are upgrades you can get that will sometimes let you auto-recharge your power and bounce off to another target right away, but when that doesn’t happen, you can be left open to attacks from enemies you didn’t finish off with your charge. The Vanguard has access to other biotic powers like Nova and Shockwave, but I had limited success using these powers. The Vanguard’s distanced attacks are pretty weak.
Infiltrator
The Infiltrator is a mix of combat and tech abilities. You get sticky grenades (which are great), sabotage and AI hacking, Overload and a tactical cloak. I think I may have been using tactical cloak wrong. I kept using it to get in close, but it may be better to use to attack, cloak, and then escape. Playing as an Infiltrator was pretty easy, but I really missed the sense of power you get from having biotic powers.
Adept
This was the first time I played as an Adept too. There is a tremendous sense of power that comes along with being an Adept. The Throw in ME3 gives you a final upgrade that can shoot two Throws at once and take out two targets. It’s pretty damn amazing. It’s my favorite power in the game by far. The Adepts also have cluster grenades that seem to let you toss grenades at more than one target. The Adepts can also get upgrades that make their power recharge in a matter of seconds. The only downside I found while playing as an Adept is that they’re kind of worthless against enemies with shields. However, if you keep someone in your party who can use Overload, you should be alright.
Sentinel
Ah, the Sentinel, my old standby. The Sentinels get a bad rap. The Tech Armor they have is sometimes a “Win” button. It lets you take a lot of damage and you can often just walk into enemy fire, use a throw and a warp, fire off a couple rounds and your shields are just fine. If you get surrounded, you can detonate your shields and do damage to all enemies around you. Sentinels have basic biotic powers and basic tech abilities. They can handle pretty much any situation. You can hang back and fire off biotics and tech abilities or charge in and shotgun enemies. It’s the most versatile of all the classes, but for that very reason, Sentinels get ragged on a lot. Sentinels don’t give you the sense of power like Adepts do, the combat isn’t as interesting as an Infiltrator’s, but overall, you’re the most prepared to handle a variety of encounters. The only bad thing I saw with the Sentinels’ abilities were the lift grenades, which are supposed to lift enemies off the ground and leave them vulnerable, but I had a lot of trouble making them effective.
Melee Combat
The omniblade has gotten a lot of coverage in Mass Effect 3‘s build-up. The omniblade doesn’t exist for Vanguards and Adepts. They have a small biotic blast that they do. Other classes have omniblades, but I found the biotic blast to be more effective and more likely to hit a target even if you’re not square to them.
Multiplayer
Since I didn’t buy Battlefield 3, I haven’t been able to try out the co-op multiplayer as of yet. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get in there Friday night and mess some fools up.
Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood Review
Posted by brandon in Reviews on Jan 14th, 2012 | 0 comments
I’m not keen on starting any long RPGs right now. I just finished up a complete play through of Mass Effect 2 and starting up on another big one with Mass Effect 3 coming up in less than two months. So I’m trying to burn though shorter games; games that only run 10-15 hours. I’m playing through Gears of War 3 on co-op with my buddy Joseph. Since we live on different sides of the planet, our schedules don’t match up so well, so when he’s not available, I’m working through my backlog of games that I bought over the last couple years.
The first game from my backlog that I played was Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood (Juarez, from here on). I bought it in 2010 when I was on my Western kick. I got Red Dead Redemption at the same time, and I played the Hell out of it. Unfortunately for Juarez, it can’t not be compared to Red Dead. Juarez is a competent FPS. The difficulty is not to bad. I’m usually terrible at FPSes and I made it through without too much trouble. The most difficult part of the game isn’t even the first-person shooting, it’s the showdown quick draws.
The Good
The feel of Juarez is good. It looks like a decent Western and the story ain’t half bad. It’s a revenge story and there are trips to Mexico and various Indian territories. They even through in stuff with the Confederacy for good measure.
The Bad
In Red Dead, you could flip the right stick to pull your pistol, but Juarez has this more involved system where you circle your opponent and when you hear the bell, you move your hand with the right stick to pull. You have to keep your hand close to your holster while circling, but not so close that you trigger the “fuck you, you’re too early” animation. Most of my failures were not deaths caused by enemies, but my character’s inability to pull his pistol.
The Ugly
The voice acting in Juarez is terrible. The brothers you play as do most of the talking and they have a lot of dumb jokes between each other. Ray sounds like a non-Southerner trying to do a Southern accent. Thomas sounds like Alan Jackson phoning in VO work. Their other (non-playable) brother is a Bible thumper and he sounds like a whiny bitch. Nobody wants him there, and more than once he gets in your way. The bad guys are the only ones who sound authentic.
I had a good time with Juarez when I wasn’t fighting the showdown mechanic. My total playtime was 9:49 and I’d say at least eight hours of it was enjoyable. The early parts as Confederate soldiers didn’t match up with my expectations and I fought with showdowns a lot. If you like Westerns and have 10 hours to kill, Juarez is worth playing. You should be able to pick it up pretty cheap.
Review: L.A. Noire
Posted by brandon in Reviews on Sep 28th, 2011 | 0 comments
The most important thing about L.A. Noire is its story. It’s the best attempt I’ve played so far at recreating a movie-quality narrative and experience in a game. I liked Heavy Rain a lot for its attempt to be cinematic in not just its graphical presentation but in its storytelling as well, but it fell flat for a few reasons. Where Heavy Rain failed, L.A. Noire succeeds, mostly.
Heavy Rain’s voice acting was done by French-Canadians and was very unnatural. L.A. Noire has lots of Hollywood talent; lending a polish that Heavy Rain sorely lacked.
L.A. Noire’s not limited to Quick Time Events. The best Heavy Rain could do for action scenes were let you tap buttons quickly or wave your Move controller around.
There’s more to do in L.A. Noire’s world. You can drive cars, go anywhere you like, search out collectibles and it still preserves the focused storytelling.
The Hollywood talent I mentioned comes mostly from the show, Mad Men. The main character, Cole Phelps, is a regular on the show. As I went through the game, I kept coming across Mad Men actors and actresses at a pretty regular clip. Most of them are front loaded. You’ll find most of them at the first couple desks you work. By the time you get to the vice and arson desks, the game has exhausted most of the talent pool. It may seem like overkill (or typecasting), but the Mad Men folks really do a great job. They’re well-known, but not super famous, and they feel right in their parts.
The main gameplay mechanic for L.A. Noire is the detective parts. You get a case to work from the department head, you drive out to the crime scene, you search for clues, and then question the witness. You are then tasked with deciding if the witness is telling the truth, whether you doubt him or her, or if they’re lying to you. If they are lying, you of course have to be able to prove it with a clue you’ve found. The problem is, however, that the line between truth and doubt is awfully thin, and sometimes, proving a lie can be hard because you might have two clues that could both be plausible as proof of lying. You can look up at witnesses from your notebook as you question them, and sometimes you can see them shifting in their seat or grinning after an apparent lie, but when you say you doubt them, they blow you off and the game tells you that you’ve chosen wrongly. In these instances, it was probably a lie, and you weren’t pressing them hard enough. I got the hang of the doubt/lie system later in the game, but there were a few cases here and there that would’ve gotten tied up differently had I been tougher on a few suspects.
The driving bits in L.A. Noire aren’t as bad as GTA 4’s. I hated the driving in GTA 4 so much that I quit playing the game after just a few hours into it. The cars handle a little more tightly, and your less likely to get all the fishtails that you do in GTA. It also helps that most of the time you can hold down Y or Triangle to have your partner drive to a predetermined destination. By utilizing that, you can skip 75% of the driving in the game. There are plenty of chase sequences that youmust drive during, but the traffic isn’t as heavy during these times, and driving around Los Angeles is much more fun.
In the first half of the game, combat is pretty limited. The second half of L.A. Noire does have its fair share of shooting bad guys though. The game is a fairly competent cover-based shooter in these instances. The game’s strong point isn’t combat, and the game compensates for this by not making the enemies too aggressive. They tend to hang out in their cover spots, and pop their heads out long enough after firing off a few rounds so you can take them down. They almost never fire in tandem either. So just wait till their clip is empty, watch them stand there, and mow them down. Gears of War it ain’t, but it’s a fun little divergence from all the sleuthing around.
The star of the show graphicly in L.A. Noire is the facial animation. The characters in the game really look like themselves. Watching Cole Phelps in the game is almost like watching Ken Cosgrove in Mad Men. If you’re familiar with the show, you’ll notice how realistic all the facial movements and twitches are. The environments look great too, and the non-facial animations in the game are smooth as well. The one thing that bugged me throughout the game were hand animations. Watching Cole open letters and envelopes over and over reminded me of Ryo Hazuki in Shenmue. In the 11 years since Shenmue on the Dreamcast, it doesn’t seem like much progress has been made in hand animation. Instead of a flip of the thumb to open letters, there’s this long deliberate hand motion; like Cole’s pinching a corner and moving his whole arm to lift the paper up. They put so much effort into getting the faces right, but didn’t get hand animations down naturally. And since Cole is constantly handling notebooks, ledgers, and various paper products, this stuck out a lot.
The music in L.A. Noire was great. It fit the time and style of storytelling wonderfully. But the background chatter at the police stations will wear on you after a few cases. Every time you go to a police station, any police station, there will be a cop there talking about how he wants to move up to a .45 so he can “put em’ down in one round.” Is Team Bondi trying to say there’s one murderous cop in every station? And if you’re out on the street there are civilians constantly saying stupid stuff like, “Isn’t that the cop you solved the big case and got promoted?” Maybe it’s a joke that I just don’t think is funny, but it’s repetitive and annoying.
Overall, I had a good time with L.A. Noire. If you like the gritty storytelling telling of Rockstar games but get fed up with the wonkiness of GTA due to it being a little too open, L.A. Noire could be right up your alley. Just don’t make the same mistake I did. Buy the DLC and install it before starting the game. I bought it all afterwards, and it all takes place within the main storyline. If you have it installed already, the cases just show up naturally in the timeline. Also, get the Rockstar Pass for L.A. Noire. You get four extra cases for the price of three.
You can help out the site by purchasing the game from Amazon.
