Battlefield 4

Cost
$49.99
Format
Retail and Digital
Size
35.62 GB
Available On
Xbox ONE [Reviewed], PS4, PS3, Xbox 360

Release Date
11/22/13
Developer
Dice
Publisher
EA
Modes
Single Player and Multiplayer

Just a few years ago the interwebs were abuzz with the war between the two first person shooter kings. Which series is better? The close quarters intense twitch based blood fest of Call of Duty or the massive scale destructive squad based slaughter of Battlefield? Now that battle is less prevalent, as new games like Titanfall and Rainbow Six: Siege try to take over the reins. Old champions like Halo are trying to recapture the crown. Even a semi-new genre of shooters has emerged and taken over the conversation, including the likes of Destiny. BF3 vs MW3 was the huge debate, and it’s tough to say who definitively won that specific battle. One may say that the ongoing war is still being won by Call of Duty, but the battle of the ‘3’ was won by Battlefield. So here we are with Battlefield 4. The massive scale is supposed to be like nothing else we’ve ever played with epic multiplayer, amazing graphics, gripping campaign, and endless hours of fun. BF4 is developed by Dice, Dice LA, Visceral games and Bioware. Dice has created great games in the past. With such high expectations, including a live demo at e3 2013 that saw a gigantic skyscraper come crashing to the ground alongside the audience’s collective jaws, what could possibly go wrong?

The campaign in BF4 is built to be full of emotions, characters you care about, and high action. I appreciate the lofty goals but the final product doesn’t quite hit the mark. The story itself is rather traditional. It’s really hard to do anything new anymore; people die, things explode, yada yada yada. We do see some brutal situations that from behind a controller we aren’t too shocked by, but behind a real gun in real war, would be life-altering. Sometimes in video games the giant set-piece moments are completely over the top and unbelievable. Like if you’re in a helicopter crash with ten other guys and you happen to be the lone survivor that gets to live another day. I call these moment, “oh come on” moments. When it happens once you think, man this guy is lucky. When it happens seven times in a few hour campaign you think, this is just getting stupid. BF4 walks this line to many times. There are a few set-piece moments that seem semi-believable, like shooting a window of a sinking armored car to escape while tragically leaving a comrade behind. But then other moments, like falling out of a ten story collapsing building or quite a few others that I’ll won’t spoil, are way to over the top and bring the player out of the believable setting into a superhero-esque setting that destroys the tone. The campaign itself takes about five hours to play all the way through.

The characters are for the most part likeable. You play as Recker, and the squad you run has a lot of personality. They argue with each other, joke around with each other, they have slightly over the top behaviors, but they are for the most part believable. But the biggest complaint, and it’s a huge one for me, is the fact that Recker literally never talks. Can we PLEASE end the days of the silent protagonist in this style game? It just looks and feels so stupid when someone like Irish, one of your comrades, looks you in the eyes and screams out for answers and help in the moment of insanity and you just stare at back like a deer in head lights. Are you a mute Recker? The biggest douche bag ever? What’s wrong with you? In a fantasy game or a classic pixel game of old or something of that nature it’s possible and even sometimes the right choice to make playable character completely silent. Maybe it’s best that Link and Crash and Jak stay quiet. Certainly in a game like Journey, Limbo, or the upcoming Rime it’s best to keep the protagonist quiet so the gamer can be sucked into the living brilliant vibrant world. But it’s absolutely ridiculous in a modern military shooter when everyone around you is engaged, questioning, screaming, shouting, staring into your soul as you just stand there dazed and awestruck like a speechless twelve year old child who just opened up his dad’s porno stash for the first time. This is admittedly a problem in many games, including Call of Duty. But it’s never been worse than in BF4 because of its attempt at a gripping emotional story with interesting relatable characters.

The biggest complaint in BF4 is the inexcusable glitches. I for one have never been more genuinely upset, frustrated and downright angry at any glitches in any game I’ve ever played. We’ll go over the multiplayer problems in a moment. In single player there are multiple glitches that can totally ruin the game for the player. Along with silly, strange, and forgivable visual bugs there are multiple campaign glitches that completely lose saved data. I personally got through the first four missions, of the campaign, including almost every single hidden item in those levels, before taking a break and going to multiplayer. When I returned I was shocked and irritated to see that none of that was retained by the game. I then heard from Swaggers (my friend and co-writer on this amazingly awesome website) that many people had to play the entire game in one sitting to make sure everything was saved. So I did that, including every hidden item in the game all in one six to seven hour sitting. This time the game remembers that I beat every level and collected every dog tag, but it forgot half the weapons I found. On top of that it didn’t save any of my high scores. How can I beat the level without posting a score? So basically the game is saying I beat the level without killing a single enemy. I’m either the greatest stealth player of all time or this game has worse memory than Dory from finding Nemo.

Multiplayer in Battlefield is where the money is made. After the success of BF3, Dice has to pick up right where they left off and improve on the BF formula while adding new and innovative features. And Dice did this magnificently, right? No… The map design, gun and equipment feel, and vehicle feel are all for the most part on the same page as BF3. Snipers at mid to long range, which is 75% of the time in BF, are still overpowered. Shotguns are still worthless unless on a few specific levels. Vehicles in the right hands still equal god mode. These things feel just like BF3, but then the changes come into place, and very few of them are the right changes. The movement and player control feels clunky and slow, and after many complaints, Dice finally decided to add a patch which states that “Changes have been made to soldier movement so that it closely matches the one in Battlefield 3”. So in this case Dice is literally going back to BF3, basically admitting that it’s the superior game in this aspect. Dice also introduces “Levelution” which is a dynamic level altering system to go along with the series’ stellar destruction mechanics. Specific areas of most maps have elements that can be destroyed via explosions or gunfire. This can be anything from bridges crumbling to whole skyscrapers collapsing. In the case of the massive building coming down, the way it completely changes the map flow and just how sweet it looks never gets old. But some of the others fall flat. If Dice had been able to implement more skyscraper-type levelution into all the maps it could have been one of the game’s strongest points.

There are massive fundamental design flaws in Battlefield and they shine through in BF4. From inside the game, there is only one way the player can edit each class, and that’s in the middle of a match. For some unknown reason there is no way to simply alter the Recon, Assault, Engineer, and Support classes from an out-of-match menu. This is just stupid, no nice way to put it. It’s great as an added feature that I can edit those classes mid-match, but that should be optional not the requirement. This is a design flaw, but on top of that there is a ridiculous glitch that still exists nearly a year later that deletes and resets the player’s class. So this is how 80% of my matches started; Right away I’d open up my class because I remembered that I just unlocked a new camo and scope for my sniper, so I spend the first minute of the game doing this when I should have been able to do this in the lobby between matches. The very next game I’d jump right in, pick my class, let’s say assault class, and rush right toward the objective. One problem, my new launcher, red dot sight and ego grip that I recently added to my class are nowhere to be found. What happened? Now I either wait to die or kill myself to re-edit my class. Then I’d notice that this has happened with all my classes and I need to re-edit every single one, which takes some way to long. Meanwhile the enemy team is barraging my base and I’m attaching my flashlight to my M9. There’s another way you can edit your classes, and this is on the battlelog website or app. The app is glitchy, I’d recommend the website. The website itself is very detailed, full of content, and extremely useful. But again there’s so much here that I should be able to do in the game itself. There are assignments in the game that give the player rewards like new guns, equipment, and dog tags. This is a cool feature that creates great replay value. What’s the problem? There is no way to access these in game. It’s entirely possible to play the game for hours and hours and wonder what these random assignments are that are unlocking midgame and what they mean. Any assignments you have progressed in are visible at the end of that match; but without context it’s confusing as to why they exist. And even if the player knows, it’s obnoxious to jump back and forth between the game and the website to see what assignment should be worked on next and how close they are to being completed. Why this isn’t in the actual game itself is beyond me. All I know is that as someone who is a completionost and someone who enjoys “side-missions” in multiplayer this is taxing and strenuous.

Battlefield 4 is a beautiful game. In the campaign the brilliant lighting shines through, the environmental effects pop with brilliance, explosions burst with color and the facial animation breathes life into the characters. My only complaint is that it’s missing the added umph. Technically it’s incredible, but it’s lacking the magic that can propel some games by creating a tone and game feel that genuinely pull the players into the world. In multiplayer the graphics take a big step back, but this is to be expected considering it is 32vs32. Things like plants and minor explosions can tend to look bland. But considering how much is going on and how many players are battling it out at the same time, it’s truly remarkable. Point black BF4 is just a pretty game.

Battlefield 4 is a definite misstep in an otherwise very strong franchise. The series still has a large following, but a good chunk of them certainly feel burned with this entry. The biggest problem is without doubt the massive amount of glitches. Small bugs can be forgivable, there’s always some random impenetrable rock that somebody learns how to get inside and reek havic. But as long as they are cleaned up quickly it’s not a big deal. But the sheer amount of glitches in Battlefield, how they completely ruin the experience for the players, and how long it’s been with so many of them still being present, it’s impossible to give Dice a pass here. I still haven’t been able to finish my own campaign achievements and I’m dreading going back in. If Dice could build a time machine and fix every single bug before the launch of the BF4 it would have completely changed the view of BF4’s success or lack thereof. But even without the glitches BF4 still could have been better. The campaign feels like just another campaign. There’s not much innovation and it’s yet another crazy ride of unbelievable death defying moment. I do like the emotion and characters, but that’s almost completely ruined by how strange and stupid it is that Recker is a silent protagonist. The multipayer at its core gameplay is a lot of fun, a nice addition to the BF series. But it’s still not as good as BF3. And the lack of features in game, like being able to edit the class and look at assignments, feels incredibly old. We’ve had features like this in online FPS games since the early 2000’s. Battlefield Hardline got pushed back by a few months, and I’m truly hoping it’s because Dice has seen the many issues in BF4 and want to make sure Hardline doesn’t duplicate them. As far as I’m concerned, I really hope they get their act together before StarWars Battlefront is released, because Dice has the talent and ability to make it a phenomenon, but with recent history I’m very skeptical. All in all Battlefield 4 is a game that feels rushed and broken. It’s still a lot of fun in multiplayer, but wading through the various glitches can be painful. Here’s hoping this misstep was just a hiccup and not a peak at the future of Dice starting to be “levolutioned” to non-existence. Also please give me Bad Company 3…

• FINAL VERDICT

Max: The Curse of Brotherhood

Cost
$14.99
Format
Digital
Size
2.96 GB
Available On
Xbox ONE [Reviewed], Xbox 360

Release Date
12/20/13
Developer
Press Play
Publisher
Microsoft Stuidios
Modes
Single Player

Max: The Curse of Brotherhood is a 2.5D sidescrolling puzzle platformer developed by Press Play, a company owned by Microsoft. It’s a sequel to the Wii and PC game Max & The Magic Marker, which was released in 2010 before Microsoft bought Press Play. Max: The Curse of Brotherhood is developed my Microsoft Studios and is a part of their indie game push along with ID@Xbox. You play as Max, who found a curse online that sent his annoying younger brother Felix through a portal to a monster infested magical world which Max instantly jumps in after him. This world is being controlled by the evil lord Mustachio. Mustachio plans to use Felix’s youth and some evil magic to allow him to go back to being a young man and continue to reign over the land before his old age catches up to him. It’s up to Max to save Felix and save the day. 2D/2.5D puzzle platformer games have become one of the most common genres in gaming. So each entry needs to have its own unique puzzle and gameplay elements. In Max this comes to fruition with the magic marker; an item found early in the game that builds in power and abilities in each new world. Max: The Curse of Brotherhood, along with Halo Spartan Assault, was the first game to be utilized with the Games with Gold program for the Xbox One, which allows Xbox Gold users to download and own games for free.

Max’s story is very simplistic and predictable; it plays out like a kids Disney or DreamWorks movie. Honestly this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, there’s no reason at all to have some crazy story because at its core Max is a kids game that us adults can also enjoy. There are really only four characters in the game. Max, with his motivation to right his wrongs and save his obnoxious brother Felix, is a good enough protagonist. Felix’s voice is one of the more unbearable things I’ve heard in gaming. I guess this is a good thing, because they try to make Felix be that annoying little brother character from every movie and TV show ever so they do a nice job, but jeez is he irritating. On one of later levels you can hear his cry for help every five seconds and he repeats the same three or four phrases over and over and over and I almost didn’t want to save him. Mustachio is just a crazy evil bad guy, nothing special really, other than the fact that he is incredible ugly and disturbing. And there’s a fourth character, a creepy old lady who has no name but gives Max his magic marker and aids him throughout the journey.

There are seven chapters with two to six levels in each chapter for a total of twenty-two levels. Each chapter is atheistically very different, varying from anything from a desert to a forest to a dark rivery wasteland. The level design offers some diversity. Usually you can walk at your own pace to navigate the puzzles and platforms and avoid the enemies. Sometimes however you’ll get chased by a giant monster, ride a log down some rapids, run from some rising lava, etc. Nothing in this aspect is revolutionary, it’s all been down before, but it still offers some appreciated array of level design. The real special part of the gameplay is the magic marker. And this is where you make your bread and butter in this genre. The gameplay needs to be fun and the puzzles need to utilize the games twist properly. In Portal this is the portal gun, in Braid it’s the time bending, in Fez it’s the world manipulation. While Max doesn’t use its magic marker anywhere near as creatively and perfectly as those games, it still does a fine job of creating rewarding puzzles and gameplay.

When traversing the world there are predetermined spots around the environment that you can manipulate using the marker. The key in these moments isn’t’ to necessarily find these locations, although sometimes they are slightly hidden, instead it’s about properly using them to climb over a giant rock, smash open a gate, take down a monster, etc. To move max you use the left analog stick, and to control you marker you use the right stick. As soon as you create something with the magic marker you can destroy it with a click of a button. This can be used to start over if you messed up something, but it’s also used to solve puzzles. The abilities you unlock for the magic marker allows for continual fresh and interesting gameplay. The first thing the magic marker can do is raise pillars out of the ground. This is the most simplistic power of the marker, but it is still used in intriguing ways. Sometimes it’s used to block a monster, or maybe to simply climb onto a ledge, or sometimes it’s used to create platforms for rolling rocks to fall down and smash into giant stone walls. You soon learn to create vines to use to swing over giant pits, but again they find creative ways to go beyond what you expect like attaching the vine to a giant boulder and pushing it off a ledge then quickly breaking the vine and watching it fly through the air and smash into a monster. They continue with this throughout the game, always using the abilities in ways you wouldn’t expect. Later in the game you gain the ability to create branches, water spouts, and launch fire through the air. I was pleasantly surprised by the range of usages for the magical abilities of the magic marker. Each one could have easily been a simple one trick pony, but that thankfully isn’t the case. The game’s puzzles are at their absolute best when you are asked to use multiple abilities in one puzzle. They do this pretty often and usually they are done well. The final boss battle is weak. It’s actually a strange and doesn’t feel well. In a puzzle based platformer it’s hard to do boss battles well. Putting any kind of direct combat or even puzzle based combat into the game feels forced, but I don’t blame them because no matter what it’s hard to pull off. Max also has hidden collectables to find that can provide a decent challenge at times.

The graphics in Max are sub-par. The first chapter of the game takes place in the dessert and it’s the ugliest chapter in the game. It seems strange to start off with such a bland boring environment. The next chapter looks better, it’s a forested area. But the darker the game get’s the prettier it gets. There is a strange swampy rivery chapter that is very pretty; the art design is fantastic here. And when lava get’s thrown into the mix in dark dungeons in the later chapters it is also visually appealing. On a technical level the game is not impressive, but at some places the art design picks up for the lack in power. There is little detail and not much enemy verity. At some point the game is flat out ugly. There are objects that are used repetitively throughout the environment. This is done in games often, but if you use that same rock in or tree stump in nearly every level than there are tricks that can be used to make them look slightly different. I also encountered strange visual glitches from time to time that threw me out of the experience. The voice acting is aggravating to the ears, and the writing is equally dreadful. The music is also lacking, sounding like it got ripped right out of a straight to dvd soundtrack. Overall the general presentation of the game seems very rushed. More time to work on detail in the environments and overall appearance would have greatly enhanced on Max’s overall feel and tone, which would in turn improve the overall game itself.

Max: The Curse of Brotherhood is a good start to Press Play’s development on the Xbox One. It’s by far not a perfect puzzle platformer, but it does make the most of the magic marker and creates fun gameplay. The puzzles could have been much tougher, there were very few moments where I truly had to stop and think, but as mentioned before this game is designed partially for a younger audience. Max could have used more time in development. The core game is there, but the polish is not. It’s not the prettiest thing to look. I’m a big proponent of game “feel”. A game’s graphics, art, music, story, and characters can create a tone that pulls you in like no other medium in entertainment. The best games are the ones that create incredible game feel and tone. Bioshock, Limbo, Arkham Asylum are games of the last generation that did this perfectly. Games from the last year that created phenomenal game feel are Child of Light, Last of Us, and Valiant Hearts. Max really doesn’t do this at all, there’s no game feel and no purpose of the direction of the game. More focus and time could have propelled Max to greater heights. Not all of the puzzles themselves hit home, this isn’t the same level as the aforementioned Portal, Braid, etc. but it’s a solid inaugural effort for Press Play on the Xbox One. I look forward to Press Play continuing their efforts on their new home for Microsoft, and I look forward to the possibility of more Max games in the future. Press Play has things to learn but they are on the right way, and that’s definitely a good thing for us gamers.

• FINAL VERDICT

Thief

Cost
$49.99
Format
Retail & Digital
Size
21.29 GB
Available On
Xbox ONE [Reviewed], PS4, PS3, Xbox 360

Release Date
2/25/14
Developer
Eidos Montreal
Publisher
Square Enix
Modes
Single Player

Thief is the fourth game in the stealth series from Eidos. The Thief series has been around since 1998 and has prided itself on true first person stealth gameplay. The Thief games take place in an alternate Victorian era history with steampunk, gothic, and fantasy elements. You play as Garrett, a master thief in what is simply known as, “The City”. Garrett uses stealth, tactics, and his wit to steal, solve mysteries, and get out alive. The Thief series is a beloved cult classic that has been in hiding for quite some time. After brilliantly revitalizing the Dues Ex franchise, Edios Montreal is tasked with stealing Theif out of the clutches of video game irrelevance after a ten year hiatus. Do they get the job done? Or should this game have stayed in the shadows where it belongs?

In Garrett’s first contract in Thief he is paired up with his old apprentice Erin. She is a talented thief that tends to get herself into trouble with her aggressive and stubborn nature. During this introductory level you learn the basics of the gameplay in Thief. Garrett and Erin share many memories together but don’t get along too well, they argue and fight the whole way along, Erin even kills for fun which very much offends Garret, who says he kills only when he has to. At the end of this contract together something goes terribly erroneous and Erin is seemingly killed or lost. Garrett falls and loses consciousness and wakes up a year later. The city is in terrible shape, things have gone awfully wrong, a tyrant named The Baron has taken over, and Garrett is the city’s only hope. Garrett plays the hero who doesn’t want to be a hero role, and doesn’t do a great job. Thief has some strange supernatural elements that feel forced. There’s nothing wrong with having fantasy elements, Dishonered is a comparable game that does it well, but in Thief there’s little to no explanation as to what these elements are and why they exist. So instead of having interesting mystical thought provoking components, it’s just confusing and cheap. The story is for the most part predictable. It tries to throw in some twists and turns, and admittedly there were moments when I was intrigued. But as soon as I thought the story was about to surprise me, the “twists” would instead end up being exactly what I expected.

The stealth gameplay is where Thief excels. In many stealth games the best and most recommended action is to quietly take down one enemy at a time. In Thief you want to get in, steal, and get out without anyone even knowing you exist. And this can be extremely fun. Garrett uses the shadows as his biggest weapon. Successfully navigating each room, alleyway, city street is all about the timing in which you move from shadow to shadow. Garrett uses a blackjack to knock out guards when he needs to. He also uses a compact bow that can be used to destroy select pieces of the environment or a standard arrow to kill the guards in complete silence. The bow can also be upgraded with water arrows to burn out torches or fire arrows to light them back up. He can also pick up empty bottles to throw across the room to misdirect the confused guards. Each of these allows you to feel quite equipped to sneakily plot your course and execute your plan through each level. It’s entirely possible to play the entire game without killing a single enemy, which is actually an achievement in the game. The minute to minute stealth of the game is satisfying. You can climb up to higher places and pass by unseen. You can throw a bottle across the room to distract a guard, take down the second guard as he is distracted, and jump back behind the shadows before the guard even knows what’s happened. When you do get detected, the combat is awful. The only thing you can do is try to run away, but you will probably get hit with arrows from afar. You can try to use your blackjack in a clunky dodge and hit combat system but good luck taking on any more than one or two enemies. The combat could have been better, but really the game is designed to avoid confrontation. Most stealth games have guns and weapons, so you can just pull out and shoot some poor guard in the head. Thief seems more real and tactical, and it makes sense because Garrett technically isn’t some secret agent, he’s a thief. Expertly sneaking into a building, stealing the loot, and escaping in the shadows feels pretty awesome to accomplish. The AI in Thief is pretty stupid, but this is the case in the stealth genre, if you have smart AI than you can’t really be that stealthy successfully.

The missions are fun and offer some verity. Each level is thought out quite well, sometimes taking place in a mansion or sometimes in whole small sections of the city. There are a few areas of some levels that really seem unfair, as it feels almost impossible to move by unseen, but there’s always at least one way to sneak by. The game is at its best when it allows you to be creative and take any approach from any angle you want, and usually it does this very well. There’s a level that takes place in an insane asylum that is very eerie. There are also some surprising levels that I won’t spoil, but let’s just say the stealth involved is quite different than the typical missions. The story tries to motivate you through the campaign, but it does a lousy job. Luckily the gameplay itself does the task just fine.

The graphics in Thief are at some points very impressive, at other points not so much. The world of Thief is dark, gritty, gross, and ugly; there’s very little color and very little life. This is intentional; to help develop the miserable world. And remember the dark shadows are your best friend. But more color would have helped the games visuals. The lighting and shadows of the game aren’t the best I’ve ever seen, but they do look nice. One of the prettier levels the game is the House of the Blossoms. This is essentially an upscale whore house; with roses, curtains, candles, and gold plated walls. It is a shame more levels couldn’t have utilized a wider color scheme like this one did. The facial animations seem subpar. Thief is actually a good looking game. It’s sad because the game does a great job of creating an ugly, beat-down, sad, dark city. So it does its job quite well, it’s just that the city is too unattractive for its own good. The music in Thief is good, nothing to memorable but nothing bad either. It ramps up at important fast paced moments and gets quiet and slow when you are hiding in the shadows. It matches the tone of the dark stealth based tone of the game.

Speaking of which, let’s move onto the absolute worst part of Thief, The City. Along with looking ugly and sad, The City’s design is amounts the worst overworld I’ve ever seen in any game. It’s almost too bad to even explain. There are painful amounts of backtracking in Thief. And what seems like it would only take two or three minutes can sometimes take ten or fifteen to traverse. Instead of having a straight path or multiple paths to get from point A to point B, there are usually one or two very twisted and confusing paths. One path may ask you to sneak around a few guards, climb up a ladder, go through a window, wait thirty seconds for loading time, climb out the window, run on the rooftops, jump down a rope, and finally land back on the floor at your location. The biggest gripe with this is that it’s probably only ten feet away from where you started; it’s just that the game didn’t want you to be able to walk through that gate so instead it sent you on a ten minute relay race. There are literally a dozen examples of this and you can’t really get to any part of the city without going through one or two of these tortuous mazes. Another aspect of the city that is dreadful is the enemies. The guards are in very specific locations on the map, they never move. They also respawn within minutes if you do happen to kill them or knock them out. The problem is that Garrett’s resources are low, so you may take down a group of guards one moment, and then come back towards the same area a few moments later and be all out of bottles to throw, arrows to shoot, etc. And sometimes you are almost forced to attack them if you want to escape alive because of the layout of where the guards are posted. The map is also awful; the blueprint of the city doesn’t even make sense on paper. It doesn’t show you where to go to replay old missions and the icons for each location are confusing. The map layout is so poor that there were multiple times that I painfully trudged through the city for ten minutes only to find out that the location was on the OTHER side of the wall and I had taken the wrong path! So I was forced to backtrack through the horrifying streets, sobbing more with every furious disheartening step, until I finally took the correct path to where I needed to go. It’s hard enough to navigate the world when going from mission to mission. But even after you beat the game you may want to accomplish all the side objectives and investigate what the game has to offer. The city itself has small shops, extra side missions and contracts to accomplish, hidden items and loot, and so on. So there’s incentive to want to explore, but the design of the city is such a turn off that you will never want to come back. I myself wanted to 100% the achievements in the game, but I couldn’t stand the horrifying backtracking and tediousness of the city so I stopped before I really even got started. As soon as the main game is completed, you’ll never want to come back.

Thief in some ways is an agonizing game to play because there’s something really good here but it gets swallowed up by its shortcomings. The stealth aspects and the creativity it allows are truly rewarding. And the designs of the campaign’s levels, for the most part, truly bring out those strengths. But the story is uninspired and sloppy. The plot itself is at its best moments almost captivating, but at its worst moments predictable and boring. The baron is a poor villain who I don’t have any emotions towards. For a good villain you want to either truly hate him or sympathize with him, instead I just didn’t care. Garrett is one dimensional and dull. He is really only motivated by understanding the mystery around Erin. But for me as the player, I didn’t care about Erin at all because she is extremely obnoxious, self centered, and rude. And the remaining side characters in the game are worthless, even Garrett himself doesn’t seem to want to be bothered by their existence. Eidos Montreal created characters that are just so hard to care about. I would have liked the campaign better if they just gave me fun levels to sneak through to find the treasures and loot. And of course the aforementioned overworld is appalling, atrocious, and monotonous. If I scored the game on the overworld alone Thief would get the lowest score possible. Luckily that’s not the case, and even with the worst overworld ever and a lackluster story, the gameplay itself is designed well and it enjoyable. If Eidos Montreal wants to develop another game in this sneaky series of pickpocketing, blundering, and burglary, than that’s fine; because there’s a good game here. And I want it to be good. But a lot of work needs to be done for Thief, so until then please get back into the shadows and leave me alone.

• FINAL VERDICT

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes

Cost
$29.99
Format
Retail & Digital
Size
4.75 GB
Available On
Xbox ONE [Reviewed], PS4, PS3, Xbox 360

Release Date
3/18/14
Developer
Kojima Productions
Publisher
Konami
Modes
Single Player

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes is Kojima’s newest game in the extremely popular Metal Gear Solid series. It’s the first game to showcase the new FOX Engine. The game had a controversial announcement and release due to the fact that it’s a very small game that can be completed in literally ten minutes, although on the first play-through it should take about two hours. But the game does have great replay value and harkens back to a classic style of gaming that invites creativity in Snake’s sneaky attack. Of course Ground Zeroes is a stealth espionage game, but also Kojima adds new gameplay elements to bring in new gamers and a more forgiving nature. Does this ruin the gameplay? Is there enough game here for $30?

Ground Zeroes’ story takes place after Peace Walker, the PSP game which is one of the most beloved and highest rated games of the franchise. The campaign’s story will connect the dots of Peace Walker and the yet to be released The Phantom Pain, which will take place before 2008’s MGS4: Guns of the Patriots. The story is dark, jarring, and leaves multiple cliffhangers for what we will look forward to in The Phantom Pain. Kojima is known for crazy stories, over the top characters, and a lot of confusion. If you are a fan of the brain aneurysm inducing intertwining stories of Metal Gear Solid than you won’t be disappointed by Ground Zeroes. But if you don’t know what you’re jumping into, prepare to be disturbed and confused on whole new levels.

The gameplay in Ground Zeroes is extremely polished, deep, and thoroughly enjoyable. Kojima took a risk with some elements and they paid off. The main new idea to Ground Zeroes is that it is an “Open World” style game. Now this is using the term loosely because the game takes place in one refugee camp and not some big city or massive island. But the open world allows the player to navigate and pick and choose how to take on the challenge. This is extremely satisfying and replaying the game once the enemies’ locations and patterns are fully learned can be very fun. This is the classic style of gaming that Kojima wanted to add and he did it perfectly. Remember classic games like on the old NES that we would play hundreds of times? In these games we would learn exactly where enemies are, when to shoot, where to move to, when to jump, etc. And the joy of those games was beating it over and over and getting better every time. Kojima designed Ground Zeroes to feel like this and it’s great. There are also multiple side missions that take place in the same refugee camp but have new enemies in different locations and new objectives. Almost all of these are very unique and give so much imagination in how to approach them. One of which can be beaten completely by simply riding in the back of a patrol car, getting out and stealing the intel, and jumping back in unseen. At the end of each mission the player receives a rank, which also unlocks new weapons to use at the start of those missions to make it easier to get to that next ranking. At the end of the mission it also shows stats on how quickly you beat it, how many enemies were killed, etc. So speed runs, perfect runs, and more allow for some fun replayability.

Another new gameplay element is called Reflex Mode. If an enemy spots Snake as he is sneaking around, time freezes and the player has a few seconds to take down the enemy before the alarm is raised. It doesn’t at all break the feel of MGS, and in the open world environment where sometimes it’s hard to see if a patrolling enemy snuck up you, it’s a very smart design decision. Also in older MGS games there was an alarm system in the top corner of the HUD that showed when Snake was in the alert stage, evasion stage, or caution stage. This time it’s much more intuitive. There’s no on screen indication at all, instead the player must pay attention to the AI and their movements, the radio’s of the patrolmen and what they are saying. It’s another great decision that immerses the player in the stealth espionage action.

Ground Zeroes does definitely have some faults as well. It’s extremely short, and although it has some replay value, many gamers could be turned off by the idea that the core game is over in just two hours. It’s important to know that in the beginning of every Metal Gear Solid game, there is a few hour level that initiates the player with the gameplay and story of the game. In MGS2 this is the submarine level. In MGS3 it’s when Snake is initially thrown into the wilderness with a simple mission before later having to go back and then the game vastly opens up. I believe that Ground Zeroes was supposed to be the “tutorial” type level for Phantom Pain. But Konami needed some revenue and a big title for the first time in a while, so they decided to experiment by giving us Ground Zeroes. So they gave us that level along with a bunch of side mission and extras.

Fox Engine is gorgeous. The level of detail in the characters and the environment is some of the prettiest in gaming. One minor gripe has to do with looking at an AI character at distance. The faces are very blurred and non-detailed when looking through the binoculars at a distance, then they sort of pop into focus once it is zoomed closer. This is an ugly transition that is the only part of the engine that looks out of place.

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes is a very polished, very fun stealth game. The open world style allows for impressive amounts of creativity. Each gameplay tweak is done wonderfully. It’s easy to fundamentally change a game, like the way Kojima made this “open world”, but fail to advance gameplay mechanics at the same time. Kojima didn’t miss a beat here. The graphics are stunning, especially at night and in the rain. The biggest complaints are definitely the length of the game, and this is a big deal. I ended up playing it for over 20 hours, but that’s because the gameplay and replayability hit home for me, but I can easily see this not being the case for everyone. All the side-missions are cool, and the creative replayable nature of the game is great. But it should have been an add-on to an 8-10 hour game instead of almost being the core game itself. If you like MGS you’ll love the story and Kojima’s craziness, but again if it’s not your thing it may just turn you off. Ground Zeroes is one of the more polarizing games of recent memory. I can see some people very much enjoying it while others could end up disappointed. I lean towards the former, but I do recognize that there could have been much more. If it’s just a taste of what Phantom Pain will have to offer than color me excited for this “next-gen” step into the crazy world that is Metal Gear Solid.

• FINAL VERDICT

Sixty Second Shooter Prime

Cost
$4.99
Format
Digital
Size
492 MB
Available On
Xbox ONE [Reviewed]

Release Date
6/18/14
Developer
Happion Laboratories
Publisher
ID@Xbox
Modes
Single Player

Sixty Second Shooter Prime is a small downloadable only game for the Xbox One developed by Happion Laboratories. The game is a duel stick space shooter that may draw comparisons to games like Geometry Wars or even the classic Asteroids. For just five bucks, one might wonder if this game is a hidden bargain or if after sixty seconds you’ll be completely done with it.

The cool gameplay mechanic for SSSP is that each player starts out with sixty seconds on the clock and you need to score as much points as possible before that time runs out. There are typical powerups like missiles, multipliers and the ability to slow down time. Each level has a portal that appears and you can choose to go through the portal if you like. The next portal will instantly put you into the next level, but the difficulty will spike just as fast. The game is fast paced, and very hard. It’s good classic fun.

Where SSSP falls short is replayability and depth. The game you boot up the first time is the exact same game you play the four hundredth time. And you may actually play it that many times just to beat the achievements. Geometry Wars excelled with instant updates of leader boards and the ability to see just how close you are to beating your friends’ scores. And it had many gamemodes. Sixty Second Shooter Prime doesn’t do either well. The second gamemode is an endless game mode that is exactly what you think it would be, just the same game on endless replay until you blow up. Another complaint is the graphics. When everything explodes on screen it can be pretty, but the art style is very bland. It seems like SSSP is just another game that has low texture boring graphics just to say, “Hey look everyone! We’re Indie” But in reality the real beautiful indie games are the ones that have amazing detailed art style, this game doesn’t do that at all.

Sixty Second Shooter Prime is a fun little experience, it just doesn’t last long. The sixty second idea is nice, but it isn’t fleshed out anywhere near as well as it could have been. Happion Laboratories could have taken some notes from Geometry wars with more gamemodes and reasons to keep playing. For just five dollars, it may be worth a shot. But by the time you get over the initial difficulty curve and find out that Sixty Second Shooter Prime is a decent game, you already have played as much as the game has to offer.

• FINAL VERDICT