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Review: Bioshock Infinite

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bioshock-infinite

Review by Brendan Luck

It’s been six years. Six years since Irrational Games first released their critically-acclaimed game, Bioshock.

Bioshock was a fantastic game due to its immersive environment, with the city of Rapture being the most original environment concept I have ever seen in a video game, as well as its slick first person-shooter gameplay, and plot.

Bioshock for me personally is the most original game to come out in recent memory. The plot took you into this expansive world, immersed you with its colourful cast of characters, from the blank slate of Jack to the enigmatic but diabolical Andrew Ryan, and gave you a twist that engaged me, as a gamer like no other.

How would Irrational ever deliver a game of Bioshock’s caliber? 2K Marin released Bioshock 2, and although it was a fantastic game, it didn’t personally excite me like Bioshock did. Marin polished up some gameplay aspects, let you play as a Big Daddy, and gave you a plot that was fine, but not as good as the original Bioshock.

Bioshock Infinite is heavily influenced by early American exceptionalism.

Bioshock Infinite is heavily influenced by early American exceptionalism.

Then Bioshock Infinite was announced.

Initially, it felt kind of odd. A Bioshock game without Rapture? How will this work? To me, it was as if they tried to make a Jurassic Park movie without dinosaurs. The whole appeal of Bioshock was the city of Rapture. Rapture was the glue that kept the characters and the plot together. Without it, is the game even Bioshock?
After seeing more reveals and gameplay footages, I warmed up to the idea of the new city; Columbia. Bioshock Infinte was looking up to be a pretty solid game.

Bioshock Infinite puts you in the shoes of Booker DeWitt, a former Pinkerton Agent given the task by unknown forces to bring back a young woman named Elizabeth locked in a tower in the city of Columbia.
And this is where we get in to the new setting, the replacement for Rapture; Columbia. Columbia is a city in the sky, created on values of American exceptionalism, jingoism, and extreme xenophobia, and filled with citizens that invoke those beliefs. The city is a perfect setting for this game; it’s full of life, colour, and unique design.

The leader of Columbia is a man named Zachary Comstock, a religious fanatic and self-proclaimed prophet. Comstock has the mysterious ability to predict future events, and has flocks of devoted followers worshipping him as a deity.

Early in the game, you discover that Elizabeth has the ability to open “tears” or rifts to different realities. Elizabeth can use these powers to aid you in combat, bringing in different objects from other realities.
The gameplay of Bioshock Infinite is really refined, and is a huge improvement on the original Bioshock. The new plasmids, called “vigors”, are very accessible and easy to use. The large variety of vigors, 8 in total, ensure that you’ll always be toying around with different abilities to see what you like or not. The weapons in the game also provide a lot of variety, including your base weapons (the pistol, the shotgun, the machine gun, etc.) but also including some interesting weapons like the Vox Heater, a blunderbuss and the Crankgun, a gatling gun. Couple this with the fact that you can quickly alternate between two guns and two vigors, and you’ve got a smooth combat system that works well.

What was once plasmids in Bioshock 1 has been renamed "vigors", with eight in total to unlock and use to your heart's content.

What was once plasmids in Bioshock 1 has been renamed “vigors”, with eight in total to unlock and use to your heart’s content.

Another welcome addition to the gameplay is the use of the Sky-Hook and Skylines. During combat, Booker can use his Sky-Hook to cling on to Skylines, moving around the area of combat quickly. I found this addition extremely useful, using to avoid death more times than I can count.

As far as the enemies go, while there isn’t an enemy quite as iconic as the Big Daddy, Infinite offers a colourful selection of adversaries to fight, from the gigantic and lumbering Handyman to the teleporting Zealots of the Lady.

As far as the setting goes, Columbia is a welcome addition to the Bioshock series. Heavily contrasting the dark colour palette of Rapture used in the first two games, Columbia is bright, vivid and colourful. Because the city is also based off of the American exceptionalism time period, it opened the door for the developers to explore a whole different art direction, allowing them to step away from the Art Deco style that Rapture evoked. While Columbia is very different, it works. The setting is absolutely breathtaking at times, with the art style Irrational went with really shining in this game.

Seriously breathtaking settings...

Seriously breathtaking settings…

The plot in my opinion is the best aspect of this game. Going with the theme of previous Bioshock games, Bioshock Infinite is definitely a plot-driven game. The characters are likeable and feel natural. Even Elizabeth, the main female protagonist wasn’t the least bit annoying or overbearing. Comstock, the antagonist, is also an extremely interesting character, portraying the dark side of religious extremism and jingoistic values. The plot remains intricate and exciting throughout the game, only managing to lag a bit in the middle. The game is a wild ride most of the way through, leaving off with a thrilling and shocking ending that will leave gamers talking for years to come. I won’t spoil anything, but it’s a twist that I would never have guessed.

Overall, Bioshock Infinite is perhaps the lead contender for Game of the Year of 2013. Its gameplay is smooth, slick, and most importantly, fun. Its setting is rich and artistic, showing of the capabilities of the current gen consoles. The plot is one of the best I have ever experienced in a video game. The characters are all full of life, all interesting. Bioshock Infinite is an instant classic.

Final Score: 9.5 out of 10

 

Review: The Amazing Spiderman (Xbox 360)

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I’d lie and say its been a busy, hectic week of all work and no play, but that’d be still lying. In fact, I dedicated a lot of time and effort over the course of the last two days to playing The Amazing Spiderman, in hopes of being able to beat the game before the movie’s release next Tuesday, and I successfully surpassed my own expectations, completing the game in a mere six hours, spanning the course of two three-hour recording sessions…not too bad, but I’ve got a shit ton of editing to do.

In the meantime, I’m here to provide you with my review of the game, from start to finish. Sadly, I haven’t been able to complete all the side missions, and only recently did I realize I had extra side-mission boss fights with Iguana, Black Cat and Rhino to further accomplish, but I beat the main story and that’s what I’m here to review.

So the game is essentially an epilogue, taking place after the events of the Amazing Spiderman movie which has yet to be released; a strange concept for the creators of this game. The game is published by Activision, and developed by Beenox, the developers behind recent Spidey titles: Shattered Dimensions and Edge of Time. This was Beenox’s first attempt at a movie-licensed Spiderman videogame in an open-world action-adventure style, and I think they did a pretty great job.

You are Peter Parker, aka Spiderman, and you are visiting your high school crush Gwen Stacy at her job where she works as an Oscorp intern. You eventually meet Alistair Smythe, who is apparently continuing Dr. Connors’ experiments with cross-species genetics, which ultimately caused Connors to become the Lizard in the film. Connors is now apparently locked in a mental institution following the events of the film. But back to Smythe, he is also working with nanobot technology, and has created a line of Smythe robots in the hopes that they can protect the civilians. Gwen comments on how the cross-species experiments were said to have been a closed case after the incident with Connors, but specimens like the Rhino, Iguana, Vermin and Scorpion, whom you face throughout the game, are still being kept under Oscorp’s watch and experimentation. Eventually the cross-species specimens break free, reacting to Peter (who is also technically a cross-species specimen as Spiderman), and wreck havoc throughout the city, spreading the deadly cross-species virus that rapidly begins to infect Manhattan’s civilians. Spiderman breaks Connors out of the asylum and together, they must work together to end the cross-species virus, as well as stop Smythe, whom eventually turns mad, and unleashes his S-Bots to eliminate the virus, as well as Spiderman.

Free-falling is super fun in the city

My initial reaction to this game was simple: I really enjoyed it, but sadly it is not a perfect game.

Let me get to what really made this game great: the combat. Now initially, I as well as everyone else who’s probably played this game could easily compare the combat system to Rocksteady’s Batman Arkham series, and its true, Amazing Spiderman does borrow a big chunk of its combat and ideas from Batman, but that’s not a bad thing. In fact, what makes this game’s combat unique is the fluidity and flawlessness in Spiderman’s movements, web-slinging, wall-crawling, and overall combat. For the first time, I felt I was really in control of all of Spiderman’s movements, and everything I did was reflective in how Spiderman played. Sadly as the game progressed, the combat started to get a little repetitive, as well as the AI enemies. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed everything about Spiderman and the full control I had over him, but I felt like the game became too easy.

You’re going to find that you get thrown right into the mix of things pretty quickly, and without seeing the movie, you’ll probably be nervous to pick up some unexplained spoilers in certain aspects. I just found it odd that this was the first movie-licensed title to not only be released a week prior to the new reboot series debut, but to be an epilogue to a movie we haven’t seen yet, it just didn’t fit right. I would’ve much rather liked to have seen the game released on July 3rd with the movie, so as I can see the movie, take in the story, and then be able to understand the spoilers coming at me from the game.

Spiderman fends off the sting of the Scorpion.

The villain roster for this game consists of good choices like Scorpion, Rhino and Black Cat, as well as Smythe and Lizard, which are all memorable from the comics and I really enjoyed seeing them in the game (besides not running into Black Cat as of yet), but then you get Iguana, Vermin and a new piranha cross-species named “Nattie” which is an exclusive boss to the game, and many players might start to scratch their heads. I already knew Vermin, but Iguana? Now that’s just a Lizard wannabe. And Nattie? Why bother making a boss exclusive to the game in the first place if it’s not mentioned in the comics? That just seems a little too extra.

My final concern is that there’s no real difficulty to this game. It was fairly simple, despite a few minor setbacks. I was surprised I was able to complete the main story in a mere six hours.

It seems like I’ve been dishing out my complaints about the game. In all honesty, these complaints fair pretty minor to my overall experience I had playing the game. Despite the game’s flaws in its release and story decisions, as well as lack of difficulty, re-hashed combat system and game length, I still had a lot of fun.

What won me was its combat (even though I had issues with it), and how fast paced the game was. There wasn’t a time I can recall where I was bored at any point. My favorite moments in the game have to be during the big city fights against the S-Bots and Spider-Slayers, and that’s saying a lot because I’m really not a big fan of videogame robots and the whole nanotechnology story-arc.

I also have to commend the excellent voice-overs and characters in this game. The love story between Gwen and Peter is definitely a much stronger tale than compared to the original Raimi trilogy’s Mary-Jane/Peter romance in the movies and games, but I felt Peter acted a little clingy towards Gwen at times during the game. The characters of Dr. Connors and Alistair Smythe were probably among my favorites as well, and both served as strong secondary characters. The graphics as well were also top-notch, and the damage detail to Spidey’s costume during battles was excellent and very realistic. As well, the open-world of Manhattan was bright and lively, and was very much alive in all aspects, with the environment changing depending on the spread of infection throughout the game.

Spiderman fighting a Hunter S-Bot….or one of the S-Bots…who knows.

I feel before I finish my review that I also have to point out two major inconsistencies with the game that kind of bugged me personally as a Spidey-fan. The first was that you are never shown Peter Parker out of his costume, and I feel its because he is not voiced by Andrew Garfield in this version so they couldn’t get the likeness, but I still found it weird that they got Emma Stone and Rhys Ifans’ likenesses for both Gwen Stacy and Dr. Connors, so why not Parker?

The second thing was about Peter’s artificial web-shooters. In the comics as well as the 90s Spiderman Animated series cartoon I grew up with, Spiderman created artificial web-shooters with a limited amount of webbing for when he went out to fight crime, yet in the game, Spiderman appears to be utilizing the web at an infinite amount. Sadly, another two personal inconsistencies that will never be explained in the game, but I cared to notice.

All-in-all, I had a lot of fun. I highly recommend fans of the series to get this game. Whether you enjoy the comics or the films, and if you happen to be bored of the Batman Arkham series but still want a game with insane combat controls, then Amazing Spiderman is the game to try. Its epic, its got a lot of heart in it, and you won’t be disappointed.

A full playthrough of the game will be arriving on GTA Gamer’s Youtube Channel in the next few days/weeks.

Final Score: 7.5 out of 10

Review: Rayman 3 Hoodlum Havoc (Gamecube)

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Love him or hate him, to me, Rayman is one of the most iconic video game characters of the last decade, and sadly thanks to the Raving Rabbids spin on the series, I feel Rayman was pushed back a few notches. Albeit, Rayman Origins and its upcoming sequel, Legends, are looking to bring back a once classic Rayman side-scrolling experience that was only last seen on the Game Boy Advance port of Rayman Advance (a remake of the original Rayman from 1995).

Whether or not you all agree or disagree with me, I feel that Rayman 2: The Great Escape was definitely the best Rayman game to date, so much so, that it would crack my Top 10 favorite games list if I were to expand my list some more.

And so here we come to Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, the next-gen console sequel to one of my favorite games of all time. Does it hold up as well as its predecessor? The answer is a big fat no. But first, let me explain the story of Rayman 3.

Andre, leader of the Black Lums, is transforming all the Red Lums (which are used for healing Rayman in-game), into Black Lums and creating a Black Lum army. Of course, Murfy stumbles upon this catastrophe and returns to alert Rayman and Globox of what is happening, for which they must now partake on a brutal quest to rid the world of these infectious Black Lums. A big problem that arrises near the beginning of the game, is that Globox has accidentally swallowed the Black Lum leader, Andre, and its up to Rayman to help his buddy out, by bringing him to three doctors during the game, who must help in ridding the Black Lum from Globox’s insides.

Rayman 3 was recently ported to Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network on March 20th of this year, so if you are somehow intrigued by the series, go pick it up, but if you want my opinion, I’d say to stay the hell away from this one.

So when you first pick up this game, you will either receive it one of two ways: it will either be the most hilarious game you’ve ever played, or perhaps the most annoying one. You can tell which of the two this game drove me to.

A screenshot from the third level, Bog of Murk.

For starters, why is it that these characters can talk? In Rayman 2, they talked in their own language with english subtitles, and I felt that was really cool. And now, the voice acting has changed so drastically it feels like a completely different experience. In the first 20 minutes, I wanted to put earplugs in my ears so I didn’t have to hear the bickering between Globox and Murfy, who are the most annoying characters I’ve heard in a long time. Thankfully, Murfy doesn’t stay around for too long, but Globox is enough to drive me to drink.

Now I can accept the controls, which seem to carry over much the same since Rayman 2, but with the sequel came new abilities, new punches, and of course, new restraints.

So now, Rayman is rendered almost completely useless, besides the traditional long-arm punch and various angles for which you can attack a bad guy. But now, every ability Rayman can use has been transferred into five power-up containers. Green containers are the “Vortex”, which allow Rayman to shoot mini-tornadoes, which can be useful in taking down enemies on stilts, changing enemy size, or bringing a platform closer for you to jump on. Red containers are the “Heavy Metal Fist”, which allows Rayman to charge up stronger fist attacks, which could help defeat tougher enemies and break wooden doors. Yellow containers are the “Throttle Copter”, which allow Rayman to fly higher, but under a restricted amount of time. Orange containers are the “Shock Rocket”, which allow Rayman to shoot a rocket, which Rayman could guide in small areas to help in opening blocked paths. And finally, the Purple containers are the “Lockjaw”, which can help Rayman grab Purple Lums to reach areas inaccessible without the ability, and when grabbing enemies, delivers an electric shock.

This all sounds pretty overwhelming yet quite diverse, and at times it can be, but sadly after a while, you kind of get used to it.

The dialogue in this game feels really dumbed down, and a lot of the platforming and difficulty this game carries holds itself at a 10-year old level, which I feel is probably the core target audience for this game.

A lot of the “humor”, and I say that with quotations, is unneeded and out of place, and tries too hard to be “cool” and “hip” with the time period. I even heard the Duke Nukem joke about “kicking ass and chewing bubblegum” used during the game, which will not register with any young people playing this game other than sounding a little humorous to their simple minds at the time.

One redeeming quality this game does carry is in its level design. Although by the end, I was hoping every level was the last level, I was impressed that the Rayman series could still develop interesting levels, minus how easy they all were.

By the end of the game, I didn’t feel any sense of accomplishment, rather I felt like I had wasted about 4 or 5 hours total, only to find a terrible conclusion to the game. I want to know what Ubisoft was thinking when developing for this game, because if it was to target a new audience on its next-gen consoles at the time, well you not only gave them that, but you gave hardcore fans of the series a swift kick in the pants. This game has been praised for its graphics and sound quality, which it has of course, but given the sound quality, its poor quality on the ears, in my opinion.

So in the end, I’m going to do my best and pretend this game just doesn’t exist. I will also completely ignore the Rabbids series as part of the Rayman series as well, but thankfully this game doesn’t change how I feel about Rayman 2, but it makes me believe how hard it must be for developers out there to make a successful trilogy, especially by its third game.

Final Score: 3 out of 10

Review: Shadows of the Damned

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What do you get when you combine the creative stylings of SUDA51, known for his work on No More Heroes, Killer7 and the upcoming Lollipop Chainsaw, with Shinji Mikami, the acclaimed designer behind the Resident Evil franchise? And if that doesn’t completely satisfy your survival horror sweet tooth, then how about a dash of Akira Yamaoka, best known composer of the psychological horror franchise Silent Hill? You get the quirky, psychological action horror videogame, Shadows of the Damned. With a tight group of individuals behind this game’s development, you’re bound to have a stellar title, right?

Well you’re absolutely correct. Shadows of the Damned is developed by Grasshopper Manufacture and published by Electronic Arts. It is indeed a fun and unique game with a whole lot of fresh elements, interesting and memorable characters, as well as a chilling underworld setting that can only be the work of great designers at the helm of this project. But enough sugar-coating it, let’s get down to the game’s story.

Shadows of the Damned puts you in control of Mexican demon hunter Gabriel Hotspur, or Gabriel “Fucking” Hotspur as he puts it so many times, whom with the help of a floating-fiery-skeleton-head-on-a-stick-turns-makeshift-gun, motorcycle and regular sidekick Johnson, are on the hunt to take down the Lord of Demons, named Fleming, whom has kidnapped your woman and love interest Paula. Johnson acts as your guide throughout the game as you travel to the Underworld, filled with all its demonic and twisted areas that will leave you cringing as you progress farther and farther into the darkness. The game uses the Unreal Engine 3, so a lot of the controls are already very familiar, and Gabriel moves in a similar fashion to many characters created under the Unreal Engine, which doesn’t leave much to its individuality. The game is played in a third-person over-the-shoulder shooter, and plays out in acts and chapters similar to the newer console Resident Evil titles.

Gabriel “Fucking” Hotspur and his partner-in-crime, Johnson (on left)

Johnson not only acts as your sidekick, but also your arsenal, because without Johnson, you have no means of defense in the Underworld. Johnson can transform into three different guns: namely a pistol which uses bones for ammo (red glow), an assault rifle which uses teeth for ammo (blue glow), and a shotgun/grenade launcher which uses skull ammo (green glow). Each weapon can be upgraded through the collection of blue gems after defeating bosses or larger enemies, and there are also white gems that act as currency to purchase liquor for health, and red gems for leveling up individual traits, including your gun’s reload speed, your light shot, and your health bar to name a few. The “light shot” is a key component in the game, as it allows you to stun enemies and also get you out of situations where you struggle to survive when clouded in darkness, in which you must shoot glowing goat head candles to bring forth the light.

I found a lot of the features in this game to be very unique and quite fitting for the environment in which Gabriel was fighting through. The game consists not only of a lot of psychological horror moments, but a lot of clever and witty humor in character dialogue, as well as weapon names, and certain locales. I definitely felt it borrowed a lot of crude humor from the No More Heroes franchise, a series I didn’t play personally but only viewed from the sidelines as my brother played them both. I really enjoyed how unique each character was, and I definitely felt immersed in this world, at least for the course of the story. The game’s boss fights were also really fun, as well as the unique combat system, weaponry and puzzle challenges.

The game’s antagonist, Fleming

Where the game lacks however is in both its length and difficulty. I played the game on normal, and found this wasn’t exactly the toughest game to beat. There were a few difficult moments, but nothing that made me put the game down for months on end like Dante’s Inferno, Dark Void or even American Chopper has done to me.

On average, I think the game lasted on-and-off about 4 or 5 hours total for me, which doesn’t feel like that long of an experience, but of the experience I gained, I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. I was also very glad that there wasn’t a clusterfuck of weaponry to choose from, but I was surprised at how easy it was to find both healing items and ammunition, as both would respawn in the same locations every few seconds. So during the final battle with Fleming, I stayed perched next to the pistol bullets, and I was set for the rest of the match.

In the end, I recommend this game to fans of the developers behind this game, and the psychological horror game genre. And for those who are looking for a new experience, Shadows of the Damned definitely offers you a unique experience that will more than likely keep you wanting more when you’re finished. Sufficed to say, you will probably not see as colorful and memorable of a team behind this creation anywhere else, unless they decide this game is worthy of a sequel, which it doesn’t need.

Final Score: 8 out of 10