With Borderlands, a game described as a “role-playing shooter”, developers Gearbox hope to capture the audience that spends many sleepless nights wandering through forgotten strongholds while pillaging corpses and undefended treasure chests. They want to make the grind of the modern Fantasy role-playing game appealing to those repulsed by the thought of more swords and sorcery and Siberian tiger mounts. Gearbox is going post-apocalyptic wasteland on this formula. They’re going to make this grind cool.

Borderlands is influenced by games that are second jobs thinly veiled as “entertainment.” There are enough trappings in most that the player does not immediately recognize it until they are separated from the system. Maybe the rewards are frequent enough; the increase in character abilities more steady and immediately gratifying. But Gearbox fails to dress up Borderlands to hide from the player the laborious byproduct of the genre. As a result, Borderlands merely resembles a mechanical facsimile of its influences.

If you watch the introduction of Borderlands, you can’t help but be absorbed into this new universe. Just like your favorite Guy Ritchie movie, the characters are introduced with so much flair, you can’t decide who you like more. The Hunter brandishes a sword with deadly confidence, his sniper rifle casually draped over his shoulder. The Soldier sits brooding and alone, ashamed of his past as a mercenary. The Siren seductively walks towards the camera, showing off her Phasewalk ability. Brick makes his presence known as the freight train that plows through entire mobs. All this to the tune of Cage the Elephant’s “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked”, where I imagine Gearbox screaming “WE ARE DOING THIS FOR YOU, PLEASE LOVE US” in the background. And you want to! You want to start playing immediately after the big white block letters of “Borderlands” stretch across the screen, your transport driving underneath them and kicking up clouds of dust behind it.

So begins Borderlands, a game that proceeds to eliminate any sort of intelligence that’s left in a horribly fractured genre and give players what they presumably want: the ability to shoot stuff with impunity, travel through “open” maps and gather a shitload of randomized equipment.

At first, Borderlands delivers on its promise of unbridled gunplay. There’s a lot of shooting, gun collecting, and medkit using. It even resembles a decent first person shooter most of the time. However, Borderlands takes more of its cues from another genre: the action role-playing game. A bastardization of a once-proud genre, where the soulless pursuit of more gear, more experience points and some arbitrary final confrontation are good enough to sustain the experience. Like the games in the genre before it, Borderlands tries so hard to capture the essence of Blizzard’s flagship titles that it succeeds at duplicating the mechanics without infusing it with any purpose or consequence.

Blizzard learned a lot from Diablo II, and revised their formula until it stood tall and shining like a golden money-making obelisk. With World of Warcraft, they managed to capture everything we loved about the current definition of role-playing game. The environments may have consisted of stretched-out textures over low-polygonal objects, and the characters no more than cartoons – but the overall appearance of the game was so cohesive, so varied and captivating to look at, none of these technical issues mattered. World of Warcraft was a place we didn’t mind looting and grinding in. The simplest of tasks were kept entertaining. The entire experience had been calculated with precision, because Blizzard knows what they are doing.

Borderlands clearly understands the formula – it copies the basic tenets of it all too well. Kill, loot, equip. Repeat. Repeat until your bags are bulging with junk that has to be sold at vending machines, until you don’t need money any more because it is overflowing out of your backpack and lying around everywhere. Watch in horror as you feel compelled to search abandoned fire pits and the guts of wild animals for more.

Where Borderlands lost me is in its unflinching repetition. This isn’t pleasant repetition as in World of Warcraft. The game expects you to grind through these bland, desolate environments without question, but it is never made exciting or interesting. This is grueling work, in the hopes that a character can be built to survive the wilderness just to advance into a new area for more gear and more quests.

A first-person shooter is conducive to fast paced combat, and Borderlands ensures this pacing is established early on. Even in the first few missions I was doing more backpedalling than I had ever done in all the shooters I’ve ever played. And I’ll admit that the feeling of running away from overwhelming hordes of monsters in Diablo II was revisited during my first hours with Borderlands. But this defensive strategy creates a rather large problem in a first-person game: you can’t see where you’re going. So backpedaling with reckless abandon will occasionally put you off the edge of a cliff, or worse: back you into a corner that can’t be jumped out of as you are mauled to death.

The most notable aspect of the combat in Borderlands is the “Second Wind” ability, which is a nice way of the game giving you one last chance to escape. This becomes apparent when you find yourself drifting into areas that are clearly above your level and you start dying more often just to add some variety to the process. If your health is reduced to zero, instead of dying (respawning) you get a chance to keep fighting. It easily compares to being incapacitated in Left 4 Dead. You can keep shooting and switch weapons, but you can’t move and your health is depleted a lot faster. Instead of getting rescued by a teammate, you simply have to kill something – anything – to put you back on your feet. It’s actually the most fun I had with the game, because if there was a boss character or particularly tough monster I had to kill that I dropped to 10% health before being dropped myself, I could finish the job in a completely fitting act of revenge. As a break from the rest of the game’s monotony, these tense moments probably seemed more exciting than they should have been. But even they grow tiresome, as you have no choice but to plow on through areas more appropriate to your level to get better weapons, upgrade skills and then face more difficult encounters.

The environments only show brief flashes of colour and accents in its washed out, sun faded locales. Fallout 3 was rightfully depressing, but Borderlands feels like a parody in the way it mocks the first-person shooter genre with some entertaining one-liners from each of the Player avatars. Yet at every turn I had to search for some kind of personality to draw from the game. It was like Borderlands was telling me I should be happy with just firing my gun. I was not.

Borderlands prides itself on the variety of weapons in the game. And to its credit, I don’t think I ever picked up the same gun twice. There are thousands of variations of pistols, automatic rifles, sniper rifles and shotguns to be obtained, each with their own unique attributes and elemental enhancements. And anything worth carrying can only be picked up from item drops. Mass Effect had a similar variety in weapons, but the game also provided modifications that could be added to the weapons, so that players could create their own builds. And this was on top of everything else! Borderlands needs this kind of complexity; for a game that’s entire focus is on collecting new and more powerful guns, not including some kind of modding system for the weapons in Borderlands feels like an obvious oversight. Furthermore, there is no money sink apart from the cost of respawning – providing weapon durability ratings would at least encourage players to balance the use of their weapons with the cost of repairs.

One of the selling features for Borderlands – like many contemporary video games – is co-operative play. There are four characters and associated class types to choose from. However, there are no limits on what classes can be selected for each party. What Gearbox has created is a slightly more complex Left 4 Dead. Borderlands is a game meant to be played in co-op, with minimal character development and customization. The available classes clearly complement each other, so when attempting the campaign solo it’s harder than it should be. Challenge is good, but when you’re playing a first person shooter that should only require skill at aiming, the game experience begins to break down.

This lack of depth is clearly at odds with the marketing of Borderlands, as it was heavily advertised as a “role-playing shooter.” Taking the game at face value, its definition of “role-playing” is the stat-bumping, item collecting and quest gathering from non-player characters who amount to nothing more than vending machines. As a shooter, it depends on a number of elements from the stat-bumping part: accuracy ratings, critical hit ratings, and proficiency with weapons. But as long as you can click a mouse button or pull the trigger on a gamepad, only the critical hit rating seems to make a difference. And yet aim-assist is available in the game’s options. It’s a feature that isn’t new to consoles, but for a game that’s reason for being is shooting a gun, this feels like direct sabotage of the game’s purpose. And without NPCs that serve to contribute to the game’s atmosphere, the Player is left with very little actual “role playing”, and the descriptor only serves to further dilute its meaning in yet another video game.

Borderlands has borrowed the fast paced first-person combat from a genre that’s made a comfortable home on the console, and the statistics and obsessive-compulsive need to collect loot from superficial role-playing games like World of Warcraft. With these influences Gearbox has created a morass of design elements that only serve to pollute both genres it borrows from. It ultimately offers nothing of value, because all it has done is combine these elements to create some vile video game Frankenstein that surely only appeals to those that like watching numbers fly around on the screen.¹

What becomes readily apparent after playing Borderlands only for a short while is its lack of a driving force behind the proceedings. A typical feature of both modern role playing games and the first-person shooter is some narrative to keep the player moving forward, and Borderlands has nothing worth mentioning. I was simply going where the job board in each zone told me. I was playing because the entirety of what the game offered was dropped in front of me at the start. There was nothing in the back of my mind that made me want to press on. And after eight hours of play, I should have a firm grasp of an overarching objective to make me keep playing.

There is also too much space in Borderlands: traveling between quest objectives, I was constantly staring at wide open areas with nothing to shoot but skag and midgets in masks. Even though the enemies may change from area to area, Gearbox didn’t bother to develop the small things: the reason people enjoy spending so much time doing basically nothing in places like Azeroth. Players will find things to do – and the simplest of tasks are made interesting by the game’s environment. Borderlands may riff on the post-apocalyptic theme, but with so much wasted opportunity for characterization between the players and the environment it amounts to nothing but an insipid interpretation of a setting that was ripe for exploitation. Borderlands‘ capacity for style is limited to the opening video.

Borderlands was a game I looked forward to this year, and I find it insulting that Gearbox was cynical enough to design a game that people would play to collect more junk and experience points to max out a meager skill tree. Its moderate success² in the game review circuit all but guarantees that there will be imitators and sequels trying to improve on the formula only half-realized by Borderlands.

In this manner, the video game industry creates new genres instead of refining existing ones. Instead of perfecting existing control schemes, the industry insists on developing and promoting motion control to access previously untapped demographics. Video games as a medium barely have a chance to keep up, let alone the language to describe them. Instead of preserving history through genre refinements, the industry’s drive for revolution constantly overwrites the past, to the detriment of video games and support for their serious consideration.

Borderlands is genre blending for the sake of box copy. It is a classic example of cynical game design that hopes the players won’t notice, while they kill things over and over for more loot and more money that gets put towards outfitting a character that ultimately doesn’t matter. In fact, the same could be said of the game itself, as over the course of a few hours it becomes increasingly difficult to determine what this game will be remembered for. Falling apart on even a cursory examination, it prompts the debilitating question: why am I playing this? It will make you hate video games for being so unambitious. The offense of Borderlands is one far greater than simply being a bad game: it is genre pollution.

This is the second part of a two-part series. Read “Part 1: Discovery”

I started thinking about writing full length reviews of video games in late 2001. I was still at University. I was going to make a website and came up with some generic name I thought was edgy and reflective of what I wanted to accomplish. It was going to cover more than video games. I had some things to say about popular culture.

After talking to some friends at school about my vision, there was some interest in this collaborative effort. There was already a zine floating around our faculty, but it was horrible. It was a soapbox for people frustrated with school and mostly contained their annoyingly priveleged views on an “oppressive” society. Instead of being provocative or insightful it was lampooning popular culture with pedestrian observations and half-baked philosophy. I could do better.

Of course, when you rely on friends to produce something for free, it doesn’t happen unless you get on their case about it. And I wanted to keep my friends. Plus, the whole “trying to graduate from University with a degree” thing. The project died on the vine, and I gave up the dream. For the time being, anyway.

I graduated from school the next spring, and started playing video games while I looked for work. My comptuer was getting old, and at this point the most it could muster was Unreal Tournament and Civilization III. I read the issues of PC Gamer that were mailed to me to keep up with the industry and the hobby I loved. I hung out on the internet a lot, and read too many terrible reviews that people actually got paid to write. My head started filling with ideas again. I could do better.

I started thinking about another website. Something that would capture my love of video games and provide an outlet for my brand of scathing commentary. I would call it “Tales of a Scorched Earth”, because I am an insufferable Smashing Pumpkins fan. I would adopt the handle of “Gatmog”, because it sounded cool and it provided the mystery any good internet handle should have¹.

During this time, I started playing and thinking about video games as if it were research. I built a new desktop PC after I got a job and some money. I had a new purpose: I would record my thoughts on video games, write some reviews and share them with others. The availability and ease of use of self-publishing tools made this easier than I expected. I thought I would be doing something different than the typical weblog, and I used that as inspiration.

I wrote a lot of reviews and embarrassing posts during that time². I published most of them. It was a start.

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (2002)

When Medal of Honor: Allied Assault was released, it recieved endless praise from the entire video game industry. The word that reviewers liked to throw around was “cinematic.” The movie reviewers liked to reference was Saving Private Ryan. Which was completely natural, seeing as how Spielberg himself had something to do with the game. But this was the start of a recurring problem with video games.

With the success of the Medal of Honor franchise, everyone wanted to tap into this new sub-genre. We started to see a lot more games use World War II as a setting. And the people that loved every single one of them would soon turn on them as fickle audiences often do. And not because the setting had nothing new to offer (Brothers in Arms proved that³), but because it was simply a skin designers would stretch over the same tired FPS formula. Will World War II games ever be fashionable again? Will they ever explore anything deeper than gun-toting heroics? Maybe we’ll see a bunch of games about Iraq in 40 years that leave out all the bad parts, too.

I didn’t actually get to play Allied Assault until later in the year, when I upgraded my desktop. In hindsight, this was fortunate, as everyone was over the initial hype and playing Battlefield 1942. I played the Omaha Beach landing and took part in what everyone called “the most intense experience you will ever encounter in video games.” At the time, I agreed with these hyperbolic reviews. And I still do, mostly. It is intense. It is absorbing.

But is it accurate? And, even though we already know the answer to that, is it right to give these games praise for offering a sterilized simulation rather than realism?

The World War II genre is simply a manifestation of the gaming industry’s obsession with “cinematic presentation.” Big budgets and bigger expectations encourage developers to create the equivalent of Hollywood’s summer blockbusters, in the hopes that this will somehow contribute to the validation of the medium.

However, by doing this you have now have reviewers who base their opinions on how games reference the “source material”, which are movies, and are themselves not entirely genuine. No one who reviews one of these games understands what happened out there on the battlefield. You can’t expect a veteran to play this and give their solemn nod of approval⁴. They fought so we wouldn’t have to. Why do we insist on reliving these horrible events? Why do we call it a game?

Allied Assault got me interested in the history behind the events of these games. I started reading about World War II, and the famous battles and operations summarized and retold by its various missions. I wanted to know what it was really like. I read the first hand accounts of Allied soldiers who were just kids thrust into the front lines and expected to carry the weight of the free world on their shoulders.

In Allied Assault I had autosaves and quick reloads when I died. After reading some of these books, I found the whole concept disturbing. At this point, I wanted to study these games. I wanted to record and categorize the effect of this genre on people’s impressions of World War II, and war in general. I wanted to prove how out of touch our generation was, and how these events are being perverted by an industry.

And yet with all that introspection, I was ensnared just like everyone else the following year by Call of Duty⁵, designed by key members of the 2015 team who left EA to create Infinity Ward. This was a game I could get behind. You weren’t Rambo, you had buddies standing around with you joining the fight for freedom. See how much personality they had? See how everyone reacted when they died?

I wouldn’t articulate these feelings for another few years, in an article I wrote for The Cultural Gutter⁶. I detached myself from the spectacle of it all. I thought about those 20 minutes spent in 2002 trying to beat the Omaha Beach mission in Allied Assault, and how I was annoyed at the number of attempts it took me to complete. Indirectly, these games still had a lot to teach me.

Rise of Nations (2003)

I played Civilization II along with everyone else in University. I stayed up way too late for “one more turn”. I tried out Alpha Centauri after Sid Meier left Microprose to form Firaxis in 1996. I felt that Civilization III was a richer game than its predecessor and probably the best in the series, even though the critical reception for Civilization IV has long since overshadowed it. When I heard that Brian Reynolds was leaving Firaxis to form Big Huge Games and was planning to make a real-time Civilization, I was a little shocked. Would this be a travesty or the breakthrough crossover that everyone had been waiting for?

I got Rise of Nations the week it was released. I played it for at least three months straight. I introduced it to friends and acquaintances that had never played Civilization, and whose experience with Real Time Strategy was the brute force reactive tactics of StarCraft and Command & Conquer. I watched as they succumbed to the spellbinding combination of civilization building and front-line battles. Tales of a Scorched Earth was almost ready and this would be the first review I would write.

My review for Rise of Nations became an obsession. I was struggling with the review style I would use on my website, as I wanted to avoid the type of product summaries that everyone else slavishly followed. I had to pick apart this game and figure out what made it work so well. I wanted to trace its influences back through video game history, and put words to Reynolds’ brilliance in how he selected the best aspects of these influences and combined them into a satisfying whole. As I struggled to find my voice, I also tried to develop my own rubric for reviewing video games with words and not numbers. While I was familiar with the criticisms surrounding either approach, I just wanted to write.

I never did publish that review; instead, smitten with the recent purchase of a Game Boy Advance I finished and published my review of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. A more simplified effort, and what I thought was the safer bet. I didn’t know what audience I would acquire, and I didn’t have confidence enough in my detailed analysis of Rise of Nations to think anyone would find it worth reading. Going back to read the Castlevania review is disappointing. I could have set the tone for this website a lot earlier.

Rise of Nations is stilll one of my favorite games. But it also remains one of the most important in the development of this website.

Metroid Prime (2002, played in 2003)

One of my friends got an XBox and Halo: Combat Evolved the day they were released. I was still in University. Naturally, I had to see for myself what everyone was getting excited about. Microsoft entering the console market? Preposterous!

Halo was a first person shooter, designed to be played with a gamepad. As an overzealous PC gamer⁷, I looked upon this game as an abomination. How could anyone get used to this? Nudging an analog stick provided nowhere near the same responsiveness or precision as a mouse. There had been numerous attempts prior to the XBox to bring FPS to game consoles, and this effort would be no different. I’d give it a try, just to say that I played it. I made it a third of the way through the co-op campaign in two sittings. You know, to humor him.

A few years later, Halo would be identified as not only the XBox’s “killer app”, but the game that made consoles a viable destination for FPS. With the introduction of XBox Live, people were playing Halo 2 online like I was playing Unreal Tournment a few years prior. This was it. The end was coming.

I refused to legitimize this shift in attitudes towards console gaming, even in light of what I called “PC Defectors”: developers and gamers who were growing tired of the PC as a platform, and moved over to the XBox for a more streamlined and hassle-free experience.

Back in late 2003, the Gamecube was subjected to a massive drop in price by Nintendo. It clearly couldn’t compete with the PlayStation 2′s stranglehold on the market, or the unexpected rise in popularity of the XBox. The Gamecube had a limited selection of 1st party titles, but no “killer app” that would sell consoles the way the Grand Theft Auto and Halo series did for the PS2 and XBox. At this cheaper price, Nintendo would settle for being someone’s second or third game console. This is how I got in.

I had heard about The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker, Metroid Prime and Super Mario Sunshine. I knew they were good games, and reason enough to own a Gamecube. However I found myself connecting the most to F-Zero GX at the time, because I had so many great memories surrounding the SNES version. For $150, how could I go wrong?

Well, I was wrong. About the title I bought the console for, anyway.

Metroid Prime caused an uproar among fans of the series. Like everyone else I was astonished at how such an iconic side-scrolling action game could be transformed into a first-person shooter.

Metroid Prime was the game that proved me wrong about FPS on a console⁸. Retro Studios made a PC gamer feel right at home with the Gamecube controller, creating an accessible blend of action and adventure in a vibrant new environment, while still retaining everything I enjoyed about the old Metroid games (even the backtracking!). The combat may have been made easier with the lock-on feature, but the controls were forgiving enough to allow me to get comfortable with the idea of using a gamepad to move and jump and shoot instead of the trial-by-fire approach to Halo‘s brand of action. Metroid Prime may not have been a true run-and-gun FPS, but it allowed me to get comfortable with the concept. There was nothing to fear about FPS on a console.

While those sentiments were sincere, I still remained faithful to the PC. My aversion to console gaming wouldn’t be dispelled until much later.

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines (2004)

Like everyone else, I bought Half Life 2 on the day of release. I can’t say my excitement was of Diablo II-proportions, but it was a day that would cement Half Life into the video game collective conciousness, after attracting a cult following since the original’s release. It would also mark the launch of Steam, which would bring Valve’s authentication servers to their knees. Half Life 2 redefined acceptable linearity in FPS by creating a compelling narrative driven by the player⁹. I fully acknowledge it as one of the greatest games ever made.

Unfortunately, Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines had to compete with the blockbuster release of Half Life 2. Being the first game to use the Source engine, it was rushed to coincide with Half Life 2‘s launch, and it showed. The textures were plain and uninspiring, the facial animations stiff and inhuman, and there were numerous game-crippling bugs. Players and reviewers thought this was reason enough to overlook the game. There was Counter Strike: Source to be played, after all.

This would be devastating to the sales and critical reception of the game. It was Troika’s last effort before shutting down in February 2005. It was also their greatest achievement.

As soon as I finished Bloodlines, I wanted to play it again. This was a game that captured everything I loved about the tabletop RPG, and about computer RPGs in general. It was an example of what these games should be striving for. The voice acting was superb, and the dialog felt completely natural and engaging – something I wouldn’t encounter again until I played Mass Effect. I loved Bloodlines unconditionally, and as a result it changed the way I thought about video games. If a game is deeply flawed, yet so perfectly displays an aspect that defines the genre, it should still be recognized. Maybe I had too much of a personal investment in this game, but I made a point of advocating it to whoever I talked to. I even called it the best game of 2004 when everyone else was handing those accolades to Half-Life 2¹⁰

In early 2005, I got an email from someone who read my review of Bloodlines. Up until then I had received a few emails since starting the website from random visitors with mostly disposable praise or criticism. The useful feedback usually came from the comments section after each post. I appreciated every single one.

This email, though. It was from someone who had been turned off of Bloodlines by all of the negative press surrounding it upon release. He saw no reason to pursue it.

That is, until he read my review.

At that point this person, whoever they were, completely validated my existence. I wielded the power to influence people to play good games; I wasn’t just screaming into the void with opinions no one cared about. This is the most valuable piece of feedback I have ever received in the entire life of Tales of a Scorched Earth, and I will never forget it.

After that I knew my purpose. I would not be content to simply play video games and write up a review. I wanted to critique them. I wanted to contextualize them in our culture, and provide more than just references to other games. I wanted to cut through the hype and evaluate a game on its own merits, not popular opinion. I wanted people to recognize the flawed ones that deserved better.

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines is the reason this website still exists.

Gears of War (2006, played in 2008)

When the ad campaign started for Gears of War, I was filled with seething rage. My allegiance to PC gaming was as strong as it had ever been, and seeing Epic use their Unreal Engine to create what appeared to be a third person shooter in some darkened and grunge-layered science fiction setting felt like a betrayal of the highest order. These were the same guys that brought us the brightly colored and meticulously balanced Unreal Tournament 2004. What started with Halo would soon completely reshape the landscape of first person shooters and multiplayer gaming on the console. It was a sobering revelation, and I despised Gears for perpetuating this trend.

Time passes, people have children, and they tend to unclench a little. Maybe that’s all I needed.

In the summer of 2008, I bought a laptop to replace my desktop. In hindsight this may have forced my hand in the decision to purchase an XBox 360. But I’ll get to that.

I got Gears of War for my PC, because I wanted to try it out for myself. I already had a XBox 360 controller from my time with Assassin’s Creed, and I used the HDMI-out to plug my laptop into the TV. It was an instant XBox 360!

I played through most of the campaign. Visually, the game was a lot more detailed than what I originally gave it credit for. The duck and cover, shoot and run mechanics flowed naturally, and I was able to get a grip on the control scheme for the most part. But something didn’t sit right. I tried with the mouse and keyboard, but it felt sluggish and unresponsive. I didn’t like the story, or the neverending stream of gender stereotypes and macho overcompensation coming from my television. I gave up on Gears of War. I moved on to something else.

In November 2008, I played Horde mode in Gears of War 2¹¹. It taught me to use the 360′s controller for shooters, and revealed an “endless mode” with an intensity of play that stripped the game down to its basic elements. I loved what I was experiencing.

I went back to Gears of War on my PC and finished it. I then started to write one of the longest, most positive reviews I have ever written at Tales of a Scorched Earth¹². Playing the game long after it was released I could ignore the press, and write what I truly felt about the game. Writing the Gears of War review was the most fun I’ve had since starting Tales of a Scorched Earth.

So I bought an XBox 360. I had to be able to play Gears of War 2, you see.

I was wrong about Gears of War. It is a prime example of the exploration of video games’ basic tenet: kill or be killed. It is Space Invaders with a Lancer, and yet it refines a mechanic for FPS and third person shooters that would be shamelessly copied by the video games that followed it.

Gears of War taught me to slough off platform evangelism. If there is a good game somewhere, I should play it. I dispensed with any rhetoric I had written in the past¹³. I would focus on the games themselves, not get caught up in the fanboy politics that accompany them. I revisited a pact I made with myself shortly after starting this website: I will write here until I have nothing more to say about video games.

And since expanding my horizons with the XBox 360, I have a lot to say about video games.

Now that proper BioShock 2 video previews are circulating instead of scanned magazine covers and wild fan speculation, I can’t help but feel like the gaming public is being duped and they don’t even realize it. Or maybe they don’t want to realize it, because BioShock has already been granted its lofty position as a new standard for video games, and no one dares knock it off its pedestal for fear of losing that anchor for cultural legitimacy. Even though I don’t share this opinion, I was willing to see this game through because it at least made an attempt at a philosophical statement, whether I agreed with its implementation or not [1]. BioShock may have failed as the game that showed such promise in its first 10 minutes, but at least it prompted a discussion that was not mostly Games-Are-Art wankery. And I’m not talking about how the game made you go out and buy a copy of Atlas Shrugged; I’m referring to the way it makes the “choice” in video games we love to complain about a mostly empty gesture. Maybe this statement was intentional; or maybe it was just an honest, unfiltered reflection of game design as it stands today.

I can also respect Ken Levine’s position on the finished product: he acknowledged the shortfalls of the original game [2, 3], and knew there were things that could have been better, or fully realized. He had a particular endpoint in mind – the character that results from the adventure should reflect the choices made in the game, however insignificant or arbitrary they may have been. The end of BioShock was about coming face to face with what you, as the character, had wrought upon this underwater dystopia. And you should be made to reconcile the results of these decisions.

BioShock 2 is set in Rapture again years into the future, even though in the original game we were eventually tasked with its sabotage and ultimate destruction. And while I can accept that some plot contrivance will surface explaining how some parts of the colony were able to survive during the time between games, I can’t help but wonder why. A game like BioShock – one that attempted to retain a deeper meaning throughout its duration – demands that the story come first if they are to retain interest in the microcosm they have established. Is the story beneath the sea, or up on the surface where a clash of civilizations at odds with one another could be further developed? BioShock ended on a bad note, whether ADAM hungry players want to admit it or not. The “Good” ending is basically a non-event. Why would I want to continue the life of an old man surrounded by orphans? So a bunch of splicers took over a nuclear sub. What happened after that? It’s a mutant apocalypse waiting to happen, and I was the cause! Why can’t I be responsible for fixing it?

At first glance, BioShock 2 is going back to Rapture to do all the things that should have been done in the first game. Why am I supposed to care about walking around outside of Rapture now? The threat of flooding was always at the back of our minds while wandering through those tunnels, but it never happened. Is 2K Marin trying to make up for this oversight?

The Player wakes up as a Big Daddy, and as if to silence the people that will harbor the “been there, done that” attitude, this particular Big Daddy can use plasmids. And, like the original game, he can either harvest ADAM directly from Little Sisters or taken them on as partners to do the harvesting. While it may seem exciting to fend off a bunch of splicers while your partner harvests ADAM, I don’t see how this choice holds the same initial gravity as the original game. A Big Daddy has already been shown to be all but indestructable, and could easily plow through the game killing Little Sisters and Splicers with impunity. You are (presumably) a human that was turned into a Big Daddy, but there is no history there. At least in the original you were a man that through convoluted plot turns and exposition was able to appreciate some of the human elements sprinkled throughout the storyline that would make it seem those token morality plays actually meant something. Instead, the approach used for BioShock 2 dresses it up as an action game that renders its own existence pointless.

But I know 2K Marin thought about this. “We’ve already established that Big Daddies are basically invincible. How can we make this different?” Everyone sat around the board room table looking down at their hands. And then I’m sure somone piped up: “We’ll Make a Big Sister!” in what must have seemed like veritable flash of genius.

Aside from the obvious lack of creative vision, the fast moving, always observing Big Sister will play a prominent role in this game. This new character positions itself in the game world like the SA-X in Metroid Fusion – a character that is your shadowy reflection, appearing every now and again to let you know who you’re eventually going to be fighting. This is really what the first game should have been like; by making Big Daddies recurring characters that could be defeated with a little persistence it lessened their overall impact in the game world. Of course, this all depends on whether Players are willing to convince themselves that this new technology was invented in the nine years since the original BioShock, by people who were only partially jacked up on Plasmids. Or was it there all along?

BioShock 2 also hopes to recapture the suspenseful environment that made the original game so unique in its delivery. But it’s already been done! By staying in Rapture, Players already know what to expect from Splicer subculture, unless 2K Marin are going to reveal some Ultra Mutant Splicer or other scientific mastermind that was strangely absent from the first game. This decision is basically admitting that the original game had nothing to say at all; it just provided a pretty new environment to shoot things in. That’s really what’s happening here, as I am told that I “finally get to drill people” and “shoot the rivet gun” as a Big Daddy. I find it extremely hard to accept that the peak of creativity ended at the halfway point of BioShock. But with these video previews of the game in action, that’s essentially the extent of 2K Marin’s sales pitch.

BioShock 2 ignores the groundwork that was laid, and instead focuses on a Player’s insatiable need to shoot at things. Big Daddies weren’t that interesting – they were part of BioShock‘s environment and became only obstacles at the end of the game. Apart from the fact that Rapture is already destroyed, BioShock 2 doesn’t appear to explore the mythos of Rapture as much as it wants to rewrite it. Instead of carrrying the story forward, it wants to go back and “do all those other things you wanted to do in Rapture.” But it’s too late, guys. We want to see what’s next.

According to 2K Games, the plan is to eventually have six BioShock games in a story arc to rival Star Wars[4]:

Look at Star Wars. It’s a fight between good and evil, just like BioShock [and every other game in existence, it would seem - ed]. If we spin it the right way and get the right twist of innovation, we can make six parts of it, as Star Wars did…we have to be careful not to cash in.

At least they’re being up front about their aspirations for the franchise.

Notes:
1. Refer to my review of BioShock, a year late to the party.
2. In an interview from September 2007, Ken Levine reveals that the “black and white” endings weren’t his idea; he would have rather seen a better representation of the Player’s choices in the game. But those choices had to actually have an impact in the game first, Ken.
3. At GDC 2008, Levine gave a talk about how he “screwed up BioShock’s story”, by making the climax too soon. As I said in my review, it’s basically a revenge mission after the halfway point.
4. Christoph Hartmann, Global President of 2K Games confirms more sequels of BioShock are in the works.

When Red Faction: Guerrilla‘s friendly tooltip “Hit LB while near a wall or an obstacle to take cover” popped onto the screen, my eyes were rolling to the back of my head in pre-emptive disinterest. But I played through the demo anyway, and discovered there is something more to this game. Or at least, developers Volition deserve a lot of credit for making it seem that way.

For its use of the ubiquitous duck and cover dynamic in third-person shooters, Guerrilla still plays more like Lost Planet than Gears of War. The controls feel a little too loose and imprecise. The “steady aim” is simply a zoom-in on the aiming reticule’s current position, instead of the solid over-the-shoulder view you get when aiming in Gears. The weapon switching mechanic was implemented contrarty to convention, too – the obvious choice of the D-pad was passed over in favor of the right shoulder button to bring up a selectable menu mapped to the four thumb buttons. It takes some effort to get used to, and often caused accidental weapon switching due to the additional step in selection and the buttons in close proximity to each other (unlike, say, the radial menu used in F.E.A.R. 2). It’s almost as if Volition wasn’t paying attention. However.

Despite being a bit clumsy in the way it integrates taking cover and gunplay, I felt like I had more freedom to pursue the objective in the demo for Guerrilla. Gears of War always made a point of herding the player through each level, to ensure the action was strung together seamlessly so the player could get back to using those incredibly refined controls and firing that lovely Lancer. Guerrilla, on the other hand, has a broader scope in mind. It presents an “open world” for missions to be completed. Another one of those review-ready, game design marketing phrases.

I can’t really blame Volition for trying to do this with Guerrilla because of their success with the Saints Row series. It’s a design decision that could effectively ruin the franchise for fans of the original FPS Red Faction games. However, it’s clear that Volition thought about how best to implement this to maintain the existing subject matter in the way Guerrilla is presented, and I think they got it mostly right. At the beginning of the demo’s mission, I never felt that I was being forced in any particular direction except to reach an objective. I could sneak around until I was spotted and the colony’s soldiers were alerted, or run in guns blazing. There is no health pool; rather, the game uses the popular method of regenerating health when taking no damage. Aside from the flexible approach to the mission, Guerrilla still follows many of the other current conventions of the third-person shooter genre, and I had to wonder where it was going. It didn’t apply any one aspect of the game’s dynamics especially well, and in the first few minutes of play was in danger of losing my interest. So I started breaking things with my hammer.

One of the features that made Red Faction such a landmark in PC gaming was its showcase for the Geo-Mod engine, which was released shortly after “ragdoll physics” (a.k.a. Havok) entered the game reviewer’s vocabulary. With the introduction of Geo-Mod, we had to read “destructible” as well. Guerrilla provides the latest version of this engine, with results that have actual impact on the game’s core mechanics.

Volition was wise enough to include the best examples for the use of this engine’s capabilities at the start of the level. Because every single environmental object can be destroyed in this game, there is always the risk of losing cover, which is now an essential part of combat. Charges can be thrown to blow up the side of a building and expose your position, or that fenceline you were using to corral troops into a choke point could be cut down by heavy machine gun fire from an enemy support team. Since there are vehicles available in this game to cover longer distances, these can be driven into a bank of explosive containers to cause a distraction or take out larger structures. It also follows that cover can, in effect, be created from debris resulting from explosions or collapsed structures. This is in stark contrast to a game like Fracture (2008), that only permits this kind of activity in areas where the designers wanted you to do it. Combat in Guerrilla often becomes a spectacle with this ridiculous display of physics, but there are environmental implications that directly affect the way it progresses.

Guerrilla also provides a suitable challenge. On Normal difficulty, there was always a risk of instant dealth if you weren’t under some form of cover – even if it was simply peeking around a corner or aiming through the window of a building. That alone made me think about my actions, and resulted in multiple attempts because of my sloppily executed plans. I actually played through the beginning of the demo about 15 times, but most attempts were used to test the responsiveness of the AI and gauge the damage I recieved with the “run and gun” method. I was even convinced that it was reasonable that the entire colony’s garrison was out to kill me – I was the lone rebel that would upset the balance bewteen them and the subservient colonists. And this is where the game gets really fascinating.

The mistake that many action games make is dropping the player into the middle of a situation and expecting them to take care of it on their own. The “One Man Army” phenomenon has been around as long as video games – probably cemented by Wolfenstein 3D, and simply reinforced by every shooter that has come out after it. Call of Duty, one of my favorite games of all time, made a point to move away from this general design. Especially in the face of the Medal of Honor series, which always seemed to revolve around one guy turning the tides of war in favor of the Allies. While the AI in Call of Duty was occasionally suspect (and likely the reason that Brothers in Arms introduced active direction of squad AI in WW2 shooters), the game always made sure there was someone by your side, fighting the good fight with you. You could protect your squad mates, but if they died they were almost immediately replaced with someone else and no emotional response from anyone. Guerrilla tries its best to avoid these conventions.

Morale is used as an environmental influence on the NPC colonists that are distributed about the map. There are colonists everywhere who see you, a member of the Red Faction, as the one that will unshackle them from the oppressive regime of the EDF. Blowing up EDF outposts, destroying EDF propaganda posters, killing EDF soldiers and causing general havoc within the work camps will increase morale in the area, which decreases the hold of EDF over the colonists. Similarly, if you kill one of the colonists during a firefight – even if you’re in the process of protecting them – the morale of the colony decreases, and they will be more inclined to run and hide than stick around to see the outcome. The missions in Guerrilla are all to further the cause of the Red Faction, and by extension increase morale. When morale in an area is high enough and the bullets start flying, a colonist might stoop over an EDF soldier’s corpse and pick up a gun to join in the fight. You might be the catalyst for the Revolution, but it’s clear Volition wants Players to know they don’t have to see it through alone. This is a much needed dimension in a game that on first glance (including my own) could easily be labelled as another copycat.

Red Faction: Guerrilla initially appeared as a game I should be reserving the typical scorn for in the way it mechanically repeats the trends in third person shooters. But I found reasons to keep playing, and I’m glad I persisted. From start to finish, the mission had a genuine flow to it: sneaking around turns to calculated street fighting turns to lumbering around in bulky mechanical armor, which ends with jumping on the back of a truck and firing a gun in a rail sequence. While it may have been contrived by today’s standards, it didn’t feel forced. Where previous installments were typically FPS-oriented and designed for a PC audience, this is a game that seems to want to take advantage of these recent trends in game design and provide its own flourish to the formula. Sure there are missteps, but it was abundantly clear at the end of the mission I played that Volition is trying to evolve this series. And I want to see where it goes.

The demo for F.E.A.R. 2 has two themes running through it that are clearly at odds with one another, and they do a fine job of convoluting the game’s purpose. On the one hand, the introductory mission of F.E.A.R. 2 stresses gunplay and combat, showcasing the AI that made the first installment remarkable. On the other, the player is constantly bombarded with horrible imagery, to the point where it starts to lose its effect. There is no buildup or tension; instead, there is a flash of some disturbing scene that cuts through the action, and then the game introduces clone soldiers to fight. Detractors will easily point out that there wasn’t much beyond this formula in F.E.A.R., but going back to play it after experiencing the demo for F.E.A.R. 2 reveals a more conservative balance between the two themes and a more controlled buildup of the atmosphere and story. As I came to the end of the demo’s mission where I had to jump into some Mech power armor, I did not feel like I wanted to find out what happens next. There was no “Ladder Scene”, and the initial spectacle of the bullet time effects that were so impressive in F.E.A.R. is no longer there. So what is it, Monolith? Is it a first person shooter, or is it a horror game bound together by first person shooter conventions?

The demo’s introductory level picks up almost immediately where F.E.A.R. left off: a decimated city resulting from the psychic wrath of the mysterious Alma. It was widely reported during the development of F.E.A.R. 2 (or Project Origin) that Monolith summarily disregarded the first game’s two expansion packs, making the official F.E.A.R. timeline consist of only two games. Instead of the military conspiracy aspects that Sierra’s two expansions focused on, Monolith makes Alma’s story the primary focus of Project Origin. Certainly one of the creepiest elements of F.E.A.R., I was eager to find out more about this storyline.

F.E.A.R. 2 seems to rely on the tiresome trend in FPS of “found” emails and documents scattered throughout a level to develop the story. What happened to “show, don’t tell”? Setting up and slowly releasing information through player interactions with the game world keeps them engaged. Not dropping into a menu screen to read an email. And the random flashes of gaping skull mouths and ethereal forms floating through rooms is far too heavy handed to establish any kind of atmosphere. F.E.A.R. took its time to let you know you weren’t just playing a FPS; and once you found out, it became hard to distinguish between the simple firefights with clone troopers and an encounter that would result in some horrifying scene that made you wonder if it was safe to continue playing.

Because F.E.A.R. 2 was developed simultaneously for three platforms, some changes naturally had to be made. The new checkpoint system doesn’t really bother me – it’s become a staple of FPS in the console years whether we want to accept it or not. Health packs are ejected in favor of a Halo-like system that maintains a base health meter and rechargable shield. However, in a game that stresses a light version of tactical combat through taking cover I found it a bit strange that the ability to lean was taken out. According to the developers this feature was removed to “maintain tension”:

You have no threat to lean around a corner and be able to peek into a space and now you gain complete knowledge of that space, based on your perception of what you can see. By doing that it kinda disables your fight [or] flight mentality, so by pulling it out (I mean it was a very [conscious] decision to take it out) so by taking it out you don’t have that freedom now…You have to expose yourself to get around corners and look into a space and as soon as you do that you maintain that tension a lot better.

It’s a strange (and poorly worded) explanation, and doesn’t really agree with the overall design of combat in the game. A great new feature was introduced to allow you to knock over tables or vending machines to create your own cover, much like the enemy AI was able to do in the first game and to my amazement the first time it happened. When engaged in combat, being able to view your surroundings in relative security is an important ability, especially when outnumbered. Many shooters now rely on it, so why should F.E.A.R. 2 be any different? Once again I am left wondering what Monolith is trying to achieve with this game.

The demo’s biggest failing is that it assumes the player will be impressed enough with the game’s more streamlined version of combat, and satisfied with the brief glimpses of blood, gore and ghostly figures to move on to the full version in the hopes that it will deliver. The power armor seemed so out of place in this game; it felt like it was put into the demo to show the new avenues of action that can be expected (or that they were responsible for Shogo: Mobile Armor Division). But I don’t want variety – I want focus. And with a game like F.E.A.R. 2, there’s a very thin line that must be walked if the developers are going to claim the game’s atmosphere and resulting “tension” as selling features.

The demo’s mission was too short to present any useful information on the story, and I wasn’t that impressed with the combat. If I am getting this game for the story, I need to know more. I don’t want to shoot guns and fend off faceless clonetroopers with Bullet Time effects or pilot power armor. The full version of the game has been out for a week, and while the reviews seem favorable enough, no one has committed to calling it anything other than a shooter with some horror and suspense elements.

The F.E.A.R. demo terrified me two years ago; the ladder sequence was what did it. I had gone into it expecting nothing more than a FPS with some horror conventions thrown in, but I was surprised at how well the action blended into suspense and back again. It was impressive enough to seek out the full version that supported these initial impressions, and remains one of the scariest games I’ve played since. Conversely, the demo for F.E.A.R. 2 suffers from a bit of an identity crisis, which muddles its intentions. While I want to give it the benefit of the doubt based on the feelings I had for its progenitor, I don’t feel confident pursuing the full version for something that only might be there.

When I saw the name of this mission in Left 4 Dead, my thoughts turned to a last stand at an abandoned small town radio station, where the four Survivors must send out a distress call to anyone who would answer, while static rang through the building in defiance. With the onslaught of Infected raging outside the building, the Survivors slowly start to make peace with the fact that they might not get rescued this time after all. As the ammunition is consumed and the walls start to crumble behind the massive weight of encroaching Tanks, the Survivors take stock of the situation. They are about to die.

Except that’s not what happened. Apparently Valve was thinking about an airline staffed entirely by Infected. So we get an airport. A big, sprawling airport with an incredible scene involving a plane crash just in time for the final standoff. Which, as it turns out, is nowhere near as exciting as my little scenario. But that doesn’t mean that the rest of the mission wasn’t as exhilarating as those that preceded it.

This past weekend’s session of “Dead Air” was was with a full foursome. Having the AI at your side may be like having the ideal teammates, but they need to be watched. They will pull off unnecessary heroics and choose to heal you over themselves. Martyrs, all. Four humans on a team exposes the true dynamics of this game as they were intended. The balancing of health packs, managing friendly fire and sticking together while under attack are the essential tenets of the game’s mechanics that must be learned. While the difficulty seemed to ony marginally increase, when there are four free-thinking individuals on a team it’s harder to manage a group that starts to unravel during an Infected invasion. Choose yourself over the group and you will die.

In “Dead Air” there are once again plenty of rooftop battles through a city overrun by Infected. Eventually we arrived at the airport, where we were treated to a very interesting setpiece that takes place in the main foyer and departures waiting area inside. The set-up of this scene was a little disturbing: we were surrounded by piles of luggage placed by people who likely never made it out of the city. Pressing on, we had to drive a van into a pile of luggage and debris to clear the path forward. Naturally that alerted the horde. All four of us were waiting in the foyer as the Infected swarm enclosed us on all sides. At first things seemed to go pretty well: two of us on shotgun duty and two with assault rifles. But those reload times on the shotguns began to take their toll as the Infected steadily increased in number. One of us fell, then two. The group wiped in short order.

The second attempt was a little more organized. After moving the van, we all went to the mezzanine that overlooked the foyer, hoping to take pot shots at the Horde before moving on. But we underestimated the AI Director. This time, the Horde was both upstairs and downstairs, coming from shadowy corridors behind us and rushing up the escalators in front of us. And suddenly we were in the same predicament as before.

I wouldn’t call the response to events like these in Left 4 Dead “problem solving”, but it requires a great deal of thinking on your feet and cooperation without second guessing. Planning a raid in MMORPGs is a lot easier than figuring out how to simply survive an enemy that fears nothing and completely surrounds you. Voice chat makes these snap decisions easy to communicate, and eventually we made it through into the final stretch.

Left 4 Dead isn’t satisfied to simply set up a small staging area to make the last stand in. It needs to inject a feeling of desperation and urgency, of fear that you won’t make it. Nothing could have prepared us for the shocking display of a passenger plane crash right in front of the group. It was symbolic; it made us think for a second that maybe that was the last ride out of here. Maybe we were simply going out onto the tarmac to die, like that theoretical scene in the abandoned radio station.

The finale’s centerpiece is a gas truck used to refuel a cargo plane. As the hapless survivors stumbling onto the scene, the anonymous pilot of the plane asks us to refuel it. Of course, the noise will alert the Horde and it’s a matter of waiting out that fill cycle before we can leave.

Since the landing strip was an open area, the firefight seemed a lot more manageable than the one from “Death Toll” by allowing us to see the entire battlefield. Though the number of Horde was about the same, and the AI Director made itself known by dealing out Specials with frustrating frequency. The last thing on our minds was worrying about the gas truck behind us blowing up in a storm of flying bullets. Instead, I couldn’t help wondering why that lazy fucker in the plane didn’t get out to help us.

Some of us were incapacitated, or dragged off by Smokers, but someone always managed to be there. Then the health packs suddenly ran out. Two of us jumped on to the top of the truck, which proved to be a strategic advantage in the final moments of the battle as the AI Director decided to deliver one last swarm for good measure. This is when the game makes you want to shoot a gun until there is no ammo left, until you are down to a pistol and keep shooting long after the last Infected has fallen. It is a feeling that is simultanously disheartening and exhilarating.

Once we were given the go-ahead to jump onto the plane, only three of us did: one of us stayed outside for a few more seconds to fend off the horde with his automatic shotgun for a safe boarding. At this point I think we all held our breath, wondering if he’d make it out of his last-stand heroics alive. He quickly realized that bothering to reload at this point was a stupid idea, so he hopped onto the plane and joined the rest of us. The plane took off, and we let out a cheer. Another happy ending.

The biggest criticism against this game is that there are only four missions. And while the FPS obsessed might fly through these missions just to get to the end, this type of approach misses out on the game’s biggest strength. It’s not about the kill count or pointing out who startled the Witch or finishing the missions on the highest difficulty. Left 4 Dead encourages a co-operative effort to survive. “No One Left Behind” is not just an Achievement; it is the philosophy behind the entire game.

I took advantage of the Boxing Day shopping frenzy over the weekend and picked up an XBox 360 Pro Holiday Bundle at a discount that was hard to ignore. This is a purchase I had been deeply considering since my life-altering experience with Gears of War 2‘s Horde mode. My familiarity with the console was mostly limited to some time with it shortly after launch, so I’ve been relatively out of touch with what has been released for the console since then. I was also a bit disappointed at the lack of hardware upgrades: the Elite is still hoarding the 120 GB hard drive, and there is still no Wi-Fi out of the box even after three years. Though I guess I should be thankful that the power supply hasn’t burst into flame yet.

Since getting back into gaming this past summer, I’ve tried to keep myself aware of the titles capturing the most buzz on all of the next generation consoles. Over the past few days I familiarized myself with the new XBox dashboard and downloaded a grab-bag of demos: the critically acclaimed and a few others that I was interested in. I’m still looking for a good RPG other than the obvious selections of Mass Effect, Fable 2, or Fallout 3. Feel free to add any other recommendations in the comments; this is my second leap into the console world since the Gamecube in 2003.

Braid (demo)

I went to this game immediately. Not only was it the most talked about title on XBox LIVE Arcade for 2008, it was the most talked about game, period. Fiery debates raged between those that thought it was overwrought twaddle and those that believed it would change your life. Skeptical as always, I went in expecting twaddle.

After being available for four months and topping many year-end lists, Braid carries with it the burden of enormous expectations. This isn’t usually how I like to approach a game, but I just couldn’t wait to try it for myself to have some snide comments for my own year-end wrap up to fuel the continuing debate. But after completing the meager demo levels, my initial reaction was a feeling of emptiness. That’s it? Super Mario Bros. meets Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time?

The loosely strung together story, which amounts to a bunch of text that can optionally be read at the beginning of each level, is a collection of the most purple prose I have ever read in a game. If this is the reason reviews like Dan Whitehead’s famous wank-session at Eurogamer are produced, I want no part of the future of games criticism.

When the Barney look-alike says “I’m sorry, but the Princess is in another castle”, the reference might have actually been funny if Braid wasn’t so busy taking itself too seriously. And I don’t want to hear another drone telling me I’m “missing the point entirely” or “don’t get it”. The point of any game is to be entertaining, and if a player must peel back the disguises of obscure cultural references behind some interchangable protagonist’s life story to “get it”, I think the game’s designers are the ones missing the point (the atomic bomb? Seriously?). The in-game art is exceptional, but the game itself is not art. It is a platformer.

Dead Rising (demo)

Dead Rising is one of the games I regretted missing in 2006. It certainly feels like a Resident Evil game in the way it over-dramatizes the laughable storyline, but it does away with things like atmosphere and contrived suspense in favour of what people really want to do in a Resident Evil game: kill lots and lots of zombies.

The slow moving zombies practically allow themselves to be destroyed with all manner of weapons provided by the game’s environment. This is a definite change of pace from the chaotic action of Left 4 Dead as the massive, undulating crowds are rarely overwhelming. Weapons are also breakable, and this provides a bit of tension when that bat you were swinging has suddenly turned to splinters in your hands.

Based on what I was able to play in the demo, the action in Dead Rising seems pretty superficial, but I’ve read that there’s a lot more to do in the game than just kill zombies. I’m trying to track down a copy of the full version so I can make a better assessment.

Mirror’s Edge (demo)

If I could get every minute back spent reading self-appointed game criticism pundits fiddling with this game…Oh, forget it. The aesthetic of Mirror’s Edge is breathtakingly original, and I have to give DICE credit for creating something that isn’t another war-themed first-person shooter. These sterile environments are host to what is essentially an expansive jumping puzzle in a first person shooter. Except I can’t see my feet. It’s been a thorn in the side of any first person shooter player (even for Metroid Prime!) So why are these complaints absent from every review? Easy. They are too busy praising its originality.

I don’t care about the trend of “parkour” or “freerunning” or whatever the hell they are calling it now, but I will certainly give DICE their due for attempting such a game. But let’s be totally honest here: if you’re going to focus on jumping, let the player see their environment from a reasonable perspective. You know, like Brad Borne did with Mirror’s Edge 2D. Hopefully this is being created for XBox Live Arcade, because I will be getting it. As it stands, for washed out parkour fun I’d rather be playing Assassin’s Creed.

Castle Crashers (demo)

This shameless throwback to medieval beat ‘em ups like Golden Axe is a fucking revelation, brought to you by the creators of Alien Hominid. The visual comedy and overt references to its influences are hilarious to behold. After playing this game it becomes perfectly clear why XBox LIVE Arcade succeeds on the backs of these no-frills action games. I will be getting the full version.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Since its release on XBox LIVE Arcade last year, there have been a lot of people waxing poetic about its greatness in the pantheon of 2D platformers. But does anyone really know why this game is a 2D classic, and one of the best games of all time? Or do game reviewers and journalists just keep citing it because they know that’s what they’re supposed to say? (I also see this a lot with Gunstar Heroes – note to Microsoft, toss this one on XBL Arcade, too!).

The game is a curiosity for the Playstation generation, bravely released in an era that advanced 3D graphics for non-computer users. It is also difficult in an old-school platformer kind of way, from the days where it actually took patience and skill to run through a sequence instead of relying on auto-saves or save points that pop up like weeds all over a level. It was a refreshingly original take on the Castlevania universe by not giving you a whip, but arming you with other weapons, allowing the use of armour and providing a set of unique spells. It was before the series got unnecessarily complicated with 3D iterations and the convoluted magic systems of the portable series. This was the last great Castlevania, and for a while, the last great 2D platformer. I’m going to have to a write a full god damned review, aren’t I?

Though it is labelled as HD I probably could have played this on my PC with a decent emulator, as the sprites and animations feel like they were just bumped up to 1080i. Otherwise, the game plays like I remember it.

Kung Fu Panda

The first of the bundled titles that came with the console. Incredibly, this is a licensed game that doesn’t make me want to jump out of a window. Kung Fu Panda smartly focuses on straightforward action, fluid controls, and (thankfully) professional voice acting including Jack Black himself. It integrates well with the storyline of the movie, without veering too far off to make it seem that missions were thrown in to make the whole thing a game. My daughter also enjoys the cartoon violence and sound effects. This might actually be worth finishing.

Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures

The second of the bundled titles that came with the console. This is the first I’ve played of the Lego series of games that seem to be all the rage lately. Its cute factor is frequently nauseating, but it is fun to play. I can’t see myself spending too much time with it, though. Well, except when the little one asks for it by name (Indiana Jones bricks?)

Ninja Gaiden II (demo)

After playing the family-friendly Kung Fu Panda for close to two hours while my daughter watched in excitement, this was a welcome bloodbath. Atrocious cutscenes and polished spandex abound in the sequel to one of the original XBox’s premier titles, a game I always wanted to play for myself. The new Ninja Gaiden may be set in the same universe as Tecmo’s Dead or Alive, but do we really have to continue to watch Ryu hopping around in plastic pants through carefully constructed environments almost entirely devoid of character and substance? Is that really the best Team Ninja can do with the 360?

However, pushing graphical boundaries is not what this game is about. The combat is fast and merciless and aggressive. The mutated ninja sent to kill Ryu have no tactics, except to close in and repeatedly cut him with swords and beat with fists and throw shuriken.

With only the first level included in the demo, it’s tough to make a call on the difficulty. It’s challenging, but not impossible. It also doesn’t lend itself well to button mashing as some might have us believe. It’s no Assassin’s Creed, but the combat requires a bit of timing and proper use of blocking techniques. There is a new regenerative health system that rewards the calculated assault. There is also Ninja Magic.

There is so much blood in this game, I actually wondered if I was getting sensitive to the violence. But then I realized that the people who I was cutting up were actually coming back for more without any arms, or hopping on one leg, to finish the job. It was both ridiculous and satisfying to put the sad bastards out of their misery. I miss Shinobi, and for twenty minutes this game filled that void. I want to play more.

Devil May Cry 4 (demo)

This list is getting long, so I’ll mix it up with a Haiku to express my feelings for Devil May Cry 4.

Fancy pants wields sword
and glowing devil gauntlet
wind sighs through white hair

Wow, even writing that poem makes me want to go back and slice off bulging mutant limbs in Ninja Gaiden II.

Fracture (demo)

Maybe I’ve been too much into Gears of War lately, but Fracture seems like such a poseur in the latest deluge of third person shooters set in an embattled future.The big problem with this game is wasted potential. The ability to harness the earth itself to create cover and move through obstacles seems like a great concept gone to shit in the designers’ efforts to capitalize on the angry, futuristic shooter market. I don’t care that there’s a civil war – make a game that is fun to play!

The controls are passable, but the combat is not nearly as satisfying as Gears. And the earth shaping dynamic seems limited to certain areas of each level, which makes it completely useless as player advantage. If I can only use the ability when the game tells me to, what’s the point of introducing it in the first place? Also, game reviewers: please stop using the word “romp” when reviewing this type of game. It undermines their grittiness.

Gears of War 2

Now that I’m over how great the controls are and how enjoyable this series is to play, I can pay attention to the reasons why I’m supposed to be killing things. I had no idea it would be so disappointing. The story is a crippled mess of wartime cliché and forced emotion, and the dialogue seems less snappy and immediate this time around. Maybe it was bad in Gears of War and I just didn’t notice.

There are many notable additions to the game’s combat dynamic, and they only serve to further substantiate a solid formula. It is action all the time; it is shameless bravado; it is endlessly appealing. The Gears of War games are slowly becoming some of the greatest I have ever played. It continues to amaze me.

Beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean, there is a hidden metropolis established by a megalomaniac tired of dealing with the confines imposed on him by the modern world. In the wake of a civil war that tore this city apart are the hordes of Splicers – humans horribly disfigured and disturbed by excessive self-inflicted genetic mutation. Plazas and hallways scarred by war and bedecked with posters advertising the use of these mutagens wait silently for the player, who will upset the stalemate in the battle for supremacy in Rapture and restore some kind of order. But to face the Splicers and expect to stand a chance, the player must do their own share of gene alteration – upgrading the ability to absorb damage, increasing physical prowess and gaining elemental offensive abilities. BioShock does its best to blend aspects of the first-person shooter with projectile spells, stat-boosting, and the point-and-click adventure games of old, creating an environment teeming with ideas inspired by the best of dystopian science fiction literature. It also reveals an engrossing story, and yet another argument against a society governed by an individual’s opinion on what is right without the checks and balances of the status quo. But somewhere among those many blood spattered corridors and in between the creepy ramblings of the 326th splicer I had to fight, the game lost me. Not for lack of interest I had gathered following its complex plot, but in the way it leaves its promise of moral ambiguity untouched, and leaves the player nothing more than an extremely attractive and original first person shooter.

Even though this review is a year late to the party, I can’t assume everyone has played and finished this game. I mention some significant plot points during the course of my analysis that will potentially ruin the entire experience, so please do yourself a favor and stop reading if you plan on playing BioShock eventually.

Another warning: this review is long. It is now the longest review I have ever written for Tales of a Scorched Earth. But that’s never stopped me before.

BioShock was the highest rated PC game of 2007, and one of the highest rated video games to be released in 2007. It received a seemingly endless stream of praise for creating a computer gaming masterpiece. You know, since the last one was released in 2004. Naturally, I felt compelled to experience it for myself to see whether the game would really live up to its reputation. While the high praise for Resident Evil 4 was mostly annoying to me, I actually believed the hype surrounding BioShock to the point where I felt bad for not being able to play it upon release. A number of factors prevented this, but now that I have finished the game one year later I feel that I am able to detach myself from what the popular opinion was at the time and review the game on its merits alone.

First I want to get the whole “spiritual successor” thing out of the way, because it seems to be an unnecessary talking point in every review I’ve read. I know Ken Levine’s past as a designer, and the title may have the word “shock” in it, but let’s be totally clear here: BioShock stands – and should be judged – on its own. Like any other game, it borrows heavily from the merging of different genres, game mechanics and themes that predated it, but I have yet to experience a game that has ever had such tightly controlled art direction. BioShock took the art deco aesthetics of the 1930s and injected them into the completely original setting and subculture of the failed paradise of Rapture. During the game’s introductory level, the moment the television screen in the bathysphere reveals the underwater skyline I was transfixed by the possibilities that lay ahead. Who built this place? Why is it underwater? And what was I getting myself into?

The quotable dialogue, posters and genetic experimentation interspersed through the entire game clearly pull their inspiration from dystopian science fiction and classic Hollywood. The ethereal soundtrack culled from old 1930s recordings echoes off of the walls of the first few rooms you explore that have clearly been ravaged by fighting. The first Splicers you encounter are dressed in party masks that cover their hideous faces. This sensory dissonance implants a real urgency to find out what happened.

However, in response to this initial curiosity the best that BioShock can come up with is a vending machine. That spits out a very grubby looking syringe. That you have to stab into your arm. Suddenly granted with the ability to shoot lighting bolts from your hands, you feel empowered. But that feeling doesn’t last long, because the shotgun and its various ammo types can be just as gratifying.

The use of Plasmids (spells) and Tonics (passive abilities) to enhance your character is one of the game’s focal points, but I felt they were constantly conflicting with the game’s unique selection of weapons and the way they can use different types of ammunition. Plasmids and Tonics can be found in the game, or purchased from another type of vending machine. The Plasmids and Tonics must then be equipped via a Gene Bank, where you can see the inventory of other Plasmids and Tonics you have obtained to that point. Instead of the dramatic syringe-sticking scene at the beginning of the game, once you can purchase new abilities from vending machines, it’s simply a matter of shifting some icons on-screen at the Gene Bank.

If Old Man Murray had the Start to Crate review system, I offer up The Vending Machine Dependency Test. BioShock relies too heavily on vending machines to supply players with everything they need in the game. Another example that immediately comes to mind is the recent Dead Space, which similarly uses vending machines in an environment that’s most unlikely to support them. It overtly expresses the designer’s inability to come up with an interesting or original way to hand over power-ups and weapons. No wonder there was an uprising! Weapons, Plasmids and Gene Modification were readily accessible by any member of Rapture’s community. Finding weapons that have been cast onto the floor, or unused ammo is far more believable in the wake of a civil war than buying things from vending machines that are amazingly still operable after such a violent conflict.

If BioShock wanted to add depth to the game’s mechanics via some light character customization, it does a horrible job of integrating it into the interface. BioShock treats Plasmids like other weapons, in that you can only see active ones alongside your equipped weapons. You can’t see active Tonics, nor can you ever view your other Plasmids unless you go to a Gene Bank. I can understand that this is necessary to equip them (it is do-it-yourself genetic modification), but just to see your inventory? And where do you carry all those weapons and extra ammo? The fact that there is no inventory or other stat-building reiterates how thinly this RPG-lite skin has been stretched over the typical FPS.

Eventually, the RPG elements just seemed to get in the way. They felt only half-realized, and with a full complement of weapons and modest supply of ammo under my belt I didn’t feel as much of a need to upgrade my plasmids or tonics. Certainly Plasmids make dealing with groups of Slicers easier (like Electro Bolt and Frozen Bolt), but they aren’t essential. Most seem like showcases for the designers to show how they can create clever weapons or copy existing ones, like Telekinesis. With all the terrible side-effects from splicing that you see from exploring Rapture, your character remains curiously pure – tainted only by the choice of actions towards Little Sisters in pursuit of ADAM. If Plasmids and tonics can be ignored or consumed with impunity, what purpose do they serve in developing your character?

In this regard, BioShock tries too hard to be deep. As the main character, you slowly discover how your life is central to the history and future of Rapture, and the game desperately wants you to make a connection with the character. This is emphasized by the game’s focus on the RPG-lite elements of Plasmid and Tonic upgrades, and morality play that is constantly paraded in front of you through interactions with Big Daddies and Little Sisters. But like Gordon Freeman in Half Life 2, you say nothing for the entire game – even as you end the life of Rapture’s founder (and your father). This emotional detachment may be one of many statements regarding the game’s interpretation of Objectivism, but I cynically offer the more simple explanation: if Jack didn’t kill Ryan and go running after Fontaine, the game would be over.

While BioShock allows players to save anywhere, they also introduce the feature of Vita-Chambers. These are basically respawn points in each game area that are automatically activated when you are nearby. When you are killed, you are automatically resurrected at these points without having to reload your game. Any ammo you had spent is gone, but if you were fighting a Big Daddy his health bar is exactly where you left it. Through dying and respawning it allows you to wear down tougher enemies that take away most of the challenge. A later patch to the PC version allowed people to turn off the use of Vita-Chambers, but the damage of the original design decision had already been done. Why include them at all? The technology used to create Vita-Chambers is explained in the context of the game world making it somewhat plausible – but why so many installations if it was still in the experimentation stage? I can see if it was to prevent the quick-save-and-reload mentality that often breaks immersion in FPS, but then why not include automatic save points which seem to be accepted by PC gamers? It’s a seamless way to integrate saving in-game, while not allowing players to exploit the system.

I also wasn’t really satisfied with the Hacking mini-game, a real step backwards from the simplicity of System Shock 2. As the game progressed, hacking became an annoying distraction while under fire and I mostly resorted to destroying turrets and cameras, or used Auto-Hacks. Tonics that slow the flow of liquid were good, ones that reduce alarm and shorting tiles are better, but why not a Tonic that decreases the overall number of tiles to make the entire hacking process shorter? I really just wanted to be in the game more, instead of dealing with these tack-ons to the experience.

Linearity and simplicity is not always a bad thing when you’re trying to tell a story with a First Person Shooter; Half Life 2 is a perfect example of this. Sure you were able to carry an entire arsenal of weapons in the back pocket of the Hazard Suit, but the game didn’t focus on how these weapons were arranged on your person or grant you the ability to affix a sniper scope to it. Guns were a defensive necessity for you to be presented with the rest of the story. The meticulous set-up of BioShock‘s core mechanics amounts to little more than window dressing on a game that at its core is essentially an unusually beautiful first person shooter.

Lightning proves to be very useful in this game when you’re dealing with enemies that don’t figure out standing around in water results in instant death.

BioShock often collapses under the cumbersome weight of its mechanics, to the point where the narrative flow suffers. I made up my mind early on that BioShock was just a first-person shooter with a more complicated weapons upgrade system, so I decided to focus on the story elements that were being fed to me in between trips to the many vending machines and searching for potato chips and unused EVE in garbage cans. Finding out the rest of the story was really the only reason I kept playing the game.

However, BioShock could have made a more concerted effort in getting plot elements across. Tape recordings can be interesting when used sparingly, and help fill in the gaps between interactions with the main characters of the game, but they shouldn’t be the only method of delivering the plot. There was also too much time spent on how important plasmids were to develop my powers within the context of the game, instead of giving me more information to piece together what is probably a fascinating history for Rapture. Because Gordon Freeman doesn’t speak, Half Life 2 did a great job of integrating newspaper clippings, propaganda posters and random chatter between NPCs as a way of expositing the storyline without forcing you to sit through cutscenes or tape recordings. Although BioShock has its own share of posters that can be pieced together to form what likely happened in the last weeks of Rapture’s organized society, there just wasn’t enough neutral information being provided to make me feel like the game was allowing me to figure things out for myself.

Since tape recordings are so valuable in providing more story, it makes you want to explore the game world itself – the gardens of Arcadia, the twisted artist’s sanctuary of Fort Frolic, the dilapidated apartments of the lower class in Apollo Square. BioShock does its best to make that possible by providing a number of additional sections of each level to uncover, that may only provide a few power-ups or tape recordings but aren’t necessary points that must be visited to proceed. And seeing this paradise gone bad sprawled in front of you make these side trips far from tedious. Every new environment, every blood spattered wall and scattered corpse makes you speculate on what happened. BioShock does its best to disguise your predetermined path.

But why the lack of variety in enemies? While interesting concepts, the Splicers look too much like generic zombies, and the last type of Splicer you will ever see in the game is revealed in the third chapter. Big Daddies are also awesome to behold the first few times, but once I saw them as obstacles to more ADAM they were simply a tin can I had to blow up to get the prize inside.

If only there was more depth to this dynamic than a superficial guilt trip.

BioShock certainly illustrates an original gameworld and absorbing story, but most people who have played the game seem to attribute more to the game’s morality play in the way it presents the ADAM-hoarding Little Sisters, despite it being completely misplaced. Back to the RPG-lite elements: ADAM is an important resource in the game; you need it to purchase new Plasmids, upgrade existing ones, or buff base attributes like Health and EVE. If you choose to focus on developing these abilities through the game, the resource becomes quite critical. In fact, you need it to survive. And that’s where BioShock introduces the Little Sisters.

At one point in the beginning of the game, you witness a Little Sister injecting a Slicer’s corpse with a syringe. It’s a creepy scene that resembles a carrion bird picking through the leftovers of some derelict battlefield. The Little Sister is harvesting genetic material from these corpses, where it will be converted into ADAM by a parasite living inside the Little Sister. You learn this shortly after, when you are presented with a scene where a Big Daddy has been slain and the Little Sister remains. You already know the ADAM is valuable – that’s why all the Slicers are going after Little Sisters and the Big Daddies are required to protect them. You even know at this point that ADAM will be required to get through the game, though how much is the reason for the difficult choice that follows.

Do you kill the Little Sister and harvest the ADAM-rich parasite? Or do you save her, and submit to the possibility that you will eventually be rewarded for your mercy? The game even makes a big deal out of it by presenting a giant dialog box to confirm the choice. At that point, you only have the word of Dr. Tenenbaum to go by. The problem with this setpiece is that you aren’t given specifics for a critical decision that will affect the outcome of the game. Will you still get ADAM? Or something else? It isn’t made clear, and at that early point of the game there is not enough information given to the Player to make an informed decision, especially with ADAM being the most essential resource in the game next to EVE. Or maybe bullets. Since ADAM is needed to progress, the cautious player will always lean towards harvesting the ADAM – it is needed to “level up” the main character. Had Tenenbaum alluded to the quantities of ADAM that would be received (even just outright saying you’ll get half), perhaps players would approach this pivotal scene differently.

However, this is ultimately where BioShock fails as a game that offers up morality for debate. The true effect of that moral choice is limited to this first encounter with a Little Sister, because even if you decide to save her, but still go on to kill Little Sisters for their ADAM, you will be painted as the antagonist for the rest of the game. Thus the choice is detached from a simple resource-collecting mechanic, and ADAM becomes just another item to collect from enemies like money and EVE to get through the game. And make no mistake, by default the Little Sisters are enemies in the context of the game, because at the point I am introduced to the dynamic between Tenenbaum, Ryan and Atlas, I have no idea who to trust. Plus, the Big Daddies are trying to flatten me.

Following the first few frustrating one-sided battles with Big Daddies it is a completely normal reaction to want to get the reward afterwards: lots and lots of ADAM. Any impact of a moral choice or negative reaction in the decision to kill is lost amongst the flying rivets and shattered glass. Kill Big Daddy, harvest ADAM, move on with the rest of the game.

The game is also inconsistent in the way it presents the act of collecting ADAM. The Little Sister will struggle in your grip, the screen goes dark, and the deed is done. The pangs of guilt are supposed to lie beneath the surface, as what you have just done has surely ended the life of the Little Sister, but you don’t know what happened. While I’m not expecting any ultra-violence, this separation of the player from the act that is supposed to make them feel remorse for his actions seems like a cop-out. And near the end of each level, the game itself reminds players that there are unharvested Little Sisters remaining, noting that ADAM is required to survive, or else the game will get difficult. This statement can be taken either way: kill Little Sister – get ADAM, or save Little Sister – get a little bit of ADAM, but it makes the completist in every gamer want to go back and grab the whole lot to maximize the number of Plasmids they can obtain.

After revealing that Ryan is your father, and Atlas is really the nefarious Fontaine trying to gain the final upper hand, you embark on what is little more than a revenge mission to unseat Fontaine. At this point, the game began to unravel. Dr. Tenenbaum gets involved at this point – the creator of Little Sisters and their repentant savior – who assists in your escape through a Little Sister. But why would they help me when I had spent most of the game up to that point harvesting ADAM from them with cold, calculating efficiency? Sure Tenenbaum was upset with me, but then she continues to help me escape Fontaine’s mind control – only so I can roam the streets of Rapture freely again and harvest more ADAM from the Little Sisters. It didn’t matter if I changed my ways after that encounter, as the game’s ending would prove. Between Fontaine’s big reveal and the game’s ending, there was ample opportunity for Jack’s redemption with regard to the Little Sisters, but the game didn’t capitalize on it. Instead, it forces you to dress up like a Big Daddy and pretend to be friend to the Little Sisters, a parody of the entire game’s depth.

The Little Sister escort mission that led me to Fontaine’s base of operations further cemented the game’s disregard for it’s own play on morality and consequence: I let each one of them die every time, and yet I was able to call more to help me without any penalty. It became a series of chaotic firefights where my only priority was saving myself from the waves of ADAM-thirsty Splicers, which became only annoying obstacles, their aura of creepiness long since depleted.

All this, only to be treated to an embarrassing endgame involving a battle with a purple Hulk juiced up on ADAM, where crossbow bolts are more effective than Plasmids. In this battle the Plasmid and Tonic system completely disintegrated, its superficiality thunderously confirmed. After defeating Fontaine, the offensively short ending basically took my character’s actions at face value and labeled me a cold-hearted bastard. From what I have read about the “good” ending, it isn’t much better. The prospect of Splicers on the surface world is surely terrifying, but it offers little closure to Jacks’ story, and like the disappointing ending of Half-Life 2 relies on fan speculation and sequels to answer these perfectly legitimate questions. And for a game that makes such an effort to convince players there are moral implications in the game, it does very little in offering the Player a reward for changing their outlook after Fontaine’s revelation at the middle of the adventure. If your actions prior to the encounter with Ryan predetermine the outcome of the game, the irrelevance of the morality behind harvesting ADAM from Little Sisters is all too apparent.

BioShock was fun to play for a while, and did its best to offer up a genuinely unique single-player experience. I wanted to call BioShock the most overrated game of 2007; the smug bastard inside of me thought that would be the only fitting tribute to this gaming spectacle. But I don’t think that’s very fair, because there is enough going on in this game to elicit the sorts of reactions where people actually have to explain themselves instead of allowing knee-jerk responses to its quality. BioShock approached the threshold of a memorable gaming experience for its story alone; if only it had taken a simpler approach to revealing its strongest attribute. What should have been a captivating adventure devolves into yet another shooter with only token responses to player actions, resulting in a game that is satisfied with only giving the impression that there is something more instead of actually following through on its promise.

Last night I played through the “Death Toll” campaign in Left 4 Dead with my game group. Which, to avoid sounding like I have a surplus of friends who play games is really just me and a good friend of mine (you might remember him from this story). We deftly tackled “No Mercy” over the weekend and were ready for more.

Playing with two AI-controlled Survivors is like playing with the ideal teammates. The AI is responsive to the group’s well being, and definitely puts the whole “need before greed” thing into practice when it comes to first aid kits and pain pills. You’re never incapacitated for long either, as one of the AI-controlled Survivors are usually there to lend a hand after clearing the immediate area around you. If only humans were willingly this considerate.

One of the achievements in Left 4 Dead is “No One Left Behind”, where you must finish any campaign with all four survivors alive. We easily accomplished that with “No Mercy”, but the final standoff in “Death Toll” proved to be a lot more challenging.

A lot has been said about the AI Director, and while it seems a little more noticeable than it was in the demo, its presence is still a subtle one. The sudden appearance of the Infected horde feels like a natural buildup to a tense “What do we do now?” moment when you’re lost in one of the game’s many dead-end rooms. The Special infected also tend to show up when you least expect it, but not in a way that it breaks immersion. In the final standoff of each campaign, you’re supposed to be inundated with Infected as you await your rescue vehicle. At least, that’s what would happen in a movie.

So when we finally cleared a pathway to the dock where the fishing boat was to pick us up, I noticed that Zoey had fallen down and was being swarmed by a large group of Infected behind us. I jumped off the dock, and ran back to assist. Keep in mind, I had already obtained the achievement and there was no reward for doing this. I just felt the sudden need to return the favor. Of course, it also meant my immediate death. My friend laughed at me saying, “What was the point of that, exactly?” He died shortly after, trying to come back to save me.

After another couple of tries, we managed to make it through the finale. Except it involved me dying a very dramatic death on the gangway to the boat as the Infected followed us on to the dock. I held them off from the ground with my two pistols, while I watched the other Survivors run past. Everyone got away except me, but I didn’t feel cheated. It felt like the perfect ending.

Left 4 Dead is pure hollywood.

Updated November 14, 2008

Left 4 Dead goes out of its way to create an interactive horror movie. The movie poster introducing the upcoming mission, the four horror movie archetypes forming the group of survivors, a city overrun with Infected presenting seemingly overwhelming odds, and enough darkened corners to make anyone trigger-happy. The maps are linear, designed to move the player forward without too much thought and keep players shooting at the Infected. Swarms of the Infected will appear as if from nowhere, at any time. There are no monster closets. They are everywhere. They will jump through windows. They will rush through hallways. They will pretend not to see you, and then all of a sudden a group of them is launching an attack. And then the Boomer shambles around the corner, and your party of four is suddenly fucked.

The Left 4 Dead demo went live for everyone yesterday. The pre-order crowd has been playing since Friday, myself included. Portions of the “No Mercy” mission were included in the demo, which pits the four person team against hordes of the Infected as they battle their way to a rescue location at Mercy Hospital, where other survivors are apparently gathering. The opening cinematic does a seamless lead-in to a rooftop gathering of the team where you drop into your selected avatar, grab a weapon and get ready to defend yourselves against the Infected.

First, a qualifier: I mostly played Single-player offline, as I initially had trouble getting a match going without a lot of re-connecting to games. There appeared to be an issue with the matchmaking service, and I was booted from three different lobbies after games had started before I finally gave up. I talked to a few users afterwards, and they appeared to be experiencing the same thing, and assumed it was lag and connection timeouts. An update to the demo went out on Monday to fix some of these issues, but even tonight I had problems connecting to a game. Obviously this will be fixed for the full version – or else this game just lost its entire reason for being. One thing that really irritated me is the lack of an actual server browser, something that all Valve games to this point have included as part of the Steam client. Why can’t I choose where I want to play? This handholding comes directly from the world of online console gaming, and I don’t like it. Just because Left 4 Dead is also being released for the Xbox 360 doesn’t mean you ignore what the PC gaming market has grown accustomed to. And being dumped into a lobby with random players who are more interested in plowing through the map for frag counts kind of ruins the effect of the game.

Before starting a game, you choose your character: Louis the office worker, Francis the tattoo-emblazoned biker, Bill the grizzled war veteran (or gun enthusiast?) and Zoey the…girl. Yes, a token girl wearing a red tracksuit jacket that favors the pistols. I liked the design of Alyx better; she looked like she could handle herself in a fight without being obvious about it. In Zoey’s case, there is nothing to discern her from the rest of the group. Bill has the dangling cigarette and gruff commentary, Louis is the office worker acting out every white collar slave’s fantasy, and Francis is, well, the embodiment of the biker stereotype, but we’d never want to say that to his face. In multiplayer mode, once dropped into a lobby you either have to make your claim on a character right away or else one will be assigned to you. Unless you’re really concerned about what you look like in-game, this really doesn’t make a difference.

And that’s one of the first exceptions I took with Left 4 Dead. Why a pre-made set of characters? There are no bonuses or specialties offered by any of them, and they aren’t “classes” like one might expect. Any character can take any weapon, though if you’re playing with the AI controlled characters they will pick certain types of weapons: for example Bill will always choose the Automatic weapons, and Francis will always choose the shotgun. I’m not asking for customizable characters, but adding a little depth to the avatars forced onto players would have been appreciated.

Left 4 Dead provides only the basic tools for Zombie invasion survival: a heavy weapon, a pistol, an explosive and a First Aid kit. Unfortunately, the weapons don’t feel very substantial or unique, though they do provide satisfying results. It doesn’t take much skill to launch an assault head on; simply firing the shotgun into a crowd of Infected usually gets the job done if you can manage reloading quickly. Even with a more conservative approach, the waves of Infected that constantly beset your group will use up most of your heavy weapon’s ammo. But then there’s always the pistol, which has unlimited bullets, is almost as effective as firing the submachine gun or automatic rifle, and provides similar accuracy.

For atmospherics, the darkened alleyways and closed-in rooms necessitate the use of the flashlight. Wandering around with your flashlight and gun in hand, wondering where that next Infected attack will come from was completely unnerving. Not in the way you need to install the Doom 3 duct-tape mod, but the I Am Legend, oh-my-god-don’t-look-into-those-shadows-I-don’t-want-to-know-what-is-lurking-there kind of feeling. Anyone who has disturbed the Witch doesn’t live to tell about it.

Being attacked by a mob of Infected is not the same as your typical gunfight in other FPS titles. They will jump on you, they will claw you and push you to the ground. The action does not give players pause to breathe; the urgency of each sub-mission is palpable. When outnumbered in Left 4 Dead, there is a genuine feeling of hopelessness. Well, except for the pistols.

One of the game’s best features is how it integrates teamwork into the action. This isn’t a totally generic FPS where you happen to be playing alongside other humans; you have to watch out for your party. You can’t ignore them and just keep shooting, or they will be incapacitated by a Smoker or a Hunter and there’s one less gun in the fight. Either you or another party member must kill their assailant, or if they are completely incapacitated, you have to help them up similar to Gears of War. In another movie-like touch, you can still shoot while incapacitated, to provide covering fire while someone attempts the rescue.

At this point, Left 4 Dead sounds like an exciting multiplayer game that could have easily been created as a mod. There just isn’t enough depth to the core game. However, is it fair to criticize a game that’s sole purpose is assaulting the senses with a cavalcade of unlimited micro-crises? Absolutely. And I will tell you why: feeling fear in survival horror should be knowing you can’t game the system, there is no health pack waiting for you, you really are out of ammo, and it’s time to start shoving your way through the pack of Infected in front of you and make it into that abandoned building, because your last teammate died and you’re pretty much fucked if you don’t. Instead, I always get the feeling that there is a safehouse nearby, and while my main weapon’s ammo has run out there are always the pistols.

Left 4 Dead also doesn’t handle the concept of infection very well. With the amount of times I was clawed, mauled, (probably) bitten, blood spattered in my face and on my teammates, and the clouds of gore and brain particulate filling my immediate environment, it amazes me that none of us get sick. Either the game is following the convention of Zombie movies (in which you must be bitten), or it’s following the convention of say, 28 Days Later, where you have to ingest or come into contact with the blood of the Infected; I can’t figure out which. And the Zombies can run, which presents even more uncertainty.

You can also take a lot of punishment in this game. Even though I was only granted one health pack, it was rarely needed unless I was in the middle of an Infected swarm and couldn’t blast my way to safety. And because of this, the only reason I was going to die was if I took a lot of damage. There is no fear of getting bitten or Infected, just overpowered by the enemy. It ends up feeling kind of…trivial.

Since the demo only includes the introductory mission, there isn’t enough information presented to establish a storyline or purpose for the player’s actions aside from survival, so I’ll presume that delving further into the campaign may reveal some sinister government plot. Even though this may be a multiplayer game at heart, it isn’t deathmatching – Left 4 Dead could have incorporated some additional realism to make the experience more essential; as it is, it’s merely a shooter with lots and lots of Infected to splatter all over the street. Which can be fun, to a point.

A question that also needs answering is whether I will be able to save the game’s progress, or at least continue from the beginning of each sublevel. This is important to me and the people I’m playing with. I don’t want to have to start again because we have something more important to do.

In the face of these criticisms, I can’t help but think that Left 4 Dead has a certain charm. Co-operative play in this type of scenario isn’t new (Resident Evil: Outbreak and its sequel did it first with moderate success), but I think Left 4 Dead‘s primary function is to create an accessible adventure to be enjoyed with friends. Sure, the campaign mode can be played offline with AI controlled teammates, but fighting alongside them was like fighting with the rebels in Half Life 2. There was no character; they were disposable next to my prowess with a submachine gun. By focusing on the multiplayer elements of the game Valve lets players provide the character behind the avatars, and in the reactions to this game world, a new story can be created.

Update: I’ve managed to play more online multiplayer, and still think that this is a game you have you play with people you know, or at least people who can appreciate the pacing required for this kind of shooter. Naturally the action comes hard and fast while under attack by the Infected, but this isn’t a god damned race. Someone took the time to design these levels to make them creepy, at times claustrophobic, and appear ravaged by the clash of survivor versus infected. I’m not about to strike up a conversation in between firefights, but can we at least take a bit of time to regroup?

Ultimately, I think the demo is just too short to truly grasp what the game is capable of. I’m looking forward to playing the full version next week.