Battlefield: Bad Company Review

Preston Marlowe has been a naughty boy, instead of being court marshaled he is transferred into Bad company. Landing at the base he meets Sarge Redfield along with Sweetwater and Haggard. Bad company it turns out is a place for the rejects and nutjobs. The army hopes they will all get blown to bits and hence solve the problem. Sometimes though the nutjobs actually do a good job, even if they destroy half the country in the process. The four guys spend most of the time alone directed by a female radio operator that Sweetwater has a thing for.

In the wreckage of the first mission the boys discover a mercenaries body and a bar of gold. This sets in motion a chain of events that sees the boys trying for a little private financial enterprise inside their objectives from the Army. However, once the scent of a truckload of gold is sniffed they go awol looking for the gold. By the end of the game we see them invading a neutral country all on their own, getting in tow with an insane dictator and taking apart half of Eastern Europe to get their hands on the mercenary gold. there are many twists and turns, and the hero's go from being official sanctioned warriors to awol terrorists, to being back into the fold, but unofficially, if they are caught then the army will deny all knowledge.

Sweetwater and Haggard are the stars of the show however. The pair of them are huge stereotypes, but they are funny. Sweetwater is a geeky nerd and Haggard an explosion loving idiot redneck. His antics nearly get you all killed too many times to mention. The best one I remember is when he fills a helicopter with fuel in the wrong nozzle, necessitating Sweetwater to clean it out before you can escape the enemy army that is descending onto your position. The one liners and dialogue that Haggard especially comes up with are very entertaining. What is essentially a generic and cliched dull first person shooter story-line is made one hundred percent better by the use of comedy. Who would have thought it would work, I for one enjoyed the characters and dialogue in this game immensely.

Bad company is the latest in a series of games which take the normal FPS gameplay into large free roaming maps, giving you vehicles to traverse the distances.

You start with a quick tutorial to explain weapons and controls and introduce the drill which restores the health of vehicles.

One of the things you realize early on is that there is no real penalty for death in this game. There is a finite amount of enemies in the areas and when you die the only inconvenience is that you might re-spawn at some distance from where you died. There is no amount of lives as in similar games like Frontlines fuel of war. This leads to what I am going to term the Bioshock syndrome.

Remember in Bioshock, if you died you simple re-spawned at the nearest chamber. The damage done to the enemies stayed the same. You could go through the entire game with the wrench bashing the big daddies to death. It would take you about a hundred respwans per big daddy, but it was possible. There is simply not enough punishment for sloppy play. You can run around in the open getting shot to hell without fear. Simply shoot one guy, come back again a few seconds later and kill another, there is no incentive other than personal pride in taking out a hundred enemies before dying or taking out one. This really means that the game will be finish-able by everyone irrespective of their skill. To be fair in one or two areas you do fail and have to restart from the last checkpoint if you loose a mission specific object like a helicopter that is needed for progression.

There is the, now obligatory, arsenal of similar weapons, of course there are shotguns and sniper rifles and assault rifles. You can call down air-strikes, mortar strikes and put down c4 charges. grenades and grenade launchers etc. The vehicles are varied, jeeps, tanks, apc's, golf buggies, helicopters, dinghies. All control well and allow you to switch seats and use guns or drive. Thankfully the a.i. characters don't drive.

The a.i. characters have the usual appearance of doing some shooting but never really seem to be getting anywhere unless you do it all for them. Which is I suppose as it should be. Grenades i must comment on as although they do seem to blow up buildings etc. they don't seem to kill soldiers as easily as you would expect. Although an exploding barrel seems to take out more than it should.

Missions are fairly basic, you start at one point and must get to another, then new objectives until the end of the level. Examples of what you are asked to do include, blowing up a cast of thousands of objects including tanks, artillery emplacements, fuel dumps, radar installations, missile launchers, radio equipment, antenna boxes, anti-aircraft guns, a small town, bridges, and a silo. In addition to these missions you have protecting convoys, storming locations like a palace, harbor, monastery and armory. You get separated, reunited, have to save people.

There are some on rails sequences where you ride shotgun on tanks and jeeps etc driven by others. Some stand out missions include driving a fuel laden truck around a battlefield, which is like driving a bomb. There is also a mission where you have to take down a helicopter after running the gauntlet along a railway line with a crashed train littering the way.

You can blow most walls down, though the structure of buildings can't be broken. However, you can leave them as shells, which means cover for the bad guys is a thing of the past.

There are gold bars and weapons littered around the maps to make you explore for collectables.

The health system employs the age old chestnut of a number counting down with damage from 100 percent. The gimmick here is that you carry a hypodermic that restores full health without you having to search out health packs. You can take damage as much as you want as long as you get out of the way of fire and use the hypodermic. Which is controlled with a flick of a button and a trigger press. This is slightly more sane as a game mechanic than just taking cover and recovering from bullet wounds, though only just.

The checkpoints usually come when an objective is reached. Ammo is freely available from enemies dropped guns and crates littered around the maps. 

The a.i. is standard, there is nothing really to praise here. I doubt the a.i. code has been touched since the first battlefield. If it has been, and i am sure it has then it escaped my attention. They use cover, sprinkled with running at you. They don't seem to go into cover just spawn there. This isn't a criticism of Battlefield rather than most FPS games. Compared to Rainbow six Vegas the a.i. needs work.

No bosses as such just storming heavily guarded areas to get to objectives. The helicopter at the end of the game could be classed as a boss battle i suppose.

There are seven single player maps which are huge with realistic looking countryside and buildings. The golf course level stands out for sheer originality, a tank on the fairway should have golf-course keepers throwing a stroke.

Graphics are excellent, especially detailed are the characters, Preston's polygon count easily tallies that of Snake in MGS4, his armor having similar texture style. The frostbite engine looks to have a bright future, with little frame rate drop even when you take the helicopter to it's highest altitude. The graphics are above average, on a par with Call of Duty 4, maybe if the size of the maps are taken into account actually a bit better.

Sound is acceptable with some nice oddball goofy music choices when you are in vehicles and can hear the radio.

After playing through the game on hard i was awarded 415 achievement points. Which is I suppose acceptable for a game with such a large multiplayer focus. The biggest complaint here is that you don't unlock the easy and medium level achievements which cheats you out of 120 points you should have got for playing through on hard. To all developers, never do this, it is a real turn off. If I want to play your game three times I will, making me do it for achievement points you should get for going through on hard the first time won't do it. That said though I will play through this game again.

I don't play enough multiplayer to really review the multiplayer portion of this game properly, so I won't, suffice to say it has it's fans and I am sure it is very enjoyable for it's fans. I simply put don't really rate multiplayer unless it's co-op. Co-op should have been included here in the single player game.

I only saw one glitch, which occured when a tank got stuck under a bridge. the problem was blowing up that tank was a mission objective. I was lost and waiting to be told how to progress, I eventually found the stuck tank and blew it up and the game carried on as normal. I have to say that is the only isolated glitch that i encountered.

Scoring

Graphics 8

Gameplay 8

Story 8

Level Design 8

A.i. 5

Total score 7.4

Army of Two Review

At first I thought this game was going to have little to no story whatsoever. The player is thrown into the action with little introduction. From what I had heard of the game before playing it I wasn't expecting a huge story either. I was surprised to find a rather intriguing story.

The game follows the fortunes of two Soldiers Rios and Salem. At the beginning of the game they are soldiers in the US army. Tired of following orders that get them into situations rather more deadly than they would like they take an offer from a man called Dalton to join a private security company called SSC. During this first mission the player is introduced to Clyde, another mercenary who is in charge of the mission. From the off the two heros are given cause to hate the very deadly and arrogant Clyde.

The heroes come into good fortune through misfortune, the war on terror in full swing gives SSC plenty of work. As the story progresses Our heroes find themselves uncovering a huge plot which will affect the entire US army. Having discovered the plot the Heroes are duped and framed for a murder of a prominent Senator. This leaves them on the run and having to decide wether to vanish with their fortune or do the right thing and go back and take down the plotters.

The story is told in cut scenes and also plays out to a certain extent in the actual game itself which is to be applauded.

The debate opened up here about the ultimate aims of a company that profits from human misery is actually very deep for a shooter. I wasn't expecting it at all. The tone is a little off however, Rios and Salem seem a little unlikely as guys who would do the right thing. With their Gears of War style grunt look, that suggest more muscle than nervous tissue. 

Army of two uses a third person perspective. There is no stick to cover mechanism which makes it feel more like a run and gun game than Gears of War. There is plenty of cover, and you can duck behind it pretty easily, there is just less incentive to do so than say in Gears or Uncharted.

The title of the game is Army of Two and it does make a big play on just that, the game is meant to be played with two co-op players or with the games a.i. partner.  There are a whole host of what feel like shoehorned mechanics to emphasize the two person motif.

The first is an aggro meter which basically goes up the more you aggravate the enemies. If both players shoot at the same time then it stays the same. If one player shoots and the other does not then the non-firing player will change color to blue and the shooting player turns red. Not entirely, just a translucent tinge. This means that the a.i. will practically ignore the cool player and concentrate on the hot player. This can be used to tactical advantage to sneak up on emplaced guns and flank enemy positions. It becomes a necessity to use when playing with the a.i. partner.

Secondly there is a mechanic where the two players stand back to back and everything goes into bullet time and enemies come from all around. These sections trigger by themselves at set points in the game, and while fun don't really add that much to the game.

There is also certain moments in the game where two guards can be taken out simultaneously by sniping at the same time. When co-op snipe is initiated both players choose a target and headshot them together. This means that the alarm isn't raised and less enemies attack you in the next section.

There are larger armored soldiers who are only vulnerable to bullets hitting them in the back, which means that one player must attack them from the front to draw their fire while the other flanks them.

There are also areas of the map where both players have to press buttons to simultaneously lift heavy objects together and use each other to vault up to high areas.

Ultimately all these gameplay mechanics feel tacked onto the gears of war style maps. There are a succession of mostly open areas where a set number of enemies reside and you must kill them all or most of them to proceed. There is even a familiar for whom the bell tolls sound when all enemies have been killed in an area.

There are what seems like little airlocks, which are really to hide the joins between two levels loading.

Weapons are bought from between level menus with cash you accquire for completing missions and in game objectives. There are a few objectives that are optional in each mission, such as destroying a certain truck or person. Also there are collectible laptops and suitcases with intelligence which is paid for by the SSC if collected.

There are a few times when you are parachuted into an area, sometimes you drive the chute, other times you shoot at enemies from the chute, both of you are tied to the same chute.

On a few occasions you rescue a person and have to carry them out of the area. They can be picked up and put down while you clear the area of enemies.

If one player is killed then they fall to the ground wounded, the other player then has about thirty seconds to come and administer first aid. If this is done then it's back to the fighting otherwise it's back to the last checkpoint. This is fine when playing with a friend, when playing with the a.i. partner it can be a lesson in frustration.

On one occasion i died at the edge of a map behind a large crate, the a.i. circled three sides of the crate, but was unable to get to my position to save me. That is an extreme example which happened only once, however, there are many times when you scream in frustration at poor decisions the a.i. partner makes when hauling you to cover to heal you.

You also have to save the a.i. if it gets killed. You have several commands to give it however, you can make it move forward aggressively, hold position passively or follow you like a lap dog. This give you the option to allow it too attack aggressively but also keep an eye on it's health and order it to retreat to safety when it's getting pounded.

There is a section where you get to drive a hovercraft, which is fun, though it does feel a little tacked on and feels very like the similar section in Perfect Dark Zero. Also there is an on rails section in a monorail car.

The a.i. in this game takes a target and sticks it to it's head. Having both enemy a.i. and partner a.i. The enemy a.i. is pretty standard, they take cover, use gun emplacement, run at you shooting when you get too close. Nothing new, and fairly effective in large numbers. They make no effort to flank your position or anything clever.

The partner a.i. is actually reasonably good. Though I have to qualify that it is once you learn to allow it to fight and then reign it back when it's taking too much damage. Once you have that balance and really learn how to control it then it does a good job. It will annoy you and if you want a good experience from Army of Two then play it online with a real human partner.

Enemies are a variety of soldiers, and armored soliders. There are enough character models to provide variety, but you will know all the models well by the time the game is over. There are also some exploding enemies, which is a personal hate of mine, in the form of arabs with bombs strapped to them.

Boss fights are present in that in most missions there is a certain person that has to be stopped. When you meet up with them they have more health than the normal soldiers but they don't really do that much different other than having bigger guns than the usual soldiers.

The game does have some nice environments. With the story ranging around several countries including Iraq, Somalia, China and Hurricane torn Florida. There is a rather good shoot out on the deck of an aircraft carrier which was well designed. The levels all felt fairly accurate to the real world. There were some areas which felt like box rooms joined by endless corridor. But for the most part the levels felt like areas modeled on real world locations. 

Graphics are good, there is little frame rate drop and everything seems to be running at around 30 frames a second for the most part. The game uses unreal engine. It's not doing anything new or pushing new boundaries, but it isn't doing anything wrong either.

Sound is satisfactory, Music and effects are as you would expect from a shooter. 

The checkpoints are for the most part excellent, you do only have one save slot which is really not the best option. The checkpoints are sometimes a little unfair around the later levels but not that annoying.

I found the menus functional and clear, however when starting a game the most common options should be under the gamers fingers. You shouldn't have to scroll through menus to start the game at the last checkpoint you played from. If you weren't paying attention it could be easy to start a new game rather than start at the last checkpoint, its an unnecessary frustration. And one save slot is a stupid idea really.

I came away with 340 points over 5 days play, playing a couple of hours each day. I played on the contractor difficulty which is the highest you can play on without completing the game to unlock the hardest difficulty. The remaining achievements are for shooting a certain number of people with each gun or  using melee attacks. Also whilst at the highest aggro level. In short they would need a little bit of effort spent on each one to target a specific weapon and use it until the achievement pops up. There are also multiplayer achievements.

Multiplayer is present for those who are interested, It took too long to find a game suggesting that the multiplayer isn't the busiest. Co-op is fun if you have any friends that are playing it, or like talking to strangers for 10 hours.

Scoring

Graphics 7

Gameplay 8

Story 8

Level Design 8

A.i. 8

Total 7.8

Alone in the Dark Review

You are dropped into the midst of the story, using one of the best gaming and indeed all kinds of narrative gimmicks. Having lost your memory. Edward is being held captive along with a priest named Theo, the baddies seem to have already achieved what they want i.e. having you both captive. The head bad guy is named Crowley, which must be a reference to Alastair Crowley, famous author of similar tales. Funny that, I thought the Alone in the dark series was based more on H.P. Lovecraft. Maybe this new iteration is borrowing more from Crowley. Crowley sends you off with a henchman to be killed, since it seems we are no longer useful.

As we are being taken to the roof living cracks in the walls appear and suck the henchman in with a fountain of his own blood left as the only trace. The whole building comes apart and it's a race to escape it and the deadly cracks. The dead start to come back posessed by a creature that tells us that Edward was once also possessed by it and is now free much to it's disgust. It wants him back, naturally Edward wants to get as far away as possible.

Meeting up with a woman called Sarah and Theo again the trio escape by car through a New York that is exploding around them to central park. Once there the mysteries behind the demon and central park itself are explored. Edward finds out about his past, which is much more than meets the eye. Demons are battled and sacrifices are made, but will it be enough to stop Hell from breaking out all over the world?

The story is adequate for the most part, it does seem confused at times, with various elements that I will not go into for fear of spoilers, adding a murky confusion. I was never sure about the demon in the stone's identity. The Templar's intentions in building the secret of central park, or Hermes's intentions. Was edward being played for a fool by everyone involved? Did he save the day or bring about armageddon?

I just can't be sure, I can think what I want to think, but the story just wasn't explained enough for me to be one hundred percent sure of the outcome. Which reeks of sloppy storytelling. Also most of the plot is given in info dumps by side characters via telephone or face to face cut scenes. There are some nice shock moments and some good dialogue between characters. The first time Edward is confronted by a possessed girl he was helping earlier was genuinely creepy. There is an interesting point where a ghost helps you. Also it has to be said there is a fair amount of cheesy dialogue. I was never sure where the bat monsters and crab things were coming from, also the cocoons and eggs. Where did they spring from?

For a story based adventure the story was rather murky and confused.

The controls for this game are at first very complicated. You can switch between first person and third person view at will. At first it doesn't seem apparent but the first person view is only really for exploring flat open areas and fighting. While the third person view is for the more tomb raider style puzzles. Though both can be used according to your own taste and play style.

If you are failing in a certain area it probably is a good idea to try it in the alternate view.

The inventory system is based on real world physics. You can only carry a certain amount of items, which are displayed in pockets inside your jacket. There are a range of items in the game which can be used to combine with others. For example a bottle of flammable liquid can be combined with a rag to make a molotov cocktail. Bullets can be dipped in flammable liquid to make incendiary bullets. Molotov cocktails can be combined with tape to make sticky bombs. The problem with the inventory system is that the game does not pause while you access it. While this is lifelike, it means you end up rooting in your pockets and struggling with the interface while a monster chews your head.

To save the day there is a favorites system, which allows you to map four buttons to a set of actions. This is invaluable to your progress, I can't stress this enough, I was becoming frustrated with the game until I realized that getting your bullets and dipping them in flammable liquid and loading the gun could be mapped to one button press. It made a particular section that I was finding game breaking easy, and set the tone for the rest of the game.

The problem with the controls is that the game is almost finished by the time you work out all the nuances and actually get good at it. Once I was at the end of the game I was actually ready to play. If I was to play again I would probably enjoy the game much more. The problem is that there is no real replay value here.

Combat is complicated with many ways of dispatching the enemy. Fire is the only way to finish them for good however, if you batter them to the floor with a blunt object they will just get up again. Setting them alight or shooting the cracks on their body with flame bullets is the only way to finish them for good. At first you have to batter them around the head a bit by swinging objects. You hold the object and use an analogue stick to swing it in the desired direction, a novel approach although in practice it's not as fun as it sounds. As you progress you get more equipment and can throw sticky Molotov's at the bad guys or just shoot them with flame bullets which I found the best approach. At first I found that picking up a certain object amongst others was a hit or miss affair, however it comes with practice.

The collapsing building is well done with some tomb raider style jumping and grabbing puzzles. It feels similar to the opening of Half life with the whole place falling apart around us and a cast of extras being bumped off horribly.

The game allows you to get into cars and drive around. There is an open world section inside central park, and another race through the city as it falls apart. The driving is satisfactory, the car handles well, but sometimes you get stuck on scenery that you might think you wouldn't. The drive through the city is frustrating as you have to learn your way through the chaos and sometimes other cars just get in your way at random making death unavoidable and not your fault.

Once into the park though driving is mainly for getting from point to point quickly, cars are also a source of consumable objects.

There are a few tomb raider style sequences. One especially under central park could be ripped from a tomb raider game lock stock and smoking barrel. In these sections you have weighted puzzles, moving blocks, switching off flaming pipes, avoiding electricity, laser trip beams, simple puzzles with bugs following a set pattern, etc.

In some areas there is a black oil on the floor that seems to eat you if you stand on it. You can shine your torch on it and it sizzles and moves away, this allows you to drop flaming objects or glow-sticks around the area and make a safe path. There is also a boss battle with Crowley that sees him flying in a helicopter above you shining the spotlight beam down giving you a safe path to stand in, however the cruel devil makes you dance around for your life for about two minutes before leading you to safety. Apart from a few showdowns with Crowley there is only two other boss fights one with a tentacle made up of thousands of bats and another with a spider centaur demon.

There are some small details that make a difference, for example at some points you have to get lights or elevators working and have to juggle wires to get the connection right. This mechanic is also used to hot-wire the cars you find around central park.

At one point after having been separated from Sarah you struggle to save her only to find her cocooned in a huge monster, having got her out she has gone into cardiac arrest, you have to perform cpr using a sort of rhythm game. This was a nice touch although they got the medical details of the compression to breath ratio way off.

There is also a nice scene where a ghostly figure points in a room at things you need to understand. Although you can spend a while wondering what to do, i spent ages trying to blow open a door until I actually realized the the ghost was pointing to a newspapers clipping on the wall. If you zoom in on the clipping you get a cut scene. I know this might be a spoiler, but honestly it's one you will want to know to prevent half an hour of stumbling around grumbling to yourself getting frustrated.

Sometimes the puzzles can be a little glitchy, at one point when trying to get a forklift truck to raise a ramp i thought it wouldn't work, only to try again a few minutes later at a slightly different angle and have it work perfectly. The forklift is used for a few stacking box type puzzles also, which is variety at least.

One of the biggest sections of the game away from the main story-line is where you have to destroy some evil looking trees, which are called the roots of evil. You have to destroy a certain amount of them to lower a barrier to allow you to lob a Molotov at the beastie creating it. This lets you into an area to continue the plot. There are about 30 roots of evil. Though I think it's possible to complete the game by only doing half of them the score-whore in me did them all for the achievement.

Some are simply out in the open and need set on fire once you have killed all their guardians. Others have some fairly complex puzzling involving timing puzzles, driving puzzles and a bit of logic. A map shows you where each root of evil is on a big enough reconstruction of central park. By the end of the roots objects are getting sparse and there is a lot of backtracking to find firebomb materials.

You can also use your torch to shine through a lens which projects templar symbols onto walls, one big puzzle sees you exploring a castle filled with hazards and tomb raiding to light up all the symbols carved in the rock of the castle and open a door.

Inside the central park tomb area there are some fairly complex puzzles, and some are real lateral thinking headscratchers. Including crushing walls, dropping ceilings and burning wood to collapse masonry. A final driving scene against a tight clock is tense and nail-biting finale, probably more challenging than a boss battle.

Blinking must be given a mention, in several occurrences you must click an analogue stick to blink and clear Edward's vision. The first time this is introduced it's a novelty, by the time you have blinked green gloop out of your eyes for the hundredth time while fighting the scuttling monsters you will be wishing the developers had left out that idea.

Depending on your point of view about difficulty levels this game has no settings for difficulty. It is pitched as usual fairly easy to start with and hard at the end. I doubt adding difficulty levels would have been appropriate to the game, which is why they were probably left out.

The health system is a weird one. As Edward takes damage he is shown as having cuts and scrapes all over him. These affect him as when they get too much he limps a bit. If you are dealt serious damage a "bleeding out" wound is formed which will kill you inside a certain time unless you apply a bandage. Medical spray erases the smaller cuts and you inspect your own body and spray the spray on realistically. 

For the most part you are on you own against puzzles and enviomental hazards. So the a.i. is not really a prominent feature. The monsters that are present simply come at you and bludgeon you to death for the most part. Some shoot at you, but they also try and hit you as well. Only firing when you get a set distance from them. 

The a.i. would be classed as rubbish in a first person shooter or any other game that needed good a.i. For this game it's appropriate. There seemed to be no real glitches with the a.i. either. Zombie hordes are meant to be a bit dumb anyway, aren't they?

There were a few glitches or bugs that I noticed while playing, at one point my character froze and would not accept input from me, though strangely enough the game hadn't crashed, flames were still moving and i could go in and out of pause. At one point I jumped onto an area between forklift truck and wall and began floating in the air for a few seconds before dying for no reason. These bugs were few and far between however.

Graphics are adequate, Edward and the other characters are well done, The environment graphics aren't anything special. The physics engine is used extensively and at times impresses at other disappoints. The collapsing building is reasonably impressive graphically. The engine seems robust with everything ticking along at a reasonable if not earth shattering frame rate. The game wasn't meant to push graphical boundaries, only get the job done, and it does so well.

The level design is to be commended here, everything feels reasonably real world. I don't know how accurate the central park map is, never having been there, but it feels real enough. The hotel is well designed. The only level that feels like a game is the underground tombs, though since there are no real world counterparts then a comparison is unfair.

Sound is reasonable with some creepy music and sound effects to add atmosphere.

No multiplayer, this just isn't that kind of game, don't know if co-op would have worked. Might be worth a try for the sequel.

Checkpoints are spaced fairly well, I can't recall any unfair ones at least.

Achievements are handled well, They are mostly doled out for completing story related tasks and completing the game. I received 855 points during my time with the game which is to my mind a fair score. The remaining points are for finding and juggling around most of the objects in the game, only the handyman achievement needs serious work. For people hoping to get all 1000 points here it should be a breeze compared to some games.

Scoring

Graphics 7

Gameplay 7

Story 6

Level Design 7

A.i. 5

Total score 6.4

GTAIV Review

Grand Theft Auto IV Review

LIberty city, based on New York, the fastest most vibrant city in the world, dangerous and beatuful, ancient and modern, melting pot of humanity, all life is here and now so are you. Niko Bellic arrives on a slow boat from hell escaping a past of violence and mistakes. Ex soldier turned expert criminal odd job man.

Niko's cousin Roman has invited him to stay in his mansion, the problem is that Roman is an eternal optomist and liar. He has a business and a flat, but both are low rent, the mansion is coming or so he he says. Niko enters Romans world and is introduced to a few characters. Michelle who he will have a romance with, Vlad who will lead him back into his old ways and Mallorie Romans girlfriend. After a few gentle driving around the block missions Roman is soon in trouble with the loan sharks and Niko takes his first lives in Liberty city. Events spiral out of control and through his abilities with a gun and behind the wheel Niko is soon courted to work for practically every gangster and drug dealer in Liberty city. He will find love, have his past catch him up and shoot or chase his way through every street of the city. The story is long and winding, with many good balanced characters and plot lines. There is also comedic relief in the from of steroid crazed Brucie and other similarly off the wall characters.

Choices are given in the narrative that effect the story, but don't worry they only affect things in small ways. twice in the game after tensions build up between two factions, both ask you to kill the other person. Niko has the choice. Mostly it's rewards that differ. Taking the morally wrong choice usually ends up with the greater rewards. One of those choices will have you saying to hell with the reward you just have to kill the more annoying/bad character. Cut scenes play out differently depending on your choices.

The last few missions give you a moral choice, take revenge or be bigger than that, take the money and go against your principles. The cost of either choice is pain and ultimately suffering for those around you, Niko might not pay for his life of violence but those around him do. Remember to make an extra save before the choice moments. You might want to go back and replay choosing the alternative options.

Can Niko really go straight in Liberty City? we will have to wait for the DLC to find out.

The first thing that hits you when you take control of Niko on foot is the swagger to his walk and the weight he seems to carry. His feet are independent of each other, stand on a step and one knee will bend and he will place one foot on the higher step and the other on the lower. When people are hit by cars or explosions they fly with convincing ragdoll physics.

Driving is hard at first, each car has differing handling and some drift terribly while sports cars hold the road like glue. Motorbikes are things of beauty and they fly at terrifying speeds down the roads of Liberty city and crash in the most spectacularly painful fashion. You can drive the whole gamut of vehicles available from people carriers to forklift trucks, trucks to trash collectors. Helicopters provide fast transit across the city and control in a satisfyingly arcade/simulator fashion. Sea is covered by speedboats and yachts. The water physics are good, you are able to create waves and splashes. Other modes of transport are the train network and taxis which can be flagged down and used as you would expect. 

Weapons include the usual shotguns, sniper rifles, pistols, machine guns, rocket launchers, grenades and molotov cocktails. There are also knives and your fists. Aiming is simple enough and there is a cover system where you can stick to walls and pop your head out for a better shot.

Combat is tricky at first, with a steep learning curve, stick with it though as it's worth the mastering and by the time you are halfway thorugh the game you will be an expert and enjoying every gun battle. There are some long drawn out battles in tower blocks and factories, plus plenty of fighting out in the open. Shooting from moving vehicles is hard to co-ordinate but immensely satisfying when you kill or cause your target to crash or explode. One particularly chase on motorbikes through the subway system stands out as a high point.

Missions are of the usual gta type. Go to a waypoint, kill a person, or collect and object and take it back to the employer. Some are more convoluted but all essentially boil down to the same thing. Side missions are many and varied. They include the usual assassination, racing and collectibles, however there is also the new friends system. Niko has several friends who he hangs out with. Little Jacob, Roman, Packie etc. They will call Niko on his mobile or email him wanting to do normal everyday things like go bowling, play darts pool etc. Also girls will need to be taken out on dates which can include going to restaurants the theatre or just out drinking. Male friends like to go to the strip joint for a lap dance. Sometimes these activities get in the way of progress in the main story, though if you want certain things to be available to you it pays to keep your friends sweet. For example Little Jacob can be a mobile weapons dealer when he likes you enough. 

The use of mobile phones and the internet has been integrated into the game, with missions involving email and internet dating. On entering an internet cafe you can use a computer to get on to a fully working web browser which has a huge spoof world wide web to surf, with parodies of many existing real world sites. Logging onto a child porn site immediately gives you a huge wanted rating and sees you dead in seconds. Microsoft need to tap Rockstar for the web browser to implement it onto the Xbox360.

The mobile phone is used as in game menu. It seems fully functional, you get texts, answer and make calls and even use it to take pictures and send photo messages. It really does feel natural and organic in the game and I don't think I have seen any other game use these communication mediums in game to such effect before.

Television also gets an appearance with tv's in all of Niko's safe houses. The programs are spoof documentaries, thinly veild jabs at Halo and attacks on advertising and modern life. I have sat and watched it for longer than I should have. Though don't expect hours of viewing, it does repeat fairly regularly. Only other game that I think beats it in this respect though is The Darkness, which had a few full movies I believe. Though i never watched any of them to find out if they didn't stop twenty minutes in.

The gameplay is top notch, there are no real surprises for players of any previous GTA games. The main criticism I have of these games is the lack of mission checkpoints. Some missions can take up to thirty minutes to complete. Some missions are screamingly hard. After being shot down thirty minutes into a mission you might replay it once, after dying another thirty minutes later and being put back thirty minutes you scream at the screen and go and do something else instead to save your arteries blowing in frustration.

A checkpoint after you drive to the mission site. After securing the mission objective and before escaping your wanted level and at the end of the mission would save a lot of frustration. It would make the game easier but it would also see less people give up in disgust. Not that I did though, so maybe Rockstar know what is good for us after all. I finished the main story after 92 missions with 62% on the progress meter. I don't have the time at present to shoot all the pigeons and complete the races and other side missions. I am sure I will go back to this game in a quiet time or for some multiplayer.

A.i. in sandbox games is different from say an fps. You can follow the civilian population around and not interfere, they are there to populate the world and make it look lived in and real. Their behavior has to be at least somewhat believable or it will suck you out of the game. GTAIV has similar a.i. to other's in the series. Improvements come in the sense that they seem to be able to problem solve. rarely do you see enemy drivers stuck against walls. They seem to be doing their best to get away or alternatively get you. There are instances of pedestrians getting hit by cars, though they seem to limp out of the way eventually instead of holding up traffic forever. The game does still suffer from the look this way see three or four cars, turn away and look back and they are all gone syndrome. Though there does seem to be a huge amount of vehicles and pedestrians on screen. Much more than any other sandbox game that I can think of. 

My first impressions of the graphics were that they were slightly unconventional, with nice detail in the foreground and distance and a strange blurring in the middle distance. As familiarity crept in i lost sight of that first impression that i jotted down on first playing. I thought I would include it here though as it's often the case that first impressions of games change once you have scaled their learning curve. The city is a work of art, a living breathing human place that looks like it evolved rather than was designed by a team of artists for a game. The architecture is varied and impressive. Buildings are mostly facades with only a few having any interiors. These being the settings for missions.

The attention to detail in all elements of the game is stunning. You can see every hour of work from the hundreds of people involved in this game. I have not played every sandbox game out there, but in my opinion if the awards for sandbox world design were to be handed out GTAIV wins by a miles, followed at a long distance by Crackdown and even further behind Saints Row. Oblivion was nice but there was a little too much random number generation in it's design I feel. Physics are handled very well, the handling of cars seems to have come in for a bit of criticism. I never found it a problem once I got used to it. Lamp posts seem to be a strong as tissue paper and stick like wooden fence posts sometimes stop buses, but on the whole the physics are pretty much as you might imagine, and that is high praise for a game. The water physics deserve a mention for having waves and splashes that reminded me of Waverace, only better. 

Good diverse soundtrack, the usual gta radio stations to pick your listening taste or just accept the random setting from the cars you get into. I love the rock and the inclusion of Songs like One vision by Queen and Dominon by the Sisters of Mercy shows a diversity and willingness to step away from what was popular with the teen demographic on the month before release.

As is usual in Rockstar games there are a tremendous amount of statistics available. These deserve a mention for their obsessive compulsiveness and due to the fact that I spent a while looking through them on more than one occasion.

Achievements are fair, for between 40-50 hours play and completion of the main story-line I received 285 points Which does seem a little tight but I can see that there is still so much more to do in the game. The racing side missions are easily on a par with burnout Paradise. The city is just so damn beautiful that exploring and looking for the pigeons will be fun. The remaining achievements are multiplayer and side mission orientated.  So while this isn't a game for people looking for a quick score boost these achievement points are earned with hours of your time and not insane hyper reflexed kiddie skills.

Multiplayer seems excellent with the mobile phone being used to enter a lobby system which consists of the game itself, you can meet your team and wander about a bit, then choose a game mode and play a multitude of objective based games. races, straight deathmatch etc. One mode deserves a mention, one player at random is the Don and they have to be taken to a point win, the other team have to take him down. It's chaotic and fun. 

Simply being able to wander the city with a few others is enjoyable. I think I would still be looking for pigeons if you were allowed to do this together. A few co-op missions would have been good. Still there is patches and downloadable content to come. I vote for being able to do the pigeon hunt with friends for the patch. The fun really is endless in this game if you want it to be. I spent some time just playing with friends in the sandbox. One of us would take a bike and flee. The others would chase him in helicopters and all sorts. Don't get me wrong it did get old, but this game does have excellent multiplayer opportunities if you are into experimenting with it. Those who prefer their Halo and Call of duty probably will go back to them quickly, but that does not mean that this isn't a robust multiplayer game. I think it boils down to the size of the city. Deathmatch for me has always been better in close proximity and frantic action. That is why I enjoy things like the shipment map in Call of Duty 4.

This game is a must. There is no excuse for not owning it. I fail to understand why any PS3 or Xbox360 owner does not own and play this game. It is a master-class in design, gameplay and fun.

Scoring

Graphics 9

Gameplay 10

Story 8

Level Design 9

A.i. 8

Total 8.8

Devil May Cry 4 Review

First of all this is the first Devil May Cry game that I have played. I was away from playstation gaming around the time they came out and more into pc, work was also crazy around those times. Anyway excuses out of the way. I am apologising for not knowing the story or the moves. If I was familiar and had played through the previous games in the series I may have seen the game in a different light.

The story is told through several cut scenes at the beginning and end of each level though none of them are much more than five minutes long. The scene is set with Nero going to a church service. He seems bored and only there to be with Kyrie who seems to be his friend soon to become more than friends. During the service Dante bursts in shoots the church leader Sanctus mid service. Kyrie's brother Credo tasks you will hunting down Dante. As you leave the church demons enter the city and begin tearing it apart. Nero sends Kyrie off to safety. As the story progresses there are many twists and turns and things are not what they seem at the start of the game.

It has to be said though that the storytelling is cryptic and more concerned with flashy action in the cutscenes that telling a coherent story. At the start of the game you are intended to be in the dark about the events, it's just that unless you pay close attention you might never be entirely sure of the ins and outs. There are too many revelations that are not foreshadowed. This ensures the player is left wondering what on earth is going on for far too long. Eventually the story becomes clear, but you have to work at it. There is a story there, it's just buried by a desire to be cryptic. For example I am still not sure if Dante's levels occur in a time period after Nero's or before them and we are playing a flashback.

For me characters were introduced as if they should be known, no introduction at all. I didn't know the history and it was never explained. Though you can go into an extra on the options to read about the history of the game. unfortunately some of this is only accessible as an unlock after completing most of the game.  It would have been good to have a primer for new players, especially since this is the first time Xbox360 only players have had a chance to play the series. A "previously in Devil May Cry," video would have helped a lot.

Japanese storytelling is very quirky. Style is everything, Nero and Dante are achingly cool in an emo/goth sort of way and their dialogue is of the one liner or corny variety. I am never sure if this is a translation or a cultural issue with japanese originated dialogue. There is a difference in flow and beats of language that just never seems quite right on a subliminal level with translated dialogue. However the story does have a beginning middle and end and could be construed as a political stab at the Bush administration and the crazy conspiracy theories around The Twin towers terrorist incident. Governments bringing down attacks on their people and then stepping up to save the day for furthering of their own agenda.

Expect overblown histrionics, anatomy defying wounds and lots of confusion.

These games are all about the combat. combinations of fast, slow, jumping and pushing and pulling with the devil bringer hand to chain hits together for long combinations bring style points which increase your overall score at the end of each level. The moves are varied and satisfying, you feel the pain that Nero inflicts, a necessity for a good combat game. You have to wince and say ouch for the monsters at some point or it just isn't doing it's job. For the uninitiated moves pop up with a quick button press tutorial as they are introduced so that you are not overwhelmed, and while there are lots of moves there are not countless similar and therefore redundant ones.

You can use pistols and swords and collecting orbs from enemies and broken furniture allows you to power up in an rpg like fashion depending on which weapons you like best. If you don't want to decide the game will spend your points in what one would hope to be a wise fashion for you.

What else is there in the game besides waves and waves of monsters to practice chaining stylish moves together on?

Progression through levels is simply a matter of finding your way, with some simple puzzles. There are buttons to press to unlock doors. In some areas you use big spinning tops with blades on to open the way and kill enemies.

There are moving and disappearing platform areas. trampoline type rune platforms, big whirling blades that need you to slow time to achieve jumps.  In some levels you have floating lights which seem to attract the devil bringer and hoist you towards them, you can chain some spectacular pinball style leaps with these.

There are some old chestnuts that take me back, for example, having small areas with four exits, with only one being the right one, the others loop you back to the same area. At first you wander aimlessly until you realize there is a method for deciding which direction is the right one.

There also some innovative levels. For example in one area you play a kind of board game. When you enter the room a chess piece of yourself appears on the board and the exit only opens when you get your piece to the final square. You whack a dice and move the designated amount of steps. each square has either a bonus or a hoard of monsters spawning into the room.

This is great the first time round, then later on in the game it is reprised in an almost game breaking fashion. the dice is semi random, if you hit it when the number you want is on top it will land on that number, but you have to have excellent reflexes. In this later section the squares on the board form a loop and progress through four game boards depends on landing on one spot. This sees the player spending ages reprising boss battles, and fighting almost as many enemies as they have fought throughout the entire game so far trying to get through. It is the penultimate level of the game and as such meant to be hard, as it is it's screamingly frustrating. Way to turn a nice idea into a torture Capcom.

Twice in the game you are expected to win a boss battle only for the cut scene afterwards to show you losing, which story wise just really jarred.

For the first 11 missions you control Nero, and for the remaining 9 or so you play as Dante. His control scheme is similar but different and his move set ramps up quickly to a dizzying array of weaponry and tricks. Again, for previous players this must feel like slipping on a comfortable item of clothing, relaxing and really enjoying the game. For new players it's like being handed a new game halfway through and being expected to know how to fight as Dante.

There is quite an array of different monsters, and some move in interesting fashions, not simply coming ambling towards you, the shark fin like creatures and the floating ghost like things come to mind. The enemy design is interesting with possessed clothing, suits of armor and even ice being animated for the demon will. 

Boss fights are very traditional and very spectacular and fast paced. It's all about learning the patterns of attack and exploiting a weakness once you find it. There are three huge animal demon hybrid bosses and four human/demon hybrid ones/ They have loads of variety and I am sure that fans of boss battles with be happy here.

The most impressive levels occur in and around the Saviour which is a 200 foot tall animated statue, you climb up it in one level and fly around it in another, the graphics are really impressive here.

One thing that has to be said about the game is the repetitiveness. Basically you go through several themed areas as Nero. City, ice/castle,  underground lab, forest, church/headquarters. Then you go back through them as Dante, with levels in and around the saviour. If you count the missions there are around 20, though there are only six locations in which they take place. The game is long enough, though there is a bit of padding here to make it feel bigger.

Graphics

The graphics are excellent, the frame rate seems fairly stable at more than 30 frames per second for the most part. Without a frame rate counter it's hard to tell, but the game moves slickly for the most part. Perhaps for the fanboys all games should come with a toggle-able frame rate counter.

In small areas the camera is fixed and at others the player can control it. There are some issues when moving between static camera angles. I lost count of the amount of times i inadvertently walked into a new camera angle and was pushing in a direction with the controller which suddenly changed and i went back the way I had came. Though for the most part the camera does it's job well.

The game looks wonderful. Lush forest, old italian style city scape, huge gothic architecture, and the saviour is breathtaking. The characters are stylish and very well drawn. Females are here only to titillate with little clothes and jiggling breasts and bottoms, with one exceptions the hero's perfectly innocent love interest. Everything drips hardcore gamer cool. Think of that statement in relation to your own tastes and decide if it's a good thing. The amount of enemies is kept to a manageable amount, you fight a few and then more teleport in. 

Music is thrashy hardcore metal type stuff, and seems to be pattering away in the background annoyingly with the drums mixed high and the guitars lows. Sound effects are inoffensive. Voice acting does well with the corny dialogue.

Checkpoints are scattered fairly. There is no multiplayer whatsoever. Co-op might have been a nice option, but I don't think there are any games in this genre with co-op so we will not hold that against it.

The menu's are fairly bland and bad fonts with garish colors don't help, though there are some nice character bios and history lessons which help the uninitiated.

With respect to achievements I played through the game on normal. I only acquired 100 points, which i feel was quite stingy. The game seems to have a lot of small achievements Possibly these are for the little bonus rooms which pop up and ask  you to perform tasks against the clock, or kill so many enemies in a certain style. Not a game for easy achievement hunters, hardcore only need apply, and I would imagine anyone having 1000 points in this game would have clocked up many many hours on it and it's earlier incarnations.

A great game for fans of the genre. If you are at all skeptical of this genre then steer clear. It's a hardcore gamers game from a hardcore gamers company. Old school in many respects. Spectacular graphically, but is that enough. Frustration is waiting here for the uninitiated, joys for those who know what to expect from the son of Sparda.

I was tempted to give this game a score for fans and a score for new players. I suppose all games in franchises have to be measured up against their past and others in the genre. I will hold up my hands and say I am really too much of a novice in the genre to really say what true fans will score this game. As a newbie i give it my score. Be aware that I would agree with long time hardcore fans that it might score a high 7 in their eyes. I doubt much more as this is really a new polish on an old genre.

Scoring

Graphics 9

Gameplay 7

Story 6

Level Design 5

A.i. 5

Total 6.4

Frontlines: Fuel of War Review

I think I know what went wrong here. imagine the scenario In Kaos studio. There must be many different offices, imagine one belongs to a writer, maybe there are one or two writers, I don't know, but I doubt it. There must be many more offices for programmers, level designers, artists etc. Now The writer works away in his little office. He might have been given a brief by game designers. Possibly he might be giving the brief to the game designers but it doesn't feel that way.

The point is, it looks like he worked away on his little story while the tech people worked away on the game and the two were slotted together at the end. It could even be possible that these people don't work in the same building and might actually have never met in person.

Why do I have this theory? Well, there are missions, set in a distinct location, with objectives and a clear story like point. There are about 8 missions and each one seems to be set in a different game. The job of the writer seems to have been to come up with a scenario that all of these can fit into and link them all together with story cut scenes. The problem here is that the cut scenes are for the "short of attention span" and only last a minute at most. The characters in these cut scenes don't have enough time to imprint on us to care about them. Most of them are too generic to actually be called character rather than archetype.

While we are in the game these characters are absent and we only have generic grunts to assist us who have no real character whatsoever. This means to me that I could hardly learn the various characters names, nor did I want to because they showed up too infrequently.

In one scene the people who fight their way deep into the bowels of a missile silo to stop a missile being launched are left with only one option to stop it. By closing the silo doors it means that the nuke will launch inside the silo and be destroyed and them along with it as there is no time to get out. We see their demise from other characters point of view and are expected to be moved by their loss and sacrifice. I never even knew their names. I thought that the character I was controlling for the whole game was the same person? It was all a little too close to some scenes in Call of duty 4 for my liking anyway. 

The writer did a good job on the whole universe of the game. We are asked to believe that once oil becomes scarce the whole world will degenerate into war for control of the remaining resources. The story seems to be suggesting that the russians and chinese have clubbed together against the rest of europe and America. Whatever has happened it seems that middle eastern powers seem to be incorporated into the alliance.

The irony of using so much of a dwindling resource to fight a world war isn't lost. The cut scenes suggest that rioting and loss of societal norms has become commonplace when cars run out of fuel and homes stop getting electricity, leading to disease and looting.

We are never shown any of this however. It is all narration from the Reporter who is tagging along with the stray dogs squad. The story takes the squad from routine defense duty where they are ambushed, to full scale war with the Russian/chinese coalition. The game takes us through many engagements until a full scale assault on Moscow ends the game.

I have criticisms about the total degeneration of society as portrayed in the game. I am sure that society would go through a dark time when fossil fuel runs low. However, I hope that alternative energy will play a bigger part and society will lose its shackles rather than eat itself. Still this is one alternate future, which is reasonably plausible. The crying shame it that the writers work might as well be about a different game than what we are playing here.

Gameplay mechanics

Aiming seems slightly dodgy using sniper rifle, seems to hit girders etc in the way when it shouldn't and doesn't kill instantly with a headshot.

At one point you are asked to do a stealth mission, however, there seems to be no way to go about the job stealthily. the first shot alerts the enemy. I don't really do stealthy anyway, maybe it was my mistake.

Take a bit of getting used to to aim with standard guns, clicking the stick to zoom seems to be necessary at first until you get used to the game. Something seems to make the game hard work on first play, which requires persistence and a learning curve that is just that bit too steep, first rule of gameplay should be that nothing irritates the player too much on the first level. You don't want them to get turned off and stop playing. Which for some might have happened with the demo of this game which game some time before release and didn't seem one pixel different from the finished game.

There are the usual fps conventions and weapons, guns, shotguns, rocket launchers, grenades. In addition there are many additional weapons. There are drones which allow you to charge into heavily guarded areas and run around in the open all guns blazing and take out a few soldiers without endangering yourself. There are three types of drone, robot remote guns on tracks, little helicopters or fast moving remote control tiny car bombs. There are also moveable turret emplacements with weapons like rail-guns. Enemies also have a few tricks, in the form of emp generators which keep vehicles out of a certain area until they are taken out.

The player can control a range of tanks and jeep type weapons with varying mounted weaponry. Helicopters are also used infrequently in the single player campaign.

The areas are large and open world, though this still feels very much like a corridor shooter. It's not, they just put all the objectives in a line instead of making you run for your money around the maps.

Good terrain and a realistic feel, areas are designed well for the type of conflict that is to take place in them. The missile base being particularly well designed, with its heavy fortifications and one main entrance leading down to a believable generator room and launch silo. Missions require the taking of certain areas as if it were a capture the flag multiplayer game or the destruction of certain features like generators or pumping stations. Various enemies and tanks are in the way. There is a limitless amount of them unless you keep pushing forwards as seen in games like call of duty instead of there being a certain amount of enemies in the map. Though once you push into the latter stages of an objective then once you shoot all the enemies at the objective none re-spawn. There are no boss fights at the end of each level you have big areas inside buildings with lots of enemies shooting from all sides.

The a.i. is typical of low end old school a.i. They stand in the open, run straight at you or just stand there in cover shooting and ducking. When they are in cover they pop up at timed intervals right into your waiting shots. Weight of numbers is their only real hope of getting you.

The game allows you 5 or so respawns per mission. Checkpoints are spaced well. When you run out of re-spawns you have to restart the mission from the start rather than the last checkpoint, which means going back a fair amount. However, you really only need those respawns to count on the last few missions even on the hardest difficulties.

The audio is adequate, with no really irritating music to speak of. The usual bangs and whistles with no problems with the mixing of the sound.

Graphically the game has an adequate engine which moves smoothly most of the time. the graphics are nothing that hasn't been seen before in a thousand other fps games. Deserts towns cities. The Moscow level shows the engine to be capable of grandeur but it's too little too late in the game. In short not bad, very average and nothing we haven't seen in countless other games.

Achievements are badly handled I completed the game on hard and was given 155 points. 50 of those were for playing a multiplayer game with two other people. Two of us against one poor guy who must have been playing it for the first time also. We won a flawless victory, probably by virtue of only seeing the guy once and blowing his brains out with a sniper rifle. Hence what should have been a hard as nails online achievement being relegated to a joke. I may as well have played on normal as the achievements were for normal for completing a level. To get the points mother-load you have to complete levels in a certain time limit or do it without dying or have a certain accuracy. All obtainable on easy if I could be bothered. I might do it sometime, but I am not in any hurry. 

Multiplayer seemed mostly empty when I tried. Which is damning in itself. If a game can't keep a thriving online community then it's lost the battle before it started. If a couple of months after release it's hard to get enough players to fill a game then there is no impetus to return to the game.

Which is a shame, as with the large playing areas and variety of weapons and objectives the game could have been good. Shame it just doesn't have that popularity factor that Halo COD and BFBC have at present. Harshly put Battlefield imitators are put in the shade when the real Battlefield releases a new incarnation.

I can't really put my finger on what is wrong with this game, I enjoyed it, it seemed a little short. I would put my playing time at around 10 hours. Which actually was just long enough, any more and it would have been tiresome rather than gripping.

It's one of my little things. I don't want shooters like this to run to 80 hours of gameplay. Sure if multiplayer is your bag and you spend 80 hours on Frontlines in multiplayer then great. But single player campaigns that last more than 15 hours are usually full of padding levels. Halo 1 for example which seemed to go on for an eternity in that cartography level in very similar rooms.

The problem with Frontlines isn't that it's a bad game, it's just that it's very similar to the Battlefield games. We have seen it all before, and since it isn't better than those games then it doesn't have a lot to recommend it. Comparing it to the crop of shooters that came out around the same time as it, it was actually the best of the bunch. I am thinking of Turning Point, Conflict Denied Ops and Turok. Though I am basing that comparison on the demos of those games, which is all I have played of them.

Scoring

Graphics 7

Gameplay 7

Story 5

Level Design 8

A.i. 5

Total 6.4