Dark Sector Xbox 360 Review

Hayden Tenno is a agent for the agency, an American group involved in biological weapons. At the start of the game Hayden is sent to assassinate a scientist and ascertain if there has been an outbreak of a virus. The setting for the game is Larissa in Russia. The virus has escaped into the civilian population and there are teams of soldiers culling the infected. Hayden is confronted by a man named Mezzner who also works for the agency and seems to have gone rogue. Mezzner infects Hayden with the virus and leaves him for dead. Hayden begins to change and his infected arm grows a metal armor skin and a throwing weapon called the glaive grows out of his hand, an extension of himself that he can use as a deadly boomerang to slice and dice the soldiers who shoot on sight.

Hayden is thrown into this situation feeling guilty about an unexplained event in his past where it seems everything went wrong and he was responsible for a few deaths. He makes contact with other agency people and finds that Mezzner and his bodyguard named the nemesis are controlling events for their own ends and Hayden must stop Mezzner's madness from spreading the virus around the world. For every one person who gets infected and has wonderful abilities gifted to them there are another thousand who go mad with agony and become deformed shambling zombies.

The story is intriguing, however the way in which it is told is over concerned with being stylish and moody. The past is never explained, possibly there will be a prequel. We are never sure if Mezzner is worse than the agency Hayden works for. The only person who seems to be on the level is Hayden and he doesn't really seem to have an agenda or know what he is doing. The story moves along through various cut scenes and the ten levels are linked to the story in that we understand why Hayden is going wherever he is fighting towards. The game seems to be setting up the character of Hayden for big things, however most of his supporting cast are bumped of during the game only really leaving one other supporting cast member alive when the credits roll. If Hayden is going on to another game with all his new found super powers then he is going to have to have a new set of antagonists because he slaughtered everyone he had issues with this game. 

The game borrows heavily from others in it's genre, it owes much to Gears of War, and yes I know that Gears of War wasn't the only game to use over the shoulder third person and cover mechanics but it is the most recognized example of the genre at present time. The controls are very similar, and the cover and roadie run are ripped straight from Gears. The game has more that just shooting at it's heart however, while gears was primarily a shooter Dark Sector wants to involve many other elements, as shown by Hayden's virus induced superpowers, he can throw the glaive and direct it in mid flight, he can shoot the glaive into fire, ice and electricity to charge it and double it's effectiveness, shocking, burning and freezing enemies accordingly. The glaive is also used as a melee weapon. Good timing unleashes a power throw which chops enemies in half first hit. Other powers include the ability to throw up a protective shield which also reflects back enemy fire. Finally Hayden can become invisible and sneak up on his foes stealthily. When you get used to the abilities Hayden becomes formidable and conventional weapons for me became a bit of an afterthought.

This seems to have been a design choice that I was funneled into. The games weapons that are dropped by soldiers can't be used by Hayden for more than about thirty seconds due to an anti-infected device set into them, presumably to prevent the infected civilian population gaining any firepower to fight back or possibly to prevent infected soldiers turning on their former allies. This means that guns dropped can be picked up and used but only for a limited time. To gain a weapon you can keep you have to pick up money littered around the levels and buy guns at the black market. The market is in the form of manholes which when activated take you to a shop where you can buy and sell weapons and upgrade and store previously bought weapons. Hayden can only carry two guns at a time so choices need to be made.

You start with small arms and when you gain enough money you can buy some formidable firepower. This system makes the game feel almost rpg like in your character development, I know it's pretty basic but the fact remains that the Hayden who starts the game is nothing like as powerful as the Hayden who finishes it. Money is fairly scarce and I tended to save money and make do with the glaive and it's powers to progress and bought the best weapons at about the seventh level of the game. The upgrade system merits criticism in my eyes as once you apply the powers you find in briefcases around the levels you can't remove them, I applied things willy nilly to start with and then ended up regretting it later when I couldn't change bigger magazine and rapid fire for enfron shells and double damage etc. I tended to sell the upgrades as I got them and save for guns instead, the same with grenades, i just forgot about them and sold them whenever i found a black market manhole.

The gameplay seems similar to Gears of war in some areas and yet never seems quite as fluid. There is a stop start progression which sees you moving from one set piece area to another. With puzzle areas in between. I found myself stuck several times during the game, at a loss as to what to do next and having to actually go online and research how to progress. When you find out what you have to do then you kick yourself and see the obvious. However that is also a problem, I am sure some people saw what was meant to be done straight away while others like me will struggle. For example near the start of the game you encounter heavy resistance in a large open area. Once you have killed everyone I spent literally an hour wandering this small square shaped area trying to figure out where to go next, there were two cellars, and several scaffolds and doors, all of which looked promising, there was also a cracked looking wall which seemed to be sticking out like it wanted to be blown up. Nothing seemed to work though. I kept looking at a locked gate, but there were other similar locked doors so I thought it might have something to do with it , so there I was stuck, a quick look online shows me that I have to use the glaive to hit a switch which is behind the gate, the switch wasn't flashing like most other interactive objects in the game however. I felt stupid and a hint to developers, making your audience feel stupid isn't helping them buy your next game.

Another example saw me pounding away on a boss until my ammo ran dry. Only by going online did I find out i had to set fire to a truck, light some infected goo on fire to expose some electricity and then use electricity on the back of the boss to get at it's driver. I hadn't even seen the driver because the thing never turns it's face away from you. I know it's a cliche to paint huge targets on bosses where you should hit them but in this case an electrify here sign would have been most helpful. The point I am trying to make here is that the game is less than intuitive in my eyes, far too often I was left wondering what to do next or how to proceed.

Mention must be made of two scenes where you control a vehicle called the jackal. The jackal is one of the early bosses and once you defeat it you can get in and control it. It moves like a mechanical horse and is built like a tank. With a machine gun and rocket launcher it is quite fun to control. When you are shot at with rockets you must launch chaff to divert incoming fire. I enjoyed these sections though they were quite short, though possibly the Jackal would have been boring if it's sections were much longer.

The a.i. is a little dumb in places. The soldiers especially seem to be a bit dull and usually just sit behind cover and pop up now and again. Too many times you are left waiting with your cursor over the spot you know they are going to appear, waiting to send the glaive spinning into their skull. The further into the game you go you begin to meet infected who have gained powers like yourself, and they tend to jump around like fleas and flank and use invisibility. Their a.i. is passable. There are some annoying riot shield soldiers who come at you relentlessly and have to be stunned by banging the glaive off their shield and looking for an opening at head or feet to shoot them down.

There are several boss fights in this game, large mechanical beasts and huge infected, along with the Nemesis and Mezzner himself. All the boss battles are different and quite fun. The last one with Mezzner got a bit repetitive. The bosses were all satisfying and there is a plot twist revelation with one boss battle that I won't spoil, though I will admit it was one I could see coming. The boss fights do tend to suffer from the player not having a clear goal however.

The areas looked and felt lived in and dirty, the buildings seemed functional. Level design was very good. The only criticism here is that the color scheme was drab. The graphics were excellent throughout. Dark Sector uses the evolution engine and the game seemed smooth and glitch free with some impressive textures. I have to say I was more impressed that I thought I would be, having seen some early footage almost a year ago that never looked as good as the finished game. 

The sound is minimal with sparse music and lots of eerie sound effects. Guns  and explosions sound like well guns and explosions. The sound is adequate.

The game employs the now standard screen going red and eventually you die if you take too much damage in a row format. There are checkpoints and I never once found myself going back too far after dying. The menu presentation is good with a good artistic style. If you want gothic, dark and moody then this game is for you.

The achievements are well balanced. I have played the game through once on normal difficulty which unlocks the brutal difficulty mode. I gained 550 points from a first play through. The game gives out another 110 for completing it on brutal and I am sure I will gain some of the kill 30 enemies with fire, electricity etc achievements on a second play-through. There is one achievement that i kept trying for and has still eluded me, double decappe latte asks you to lop off two heads in a row. I am still trying for this one. Maybe on that second play-through. 

There is a reasonable stab at multiplayer. I haven't played it much yet as Rainbow six vegas is taking up my time with all my friends list asking me to join them for terrorist hunts. I might give Dark Sector a go, but in all honesty I can't really see it happening, ranking systems are the in thing in multiplayer at present.

Scoring

Graphics 9

Gameplay 8

Story 6

Level Design 6

A.i. 6

Total score 7

Bully Xbox 360 Review

The political storm that this game attracted on it's first release is well documented, Rockstar realizing that there really isn't such a thing as bad press started a fire under the tabloids and then laughed at them for hyping the game to death and the final product was in some ways the complete reverse of what the tabloids were anticipating.Sure Jimmy can deal out wedgies, but on the whole he is the voice of sanity in an asylum of cardboard caricature  nut-jobs. The bully in this game is the crushing weight of mindless authority and cruelty in the name of conforming with your peers. Jimmy never lets his peers win and swims against the crowd. 

Jimmy is a naughty boy with a neglectful broken family who decide to dump him for a year at bullworth academy after he gets kicked out of every other school he has been to. How will he fit in at Bullworth?Jimmy does just fine, getting in tow with Gary, who has aspirations to run the school and a nerdy guy called pete. It soon transpires that Gary is a major nutjob who is simply using Jimmy to do his dirty work. Jimmy is smarter than that and eventually Gary decides to get him beaten up thus ending Gary and Jimmy's friendship. Jimmy then goes on to earn the respect of the nerds then the greasers then the jocks and becomes king of the school. Gary is waiting however and Jimmy's rain is made interesting by a score of problems, which on investigation he find that the townies led by Gary have been working to set him up. How will Jimmy get back his respect and defeat Gary.

Throughout the story we are introduced to various carictures of teachers and students. Slutty Lola who everyone is fighting over and everyone seems to be able to have, a whole gang of stereotypes, the usual weak and incontinent nerds, the muscled but dim jocks. Thrown in to spice things up are the worst teachers imaginable, either hippies, drunks or just plain corrupt. 

For the British audience it plays like Grand Theft Auto : Grease. It's not like our schools, and seems like a movie parody. Set that aside and it's a moderately funny and enjoyable story.

This is a Rockstar game, so of course it is an open world sandbox game with the usual huge well designed map.  As per usual the world is broken up into smaller sections to allow you to get a feel for the map without it being too overwhelming at first. The school itself is well designed with the usual locations like gym library and the town of Bullworth has a centre and rich and poor districts. There is even a fairground packed with minigames.

Points on the radar show where available missions can be started from, the missions themselves are standard fare, go here, collect this, defeat certain people take things back to other people. You get about the game mostly on foot or by skateboard, though there are other methods of transport like bicycles. There are race missions dotted around the map. 

There are a lot of mini games to play-through giving the game a varied feel. There are arcade machines to get high scores on to unlock features like safe/save houses. These vary from simple and easy to a racing game which could survive a turn on Xbox live arcade. The classes involve button pushing sequences, rhythm games akin to simple guitar hero type games and actual school type activities like putting flags on a map of europe and making words out of a jumble of letters.

The weapons are all non lethal for, example stink bombs eggs, catapults, bottle rockets spud guns. When you beat up someone with your fists they lie on the ground squirming rather than bleed all over the place. The combat has a few moves and combo's though simple one button mashing will get you through without any style, for those that want to learn roundhouse kicks etc the game has the option. 

The a.i. is actually alright in this game, sure you sometimes see pedestrians getting hit by cars, but it's typical sandbox stuff with people milling around going from point to point. When you are in combat the a.i. is nothing new but never really lets itself down with obvious stupidity. There are some simple bosses in the form of one on one fights with bigger guys with long health bars, usually if you remember to carry a full spud gun these boss fights become easy matters, though sometimes you are prevented from using projectile weapons e.g. when in the mascot costume.

The biggest problem with this game is it's graphics, which is not really to say that they are bad, just that there is has been no attempt to improve on them from the PS2 original. The assets have been copied directly with no attempt to improve them. The code is the same, there are only a few cars on screen at any one time, and I mean a few, four at most it seems. The pologon count is exactly the same.

I have mixed feelings about this. In the back of my mind there is a voice saying that this is pure laziness and there should have been coded from the ground up version for the Xbox 360. On the other hand Xbox 360 owners who never had a PS2 or never played this game get the chance to play it. I fit into that bracket, I had a PS2 but never found time for this on it's first release.

I wish that I had, I might have been more impressed with it graphically. As it stands this is a lazy port. The developers should have spent a little more time making new models of the characters at least, some better textures might have made the streets look better also. As long as you know what you are getting here then it is o.k, this is a PS2 game ported as is. If you want to play that then go ahead, I am sure if you are a fan of sandbox games then this one will keep you pleasantly occupied. Just don't expect a competitor for GTA IV. One of the most annoying nags about the engine is that they haven't even bothered to load the whole map into memory, every time you go from section to section or from outside to inside you get a blank loading screen, I am sure that the Xbox 360 could have held the whole map in memory for this game.

The sound is satisfactory, good voice acting, average effects and tinkly Rockstar tongue in cheek music. There is no licensed music soundtrack which is a let down after GTA.

The game allows you to save by going to specific areas on the map, which start out sparse but by the time you have got halfway through are plentiful, you can also quick hop from almost anywhere on the map to the school by taking the school bus. You can't save during a mission which would make thing far too easy. 

As far as achievements go on first play through I achieved 355 points from the game, that was completing the story mode only. The percentage game complete meter says i have only done about 58% of the game. The rest includes collecting hundreds of scattered objects and completing all side missions and mini-games. The achievements are simple with no surprises, collect all collectibles, beat 200 people in fights, egg 25 cars, pick 50 flowers, kiss 25 girls etc. Some of them are obtainable only by repeating certain actions, for example the aforementioned egging of cars is not something that you have to do in the game to progress you actually have to read the achievement list and go get eggs and go looking for 25 cars to hit. 

No real multiplayer, although You can apparently challenge people at mini-games, I was so interested in this feature I never managed to try it.

In summary this is a great game it just feels like you are playing something from 2006. There is nothing wrong with that, however in this day and age graphics are a large part of the package, if you can look beyond graphics then there is something for you to enjoy here if you are fan of sandbox gta style gameplay.

Scoring

Graphics 4

Gameplay 7

Story 8

Level Design 8

A.i. 7

Overall 6.8

Timeshift Review

Timeshift for me had little in the way of story. There were only a few poorly fleshed out characters, I only know the name of the bad guy, which is a bad sign if you don't know many names by the end of the story. The hero has amnesia and some of the story comes back to him in flashbacks, but they are disjointed and cryptic. Which is how I felt about the whole story. I don't really know for sure If I know what was going on at all.

I can make a guess. A research company makes a device for time travel which is in the form of a suit. There are two suits an alpha and a beta. One of the scientists seems to have been a bit of a Bond villain in his spare time and decides to pinch the suit and go take over the world. I presume he does this by going back far enough in time and using his advanced technology and knowledge to gain power and influence. The fly in the ointment is that another scientist jumps into the second suit to avoid being blown up by the bad guy and ends up jumping randomly through time with a messed up suit.

The game starts with a dystopian setting where Krone (the bad guy) is ruler of the world and a nasty dictator to boot. There is an active resistance trying to overthrow him. Into this our scientist finds himself thrust. What does he do? Well, he runs around helping the resistance for a while with his time power suit and eventually this leads us into conflict and showdown with Krone.

The problem is that you don't ever see the human face behind the suit. This may be a nod to Halo, however I don't think this game was ever going to achieve that level of fame and no one is ever going to be clamoring for a glimpse at the timeshift guys face. So we have nothing to connect ourselves with the hero. There are some generic resistance fighters that we meet who add nothing. There is the heroes girlfriend that we meet in flashback and see die, hint to developers we need to know a person before their death has any impact, without any emotional contact her death is just another cut scene.

The story premise is there, and it's actually not that bad, so how about the meat, how does everything move from intro to endgame. Well, we go through city level, then forest level, then industrial level then meet the final boss. Oh what? You actually wanted a coherent stream of natural events? Oops. I suppose I am being slightly unfair, it is a game and not a movie, and all the story does is serve as a backdrop for the levels in most games, however if you want your game to feel like a cinematic experience you have to have strong reasons for going to point A and doing this, then going to point B and so on. Krone is on his big spider boss thing the whole game it seems, it just takes endless running around in the wilderness for our hero to realize this it seems. Not a good progression really is it? There are reasons for going from A to B Its just that they aren't really clear in the context of the muddy flow of the story.

The game is a straightforward FPS, its main hook and I suppose innovation is the time control elements. The ability to stop time for a few seconds, slow it for slightly longer and to reverse it, are used reasonably well. At some points a lack of enemies heralds a puzzle where you have to work out how to get from A to B by using switches and elevators, only you find that you can't do it unless to stop or reverse time in the middle of running and jumping around. These puzzles are interesting, they are few and far between and all of the same variety. This means that even if you can't work it out at first you instantly know that it is something to do with time that will solve it, this hook to the puzzles ensures that they are all solved quickly.

There are some sections on a vehicle which is suspiciously like the quad bike from Halo. These sections are reasonable. Though they do seem tacked on so that they could use them in screenshots and add a bullet point onto the list of features.

You occasionally meet other timeshifting enemies and they become much harder by virtue of being immune to your time ability.  The usual enemies are swiftly despatched by slowing them down which does seem a touch unfair. There are some walker type enemies, though they are few and far between. The weapons are fairly standard, with the gears of war style torque bow type thing standing out as particularly useful. Your health is the suits health which recharges in a few seconds if you stop taking damage. The time abilities are also limited and recharge slowly otherwise the game would become far too easy.

One thing that this game has that I heartily recommend is that while it has the usual checkpoint system, you are also able to save the game at any time. All games should do this in my opinion, it makes replay frustration a thing of the past, I hate being stuck in a particular section and every time I die having to replay for several minutes before I get to the area I died in. It might make games shorter and easier, but I feel developers will just have to live with that.

The levels are good looking, with the forest level standing out to me as particularly pretty. The graphics have that chunky feel of early xbox 360 games like Quake 4 and Perfect Dark Zero. Notable is the destructible environment idea that was demonstrated in the Gears of war tech demo from GDC 08 actually implemented in this game, walls suffer damage and crumble leaving their iron rod reinforcing behind so that the walls look like they are destroyed but player freedom is still curtailed. It doesn't really add much to this game. In a game with a cover system it would have stood out more. Still it's there after all.

There is nothing good to say about enemy a.i. Nor is there anything bad to say about it either, its pretty dumb but average. For short periods you interact with friendly characters and these don't actually get in your way which is a bonus.

The final boss deserves a mention here for a big build up and very poor pay off. I thought I was going to be in for a scene similar to Halo's scarab assault scenes. What I got was shooting some lights off the top of the boss and it crumbling to the ground.

The sound is adequate, effects are good and music is of the dance/forgettable type.

I never got around to playing the multiplayer on this. I was to busy with Call of duty 4's multiplayer to give this a spin. It may be brilliant, I will probably never know.

Menus are there, obviously and are uninspiring, there is some concept are galleries that looked incredibly dull.

The achievements are fairly well balanced and there is nothing particularly clever or bad about them I played on the hard level and got xxx points from the game. Most points for completing levels and the game.

When I look back at this I feel like I am being harsh I don't mean to be. I enjoyed this game a lot, it was a lot of fun. It was decidely average though. Coming out in a lean period this game might have garnered more attention. Coming out when it did among the christmas rush to market it never stood a chance. If there was a Timeshift 2 I would be interested. Somehow I don't think there will be.

Microsoft possibly releasing a Wiimote?

I read the news of this rumour and cringed a little. My first instinct is that this will be another Xbox live vision cam.

I bought the vision cam and used the video chat to a friend once. Played some uno and saw an interesting cross-section of the dregs of humanity. However Uno wasn't good enough to keep my attention, and none of the other Xbox live arcade games have seemed interesting enough to buy. I am not a fan of poker or chess. The totem ball game I could never get working, maybe it's my lighting or my wallpaper but I could never get the darn thing to work. It's just possible that the camera is rubbish as the thing is cheaper even than Sony's original eye toy.

That was it for the vision cam though, the only use it has got in the last year is to put my face onto my Rainbow Six Vegas character, something that is desperately needed for all third person games and something that I hope Sony implement for Home. I don't want to spend hours making my avatar roughly look like me when i can take two quick pics and have my likeness added perfectly.

So looking at Microsofts track record here the attitude seems to be "we need an eye toy on the market, see to it". Once the product is out and launched they have simply abandoned it to third party developers to produce any games or uses for it. Will they do the same with the Xmote?

It would tick the box so that Microsoft can position the Xbox 360 as a direct competitor to the Wii. That is all Microsoft want to do in my opinion. The Wii buyer will see the Xbox 360 arcade console in the shop with its wii mote, sorry Xmote, and most probably a bundled sport game. Rare sports anyone, Viva pinata vs Banjo Kazooie characters in sports fun with cameos from Master Chief and Marcus Phoenix. The casual buyer will see the Wii with Wii sports and the Xbox 360 with Rare sports and the only deciding factor will be the price. If on closer inspection the more savvy customer sees that the Xbox 360 can play movies from portable hard drives unplugged straight from their PC or from DVD, can play their music CD's and has HD graphics etc then the contest is really over before it begins. In all honesty the Wii is no competition as a console with the Xbox 360.The only advantage is its web browser.

So from a business point of view this is a good thing. That is really all Microsoft want, money. That isn't a bad thing; a company that doesn't want your money is a bad thing too, Microsoft need to look like they want you to have a great time whilst also wanting your money, which is what it's all about. E.A need to take a long hard look at that. Buying guns in Battlefield and the European prices for Rock band are a poor joke. Rock band is a disgrace. The US price is 130 dollars, that should convert to 85 pounds, Factoring in VAT you get 100 pounds, they want to sell it at 180 pounds, an interesting diversion suggests that if you were to do this the other way around and charge the uk price converted into dollars in the US for a product like they do in Europe your Rock band kit would cost you 354 dollars. I wonder how well that would fly?

I personally own a Wii, well technically it was a Christmas present for my son. He plays all sorts of games on it, from Mario Galaxy to absolute shockers like eledees. He seems to like the Wii, but also plays Viva Pinata on Xbox 360 and Ratchet and Clank on the PS3. Super Smash Bros seems to attract his attention despite not being out for a few months here in the UK. Wiimote controls on the wii are ok, but personally I hate having to waggle furiously at certain points in games, don't get me wrong I hate it in games like God of War too, when you have to bash buttons to open doors, kill bosses etc. My point is that the basic premise of the Wiimote is good when used as a pointing device / light gun for shooters but beyond that it's really an annoyance to me.

So if this is more than some idle rumour then how can Microsoft do this right? Well in my opinion the possibilities that this opens up are many.

1) The most obvious is the copycatting of successful Wii games that use the Wiimote well, such as aforementioned wii sports. On that point that is all I want to see. One or two titles that make heavy use of the Xmote for authenticity in sport simulation, golf being the most obvious candidate.

2) Use it as a mouse substitute; I have bemoaned the lack of mouse in a prior post on my blog. I still want to see mouse support on the Xbox 360, but using an Xmote on the dashboard and a new shiny Windows mobile type internet explorer web browser would be something special to announce at E3, make it so Microsoft.

3) With the possibility of pointer control real time strategy games come back into play on the Xbox 360. Patches for Middle Earth and Command and Conquer, and support for Supreme commander and Halo wars when they arrive will see me first in line for an Xmote.

What I don't want is to be frantically shaking the damn thing in every game out there, I want the option Microsoft. If I want to have motion control in FPS's games, then let me choose the option, if I want to carry on and not buy the Xmote then I shouldn't be penalised or feel I am missing out on features.

That's it then, If I was Bill Gates, or whoever is in charge of the final decision. I would announce within a month of release window and once the thing has been tested to death to prevent any RROD embarrassment. That the new Xmote is coming out with improved tracking over the wiimote, a better product entirely with charge and play kit included. Also an Xmote bundle coming with either Rare sports/Banjo Kazooie or a different bundle with Halo wars. The follow up announcement from the same stage would be that the Xbox 360 is getting internet explorer and it is compatible with the Xmote.

Surely that's not asking too much?

Clive Barker's Jericho Review

I bought this game because I am a Clive Barker fan. This will colour this review, though not in the ways you might think. I feel I am going to be harsher than I should because I am disappointed that something that Clive seems to have had a hand in has turned out so averagely, when it could have been great.

This is Clive Barker from the eighties, Books of Blood Barker rather than Coldheart Canyon Barker. Designed for teenage horror movie fans, the kind of fan that the subtleties of Barker have always flown high overhead. The ones who hated Weaveworld because it wasn't scary. The ones who love the Hellraiser series beyond the first one. For me this is Clive Barker for gorehounds, Clive Barker working towards the medium of games for 13 year old boys and ultimately Clive Barker Lite. It has most of Barker's hallmarks, death of major characters, usually the hero, check. Homosexuality/lesbianism, check. Mutilation and perversion of the flesh, pain and torture, all the boxes are checked. Somewhere in there just enough to be noticed is also the brilliant and gripping story-line check box, but has it been ticked hard enough?

The story concerns the firstborn, which is described as God's first attempt at creating life, which was mistakenly given far to much power. God decided to make humans much weaker and with flaws. Unable to erase the Firstborn he locked it away in the pyxsis. This prision seemed to keep the firstborn in check but it found a way to talk to humans on Earth and managed to organise its release through mass sacrifice. The Sumerians were the first to release it and only through the actions of seven priests were able to seal the firstborn back in the pyxsis. The problem was that the firstborn took a slice of Sumeria with it along with the priests and presumably those unfortunate enough to be around at the time. Inside the pyxsis the trapped souls linger unable to die and slowly going mad. Throughout the centuries others have been influenced by the firstborn to let it out. Unknown to it though since the original Sumerian escape a sect of warrior priests have been set up to monitor for the firstborn's escape and to put it back into the pyxsis each time it does. So the cycle goes on, through roman crusades and second world war timeframes until present day when the jericho sqaud of today is sent in to seal the firstborn back into it's trap. The Firstborn is released this time by a cult leader by the name of Leach, who pops up from time to time to annoy you. The story takes you through the captured time slices inside the pyxsis being helped and hindered by the unfortunates who have been trapped inside a never ending hell for centuries and have had the time to go quite, quite mad. The story drives along reasonably and I was impressed by the twist at the end which has the Jericho squad going against all reason and taking a terrible risk which we will have to wait for the sequel to know whether or not they have destroyed the world or saved it.

So how does it play? The main gameplay mechanic of not is that each member of the Jericho team can be switched to and controlled. The others are controlled by a.i. and for the most part shoot at baddies and actually do a good job of getting out of your way. With seven of you milling around in small corridors this is a plus point. Switching to characters is done by aiming at them as if you were going to shoot them and pressing a button or by switching using a clunky and over complicated pop up interface, this should have been achieved by using an eight point wheel with the characters around the outside, hold a button and switch with left or right thumbstick, instead you have two four point wheels switched with the d-pad. There have been many similar games with multiple characters and abilities distributed amongst them. Kameo springs to mind. The mechanic is explained by the player controlled character dying, and becoming a spirit who can hop at will to the other squad members.  The squad members have different weapons and abilities. There are heavy weapons, snipers, grenades, etc. All distributed so you have to know who to hop into to get at the relevant weapon for the situation. There are also special powers like being able to stop monsters in blood magic traps, slow time,     astral projection. So simply put every weapon and fps gameplay mechanic is included and given to each member of the team. In practice however, I ended up going through most of the game with Black and Delgado who seemed the most effective characters, only using the others when I had need of their particular ability. Black was by far the most useful character with her grenade launcher and ghost bullet sniper rifle. The ghost bullet deserves special mention, it is simply a bullets eye view camera, but it was fun to try to string two or three head-shots together. 

Strangely enough one of Jericho's most touted features is the characters and how much they can do. It might also be the games undoing, you see the learning curve is very steep. The game does try to phase all the characters in slowly and you can't control everyone and use all their abilities until about the end of the second level. The problem is that on first play the game asks you to take in a whole lot and run with it. By the time I had finished the game for the second time I felt I had mastered and learned all that could be learned about five of the seven characters. 

The level design was very poor, it felt like there was little to no thought involved in their design. The majority of the game was simply corridors, or areas outside that may as well have been corridors interspersed with square like areas where bigger shoot outs took place. There was no sense of place other than a few decorations. Sure the roman area had baths, the world war two area had bunkers. However, there was little to suggest that these places had been ripped from a living breathing world and trapped inside this nightmarish box of space time. 

The enemy design was not what I wanted from a Clive Barker game, they were nothing I hadn't seen before. Only the bosses seemed to have any ounce of Barkerishness. I was looking forward to seeing some of Barkers art come to life and attack me, it did, but in the end it seemed like I had seen the most prevalent monsters far to many times in other games. A.i. consisted of two varieties, those who run at you and hit you or explode nearby taking you with them or enemies that skulk in the distance and shoot at you from afar. Not the best, far from the worst. Hint to games developers, I really hate exploding enemies, like those here and in Gears of War, Far Cry, etc. Please no more, or at least make them easier to kill with one or two shots instead of ten.

The graphics were nice enough, however the levels did all have a similar feel, with only the Sumerian and the Roman areas having any real distinction, especially the arena. The others seemed muddy and dark and boring, too much corridor and not enough architecture. There were some nice graphical touches, the characters of the team all looked good, but the same could not be said for most of the enemies. This game won't be winning any awards for it graphics, they are serviceable however.

The game uses the now obligatory checkpoint save system and for the most part doesn't expect you to tread too much old ground when you die, though it is guilty of making you repeat some nasty sections over and over due to misplaced checkpoints. Not as bad as some games, I always remember F.E.A.R. as being a bad one for that. 

The menu presentation is standard and needs no mention, There is some concept art and background text unlocked with each achievement and this is reasonably interesting, it's a pity they couldn't have showed instead of told in game as the stuff really did add to the characters, of the team and the enemies. 

Speaking of achievements, I gained 150-200 points for a first play through on normal, and 580 in total for a second on hard. The achievements are the usual completed level and snipe / stab / blow up x amount of monsters variety. For those contemplating doing it on hard first I would recommend playing through on normal or easy first simply to learn the characters and what you use them for, it makes the hard difficulty that much easier to take as there as some areas that need a little strategy to stop them becoming frustrating which if learnt on easy will make hard all the more fun. 

There is no multiplayer option at all. This game was crying out for online co-op if you ask me, it could have been much better if all of the squad could have been real people. I don't think multiplayer would have been bad, I just couldn't have seen me playing it much. The different characters would have made for a game similar to Shadowrun. Which wasn't all that bad? If there had been a gametype with an enforced team mix it could have been interesting, one being the healer, one the sniper, one the heavy, etc. Still it wasn't to be so we will never know if it would have been any good. 

So there it is, some nice ideas, story, etc., marred by adequate implementation. Level design is really the one major problem here. the rest is all solid enough. After playing Call of Duty and Halo 3 this game suffered from having to follow the big fps juggernauts. Come to think of it if Infinity ward or Bungie had developed this it could have been stunning. The only sad thing here is that I actually find myself wanting to know how the story ends, I want Jericho 2 and 3 to be made, With sales according to vgchartz of 300,000 I am not sure I will ever get those sequels.

Why doesn't Microsoft want mouse control on the Xbox 360?

Traditionally consoles have been all about playing games, it's only in the last eight years or so that consoles have been more than just games players. I haven't done exhaustive research. I am sure there have been PDA type software for the Super Nintendo and Megadrive. But the PS2 was really the first useful diversion with it's ability to play DVD's. Since the growth of the mobile phone it has become unthinkable not to cram your gadgets with a plethora of potentially useful items. The mobile phone has become ipod and camera. The PSP became the portable do everything box with UMD video and all it's music and web browsing features. In this climate the newest consoles have to compete. We see the Xbox 360 and PS3 being able to play video and music from hundreds of sources, and download, web browse etc. In fact the PS3 and Xbox 360 have more in common with a pc than ever before. Apart from one thing in the case of the Xbox 360, the mouse. The PS3 supports mouse control from it's operating system, it has basic drivers, and a mouse can be used in its web browser and in games that support it. The Xbox 360 can't, why?

The use of a mouse on a console isn't new, there was a paint program for the SNES called Mario paint that was bundled with a mouse, The Playstation one had an official mouse and some games might even have supported it. My interest was lost at the time when Quake, which was touted to support mouse control announced that they weren't going to bother and in disgust i never went back to being interested in buying the PS1 mouse.

So if it isn't a new feature why was it left out of the Xbox 360? The SNES could do it, the Playstation one and i presume 2 could do it. the PS3, the main competition, can do it. So why on earth doesn't Microsoft?

There may be an answer to that question, one that isn't that particularly hard to find out. Nobody seems to want to use a mouse when playing a game on a console, of course on the PC it's a different matter.

There is thriving in game mouse usage on the PC, indeed I painfully remember my initiation to mouse and keyboard control on FPS games. It was 1995, doom 2 and I had just bought my 14kpbs modem and found a bulletin board to connect to and left an advert to play doom. I got a response from a nice bloke called Gary, who called me and we set up a game. He made mincemeat out of me, you see, i was playing with my nice Gravis joystick and he with mouse and keyboard, the score was around 80 to 1. Not deterred I found out that he was using mouse and keyboard and after much fiddling with .ini files got it up and running, found it total murder, but persevered. I played with Gary many more times, and after a few weeks was beginning to frag him almost as much as he was fragging me. By that time the internet proper had hit my backwater and online games began to become easier to find. The lessons were learned though, one, even though in my own house at the time I was raining doom champion, once online i found out that in the wider scheme of things I was really bad at it. The second lesson was that on PC mouse and keyboard is the only way to go with FPS games.

So what is different on a console. The controller seems to hold some key here. Controllers are important pieces of console history, consoles have been made and broken by the quality of their controller, well maybe not, but atari jaguar, i am looking at you here. The controller is great, you can slouch on the couch and control the whole thing, game developers have to be inventive to fit all they want to do onto a handful of buttons, which leads to some nice innovations that inform all aspects of user interface design. Is it simply down to that, we like to be comfy on our couch, floor, beanbag etc rather than sitting at a desk? The older attempts always had cables, is that the key? Imagine the usual console setup it's under the tv somewhere. Unless the supplied cables were really long that would mean that you would be sitting in the middle of the floor trying to use the mouse mat on the floor to get anywhere. Is lack of wireless technology the reason that the mouse went the way of the dodo on the SNES/PS1 etc?

For older 2D games and some 3D games, racing games come to mind, a controller is more than adequate, it's only real time strategy and FPS games that suffer from the want of a mouse and keyboard. The Xbox 360 has had a few, Middle earth, Command and conquer and is getting Supreme Commander, all of them use controller.

I wonder to myself if the PS3 got a good real time strategy game with mouse and keyboard control, what would happen? As much as it pains me to say I think it would bomb, which is a shame. I don't think the user base of the PS3 would buy it in significant numbers to prove me wrong. I would love to be saying here that a PS3 real time strategy game with mouse control will sell 3 or 4 million and force Microsoft to rethink, imagine if it did, we would see a mouse for the Xbox 360, with patches for Middle earth and C&C to use mouse so i can finally play them without becoming frustrated.

Maybe someone could point out to Microsoft that there is money to be made here. Package a gaming mouse, i am sure Microsoft already make such a mouse. All they would need to do is include an extra code in the circuitry that says to the console, here I am, I am an official Xbox 360 mouse, why you ask?  So that we can't just pull out our PC mouse when we aren't using it.  Simple really, Microsoft get more of our cash and also support mouse and keyboard for FPS and RTS games. I would buy it without a moments hesitation, why because I want to play the two games which I already own with comfort. Also I wouldn't mind trying FPS's with mouse and keyboard as well.

What happens when some hapless PC gamer buys an Xbox 360 and wanders innocently into a forum and wonders to the world, "wouldn't it be good if you could play Halo 3 with a mouse and keyboard?" I will tell you what happens the person gets 100 plus posts in return, all calling him every kind of derogatory name under the sun and besides that, is firmly told, that no thank you, the Xbox 360 community would not like mouse and keyboard support for Halo etc.

What is the reason for this? Have these people been the ones who played PS1 games with the mouse and shudder thinking back to the sore back they got playing cramped up on the floor at the end of the cable leash? Are they scared that they would not be able to play FPS's with mouse and keyboard and would look like newbies online? It is true that mouse and keyboard control does take a bit of learning, though I would say that controller FPS skills also take some learning for the uninitiated.

Let's try and see this from Microsoft's point of view. You would need to have mouse drivers that support every mouse out there, or at least 80 percent of them. The other alternative is to badge a current Microsoft mouse product for the Xbox 360 and only provide a driver for it and disbar any other mouse out there through the use of proprietary technology. That way makes money for Microsoft, the downside is internet backlash from all the people who feel that wireless adapters and hard drives should be off the shelf versions and much cheaper. Before all that though you would need to have a demand for a mouse in the first place. Microsoft must be torn, they see reviews of RTS's with "needs mouse and keyboard control" stamped all over it, and on the other hand they see the reaction to mouse control in FPS's which seems to be a firm no. RTS games are something that microsoft seems to want to encourage, lets look at the sales

Battle for middle earth 290,000

Command and Conquer 3 : Tiberium wars 480,000

(data from vgchartz)

Hmmm, Houston we have a problem! Now which came first the chicken or the egg, did the RTS sell poorly or did it sell poorly because people knew that playing it without a mouse was going to be an exercise in frustration.

Another topic here is the XFPS sniper, a gizmo that you can plug into the usb port of the Xbox 360 which maps a standard usb keyboard and mouse to the controller allowing you to play game with a mouse and keyboard, after a fashion, it isn't true mouse control you see, no matter how quickly you move the mouse the aiming still moves only as fast as the controller would move. It's passable, but somehow not the same. The fact that you can't buy one of these on your high street is testament I think to it's popularity.

Something occurs to me, couldn't game developers making a real time strategy game for the Xbox 360, just make their own. They could cobble together a mouse driver for their game, something that would only work whilst that game was running i.e. not at dashboard/guide level. Make it support a few big name mice and there you go, You can advertise that your game has mouse support, though only for x y and z mouse and get a little deal with the manufacturers of the mice for promoting sales of their product, win win all round. The only way that wouldn't work is if Microsoft has specifically stipulated that developers aren't allowed to do it. I mean I can't program very well, when I did my programming it was on an Amstrad CPC 464 and at college on 286 PC's, when basic, pascal and cobol were the languages of the moment, C was only on the distant horizon. All that aside I can't imagine that a mouse driver is that hard to write for people who make today's games. Secondly if Microsoft forbid it, what is the reason?

It seems that console gamers don't want mouse and keyboard control for FPS games, it's only gamers who migrated from the PC or have an Xbox360 as well as a PC that seem to want it. The real time strategy genre doesn't seem to be selling particularly well for anyone to get off their arse and do anything about it. It looks bleak for me getting my mouse to play C&C! You would think that all the PS3 users posturing about Unreal tournament 3 on PS3 supporting mouse and keyboard would provoke a response from Microsoft, after all who would it actually hurt to provide mouse support. Only a few want it, but making a few people happy is what it's all about, if you always aim at making everyone happy you end up making a generic summer blockbuster, and we all know that they have little substance, cater for the art house fringe that wants the odd stuff and you never know where it might lead!

Watch-processor?

Have you ever wanted something that seems quite obvious, but never seems to get built?

I love my gadgets, I love sci-fi and every time I read something by William Gibson or Peter F Hamilton I am consumed with lust for technology. I read Spook Country recently and had a nagging need for a macbook, which so far due to having no money, I have managed to avoid doing. Each time I finish something by Peter F Hamilton, I look into getting solar panels for my roof, or a wind turbine etc. Now being deluded that I myself can write novels, I attempt to do so. To this end I have bought a series of handheld computers for the express purpose of writing when i am out of the house and find myself with time on my hands. I have bought a laptop, a psion handheld and a series of palm devices with connectable or infra red keyboards. I currently use a palm and fold-up wireless keyboard and it is great, it does the job. Being a gadget freak I tend to daydream about how I could make my portable writing solution better. This is my concept, it's nothing wonderful, just an amalgamation of technology that is out there but doesn't seem to have been brought together in this way. Here is my mash-up, I call it the watch-processor. Forgive my feeble attempts at illustration, I would never make a visual artist.

What is it? It's a mobile phone and a watch, both function exactly as intended, you can have all the functionality of music, video player, camera and text/voice communication, mobile internet etc. The new part is that the whole thing doubles as a portable word processing workstation. The mobile phone incorporates two newish technologies which are available / in the works as we speak. The first is a DLP pico-projector. Which simply put, is a tiny projector that fits inside current mobile phone case sizes. The second is the laser projection keyboard which is an actual product you can buy. With both of these in the phone, you can stand it on it's end on the desk and project a large screen on the wall, and also have a keyboard projected on the desk surface in front of you which works as normal,  I don't know what the resolution is so far on these things but hopefully it is better than current phone screens.

In ideal conditions I hope it could be like using a desktop PC, in less than ideal conditions still better than trying to word process using a mobile phone size screen. The watch comes in as storage and PC connection. There is no real need for this to be on a watch. It could be built into the phone. I like the idea of it being separate however. Why you ask, well it means you can carry your data with you safely at all times.

I sometimes carry a usb stick, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I have my phone and at other times It's left in my jacket in my locker at work. What I am trying to get at is, sometimes, I have need of something I can plug into a PC and store files, and sometimes I don't have my phone or usb stick on me or don't have a cable to connect it to a PC with no bluetooth etc. So What the watch would do is have a usb cable you could attach to a PC tucked out of the way under the watch on a small retractable cable. It would also have say an SD card slot.

Now I never take my watch of and can't remember the last time one got broken on my wrist, I have had usb sticks get crushed in my rucksack however. I don't take my watch off much at all. So I should never be in a position that I don't have usb storage on me ever again. Obviously this thing would have issues with waterproofing but should be as good in the rain as an average mobile phone.

For Sony Ericsson and Nokia think of it, you can sell a watch and a phone as a pair and have them match etc. Think of the bluetooth connectivity between them, you could dial the phone by touching number buttons around the wrist strap instead of having to take the phone out of your pocket, the watch screen could be a second display for the phone.

Imagine this, you are walking down the street, your phone rings in your pocket and you look at your watch and see it's your friend calling. You tap the answer button on your watch and talk into the watch mic and hear the voice on speakers in the watch, you realize that it's going to be more than a few second conversation, so you pull out your bluetooth earpiece and change to it. Your friend tells you about some news that will interest you, after saying goodbye, you touch your wrist to hang up and place your headset back in your pocket. Excited by this news, you decide to go to a nearby coffee house and sit down. You place your phone on the table facing the wall, on the projected large screen you can browse the web through the coffee house wifi, you use the motion sensing track pad of the laser keyboard to browse as your would on a laptop, you read the news your friend told you about while you sip your cappuccino. There is a demo of a new game you wanted to play, it's 500mb, so you download it to your watch SD card. You decide to email a few other friends about the news, so using the laser keyboard projected on the desk you fire of a short email to three friends and then slip the phone back in your pocket and go about your day. No problems spilling your cappuccino in the keyboard either.

Now all of these things can be done with an iphone palm eeepc etc. I stress there is nothing new here, other than a nice display and portable keyboard that blink into existence when you press a button and don't weigh you down. What can I say I like big displays and big keyboards. and if we can project them from our mobile phone why not?

Here are some links which illustrate the real world tech which supports that my vision is already a technological possibility.

http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/texas_instruments_adds_dlp_picoprojector_in_a_mobile_phone.php

laser keyboard in action

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HH8CUTimTvY

So I am begging, please make my little dream gadget, I think there might be a market besides me, i could be wrong, what do you think?