Hitman Absolution (XB360): Cleaning up Blood Money

Part of the reason I've been so butthurt about the Assassin's Creed franchise these days is that as the game goes on I feel like I get to be an actual assassin less and less. Its gone from a potential stealth based masterpiece to a "hide if you want to but it doesn't really matter" action game.  So much so that it drove me to play Hitman: Blood Money, which is a series I've never really been good at.

I didn't give it a full write up, but aside from some pretty sticky controls and a massive difficulty curve it scratched that stealth itch that has been bugging me for months. I never finished the game (as some of the later missions were hard as fuck) but I enjoyed it enough to start to develop a passion for the series. This game has been sitting on my to do list for a while, but I finally had to opportunity to sit down with it and finish it, but after pushing it aside for more topical games, I can finally give my thoughts on.....

HITMAN: ABSOLUTION: (XB360)

In the start of Absolution, longtime protagonist Agent 47 is tasked by the agency to take out his former handler and lifesaver Diana Burnwood. Diana had gone rouge by taking a valuable Agency asset, publicly exposing them to the nation, and wiping their major accounts bringing the agency to its knees. 47 infiltrates her home and shoots her with a glancing blow in the shower. As she starts to bleed out on the tile she implores him to protect the asset and do not let it fall into the Agency's hands again.

The asset turns out to be a young teenage girl named Victoria. She apparently went through many of the torturous medical procedures that 47 did that makes him such an efficient assassin. Knowing the pain she must have gone through, he decides to help.  He makes his escape from the house with Victoria in tow, going rouge from the Agency in order to protect her. 47 leaves her in the care of an orphanage so he can figure out why she is so important and how to handle this situation, only now he has the entire Agency on his tail.

Security team, High tech key cards to rooms, Door to bathroom is hanging beads.
Might wanna recheck some of the house security, lady. 

This is another game where I could feel Square Enix's nurturing hand behind the reigns in the development. When I played Hitman: Blood Money I remember there not being that much in the way of cutscene nor was agent 47 characterized. Just a brief little cutscene to start the mission and bam, get into the open world and get to the murder. This game opens up with a dramatic sequence where he is forced to kill his former handler, the one target he would have reason for pause.

So right out of the gate, I have to say that this game has made radical improvements to its overall functionality. I went back to play a bit of Blood Money after I finished this one, and honestly I have no idea how I managed to get as far as I did the first time around. The controls of that title were nothing short of horrendous. Many of the moments were slow and sticky, trying to pick things up or navigate menus were a chore. The game is pretty old by today's standards, but even back then whew that's pretty rough

She like, so totally doesn't wanna be an assassin.

Absolution does a fantastic job of cleaning up the controls. The hud isn't big and awkward and confusing like it was in Blood Money. Combat feels easier, can't think of how many times I'd botch a garrote on the old controls. Picking up items or switching through inventory is faster, simpler to do, and uses more sensible buttons on the controller (namely the D-pad). Prime example is throwing something: in Absolution you hold the left trigger to ready your aim and right trigger to fire, simple. In Blood Money you have to hold down the left thumbstick for power, and release to throw. What were they thinking?

However, Absolution does kind of dumb down the Hitman series a bit with the addition of the "instinct" mechanic. Basically what this does is allows you to see where everyone is on the map through cover, and if you have the gauge available also allows you to see their path of movement. It also is used to blend in when you change your outfit as well, which basically means you walk by a stationed guard without alerting their attention. Not exactly sure how a guard walking slowly with his hand precariously covering his own face would draw less attention but whatever, we'll roll with it.

Many of the classic tricks are here. You can take down and wear virtually any male character's clothes and use them to blend in from place to place. There are tons of different ways to distract people, and lots of weapons to find and use. Situational kills like dropping a chandelier is are still around. The menus are cleaned up immensely so its easier to navigate and get the proper gear out when you need it.

I wouldn't say the story line is horrible, but its certainly not great. For one thing, it certainly puts you in the right mindset for stepping into the shoes of a murderer. Almost every character in this game is such a fucking sleezeball dirtbag, I'm basically frothing at the bit to get my opportunity to kill these pricks. Most specifically the main antagonist, Blake Dexter. A foul mouthed, dirty southern business man, who's every line of dialog that is so drenched in southern drawl it makes me want to pack up and move another 500 miles north every time I play the game.

Agent 47 isn't exactly a stellar protagonist either. Maybe I don't know enough of his backstory to really understand his character. I know he was basically vat grown to be the perfect assassin. But to give a comparing example, I'd basically say he's the armor-less equivalent to Halo's Master Chief. He doesn't say much, when he does its monotone and uninspired. He never really seems to grow or develop as a character.

In the beginning of the game, he basically guns down his only friend then immediately has a change of heart. But you don't really know that by his expression or voice, it never changes. He's a bad ass assassin, but not exactly great for driving a story. Probably why the previous Hitman titles worked better, because they were about the killing and not the killer. Agent 47 is a bad ass to be sure, but he's not exactly a dynamic protagonist.

You'd think the man of 1000 costumes would have a bit more character.

I really want to comment on the whole goofy sexy-nun-assassin squadron like you see in the trailer, but from a storyline perspective it has virtually nothing to do with the plot other than to be outlandish. Maybe its to cause controversy with the religious zealots, like that idiot who managed to get a refund from 2k because Bioshock Infinite featured a baptism required to play the game. I had no issues garroting some fetishist who was trying to shoot me. But then again? If I'm seeing a nun weary cherry red stilettos and whipping some guy in a fetish dungeon, I don't think we're too worried a about offending the pope for killing her in game. Seriously folks, its just a video game. If that offends you, you are a remarkable asshole.

The funny thing is, this is the elite team to clean up covertly. Pfft, you ain't sneaking
by anyone wearing white heels with black thigh highs sweetheart. Taboo colors girl.

One of the biggest complaints I heard from others about Hitman: Absolution is that it takes away many of the massive open world maps that Blood Money provided, making it a bit of a more linear watered down experience. Some of the time I would agree this can be the case. There are a couple of missions where you are evading the police where man of the maps could easily be a straight line. On a low enough difficulty setting or with enough instinct there is very little stopping you from walking straight across the map and using appropriate cover without even crouching to not raise suspicion and blend if there isn't. That can be awfully disappointing.

But there are a couple of maps where you have to walk around and explore for a bit first. Find pathways, look at your targets round, see what NPCs engage him and what you can use to do the job as an alternative to the weapons you already have. Its in these missions where the game feels more like Hitman should, and it was definitely these missions where I had the most fun with the game. Two of my favorites were the Chinatown maps where you have to move through crowds & vendors and has lots of fun different ways to make kills, and the massive strip club just because when you botch that one up its fun to just go on a murder frenzy since there is only one way in or out.

I'm not really a huge fan of the running score at the top of the screen though. I mean its virtually impossible to end a mission in the negatives, but you will certainly see that score dip below zero a few times during the mission unless you are immaculate in your performance. Chances are, you won't be so you get to play most of your mission with this lil ticker in the corner saying how bad you are at this.

What I did like about the game, is the bit more freedom they give you in how to play it. From what I remember from Blood Money there were lots of different ways to approach killing your foe, but if there was any one thing I knew it was not to use your gun. If I fired that thing, a storm of bullets would rain on me in seconds and basically wipe me out. No matter how much of a clear shot I thought I had or how alone I thought I was.

Absolution however, I can't really think of a mission I couldn't take care of without my trusty silenced Silverballers. Typically if you were willing to stalk your target long enough, there would always be at least one place where they would be alone or with one other person. If they were alone you could garrote them out no problem, two of them? No big, use the instinct execution and pop em both, then hide the bodies. You lose like an extra thousand but the mission would be done. A lot of the times this was all I needed to do.

Which actually was kind of a small disappointment now that I reflect on it. The biggest amount of fun I had in the Hitman games is coming up with all the clever ways to look like an accident or in a way that I wasn't around when it happened. In Blood Money this was almost crucial, in Absolution it was more optional. I didn't even discover a lot of the interesting side kills like sleeping pills in coffee, poisoning someones drugs, or electrocuting them in a puddle until my second play through of the game. Its funny because I thought they were out of the way and hard to find, but apparently they are all highlighted if you use the instinct gauge, so I suppose I made the game harder on myself.

The major criticism that Hitman: Absolution has been getting is that the game isn't open ended enough, and that it pales in comparison to its predecessor. To a degree, I agree with this point. The aforementioned police chases are a good example of that. Or there are levels that start off clever, like the courthouse, that eventually devolve into a straight line that is just easier to shoot your way through. But I will say the improved graphics, and vastly improved game mechanics make this one of the most satisfying Hitman game I've played yet.

And ultimately, I think because the game played so much better for me is probably why I liked it more than Blood Money. Despite from what I understand to be lack luster sales and poor reviews, I see the rankings for Hitman: Absolution to be about on par with the rest of the Hitman games. It was fun enough to make me want to go through it more than one time.

Absolution is technically the most recent part of the story, so I hesitate to say to play this one first, but I felt it was the most polished Hitman game. If you liked it, and are looking for more a challenge go back and play the rest.

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct (XB360): About as entertaining as the lost Sophia story arc....

During the running seasons of AMC's The Walking Dead, I log into facebook and watch the show in private group of about 110 people. Some I know, many I don't.  We comment and respond throughout the episode, and generally its a good time. But every so often, we get a few of those phenomenal idiots who flip their shit if there is more than 45 seconds of exposition taking place. "OMG WTF?! THIS EPISODE IS SO BORING! NOBODY IS SHOOTING ANYTHING." It makes me fucking insane, because after 3 seasons these people haven't figured out that its never been about the zombies, its been about survivors in the breakdown of modern society.

Luckily for these impatient babies, a new Walking Dead video game has hit the shelves and it seems perfectly designed for them. I always get very nervous when a game comes out based of a movie or a TV show, and vice versa but this game has been in production for quite a while so maybe it will be one of the few examples that break the awful tradition.

THE WALKING DEAD: SURVIVAL INSTINCT:(XB360)

Walking Dead: Survival Instinct is a prequel to the of sorts to the television show but where accurately in the timeline it takes place is never clearly defined. My guess is that its sometime after Rick was first hospitalized since it discusses the initial outbreak of the infection.  The game starts in somewhat of a introductory level to teach you the basic controls on a hunting trip with you and a bunch of rednecks. After tracking a deer and lining up your shot, your group is overrun with walkers. After a brief spat, you are quickly taken down.

You find out that for this intro, you were actually playing the Dixon brothers father. He is badly hurt and too far gone to save. Daryl unable to mercy kill his dad, leaves the task to one of the random friends they were with before cutting to a video game variation of the Walking Dead show theme. After regrouping in a shack and loading up on rifle ammo, you take over as Daryl and decide to head southbound to try to escape this infection and find his brother Merle.

Rooker keeps up with his acting tradition of being a complete and utter
asshole in every production he is a part of. And nobody does it better.

Sadly, as you can tell from the paragraph above, the story of this game isn't exactly stellar. Generally the gist of the game is you move from location to location and try to locate enough supplies be it ammo, food, and gas to drive from checkpoint to checkpoint. The main goal in the game is to reconnect with Merle but without "spoiling" to much per say, this basically happens about halfway through the game. On one hand I like it that because I like Micheal Rooker as an actor so if I get more of him I'm cool with that. But on the other, it leaves with surprisingly little to continue with. We've seen zombie apocalypse, we know how it goes.

Survival Instinct did start off incredibly positive for me though. Much of the beginning tutorial of the game basically teaches you how to move without being heard, and the first level of the game teaches you how to sneak up on zombies for an insta-kill. So with a rifle and knife I was ready to go. I arrogantly marched right out into the open, raised my rifle and gave a satisfying pop of the head of a walker in the distance. To which every zombie hiding in the level descended upon me and promptly ripped my ass a new one.

Shotgun for emergencies only. Firing without an emergency makes one.

OK, lesson learned. Much like the show and in current zombie lore, zombies still have functioning ears and firing off a gun will alert your location. So then I tried sneaking around a bit, and for me being a bit of stealth enthusiast I had a bit of fun with that. After upgrading to a pipe as a weapon I really enjoyed sneaking up on a walker and driving my knife into their dome. If I couldn't land the quick kill, no problem. Swinging your melee weapon gives you controller a little shake on impact, along with a realistic animation if you clocked a walker with pipe. The melee in this game and especially the stealth kills have a very satisfying realistic feel to them, think the kills in Dishonored for a comparative example.

The problem is, you have a to be fucking efficient. If you take too much time with one walker another one will be right on top of you. If they take a swing out at you and connect, it takes a fourth or fifth of your health, so you wanna get out of that situation fast. However if they catch you, you get locked into this aiming minigame where you have to line up a swinging reticule on the zombies head and then stab down. Its a cool idea, but if you miss too much it eats your health.

There is always more than one to kill.

The other problem is it takes way to long. So if it was just one zombie on you, there is at least 4 more when you get it off. It's incredibly frustrating because if you are caught, you might as well just let it kill you. There have been situations where I go caught by one and as I fought it off I got stuck with like 10 others. The second I'd make the kill and not lose any health, another would take its place. It basically traps you if you fuck up. If you are pretty good at it you can survive 4 or 5 without taking too much damage, but otherwise you are going to take some hits if not lose. It pisses me off because it basically ruined any chance I had to get away.

Graphically, the game isn't exactly triple-a, but its not so poor its distracting. Most of the environments are cities or buildings, so its hard to mess that up. The commercial for the game doesn't exactly do it justice as they look even more cartoony than they do in the actual game footage. I wouldn't stretch to say it was horribly animated either. The reactions to kills or interaction animation to NPC characters is somewhat believable. It was never so much to draw me out of the game.

What did draw me out was the just god awful dialog. Terminal Reality managed to rope in both Norman Reedus (Daryl) and Micheal Rooker (Merle) to play their characters from the show in the game. You would have figured that they might have put a bit more effort into the story focus. Daryl as a character has always been short of words, but his reactions to people don't feel natural. Not only that his lines are very short and his interactions are with NPCs are basically not meaningful, so there is not a lot of room for progression or growth.

During missions, you find NPC survivors who give you little side missions to do. If you do them in the level, they come with you and can go out for supplies while you do the next mission. Problem is you almost never have a vehicle large enough to support more than one at a time, and the missions are always so high risk they almost never survive anyways. By the time you actually get a ride that can hold up to 3 survivors, you are pretty much done with the game.

Pick anything but stay in car, and they're probably dead.

When you talk to them it feels pretty stupid. Instead of having some kind of natural discussion given the setting, You can see in your head the voice actor reading the quest requirements instead of finding some sensible ad lib. Such as instead of saying "We need to find gas so we can get out of here!" an NPC would say something along the lines of "You need to find 3 gas canisters so we can complete this area". Some of them are less hokey than others, but none of the dialog is what I would call "inspired". It's like you can see the voice actor reading the walkthrough out loud into the microphone. 

As I said, the game started off positive for me, but sadly it just didn't last. After you play the first level of the game, you might as well have just played every level of the game. The objectives never change, its always just "find this specific item for this person". The surroundings change but you fight the same walkers, and you collect the same items. Yeah the story item changes to car keys, or a engine coolant, or a antibiotics, but it could easily send out to find a rubber chicken as well and mean just as much.

Man, just look at that high quality motion capture. Don't set the bar too high, guys.

In between story missions the game will stop you for scavenging missions to get more gas or an item to fix the car, which they'll drop you in about one of three generic (yes, just 3) maps for you to find it. And in many cases, they reuse the map but just drop you off on the other side. Its lazy, its boring, and ultimately you start skipping killing things just so you can be done with it faster. After doing these twice I immediately started picking the travel option to make me less likely to do these. Stealth is fun but it drags out the game unnecessarily and killing zombies is kinda the point here.

The difficulty curve is bass ackwards too. Most games start you at the low difficulty and work you up as you get better. Survival Instinct starts you off with a shitty knife and a slow rifle and lets you get your ass chomped relentlessly for half the game. It was frustrating but set an effective tone for the need for stealth. Although occasionally when you go to complete a mission they'd swamp you with a hoard of walkers so it just becomes a mad dash for the finish line. Those first few levels really whipped my ass to the point where I almost stopped.

But then you actually find Daryl's signature crossbow, the game becomes so insultingly easy that you'd think it was developed by Step 2. Suddenly your need for bullets is gone because you can retrieve you arrows (even if the zombie isn't down), you don't need to stealth as much anymore because the bow doesn't make noise. And on some of the maps you really only need to use the bow in a pinch because you can still walk up behind things and quick kill.

It gets even worse though because in the last few missions to raise tension they ratchet up the number of walkers, but they basically are throwing up shotgun shells at you and rapid fire shotgun to use. In the last mission you find an assault rifle and a box of like 120 bullets. Since you only need one per headshot with the zoom, mowing down a crowd is a snap.

With the bow? This barely registered as a threat.

You'll note I said "number" of walkers. Not types. There are no special walkers, their behaviors never change, there are no human characters to fight, no monsters or bosses of any kind. Massive disappointment in this area. I know I bitch about this a lot but seriously I'm completely fucking tired of the battle of attrition for the final showdown. I know the plan is to make it seem more tense and hectic but for fucks sake, use that to lead up to a showdown with a boss. I've used the whole game to establish these fodder enemies are not a threat, giving me more of them doesn't make it more fucking exciting. And hell, most of the shooters these days have this going on in every level. Think of how many games you've played in the past 2 years that ended this way, I came up with more than 8 right off.

There are some good ideas in this game, some of these concepts are solid in theory but were poorly executed.  Its biggest fault is it fires off all its great ideas pretty much the moment the game starts and then one level in it goes "whelp, that's all I got. Hope you like it for 5 more hours". It's a shame because it would have been nice to see a property successfully make the transition from show/movie to game for once.

I'm just left to wonder if a bigger studio such as Valve, Insomniac, or Naughty Dog could have taken the bones of this game an really made something of it. The game I've described above could have benefited greatly from any of these studio's niches. Valve pretty much set the bar on how to do zombie hoards. Insomniac could have just plunked the Resistance 3 source in here it and it would have been great. Naughty Dog has a great 3rd person base and they know how to use voice actors and dialog if you look at any of the Uncharted games.

But alas, that's all hypothetical daydreaming. The bottom line is The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct is about as satisfying as eating a plain old Hershey bar. That first bite is chocolaty goodness and it makes you feel good, but after that you kinda wanna stop eating it because after a 2nd you are kinda sick of it and its really not that great in full size. I would have liked it more but there are just too many faults for me to give this game an honest recommendation.

Hardcore gamers will hate it, I doubt even Walking Dead fans would play it because aside from the occasional appearance of Merle it could be completely unrelated to the series. Could have been Cabela's Redneck Zombie Crossbow Hunt Jamboree and made about as much sense. I wouldn't even get this game at bargain price. I rented it from Redbox for $2.14. Did I get more than 2 bucks worth of entertainment out of this game? I suppose so.

But I'd still like my 2 bucks back. Pass on this one.

Bioshock Infinite (XB360): Full of Hot Air.

When I play a game in the first person perspective, I get very unpopular with my friends because of my usual harsh criticisms.  Look at the first person games I have reviewed here, maybe one or two of them actually walked away with positive recommendations out of me.  But I don't consider myself a "hater" of first person shooters, because there are a handful of examples in the genre that I gravitate to, enjoy, and love. 

One of those examples was the first Bioshock game. Scary setting, good story, excellent pacing, creepy enemies, and the fuck'n Big Daddies. I hold it as one my staples of excellent FPS games and aside from a friend spoiling the games biggest twist for me, it was a near perfect experience. I severely disliked the 2nd one, however. It just felt boring, unimaginative, and lifeless. Just tacking a less interesting story onto the same game I've already played. Because of this I hesitated on the newest Bioshock release. However, I've heard numerous positive reports and seen many high scores. So many its time to give this series another chance.

BIOSHOCK INFINITE:(XB360/PS3)

In Bioshock Infinite you play as Booker DeWitt, a disgraced agent who is indebted deeply to the wrong people. In an attempt to clear out his debt and start fresh, he was been tasked to go to the floating city of Columbia to find and apprehend a young girl by the name of Elizabeth. After heading to a rocket silo in Maine, he is launched up into the floating city and is greeted by an almost eerily cultish society.

He manages to pass through undetected until at local raffle o' racism, a citizen notices the brand on his hand. Shit starts to go haywire as apparently the cities prophet, Comstock, foresaw that Booker would arrive to take the girl away and bring the fall of Columbia. Booker is branded as a false shepherd and the people begin to revolt against him. Booker manages to work his way to the tower where Elizabeth is being held captive and convinces her to escape with him.

I'm going to have a hard time putting some structure into this review, since my feelings on this one where kind of all over the place. But to sort of give things away, I had a lot of hesitation going into this one because Bioshock 2 I felt was so poor I didn't even want to bother with Bioshock Infinite. Infinite actually starts off very similar to the first game as well, although instead of a plane you are taken by boat to a silo in the middle of the sea where you are strapped in and taken to this games variation of Utopian society.

But unlike the previous two games, nothing apparently is going wrong here. People aren't hideous deformities because they are overly spliced. The city isn't falling apart because of the nonstop pressure of the ocean. Everything is brightly lit because the city is high above the clouds. It was just.... A city. It's an incredible let down because the moment the gameplay actually takes place, it just feels like you are on a regular old cityscape and the floating city concept is chucked out the window. There isn't water leaking in through the walls and there is no dark and scary atmosphere to the game. If anything the city and the people in it seem more cartoony than previous games which from an art style standpoint I think is a bit of a downgrade.

The actual aspect of the floating city comes into play on some of the maps when you have to engage in the rail system. Most of the time these are simply to travel from point A to point B, but there a handful of maps where firefights take place on multiple levels of floor and you need to use these rails to glide up and down floors or purse and airship. Its a pretty interesting concept, but it never felt exactly fluid with me. A lot of the time you just kinda hop onto the rail and pray. Most of the time I never even used it, and if I didn't need to use them to beat the game? Then in my opinion they weren't incorporated right. 

Because of its first person perspective, this can also get you turned around real fast. Infinite introduced a bit of way point feature much like Dead Space does where you can drop a line and it sort of guides you in the general direction of where you need to go, but with the rails it becomes incredibly difficult to follow and there have been a number of times I found myself going completely in the wrong direction. At some points it doesn't even work, but that's usually become some kind of event needs to take place first.

I never did get the knack of using the skyhook.

I would have liked the fact that the city was floating to play more of a factor into the combat as well. There are occasional points where you can miss a jump and fall off the edge, but I would have liked it more to be incorporated into environmental kills. Allow me to blast out a glass floor to take out a group of enemies or give me some kind of force blast to throw people over the edge. That would have increased the combat for me immensely. 

Another thing that would have improved the fighting for me would be interesting and fun enemies. This is another area where I feel Bioshock 1 crushes Infinite. In one you have the splicers and they all have unique attributes about them. Some just try to run and stab you, some throw hooked blades at you, some of them can disappear and come back. On top of that? They were fucking crazy. Just listening to them sing to themselves, pray out loud, cry about how lonely they are before they notice you just adds to this feeling that things are fucked up, and raises the tension greatly.

Infinite's enemies are basically just 1920's soldiers or civil servants. Sometimes you have a citizen with gun, sometimes you have a soldier with a gun, sometimes you have a rebel with a gun, or in a pinch sometimes you have a robot with a gun. Whew, give me a minute to re-balance myself from all that staggering innovation.  And like the surrounding city, everything is all sunny and enemies are wearing overly saturated bright colors. I suppose it gives them a distinct look but it kills much of the intimidation of the foes as I fight them.

Now, not every enemy in Infinite is completely generic. They do have a few interesting concepts such as steampunk robo-washington, a hooded man with a coffin on his back who can break into a murder of crows and teleport, and Infinite's answer to the Big Daddies, the Handyman. The crow man was pretty cool, but after a while it just becomes another fodder enemy. Not difficult enough to be a reoccurring boss, and not frequent enough to be a grunt. The Handymen are the only things that feel like a boss or miniboss, but unlike the big Daddies where you can use your surroundings to fight them, it seems like the only way to put down Handymen is just unload your weapons into the big glowing spot on their chest. Snore.

The combat in this game left me a bit disappointed as well. Maybe this can be easily fixed by adjusting the sensitivity settings, but the aim in this game felt very jerky and off. This isn't something I ever had an issue with in the previous Bioshock games but it was a enough of an issue here for me make note of it more than once. 

Not the Big Daddy. At all. Boo. 

Weapon's kind of disappointed me too. At first I thought Infinite had less weapons than the first one, but in reality its about the same amount. The problems are they took away two of the different and original weapons like the crossbow and chemical thrower for extra variants on machine gun and assault rifle. In addition to that, they also took away having a variety of different types of rounds for just one regular type. Both of these are a let down because I love the chemical thrower and giving me different ammo types allowed me to strategize or switch for tougher enemies.

The other thing about the guns I hate is they took away the ability to collect all of them for the same ole boring ass two weapon slots. I fucking hate this. When I pick up a rocket launcher, I don't want to use it right away on some dumbass foot soldier. I want to hang onto it and pull it out when I have a tougher enemy or a mini boss. I can't do this when I can only carry two guns because that makes ammo capacity limited. So what ends up happening is I try to maintain the two weapons that allow me to hold the most amount of ammo.

And where the fuck is the wrench?! I was a master assassin with that thing by the end of Bioshock. Mashing someone with the but of my gun isn't nearly as satisfying. So maybe I got some perverse joy by continuing to wail on the skull of a downed splicer with the wrench long after I killed it. So what? Don't judge me.

Guess what: Pistols and sniper rifles barely work on this thing.
Let me carry more than two fucking guns. 

I suppose the mentality is to make you use everything when you pick them up, but it basically takes out the element of situation need. There are points in the game where I would have loved to have a sniper rifle, but not at the sacrifice of the machine gun that has carried me so far already. Or there would have been a situation were I needed one, but there wasn't one around to swap out for. I'm not going to carry around my sniper rifle for when I might need it next when I'm getting onslaughted by foot soldiers and I need lots of ammo and high rate of fire. I hate this system. 

I felt the same way about the Vigors in this game. A number of them have different names but essentially, they are variants of the Plasmids we have used in previous Bioshocks. But these are cut down too: No enrage, no hypnotize, no ice blast. Either they have a broad one like Possession that just works on everything but shittier (since it never seems to last long enough to stop me from getting gunned down), or the majority of them collect dust because they all do the same thing. Quick fire for attack, Hold down for bomb trap. Once you level up Fire (huge damage) and Lightning (chains to multiple enemies), I found literally no reason to use anything else.

I will say though, perhaps I'm a bit harsh on the vigor aspect. I've talked to a couple of people who have also beaten the game and each of them said they used two specific vigors, and all of us chose a different two. So I suppose it is more a matter of personal preference rather that effectiveness  Still, would have liked some more diverse options.

So if I can swing back to the story for a second here, they game really goes hard for the shock factor right out of the gate because as soon as you crack the surface of this Pleasantville-esq society it pretty much throws right in your face "Holy shit! Look at how racist all these white people are!" Aside from flinging out terms like Master Race, pretty much anyone not fully Caucasian is part of the cities downtrodden, abused and neglected. As I played through and listened to NPCs spout off nearly every racial slur I could think of, I could only help but think "Christ, this is white folk figuring out how to get away with it."

But then the story shifted and without spoiling to much, starts to delve into the idea of alternate dimensions. It was around this point that I started to forget about my complaints with the game play and really started to get engrossed in the story. This however was quickly knocked back down because after a good bit of pacing, the game just explodes in BioCall of Duty:1921. There is just firefights going on all over the place, shit blowing up, and everything moves a frenetic pace. It fucking pissed me off because if the regular baddies with guns made it feel less like Bioshock, having massive military firefights made it even less so.

Seriously, White folk figured out they can be as racist as the want
so long as its done in the name of art. Good work games industry.

But then something strange happened, in the late stages of the game I came across a boss fight where this spectre started raising up spirits from corpses. They still had guns by they had these creepy glowing eyes on their spectral bodies. This ghost would rip around the field screaming in anguish as she rose more soldiers, and if she had enough she'd fly at me and start swinging her ghostly claws. I noticed the sky had darkened and winds were swirling. I could only think "where the shit was this cool stuff when I first started playing the game?!"

Apparently the game knew I was not going have positive things to say, so in a last ditch effort it started throwing things at me that looked awesome. So I guess I can say its back half was much stronger for me than its front, although its around the point I started liking the game that the story went fucking bananas on me.

This shit needed to happen much sooner. 

If I had to pick something I liked about this game I would say its probably got the most interesting characters yet. First off, Booker is not a silent protagonist. He's got a name, a face, and quite the substantial bit of dialog and back story to him. He starts off somewhat jaded and cold  but goes through a good amount of development to make him a likable protagonist.

But who I liked even more than that was Elizabeth. Not because she's the games token pretty face to escort around, but because as far as support characters go she might be the best one I've seen in a long time. Even though she's an obvious damsel in distress, she is confident without coming off as arrogant or aggressive  Despite being basically held prisoner by her father and a giant robot bird (oh yeah, there's a giant robot bird in this game btw), she is cheerful and resourceful. Even though Booker basically breaks in on her, she is smart enough to see him as her chance to escape from her cage.

But she's not just a pretty face to escort either, she pulls her own weight. She doesn't fight per say, but as you scramble around the battle field she will throw you health, salt for vigors, or ammunition in a pinch when you need them. She can also use her ability to rip tears in timespace to provide cover, cause a distraction, allow you access an area you couldn't, or bring in a robot to help you fight. She also is the teams locksmith (which really isn't much since the locks seem arbitrary and you collect the picks).

Booker may be the hero but Elizabeth is clearly the driving force in the story, and definitely seems to have the understanding that she is somehow part of something much bigger than her..... She does always seem to have this stupidly bewildered smug look on her face at all times though. It can ruin a great bit a dialog between the two characters, as if she finished the conversation and then suddenly realized she didn't understand a word she said. Still, she was charming enough to make me fall head over heels for her, (maybe not as much as these lunatics but then again....  Persona 4.)

Derpface.

The game has multiplayer too, but I didn't have the online pass for it, its an FPS game so I'm sure there's not a whole lot of innovation there, and frankly I don't give a shit about multiplayer. Online gamers are assholes. You people really shouldn't expect to hear me talk about it at this point.

The main reason I played this game after so much hesitation is that, like mentioned previously, this game has been getting immaculate reviews. If the reviewing source wasn't giving it a perfect 10, then it was getting 9.75 and that's when my bullshit meter goes off. Here's what bothers me about that, most of the reviews I have read hinge their score based almost completely on the story. Now don't get me wrong, the story after a bit of a sluggish beginning was nothing short of incredible and I wholeheartedly agree that this is the games strongest aspect.

But if the game truly was perfect as so many other reviewers have said, I should not have been able to come up with so many faults to point out. I've admitted that I am incredibly rigid judge of FPS games, but proponents of the original Bioshock or System Shock have had a number of the same gripes that I had as well, so I am clearly not alone in my feelings here. That's not to say its bad though, the game more than stands up on its own and I liked it way more than I did Bioshock 2. 

So the question I raise here is does having an incredible story completely make up for faults in gameplay? I don't think it does, but it certainly goes a long way in making me ignore faults. Take a look at one my favorite games ever, Silent Hill 2. From a purely technical gameplay standpoint the game is fucking awful. Clunky tank controls, loose and unresponsive combat, average voice acting (when compared to current day standards). But the story department is so good that I learn to overlook these flaws. Is the game great? Absolutely. Is the game perfect? No, not at all.

And that is where I see Bioshock Infinite. Die hards to the Shock series of games aren't going to find this as a true spiritual successor to System Shock 2, and the fans that really loved Bioshock 1 aren't going to see Infinite as a massive improvement to the series. But the game does have some interesting moments, some very relatable and likeable characters, and an ending so expertly constructed that pretty much every gamer's jaw hits the floor when they realize the twist.

Bioshock Infinite to me was a great experience in gaming. I played it nearly start to finish in two days, had a great time, and left the game feeling satisfied with my overall experience. The game was not perfect. Now that I finished it I don't really have any desire to go back to it. That to me does not spell a perfect score. But it does merit much of the praise its getting. The game is completely deserving of 8's or 9's or 90+%'s. But to say that this is the pinnacle of gaming perfection is a gross overstatement in my opinion.

Bioshock Infinite is definitely worth your time, but its not the apex of video games in our lifetime. Lower your expectations a bit and you'll be fine.

(Review subject to change when I get a check from 2k like all the other reviewers. {False})

God of War: Ascension (PS3): Alright already, knock it off.

I didn't really like God of War at first for some reason. I tried the first one and it did like nothing for me. It  was strange because it should have. It had: violence, boobs, Greek mythology, fast paced skillful combat, good voice acting, good story telling. Should have been at the top of my list right from the start.

It wasn't till I played God of War: Chains of Olympus that I really started to get into the lore and universe of the God of War franchise, and now that I've become invested in the characters its made the game more enjoyable for me. It seemed to come up to a fair and logical closure point in God of War III but for whatever reason they can't let sleeping dogs lie, so we are going to take one more spin in the world of Greek mythology in...

GOD OF WAR: ASCENSION:(PS3)

Our tale opens up with a bit of back story delving into the creation of earth in a time before the gods and titans. During this earlier time, a war raged for aeons between the Primordials. These creators of earth engaged in battle so long that it completely reshaped the earth, and in turn brought about the creation of the Furies. These Furies are self proclaimed guardians of honor, and punish those who they deem traitors.  When Aegaeon the Hecatonchires broke his blood oath to Zeus, the furies tortured him and turned him to stone, making him their prison for those they punish.

Flash to the inside of the prison, we find longtime protagonist Kratos bound and being tortured by one of the furies. Fueled by his unstoppable rage he manages to free himself and tries to make his escape from the prison. We find that he was captured by the furies for attempting to break his blood oath to Ares, the first god of war and that Kratos is seeking an answer to the illusions that haunt him. In freeing himself from these illusions he hopes he can completely sever his ties to Ares. 

"It's not nearly as sexy when it lasts for eternity..."

That's about as much of the story as I can make sense of, as this game jumps from perspective in the time line a couple of times and it makes it a little tricky to follow. And as much as I love the lore in these games, in this 6th installment of the series it really is starting to run together as the same story to me. There are huge gaps of game play between cutscenes so if you miss part of the tale, you get to eat shit. Switching to a  prequel makes sense, because its pretty much the only way to keep the story going since the end of God of War III was left ambiguous but left to think that the series was over.

When I heard it was going to be a prequel, I was expecting to to go further back in his origins. maybe just spend some time as a plain mortal in the service of the spartan king, witness his loss in the battle with the barbarians, witness the scene where he pledges himself to Ares. That would have been interesting and made more sense. This edition seems like it was shoehorned in where they could to squeeze out 9 more hours a gameplay, and is loosely connected to the story at best.

I will say in its defense though that the voice actor of Kratos, Terrance Carson, did a very good job of dialing back the raving psychopath we've come to know and love. Kratos at this point in the tale hasn't completely lost his mind, so for the first time in a long time he appears human. Has some rational and reason, manages to actually befriend someone during the course of the adventure. There is a scene with a small subtle gesture with him and his family where he shows the capacity to love, which actually caught me off guard and gave me a "huh, how about that?" kinda moment. it was the only real highlight in the story for me and was the only thing I felt I'd never seen before.

I honestly can't think of another time I saw Kratos crack a smile...

Much like the story department, this edition of God of War is pretty much unchanged from its previous installments. If you have played any of the other editions of the game, you won't be lost here. Same fixed camera angles, same blades of chaos, same quick time event structure. It really makes me wonder what exactly takes so long from release to release since the only things that change are the locations and story.

Actually, perhaps that's not totally true. This is one of the first times in the God of War series I actually would look at the Kratos character model and realize how realistically human he looked. His curse to be covered in ashes actually comes across clearly now when the camera is very close on him. It actually looks like he's covered rather than just having pale white skin.

The level of detail has never been better.

And this might be the first time I've ever really sat and took stock of how impressive the visuals in this game get. Some of the monsters and set pieces in this game are friggen massive much like they were in God of War III. Yeah a lot of them have the Quick Time Event finisher, and a couple of them are rehashes of the ones you've already seen in the series, but quite a few times I'd be doing some invasive brain surgery on a Elephant demon and just thinking to myself: "Holy shit, that was bad ass."

Some of the monsters have some different looks to them, and there and handful of new enemies to fight but for the most part the fodder enemies are pretty much the same ragtag band of monsters you've fought before in the previous God of War titles. I will say I'm happy I'm not stabbing the same goddamn Minotaur in the mouth. The only real plus I'll give in this area is I get regular boss fights again. No life bar, no excessive quick time events, Just me and my skills against a really tough opponent. I have to finish it with a QTE but I'm totally ok with that if it means I actually have to test my skill more than something dashing into a wall and then wailing on them.

The kill on this baddie is probably one of my favorites.

Speaking of that, is it just me? Or is God of War: Ascension hard as fuck? There have been a handful of points where I come to a gated door and get a new element ability, then have to go through a battle of attrition against of slew of regular enemies. I start off ok, but after a matter of minutes the sheer number of them starts to put to boots to me. I don't think I got past any of them on the first go. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the ratcheted up difficulty. If the game is gonna feel the same in all the other aspects, then increasing the challenge is the least they could do.

The big change to the combat, and probably the thing I am most thankful for, is the aforementioned elemental abilities. Instead of bogging me down with stupid additional weapons, this game keeps you handcuffed to using the blades of chaos. In addition to that,  you gain elemental abilities of the various gods which change the move sets for the weaponry that can be leveled up. They can be switched on the fly from preference, but from what I've noticed the elements don't appear to correspond to enemy weaknesses.

Combat also features the Rage Meter from previous games, but now it activates as soon as it is full which unlocks a number of the higher level combos some of the God of War faithful will remember. In doing this it gives a much tighter focus to the game instead of where to level up all the souls you collect. I like the change to the rage meter as well because it forces to perform well to get the heavy hitting attacks. To be honest, you can ■,■,▲ and pretty much mow through everything until the gauge fills. I basically spam the big spinning moves.

The game's largest change however, has nothing to do with the campaign. For the first time in the series, God of War will now feature an online multiplayer mode. You know, because every fucking game and their brother needs a multiplayer mode or game devs shit their pants in fear that their game will not sell. Seriously, fuck multiplayer games. If I wanted to be insulted or treated poorly while I play a game, I could hang out with my real friends. I at least kind of like most of them. Not every game needs to have multiplayer in it.

The 4 player maps are huge. They all have their own flavor with cool traps
and side objectives. In this map you get big points for killing the cyclops.

That being said? I actually really enjoyed the multiplayer in this game. The majority of game modes I played seemed to be some kind of strange variant on Capture the flag, where my team of guys could run around the map and capture bases to earn points. You can also get treasures or thrash the opposing team  to boost your score. First team to hit the goal or have the highest by time ends wins. There is also death match modes as well, but for the most part they are all pretty cut and dry.

I like this one better than most multiplayer because it actually relies on my skill to fight one on one. Not because some shitdick douchebag is at level 50 and has the most broken high powered weapons that can snipe me from the moment I respawn. I can approach someone, and even if I have weaker gear I can go toe to toe and fight them using my own abilities and come out the victor. Or, if I was getting outclassed there were ways to get points without having to fight by setting traps or getting chests. I didn't seem to experience any lag issues and call me crazy here but it actually seemed kinda balanced. Weirdest thing yet, it was fun to play. Madness right?

What I did not like was a little card that came with my game. One of those little cards that say "oh you want to play our online feature? Did you buy it new? Oh you didn't, well that sucks for you. You need one of these handy ONLINE PASSES to play our game, and its only 10 more dollars!" Sony? Eat a fucking dick. I expect this shit out of EA and Ubisoft. But you guys have always preached about your free online with an option to pay for a better service. Yeah I bought it new so I got a pass, but its a principal that pisses me off. Go Screw, Sony.

So can I give God of War: Ascension a recommendation? Ehhh... I suppose so. This is an example of a game just going through the motions. It still looks cool, and the combat is still skillful and fun to play. But honestly, for a completely new and original story it felt like I've heard it all before. Its gotten old. The only real saving grace to this installment is the addition of a fun, innovative, and balanced multiplayer. If that didn't drive me to keep playing the game, I might not of have turned it on enough to finish it.

Much like many other games that reach 6 or 7 installments, I feel that God of War has kind of run its course and they are starting to write themselves into a corner. I wouldn't be surprised that after the initial run the sales on this one grind to a halt. Which isn't to say that the game is bad, its just more of the same. I've played this game already, I've played it 5 times in fact. So charging me 60 bucks to play it again is kind of a bullshit move.

Two things should happen if they are going to bring out this tired horse one more time. One: There needs to be a new protagonist with an all new story. Try switching mythologies, you can keep the combat engine but I'm ready for something new. A new story and a new hero to get behind.  But if you can't shake from this story, then Two: Make Kratos the antagonist (If he survived 3's ambiguous ending). This could be a move that would shake the game to his core, and all the fans have seen what atrocities for his selfish ambitions he has done for 6 games. He basically destroyed the entire world in 3 just to make himself feel better. He deserves to be stopped at this point.

Bringing up a new hero to try to take Kratos down would be an interesting twist and I think would bring new life to this series. It may be a polarizing move for a lot of fans, but this series needs something to keep life into it. If Santa Monica studios has the balls to make that move, then I'd be down for one more trip of God of War. If not, they probably should put this series to bed while we still have fond memories of it.

Fond memories of horrible snuff....
Fuck, what the hell is wrong with me...