Flawless Victory? The "Mortal Kombat" review.

When I was a kid, there was a huge controversy over an arcade game: Is "Mortal Kombat" too violent? What are kids playing a game where you rip out someone's spine for? Is this going to affect them in some evil way? How could game makers be so cruel? Won't somebody please think of the children?! This was back in the day when we didn't have games where a mask tells the person wearing it that his girlfriend is having sex with an evil scientist, while you fight a room full of blood thirsty monsters, ripping their lungs out of their gaping neck wounds.

Yet, today, I haven't heard, "What are kids playing a game where you beat someone so hard, you see an X-Ray of their bones shattering?" cry at all. Perhaps we should, but that doesn't detract from the ray of sinister light from "Mortal Kombat: "Yeah, but it's fun." The fact that "Mortal Kombat" is intensely gory is only a sidetrack to the game play. While story mode is put in to explain why the reboot was even going on, most people will want to jump in and murder each other with Kung Fu.

The newest thing to show up are "X-Ray Moves," hits that drain your three-tiered power bar completely, but pack a powerful punch, enough to break bones (or, in Johnny Cage's case, balls). Each character only gets one move, though, which diminishes the variety, especially considering that each character has anywhere from two to four fatalities. It takes time to charge up, as well, unless you vary your style. Usually, the computer will beat you to it, and use it in cheap ways to give itself an edge. That would be bad, except, trust me, you'll do the same damn thing.

That's where the main problem lies in "Mortal Kombat;" the fights really aren't fair. If you use your X-Ray move, you pretty much guaranteed a win. If you have a slightly faster character, you'll win. If you're fighting a faster character with more moves than yours, they've won. The worst offender is Shao Kahn, with the strategy of "don't touch me." The final fight of a game should not be one where you hide and throw fireballs from the opposite side of the screen, as the boss points and laughs at you. It's like playing tennis with Venus Williams, except she's using a golf club; if you know the match isn't fair, you can bend the rules and win by essentially cheating.

The game itself is "pretty" to look at. The graphics are top notch, save for the cinematics that look too patch worked. Animation flows seamlessly, and the music is all around fitting for the levels. The krypt returns, now allowing you to torture people, and explode corpses when buying collectables. Thankfully, NetherRealms didn't put in stupid extras such as photos of developers, replacing them with images of concepts for characters, levels, damage, and even finishing moves, as well as various unlockables.

"Mortal Kombat" is the faithful reboot it should be. But, sometimes the game play just seems unpolished. Unfair fights aren't fun, even if you're on the winning side. But, if you're willing to look past it, "Mortal Kombat" is a must not miss title.

Overall: B

+ Fun to play

+ Great looking

- Except for cinematics

+ Good music

+ Concept art and meaningful extras

- Unfair matches

- Cheap tactics

A Devil's Playground Part Two: A Look at Sandbox Games in Other Genres

Most, if not all, sandbox games are action/adventure games. Grand Theft Auto, Mafia II, Mercenaries, The Saboteur, almost every recent Spider-Man game, even First Person games like The Darkness have elements of sandbox play, though very limited. But, where else could sandbox games work? To think of the potential future, let's go back to the past.

Ever think of an RPG as a sandbox game? Certain places are closed off until you get to a certain level, and by the time you're at the end, you can go anywhere. What about Metroid, where at anytime, you can go back to the start of the game, and complete missions in a different order each time? The Mega Man series, fighting bosses in any order? Sandbox games date back to before I was born (back in the '80's), and a lot of gamers may not realize it today, or take it for granted. Think of the evolution behind it; we went from very basic choices of which level to start playing, or which side quests to take to games that simulate "real" choices of how and when to take missions if you take it at all. We see it in RPG's still, action games, and even in fighting games to an extent with the Konquest mode in the Mortal Kombat series. But what other genres could you do a sandbox game in?

What about horror? Think it wouldn't work? What about the first Silent Hill game? Did you go to the hotel to save Dr. Kaufman? On the second play through, did you use the jewel to get the UFO ending? All the Silent Hill games have some form of Sandbox style to them, but aren't quite the full free roaming style that most people would attribute sandbox games to. A lot of the people I've talked to said that this would be impossible because then you'd lose that claustrophobic feel that horror gives you, or the feeling of isolation. I argue that this isn't purely true.

Silent Hill takes place in an entire city, but closes a lot of it off by way of crumbling roads and blocks. It gives you a series of objectives that are seemingly streamlined by the roads being blocked. It relies on the claustrophobia to add to the atmosphere of the game. What would happen if you opened up those roads, and made the city bigger? What would happen if the city had people in it? What would happen if you could explore both versions, "real" and "other," of the city of your own volition? How could you possibly play off of this?

Have you ever been lost in an unfamiliar place? Scary, isn't it? How hard would it be to play off of that? Even with a map, being lost in an unknown place is terrifying. Imagine if that place suddenly shifted if you made a wrong turn, or if you completed an objective, but the city surrounding you goes dark for know reason? Or if you bump into the wrong person? You don't know where you are, and it can only get worse with every step you take in this city, that for some reason will not let you escape until you over come your fear, illness, lie, or secret. You're isolated, but not alone.

This was my concept for I Am Nothing, a game idea I had that was free roaming survival horror. Not just the feeling of being lost, but the feeling of being an outcast. The feeling of anxiety. The feeling of being alone in a world that seems like its out to get you, even if it isn't completely. Horror doesn't have to just be about isolation, it can be about the exact opposite, too. It can be about the overwhelming odds against you, or the pressure that's building up by being the odd person out.

Next time, I'll be talking about how Free roaming games can improve and what all of them have done wrong.

A Devil's Playground: A Look at Sandbox Games (Part One)

When people think of Sandbox Style games, they usually immediately think of Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption, or any other Rockstar Game. Then, the passing glimpses of the Spider-Man games come to mind. But what about the games that could have had that moment in the sun? Mercenaries 2 and The Saboteur, while not exactly stand out games, were open world games. The one that comes closest to GTA 4 is Mafia 2, but it still doesn't hit off among most Sandbox fans.

This is kind of sad, to me, really, because the over all mechanics of the whole open world system is done better in Mafia 2 than in Grand Theft Auto. Hand to hand combat feels like a game instead of a chore, each vehicle does drive differently, but all do respond to your commands. The world feels alive with actual people other than pallet swaps of the same three people. There are more variations in missions. Even the collectables, wanted posters and (while anachronistic) Playboy centerfolds feels right.

GTA 4 has one leg up: mini games. Yes, Red Dead Redemption had mini games too, but it also had a story everyone could relate to. GTA 4's story, to me, feels unpolished due to the fact that the mini games are essential to the over all game itself where RDR's are optional. The story in GTA 4 feels less relatable to me due to the fact that I was born in America, but I can still feel sympathetic for Niko Bellic because he feels lied to by his cousin, and, moreso, by his own over zealousness for the American Dream and revenge. Revenge is perfectly a human relatable emotion, and one that's a little over used for this type of game, in my opinion.

Part of what makes The Saboteur and Mercenaries 2 fall in the sandbox game is the lack of mission variation. Blow stuff up, run away, hide, repeat (hide in Saboteur, stand there like Chuck Norris in Mercenaries 2). For a $9.99 downloadable game, that's not bad. For a $60 game... that's not a whole hell of a lot. The Spider-Man games did it a little bit better by adding more mission variation, such as stopping robberies and saving falling civilians. But the over and under load of missions only serve to distract from what the sandbox game is supposed to be, often pulling you away from the exploration. GTA 4 does the same thing with the main missions being cell phone calls that will put a marker on your map, making it so the only path way you can have at the time on your GPS is to the mission.

This is unacceptable when you start off in a game. You have no way of setting a point to save your game without ending the mission. The map the game comes with doesn't even have the save points marked on it, but has everything else. Combined with the sheer scope of the city, it makes the game over complicated for new gamers, giving them too much to do, introduced in too little time, hoping that they'll catch on by the end of the game. Some will stay dedicated to it, but most new comers will flee from it like a lobster from boiling water.

Next time, I'll be talking about how other genres can be made into open world games, and how genres beyond action/adventure integrate into the system so well that you may not realize it at first.

Umm... Wolverines?: The "Homefront" Review

In the year 2013, gas will be $20 a gallon. By 2019, we'll be fleeing to Mexico because it's better there, than in the US. By 2026, Korea will unleash an EMP that blacks out all of America, and take over. On top of all this, the Army will be so badly managed that they'll be scattered into two teams of, I'm not kidding, a platoon each.

This is the plot of Homefront, and while the premise of Korea taking over the US could be interesting and scary, the improbability of some of the events happening this fast is one of many things that makes the game's story less intense than it should be. The game seriously seems to forget that the world is suffering from a bad economy, not just the US. It wouldn't be so bad if the game didn't look at the recession with a myopic view. What makes the story all the less impacting is the fact that the team of people you're working with range from bland to undeveloped to being as bad as the enemy.

You're character is saved by Conner, a Resistance member who takes pleasure from torturing the enemy. He leads you to a helicopter that you have to fly in order to steal fuel from the Koreans. This is all your character is good for, because you will die from everything. It's not uncommon to die in one hit in this game. This wouldn't be as bad if it weren't for the fact that you can die because enemies can shoot through and around your cover. I died more times from a bullet turning around a wall I was behind than from getting shot outside of cover.

At its core, there's a almost decent shooter somewhere. That is, when you can get the game to work. The auto-snap aim never works properly, either not snapping onto an enemy within sight range, or missing completely despite having the sight right on them, or by the enemy knowing exactly where you'll hit, and moving an inch to the side. I want to know how exactly every FPS has these enemies, and why our military can never seem to be able to do that in games. What technology is this? Or is it witchery?

The set piece battles are thrown in, but at points pretty good... especially considering that most of them have been done before. The lone one I can think of that wasn't done to death was hijacking trucks from a helicopter. The rest of them feel like they've been done before and better. The same goes for the graphics and acting. The graphics look like the were done in the beginning of the seventh generation of consoles, when we didn't know the extent of what the tech could do. Characters don't seem to animate properly, mouths never close, and the textures are blurry. Voice acting feels like a "C" movie. If Bruce Campbell, Chuck Norris, and Sylvester Stallone can all out act you, you're doing something wrong (note to them... please don't murder me).

This is disappointing too, because the game has the spark that it could've been good. To top it off, it took me about four hours to finish it, and it just ends abruptly. I understand setting up for a sequel, but can we at least end this chapter properly? Even Halo knew that!

Homefront isn't worth $60-- hell, it isn't worth $40. It's a budget title with an advertising team big enough to make it seem more important than it is. Give this one a pass, because even if you buy it for $20 in a few months or a year, you're more than likely going to give it a passing play anyway, and then forget about it.

Overall:

D

+ Almost a good shooter

+ Interesting story...

- ... Made improbable by a rushed timeline

- ... and Characters that are unlikable

- Guerrilla tactics? That's head-on assault right?

- What's cover?

- Acting?!

- Good graphics?! What are these words?!

Cover Won't Save You, Now... Nor Will Stupid Name: The "Killzone 3"

It took me a year to beat Killzone 2, mostly because I was enjoying, but also because while it was fair, it was very, very difficult to me due to the control scheme, and the fact that weapons have a sense of inertia behind. It took me four days to beat Killzone 3. I was used to the controls, and I figured that it'd have the same, natural feel as the second game did. I enjoyed KZ2's story, combat realism, and it's serious nature. War isn't fun and games, and KZ2 blended them very well, which is a challenge.

How I wish I could say that about Killzone 3. Let's start with story. Whoever said that the second's story was too serious, kiss my ass. I would gladly take another serious story over what this story was. After Scolar Visari's murder in the second game, two people are vying to be Helghan's dictator: Jorhan Stahl (Malcolm McDowell), a weapon's manufacturer who makes the Joker look sane, and Orlock (Ray Winstone), an Admiral who has no defining characteristics from a Helghast soldier other than a scar. The remaining Earth's Army (ISA), including Sev (seriously... Sev? I always hated that name), Rico, and the combat-eager Captain Narville, now have to fight against two Helghast Armies to get back to Earth, before Earth is destroyed. You may think I spoiled it, but the plot if that predictable.

The story is also horribly written. I about used the disc as target practice when Narville refused to warn Earth that they were going to be destroyed because he's there to "protect my men." Imagine this: A squad in Afghanistan finds that al-Qaeda has nukes aimed at the US. The commander decides instead of fighting to warn the US, or prevent the launch, that it's a better idea to surrender because his men would survive. Hint: They probably wouldn't survive, but it's better to fight for the cause that they are fighting for in the first place. Not only is Narville's choice very cowardly, but very unlike his character. In the second, he was the one wanting blood. Here, he wants to wave a white flag.

Added to the game play is a cover mechanic. You hold a button to stay in cover, and you can aim over cover to shoot enemies. The problem is that cover is useless seeing as your head will always stick out of waist high cover when ducking, and enemies can somehow shoot through a four feet thick metal wall. Figuring you die in one to three shots, this is aggravating, even more so when enemies take a whole magazine to die. Guerrilla Games had to have seen this in testing, along with Rico constantly stopping you in the middle of trying to get somewhere safe to tell you that he should lead the way. At first, I thought this was a bug, but now I'm sure that the son of a bitch was using me as a meat shield, shortly after he did this, I'd die, and he'd scream, "I can't get to you!" despite standing right in front of me. The solution to these issues was that your teammates can heal you, and ammo points are abound. The first one loses any merit because either your teammate can't get to where you are, or one of the two people who can heal you aren't in that mission.

We also have a lot of on rails parts, and vehicles. The biggest one is the Jetpack, which allows the player to jump really high. This is used in two sections of the game, one of them being absolutely useless. These sections feel half-assed, as if the developers decided that it was a cool idea at first, but didn't take the time to flesh it out. Again, that type of design doesn't work well.

While we're on things that don't work, why is there an unknown female character who contributes nothing to the story replacing a character from the second game that people liked? Natko's in the Co-Op campaign, but not the single player. Instead, we get Jammer, and I still have no idea what she was doing in the game. She does absolutely nothing until the end, and even then, that's getting her ass kicked until a nameless male soldier saves her. It's sad on more than the level of the man saving woman trope. The fight comes from absolutely nowhere (one second she's fine, the next second she's in the middle of the fight), and the nameless guy has more personality than her. He's the "Star Trek" red shirt, and he does more than her.

To say that Killzone 3 is a disappointment is minor. While it's no where near the worst game I've played, the fact that it's as poorly written and designed as it is, especially when compared to the first two games, is insulting. When I was assigned this and Bulletstorm, I thought this was the one I'd like more. I was wrong. If you want to see how the trilogy ends (and watch the depressingly abrupt ending that has no closure), rent it. Otherwise, play a better shooter... like Killzone 2.

Overall:

C-

+ Good graphics

+/- Nearly Capable Game Play

- Broken Cover System

- Bad story

- Bad writing

- Vehicle Sections that Add Nothing

- Poor Design Choices and Bad Programming

- Seriously... a Downer Ending?

- Jammer? Sev? Orlock?

(BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP) You (BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP): The "Bulletstorm" Review

I have become the horror guy for a good reason, yet, I enjoy being the "Shooter" guy a lot more as of late. I guess that's why I was assigned Bulletstorm, a game that makes shooters cry.

The plot for Bulletstorm is simple. You're Grayson Hunt, a space pirate drunk on booze and revenge (mainly booze) against General Saranno, a space confederation general who hired Gray and his team, only to betray them. Gray does something incredibly stupid (again, drunk) that causes his pirate gang to mostly die, taking Saranno's ship with them to the planet Elysium. The once paradise is now over run by mutants and bikers, and it's up to Gray to escape with his remaining pirate.

Aiding him is his new toy, the Leash, which allows Gray to toss an enemy (or "thump" a room of them) into the air. Along with that is the Skillshot system in which the more complicated or original your kill is, the higher score you'll get to spend on upgrades. The first time you accomplish a skill shot, it's worth more than the subsequent times i.e. "Mercy" (shooting a guy in the groin then shooting or kicking his head off) is worth 500 the first time and 100 the other times. These shots, while inventive and some of them taking a lot of practice, would get old over time, except for the fact that there are so many of them to do, and so many ways to combine them, that the game encourages experimentation. This, in turn, adds something we rarely get to see in FPS's lately, the "F" word.

No, not that one (we see that all the time, this game especially). I mean "fun." Yes, Bulletstorm is a lot of fun. Of course, how couldn't it be? In the course of it's lush 8-12 hour campaign, you'll drill enemies, free a cyborg from a man eating plant's belly, and control a robot dinosaur named Waggleton P. Tallylicker. The only low point is the poorly written climax, in which Gray seems to forget everything he has in his reach. This does lead to an inevitable ending, yet it feels more hopeful. By the end of the game, you want more of it. A lot more.

Luckily, there's "Echoes" mode, which allows you to replay parts of the levels, but with the emphasis on skill shots. The one multiplayer mode, Anarchy, plays like Gears of War 2's "Horde mode," in which more and more enemies come to attack you in waves. Playing on a team means team Skillshots. Too bad EA constantly closes servers before you can long on to play.

Despite some weird hiccups, namely getting stuck in walls, the game looks and sounds great. The voice work is over the top, but so is the writing. How can you take any of these character's seriously when they use "Butter Dick Jones" or "Dick-Tits" as a way to express dismay? What's tricky is the game isn't always laughs, and that's where the writing truly shines. On top of that, the characters look human enough to be related to. Ladies, you finally have a realistic depiction of a female in a video game that isn't supposed to be real. I mean, she doesn't have the impossible proportions of Lara Croft. This is very refreshing to see.

I thought that Bulletstorm would bore the hell out of me in the first ten minutes. Surprisingly, it;s more fun than any other FPS I've played recently. Drop your jocks and pull up your socks, because Bulletstorm is here to stay.

Overall: B+

+ Actually fun

+ Skillpoints

+ Great writing

+ A Robot Dino!!!!

- A Bit buggy

- Online servers are crap

"I Am Nothing" Chapter One

Chapter One

How long have I been in this city? Was it years? Months? Weeks? The only thing I remember before waking up on the bus to Minxton was the blood on my knuckles from her bruised face. Her tears... oh God, her tears as she begged me to stop. I felt her bones break with her skin, time and time again, blow after blow. There would've no mistaking it for falling down the stairs after that last time. My dear Micah, did I actually kill you that last time before I left?

No, I couldn't have. You threatened to call the police, and I ran away. Some would call me a coward for that. I call her a coward for letting me hit her in the first place. She screamed for me to stop, but never once did she stop me before I knocked her down. I almost thought she enjoyed covering for her scars, or for me. But that night was different. I can't remember for the life of me why she deserved to be punished. That's not the weird part, though. The weird part is that I know it, but something since I got into this city has blocked it out of my mind.

It must have been months. I'd already had my BFA, and I was starting my Masters in Bailey State University. The only reason I started thinking about how long I've been in this city is because it seems so long ago that I enrolled. This was my first quarter back in school, and I barely remember talking to an advisor about my degree. Come to think of it, I don't remember taking an entrance exam for college in the first place. What is wrong with this city? Maybe the air is fucking with my head.

I get off of the public bus, the trash heap that it is, and make my way to the Atrium, a three floored hang out for all of the busy-bodied Freshmen playing foosball, ping pong, video games, or watching mindless liberal drivel. I pass the gym, the radio station, and head for the tunnel system that connects the schools many buildings, making my way to the Arts Center.

“Long day ahead of us, eh?” The voice, a low, almost too deep for a woman's voice, belonged to Katie. She was the type of girl that I'm A Little Teapot was the perfect song for. She was roughly 5'1,” but weighed about as much as I did (roughly 174 at 5'7”). To make the joke that genetics (and, possibly, fast food) played on her, she sounded like a pig. Despite all of this, she was a kind heart, the type people couldn't help but like to be around.

“Don't remind me,” I sighed. “I barely slept last night. Maybe about four hours.”

“Ha! Two!” Katie gleaned, as if it was a contest of who could function on less sleep. Micah did that once. She learned after that. But, the way Katie said it, her blonde hair bouncing like Micah's did that day, struck me. It was almost as if Micah was next to me.

I shook it off as quickly as it came. “Look, I don't have time to talk right now. Katie,” I said with a polite smile. “My advanced drawing class awaits, and I don't want to piss the teacher off.” Before she had a chance to say anything else, I turned to the hallway, to catch the elevator. Unusually, only a minute after pressing the button, the elevator showed up, Rachel Morris waiting inside. Finally, someone I could genuinely tolerate! I related to her in a way. She was a little taller than me, thin, gawky, but her straight red hair and giant grey eyes took away from that fact, as did the scar on her left cheek. She claimed it was from an accident with a broken window, but I knew better.

The only thing that threw me off when ever I saw her were the bruises on her arms and neck. She had no family, no boyfriend, and barely a social life as far as I knew. It didn't help that I potentially knew the truth behind the scar, which only served to confuse me even more. Who did this to her?

“Augh, I'm so damn tired,” she said as the door closed. “I couldn't sleep last night. I must have gotten maybe--”

“Four hours?”

She looked at me, fairly sure I somehow became a psychic. “Yeah, how'd you know?”

I chuckled, trying to not see the eeriness of two people I knew not being able to sleep at the same night as me. “I'm in the same boat. I ended up drawing until 3:00, woke up at 7:00.” Rachel stared at me like the world was about to fall apart. Coincidence doesn't exist in Minxton, even for the most ironically devout Agnostics like her and Katie. For some reason, everyone in Minxton was convinced that everything happens for a reason. I, on the other hand, don't buy into superstitions, believing them to be childish inventions to scare others, much like the boogeyman.

We opened the wooden door to the drawing lab to see the set up of the day. Three human torsos, two of the decapitated, and a cast of Michelangelo's Moses. No doubt, our teacher would tell us stories of how he got these items, and why we need to draw them perfectly. I was usually too tired to listen unless he was teaching us something new. This was the tenth drawing class I've had in my learning career, and I was beginning to think that I'd hear the same things over and over.

I turned my head ever so slightly, and that's when I saw it. Next to the torso with a head, coming from a hole at it's base, was a sticky looking pink tube. It was dripping red from the outside, and seemingly pouring out. As soon as I realized that it was there, I turned to face it.

It was a extra large glow stick, the fluid, still glowing, dripping out. I didn't dare move it, thinking it to be part of the lesson. Find the thing that doesn't fit in, maybe. Who knows? Once the class started, we sat down and started to draw as the professor told us what we were doing anyway. After his speech, he took the glow stick. I swear to God, though, when he did, it was limp, and none of the fluid was missing from it. I shook off my tiredness – that had to be it – and continued drawing.