Demo reactions

Precisely what it says on the tin; my reaction to some of the latest demos to hit Xbox Live and the Playstation Network.

Resident Evil 5:

I'm not a big Resy gamer. Not since 2 have I cared, and to be honest I didn't care that much even then. I wasn't that blown away by anything I saw with this demo. I'm not feeling the controls (who is?) and wasn't impressed at all by the death animations of the zombies. The levels in the demo felt linear and horribly tight. There doesn't seem to be much exploration factor and although I never really got my teeth into Left for Dead, I doubt this game will be able to compete in the zombie stakes. Co-op might prove fun but I see no great game to behold here.

Halo Wars:

Oh my. Is it just me? Wars is a sickeningly generic RTS affair. There is nothing going on here. I, for one, can never go back to the old school RTS template after playing games like Dawn of War and Company of Heroes. This demo just felt dated and stamped with a big sticker marked 'Halo merchandise'. Fun? Maybe for a short while but this really is just a hideously average looking RTS game and nothing else.

Killzone 2:

Firstly for the record, I now have a PS3! Go me. I am going to post something separate soon detailing my experience of the console switch and my take on Sony's side of the gaming pie. Now, KZ2. I went into this demo open minded but with the knowledge that I had been spoiled by years of PC and 360 FPS games. Everyone keeps affirming that the PS3 doesn't do FPS titles. It just doesn't. Well, it now does. I was very impressed by this one. This is an adult FPS game and aims to please the veterans out there. The A.I is smart, the graphics obscenely good, and the general production values are clearly way, way up there.

There seems to be a big fuss right now about this demo's suposede 'trigger lag' and sluggish movement. This is what happens when an entire generation of FPS gamers start their epic journey with titles like CoD4. They grow up thinking it's the norm to be able to pull off a twitch 360' jump head shot from 50 metres, bless them. KZ2 is a different kind of FPS. This is a nice hybrid mix of Vegas and Halo. From my experience with the demo I am certain I am going to love the full game. The multiplayer may very well be the next big thing too.

F.E.A.R 2:

Oh dear. Remember the first time you watched Robocop 2? No? I do. It was a weird experience. You knew that the movie's wasn't all that bad. It was just that it wasn't Robocop. Why? Different Director. F.E.A.R 2 isn't made by the same people as the original and you can tell within about thirty seconds. This is a good example of a bunch of immature games makers being allowed to run with an idea and just keep running. By the end of the demo, you've probably seen more ghosts than you saw in the entire campaign of the original. I basically don't think this will be anything like as good as the first one.

Lord of the Rings: Conquest:

Late to the party with this one I know seeing as it's already out now. All I will say is that I respect Pandemic for trying something new here with the old team deathmatch template. It plays like World of Warcraft pvp split into rounds. Ultimately though, it's just hardcore button mashing. It's also a sad example of poor balancing. You either play as the scout or... well you just play as the scout. Probably not one to buy then.

by The Critical Alien
2009

Review: Gears of War 2

Format: Xbox 360

Category: TPS
Players: 1-10
Publisher: Microsoft

Those gears of war

It look me a while to get round to reviewing Gears of War 2. I wanted to assess it after a long playtest. My initial reactions were positive but I wanted to delve deeper. I wanted to know, for sure, that this was as good of a game as I thought during those first few days. Time will tell I said, and it did.



There is no denying that the original Gears was a great game. It set a level that many titles still fail to come close to. Even two years on, this is still stunning to play. About the most important and integral feature of Gears was its pioneering cover system. Replicated many times but arguably never bettered, this turned what would otherwise have been a brilliant third person shooter into a stellar game worthy of an Xbox 360 purchase.

Gears 2 was seriously hyped prior to launch but the hysteria never reached that ridiculous fever pitch we witnessed in 2007 with Halo 3. It is obvious that due to Gears 2's mature content the marketing was carefully targeted and word of mouth relied upon. In other words, any half serious gamer knew about Gears 2 and had made it a 2008 aim to pre-order.

The truth is that there is nothing overwhelmingly new about Gears 2. It plays just like the original and the visuals are arguably hardly much different. I say arguably because I've been told to go back to the original now after playing the sequel because apparently you quickly realise quite how dated the original suddenly looks compared to the new game. I'm cynical but will confess I haven't tried it.

The cover system mechanic is the same as before but simply didn't require any alterations. The single player is about as dramatic as the original and two player co-op is still a possibility. I have to admit that I just wasn't that bothered about the single player though. This isn't a fault of the game itself. It's just that it has gotten to the point now for me where I crave multiplayer and large scale co-op. I was just too busy on Horde mode.

Simply put, Horde mode is where it's at. Easily the best feature of Gears 2, this is a five player co-operative mode where you are expected to simply hold your ground and survive against increasingly tougher hordes of the locust enemy. It's basically GRAW 2's defend mode... done well. For about three weeks no-one on my Xbox Live contact list could put it down. We lived Horde mode for days on end. I even dreamt of Horde mode. Horde mode... mmmm.

I'm pretty convinced I know precisely why Horde mode works so well. It's because it genuinely requires co-operative team work to get through. Without working together you will get stomped on, hard. By about level 25 it's intense to the point of cardiac arrest danger territory. You know a game is dynamite when you're listening to four other grown men screaming wildly like schoolgirls over headsets at 3am because a Grinder just breached the defences.

When you're done taking on the swarms a very workable matchmaking-based five-on-five adversarial (Tom Clancy language) mode awaits. Now, I've always sucked at Gears when it comes to the player versus player angle. I'm not one of those Quake-style gamers who can be bothered to run half way across the map each time a round begins just in order to pick up some grenades or a sniper rifle. Therefore, I generally mid table it every time and tend to use the shotgun religiously.

For this reason, I wasn't as excited about the team deathmatch stuff as others out there. However, I will acknowledge the fact that it's clearly very good; with a vast number of settings/gametypes to fiddle with and well implemented bots to fill the numbers and practice on.

So, what about time? Has it told? Sort of. For me, Gears 2 was a love affair that actually only lasted around a month. When your Live contacts start failing to accept your invites to Horde mode and you're left playing with the 13-year-old gamers things fade. There are also several omissions here. There should have been a clan creation system, with ladders etc. There also should have been single player co-op for more than two players. Remember, we live in a post Halo 3 gaming world here. I'm also of the opinion that Horde mode now needs a fresh update. Give us the ability to go beyond level 50, create crazy objectives, and allow players to set the type and amount of enemy? Customisation ftw.

Gears 2 is awesome, clearly. I'm just reaching that point now where I can no longer get that excited by a game unless I'm playing alongside lots of pals. I think what I'm trying to say is that I'm now officially a co-op whore. Horde mode is Gears of War 2 and, in the famous words of Faithless, I want more.

Summary

+Gears greatness
+Matchmaking for Gears greatness
+Horde Mode
+The greatness of the Gears
-No clan support

9.4 / 10

It's Gears of War 2!

by The Critical Alien
© 2009

Writers

Current:

• The Critical Alien  (Follow on Twitter)

• xGUNISHMENTx

• Morgan

• ArrowKey

• Robinson 09

• Goldfingers

• Laxe

Yet to post:

• Archaius

• Kreeeee

• Pookie Bear

• K1LLSw1TCH

PS3...

Hmm. Do I buy a PS3 or don't I buy a PS3?

2009 will be Sony's year, I predict. Home looks sweet. Killzone 2 is primed. And perhaps it is now clear that Blu-Ray won the format war. So, during this time of economic upheaval, is it really a wise move for me, an Xbox 360 owner, to spend hundreds on this great black obelisk-like machine?

Discuss.

by The Critical Alien

2008