The Big Releases of March 11th, 2014: Titanfall Review, Dark Souls II First Impressions

Having played as much of Titanfall and Dark Souls II as my tight schedule allows, I figured it was time to post my thoughts. Titanfall, being the bigger release, has gotten the bulk of this time, so a full review follows, whereas the sadly neglected Dark Souls II only gets a brief look at my first impressions with the few hours I've spent with it.

First Impressions: Titanfall Beta (PC)

The new title from developers Respawn Entertainment (better known as "formerly Infinity Ward") dropped the beta for their upcoming sci-fi shooter, with giant fucking robots, this past weekend, and wrapped it up on February 19th.  It goes without saying that the good people working on this title have more than their fair share of experience in the first-person shooter genre.  The question that seems to be on most fans (or haters) minds is: how will Titanfall stack up to Call of Duty?  Lucky for you guys, I'm here to help answer that question with my limited experience in the PC beta for the game.

First Impressions: Grand Theft Auto Online... Or Is It?

Grand Theft Auto Online "launched" Tuesday, and it was about as successful as the Challenger.

For one of the most highly anticipated features of the fastest selling video game of all time to fail so spectacularly might be seen as a minor setback, but for each day it's not working properly more and more people who have already completed the single player content are trading the title in at retailers.

First Impressions: Burnout Paradise – Maybe it's better to fade away

Little over a week ago, I ranted about how if EA could get their heads out of their asses and stop beating necrotic equine corpse of Need For Speed, we might see Criterion produce another title in the Burnout franchise. Well, perhaps they shouldn't.

First Impressions: Dishonored - More like Disinterested

Now let me start this by saying that I'm not one for stealth games. Drop me in the middle of a guns-blazing firefight rather than a high-security facility any day. But with all the praise I've been hearing for Dishonored, I figured “what the hell, I'll give it a shot” (that and the cover art looks cool).

Now I went into this expecting some grizzly tale of revenge and bloodshed, as the back of the box would lead you to believe. Not so, I quickly discovered. Within the first 10 minutes of gameplay, you're assaulted by more cliches than a full season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (those who weren't raised in the 90's or aren't obsessive Joss Whedon fans have no idea what I'm talking about).

You play as Corvo, the Empress' trusted bodyguard and seeming father figure to her daughter *cough*. After returning from an assignment in which you were to seek aid from other city-island-states for the awful plague crippling your home *cough*, you meet with her majesty. Now why, in god's name, the Empress sent her personal guard on a diplomat's mission is beyond me, but we roll with it. Shortly after returning home, the Empress is attacked by masked assailants *cough* that fizzle into ashes as you kill them off. Eventually they overpower you, murder the Empress *cough*, and kidnap her daughter *cough*. With her majesty dying, and more importantly bleeding, in your arms, the captain of the guard and the spymaster general find you with a dead Empress and no princess.... empress... ess... whatever. So the two come to the logical conclusion that CORVO must have murdered the Empress! *coughcoughhackcroak* They imprison you and sentence you to death. The day of your execution, which the Spymaster and new Lord Regent make very clear must be public and painful, someone has decided to help you escape so you can join their resistance! *cough* Yes! For they know that you are innocent and that someone, perhaps the corrupt Spymaster or Lord Regent must be guilty! *coughcoughcoughcoughcough*

Apologies, I have a terrible cold. *ahem* Now all cliches and pathetically uninteresting story aside, these weren't Dishonored's only short-comings. The game employs an interesting “morality” system, in that, as an assassin, you have the option to kill, or merely knock out your enemies and targets. Now, as I felt Corvo might be a tad-bit bloodthirsty after his wrongful imprisonment and near execution, I decided to opt for the more violent route. I have to say that I'm not opposed to morality systems affecting my gameplay, however, this one's different. The city of Dunwall is dynamic in the way that it adjusts to your preferred method of dealing with hostiles. If you're a genuinely nice man, and wish to repent for all the things you haven't done wrong, you'll sneak about the town putting a lot of people in sleeper holds. But in my case, I did my best to sneak my way up behind every possible guard and introduce the pointy end of my switchblade to his jugular. Though, more often than not, I found myself involved in 3-on-1 sword fights and silently delivering a crossbow bolt to anyone who noticed me.

The way in which this affects Dunwall, is that the plague mentioned in the introductory paragraph expands. There are larger rat populations, which makes them significantly more aggressive, and the game starts infecting normal townsfolk and effectively turning them into zombies. Now, as per the advice offered in loading screens, it would appear that the city is a lot nicer when you're nicer to its people, but what I'm really not a fan of is the game punishing me for playing the way I like. Allow me to compare Dishonored's morality system to those of a few other games I've enjoyed.

Mass Effect: your actions affect the story and the story alone. There are virtually no gameplay changes that take place (unless you were a total dick and got your party killed off near the end of 2).

Prototype: So smashing in Military or Infected installations might not really be a morality meter, but the city did change according to whose house you wrecked. Though enemies were enemies none the less. It never got harder or easier, it was all just a matter of dealing with soldiers or zombies.

Infamous: You get different powers based on your alignment. S'bout it. The 2 different endings in the game boiled entirely down to a simple choice near the end. You could play evil all game and still select the heroic ending. Yeah that makes sense.

Dishonored: sneak around – game gets easier (so sayeth the load screens), slaughter everyone – game gets harder (so sayeth my experience).

The actual core gameplay is, in a nutshell, Bioshock. You have your melee weapon in one hand, and can use various magic spells and ranged weapons with your other. Honestly, after the first couple hours, I just found myself wishing I'd been playing Bioshock instead. Can't say anything bad about the graphics, it's up to par with your average console games of today. The sound can be a bit irritating, especially when you've managed to escape combat, but the music continues.

All things considered, I'd be willing to finish Dishonored... if it weren't my game. As it stands, the poor bastard gets to go back to GameStop and I'll never know what happens to little Emily. Oh well.