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.

Review: Titanfall - Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots

Last week I had the (dis)pleasure of being available for the midnight release of Titanfall on PC (via EA's Origin).  Now I know what you're thinking: "But Latency!  You told us you weren't going to be caught dead anywhere near that bug-ridden, server-crashing, lag-inducing piece of filth for the first week!"  Well, you'd be right except that money talks, and so when Tsaikotyk threw $80 at my PayPal and told me to go pre-order the digital deluxe edition, who was I to argue?

I probably should have though, because the launch was about everything I expected.  I spent roughly five hours in the game client and about one and a half actually playing.  The developers publicly acknowledged on launch night that there was a 'glitch' that caused the game to 'initialize' when searching for a server connection.  This didn't mean anything except that the client was now stuck diddling itself and didn't care much for connecting you.  Fucking called it.

Review: Risk of Rain - Forecast: Shitstorm

This holiday season I constructed myself a $1100 computer so that I could finally have a high-powered gaming rig all my own.  Something that would run the shit out of games like Assassin's Creed IV or Splinter Cell and still have memory left over.

Since then I have logged approximately 17 hours in Risk of Rain and 44 in Starbound (will get to that later).  Yes, I have been playing pixelated indie roguelikes on a computer where the highest of graphics settings isn't high enough.  This might not say much for me and my PC gaming needs, but what I find is that it really doesn't say much for the triple-A gaming industry at all.  All of my needs have been met by two games whose combined prices don't even approach a shiny new $60 investment from some money-grubbing CEO's farm of development drones, and who's graphical style is still locked in a time vault from the 1990's with the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis.

Review: inFAMOUS - Blunder-struck

In 2009 we saw the birth of a new genre, thanks to 2 games: inFAMOUS and Prototype.  I can confidently say that without these two titles, Saints Row IV wouldn't have been as enjoyable as it was.  These two games effectively began the open-world "superhero" genre.  And, as the trend tends to be, this new genre was well-received, and a great deal of flaws were overlooked in favor of promoting a new concept.

Well allow me to shit on your parade.  Infamous is a gritty, dark, superhero origins story with a morality system that makes about as much sense as choosing to guzzle down 400 gallons of Pepsi or Coke.  Sure, there's the matter of personal taste, but in the end you're still going to wind up with diabetes.

GTAV Review, Pt. 2 - The Characters

This one's going to be a good deal shorter than the last, but I wanted it to be more focused. We're doing a timeshifted week because I got frustrated with what I had pre-written, and the piss-poor GTA Online launch, and had to take a break. We were going to do two posts tonight, but there's been a similar situation with Latency's inFamous review, so we resorted to this.

Now back to the review...(Some spoilers ahead...)

Review: Dragon's Crown - 2D Side-scrolling Action with a Lot of But(t)s...

Way back in the day, we had these things called "arcades" where gamers would go to spend "quarters" to play video games.  Among fighting titles like Street Fighter, racers like Cruisn', and those rigged-as-hell claw machines, you could often find the side-scroller - a game that featured up to 4 players who walked towards the right fighting various enemies along the way and eventually ended in a boss fight.  Then those players were dropped into a new locale to repeat the process until the designers had decided the game was over.  Many classic titles include Streets of Rage, Double Dragon, a handful of titles branded under the Dungeons & Dragons franchise, and, of course, The Simpsons Arcade Game.

In an attempt to breathe new life back into the genre that effectively went the same way as the "arcade" (and dinosaurs, etc.), Vanillaware (famous for Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade, 2D side-scrolling beat 'em ups with RPG elements) has given us Dragon's Crown, a 2D side-scrolling beat 'em up with RPG elements.  Quite frankly, they've succeeded, but is this generation ready to take on the task of perpetually walking to the right until you reach a boss fight?

Grand Theft Auto V Review, Part 1

Grand Theft Auto V was one of the most anticipated titles of this console generation, and near universally praised by "professional" critics. Often waving away its flaws(and there are many), and instead valuing the game on the amount of content, opposed to the quality thereof, many of the currently available reviews are a testament as to why the business of game journalism is often considered a mere shadow of the more traditional type(which over the past two decades has become even more soulless and manipulatory itself).

There will be none of that here. Grand Theft Auto V does have some high points(which won't be overlooked either), but they're often dragged down by the thoughtless content crammed in to fill the otherwise empty space around them. I've got an axe to grind, and Rockstar gave me a stone on which to do it. It's time to have a go at one of the most successful titles this year, both critically and commercially, with a jackhammer. I'm going to sort out which of the individual components aren't so shiny when looked at with an eye to detail, rather than being blinded by the total package.

Grand Theft Auto V, controversy, and rage... Let's fucking do this.

Review: Saints Row IV – This is How We Do It

Shortly after I'd finished Saints Row: The Third, the 4^th installment had been announced. After the overload of comical violence, memorable characters, and gang-related mayhem I'd just been exposed to, I was left pondering one thing about the sequel. “How do you get bigger and more bombastic than Saints Row 3? Where do we go from here?”

Second Opinion: Divekick

Mike talked about quite a few changes or, more accurately, updates to the operation of Zero Tolerance.  Tonight, I plan to exemplify a couple of those.  Obviously, this will be the first "Second Opinion" piece done here.  Additionally, I'll be breaking Divekick down and commenting on some very particular areas, and giving it an overall letter grade at the end.  Let's begin.

Review: Borderlands 2

This weekend I finally completed the gunslinging grindfest Borderlands 2.  And no, it wasn't a mad dash straight through the story to the end boss.  Instead I spent over 30 hours ravaging the landscapes of Pandora on my quest for "epic loot".

Review: Saints Row: The Third

It's been a while since I last did a review.  This is partially because of E3 and all the "fun" I had covering it, but it's also partially because so many developers seem so concerned with the amount of content that they have to ram down your throat.  Fair enough though, because I'm about to drop the hammer on one of the most enjoyable open-world experiences I've had the pleasure to playthrough.

Review: Bulletstorm - The Duke Nukem We Deserve

Back in 2011, between Gears of War sequels, Epic Games pulled a "Crackdown" on us.  In collaboration with People Can Fly, they released Bulletstorm - a free game that came with a $60 invite to the Gears of War 3 multiplayer beta.  Now I'm probably about to lose all my credit as a gamer and blogger when I say that I actually liked the Gears of War franchise.  Chest-high-wall shooters were still relatively new and, lets face it, YOU HAD A FUCKING CHAINSAW ON YOUR GUN.  So needless to say I didn't actually play a whole lot of Bulletstorm, just enough to know that Steve Blum voiced the main character and that was it.

However, the problem I have with the Spring season isn't the warm weather or the sunshine (though I'm none too fond of those either).  The problem I have is that this is gaming's slow season and I need to find ways to keep myself occupied until the next big shitstorm of triple-A games hits the fan.  So, with a vague memory and a song in my heart, I decided to revisit Bulletstorm.

Bulletstorm casts you into the role of Grayson Hunt, the very caricature of badass.  Former-hit-squad-member-turned-alcoholic-space-pirate, Grayson's got more than just a chip on his shoulder, he's got a fucking brick house.  You don't get a lot of history before crash-landing on some rusted-out overgrown tropical island resort, but that's a good thing because roughly 10 minutes into the game, story doesn't mean shit.

Bulletstorm is one hell of a linear shooter.  The game grabs you by the shoulders, points you in a direction and says "go kill shit over there".  It's pretty standard fare.  In fact, I remember reading a post somewhere on the internet stating that the gaming market is so saturated with aim-down-the-sights shooters that even the shitty ones have solid mechanics.  And they were right.  Bulletstorm is FUCKING TERRIBLE.  The story is practically non-existent, the whole game is point A to point B run-and-gun, the weapons lack inspiration, and don't even get me started on the dialogue.  OH the dialogue.  The one-dimensional characters use the word fuck like it's a comma, just about every "skillshot" is some tongue-in-cheek dick joke, and every cutscene is dedicated to our crew wanting, but trying very hard not to kill each other.

Anyways, the planet is populated by ferocious fucks bent on slaughtering anything that moves, be it from range, or with dual-axes to your face.  So as you wander from decimated building to decimated building, you'll frequently encounter these reaper-esque bastards and have to paint the walls with their brains.  One of the ways Bulletstorm tries to separate itself from the sci-fi shitter genre is by awarding you points for each kill, depending on how creative you get.  These are called "skillshots" and as previously mentioned, most of them are dick jokes or other innuendos.  Everything from the obvious "shove off a cliff" to the rather humorous "flare-gun-up-the-ass", gives you skill points.  These points can then be spent at designated resupply points to purchase ammo and swap weapons.  This is more or less useless, because you can go the whole game with just the assault rifle and collect ammo drops from nearly every baddie you kill.  It is, however, really fun to watch them tuck and curl after you install a hot lead catheter.  Oh, and then curbstomp them.

Over the course of the game you get outfitted with your fairly standard arsenal: assault rifle, sniper rifle, pistol, grenade launcher and shotgun.  Woo fucking hoo.  Bulletstorm tried to be different by giving you a "charge shot" for your weapons, which you had to purchase to unlock, and then purchase charges for.  Fancy way of saying alt-fire.  The dev's did manage, however, to produce a couple of nifty handheld carnage makers that weren't par for the course.  I'm talking about the Flailgun and the Penetrator (teenage giggles go here).  The Flailgun works like a sticky-nade launcher, but what's awesome is the Penetrator.  Keep in mind, that this game was co-developed by People Can Fly, the very same people that brought you Painkiller and it's wondrous stake-launcher.  The Penetrator fires FUCKING DRILL ROCKETS that pierce enemies and drag their carcass to the nearest wall.  If you had fun with Painkiller's stake-launcher and Half-Life 2's crossbow, you'll have a fucking ball with this thing.  The biggest bitch being that you only get the gun about an hour away from the game's ending.  What kinda shit is that?

You also get outfitted with a grappling beam, which is used mostly for interacting with the environment, and less for dragging enemies towards you, since you'll probably forget its existence between required uses.  However, the highlight of the game for me was the "return" of Duke's Mighty Boot.  While neither Epic Games, nor People Can Fly have any ties to 3DRealms' notoriously awesome 90's FPS - Duke Nukem 3D - they have revived the time-honored tradition of melee attacks that involve taking a size 13, shining it up real nice, and sticking it straight into someone's teeth.  Not only does your "Gravity Boot" send enemies flying into pointy and painful things (rebar, cacti, carnivorous plants), it also launches them in slo-mo so that, if inclined, one could empty a clip or two into the son of a bitch before he fries on those open wires.  This is Bulletstorm's single most redeeming quality.  Well, this and General Sarrano's first actual line: "Lick the tears off my dick, mudfuckers!"

All things considered, Bulletstorm is shit.  It's a bad shooter with bad characters and a bad story.  But at the end of the day, it was FUN.  Kicking random faceless psychopaths into powerlines and skewering them with drill rockets was a good time for the whole family.  It's vulgar sense of humor and ultra-violent, ultra-bloody executions, topped with it's foul-mouthed cast really reminded me of the days of Duke.  When he was cool.

Duke Nukem Forever might have been the game we needed.  Because after 14 years in development hell, we needed to know that it could be done.  It could be finished.  But in this reviewer's opinion, Bulletstorm was the Duke Nukem we deserved.

Review: Tomb Raider (2013)

Anyone remember back in mid-2012 when there was this huge scandal about a scene in the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot that had themes of sexual abuse (see: RAPE)? But then Crystal Dynamics' studio manager came out and said "Oh my god, there's no way we'd put anything like that in a video game!"?  Well, this is because there's no such thing as bad publicity and, let's be honest, no one's given a flying fuck about the Tomb Raider franchise since the Playstation 1.  While this game is generally considered a "reboot", there are others that argue that it is, in fact, a prequel to the games that only a handful of people cared about 17 years ago.  They needed to stir up some controversy so that the world would actually pay attention to the game when it launched, though the whole thing failed horribly when everyone found out that they'd been lying to us and the "attempted rape scene" was merely some psycho being creepy.  LAME!  But if you're looking for Tomb Raider porn, that's what the internet is for.

In any case this article is about the game, not the idiocy surrounding it.  I'd much rather review the idiocy contained on the disc.