There are two men, hands bound by rope. One has stolen water, a scarce commodity, which makes his theft one that’s much more punishable. The other man killed the thief’s family. I have the option to kill both, walk away, or save them. I calculate the situation: my team’s beaten and battered, and can’t sustain another firefight. I walk away and leave them to the snipers. This is but one choice in Spec Ops: The Line, a game that has a narrative that’s as compelling as the gruesome violence.
Bioware recently released its final Mass Effect 3 DLC, The Citadel, which represents the last downloadable content that series fans will see in some time — at least until the company’s new title set in the Mass Effect universe hits store shelves. Commander Shepard’s final adventure, as expected, is both shocking and special. The Citadel is obviously designed to be played before Mass Effect 3′s final mission as much of the dialogue references “one last good run” and “one last night together.” As such, the story and its components, are incredibly sentimental, giving the fans dialogue to satisfy their head cannons.
Despite a mediocre critical reception, Earth Defense Force (EDF) 2017 managed to attract something of a cult following for its “so bad it’s good” cheesiness when it launched on the Xbox 360 in 2007. Games that are unintentionally or ironically “fun” aren’t typically my thing, yet the game had been recommended to me more than once over the years. Fans would tell me that its dirt-simple gameplay and relative ugliness were all part of its charm — that for all the pretense of being a “next-gen” title, it was arcade action in its purest form.
I’m not going to spoil the rest of the content, but I will tell you this: Buy it. Get the change from under the couch, under your bed, left over GameStop gift cards from over the years, I don’t care—Omega was whole-heartedly worth my $15. The last hour of brutal combat, mixed emotions, and unveiled secrets stirred the same feelings as Lair of the Shadow Broker. I’m willing to go as far as saying that Omega is Mass Effect 3’s Shadow Broker.
Resident Evil 6 is an unfocused blob of uninteresting multiplayer modes, downloadable nickel-and-dime nonsense, and plain bad (and bland) game design. Stripped of nearly everything to identify it as a Resident Evil title, there’s no cohesion, no central vision, no real intent on display here. Things just happen, one after another with little purpose or drive behind them and often with little player input. Whereas Resident Evil 4 changed the action game paradigm and Resident Evil 5 wrapped the bow on a long-running story, Resident Evil 6 accomplishes little except to turn a once-admired series into another Call of Duty poser, one plagued with an over reliance on Quick Time Events and thoughtless, linear setpieces. Now a follower rather than a trendsetter, Resident Evil has become Redundant Evil.
The relationship between the film and the video game industries is a most bizarre one. Hollywood loves mining video games for merit less fast-buck turnarounds (Dead or Alive, Super Mario Bros., Street Fighter), and many action video game tropes have origins in James Cameron’s Aliens. They love tapping the other for inspiration, so it makes sense that the next logical progression would be a hybrid creation that’s co-developed as both a film and video game. Such a thing exists. It’s called Defiance.
Max Payne 3 represents Rockstar’s attempt to resurrect Remedy’s decade-old noir detective shooter. It also represents a pattern I’ve noticed lately, that when slumbering PC franchises return they tend to inspire a lot of passion in people. Max Payne 3 and its decade-in-the-waiting PC game cousin Diablo III (and Deus Ex: Human Revolution last year and StarCraft II the year before that) either made glorious comebacks or disappointed old-time fans’. Ten years is a long a time to wait for something especially in a field where so much has happened since the last time we saw those titles on shelves.
The Resident Evil 6 demo is out for gamers who own the Xbox 360 version of Dragon’s Dogma. Hope you didn’t trade your Dragon’s Dogma disc away, as you’ll need that to download the demo! It says so in the fine print on the voucher included with the game. You did read the fine print, didn’t you? Good. Go, download the unlock and experience what we played at E3 last month.
The rest of the world, (that is, PS3 owners) will have to wait until September to get a taste of Capcom’s latest offering of “dramatic horror.” Because you have to jump through a million hoops to play console-exclusive demos of multiplatform games that will be out a month later after the demo’s available to everyone anyway… Makes sense to me!
Roughly two and a half months ago, I sat in front of my television in tears; and not the good kind. My hundreds of hours invested into Mass Effect were shredded to pieces with no explanation, no closure, and some crazy kid in an ending that garnered more than a little attention. I was instantly upset, there was no debate on that. Then I found the Demand a Better Mass Effect Ending movement, which I was one of the first 5,000 people to join.
Slant Six Games did a great job filling in the blanks with Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. The single-player campaign is a bit short, but the story telling is magnificent. The online multiplayer is good when it works and the four modes are fun to pass time with some friends. When it doesn’t, though, it feels rushed and unfinished.
