Never Too Old To Play™

Resident Evil fans can be generally split into two groups: players who enjoy and embrace the action-oriented third-person game play style of Resident Evil 4 and 5 and those who prefer the old school puzzle solving with a more moderate dose of zombie killing action.

Desperate Escape, the second piece of downloadable content for Resident Evil 5, is clearly geared more towards the action fans in contrast to Lost In Nightmares which, while offering a lot of cleverly crafted nostalgia to gamers who grew up with the earlier entries in the series in the 90’s, feels like a completely separate entity instead of an expansion on the main game.

In Desperate Escape, the player takes control of recently saved Jill Valentine (or can use Sheva Alomar’s comrade Josh Stone after beating the episode once) on a side journey that details just how Jill and Josh ended up in the helicopter during the final cut scene of Resident Evil 5.

Whereas gamers who have no history with the Resident Evil franchise may get thrown by the drastically different game play style of Lost In Nightmares, they’ll easily transition to Desperate Escape which uses characters, enemies and environments from the main game. The episode fits perfectly into the world, and the very basic story complements the campaign proper which makes for a better, more seamless experience.

Desperate Escape is basically more of everything players loved (or hated) about Resident Evil 5 so the gamer knows exactly what they’re getting when they plunk down the $5 for the download (the content is also available as part of the Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition package for those players who were late to the game).

I think both pieces of downloadable content are worth playing for long time fans of the Resident Evil series, but if I had to choose one to recommend I would suggest Desperate Escape in a heartbeat since it’s a much more exciting experience that is truer to Resident Evil 5’s heartbeat.

Final score: 4 out of 5

Parent to parent

Like I said in my review, Desperate Escape is more of everything that was great in Resident Evil 5 which includes the gore and the violence. I wouldn’t recommend the main game to young children, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend this expansion.

Experience this for yourself!

• Resident Evil 5: Desperate Escape (Xbox Live Marketplace)
• Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition (PlayStation 3) (Amazon)

I know I’m not alone in wishing for a remake of the first (and second for that matter) Resident Evil games using the new perspective and game play style employed by Resident Evil 5. That may be a pipe dream, but for now players wishing to take a stroll down memory lane can do so by playing Lost In Nightmares, a downloadable episode available on Xbox Live (or as part of the Resident Evil: Gold Edition available for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3).

Lost In Nightmares is the playable version of the flashback in Resident Evil 5 where series protagonist Chris Redfield recounts his mission with ex-partner Jill Valentine searching the European mansion of Umbrella Corporation chairman Ozwell E. Spencer.

The setting is deliberately reminiscent of the Arklay Mountains mansion in which the first Resident Evil game takes place. In fact, the entire chapter is essentially a throwback to that first game with tons of tiny little homages to the one that started it all. For instance, when you open doors in Lost In Nightmares, the view switches to a head-on perspective of the slowly opening door just like in the original game. There are also little winks and nods involving shattering windows, ceiling traps and Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.

The only problem is that for the most part the episode is really quite boring. While it’s nice to see puzzles that are very similar to the ones gamers enjoyed back in the 90’s when the first game came out, the near utter lack of action sequences is quite jarring after having played the action heavy Resident Evil 5 main campaign. It’s true that Resident Evil didn’t boast non-stop gun fights, but Capcom seems to have swung to the completely opposite end of the spectrum with this DLC.

This isn’t to say that there’s no action anywhere in the entire mission, but what little there is seems somewhat mundane. Gamers meet a brand new enemy about halfway through the episode, but aside from the final boss fight that new enemy is the only type you encounter.

There are no zombies, no infected dogs, no Majini, etc. so there’s really no traditional combat sequences because the new enemy is one of those “very dangerous but very slow” types that you can almost always avoid fighting altogether.

Just about the only part of Lost In Nightmares that feels like it’s part of Resident Evil 5 at all is the final boss battle in which you face an enemy you battled in the full game by using the same strategies and techniques. It’s very frustrating for me personally that this is the tie-in since the game play style for this particular boss was my least favorite in Resident Evil 5.

Despite all of the issues I had with Lost In Nightmares, I still recommend it to die hard fans of the series (or at least the first game) since there are a lot of little Easter egg type details that fans should enjoy. I’m torn on this download myself because while I enjoyed the nostalgic aspects, I found myself incredibly bored with a good portion of the episode. Perhaps I need to recognize that my tastes have changed and to stop wishing for what Resident Evil was so I can focus 100% on my enjoyment of what Resident Evil has become.

Final score: 3 out of 5

Parent to parent

While this is an expansion for a game that I would not recommend for children, the significant lack of combat almost allows me to offer an opinion that the episode is child-safe. However, what the new enemy does to your character if it manages to get a hold of them is easily as gory as anything you’ll find in Resident Evil 5. Further, you would need to purchase the main game in order to play this expansion so there really isn’t any reason a child should ever be playing Lost In Nightmares.

Experience this for yourself!

• Resident Evil 5: Lost In Nightmares (Xbox Live Marketplace)
• Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition (PlayStation 3) (Amazon)

The Signal is the first of two downloadable episodes for the magnificent Xbox 360 exclusive psychological horror thriller Alan Wake. People who purchased the original game brand new received an insert in the package with an Xbox Live code to download the content absolutely free, which is an awesome bonus to a superb gaming experience. Unfortunately, The Signal doesn’t quite live up to the expectations set by the main game despite using the same game engine, the same game play elements (with a clever new twist) and the same lovingly crafted world. Maybe it’s because of some of those things that the episode shines less brightly.

After loading up The Signal, you find yourself once again in control of Mr. Wake essentially right after the events of the main game. However, the action in this episode takes place entirely within the mind of our titular hero, who is experiencing a mental breakdown thanks to everything he endured at the hands of the Dark Presence. Thus while you find yourself navigating the town of Bright Falls in which the game proper took place it’s not exactly the same Bright Falls but rather a mental representation of it, nor are the enemies you face or the items you discover anything more than figments of Alan’s demented imagination. In fact, there are no standard item drops at all but rather Alan’s typed words floating in the air waiting to be realized with the shine of the flashlight and an explosion of light and typewriter sounds. It’s a creative departure from the “real world” and really effective in conveying the idea of the nightmare existence Alan is stuck in.

The problem is that it really seems like you’re just backtracking through environments you’ve seen (in some cases many times) before. Because of the nature of the scenario, the designers are able to speed you from location to location without a lot of the more rudimentary exploration aspects from the original game (which would be pointless in the episode since as I said before you’re not really discovering much of anything new) so the action sequences seem much more frequent, but that doesn’t leave much room for plot development which is one of the things that really makes the main game so great.

People who thought that Alan Wake didn’t have enough action or maybe had too much “downtime” in between combat encounters will probably enjoy The Signal very much. I’m not one of those people, though – the wonderfully disturbing story and the way the plot progressed are core reasons I enjoyed the game so much, and by the time the episode is complete you’re essentially right back where you started. The Signal is a fun few hours for sure, but it’s really pointless fun.

Final score: 3 out of 5

Parent to parent

This is just an expansion of Alan Wake, so my recommendation is no different than it was for the main game. This is not a game for young children.

Experience this for yourself!

• Alan Wake: The Signal (Xbox Live Marketplace)

Originally intended as an Xbox 360 launch title when it was announced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in 2005, Alan Wake finally arrived in May of this year to hordes of anxious fans. Okay… well… not hordes of fans, or even very many at all (less than 750,000 copies of the title have been sold worldwide in nearly 5 months on the market).

However, just because the general gaming public didn’t take to the game doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t… depending on the type of gamer you are. While Alan Wake employs a fair amount of combat, it’s not really an action game at its core. The game has a more psychological feel to it with a rather eerie atmosphere, much more reminiscent of Silent Hill (another game series that hasn’t done very well at retail) than the blockbuster Resident Evil series.

In Alan Wake, you take on the role of the titular character who is a former best selling novelist looking for some inspiration to get past his two year writer’s block in the quaint Pacific Northwest town of Bright Falls, Washington. As expected, Alan’s life is turned upside down when his wife, Alice, disappears from the remote lake island cabin they rented and he is blamed. Strange, nightmarish things start happening, leading Alan to believe that there’s much more going on than a simple kidnapping, and he must work with his agent and the local sheriff to stop an evil from engulfing the whole town.

It’s an interesting premise that is superbly realized on the screen by a combination of clever writing and beautiful art direction as well as some engaging game play elements that fit perfectly with the game’s decidedly dark atmosphere.

Unfortunately, the more cerebral nature of the plot probably dooms the game to a lifetime of abstinence from the more trigger happy segment of the gaming market looking only for the next Call of Duty or Gears of War title to grace store shelves. It’s understandable that they would be turned off by the more slow paced game play and fantastical elements of the story when all they really want to do is frag their buddies in online deathmatches.

I’m sure the lengthy development process also turned off a lot of gamers who may have been truly excited for the game back when it was first announced or when it was “coming soon” for the first several years of the Xbox 360’s life. The game does look like it was developed earlier in the generation: the art direction is wonderful, but the graphics technology is obviously dated. Great graphics don’t inherently lead to a great game, but it’s entirely understandable that some people have trouble ignoring the visual wonders of titles like Uncharted 2 and Red Dead Redemption when looking at the preview stills from Alan Wake plastered all over gaming websites.

Nevertheless, gamers who decide to pass over this title in favor of the next frag fest or action extravaganza are most certainly doing themselves a disservice as Alan Wake offers a unique game play experience coupled with a disturbing yet enthralling story line all wrapped up in a chilling atmosphere that would make Stephen King proud. Indeed, playing Alan Wake is likely the closest thing to playing a good video game adaptation of a King novel, complete with the accompanying paranoia and week long aversion to walking down into the basement by yourself.

Final score: 5 out of 5

Parent to parent

This is not a game for children. There are some mature themes in play during the course of the game, and the gamer is required to engage in quite a lot of violence against enemies that are essentially representations of the townsfolk they meet early on.  The dark and supernatural aspects of the experience certainly don’t help. Enjoy the game yourself, but spare your kids the nightmares.

Experience this for yourself!

• Alan Wake (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Alan Wake: Limited Edition (Xbox 360) (Amazon)

The highly anticipated Halo: Reach raked in $200 million in sales after just one day on retail shelves, outshining Halo 3’s first day take of $170 million on September 25, 2007. That impressive total generated on Tuesday’s launch is far short of the current single day record of $310 million posted by Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which debuted on November 10, 2009 on both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.

It’s a rather auspicious start for the new first-person shooter game that chronicles the actions of the doomed Noble Team, a squadron of Spartan super soldiers stationed on human colony Reach during the massacre Halo fans know as “The Fall of Reach.”

I’m personally happy that Halo: Reach has done so well in just this short window of time as it proves that gamers can embrace a Halo game that isn’t just more repetitive schlock involving Master Chief. After the massive disappointment of Halo 3, Halo: Reach seems to be another breath of fresh air (Halo 3: ODST was a nice appetizer) that can put Halo back on my personal list of great gaming franchises.

Zombies have always frightened me. The idea of an easily communicable disease or pathogen that forcibly removes all sense of self and converts a person into an essentially mindless husk of what was once there disturbs me. The idea of a merciless, focused enemy horde that grows by virtue of whittling away the opposition, and the sense that as each day passes there are less of “you” and that many more of “them” is eerie. The thought that it’s really not a matter of if but when you become a snack for the masses, screaming in agony as a dozen reeking, rotting living corpses tear into your flesh while you’re still alive, while your blood is still pumping through your body (and now squirting out of your severed veins), is enough to make me shudder.

Yes, zombies have always frightened me. I am, and always have been, a huge fan of horror, especially films of the zombie sub-genre like George Romero’s classic Dead series so it really did not surprise me that it was love at first sight when I first experienced Resident Evil on the Sony PlayStation.

Capcom’s classic survival horror masterpiece was the first video game to make me feel pure, unadulterated fear. It arrived at a time when video games were only just starting to take on more mature themes with many people still entrenched in Nintendo’s rainbow parade of happiness. Mario and Donkey Kong made me happy and kept me smiling; I virtually peed my pants five minutes into Resident Evil when that first zombie dog crashed through the hallway window.

Even better, it kept up that level of tension throughout the whole experience. At no point in Resident Evil did you really feel safe because there could be a zombie hiding behind any door or a dog waiting to jump through any window, and since you didn’t enjoy the benefit of the bottomless backpack that so many video games of the time employed you couldn’t rely on the safety blanket of adequate ammo and medical supplies to ensure your survival through the next area.

Resident Evil 5 is quite a different game from its great, great, great grandfather. It’s not so much a survivor horror game as it is a survivor action game. The enemies aren’t reanimated corpses but they still act a bit like zombies as they stalk you; now, though, they’re hapless victims of creepy parasites that jam their way down your throat and turn you into bloodthirsty savages – they don’t want to eat you, but they hope to make you dead.

There are a lot more of them, too. In Resident Evil, you’d meet a zombie every few rooms or hallways – the anxiety of bumping into one around the next corner or behind the next door, especially when you were low on ammunition, was what kept the heart pounding. In Resident Evil 5, however, the tension comes from having to stave off a slowly advancing horde without being able to run and gun your way through like a super soldier.

You see, Resident Evil 5 isn’t a traditional shooter game despite kind of looking like one – Capcom decided in the previous game to change things up from the trademark fixed perspective of the series and make the experience a little more personal by putting the camera behind the player character just above the shoulder – because you have to set yourself and aim before you can actually shoot anything. It’s understandably a little disconcerting to gamers heavily invested in the typical first- or third-person shooter style of play, but it adds a little excitement and challenge to what would otherwise be a run-of-the-mill shooting game.

Adding to the tension is the new real-time inventory management system that doesn’t include a “pause” function. If you’re down to your last sliver of life and being chased by a chainsaw-wielding psychopath, it’s more than a little harrowing not to be able to freeze the game and take your sweet time deciding between one medicine or another. Thankfully, Capcom gives you a little bit of leeway by allowing you to set certain items to one of the four points on the directional pad so you can quickly equip that item if you need it in the heat of battle; good luck if you didn’t prepare beforehand, though.

The game opens with an introductory cinematic that gives you a little preview of things to come before dropping you in a dilapidated Kijuju shanty town filled with people who are no longer the welcoming type. You play Chris Redfield, the hero from the very first Resident Evil game, who is now a member of the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA) on a mission to apprehend one Ricardo Irving, a black market arms dealer attempting to sell a bio weapon of an undisclosed nature (fans of the series should easily be able to figure out what the weapon is).

Your partner on this mission is Sheva Alomar, a top agent in the BSAA’s African branch, who you can play as in subsequent playthroughs after you beat the game. She is quite a contrast to Chris from a design perspective: while Chris is enormous – he must have injected a ton of steroids because he makes WWE’s John Cena look like a skinny little nerd – Sheva is lean and svelte; while Chris is dressed like an operative, Sheva looks like someone about to go on a hike; while Chris pummels his opponents with brutal hooks and uppercuts, Sheva uses graceful kicks to incapacitate her foes.

Sheva is probably one of the best AI partners I’ve ever worked with in a video game. She rarely gets in the way, is quick to heal you when enemies have dealt the pain, keeps up with you quite well, and is quite competent in combat situations (she has saved my butt on more than one occasion).

The common enemy types early in the game are not nearly as competent. While you’re taking out their buddies alongside them, they’ll just keep advancing on your position. The challenge comes in their sheer numbers and ability to absorb damage. You don’t get more powerful weapons until later in the game so it’s not very difficult to get into a sticky situation where you’re being overwhelmed by a horde of infected rabble despite how slow they move when they get near you and how much more open the environments are than earlier games in the series. I’ve heard people vent in frustration about the nuances of the control scheme which prevent you from “running and gunning;” I’m of the opinion that the game is most exciting in these circumstances thanks in no small part to the particular gameplay style.

An especially enjoyable aspect of Resident Evil 5 is the high level of quality in the graphics. From both a technical and creative perspective, the game’s visuals are top notch to the point of being one of the best looking games of the generation. There’s an incredible amount of detail in every part of the game from the different textures of your characters’ outfits to the glossy sheen of the exposed musculature of a classic Resident Evil monster you meet later in the game.

As impressive is just how good each of the number of varied environments you visit in the game look. You’ll find yourself speeding across dusty savannah in a Humvee, wading through crocodile-infested swampland, exploring ancient, subterranean tribal ruins, and pushing through abandoned research facilities. Each environment is gorgeous to behold because of the amount of attention paid to the little details that make it look like a living, breathing place. As you race by the unkempt, decrepit structures in that first shanty town, you can imagine that the people hunting you down were stuck in a living Hell long before the parasites got to them.

The story builds upon events from previous Resident Evil games and even earlier as certain flashback scenes and many of the documents you discover touch upon the lengthy history and back story behind the entire franchise. Most notable is the clear revelation of the relationship between series villain Albert Wesker and the founder of Umbrella Corporation, Ozwell E. Spencer; fans are finally told exactly what Wesker’s motivation has been throughout the six proper games. I saw the story really only failing during one particularly cheesy cutscene just prior to a boss battle where one of your adversaries starts spouting grimace-inducing pop culture references before injecting himself with a mutagen.

Resident Evil 5 is certainly not for everyone. Fans of the series as a whole will most likely enjoy this final entry in the main series – producer Jun Takeuchi said that the sixth game would probably be a reboot, and Capcom estimated that the next game could take as long as eight years to make – and even gamers who were not enamored with the story of the earlier games might enjoy this one due to the changes in gameplay direction and a departure from the zombie premise. The people most likely to have an issue with this game are those accustomed to the more freeform first- and third-person shooter style of gameplay who might feel too restricted by this departure. Nonetheless, this is a game interesting enough to at least give a shot before making a final decision one way or another – give the demo a go: it’s a pretty accurate representation of what you’ll be doing through the rest of the game.

Final score: 5 out of 5

Parent to parent

If you’re shopping for a younger player, just leave this game on the shelf. There is a lot of violence and gore in this game with the player taking part in the killing of people who are essentially just victims of an evil corporation’s gruesome bio weapons experiments. The actual infection and transformation processes are depicted quite early in the game, but there is equally disturbing imagery further on as various people undergo hideous mutations into vicious beasts. This is definitely a “Rated R” type of game so act accordingly.

Experience this for yourself!

• Resident Evil 5 (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Resident Evil 5 (PlayStation 3) (Amazon)
• Resident Evil 5 (PC) (Amazon)
• Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition (PlayStation 3) (Amazon)
• Resident Evil 5 Collector’s Edition (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Resident Evil 5 Collector’s Edition (PlayStation 3) (Amazon)
• Xbox 360 Elite Limited Edition Red Resident Evil 5 Console (Amazon)

BioWare forever changed the role-playing game genre in November 2007 with its epic sci-fi space opera masterpiece Mass Effect, an action RPG set in a distant future where humans are given the chance to prove their worth to the galactic community by defeating an ancient evil that threatens all sentient organic life in the galaxy. The game captivated players with a rich, complex narrative involving many mature themes, impressive graphics that were sometimes marred by bugs and framerate issues, and a living, breathing, fully realized virtual universe teeming with history as well as socioeconomic and cultural conflicts similar to ones that we deal with in the real world.

Mass Effect 2 improves on almost every aspect of its predecessor to provide a deep and fulfilling gaming experience that is very much like the Empire Strikes Back to the first game’s A New Hope in that the main story is significantly less epic because the focus is more on the development of the characters than on a grandiose mission – in this game, you’re finding out that Darth Vader is your father instead of making an attack run on the completed Death Star.

The early promotional campaign for the game focused around old comrades’ surprise that Commander Shepard is alive, and the reason for that is shown right at the start of the game with an intense cinematic that introduces a new menace to the galaxy and sets up the need for a new team of specialists to accompany the hero into the vast expanses of space.

Just like the more recent marketing materials leading up to the release of the game in January implied, it’s all about the relationship between you and your teammates this time around. There’s a lot more emphasis placed on interacting with your squad. As in the first game, you can spend your off-time between individual missions visiting each of your team members in their respective areas of the ship and learning a bit about what makes them tick. Unlike in the first game, however, the connections you build are somewhat stronger with more of an emotional bent to them, so much so that you can now develop a romantic relationship with almost any member of your squad (in most cases depending on gender).

Furthermore, each teammate now has a loyalty mission unlocked during the second act of the game in which you can assist them in resolving some personal crisis. In some cases, these missions are more in depth and longer than the ones you had to go through to recruit the specialist in the first place. None are particular “light” in theme, either – the majority of these loyalty missions revolve around family troubles of the worst kind (no “my husband doesn’t put down the toilet seat” issues here).

All of this serves to build strong connections with your squad so that by the time you start the final act all the decisions you make and the risks you take seem to have that much more weight. In say a Call of Duty game, you couldn’t care less whether the all-but-nameless soldiers in your squad are taken out in that final suicide run against the Nazi bunker, but in Mass Effect 2’s final mission, you may have to task that person you’ve been building an emotional relationship with the most dangerous assignment in order to ensure victory. It won’t mean much to players who just see a video game as a succession of battle sequences but makes the experience much more real for players who can immerse themselves a bit more into the game.

To go hand in hand with the more nuanced and complex story line, Mass Effect 2 boasts graphical quality and visual design that is noticeably improved over Mass Effect’s already groundbreaking visuals. One of the most memorable aspects of the first game is the level of detail and realism in the faces of the characters during conversation close-ups and on the character status screens: aside from the occasional freak like Navigator Pressly, the cast of Mass Effect is one of the best looking in all of gaming. Things only get better in the sequel, with even more details, both subtle and obvious, visible on many of the characters. Especially impressive are the very different skin textures on the various aliens, such as the scaliness of the new Krogan warrior and the leathery hide of the Salarian scientist – and the freckles on the face of your new Asari comrade are a nice touch as are the handful of birthmarks you can see on, uh, various parts of her body.

Even better, the graphical glitches that were a bit more than infrequent in Mass Effect are all but eradicated. The game has a smooth and consistent framerate and no longer suffers from the texture pop-ins that sometimes shattered the suspension of disbelief in the first game.

This makes it a lot easier to enjoy the stunning environments BioWare has created this time around. Through the course of the game, you’ll explore immaculate skyscrapers, seedy slums, lush jungles, desolate wastelands, and overgrown ruins, and the various environments are much more fully realized this time around with attention paid to little details like the little monkey-like creatures wandering around on one planet (while Mass Effect had some strange deer-like beasts on a few planets, they used far simpler rendering models).

Mass Effect 2 provides a pretty impressive aural experience as well. There’s some top notch voice acting in this game from the likes of veteran actor Martin Sheen who plays the Elusive Man, rising star Yvonne Strahovski (Miranda Lawson) from television’s Chuck and Adam Lazarre-White, recently seen in a small role on NBC’s Heroes, who is my personal favorite as Jacob Taylor. The game is almost a science fiction television series reunion with supporting voiceover work from Star Trek veterans Michael Dorn and Armin Shimerman, Battlestar Galactica stars Michael Hogan and Tricia Helfer, The Matrix star Carrie-Anne Moss, and Firefly star Adam Baldwin. Even Oscar nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo joins in on the fun. And Mass Effect alums Seth Green and Keith David return in unfortunately smaller roles (the two really stole the show in the previous game).

Further, the music is as striking and epic as it was the first time around, fitting for a game of this scale and scope. Especially in the action-packed cutscenes, you really feel like you’re watching a big budget Hollywood blockbuster. This is one of the few video games with a soundtrack actually worth listening to on its own.

The gameplay itself is much improved from the first game with the realization of some features that were promoted for Mass Effect but didn’t make the final cut and the removal of some of the bulkier, unwieldy aspects of that game’s interface. You can now direct your squad mates individually, which allows for more interesting combat strategies such as having your team flank the enemy from either side while you make a more direct advance on their position. This is a huge improvement from the first game where your two companions were essentially attached at the hip.

Also new is the ability to perform paragon or renegade “interrupts” of a dialog cutscene where you can drastically change the outcome of a scene by pressing the appropriate trigger at the right time. You might fire a warning shot behind the person you’re talking to in order to get them to give up some useful information or you might go so far as to prevent a comrade from executing an enemy in cold blood. It’s a nice little touch that was conspicuously absent from the first game because BioWare showed examples in promotional trailers.

My personal favorite gameplay change is the streamlined inventory management system. In Mass Effect, there were several different weapons and armor manufacturers, each of whom produced their own model of each of the weapon and armor types, some of which were specific to particular races. Each of those models had different levels of quality designated by a numerical class (e.g. Avenger Assault Rifle II or Hurricane Shotgun VI). Then, there were various weapon and armor upgrades which added specific features to a particular model, and these also had quality levels. And let’s not forget the biotic and tech hardware that improved those skills.

As you found different weapons, armor and upgrades throughout the adventure, you would amass a gigantic trove of treasures that was managed by an interface that had no real sorting or filtering ability such that you could waste lots of time just scrolling through a huge list (I believe you could carry somewhere in the range of 150 items) to find the specific thing you wanted to use, sell or just examine. It was one big confusing mess and one of the only real blights to that superb game.

BioWare wisely decided to scrap that system for this game and start from scratch with a much simpler and more usable one. There are only a few models of each weapon type (although you can acquire a few more through the course of the game) which you upgrade via purchased or discovered schematics that you integrate by spending mineral resources. Armor, biotic powers and tech skills can be boosted in a similar fashion. This welcome change allows you to focus on the actual game experience instead of tedious minutiae.

Mass Effect 2 is a bigger, better game with a deeper plot, a richer setting and notably improved gameplay that makes it easier for players to dive right into the epic story. The breathtaking graphics, impressive voiceover work and slick presentation are nice bonuses that make playing the game that much more rewarding an experience. And those who upon completing the game find themselves desperate to find out how Commander Shepard’s story ends can take solace in the fact that Mass Effect 3 will arrive in stores sooner than they expect.

Final score: 5 out of 5

Parent to parent

Like its predecessor, Mass Effect 2 deals with some rather mature topics that are likely too heavy for younger players. While there is a lot of combat-related violence in the game, I posit that this will have far less impact on players than sacrificing the life of a character with which they’ve developed a close friendship or romantic relationship, helping a parent hunt down and kill their own child, or debating the merits of developing a pathogen that sterilizes an entire race of creatures. The game should be okay for teenagers who have mentally and emotionally developed enough to better understand the underlying issues that the game’s narrative examines.

Experience this for yourself!

• Mass Effect 2 (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Mass Effect 2 Collector’s Edition (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Mass Effect 2 (PC) (Amazon)
• Mass Effect 2 Collector’s Edition (PC) (Amazon)
• Mass Effect (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Mass Effect (PC) (Amazon)

Anyone who has played Baldur’s Gate (or its sequel), Neverwinter Nights or Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic knows that BioWare is one of the top video game development studios in the industry. As far as the role-playing game genre is concerned, the strength of the BioWare brand is second only to that of Square Enix (although that could change soon if the reception of the two companies’ recent releases are any indication).

Almost every BioWare game is both a financial success and a critical darling:

• Baldur’s Gate sold over 2 million copies worldwide during a time when the computer role-playing game genre was struggling and won numerous Game of the Year awards from various industry publications. 
• Baldur’s Gate II and Neverwinter Nights also sold over 2 million copies worldwide and won various year-end awards.
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic sold over 1.5 million copies worldwide, won numerous Game of the Year awards and is considered by many not only to be one of the best and most influential Star Wars works but one of the best games of all time.

BioWare continued this trend with their first next-generation release, Mass Effect, and surpassed their past achievements by creating a game that is without a doubt superior to all those that came before it. Mass Effect is quite frankly an evolution of the role-playing game genre, building on concepts first introduced in Knights of the Old Republic to reach a point where the player is deeply and directly involved in playing a role instead of just assigning stat points.

Don’t get me wrong – the game involves character customization (a ton of it, to be honest) for all the stat geeks out there. The ability to decide whether your character will be mighty brute of a warrior or a powerful wizard, a front line trooper or a stealthy sniper is important to role-playing games.

However, most RPGs (especially Japanese RPGs) are content to limit the effects of the player’s choices to just the combat. The rest of the time, the player is just watching as their character goes through predetermined, unchanging cutscenes where the exact progression of the script was set in stone long before the game even hit the shelves. No matter what kind of player you are, no matter how you’ve chosen to build your character, the details of the story and the dialogue – and how your character fits into it all – is exactly the same as it is for any other player.

This is not the case with Mass Effect where almost every conversation in the game includes dialogue choices that can elicit notably different responses from the other characters. Depending on how you interact with a given character, you may be able to learn useful information, avoid (or initiate) a combat situation or even set up an eventual romantic encounter. Better yet, many of the choices you make in this game have some effect on aspects of future games in the series.

While the game of course follows a general story structure – no matter what choices you make, you’re going to end up facing the final enemy in the game – the details of how you get there are going to be different for each player because each player is going to decide when their character will stand up for what’s right, when their character will take the low road and when their character simply doesn’t give a damn, and those decisions will determine how much of the story the player gets to experience.

And trust me – you’ll want to experience as much of the story as possible. The writing is far better than what you’ll find in most video games and even most movies, and the story has a truly epic feel to it. Playing through the game is almost like watching a cinematic masterpiece unfold before you, like discovering the love child of Star Wars and The Godfather. But you get to participate in exactly how it all plays out: you get to decide whether Luke Skywalker is a momma’s boy or a gangsta from the mean streets of Mos Eisley. There’s so much story that you can’t even experience it all the first time through – to truly see and hear everything the game has to offer, you have to play through multiple times and make different choices to see how it all plays out.

If you decide to do this, your eyes certainly won’t be worse for wear as the game is absolutely beautiful. The level of detail in the graphics is simply stunning although perhaps a bit ambitious for a team working with both the Xbox 360 hardware and Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3 for the first time. Especially impressive is the modeling and animation of the faces during all the conversation scenes – although some of the characters fall deep into the uncanny valley, these are nevertheless the best faces of any video game by far.

The game does suffer from a very inconsistent frame rate, some noticeable texture pop-in when you enter new areas and a strange symptom where sometimes during cutscenes parts of a character’s face look like they’re missing, almost like they’re in front of a green screen and someone speckled green paint on their heads. Fortunately, most of the visual bugs go away when you install the game to the hard drive – I highly recommend you do this if your 360 has a hard drive.

Perhaps the most incredible feat BioWare pulled off during the development of this game was their creation of one of the most believable universes in video game history. As you progress through the game, you’ll encounter about a dozen different intelligent alien species that you’ll be able to interact with. In some cases, you’ll be able to recruit a representative to your squad.

The various races look quite distinct from one another despite most being of humanoid form. For example, the volus are short, squat beings who are shaped somewhat like bipedal rodents – BioWare probably named them after the vole – although one can’t say for sure what exactly they look like since they have to wear pressurized environment suits due to their ammonia-based biochemistry while the hanar resemble giant walking jellyfish and the asari, an entirely female species that is somehow attractive to all races, look very much like blue-skinned human women.

BioWare didn’t stop with just visual differences, though. As you interact with members of the different species, you’ll notice distinctive vocal qualities as well as varied adaptations to the English language. The aforementioned hanar, who speak in a melodic tone, always refer to themselves as “this one” or “it” when conversing with individuals they do not consider close friends or family as the usage of the first person with strangers or mere acquaintances is considered egotistical in their culture. The giant elcor, who hail from a high gravity planet, speak in monotone with a deep, hollow vocal quality; thus, they have to explicitly communicate the tone of their statement (i.e. anger, sarcasm, happiness) in order to avoid misunderstandings with other races.

Further, BioWare developed for each race a relatively detailed culture and history which often times comes into play when you converse with members of that species. For example, you won’t find a shortage of complaints from volus individuals about how unfair it is that their species does not have a seat on the Citadel Council, the ruling body that presides over the galaxy, despite their contributions.

Mass Effect is one of the only games where you are cognizant of a world outside of the area in which you’re playing. You and your comrades are just one piece of the whole puzzle – a big freakin’ piece but still just one piece. Regardless of whether you are successful in your mission to defeat the enemy, the universe will keep moving on: the Council races will still look down on humans; Krogans will still hate Salarians for the sterilization they instilled upon them; Quarians will continue their nomadic existence.

BioWare included all these little details that fill out the world they created to make it vibrant and real such that it almost becomes an organic entity unto itself instead of just a backdrop for the action like in most games. Theirs is one of the most fully realized game universes ever put to disc (or cartridge for that matter).

As great as the game is, it’s not all that surprising that it wasn’t a runaway success. BioWare’s Knights of the Old Republic was well received but its spiritual successor Jade Empire, its first foray into inventing their own intellectual property instead of licensing an already successful on such as Star Wars or Dungeons & Dragons, didn’t fare quite as well at retail. However, good word of mouth (and some price drops) helped it accrue more than two million in sales since November 2007.

Now that you can purchase Mass Effect as a Platinum Hit for the more than reasonable price of $19.99, there really is no reason for you to not give it a try. It’s easily one of the best games of the generation and a masterful experience that you’d find hard not to enjoy.

Final score: 5 out of 5

Parent to parent

I probably would not recommend Mass Effect for younger gamers. It’s hard for me to say that because I think the title has some of the best storytelling in gaming history with a lot of thought provoking material, but that material is often based on rather mature themes that are likely too heavy for most children. The game also involves a lot of violence as well as an optional romantic side story which can culminate in a love scene – a fairly ambiguous and tasteful one but a love scene nonetheless.

Experience this for yourself!

• Mass Effect (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Mass Effect (PC) (Amazon)

It’s been a while since the shift of power in the console gaming industry from Japanese developers to their Western counterparts. Microsoft kick started this trend with the introduction of the Xbox, a video game console that was similar enough in architecture and design to a PC that formerly PC-centric developers had little problems porting their titles to the system. All of a sudden, Western developers like Bungie, Epic, id, and Valve who were marquee players in the world of Windows and Macintosh gaming but virtually unknown by gamers whose cash lined the coffers at Nintendo, Sega and Sony found themselves at the door of a whole new market of consumers.

However, while the console gaming population’s appetite for games like Halo, Grand Theft Auto III, and Splinter Cell grew, they still relied on Japanese developers like Square and Namco for their role-playing fix. Game series like Final Fantasy, Xenosaga, Kingdom Hearts, and Dragon Quest were among the many Japanese role-playing franchises available on the PlayStation 2, and the genre contributed to the console’s greatest strength: its “something for everyone” library of software. Some titles even reached blockbuster status with four in the top ten list of best selling PlayStation 2 games.

Then, the Xbox 360 arrived and everything changed. (Cue dramatic music.)

Actually, all Microsoft did was take the smart approach with regards to the design of their new console. (Cue PlayStation 3 fanboys ranting about RROD.) Microsoft knew the appeal the Western style of game development, up to that point mostly exclusive to the PC platform, would have with the growing video game market, and knew what those developers liked about working with the Xbox. Instead of trying to make radical changes for the sake of change (and under the guise of innovation), they simply expanded on what already worked and kept the architecture similar enough that the transition from Xbox to Xbox 360 would be fairly easy for developers. More importantly, they listened when the teams demanded more memory without which games like Gears of War and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare would have been impossible.

One of the results of this approach was the release of highly evolved fourth entry in the Elder Scrolls role-playing game series on video game consoles. Oblivion arrived to much fanfare due to the high degree of character customization, the vast and fully realized world, the sheer number of characters with whom to interact, the epic story, and the beautiful graphics which all but guaranteed that gamers who weren’t interested in role-playing games before took notice. Critics raved about the game to the tune of a mid-90s average review score and many year end awards. The game went on to sell 2.93 million units on the Xbox 360 platform and 1.15 million units on the PlayStation 3 platform.

Bethesda followed up this masterpiece two and a half years later with the even better Fallout 3, a more action-oriented role-playing game set in the post apocalyptic world of the Fallout series of computer role-playing games. Fallout 3 was almost the exact opposite of Oblivion as far as concept – instead of a high fantasy world of wizards and warriors, elves and monsters, and good and evil, you had a depressing glimpse at a realistically possible future set on the desolate backdrop of a ravaged Washington D.C. where the denizens didn’t have the luxury of worrying much about the morality of their choices.

Similarly, BioWare’s space opera Mass Effect, released a year before Fallout 3 in 2007, challenged the player’s own perception of what was right and wrong. Although the setting was completely different – Mass Effect took place in a distant future where humans are galaxy-trotting with aliens on board advanced starships – the developers had the same approach with regards to the choices you made: almost nothing was clear cut good and evil, and it was commonplace for someone to find themselves conflicted about which path was the right one to take.

What these three games did was introduce console gamers to actual role-playing games where the gamer actually plays a role by deciding what their character says and does, and how they say and do it. Until this point, most gamers only knew Japanese RPGs, which were games that merely paid lip service to the term “role-playing game” – the stat-building aspect of traditional tabletop role-playing games was there but the spirit of the genre was missing.

Oblivion, Mass Effect and Fallout 3 opened gamers’ eyes to the reality of JRPGs. The wool over their eyes had been lifted and many realized just how shallow and simple these games were: it’s kind of hard to go back to the linear progression, restrictive turn-based combat, static stories, and canned dialogue that simply served as sound for pre-rendered cutscenes when you’ve experienced open worlds, thousands of dialogue options, real-time action, and the ability to make choices that have an actual impact on the game.

The old style of “role-playing” was no longer acceptable, and both sales and critical reviews reflected this new attitude. Of all the JRPGs released this generation, only one – Final Fantasy XIII - broke a million units sold with 1.88 million as of early February. Mind you, this is after seven weeks on sale in Japan where Final Fantasy XII sold 1.82 million units in Japan in the first week alone and ended up with a total 5.69 million units worldwide when all was said and done.

Games without the benefit of a mega franchise fared significantly worse at retail: Infinite Undiscovery from Square moved only 0.57 million units; Blue Dragon moved less than that at 0.53 million worldwide; and the well-reviewed Demon’s Souls (GameSpot’s 2009 Game of the Year) has only managed 0.63 million in sales. And none of the JRPGs released this generation have achieved aggregate scores in the 90’s at MetaCritic whereas just one – Demon’s Souls - barely made it at GameRankings (Oblivion, Mass Effect, Fallout 3, and Mass Effect 2 all scored in the 90’s on both sites).

And if the game with one of the biggest brand names in console gaming history can’t put Japanese role-playing games back in the spotlight, what game can? Dragon Quest X? Highly unlikely despite the history of that series because the game will be a Wii exclusive. A third Kingdom Hearts game? The Final Fantasy series has historically sold better and received better reviews so the likelihood of that currently theoretical game surpassing Final Fantasy XIII is probably low. Plus, the real diehard Disney gamers are actually likely to spend the money on a Wii (if they don’t already have one for all those Disney licensed games) just to play Epic Mickey, a Disney game where you actually play Mickey Mouse instead of just drag his buddies Donald Duck and Goofy along for the ride, instead.

No, sadly (for JRPG fans, anyway) this seems like the permanent trend as Western developers for all genres take the reins of the video game industry from Japanese developers mired in their old ways, unwilling to adapt with the times and create products that appeal to more than just the often quirky tastes of the Japanese consumers.

In response to a recent IGN interview with Sony executive Peter Dille in which Mr. Dille proclaimed that the PlayStation 3 would “be around in 10 years” and eventually overtake the Xbox 360 in sales, GameStooge writer Jordan Lund unsurprisingly went on an anti-Sony tirade, making sure not to forget any of the key fanboy tactics in arguing the superiority and domination of their preferred entertainment device.

Mr. Lund gets what appears to be an ad hominem argument out of the way early on in the article, declaring that Mr. Dille’s position cannot be taken seriously because he is a Sony executive and other Sony executives have in the past professed confidence that the PlayStation 3 would surpass its competitors (or at least its primary competitor, the Xbox 360). While Mr. Lund is of course unable to support any point of view that said Sony executives are wrong about their predictions since the timeframe has not yet passed, the intent is certainly there to link the possibly dubious nature of their claims to the validity of Mr. Dille’s.

The crux of Sony’s argument that the PlayStation 3 will eventually outsell the Xbox 360 is the premise that Microsoft’s console is not “future proof” and thus cannot possibly stay on the market for an extended period of time beyond the historically standard “five year lifespan” afforded to video game consoles, resulting in a period of time during which the PlayStation 3 will no longer have competition from the Xbox 360. This is a laughable strategy because the PlayStation 3 does not and will not have a deep and broad enough library of software to be a viable “cheap” option for so many years after the next Microsoft, Nintendo and, yes, Sony consoles hit the market. The PlayStation and PlayStation 2 were able to stay relevant because they had enormous game libraries – the PlayStation 3 selection pales in comparison.

Mr. Lund has the generally right idea, but argues based on the iffy prediction that Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony will not launch new consoles anytime within the next six years (assuming that Mr. Dille was actually referring to a ten year total life cycle for the PlayStation 3 and not an additional ten years from now). The notions that in six years the economy will not have recovered to the degree where gamers would not be interested in new console technology and would be fine with playing Project Natal games and editions of Halo and Gears of War that look pretty much the same as the ones we played a couple years ago are ridiculous at best.

He continues with irrelevant paragraphs of stats that are focused entirely on the North American region with no consideration whatsoever for the rest of the world mainly because the only significant Xbox 360 sales lead is in this region whereas the two consoles are nose-to-nose in Europe and the Xbox 360 is a lost cause in Japan. After crunching tons of numbers to show just what kind of a lead the Xbox 360 has over the PlayStation 3 in terms of install base, he “put(s) things in perspective” with an extreme example of the PlayStation 3 needing a whole year of sales consistent to its 2009 numbers while the Xbox 360 sells nothing instead of the realistic example – the PlayStation 3 maintaining its current weekly worldwide lead of just under 37,000 for three years – that might show just how flimsy his whole line of argument is.

In short, Mr. Lund’s protestation of Sony’s incompetent arrogance is understandable, but his modus operandi of using nearly any statement by Sony that doesn’t fit into his narrow world view of things to vomit a veritable feast of selective statistics tarnishes his credibility by painting him as little more than a bitter fanboy trying desperately to play down any bit of positive news for “the other system.”

And lest we forget – Nintendo did not lose the 16-bit console wars to Sega. Sega squandered a two and a half year lead time for their Genesis console to end up with only a 10% market share lead on Nintendo just two short years after the launch of the Super Nintendo. Now, to put that into perspective, imagine a scenario where the PlayStation 3 didn’t launch until December 2007 yet started off 2009 with the same proportion of sales to the Xbox 360’s that it enjoys today (45% of sales that don’t include the Wii) at only 10% the number of games that the Xbox 360 had. That would be pretty impressive indeed.

Note: It might be useful for me to mention that the reason why Mr. Lund’s fanboyism doesn’t surprise me is because he is a (now rare) poster in the Usenet forum alt.games.video.xbox that I often browse.