Halo 4 Review Coming Soon

My Halo 4 review is "in the can" as it were.

That means I have only to hit "Publish" and the review will be live. It's not a glowing review. In fact, the tone is quite negative all-round.

As is my habit after writing a review, I peruse the Metacritic and Gamerankings collection of reviews, both "professional" and amateur. Not so much to confirm my own thoughts but to gauge the reaction the review might receive, when put alongside these other reviews.

While the review doesn't dig a hole for the game like the one on Quarter to Three, it sure doesn't align with the early reviews from last week, which seem to trip over each other to heap praise on the game. There are things I like about Halo 4 but as you'll see in the review on ae-infinite.com this is definitely one of those games where I wasn't feeling it.

Buried: Mass Effect 3 Leviathan DLC

It's possible that BioWare and EA were going for some kind of meta experience with the Leviathan DLC for Mass Effect 3 -- not entirely sure; this the first piece of additional content for Mass Effect 3 I've played -- because it's so difficult to find.

The basic starting point for the Leviathan story is that there's this mysterious Reaper killer something out in deep space. It's up to Shepherd to find it. And it's up to the player to figure out where the hell the story arc is buried.

Granted I haven't played Mass Effect 3 in a while, but I was expecting a flashing light, a big button somewhere that said, "Leviathan, GO!" to kick off the story.

No.

So, I check Shepherd's email. Nothing obvious there. I wandered the Normandy and Citadel expecting a flashing arrow or other obvious indication of a starting point.

No.

What the hell? I went online to track this down. Surely, it can't be that difficult to start playing this thing that people have plunked down money to purchase.

Sleeping Dogs

It's quite possible I should not have bought a copy of Sleeping Dogs. (Playing it on 360.) We're coming up on the busy season for new releases and I can tell I won't be finished with the game before the games start flooding in. Which means that if I don't finish it quickly, I'll never get back to it because I'll be constantly assaulted by something new that has be thrashed through as quickly as possible in order to grab a share of the eyeballs looking for a review.

Being interrupted during a game, particularly when the conclusion/climax is within sight, is not the end of the world but it's certainly irritating. There have been a number of times that I've stopped playing a game to play other things and just never got around to going back and finishing a game off to see how the story ends.

I'm trying my utmost to blast through Sleeping Dogs because it's a success story -- I hope it's successful; the Vancouver game development community could do with a "win!" The game, a "continuation" of the True Crime games, was originally "cancelled" by Activision, was then picked up by Square Enix, reworked, and brought it to the masses to quite a bit of acclaim. Whether it pans out as a high seller remains to be seen. So, I wanted to see how it turned out. It wasn't a smooth development for sure, but if I don't finish it soon I'll be out of luck when it comes to actually seeing the credits roll.

Anyone else do this? Buy a game then take too long to finish it, get distracted, and never come back to it?

*POP* Lollipop Chainsaw

Even before playing Lollipop Chainsaw, I kind of knew what I was getting into. Even without any fore knowledge of the title, aside reading press releases as the game neared release, the cover art acts as a perfect indicator of what will be found once the game boots up.

Titillation and craziness. Candy might be be involved. And a chainsaw that spews rainbows.

It's just weird. And that's even before I've played a second of the game.

Then it just gets stranger. More profane, too, but I'm not sure that does any favours for the game, which is mostly "hack, hack, pom-pom, slash" action from what I've played so far. Initial reaction is that I'm having fun with Lollipop Chainsaw because it is so weird and doesn't take anything seriously. I remember Bullet Witch being a little like that. For everything it did wrong, there was something unique about it -- mostly the locations. I remember one section where you faced off against a dragon while standing on top of a 747 in flight.

At any rate, my review of Lollipop Chainsaw should be ready this week.

Everything You Need to Know About Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

You shoot things, offline and online. It launches November 13, 2012.

You're good to go.

The Door Is Raised On The Embargo Garage

So, my review of Prototype 2 is now live -- right here! -- and after re-reading the text, I'm struck by something.

I love writing, but after about midnight my desire to write drops off considerably and I was still writing well after that. "Sleep!" replaces "Write!" quite easily but I pushed myself through to get the review finished (more or less) and uploaded before the embargo lifted at 6:00AM (Pacific) this morning. The embargo was originally scheduled to end on launch day, which would have afforded me a couple of days to write the review. And catch some more of the grammar and puctuation issues, such as the "it's" error in the opening paragraph.

Stuff like that bugs the hell out of me. The "it's" will weigh on my mind all day. Something so obvious should have been ironed out before I uploaded the review. But as my eyes droop and the minute hand has started to swoop upward once more and the hour hand is sliding toward the "2", my ability to see errors and or other problems wanes.

And with no editor, or even an extra set of alert eyes to scan through the review, I rely on my own skill with words to communicate how I feel about a game. But running against the clock...

Maybe coffee would have warded off the worst of it, but when I was done I wanted to just drop into bed and fall asleep. I didn't want to wrestle with caffeine. I do, after all, want to be able to function during daylight hours. (I'm at an age, where I can't easily brush off fatigue.)

At any rate, the review posted and I'm tired. But not too tired do some more editing on the review. (The score still stands.)

Syndicate: Gunplay that is Ammo-tastic!

Starbreeze and EA recently released Syndicate and, from what I understand, it flopped at retail and received mixed reviews. It has been sitting on my "To Review" pile for a while. It got pushed to the bottom by SSX and Mass Effect 3 (two more EA properties) so I'm a little behind the curve on this but, man, is that gunplay ever satisfying.

There's something about the way the guns are animated, the sound and kickback when they're firing, that feels so good.

It's entirely possible that coming off 27 hours of Mass Effect 3 gunplay might have something to do with it. In comparison to Syndicate, Mass Effect 3 is mostly about pop and potatoe guns.
When a gun is fired in Syndicate there's much more report and it's much more, more... what's that cliched term? More visceral.

I'm only a couple hours in so it might well fall off the rails. But I don't think the source material has suffered anything moving from the isometric view of the original games to the more in-your-face nature of a first-person shooter.

I should admit that I got a pretty solid nostalgia hit after spinning up the minigun for the first time. The sound was indentical (in my memory) to when I was ordering around my agents in the origical tactical/strategy game back in 1993.

Mass Effect 3 - Report 3

I'm side-stepping the whole "ending" controversy. I don't even think I'm that close to the end at this point. From what I've been reading though, some of those gamers need to get over themselves. And the entitlement issues on display... I'd say those complainers are doing themselves a disservice by shining a spotlight of outrage on themselves. I might have more to say about this when I finally reach the end but so far, the game has been pretty enjoyable even if hitting comic book and sci-fi/fantasy beats overshadows some of the cooler aspects of the Mass Effect universe.

Why does it feel like the writers on Mass Effect 3 were constantly referring to Marvel Comics for inspiration? A couple nights ago I led my team in saving people from a "School for Gifted Youngsters." The entire set-up and execution felt like I repelling an assault on the Xavier's mansion.

Mass Effect 3's version
of Half-Life 2's Citadel.

Last night Shepherd activated a couple of thumpers to attract a sandworm. While she didn't ride the worm, it did send an impulse to my brain to read Dune again. Layered on top of that, is that this all happens in the shadow of a giant spire reminiscent of the Citadel in the middle of City 17 (see Half-Life 2) which, if you remember, is under the effects of a suppression field which basically means people aren't having kids (or even have the desire to try). And the whole reason Shepherd and crew are headed to this spire is to reverse something called the "genophage" which has kept race of ultra violent aliens -- the krogan -- from reproducing and overrunning the galaxy. (Replace "genophage" with "suppression field.")

Had I not played Half-Life 2 or read Dune I wouldn't have drawn any parallels or mumbled to myself about an "homage or something." But I did both. (And read far too many Marvel comics.) So, when these things come up I wonder why BioWare didn't do something more "original" and cool within their own universe.

Let me be clear about this point: I'm enjoying the game.

Mass Effect 3

Less than three hours into Mass Effect 3 and I'm hooked! I have a little trouble swallowing the whole "Reaper invasion? Okay, I'll go arrange a meeting about it!" arrangement (so far). Why am I traipsing around the galaxy with my Anne of Green Gables avatar, when it's so clear that by the time I actually get back to Earth there will be nothing left? In the opening minutes of the game it seems that the Reaper's will make very short work of Earth so when I bomb over to Mars, then zip over to the Citadel, then hop to Palaven (the turian homeworld), which is also defending against a Reaper attack... all I'm thinking is that Earth is done. It's all over for those poor bastards.

A concious choice I made before starting Mass Effect 3 was that, unless I was dealing with my squad mates, I would be a complete jerk. I would only make "bad" or Renegade choices. This has really help me deal with the crippling aspect of Mass Effect 2 that I never really overcame: choice. I was always concerned with what would happen if I made the wrong choice. This time around I don't care because I decided ahead of time what I would do.

Also, I'm predicting that the "Promethean device" will eventually require Shepherd to act as the "catalyst" to wipe out the Reapers. Or the device won't just destroy the Reapers, it'll wipe out everything.

March 3, 2012 - “Bread, Justice, Freedom”

This week The Armchair Empire brought you Reviews of:

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (360)
Jagged Alliance: Back in Action (PC)
SSX (360)

The trio marks the successful "revival" of the SSX series, the seeming implosion of the Jagged Alliance series, and the first instalment of what is likely the first chapter of the Kingdoms of Amalur series. It's a good way to kick of March, which is shaping up to be another packed month for gamers.

My Weekend (If I'm Lucky)

SSX landed on my desk yesterday and I couldn't tear into it fast enough. It has been a very long time since I last played an SSX game and the original game was actually one of the first titles The Armchair Empire ever received for review right around the launch of the PS2. (The other was NHL Hockey.) In fact, I actually had to rent a PS2 -- Remember when video rental places did that? Remember when there were video rental places? -- so it could be reviewed.

While there's an embargo up preventing any opinion from leaking out -- it could be construed as a "review" -- I have to say it was great to see the SSX logo appear on the screen.

I've said too much already!

But I hope to spend a great number of hours with SSX this weekend ahead of the review embargo lifting.

Alan Wake's American Nightmare: Early Impressions

So, I'm about halfway through the story of Alan Wake's American Nightmare -- from what I can tell -- and I'm really having fun with it.

It does exactly what I wanted it to do. Answer some questions, present new ones, fill in some blanks, and pay homage to the likes of that one episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where the Enterprise-D is stuck in a time loop, X-Files, LOST, among many other sources. And even though it does all that, it still doesn't actually answer very much or at least doesn't spoon feed the players the answers to what's actually happening. Instead it allows the player to draw some of their own conclusions; write their own fiction as to why things are happening the way they are. Has Alan has actually escaped the cabin under the lake back to the real world years after the events of the first game and he's just gone batshit insane? Are the TVs and radios conduits to the real world? Is his nemesis, Mr. Scratch, living in Alan's head or is Alan living in Mr. Scratch's head? Am I just over-thinking the whole thing? Probably. But that's part of the appeal of Alan Wake, at least for me.

Mega Man and Pac-Man in Street Fighter X Tekken

I posted this bit of information to AE's News section earlier but it kind of deserves a little more attention.

Mega Man -- as depicted on the cover of the original Mega Man -- and Pac-Man are included as "exclusive" characters for the Playstation 3 version of Street Fighter X Tekken (alongside Cole from the inFamous series). Mega Man in a fighting game is not unheard of and kinda makes sense in the overall scheme of crossover fighting games, but I think it's a stroke of genius to use the original (and ugly as sin) Mega Man cover model.

It does a couple of things that are positive for Street Fighter X Tekken.

The first is publicity. This inclusion is an attention-grabber and will work fighting fans and non-fans into a froth on gaming forums. "How could they do this?" "What will this do to the competitive circuit?" "Geez, that's ugly!" "Geez, that's awesome!" And from what I've read online, there doesn't seem to be any middle ground. Either you're for it or against it. Applauding or booing.

The second thing it does is open the door for other really terrible box art characters to be brought into the digital realm, like Strider or Crack Down. That's either a blessing or a curse. I lean toward the blessing side of that argument.

If for no other reason than to remind gamers of just how far design and art have come thanks to the abundance of processing cycles modern technology allows. Now, what a designer sketches and a concept artist paints can actually come alive in a way that wasn't possible in the early days.

Good on the development team for trying something a little outside the expected!