Game Review:Bastion

Haven't been writing that much cause I've been /attempting poorly/ to make a video review for another game.(Hint: it's not going too well)

Might as well touch on something now before I lose my touch. And this one is going to be special, since I'm going to be making another review related to this.

So today we're going to talk about Bastion.

It's a part of certain artillery fortifications that protrudes out-

Oh wait wrong subject.

There we go.

The maiden work of SuperGiant Games, Bastion is an Action Role Playing Game presented in an isometric view. The developers describe their goal as being "to make games that spark your imagination like the games you played as a kid". And they've managed to pull it off.

Taking place after an apocalyptic event referred to as The Calamity, the player assumes the role of The Kid, a youth who woke up one day with the world around him reduced to pieces.

In the wake of this, he fellows an emergency procedure and heads through the ruined surroundings to The Bastion, a structure. After meeting with an old man (whose name is later revealed as Rucks) that seemed to be the only one to have reached it besides The Kid, he is tasked to seek out the 'Cores' of the city, power generators that The Bastion requires to be complete, as it wasn't when the catastrophe happened.

Gameplay consists of fighting to the objective(The Cores for the first half of the game) while many creatures run amok about the area, guarding it.

They have good reason to, considering that the area falls apart when it is removed, prompting The Kid to need to find the Skyway that leads back to the Bastion. The Kid's armaments consist of two weapons and two types of tonics, which are Health Tonics and Black Tonics. Black Tonics are required for the usage of special skills in battle. As for defensive options,  The Kid can execute a dodge roll away from danger and slightly damages enemies was well as a shield for blocking attacks. Blocking works also as a lock-on that makes The Kid face and lock-on to an enemy, focusing attacks on the enemy while the button is held.

After collecting returning to The Bastion with a Core, The Kid can construct various structures. The list of structures that can be build and their purpose are all introduced in the first level, so the question becomes prioritizing what to construct first.

I like to be able to switch between my weapons first.

Besides the standard levels, there are also 'Proving Grounds' and 'Who Knows Where'. The former areas 'train' the player on the usage of a specific weapon. That's because weapons in the game each have a gimmick or mechanic, which is logical as picking up something might be easy but to master is another matter.

As for 'Who Knows Where', it's a gantlet mode where Fragments can be earned in abundance.

Fragments are the currency/resource needed to purchase items and skills from the structures, although weapon upgrades require upgrade materials as well to be improved. Weapon upgrades are split into five tiers with two options each. Although only one option can be active, the options can be freely switched between one another.

The game's aesthetic really reminds one of an old book. More specifically, it would probably remind one of an old children's storybook, which, at the time and probably even now, feels quite refreshing and easy on the eyes. It's game design is also superb, in the sense that it feeds on two degrees of achievement. As said before, weapons each have a gimmick that needs to be mastered upon to be efficient, and the Proving Grounds are made for honing one's skill with a weapon. Depending on how well a player manages to improve, the Grounds would reward the player with Fragments, upgrade material or, for those who have truly proven their worth with the weapon, a new skill to use. For those who find difficulty in the task, however, the specific skill is not barred entirely. From the Lost-and-Found structure, one can still obtain the skill or materials, meaning besides skill, the game also rewards effort. 

Sadly, I've played the game to the point I have most the stuff, but you get the idea.

Due to the variety of weapons and passive effects that can be used from the Distillery, the loadout can be customized to fit the player's playstyle comfortably.

As the game progresses, one would feel the upgrades dimming the challenge of the game. That is where a genius move is made by SuperGiant Games. Instead of a difficulty selection, the game's deeper challenges come from a slew of Idols that can be activated from The Pantheon. As they're activated, enemies will gain buffs while the Fragments and Experience gained from them will increase.

 To handle this would need The Kid become more than just a man.

As for the story, it's engaging due to the small pool of characters. Whist searching for the Cores, The Kid would happen upon two more survivors, whom the Calamity had caused a much bigger personal effect on. 

The entire story is narrated by Rucks, whose voice is practically made to tell stories. It's easy to invest and understand how they feel as more of what possibly lead up to the event is revealed. When I say narrated, I mean that Rucks would narrate without interrupting the game's flow, revealing the history of the area currently being explored or talking about The Kid's actions. He also narrates when The Kid goes to 'Who Knows Where', which tells the backstory of all of the characters up until the point of the Calamity.

What makes it feel so special though is the fact that The Kid isn't. How good he is with a weapon lands on the one in control of him. The Kid had to EARN recognition from his actions and soon enough, in the end, he would be trusted with a very hefty decision with two endings. Something to note is that SuperGiant Games made sure that New Game Plus would 'make sense' if one was chosen. Even if the alternative was selected though, the player would still get why it would exist. Confused? Then play the game to find out. 

The soundtrack utilizes loads of acoustic guitar and beats, plunging one into the fantasy world of Bastion even more.

HOWEVER

Having a slew of weapons can feel....Cumbersome because the weapons you don't use tend to just sit in the back to collect dust. And you have a LOT of weapons.

Like, 10 in total

Also, as much as the Proving Grounds reward skill, sometimes the weapon needs a certain upgrade for the player to get the best score. And it has to be mentioned again that the challenge of the game is dulled if the player chooses not to use the Idols.

Having Rucks be the only one who speaks can also come as being odd, especially when one of the other characters suddenly end up also speaking, which begs the question on why she didn't when The Kid talks to her on The Bastion. 

The first stage can also feel a bit long and heavy.

For the price of $15 USD, I would say its content is well worth the price-tag and the quality of entertainment it would provide as a game and a story is superb.

Closing this, here's a preview of the next review:

I /hope/ you get it.

Quick Toinh Event: Touhou Rhythm Carnival Kurenai

I'd rather not leave this (b)log alone too long lest it starts growing fungus and moss.
*Cricket chirp at the bad joke*
....So I'll be making short posts about games that people /most likely/ don't know about.

First in this line of tidbit posts is a rhythm game made by FocasLens called Touhou Rhythm Carnival Kurenai(The heck happened to the normal version then..?), of which borrows character and location from the shoot em' up series Touhou.

In the game, you 'play' as Aya Shamemaru, a self-employed reporter for her own paper. Unable to find much of any fresh or good stories, she passes by the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Having a hunch there could be interesting content waiting for her, she tresspas-
Err, visits the mansion in order to obtain photos for her paper. 

The 'game' is more a collection of 15 simple rhythm mini-games(Starting out with access to one and unlocking the others after managing a "Pass"). For an easy reference, look up another series of games called Rhythm Heaven. These mini-games have varied controls, being played with one-button, two, or using directional controls.

Simple does not mean easy however, as you'd need to get into the rhythm of the songs in the background and spot the beat that is important to the mini-game

Example of mini-game

As much as one could assume it's easy from the video, playing it another beast altogether.

Soon enough, after some time you'd stop for one of two reasons:
1. You've hammered away at the blighted mini-game for so long but you just can't get the hang of it

or

2. You've mastered the mini-game after so many tries the song's hammered into your head and your friends are telling you to stop humming it.

The art's pretty appealing and simple, so it's not visually overwhelming(Which is a good thing considering you need an unbelievable amount of focus for the games themselves).

Have anyone the time to check this out, please do. Just don't blame me if the tracks haunt you in your sleep.

Game Review:Payday 2

So I heard about Payday 2 sometime ago and how it managed profits by not spending maddening amounts on ad campaigns and stuff, relying on fans of the original to spread word of mouth about it. Having brought it and seeing what the fuss was about, I can only say that it deserves all the profits it's getting and probably needs more people knowing about it. Hence this post/review.

"Time to get paid"

Developed by Overkill Studios(Con-currently a subsidiary of Starbreeze Studios), Payday 2 is the sequel to Overkill's Payday:The Heist. It is a first-person co-op shooter. The game revolves around players planning and executing an array of heist and robberies, all carried out with the combination of teamwork, stealth and firearms.

Set in the modern day, the player would take control of one of the 4 robbers in the team(Hoxton, Chains, Dallas and Wolf). The team gets assistance from Bain, who either arranges a heist or assists the team when their on one for those who contact their services via CRIME.NET, their most frequent clients being a ruthless drug dealer, a corrupt politician and a criminal who is described as being 'Crazy and/or deranged'.

The things they ask you to do are rather colorful, such as political sabotage, property damaging and transporting dubious goods. Oh, and cooking meth.

Oops.

Gameplay revolves around executing the objective of the moment. The objective could be overridden if a condition is failed (I.E Mission requires stealth but one or more players are discovered while trying to complete the objective). Heists can take from one day to five days depending on the difficulty, with the final section being referred to as the 'Payday'

Example of a one-day heist

As players complete heists, they naturally earn money off each run, which they can use to buy new weapons ,modify existing ones with mods obtained from the end of the heists or masks(The latter two having need to be unlocked. Elaborated later). Besides the money, they earn Experience points and Level up. Each Level up grants skill points that players can pool into four skill trees which grant performance bonuses. Using skill trees also spends money, which means a player would need to think wisely on what they'll be spending their money on.

The amount of money and experience earned for each mission is stated explicitly when the heist is selected. The game also employs a random rewards system, where by every player would pick one of of three cards after successfully finishing. Possible rewards include extra Reputation points, money, masks and weapon mods.If one has the funds, however, they could specify what reward they would want via the 'Gamble' option on CRIME.NET, though the option needs a LOT of money in a player's Offshore account.


Design wise, Payday 2 is made very well. On the terms of gameplay, a heist can be executed or completed in different manners, since some options aren't available unless they have an item or skill for it, meaning that the same heist has replay value, if only to see whether or not it can be pulled off in another way.Some heists with multiple segments can also end up playing out differently depending on how the previous one is completed, which again, adds to a replay value. In game, there are four special units that appear and provide the challenge to the game, with the way they're designed to almost always require two or more players sticking together to overcome them. They are the Taser, the Cloaker and most terrifying of all, the Bulldozer.

His appearance strikes fear upon-

Oh wait

Wrong picture.

His appearance strikes fear upon sight

Character growth(I.E The new items and skills one purchases) makes a player invested in their character. The skill trees has no restriction between them, meaning that players can add and grow accordingly without being limited to focus on one skill tree. Masks that are purchased for the characters add a sense of individuality and personal uniqueness.

The random rewards system of the game also adds on to replayability, as well as giving players a /false/ sense of choice. This is point is a good AND bad thing, however.

In terms of feedback, the game has no crosshairs on its in game UI. Red 'Crosshairs' only appear as an indication that the player has successfully landed a shot. Though this may seem hard to get used to at first, it doesn't take long for one to get used to it and makes every hit feel like a small accomplishment, since the aiming is almost entirely dependent on the player now without the crosshairs to fully assist. As for health and the general UI, it comprises of simple shapes, icons and fonts that doesn't distract a player from what is occurring around them.

Normally, first-person shooter games have the sides of the screen turn red as a player's health is low, which can be a visual obstruction. But here, the screen only turns red when a player's armour is depleted and getting hurt. It returns to normal when the player manages to find cover(Or is incapacitated). The red screen is enough of a prompt for a player to check their health. Various audio feedbacks help in quick notification, some examples being a cry for health packs, the sound of an approaching special unit(Applied to Taser and Cloaker only) and ammo deployment.

BUT 

Weapon mods SHOULDN'T be a random reward. At least, the kind of mods that affect the kind of situation a weapon is used in(I.E Silencers). The card picking is rather pointless, considering that the reward is still random in the end with the player having no idea what to they would get. In fact, it could possibly be FRUSTRATING because the cards that are not picked tend to show the possible rewards one could get if they had been the one selected. The cards themselves randomize between 6 possible rewards. This means that if a player wants a certain mod or some sort, they need to pray hard to Random Number Generator (RNG) gods.  Although one can choose to specify the rewards via the gambling feature, the amount required makes it only accessible to veterans . Would have been wiser to have the heist rewards have 3 fixed types so players can at least know they would obtain what they might need/want sooner or later with less uncertainty.
Also, weapon mods should be a purchasable instead of having to unlock AND THEN being able to purchase it.

The lack of audio feedback for the most major threat in game(Bulldozer) feels like it could cheat players of victory just because he happens to spawn out of nowhere.

Overall, the game was well worth its hype, with a great amount of replay value and a design that feels rather efficient, though the RNG rewards system does feel like it needs tweaking. No, I'm not bitter about the RNG treating me terribly.

Not at all.

The Cost of 'Fun'

Triple AAA, Steam, Indie, Free-to-play. These are probably just a few of the labels that are pasted onto video games. Another thing pasted onto them(Since you know, they are products), is price tags.

But then I've been thinking:
How do you measure the 'value' of fun a game has and put a price tag on it? (I.E Monetization in gaming).
So I made a list of how games have been earning bucks.

When in arcades, their source of income come from pennies. Coins. The game cabinets required a small amount per play.Arcade tokens soon came in, being a kind of 'exchanged currency' for you to use in that land of fun, though now arcade credits are stored in smart cards(Thank heavens. Those tokens were nightmarish to keep and heavy...).  An arcade game's earnings are mostly dependent on the user(s), how good they are at the game and how much their willing to fork out to keep playing, though there were some machines that were rigged to only /possibly/ give a win after a certain amount of plays, doll catchers or prize machines to be specific. Though not as popular as before, arcades still have an appeal, seeing that the cost per play was cheap and that certain games are pretty much exclusive to them due to the software and hardware, such as guitar controllers. Though the games are cheap to play, it's the travel fares to arcades that probably take a bulk of expenditure(For those unfortunate to be far from one anyway).

As for game consoles, their income of course came from the games sold (Originally anyway). Back when gaming was first starting, there probably wasn't much on games design or quality control in the industry, so early games could be made by almost anyone who knows programming. Such a bloat of terrible games of course caused consumers to start doubting publishers, with one of the last straws being E.T for the Atari.
This decline in trust for video games lead to its major collapse.

Infamous for being a major part of the 

industry crash in 1983

After it was revived, the industry seemed slowly picked up on the concept of proper quality checks(for the most part, anyway). It would seem that these console games had to measure their costs by the amount used not just in production, but advertising as well. Naturally starting with TV ads and print media, games now focus more on online advertising and gaming sites, with print media still being used while TV ads are practically non-existent since they are more expensive. Sadly, as certain publishers pool a lot of money into ad campaigns, they end up having a loss in revenue(Tomb Raider sold 3.4 MILLION COPIES).

As technology became more advanced, online transactions came in. Games could be purchased online after a user has had a try of the free demo provided. Such games tend to be much cheaper to purchase due to the absence of a physical disc to pile on the production costs. These kind of games also provided users a basic preview of what they were going to get, unlike console games where by the only few ways to tell if a game was good was to either hear it from others, or buying the game and hoping it would be good, which was in essence going in blind sometimes. The quality of the games might be mediocre, however, since the sites can basically be just there for advertisements.

Downloadable content for games(DLC) were like a branch off of online transactions. They provided more content for an existing game after purchase, thus placing more replayability onto a game. Besides additional game content, however, DLC also let developers patch up issues that a game might have which are spotted after the game has been shipped. Although this can be a good thing for a game to have good optional content to stack onto what it, some games take it as an excuse to release a relatively buggy or glitchy game, their reason being "We'll fix it in a patch at a later date". Some games even cut off content from a game that are supposed to be there(I.E Special modes or costumes that used to be rewards for finishing the game). The cost of certain content are also unjust, considering that they could only consist aesthetics that do not affect the gameplay. Certain DLCs could have been free had certain developers the choice, but publishers can possibly force them to 'sell' their DLC instead of distributing it for free(See also: Epic Games and Microsoft)

Massive Multiplayer Online games soon introduced a new form of monetization: The free-to-play model. In essence, the game itself was free, requiring a user to just register, download and play. How these kind of games earn money is by having players purchase items with virtual currency traded from real life money. The functionality of these items can vary from being merely aesthetic to making one's character more powerful (In which can possibly cause a game to become what is known as a "Pay-to-Win" game if they focus on the latter. That's bad).

With the age of smartphone games, microtransactions came in. Considering that these kind of games are to be played at one's spare time, be it during travel or awaiting something, their transactions tend to dabble more on providing the user more 'playtime', as they tend to limit the amount one can play in a sitting. Besides that, they can also provide a user an advantage in the game, such a premium items or units that help them progress, or expand on a certain aspect or resource. Some smartphone games, however, exploit this by basically making the wait times between play tortuously long or make the process of going through certain portions of the game very tedious without purchasing the premium item.

At the end of all of this, each method of monetization has it's advantages and disadvantages, the only question being how well they're executed and the interaction between buyer and publisher. A good way would be to ensure a buyer is WILLING. Because when they don't feel like their wasting money, they'll feel like spending more(Or at least consider spending more). A publisher should also keep realistic goals and be careful not to overspend on ads, trusting that their game would be good enough to spread by word of mouth as well.

Game Review:CosmicBreak

Being a guy, liking robots is an almost natural thing. Mechs have been a good part of my hobby and interests for a long time(once even having me consider being an engineer). As such, almost anything with that pasted on would most likely catch and keep my attention. There is one that has it's ups and (horribly plunging) downs. That would be the MMO CosmicBreak.

CosmicBreak is a Free to Play 3D Third-Person Shooter developed and published by CyberStep, with its selling points being that it's a mecha game with intense battles in the style of anime. It's the technical sequel to Cyberstep's C21, another Third-Person mecha game.

The US server of the game had a sadly terrible 'chronicle' while it lasted.....

The game is set in an a alternate universe to C21, being labelled as the Cosmic Ark. In this universe, ancient, titanic robot gods known as Arks awaken from a long slumber to find their galaxy having been taken over by an opposing force known as The Chaos. Due to having been inactive for aeons, the energies of the three remaining great Arks(Each representing Wisdom, Courage and Strength) are drained, which there only being enough to full revive one of the Arks.  Unions consisting of those who follow each of the Arks have been formed and now compete for their Ark's revival in order to defeat the Chaos.

Besides the main story, however, certain characters also have back stories, such as the one of the poster characters of the game Crimrose, and her companion Ivis.

 When a player starts, they will get the choice of what initial robot they would begin the game with. After the basic tutorial, the player would be given the choice to join one of the three Unions and fight for them.

There are 3 Game modes: Arena, Mission and Quest.

The main gameplay involves the player setting up a Commando of three units to use. In battle, the player would use one of the units until it is destroyed

Example of a Commando

As seen on the interface, there's a 'Total Cost', the result of the Cost of every machine. In Arena or Mission mode, when a machine is defeated, their cost is deducted from a BP counter. The match or mission ends in a loss when the BP reaches zero. Quest mode differs in that uses a time limit as the main goal of it is to beat a super-powered mob within it. As such, time gets deducted for each death until time is over.

The selling point of the game is the customization of their robots, both in weapons and performance. Besides changing parts and weapons, players can also affect the statistics by 'Tuning up' parts. Tuned parts provide extra boosts in stats, such as movement on the ground and the robots health, though how much they will affect differs between the type of bots. Speaking of which, robots in the game are split to 4-classes:Land, Artillery, Air and Support. The first three form a Scissors, Paper, Stone dynamic(Land is strong against Artillery, Artillery is strong against Air etc) while the Support types are balanced, though they tend not to have as extensive direct battle capabilities. Further depth is added with sizes:Small, Medium and Large. The size affects what a robot can equip and how well the stats will affect them.

Example of an M-sized AIR unit. They don't like explosive surprises.

This makes Arenas battles more team based, as each player would need to look out for each other to make up for their weaknesses.

The game excels in the realm of customization, as players can build up robots that fit into their own playstyles in a team. Feedback in game is also done very well, with proper prompts when a player is targeted. There is a decent cycle of maps in the game that would make a player change what they should use, ensuring that each match varies to a degree.

Each map has an advantage and disadvantage. Choose what you use wisely.

The game sustains itself with RT and their Garapon System, of which players pay real world money to buy robots or roll what is basically a lottery, where they could get new , premium robots and weapons. 1x rolls cost USD $4 while a 5x roll costs $16

AND HERE IS WHERE IT GOES DOWNHILL.

That this game employs one of the most horrid business models for Free-To-Play MMOs: Pay to Win. Even worse though, is the fact that it's stacked with LUCK.

Every roll will have an animation telling what you MIGHT get. 

Those who see this only see despair.

Charging RT to get options would not be too much an issue were it not for the fact most of the good parts and robots are to be found in the Garapon, with the shop items being subpar(Although with recent overhauls, new stocks in the shops are at least much better than it's initial 2 years).

Those who get better machines tend to almost definitely dominate their opposition. Sometimes even if their opposition IS A TYPE THEY'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO FIGHT SO WELL AGAINST.

One of the most overpowered machines in game EVEN AFTER NERFS.

Also, Mission and Quest modes are rarely updated. Quests are still relevant in game as they provide Tune Up Materials, but Missions are basically mostly forgotten at this point once a player gets over the tutorial teaching them about the modes. At least until the devs add a new mission with limited drops or something

No one plays this. 

The reason being that the missions are too hard and the resulting rewards being insubstantial.

Because this game is PvP focused and as said with the Garapon incident, balancing is pretty hard to execute, with it being totally possible for a team to lose utterly and devastatingly bad with no chance to fight back.

Overall, the game deserves a 5.5/10. As a PvP Third Person Shooter, it had the potential to be great, as customizing in the game works well. Sadly, the monetization model chops off a good chunk of the score, as you're paying to have the CHANCE for better options, meaning you need to be lucky(Or have a lot of expandable income) for more customization or better machines. Also, the near complete negligence of a game mode feels like a sin.

Game Review: Brave Frontier

I remember a time when I found one of the old Final Fantasy games(More specifically the 4th game) and played though it. It was a pretty solid experience. Sadly, I lost it. But recently, I've discovered something in the App store that relives that feeling of that game. And has been eating up a lot of my time.

Brave Frontier is a game developed by Japanese studio Alim and game company Gumi. As a debut title for Alim, it was released around last year(End of the year for the International/English version), and has been on the end of praise from many, being said as most popular in Japan, Korea and Singapore.

The game's story occurs in the land of Great Gaia, where mad gods reign and oppress. The player will play as a summoner, someone who can summon the spirits of heroes and beasts into battle. Unlike the many other NPC summoners in the game, the player is actually chosen by land's great god Lucius and assisted by another goddess Tanalith(Probably spelled her name wrong but close enough), who will guide the player though to fight the Four Gods who have betrayed him.

Gameplay revolves around creating a squad of 5 units(1 unit whose leader skill affects the entire team and 4 other units) and setting up items before a quest. During battle, players will tap at a character to attack. After attacking, the character's button is dimmed out. The player's turn ends when all characters in the player's roster has attacked. Then it's the enemy's turn.

Example of a battle

Units have special abilities that they can use called Brave Bursts. When the blue bar under their Health is filled, they can execute their abilities. The game has something else that makes battles more involving, which is the 'Spark' function. When two or more unit's land an attack simultaneously, a 'Spark' occurs, dealing extra damage or activating an effect from the leader unit. This makes a player really take note of how units attack, as some of them take time before they execute an attack.

It's so sparkly.

Arena mode lets players challenge other summoners squads, though they will have no control over the battle.

Outside of battle consists of the Town, where Items and Spheres(Basically the 'Equipment' of the game, which grants buffs to the unit equipping it) can be made and materials used to make the items are also harvested here. Currency is split into two: Zel and Karma. Zel is used for Unit related tasks(Leveling up, Evolving) while Karma is used for Sphere creation and upgrading facilities in the Town.

The game really makes one feel like they're playing an old Final Fantasy game, only more intense. The Spark and varying attack timings make battles feel more satisfying when a player manages to 'Spark' properly. Having Item limits in quests also puts a degree of tactics into the fray, meaning that players cannot abuse the items for cheap wins through it. Making the Town preset with the player only needing upgrade and harvest cuts down most of the fat that other RPG games on smartphones do suffer from. Victories feel much more rewarding as quests ramp up in difficulty, with enemies being able to inflict status aliments and attack multiple times in a turn.

Units, Items and Spheres each have their own story that can be read in the menus(Assuming you possess it at some point in time) that fleshes out the world of Great Gaia, providing something else to do outside of battle. 

The developers and localization team are rather responsive on their fanpage, responding promptly to issues as soon as they can.

YET

There are still some problems. For starters, the quests can ramp up in difficulty FRIGHTENINGLY fast. Grinding may become something one needs to get used to if they don't manage to summon strong units with their free Rare summons. Leveling up units can become another type of grind as well. It would be good if the game had allowed units to Equip more than one Sphere as they can really help out players.

It's a murder from the first area.

Arena boils down to who had the rarest units and highest level. The lack of control over the battle does cause frustration when victory could be possible but is lost due to a unit not executing their Brave Burst in battle.

Server issues and game crashes can occur quite a bit, resulting in the loss of progress.

For a debut title, Alim has hit a home run. Overall, the game deserves a 8/10. It does feel like it could be intimidating to newcomers or casual players, but the depth it provides for those willing to pick it up makes up for it.

Game Review: Crysis 2

Before anyone asks, it's the console version. And sadly, I never did get around to playing the first one due to my computer being unable to handle it (Reason elaborated below). Though I will recount some history of what I know of it. Because related topic.

Crysis(And every game under this series) is a game developed by German video game company Crytek. The company is known best for this series and Farcry, both of which use the CryEngine, a self-designed gaming engine with the intent of displaying and executing the most modern graphics and gameplay(Making the processor of most computers cry in the process and why I can't play).

The nightmare of processors when under highest graphical settings

The first game(Crysis) is set in 2020, telling the story of a soldier by the callsign Nomad within the U.S Delta Force as he and his Nanosuit enhanced team are dispatched after a distress signal.The first game ends with the discovery of the alien beings and their relation to the suits, as well as their awakening.

The second game, Crysis 2(Of which is the subject of this post) takes place three years after the events of the game. Instead of Nomad, the protagonist of the first game, the main star of the game is a US Marine called Alcatraz, . Unlike the first game, he and his team aren't supersoldiers with nanosuits. That is, of course, until the submarine they were in gets attacked and sunk by said aliens(Later referred to as Ceph).

Alcatraz is mortally wounded and close to death, but he is saved at the last moment by one of the members of the team from the last game. When he wakes up, he finds himself inside the same Nanosuit, with his rescuer dead by suicide. It turns out he was infected with a virus/bio-weapon that had plagued the human population after the Cephs emerged and attacked. Seeing he had no enough time and Alcatraz dying in front of him, he made the choice to bet on the marine and hope he would continue in his place. And so begins Crysis 2.

As a first person-shooter, it stands pretty strong by itself. And you don't really need the exact context of the first game to be invested in the story. Because you are playing as someone who doesn't either.

The base gameplay is the standard first-person shooter affair,such as needing to go from Point A to Point B, with enemies trying to paint the streets with your blood or mowing down a giant enemy. What makes Crysis 2 different from other games is HOW you do that.

The unique feature of the game is the Nanosuit. It provides options to the player, with abilities such as Cloaking and Armour. This means that unlike most shooters where you tend to need to kill everything to get to your objective or go through one specific method to beat a big bad, Crysis 2 gives you options. You could sneak past your enemies or tank through. There are also upgrades to the suit that assist in the functionality.


Basically who you can be.

 The game's levels are designed so that there's no specific way to get to your objective, complimenting the Nanosuit's abilites.

A thing to note that makes the game good is the camera. The perspective NEVER leaves the first person view, be it for cutscenes or gameplay. This means that you're not controlling Alcatraz, you ARE Alcatraz. Every bit of development leading up to this point that he learns, you're learning as well. Every situation he is in within cutscenes, you're watching the situation from his eyes as well.

And as said before, even in gameplay. An example would be upgrading is done with an interface that looks directly implemented onto his body.

Buttons on the fingers. The bleeping sounds are quite lovely to listen too.


HOWEVER

The freedom to choose what path also means that the moment you choose a path that's easy, chances are, you'll go that way most often. Another issue is on the Nanosuit itself. An issue that breaks the game. And that is the Invisibility. Because suit energy is rechargeable, it's easy to just zip past squads of enemies, going into cover and hiding until the energy is recovered and repeat till you reach the end for most missions. What makes it worse is that there are only two kinds of enemies that can actively spot you, both being bossfight situations, so the normal goons can't see you unless you choose to get too close to them. It would be more intense and challenging to fight more enemies that can still threaten you while you're cloaked.

Another issue is the fact that there's a distinct lack in variety for enemies. It's either humans or aliens. The humans tend to be only different in terms of weapons while the aliens, though having variants, don't seem threatening enough outside of the major fights.

Overall, I would give Crysis 2 a 7.5/10 because the game is great for what it is and the kind of immersion it can give, but invisibility breaking the game, lack of varied threats and overly easy paths drag it down.