In Com We Trust... 5/5

The 5 classes in X-com: Assault, Sniper, Support, Heavy and...um... silhouette?

IN COM, WE TRUST...

    So it would take some kind of super computer to work out the hours I spent as a child, working my way around suspiciously familiar farm-like environments, being slaughtered by shadowy figured Sectoids in the original UFO: Enemy Unknown...Double said machines power to calculate the times a Muscular Muton in a green one-sie destroyed squads, or how the terrible "Wibble" of a cyberdisc sounded very much like the bagpipes at soldiers funerals...

    Take that same super computer, increase it's capacity ten fold, give it glasses, a pipe and a residence at Cambridge and only then do you have a machine able to measure my love for this game, and (as the council will so often tell you when you smash the Alien Foe month after month) that not is something this council says lightly...

UF - OH, YEAH!

Someone finally found out what was inside the Cyberdisc...
...their funeral is on thursday.

    Okay...not my finest pun, but this is definately what I was thinking as i played this game through. I loved, and i mean truly loved, the original games this was based on (with the exception of TFTD perhaps...) and i just felt that the whole team behind X-Com had the same love - but the necessary skills to take that love and make it into a damn awesome game.

"...and i just felt that the whole team behind X-Com had the same love - but the necessary skills to take that love and make it into a damn awesome game..."

    Like a good house renovation, the developers behind this game looked in detail at what was missing from the originals, and what made them good - then smashed up the bad and tossed them into expensive skips.
    The Aliens have had a re-vamp (though I was sad to see no "Snake-Men" running amok in the cities) and child-like Sectoids now look like an army of Golems from Lord of the Rings...The Pyjama clad Mutons (beautifully refereneced in the weapon testing cut scenes) are now hulking great armored beasts of terror and the cyberdisc, a once highly annoying Frisbie, has been changed into the Matrix's answer to the Swiss Army knife...

If it bleeds we can kill i...oh God damn it isn't bleeding...

    Subsequently, every decision counts and Tactics have replaced throwing 12 rookies into a Skyranger to be turned into piles of goo by a relentless foe. Every move matters, and though saving the game and replaying a section so that it goes more your way could be a way round this, the Iron Man function removes this and makes you pay for each and every indecision, or revel in joy at that impossible shot that makes it...

"...you pay for each and every indecision, or revel in joy at that impossible shot that makes it..."

Any Last Words?

    If you've an ounce of nostalgia in your bones, then jump into the warm waters of this game and find yourself looking at exactly what a remake of a popular classic should be. Take the elements that were restricted by original design whether they be technical or creative, alter and amend them, make them better. Isolate and expand upon the things that made it wonderful, give those ideas wings and let them soar...

    I was lost in this game from the first instance and that tingly sensation that I was playing something incredibly good didn't leave, in fact on the final mission it was bolstered. The final mission really is a crescendo, a final twist that creatively ties up the mystery and the elements that were missing from original and left not only my mouth gaping, but my mind craving more.

If you're in Game Development and someone says to you "You're at a dinner party, and anyone from history can join you...who would you invite" then here's my suggestion...
...Push Jesus and Lazarus back into that cave...
...kick Wilde in the shins and toss him threepence for some Gin...
...sit Einstein in front of a computer and show him that his greatest legacy to the modern world was a poster of him with his tongue out for students and leave him to weep...

Then compile a list of the Firaxis team who put together X-Com: Enemy unknown...and ask them how they did it.

The modernisation of "West Side Story" was met with mixed reviews...and plasma fire...

What's next for a Chunkin'?

The Saviors of Earth...dramatically back-lit...

X-Com: Enemy Uknown
or
In Com We Trust...

How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Pirates... 4/5

The Package Holiday just wasn't what they thought it was going to be...sure the drinks were all inclusive,
but the knives the the bullets put a downer on the Mai-Tai's...

So, how do you Pi-RATE it?

Lets not beat around the bush here, you'll spend plenty of time hacking your way through it to avoid a Tiger in the road later, this is an awesome game. The Mo-Cap acting and lip sync of the characters is sublime, it's like watching a film and in the first minute I was terrified, I was angry, I was a little sickened...it was my teenage parties all over again in Game form.

As you sprint away from the Pirate camp, dogs and bullets storming after you, you're forced to do some pretty dark things to survive, and this sets the tone for the rest of the Game. The transition from Preppy Jock to Brutal Killer is by no means smooth - it's jarring and you're taken through every woeful moment in a uniquely personal and cinematic fashion

Tag! You're...a...well...a ravaged and bloody mess...

This may be the first time I've played a FPS and seen the POV nature of the game used so effectively to emote and engage. As you dash forward with your knife you feel the physics of the connection, you see the panic in your hapless victims eyes...this isn't a regular FPS where you're 'More-than-human' character guns down battalions of enemy, but a regular, fun-loving guy who is forced to get up-close and personal, to kill or be killed...

"...this isn't a regular FPS where you're 'More-than-human' character guns down battalions of enemy, but a regular, fun-loving guy who is forced to get up-close and personal, to kill or be killed..."

Though this does indeed get the Blood pumping, and can lead to some uniquely cool moments, the character did wear on me rather quickly and I found it hard to feel sorry for this group of Silver-spoon-in-their-mouth graduates who had the inane Audacity to anchor their boat on a beach full of pirates... There is a nod to this in the (may i say marvellous) writing when you're wise and battle weary guide 'Derek' mentions that such actions were not brave...but foolish.

Sure - i understand that if they'd anchored up in the Maldives then the action of the game would be lacking, but I found this far too detracting from the in-depth drama of the game and before long, I didn't care about saving my friends who were, quite frankly, playing along with Darwin's Theories and sparing the world their foolish genes...Harsh? Good god yes...Care? Good god no...

Their rendition of "The Jungle Book" had mixed reviews...

Chu-Chu-Chu-Chunk it up!

You cannot ignore the incredible time and effort that goes into a AAA title such as this excellent offering to the Far Cry franchise. There is love here, real expertise, some incredible moments from the animation of the dive into water to an incredible mission where you set fire to Cannabis Farms to some heavy dub-step. They have created here a world of intrigue, one you really want to explore, to drive around (Rook Island seems to have a surfeit of two things...cars and wild predators...and not one mechanic or Chinese Medicine supplier in sight...) to sneak through the undergrowth in...

The problem I experienced is that it didn't take me long to get the hang of the game, to understand the world they'd created and it's idiosyncrasies. I knew that 1 in 3 of the guns I had was the best in that category, i had completed the hunting missions (by far the most enjoyable) before i'd progressed far through the story - add to this that the less said about the secondary missions the better (unless you've got a penchant for walking and taking photographs in FPS) and there are some inescapable flaws to this game.

Some of his friends were being tortured...or being led to believe
they would soon be killed...one was even in a basement getting
the 'Z from pulp fiction' Treatment...but there was definately
time for a poker-game or 2...or 3...or...come on let me buy
back in!

However - no matter how rubbish the secondary missions are, or how easy the guns are to master, releasing a bear in an enemy camp and watching it tear the place apart, or filling a car with C4 and jumping out of it as it hurtles toward a group of soon-to-be 'Pirate-Soup' or even swimming in the ocean only to be attacked by a shark from the depths...Is just too much to ignore...

They sold this game as "Skyrim" with guns...and this doesn't do it justice at all, the game world is entirely different and the mechanics of it too dissimilar to bare comparison. It does however have the same intoxicatingly immersive world filled with amazing creatures and i'm sure you'll love running round it with guns...just don't put all your hopes in the story line...as you'll soon learn, there's no room for hope on Rook Island.