Blood, Sweat, Tears, and Prototype 2

Developers rarely show the human side of angry anti-heroes. It's as if "he's an a-hole" is a good enough personality trait to make someone care about a character. Alex Mercer was a top tier knob with few, if any, redeeming qualities. The limp attempts to humanize Prototype's protagonist only highlighted how unlikable the reckless sociopath truly was. By positioning Mercer as the villain he truly is in Prototype 2, developer Radical displays an honest understanding of the first game's flaws. In turn, Prototype 2 represents a retry of sorts – not because the original was a failure, but because its excellent vision fell a bit short. 

Prototype 2 gives players a clearer view of Radical's original intentions through the eyes of James Heller, an emotionally ravaged veteran with nothing left to live for. He's a cliche in concept, but Prototype 2 goes through a lot of effort to prove he's human, and it does so in an interesting way. 

It makes you wait for what you want by giving you something you don't expect. 

Before you get to start running up walls, dismembering mercenaries, and gliding over New York City again, Prototype 2 makes you sit down, observe, and understand. It dedicates a full 30 minutes to cinematics and brief chunks of slow, linear gameplay. The unexpected, decidedly un-Prototype change of pace sets the story stage, of course, while building anticipation. By the time the introduction ended I was aching to unleash havoc on NYC.

When Prototype 2 finally lets Heller loose, it unfolds much like the first game; consume life-forms to heal, morph into enemy officers to disguise, eviscerate dudes with gigantic razor-claws. It stays this way for the better part of an hour, so yeah, it's the same Prototype, but it brings along important fundamental differences.

The art direction in Prototype 2 does much more than simply build upon its (unattractive, even at the time) predecessor. The visual improvements extend beyond the character models and environment textures you'd expect to see in a sequel three years later. Prototype 2 replaces the washed-out, dry aesthetic of the original with vibrant colors, stark contrasts, and some sunshine. Forget the familiar morose palette; this is what the world would look like if an infection actually broke out. The sun would still rise, the sky would still be clear, and New York would still have beautiful parks. People live their lives, miserable though they may be in quarantine, and they exist in an overwhelming state of fear. Walking through camps (where people live in improvised tents, stand around burning barrels, and wear masks to hopefully prevent infection), I got the impression the entire city was on the brink of panic.

Believability is clutch in Prototype 2, and it's a far more realistic realization of the fiction because of this focus. 

Until now, Activision led me to believe the driving force pushing Prototype 2 forward was a feud: Heller, angry at ol' Alex for murdering his wife and daughter, was on a relentless hunt for Mercer's blood. Prototype 2 isn't quite this cut and dry. The first hour establishes a complex relationship with an uncertain future. Mercer mutated Heller, thus giving him the super powers we know and love, for unknown purposes. He reassures him he didn't kill the Heller family. Mercer even has a mutual friend in Heller's priest, who trusts Mercer's unclear motives implicitly. I didn't see anything but an allegiance in my demo, but if a war breaks out between the boys it'll happen for understandable reasons. The air stinks of inevitable betrayal.

I also got to see a more capable, late-game Heller in action. His abilities remain largely familiar, but the effects seemed more devastating than Mercer's previously felt. The organic tendrils, Earth-shaking smashes, and body mutations – claws, blade arms, huge arms, etc. – do a serious number on enemies. Groups of guys become larger groups of body parts as Heller carves through swaths of men. If you don't feel the need to instantly destroy a tank or chopper, you can weaponize it to wield temporary artillery. Because he's a soldier, Heller also takes great advantage of found guns.

I feel bad for Alex Mercer if he decides to turn on Heller. 

Where Prototype 2's gameplay aims to set itself apart is in its RADNET content, which all early adopters earn access to. RADNET collects a series of events and mini-games separate from the rest of Prototype 2 , and they're far better than the term "mini-game" often implies. I fell in love with racing, a stereotypical mission type I try to avoid, because each race covers such huge distances. The navigation and traversal in Prototype is versatile in a way that makes running, jumping, and soaring fun on its own. It's super-powered parkour with a timer and a leaderboard – Prototype, you've got me hooked on knocking friends' scores off the leaderboard like you're Joe Danger or Hot Pursuit. The other mode I saw worked like human bowling – I leapt off a roof, smashed into the ground, and launched as many men as possible for points.

This is all a bit of dumb-fun, a stark contrast to the glum start of the story. Radical is rolling out 55 of these events, which are, to my surprise, the reason I'm most excited to play more Prototype 2.

This is in addition to its most impressive step forward: its deeply human themes, motivated hero, and believable world. Prototype 2 brings new strengths to the merciless murder we already enjoyed. It appears Radical's formula tweaks could elevate Prototype 2 to heights its predecessor couldn't even hope to hit. 


Source From: IGN

The Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition PC Review

The Witcher 2 is not a normal video game, and it's not a normal fantasy. It subverts the old high-fantasy stereotypes even as it employs them. The elves that you'll meet in Temeria aren't charming, ethereal forest-dwellers, they're guerrilla insurgents raining death on humans from the trees. The dwarves, typically cheerful, hard-working sorts, live in a city of worn rock that runs off the fumes of their former industriousness while its current inhabitants drink, joke and fornicate. The various kingdoms are in the on the precipice of war, led by despotic kings who play their personal vendettas out on the battlefields at the expense of their armies' lives. 

And who are you, amongst all this? You're Geralt of Rivia, a stoic and distinctly un-heroic monster hunter with a few memory problems and a faintly inexplicable way with the ladies. Though sworn to impartiality on matters of the state, he is drawn into this complex political maelstrom by a series of regicides that brand him a criminal and pull him back into his own, forgotten past. The Witcher 2 is a game for adults, and not just because of all the sex and violence. It expects you to be intelligent and interested, to care about the political machinations, racial tensions and complex history of its world. Plenty of games shield you from their lore, afraid that it might scare you off. The Witcher 2 drops you right in the thick of it, and expects you to deal with it. 

If you already own The Witcher 2 on PC, this Enhanced Edition is available for free via a patch, and offers around 4 hours of new content and 32 minutes of cinematics (including a new intro and outro that provide extra context for the game's fulsome, complex story) alongside an array of small improvements. Developer CD Projekt Red claims to have made over 100 of these minor fixes, improving animations, NPC models, stability and much more. They're discernible in spots of extra graphical and interface polish that make this the definitive edition of The Witcher 2. If, for some reason, you didn't buy The Witcher 2 last year, now is an ideal time to do so. If you did, the extra content might persuade you to revisit it.

Underpinning The Witcher 2's ambitious fantasy is a sword- and magic-based combat system that is one of the best around, delivering challenge and flexibility alongside the straightforwardly violent finishing moves and lethal strikes that are the backbone of all good melee combat. Dipping into stylish slow-motion to select spells, bombs and traps from a radial menu, you chip away at groups of enemies through strategy and smart positioning rather than simply hacking through them with silver or steel. Spells ignite, confuse or trap your foes, where oils and enhancements change the properties of your blades.

It's useful to know that running away is sometimes a better idea than trying to stand and fight. Combat is challenging, and reliant on good preparation; taking the extra time to craft bombs, traps and potions that will help you in specific battles often pays dividends. The Witcher 2 often bookends its quests with nail-biting fights against powerful wraiths or monsters - conveniently, Geralt's Witcher medallion reacts to danger, giving you notice when something dangerous is just around the corner.

The layout of these myriad functions works well on a pad, but the extra flexibility of a keyboard allows you to use number keys for spells, meaning that you don't have to select them from the radial menu. This slightly improves the flow of combat, and encourages you to take advantage of the full variety of magic rather than falling back on a single spell. Menus, though, are definitely best suited to mouse control - the complex layout of The Witcher 2's alchemy, inventory and character menus is easier to navigate with clicks than a d-pad.

It does suffer, as it always did, from a lack of clarity in menu-heavy activities like crafting and alchemy. A comprehensive in-game journal offers a refresher on everything you could need to know about the characters, locations and recent events, but there are some elements of the actual gameplay that could be better explained.

The Witcher 2 is full of excellently-designed quests, from the grand machinations of its central plot to side-quests that deal in ghost stories, missing persons and humorous mysteries. Spend time in taverns and get into a fist-fights or gambling debt, and you might find Geralt led into something bigger. Investigating a single murder might uncover a long trail of cause and effect. These well-written diversions mean that Geralt never feels like an errand boy, and the choices that you make – minor and major –affect the course of the narrative in a way that feels natural and organic. You're never told to choose between good and evil, filling some invisible morality meter. Instead it feels like what you're doing actually means something.

The Enhanced Edition's extra content helps to flesh out this story, and some of the background behind it. The new intro cinematic introducts Letho, the game's main antagonist, colourfully and gorily forwarning you of his regicidal tendencies. 

It's in the cities that the contrast between The Witcher 2 and other, cleaner, more aspirational and austere fantasies is most apparent. Games usually create places full of marble palaces and gorgeous architecture, wide streets and bustling town centres. These, meanwhile, are ramshackle, grimy places where the tension between humans and non-humans constantly threatens to bubble up into mob violence. As a witcher – a mutated human, essentially – Geralt finds himself somewhere between these two racial camps, and many of the decisions that you make over the course of the game feed into a much larger racial conflict that goes beyond current monarchs and recent resentments and sometimes feels like it's etched into the very stone that the cities are built from. The Witcher 2's history and lore is built into its world and geography as effectively as it's written into characters' dialogue.

It's been said before, but it's worth emphasising that visually, The Witcher 2 on PC is amongst the most impressive games out there. Played on a medium-to-high-end PC, the level of detail on characters' clothing, buildings and interiors is extraordinary - and the forests surrounding ramshackle Flotsam look almost real. The rock-hewn buildings of the dwarven city of Vergen gleam in moonlight and sparkle in sunlight. Only the facial animation is slightly off, and that's only really noticeable because of the stratospheric graphical standards that the game sets elsewhere.

The Enhanced Edition is more accurately described as an expanded edition of The Witcher 2 rather than a dramatically improved one; it's still very much the same game, with the same minor foibles. The inaccessible nature of The Witcher 2 will still be as much of a problem for some players as it was last year. It needs you to pay attention and be willing to look thinks up, and there are still things about the interface - mutagens, for instance - that don't make much sense, even if the new tutorial goes some way towards addressing them. But CD Projekt Red rewards you for putting in the effort to engage in and understand its world, filling the dialogue and in-game literature with incidental detail that means more and more to you as you invest more time in the fiction.


Source From: IGN

Max Payne 3: Feeling the Pain

Max Payne is looking haggard. His increasingly lined face has hardened into a permanent grimace and his expanding bulk means there's no way he's fitting into the same suits he wore back in his NYPD days. But it's not just that. The fact that his ageing frame is a lot less suited to being thrown into action than it used to be is compounding matters, sure, but it's more than that right now. 

Max Payne is having a bad night. 

The blood from the bullet wound he received earlier, before he even had a chance to fire a single shot, has become dark and caked on the bandage his partner Passos wrapped tightly around his left arm. We've been slogging through a Sao Paulo football stadium after-hours with Max for close to 30 minutes. Max is too old to be mixing it up with a bunch of Brazilian gangbangers, and that hole in his arm isn't helping. You can feel every yard. No, really. You can. 

The reason you can feel every bit of progress you make is due entirely to the incredibly well-honed animation system at work. Max is looking haggard because you can see the effort he's making. Max's realistic reactions mean that things that should hurt look like they hurt. When Max dives through the air and crashes into a wall his body folds up as he impacts against it; he doesn't just complete the move suspended in mid-air. When he leaps sideways down a set of concrete grandstand steps and crunches back to earth halfway down he doesn't just pounce back to his feet; his inertia sends him into a sickening slide down the remaining stairs on his ribs, blasting all the way down. This one makes us wince, in particular.

With Max Payne 3 we're seeing the latest marriage between NaturalMotion's Euphoria technology and the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine. NaturalMotion's Euphoria, for those of you who don't know, is an animation system engine based on a full simulation of a 3D character (including body, muscles and a motor nervous system). Instead of using pre-canned animations, actions (and reactions) are synthesised on-the-fly, in real-time. This means they're always different, every time. The tech has already been used to excellent effect in GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption.

However, GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption are large, open-world titles. Max Payne 3 is not. It's a laser-focused, third-person shooter. With the narrower scope the developer has been able to use the additional headroom to really ramp-up the authenticity of the animation and physics. 

Max has thousands of animations that blend into one another, working in tandem with Euphoria to craft incredibly realistic on-screen movement. Where you're diving, what's around you at the time, what guns you're holding and so on will all affect how Max performs the move you've demanded of him. Diving sideways, firing one-handed while clutching a long-barrel shotgun in your free hand and thudding into a wall will result in a markedly different outcome than diving sideways in a large room firing pistols in each hand.

The work done here to ensure Max moves as realistically as possible in any situation is seriously impressive. The way he rolls and pivots when prone in order to shoot in any direction. The way his body shifts to fire behind himself while running away from an ambush. The way he picks himself up off the ground, which varies depending on what firearm(s) he's holding at the time. Max Payne 3 is here to fuse the control of a first-person shooter with the character of a third. Rockstar doesn't want you to form a relationship with a reticule. It wants you to see Payne in pain.

The Euphoria integration naturally extends to the enemies too, similar to what you've seen in GTA IV and RDR before. What you get with Euphoria is more than simple rag dolls, or pre-animated location-sensitive death animations. You get enemies reacting dynamically depending on where they've been struck, how fast they were moving at the time, and by the calibre of the bullet that struck them. A few quick pistol slugs to the central mass of one goon may see him flop to the ground like a puppet with his strings cut, but a sniper bullet to the shoulder of another will see him spinning into the surrounding stadium seating in a flurry of flailing limbs. A shot to the arm should disable it; don't expect the kind of bullet-sponge enemies you get in the likes of Uncharted 3. Naughty Dog's latest may be world class in many ways but being shot is a serious matter, and Max Payne 3's enemies don't just shake it off. 

The action has a supremely visceral quality to it, making Max Payne 3 a shooter where good instincts and luck are rewarded as often as pure skill. On one occasion we had Max shoot-dodge around a corner in order to stitch up two hired guns hiding there in wait. A burst of rounds into each of them saw them despatched. Replaying the same section again, we rounded the corner in real-time, stitching a horizontal line of lead from left to right. The Hail Mary spray caught the first enemy in the head and the second near-enough to it and they both sagged to the mud, dead. Max Payne 3 is as satisfying in real time as it is in slow motion; there's a certain Michael Mann-style abruptness that's been merged here with the series' more famous Hong Kong-esque sensibilities. 

If the old Max was a scalpel, darting from firefight to firefight, skating around opponents and springing from the ground like a steel trap, the new Max is a wrecking ball. Heavier, and at the mercy of Newton's Second Law more than ever, but even more devastating. And yet, despite this, it's remarkable how familiar it actually feels. Max Payne 3 is a thoroughly modern sequel, built with new technology, and yet it still fundamentally feels like a Max Payne game. 


Source From: IGN

Rayman Origins Review

Rayman Origins is special, rare and precious. Somewhere in the last few years, the classic notion of games being benign and whimsical escapist fantasies was lost in favor of battered, war torn landscapes and desolate dystopian apocalypse. Vibrant worlds turned to rot and grit, smiles turned to screams, and it seemed that by and large, gaming lost its innocence. 

Is it possible for a game in this era to recapture the magic that inspired this industry to begin, while still proving itself a capable, full-fledged experience under modern scrutiny? In the case of Ubisoft's Rayman Origins, the answer is "slapsolutely." 

In many ways, what we have here is this generation's most artistically cohesive package, with perfectly imagined visual direction that never ceases to induce smiles. It's as if art director Michel Ancel drew a single, whimsical napkin sketch and then built an entire world around it, consistently expanding on but never once backing down from his original vision. Plant life unfurls around you, fiery pillars collapse, and avalanches give way to lush landscapes for your goofy characters to happily slap each other around. It's fantastic vibrant chaos that's exquisite on the eyes, with buttery smooth animation and a rock solid frame-rate.


There are moments of total madness where the background elements mesh with the foreground causing occasional confusion, but Rayman's biggest visionary downside is that it's almost distractingly beautiful. l want to stop to take it all in, but instead I hop and bop and collect everything I can in a mad dash to the goal. Luckily, most stages buck this trend by becoming more meticulously calculated affairs, where you (and some friends!) strategically grab Lums, (Rayman's answer to coins) and explore hidden corners of the worlds to conquer secret sub areas at your own pace. 

Mosqheat-os!

There is never a shortage of people gathering around me to revel in how incredible Rayman looks on a nice monitor, and mastering stages in all their glory delivers a fluid, magnificent spectacle. Single player gets the job done and will absolutely satiate any cravings you have for an awesome and unique side-scrolling gaming experience, especially in the absence of a traditional 2D Mario title this year. But the real sweet spot here is grabbing two or three friends and just kicking some ass through these exuberant environments. You'll laugh, you'll curse each other out and you'll partake in some of the most fun local multiplayer action of this generation, hands down.

Rayman and his friends Globox and the Teensies don't rely on power-ups in the traditional sense here. Rather, each new world provides a new ability or attack to learn, and those moves stay with you forever, leaving plenty of opportunities to return to older stages and fly through them with more style and finesse. Each world offers plenty of insane locales. From the nightmarish cauldrons of pepper-obsessed chefs to the dark and murky underwater caverns brimming with vivid and ferocious sea life, there is plenty to see here. You'll take to the backs of giant mosquitos in ever-evolving side scrolling shooter stages as buzzing orchestras hum away. You'll swirl under oceans in the closest a video game has ever come to replicating the orchestrated synchronized swimming scenes in a Busby Berkeley film (Google it).

Experienced players will unlock unique treasure chest chase levels; non-stop "screw up once and you're dead" speed-runs that will test your dexterity and twitch reflexes as much as test they your patience. Rayman is tough, a near brutal challenge at times but it never fully inspires controller throwing, rage quitting anger thanks largely in part to its liberal use of checkpoints and its "you're so damn lovable that I can't stay mad at you for long" behavior. There are a few trial and error moments, but by and large this is a showcase of your own nimbleness, finesse and wit and it rewards your skills oh so handsomely. 

Help your friends! Or just slap them.

Sadly, the past few years seem to have convinced some critics all that "artsy" platforming games ought to be short affairs, best suited for the flimsy world of DLC. Rayman is much, much better than that.

There are a magnitude of stages to explore here, epic boss fights, unlockable character skins, hidden stages galore and hours upon hours of frantic fun. The notion that imaginative visuals and matinee-priced entry fees need be mutually exclusive is one Rayman Origins continues to dispel as hour after hour of gaming joy continue to ramp up in both sheer scope and in grand gratification. Rayman Origins takes on a genre mastery of ground work laid down decades ago and elevates it to astronomical new standards. It's a spectacular living painting that's as much fun to play as it is to look at, and it's a total triumph. Your move, video game industry. 

Source From: IGN

Mass Effect 3 Review

Few games come with the amount of hype Mass Effect 3 has swirling around it. As the culmination of BioWare's epic sci-fi RPG trilogy, Mass Effect 3 hasn't garnered this groundswell in an artificial way. Rather, anticipation steadily sits at a fever pitch because the previous installments -- Mass Effect, and especially Mass Effect 2 -- rate amongst the best games ever made. And in many ways, Mass Effect 3 has set the bar even higher as the worthy conclusion to one of the finest stories ever told in gaming history, even if it's still admittedly imperfect. 

Mass Effect 3 throws you back into the role of Commander Shepard, the first human Spectre that has, at this point in the story, gone above and beyond proving his (or her) commitment to galactic order. After reluctantly working for the xenophobic human-first organization Cerberus and jumping through the Omega-4 Mass Relay to fight the Collectors at the center of the Milky Way in Mass Effect 2, Shepard's greatest challenge still lies ahead.

Once considered the stuff of lore, the Reapers rear their heads in our own backyard. Having returned to the galaxy after a 50,000 year hiatus, the Reapers conduct an all-out assault on the galaxy's organic life. Earth itself suffers heavy bombardment as Mass Effect 3 begins, with millions suffering and dying daily. Your task: fight back, not only for Earth and humanity, but for all galactic races that find themselves simultaneously under siege. 

Using Some Biotics

Shepard and his allies aren't nearly strong enough to combat the Reapers' planet-sacking death squads on their own. The earlier Mass Effect games focused on exploring the galaxy as you complete quests, building up your reputation and ultimately careening headlong into the endgame. Mass Effect 3 has all of that too, and it's all conducted through the lens of truly consequential, wide-ranging decision-making. This brings yet again an exceptionally plot-heavy slant to a series already deeply reliant on amazing story-telling.

The Reapers pose an existential threat to life in the galaxy, forcing Shepard to navigate through tricky territory wrought with age-old grudges, conflicts and old-fashioned hatred in order to get all affected parties to work together. The Krogans hate the Salarians and Turians because of the Genophage, while the Quarians have waged war with their rogue machines, the Geth, for hundreds of years. Conflicts like this exist everywhere. The challenge before Shepard lies in his ability to get all of these races -- and many others -- allied in order to fight the Reapers as one united front. This represents the galaxy's only hope in defeating their overwhelmingly powerful adversaries.

Stabbing Away.

Accomplishing such feats of diplomacy resides at the heart of Mass Effect 3. Gone are the loyalty quests of Mass Effect 2; things aren't quite as personal this time around. Shepard must still make a staggering number of choices in conversation, and how he treats those around him heavily affects the game's outcome. He'll still make friends and enemies, have personal conversations and learn a great deal more about those he encounters. And the more time you spend speaking to others and exploring everyone's stories, the more you'll extract from the game.

But now, the galaxy's problems are greater, and Shepard must think bigger. By helping out individuals, militaries, governments and entire races, Shepard will collect War Assets and form a higher and higher level of Galactic Readiness. These will become integral to the success or failure of Mass Effect 3's endgame, and bring an entirely new slant to the series, one that's both welcome and fresh. 

Source From: IGN