Monday, May 30, 2011

Crysis Review

Game:  Crysis
Year (s):  2007 (original), 2008 (expansions)
Company:  dev.  Crytek
            pub.  EA (Electronic Arts)
Engine: CryEngine 2
Type:  First-person shooter
What I Paid: five bucks for the Crysis and expansions on a Steam sale
Game Time:  10 hours, first time, on normal (default)


Who is Crytek?  They're a game developer centered in Frankfurt, Germany.  They also made the Far Cry games.  Crytek is unwavering in dedication to one crucial philosophy, "Everything we make will have the word 'cry' in it" (TOTALLY not a made up quote).). 


In the year 2020, a team of scientists working on an excavation site in the Lingshan Islands send out a distress signal.  North Korea sends in troops, and states the distress signal is related to volcanic activity.  The island has no geologically interesting history, so a squad of special forces, black-ops, is flown in to investigate.
The scientists think they've found an ancient temple.  The Koreans think it could be a weapon.  It's acutally a dormant alien craft, and now the aliens are waking up.  They have not come in peace.


This is harder than most shooters.  Yes, your shields and health regenerate, but if you try to just run-and-gun, you'll die.  Difficulty settings don't alter damage you deal or receive, instead they alter gameplay elements.  On normal, if you hop in a vehicle, you can both drive and fire weapons, and Koreans speak English.  On the most difficult, it's impossible to be in the driver's seat and the gunner's seat at the same time, and Koreans speak Korean.


You have a nanosuit!  Nanosuit energy can do more than regenerate shields and health.  You can set your suit to maximum-, shields, speed, strength, or cloak.  Maximum strength allows for super jumps and melee murder.  The rest are self-explanatory.  Using your suit energy for such alternate purposes drains your shields.

Cover is necessary, but most structures can only take so many bullets (or a grenade) before falling apart, leaving you exposed.


If you're a quick-save whore like me, take not that enemies won't do the same thing every time you quick-load.  I like that in an AI.

Crysis lets you see your feet and hands, which is a nice nod to reality when climbing a ladder or holding an object in front of you.

Trucks are jeeps are somewhat widespread, but the other vehicles (tanks, AA guns, a plane, and boats) are more confined to specific missions.

You sometimes have infantry, vehicle, or air support, especially if you complete secondary objectives.

Expansions / DLC

Crysis: Warhead follows a different member of your squad and events are concurrent with the main game.  You still have  a nanosuit, so gameplay is much the same.  Warhead introduces a few new weapons and vehicles, and the ability to dual-wield handguns.  There was another difference I was less enthused about, the game mixes third-person cutscenes  with the first-person gameplay.  I felt this detracted from immersion and made the story more cartoonish.  Gametime clocked in at four hours.

Crysis Wars is a multiplayer version of the game that I own but have not played.


The engine is pretty solid, and I only ran in to one or two clipping glitches, no crashes.  Combat is rewardingly challenging.  This is a quality shooter; the only minor issues I had were losing track of where I was going in a zero-gravity area, and being able to run past enemies when I couldn't figure out how to beat them.  Also, gameplay is relatively short.

Final Thoughts

Crysis 2 was released in March, 2011.  Events take place three years after the first, and in New York.  At least one character returns from the first game.  This is the first non-jungle environment Crytek has created.

Crysis is pretty awesome, but I can't justify recommending you spend thirty bucks on a 10-hour game.  If you catch it on sale though, grab it.  You'll like it.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadows of Chernobyl Review

Game:  S.T.A.L.K.E.R. : Shadows of Chernobyl
Year (s):  2007
Company:  dev.  GSC Game World
            pub.  THQ
Engine: X-Ray Engine 1.0
Type:   FPS RPG
What I Paid:  NA
Game Time:  19 hours first time (few side quests completed)


You have amnesia.  STALKER is tattooed on your arm, which must be a pretty cool acronym, but I never found out what it stood for in the game (luckily, Wikipedia filled me in just now.  Hurray).  All you know is that your PDA says, "Kill Streelok."  You work as a bounty hunter/mercenary while trying to find Streelok.  There are occasional flashback cutscenes that explain nothing.
The setting for the game is an alternate reality in "The Zone" (the 30 km zone affected by the Chernobyl disaster) that has become even more hazardous from secret mad science projects. 

So... What's Going On?

The game has eight endings, depending on what you do in the game.  Six of these show a short cutscene where you die in some creative way.  TWO of them explain what the hell the story was (I got one of the ones that did not).  I only played this game through in hopes it would have some cool... something at the end.  Even after looking up the "good" endings on Youtbue, I was still left very unimpressed.


This came out before Fallout 3, and the graphics show that.  Landscape and objects look ok, but people are under-par.  Also, there are only a few different character models.  I shot a friendly by accident and their entire faction was hostile to me for the rest of the game.  Whoops.


Unlike similar FPS RPG's by Bethesda Softworks, weapons and armor cannot be repaired (they still degrade with use).  I found only four or five characters throughout the game that would buy and sell weapons, armor, and ammo (medkits were also hard to come by).  Having my armor in rags all the time meant I spent the last half of the game running from bullets, and then dying from all the damn radiation my armor was also no longer protecting me from.

Injuries cause bleeding (further loss of life).  You have to eat, or die from starvation. It's really easy to get radiation sickness, too.  For all of these realistic touches, you can't/don't sleep.


Do You Like Bugs?

As a main quest, I stole a briefcase of intel from a military base.  This allowed me to advance to the next area.  When I asked for more missions, I was told to steal the briefcase from the military base...
Quest completion and repeat were definetely buggy, but otherwise the game was stable.


Enemies are always accurate, regardless of cover or light-levels.  There are some standard weapon types, like assault rifles, shotguns, and grenades.  There are also equipable artifacts.  These generally give you a boost in one area and a deficiency in another.  A low weight limit allows you to carry only few weapons.  Everything, including ammo, has weight. 

Just to suck a little more, the mouse wheel does nothing; you have to hit number keys to select/change weapons.  I got killed by the same dog several times before I asked Ben why the attack button did nothing.

Expansions / DLC

Clear Sky, a prequel, was made after.  Even later, the sequel Call of Pripyat was released.  I have only played Pripyat for an hour or so, but can happily report they added (DUH!) a fast-travel feature, and improved the graphics a little bit.  Other than that, I just can't bring myself to play it.  These games have no redeeming quality. 

Final Thoughts

They had a bunch of Russians working on the game for realism?  Wow!  Maybe they should have gotten some play testers.  Difficult, buggy, plotless (aka pointless), unsatisfying piece of crap.  If you don't have it, get Fallout 3.  It's better in every way possible.

I'll do a Crysis review next (after I play the expansion).  It will be a MUCH happier post.  They can't all be winners, I guess.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Unreal Tournament 3 Review

Game: Unreal Tournament 3   
Year (s):  2007
Company:  dev.  Epic Games
            pub.  Midway Games
Engine: Unreal Engine 3
Type:  First Person Shooter
What I Paid: NA, bundled Unreal franchise sale
Game Time:  Ad Infinitum


Striking out from other titles, there is no tournament.  The single player campaign starts with a cutscene showing a force of Krall (formerly established as Skaarj pets) and Necris forces attacking a human colony.  The main character is wounded.  He's patched up by a corporation, and along with his buddies, helps the company battle other corporations over resources, intermittently re-taking Krall-occupied territories.

The Necris eventually retaliate by invading all fronts of the planet:  (you don't have to have played to enjoy a sci-fi action sequence).  From then on, your team battles the Necris, eventually going to the their homeworld to hunt down the one that instigated the attack on your colony.  It's actually very satisfying.

Campaign Difficulty

While instant-action and multiplayer have a range of bot difficulty, single-player has only four.  I've played through the game on the second (default) setting.  I murdered bots at that setting pretty easily, but on some maps, your team of four is outnumbered by 2-4 bots.  On a map with vehicles, that's a HUGE handicap.  Some maps are difficult, the last deathmatch is a pain, and don't be surprised if your score is more than the rest of your team combined.

The Engine

Unreal Engine 3 delivers, and is pretty stable.  Depending on the game, an occasional crash, but not buggy.  As with previous games, multiplayer has a simple, effective, seamless setup.  This is currently my favorite game engine, as it is not *just* visually competitive, but incredibly versatile (continuing a tradtion of engine licensing).  Here's some of the games that make use of Unreal Engine 3 : BioShock 2, Alice: Madness Returns, Borderlands, Legendary, the Gears of War games, and the Mass Effect series.  Also licensed by CG animation groups and for educational purposes. 

Combat and Game Types

If you've played any Unreal games, a lot of weapons and vehicles return.  UT3 does not have as many instant-action game types as UT 2K4, most notably are the disappearance of Assault, Bombing Run, and Double Domination.  I wasn't interested much in this title after I learned about the decrease in game types, but it's not as big a deal as I thought.

Vehicle Capture the Flag is now a standard game type, in response to all of the fan-made maps.  Vehicles cannot carry flags.  Players can ride a weaponless, portable hoverboard to move around faster, that can carry the flag.  If hit while on the hoverboard, you, the flag, and anything else you're carrying goes flying.  Hoverboards have a grappling hook that will allow a vehicle to tow you; this can be a great way to capture flags if a teammate has a manta.

All previous vehicles return.  In addition, the Necris have completely different, but equally powerful, vehicles.  My favorite new vehicle is the Necris Fury, or as I call it, "the flying jellyfish of death."

Cards and Campaign Playback

On the single-player campaign, you sometimes can choose between missions.  These choices may give you cards, or may alter later fights.  As far as altering, there is a Team Deathmatch map that drops a badass vehicle halfway through.  Which team can access this vehicle depends on order of missions.  That's one example.

Cards are earned after some missions, and can be used on one mission to either give your team an advantage, or disadvantage the opponent.  They come in helpful if you're having trouble beating a map.  Depending on your mission order, you might not have the same cards each time you play through.


Cutscenes have music to heighten the mood.  Campaign bot team chat is fun, unique, and realistic to real people.  Recently, I saw Hellraiser for the first time.  Turns out the Necris/Black Legion goad, "(No tears please), it's a waste of good suffering," was one of the few lines by Pinhead! 


From characters, corporations, weapons, teams, re-textured maps from both the original Unreal Tournament and UT 2K4, and the fictional element tarydium, this game has throw backs to every game that ever had Unreal in the title, even the one that was developed by a different group.  One of your teammates has a scar the shape of a Skaarj Razik claw.  This inclusiveness isn't purely Easter egg content, it ties the entire franchise together.

Final Thoughts

This game goes beyond the previous Unreal titles, and is unexpectedly fantastic, instead of just awesome.  Fan-made maps abound, if you want to play more.  The new game elements and vehicles make up for the decrease in game types, the graphics look great, and the campaign is sweet.  Game time is limited only by how much you might do instant action/multiplayer. 

I'd recommend getting Unreal Tournament 3.  The next one isn't planned to be released until the next generation of consoles arrives.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Red Winter Orb Deck

(edited May 5, 2011 12:41 AM)

I like chaos cards like Winter Orb.  I have a friend with a deck that does the obvious, pairing Winter Orb with Icy Manipulator, and blue spells.  I wanted to do something different, so I went with red.  This deck has been played and edited a few times, and this is the final (or nearly final) decklist.  It's not a top-grade deck, but it can win.  It will ALWAYS piss people off!  Deck list follows.

Red Winter Orb Deck, 60 cards

RED- 21

Creatures- 5

4 Pallimud
1 Adamaro, First to Desire

Spells- 16

4 Breaking Point
4 Glacial Crevasse
4 Manabarbs
4 Power Surge


Mana Artifacts- 12

4 Fire Diamond
2 Gruul Signet
2 Ruby Medallion
2 Prismatic Lens
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Opal

Other Artifacts- 8

4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Winter Orb

LAND- 19

2 Gruul Turf (or Rakdos Carnarium; any guild land that makes red mana)
2 Scorched Ruins
15 Snow-Covered Mountain