X-Blades

Hack and slash games aren't very common nowadays. And apparently for good reason. I can sum up this game in one word.

Meh.

The game has a fairly unique style. Animé-style characters, realistic-looking world. It's an interesting juxtaposition, but it's purely stylistic. There's nothing deeper to it. And the game goes right for the T&A.

The main character's the classic scantily-clad buxom heroine of any of 37 million other games. The difference is this one wields two gun-blades. Weapons that are theoretically cool, but patently ridiculous when you think about them realistically. I mean, logistically, trying to point those things to shoot is silly. In addition to the dual-gun-blades, you get several skills, and the only reason to buy any of them is because you're forced to in order to exploit the weakness of whatever enemy you're fighting. If your enemy doesn't have a weakness, you can just spam the basic attack until everything's dead. There's not really any reason to get in to more complex maneuvers. 

There's no linearity to the game. There's no open-endedness either. Both of those imply at least some form of continuity. Each arena is its own set piece, not linked in any way. You go in, it's closed off, you fight a bunch of stuff, you walk out the arch, it loads a new place to fight.

I just really cannot recommend this game as a purchase. It's amusing enough that you may wanna rent it for a console when you're bored some weekend, but that's about it. 

Meh.

Mirror's Edge

I picked up this game for the 360 when it first came out. But I held off on reviewing it. Because the console version is junk compared to the PC version. 

The graphics in this game are beautiful, and the PhysX acceleration makes the world breathe. 

The sound is completely immersive. Ambient sounds just suck you in. Voices are clear, and easily understood.

The biggest problem with the console version was the inability to quickly change what you were looking at, but mouse/keyboard controls have fixed that nicely, so you can check your feet for those big jumps.

The improved controls can't completely save the combat though. It's still awkward at times to disarm the enemy, and you feel like you should run most of the time, but you're forced in to it. Story mode's okay, but you're really only playing it to unlock the time trials, so plow through those sections to get to the good stuff.

This is still a quirky title, and if a first-person platformer doesn't sound like something you'd enjoy, you're probably right. If you want something a little different, then you should have a fun time with this game.

Crysis Warhead

I got me a new graphics card, so I figured it was time to put it through its paces. To that end, I borrowed one of the most graphically intensive games ever made. The half-sequel to Crysis - Crysis Warhead. Following Sgt. 'Psycho' Sykes' story, you're still a super-powered bad-ass in a nanotech suit. As for plot? Who. Cares. You're a super-powered bad-ass in a nanotech suit. Any plot is just an excuse for you to go shoot stuff and blow up everything. So, how's the shooting and explosions? Let me tell you.

There's a wide range of weaponry in this game, and you'll find a weapon or three that you like, and use the snot out of. There isn't really a bad gun. Just ones you'll prefer. As for the explosions? Very nice. 

They revamped the engine for this, so it's not quite the resource hog that Crysis was. What this means is you get all the wonderful, beautiful, stunning graphics of Crysis, but without the crawling frame rates. If you shied away from the first one because your machine just couldn't handle it, give this one a go. It'll still kick your machine in its graphics card, but at least it won't stomp on its neck as well. 

One last warning though: this game is difficult. I'm playing on easy, and doing well. However, I think I'd get chewed up and spit out if I went for even normal difficulty. This is definitely not the game to start your FPS career on. But, if you've got several games under your belt, and the machine to run full graphics, you are in for an amazing ride. Make sure to stop and smell the roses.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3

I'm going to stick with the shorter review format. Life's been busy lately, and really, the point of the review is to let you know "Is it fun?" Following that rule, I now bring you the review of C&C: Red Alert 3.

Anyone who's familiar with either the Red Alert series, or the original Command & Conquer games knows what to expect. Real time strategy with low emphasis on resource gathering. This time around you have the Soviets and Allied Forces, as well as the Empire of the Rising Sun. The biggest differences between the factions are the way they construct buildings, and the "Secret Orders" or whichever term they're using. Honestly, I'm not a big fan of the Empire, as their build style does not work well for me at all. The Secret Orders are a fun addition to the game, and if properly used, can quickly throw the balance of the game in to your favour. Even better, you get them more rapidly if you're the current underdog, as the meter to give you more points to spend on the Orders fills up faster if you have fewer units, buildings, resources, etc.

For the campaign mode, I have no idea how EA does it. They did it with C&C 3, and they did it here. They got a lot of recognizable actors, who all do a pretty darned good job. In addition, the briefings for each mission are given to you by intelligence officers. Each faction uses their own large-breasted, enthusiastic lady to give you your objectives. 

Basically, you can sum up the game in these words: Well-used actors, hot babes, a dangerously high cheese factor, and a solid RTS mechanic not bogged down by micromanaging with 3 factions who all play differently. 

I enjoyed this game, and can recommend it without reservation.

F.E.A.R.

I know this is an old game, but with the release of the sequel right around the corner, I borrowed this from Maurice to give it a try. Since this game's so old, this will just be a quickie review.

I like it. Solid graphics, good sound, good AI, solid combat. And creepy, to boot. The slow-mo mechanic works, and once properly mastered, you will tear through the enemies like wet tissue paper. My only gripe with combat is that you can only carry 3 weapons, which really doesn't feel like much, and you'll have to manage your load-out carefully. 

If you like first-person shooters, and don't scare easy, grab this game. You'll enjoy it, and it should be a bargain.

Dead Space Review

Okay, I've now finished the game, so here's my review of Dead Space. First, the short version, for those of you in a hurry: I cannot recommend this game on PC. If you have a 360 or PS3, give it a rental. It'll only take you about 12 hours or so to get through, maybe 15, and unless you're OCD about trophys/achievements, there's no reason to play through a second time.

Okay, here's the long version. As usual, we start with the good stuff.

1) Soundtrack. The music's fairly good, and there's ambient whispers and talking that really serve to up the creepy-factor. 

2) The actual gameplay mechanics. Needing to dismember enemies for most efficient killing, zero-g jumping, the sections with no air, it's all done well. 

3) Monster design. Most enemies look like they could have been human at one point, except for the bosses, which are suitably massive. One you're told is actually 10 kilotons. 

4) The weapons. They're interesting. Repurposed mining tools. Most have some kind of use. Even the plasma cutter you start with stays useful right to the end of the game.

5) The upgrade system. The power nodes you pick up can be used to upgrade any of your items, and the methods you do so remind me of a simpler version of FFX's sphere grid. Basically, you don't need to hit every node in order to upgrade to the max, because most weapons have different paths that give you upgrades in different orders. 

6) Level design. Despite being very linear, the levels look good, and aren't difficult to navigate.

I played through on easy, just to get through it, so I'm not going to talk about the monsters dying easily, or getting too much ammo/health/etc, because it may be different in other difficulties, but I can't be bothered to find out. Wanna know why?

1) Monster AI. Or rather, the lack of it. The monsters with slicing limbs just run straight at you, except for the ones with a stinger instead of legs. They jump straight at you. There's no strategy. It's just the straightest path from them to you. Heavens forbid they actually try and dodge a little. The monsters that throw things just stand, extend throwing tentacle, throw, then maybe move, repeat ad nausem. Then there's the tentacles. Stand at range and shoot the bulbous part, and they can't touch you. The last type of enemy is the swarmers. Tiny things on the ground that usually rely on numbers and being tiny, and therefore hard to hit, to deal you damage. You can just stomp them into oblivion, usually. Now, there's multiple types of enemies in each category, but you don't actually need any kind of differing strategy, because they all act the same.

2) Limited inventory space. Yes, it's supposed to be nerve wracking, trying to decide what to carry, and what not to carry, wondering if you're going to need that extra med pack, or that o2 tank, but considering the fact that ammo stacks are small (4 for the contact beam per stack, 6 for the line gun, for instance), and you have space for 4 weapons means you're not going to be carrying much ammo for each weapon if you do have 4 weapons. Also, schematics take up space in your inventory, so if you want to be able to buy something at the store, you need room for those. They give you seperate slots for key items, but you'll never use all the slots, so why couldn't schematics have gone in there? You can eventually get more inventory slots, but by that point, you don't need them anymore, unless you're a really bad shot. And really, if you're relying on not being able to carry things to add tension and horror to your game, you're doing something wrong.

3) The weapons. Yeah, they all have a use, but most are limited. I got through the entire game with just the plasma cutter and the line gun. Flamer's decent for the swarmers, but you can pick them off with the cutter, or just stomp on them. The ripper's good for narrow corridors, if you're being attacked on one side. Or you can just send a line-gun blast down the corridor and take out everything's legs. The plasma rifle's less useful than the plasma cutter. The contact beam takes time to charge, when I could just rifle off a few shots with a different weapon. Any game that gives you about 7 different weapons to use then makes it so that you can't afford to carry ammo for half of them screwed up. Pick 2 weapons, upgrade the snot out of them, and that's all you'll need.

4) The upgrade system. Yeah, I said I liked it, but seriously, some of the upgrades make the game *too* easy. If you're a decent player, you're never going to run low on life on even medium difficulty, if you upgrade you life fully. Your O2 supply becomes ridiculous. Over 2 minutes, and you're almost never going to need that, since pretty much every time you're going to be in a vacuum for an extended period of time, there's an O2 recharge station nearby, and easily accessible. Your stasis module is also overpowered once you get it fully upgraded, especially since you don't need it for most enemies, and really, it's faster to just kill most enemies than to use stasis on them. For "impossible" difficulty, these upgrades might be necessary, but most people aren't going to play on that mode, so why are they gearing the upgrade system to a mode the majority of the user-base won't access? 

5) The story. Laaaaaaaaaame. You're *told* that you're going to see your ex-wife, and help repair a ship. There's no connection however. You're a faceless, expressionless protagonist. You never evince any emotion. The McGuffin's got to be taken back to the place it's from to stop the bad thing, and there's the inevitable betrayal from the "least expected source." Your motivation's fairly slim, too. You supposedly are there to both fix the ship and find your ex-wife, but apart from the leader of your expidition mentioning once "If you do this, I'll look up her file for you," it's never used as a motivation. You simply get ordered about by the other members to fix various issues around the ship. You never find Nicole's room, or any sign of her. There's just no emotional arc, since the protagonist is presented as a blank slate. And if you don't mind a spoiler, highlight between the asterisks to see:

*Nicole (your ex wife) is dead, and if you didn't figure that out before it's revealed, shame on you. The entire ship is dead, the female on your crew talks about seeing her brother but "that's just not possible," you get random messages on multiple viewscreens from her saying "make us whole" which makes no sense unless you're talking about restoring that which was taken, aka the Marker, and the planet. And why are you still being attacked when you're doing the hive-mind's bidding in bringing the Marker back? You'd think that if it's really controlling everything, it'd pull the necromorphs back to let you do that. I think it would have been extra-creepy if they had just been standing around watching you bring the Marker back. And the ending is obviously the product of people who've played Metroid too much. Faceless armoured protagonist removes helmet to show face? Way to destroy the aesthetic you were supposedly going for EA, by making Issac the "everyman" with no face or personality, allowing the player to substitute themselves in to Issac's place. And then attacked by a necromorph. Straight out of most any bad horror movie. Including Alone in the Dark by Uwe Boll. And when you're ripping off Uwe, you've got serious issues. And yes, the ending is about 45 seconds.* Bad story, EA. Bad story.

6) Lack of feeling of accomplishment. Nothing about the ship changes. You unlock some doors. Yay you. The lighting never improves, the ship never becomes less damaged, the growth is never pushed back. In point of fact, it expands, despite your repeated efforts to curtail its growth. The only change is the bridge level, where the first time you're there, the ship's being rocked by asteroids (no pun intended). Even that's a fairly hollow accomplishment, however, since the ship never really feels in danger from the debris except when you're trying to shoot it down. It just never feels like you're improving conditions on the ship, and since you revisit sections which become reinfested with necromorphs when you come back, you're not even clearing out the ship. Hey EA! Since you're going to be lazy and make me revisit half the ship, how about you make it so that I can make those sections a bit safer? More lighting, sentry guns, something. ANYTHING. And while we're at it, the store. Good idea, but if I was on a ship overrun with slavering hordes, and there was a kiosk with theoretically infinite ammo, weapons, and healing, and I was an engineer with the technical ability to "hack" doors, and use nanotech to improve my gear, I'd crack open that store like it was the last can of Pepsi at a New Year's party. So why am I stuck with scrounging for credits? RE4's merchant is mysterious in how he manages to get everywhere ahead of you, with no difficulty, but at least there's a reason you don't roll him for the goods. 

7) The controls. What. The. Heck. I've got 3 bajillion keys here EA, so why do I need to have my weapon raised in order to use kinesis or stasis? It'd be nice to be able to use them while on the run. And why do I need my weapon raised in order to jump while in zero-g? I have a scroll wheel on my mouse. I'd like to scroll through my weapons. Especially since I'm only carrying two. I can get not using the "breadcrumbs" feature when my gun's raised, since I need a hand free for that. The mouse controls in the main screen menu suck. In-game, they're rough. You can't use the mouse in your RIG screens (inventory, quest journal, map, data) supposedly since the game doesn't pause in those screens--which is actually a neat bit, I admit-- but you're defenseless then anyways, you can't use your weapon, so why not let a guy use the mouse then, instead of making me move over to the cursor keys (that's right, not wasd, since you can still move). You know why it's like this? Because these are all artifacts of the console control scheme where there's limited buttons, and the d-pad's next to the joystick. Oh, and to make it more fun, there's cheat codes for the 360 and the PS3. But if you want to use them on PC, you need to hook up a 360 controller. I have the wireless connection USB thing, so I could do it, and at least they do work that way, but still, they couldn't even try to make a PC version of the codes? Was that too much work for you, EA?

8) DLC. Or rather, WHAT DLC? There's packs out for the 360 and PS3. Including a few console-exclusive items. But there's currently no announcement to bring any of it to PC either as chargable or free. Granted, most of it sucks, but considering the rest of the boning the PC version got, it would have been a nice gesture. 

9) Crash bugs. Apparently more than a few people have gotten this bug. During the final boss fight, twice in a row, in almost exactly the same place, the game crashed to desktop. That's right. Less than 5 minutes from the end, (the last boss fight's a bit of a joke, really) the game crashed on me. And more than a month after the game's been released, no patch for it that I could find. I got past it on the 3rd try, but darned if I know how. I just hit esc to bring up the options menu a whole bunch. 

10) "New Game +". Yeah, if you beat the game, and sit through the credits, you can save a cleared file, and restart with all your stuff. Only it's automatically whatever difficulty you were on in that play-through. I fail to see the fun on going through the same difficulty mode with all the toys from before. As I said, I was on easy, so do I really wanna do that again, only have it even easier? Gimme the ability to change the difficulty, so that I can play on a harder one without getting completely trounced.

11) Scares. Shock scares where something jumps out and attacks me doesn't work for long. It's cheap, and it'll get you one or two free scares. But as for actual horror? I had no connection to my character, so I didn't care what happened to him. He was generic horror-movie guy #267. How can I be scared if I don't care what happens to the guy? And really, considering the monsters always come from the ceiling or wall vents, or they're in plain sight, with very few exceptions, how scary is that? Oh, yawn, through the vent again? Didn't see that one coming. And part of a horror game is that sense of isolation. That's why Silent Hill works. You're alone, and you're vulnerable, and you don't know what's going on. In this game, you've got two people on coms telling you what to do next. You never really feel alone. Besides, the game throws necromorphs at you like they're popcorn, so even if you were alone, there's no time for tension to build. It's all "run in to room, kill necromorph, walk past arbitrary line, kill more necromorphs, pick up McGuffin, kill necromorphs, get nattered at, leave room, possibly killing more necromorphs." Maybe if there was ever a point where it was "enter room, pick up McGuffin, start to leave room, hear noise, leave," tension would have had a shot. 

12) 3rd person view. Yeah, it's an interesting way of making the game HUD-less. Your health is on your spine, your stasis energy's a dial, your ammo counter is on your weapon. But if you think about it logically, why the heck is it all on your back. Can you imagine this working in a real situation, day-to-day? "Hey Steve! Can you tell me if my stasis unit needs a recharge?" *twists around* "No, Frank, you're still over 50%. You might wanna see the doc though, your health's a little low." "Thanks, Steve." And the breadcrumbs usually follows grooves in the floor, likely set there just for that purpose, until you get to elevators, when the line just shoots up in mid-air. Would it have been that hard to have it crawl up a wall? First-person view, that would have been fine, since it could just be drawn on your visor, but in 3rd person, that's actually lighting up. And even after hours of playing, I still found myself trying to pull Issac towards the middle of the screen, since he's always in this weird hunched/twisted position. The only time I wasn't doing that was when I had my weapon up, since the sights told me what direction I was actually facing. If they'd just put a reticle up at all times, then not only would that issue have been avoided, they could have made it so you could zero-g jump and use stasis and kinesis without bringing up your weapon.

Really EA. I thought the days of craptacular ports of console games to PC were dead and gone. Thank you for reminding me of just how far we've got to go. There's no way this game's worth $50~60, but if you're looking for a decent way to kill a spare weekend, give it a rent for your console.

Dead Space

Right. I've only played for a little over an hour so far, so I fully reserve the right to change my opinions on this game after some more playing, but I figured I'd share now what I think, freeform. Meaning less coherent structure than usual.

I started out hating this game. I had a ton of issues. The mouse didn't work well in the menus, the control scheme is obtuse, and the third person view is annoying. I keep trying to run to the side to make up for the odd angle Issac's looking at. However, you can use the arrow keys to navigate the menus, you start to pick up on the controls eventually (though the console roots show fairly well, since there's no good reason I should have to have my plasma cutter readied in order to use kinesis), and you may get used to the over-the-shoulder (though this is apparently one of those games I can't play on an empty stomach, or I'll get nauseous). However, those issues aside, I've started to enjoy myself. I still only have the starting plasma cutter, but I'm starting to learn to wield it well. I upgraded my suit so I can hold more inventory, and I've got the basic idea how things work, including having spent a quick jaunt in zero-gee. That was a fun little learning experience. If you can stick it out through the learning curve, you just might enoy yourself with this one. The monsters are pretty interesting-looking, though in the vein of survival-horror games, they keep coming through the "windows," are lurking on the other side of doors, etc. If you've any experience with the genre, you'll very rarely be surprised on how they sneak up on you. The zero-gee areas will present an interesting bit though. As I've said, I'm only an hour in, so this isn't a review, just some impressions. If you're not sure about this game, give it a rental on console, and play for at least an hour. You'll need that long to really give it a fair shake. Heck, I'm still not sure if I actually like it, but I don't hate it anymore.

Left 4 Dead

Right. Zombies. What makes a good zombie game different from a bad zombie game? I mean, there's only so much you can do with zombies. Resident Evil's had to switch it up from the slow shufflers to runners, and they've had a diversity of enemies from the beginning. And tons of weapons. Dead Rising also had tons of weapons, and the whole point was basically to kill as many zombies as possible.

So where does this leave Left 4 Dead? It only has 6 types of enemies. It has 10 weapons. Four scenarios with 5 levels each, you can play through it all in 4 hours. And yet it's an amazingly fun, and engaging game. It's all about the details. Let's break it down. 

The Characters (aka "The Survivors"): The characters all have identical abilities, so it doesn't matter who you pick to play as. And the characters fit standard stereotypes of characters, as well. Francis is the tough biker, Bill's the hardened war veteran, Louis is the office drone and black guy, and Zoey's the plucky female. They're all different enough that you can tell who is who from a simple sillouette, which appears around characters when they're not in your line of sight. The character models are very detailed though. They get bloody when hit, or when killing zombies at close range. They limp convincingly when hurt. And the dialogue works. It's present, but not overbearing. It's subtle, and helps develop character more than any instruction manual background ever could. Bill hates stairs, and will let you know, occassionally. Zoey's often got a snappy line, with my favourite being when in the elevator in No Mercy she calls "zombie bullshit" about how the zombies can run and jump. 

The Zombies: You've got the basic Horde zombies. They're the ones you know and love from every zombie movie ever, only they can run, jump, climb, and do whatever it takes to get to you. It doesn't matter where you are, the Horde can find a way to reach you. Valve took a lot of care with the Horde. When not attacking you, they'll lean on scenery in various ways, sit down, lie down, or even fight each other. They'll also die in interesting manners. Some collapse, some stagger, others will cartwheel off from the force of your guns, and the momentum of ones running can carry them on for a few feet before they hit the pavement. 

After the Horde, you have the special zombies. Hunters, Smokers, Boomers, Witches, and Tanks. These ones always look identical, which is a bit of a letdown with the visual variety of the Horde and the details of the playable characters. However, more often than not, these will be the ones you're on the look-out for, so you might appriciate the visual consistency. Hunters are probably the easiest to deal with once you learn the trick. And I'm going to tell you the trick. Hunters leap huge distances and try to tackle you, and when they do, they rip your guts out until someone else comes to save you. However, while they're jumping at you, they're pretty vulnerable. If you're a steady shot, then you just need to unload at it, but the best way I've found it to use your melee attack to stun it while it's leaping at you, then pump rounds in to it until it's either recovered or dead. Boomers are next easiest, usually. You can hear them coming from miles away, and they don't move that quickly. The problem with boomers is their bile attack, and the fact they explode bile when you shoot them, so you have to shoot them from a distance. Anyone who's hit by bile attracts the Horde with singleminded determination. Depending on the difficulty, you could have 50+ Horde zombies gunning for you, and your vision will be severely comprimised. Smokers can be a real pain. They're easy to spot, since they're tall, skinny, and trail smoke. However, they can attack from very long ranges, from behind cover, so being easy to spot isn't that huge a deal for them. And the attack's very annoying, too. They wrap their tongue around you, and drag you off until you're either dragged to them, or you're caught on an obsticle. This not only renders you helpless as you're being constricted, but it seperates you out from the other survivors, meaning rescue's just that much further away. Hunters, Boomers, and Smokers are the 3 special zombies you'll have to deal with most often. The other two you'll see only a couple times per scenario. And you'll see why.

Witches are odd. They sit there, crying. And you'll hear the crying from a goodly distance away. Which is very good for you, because you do not want to stumble across one. Witches startle if you shine a flashlight on them, or if you're too close to them for too long, or if you shoot them. And if you disturb them, they're going to run straight at you. And if you don't kill them before they reach you, they incapacitate you in a single blow, and don't stop hitting you until you're dead, or they are, and they can take as much damage as they can dish out. Your best option is to sneak by. If not, and there will be cases where you can't, then try and set them on fire first, as that will greatly simplify the process of killing them. Ideally, the person to do that will have a shotgun, since the Witch will be running straight at them, and shotguns do more damage to closer targets.

Tanks are the worst zombie to run across. They can take thousands of points of damage, even on easy difficulty. Their attacks will send a survivor flying huge distances, deal a lot of damage, and stun you for a few seconds. They usually focus on one survivor until that person's dead, though after sending someone flying they sometimes switch targets. There's really only one strategy for Tanks. Shoot them a lot. Set them on fire if you can, and run around and hope like hell you don't get hit.

Now that we're familiar with the Rogue's Gallery, let's see what you get to combat them with. The weapons are fairly basic. You start out with a single pistol, and can pick up a second. Pistols have unlimited ammo, and fairly good accuracy. In sparsely populated areas, you'll probably want to have these out to conserve ammo for your other weapons. The shotgun and uzi are available as your secondary weapon choice from the start. Standard pump-action shotgun, holds 8 shots before needing to be reloaded, and good for close combat. Uzi has a 50-shot clip, has minimal stopping power, but slightly better accuracy and damage than your pistol, and fires much faster. Which you take depends on playstyle and what areas you're going in. The country areas are usually wide open, making a shotgun a poor choice, since zombies can come from any direction. City areas, zombies tend to funnel, so a shotgun can take out 3 or 4 a shot, without much difficulty. Then there's the next teir of weapons. Auto-shotgun, assault rifle, and hunting rifle. The auto-shotgun is just that. A shotgun that can keep firing without a pump in between. These make excellent tank killers and defence against Horde rushes. Assault rifles are basically upgraded uzis, as they fire quickly, have good accuracy, and better stopping power, and do more damage. Hunting rifles are the only weapon to get a scope, which gives them the best accuracy, and they do good damage. However, the slow rate of fire makes them an awkward choice when you're being swarmed. That's it for guns. Six. Seven if you count dual pistols seperately. That's not it for weapons though. There's 2 more things you can carry in your inventory. Molotov cocktails and pipebombs.

Molotovs are good impromptu barricades. They create a wall of fire of decent size, and any Horde zombie that wanders through is done for. Great way to protect your backside for a few seconds while you're dealing with a special upfront. They also help take out Witches and Tanks, if you can hit them. If you need to defend a point, they're excellent. 

Pipebombs are just fun, in my opinion. Pipebombs have the guts of a smoke detector taped on to them, and since loud or high-pitched sounds attract Horde zombies, all the zombies in the area gather around the pipebomb until it explodes, turning them all into pink mist. If you're in a large area with a buttload of Horde, or you're running low on ammo near a safehouse, these are the way to go. Unfortunately you can only carry one explosive at a time. Not one of each. One. You get to pick pipebomb or molotov. Fortunately, there's "environmental" items. These are things laying around that are usually explosive in nature. There's gas cans, oxygen tanks, propane tanks, and a few other things. You can pick these up and carry them, throw them, or set them down, and then shoot them. Gas cans act like molotovs, but oxygen tanks and propane tanks just explode when shot. The downside to these items is they don't go in inventory, you actually carry them, meaning you can't shoot although you can still use a melee attack. The last environmental item you can use, you can't take with you. A minigun. There's fixed emplacements where you can man a minigun that has unlimited ammo, though it does overheat if you fire constantly for too long.

Limted number of enemies, limited number of weapons. Yet the game is incredibly fun and involving. Why? Two reasons. First, it's a co-op game. There's always 4 characters active. If there aren't 4 players, then the others are AI-controlled. If you're incapacitated, the others can revive you. You can heal your teammates. You can give them pain pills to temporarily boost their health, and if you're pounced by a Hunter, or entangled by a Smoker, a fellow Survivor has to rescue you. Being dependant on others makes you feel very vulnerable, and ratchets up the tension several levels.

The second reason this game is so engaging is the AI Director. The Director will actually dynamically alter the game experience depending on how well you're doing. Weapons will spawn earlier or later. Ammo stockpiles more freely given, more health packs or pain pills. But that's the least of it. It will also send more zombies at you if you're doing well, and more of the special types. If you're doing poorly, or if you die even, it will ratchet back the difficulty, spawning fewer zombies, and making them slightly easier to kill. And after fairly extensive testing, I'd have to say it works very well.

The only real downsides for this game are: a) no passworded games, so people can randomly pop in whenever they want, since you can join mid-game. b) A fairly limited selection of weapons. c) A fairly limited selection of enemies. d) A fairly limited selection of scenarios. However, since this game is made by Valve, there's probably going to be additional content later, similar to Team Fortress 2.

Overall, this is an excellent game if you enjoy co-op multiplayer and/or shooting zombies. It runs off the Source engine, so you don't even need a beast of a computer to run it. Now excuse me, I have an infected city to escape.

Fallout 3

To kick things off, I'll start with a quick review of Fallout 3 for the PC.

Yes, this uses the same engine as Oblivion, but this is not Elder Scrolls with Guns. This is also not the Fallout you remember. We now know what it isn't, but what about what it is?

This is a deep, engaging RPG with some shooter elements. Since you can switch between first and third person (I encourage you to spend some time in 3rd person view just to see the great detail that goes into your character model). This is the first game since Deus Ex that I feel really allows you to play how you want to play. Talking your way out of most situations, stealth killer who only attacks from the shadows, stand-up brawler who puts your fist in someone's face, or shooting them before they even can see you. No matter your play style, you'll find accommodation in this game.

Combat also has depth to it. Excellent twitch-shooters will appreciate the ability to shoot at a distance, and the responsive controls, although the reduced accuracy until your skill is raised up a bit. Those who prefer combat to be more methodical can rely on VATS (Vault-tec Assisted Targeting System). The VATS takes your distance from enemy, and obstacles in the way, your skill with the weapon, and other factors and calculates a percentage chance to hit different body parts, as well as probable damage dealt. Some enemies even have specific spots on them that if destroyed, give different penalties such as becoming frenzied.

Graphics in the game look good close up, and don't require extreme amounts of hardware to achieve, but at the cost of the pop-in distance becoming a little distracting at times. NPCs that you meet will actually look different, and you'll be able to differentiate them at a distance if you learn who's who. You'll also need to rely on the light shed by your pip-boy in order to see in dark areas, and the game is actually able to project a creepy atmosphere which can really make you fear for your life. 

Sound is another high point. Despite being a wasteland, there are still lone insects chirping, objects make noise when kicked around or dropped, you have a radio available to listen to (as well as various radios tuned in as you explore). If you listen closely, you can hear enemies before you see them in close areas, and the intelligent characters will even talk to each other on occassion. 

For the main story, it's engaging enough, though if you're an explorer, you might end up skipping large chunks by accidentally poking your nose into the wrong place. To me, though, where the game really shines is in the side quests. Almost every quest can be completed in multiple ways. Good, neutral, or bad. And you're not locked in to playing any one way. No matter what, you can always pull it around. It also isn't just the cheezy "Please help us, you're our only hope" attempts to sway you to good, and the "I'll pay you lots of money" to be evil. People who need help make actual cases for helping them. If you're the type to look out for other people, you'll find plenty who are in a tough spot. If you want to look out for #1, then you'll find others with a similar mindset who are more than happy to enlist your services in their goals. I really applaud Bethesda for getting excellent voice actors and a solid script. Too few games realize just how important those things are in an RPG.

Now, there are a few places where the game falls down. The quest tracker is frustratingly vauge on the steps at some points in quests, and you might need to take a few notes by hand, just in case. There are a few random crash bugs, as well as reports of the game crashing when entering VATS on some systems. It can be very difficult to see some enemies even while they're in the open and attacking you. Leveling isn't very transparent. Yes, lockpicking, science, and barter are fairly straightforward skills, but what about small guns, stealth, speech, or medical? Just what amount of bonus are you getting for your point investment? And while the sound is good, it doesn't make a distinction about height. An enemy might be a level above or below, but it will sound like it is right beside you.

Save for those faults though, this is still an excellent game and I recommend it to anyone who likes a good story, eye-candy graphics, or good combat. Fallout 3 has a very good chance at being in my top 5 games of 2008, and you should get it for whatever system you have available.