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Defiance TV Tie-ins #2: Episodes 1 and 2 Pursuits

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Defiance is a multiplatform (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) MMO third person shooter, based in the universe of the SyFy television series of the same name, which is in its first season as of the time of this writing. Invisible Gamer has reviewed the core game and now continues its look at the MMO’s content as it, as designed, evolves to connect with the TV show. This time, we look at content released between the pilot episode and the second episode, Down in the Ground Where the Dead Men Go.

Folks, if the prelude missions that were available at launch to prepare viewers for the pilot episode were a juicy steak with all the trimmings, then the content released in the wake of the pilot episode would generously be called “Spam.”

Shortly after the two-hour pilot aired, fans fired up the MMO in hopes of new Episode Missions, wondering how the game, set in San Francisco, would somehow tie into events in the series, which is set in St. Louis (now known as Defiance). Unfortunately, there were no new Episode Missions to be had. Instead, content was added in the form of new Emergencies and Pursuits to tie into them.

In Defiance game terms, an “Emergency” is a randomly-spawning event in the game’s world. While side missions, time trials, challenges, and such are all noted on the game’s map with specific markers to start those missions, Emergencies simply pop up and can be ignored or engaged in at will. Examples include roadblocks by enemies, random swarms of Hellbugs (see the third episode of the TV series for more of those), a hostage situation, and the like.

To tie into the pilot episode’s celebration of the Armistice that ended the Pale Wars, the new Emergencies that were added each featured a group of celebrating pilgrims, visiting the San Francisco Bay area where the final battle was fought, who were under attack by one of the game’s antagonist groups: mutants, 99ers, Dark Matter, or raiders. These were random, just like the other Emergencies in the game, but these would only exist from just after the pilot’s airing until the day of the series’ third weekly television episode.

A series of seven new data recorders (audio logs) were also scattered about the game’s landscape, featuring recordings that tied into the backstory of the Armistice itself.

To make use of these new Emergencies and data recorders, players were given a new category of Pursuits (basically to-do lists to complete in order to obtain more XP, special rewards, etc.). These new Episode Pursuits were split into two groups: Episode 1 and Episode 2. (This was assumed to mean that the game was treating the double-length pilot episode as two episodes, the same way numbering on iTunes and other digital media sites do. However, a total lack of new content between the second and third weeks of the TV series suggests that the pilot was Episode 1, and they simply front-loaded Episode 2 content before Down in the Ground Where the Dead Men Go actually aired.)

These new Pursuits were extremely lackluster and excessively frustrating, to the point that the official Defiance forums were flooded by angry players.

Episode 1 Pursuits: Frustrating, But Possible

Episode 1: Armistice Pursuits included Memories of Armistice (a hunt for four new data recorders to earn XP), Peacekeeper (a mission to ignite 10 new Lights of the Fallen that were added in various places in the areas north of the Golden Gate Bridge, along with three missions to protect celebratory pilgrims from enemies in those new Emergencies), Shadows of Defiance (a mission to light 10 more Lights of the Fallen, this time south of the bridge, along with completing the San Fransciso pilgrim-protection Emergency, and two goals that amounted to killing 10 enemies each of two different specific types south of the Golden Gate Bridge). Your reward, other than the four data recorders being added to your game archives, would be two new titles: “Keeper of the Northern Lights” and “Keeper of the Southern Lights.”

And, boy, did you have to earn those titles! Due to the random nature of Emergency spawns, and the fact that a new Emergency will only spawn when one in the same area has been completed, players spent hours and hours (and hours and hours) trying to complete those four requirements. On the other hand, some managed to complete them without realizing it, as each had a different name, and those names did little to make it obvious that these were the pilgrim-protection events in question. (Then again, perhaps fans were wrong. Perhaps a title like Burn, Baby, Burn just screams that it is about protecting celebratory pilgrims from disgruntled-miners-turned-killers.) The frustration boiled over until Trion Worlds provided a quick server-side update to make the spawning of these particular random Emergencies happen more frequently than others. Even then, the process could take many hours of play to have any hope of completion.

Episode 2 Pursuits: Literally Impossible

Episode 2: Most Wanted Pursuits seemed to have zero connection to the television series at all and amounted to little more than data recorder hunting and a to-do list of kills. Turning an Asset had players snagging a Lawkeeper Cap headgear item by finding three more hidden data recorders, while the Most Wanted: Contract Killer Pursuit required killing 10 of the tougher enemies from each of the four main enemy groups (with one of those Pursuits overlapping with Episode 1’s similar requirement for Shadows of Defiance), along with completing one of the game’s Contracts (Wanted: Dy’Dekusko) by playing through the Explosions 101 co-op mission. The reward for completing this Pursuit was another new title: “Giant Slayer.”

A third Episode 2 Pursuit, Most Wanted: Competitor, required winning one of each type of multiplayer match (Capture and Hold, Competitive PVP, and Shadow War), along with completing another contract (Most Wanted: Contract Killer – yes, named the same as the second Episode 2 Pursuit to make things that much more confusing and “bugged” in the game code) that requires 100 kills in competitive  matches.

This is where things get even more messy. In order to complete two of these three Episode 2 Pursuits, a player must complete a Contract. However, Contracts are not available at all until players reach EGO Level 250, so newer players, especially those who jumped into the game after the pilot episode aired, either had to move very quickly through the game, or simply find themselves virtually locked out of completing those two Pursuits.

Even more distressing was the requirement for Most Wanted: Competitor that the player win one Capture and Hold match, when Capture and Hold matches do not exist yet in the game! Within the first hours of the game’s launch, Trion Worlds realized that their Capture and Hold map was flawed and easily exploitable, so they removed it from the game, which removed that entire mode from multiplayer options. The Pursuit requirement was literally impossible. Needless to say, players were livid. Fortunately for PC and Xbox 360 players, who had received a large game patch (which introduced more problems that it solved for the game as a whole), received a new update that removed that requirement from the Pursuit. That was not the case for PS3 players, however, as their larger patch was, at the time, lost in “awaiting certification” hell, which meant that the Capture and Hold requirement could not be removed. Players began contacting Trion’s support team to have the requirement manually checked off on their end, so that the reward XP could be granted after the other requirements were completed. This was not foolproof, however, as whether the support team member would happily check that item off for you or give you the runaround and claim that it was not something that could be done seemed to be entirely dependent upon which support team member the player had the fortune (or misfortune) to speak with.

One should also note that the 100 kills PVP requirement for this Pursuit is apparently bugged, as it would seem that it is possible for the requirement to be checked off well before 100 kills by completing the Most Wanted: Contract Killer Pursuit, instead of the Contract of the same name.

Wariness of the Days Ahead

And so, Defiance continues forward, as the PS3 is slated, as of this writing, to finally receive multiple patches to catch it up to the other two platforms, the television series prepares to air for its third week, and the Episode 1 and Episode 2 Pursuits (or at least the Emergencies and data recorders to complete them) are slated to disappear from the game. A great set of Episode Missions to lead into the series that raised high hopes for the promised episodic tie-in content has been followed by two weeks of frustration, disappointment, and, for many players, outright anger with Trion Worlds.

Here’s hoping that this was the hiccup, and the Episode Missions seen at the game’s launch are to be the norm. If it is the other way around, this will not end well for Defiance and its creative team.

D


Star Trek (2013) Review

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In the time since 2009′s Star Trek film by J.J. Abrams breathed new life into a franchise that had started to grow rather stale, there has been little to experience in that chronologically-altered, new-possibilities-abound version of the Star Trek universe, as we awaited the 2013 release of Star Trek Into Darkness. The one shining beacon of hope for fans of “Abrams Trek” was a new video game, also simply entitled Star Trek, from Namco Bandai. We were excited, eager, and thrilled to see a new Star Trek game that previews made look leaps and bounds better than most games for the franchise.

Then, of course, we actually played the game.

Story Concept

Star Trek diverts from previous continuity (something that the reboot film itself purposely avoided in making this a divergent timeline, rather than an entirely different universe with entirely different rules). It does so in turning the classic television Gorn species into beings that are more saurian in appearance and hailing from a different dimension, where they have decimated and enslaved their own galaxy’s inhabitants. They have emerged into the Trek dimension through a rip in space.

The 2009 Trek reboot version of the Enterprise crew face off with this re-imagined Gorn force aboard a Vulcan space station, where they also run into Spock’s old friend T’Mar, who is assisting in the colonization efforts for New Vulcan. (This, of course, directly ties into the destruction of Vulcan in the 2009 film, reminding us that this is a whole new ballgame.) The Gorn steal the so-called Helios Device, which they could utilize for nefarious ends, forcing Captain James T. Kirk and Commander Spock, along with the rest of the crew, to battle them across a Starfleet space station, the Gorn homeworld on the other side of the Rip, and aboard both a Gorn mothership and an Enterprise under siege.  While few direct ties would appear to exist between this game and Star Trek Into Darkness, a post-credits sequence sends the crew to the planet on which we first see them in the new film.

Gameplay

Star Trek is a third person shooter with other elements thrown in to change things up from time to time. You will play as either Kirk or Spock for the entirety of the adventure, traveling through six major environments, in a total of more than thirty mission segments, some quite short and others longer than one might expect in a film tie-in game.

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The shooting mechanics are functional, allowing a player to handle a phaser (almost always equipped), a secondary weapon (all variants of classic shooter weapons, albeit often in Gorn varieties with different appearances, even for those that are just glorified shotguns, sniper rifles, etc.), a few grenade variants, and the like. Kirk and Spock can slide into cover, move from cover to cover somewhat easily, and generally make good use of their surroundings. On the other hand, they cannot carry out melee attacks at all, suggesting that Starfleet Academy took that out of their training program, and all of those punches delivered by the characters in the 2009 film were just the daydreams of delusional fanboys.

The most useful non-weapon mechanic is the Tricorder, which can be used to scan surroundings to determine the awareness of enemies, the health of the other player character, activate or initiate hacks on devices, and scan for databank information that rewards XP (which can be spent on weapon and Tricorder upgrades that never really feel like they make any difference in gameplay). Think of the Tricorder as Star Trek’s answer to Metroid Prime’s scanning function, and you’ll hit it on the nose.

Play can be handled in both single and two-player co-ops modes, though the single-player option simply provides a second player (as whichever character you did not choose) as an AI partner. When working correctly, the AI partner works well enough to not get you constantly killed, and the AI is decent enough in a firefight to assist from time to time, though not enough to allow you to sit back while they slaughter Gorn with abandon.

Hacking computer terminals becomes a dull chore after a while, based around only a few standard types, one of which is a variant on the snakes/worms/eels game that old Basic users might remember.

Flying the Enterprise into a brief combat mission in space would seem like a hugely entertaining event, but controls are too vague and frustrating to make it more than a chore.

On the plus side, when the game briefly interrupts the run and gun gameplay for stealth, it works well, and you really feel like you are following Starfleet orders when avoiding gunplay or stunning crewmembers who aren’t in their right minds, rather than killing them. In the few times that the game decides that it wants to be Uncharted (in Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace) with climbing and leaping segments, it works well, though the visual design always makes it look like you have missed your handhold before you are shown grabbing it.

Perhaps the most thrilling, albeit brief, bits that deviate from shooting are the few segments when Kirk and Spock must either use winged jumpsuits (of the type Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 players will recognize) or small thruster objects to either glide through a planetary environment or zip through the void of space. These are fast paced, non-combat breathers that might take some practice but are a nice chance of pace.

All in all, Star Trek’s substantial campaign is fun, if sometimes repetitive, when it works correctly.

Wait, “when it works correctly?” What does that mean?

Glitches Galore

To say that Star Trek is the most “glitchy” game that I have played in this console generation would not be an exaggeration. Granted, I never had Kirk (my chosen character) fall through the scenery into nothingness or had my Playstation 3 crash into a hard reboot, but I gave up on counting the number of times I had to reload a checkpoint or restart an entire level due to a glitch after the fifth time I nearly threw my controller through the screen.

The objective marker will sometimes decide not to notice that you have passed through it, leaving you heading blind into new areas without a guide. This would not be a big deal, except that sometimes these objective markers are linked to events that are required to proceed, such as Gorn charging out of a door you need to enter, which will otherwise remain closed indefinitely.

More often, you will find your AI partner simply going insane, or forcing yours to go insane in his stead. Kirk might randomly start running into a wall, continuing to run as if trying to push down the wall with sheer stubborn athleticism. Other times, you might reach a door that requires two characters to pry open, yet your AI partner will stand there doing his best impression of a Renaissance era statue in a Starfleet uniform. Once, I even encountered a glitch that had Kirk, under my control, activate a turbolift, followed by Spock and T’Mar entering . . . which somehow caused Kirk to start running in a desperate, sprinting circle like a Borg with a new prime directive that read simply: “Ring Around the Rosy.”

Do not go into Star Trek expecting a smooth ride. You will encounter glitches, and you will have to restart checkpoints from time to time. Either approach the game with Vulcan patience, or be ready to feel like the glitches are treating you about as well as Uhura’s friends treated Kirk when hitting on her in that bar. I half expected the game to glitch, then hear a voice from within call me “Cupcake.”

Authentic Trek

With this being a licensed game that is meant to lead up to a new film, the atmosphere is absolutely nailed for this game. All of the film actors reprise their roles as the voices and character models for the Enterprise crew, though the graphics of this game look more like a very high-end Wii game or a very early Xbox 360 game than something released in 2013. (Kirk and Spock look fine in most pre-rendered cutscenes and in normal gameplay, but when dialogue runs in-engine, they look like bad Claymation characters, and Kirk looks like someone grabbed his mouth model back when he was puffing up like a balloon during McCoy’s plan to sneak him aboard the Enterprise in the reboot. “Numb tongue?” No, but how about “baboon lips?”)

In terms of writing, the script nails the characters and their banter in the same way the 2009 reboot did. (Now, if only the same lines weren’t repeated over and over again during play. Not everything is “fascinating,” Mr. Quinto. I mean, “Mr. Spock.”)

Sound effects, music, and almost all dialogue is all top-notch. Someone listening to you play without looking at the screen could quite possibly wonder if you were watching  a new Star Trek film they hadn’t heard about. (Of course, someone watching the game without listening would wonder if you had broken out your last-gen system for one more go-round.)

The Verdict

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If it seems like I’m bashing Star Trek by emphasizing its flaws, allow me to channel the president with an emphatic Let Me Be Clear. This game is a fun Star Trek romp, and one of the first times I have ever really enjoyed a Star Trek video game. In its story, campaign length, voice work, and audio authenticity, this is one of the best film tie-in games that I have played in quite a while.  On the other hand, frustrating glitches and graphics that seem woefully out of date are a body blow to what should have been a rather good game that could have been a great game without a film premiere deadline looming over its head during production.

As it stands, while I did enjoy playing through Star Trek, I cannot say that it justifies its sixty dollar retail price tag. If you are a die-hard fan of Abrams new take on Trek, wait until this one hits thirty or forty bucks, and you will feel better about the purchase that I have. If you are a casual Trek fan looking to experience Trek’s Abramsverse to scratch a Trek gaming itch, this one justifies a rental, but not much else.

C

 

Defiance TV Tie-ins #4

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Defiance is a multiplatform (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) MMO third person shooter, based in the universe of the SyFy television series of the same name, which is in its first season as of the time of this writing. Invisible Gamer has reviewed the core game and now continues its look at the MMO’s content as it, as designed, evolves to connect with the TV show. (See our coverage of the firstsecond, and third rounds of such content.) This time, we look at content released to coincide with the show’s fifth episode, The Serpent’s Egg.

After a week in which no new content was released to coincide with its fourth episode, A Well Respected Man – which was a non-event that followed two rounds of “TV tie-ins” that amounted to nothing more than new Pursuits and Emergencies – fans’ patience was wearing thin. Before the show premiered, Episode Missions had done a great job tying the game into the television series for players eager for the show, only for content in the first month of the series to be little more than glorified checklists to tackle and, due to poor planning on Trion Worlds’ part, a great deal of frustration for fans.

Now, as the television series enters its second month on the air, new Episode Missions have appeared to bring meaningful tie-ins between the game and SyFy series.

Television Series Background

In the show’s third episode (The Devil in the Dark), we see the return of Rynn, an Irathient girl who, for personal reasons revealed in the episode, is staging attacks against the population of Defiance (St. Louis) by driving Hellbugs into a killing frenzy with Hellbug pheromones. She finds herself arrested by the end of the episode.

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After not showing up for the next episode, Rynn reappeared in the episode that aired the same day this new content went live. In that episode, The Serpent’s Egg, Rynn frees herself amid a tense situation while being taken to Vegas Prison, only to save the day for Lawkeeper Joshua Nolan and Mayor Amanda Rosewater. While they are in no position to stop her from going free after those events, they decide not to pursue her.

Now, Rynn has found her way to the San Francisco Bay area (AKA “Paradise”), the setting of the game, after crossing the Wastes between there and Defiance (and apparently separating from a character who left with her in the episode). She is being hunted by Earth Republic forces, led by Colonel Gretch, who are using Angel Island as a testing facility to develop ways to control Hellbugs for use in warfare. Having heard about Rynn’s use of pheromones to control them – and that she is in the area – the Earth Republic wants her captured.

Six New Episode Missions

Thus begins a series of six Episode Missions, though each is relatively short. In The Vagabond, the player is called upon by Lawkeeper Jon Cooper to check out trouble with a vagabond (Rynn) nearby. After being saved from crazed Hellbugs by the player and Cooper, she impresses Cooper by telling him that Joshua Nolan had let her go (from a certain point of view). He allows her to remain at large “on probation,” and this prompts an investigation into E-Rep’s Project Piper, which is Gretch’s Hellbug-taming operation.

The next four Episode Missions are basically just data recorders to collect, albeit with mission rewards for collecting them, rather than just the data recorder Intel itself. They are entitled Piper Investigation, Parts 1 – 4.

Finally, with enough intelligence to go after the actual E-Rep facility on Angel Island (an underground base on the same island as the Island of Lost Soldiers co-op map), your character joins Rynn and Indogene scientist Eren Niden (encountered in the main story, just like Cooper), in raiding a “dungeon” full of E-Rep soldiers and Hellbugs, finally having to defeat a Hellbug monarch beast. Most interestingly, these Hellbugs are all “mutated,” so they are essentially an acid-based variant of the elemental Hellbug types that were introduced in the last Pursuits update.

Completing the bunker mission, entitled Paying the Piper (as if no one saw that coming), earns the player an Infector Grenade weapon. Moreover, completing these six Episode Missions are the six requirements to complete the new Pursuit Silencing the Piper, which, interestingly, is filed under the Svushinnira Pursuit set, alongside the two added in the previous update (Unconventional Methods and Thinning the Herd). Completing this Pursuit provides a new title: “Paid Piper.”

Impossible, Now Possible

I should also note that the Contract that was previously unavailable due to the Most Wanted contest, entitled Svushinnira: Thinning the Herd (not to be confused with the Pursuits), was made available at the time of the same update that added in these new Rynn-based Episode Missions (March 13, 2013). It makes sense that this was the case, as the Contract requires killing 100 of the special mutated Hellbugs that appear in the Paying the Piper Episode Mission. It had already been removed from the requirements for the Unconventional Methods Pursuit a few days earlier, thus quelling yet another incident of requiring players to do something that was, at the time, literally impossible.

The Verdict

After a month of frustration and disappointment among fans of Defiance in both its incarnations, during which the demand for more Episode Missions turned into an outcry, I am happy to say that this week finally met that demand and provided what fans were hoping for: new Episode Missions in the game that actually felt like they meant something in the context of the show.

Granted, the entire scenario only requires about an hour to complete, and four of the six Episode Missions are glorified data recorder hunts, but an hour of new gameplay to go along with a new hour of the series on SyFy is a welcome addition and a definite step in the right direction for Defiance.

(Heck, we didn’t even end up being asked to do anything impossible this week. I just might faint!)

A-minus

Injustice: Gods Among Us: The Case for the Wii U

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Batman_0If you are a fighting game fan, you should be playing Injustice: Gods Among Us. If you are a more casual fighting game fan, then you should be playing it on the Wii U.

The Wii U version of Injustice: Gods Among Us, NetherRealm Studios’ new DC Comics 2D fighter in the vein of their 2011 Mortal Kombat reboot, has taken a beating from critics, who decry the lack of a few specific features that are present for players of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions. Rarely will you see a reviewer give equal time to what makes the Wii U version a great fit for a more casual segment of the fighting game fanbase, but that kind of missing voice is precisely the perspective that we at Invisible Gamer strive to provide.

So, hang onto your Batarangs and ready your capes, as we take a look at how a Wii U player’s Injustice experience stands up against its older console brethren.

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Features Missing from the Wii U Version

Let’s hit the negatives that are so often criticized first.

We were told before launch that the Wii U version would not be getting downloadable content (DLC), despite the fact that the game’s own case says that it does. So, which claim was true? Well, both, sort of. The Wii U has not gotten DLC (such as the Lobo add-on character) as early as the PS3 or Xbox 360. However, it will be getting DLC sometime this summer. Thus, the criticism that the game lacks DLC (which some actually took as a plus, as it would eliminate the temptation to spend more on the game after the initial purchase) will only remain valid for a short time.

Perhaps the most important missing features are in the game’s online multiplayer modes. On the other two consoles, Injustice’s multiplayer options include the ability to set up a ranked match, player match, or private match, along with the ability to join or create rooms. Three forms of player matches are available: 1V1 (a standard one-on-one fight, similar to the offline versus mode that all versions include), KOTH (King of the Hill, wherein players line up to compete in a room where others can watch the current match, and whoever wins a fight remains in play for the next fight), and Survivor (similar to KOTH, though your health is not refilled between matches if you win). Within public and private rooms, players can watch other players compete when not actively fighting. The Wii U retains the offline versus mode, all three player matches, and ranked matches, but it has no room mechanic whatsoever. Moreover, when a battle against an online opponent ends on the other consoles, a rematch option will appear, but the Wii U version simply kicks the player back to the menu to choose an online match type again.

Also among the multiplayer perks of the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions is a series of daily challenges that can be completed for XP during online multiplayer matches. These challenges are entirely absent from the Wii U version.

For fighting game enthusiasts who play for the thrill of kicking the butts of fellow human players and watching others do so in an online group setting, or those who enjoy showing off their accomplishments through Trophies or Achievements, these omissions could be deal-breakers; they have certainly been harped upon by many gaming websites.

The Wii U edition also lacks any connectivity with the Injustice iOS game, which can be used to unlock extra costumes for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions.

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Features Unique to the Wii U Version

The Wii U edition of Injustice utilizes the system’s Gamepad in two ways that make it particularly appealing to casual gamer or a fighting game fan who isn’t into the hardcore, anonymous human vs. human battles of online multiplayer, but is instead more interested in a single player experience than anything on the multiplayer side.

First, when playing with the Gamepad (which is not a necessity, as you can play with the Wii U Pro Controller as well), you have the option to view gameplay on your television screen, while the Gamepad screen displays your character’s move list (or an abbreviated version thereof, depending on the number of special moves your character can employ). For casual players who find themselves frequently having to pause and work their way through move lists, which interrupts the action of the game, this is a rather nice, helpful (albeit obvious) addition to the Wii U version.

Second, as in the case of quite a few multiplatform games that have arrived on the Wii U, the Gamepad screen can also be used to duplicate the television screen, allowing players to play directly on the Gamepad, even when the television is off. The result is the feeling of having an HD console experience in your hands with greater mobility within range of the Wii U (The closest similar experience I could suggest would be playing Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 on the Playstation Vita). Again, for a casual player, this is a helpful and welcome feature.

It should also be noted that while the Wii U version lacks Trophies or Achievements, it does have a Miiverse community, which, if a player wants to reach out and communicate successes with others, is a much more personal and interactive way to do so than a simple checklist of actions taken.

Same at the Core

The single player experience is identical between consoles, including the Wii U. The game’s story mode is perhaps the best that fighting games have ever seen, and there are plenty of Battle Modes (similar to Mortal Kombat ladders, with varied conditions to choose from) and S.T.A.R. Labs challenges (240 in all) that will test your wits, skills, and – often above all – patience.

Aside from the five costumes currently tied into the iOS game or DLC that is still forthcoming for the Wii U, Injustice includes all of the regular unlockable costumes as the core game for the other two platforms.

Gameplay is unchanged between editions, without any “cheats” available via the Gamepad touchscreen to dumb down the game (e.g. the 3DS edition of Super Street Fighter IV).

(Speaking of gameplay, for those turned off by NetherRealm’s Mortal Kombat control scheme, we should mention that the controls for Injustice dump the block button for the “press away or down” mechanic of most fighting games, and the face buttons have changed to general low, medium, and high attacks, along with a special power button, similar to the control scheme of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. I personally have found both of these to be positive changes.)

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The Verdict

If you are a hardcore fighting game fan, and your only option to play Injustice: Gods Among Us is the Wii U, then the purchase is a no-brainer. If you are a hardcore fighting game fan with either of the other consoles, and your focus is almost entirely on expansive online multiplayer modes (especially using rooms and spectating), then the Wii U version is not for you. On the other hand, if you love fighting games but prefer an outstanding single player experience, like the idea of playing without being attached to the television, tend to check move lists frequently, and can make do with a solid (but slightly less than fully-featured) multiplayer suite, then the Wii U should be your preferred console for Injustice.

For players like me, the more solitary breed of gamer, the Wii U simply does this one better.

Defiance TV Tie-ins #5

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sicknessDefiance is a multiplatform (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) MMO third person shooter, based in the universe of the SyFy television series of the same name, which is in its first season as of the time of this writing. Invisible Gamer has reviewed the core game and now continues its look at the MMO’s content as it, as designed, evolves to connect with the TV show. (See our coverage of the firstsecondthird, and fourth rounds of such content.) This time, we look at content released during the “dead weeks” following the television episode Brothers in Arms.

Due to the Memorial Day holiday, SyFy delayed the episode Good Bye Blue Sky from May 27 until June 3. This left players in a bit of a quandary. There had been no new content whatsoever released to coincide with the show’s May 20 episode, Brothers in Arms, and, given that most new content is released around the same time that a new episode airs, it seemed likely that no new content would arrive until June 3. Fortunately, this was not the case, but new content, while varied, was rather light.

New Traditional Content

This update, following the 1.020 patch for the game, was the smallest thus far, but interesting to see. Much like the changes made to add in elemental Hellbugs to tie into the episode The Devil in the Dark, this update was in the form of content that appeared naturally in the game world, rather than through Episode Missions that were “closed off” behind the act of actually choosing to start the mission. In this case, several areas of the game (Top Notch Toolworks, Ara Shondu’s Consulate, etc.) were updated to include areas in which sick humans were being treated for an unidentified disease that seemed to be tied into the Irathients in the community (the same species as Irisa in the show and the only non-human species that players can choose to be at this point).

To go along with these new triage areas, a new set of Episode Pursuits was added, Plague, which consisted of a single Pursuit (so far): Hunting the Cure. To complete this Pursuit, players were to hunt down three new data recorders that were added into the game at the triage areas (one each at Shondu’s Consulate, Iron Demon Ranch, and Top Notch Toolworks). These provided interesting background to the unexpected situation in the game, but the recorders were all in plain sight and could all be gathered (if one knew where to look) in the span of about five minutes of gameplay (including loading times between fast travel jumps).

New Oddball Content

During this gap between episodes, we also saw the return of a special Time Trial (racing to get a gold trophy) that would unlock the ability to purchase new colors of the Dodge Challenger vehicle in the game.

Those looking for new contests in hopes of winning something in the real world or acknowledgement from Trion Worlds were also provided with two new ways to compete with other players directly. First, Challenges began being issued by the creative team in their Across the Badlands streaming “Behind the Scenes” program. Essentially, the team gave a time limit of one hour after the program aired online for fans to kill the most of a particular enemy type. Second, a similar set of challenges became part of a new contest, the Dodge Defiance Arkfall Sweepstakes, in which one could win real-world prizes like a trip, a game console, or other items.

Also, while not being new “content,” per se, Defiance did experience its first “bonus loot weekend” during the first weekend of June, which was a nice reward for players during that time.

The Verdict

While the new illness emerging in the game’s storyline and the extremely quick and simple Pursuit that it provided are an interesting addition to the game’s setting, it was also such a fast, easy Pursuit that it amounts to very little in terms of new content. It was not outright broken like some earlier Pursuits, but its minimal size would probably have marked this one for a grade of D or F. However, the fact that this was an “off week” for the television show, yet we still saw new content, and the addition of the Across the Badlands challenge, Dodge’s sweepstakes, and bonus loot weekend serve to help balance this out, even if they did not represent new actual content in the game. For an off week, this minimal addition and its contest-style companions leave this Defiance update with a grade of…

C

Resident Evil: Revelations: The Case for an Upgrade (and the Wii U)

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2012′s Resident Evil: Revelations was a breath of fresh air for survival horror fans who have become frustrated by the direction Resident Evil has taken in recent years. Resident Evil 5Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, Resident Evil 6, and even the first 3DS Resident Evil title, Mercenaries 3D, have shifted the focus of the series from creepy exploration and survival with limited resources to standard third person shooter run-and-gun scenarios. Amid those releases, though, Revelations for the 3DS managed to bring back a feeling much closer to the original Resident Evil games, creating a hybrid of shooter and survival horror that harkened back to Resident Evil 4 and the add-on Lost in Nightmares mission for Resident Evil 5. The game became a hit for the 3DS and a reason for many disillusioned owners of Nintendo’s newest handheld to think twice about ditching the system. Now, in 2013, Revelations is no longer a 3DS exclusive, negating some of that impetus for keeping the handheld, but the 3DS’s loss a definite gain for Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and – to a greater extent – Wii U owners. But should you upgrade if you have already played the game? And if you do, does the Wii U’s dual-screen gameplay recreate the 3DS experience enough to make it the version gamers should choose?

Same Game with Twists

Players of the 3DS version will find that the game itself has not been substantially changed. The story, which takes place between Resident Evil 4 and the Lost in Nightmares DLC from Resident Evil 5, puts Jill Valentine and new partner Parker Luciani aboard a derelict ship carrying the results of a new bioweapon outbreak: the T-Abyss virus, which, instead of creating zombies, creates strange creatures known as Ooze (which are, compared to the enemies of other RE games, pretty disappointing in design). Chris Redfield and his new partner, Jessica Sherawat, seek to find and rescue Jill and Parker, while another duo, Keith Lumley and Quint Cetcham, seek out answers to assist both teams in their missions. You play as members of all three teams at different points in the tale. The game plays out through 12 multi-part episodes, each of which begins with a “Previously on Resident Evil: Revelations” video that helps provide momentum and gives the game a sense of style reminiscent of Alan Wake. Cutscenes, flashback segments (that you actually play, rather than watch), and such weave a complicated conspiracy tale that has more depth than most Resident Evil fare. Between the normal campaign and the co-op Raid Mode, very little has changed here, except for some placement of enemies and items, along with some minor new enemy types. However, the available Infernal difficulty mode changes things up and adds enough new challenges to allow for quite a bit of replay value for hardcore players who plan to upgrade from the 3DS to an HD console.

From Two Screens to One

The biggest gameplay changes to Revelations come from the need to take a game that was originally played on the 3DS with one regular screen and one touchscreen into something that can be played on a single television screen, while allowing it to be controlled by the dual-analog sticks and greater number of buttons found on the HD consoles’ controllers. The original 3DS game featured third person movement through the environment on the top screen, with the bottom of that screen usually staying uncluttered by indicators except for remaining ammunition. Your map, weapons, and items were all controlled via a crammed-but-functional touchscreen display with weapons running along the top, items running along the side, and the map taking over the rest of the screen. (With all the backtracking done in this game, you will need the map.) When drawing your weapon to fire in the 3DS version, the default setting sends you into a first-person mode from behind the weapon (which is in the center of the screen) for more accurate shooting on a small screen. You can choose a third-person perspective, but it is not the “normal” way to play. On the single-screen display used for the PS3, Xbox 360, and in two (of three) modes for the Wii U version, first-person viewing is no longer an option, as the game sticks with third-person throughout. Your selected weapon (and the other weapons you have equipped), along with your remaining ammo, is now displayed on the bottom right corner of the screen, while your secondary weapons (like grenades) are displayed on the bottom left briefly when selected. A 2D version of the map is displayed in the top right corner, orienting as you move, while a more detailed 3D map can be brought up within the game’s menus. This setup works well, and while not quite as convenient in some aspects (due to not having a second screen with a touch interface available), it makes the game feel similar to recent entries in the series. Moreover, the ability to use two analog sticks without needing a Circle Pad Pro attachment for the 3DS, plus the dedication of one shoulder button to the Genesis scanner, rather than having to swap to and from the device like any other item, are welcome tweaks to make gameplay smoother. That, however, is only part of the story when it comes to HD gameplay options . . .

How the Wii U Comes Out on Top

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The Wii U version of Revelations offers three different viewing options. The first two are identical to gameplay on the PS3 or Xbox 360: everything is displayed on a single screen. The Wii U, however, offers a bit more versatility, since that single-screen gameplay can be shown on the television screen or on the Gamepad itself, freeing players from the TV. More interestingly, the other viewing mode is an improved variant of the 3DS gaming mode with two screens. The TV acts as the top 3DS screen in that it shows all of the game’s action with minimal HUD items, allowing players to take in the action without overlays (similar to Dead Space). The Gamepad acts as the touchscreen on the 3DS, displaying your map, weapons, items, etc. However, with the Gamepad screen being larger than the 3DS screen, the layout has changed to be more comfortable. The map takes up the bulk of the screen’s middle section, while health items are accessible by tapping directly below it. Weapon options now run down the right side of the touchscreen, while secondary item options run along the left, with both of these columns being within easy reach of the player’s thumbs.

The Verdict

If you have never played Resident Evil: Revelations, and you are a fan of the series or the survivor horror genre, you should definitely check out the game on any platform. If you are looking for the best HD platform for playing Revelations, the benefits provided by the Gamepad make the Wii U version the definitive edition of this solid Resident Evil title.

Defiance TV Tie-ins #6

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Defiance is a multiplatform (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) MMO third person shooter, based in the universe of the SyFy television series of the same name, which is in its first season as of the time of this writing. Invisible Gamer has reviewed the core game and now continues its look at the MMO’s content as it, as designed, evolves to connect with the TV show. (See our coverage of the firstsecondthirdfourth, and fifth rounds of such content.) This time, we look at content released to coincide with the SyFy channel airing of the episode Good Bye Blue Sky.

Setting the Stage

As noted in our last look at Defiance, an update had been added during the dead weeks between the airing of Brothers in Arms and Good Bye Blue Sky that brought triage areas full of infected humans to several key locations in the San Francisco Bay area. At first, though, the only new content tied into these people and the mysterious Plague they carried was in the form of one Pursuit, Hunting the Cure, which amounted to finding three rather obvious data recorders. Fans had hoped that this was setting up something big in the game world . . .

New Content: The Plague Begins

Fans were not disappointed. A new teaser trailer was produced, revealing zombie-like Afflicted and the idea that a “viral hemorrhagic fever” has broken out (Stage 4 of “the Plague”), which is not only affecting Paradise (the San Francisco setting of the game) but also threatens to spread to Defiance (the St. Louis setting of the television series). This was obviously going to be a major story point for both the game and the show. But what form would that new content take?

New Emergencies: Beware the Afflicted!

Two new Pursuits were added to the Episode: Plague Pursuit caregory, alongside the aforementioned Hunting the Cure. The first, Epidemic, focused on a new enemy type: the Afflicted. The “Afflicted” are the Defiance equivalent of zombies, people in Stage 4 of the Plague that was teased with the previous update’s triage areas. The Pursuit itself called for killing a certain number of Afflicted (as few as 3 and as many as 50, depending on the type of Afflicted) in each of the game’s five major sub-regions (Mt. Tam, Madera, Marin, Sausalito, and San Francisco).

These Afflicted appear in different forms. The Afflicted Flailers are standard zombie types that charge and slash. Afflicted Sickos can spit globs of infected saliva. Tremblers are a much stronger form, akin to Scrapper Omnivolt enemies or mutant minigunners in size and damage. While traveling through the game’s five regions, players would encounter new Emergencies (randomly-spawning situations that, thankfully, spawned pretty frequently this time around, unlike the Pilgrim Emergencies earlier this season). There were several variants of these Emergencies, such as Gridlock (a stalled vehicle full of Afflicted) and Internment Camp (a camp where soldiers hold Afflicted who begin to escape). Fighting is quick and intense (for an Emergency) in these scenarios.

But the zombie (er, excuse me, Afflicted) hordes were just getting warmed up.

Sieges: A Massive New Multiplayer Event

The second new Pursuit in this update, Curing the Masses, was our first introduction to a new massive event type in the Defiance world. Since the game’s launch, random events called Arkfalls would happen in the game world, drawing dozens of players to those events. Major Arkfalls would involve several of those smaller Arkfalls, along with a final event with a giant boss. These events frequently draw 100+ players in each instance. Those, however, have been the only giant community-based battles in the game.

With Curing the Masses, we have a new giant scenario: Sieges. In four areas of the map (for now, at least), a Siege will appear, with about an hour passing between Siege spawns. These Siege events put dozens upon dozens of players into a sort of “horde mode” battle to protect multiple base locations (similar to Capture and Hold bases, though without a requirement to hold them, just great benefits from doing so). Hundreds upon hundreds of Afflicted of all three types swarm these areas, creating a frantic frenzy of carnage that only an MMO shooter like Defiance can provide. It makes for some of the most intense gameplay in the title to date.

Rewards That We Actually Want

Most of the time, completing Episode Pursuits in Defiance net the player a boost to their EGO Rating, possibly (but rarely) a new costume item, or, more often, just a new title to put with their name. While these are nice, they are certainly not “must have” items.

This time, though, new rewards have upped the ante. Completing Sieges at all four possible locations will complete the Curing the Masses Pursuit and provide a new grenade: the Biocharge Ex-12X. While not all that much better than other grenades of its type, it is a pretty good item for lower-level players who take part in the Sieges.

Even better, though, is the reward for killing the requisite numbers of Afflicted to complete the Epidemic Pursuit. Doing so earns the player a unique version of one of the more popular vehicles in the game, the Duni Shetarru. This new variant of the vehicle is the Med Tech Buggy and is colored red and white with an emphasis toward looking like something the Red Cross might use. Given that the cost of vehicles in the game was increased dramatically recently, this is an excellent reward for a single Pursuit.

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The Verdict

While zombies seem to be everywhere in fiction these days, including forays into video games where they might not immediately seem appropriate, the Afflicted in Defiance have been mostly well-received thus far, as they provide a new enemy type to deal with that strays from the norm, and the addition of Sieges, whether Afflicted or otherwise in future updates, is a substantial new feature that adds intensity and excitement in battles that anyone, low level or high, can enjoy. (It is just too bad that they will vanish for a while once the Afflicted storyline is concluded.)

Congratulations, Trion Worlds. This is your best Defiance update yet.

A

Defiance TV Tie-ins #7

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Defiance is a multiplatform (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) MMO third person shooter, based in the universe of the SyFy television series of the same name, which is in its first season as of the time of this writing. Invisible Gamer has reviewed the core game and now continues its look at the MMO’s content as it, as designed, evolves to connect with the TV show. This time, we look at content released to coincide with the SyFy channel airing of the episode I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times.

Gosh, That Was Easy

Two updates ago, Defiance players saw the introduction of several new, easy to find data recorders, which set up the backstory of the Plague (viral hemorrhagic fever) and provided the fodder for a new Pursuit, along with several new triage stations at important game locations. The following update then provided a wealth of new content in the form of two new Pursuits, several new forms of Emergencies that revolve around Afflicted (zombies, more or less), and a new set of giant events in the game known as Sieges. 

These updates were both built around the idea that a plague has broken out in the San Francisco Bay area (as evidenced in the data recorders and new Emergencies), and it is only by fighting in those Sieges that the player can protect efforts to synthesize cure components at the four Siege sites. Given that this was all accompanied by a new trailer for the game online and on television that showed Indogene doctor Eren Niden being attacked and a warning that signs of the disease had appeared in Defiance (St. Louis), the setting for the television series, it became the player’s mission to stop the disease and create a cure that would help those in the Bay area and in Defiance.

While fans expected a major new mission (or set of Episode Missions) to round out this storyline, that does not appear to be what was provided. What began with a strong batch of new content – especially the introduction of Sieges and Afflicted – seems to have fizzled out.

The new content this week came in the form of one new Episode Mission and one new data recorder. Notice that I did not mention a new Pursuit, as there isn’t one. Whereas any other update would likely have multiple data recorders to find for one Pursuit and another Pursuit to be completed by the Episode Mission (or series thereof), none were added for this update. Instead, the data recorder was laying at the feet of the person to speak with in order to start the Episode Mission, making finding it difficult for only those with an IQ below their shoe size, and only one new Episode Mission was added, rather than a series of them.

The new Episode Mission, Launching the Cure, is a bit bizarre and rather short. Apparently, Eren has developed a cure, but it needs to be delivered to Defiance. In the game, though, one cannot travel between Paradise and Defiance, as the game world only currently encompasses the Bay area. Thus, containers of the cure have been loaded into a huge missile (an ICBM) that can be launched to deliver a payload of the cure to Defiance, and Eren needs your help to reach the missile launch station. You fight your way through Cronkhite Bunker (one of the game’s main “dungeons” that you visit in the Story Missions and co-op sessions) to reach the missile, then launch it toward Defiance, where it should release its payload to be recovered and save everyone. The Bunker map has been retooled so that it is laid out the same as it has always been, but some halls are now filled with water, and enemies have been changed to include waves of Afflicted and members of the game’s toughest regular faction of enemies, Dark Matter (who are apparently there to stop the missile because the disease is killing normal humans, and Dark Matter wants normal humans - any normal humans – to die . . . cue mustache twirl and villainous laugh).

While the mission provides a new take on the Cronkhite Bunker scenario, there is a severe sense of “been there, done that” with this one, and fans’ reactions are not helped when considering that the mission itself can be completed much, much more quickly than the Bunker map usually would be. While it is not something that can be finished in, as some have complained, “five minutes,” it does feel significantly smaller and easier than one would have expected, and enemies are of varieties already encountered ad nauseaum in the game.

And . . . that’s it. It would seem that the Plague storyline has concluded in the game, which brings up another issue . . .

Parallel But Not Simultaneous?

The whole concept behind Defiance and how both the show and game have been pitched to audiences is that what happens in the show will affect the game, and what happens in the game will affect the show. In this case, that is happening, and we quickly saw a bit more of this connection in the first few minutes of the next episode, If I Ever Leave This World Alive, which were released as a teaser for the episode. However, while the connection is there, the two media for the tale seem to be out of sync.

The first update to feature any information about the Plague was released during “dead weeks” between the show’s airing of two episodes that were completely unrelated to the Plague: Brothers in Arms and Good Bye Blue Sky. This makes some sense, though, since one could argue that Paradise was dealing with the Plague before there was ever any trace of it in Defiance (later revealed to be “months” earlier, which causes some chronological issues). This seems to be confirmed in this week’s episode, I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times, as a reporter from the game’s region arrives in the show’s region, only to be struck by the Plague at the end of the episode.

That, in and of itself, was handled rather clumsily. The episode is mostly about what seems to be a human astronaut, once thought killed in space, who has been found on the ship (a piece of Arkfall) that crashed during Good Bye Blue Sky. It is a story about his quest to find out the truth about who he is and how he fits into the world. Oh, and then, out of nowhere, in the last 70 seconds before the credits, they introduce the Plague element. The character from the Bay shows up sick, breaking into a conversation tied into the rest of the episode, and the show’s physician, Doc Yewll, immediately, after running a scanner over the patient for about two seconds, claims that it “looks like viral hemorrhagic fever . . . We’ve got ourselves a Plague.” Really, Doc? All that analysis in a matter of seconds? They need to pay you more. (Technically, the Plague is Irathient Flu, which the character had familiarity with already, but it certainly was not clear in the episode itself.)

The next episode of the show airs on June 17, and the first few minutes, released online shortly after this week’s episode, make a strong connection to the game, as Doc Yewll hopes for a cure from Paradise, noting that “there was an outbreak in the Bay area. A former colleague, Eren Niden, spent months working on an antiviral. If we’re lucky, one of the independent outposts will relay the message to San Francisco.”

This would have been a great connection if it had been timely. Any tension is drained upon finding out that the show’s characters need a cure from the game, after players of the game have already completed the mission in which that happens. Launching the Cure should have been content for June 17, not June 10. In fact, all of the Plague material should likely have been shifted to one week later. As it stands, we get a relatively minor bit of new content this week, which, in some respects, spoils elements of the following week’s episode on television. The stories remain in parallel, but it would seem that they are out of step with each other, perhaps due to the period between Brothers in Arms and Good Bye Blue Sky, in which no new episode aired.

(For what it’s worth, the week after this new content, the episode If I Ever Leave This World Alive does indeed feature the arrival of the cure care package in the Badlands. Joshua Nolan and Connor Lang seek it out, saving everyone, thanks to your efforts in Paradise, which seem to have taken place during the first few minutes of the episode, halfway across the continent.)

The Verdict

With what seems to be a rather weak, easy, and fast Episode Mission, lacking any new Pursuits or unusual mission rewards, and a story that appears to be ahead of the television series in a way that drains at least some of the tension from both media for Defiance, this week’s game update stumbles over what should have been one of its shining multimedia moments. The negative impact of these factors can be mitigated a bit by the fact that they do directly influence events of the following week’s episode, but the tie-in trips over itself when it should have been able to sprint to victory.

C

 


The Last of Us Review

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There’s a moment in the final act of The Last of Us that made me want to put down my controller and stop playing. Not for anything that upset me or caused me to doubt what had just happened or anything like that; no, I wanted to let that moment live on for as long as possible. I probably could have let the game end there, and would have found the game just as ambitious and worthwhile and impressive as those who finished the cross-country journey. It took every effort not to pull back on the controller and push away from this sequence and on into the game’s climax, but I knew this was not the end. I knew there was more that Joel and Ellie had to endure. And so I drew away, and marched on toward the conclusion of one of the rare games that has made me think about violence, survival, and human nature and what lengths I might go to protect those I cared for.

The Last of Us is Naughty Dog’s fourth game for the PlayStation 3 following their studio’s acclaimed Uncharted franchise. Written by Neil Druckmann and directed by Bruce Straley, The Last of Us is as complete a departure from the whimsical world-hopping and treasure hunting of Nathan Drake as one could imagine. The Last of Us is a mature game and a hard game, so do not pick this up expecting witty one-liners and casual gunplay. That said, The Last of Us may be the most engaging video game I have played: from stunningly realized environments, gripping tension, and more fully developed individual performances than in any game in recent memory, Naughty Dog has brought this world to life in a way that lives on in my mind well after completion.

In 2013, the Cordyceps virus, a fungal disease that exists in the real world, has jumped from insects to humans, and a man named Joel is caught in the middle of the outbreak. The story beats are very similar to what you might find in other end-of-the-world “zombie” scenarios, but The Last of Us takes those conventions and plays with them in subtle ways. The Last of Us takes place twenty years after the outbreak, over the course of a year: the United States is in a perpetual state of martial law enforced in Quarantine Zones in the remaining major cities, and Joel is tasked by a resistance group called the Fireflies to deliver a young woman named Ellie to their compatriots outside of the Boston zone. What follows is a journey across the nation to bring Ellie to this organization, in the hope that she might be the solution to, well, everything.

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If the story sounds familiar, it’s because it is. Druckmann himself cited inspiration specifically from Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and tonal direction from No Country for Old Men, and I couldn’t help but find similarities to The Book of Eli, but the basis for the narrative is of little consequence when the execution of the narrative is so well delivered. Without performances to suit the narrative, even the most finely crafted dialogue can come off weak and meandering, but The Last of Us has no such issues. From leads Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson to supporting cast members like Annie Wersching, Robin Atkin Downes, Jeffrey Pierce, W. Earl Brown, and an unrecognizable Nolan North, character is emphasized and made essential from the moment you press start. Their performances sell this world as a real place, where the most terrible and wonderful of things can happen, and do happen, from moment to moment. The subtle glances between old acquaintances, the casual profanity in a world gone to hell, the wonder at the beauty of a moment’s breath between harrowing encounters with both the Infected and the desperate, they all develop a sense that this isn’t just some fantasy or idle thought; this could be us.

Baker and Johnson in particular create such a dynamic through their interactions as Joel and Ellie that, over the course of the game’s narrative, you begin to inhabit their reality as much as you’re observing it from a distance. Whether it’s Joel and his frustration with Ellie’s whistling and jokes or Ellie’s fascination with or contempt for the pre-apocalypse ideas of entertainment and fashion, my investment in these character grew through the little moments just as much as the epic ones. It may even be hard to distinguish what moments will truly stand out until well after they have passed, and the words and actions have taken their time to sink in. That’s the beauty of The Last of Us, though: in the magnificent and the mundane, there is so much to be uncovered in how these two broken individuals come together and support one another with so many odds against them.

Characters are the vehicle through which a story is told, but the world of The Last of Us is just as much a character in the game as any of the people speaking dialogue or shuffling and biting and shooting. The Last of Us is the best looking game on the PlayStation 3, without much of a second thought. Games like Crysis 2 and Battlefield 3 are technically gorgeous, but the life imbued by the designers at Naughty Dog to this world after the fall is remarkable. The first time you step into your character in the prologue and see your reflection in the mirror, or watch something on television happening simultaneously out your bedroom window, you have a sense of the attention to detail paid to The Last of Us. Burnt-out high rises overgrown with brush and foliage stand side by side with mountainside vistas in both their visual artistry and their attention to detail. In all my scavenging and searching, it was rare to find a bedroom or an office corridor that looked the same as the one I had entered five minutes ago, or thirty minutes ago, or six hours ago. The world tells just as much about what happened to humanity as the character dialogue or the collectibles you encounter.

Ellie waiting

What stands out even more because of the world and story and characters is how it actually feels to play the game. Having spent six years making Uncharted games, the Naughty Dog crew has refined and honed how their systems work, the shooting, running, gathering ammo, and ducking into cover. What’s impressive about how The Last of Us plays is that they have taken many of those systems and changed them or refined them to benefit the story. One of the primary criticisms I recall when Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception launched was that the shooting felt a bit “off” compared to Uncharted 2; in The Last of Us, picking up a weapon, aiming, and shooting have a weight to their action. As a middle aged man, your hands aren’t as steady and your control on your weapon might not be as precise as you’d like. Joel is well into his fifties when you take control in Boston, and he can’t run like he does in the first moments of the game when the world is being overrun.  Unlike many similar shooters, when you pick up ammo it doesn’t automatically find its way into your weapon in hand; you have to manually reload in order to make sure that box of bullets is put to use. Perhaps my favorite tweak to the tried-and-true cover-based third-person-shooter mechanic in The Last of Us is the cover system itself. Gone are the snap-to cover designs of the Uncharted and Gears of War games; in The Last of Us, you crouch to maintain a lower profile, and to duck behind a partition or hide against a wall. Moving in and out of cover doesn’t require another button press, you simply move from one place to another. It is such a subtle difference, but a noticeable and appreciable one, especially in the midst of a frenetic confrontation when a missed button press could lead to a Clicker ripping your throat out or a Hunter bashing your skull in.

Machete chop

The Uncharted games, both on the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation Vita, incorporated collectibles into the game world as a reward for exploration and as a way to enhance a world that could otherwise seem hollow and static; at least, that’s how I saw it. Uncharted: Golden Abyss for the Vita—which was not developed by Naughty Dog, but rather by Sony Bend Studio, makers of the acclaimed Resistance and Killzone games on PSP—had the best use of collectibles of the four games, encouraging the player to discover more about the game’s primary antagonists and supporting characters through puzzles, trinkets, and artifacts related to their story. They enhanced the game by making the items in the environment meaningful, something the Naughty Dog-produced Uncharted games fell short at. The Last of Us makes no such mistake, and exploration is required in order to make the most of your experience. Aside from the dog tags of members of the Fireflies organization, every collectible item in the game, be it a note left for a loved one, a newspaper clipping, or a voice recorder, builds up the idea that there was a person who lived here, that everything has been lived in, and that some truly terrible things have happened. Some of the neatest experiences in my playthrough involved discovering new pieces to a thread of artifacts that bound together the tales of survivors I knew I’d probably never meet, wondering what kind of resolution I would find to those stories, if any at all. Similarly, crafting is a mechanic that was simply nonexistent in Naughty Dog’s previous escapades, yet here they have proven that it can be implemented simply and elegantly without dragging down or slowing your game’s progress. Weapons can be modified at workbenches, health kits and improvised melee weapons and explosives can be bound together with scissors and alcohol and duct tape, and even your senses can be improved to give you a steadier aim or a better sense of hearing in a style that drew me back to Rocksteady’s Batman games and their Detective Mode, though without being quite as game-breaking as that mechanic could be.

Perhaps most surprising about The Last of Us is just how good their multiplayer component is. Just as with the single-player story, the multiplayer options are more intimate and brutal than they are grand and epic. Players begin by choosing a Faction, either the militia/terrorist Fireflies or the ruthless and desperate Hunters, and are given individual charge of a clan of survivors. Multiplayer matches are eight player affairs, pitting four Fireflies against four Hunters in two types of game modes that grant you access to materials that your clan needs to grow and survive. The modes, Supply Raid and Survivor, are essentially two versions of the classic Team Deathmatch. Survivor ups the ante by removing respawns until your Faction has wiped out your opponents or vice versa through four rounds, while Supply Raid gives each team twenty lives shared among teammates to outmaneuver your opponents. Both modes allow you to collect items similar to the single player game to craft bombs and health packs, but holding on to these items until the end of the match allows you to trade them in for materials once the match is complete to level up your clan and add to your skills. Each match counts as one day leading your clan, and players cannot change Factions until their clan has survived for twelve consecutive weeks or has been completely wiped out. It came as no surprise to those who have previously played the Uncharted multiplayer suites, but The Last of Us enhances a time-tested mode and brings an element of story to what could have been just another back-of-the-box feature.

Riding on ridge

When the action had settled, and the dust cleared, I left my experience in The Last of Us wondering just how this game would affect me in the days to come. I found myself humming composer Gustavo Santaolalla’s score on my way to the store. I replayed the Winter section of the game in my head again and again. I debated friends who had completed the game about the implications of the ending, which I feel is a daring choice for a AAA development studio to make in a world of cookie-cutter finales. Is this the finest experience I’ve had on the PlayStation 3? For me, the answer is yes. Will it be for everyone who plays The Last of Us? Probably not. Those ideas about violence, survival, human nature, and our desire to protect those we love? No game has made me consider these things as acutely as The Last of Us has. For that, I cannot help but give this product my highest recommendation.

A-plus

Defiance TV Tie-ins #8

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Defiance is a multiplatform (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) MMO third person shooter, based in the universe of the SyFy television series of the same name, which is in its first season as of the time of this writing. Invisible Gamer has reviewed the core game and now continues its look at the MMO’s content as it, as designed, evolves to connect with the TV show. This time, we look at content released to coincide with the SyFy channel airing of the episode If I Ever Leave This World Alive.

Simple Content, Significant Story

As in the case of the Piper Investigation missions (covered in our fourth review in this series), the new content this time included three Episode Missions, but each one amounted to a glorified data recorder search.

The premise is that the Plague has ended (meaning that the triage areas are gone from the locations where they had appeared for our fifth weekly review, and so are the great Afflicted Emergencies and Sieges, though that game mode is likely to return with different enemies at some point). Now Varus Soleptor wants payback for the double-cross he experienced at the hands of television series regulars Joshua Nolan and Irisa Nyira in the game’s pre-show Episode Missions. He has called in Echelon (a mercenary group that acts as the faction whose Contracts in the game revolve around competitive multiplayer modes) to hunt down Nolan and Irisa, but they are looking in the wrong place. As they search Paradise (the San Francisco Bay area) for the duo, they are noticed by Rynn, the Irathient woman who first appeared in the television series and then fled as a fugitive to the game after the events of the episode The Serpent’s Egg. She owes Nolan for letting her escape after helping him, so she intends to help him in return.

Thus begins a series of three Episode Missions: The Manhunt, Parts 1 – 3, all of which are very similar. Rynn contacts the player, needing help to find more information on Echelon’s activities. In each mission, the player joins Echelon in battling Raiders, then seeks out a data recorder at each battle location. Finishing each mission requires finding the data recorders, and finding all three completes a new Episode Pursuit, The Manhunt.

Upon completing the final mission, the player is rewarded with a new title (“True Friend”) for completing the Pursuit, and a new costume (Rynn’s fugitive attire) for completing The Manhunt, Part 3. Most importantly, though, a new custcene plays, in which Rynn informs Lawkeeper Cooper (friend of Nolan and a fellow member of the “Defiant Few”) that Varus has hired Echelon to find Nolan and that they now know that Nolan has gone to Defiance (St. Louis). Cooper further informs her of the “death” (actually a comatose state) of her adopted father, Sukar, at the hands of Nolan in the episode Good Bye Blue Sky. Rynn heads out for Defiance, though whether she will aid or kill Nolan is, as yet, unseen . . .

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But Wait, What About the Show This Week?

I won’t belabor this point, as it was addressed in detail in our last review, but it should be noted that this week’s Defiance episode, If I Ever Leave This World Alive, does not directly tie into this week’s game content. Instead, it seems to have been intended to sync with last week’s content, as it sees the request and delivery of the cure to the Plague from Paradise to Defiance. It makes for an interesting tie-in, but it stumbled greatly by being out of sync for the week. One would hope synchronicity will soon return.

The Verdict

While relatively simple to accomplish (taking about fifteen minutes at most), this week’s new Episode Missions provide a new costume reward and would seem to be significantly affecting the plotline of the Defiance universe, sending Rynn back for a return appearance in the series. It isn’t the most substantial update that we’ve seen, but it is certainly one of the times we have felt the most connected to the television series this season.

B-plus

Defiance TV Tie-ins #9

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Defiance is a multiplatform (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) MMO third person shooter, based in the universe of the SyFy television series of the same name, which is nearing the end of its first season as of the time of this writing. Invisible Gamer has reviewed the core game and now continues its look at the MMO’s content as it, as designed, evolves to connect with the TV show. This time, we look at content released to coincide with the SyFy channel airing of the episode Past is Prologue.

Paradise is in Deep Shtako

After a dead week in which no new content was released to coincide with the series episode The Bride Wore Black (barring overpriced store items like the Liberty Heavy Trooper outfit and headgear that are purely cosmetic and will run you about $16.50 in “bits,” which are sold in-game in a system similar to the frustrating Microsoft Points system), Defiance provides a startlingly difficult (er, challenging) update to coincide with the SyFy airing of the first season’s penultimate chapter, Past is Prologue.

In the double-length pilot episode of Defiance, the Ark Core that was obtained by Joshua Nolan and Irisa Nyira (thanks to the Libera Nova Gem that they stole from the player character in the Defiance game) was used to defeat an invasion of Defiance (St. Louis) by the Volge. The Volge are a warrior species that the Votans (Defiance‘s mixture of alien species) thought that they left behind when fleeing their home system. They re-emerged during the Pale Wars (a conflict between humans and Votans) and reappeared again during the pilot episode when conspirators working against the city drew them to the town. They would have wiped out Defiance, had it not been for the actions of the show’s protagonists in holding off the Volge, then blasting them with the Ark Core.

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Now, those powerful, armored, alien warriors have come to Paradise (the San Francisco Bay area), emerging as a new threat that makes their Defiance MMO debut in this week’s udpate. Their introduction is accompanied by a new Episode Pursuit, entitled Volge Incursion, and a variety of new Emergencies (randomly-spawning world events), six in all, which center around combat with the Volge. The Volge Incursion Pursuit requires the player to kill one of each of the three types of Volge enemies: trooper, bomber, and Viscera (a mini-boss character similar in style to Tankers and other existing mini-bosses). The Pursuit then requires that the player complete a total of five Volge Emergencies, though, thankfully, not requiring that they be different Emergency variants, which would require driving around the world in hopes of getting lucky.

What makes this update different, particularly in light of the Afflicted Emergencies of a few weeks ago, is that the Volge are absolutely brutal enemies to take on, especially if tackling an Emergency alone. They are about as close to “bullet sponges” as this game sees, and even the most basic of their number are as difficult in terms of damage inflicted and absorbed as just about any mini-boss in the entire game. It is the larger Volge, a Viscera, that makes for the easiest battles, since, while powerful, it fires more slowly and deliberately than the others.

I have to give one knock against this update in that it is providing content that is out of proportion in difficulty, especially for new players, than most of the other content in the game, but given the fear instilled by the Volge in the television series, it actually makes continuity sense for these new foes to be bad mamajamas.

If you are looking for a new Pursuit that is a challenge (albeit one that can be completed, with patience and determination, in about an hour or so) and an update that provides significant new foes into the Defiance MMO experience, this week’s update will be a treat.

Just pack your heavy weapons . . .

B-Plus

 

A Brief Side Note (and SPOILER for Past is Prologue)

While not directly related to this week’s new game content, those watching Past is Prologue will find that Rynn has returned. This is a direct game connection, given that the character was introduced in the series, then escaped to San Francisco in the game’s previous Episode Mission update, and now she has returned for vengeance, based on information she discovered in the game. Assuming that she needed time to travel across half of North America again, the lag of two weeks from those missions and this week’s unrelated update, her appearance in the episode makes perfect sense and is a nifty tie-in.

Defiance TV Tie-ins #10

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Defiance is a multiplatform (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) MMO third person shooter, based in the universe of the SyFy television series of the same name, which is nearing the end of its first season as of the time of this writing. Invisible Gamer has reviewed the core game and now continues its look at the MMO’s content as it, as designed, evolves to connect with the TV show. This time, we look at content released to coincide with the SyFy channel airing of the season one finale, Everything is Broken.

Let’s Do the Time Warp Again

After recently having new Pursuits added into the game, along with the massively dangerous Volge enemies, hopes were high as to just how Defiance would introduce more new materials into the game world to celebrate the final episode of the television series’ first season. Those expecting new content found that the answer was . . . pretty much nothing.

Instead of introducing entirely new material or spending some time making earlier Episode Missions available to those who never had the chance to play them before (and only those people), Trion Worlds instead launched its “Season One Rewind,” or Replay One, as it is referred to in-game. This update has brought back all previous Episode Missions, plus the Afflicted and elemental Hellbug Emergencies (but not the Pilgrim Emergencies, though their Lights of the Fallen have returned in some areas.) These are available to everyone, unlike the previous “Rewind Weekend” that made content available only to those who had never completed those missions before. To accommodate players who were new to these events and those who had already completed them, Trion created a new category of Episode Pursuits, Replay One, rather than bringing the old Episode Pursuits back to go with the old content.

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The result is new, revamped, and mostly simplified Pursuits in a time-warp effect that makes almost all major game update events available at one time, allowing a chance for new players to experience them for the first time and for new players to plow through the material again for added XP, rewards, and new Pursuits. Given that the Rewind material is only online for a limited time, it is quite fitting that completing the new Replay One Pursuit category earns the player a new title: “Marathon Hunter.”

Since we already reviewed each of these updates when they were first made available, we will not go into depth with each Pursuit. However, it may be useful to note some specific differences for players wondering whether they should bother going back to retread old ground.

In general, kill-based requirements have been lessened, as have the location restrictions of those kills. By the time all of Replay One is complete, players will have been required to kill only 42 specific enemies, and only the Afflicted (zombies) have a location restriction on which region allows kills to count toward your total. All Episode Missions will have been completed again as well – a total of 14 of them, though most are pretty short. Completing two co-ops maps is required (Commander Cronkhite and Island of Lost Soldiers), and the player must ignite 10 Lights of the Fallen and collect 10 hellbug chrysalis samples.

What is not included in this Rewind event is anything related to Pilgrim Emergencies (which are not back at all, as noted above), any of the multiplayer Pursuits that made up the bulk of the Most Wanted Pursuit category from earlier this season, any Contract completion requirements, tallies for hellbug kills based on elemental differences, and (in this update’s greatest disappointment by far) anything relating to Sieges.

That’s right: the main item that Trion did not add back into the game as part of the Rewind weekend is the Siege event type, which was the single most praised addition made to the game all season. Presumably, this is due to server lag and crash issues that emerged during heavy Siege play, but with no explanation from Trion to fans, many have expressed displeasure over this so-called “oversight.”

The Verdict

It has been fun seeing Defiance evolve alongside the television show throughout its first season, and getting the chance to replay most of this season’s game content in a huge marathon run-through has been quite enjoyable. Sure, it doesn’t make chronological sense whatsoever, but that wasn’t the point. The point was simply to allow fans a chance to play what they might have missed as content was cycled in and out of the game over the last few months.

The television series fan in me is still frustrated over the season finale, as I find myself wondering why Echelon’s manhunt for Nolan in the game seemed to have no bearing on this season and why SyFy will not premiere the second season until June 2014, by which time the Playstation 4 and Xbox One will have possibly left the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 version of Defiance in the dust. I also have to scratch my head at why Trion did not bother to add anything new in terms of content, rather than revised Pursuits, on the day of the show’s season finale.

In the lead-up to the season finale, fans of the game joked that its title, Everything is Broken, just might refer back to the rough ride that Defiance has had with glitches, server issues, and the like, especially on PC and Xbox 360. In reality, of course, it referred to the series-altering events of the finale that we will have to wait nearly a year to see resolved.

Oh well. At least we supposedly have five DLC releases, one full Season Pass worth, to tide us over between seasons.

For giving us a chance to relive the past and still earn new rewards, but also for not bringing back Sieges as part of the Rewind and not introducing any truly new content for the season finale, this Defiance update earns a solid (but somewhat disappointed)…

B

The Last of Us: American Dreams #1 – 4 Comic Review

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The Last of Us has proven itself to be a darling of this generation. The gritty survival horror tale has been one of the biggest hits of 2013 and the entire Playstation 3 lineup. While not as common as comic adaptations and tie-ins to movies and television series, the genre of video game tie-in comic books has provided some of its own greats in recent years, including Tom Taylor’s Injustice: Gods Among Us series to provide backstory for the game of the same name. Dark Horse Comics, meanwhile, has provided players with a four-issue prequel to The Last of Us, entitled The Last of Us: American Dreams. Does this mini-series live up to the game it leads into or the high bar set for video game comics with Injustice?

Nope. Not unless you really enjoy foul-mouthed and/or unlikable characters. With those, American Dreams abounds.

An Unlikable Ellie and Her Streetwise Pal

American Dreams is written by Neil Druckmann and Faith Erin Hicks, the latter of whom is also the artist for the series. Druckmann and Hicks draw upon elements of Ellie’s background, hinted at through her conversations with Joel in the game, to provide us with a glimpse into Ellie’s time in a military school and her first face-to-face encounter with the Fireflies.

A large portion of the emotional impact of The Last of Us comes from the player’s ability to form attachments to both Joel and Ellie. In particular, Ellie is characterized as both a fighter and a victim, strong and vulnerable – she is the kid that is tough enough to survive the apocalypse but fragile enough to remember that she is still in many ways just a kid. Naughty Dog balances her childlike qualities, such as difficulties in defending herself against an adult and how Joel views her use of firearms, with more “adult” qualities like being able to take the lead when Joel is injured or her prolific swearing. Somehow, in the game, Ellie’s use of profanity is endearing – an amusing reminder of how this child has had to grow up in such a harsh reality. Players have been brought to tears by moments in the game, particularly in the last hour or so of the tale. We care about Ellie.

Thank goodness we did not form our opinions of Ellie from the comic book. Praise be to the powers that be that Dark Horse Comics did not manage to release all four issues of The Last of Us: American Dreams before the game’s release. Otherwise, we would loathe Ellie.

Naughty Dog, Dark Horse Comics “broke” your character.

Ellie spends the first of these four issues arriving at the military school that she is required to attend upon turning thirteen. She is to stay there until she turns sixteen, at which point she will be required to become a soldier to help fight the Infected (who, by the way, barely appear in this mini-series). Within that first issue, Ellie meets equally-unlikable teen Riley. Along the way, those 22 pages rack up 15 uses of profanity, 5 of which are from Ellie, and a full third of which are constant repeats of the phrase, “I should stomp your f***ing balls.” (No, I’m not kidding.) In comic form, rather than game form, the non-stop searing does nothing to endear us to the characters and instead drives a wedge between the reader and Ellie over and over again.

The second issue sees Ellie and Riley sneaking away from the supposedly secure facility to seek out the Fireflies, the rebel group that Joel and Ellie are working with in the game. (During this excursion, we rack up another 13 profanities, 3 of which are Ellie’s.) After a little bit of clumsy bonding (on the writer’s behalf, not the characters’) between Ellie and Riley in an old mall, we move on to the third issue, still feeling as though little to nothing has happened yet. (Oh, and we still haven’t seen a single Infected, unless you count a guy who is being held for possibly being infected.)

The third issue finally introduces some action into the tale, sending Riley and Ellie out to watch and then assist in a clash between the soldiers and the Fireflies, resulting in them finally meeting the Fireflies that they have been seeking. This action-heavy, dialogue-low issue only brings 8.5 profanities (one cut off), 2.5 of which are Ellie’s. This issue also finally brings us three Infected, all of whom appear to be Runners (despite one being called a Stalker in the next issue), which means that they basically look like any generic zombie from any generic zombie franchise, rather than the more elaborate forms we see in the game that make The Last of Us‘ Infected so unusual and interesting.

Having spent two issues to set up what could have perhaps been the first half or less of a single issue, and with much of the action in the mini-series concluded in the third issue, the fourth installment attempts to cram in enough backstory and game tie-ins to make you forget that you have just spent good money on three (now four) issues in a sub-par attempt at a video game tie-in series.

In The Last of Us, your primary contact within the Fireflies in a woman named Marlene, their leader. Through a rushed issue with the series’ highest profanity count (around 18 total with 8 being from Ellie), we witness Ellie and Riley’s first encounter with Marlene, but it is not as one might expect. Rather than setting up the game by leaving Ellie bitten by an Infected and staying with Marlene until she can be sent across the country in hopes of finding a cure, we learn a bit of Riley’s backstory (a brief blurt about one of her more traumatic moments, which would have hit us hard if we had any reason to actually care about the Riley character) and see how Ellie gets a weapon she uses in the game and learns a tiny bit about a personal connection that shows up in the game in a late-story audio recording. We then see Ellie and Riley put right back where they started.

As American Dreams ends, are we ready for the events of The Last of Us? Do we feel as though we know more about Ellie in a way that gives us new insight or interest in the character beyond what we experience in the game? Failing either of those, have we at least been provided with a solid adventure in world-building to make the setting for The Last of Us all the more “real” to gamers?

The answer in an emphatic no on all counts.

The Verdict

I really wanted to like The Last of Us: American Dreams. I greatly enjoyed the game and Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series. I am an avid reader of some of Dark Horse’s comics and even wrote for them briefly in 2004, which was a true thrill. No amount of wishing, however, can make American Dreams anything more than it turned out to be: a poorly written, dull, cash-in that all but the most die-hard The Last of Us completists should simply avoid reading. At $3.99 each, there simply isn’t nearly $16 worth of enjoyment to be had here.

The post The Last of Us: American Dreams #1 – 4 Comic Review appeared first on Invisible Gamer.

Defiance DLC #1 (Castithan Charge Pack) Review

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Defiance is a multiplatform (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) MMO third-person shooter, based in the universe of the SyFy television series of the same name, which is now in a dead time between its first season finale and the launch of the second season in mid-2014. Invisible Gamer has reviewed the core game and now continues its look at the MMO’s content as it evolves. With ten updates surrounding the show’s first season, we now check out the first official paid DLC add-on for the game, the Castithan Charge Pack.

Let’s be clear here—people come to these Defiance content reviews because (a) we are one of the few sites to actually review each update and (b) the depth of coverage. This was a huge update, so expect a rather lengthy look at these. If you simply want to know whether to spend the money, skip on down to the two different letter grades at the end of this review.

A Mixture of Paid and Free

Since Defiance is an MMO, its add-on content works as a mixture of free and paid content. The game is updated for everyone to include some new content, and the paid DLC content adds extra goodies on top of that. The price tag is $9.99 for each DLC pack, or $39.99 for a season pass that entitles the player to all five of the DLC packs that are to be released between now and the launch of the second season of the TV show (at a savings of $9.96). Of course, all promises from Trion Worlds seem to be relative to the current situation on the company’s end. The DLC was originally meant to launch far earlier, but constant bug fixes delayed its release until after the first season of the show was complete. In any case, the question becomes whether the extra goodies are worth paying, and if the add-ons that everyone gets are enough to satiate the Defiance enthusiast.

Free Content: The World Evolves

The free content that has been added into the game with the patch associated with the DLC is substantial this time around, as one would expect with a true DLC update, rather than a weekly content update. 

All players now have access to a new form of major and minor Arkfall. Along with the standard three Hellbug major Arkfall variants and the Scrapper major Arkfall, players can now face a Dark Matter Arkfall, in which they face Dark Matter enemies (the fiercest in the game), a huge Dark Matter Monolith (the walker style robot that initially blocks the Golden Gate Bridge and will blow you to smithereens if you try to cross before the storyline allows it), and an unusual set of devices that supercharge your EGO powers during combat. Smaller Dark Matter Arkfalls are also now available, alongside the various enemy faction minor Arkfalls. These are a welcome addition to the frantic Arkfalls that often include dozens upon dozens of players at a time. Dark Matter doesn’t look so tough when pounced upon by a quarter of the players on a given server at once . . .

Sieges, one of the most acclaimed game modes that was added for the Afflicted storyline and subsequently removed, are finally back with a twist. Rather than facing wave after wave of Afflicted (quasi-zombies), players now face waves of Volge, the powerhouse enemies who appeared in the last regular content update to the game. Two new Pursuits (and data recorders) have also been added to the Volge Incursion Episode Pursuits to go along with these, providing awards that include special Volge helmets for player characters, akin to the (*cough* overpriced *cough*) Volge helmets made available for purchase with Bits (i.e. real money) in the game’s store. One new Volge Incursion Pursuit, Volge Vindication, features a brief data recorder hunt and a strange side mission that can only be undertaken during a Volge Siege (not made clear at all in-game). The side mission is well worth it, though, as it provides a new Volge Light Machine Gun variant that is quite effective. However, the second new pursuit, Volge Violence, is currently “bugged” and was apparently the same in the PC alpha game testing recently. It requires completing 10 Volge Sieges, achieving a specific score, and reaching a specific stage – all of which are doable – but then it also requires completing each “type” of Volge Siege. No matter how many times you complete each siege, that last requirement will not check off on any platform, making the Pursuit’s reward perpetually out of reach. A solution is said to be in the works, but since Episode Pursuits are often removed after a short time, there is some reason to wonder if that solution will come before Volge Violence is removed from the game entirely.

A second weapon type, charge weapons, are also available. These can be acquired through random loot drops, as rewards for Arkfalls (a type of loot drop), and from the Thorn Liro faction vendor. Charge weapons allow for a weapon to charge up before shooting, which provides a unique bonus for whatever blast it produces.

PVP fans will be excited to see two new tweaks with this update. First, the Shadow War mode (in which huge numbers of players play an expanded game of capture and hold in the regular world instead of a map that is separate from the main world, while other players and enemies continue to exist and interact in that same area) has been tweaked to begin with fewer players queued to play. This should drastically increase the frequency of these matches, which originally tended to require so many players that you would often find yourself queued for hours, watching the notifications note that you need 7 more players . . . 10 more players . . . 6 more players . . . 12 more . . .

The regular Capture and Hold mode, which until now has only had a single map (Freight Yard, which took many updates to finally return after being found to be rather buggy originally) has now been updated with a new (and, yes, buggy) map, the Military Academy. The new map is interesting in its layout and takes a blasted, post-apocalyptic approach to its style that makes stark contrast with Freight Yard.

Players can also now duel with one another, quickly challenging another player in a brief confrontation to see who can fire the first successful shot at the other player. Think of it as super-short, super-tiny PVP gameplay. It isn’t extremely interesting, but it marks the only other new Pursuit added into the game for all players: a new Duelist category within the Competitive Multiplayer section of the Season One Pursuits list.

I should also note that, while not considered a DLC connection, per se, there have also been updates to the chat system (a step downward, given that it seems to be pretty glitchy at the moment), the world map (with more details provided for each fast travel point),  fast travel points (with more now), and the way people can queue for multiplayer (competitive, cooperative, and Shadow War), which can now be done via representatives at most fast travel points, instead of having to use the menu system. This will hopefully draw more new players into those modes.

For a free update, this is the biggest and best yet. One wonders what DLC and Season Pass buyers have actually paid for, however, given how much has arrived free . . .

Paid Content

The answer is: a little new content, but mostly a head-start.

Since the game’s launch, only two playable races have existed: human and Irathient. Now, the Castithan race (think Datak Tarr in the TV series) has been added into the mix for paying DLC customers. Tied into this is a new means of redesigning your character’s look, which will require Bits (real money) for those without the DLC. DLC purchasers are allowed one free recustomization of their character, and they can create a Castithan character with any new character curing customization.

New storyline missions were advertised for the DLC, and what we receive is something that feels more substantial than a standard Side Mission and some of the Episode Missions, yet less robust and connected to the main Story Missions than we many had expected. Players begin with a new mission, The Whisper’s Scream, during which players again hunt down a few data recorders. These lead to the Diablo Lighthouse (an existing location with a new fast travel point), where the player gains access to the new Battle Arenas. For the storyline, the player must face each of five different Arenas, earning a silver medal on each to complete this new tale. As a reward for completing the storyline, the player receives a new mask and, most importantly, a new weapon type: a charge blade (lightsaber style weapons used by Castithans). The Battle Arenas are essentially a sort of “horde mode” in which the player can use any of their own loadouts to face off with five waves (per arena) of previously-existing enemies, increasing in difficulty as one moves up through the five types of arena. These award “Reputation” for a new faction, Thorn Liro, which has a vendor at Diablo Lighthouse. This new vendor sells charge blades, new titles, and charge weapons, which are all only available to those with Thorn Liro Reputation (i.e. paying DLC customers). The Battle Arenas can be returned to at any time, allowing a great opportunity for farming kills, gaining Thorn Liro Reputation, and a decent challenge for most players. For their part, charge blades drastically alter the melee combat in the game, which, until this point, has been limited to firearms that sometimes happen to have bonuses when smacking someone across the face with the weapon itself. Finally, the Blur EGO power looks like a more viable weapon in combat, instead of just a method of running behind players with a shotgun in PVP modes.

A new vehicle has been introduced to the game. Until now, fans could play with two rollers that can be purchased in the game with scrip: a Dodge Challenger or Duni Shetarru buggy. Two runners (four-wheelers basically), the Growler and Hannibal, have also been available for scrip. If you preordered via Steam, recommended the game to a handful of friends, or spent real money in the Bit Store, you could also access a pickup truck called the Nomad. Each has various scrip-paid and Bit-paid color schemes, but these five main vehicle types have remained static throughout the game’s life until now. Players have also had access to a military-style vehicle called the Cerberus, complete with a missile launcher and turret, but only in Capture and Hold, Shadow War, and the Explosions 101 co-op map. Now, players have access to the Raptor, a vehicle that looks similar to the Cerberus but boasts no weapons at all. It can carry three other players for when playing in groups, but is otherwise a dull and slow means of transportation that most players will quickly dump in favor of a Duni Shetarru or Hannibal. (Many fans have been annoyed that early plans commented upon by Trion Worlds that the Raptor would include a turret were changed, leaving it weaponless.) Paying DLC customers receive a Raptor automatically, while non-paying players will have to purchase a Raptor, if desired, in the Bit Store.

Paying players also receive one new Castithan-based costume that is available only with the DLC, along with a “starter pack” of charge weapons, including a pistol, shotgun, and sniper rifle. (These weapons are pretty easy to come by as loot drops without paying, though. During the downtime when the PS3 version of the paid DLC was unavailable due to an issue on Sony’s end, I managed to snag two charge weapons in the span of about half an hour of play.)

The Verdict

I have to give this one two different grades—one for all players, and another for those who actually purchased the Castithan Charge Pack.

For players who did not purchase the pack, the lack of playing as a Castithan and having to get charge blades through Tier 4 Lockbox luck, charge weapons via loot drops, and the Raptor via the Bit Store can be a bit frustrating (Then again, if you don’t pay, what do you expect?). Overall, this update has been a huge push of new content and something that any fan should be able to welcome and enjoy. For them, this update rates a grade of . . .

A-Plus

On the other hand, DLC purchasers will likely be annoyed by the sheer volume of “their” content that was actually just an update to the game for everyone, rather than something unique to those who spent cash to buy the DLC. Players who paid have gained:

  • Access to the Battle Arenas and their related (brief) storyline and Pursuits
  • a unique costume
  • a new race to play
  • a new faction with its own Reputation and vendor, which means new Contracts
  • a “free” recustomization of their main character
  • a uniquely-colored Raptor vehicle
  • a head start on charge weapons with one of each category (three total)
  • the ability to gain access to charge blades via the Battle Arenas or the Thorn Liro vendor, rather than expensive Tier 4 Lockboxes that only provide a chance at at charge blade

Given that other Raptor variants can be purchased for 960 bits in the Bit Store (the equivalent of $9.23, $10.67, or $11.97, depending on which bit package you purchase), then if you want the Raptor, the Castithan Charge Pack is a no-brainer purchase. However, if you really don’t particularly care for the Raptor, this may be a tough sell. Personally, I would have preferred a bit more “meat” to the Story Mission and at least to not have to use bits to purchase anything but the basic charge blade color (bluish white). While I am not adverse to paying $9.99 for this particular DLC, I would hope that future packs contain a bit more content for paying customers, even if that means a bit less for everyone else.

For missing the mark and acting more of a leg up in some areas than unique acquisitions for DLC purchasers, this DLC earns a rather “meh” grade of . . .

C

The post Defiance DLC #1 (Castithan Charge Pack) Review appeared first on Invisible Gamer.

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified Review – Choice and Consequence

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The Bureau: XCOM Declassified is a visually authentic representation of America at the height of the Cold War, viewed through a “What If?” scenario in which the country’s biggest threat isn’t Soviet subterfuge, but rather a global invasion of hostile extraterrestrial forces. At its best, it’s an entertaining, squad-based sci-fi shooter played against some genuinely creepy backdrops; at its worst, it comes across as a cynical cash grab designed to capitalize on the success of Firaxis’s recent XCOM: Enemy Unknown (a game I cannot possibly praise highly enough.) The Bureau isn’t a bad game, it just isn’t X-Com, and the level of enjoyment you get out of it will depend largely on your willingness to accept that fact.

My biggest problem with The Bureau is the way it takes narrative control out of the players hands — something that has always been at the heart of the best games in the series — and forces us to sit through hours of sub-Hollywood soap opera drama. Our central character, one Agent William Carter, is an alcoholic hothead we’re supposed to sympathize with because of his tragic past, yet Mark Hildreth, the actor who provides Carter’s voice, plays him like, well, like Christian Slater trying too hard to sound like Jack Nicholson. It’s sort of like Crypto in the PS2 classic Destroy All Humans, except not funny in the slightest. Listening to Carter speak made me want to skip entire story segments just so I didn’t have to listen to Hildreth’s voice, which is a shame considering the rest of the cast turned in excellent performances. Not that the story makes much sense when you are paying attention… probably because 2K Marin didn’t get enough time to playtest The Bureau’s branching dialogue system, which never seems to take into account whether players have actually been given the proper information they need to understand what anybody is talking about. Case in point: about halfway through the game, a central character contracts a non-fatal alien disease, and after speaking with the character in a hospital, Carter leaves, taking a drink from his flask and muttering a quick prayer that the infected character may rest in peace. Oh, so he died, then?

The ham-fisted storytelling isn’t the only sign that the developer simply didn’t get X-Com, but even taken as its own entity, most of The Bureau feels slapdash and incomplete. In classic X-Com style, you’re encouraged to find and train new recruits — that way, you’ll have a selection of second-stringers to choose from should one of your agents die. But there are two problems with The Burea’s approach. For starters, you can only ever bring two soldiers along with Carter on a mission, meaning any other characters you want to train will have to be sent off on dispatch missions that happen off-screen while you’re handling other business. There’s no risk/reward system at play, since you’re  pretty much guaranteed to succeed as long as you throw enough agents at a dispatch mission. Second, it’s all a wash anyway, since even if one of your agents dies, you can just reload from one of the game’s frequent automatic checkpoints.

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Despite these issues, the actual missions in The Bureau are fairly engaging, thanks to an interesting squad mechanic that has you issuing individual orders from a command wheel. When you bring up the command wheel, the action slows to a crawl, giving you plenty of time to place agents behind cover, flank, target specific enemies, revive downed agents, or utilize special abilities you’ve unlocked. In the beginning, you’re basically limited to pistols, shotguns and rifles that don’t do a whole lot of damage even to the base grunt units, but once you start picking up alien technology, you can fire lasers, lift enemies in the air, engulf them in flaming plasma, and so on. It’s all highly reminiscent of Mass Effect, which is a good thing, but again, it doesn’t really feel like X-Com at all.

The thing that most excited me about 2K’s decision to reboot the X-Com franchise was that it gave some pretty talented artists the opportunity to revisit some of MicroProse’s terrifying, but dated alien and set designs, bringing them in-line with the kinds of things that scare audiences today. And while Firaxis’s work on XCOM: Enemy Unknown was uniformly brilliant, 2K Marin’s interpretations come across as uninspired, uneven, and even a little hokey. Early missions set in eerily abandoned Main Streets and farms littered with dead livestock are quickly replaced by an abundance of robotic tentacles and cold, lifeless alien bases that look they were ripped wholesale from Crysis 3, while promising early enemy redesigns (with the hulking Muton behemoths being a standout) give way to endless variations on a single class (the sideways-mouthed Outsiders.) Also: whose idea was it to turn Sectopods into quadrupedal clown cars?

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It was obvious from the moment The Bureau was announced in 2010 as XCOM that this was not the series reboot X-Com fans were looking for, but with development being handled by the studio that brought us the criminally under-appreciated BioShock 2, I was confident that the game would at least be able to stand on its own as a gripping sci-fi adventure. Unfortunately, the best I can say about the final game is that at least it didn’t come out before XCOM: Enemy Unknown; had that been the case,  it might very well have killed off enthusiasm for the franchise before Firaxis’s game ever saw the light of day. Hats off to 2K Marin for having the ego to completely re-write the X-Com formula; sometimes, it takes an unpopular idea to bring real innovation to the table. Other times, though, you just have to leave well enough alone. And that’s something I think most X-Com fans will want to do with The Bureau: XCOM Declassified.

C

The post The Bureau: XCOM Declassified Review – Choice and Consequence appeared first on Invisible Gamer.


Dragon’s Crown Review: For The Kingdom

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Dragons-Crown-Screenshots-491Every new console announcement is usually accompanied with a deluge of game announcements. Some of these are new entries in storied franchises; some are brand new IPs. Most of these game announcements eventually see release, but in rare instances, some titles will disappear into obscurity. These so called “vaporware” projects seldom recover from this state of limbo and are quietly cancelled. One such game, Dragon’s Crown for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita, was once thought to be doomed to this eternal gaming purgatory, after its initial publisher backed out.

Luckily for PlayStation fans, Atlus USA stepped in and decided to publish Vanillaware’s newest game. Famous for it’s PS2 classic Odin Sphere and Wii classic Muramasa, the developer showcases its fantastic art style with one of the best games in the PlayStation ecosystem. It takes the tried, true, and nowadays stale side-scrolling beat-em-up genre, injects new life into it, and makes it into an addictive and deep experience worthy of your time and your dollars, regardless of which platform you pick it up on.

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Dragon’s Crown casts you in the role of one of six classes: the fighter, elf, wizard, dwarf, amazon, and sorceress. Each character uses his or her own unique fighting style, giving players plenty of reason to take another romp though this game. Certain characters are geared towards more experienced players, while others are designed for first timers. Most players on their first run through will lean towards the fighter, with his balanced stats and forgiving attack and defense.

Attacks are carried out in a rather simple manner. Harkening back to the days of old arcade beat-em-ups, Dragon’s Crown boils down the attack to one main button, and one other button for a power smash. Rather than rely on combo memorization, different attacks are executed with different directions and through character upgrades. The leveling system unlocks new abilities for characters throughout your quest, but most of these upgrades are stat based rather than new attacks.

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The game’s level and progression system is a nice touch that motivates players to engage in tasks outside the main quest. While the main quest’s baddies and tasks will give your character experience, every completed sidequest will automatically provide 1 skill point to the player. This skill point can be used towards upgrades that affect either just your particular character, or any character that you create. This balance between specific vs. broad upgrades provides incentive to upgrade both, as the character specific upgrades are usually stronger. However, they will do nothing to benefit your other characters.

One facet of the game that cannot be overstated is the absolute beautiful art, animation, and visual style. Vanillaware has outdone their best work, creating a game that truly feels like a painting in motion, a look that many games strive to achieve but hardly ever reach. Each character has his or her own personality, animation, move set, and style, even if some of the proportions of said characters are a bit preposterous.

The world is structured around a main hub town, with specific locales and missions being accepted outside of town. There are numerous places and dungeons to visit, and the world variety keeps the game fresh enough. Each dungeon is perfectly paced and bite sized; most won’t take more than 20 minutes to complete. This rhythm makes the game easy to play on the go, helping it succeed as a handheld game in addition to a major console release.

Dragon’s Crown truly shines at refining and making an old gaming genre feel fresh and new again. Modern games, such as Double Dragon Neon and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World The Game, have tried to modernize the side scrolling beat-em-up genre, but with only moderate success. Most of those games were spent recovering from an attack that knocked you on the floor and left you vulnerable. Dragon’s Crown rarely places the player in such a state of vulnerability, keeping the pace and intensity up. Frustration has been replaced with flow and progression, keeping the players engaged far longer than the previous mentioned games, which tired me out only after a few levels. Local co-op on the PS3 and online multiplayer on the Vita make the game a blast to play with your friends; it’s just a shame that it takes a while to unlock. The lack of cross-platform multiplayer also may disappoint.

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The loot system is a novel concept and adds to the games addictiveness, but I mostly found it to be arbitrary and somewhat confusing. About halfway through the game, I found a set of armor and weapons that I used for almost the entire remainder of my journey. Keeping the stats and names of the loot a mystery until the player pays to unlock it is unique, but I often found myself selling it off and not even pursuing new items.

Overall, Dragon’s Crown is an addicting, beautiful brawler for the PlayStation faithful. No other game on the market currently has as much style and depth, while still maintaining fairness and incentive. The lack of cross-buy and cross-platform multiplayer may upset some, but the support for cross-save makes it an experience that you can easily take on the go. Dragon’s Crown is one of the best games this year on PlayStation, and it easily cements itself as one of the premier Vita experiences. Don’t pass this one up.

A-Minus

The post Dragon’s Crown Review: For The Kingdom appeared first on Invisible Gamer.

Keep Your “Next-Gen.” Mine’s Already Here.

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Over the weekend, I went to the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in New York, picked up the largest capacity iPad Air money could buy, then boarded the F train toward my apartment in Brooklyn and spent the next 40 minutes acting like I wasn’t hoarding $900 worth of hot new Apple tech in my backpack. When I got home, the first thing I did was marvel at how light the Air was compared to my two year old iPad 3. The next thing I did was install XCOM: Enemy Unknown, which I then proceeded to play for an embarrassingly indeterminable amount of time before realizing I should probably get back to my clients.

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When I reviewed XCOM for iPad in July, I gushed about how remarkably complete it was for being a so-called “mobile port” of a AAA console game. And while I briefly touched on my disappointment over how unstable it was on an iPad 3, what I didn’t mention is that I would gladly have bought a new iPad if it meant getting a better portable XCOM experience. Four months later, XCOM is more at home on Apple’s tablet than ever, where, thanks to the Air’s A7 processor, it now screams along at 60 FPS with near-zero load times at 2048×1536. I don’t know how I’m ever going to get anything done again.

What I do know is, I’m giving my PS4 pre-order to my brother-in-law.

There’s been a lot of furor surrounding the launch of the so-called “next generation” of console gaming, but when you strip out all the noise, what it boils down to is that the next iteration of the PlayStation and Xbox brands are dropping into our laps in just a couple of weeks, and a lot of people are very excited. But to be honest, I’m really struggling to understand what’s got you all so batty.  I know a lot of you want to crucify me for this… I’ve already gotten a ton of flack on Twitter for announcing that I’d decided on a new iPad instead of a PS4, as if that decision meant I wasn’t qualified to write about or play games anymore. But hear me out, and share your thoughts on the topics below… maybe we can come to some kind of mutual understanding.

There’s Nothing to Play!

I bought my PS3 in 2008 under the assumption I’d be playing The Last Guardian in the not too distant future, and we all know how that turned out. Okay, so maybe it turned out alright: the PS3 has one of the best stables of exclusive titles of any console released in the past 10 years. But it took 3-4 years from launch for the system to get to that point. As for the PS4 and the Xbox One, there are very few titles coming this year that can’t be done in exemplary fashion on the consoles you’ve already got sitting under your TVs, and I’ve seen nothing coming within the next 12 months that has me convinced I need to upgrade. Honestly, you’re better off taking the $450-$600 you have earmarked for a new console and splurging instead on pretty much every new game coming out this holiday season.

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Breaking News: Super Mario 3D World will *not* be coming to Xbox One!

Think about it for a minute: for the cost of an Xbox One, you can buy Assassin’s Creed IV, Batman: Arkham Origins, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Gran Turismo 6, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Pokémon X or Y, Super Mario 3D World, The Wolf Among Us, and XCOM: Enemy Within. And what’s better: spending $500 to play one or two games, or spending $500 to play 7-8 games?

Next-Gen What?

For decades, platform holders pushed the notion that “next-gen” equaled faster processors and snazzier graphics. And that made sense before the likes of Cave Story, Mega Man 9, Fez and Retro City Rampage started releasing alongside titles like Halo 4 and Mass Effect 3. With developers releasing such a broad variety of software on today’s gaming devices, it’s pretty clear gamers no longer see things in terms of the old paradigms. And if we no longer chart the growth of gaming in terms of “giggleflops” and “mecha-hurts,” what exactly is it that’s so “next-gen” about the PS4 and Xbox One?

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Does this screen from Assassin’s Creed IV look “next-gen” to you?

Perhaps it’s the slick new social features promised by the PS4? The off-screen Vita play? Maybe it’s the snappy multitasking capabilities of the Xbox One? Now, don’t read my probing as sarcasm; these are all features I’m genuinely excited to see implemented in the next versions of the PlayStation and Xbox ecosystems. But if, like me, you define “next-gen” by these new features that are going to fundamentally change the way we play, I’ve got news for you: there’s nothing next-gen about the PS4 and Xbox One. That’s because consoles and other devices have already been doing these things for years.

Nintendo did next-gen in 2012 with the Wii U’s pioneering off-TV play. Apple did next-gen in 2008 when it launched an App Store that pushed games into the hands of hundreds of thousands of people who would never have been caught dead in public with a DS or a PSP. And I won’t even bother talking about how reactive Microsoft has been in its design of the Xbox One, because Xbox Live aside, that’s been the company’s MO since it was founded. Been there, done that. Moving on.

So tell me, again: what’s so “next-gen” about the PS4 and Xbox One?

Play What You Love

Listen. I know it sounds like I’m down on the PS4 and Xbox One. But honestly, I just hate to see so many people getting excited about spending what little money they have on something that’s going to be a letdown, at least in the short term. Will I be getting a PS4? Absolutely, when there’s a game that I want to play and I can’t do it anywhere else. Will I miss out on the adrenaline rush of a new console launch? Not really: I bought a Wii U last year. But just because I’ve become cynical about the next-gen console rat race, it doesn’t mean you have to be. After all, we buy new consoles because we love games, and I’m sure you’re all eventually going to find something to love about your PlayStation 4s and Xbox Ones. In the meantime, there’s just too much to love about the systems I already own for me to care about what might be coming for the ones I don’t.

 

The post Keep Your “Next-Gen.” Mine’s Already Here. appeared first on Invisible Gamer.

Second Chance: Sly Cooper: Thieves In Time

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Second Chance is a series examining games that our staff had previously passed on. They aren’t reviews, but early, narrow, personal impressions focusing on things that we didn’t expect to like or dislike as much as we did. The rules are simple: the writer must have not owned the game before receiving it via PlayStation Plus, Games With Gold, Humble Bundle, the Steam Summer Sale, or a similar service. Gifts are also fair game.

As an Xbox and GameCube owner last decade, I missed out on several great PlayStation-exclusive franchises such as God of War and Ratchet and Clank, but another, more cartoony series also eluded me. The Sly Cooper games were consistently lauded as some of the best platformers of the PlayStation 2 generation, and their quick stealth gameplay always seemed like something I’d enjoy.

With the long-dormant series finally returning with Sanzaru’s Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, I was given an opportunity to test it out last year and came away unimpressed. The controls felt imprecise, I didn’t like the combat, and the side-activities felt far too much like something from a ten year-old game. After getting the game through PlayStation Plus and playing it for several hours, I go back on just about everything I thought.

To get my first gripe out of the way, Sly’s movement feels almost perfect after spending a little time learning the admittedly-odd control scheme. Almost every point or pole in the game is scalable with a quick tap of the circle button, seamlessly blending platforming and stealth without one undermining the other. The combat takes some getting used to, and I wasn’t thrilled with the hard-to-judge movements of the guards, but Sly’s stealth takedowns flow perfectly with the platforming.

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Sly’s pals Bentley and Murray are also playable, with different “jobs” being exclusive to specific characters. Bentley being limited to a wheelchair meant that most of his playtime was spent in hacking minigames that vary in quality, but help to break up the action regardless. Murray isn’t all that fun to play, though; he’s the muscle of the group, but this means that his segments are largely spent beating up enemies and breaking things. However, Murray is still a funny character, and a segment featuring him dressed up as a geisha dancing to a bunch of boars was both hilarious and disturbing.

Because Thieves in Time sends Sly and his pals through several different historic periods, many Cooper ancestors are also playable, and these are some of the best characters in the game. Tennessee Cooper is a crack-shot outlaw from the Old West, and his sections play out as shooting galleries, while “Bob” is a vicious, primitive raccoon who communicates to Sly in gibberish. I loved mixing up the main three characters with the time period-specific ancestors, but I would’ve liked to spend a little more time with them.

It’s an all-ages game, but I was surprised by how funny Thieves in Time was to me. Bentley in particular has some great exchanges with Sly, and while the humor can get a tad generalizing across the different time periods and locations, they don’t seem mean-spirited. The voice acting also helps, feeling straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon, and while I doubt none of this is news to fans of the series, it was arguably my favorite aspect of the experience.

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I wasn’t thrilled with the amount of filler, however. Even though it was originally a $40 game, Thieves in Time has a ton of content, but much of it feels like unnecessary diversions to mask the fact that the story is pretty simple. Having to get a Cooper ancestor back into “fighting shape” served no other purpose than to make me spend half an hour doing minigames, and there wasn’t a reward once I completed them all. It’s supposed to appeal to a wide audience, so this isn’t too unexpected, but I would’ve liked for a few of these to be eliminated in favor of another historic location to explore.

Playing Thieves in Time made me saddened to hear how soft its sales have been, but I’m hopeful that its inclusion in PlayStation Plus will introduce others to the series in the same manner as me. If you haven’t played it yet, there’s no better time than right now!

The post Second Chance: Sly Cooper: Thieves In Time appeared first on Invisible Gamer.

Persona 5 Coming to Playstation 4 in 2015

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The fifth installment of the Persona series is now slated to release on both Playstation 3 and Playstation 4 in 2015. Atlas made the announcement earlier today at Sony Computer Entertainment Japan Asia’s press conference along with a new animated teaser trailer. The trailer shows very little about the game other than the face of a character we assume will be the protagonist. No gameplay was shown.

Persona 5 was originally announced as a PS3 title last year with a “Winter 2014” release. It’s unclear if the 2015 date will still be true for Western audiences or not. We’ll be sure to keep you updated on the latest news about Persona 5 as it becomes available.

Source: Polygon

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PlayStation Plus Goes Full Indie For November

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In a video since made private, November’s lineup of free PlayStation Plus games was revealed, and it’s decidedly indie.

The two PlayStation 4 games will be The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth and Steamworld Dig. PlayStation 3 will see Luftrausers and Frozen Synapse Prime, while Vita owners will be able to play The Hungry Horde and Escape Plan. The PlayStation Plus edition of Driveclub is still apparently on hold.

Some PlayStation owners have expressed discontent with the supposed decrease in quality/value of the free games offered as part of the PlayStation Plus program, and this month is now entirely devoid of AAA games. While indie doesn’t denote quality or value (and may, in fact, imply positivity for both aspects), it’s certainly interesting to note the change.

The games will (hopefully) be available to download this coming Tuesday, November 4 when the PlayStation Store updates.

Source: Game Informer

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