Meet Hardboiled

The basic gameplay in Rocketbirds centres around Hardboiled Chicken and his guns. Starting off with just a pistol, you find alternate weapons as you progress through the game. Hardboiled certainly knows how these things work, and he can take out a gaggle of penguins quite easily from across the screen. The gunplay and movement reminded me of vintage side scrollers such as Rolling Thunder, and I liked the way you could duck in and out of cover at certain points, giving the game the air of a Naked Gun shootout, at times.

As you progress through the first few levels, Rocketbirds begins to introduce various puzzle elements, which initially just involve shifting crates around, but soon gain a new dimension with the introduction of brain bugs. These little critters can be thrown around the environment, and will instantly take control of any enemies that they pop nearby, producing a lovely green glow as they do so. This is one of the cleverest aspects of the game, as you can then use the soldier to your advantage, either to open new paths, or to take out his compatriots, clearing the way for Hardboiled to progress.

Viva la Revolution

Moving through the game, more enemies are introduced, and your revolutionary fight sees you teaming up with other birds, in order to take down the penguin oppressors. Shooting penguins initially seems quite poor sport, especially considering the mess they make as their feathery corpses are juggled in the air, in a low rent Devil May Cry style. However, thanks to the beautifully rendered cut scenes, and accompanying music, which tell the background story of Hardboiled Chicken and the rise of Il Putski, I soon learned to hate the penguins as much as my avian brothers did.

Mixing it up

The combination of puzzles, music and combat in Rocketbirds works very well together, and a change of pace is also on offer with a number of flying levels, which play out a little like Mini Squadron.

Whilst some shooting sections did prove to be a sticking point for a while, as I struggled to do battle with the limited movements on offer, I found that there were enough checkpoints on offer  to prevent frustration setting in.

Single player and co-op

As well as the single player campaign, which clocks in at around four to five hours, there is also a local co-op (or coop) mode, that allows two players to tackle ten chapters as the Budgie commandos. This co-op campaign take place across the same levels as the single player mode, but the puzzles are reworked to ensure that the budgies must work together in order to progress. Having completed the game, I feel that special credit must be given to Ratloop Asia for offering one of the best closing credit sequences in recent memory. It is really nice to see a developer doing something simple, but effective, that continues to engage the player right to the end of the game.

In summary

Whilst not overly long, Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken still strikes me as good value for money, given the five hour single player campaign and additional co-op adventure. Heck, some of the big budget ‘games of the year’ won’t clock in at much longer than that. Some of the puzzles are very neatly worked, and it is nearly impossible to get tired of mind controlling penguin soldiers. Whilst the combat system is not perfect, and the puzzles are sometimes a little easier than they could be, the whole game is presented with such style and panache that these small flaws are easy to overlook. Given that the music is so integral to the game experience though, I wonder if the soundtrack could have perhaps been bundled with the game? To my mind this would have made what is already a decent package into something that extra bit special. Oh well, I can always like to NWR on YouTube, I suppose…..

Setting The Scene

From the opening cut scene onwards, Dark Souls sets up a moody, almost poetic background to its particular breed of gameplay, which blends RPG elements with an extemely tight combat system and subtle online interactions. Having been unceremoniously thrown into an Undead Asylum, your characters’ first taste of combat comes against an Asylum Demon that is bigger than a house, and night on impossible to beat, given that your only weapon is a broken sword. This encounter gives rise to Rule Number 1 in Dark Souls: if something seems too tough to beat, best run away and try again later.

As the game progresses over the first few hours, Dark Souls drip feeds information to the player, but never enough to make you feel completely aware of your situation. In terms of storyline, information is gleaned from a small number of cut scenes, along with brief interactions with various NPCs, inhabiting the often dreamlike world that has been lovingly crafted around you. This feeling of inhabiting a dream lends Dark Souls an ethereal quality, which is heightened by the hugely inventive level and character design, which often left me staring in awe and horror, sometimes in equal measure.

Prepare To Die

Whilst Demon’s Souls, and now Dark Souls, both carry a reputation for having an exceedingly high difficulty level, this is not the whole picture, by any means. Whilst you will find that you die a heck of a lot in Dark Souls, the game tries to use this as a learning experience, rather than a stick to beat you with. As with real life though, some lessons are harder than others. Particularly painful are the deaths that occur when the stakes are highest, but by the same token, the incredible rush of emotion that occurs at a moment of success is that much sweeter, given the effort it has taken to achieve.

The Keys to Success

Levelling up in Dark Souls is paramount to success, as are the procurement of better armour, rings and weapons, which can help you succeed against what often seem to be impossible odds. The souls acquired from dead enemies can be used to develop your character in any way you see fit, and the weapons that you carry can be crafted further, with the use of Titanite, into items of incredible destructive power. As you progress through the game, you will come to realise quite how important a good arsenal of weapons is, as the game throws tougher and tougher enemies at you, along with some of the most daunting boss battles ever seen in a video game.

Boss battles are an absolutely core part of the Dark Souls experience, and each boss encounter has one thing in common – when you first meet them, you will doubt your ability to triumph. But triumph you will, given the right tools and the right approach, and sometimes the help of a fellow adventurer, using the online functionality of the game.

Online support in Dark Souls is beautifully integrated into the game world, and never feels like it is jarring you from what is essentially a solitary, and at times lonely, experience. Lay down a white soapstone message and you can offer your help to fellow travellers, ghosting into their game as a white phantom, providing assistance in beating a level, or taking down a boss.

Conversely, lay down an red soapstone, or a cracked orb, and you will find yourself invading another player, looking to strip them of their humanity and souls. Between these two extremes lie a messaging system, which can offer either help or misinformation to other players, and a covenant system that opens a whole world of possibilities for online interactions.

A True World

Dark Souls is a game that encourages the player to think, explore and experiment for themselves. Thankfully, the world that has been created is an absolute joy to travel through, and the way that the game opens new areas and shortcuts as you progress is done with incredible attention to detail.

The draw distances in the game are huge, with threats yet to come often sighted on a distant battlement, or in the depths of a poisonous swamp. Coupled with the permanence of your movements and actions, and the fact that you will barely see a loading screen in your time with the game, you can begin to feel like you are experiencing a living, breathing environment.

In terms of game length, Dark Souls offers players a substantial campaign, with the further possibility of side quests, online interactions, crafting and covenant membership that can take it to well over 100 hours for the first playthrough. Personally, I completed the game in just over 70 hours, having explored a lot of the optional areas, and carried out a little bit of voluntary work for the good folks of the forest covenant.

For those players looking to invest even more time in the game, it is actually designed to be played through on multiple occasions, by entering New Game Plus.

In NG+, you get to keep most of your equipment and your character level, but will find that the difficulty level has been significantly increased. Perfect for anyone chasing achievements or trophies.

In Summary

Dark Souls is a worthy successor to Demon’s Souls. It offers a unique and powerful approach to the RPG genre, that provides a level of challenge unseen in many other modern games. If you want to sit back and be part of an interactive movie spectacle, then this is probably not the game for you. If, on the other hand, you want to immerse yourself in a deeply personal adventure, set in a beautifully crafted fantasy world, that can shock and surprise like nothing else released this year, then you should give Dark Souls your time. You won’t regret it.

Dungeon Siege III is once again set in the kingdom of Ehb, some 150 years after the events of Dungeon Siege II. The 10^th Legion is almost totally wiped out, thanks to the game’s main antagonist, Jeyne Kassynder, and has driven the current Queen Roslyn underground, into hiding. Only a few legionnaires remain, hidden and lead by a former Legion spy, known as the Venerable Odo.

You can choose from one of four characters in your effort to rebuild what is left of the Legion, regain the people’s trust in them and stop Jeyne Kassynder, who is hell bent on revenge against the Legion. Each of the four characters represent which approach of attack you wish to take. Lucas is the youngest son of the former king and of the first Dungeon Siege’s protagonist, Lady Montbarron. He fights using a single or two-handed sword, depending which stance is chosen in combat. Anjali, a mythical being, uses fire magic to attack and can morph from human form with a spear to elemental fire form. Reinhart is a descendant of another original Dungeon Siege character, Merik, and uses magic as his base of attack. Katarina is the long range attack option, wielding either a pair of shotguns, or a rifle, again depending on the stance chosen. She also has deep ties to the murdered king.

Finishing the game as Lucas, I discovered that each of the aforementioned characters actually join your party at different junctures of the story, to become an available NPC partner, to assist in the quest. Only one of the other characters is available at any one time, but as you level up, so do all your characters, even if not active. Very un-Final-Fantasy-like but rather handy if need a quick swap around of styles on the battlefield. The NPC’s AI is okay; they just attack, attack, and attack some more and pretty much look after themselves. Anjali can look rather silly trying to fry enemies with a fence in the way, that fence will not burn lady, no matter how hard you try!

If your NPC team mate falls in battle, a quick hold of RB over their body will revive them, with 50% health. They will also return the favour should you fall in battle also. Many boss fights (and there are MANY) can be very distracting, as all the other enemies focus on you, the player, so a lot of the damage is in fact dealt by your partner. Working through the quest was a constant heal-a-thon. Enemies deal a lot of damage, so constant dodging and blocking (where possible) is paramount to completing the game.

There is also a wealth of collectible armour and weapons available to enhance your characters along your quest, obtainable via chests, scattered around Ehb. Those you don’t need, you can sell at stores located in most areas along the quest. I did find that was the only use for the stores though; there are so many accessories available in chests (for free), I never had to use a shop to buy anything, ever.

Dungeon Siege’s graphics, although not awful by any means, look at least a couple of years out of date, if not more. Included is the ‘golden trail’ line to direct to the location of the current quest (as seen in the Fable series) with a click press of ‘Up’ on the D-Pad. This is a nice touch, as the Kingdom of Ehb is vast, if linear. The plot is also fairly thin, also; anything that would be regarded as a twist you can see coming from a mile away, but the voice acting is well done, if vastly overwrought.

The main camera view is above the character more than Fable but combat is almost identical – in other words, boring and repetitive. I actually fell asleep for a few minutes during a battle, whilst repeatedly hitting the ‘A’ button, and had received very little damage. Who’s a clever AI, eh? Have an apple. Or not. Overall I felt that, in Dungeon Siege III that combat is all the game has to offer from each quest.

Ultimately the game’s core is just Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 all over again, with the only difference being the Fable-esque setting. Starts out promisingly, but you will be grateful once it has ended. Very, very mediocre game.

Opening

Dead Island announces its arrival with a powerful opening cinematic, seen from the same first person perspective that you are locked into throughout the game. The Dead Island of this alcohol fuelled, hedonistic opening sequence is certainly not the subtle, melancholic mood piece hinted at by the earlier controversial ‘family’ trailer. This intro piece not only gives a teaser of events that are to come, but also helps define the broad, brash and confident approach to zombie slaying that is Dead Island’s speciality.

Character Selection

On starting the game proper, the character selection screen gives you four options to choose from – two male and two female characters, all with certain skills that they can bring to the game. Providing you are happy for your character to come from the ‘Big Book of Horror Movie Stereotypes’ you are pretty spoiled for choice. Personally I chose Sam B, a burned out hip-hop star, who has been reduced to personal appearances at luxury hotel resorts to pay the bills. Thankfully Sam is also a bit tasty with his fists and improvised blunt weapons, as I discovered when entering combat for the first time.

Zombie Slaying

Having played many games featuring zombies in the past, I thought I was well prepared to tackle the undead hordes in Dead Island. However the combat system in this game is about as far as you can get from a Resident Evil or Left4Dead title, being nearly all about brutal and often claustrophobic melee combat. Sure, there are guns in the game, but it is a very long time before you get your hands on one, and even then, they are best used sparingly, with ammo being one of the scarcest resources on the island of Banoi.

Fighting a horde of zombies in Dead Island is at times disorientating, as screams come from the distance and you are descended on from unexpected angles. The analogue control scheme, which I would highly recommend, ramps up the tension further. It allows you to aim at certain parts of the zombies’ bodies and direct your attacks accordingly, using the right stick in a style reminiscent of Fight Night. During this melee combat, bones will break, heads and limbs will become detached and still the zombies will come at you. At times during the game, I found myself flicking the right control stick as if my life depended on it, which is a great testament to the level of immersion that had been created.

A Zombie RPG?

Whilst the gameplay in Dead Island is very combat heavy, this game is really an RPG at heart, and as such the story plays out through a succession of quests and optional side quests. The main plot takes you through three sections of Banoi Island, interacting with a huge variety of NPCs along the way, and engaging in quests which take in all aspects of survival in the wake of a zombie outbreak.

The island itself is huge, and there are a plenty of hidden areas and side quests to find, if you take the road less travelled and make time to really explore your surroundings. On entering certain buildings, I would hear a desperate message being broadcast, or see signs of events that had gone before. These audio and visual clues would often then become part of a quest further down the line, helping reinforce the feeling of being part of a very real game world.

The only real breaks in this immersion came on the few occasions when the game glitched on me, such as when the keeper of the lighthouse introduced himself for the second time in a row, seemingly oblivious to our previous meeting. With objects always respawning upon re-entering an area, there is also an opportunity to detach yourself from the game world, and get caught up in item farming, but that is not something I found myself needing or wanting to do.

Often the storyline and dialogue in Dead Island is cheesy and even faintly ridiculous, but I really didn’t see this as a failing of the game at all. To my mind, this actually helps the game to sit perfectly into the Friday Night Horror category that it represents so well. No matter how many times you have screamed at someone in a movie not to go into the dark underground car park alone, it is actually great fun to be the one doing it, knowing that something will be lurking around the corner.

If It Ain’t Broke….

With so much of the combat in Dead Island based around melee weapons, it is initially disconcerting to find that these weapons don’t actually last that long. Despite being made of solid steel, even that sturdy looking wrench is going to need to be fixed up regularly. Repairing weapons costs money, which makes no sense at all, particularly in light of the zombie apocalypse that is occurring all around, but I guess it helps the game to tick along, so what the hey.

At the start of the game, money is a bit short on the ground, but scavenging will help keep your pockets full enough to get by. At times it may actually be better just to toss or sell a badly damaged weapon, as the cost of repair can be so high. Stick with it though, and by the middle of the game you should be flush enough to be putting your cash towards upgrading and modifying your increasingly impressive armoury.

The weapon upgrading and modding system certainly doffs its cap to Dead Rising 2, but the two games are not really comparable beyond this concept. The weapon modifying system in Dead Island is very structured, with mods only available once they have been earned, usually as a quest reward. My weapon of choice for much of the game was a two handed hammer, modified with various electrical bits and bobs, which produced fantastic shock damage on critical hits. Without wishing to give away any spoilers, I will just say that this weapon was very hard earned, and I made sure it was repaired and by my side for the remainder of the game.

Co-Op

Dead Island can be played entirely in single player mode, with only occasional help, or hindrance, from the odd NPC, but I really feel that this would be missing out on what can be a fantastic co-op experience. Up to four players are able to  jump into the same game world, taking on the zombie hordes together, with the game ramping up the difficulty level accordingly. Leaving my game with open public spaces, I often found players jumping in and out, with their help generally being appreciated, particularly if they had a headset. Joining another player’s game proved very easy, with a subtle message popping up now and again, to advise that someone was nearby and tackling the same section of the game. Hooking up with them was then as simple as pressing left on the D-Pad. There were certain sections of the game that I would not have wanted to tackle single handed, and the drop-in nature of the co-op lent itself perfectly to seeking help on these particular missions.

In Summary

Dead Island is a brutal, melee focussed take on the zombie genre, which offers up to four players the chance to play through a 20+ hour adventure, with the option for further exploration and experimentation. Whilst the game is occasionally rough around the edges, the world that has been created is incredibly immersive, thanks largely to the highly visceral combat system and the feeling of being part of a much larger, if slightly cheesy, story. If you have even the slightest interest in the zombie genre, or are looking for a great co-op experience, I would highly recommend taking a trip to Dead Island.

Dead Island is out now on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC

* Techland have announced a Day One patch for Dead Island, addressing some  technical issues with the game. Whilst this has now gone live on PS3, the patch was not available for testing on 360 at the time of writing. If you are experiencing problems, try the Deep Silver’s Dead Island Support site.

For those who are among the younger generation of gamers, or anyone who hasn’t played the original, Ocarina of Time follows the adventures of young Link. He awakens one morning to find himself hand-picked by the great Deku tree, the benevolent protector of the forest in which the Kokiri people live. His task? To venture out into the big world, meet a princess and save everyone from the impending doom being spearheaded by pointy-nosed Ganon. All a rather low pressure situation for Link. He handles it with a demeanor befitting of a hero, all the time rocking the green hat.

You want to talk to Saria, right?

Some of you who played the original will now be confused. I can already hear the slightly bitter tone of voice mutter about how gamers didn’t need hint videos back in the day so why should we now. Some of the puzzles and dungeons were gruelling; it was the trend at the time – this doesn’t mean it has to continue. I’m not trying to say that the game has been made easier. In fact, the opposite is true in that it is still the same puzzles as it had before. Good job it has been 13 years between playthroughs for the hardcore fans.

The point is that hint videos are now available for those that want them via Sheikah stones; they look like the gossip stones of the original but allow you to crawl inside for a quick hint at the future. Navi, helpful as ever, offers her advice, usually to the tune of “That door has a barrier” or some other obvious statements. Helpful for those who are truly stuck but the seasoned adventurer shouldn’t get too stuck… at least not until the later temples.

The fine balance of Combat, Exploration and Story is expertly managed during Ocarina of Time’s 23+ hours of gaming time. The combat follows a simple attack and block format which would get boring if it wasn’t for the multitude of weapons available to dispatch the equally varied number of enemies, each of course having a different weakness of way of defeating them. Weapons like the slingshot and other projectiles use the 3DS gyroscope to aim; by moving the console you move your viewpoint. Simple stuff but it works brilliantly compared to other gyro-controlled games I have tried. The gyroscope works in the same manner for both the Shield (for blocking enemy attacks) and a first-person area view when exploring.

Don't look down!

If you are the type of gamer that likes hunting for collectables or hidden items then Ocarina of Time has you covered. There are spiders, hearts, weapons and all manner of things scattered around the game’s 21 locales. Some items are important to the narrative and others aren’t. All, however, are good fun to hunt down if you wish to stray from your path for a while. The majority of collectables come at the behest of the worlds denizens, usually after performing a fetch quest in typical adventure fashion.

There isn’t much more to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time but really there doesn’t need to be. The story is paced brilliantly and the combat is a perfect mix of different methods; repetitive enough to be familiar but varied enough to keep things fresh. I used to hold the opinion that The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was a classic game and a memento to how games used to be. Having played it again I am pleased to say that 13 years later it is still as fresh as when it was first released. This level of freshness doesn’t just come from a new coat of paint or new features, it comes from a game that, like its hero, goes on a journey through time and comes out stronger then it was before. If you own a 3DS and love adventurous hijinks then Ocarina of Time is for you.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D is available now on Nintendo 3DS

Set in an alternate world to our own, where monsters from Hollywood films are actual monsters instead of special effects and are highly praised in society, The Next BIG Thing shows off a beautiful cel-shaded art style that really is amazing at higher resolutions. The story follows Dan Murray, an arrogant ex sports writer, and Liz Allaire, a young reporter who seems to be quite mad. They get embroiled together in a tale that takes them through classic locations hailing back to the golden age of cinema.

Standard point and click controls are used – after all, if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it. Left-click moves the character around the room and selects items to interact with while right-click cycles through interaction types: hold, drop, etc. It is actually worth exploring everything you can just to hear the characters thoughts, particularly during the sections when you are playing as Liz. Although her dialog will leave you confused sometimes it will make you smile more than once.

In comparison Dan is rather straight-laced. His puzzle sections show off this attitude, often lacking the fun and personality that Liz brought to the story. Dan was obviously intended as a baseline to show how crazy Liz is in comparison but he just feels out of place in this zany world.

The puzzles aren’t fiendishly difficult for anyone with experience at point-and-click games. If you don’t have experience then don’t fret. There are a number of helpful tricks added to the game to help settle you in. Hotspots can be activated to highlight interactive objects and if you ask for help, a narrator all but explains what to do to give you that helpful nudge. Once you get into the habit of using every object on every other object, the puzzles get easier. It is just a matter of trial and error as the difficulty is set at the beginning of the game and can’t be changed. If you choose to launch in hard mode the only way to change the difficulty down is by starting a new game.

As with all adventure games of this style the replay factor is an issue once you have finished it. Once you know the plot, the script and most importantly you know how to solve the puzzles, there’s not much else to do. If the game crashes on you like it did with me, it’s easy to make up for a few hours work in a sliver of the time. This isn’t something I think can be avoided in the genre but doesn’t stop it from being a downer.

If you like cinema, adventure games, comedic scripting and beautiful animation then it is far too easy to recommend The Next BIG Thing. Whilst a few of the puzzles are on the higher end of the hair-pulling scale, the majority of them are light-hearted and fun to solve. If you haven’t played a point and click game before then The Next BIG Thing is a great place to start and for £18.50 provides enough laughs and game time to be worth the price.

You can buy The Next BIG Thing online for US$29.99 (approximately £18.50)

This was a guest post from Lewis Rayne. Lewis thrives on pressure and life just isn’t exciting enough for him. That might be why he games so much. Despite being an avid gamer and writer he has never finished a Sonic game past the first world and has accepted the fact he probably never will. Lewis runs Fusion Gamer and writes words for those that want them.

Pretty pictures:

When loading up A Shadow’s Tale for the first time, my thoughts immediately turned to Ico. The spirit of that classic game is certainly strong here, with some lovely visuals, atmospheric sound and a rather mysterious story, told largely without words. Meanwhile, the character animation, jumping and fighting mechanics hark back to the original Prince of Persia and the ground breaking Another World.

The main protagonist of the story is the shadow of a lone boy, which has been ripped away and finds itself on the ground floor on a huge tower, with only a fairy to assist on its daunting journey to the top. The reason for this journey is vague at first, but is slowly revealed as the shadow recovers lost memories from the environment during its climb.

The journey of the shadow takes in a range of environments, including some beautifully serene outdoor sections, but there are large portions of the game set in grungy industrial zones, such as sewers and factories. These steam-punk influenced areas can become monotonous, but they do allow the game to show off some of its best tricks. These include manipulating light sources, shifting platforms and moving temporarily between the worlds of shadow and light, all in the name of progressing slowly upwards.

When A Shadow’s Tale is at its best, the levels themselves are the star of the show. The careful shifting of light in order to trap and kill a group of enemies is immensely satisfying. Unfortunately this contrasts starkly with the awkward fighting sections that the game forces on you from the off. Without the ability to block attacks, fighting the shadow creatures that you come across quickly becomes a repetitious cycle of hitting and retreating. Later in the game, you find that your powered up attacks are more effective, making the fight sequences easier, but no less annoying.

The game took me just over 15 hours to complete, making this quite a substantial adventure. Some of the levels were less inspiring than others, and the combat sections often felt like an unnecessary addition to the game. I would have personally liked the game to be a bit shorter, as a good deal of the content seemed to be uneccessary padding. This game would have been a perfect fit as a downloadable WiiWare title, and a tighter, more focused version may have become a minor classic. As it stands, A Shadow’s Tale is more a flawed gem.

A Shadow’s Tale is a game that many people may have missed when it came out last year, as it was perhaps not best suited for a full retail release. I would recommend that you track it down though, or perhaps try and rent a copy, as it is definitely worthy of your time. If you can see through its faults, you will find a unique game, with a beautiful art style, iconic influences and some clever puzzles, that makes excellent use of the Wii control scheme.

A Shadow’s Tale is out now on the Nintendo Wii

Pictures:

• Limbo is short but very sweet, in a sadistic kind of way.
• Reminded me of those Eastern European cartoons they used to show on BBC2 on a Saturday afternoon.
• Great game anyway, if a bit tricky/fiddly towards the end.

Playing beyond the demo has given me a new level of appreciation for Mega64′s real life interpretation, which I would urge you to watch. Nice work guys:

Video Source: Mega64

Actually, no. Go back to whatever you were playing. I’ve just played through the PC demo of the game and it’s well and truly awful. This is actually making me re-think that my childhood – perhaps wandering around a virtual Neuschwanstein Castle was a misspent youth after all. Did I really enjoy walking from room to room clicking on absolutely every item after each plot development in the hopes that some invisible change had taken place in the game world, praying for one of the objects that I’ve already examined a hundred times to become newly interactive?

Yes, apparently I did. Well it’s fucking annoying now. If something is going to be useful, let me pick it up the first time around instead of making me trawl through the entire bloody world to hunt down a detail that AT THE TIME was completely insignificant.

To be fair, the team at Wizarbox have mode some improvements to the traditional point-and-click experience. There’s an option to flag up everything that you can interact with, which nicely works around pixel-hunting. They’ve also… um… er… nope, that’s it. The rest of the interface design feels like a dumbed-down version of a 90s adventure. Depending on what you’re supposed to do with an object, the cursor changes to indicate your action. If there’s nothing, you can only look. If you can pick it up, you only get a grab icon. If you’re expected to use an inventory object on it, the cursor shows an empty hand to tell you that.

I realise that some people like this kind of hand-holding and use-every-object-on-every-other-object solutions are deservedly hated by gamers. I, however, resent the loss of agency. The way to prevent that particular issue is integrate your clues in the game and story, not shout solutions through the cursor. This sort of design reduces a game to little more than an interactive movie and we know what I think of interactive movies. Gray Matter actually does quite a nice job of dropping hints but this is marred by those hints being hidden in unrepeatable blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cut-scenes.

The story is interesting enough – after the tragic loss of his wife, neurobiologist David Styles turns his mighty brain toward researching life after death. Hi-jinks ensue. The dialogue and voice-acting are superb, if a tad serious, and the game itself has some beautiful environments and artwork. I was disappointed by the gameplay but you may be able to overlook these things. Go try out the PC demo of Gray Matter (1.6GB) or get the console version from Xbox Live.

As with the previous games, I’ve played this one to death before writing this review. Every assassination completed, Rome 100% renovated, full set of trained Assassins in my guild, all weapons destroyed, all flags and feathers collected etc. It took me 32 hours to complete the single player campaign. Not too bad for a quick cash-in! You could probably knock off a few hours off that as I did partake in a fair bit of wandering through Rome and general larking around – parachuting off tall buildings and running along the tops of viaducts.

Home, Sweet Home

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood picks up right after the end of Assassin’s Creed II, so if you haven’t played it, go do it now, as you will miss some of the back story. Anyway, ignoring the fact that a whole year of my real life has just whizzed by between games, I carry on where I’d left off with my old mate Ezio. In no time we are out on the hunt again after being made homeless by another dastardly ruffian. Hmm, I’ll kill him later no doubt.

This time Ezio has been tasked with saving Rome from the evil Borgia, carrying out a bit of DIY on most of its buildings, killing the odd person and recruiting his own Assassin army. This is all very much like Assassin’s Creed II, apart from the Assassin army bit; that’s new. Once you’ve reached a certain point, sorry memory, in the game you can recruit up to 9 civilians to train to be part of your Assassins guild. This involves assigning them to various missions (go tail a spy or kill an important person) to earn experience. Unfortunately, you never see what happens during these missions. It’s more like a text based adventure where you just read about what happened. To help you decide who to send, there is a mission success percentage calculator. Junior Assassins tend to only contribute a small amount (20-30%) to the success percentage total whereas an experienced Assassin can complete whole missions on their own without fail. This success percentage calculator does make it really easy to never fail a mission, as you only attempt ones with 100% predicted success. A simple tactic of sending 4 experienced Assassins and 1 junior Assassin on the hardest mission possible, with a 100% predicted success rate (naturally) blasts the junior Assassin through about 7 of the 9 skill levels in one go!

Attack, My Pretties

Once you have recruited your Assassins you can then call upon them (assuming they are not away on missions at the time) to help when you’re out and about in Rome. Whilst it’s great to have all this backup at the touch of a button, it does make the game really, really easy. For example, when you see a huge amount of guards, just call in an arrow storm and bam, everyone’s dead. In the 32 hours it took me to complete the single player campaign I lost just 1 Assassin in battle. Yeah, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is not a hard game to play.

Another change from Assassin’s Creed II is that there is only 1 city to explore. Whilst the missions to destroy Leonardo da Vinci’s weapons do indeed take you away from Rome, they are only short-lived excursions and the cities are really small anyway. To compensate for this, Ubisoft have made Rome absolutely massive. The city is so big that you need to travel either by horse (which are now commonplace across the city) or the sewers which Ezio can use to effectively warp around the map. Personally, I found myself running about the city, as there is so much to do that you rarely get bored by just running. The main problem I found was I would frequently get distracted from my original task by collecting a flag or 10 along the way. Be warned, just like Assassin’s Creed II, this game will make entire days fly by. It’s a total time sink as you get immersed in this wonderful environment of a city thronging with life, activity and beautiful music (Jesper Kyd’s in-game soundtrack is as awesome as always). Or, you could look upon it as a city packed full of potential targets for an Assassin ;-)

Rome Raider

Following on from Assassin’s Creed II there are 6 tombs to explore which are all hidden throughout Rome. As early as the first tomb, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood had me feeling like I was playing the Tomb Raider game that I’d always dreamed of. Ezio is effortless to control, majestic in his movement and spectacular in his execution. Exploring each of the 6 tombs is fun and surprisingly varied. Whilst there are only so many things you can do in a room with lots of pointy objects – walk, run, jump, swim, ride, sneak, climb and kill – Ubisoft have admirably tried to vary the place of each Tomb. Each one has its particular set of puzzles, from navigating and fighting, to acrobatics in order to get to the Tomb’s treasure. On top of navigating your way around these vast areas without a map, there is also a challenge per tomb if you are to achieve 100% memory synchronisation. Some are fairly easy to complete, like not letting your health drop below 5 squares. Others are more challenging – complete the tomb in less than 8 minutes. All of these challenges add to the longevity of the game.

One area that did surprise me in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood were the changes made to the beggars and musicians. Amazingly they are less annoying and intrusive than in the first 2 games. Hurrah! As many of you will already know of the pain of having a perfectly good tail or kill spoilt by some pesky musician, or even worse a swarm of musicians herding around you to play a terrible song. I usually got into all sorts of trouble after introducing them to my hidden blade. The momentary peace and quiet, from the now dead musician, was bliss though ;-)

One of the reasons I love playing the Assassin’s Creed games so much is they make you feel like you can take on anything – animal, vegetable or mineral. No wait, I mean climb any building or kill any amount of people. It is almost a superhuman approach to gaming. You feel so good causing total mayhem around Rome with consummate ease. You can climb everything in sight, with the exception of Rome’s large rock faces which weave their way across the landscape. Exploring Rome with Ezio is enormous fun. Ubisoft have also tweaked a number of Ezio’s skills. For instance Ezio’s climbing action is much more efficient, making it even easier and quicker to climb a building than ever before. Battles have been improved, with Ezio able to quickly kill guards one after the other, rather than having to wait to counter attack or slowly hack them to death. It is a case of evolution rather than revolution of Ezio’s skills and abilities. Having sunk so many hours into this series I still find myself looking at real life buildings and think “Yep, that’s climbable!”

Must try harder

Now on to what’s not so good in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. The dialogue is stilted and unconvincing, especially the conversations between Desmond and Veronica Mars Lucy Stillman. If the dialogue was as well written as Prince of Persia’s (also made by Ubisoft) you would actually care more about the “real life” sections of this game. Also the only reason the supposedly sarcastic character Shaun Hastings is still alive and talking in my game is because you can’t kill people as Desmond. He can run around like Ezio, but there are no convenient throwing daggers or swordw lying around in 2012. Bah. Danny Wallace (who voices Shaun Hastings) is quite a funny writer, but I just want to kill his character every time he opens his stupid trap. He states the bloody obvious, is really irritating and adds nothing to the game. I really hope Ubisoft chop him from the next game.

You hear the same lines of dialogue repeatedly from the NPCs. This happens most notably from the town criers who repeat the same proclamations over and over again. Also when you are recruiting your Assassins Ezio mutters the same bit of dialogue “the liberation of Rome gas begun” to them. How about varying the dialogue a little, Ezio? Mass Effect 2 from Bioware demonstrated perfectly how to perform the same bit of dialogue so it doesn’t become repetitive (probe launched, probe away, launching probe) all beautifully voiced by Tricia Helfer.

Whilst Ubisoft have further developed the graphics engine behind Assassin’s Creed to make it produce some very pretty environments and characters, there are still a few issues. Firstly, the game suffers from some fairly horrendous pop-up. It is as bad as Grand Theft Auto 4, with parts of buildings and bits of the landscape blocking into existence right in front of you. With the city of Rome being so huge, it looks to have pushed the graphics engine to its limit.

I got stuck inside a bush after falling into off a building. Yes, inside a bush, with no way of escaping it. The world map also developed a habit of showing icons for things I’d already synchronised (i.e. completed), like viewpoints and assassinations. Guards and my own Assassins (who I love and cherish very much) would get stuck inside walls, flailing their arms and legs in a vain attempt to escape their bricky predicament. I was surprised just how glitchy the game was, given the quality of the previous instalments.