Game Review: Gears of War: Judgement

The Review!

 

Welcome to the rambling thoughts of a mad man. Being the first review I have ever written (and successfully finished!), this will more than likely turn out to be a big bucket of thoughts rather than the well constructed reviews you are probably used to reading! Here goes anyway!

Gears of War: Judgement is a prequel to the original trilogy, taking place 15 years before the events of Gears of War 1. The Cogs have just won the war the Pendulum War (a worldwide civil war on their home planet of Sera), and the Locust are completely unheard of. Unlike the previous games which feature Marcus Fenix as the always cross, thick necked protagonist, this latest game follows Damon Baird. Veterans of the previous games will know Baird already as the "sarcastic one from the first 3 games". I have to admit I was apprehensive about this before playing the game, but the absence of Marcus has no impact on the game at all, and if anything, Baird's maverick style of leadership is a lot more fun to watch play out. I'm avoiding spoilers here, but you'll certainly learn why Baird no longer has his own squad by the time we first meet him in Gears 1. Augustus Cole also makes a return, along with two new characters.

So is this game radically different to the rest of the franchise? No, it really isn't, so if you don't like shooting the hell out of the Locust and occasionally hacking them in half with a chainsaw blade then you probably won't like this game either. If you did enjoy the original games however and you want more, this game is right up your street! Like the rest of the franchise, the game is split out into a campaign and multiplayer. The line between the two is becoming slowly more blurry as I will go on to explain.....

The campaign is set up a little differently than past incarnations of Gears of War games. We are still told a story and we still get pushed along from firefight to firefight, but this time the story is split out into bite size chunks. Each one of these chunks includes two or three of encounters with the Locust and at the end you get a score in the form of one to three stars. Yes this is very Angry Birds I know, but it does give the campaign far more replay value as you try new ways to get the maximum number of stars. Each level also has its own "Declassified Mission" which when accepted, alters the level to make it more challenging, but conversely allows you to get three stars more easily. These missions vary from making the enemies more challenging, applying time limits, restricting weapons that can be used etc and do make the game more interesting to play. On harder difficulties you do find yourself wondering how wise taking on a declassified mission will be!

One of the better improvements to the game is the new additions that have been added to the Cog (and Locust) arsenal that are well worth mentioning. The Markza (a personal favourite of mine) is a semi-automatic rifle that fills the middle ground between the painfully slow reloading of the Longshot and the short range of pretty much every other weapon in the game. There is also a new grenade launcher style weapon call the Booshka which takes some practice to use but is also a lot of fun. Along with a couple of other additions, it feels like then variety of weapons is much better suited to this sort of game and allows for more variation in how you play, especially in co-op mode.

Speaking of co-op play, the campaign on multiplayer also allows for a little friendly competition in the form of end of level scoreboards. So everyone can try to get the most kills, head shots and such. This makes the whole game far more fun with a few mates online if you don't fancy the playing verses other humans in multiplayer land!

The multiplayer side of the game includes the expected free-for-all and team death match modes of course (for all you traditionalists out there!), a survival mode, and an all new Overrun Mode. Now I remember playing Hoard mode and Beast mode on Gears of war 3 and thinking "Wouldn't this be great if your we're able to combine the two". Well Overrun mode is exactly that. Rather than playing as the Cogs against waves of computer controlled Locust (à la Hoard mode) or playing as lots of Locust creatures against computer controlled Cogs (in my beloved Beast mode!) you get to play against real people controlling each side. So does it work? Just about. It's a fun mode to play, but feels like a cut down version of its predecessors and is very restrictive (less beasts on the hoard side than you would expect and very specific load outs on the Cogs side). It's clear the developers were trying to ensure the game remained balanced, but somehow it just feels like you are being forced to play in certain ways. You also have to take turns on what side you are on, which can be annoying if you would rather stick with good guys or bad guys. Now that all sounded very negative so I should clarify that it is a fun mode to play, just not as good as Hoard or Beast. Which brings me on to my final gripe with the game - Hoard and Beast modes are not even present! This feels like a massive failure to me and hopefully something that will be resolved in future DLC.

The Verdict

Gears of War: Judgement falls short of what it could have been, I don't think anyone will deny that, but it is still an excellent quality game that deserves the time of anyone who has a liking for the original games and wants to gun down a few more Locust during the end days of the Xbox 360. 

Unlike a lot of games that get pumped out by developers these days, the user interface is flawless, in game glitches are rare, and I have never had to wait to get into a multiplayer game. These things might all sound like the basics, but far too many games fail in one of these areas and make the experience far more jarring than it should be. There is a lot to be said about getting the basics right.

If you want a game that is fun, has loads of replay value and achieved what it set out to do, this is it. It's not a game that will change the world, but it is worth your time and you could do a lot worse! *cough* Dead Space 3 *cough*

- Jason

SCORE 8/10

Game Review: Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (henceforth called “Revengeance”, because, well, I can’t be typing that

LONG ASS TITLE over and over!) begins in Africa. You are Raiden, the bodyguard of the prime minister of an undisclosed African state. The first words of the game are “Three years. We’ve come so far in three years”. These are the words of the aforementioned leader and the first thought that pops into my head is “Things are probably going to go downhill for this guy fast...”

Raiden is employed by Maverick, a private military company in the not too distant future, to guard the prime minister. So he’s rolling along in his convoy, with a couple of tanks and a few dozen guards and, lo and behold, things start to go downhill fast.

The convoy is interrupted by some guy who looks like a futuristic Mitsurugi and he proceeds to defy the laws of physics and chop people, and tanks, into little bits. Well, turns out Raiden’s a bit of a badass too and isn’t very happy about this. That’s when things get awesome.

Revengeance is a game which is honest form the start. Raiden is a cyborg, he has a sword that sparks with electricity, he’s stronger than most other cyborgs and can deflect bullets. Also, he can cut really big things in half... If this is something you’re going to have a problem with then it’s probably best you don’t play the game. If you don’t like the opening scene you might not get on with the rest of the game and I can understand that, it’s not for everyone but MAN! Absurdity has never been so good!

So the president is kidnapped and after this introduction you’re thrown right into the game. You quickly learn that normal cyborgs are no match for Raiden, defeating handfuls at a time. With basic controls the game is pretty easy to learn, it’s difficult at first to get the grasp of the timing required for parrying but once you’ve had a little practice it becomes second nature. The game starts at an intense pace, and continues like this pretty much all the way through. It’s not that it’s difficult to play it’s just that it’s all action, in a good way. 

Podcast number 5 was when we first discussed Revengeance. When Paul (a.k.a. Bez) spoke about it I asked him “Is really hack and slashy?” He waffled on a bit, but in general the answer was “Not really”. Having played the game I can say this: Bullshit Paul! It is really hack and slashy! When your character is overpowered, carries a cool sword, has a combo count, kill count and ‘how many pieces did you cut this guy up into’ count it’s pretty obvious in my books that this is primarily a hack and slash game.

That being said, there are breaks in the intensity at times, with the game throwing in elements of stealth throughout. They’re the sort of stealth sections which are pretty difficult to get through undetected (or maybe I’m just a bit crap at being stealthy) but you can still hack your way out if your discovered (like I was, many, many times). Overall there was enough stealth based sections to allow a bit of time off from tapping the buttons and it was also pretty varied and enjoyable using your enhanced vision (Think of Batman’s vision in Arkham City) and cardboard box to get past enemies.

The combat isn’t just about tapping the buttons randomly as quickly as possible either. With more challenging enemies it becomes necessary to master parrying and a perfectly timed parry can set you up to enter blade mode, a bullet time sequence without the bullets. Time is slowed and a precision element of the game comes into play. Every enemy has a target square where, if hit, can chop the enemy in half allowing perfect access to their spine... As enjoyable as this is for the pure hilarity of ripping someone’s spine from their mid-air body it also serves the purpose of regenerating your health and energy bar, which you’ll need if you want to keep ripping spines out of cyborgs! This is also the part of the game where you get to see how many bits you can chop things into. I didn’t get tired of this, not one bit.

Downsides of the game are that on occasion you’ll find yourself against a wall and the camera won’t want to behave itself, refusing to point away from the wall. This makes it difficult to pull off that perfect parry at times but it really wasn’t enough to ruin my enjoyment of the game, more of a small irritation that an issue but it’s a shame it wasn’t fixed. Also, if you’re having trouble with a particular boss you’ll find their voice irritating at times, especially if you can’t work out how to block one of their moves. I think I was asked about 20 times “Does it hurt?” by a boss with a REALLY annoying voice after he stabbed me in the chest lots... yes of course it hurts, you’re FRICKIN’ STABBING ME!

You’ll also find that the characters are pretty cliché but this all comes back to the theme that the game doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s sprinkled with moments of genuine hilarity and throwbacks to previous Metal Gear games. Corny and over the top at times with moments that left me literally speechless at the absurdity of it all. For a game with approximately 6 hours of storyline Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance packs in a lot. It’s more roller-coaster than train journey and if you’ll let it, it’ll certainly take you for a ride.

Verdict

There's lots of this sort of thing

I have a dream! A dream with more games that don't stick to a 'proven' formula! With so many unoriginal games out there these days (I’m looking at you FIFA “Insert year here” and Call of Duty “Insert title name and sequel number here”) this game is a taste of something a bit different. It’s something new and for that alone it should be celebrated, even if it’s not your cup of tea. Add to that the amusement this game provides and the pure enjoyment the game provides and you’ve got yourself a fantastic piece of work . An extreme ride from start to finish, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is like the Cocaine of computer games: it’ll mess with your head get you pumped up and leave you addicted and wanting more. It might also give you a headache...

8.4/10