Game Diary: Driver SF - don't let the ridiculous premise put you off

The Autumn release period is now well under way. In Europe it started with the amazing Xenoblade Chronicles, which I'm now almost 40 hours in.  I have taken a peak at a FAQ to see roughly how far into the game I've got and there's still a ton of content to go. I'm definitely taking my sweet time with it though, for example on Saturday afternoon I spent over an hour just walking around one of the huge towns picking up quests to complete later (to be fair the towns are vast in this game, and you have to explore them at different times to day because the NPC's all keep to their own schedule).  I'll be plugging away at this game gradually for quite some time to come, so I wouldn't expect a review until November at the earliest I would guess.

This past Friday saw the release of Driver: San Francisco.  Now, I must be one of the few people who actually quite enjoyed Driv3r on the last generation of consoles and didn't encounter too many bugs, so my enthusiasm for the franchise hasn't really waned and this game has been on my wanted list since I saw the E3 trailer from a few years back.  When the demo appeared on Xbox Live Marketplace last month I was quick to download it and take the game for a spin.  It was then that I started to get a bit cynical about the game, as Reflections have come up with a ridiculous coma storyline in order to explain away the new body shifting mechanic that plays a huge part in the new game.  I found the idea really naff and almost passed the game up as a result.  However, after a particularly bad day commuting which saw me get home from work at 10:30pm, I decided I was going to buy the game after all to cheer myself up (any excuse for a new game).  I'm very glad I did.

Once you get a little way in the storyline the shifting and coma ridden Tanner stop being an issue (at least for me) and then become the perfect excuse to take on all sorts of wacky side missions and just have fun.  Reflections have very wisely done away with the on foot sections of previous games that never worked very well (I think they fell into the trap of trying to compete with Grand Theft Auto, when they'd have been better off just doing their own thing).  The focus here is very much on driving, and the handling feels great - weighty but still on the arcade side. An old 70's muscle car feels completely different to drive than an Audi RS or a VW Beetle Buggy (my personal favourite), and throwing them around an exaggerated approximation of San Francisco is fantastic fun.

The multiplayer is if anything, even better, with many different modes to enjoy.  Some of them involve using the shift mechanic to stay in contention (Takedown events see cops chasing one player who's been designated as a criminal, and the rozzers can instantly beam themselves into any vehicle, whereas the perp is locked out of shifting and must use all of their skill to frantically escape).  My personal favourite discipline is traditional racing, where up to 8 players take part either in a series of 5 frantic sprint races, or one longer classic race.  There are a ton of tracks and many different vehicle types - although you don't get any choice in which you race, the game chooses at random.  There is also a qualifying round before each main event and there are several different types - smashing objects, jumping, drifting, overtaking and achieving the highest top speed.  I've got pretty good at these race events and consistently place in the top 3.

The one downside about the multiplayer that I can see is the level cap.  It only goes up to 38 and I managed to get to level 16 in just one day, so it won't be very long before I've maxed out.  I don't think there's a Call of Duty style Prestige mode present in this game, unfortunately. Hopefully future DLC will increase this cap at the same time as adding new content.

I also finally got around to picking up a copy of Demon's Souls for the PS3. I had hesitated for so long because I was aware how challenging the game was and it didn't sound like the sort of thing I would be able to get any enjoyment out of.  After hearing how great it is on many different podcasts though, I decided to give it a chance.  Though it certainly is challenging, it isn't unfair and the weighty combat feels really satisfying. I've only managed to get past the very first stage so far, but it would seem that your choice of character class makes quite a difference in how tough you will find the game and magic users get an easier time of it than melee fighters, so I may start again as a Royalist and see how it goes.

I did also buy Deus Ex: Human Revolution, but I haven't really played enough of it yet to comment.  I think I will be putting it on hold until I'm done with some of the other games I've started recently.  That's everything for this week - I'll have another post soon which will probably include my thoughts on Star Fox 64 3D.

Red Faction: Guerrilla review

The Red Faction series has been around for quite some time now, having made its debut on the PS2 back in 2001. It is famed for its "GeoMod" system, which allowed for realistic destruction of buildings and environments. Now, this is the first time I've actually played an entry in the series, but from what I hear, the original GeoMod was by no means perfect as it only let you destroy preset parts of the environment. Things were improved slightly for the sequel, and now for Guerrilla we have GeoMod 2.0. Instead of letting you blow chunks out of the entire environment, you are limited to being able to destroy man made structures, but this isn't a huge problem as Volition have crafted a sprawling open ended playground for you to smash into pieces. Without further ado, let's get stuck into the main part of the review.

Format: Xbox 360, (also available for PS3 & PC)
Publisher: THQ
Developer: Volition Inc.
Expect to pay: £10 - £20

Graphics: 8 out of 10
Visually Red Faction: Guerrilla is extremely solid, with big chunky vehicles, large environments that flow into one another without any loading times, and a frame rate that for the most part remains stable (only showing signs of slowdown when there is extreme amounts of carnage going on). Thanks to the fact that the various districts of Mars are at differing stages of being terraformed, Volition are able to avoid everything simply looking red or brown. Granted, the first few environments you find yourself exploring look like something taken directly from Total Recall, but later on you find yourself in the the slightly greener environs of Oasis, and later still the dark and oppressive surroundings of Eos, where the evil Earth Defence Force are based. The vehicles range from sturdy looking trucks, through buggies, recreational vehicles that look a bit like the Johnny Cab from the aforementioned Arnie film, huge tanks, and robotic walkers that are immensely satisfying to pilot and smash things to bits with.

Sound and Music: 9 out of 10
First of all, I absolutely love the music in this game. During downtime within your base or just travelling to your next district of devastation, the music is very serene and somewhat melancholy. Once you start ripping things apart though, the tempo increases to match and it really gets the blood pumping as you raze buildings to the ground. The various weapons sound suitably meaty, and the vehicular emanations reflect the typing of transport you're driving - so electronic whirring from some space age looking hatchback, and a deep rumbling from a behemoth tank. As for the voice acting, I would say it is solidly done but not in danger of winning any acting awards. The most recognisable voice is probably that of Michael McConnohie, who plays the Commander. Fans of Crackdown will most definitely recognise him, and he's been in dozens of other games too. It was absolutely no surprise to see Nolan North and Yuri Lowenthal among the cast list too, as they seemingly sign up for any VO job they're offered - though I'd be hard pressed to identify them as specific characters this time around.

Vehicles are not only useful for getting to A to B - they are also a great source of protection from bullets, especially when the area is swarming with enemies.

Game Mechanics: 7 out of 10
The basic structure of the game goes like this: you are given a new area of Mars to explore. The EDF are in control of this area and you need to take over, by completing Guerrilla Actions (more on this in a minute), destroying EDF property of varying importance, and completing missions that comprise part of the main storyline. The the Guerrilla Actions include Transporter (driving a vehicle back to a safe house within a time limit), raids on EDF buildings, protecting an area from an EDF incursion, House Arrest (breaking fellow faction members out of imprisonment), Demolitions Expert (blowing stuff up against the clock and with limited resources), and my personal favourites - Heavy Metal (causing wanton destruction in a big stompy robot exoskeleton), and Collateral Damage, where you man a rocket launcher on the back of a bike driven by a nutcase, and have to destroy as much EDF property as you can. Successful completion of these actions lowers the influence of the EDF on that sector, and increases the morale of the Red Faction. Before you are able to liberate an area completely, the EDF influence must be reduced to zero. Then you can take part in the liberation mission (having completed the proceeding story based missions as well), and access to the next area is granted where the whole process starts again.

The reason I have only given the game a 7 in this area is because of the controls. These days, you would expect a shoot em up to follow the majority of other games in the genre and have the zoom/iron sight mode on the left trigger, but for some reason Red Faction: Guerrilla has this mapped to clicking in the right stick and the left trigger is melee attack. Even late in the game, I would go to zoom in on an enemy and instead flail at thin air. I did check out the options menu to see if I could remap the controls, but unfortunately not. On normal difficulty, the game can be quite tough, as enemies can swarm you and take down your health incredibly quickly. I was dying all over the place, and eventually switched to Casual, having a much more enjoyable time as a result.

Freeing an area of Mars locks you out from completing particular types of Guerrilla Action if you haven't done so already, but fear not, once you finish the last story mission they will all become available to you, thus allowing you to get the Achievement for completing all 104 of them should you choose to do so. I should also mention that completing missions and destroying buildings grants you salvage, which is the currency that you can use to buy new weapons, shields and other useful items throughout the campaign. In the early stages of the game I found the sticky mines incredibly useful, and later on the rocket launcher upgraded with its heat seeking ability was a godsend. You can also buy a jet pack at a quite advanced stage in the campaign, which is another extremely useful little gadget for getting in and out of trouble.

As well as the single player campaign there is also a multi player mode. However, I've yet to experience this and unfortunately I doubt I ever will as it seems that nobody plays the game on the Xbox Live servers any more. PC owners should still be able to find somebody to play with, and I hear it is actually a pretty good multi player mode. It's a shame that a good half of the Xbox Achievements are based around the multi player though as there's not much chance of unlocking them now.

Innovation and Cleverness: 7 out of 10
Taken separately, sandbox games and third person shooters are of course nothing new. But by combining them together will the Martian setting and unprecedented amounts of destruction and mayhem, you have something rather special on your hands.

Value and Replayability: 8 out of 10
Some reviewers think that we shouldn't take the cost of a game into consideration when critiquing it, and fair enough - but this blog speaks for real people who can't afford to buy every major release as soon as it comes out, so I feel taking the current market value of a game into consideration at the time the review is written is a valid thing to do. In this case, you can now pick up Red Faction: Guerrilla on its own for about £13, or as part of a 2 for £20 deal in the major retailers. Might I suggest Batman: Arkham Asylum as a possible companion to this game if you don't own it already? Two of the finest action games of 2009 for £20 is a real bargain.

The single player campaign didn't really take very long for me to finish - I'd estimate about 20 hours maximum. I must stress however that so far I've only completed 50 of the Guerrilla Actions - it would take a decent chunk of time to go back and do the other 54. I definitely feel that I've got decent value for money out of the game.

Overall: 8 out of 10
Red Faction: Guerrilla is a fun, chaotic, cathartic, yet sometimes frustrating trip to the planet Mars, well worth seeking out for those who love to blow things to smithereens. A follow up, Armageddon, has already been announced, and it would appear that it is shifting things back to a more linear structure, and also adding aliens to the mix. I have concerns about this because it means the game is in danger of becoming just another marines vs aliens shoot em up, and we've already go plenty of those. I'll reserve judgment until the final game appears though.

Red Dead Redemption single player review

I have bought every major entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, but haven't completed a single one of them. Every time I've either just lost interest and drifted away to other games, or got stuck on a particular mission. While Red Dead Redemption belongs to the same stable of sandbox titles from Rockstar, it goes way beyond anything they've done to date in my opinion. It held my attention for around 35 hours spread over about three weeks, and very few games manage to do that these days before I get distracted by something else. Let's explore why this is a very strong Game of the Year contender...

Format: Xbox 360 (PS3 also available)
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: Rockstar San Diego
Expect to pay: £30 - £40

Graphics: 10 out of 10
The vistas throughout New Austin, Mexico and West Elizabeth are truly stunning. Your HUD basically boils down to a handy mini map/compass combo in the bottom left corner of the screen, with the rest being taken up by the game world. By keeping things simple Rockstar keeps you fully immersed in the living, breathing world that they have created, and it truly is impressive stuff.

While certainly not the first game to feature wildlife, I have never encountered anything quite as diverse and believable as the range of animals to be found here. Rabbits, armadillos, coyotes, wolves, elk, cougars, bobcats, grizzly bears... the list goes on and on, and they all interact with each other as you would expect. So you will see village dogs chasing chickens for example, or a big cat take down a deer. Every animal in the game can be killed, and then you can gather resources such as pelts, meat, horns etc. which you can sell in the shops throughout the land. Likewise there are many different types of plant life that can be harvested for saleable materials.

The wide open landscapes make a very refreshing change from the bustling, cramped environs of Liberty City, and you can while away many an hour simply exploring on your horse, seeing what you can find or triggering one of the many random events. A full day/night cycle is of course included, as is dynamic weather conditions such as rain, thunder storms and the occasional bit of snowfall up in the mountains. When the heavens open, pools of water slowly form on the dry ground, which is a nice little detail.

The many characters that you meet are very well designed as well, each one looking convincingly lifelike and having their own little quirks. They vary from the like able such as the Marshall of Armadillo, or Bonnie McFarlane, to the strange, such as Seth with his fascination with the dead, to the downright detestable like Bill Williamson or Agent Edgar Ross. I encountered a few graphical glitches during my time with the game, such as an invisible train that meant that parcels appeared to be floating in thin air, but in a game of this size and scope such things are unavoidable.

All in all Red Dead Redemption is one of the finest looking games available for whichever system you decide to buy it for, and the good stuff doesn't end there!

This sort of view is pretty common in Red Dead Redemption

Sound and Music: 10 out of 10
First off, the music. The Morricone inspired soundtrack suits the game perfectly as you would expect, and the style and instruments shift as you move from the US into Mexico. There are also a few songs scattered throughout the game at key points in the story by Jose Gonzalez, which boost the cinematic feel of the game. The voice acting is also very competently done, with Rob Wiethoff and Antony De Longis proving excellent performances as John Marston and Marshal Leigh Johnson respectively, backed up by solid performances from the rest of the cast.

If you happen to have a 5.1 surround sound system or better, the positional audio can actually be helpful to you, as you may hear gunshots in the distance and be able to deduce where they are coming from based on which speaker they are coming from. Speaking of gunshots, there is quite a large range of weaponry, from pistols, through to shotguns, repeaters, rifles and mounted machine guns. They all sound unique and are based on the real life weaponry.

Game Mechanics: 9 out of 10
Rockstar have taken the basic blueprint of a GTA style game and refined it until it is almost perfect. There are many small improvements that have been made to Red Dead Redemption, from the way that missions are now sensibly broken up into smaller segments with checkpoints, to the overall difficulty curve that means that the game gradually gets tougher as you get better at it, it seems that all the years spent making games like this have finally paid off in this, their masterpiece.

As well as the main storyline missions that will have to be tackled sooner or later if you want to beat the game, there is a ton of optional stuff to see and do as well. First off, there are 18 optional quests for strangers that can be taken on, which vary from the simple to the weird. These often consist of multiple parts, and you will sometimes have to carry on with the story or just allow a few days of game time to go by before you can continue them. In addition to these, there are 4 sets of ambient challenges that can be taken on and completed at your leisure: survivalist - which involves find various plant life in the wilderness, sharpshooter - which entails shooting stuff (usually wildlife) as you might expect, hunter - finding, killing and skinning various animals, and treasure hunter - figuring out where gold is hidden based on treasure maps with clues on them. Reaching certain levels in each of these challenges and completing them entirely bestows various benefits on your character, and finishing them all gives you the title of "Legend of the West" along with access to a special outfit.

Like Rockstar's previous games, Red Dead Redemption also features a whole range of optional mini games: from gamblers favourites such as poker, blackjack and liars dice, through to arm wrestling, a game of horseshoes, five finger fillet, horse breaking, killing or capturing bandits from wanted posters, or a side job as a night watchman. You could quite easily spend many an hour on these distractions alone (liars dice is my personal favourite). As you travel the country, random events are also triggered at fairly regular intervals - such as a lawman needing help to round up some escaped criminals, a shopkeeper being robbed, or someone about to be hanged unless you can arrive in time and shoot the rope around the victims neck. Taking time out to help people will boost either you honour, fame or both. As your fame increases you will actually hear the dialogue of random passers by change as they begin to recognise you, and they may even ask start giving you gifts.

Of course, honour can be affected negatively as well as positively if you decide to go on a killing spree in a town for example, which also comes with a price on your head. You can clear your name either by paying off your bounty at a train station, or by using a pardon letter. The bigger the bounty on your head, the better the US Marshall's assigned to take you down become, and there's also the likelihood that gunslingers throughout the land will form posses to try and take you down.

For the most part, I didn't have much trouble with the controls, with the odd exception of the auto targeting snapping to a random animal instead of an outlaw during some of the gunfights. After a while you get used to pressing the left trigger to lock onto an enemy, shifting the left stick up slightly to line up with their head, and then firing a shot off with the right trigger to take them out. For large bands of enemies or beasts, you can click the right stick to enter Dead Eye mode, where you can paint targets in slow motion before blowing everyone away. Should you decide that stealth is the way to go, you can also click the left stick to sneak, and then either use throwing knives or simply get up close and slit the enemies throat. This sometimes make more sense that going in guns blazing if there's a large number of heavily armed bandits - sneak around, take a few of the ones on the outskirts out silently, then mop up the rest.

I did encounter a fair few bugs whilst playing through the game, some of them being just graphical glitches such as invisible train which meant that boxes looked like they were floating in mid air, and other more serious bugs which caused the game to freeze up altogether. While these were very annoying when they occurred, the game auto saves very often which meant I seldom actually lost any progress. All in all though, Red Dead Redemption is a stunning technical achievement.

In your face!

Innovation and Cleverness: 8 out of 10
Sandbox games are nothing new, but the execution of Red Dead Redemption raises it above everything that has come before. Just the staggering range of wildlife that adds an extra layer of realism to the game world ensures the game a pretty high score in this category. The little I've seen of the multi player, with its own version of the open world for you to roam in and the ability to form posses, should also be taken into consideration (though it is by no means perfect). Although it took many years to make, it would seem that the hard work put in by Rockstar has really paid off.

Value and Replayability: 9 of 10
Should you decide to rush through all the story missions as quickly as you possibly can, you could probably "complete" the game in under 20 hours, but you'd be completely missing the point. Take your time to explore the world, help out all of the strangers, enjoy the many mini games on offer, and raise your Fame and Honour points, and you can spend many many more hours on just the single player portion of the game alone. When you add in multi player and the promise of more DLC packs on the horizon, you will keep coming back for a long time to come.

Overall: 10 out of 10
Not so long I go I handed out my first 10 out of 10 to Mass Effect 2, but Red Dead Redemption equals it in every way in my opinion. It is every bit and deep and involving as any RPG I've played in recent times, so if you loved exploring the wasteland in Fallout 3, the world of Fable 2, or the galaxy of the aforementioned Mass Effect 2, then you will love wandering in the wilderness of Red Dead Redemption. Giddyup!

Below you can watch the 30 minute Red Dead Redemption film directed by John Hillcoat (The Road). It is made up of cut scenes from the earlier parts of the game, so if you'd rather play through the story unspoiled at your own pace, don't watch it.