Title: F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate

Platform: PC

Distributor: Sierra

Developer: TimeGate

Review Summary: A nice stand-alone expansion to Monolith’s original and follow-up to F.E.A.R. Extraction Point.

This is one of those rare circumstances that the phrase “more of the same” needn’t carry negative connotations with it. While Perseus Mandate doesn’t raise the bar set by Monolith’s original 2005 release, it does continue the tradition of high quality and superior gameplay.

The storyline continues the plot established in Extraction Point (reviewed here). Monolith, the developer of the original, has stated that the official sequel, Project Origin, will be released later this year and ignores TimeGate’s two expansions. It will be interesting to see what happens to the storyline they develop for it. I find it difficult to fathom that they would contradict details established in a licensed expansion, but they certainly have left that door open for themselves.

But I digress. Back to Perseus Mandate.

As I was saying… TimeGate doesn’t do anything new with this latest release. They stick to what they established in Extraction Point and build on it. Perhaps the most notable improvement is in the overall level design, which is simply stellar. Huge, sprawling designs that incorporate a wonderful mix of traditional military-style FPS artwork with F.E.A.R.’s jump-out-of-your-skin horror elements. One of my only complaints with the design is I would have loved to see more exploration of the horror and supernatural elements. Their implementation is not only stunning, but it is, I think, the strongest element of both the overall storyline and the design itself and what set it apart from the standard military-based FPS titles.

Complaint number two focuses again on the sprawling levels. Playing through on “normal” difficulty, there are simply far too many long stretches of forward movement with nothing to do. No enemies, just doors to go through and corners to round. When the difficulty is increased, these hallways become frag-fests, but it gets quite tedious at times wandering between firezones. Additionally, the music that accompanies all the firefights, while extremely well done, is a cue to whether or not there are enemy soldiers around. If there are enemies around, the fight music starts up. Not a bad thing at all. But one of the great things about the F.E.A.R. series are all of the encounters with multiple targets. The AI, while a bit dated at this point, is advanced enough where enemy soldiers at least present the illusion of working together. The pathing of individual enemy units can be a bit predictable at times, but they still duck behind tables and move from cover to cover as they try to get a clear shot. There are some encounters that are amazingly well done, with the player never knowing how many enemies are left as vision is obscured by various objects or corners in the design. The never know until, that is, the music ends. Once the fight music fades out, there are no more enemies in the area, and it’s safe to stand up and run to the next firezone. And the music fades out the instant the final enemy unit is killed. I would much rather see it fade out as the player crosses some kind of invisible threshold in the linear progression. Keep the player in the dark until there is some kind of realization based on forward progress (rather than the number of enemy units killed) that the room or area has actually been cleared.

All that aside, Perseus Mandate is well worth the $20. It’s significantly longer than COD 4 (reviewed here) and, upon completion, offers up 3 bonus missions that throw away the storyline and are all about blowing stuff up. Fun stuff!

Next up for review: STALKER

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On the turntable: Particle, Chris Isaac, Cake, The Black Crows

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Title: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Platform: PC

Distributor: Activision

Genre: First-Person Shooter

The Call of Duty series for the PC is one of my favorites. Each release has been not only strong, but in many ways ground-breaking. The first version, still sitting within arms reach of my PC, remains a Must-Play on my own little “All Time Greatest Games” list. That’s a lot to live up to for a single sequel, let alone a series of sequels. It’s a little amazing that they were successful for as long as they were.

As can be expected with any release in this series, the graphics and gameplay are absolutely top-notch. Because they moved the time frame ahead 50 years, there are new weapons (which is, I think, probably one of the primary reasons they abandoned the WW2 era games… not enough cool stuff that goes BOOM! Pity, that…), but overall there are very few new things to learn. That itself isn’t a bad thing, but it also means that there wasn’t much done to live up to the reputation the series had earned over the years.

One of the primary components that made the first games in the COD series so successful, however, was the way in which they implemented their story line. They focused on very specific battles of WW2 that had been romanticized already in film. The opening scene in Saving Private Ryan is beautifully re-done in the opening level of COD for example. They took a moment in time that already had a specific emotional investment for most of their audience and built on it, exploiting what was already there and upping the stakes of that investment by making it interactive. They did this amazingly well, guiding the user through levels that were recognizable not just through other media outlets, but through the history books. This is a fairly standard technique used in Strategy games, especially turn-based, but in a First-Person shooter it was a brilliant implementation that immersed the gamer in ways that had previously been ignored.

All that is gone with COD4. Rather than draw from the history of American warfare as they had been doing, the developers decided to create their own story. And it isn’t a really a bad story, by any means. But the emotional investment, so heightened by the familiarity of the environments, is gone. It’s just a typical, standard, average story line that allows the user to shoot bad guys and blow stuff up. Worse, it’s really, really short.

And that is my main complaint with COD4. There just simply isn’t enough of it. I understand the old addage is “Always leave them wanting more,” but they left me feeling cheated. They didn’t earn my $50.00, and that is not something I say lightly. It’s as if the game itself was created primarily to showcase their engine, a common enough tactic, but not one I would have expected within such a highly respected series.

In the end, the latest installment of the COD series takes a tremendous step backwards. It is still a good game, one of the top 5 or so from last year, but the changes to the basic, underlying, fundamental premise of the series reflect on the game’s overall level of enjoyment. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is, in the end, average.

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Title: F.E.A.R: Extraction Point

Platform: PC

Distributor: Sierra Entertainment

Genre: First Person Shooter

Yeah, it’s a little old. But then again, so am I, and so is my PC, so it all evens out in the end. Eventually I’ll need to break down and buy a new rig, but I haven’t run across a game I can’t play yet. I will within a year, I am sure, but until that time comes, the old Alienware system will have it’s work cut out for it.

Back when I was playing games the day they were released, the original F.E.A.R. was one of my favorites. And it still ranks up there on my own personal “Best” list. Extraction Point is, I believe, the first expansion to be released. Expansions and sequels can be a tricky business. Just ask Romero or the guys over at Id. Or, perhaps more to the point, ask the old crew at 3DO, who lived (and ultimately died) on expansions and sequels in a hopeless attempt to recapture the lost (Might and…) magic of previous titles.

I am happy to say that this particular Expansion, however, is more than a simple success. Not only does the gameplay and action live up to the very high standards set by the original, but the storyline, while not as immersive as its predecessor, is engaging and, more importantly, evolves the original story in a logical direction.

And I may be mistaken in this, but I think that the AI has been fine-tuned as well. There were moments where the proximity triggers were sketchy and I could snipe enemy targets with no repercussions from nearby units, but all in all, and especially during heavy combat, it was wonderfully difficult. Even with my aging rig (brand new some 4 years ago at this point) the game was seamless and graphics crisp. Load times were long, but I’ll take that trade off for smooth gameplay any day of the week.

Final verdict is, if you haven’t played it, and liked the original, it’s worth the $25 price tag. Personally, I plan on getting Perseus Mandate, the most recent expansion that hit the shelves late last year.

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Now playing: Earth Crisis - Slither

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Title: NASCAR 08

Platform: XBox 360

Developer: EA Sports

Review Summary: Stick with Forza2 unless you own a wheel. Even then, rent it first.

Before I say anything, it is important to understand that NASCAR 08 is not a racing game, it is a simulation. As such it absolutely is not for your average gamer who likes to race against their friends on the weekends.

I have been a fan of NASCAR series since they first appeared back in the mid 90’s. As a matter of fact, the assumption of a NASCAR 07 is one of the main reasons I invested in the 360 when my PS2 died a sparking, smoking, and noisy death. Why EA didn’t release it for the 360 is a mystery, but it did make me all the more anxious for 08 when it was finally announced.

I consider myself a pretty good racer when it comes to console games. I don’t have a wheel, but that never stopped me from being on the “expert” settings of whatever game I happened to be playing. That said, even with all the (very limited, by the way) settings put to easy, and all the gimpiness turned on full blast, and everything automated that could possibly be automated… I couldn’t drive in a straight line in NASCAR 08.

To put it quite bluntly, I have never, EVER, played a racing game that is so amazingly difficult to control. Perhaps it is designed to be played with the steering wheel, but I don’t think it should be required to lay out $60 for a game, then an additional $100 for a controller that makes it actually playable.

Sadly, the negativity doesn’t stop there.

This is the only racing game I can think of developed in the last 5 years, and maybe the last 10 years, that has no 2 player mode. I can’t even think of anything else to accompany that truly baffling and blatant omission, so it will have to stand on its own.

Over the years, this franchise, built on the astounding physics engine developed by Papyrus, has slowly strengthened and become increasingly robust with each new incarnation. NASCAR 08 has stripped everything out and focused on the minutiae of technical details of NASCAR simulation. The depth they venture to control is ambitious, to say the least, but they have implemented this depth at the expense of game elements that not only were enjoyable, but were unique within the world of racing games. Gone are “Fight to the Top” and “Intimidator” modes. Gone is a “Chase for the Cup” mode that doesn’t require hours tedious “licensing” tasks. Gone In a nutshell, gone is everything that made this a “game”.

All that said, NASCAR 08 does have some positives. Firstly, it is flat out gorgeous. It’s so gorgeous that it’s almost a negative, as I get the feeling much of what has been left out of NASCAR 08 was done so as a sacrifice to the stellar graphics.

Also, it is important to note that with increased play, you will kind of figure out how NASCAR 08 works. You will get better. It comes slowly, and by that I mean after 6-10 hours of playing I still haven’t made it more than 25 laps without crashing, but I have become more adept at the intricacies of controlling the car.

Unfortunately, after 6-10 hours, it has also become painfully clear that the standard XBox controller is woefully unsuited for the precision needed, and what I have seen from the game has in no way convinced me that the additional expenditure of $100 for the steering wheel will be even remotely worth it.

My advice is to pass this up and stick with Forza2, which is a much stronger game with a simply astounding level of replayablility. If you simply need to see for yourself, by all means rent it before plunking down $60 bucks. I certainly wish I had gone that route.

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