PC Review: 007 Nightfire (2002)

We already did this one on consoles, but I finally managed to finish it on PC after years of trying. It sucks! But I was bored.

Nightfire on PS2 (and the other Sixth Generation consoles) is still an amazing 007 game. I break it out once a year and, while it's not flawless, fond memories aside it translates the formula of the films to video games better than any before or since. The PC version is a near disaster, however. I tried this version years ago (probably a decade) and couldn't bring myself to finish it. I kept coming back to it, though, for the fascinating and uncanny ways it evokes and even extends the console version in ways that nearly break it. Say goodbye to the excellent driving levels of the PS2 edition, for example, and the professionalism (if not the originality) of its storytelling. I'm not saying Nightfire is fine literature, but the PC edition is lacking production values and, for lack of a better word, polish. Audio quality is, frankly, shitty. The cutscenes have all the direction of CCTV footage. Gameplay variety is practically non-existent: instead, it's just a lot of corridors of clunky, Half-Life engine shooting, with super dumb, unresponsive enemy agents. PC Nightfire even has a few of those "classic" insta-fail stealth missions of yore, irritating beyond belief, and thankfully these don't exist in games anymore. Some of the levels go on forever against uninspiring, confusing backdrops. Yet, as someone who plays PS2 Nightfire annually, I'll admit there's something like novelty in seeing these slightly different, more stringently PC FPS-focused versions of the levels with a roughly similar narrative DNA. The multiplayer is also weird but much more palatable, especially given that there's still support and an admittedly small fanbase for it. Remarkably, I played a few hours of deathmatch and capture the flag while on a work trip with two or three rando human players and bots in 2023, and, even though the whole enterprise is janky and old-fashioned, managed to have quite a bit of fun whooping ass as a cell-phone grappling Christmas Jones. Nightfire fans might give this a try (you can get it for free if you look in the right places), but the console version is way, way better.

PS2 Review: kill.switch (2003)

I have the Wikipedia page open for kill.switch (or just Kill Switch, apparently, but I prefer the more idiotic title). I'm in need of a plot summary because the narrative of this game is opaque, and that's putting it nicely; stupid as hell is another. You play as a generic super-soldier, kind of, but not really. Actually, you play as an elusive evildoer "controlling" this super-soldier through remote neural connection telepathy or a contrivance of this kind.  You are flung about the globe on a series of random solo combat missions by your "controller" in order to create chaos and destabilize the existing global order. Between missions you are treated to a series of fantastically cheesy FMV sequences in which some lady keeps asking you to "Say my name" and eventually to save her from, I dunno, life in the simulation or the matrix or something. It's all meaningless and derivative drivel, like an undergraduate's version of Memento. And even worse, it's entirely separate and tacked on to the gameplay, and nothing you do while playing feels even remotely relevant to the narrative. You shoot things and pick up keycards and get to the exit, and that's all.

In terms of gameplay, though, kill.switch is alright. It's a straightforward cover shooter, long before that became a genre or sub-genre of its own. You hold L1 to hide behind pillars or crates (always plenty of crates lying around) and press up or over on the analog stick to poke your head out and fire off a few rounds. And unlike its goofy-ass predecessor, Winback, you can shoot while moving in kill.switch. You can also blind fire from behind cover, but it's too inaccurate to be useful. Though, while the levels are built generally built around the cover mechanic, there are a few frustratingly sticky situations and overall poor level designs. kill.switch is also alarmingly short, clocking in at four hours or so to complete for even the most meandering players. You earn nothing for completing it on any difficulty level, either. Hooray!

Technically, kill.switch is pretty neat for a PS2 game. It looks and animates very well, even though the art direction of the whole thing is pretty bland modern warfare stuff. And it sounds fine, too. kill.switch is mostly just a tech demo. It's fun to play and appeals to the senses, but it lacks depth or longevity. It's no Winback killer, in any event.

PS2 Review: The Bouncer (2001)

It's difficult to make sense of The Bouncer. It looks like an ordinary 3D beat-'em-up, which is commendable enough given that the genre has been rendered practically obsolete since the SNES and Genesis generation. I like having games like this around, mostly because I like pulverizing proper nouns on the streets, even when the games themselves are at their most mediocre. However, in many ways The Bouncer isn't much of a beat-'em-up at all. In fact, according to the marketing this is more of a "playable action movie" than a straightforward brawler. It may be a cliche, but The Bouncer is truly neither fish nor fowl: far too vapid to be an action movie (think about that for a moment), and far too complex and involved with storytelling to be a satisfyingly mindless beat-'em-up. Simply put, The Bouncer tries to do too much and succeeds at very little.

The Bouncer has one of the most insipid "stories" I have ever played. Most beat-'em-ups, like Streets of Rage or Fighting Force, have the good taste and common decency to save you the trouble of worrying about characters and their relationships. Instead, they essentially tell you, "Some hoodlums have taken over the streets of our fair city, and they're evil, so please, go out there and beat the dog crap out of them and don't come back until you do." It does the job for me. That's all the motivation I need. But The Bouncer tries to impress you with the cinematic. From a technical standpoint, it actually succeeds. Given its age, it still looks and sounds pretty good. In terms of narrative, however, it stinks. Without looking it up, I can only recall a girl being kidnapped by oddly-dressed thugs, and our equally oddly-dressed bar bouncer heroes going out to save her from being turned into a cyborg kind of thing by some bozo running the evil Mikado corporation. There's also something in there about satellites and solar energy, I think. You spend the rest of the game getting acquainted with others who have also made numerous fashion faux pas. An idiotic premise, for sure, but that's not what gets to me.

The Fashion of The Bouncer. Good gracious.

What gets to me is the laborious way in which that story is presented. My first trip through the game took approximately an hour and a half, about an hour of which was seemingly spent on watching the cinematics. They either go on forever or they are pointlessly short, like the numerous three second clips of the characters running through doorways. Every utterance, every development in the narrative is just, like, So What? Who Cares? and also, You Left the House Dressed Like That, Do You Not Have Friends or Mirrors? The Bouncer has multiple pathways through the story depending on which character you choose and when, but none of them are exciting, even though one of them is a thoroughly bizarre "stealth" mission.

This interminable story ruins what is otherwise a decent beat-'em-up engine: deep enough to keep most fights interesting, but easy to learn (though a counter button would have been nice). Basically, you watch and then you briefly fight, level up your characters, watch then briefly fight, level up your characters, and so on. Luckily, you have the option of using characters unlocked in the Story mode to play either Survival or Versus. Survival isn't much better than Story, mostly because it quickly becomes alternatively tedious and cheap. Versus is your typical multiplayer mode, and it supports up to four players, human or CPU. It redeems the game somewhat, but not enough to recommend it for anyone other than the most starved beat-'em-up fans.

PS2 Review Double Feature: Smuggler's Run (2000) and Smuggler's Run 2: Hostile Territory (2001)

Hey, why not. I'll do these together. I can't think of a particularly good reason to do them separately.

Smuggler's Run (2000)

The first Smuggler's Run was something else, especially when it was released as part of the PS2 launch. I say "was" because, as you can probably surmise, not everything about it has aged well. It doesn't look great, it doesn't always play great, and it doesn't move you with an involving narrative (it doesn't even really have one). You're a smuggler, and you smuggle things, and there's really nothing more to it than that. You have big (for the time) open worlds set on the US/Canada and US/Mexico borders in which to smuggle the goods. Now, there's a bit of plot from the menu that introduces each mission, read by an irritating narrator with an especially juvenile sense of sexuality, but essentially it means the same thing as the plot of the original TimeSplitters (2000), which is to say it means nothing, or just about. Actually, Smuggler's Run and TimeSplitters have more in common than such easy-going narratives: essentially, Smuggler's is nothing more than a series of deathmatches with cars (actually more like BagTag, for all you TS fans out there). You pick up packages and deliver them, or you and a team do the same, or you have an inexplicable checkpoint race with rival gangs. It's more like an arcade game than anything else. You pick up packages by driving over them, and you can steal or transfer them by slamming into other cars. It works quite well as mindless, almost anti-narrative horseplay, but like any arcade game, it can get more than a bit repetitive if you play it for too long. And more often than not, Smuggler's is incredibly frustrating and difficult, especially the latter half of the game (another similarity to TimeSplitters). Despite the difficulty, however, I enjoyed the way in which Smuggler's allows you to create your own route to mission completion. Smuggler's Run is a meat and potatoes kind of game. It does the job without a whole lot of panache.

Smuggler's Run 2: Hostile Territory (2001)

This is more like it. Smuggler's Run 2 is an improvement on the original in every way possible. This one not only has an actual story, but live-action cut-scenes with real actors and everything. They're silly as hell and probably not in a good way, but I appreciate the effort. You play as a guy who works for another guy who works freelance for some bad people with some bad goods to move. This takes you to Russia and then to Vietnam, then back to Russia for Winter Russia. Several things make this game much better than its predecessor: it looks fantastic, the worlds are bigger and the terrain is more varied, and the difficulty has been toned down to what I consider to be a reasonable level. There's still an annoying glitch carried over from Smuggler's 1, in which your pursuers' vehicles seem to be magnetized to your rear bumper. This can be a real drag because they more often than not spin you out of control, which is really frustrating when you're on the clock and racing to the next checkpoint (which is always the case). 2's missions are much better and more varied than the original as well. As before, 2 can get repetitive if you persist in playing it for too long, but for short bursts of fun, it really is one of the best arcade-style racing games on PS2.

PS2 Review: Black (2006)

So loud, so pretty, and yet so soulless.

Black reminds me a lot of the original TimeSplitters, actually: both are technically sophisticated first-person shooters without much of a narrative to back them up. Sure, Black has something of a plot, even live-action cinematics of an almost unbearably cheesy kind (lots of cigarette smoke and tough guy voices), but it ultimately means nothing. It's more of a skeleton outline for a plot than a fleshed-out story. It has something to do with a black ops solider and his team's quest to take down an arms dealer/terrorist in Russia. What plot there is you get from a pre-mission cinematic in which the main character is being interrogated by an intelligence agency higher-up. But once the mission starts, you easy to lose track of what you were asked to do and why you were asked to do it. That's not to say that Black asks a whole lot from you intellectually; you simply march down some very linear levels, shoot stuff, and when an objective pops up onscreen, you do what it asks of you. "Episodic" is the nice way to describe Black, but "lazy" is the more honest way. Even for a first-person shooter, Black has precious little variety in terms of gameplay. You don't even get workable stealth, let alone vehicles to drive, and the occasional squaddies that join you for battle do nothing useful. Essentially, you run around and shoot things and you don't have to be particularly (or generally) strategic about it. It's also criminally short, and in no way does the final battle feel in any way climatic. And unlike TimeSplitters, there's no multiplayer to redeem an otherwise facile single-player experience.

I can say some nice things about Black. Everything looks phenomenal, especially the environments, many of which can be destroyed in several lovely ways. Similarly, it sounds superb, both in terms of its score and its sound effects. You also can't fault the game's attention to detail regarding firearms; there's a palpable sense of fetish for the guns, for recoil and reloading. In other words, Black will dazzle you; it's certainly immersive to a degree. The only problem is, there's just no heart to it at all. What you have with Black is a really nice tech demo for the PS2, and little else.

PS2 Review: Headhunter (2002)

I miss Winback. I miss the covert operations of a relentlessly optimistic Jean-Luc and his trusty laser-sight. Sure, there was a sequel, Project Poseidascrewoff, but it was worthless (to say the very least). Fortunately, Headhunter is kinda like Winback. It's good. It does the job. There's significantly fewer laser traps, but there's still plenty of crates to blow up. Always a good time with crates around.

Best part: you can toggle those sunglasses on or off at any time,
depending on your mood or the time of day, I guess.

Basically, what you have with Headhunter is a near future Los Angeles in which, among other things, law enforcement has been privatized, and criminals have their organs harvested for use by rich folks. You play as Jack Wade, an amnesiac bounty hunter who wakes up in and escapes from a funky laboratory. Jack wakes up in a hospital and an old agency pal explains that he was once the finest headhunter in all the land. In order to uncover the truth, Jack must re-acquire his headhuntin' license through a series of virtual reality tests, while simultaneously investigating the murder of a bureaucrat.

Headhunter has three main parts: the virtual reality tests, the missions, and a few motorcycle segments. First, let's pursue this Winback comparison a bit further. Like Winback, this is a third-person actioner; you hug a lot of walls while shooting it out with your adversaries. Unlike Winback, though, you can actually shoot your gun while moving around; and as a result, you rely much less on cover than you may have in Winback. Unfortunately, you have little control over your aim; you can lock on to baddies, but you can't aim for the head, and you often inadvertently target nonthreatening objects (specifically rats) instead of those individuals shooting at you. The controls are a bit sticky in general, and the camera is both obtrusive and obstinate in terms of mobility. This becomes a real problem during the occasional "stealth" segment, even though "stealth" in this game is essentially limited to a single neck-snapping move Jack performs from behind. It doesn't matter how fast or slow you approach an enemy for the stealth kill, even if you run up to him full-tilt down an empty hallway, so long as he doesn't lay eyes on you. Finally, there's the motorcycle portions of the game, which I found particularly painful. Jack's seemingly nimble Yamaha or whatever handles like a rig, and no matter how hard you slam into oncoming traffic, you come to a complete stop. When you hit the gas again, Jack invariably performs a wheelie, and why not. There's really no reason for these motorcycle escapades to exist because, with the exception of a bomb chase later in the game, you only use the cycle to get from one mission to the next; no freeway chases, no shootouts, nothing. You could've just taken the bus and it would've been just as thrilling.

I hate that bike so much. Save the environment and walk, Jack.

I like Headhunter, though. Take away that stupid motorcycle and this is a solid third-person shooter. It has some control issues, but it makes up for it in other areas. In particular, the music is fantastic (though a bit repetitive), as is the voice-over work (though the gravel-voice cynicism of Jack Wade makes me miss the earnest, pre-pubescent whine of Jean-Luc). Headhunter's writing is not much better than Winback, but it's certainly performed in a much more convincing fashion. I can't really complain about the length of this game, though I would've liked an incentive to play through it again, or even a multiplayer option. Headhunter's a worthwhile purchase.

PS3 Review: Hitman: Blood Money (2006)

I'm filing this review of Blood Money under PS3 because I own the Hitman HD Trilogy, which also includes Silent Assassin and Contracts. Of the three, Blood Money's HD version is by far the purtiest. Definitely pick the collection up if you don't already own the games for PS2. Nevertheless, this review still applies to the PS2 version.

Blood Money fixes virtually all of the issues I had with Silent Assassin and Contracts. Don't get me wrong, I love Silent Assassin, but it had some problems, specifically: uneven difficulty, too much trial-and-error progression (especially on the higher difficulties), guards with an often preternatural ability to see through disguises, and concomitantly, somewhat wonky stealth that works about as often as it doesn't. Blood Money fixes just about everything, though.

Unlike Contracts, which presented missions in a more episodic manner, Blood Money returns the series to a more straightforward, linear narrative. Missions are presented as flashbacks, introduced by cut scenes from the present that follow a reporter's investigation into the alleged death of Agent 47. These flashbacks do an excellent job of introducing each mission without interfering with or inhibiting a player's freedom to complete the job as desired, not as dictated by the plot (this is my main gripe with Absolution; more on that in a later review). Blood Money rarely requires you to go about the mission in any specific manner. Now, this is not to suggest that there is total freedom; there's certainly an optimum way to skin these cats, but it's rarely clear from the start, and as a result finding that optimum path feels organic rather than forced. The game is also more forgiving than the others in the series as there's a considerable margin for error, even on the higher difficulty settings, just in case everything doesn't go exactly the way you planned. Your creativity and skill, rather than your patience and memorization, win you those coveted "Silent Assassin" rankings. This is an especially nice touch given the long, involved missions in the latter half of the game.

For instance, consider "A New Life," one of my favorite missions. In this one, 47 is tasked with taking out a former mafia boss currently hiding out in suburbia with his family. You can complete the mission in numerous ways: you can tranquilize the guard dog from a neighbor's tree house, sneak into the backyard, and set the barbecue on fire; you can steal the outfit of a clown and infiltrate the birthday party; you can poison the donuts of the FBI, turn off the outside security cameras, sneak inside the house through the basement, and push the mafia boss as he's walking down the stairs; you can use a surveillance van to prank call the mafia boss, and when the poor guy picks up the phone, you can snipe him from a neighbor's garden; you get the idea. Each method has positive and negative aspects, and while some will undoubtedly score better than the others, the real replay value is in finding new and increasingly weird ways to off you targets.

This replay value is only furthered by an inventory system in which the money you earn from each mission can be used to upgrade your weapons, adding silencers, laser sights, larger clips, and so on. It's not as effective or integral as it could be, as the missions rarely demand that you constantly upgrade your tools. Still, though, it's a welcome addition if not a totally necessary one. But my only real complaint about Blood Money is the poorly implemented "Notoriety" system. As you play through the game, your actions in each mission attract a certain amount of attention: going in silent and eliminating only your targets keeps you a shadow, while additional casualties and gunfire raise your profile considerably. At the end of each mission you can bribe witnesses/police to keep your notoriety low. The problem is that you always have more than enough dough to pay these people off and reset your notoriety rating, thereby rendering the whole idea relatively pointless. The consequences of your actions in one mission, then, rarely affect your behavior in the next, unless you accidentally skip through the menu too fast or you spend an obscene amount of money on upgrading your inventory. The whole idea is more innocuous than anything else, but it could have added an interesting dimension to the game.

Overall, however, Blood Money is one of the best; it's easily the best game in the series, and certainly one of the best games on PS2. For a game without a multiplayer option, Blood Money has amazing replay value. Too bad Absolution failed to match it. More on that soon.

PS3 Review: 007 Legends (2012)

This one's a bit late. I had originally planned to review 007 Legends in tandem with my review of Skyfall last fall, but you know, things happen. Better late than never, I guess. Keep your eyes peeled for more 007 coverage from your fellow spy enthusiasts at Code Redd Net.

I liked the first Die Another Day game I played better. You know, Nightfire.

I had been hoping for a game like 007 Legends for a long time. It seems like an easy project: to collect the best action set-pieces from the best James Bond films in one game and to serve it up in a competent shooter with a few multiplayer options. From Russia With Love had the right idea, successfully converting the classic '60s spy film for PS2 in the Everything or Nothing model. It was a solid Bond game that captured the look and feel of the film while simultaneously bringing it up to speed with the more stunt-heavy recent Bond films. 007 Legends also has the right idea, as it incorporates the most spectacular scenes from five Bond films and ties them into the plot of Skyfall: those films being Goldfinger, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, License to Kill, Die Another Day and Moonraker. This is an excellent idea well suited for today's generation of games, but 007 Legends falters somewhat in execution.

The game has a real flimsy narrative excuse to revisit all these old missions. It begins with a cinematic adapted from the pre-credits sequence in Skyfall, where Bond is shot by another agent while fighting an adversary on the roof of a speeding train. As Bond hits the water, he is reminded of his previous encounters with Goldfinger, Blofeld, Jaws and others. The game proper begins with a scene from Goldfinger in which Bond finds that girl dead, covered in gold paint. What makes this recreation of Goldfinger odd is that you play as Daniel Craig instead of Sean Connery, and you have access to a smartphone device and other contemporary technology/weaponry.  This is in contrast to the architecture, as well as the design of the surrounding characters, virtually all of whom retain their 1960s clothing. It's an odd inconsistency in art direction spread throughout the entire game, and it never feels quite right. I would've liked to have seen a total commitment to each era, all the way down to its rudimentary gadgets, or a total process of bringing-up-to-date rather than the hybrid nostalgic-contemporary setting provided instead. That's not to say, however, that the structure of 007 Legends is without benefit: those five Bond films, bounded together, make room for considerable variety in setting and gameplay mechanics. Throughout the game, you switch between several styles of gameplay, including the straightforward shooting portions, stealth segments, sleuthing, vehicle combat, and fisticuffs. Unfortunately, these styles are highly organized and segregated in your missions. In other words, a bit of hand-to-hand combat is always bracketed by a cinematic that cues up the switch to this style, and stealth often becomes mandatory to mission completion upon entering a particular room rather than being simply a strategic choice with consequences. Nonetheless, each mission draws on particularly strong action scenes from its respective film to keep the game moving at a commendable pace.

I was also impressed by other improvements over the previous GoldenEye: Reloaded, particularly a dramatic increase in replay value. Whereas more recent Bond games have suffered from a weak single-player experience that did not invite multiple playthroughs, 007 Legends has a strong set of weapon upgrades and unlockables for multiplayer, based on finding objects and overall mission scores. Furthermore, I was impressed by Legends' customization options. Like most modern first-person shooters, on the default option health regenerates after a few seconds: thankfully, though, Legends gives you the option of switching to an old school system in which health does not regenerate and you must rely on body armor spread throughout the level. This is a nice addition that makes the game considerably more challenging, in many instances artificially so as body armor is unevenly distributed in these missions. Multiplayer support is fairly strong, though the lack of AI bots hurts this feature substantially, as online multiplayer is sparsely populated.

Overall, 007 Legends is only a fair-to-middling entry in the franchise, one that does a decent enough job with a promising idea but nothing more. It's much better than the other Bonds released in the last few years, yet nowhere near the level of PS2-era shooters like Nightfire, Everything or Nothing, or From Russia With Love. Fans of the super spy should give it a spin with a weekend rental, but this is probably not one you will want to own.

The Winback Diaries: CANCELLED

I was really looking forward to writing up this diary: unfortunately, my PS2 is getting real old, and as a result it has started to refuse those blue PS2 discs. Winback is one of them. I can get to the menu, the options, and the mutliplayer modes just fine, but my PS2 will not load up a new single-player campaign. Therefore, it is with a heavy heart that I must cancel The Winback Diaries. This is a sad day, as my PS2 of 10+ years has failed me for the first time. I was looking forward to the opportunity to give you a detailed account of the lasers, the gratuitous boxes, the dialogue and the fashion dos and don't of our favorite counter-terrorist unit, S.C.A.T. and their adversaries, the Crying Lions. The only solace I take is that in my research prior to starting the diary, I was able to find this image of our favorite boss character in Winback, the always colorful Leon. It's not much, but it's still a fantastic image.

And hey, you can always take another look at our retro review of Winback if you want to know what our adolescent minds loved about it back in the day.

#Sarocozia

The Winback Diaries, Day 1: "Sarcozia..."

You know how much we love Winback: Covert Operations. If you don’t know how much we love Winback, please, dig in the archives and find out. There’s nothing out there that can match its wall-hugging tactical combat, its love for exploding boxes, and its beautifully awkward voice-overs. But it’s been a while since I played through it, and I can’t really remember if I ever finished the game on its hardest difficulty setting. This is my attempt to document the journey, a true labor of love, a real mission into the heart of man. Join me for a trip back to 2001, when commandos had yet to figure out the advantages of shooting and moving at the same time. I’ll try to introduce you to the story and its characters as best I can, but this mainly going to be a series of reflections on the game as I progress through its box-laden levels and its joyously absurd conversations.

Note: For those of you more familiar with the N64 version, you really missed out on something special. The Ps2 version of Winback has two things going for it: first and foremost, it has some of the best voice-overs in history; and second, PS2 has a vastly improved multiplayer component, specifically BOT mode. If you still have a PS2 hanging around, do yourself a favor and snag a copy of it immediately. I’m sure Amazon can hook you up with a cheap copy.

#Sarcozia

Day 1: "Sarcozia..."

Before you get to the start menu, Winback opens up with a lengthy video to set up the highly emotional plot. It’s a doozy, too: renegades storm a nondescript office complex – which, you’ll notice, is completely box-free (Figure 1) – and exploit the poor or nonexistent perimeter defenses. This is later referred to as the Center for Space Development, a government agency responsible for protecting a satellite weapon. They do an especially poor job at protecting it.

Figure 1: The Center for Space Development, or CSD. As yet no boxes.

As you can see (Figure 2), even in the cinematics security personnel for the CSD, as well as their as-yet-unnamed adversaries, have a hard recognizing the dangers inherent in not moving while being shot at. This will become a common theme throughout the game. Because the nameless ne’er-do-wells have superior numbers, however, they win out. Betrayals also happen, and two nattily-attired fellows, including one clad in a goddamn orange trench coat, step out from inside an army truck.

Figure 2: Perimeter defenses.

Finally, someone speaks, and it’s none other than our boy, Kenny Coleman, leader of the “Crying Lions,” a terrorist organization from the mysterious land of “Sarcozia.” Like any foreign national villain worth his salt, Kenny demands justice for his homeland for some vague atrocities. You won’t believe this, but the Secretary of Defense is upset. Thankfully, however, a bright young man named Advisor arrives to deliver some useful exposition in a voice about as confident as mine was in tenth grade Speech. With the help of his loyal Advisor, the SoD decides that he will not negotiate with terrorists and sends for the S.C.A.T. squad. The real game begins.

Stage 0: Tutorial

Now, for me playing Winback is like riding a bike, but just for fun I decided to give the Tutorial a run through. I’m glad I did. Jean-Luc’s training is conducted by fellow S.C.A.T. squad mate Steve, the first subject in a recurring feature of the Winback Diaries, and it’s called…

Winback's Fashion Faux Pas!: Steve

"That's good, Jean-Luc. You're doing well."

S.C.A.T. headquarters must have everything but a mirror. He’s already going grey up there, so why make it worse by dressing in a disastrous grey/navy blue commando gear combo too? Steve, what were you thinking?

The tutorial at S.C.A.T. headquarters is short but effective. You will find out later that the interior decorator for S.C.A.T headquarters also designed the CSD. Steve has an annoying habit of always patting you on the back, whether you managed to silently subdue an enemy from behind or you simply managed to touch you back against the wall. “That’s good Jean-Luc. You’re doing well,” he’ll say. “That’s good Jean-Luc. You’re doing well.” When you get through all the controls and weapons you’ll be using on your mission, Steve challenges you to a boss fight. He’s pretty easy to beat.

[Incidentally, as kids Chicken Man and I wanted to pen a sequel to Winback. It was an alternate universe kind of thing, where Kenny and our hero, Jean-Luc, opened a girlie club called “Honeyz” when Jean-Luc’s career as a stand-up comic had stalled. Kenny loved the ladies and tried to help a down-on-his-luck Jean-Luc figure out what he wanted in life, besides hyphens. I’m not sure it would’ve made for a particularly thrilling game, but neither did anything Winback 2, so who knows, we may have had something brilliant.]

That’s all for this edition of The Winback Diaries. Join us next time to meet the rest of the S.C.A.T. team. Little did they know that someone in their midst had plans to sabotage the mission all along. All he needed was a stick of chewing gum...

PS2 Review: NBA Street Vol. 2 (2003)

Much like TimeSplitters 2, which we only got around to reviewing a few months ago, NBA Street Vol. 2 is another one of those games that we've somehow neglected, even though we have such fond memories of it. Since Chicken Man already gave us the word on the inferior sequel, NBA Street V3, it's time this nominee for our Best Sports Game award got some shine.

It's not just NBA Jam with chain nets and rusty backboards: NBA Street Vol. 2 is what the best of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater can do for arcade-style basketball games. By that I mean the trick system of Vol. 2, which includes (but is certainly not limited to) stylish crossovers and dunks, puts its emphasis on the combo potential of any situation: use any of the four turbo buttons to fake out the defender by dribbling between his legs and finish by passing the ball off the backboard to a skyward teammate for the slam, for example. The more moves you combo up, the quicker you can launch one of those all-important Gamebreakers, supermoves that embarrass your opponent as well as significantly altering the score of the game. At times these Gamebreakers can more than live up to their name: too often the point-swing induced by a successful Gamebreaker can virtually eliminate any chance for the opposing team to win the game (subtracting, say two points from them and throwing four your way), and this is especially troublesome considering that for even moderately talented players Gamebreakers are quite easy to attain. It's not enough to hurt the game, but it can make it way to easy when playing against the CPU as opposed to human players.

Nevertheless, the genius of this combo system is that every offensive or defensive move can be linked together for maximum points: a rebound, pass off the head, crossover, and three-pointer performed uninterrupted earn more points towards that Gamebreaker than when they are performed separately. Though it's obvious from playing Vol. 2 for even a few minutes that this is an offensive-minded game, the balance struck between offensive flash and defensive toughness is strong. Blocking in an especially useful technique, and learning the art of the block is essential to getting wins on the harder difficulty settings. Steals have also been substantially upgraded from the original: whereas defenders were relatively helpless to stop a point guard's ankle breakers before (not unlike the And 1 mixtapes of lore*), in Vol. 2 the same combo system that enables those tricky tricks can be utilized by the defense to stop them cold. Balanced in this sense, Vol. 2 is real smooth, effortless to play, and continually rewarding in repetition.

*There's a few things you could do to stop this nonsense: 1) put
your hands up and play defense like a normal person, 1a) make
 him take an outside shot which he probably won't make,
or 2) just reach out and punch him in the junk.

Among the various game modes offered in Vol. 2, Be a Legend is the real meat and potatoes of the game. Here you take a created baller and put together a team to travel the country, getting to know the nation's asphalt courts better while building up your player's streetball legend. This mainly involves playing games according to local rules, which may prohibit Gamebreakers, limit you to only dunks, and so on. What's really intriguing is that you earn your street handle based on your player's development: in my case, my baller was nicknamed "String" because he could handle the rock. This is one of the more novel elements in Vol. 2, because it's entirely dependent on how you play the game, and it's not something arbitrarily chosen at the outset. There's also NBA Challenge, which is a more straight-up NBA Jam mode where you go from region to region playing every team in the league. Here, however, the emphasis is on a created team as opposed to a created player. This is where most of the legends can be unlocked.

Speaking of legends, Vol. 2 has all of 'em: Wilt Chamberlain, Pistol Pete Maravich, Elgin Baylor, three Michael Jordans, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Dr. J, and so on. It's an extensive roster pieced together from league history. Strangely enough, Vol. 2 brings back many of the "street legends" from NBA Street, even those that were clearly meant to be stand-ins for real life players: for instance, Dr. J wannabee Stretch returns, though, thankfully, the fake Yao Ming boss from the first game did not make the cut. For the most part, I don't mind the inclusion of these fictional characters (except for Biggie Little, who's annoying), but they seem an odd fit in a game so preoccupied with real legends.

And though the first Vol. 1 was pretty bland in terms of presentation, Vol. 2 has style in spades. Not only do the courts and the players look fantastic (though their movements are somewhat stiff and ugly), but the music is much better this time around, generally sticking with non-lyrical beats during the games. Unfortunately, this means that all the words come from the mouth of announcer Bobbito Garcia, an infuriating personality that may, and I do mean may, have been tolerable 10 years ago. His particular word-vomit salad includes bad singing, bad punning, and rambling, nonsensical challenges whenever you have a shot rejected. His voice is one of the last things you want to hear when Shaq knocks you down in the paint. Thankfully, though, he can be turned off. Vol. 2, however, cannot: take Bobbito out of the mix and you have one of the PS2's finest basketball games.

PS2 Review: Splinter Cell: Double Agent (2006)

I experienced the PS2 version of Splinter Cell: Double Agent prior to the XBOX 360 version and, therefore, will review the former first. I will then review the latter, and so that neither of these reviews becomes simply a comparison piece, a post solely dedicated to such will come after that. These games are so rich in their depth and differences that they deserve it.

SC:DA is Sam's most personal story yet. Whereas the previous ones "read" like a typical Clancy novel, Double Agent seems much more character-driven. After spending years with Sam, it is about time we get more intimate. As such, I found the story to be much more engrossing than the others. I hope this won't be a spoiler for anyone, but near the beginning of the story, Sam learns that his daughter Sarah, his most personal of relationships since the first game, had died. This, of course, has a big impact on him, and so he decides to take on his most dangerous assignment to date. He goes to prison in order to befriend a member of "John Brown's Army" (JBA), a domestic terrorist group, and infiltrate their organization. What I found interesting was how attached I became to this fellow prisoner; it's quite a job to escape from the prison and you have to depend on one another to survive. It's not like we were Red and Andy from The Shawshank Redemption, but I feel like we developed a bond that can only be shared by people who endure such trials together.

A similar comradery is created with Enrica Villablanca, the tech specialist of the JBA, who Sam says is not much older than his daughter. You go on numerous missions together and become closer to each other. Either rightly or wrongly, I find myself much more engaged with a story (such as this spy story) where the factor(s) at risk is much more personal to the main character than some bomb going off somewhere that's going to kill some large number of anonymous people (though there is that). I applaud the plausibility and cohesiveness of the previous Splinter Cell stories, but none matches Double Agent in terms of its engagement.

In terms of gameplay, Double Agent is a true successor to Chaos Theory, which Thrasher described as perfecting the Splinter Cell formula. DA continues to provide superior level design with multiple ways to go about overcoming an obstacle. Unfortunately, however, the mission rating system from Chaos Theory was not included (though I suppose, if you had the desire, you can use the stats given after you complete a mission and do the arithmetic: start with 100% and subtract 2% for each fatality you caused, 5% for every time spotted by an enemy, and so on). The game engine seems largely the same; I'm not certain if it is more forgiving in terms of the accuracy of firearms. One of the things I find most impressive is the fact that, four games in, DA still provides unique and interesting challenges. When in Kinshasa, you deal with the inconvenience of having an unreliable power grid: the lights are usually on and you have to time your moves with the shellings that knock out the power. When commandeering a tanker in the Sea of Okhotsk, enemies will try to capture and interrogate you. And, in a reversal of roles, one mission involves all the enemies having night-vision goggles. The best place to hide from them is where it is brightest. Upon completion of the game, for those feeling really hardcore, there is a difficulty mode that limits one's equipment to the goggles, knife, and EMP device. No stealth game will leave you feeling badder than Splinter Cell.

The defining distinction of DA is that in every mission, except for the first and the last, you are presented with opposing objectives from the NSA and JBA. You are given a one-dimensional meter of trust that is zero-sum between them: if you gain the trust of the JBA it comes at the expense of the NSA's trust. Obviously, the objective you select influences this meter. It also affects what cut-scenes you see and what equipment you will have for the missions. I very much like this feature, though I wish that it would more radically affect the direction of the story. Nonetheless, it adds replay value and more autonomy for the player.

What also should be mentioned is the fantastic co-op mode, returning from Chaos Theory. Completing missions truly requires teamwork and patience, but joy shared is double joy. This undoubtedly has become one of my favorite features of the newer Splinter Cell games (especially since I didn't spend enough time playing online to get good at that mode). Unlike other co-op modes, where you are basically playing the single player story with a friend, the co-op mode has its own unique levels related to the single player campaign. There are many obstacles that require synchronized effort with a partner: perhaps a ledge is too high and you need a boost, a camera has to be zapped as you sneak by, or a dual bomb requires two defusers. This isn't just co-op mode so that two players can play but a big addition to the core features.

Splinter Cell: Double Agent may be the pinnacle of the Splinter Cell series. It is the last game that features true stealth gameplay. We can only hope that the prodigal returns back to its roots (for more on this, see my post "Sad Day for Sam Fisher"). As for me and mine, we will be sticking with the classics until that happens.

PS2 Review: TimeSplitters 2 (2002)

How have we not reviewed TimeSplitters 2? We even gave it our award for Best PS2 Game (in by far the most competitive category), I put it on my list of favorite video games, Chicken Man did the same, so why all the formal neglect? Who knows, but this is a stone cold Code Redd Net classic that deserves a proper review. Thrasher's here to give it to you.

TimeSplitters 2 is over ten years old. While that may be a crazy thought in a "gee, time flies" kind of way, the amazing thing about it is that I still play it, and not just when I'm on a nostalgia trip. Its an ongoing fascination, and despite its age, TS2 is still the best FPS around, complete, challenging, and enduring.

TS1 was all heart, and it unquestionably had lots of it, but it lacked a fully-functional story mode. What story mode it had simply functioned as a single-player excuse to go through the multiplayer maps and unlock things for multiplayer. The paucity of the single-player campaign was offset by the highly customizable multiplayer matches, which could be populated with AI bots if you needed stand-ins for your buddies, or if you wanted to spice up your matches with more combatants. TS2 is the right kind of sequel: it made its weaknesses into its strengths, and its strengths even stronger. Gone is the pause screen plot of the original, and in its place is an integrated story that, even though it's pretty facile, provides just enough narrative sanction to justify all the timesplitting therein. In fact, it's basically the same thing: an evil race of aliens uses time travel in their ongoing war with humans, and the humans dispatch two soldiers to leap through the ages, stopping these evil-doers from messing around with our past. Future Perfect would essentially repeat this story yet again, albeit in a much more refined manner, but TS2's story mode is still satisfying. To begin with, the concept itself is a smart one: the time traveling plot device keeps the missions varied and interesting. It also helps that instead of the mono-objective nature of TS1's quasi-missions, TS2's are episodic, comprised of multiple objectives that develop during the course of the mission and change depending on your choice of difficulty. Speaking of difficulty, TS2 has one of the hardest story modes I have ever played. Things get hairy even on Medium difficulty, and getting through the story on Hard requires the dedication and discipline of an Olympian (call me when you get by Robot Factory on Hard and I'll take you out for a beer). You can bring a pal along for some co-op action, which is great, though I'm not sure if doing so makes the game noticeably easier or harder. Regardless, the option to tackle the story with someone else was a fairly novel idea in 2002, and it just adds another layer to TS2's complete multiplayer package.

Speaking of multiplayer, TS2 has to be the best of the FPS bunch. Remember that this was an era in which online console gaming was in its very infancy, so this one was made to be played offline, even though you can still get it online through some crazy complicated setup. Point being, TS2's multiplayer Arcade has aged quite well, as opposed to others games in the genre whose multiplayer features require both a server (most of which are not supported anymore) as well as an active online community. Provided you keep the disc and your PS2 in working condition, you can theoretically enjoy TS2 indefinitely. Customization is the key here: there's 16 maps of varying sizes and styles, almost as many modes (from standards such as Deathmatch/Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag to Flame Tag and Thief), over 100 characters from a wide selection of milieus, an arsenal culled from just as many settings, and point/time limits you can impose on these matches, as well as adjusting the soundtrack to your liking and populating the field with up to 10 computer-controlled opponents or allies. You can go on forever mixing and matching these options as you like, and AI bots are instrumental in giving the game its replay value, and of course you know how we feel about AI bots.

If sandboxes aren't your thing, or if they are and you just want more reason to keep playing, there's also a wide selection of Arcade Leagues in which you attempt to medal under certain circumstances (for example, a deathmatch in which a victory plus 40 kills gets you gold, 30 kills gets you silver, 20 kills gets you bronze). These leagues can be quite challenging and getting the gold (or the elusive platinum) can occasionally be more a matter of luck than skill. Still, though, getting through them unlocks characters, cheats, maps, and more, and unlocking everything takes a considerable amount of time. Arcade League is similar in nature to the Challenge mode, in that the medaling system is the same and the process of unlocking extra features is the same, this mode is far more eclectic: shoot x number of watermelons of the heads of parading monkeys, for instance, or shatter x number of window panes as quickly as possible. Challenge gives TS2 not only that much more replay value, but it also gives TS2 some variety: absurd tasks such as these are a welcome relief from all the intense firefighting elsewhere.

It also doesn't hurt that the game is tight as a drum in terms of speed and control. There's absolutely no sight of slowdown, even when the screen is loaded up with all kinds of bullets, lasers, and characters. Really, though, look at all the features mentioned above: a fully-formed Story mode that is both single- and multi-player, a deep and dedicated Arcade mode, the Arcade Leagues, all those challenges, not to mention the MapMaker that can generate single and multi-player maps, as well as the unnecessarily comprehensive stat tracking. We maintain that TS2 is the best PS2 game around primarily for two reasons: not only is it an absolute blast to play, but it still has replay value 10+ years after it was released. We're still addicted to TS2 and nothing else out there comes close.

PS2 Review: SOCOM 3: US Navy SEALs (2005)

Back when I played online more (meaning back when I played on PS2 and wasn't charged for XBOX Live) the series I played online most was SOCOM. It was different than your typical shooter in that instead of re-spawning instantly every time you bought the farm, you sat the rest out the rest of the round. I thought this was pretty cool (though also very frustrating); it felt a lot more tactical in that to win against a group of players that was any good, you had to coordinate with your teammates and learn from your mistakes. Unlike NBA Live, where the point of the mic was to hear opponents try to rap along with whatever was playing in their background while telling me how good they are, in SOCOM it felt like the mic was essential part of the experience.

$7 was the price of my admission to the dance with SOCOM II. There was a time when I was playing it for hours nearly every weekday. I even had the time to do homework between rounds as I probably spent much more time dead than playing. And then one day while playing my favorite map where the goal is to plant a bomb at the other team's base (or defuse the one they place at yours) people were talking about the features in SOCOM 3. It was to have much bigger maps, twice as many players per team, and vehicles. It did, in fact, have all of these things and more. It included customizable weapons and a slightly less frustrating campaign mode (in SOCOM II there was a glitch that if you stayed too close to an enemy for a second or two, they would kill you with the butt of their rifle even if you ran out of reach. SOCOM 3 fixed this by making it a devastating blow rather than instant death). Your SEAL team is slightly less stupid, but not by much. They will still step on mines you set, so be careful. The gun customization helps since you have a big advantage with silenced weapons and can add silencers to several different guns; in SOCOM II there were only a handful of guns that came with such an accessory. You also get in-mission check points so you don't have to play a whole mission over should you fail. The addition of vehicles was a necessary step in making the gameplay, in whatever small way, more like an actual SEAL operation. As was the inclusion of swimming (DUH!). I'm surprised it took 3 games to figure that out. Overall, though, I think I preferred the campaign mode of SOCOM II due to the greater challenge and variety of missions and environments.

As far as online goes, bigger isn't always better. With the much bigger environments, you inevitably get more wanna-be snipers and campers and thus spend much more time just trying to find enemies. I preferred the more urban, close-quarter maps and SOCOM 3 did not. Another problem was that, unlike II, your teammates names didn't appear over their heads automatically and clearly; you had to put your cross-hairs on them (or at least get close). I don't have to tell you how this can cause a greater number of friendly fire accidents. The vehicles definitely did increase the fun factor and were quite necessary considering how big the maps were. One could waste a lot of time just running around, hoping not to get hit by snipers. I think the online play lost part of its charm by being increased to such a large scale; SEALs are supposed to be small teams, not battalions. Unfortunately, the servers for this and other SOCOM games were shut down on August 31, 2012.

In sum, SOCOM 3 is a fairly solid third person shooter and offered a fun online experience (especially when compared to games like Ghost Recon, where next-gen systems got all the attention). It is apparently still worth playing the campaign mode, if my recent sale of my copy is any evidence. It will not make you feel like a SEAL, necessarily, but has more replay value than Modern Warfare's campaign mode, if not nearly as beautifully cinematic.

I'm convinced that Specter doesn't have a nose.

PS3 Review: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (2004)

For the record, Thrasher's part in this Splinter Cell series has been conducted via the Splinter Cell Classic Trilogy HD collection for PS3. Though the presentation has certainly been upgraded in terms of graphics, as well as the exclusion of any online game modes, these reviews nonetheless apply to their original PS2 versions.

Immediately after finishing Pandora Tomorrow, I switched right over to Chaos Theory and was somewhat startled by the differences between them. The shift is most obvious in terms of graphics. Even by PS2 standards, Chaos Theory is a beautiful thing. In terms of gameplay, too, Chaos Theory has a certain smoothness that its predecessor lacks. Now, that's not to say Pandora Tomorrow is clunky, indeed far from it. What you get with Pandora Tomorrow is a tense, rhythmical stealth experience that pairs up well with the original and improves upon it in virtually all aspects. My initial encounters with the Splinter Cell series were, much like Chicken Man's, more a process of reprogramming than anything else. I was used to twitch shooters like TimeSplitters where stealth, or anything approximating it, was disregarded if not actively discouraged. So imagine my frustration (and eventual gratification) with learning to rely on my wits rather than my trigger. Situational awareness, patience and improvisation carry the day in Pandora Tomorrow.

This time, our wearied hero is sent to intercede in the terrorist activities of Indonesian guerrillas following the bombing of a U.S. embassy. "Pandora Tomorrow" refers to the terrorist's scheme, the release of a biological bomb which could rapidly spread the smallpox virus across the country. Despite the intricate plot, chock full of vague alliances, political allusions, double-crosses and double-agents, Pandora Tomorrow does an amazing job keeping everything in check and keeping players informed not only of what they are doing, but why. Thus, the in-game ear-piece chatter between Sam and his boss Lambert carries special significance, simultaneously informing you of what you need to do, why you need to do it, and how each character feels about it. There's a great depth of characterization in that and the key to this depth is integration, so that while Sam is busy trying to nab a drug trafficker, Sam/Lambert/other voices in his head carry on a conversation about the political and ethical dimensions of this action without interrupting the game for a tedious cinematic. The most striking moment of this kind of storytelling comes when, after working with a female undercover agent for most of a mission, Sam is suddenly told by Lambert to shoot her, no hesitations, no questions asked. In a wonderful touch, players can either follow the orders or not, thereby giving a moral weight to the otherwise highly guided decisions made elsewhere throughout the game. Even though Lambert subsequently justifies this order by revealing her to be a double-agent, Sam argues against shooting an unarmed woman, double-agent or not. Point is, shooting her reduces the number of enemies you face in the final area of the mission, while not shooting her places snipers on the roof. It's a fascinating dynamic that I wish more games incorporated.

Unfortunately, most other missions in the game are quite linear and don't have the same degree of choice. There's often a preferable, and clearly marked, method of progression. Theoretically you could complete each area in any number of ways, but generally those other ways involve a much higher percentage of shooting in order to push through them. At times trial and error becomes the only way to figure things out, but there is some fun to be had in trying to find that preferred route or in improvising an escape as a result of mistakes made earlier. This is why I don't particularly enjoy missions in which a single alarm raised results in failure; as such, too much time is spent on learning the scripted paths of your adversaries. There's a few of those sprinkled throughout Pandora Tomorrow, but they are thankfully surrounded by more forgiving missions in which the escalating alarm stages result in progressively more armored and anxious guards, and  the results are undoubtedly more thrilling when you have adjust dynamically to the consequences of your initial sloppiness.

As far as the actual mechanics go, all aspects of gameplay have been retained from the original Splinter Cell, with a few key additions to improve things. For one, you can now open doors while carrying bodies; as I'm sure you remember how frustrating it was to hide bodies previously (when you would open a door and hurriedly heft the limp moron onto your shoulders, only to watch the door close itself by mystical force in your face) this is a small but welcome change. Similarly, it's nice to have a laser sight option for your pistol to insure greater accuracy, but despite this upgrade shooting is still problematic in Pandora Tomorrow. Too often clear short-range shots, taken from a crouched position, would either miss entirely or, upon hitting an enemy's head, fail to kill/incapacitate; they twitch, as if the bullet merely made them itch, then raise an alarm before returning fire. Besides the gunplay, however, everything else is tight as a drum. Sam is responsive to commands, and even though his animation is sometimes stiff he always does what he should. While I wish we could get a mission rating system of some sort in order to evaluate our skills, the game doesn't suffer without one. It's a little short on replay (and mission ratings would undoubtedly bolster that), but Pandora Tomorrow is part of a fine lineage.

007 Legends Gets Goldfinger

I was wrong; the fifth classic mission to be featured in 007 Legends is not Dr. No. You probably already know this, seeing as how it was reported three days ago and all. I've never really been the most punctual bloggers in the world, but if you haven't been privy to the news, take a look:

If it couldn't be Dr. No, then I suppose Goldfinger is the only other option. For the time being, I'm assuming there's not going to be a golfing mission against Auric. Nonetheless, this looks perfectly acceptable, with most of the key moments from the film remaining intact, for the most part. Why, Bond even jettisons some poor guy from the seat of his car, even though the car this time is something glossy and new, and not the vintage Aston Martin DB5 I prefer.

(Curiously enough, the comments section for that video is filled with youtubers clamoring for a game more like Nightfire or Everything or Nothing. I'd like to endorse that viewpoint.)

So there you have it. On October 16, get ready to take digital Daniel Craig through Moonraker, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Licence to Kill, Die Another Day, Goldfinger, and eventually a downloadable Skyfall mission.

PS2 Review: Spider-Man 2 (2004)

"Ya get out of the club!"

PS1 Spider-Man was wonderful. Spider-Man 2, though, is everything that game couldn't be on lesser technology. Spider-Man, even more so than Batman in the recent Arkham City, was made for free roam, and SM2 is a rare instance when the unashamed appropriation of a popular and contemporary style (in this case of Grand Theft Auto and its loose approach to video game narrative) works so very well. You have free reign over a virtual, amazingly detailed, faithful NYC. Getting around the boroughs, by slinging webs from rooftop to rooftop, has never been any better. Instead of the nonsensical aerial travel of past games, in which your webs were seemingly attached to invisible buildings, here your webswinging needs to be carefully planned. Whereas before you simply pressed the appropriate button and off you went, SM2 requires you to scale a tall building, for instance, so your webbing has an anchor. From there you can swing from the next building, provided there's one around, building momentum all the while as you gleefully skim the skyscrapers. There's an art in such webswinging, surely, but it's never frustrating, only addicting. Combat is similarly revolutionized. Combos are streamlined, varied, and contextual, and you can earn increasingly complex and spectacular moves as you progress (including our favorite, the spinning grapple piledriver, which can be delivered from the top of the Empire State Building if you're willing to work for it). Obviously, the main storyline of the game follows that of the movie, but it deviates to allow for more villains and more challenges, and when you're not directly engaged in these events (and the game rarely forces you to be), you can pursue a variety of jobs on the side, like delivering pizzas, taking photos for the Daily Bugle, and stopping petty crimes on the street. They're fun diversions for a while, but once you run through the main story, it quickly becomes busywork. Because of the scale of the game, I presume, the graphics suffer for it, and criticism should also be extended to the voice-overs, which range from decent at best, to downright horrible at worst. Toby Maguire sounds particularly unenthusiastic to be there. Still, though, SM2 is the premiere Spider-Man experience on any console, and little touches, like your ability to hang defeated thugs from street lights, indicate the kind of complete world you're dealing with here.

Our First Podcast

The Next Generation continues to expand our horizons, so to speak: Code Redd Net finally has a podcast, available through Podbean at http://crnpodcast.podbean.com. Embedded below is our first episode, subtitled Rise and Fall of the AI Bot. Fans of multiplayer shooters should be especially interested. We would love to hear your feedback on this first attempt, as well as suggested topics for future episodes. Soon the CRN Podcast should be available through the iTunes store. Until then, you can subscribe to automatically receive the latest episodes, or you can listen through the dedicated Podbean player at the bottom of this page.

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Agent Under Fire Multiplayer, or: Why AI Bots Matter

Agent Under Fire is a pretty good PS2 game, all things considered, but it's a bit on the short side. Multiplayer is absurdly enjoyable, what with all the jetpacks, Q-claws, and low-gravity settings, but without buddies nearby, you miss out on the fun. For whatever reason, only the PS2 version lacks AI bots to properly flesh out your deathmatches; both Gamecube and Xbox versions support them. Doesn't sound like much, but little things like that give a game value, replayability. Take a look at this video (ignore the overbearing intro if you can) to get an idea what PS2 owners like myself missed out on:

More thoughts on AI bots to come. Stay tuned.