PS3 Review: Sleeping Dogs (2012)

There's probably three quality martial arts video games out there on consoles: our beloved Rise to Honor is the best, while Jackie Chan's Stuntmaster is a distant third. Sleeping Dogs is second best, but it's a well-deserved second place.

Rise to Honor is still tops for martial arts video games, but Sleeping Dogs is a very close second. You play as an undercover cop named Wei Shen, tasked with infiltrating a Triad organization. Honestly, there's not much to say about the narrative. It's a pretty typical Hong Kong detective story, but it's solid and performed well. You won't be surprised by Wei Shen's moral dilemmas, his loyalty to the badge conflicting with his growing admiration for his fellow gangbangers. It's been done three thousand times before. You bet it's formulaic, but it works just the same. I felt the same way about Rise to Honor: the formulaic story is actually reassuring and convenient, because you don't have to do a lot of work to figure out what's going on, you just get to fight some fools and it all feels familiar. Unlike Rise, this one is much more of a sandbox kind of game. Certainly, narrative events frame everything you do, but there's a considerable amount of freedom between missions in which you can level up your kung fu, participate in some street races, buy clothes, gamble, and so on. Sleeping Dogs pushes you to complete the primary tasks in a number of ways, but there's always time made available to you for dating or swimming in the polluted waters of Hong Kong or whatever else you want to do.

Wei's Rumble in the Bronx uniform. Not pictured: the empty
Game Gear given to that dumb kid by Jackie.

Combat in Sleeping Dogs is very similar to combat in the Arkham Asylum series. It's fluid and intuitive, and the animations between moves are super smooth. It's no match for the rhythm of combat in Rise to Honor in terms of controls, but there's plenty to love about it nonetheless. You can throw suckas off roofs or chuck them into garbage bins, similar in many ways to the interactive environments in Jet's game. Dogs does have Rise beat in terms of gunplay, however, and driving around Hong Kong is equally solid. Honestly, I have no idea if Dogs is an accurate representation of the area, but it looks great and the different districts of the city are clearly distinguishable from each other. As usual with sandbox games, you're only left with a bunch of relatively meaningless tasks once you complete the main portion of the game, but you can unlock a bunch of outfits for Wei to wear from classic kung fu movies, and you can always play through the story again. If you groove on martial arts cinema, Sleeping Dogs is perfect for you.

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: Wheelman (2009)

Much like Driv3r on the PS2, Wheelman is an adorably stupid game. Maybe Wheelman isn't stupid so much as it is really weird. It's a fairly typical Grand Theft Auto clone, starring Vin Diesel and set in Barcelona, that has some odd ideas about people and physics. It can often be frustrating and confusing, but once you get used to its peculiarities, Wheelman is kind of a charming game.

Basically, Wheelman is about an undercover agent named Milo working in Spain, tasked with disrupting and eliminating smugglers. He's given free reign by his handlers to infiltrate Barcelona's criminal organizations. While the plot is certainly not complex, it can still be confusing if you have any mind for remembering things. There's just too many poorly defined characters and vague alliances to keep track of, and there's no mechanism in the game for recapping past events, not even something as simple as character bios. However, if you just tune out the story, Wheelman is much more enjoyable.

In Wheelman, you do two things: shoot and drive. Mainly, though, you drive, and sometimes while you drive, you shoot too. For the most part, this driving is handled well. What makes the driving in this game unique is its capacity for combat. Steering is controlled with the left analog, while the right analog is used for fighting off enemy vehicles: for instance, pushing the right analog to the right while driving will result in the car dashing in that direction to ram into a pursuer. This can be done in any direction. When a car's "health" becomes critical after three or more wallops, another one will result in that car exploding in a very pretty fireball. In addition, you come equipped with an "adrenaline" meter on the bottom left corner of the screen that you can fill by driving fast, performing risky stunts and jumps, and so on. While a full adrenaline meter can power a short nitros boost, it can also enable several "focus" shooting techniques, which allow you to shoot out the tires or engine of a pursuer in slo-mo. Altogether, these techniques make Wheelman's car combat surprisingly deep and enjoyable.

Outside of the vehicle, however, combat is rudimentary. It works, but far less spectacularly than the vehicle combat, and without the benefit of being luridly amusing. Milo is difficult to control, either sprinting full-tilt like an idiot or waddling around while crouched behind cover. Aiming is actually far too easy, and in general these sequences are tedious and unchallenging slogs between drives.

Wheelman's graphics are nothing special either. Though the cars look nice, Diesel's cyber-scanned mug is incredibly creepy, and the rogues gallery seems culled from Central Casting's racial caricature cheat sheet. Like the graphics, the music is similarly bland. Yet Wheelman is commendable simply for the sheer weirdness of it all. Wheelman's Barcelona is not the abstract, glitchy playpen of Driv3r, but it's still a digital city with a unique understanding of gravity and law enforcement. Cars careen into each other and off ramps as if on Mars, men fly when ejected from a vehicle, and police respond like rabid dogs to a dislodged street light. There's also a series of side-missions and mini-games that ensure that very few normal things happen. Wheelman is like a Grand Theft Auto arcade game and is particularly suited to those who want the experience of an open world game, but without the fuss of exploration.

PS3 Review: Mirror's Edge (2008)

There's not much else to first-person gaming besides shooting. Outside of a few experiments with the perspective in other genres (including my sentimental favorite, "First Person Football" from ESPN NFL 2K5), it's a technique that has stayed with bullets through thick and thin. While Mirror's Edge may not be a total departure from the FPS model, it's certainly the best first-person action game on PS3 to actively discourage gunfire. Your character doesn't even come equipped with weaponry: you have to pick one up from a disarmed governement thug. Instead, the focus is on parkour techniques, finding creative ways to navigate the urban landscape while outrunning or tracking down corruption.

You play as Faith, a "runner" in an unnamed but thoroughly dystopian city. The city is a bright, gleaming, sterile metropolis, and this facade hides a totalitarian state in total control of supposedly democratic elections. Faith is one of many runners actively working with an underground resistance group to expose the state and free its subjects. Most of this story is told through animated cinematics between missions, though in-game cutscenes occasionally push the plot forward as well. It's a fairly well paced plot, though there is often not enough emphasis placed on the narrative stakes to make actions seem meaningful. As a result, I often felt as though I was merely encountering the next urban jungle gym, not racing against time to rescue Faith's sister, for instance. A voiceover guide helps to stress certain story aspects as you run about the levels, and he is particularly useful in underlining the offscreen urgency of any situation, but it's not enough to sufficiently work in larger narrative consequences.

Thankfully, however,  Mirror's Edge makes up for the failings of its story with first-person parkour. The key here is an almost total immersion into the first-person view of Faith, even with in-game cutscenes, as when Faith is thrown off a roof by a former professional wrestler. In terms of presenting this perspective, Mirror's Edge makes a wise choice in completely eliminating any kind of on-screen display of your health, bullets remaining, objectives completed, or direction. You get the impression that you can only rely on your wits and athleticism, though there are ways that the game "cheats" this impression: on the normal difficulty setting, objects leading you through the levels will be colored red (this can be turned off on harder difficulties). Not only is the presentation clutter-free, there is a similar simplicity in terms of controls. Essentially, you rely on your jump button to get through virtually all obstacles, though you also need to maser a few other buttons to slide, roll, and so on. Thus, progression is more about timing, perception, and momentum than acquiring a powerful weapon. Speaking of which, as I alluded to earlier you can go hand-to-hand with your adversaries and fire weapons at them, but the game is designed to make this decision seem generally unwise. Instead, you're actively encouraged to run away from trouble. Running in this sense means navigating crowded urban environments as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, levels in Mirror's Edge are a bit hit-or-miss: many of the rooftop stages are bland in terms of obstacles and design, whereas the interior levels paradoxically provide more freedom in navigation as well as visual variety.

Any game that lets me recreate a stunt from Who Am I? makes me happy.

What Mirror's Edge gets right is a sense of movement as well as verticality, and does it better than just about any other game out there. Nothing else I have ever played has equaled the sensation I felt in leaping over a guardrail and onto a moving subway car. Too bad, then, that the game is so short. Thankfully, however, there's a slew of time trials to complete once the main game is over, and the additional difficulty settings add considerable challenge on a second or third pass through the game. Still, despite its short length and substandard storytelling, I can easily recommend the game on the strength of its more visceral moments.

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.

Give These PS1 Games Some PS3 Love

At Code Redd Net, we don't like to forget about the classics. That's why we're particularly fond of hardware that supports backwards compatibility, because we tend to favor games that last. Though current models of the PS3 do not play PS2 games, unfortunately, they nevertheless play PS1 discs. Something is better than nothing, I suppose. While there's certainly a score of outstanding PS3 games worth your time out there, you should always keep in mind the cavernous catalogue of excellent PS1 games waiting for you just in case there's a little downtime on the system's core software market (and they're almost always cheap, unless you really groove on RPGs). You don't even need a memory card to save your progress because the system creates a virtual one for you, not to mention an option to smooth out the pixel-heavy graphics. Bearing all this in mind, here's a short list of five phenomenal PS1 games not only worth your time, but worthy of your piggy bank as well.

Spider-Man (2000)

This is the first Spider-Man game to get it right, not only in all three wonderful dimensions, but in tone as well. In terms of capturing the feel of the comic book and cartoon character I remember, nothing else comes close to this 13-year-old. Despite lacking name value in the voice cast, or perhaps because of it, Spider-Man has aged very well: every character and every note sounds right. It's a bit short, say, about four hours, but what it lacks in breadth it more than makes up for in density. There's also a tremendous amount of extras to make bonus plays worthwhile if the nostalgia factor isn't enough for you. Controlling the webhead can be cumbersome at times, and the camera occasionally goes haywire, but it's no big deal. Future games in the series may have perfected the webswinging and combat, but that was only possible because the foundation that this game built was so solid. Featuring one of my favorite last levels, which I may or may not have actually spoiled in the screen grab above.

Thrasher Presents: Skate and Destroy (1999)

That oncoming train you see there is no doubt the best way to win a multiplayer game of Sick Fix: Chicken Man and I used to have a ball trying to produce the most spectacular wreck in that subway level. Multiplayer included, for the longest time Skate and Destroy was the premiere skateboarding simulation for those looking for an alternative to the zaniness of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. That position was taken over by the skate. franchise, and deservedly so, and as a result the "realism" of Skate and Destroy now seems dubious at best. Still, though, I love the rhythm of this game: there's much more emphasis on precision and angle than in its button-mashing brothers in the genre. Conceptually, too, there's a lot of interesting ideas no other skate game has tried to emulate, either before or since. For instance, after a two-minute session expires, security guards try to catch in the act, and you can use this extra time to earn bonus points before you escape, or you can be given the taser. Finally, Skate and Destroy has unquestionably the freshest soundtrack of old school beats on the system, a soundtrack we even honored with a Code Redd Net Award.

The World is Not Enough (2000)

N64 TWINE is a better game, but its PS1 brother has enough unique features to recommend it for fans of the franchise. As I mentioned in my review, the best part of PS1 TWINE is the "Russian Roulette" level, where you can gamble like a true addict, much to the consternation and cell phone distress of MI6. Plus, there's a significant number of film clips that set up the levels nicely. For whatever reason PS1 always lagged behind its Nintendo competitor in the first-person shooter department, so TWINE is the probably the best of an admittedly limited bunch.

Smasher regains his strength by having a soda and a sandwich
he found on the ground. This makes sense in a beat-'em-up.

Fighting Force (1997)

Here's another PS1 game with a superior N64 relative, though in this case the disparity in quality is much more minute. Fighting Force in its original PS1 incarnation may have a plethora of loading screens in addition to being more difficult than the N64 version, but for the sake of convenience this one is a completely satisfactory substitute. Furthermore, Fighting Force is one of the last true beat-'em-ups ever released, without a doubt the best one in the post-Streets of Rage, 3D era. It's not perfect, but I have a hard time imaging a more enjoyable co-op experience outside of PS2's Everything or Nothing. And clocking in at just under two hours to complete, Fighting Force never becomes tedious or over-long. If you want a mindless brawler for your PS3, this is your only choice.

Jet Moto (1996)

For a long time the only PS1 games I owned were a Playstation Magazine demo disc and Jet Moto. That I was content with this situation should attest to how enjoyable Jet Moto was and still is (that demo disc was beautiful too, and I miss those things). Jet Moto, it should be said, was an amazing game for 1996. I still think the graphics are decent, and I'm amazed that the tracks, intricate as they are, can support up to 20 racers at the same time. But what I remember most about Jet Moto was how fast and how difficult it was: not only were the races crowded with opponents, not only were the bikes almost uncontrollably fast, but the courses were laden with obstacles and cliffs. I still have not made it past the second round of the season without using cheats, thanks in no small part to a series of particularly brutal levels in the bayou. It's difficult, certainly, but it's not frustrating. No other game, even on PS3, can really keep up with this one.

PS3 Review: Injustice: Gods Among Us (2013)

Injustice: Gods Among Us has a really neat concept: Superman, tricked into killing Lois Lane and all of Metropolis by the Joker, goes crazy and establishes himself as a despot. That's how it seems at first, anyway. Unfortunately, things get messy pretty quick as the plot devolves into the incomprehensible clone/double/alternative universe babble all too common in superhero comics. I've never understood why the whole alternate universe idea in comic books has to be justified so literally, that is, within the narrative, but nonetheless, it gets all the good guys and bad guys to fight each other, so who cares.

Despite its disorganized storyline, however, Injustice is a fine game. Returning for a moment to the story, I can say that however much I dislike the conceit, it's told in an excellent manner, and by that I primarily mean the animation and voice-over. There's a nice balance struck between comedy and hammy drama so that things never get too cheesy or easygoing. This is buoyed by the well-written dialogue and delivery of the actors, a quality which certainly carries over from the cinematics to the gameplay. Injustice is a smooth fighting game in the vein of Mortal Kombat. Button combos require some skill to memorize and master, but they aren't so intricate that you have to frequently pause the game to remember moves. And Injustice is right about where it should be in terms of depth: not intimidating for newbies, but deep enough for the hardcore fighting fans. True, the main story mode is fairly short, but it's involving and has plenty of variety. Unlike other fighting games, where you are often locked into playing as a particular character for the duration of the quest, Injustice keeps things nimble: one minute you're playing as Batman, the next Green Arrow, the next Joker, the next Wonder Woman, the next Deathstroke. You spend just enough time with any of them to learn their attributes and moves before moving on, and more specifically you get to try out their super finishing moves, all of which are beautifully complicated and unnecessarily over-the-top. Same goes for the interactive environments. Most arenas in the game consist of multiple levels for combat, and transitioning between the upper and lower floors of the Batcave, for instance, only requires the proper positioning and timing, and it deals out a considerable amount of damage to your opponent. There's also ample opportunity to use the environment to your advantage in other ways: swinging from chandeliers, throwing cars, and so on. Once the main story is finished, though, you can take all these skills and find plenty of other things to do: besides Battles, in which you take any hero/villain in the game through a ladder of increasingly difficult adversaries, there's also a bevy of S.T.A.R. Labs missions to complicate (similar in many ways to TimeSplitters' Challenge modes), not to mention the on- and offline multiplayer options. I imagine this game is going to have some shelf life, especially for DC fans. As a result, Injustice is definitely the best fighting game I've played in a while, one worth picking up.

PS3 Review: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

Remember all those hideous Spider-Man sidescrollers for the NES, SNES and Genesis? Except for Maximum Carnage, maybe (it was a decent beat-'em-up, though it was also helluva tough), it's clear that Spider-Man was a superhero property perfectly suited for polygonal gaming. Spider-Man for PS1 was the first one to truly get it, and as I've argued elsewhere, Spider-Man 2 for PS2 was the end-all be-all. The Amazing Spider-Man for PS3 is the first game in a while to return the series to the free roaming format that made Spider-Man 2 so delightful, and it more or less works here too. It's not perfect, nor is it as dynamic as its predecessor, but it's still a fine rental/used purchase for both casual and hardcore webheads.

Despite being based on the subpar film of the same name, Amazing wisely opens up a few days after the film's climatic battle. This time Spider-Man has to break the Curt Conners/the Lizard out of his jail cell in order to find an antidote to a rapidly spreading disease caused by Conners' experiments. In doing so, Spider-Man crosses paths with Alistair Smythe, sans mullet because the 90s are over*, and bitter because one version of Conners' antidote accidentally cripples him. Spider-Man has to run about the city, completing various tasks and fetching certain items so that Conners can concoct his antidote. Between missions, you are relatively free to dart about the city, web-swinging, fighting petty crimes, taking photos, and so on (alas, there's no rescuing balloons for children nor can you bounce at the disco anymore as you could in Spider-Man 2). For the most part, the story told here is engaging and pretty to look at, and for me this game is a much more entertaining product overall than its film counterpart. However, there is a major issue with the opening: things start out with an extended cinematic, from the first-person view of Peter Parker, but it goes on forever. I had time to do the dishes while it was going on. This is not much of an issue later on in the game, but it's a dreary opening if you're looking to pop the game for a reasonably timely thrill. I did, however, enjoy the in-game use of Spidey's blackberry to tell the story, a device which keeps you informed of the story while you dash around town punking out muggers and carjackers. Similarly, a version of Twitter pops up onscreen whenever loading the next mission, and the fake tweets of your fellow NYC denizens follow the main story. It's a cute device that adds another layer to the narrative.

* and not just any mullet, a green mullet, my goodness

The key to Spider-Man 2's success was not the free roam structure itself, but the ways in which you could move within that open city via webswinging. Whereas before swinging between buildings only required the push of a button, SM2 required a strategic understanding of the environment: in other words, your webs had to be attached to something in order to work. As a result, swinging through the city felt dynamic and required a certain degree of mastery. Unfortunately, Amazing does not emulate this and instead returns to a somewhat detached method of moving Spider-Man through the city. Though there is some concern placed on your surroundings (for instance, generally speaking you cannot immediately webswing without a building nearby, but this is only the case when falling from significant heights), webswinging nevertheless loses some of its novelty and can become tedious after a while. Still, though, the webswinging and combat animations are fantastic, much better than those in SM2, and the same goes for the voice-over work, which is actually quite excellent. Speaking of combat, Amazing manages to almost completely imitate Arkham Asylum/City when forcing you into rooms rife with thugs and mutants: right down to the abundance of ventilation ducks and stealth takedowns. This works fine except for the fact that the AI is clueless and unchallenging, even though taking them down with Spider-Man's arsenal of web-and-wrestling based slams is pretty fun.

Amazing suffers from the same problem that kept SM2 from true greatness: once the main conflict is wrapped-up, there's not a whole lot of interesting things to do. Well, there's a whole lot to do, but so little of it is actually worth doing. You can collect comic books from rooftops, which has the added bonus of unlocking full-length digital comics, and you can snap photographs for a local news reporter (but not for the vaunted Daily Bugle?), and you can always go back to busting lowly thieves on the beat, but so what? After you get done tangling with skyscraper robots, catching purse-snatchers makes for some really boring legwork. Nonetheless, I'm willing to endorse this game for a week rental or purchase at your local used games emporium. If you're looking for a free-roaming Spider-Man fix, Amazing should be enough.

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.

PS3 Review: Haze (2008)

It's really too bad that Haze was Free Radical Design's final release; the game is alright, don't get me wrong, but it's certainly not on the level of the TimeSplitters series, or even the severely underestimated Second Sight. That said, if you're into any of their previous games, and/or you have a few dollars to spare, you might find Haze worth a try. The single-player campaign involves a futuristic, oppressive military force called Mantel which dopes up its soldiers with Nectar, a synthetic hallucinogen that enhances speed, stamina, strength and perception. You play as Shane Carpenter, a babyfaced Caucasian everyman, who joins Mantel to fight a group of rebels known as The Promised Hand, portrayed in the opaque imaginations of Latin American pseudo-ethnicity. Most notably, the dialogue, as well as its delivery, go far beyond any claim to sincerity and into the realm of immense cheese, but not the redeemable kind. Though the story is short, predictable, and heavy handed (and more than a little bit like the politically schizophrenic Avatar), and there's not much in the way of variety, playing both sides feels sufficiently unique, particularly the difference between playing as a Nectar-addicted Mantel drone and as a rebel suffering from symptoms of withdrawal. This is particularly pertinent in regards to the multiplayer experience, where the abilities of each faction have a positive and negative impact on the deathmatch: for Mantel, this means all the enhancements of Nectar (specifically, sniping becomes superpowered when on the drug) but an occasional withdrawal and a weakness for overdosing grenades; for rebels, this means the ability to fake death and plant grenade-traps which release Nectar and engender the aforementioned overdose. It's a complex dynamic which keeps the deathmatches interesting, and for the most part these skills are well-balanced. Though I didn't have an opportunity to try online play, Haze has thankfully included offline bots to keep this feature relevant. Up to 15 bots can help to fill out the maps, but multiplayer is hampered somewhat by the few maps and modes available, as well as a lack of true, total customization. In terms of graphics, there are times when Haze looks wonderful, but numerous glitches ruin the immersion and in some cases make the completion of objectives difficult. Nevertheless, if you're looking for a shooter with some interesting ideas but can forgive several failures in execution, Haze isn't a bad choice; just don't expect to find the same kind of polished love you can find in Free Radical's classic shooters.

The last level reminded me of Spy Hunter 2, so this game
gets to be Hot Piano Chick Approved.

PS3 Review: Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection (2009)

I recently got on the next-gen gaming bandwagon by purchasing a shiny new PS3. As a result, this is my first review for the system. Ultimately, what's good for me is good for you cats, our readers. Expect plenty more reviews for the console in the coming months, all while Chicken Man continues to keep you up-to-date on the Xbox 360.

Graphically, Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection is clearly not pushing the limits of what the PS3 can do; nevertheless, I believe this is an entirely appropriate, even admirable use of the technology for archival purposes. I love the Sega Genesis, and I'm just pleased as punch to have all these Genesis games packaged together on a single Blu-ray disc, rather than having to deal with the mess of dusty cartridges. True, this is a collection of strictly Sega-licensed games only (so no ACME All-Stars, alas), but who could possibly complain about having access to Streets of Rage 1-3, Sonic 1-3, Spinball, Knuckles, 3-D Blast, both Vectormans, Ecco, Altered Beast, Shinobi, Comix Zone, etc? You can even save progress in each of these games however many times you wish, whereas before many of them required you to complete them in a single sitting. I found this helpful in finally beating some of the more challenging games of that era, particularly Sonic Spinball and Comix Zone (technically I still haven't beaten Comix Zone, but I'm getting mighty close). There's a nice presentation to go along with everything else, as each game has a semi-detailed description, bits of trivia, and case/cartridge artwork. I also enjoyed the menu functionality, where you can give star ratings to each of the 40+ games in the collection, basically ranking them in order of preference and then sorting the menu accordingly. Though not all 40 games suited my fancy, there were enough quality choices to easily make this purchase worthwhile; the Streets of Rages and Sonics were worth the price all by themselves, and after that everything else was sheer gravy. Even the stinkers have a purpose, as playing the first few levels of something as lame as Super Thunder Blade can unlock additional Sega Mega Drive/arcade games or interviews with developers. My only complaint is the omission of Sonic & Knuckles' lock-on technology from the cartridge days, which allowed you to play through Sonic 1-3 as Knuckles instead. In terms of value, replayability, and variety this collection is tops for next-gen consoles. It's also an excellent archival project in classic gaming. Just stay away from Sonic 3-D Blast, I'm telling you.

Altered Beefcake, that's what I call it.

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.

Daniel Craig in... Moonraker?

This may be a week old, but timeliness has never been our main concern. Nevertheless, IGN has the first 007 Legends trailer up, this one showcasing an updated version of the absurd Roger Moore epic, Moonraker. We've kindly embedded the trailer below:

Moonraker is a decent enough choice (one of five classic films to be featured in the upcoming game), but I'm not sold yet on the do-over philosophy of these new Bond games, perhaps because I was not overly fond of the GoldenEye 007 remake. Seems like this one will have levels culled from Bond lore, but inhabited this time by Daniel Craig and his newfangled smart phone gadgets instead of the original actors. This may be unfortunate considering how much fun I had playing the retro-stylings of Sean Connery in the From Russia With Love remake for PS2, which kept all of the atmosphere of the original film but expanded it for a new medium and a new audience.

Luckily, with E3 looming, we're likely to learn more soon.