Darksiders

One of the PS+ freebies I graciously received recently, Darksiders is something I had wanted to play for quite some time - especially since its sequel (I think you can guess what its called) has just arrived.

So, is Vigil's Darksiders the Zelda clone I had seen it described as?

Yes. It certainly is.

It rigidly follows the open "field" and self contained dungeon mechanics of every Zelda game since Ocarina of Time. It also adds the hack and slash combat of God of War meets Ninja Gaiden, and it takes story queues from GoW as well (just replace ancient greek mythology with the Old Testament and you're set). Oh, and you liked Portal, right? Right? Good, because that gets ripped off wholesale as well at one point.

War (our protagonist) also has a horse. And he is ridden with the same recharging GIDDYUP mechanic as Epona. On the subject of horses, remember the phenomenal sand worm boss from Shadow of the Colossus? Vigil certainly do, so expect to play that again here.

Taking inspiration from elsewhere isn't "a bad thing". Almost every bit of media available to us is iterative, and there are very few examples of absolute originality out there. However, there is something about the complete and utter plundering of mechanics here which I find slightly dispiriting, and it makes for a solid and reasonably polished - but ultimately soulless - experience.

It also drags on a bit too, and I had certainly had my fill after the 17 or so hours is took to finish. I would much prefer 10 or so awesome hours and no filler, especially as 6 of those hours were comprised of navigating a linear dungeon and doing basically the same thing three times, then revisiting various parts of the hub world on a fairly listless treasure hunt (or, in reality, map legend following exercise).

Special mention must go to the unnecessarily fussy and confusing item and map screens - they're a pain to navigate and never really tell you what you need to know without lots of random stabbing at the controls. This is true of the rest of the game as well, in fact; loads of moves, items and special techniques are shoehorned onto the pad and I never really mastered them - I just muddled though and regularly forgot about certain combinations.

Darksiders is an enjoyable game, make no mistake about that. It looks nice, sounds nice, and has a satisfying heft to the combat and platforming. Just don't expect anything which will leave a lasting impact.

It's a real shame, because a lot of care and attention has obviously gone into this. However, it lacks spark. And that's something you just can't clone.

6/10

Crysis 2

The subject of a lot of derision from the hardcore PC gaming crowd, Crysis 2 has been called many things - dumbed down and ugly the two which spring to mind. The internet is a cruel place.

Cruel and unfair, as it turns out. I've never played Crysis 1, but I thoroughly enjoyed Crysis 2. It isn't the most inventive FPS out there but it certainly isn't the stupidest either. It does fall into the "follow this guy" template favored by so many other games from time to time, but far more of the game is spent navigating your way around more open areas - and this is where Crysis 2 comes into its own.

The Crysis 2 USP is not groundbreaking either, but it is well implemented and helps to make the experience slightly more cerebral - special skills which are essential to getting things done. These all use a recharging reserve of energy, so while tapping a bumper will briefly apply a period of high damage resistance or invisibility, usage needs to be carefully managed to avoid leaving yourself exposed in the thick of battle. Your melee and jump moves also use this energy reserve, and this provides a nice tactical edge to the proceedings.

Charging into battle a-la Call of Duty will not work too well, so you will need to adapt to the environment and find a more creative route through the rather beautiful environments on offer. There is a lot of variety here and it certainly looks great - Crysis 1 was famously good looking and Crysis 2 does not disappoint. The frame rate falters from time to time but I had no real issues here.

Perhaps the main area of disappointment is the fairly hackneyed and somewhat confusing sci-fi story underpinning everything. It's no worse than many other games, but this perhaps says more about the general low quality of storytelling in this medium than anything else. It gets the job done and allows for various plot and gameplay devices, but it isn't something I would offer up as an example of games as an emerging art form. Clearly, we still have some way to go here.

At its core though, Crysis 2 is consistently enjoyable, looks and sounds great, and even comes with a competent multiplayer component if that's your thing. More than the sum of its parts, then. And who can say fairer than that.

7/10


Available now for PC, XBox 360 and Playstation 3.

Swarm

Well, this one was a nice surprise. Swarm came out of nowhere and is totally and utterly unlike anything else on the market. No hubris, just truth.

Controlling up to 50 "Swarmites" at once, the basic premise is to progress from left to right through a sadistic obstacle course, designed to reduce your numbers in the most brutal ways imaginable. Controlling your army of little blue guys is initially rather tough, but this is a game which rewards practice. After an hour or so, you'll have mastered a variety of tricks to help you marshall everybody along (spread out, huddle together, speed boost, climb up into a 50 man tower and so on).

At its core, Swarm is a score attack game. The twist here is that progressing through the game's 10 or so levels relies on the player attaining said high score, which adds a whole level of purpose to the endeavour. This isn't leaderboard willy-waving, people.

The frustration factor can be quite high, but this isn't a major criticism - the balance is generally very good with only a few sections causing teeth gnashing and uncontrollable anger. This is offset by the rather ingenious "Death Medals" which add progression (and an Achievement, natch) to the continual and brutal deaths - of which there are a wide variety. Crushed, Vaporized, Sliced - yeah, these guys get a lot of punishment.

Originally planned as a boxed product, the move to XBLA and PSN has worked wonders for Swarm. I almost certainly wouldn't have picked it up at all if it weren't a download title, which is certainly its natural home. 1200MSP / £9.99 is about right, and definitely decent value for the 10 or so hours locked away in this little gem.

8/10

Available now on XBox Live Arcade and Playstation Network.

Beyond Good & Evil HD

Video games are typically about moments. Moments where the player overcomes a challenge (rather like a competitive sport), reveals tantalising plot developments (rather like a book) or sees something wonderful (rather like a film).

Beyond Good & Evil was originally released way back in 2002, during the previous console generation. Perhaps the best reminder of this fact is that while this game is still about moments, they are often moments of intense frustration which require all of your patience and resolve to persevere through some rather frustrating sections. These are offset by other moments, where it all falls into place, raises a smile on your face and becomes a relaxing, whimsical voyage through a very creative mind - that of Rayman creator Michel Ancel. And at these moments, the idea that you may have missed out on this because of the aforementioned other moments is sobering. It's that kind of game - flawed but beautiful.

That the game transcends some truly horrible design decisions and immense frustration is testament to just how good the rest of it is, so we'll start with what it gets right. Set on the fantastical land of Hillys, the game features - amongst other things - a typically French, green lipstick toting photojournalist heroine named Jade, an alien invasion force known as The Domz, an inexplicable talking pig named Pey'j and a wide variety of crudely developed but oddly endearing racial stereotypes, such as the Rastafarian mechanics and eastern bloc freedom fighters.

The game sets out its stall from the very beginning, introducing cinematic elements which were unheard of at the time and still not common today - the game opens with time-slowing-down battle which seems to mix the cinematic stylings of Wes Anderson and Jean-Pierre Jeunet to great effect, and this cinematic language continues throughout the game without feeling forced.

It probably shouldn't work, but like many of the best idiosyncratic works of fiction, it does. It isn't like anything else you will experience, and that is a pretty big deal for gamers who have been following the medium since it's inception. Memorable and charming, the world created here is a marvel. It is a deceptively small sandbox, but this merely creates a tightly focused and less meandering experience than some other games of a similar ilk - there are no 5 minute sessions of holding "up" on the pad while watching the waves pass by, for example (Wind Waker, I'm looking at you).

Visually and aurally the game is also superb. Graphically dated it may be, but the animation and character design still looks great today and draw the player in nicely - this is a straight port of the PC version, and therefore looks quite a bit better than many ports of last-gen games. The soundtrack hasn't dated at all and is fantastic, featuring huge variety in both instrumentation and style while still staying true to the world it occupies.

A lot of work has also clearly gone into developing the characters, and a story the player can empathise with. It succeeds, largely; it isn't particularly original and falls back on conspiracy theory cliches many times, but only the hardest of hearts will fail to empathise with our heroine and the peril of her world.

So far, so good. And for the first few hours of play, it's a joy. BG&E is a third person arcade adventurer, somewhat like modern Zelda games. Combat is simple (mash X, repeat) yet fluid and satisfying, and you will spend quite a lot of time photographing the wildlife all around you for cash and rewards, which works well and helps to flesh out Jade as a real character too. The gentle story development keeps the player interested, and the characters have far more depth than the cartoon exterior might suggest.

However, the use of multiple game mechanics starts to come unstuck right about the time that you reach the first one which isn't well implemented, at all - stealth. Almost a game breaker, the game's hamfisted approach to stealth mechanics is painful, and forces you to employ them almost exclusively for the game's middle third. Thanks mainly to an awful (and at times, utterly bizzare) camera which restricts your ability to look around as you would expect, the game drops into a cycle of creep-die-reload which will be all to familiar to players of the more unfair modern FPS games, such as CoD or Killzone. Generous checkpointing helps, but serves as a reminder that this is not a remotely difficult game, just an unfair one. Demon's Souls it ain't.

Other atrocious mechanics include hovercraft racing and inverting (yes, INVERTING) the controls during a particular boss battle. These things aren't fun, aren't necessary and certainly won't have helped the game become a commercial success back in 2002, where it was something of a failure (sales-wise, at least).

When all's said and done though, the moments where it does all come together outshine those which sour the experience. You'll get a good 12 hours of entertainment out of this for your 800MSP (that's how long I spent finishing the game and collecting all of the Achievements), and deserves to be played by anybody who missed it first time around.

7/10

Available now on XBox Live Arcade, coming soon to Playstation Network.

Braindump

Hi there!

One of the most common things I do when I am interested in (or have purchased) something - be it music, movies, video games, books or tech (pretty much the only things I spend money on) - is Google it. I love reviews, because I love to see what other people think about these things. As well as established media outlets, I also like to see what other normal people think, and that is almost always in the form of a blog post.

So, I thought I'd add my twopenneth. This is as much a place for me to catalogue and remember the various things I have been spending my time on as it is for other people, so if you are reading this and aren't me, I hope you find it useful - and possibly enjoyable.

But just not hating it would be enough.