Pure Waffle - A Venture into Insanity

This week’s reviews are:

• Gregory Horror Show (Sony Playstation 2)
• Left 4 Dead (PC/Xbox 360)

I have been looking forward to doing this week’s second review so much that I decided to put it out along with my planned release. Left 4 Dead is something I’ve really wanted to own for a while since release, and it didn’t particularly disappoint. I’d like to say thanks to Neil and Cat, for taking me through the last campaign. They also taught me how to get good at survival mode, though I showed them how to make Hospital Corridor/Elevator slightly easier on that same mode. Thank you destructible locked doors.

If you happen to be on STEAM, the PC’s FREE client for online gaming, my username is SkirkRidgeEX. For those with the Xbox 360 version, hopefully you’re playing other games to justify the paying for Xbox Live, and you can’t add me. As for those without either, get the PC version if you can run it. It is vastly better. Incidentally, STEAM is my new electronically based best friend. It has made online gaming and patch updating so much easier. I don’t mind that it can only run on accounts that are your own because it doesn’t load up spyware ridden DRM on your PC. It also enables you to grab unique stuff, and even rare games that you might not be able to source easily. I saw Evil Genius on there not too long ago, which from what I saw looked like a promising title.

Now that I have a semi-decent PC, expect a lot more from the PC exclusive side of things. It is the one format that won’t die, though there was a small quivering from the DRM fiasco that surrounded the Spore release. Hopefully more people will adopt STEAM as their release platform/supported format for their games as it really does make gaming slightly easier.

So as you know, I’m away from Friday afternoon to Monday night on a trip to Norwich. Road trip no less. Better get me compass…..

Until next week…

(PS: Charlie, the compass comment is for journalistic effect, not pre-determining that we’d get lost)

In terms of being antagonists in video games, it seems that the reanimated corpse of Abraham Lincoln and billions of other deceased people have drawn the short leg. Zombies will always be brainless maniacal killers whose only purpose is to disembowel the remaining members of the human race. You can blame George A Romero for that one, as he deviated from the voodoo origins of the walking dead by instead turning them into what we know today. Not that it is a bad thing mind. Resident Evil converted this into an interactive survival horror fest. But those zombies were always a little on the sluggish side. In fact the trend has people running away in terror from monsters that even a tortoise would sneer at before shuffling off. So in order to make zombies in video games ever so slightly scary again, we turn again to films for the inspiration. 28 Days Later sparked the whole “running zombies” trend, which is a little more troublesome for would be survivors. This has now been adapted for video game audiences in the multiplayer based Left 4 Dead.

If the inspiration for the concept was fairly simple to establish, it is easier to figure out where the inspiration for the story came from. You are one of four individuals all trying to survive the zombie apocalypse. They are Bill, an ex-marine; Francis, the tough punk; Zoey, the college student and Louis, the average Joe. All are walking clichés of the horror genre. If this was a horror movie, Louis would be the second person to die in the film because he has a nasty habit of stereotypical catchphrases. Francis is the kind of guy who would go investigate a disturbing noise only to get his liver gouged out of him in the middle of the film. Zoey and Bill are the only characters who would seem to survive the entirety of the “film” because Bill is sensible while Zoey just nods in agreement and does whatever Bill tells her to. But this isn’t a film. It is a game. You need to make your character survive.

The game is divided into four “B-movies”. In each there are five chapters to repeatedly blast your way through. The first chapter is a usually straightforward attempt to get to the safe house. They also introduce you to perhaps the three main adversaries which will impede on your progress. Smokers look like any other zombie, were it not for the distinctive coughing fit and unusually large lasso tongue. The Hunters are hoodies with animalistic reflexes that tend to pounce on you when you least expect it. Boomers meanwhile are like terrorists fighting with biological warfare. While they can unleash their bile in a projectile format, they’re a lot more likely to run towards you hoping to be close enough when they die. Bile attracts the “horde”, which is merely a large number of zombies. All are controlled by a somewhat sadistic “AI Director”. This will ensure that you get a different experience each time, but usually something bad will happen at some point. Computer controlled teammates are double edged swords. Sometimes they’ll see a boomer in the bushes, and other times they’ll run straight at a hunter’s leaping path.

The second, third and fourth chapters introduce three more parts to the experience. The first are set pieces which are obstacles that when activated attract lots of enemies. This is a simple case of finding a nice corner and blasting everything in sight. There are also the other two special zombies. Tanks are built like Austrian bodybuilders on steroids and will usually launch cars and slabs at you for heavy damage. Then there are the witches. They will be on their knees, crying to themselves and not wishing to be disturbed. Shine a light into their eyes, touch them, or harm them in any way and they’ll go berserk. These are perhaps the biggest damage dealing infected in the game, and usually the thing that first makes you realise that this is a team game. It is a simple case of sticking together and getting through it as separation usually means a rather untimely and bloody demise. The AI Director is particularly brutal when it comes to placing witches. It is very rare to see them not in a doorway or on your path. The final chapter is usually a case of holding yourself up in a base and surviving the zombie onslaught consisting of lots of individual infected and at least three tanks.

As a human the odds look stacked against you, but help is at hand. You have at first the choice of main weapon, either a machine gun or a shotgun; a pistol and a first aid kit. The shotgun will deal lots of damage at close range, while the machine gun tends to mow down lots of enemies. Pistols seem most effective when special infected aren’t around. First Aid kits will heal up to the 80 point mark on your health, though can also heal further if you so wish. Lying around the levels is the rest of the weapons and items. New main weapons include the Auto Shotgun, Assault rifle and Sniper Rifle. They all act like you’d expect them to, with Sniper Rifles even having a scope to zoom in. A second pistol can be added to your first, allowing some dual wielding to happen for better efficiency. Pills can also be found for restorative purposes, but only grant 50 temporary health points that slowly drain over time. Health items can be used on or given to teammates as well as yourself, which add to the co-op style. Finally the game comes with two explosives. Molotov Cocktails help deal with the bigger enemies with speed, while pipe bombs deal with the normal zombies in a rather amusing fashion.

While the single player mode purely consists of playing these survivors, the online client opens up a whole host of options. Campaign allows you to team up with up to four strangers/friends to play through a “film”. Versus takes the single player mode and divides eight people into survivors and infected teams. The objective of the survivors is to, well; survive, while the infected have to attempt to kill them. Odds are stacked against the infected side each round because they are so easy to kill. Teamwork is necessary to both survive and kill the opposition, but the problem is a lot of people tend not to grasp that fact. The problem with a lot of online games is that people tend not to be friendly to those who are a little on the new side, and this is very true here. There are people who are a lot more understanding of this fact, but for the diamonds of those who do, you have to sift through the slurry of people who don’t. Thankfully the game comes with a LAN option for the PC version where everyone knows each other. On major difference between the two versions is that the Xbox 360 version requires you to be a Xbox Live Gold Member, while the PC version is free to play online via Steam. The Xbox 360 version also supports local co-operative mode, though only two players can take advantage of the vertical split screen mode. There is also a lack of local play with zombies.

In terms of visuals, presentation and platform differences there are a small number. The PC version is vastly superior to the Xbox 360 version because the engine is better realised on that platform. Left 4 Dead looks great on both platforms. But the PC looks and plays better and is quite frankly better supported than the console counterpart. Unless specifically designed for a console, a first person shooter that first sees the light of day on a PC just feels wrong on anything else. Having said that, Valve’s commitment to making the games as similar to each other on each platform has shown some fruit in the “Survivor Pack” that was released not long ago. This included the ability to play on the other two campaigns in versus mode and an all new “Survivor mode”. Essentially this is teaming up with three others to last as long as you can, which is surprisingly addictive. All of that was free. Also free on the PC is a level designer, which does seem to indicate that Valve designed features, will be drying up for the game. This is despite a commitment to keep supporting Left 4 Dead when the sequel comes out.

Left 4 Dead on your own is a pretty short lived and disappointing experience. It seems tragic to have to pay to use it on Xbox Live. But when played with friends online it becomes a whole different experience, but the PC experience is far better than that of the Xbox 360. Not because of a lack of content, but more due to restrictions. You can’t play online on an Xbox 360 unless you connect online, nor can you experience the entire game. Having said that, the game is nothing short of what you’d expect from Valve. It has a great selection of effective guns or abilities, depending on what side of the coin you are on. The AI Director while it does get sadistic at times creates a game experience that changes every time you play, which is perhaps the biggest experiment of the package. It works wonderfully. Just don’t expect the community to give you an easy time online. You’d probably find it hard to adapt unless you have a friend who enables you to get good, especially if you’re playing as the infected for the first time. Left 4 Dead is therefore, a great multiplayer game that badly needs all the right components to make the game worthwhile. It is also a great way of figuring out who would be the best person to have when the zombie apocalypse eventually happens. Personally, I’d have Patrick Stewart, Morgan Freeman and Chuck Norris as that is pretty much guarantied survival...

What does the emotion of fear mean to you? Is it the feeling of dread when faced with a particular situation, or an adrenaline rush you actively seek? Being scared can be triggered by many means, though the most common example is a sudden shock like having a spider in your hair. Other kinds are more psychological in nature, such as an arachnophobic realising a spider is in their hair. Capcom have a long standing tradition of catering to the shock factor with the Resident Evil series. But in a rare move they created Gregory Horror Show, a game based upon a three dimensional anime. Instead of the normal action based route however, Capcom opted for a more psychological method.

You are an initially gender confused individual who happens to get lost in the woods. Finding the hotel, you are greeted by the strange rat featured proprietor of the establishment; Gregory. Once you have sorted out which gender you actually are, Gregory puts you up for the night. Sometime after this event you are confronted by Death, who has evidently gone to Sweden for a holiday recently. He informs you that you cannot escape the confines of the hotel, probably due to you somehow committing suicide in such a creepy place. Interestingly, he offers you a get out clause as long as you bring him lost souls. He also warns you that getting these souls will be hard due to the nature of the ones holding said souls.

The first thing you will undoubtedly notice is the characters and that everyone resembles the Lego people, with a cubed head. It isn’t until you look at the source material to find that this is how they look normally. The rest of the game looks appropriately gloomy. Dark dank corridors combined with some subtle lighting instil an overwhelming sense of paranoia. A disappointing factor is that the visuals featured could have been replicated on past platforms. While there is merit for sticking to the resource material, it isn’t good to skimp out on the scenery. Having said that, the sound is superb, perhaps the most polished part of the game. Voice acting is remarkably slick yet creepy at the same time, while timely lightning and thunder increase tension.

As I played through the tutorial, it suddenly dawned on me just exactly what kind of game this is. Essentially what you’ll be doing is wandering around the mansion and spying on the guests. It is for lack of a better term; playing as a Peeping Tom. There are variations on the gameplay however which are interesting. Firstly most of the guests react when they see you or hear you. One of the first few guests to come through is an overly paranoid cactus cowboy, who reacts very badly to knocking on the door. Others such as Nurse Catherine actively seek you out to subject you to a “horror show”. I should explain that merely wandering around the dark gloomy corridors is enough to sap you slowly out of your sanity. Watching a horror show takes a large chunk and possibly inflicts you with an ailment. Each person has an individual game plan, and some even throw you into a rather fun board game in order to obtain the soul. Most of them will merely resort to chasing you around the mansion like a Slasher horror film victim. Not that that is a bad thing.

There are a number of ways to regain lost sanity. The first is to get a good night’s sleep. The second is to eat consumables as this apparently focuses your concentration on the food/drink. Lastly, there are books scattered around the mansion which if read increases your maximum sanity and fully restores your gauge. Some items are an obvious nod to the Resident Evil series, namely the herb plants. You can also use collected items to purchase new ones at Gregory’s Horror Shop. Some of these are essential to your quest, especially the doll in the second wave of guests. Something about Gregory Horror Show though doesn’t seem to fit in place. There is a vague sense of achieving when you obtain a soul, but the build up towards it feels a little slow. It especially doesn’t help if you took about two hours to obtain a soul, only for it to be ripped from your limp hands after a subsequent horror show. It is also quite a short game, but I suppose the budget retail price was an indication of that.

Despite its name, it is only the atmosphere and when you run into harmful guests unexpectedly that you will get a scare from Gregory Horror Show. That isn’t to say that it truly fails at what it is trying to achieve however. With its unique presentation, it also maintains a claustrophobic feel as you skulk around the corridors of the hotel, attempting to gain the lost souls from guests and avoiding those who you pilfered from before. The fact you have no way of defending yourself other than running like a cliché horror victim is for once an endearing trait. Figuring out how to take the souls from the others is more attributed to point and click adventures of old, but unfortunately it is all too easy to lose progress by getting caught. It certainly has a lot going for itself, but alas the problems are all too easy to pick out. Gregory Horror Show won’t burn your wallet, but it might build up tension in more frustrating ways.

This weeks, and indeed last week’s reviews are:

• Prototype (Xbox 360/PS3)
• ChuChu Rocket! (Dreamcast) (maybe GBA)

You may not be aware, but I was having major issues with my PC last week. The result was one fried motherboard and some serious downtime. I had already prepared the ChuChu Rocket! review by that point, so I was a little livid when I couldn’t post it. Luckily however my brother offered me a solution (it’s going to cost me money, which is fine) so that it wouldn’t be too much of an issue.

As a result of the PC issue however I am having to update with two this week. Enjoy…

What was the last game you played that was defined as being a sandbox game? Years ago many would probably have answered something in the regions of the Grand Theft Auto series, the games that defined this new sub-genre. More recently however there have been many games that have emulated this mode of presentation. Some as blatant clones of the inspiration, while others as an original take on the format. It goes without question however that most of them failed to garner much interest because simply put; the toys in this sandbox were plain dull. In fact the only free roaming game in my living memory that got something right was of all things; a movie tie-in. Spiderman 2 for just about every console that mattered in those dark times was an absolute joy to play not because it was a great game. In fact it was about as bland as every other movie game. What set it apart however was the method of getting around the city, something that hasn't been properly replicated since. In early trailers, comic book inspired Prototype looks to attempt a shift in this trend by not only providing a fun method of travelling but also consistent quality.

Like a number of superheroes and super villains before him, Alex Mercer is subjected to some kind of viral experiment. Supposedly dead, he is taken to a morgue where he miraculously wakes up with amnesia. It is not long afterwards that he is seemingly pursued by the military organisation "Blackwatch" and the infected. If he is to understand who he is, he needs to find those responsible and consume them to gain their memories. The actual in-game cut scenes show minor progression with mostly terrible dialogue/voice acting. It seems that Alex's sister; Dana, seems incredibly bored throughout the entire thing. Even when she is being forcibly removed from her flat, she doesn't seem at all into it. What is pretty good however is when Alex consumes a "web of intrigue" contact, there is a cut scene revealing a little more about the back story. These are presented in comic book style visuals with voiceovers depicting that particular character's part of the conspiracy. While the actual in-game cut scenes are incredibly stale, these sequences are infinitely more interesting. The visuals while distinctive look about the same as every other big game. Granted that it looks more like Manhattan than generic city number 45 and that infected landscapes look very different to military controlled areas. It is just that we've seen these things before in other big name titles. The camera does well to keep up with Alex, and the lock-on is intelligent. Especially when he begins to use his special powers to great effect.

How are the toys in this particular sandbox compared to every other sandbox around? Let us start by describing how you get around. Taking a leaf out of the Spiderman 2 logic of getting around, we are not limited by getting in a car and driving around. Instead you run around like a water-boatman in a kettle and leap across rooftops like a tomsons' gazelle with hydraulic legs. Think of it as "superhero parkour" for a brief definition. This is an aspect about Prototype that I enjoyed a lot. It isn't every day that merely moving around pleases this particular critic, but today is one of those days. Running up skyscrapers to avoid getting mauled at by a tank is a cheeky but necessary solution. Gliding with the aid of a symbiote parasite across the rooftops of Manhattan feels somewhat natural. While Alex mostly handles great, there are times when he handles a little too much like Lara Croft on pro plus. Even when using the almost hidden technique of "switching to climb mode" (you press and hold B) and climbing certain narrow spires, there are times when Alex simply falls off. Thankfully falling off in this game merely hurts passers by than kills you. Not perfect by any means, but a little more polished than your average antique table.

Your other main toy in this sandbox is being able to cause as much chaos and destruction as your sadistic little mind wants. Simply falling off a building causes a massive tremor to erupt beneath you and the shockwave will actually hurt things. But if you want more sophisticated destruction, look to your upgradeable powers. Potentially, Alex can upgrade himself so that for example, he can turn his hands into a whip/hookshot, gain two massive hammer fists or even sprout muscles that would make professional wrestlers jealous. What's more he can upgrade them further to deal more wanton Armageddon. Suddenly Alex becomes not only a highly mobile human, but a highly mobile tool of smiting. Most of the time, you will need to spend EP, gained by various methods, in order to upgrade Alex. There are others that involve you consuming various military personnel that beef up Alex's potential when using guns and vehicles. Everything in this aspect feels as natural as the parkour moving around scheme. Some moves, dubbed "Devastator" powers involve usage of the health bar to deal massive amounts of damage. When Alex's repertoire of moves is not enough, hijacking military vehicles provides you with even more fire power. Another big concept put forward in this game is the importance of consuming. When you consume a passer by/enemy, you assume their identity. This is important for masquerading as one of the military to get into their bases, or eluding enemy pursuit. This is all good until you learn the very cheap "stealth consume" move, which although useful takes some of the steam out of the stealth sections.

Naturally there are story based missions, all with various different objectives and means of achieving them. Being a sandbox game, it wouldn't be the same without some side quests. Prototype delivers, though some of the delivery is questionable. In terms of the actual game's storyline, the missions that involve fighting or consuming either the military or infected sides are a good link. Those that directly involve sabotaging either side are the most fun out of the batch of extra missions and reap possibly the most rewards. Those that involve fighting enemies with a certain weapon are still within the theme, but definitely more deviant compared to the former. Then you have the side quests that involve you running across buildings in the fastest time or gliding to land in a fountain. This feels like a bit of an afterthought when someone in the office decided that the movement system was good enough to have missions based on it. The gliding ones are easy EP, yes, but at the cost of a little immersion. These side quests mostly have a ranking system, with the goal being to get to gold. The lack of a restart function if you know things aren't going to plan though makes tackling them a little stressful. Also scattered around the game are landmark spheres and hint spheres. Hint spheres grant you little tips on how to be more effective with the game, whilst increasing your EP.

It wasn't until I got a certain hint sphere that I was told I could press and hold B to climb certain narrow spires. It also wasn't until I got a certain hint sphere that I was told that some enemies are susceptible to certain attacks than others. The huge bulking monsters that will likely drain your health rapidly with swipes from their claws for example become complete pansies if introduced to your hookshot. Most of the hints therefore are useless knowledge you will know before obtaining them, but others are information you should probably know before even playing the game, or at least reading some kind of instruction manual. One hint should probably tell you that this game will also hand Alex's butt to you on a silver platter repeatedly. For the many times you will decimate tanks with a well timed drop with the hammer fists, or rip out the eyes of the infected hulks with your hookshot, you can expect that a lot of the time the foe will do the same to you. Even our old foe; Quick Time Events makes a cameo around the time when you are sabotaging/hijacking military technology. At around ten hours, this game seems at just the right length of time. Upon completion you will receive a "New Game+" option, where you retain all your godly powers.

It is a tough call on whether or not to recommend Prototype. There is no doubt that it is a fun game to play because the controls are for the most part excellent and the moves you can perform are diabolical in comparison to most games. It is also impossible to dismiss the way the game tells its back story through consuming random strangers as a negative point. Prototype is a good game, but just don't expect it to give you an easy ride. If it wasn't for the fact that you can run up walls and unleash catastrophic damage, Alex would be running into chicken wire or a mincer in comparison. On top of this fluctuating difficulty curve, there are moments where the all important immersion takes an extended break for tea and biscuits while video game cliché takes on a double shift. Incidentally, I'd love to see what the design pitch was for Prototype. Mainly to confirm my suspicion that it was "Resident Evil meets The Incredible Hulk". Though in hindsight the developers did make a game based off The Incredible Hulk, so perhaps this isn't so far off.

Also available for PC, though I haven’t tested out that version.