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[personal profile] chronovore
So, this is another one of those games which stops just short of being INSANELY AWESOME.

Executive summary:
Open World Game in which you're a Resistance operative in Nazi-occupied Paris.

Gameplay:
In addition to driving and shooting like GTA, you can also climb things and stealthily assassinate people like Assassin's Creed. And you have dynamite to make the explodo.

At this point, if you're into Open World Games, you should be crapping your pants with the Potential Awesome of this game. However, if you're like me and played Pandemic's Mercenaries 2, you know enough to be skeptical. And you should be very skeptical.

What the game gets wrong:

  • Laughable voice acting, regrettably brought into sharp contrast by a few unfortunate instances of competence.
  • Driving is just barely more satisfying than driving in Mercs 2, though "less satisfying" would be a feat unto itself.
  • Climbing can be frustrating.
  • Iffy camera
  • Brain-dead enemy logic.
  • Brain-dead civilian logic, for that matter.
  • No co-op
Starting at the top:
Your French Resistance fighter is Irish. Whisky Tango Foxtrot, emphasis on the Whisky. Because Sean's not just Irish, he's a tough, boozing, schmarmy womanizer who spouts "Top o' the morning to y'e!" and yells "Shite!" when he's in trouble. And talks about needing a drink of whisky. He stops just short of "They're always after me Lucky Charms!" though you just know there was at least one take in the studio where it was uttered. But why is he IRISH? Why not a French Resistance fighter who is FRENCH? Was this developed during the "Freedom Fry" period when French were considered unsympathetic because they loudly espoused that the war in Iraq was a bad idea? (FWIW, hey, look! Another case where the occupying force in an urban setting is having a hard time.)

The other characters are equally stereotypical, with largely mediocre voice actors largely being asked to extend their range beyond their ability not just emotionally, but with over-the-top accents as well: a sexy mynx of a British spy, a Spanish black marketeer, a French novelist, even a Chinese doctor; all miserable. Sean's not particularly good either, and his incidental scripted lines when taking damage, The two gentlemen portraying the British "Bishop" and "Wilcox" are the only two exceptions; these two nailed their roles and I suspect are the only two actually portraying an accent with which they're comfortable. (*googles* Holy crap! John Noble, the actor who plays Walter in FRINGE, voices "Bishop." No wonder that character rocks.)

The climbing is janky. This might just seem so because Assassin Creed's is so approachable and creamy-smooth, or because Tomb Raider's is so well- animated, but I suspect it gets down to bugs: sometimes a jump is available, and other times it is not. Both the angles at which Sean can move and to which Sean can climb are camera-relative. This can be confusing when I'm using the camera to look around while climbing, and Sean just stops progressing because the player is surveying the surroundings using a third-person camera.

The worst case of this happened at the worst time: The game has an alarm system, like GTA's “Wanted” star levels, one through five, with five meaning everyone wants you dead. At the highest alarm, Alert 5, there are just two locations only the entire map which can reset the alarm. One is at the top of the Eiffel Tower. While that highest Alert was active, I set out to climb the Eiffel Tower. This was on the heels of a different bug where the Tower's elevators stopped working, fighter planes appeared frozen on the map, mid-air, like some kind of Twilight Zone moment. No elevators, so I climbed, only to get within centimeters of the platform, and the game would only show the next ledge as available for the barest moment before it disappeared. Finally I nudged the camera around, back and forth, mashing the “climb” button. Eventually it worked, though I felt more frustration and stress than accomplishment when I finally forced it through.

The camera has other problems, though they might have been what led to the bug, above. Try this in any game where you have individual control of your character and the camera: Move your character near a wall, then rotate the camera so your viewpoint should collide with that wall. To avoid the camera clipping through world geometry, which shows the polygons from the transparent back facing, there are two solutions: allow the camera to dolly in close to its target, or stop rotation. The dolly-n solution keeps it just barely on the correct side of the wall, which can result in some EXTREME CLOSE-UP moments with your character. The stop-rotation solution prevents both clipping and EXTREME CLOSE-UP, but also limits player control, particularly in tight spaces, or otherwise uncomfortable and difficult to navigate interior spaces. Guess which one Saboteur uses!

Continuing with list: Stoopid Nazis. Nazis are the best humanoid enemy to face in any game, even better even than Zombies because they are inherently evil and zombies are just unreasonably hungry. But to really have effective Nazis, they must be threatening, they must be devious, they must be inspiring of hate. The Nazis in this game are barely cognizant of their most basic surroundings. I've seen a Nazi creep toward me through a fire. He caught fire, died. A nearby cohort noticed the first one’s charred, still-burning body. He crouched to investigate, caught fire, and died. They're so brain-dead at times, it might have been a better game to have "zombie-occupied France," and let the rest fall into place.

The civilians are as bad, but have less chance to expose it. They normally have "walk," "stop and stare," "stop and make obscene gesture," and "run away." Sometimes they will jump directly into the path of my speeding car. Other times they will not move out of the way when I’m trying to be considerate and drive slowly; they walk directly into the street. I honk. They stop, make an obscene gesture. I wait. They stare at me. Eventually I just floor it and flatten them out under my car.

There's no networked gameplay. No co-op like Mercs 2, not even a couple co-op specific missions, nor a throwaway deathmatch mode. That's fine, Mercs 2's network code was committee-designed using an Slobovian outsourced phone center. I think there's a leaderboard on the opening menu as a throwaway nod to Microsoft's requirement that any Xbox game be network enabled.

What the game gets right:

  • It's really pretty. The liberated portions of the map are shown in a rich, lush Technicolor. Occupied portions are shown in black and white, with minimal red accents of the Nazi flags and banners. It's truly striking.
  • Activities pursued in the game reward new abilities. Difficult tasks unlock abilities which enable those abilities further, e.g. in the Alarm 5 example above, once Alarm 5 has been reset by the Eiffel Tower escape, thereafter Alarm 4 and 5 can be reset through normal Hiding Locations. Another: blowing up 5 Nazi vehicles with one dynamite blast unlocks RDX, a remote detonation explosive.
  • At the end of the day, it's still an Open World Game where you fight Nazis.

Date: 2011-03-26 05:17 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shadowofsummer.livejournal.com
Despite the drawbacks, it sounds like a kick-ass game. Though I have to admit, it pales in comparison to the game that grew in my mind the second you used the phrase 'zombie-occupied France'.

Date: 2011-03-26 06:16 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chronovore.livejournal.com
RAWK ON! Yeah, zombie-occupied France, or even NAZI-ZOMBIE-OCCUPIED FRANCE would be a real winner. Maybe I'll just install that perception in my head...

Date: 2011-03-26 07:35 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ferricide.livejournal.com
Was this developed during the "Freedom Fry" period when French were considered unsympathetic because they loudly espoused that the war in Iraq was a bad idea?

i believe it was developed from operation desert storm onward. development started on the amiga.

Date: 2011-03-26 01:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chronovore.livejournal.com
I can't tell if you're being serious about Desert Storm, but I suspect you are pulling my leg about Amiga development.

Date: 2011-03-26 07:38 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ferricide.livejournal.com
At the end of the day, it's still an Open World Game where you fight Nazis.

you just described something i have no interest in! as like, an inherently interesting thing. this console generation sucks shit for me.

Date: 2011-03-26 01:27 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chronovore.livejournal.com
Really? I'm loving this generation, and hating the backlog I have accumulated. Honestly, I'm torn on Achievements. I used to think they were the best thing ever, and now I think they're just a means of abusing the OCD portion of the consumer base. I am really enjoying the lowered barrier-to-entry on networked multiplayer games, but not the lowered-barrier knuckle-draggers it has brought to the fray.

So what about it do you not like?

Date: 2011-03-26 11:26 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ferricide.livejournal.com
i don't like open world games; i don't really like western-developed games that much. there are a couple i want to try (ME2 and F3) before i kinda "give up" but in general nothing is really catching me. i can't play games without passion and i don't get any passion from most of what's out there.

achievements i can take or leave, it's a complicated discussion that washes out to that.

but like, i read the whole description of this game and i can't imagine being interested in it even if it was good, which it isn't.

Date: 2011-03-26 11:36 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ferricide.livejournal.com
more to the point i guess, i find these big elaborate games are a lot of run up and the payoff is so far out that i get bored with them well before it comes. there are always interesting elements and/or concepts but i can never get to them because i find the games soulless, or janky, or awkward, or idiotic and boring.

oh, and i'll play uncharted 2 i guess!

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