Posts Tagged ‘science fiction’
New Mass Effect 2 Details
So far there haven’t been many concrete details about what’s happening for the Mass Effect sequel. Promises of revamped gameplay and a stirring storyline are far from actual news about what we’ll be seeing and whether or not Shepard survived the events of the original. Though all the biggest game announcements are waiting for E3, Bioware is drumming up attendees for their booth and general buzz about the game.
Despite the many RPG stylings of the original it remained quite heavily combat focused and the developers are promising a lot more content in this area. There’ll be more variety of weapons, including some heavier weapons systems and the ability to hinder your opponents by blowing off limbs. There’ll also be a new vehicle which they say controls better than the Mako.
There will of course be even more planets, locations and alien species to further flesh out the already detailed universe. Players will travel to a Krogan planet, an Asari planet which is compared to Coruscant from the Star Wars series and even an ‘anti-citadel’. Apparently you will play as Shepard, though it isn’t specified for how long. There’ll be familiar faces, places and items although depending on your choices major supporting characters can and will die.
The story still involves Shepard’s quest to destroy the Reapers, but additional events will involve the Cerebus corporation and its enigmatic leader. Bioware will reveal several things at E3, including the fate of Shepard, how the new travel/exploration systems will work and who you ultimately play is, meaning that even if Shepard is alive he’s not going to be your main character.
Mirror’s Edge Game Review–Dizzying, And Not In A Good Way
You know those games that start off with such promise but can’t quite seem to hold onto it? Those games that put so much into a really interesting storyline and some sweet cinematics and then blow it all when they ask you to actually pick up the controller and do something? Mirror’s Edge is EXACTLY like that.
The story is nothing short of awesome. Ripped from today’s headlines in a Next Sunday A.D. sort of way, the world is gradually descending into a morass of fascism and censorship. Soon, all communications are monitored and those who dissent are criminalized by the government, who has a network of cameras and surveillance equipment everywhere. The only way to communicate in secret any more is to employ runners, couriers who hand-carry messages across the rooftops of the city. One runner, Faith, recently saw her sister get framed for murder, and finds herself forced to use her runner’s skills to attempt to keep out of the clutches of the law, and clear her sister’s name.
Okay, remember how that sport Parkour was big for like twenty minutes a year or so ago? Mirror’s Edge is a gigantic attempt to cash in on that popularity. And while they made an interesting enough setup–that plot is STRAIGHT out of Orwell and might well have made a decent movie if it had a solid script and a decent director behind it. I bet Devon Aoki would make a sweet Faith. But anyway, I digress. Like I said, the plot is fun on a bun, but the game itself is downright unplayable.
Advance warning here–if you have any kind of fear of heights, this game WILL freak you out. And if you tend to get motion sickness when playing a first person shooter, then Mirror’s Edge will be downright unplayable. Here–let me give you a VERY early example just to show you what you’ll be getting into. This is from the TRAINING LEVEL, implying that it will be the easiest level in the game. You’ll jump off a roof ledge onto an overhanging boom crane, which you’ll slide down before running to a series of jumps involving razor wire. Then, you’ll learn how to run ON WALLS, jump off a zip line to land on a pillowy mass of something and ultimately walk across a gap between rooftops by balancing on a section of PVC pipe.
Now, in terms of SHEER PHYSICS there’s at least two things wrong with what I just said. The kind of momentum required to run across a ninety-degree oriented sheer surface like a wall is astronomical unless you have some kind of modified footwear or a body weight of like ten pounds. And I don’t even want to think about trying to use PVC pipe as a balance beam. It’s curved. It’s plastic. It’s probably slippery. Trying to balance on that would be almost like trying to balance on an oil slick.
Now try imagining doing all this while fighting off the cops.
Yeah, I know–I’m freaking out too.
But that’s the biggest problem with this game. It’s a GREAT idea–credit where credit is due and all that–but man, they didn’t go very far with it, nor did they put a whole lot into the gameplay. I had a rough time trying to get anywhere in this world. Even when I knew where I was going, I really didn’t want to go there. And that’s a problem. When you don’t want to make that roof jump or walk that pipe or shimmy down that high-tension power line strung across two thirty-story rooftops, then there’s just no point. It’s worth a rental if you want to experience that high-flying mayhem, but otherwise, just keep both feet on the ground.
Turning Point: Fall of Liberty Game Review–A Great Story Was Never So Hard To Get At
I am something of an alternate history buff. For those of you that aren’t already familiar with this subgenre of science fiction, let me provide some background. Alternate history is essentially a “what if” game of history. Basically, alternate history would ideally take one event in history—the United States’ civil war, World War Two, the Great Depression, or something similar—and change one critical portion of it. Perhaps Germany wins World War Two, for example. Think how shockingly different the world would be if that had happened. Or if the Confederate States of America had actually emerged from the United States’ civil war as a full-fledged nation—how different would the world be if the United States were only about half its current size?
That’s exactly the kind of question that Turning Point: Fall of Liberty will ask and attempt to answer. Specifically, what if Winston Churchill had died, unexpectedly, in 1931? Double bonus irony points–Churchill was an alternate history author himself, having written an essay for Sir John Squire’s “If It Had Happened Otherwise”.
The extrapolation from that point says that, without Churchill, no one was willing to stand up to Adolf Hitler’s steadily expansionist war machine, and as Hitler goes on his epic-scale land-grab, Great Britain surrenders in 1940. This gives the Nazis the perfect staging ground for an assault on the United States, and so, they launch.
Stop and think about that for a minute—in 1940. America didn’t actually get involved in World War Two until nearly 1942. Before then, there had been lend-lease activities in which the United States supplied other countries with arms and munitions, and that didn’t even start until 1941. That means that America’s industrial might is probably still trying to shake off the Great Depression, without the impetus of nearly seven hundred billion dollars (at 2007 prices) of goods being produced for use worldwide. That means, chances are, we’re armed in World War One style while the Germans are coming over in fresh off the line gunboat zeppelins with the entire industrial might of Europe.
Oh, and the Japanese are also taking potshots at California.
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Dead Space Review–No One Can Hear Your Screams of Joy
Well, I finally got around to trying Dead Space for the Xbox 360, and I’ll say this much–that sucker was a surprise out of nowhere. Best part was, the further in I got, the more I liked it.
I confess to personal bias; check out the plot on this beauty. Basically, you’re part of a team of agents sent to recover a derelict ship in the middle of deep space. No sooner do you get there and find the ship abandoned then your OWN ship suffers a catastrophic failure. Now, your only hope for survival is to get the derelict working again so that you can call for backup and get out of there. Of course, it’s never that easy–it’s what’s causing all the problems on the derelict that’s the REAL problem. Specifically, a whole slew of giant monsters. Now you’ve got to fight your way to getting the derelict back on her feet and getting you and the team out of there.
If the plot doesn’t sound at least slightly familiar to you, you haven’t been watching enough science fiction because you’re not recognizing the plot of one of my personal favorite titles, Event Horizon. Sure, maybe you just needed it pointed out, but looking at the two, man, there are a LOT of similarities between the two. The concepts are essentially the same.
The similarities alone are enough to give it at least a provisional win in my book, but this isn’t where the fun stops–oh no, not by a long shot. Another sweet shot of joy in this package is the targeting system. Now, most games, your initial instinct is to shoot for the head, or failing that, go for center of mass for the best chance to hit, right? Yeah, of course that’s right. But in Dead Space, your target of choice on the various monsters you’ll run into? The limbs. Talk about counterintuitive–I don’t think I’ve purposely taken a leg shot since, well, Fallout 3. Meanwhile, walking around this ship of the damned has left me taking more leg shots than a Maxim photographer. Who saw that coming?
Plus, there’s a good variety of guns in here to provide a great plenty of bang-bang, and some varied gameplay modes where you negotiate around barricades, handle a gun turret, and solve various puzzles to help get the derelict back on a paying basis.
It’s that variety, coupled with the well-realized plotline and abundance of action, that gives Dead Space an incredible fun factor. Of course, it’s not without its problems–some of the puzzles aren’t exactly intuitive, and it would’ve been welcome to know about the importance of having air refills beforehand. Nothing sucks worse in Dead Space than solving a puzzle and having all your hard work negated because you suffocated on the way back to a pressurized atmosphere.
But these aren’t exactly big flaws—a little advance preparation and a walkthrough on hand will take care of them, and you’ll be free to enjoy the sweet plotline joy. There’s plenty to like about Dead Space, and the sci-fi bliss therein will only make things better.