Nutcrackr

After trying Tomb Raider Anniversary and enjoying it I decided to get into Legend. In terms of controls it's much the same, although various strangely situated buttons may need to be reassigned it won't be long before things are familiar. Now Legend does look nicer than Anniversary thanks to the next gen content, this is basically better textures, bump maps and unified lighting/shadow system. It's not the best running game and still has fairly low polygon environments but it looks ok. The role of Lara is straightforward, you perform various platforming moves at various locales including Japan, Bolivia and Africa. The story centres on one of Lara's old friends who was trapped in a cave in, it unravels some of Lara's own past and leaves it open for the continuation in Tomb Raider Underworld.

There are familiar puzzles, many platforming events this time rely more on quick action rather than a pre-thought process. Most of Legend is very straightforward, there aren't many open puzzles like in Anniversary and you will usually know the direction of travel, you just need to perform the jumps correctly and on time. Legend also features an excess of action, rather generic, extremely dumb enemy grunts are placed ahead of you at various points in the game. These combat areas are uninteresting and feel out of place in the game, the ability to throw grenades grants some interest. There are also a few motorcycle rides, one in particular sees Lara chasing down a train, you travel beside it and take out more generic, stupid grunts on motorbikes, its poorly implemented with only passable vehicle physics. Most of the game is still linear platforming, with the occasional stunt or puzzle to solve. The more difficult and non-linear aspects arrive in collecting the various treasures throughout the levels, some take a bit more thought or a slight journey off the linear path. The croft manor is also quite open and there are some nifty word puzzles that aren't too hard along with the usual scavenger hunt.

The story is quite intriguing in some respects, and the dialogue is both witty and consistent in helping to keep you motivated for the next task. The absence of difficult open layout puzzles and the short nature of the story punish this otherwise good game. The boss battles are not particularly hard but feel unnecessary. The music is quite good, fitting with some of the locales well enough to warrant a mention. Anniversary will give you a more challenging, lengthy and satisfying adventure. Legend will give you more action and the continuation of the platforming experience.

Last time I played a game with a huge amount of potential I had great feelings about the future of the First Person Shooter genre. The game combined the shooting elements I loved with the choice and character development of an RPG. To my great disappointment the game did not kick start a revolution, it seemed as though most had just ignored it despite it’s stellar ratings. Deus Ex is the game I’m referring to and after almost 7 years the mix of genres has been drastically under utilized, only a handful of titles have been released with a similar playing style.

Enter S.T.A.L.K.E.R. from stage right, an eerie shooter set in an alternate universe around the Chernobyl area called “the zone”. The game seems to have come from an older time because even it’s very design, whereby the player is not being told exactly what to do, seems to comes from an older era. The game has fewer RPG elements when compared with Deus Ex but it does not suffer from it. You don’t need to worry about putting points in weapon classes only to have your options limited should you get a sniper rifle. Your experience is gained by your own use of weapons much like how standard shooters work. As you travel further into the zone enemies get harder and weapons found are much more dangerous. Most of the enjoyment comes from being able to choose how you want to approach quests and seeing how that choice changes the AI.

Of course the game is not a direct Deus Ex clone set in Chernobyl. The game world is far more open and you can travel between the connected levels any time you wish. The AI can also travel between these regions, this may be in order to strengthen numbers or to perform other quests as though you were not the center of the entire game world. It’s not uncommon to come back to a zone and see dead bodies strewn about, ones you did not shoot. Animals such as dogs within the zone move in packs and circle around dead Stalkers and require some different tactics to overcome.

The game’s direction does not suffer when you add this extra freedom and allow players to do side quests. There is a fairly clear path of main quests that the character follows and a PDA will regularly keep you up to date on them. This direction also includes more traditional corridor segments in underground areas. Atmosphere increases greatly during these underground sequences where there can be quite a high level of detail in the environments. If you are lucky enough to have a PC that can run it with dynamic lighting then you are in for a special treat. The whole game is lathered with atmosphere the chilling sounds in the distance, the dynamic weather and time of day system and the click of your Geiger counter as you enter an area high in radiation. Based on my experience I can only hope that games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. become commonplace. The key word I mentioned earlier is potential and despite being a great game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has so much more potential to become a masterpiece.

In The Witcher you play as Geralt, a human mutant who slays monsters, set out to recover the secrets of the Witchers. The Witcher is a great Role playing game and it doesn't have hundreds of weapons and armor, it doesn't have a insane amounts of random loot to collect. What it does do is let you play a role, that role is to choose a path that the story should follow. Choose who to kill, who to accuse and who to trust. These aspects are carefully played out through a series of quests and at various points you are called to decide on two or three mini branches of the story. These branches may result in a battle further in consists of different enemies, or characters changing their opinions of you. The resulting flashback images at key story moments will be presented in a very rich and detailed way of the events you previously completed.

The Witcher does contain a lot of action, there are two main ways of fighting, one with axes or clubs and other weapons, the other with Witcher fighting styles that use swords. These styles can be improved in the character screen, they give you access to extra hits, more damage when you get the correct timing for your attacks and other critical effects like bleeding, stun that can provide you with better attacks. There are three main stances: strong, fast and group. Strong is for larger creatures / armoured units, Fast for quick nimble guys and group for those who like to attack 10 monsters at once, in fact group stance is sometimes overpowered should you get enough enemies around you. You also have two sword types, silver and steel, silver is more useful against monsters. These swords can be forged using meteorites or runes or upgraded using polishing items. The combat can be a bit clumsy at time, but there is some great fighting animation. Unfortunately some combat occurs directly after a long cutscene giving you little time to really prepare. Along with your melee skills are a range of signs, these are basically magic type skills and there are five: fire, air (knock/stun), trap, shield and hex (turn monsters), they are simple yet they are all quite varied and perform different roles. Although I didn't use shield and hex that much, it does depend on how many tokens you place into the various sign skill trees as to how potent they can be, I found great use for the other three.

Aside from these basic combat and magic styles, you have a broad range of alchemy formulas. These formulas create 3 main groups, potions, bombs and oils. Potions range from giving you health, slowing time to increase your reflexes or increasing damage. Bombs are area effect type devices you throw on the ground, that can scare enemies, although I didn't use these much and there aren't many of them. Oils are bonuses that you can apply to your weapons, they provide damage boosts to certain creatures and last for a day in game These are incredibly useful when you go on a side quest to deal with a specific type of enemy. All formulas are made using a range of ingredients with base materials and an alcohol base. Some with unique ingredients from boss monsters. To learn potions you can read books or scrolls most of them can be bought from traders, or you can make up your own and hope that you don't poison yourself. You gather most ingredients from either dead monsters or plants. To gather these items you must have the monster or plant recorded in your detailed journal, letting you extract the required items from plant or creature, again this information is mostly gained from books.

The game world continues to live around you, there is a day night cycle, in general nighttime is unsafe when you are outside and monsters can popup out of nowhere, although some roam, many you face will spawn from the ground or area around you. You can run away from many of them, at which point they give up the chase. Some creatures come out at night, like vampires, so if you require something from them you have to pick the right time of day. NPCs in the game world will go about their tasks, take shelter when it rains and make somewhat rude comments about Witchers. Some characters will have a daily job cycle and you need to be aware of it to find where they are at that time. Alternatively you can find any fireplace and meditate to a set time of day, meditation is used to distribute tokens and also to make potions, and you gain health during this time. It's similar to sleeping in Oblivion where you can skip hours in a few seconds.

Quests range from collecting items from creatures including taking the heads off the more unique ones. Collecting plant materials, saving sisters by releasing their souls, fighting an uprising, interrupting a bank robbery. There is a great range of quests and aside from side quests they don't often feel tiring apart from some treks later in the game. It's worth mentioning how solid and consistent the art style is, it can be a very good looking game in places, character and monster design is very good. Sound wise its relatively good. There are some issues with the sound levels from during dialogue sequences and some translation mistakes but overall its solid. More impressive is the wonderfully orchestral music score that will journey into your ears while playing.

The game draws similarities from a few games, Deus Ex, Vampire: Bloodlines and Diablo. The game presents a similar setting to Diablo, crypts and dungeons along with some good monster design and weapon/art. Geralt like JC Denton is a badass character that can choose rewards from quests and engage in conversation in a few different ways as you progress through a story. Also like Bloodlines where you have main hubs and different factions to ally yourself with during the game. The Witcher story is a linear progression but with a series of choices that alter situations, characters and flashback storyboards, each chapter usually means a new main area is unlocked and possibly more combat areas. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 are the longest and the best in terms of content and quest range. Characters will often continue through the story just as you do, or reappear further down the track, and most are fairly well developed and memorable. The game doesn't fizzle away thankfully; it maintains the high quality of story telling, and even increases your decisions during the later chapters. It ends quite concisely, but with many good mysteries remaining, finally giving you another epic cutscene just like the intro to finish with a bang.