God of War: Chains Of Olympus

PUBLISHER: SOE
DEVELOPER: Ready At Dawn
Played on: PSP
Initial impression: Hack & Slash & Gods (& Sexy Ladies)!

Liked:
- Environments
- Storyline

Disliked:
- Quick Time Events
- Some Camera Angles

On The Fence:
- Challenge Modes
- Length vs Price

Despite having never played any of the previous installments of GoW, I found this PSP version to be quite an amazing adventure. Thankfully I already knew some backstory, or else certain segments would have made little sense. Kratos, the big, tough, god-hating slave of the Greek pantheon of deities makes another attempt to gain his freedom and seek his revenge. Long story short, Kratos needs to rescue the sun from the underworld and beat the piss out of Persephone for a number of reasons, mostly having to do with the fact that she's an asshole.

You're helped along the way by Athena (and some Persian slave girls early on) and become this very well armed, unstoppable killing machine only to give it all up to see your daughter again. Persephone decides to be a bitch and torment you into doing what she wants. Turns out that's not such a hot idea, but it's your only choice, and the only way to fix the mistake you've just made is to beat down Persephone's alter-demonic form. Yeah - no real spoiler alert needed there. You've played any of these types of games, you know what to expect. The big boss will always have another 'form' to beat down.

On to the meat of the article:

Environments
Man, this game is pretty. The places you end up look awesome, and at times I just couldn't believe the PSP was showing the stuff it was. Hades looks great, with fire and lava all over. The water temple really shows the power of the processor nicely.

Storyline
I may sound like I hate some of it, but really the story is top notch. Knowing little to nothing about the previous games didn't seem to phase me in the least with enjoying how it played out. Yeah, I hate Persephone, but you're SUPPOSED to (by the end at least). The fact that she was a bloody whore through most of it was fitting and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Quick Time Events
These are moments in the action where the game pauses for a second and flashes a button you need to press to perform a finishing move. Imagine you're beating down a large Basilisk and as you're carefully thrashing away the game stops and a large X appears. You have about 1-2 seconds to hit X before it has you fail and you need to essentially start that segment over. It's a pain in the ass because it's never the same key twice (X O [] square /\ triangle) and I'm not SO familiar with the button placement that I can instinctively hit those. I have to take a moment and glance right to see where the O key is (I know where X and /\ are, it's the other two I mix up). I'm a PC gamer first, so PS controls are somewhat alien.

Some camera angles made jumps or knowing where to go next difficult. Overall it was fine, but I found that the only time I was ever lost it was because of bad camera angles.

Challenge Mode
You can unlock alternate costumes by going through Challenge mode. I tried playing the Stage 1 Challenge and failed it probably about a dozen times before I gave up. Despite having a really good grasp of what I was doing and what needed to be done, I kept failing. Most 'challenge' modes will start the difficulty low and build up. This one seems to start somewhere around 60%.... and for what? Costumes? Bleh.

Value
Had I not paid $20 for this I would be crying from the rooftops how it wasn't worth the price versus the content. That said, $20 might still be a tad steep in the Quality v. Quantity fight. Yeah, I got a few days (at about 3-4h a day) worth of entertainment out of it, but had I paid more I'd be pissed.

Final Thoughts
This is a great game that really earns the Mature label for its use of gore and softcore porn. Oh yeah, I didn't mention that, did I? There's only two things you need to really hear in regards to that aspect: Tits and Off-Screen Sex laced with a visual inuendo that may stay with you longer than you want. For part one: This is a Greek Mythology inspired game, so it's expected to see some perfectly sculpted goddesses with their bare torsos waggling in your face. Well ok, maybe not waggling, but there she is - Athena - and her large (yet oddly firm) breasts taking up half the screen. Granted it's supposed to be a statue come to life, but whatever. The artist in me can appreciate the level of detail they decided to attain by staying true to this artform. The giggly teenager in me says 'heh heh... boobies' like Beavis and Butthead, which I'm sure they planned on.

As for the second thing, after pummeling a Persian King, Kratos is pretty uptight. Cue the two slave girls (actually you can skip them altogether if you don't explore a bit). They're both topless, one on her back, the other on all fours (on top of the first one... did I walk in on them making out?) and they want to please you. No, really. I can't make this shit up.

Someone say "tits"?

Enter the Quick Time Event sex. The camera pans left to show a lit white candle on a crate that gets bumped as you 'utilize' the girls. The finale of this little side-quest has you bump the crate so hard that white-hot wax spurts all over and extiguishes the candle -- oh and you get a large boost to your XP (used to upgrade weapons). Again, I can't make this shit up. I'll try to find a YouTube video on it. (No luck, though the goddess Athena is topless too in the whole game.)

All in all, decent game. Replay value? Very little. I beat it, and don't see a point in doing the challenge missions for some goofy costumes. 7/10

Hype Machine

A co-worker brought up a very good point today. These days, when a game is coming out, you know about it for weeks, months - hell even years - beforehand. The hype builds and the masses pore over every last tidbit of detail until the day finally arrives. The game rarely lives up to all that fanfare.

His point was that it wasn't always like that, and he kind of misses being in the dark, so to speak. He said "it used to be that you never heard much, if anything at all, about a game until it hit the shelves. Usually any prerelease info was a gaming magazine reviewing the completed game about a week before it came out."

He's right. When something's on its way out, you know. You get 50% complete build playtests from magazine writers and complete websites updating every couple hours with new screenshots, concept art, soundtrack snippets, wallpaper, buddy icons and news. I've been frothing at the mouth for nearly a year now over Beatles: Rock Band and I have this new style of coverage to blame.

Sure, we can just ignore it by not seeking out the specialized websites, reading the articles detailing every last minute item, or just not looking at gaming sites or magazines altogether but let's get real. Half the problem here is the coverage. Half the reason there is hype is because companies PUT that much crap out there and most of it is unavoidable.

Beatles: Rock Band will succeed, even without the visceral advertising flowing out of every orifice of the interwebs. Other games may not be so lucky.

Two come to mind that share different sides of the spectrum.

Brutal Legend's advertising may be its own worst enemy. Jack Black's over-the-top "RAWK AN ROHL" shtick is only tolerable for so long. Unfortunately he's been out there in full force since the announcement of the development of this game. Tim Schafer *is* a great game designer, but to idolize him like he's a god on earth is just asinine and the display at the VGA's was too much. To a point - Schafer's work has never been akin to a blockbuster-style money maker. Being a critical success doesn't pay the bills, but games like Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle are awesome - hell they're some of the best games in existence. I just don't think that translates into "Brutal Legend = Instant Success" alone.

Wet is a game that banks on the Tarantino style. Mix 70's exploitation film with Grindhouse and Kill Bill and you're coming closer to what it's about. The main character, Rubi, is an assassin who chooses guns and a katana as her main implements of disposal. This game looks like it has a lot of potential, but who has heard of it? Unless you have your fingers on the pulse of the game-o-sphere, no one. Thing is, the game was announced, and then cancelled. Then quietly picked up again. It's due out in September and aside from an article I read back when it was under development the first time, the only advertising I've seen for Wet is a countertop card at EB. Oh yeah - and it comes out September 15th.

Hopefully they both live up to the expectations.

UPDATE: inFAMOUS, The Path of Evil

I decided to run through inFAMOUS again, this time taking the path of being a self-serving, uncaring bastard, which honestly comes rather naturally in these games. My first truly evil act was to scare people away from food dropped to supply the city so I could keep ot all for myself (and 2 friends). It takes a while for you to see the effects of being a tyrant, but when they show themselves these effects are interesting. He shoots red electricity, starts to turn monochrome and has a weird head tattoo thing going on. The environment gets gloomy, with the end sky being red and cloudy. People begin to hate you, and will gang up to throw rocks at you anytime you're on the street.

None of the story missions or side quests changed except for the cinematics. Instead of doing "Good" based side quests, I went for "Evil" - of which there are 15 (just like the other side). These dealt mostly with Sasha, a boss you take out between islands 1 and 2. She talks to you telepathically, and sends 5 Reaper Conduits to help you along. These missions were mostly 'kill everything in sight' type, with the occasional 'moral decision' items in there.

Overall, playing as evil really didn't do much differently except in a few cutscenes and one specific mission involving the Ray Sphere near the end. Other than that I unlocked a handful of trophies that were Evil side specific.

I'm still 5 stunts, about 40 blast shards and a handful of train-riding kills away from having the Platinum for the game. My only suggestion from playing this now a second time is to try to get the train-riding 25 kills done as soon as you get shock grenades and start up the first train in the Neon District. These enemies are the weakest, and it's much harder to find enemies to kill while riding the train after you've cleared a certain percentage of the island(s).

Left 4 Dead

Left 4 Dead


PUBLISHER: Valve
DEVELOPER: Valve
Played on: PC
Initial impression: Co-Op Zombie Shooter Goodness!

Liked:
- Characters
- Environments
- Movie-like approach

Disliked:
- Repetition
- Lack of SP in some modes

On The Fence:
- Versus mode
- Survival mode

The only story you get and need to know is this - Something has infected people, turning them into hideous zombie-like creatures that want to tear you apart. You choose one of four characters and off you go. Initially you only have access to a pistol, a shot gun and an uzi. Yep, that's it. The point? Get from where you start to a designated 'rescue' area, determined by which campaign you are playing.

The four characters you can choose from are:
- Bill, a grizzled Vietnam Vet who has been itching for a fight since he was discharged.
- Francis, a pessimistic biker looking to cause chaos now that the cops aren't around.
- Louis, a disgruntled IT expert who was on the verge of quitting his day job out of frustration.
- Zoey, a college co-ed whose love of horror films kept her from studying.

All four are exactly the same insofar as skill - that is to say, they are only as good as you are. There's no advantage to choosing one over the other. The banter between them all is priceless. Francis hates everything, and he'll remind you of that every chance he gets. Bill's familiarity with military protocol will guive you insight on how to procede. He's also hilarious, and conversations during scripted break points are awesome. While riding an elevator the following took place one time:

Z: Think we'll ever see an end to this?
B: There'll be peace on Earth if I have to kill every last one of these fuckers!
F: Hell yeah!
L: That's what I'm talkin' about!

While approaching an abandoned cabin in the woods, Zoey lets out "A lone cabin in the woods... I know how this movie ends."

Speaking of movies, each of the four campaigns play like films. "No Mercy" involves getting to the roof of Mercy Hospital for extraction by helicopter. "Dead Air" brings you through an airport. The finale of "Death Toll" has you waiting for a boat while fighting off a never-ending stream of undead. "Blood Harvest" has you run through a cornfield in its conclusion.
The zombies are not your run of the mill "Night of the Living Dead" variety. They are fast and agile, and peppered with "special" infected. Those consist of Boomers (fat, bloated zombies whose vomit attracts waves of common zombies), Smokers (tall zombies with long tongues they use to lasso you), hunters (crawlers who leap on you, knock you to the ground and rip out your guts), tanks (near-unstoppable hulking beasts) and witches (crying girls who go psycho when disturbed).

The only thing that really bugs me is repetition. The mission environments don't change. The enemies do, thanks to something called the AI Director, which senses how well you're doing and throws more (or less) zombies, ammo or health kits your way depending on whether you need it. Still, as I said the locales and situations are never really altered, so after you've played a campaign a few times you know what to expect. I can get through No Mercy almost flawlessly because I know exactly where to go. It was a lot more exciting when I didn't have a clue where I was going.

There are a few other modes, though I'll only touch on the ones I've actually seen in action. Versus mode pits our four 'survivors' against four players controlling the special zombies. You can take control of a Boomer, Hunter, Smoker or Tank to hunt down the four uninfected humans. Overall this sounds cool - but what I didn't like was that I can't even attempt it outside of the online play. It has no solo option. None. Otherwise it's a cool concept.

The other mode is Survivor mode, and it's about as crazy as it sounds. You hole up in a location and try to fight the oncoming waves of enemies. Tossed in there are the specials too, and they tend to come 2-3 at a time. I've played this a number of times and never really made it past the 5 minute mark (which is actually more impressive than I realized). My only complaint is that there isn't enough of a break between waves, and the difficulty starts on HARD. I guess I'm just spoiled by UT's survival mode where you have a lot of time between waves and it starts out shamefully simple, slowly ramping up difficulty as you go.

This game is a SOLID FPS, though there's nearly NO story and somewhat pointless to play alone. The key to this game is playing Co-Op. Seriously. Don't play it solo. Find three friends and get together.

A good thing is that Valve is looking to throw more DLC out there.
8/10

Bioshock

Bioshock

PUBLISHER: 2k Games
DEVELOPER: 2K Games (Marin)
Played on: PS3
Initial impression: Art Deco FPS.

Liked:
- The plot
- Plasmids
- Environments
- Hacking

Disliked:
- Research Camera
- The "puppy" audio

On The Fence:
- Challenge Modes

It's somewhere in early 1960 of an alternate universe and this game starts with a plane crash near a mysterious lighthouse in the middle of the ocean. It tells you nothing about who you are, the where or why of anything you're doing for quite a while. In fact, like most good psychological thrillers, it slowly reveals these details over the course of many hours... and when you realize what is going on, it's nearly too late. The first thing you do after crashing is decend in a bathysphere (like a cable-controlled submersible) to the underwater utopia known as Rapture.

This place has seen better days, indeed. Glass walls are cracking, water is streaming lazily around the tunnels... oh, and most of the inhabitants are bat-shit crazy. A radio in the sphere supplies the disembodied voice of a helpful survivor who wants you to help him get out of here.

Atlas guides you around, supplying numerous hints on how to survive in this hellhole while filling you in on what the hell happened. And of course -- there's a twist. This game's story had me glued to the seat. I couldn't wait to play more. The characters seemed genuine and even likable (yes, even the one who end up being off their rocker... like Sander Cohen).

The common enemies are called Splicers, named so to reflect how they've hacked their genetic code with plasmids.

To the main aspect involving he name, you are able to 'upgrade' yourself by injecting plasmids - some sort of genetic mutation that allows you to do various near-superhuman feats like shoot fire or ice from your fingertips. Among the more interesting ones are strategic skills like casting a holographic decoy to help sneak by enemies. Plasmids are powered by a substance called Eve, and are purchased by obtaining a substance called Adam. Adam can only be acquired by hunting down zombie-like girls called Little Sisters who have been programmed to collect it from dead Splicers. They are protected by large, altered men named Big Daddies. To get the Adam yourself, you must take out the Big Daddy, then face the moral choice - release the Little Sister from her zombie trance, or kill her and harvest the Adam-producing slug in her belly. The difference in Adam is not all too great, but killing them brings in more. Obviously, your choice determines the ending.

The environments are crazy. Imagine an art deco civilization built underwater, and you'd be about half way there. The sea blue-green out every window is eerie, especially when combined with flickering or non-functioning lighting and the sounds of water dripping or enemies grumbling to themselves.

There are killer turrets and search cameras that summon flying machine gun weilding sentries all over, but you can 'hack' them. This opens up a puzzle mini-game that resembles Pipe Dream. Connect pipes from point A to point B before the liquid flows. If successful, the turret or camera works for you, shooting enemies whenever they come near. You can also hack various vending machines found all around the city. This lowers the prices significantly, which is very helpful early on.

One thing I really didn't like was the research camera. You get this thing kind of early on, and as you go through the game you can take pictures of enemies to learn their weaknesses. Thing is - I totally forgot to use it through about 75% of the game. The benefits on doing the research didn't seem significant to really matter. Even after getting 100% research on Big Daddies, they didn't go down any easier. In fact, it was more a combination of experience and certain weapon/plasmid combos that gave me more of an advantage than the Research Camera.

Without spoiling too much, there is a point where you find a certain audio diary I did not like. You find dozens of these all over Rapture, but this one is significantly disturbing. It involves harming an animal - a puppy, actually. Now aside from my ASPCA membership and views, I had just lost one of my own dogs about the time I found this in-game. The pain of losing my dog combined with this... ech... well I can see WHY it was put in there, but honestly if it were something that didn't make noise (like a frog) then I probably would accept it a bit more. It's a sensitive subject for me on a personal level, so I can't hold it against the game, really. I just wish there was another way they could have presented that.

All that aside, for the PS3 you can download (not for free) three Challenge Maps. The two I've tried so far are a lot of fun, though a bit vague. I had no idea what I needed to do in one of them until I looked up a hint online. These are what they say they are -- challenging, though part of me thinks there just isn't enough to them. I kind of wish they were a little easier and there were about 5 more.

This game mixes FPS with some pseudo-RPG elements and the occasional Puzzle game.
The Biblical and Philosophical overtones are insane.

Great game, though main story replay isn't all too enticing. 9/10

inFAMOUS

inFAMOUS
PUBLISHER: SCEA
DEVELOPER: Sucker Punch
Played on: PS3
Initial impression: Solid "everyday nobody turned super hero" game.

Liked:
- The plot
- Reasoning behind city restrictions
- Powers
- In-game TV broadcasts

Disliked:
- Selective 'sticking' to objects
- Obvious ramping in difficulty
- Some 'forced' Moral decisions
- Lack of distinct environments

On The Fence:
- Blast Shard Collection
- Stunts
- Sequel Ambiguity

Cole is a troubled man. On one hand, the (bike?) messenger opened a package that wiped out a few thousand people in the three-island city of Empire including his girlfriend's sister. On the other, he's able to manipulate electricity. And by manipulate I mean absorb and shoot it out of his hands. Such is the moral dilemma - do you use these powers for good or evil? Do you help others or serve yourself? The plot will guide you through both scenarios, and the outcome will rely heavily on what you choose. Early on you really need to decide and commit, because experience needed to unlock the powers (along with good/evil karma-specific powers) will begin to pile on about a third of the way through the first island.

The effects of such choices are rather subtle at first. Good Cole has access to beneficial defensive powers, while Evil Cole can use chain lighting to strike multiple targets. The energy blast is white-blue for Good, red for Evil, and even his physical appearance starts to change. Good Cole seems to become more vibrant, color wise, while Evil gets desaturated, eventually turning nearly black & white. As the game goes on, bystanders will either cheer or fear you, throw rocks at your enemies or throw them at you.

You start off in the Neon District, and are cut off from the other 2 islands because you can't swim (electricity + water = dead). Also the blast from the bomb you set off caused the power grid to shut down. You are eventually instructed to manually reactivate the sub-stations to restore power to various sections of the city.

The comic book-like cutscenes do an awesome job of giving you that Accidental Superhero vibe. The missions and side quests fill your time nicely, though restoring sub-stations gets pretty repetitive after you complete the first island. The areas of each of the three islands (Neon, Warren, and Historic) all look nearly identical when it comes to the non-landmark areas and because of that I was constantly checking my map. Also when you complete a sub-mission it tells you that 'enemies will not appear' in that specific area, but they still do. Granted they don't come in huge waves like before, but they DO reappear in places where the game says they won't.

These gripes are rather minor compared to the ones I outlined above. First the random sticking. Cole is like Spider-Man in the way that he can climb buildings, though he does so by grabbing ledges, windows and pipes that jut out all over most buildings. Why so much outdoor plumbing is in this modern city is beyond me, but that aside Cole has rather selective taste when it comes to holding on to these surfaces. When you want to just get up the building and look around, you'll find he has a hard time finding purchase. Oh, but if you're running for your life away from a group of enemies and jump up to grip a ledge and get away... expect Cole to either not let go or grab on to something other than the ledge you were aiming for.

This brings me to the difficulty ramping. Early missions involve taking out an enemy or two and have the feeling of being tutorials. Tasks are challenging and require some strategy as you learn to use these new powers. It's like this up until you try to leave the city in one mission. From this point on it seems like some missions just overload you with enemies instead of actually involving some sort of skill. I found that whether Good or Evil I would be best off causing as much havoc as possible to stop the flood of insurgents. The only benefit to being Evil in those situations was that I didn't have to mind the 'innocents' and could blow up any vehicle or toss as many energy grenades as I could manage.

The last point is the forced moral decisions. I'm not talking where the game asks you to choose - I'm talking about main story missions where, no matter what you do, it'll throw you toward GOOD or EVIL. One such quest is a boss fight, and the only way to end it is to kill him. This ends by giving you points toward Evil, even if you're the pinnacle of goodness. You can recover those lost morality points pretty easily by healing citizens, but I should have had a choice there if you were doling out morality points. 

On The Fence
For the things I'm still pondering, the blast shards are the most frustrating. As you gather them you gain the ability to retain more electricity. At some point you can't add any more nodes to your capacitor (13 is the magic number you can have total, and I think you start with 5), so you're just looking for them to fulfill the feeling of completion. On my 'good' saved side I'm missing about 6, and I'll be damned if I could find them. I wish it had something better to find them other than the pulse radar you emit. I've wasted about 5 hours looking for them so far. Along the same lines are the stunts. These are cool things you can do with your powers that give you a... well, nothing, really. Just some XP for completing each one, and a PS3 trophy for doing them all. You can repeat them all you want and still get the same XP (which is about 3 for each one), and they do look pretty slick when you pull them off, but... why?

The third questionable item is the lead up to a sequel. From the Good side I can see it happening. From the Evil side, without giving too much away, I can't. Hopefully that will be cleared up when I get to the end, otherwise I'll be really confused. The "Good" ending makes a lot of sense, especially where a sequel is concerned. I could give out my theory as to how it could play out for an evil follow-up but it involves a huge spoiler.

Even though the title of the game points to you being the most evil son of a bitch this side of Hell, you can get through with a very enjoyable time as a goody-goody. I've seen the "good" ending and I'm about halfway through being "evil". One thing I've noticed is that cutscenes have subtle differences, such as the 'rescue the train' mission. In the good one, people thank you and are glad you helped. In the evil one, they're out to lynch you even though you rescued people so you zap one bystander to 'keep them in line'. Funny stuff.
I think of this game as something between GTA and a common TPS with elements of RPG and Skater Games thrown in for good measure. Great game with a great story and going opposite on all the morality choices will make it just as fun the second time around. The most annoying part has to be how he clings to everything when you don't want him to, but hopefully the rest of the game doesn't suffer because of it in your eyes. I managed to look past it, though I complain about it every time I play it.

On a side note, the pre-order DLC at Gamestop was a weapon called the Gigawatt Blades. These produce a beam of energy that projects about a foot off of Cole's fists. They are used in melee and pack a serious punch. I missed the preorder but found a code for $1 on eBay. Were the 'blades' worth it? Meh, no not really. They don't really have any practical purpose, though I read where someone said he took down one of the sub-bosses in only a few hits using them. Impressive, since that particular sub-boss takes quite a beating using the usual weapons.

The other DLC was from Amazon and it was the Reaper's outfit for Home. Now, as cool as the Reapers look, it's kind of pointless to get an outfit for Home since there's no real reason to ever go there. If they had offered, say, an actual hoodie that looks just like the one the Reapers wear? I'd have gone for that.

8/10 Great game.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game

Ghostbusters: The Video Game

PUBLISHER: Atari
DEVELOPER: Terminal Reality
Played on: PS3
Initial impression: Though lacking in a few things, awesome game.

Liked:
- Locations
- Weapons and upgrades
- Witty dialog

Disliked:
- Cutscene lighting
- Most of Bill Murray's dialog
- Ambiguous Puzzles

On The Fence:
- Seeking out Cursed Artifacts
- Extremely short game
- DLC Flight Suit's Purpose

I'm not a Ghostbusters fanboy by any stretch of the imagination. I loved it in the 80's, have watched it maybe 2-3 times since it came out on DVD (not Blu-Ray, but the original DVD release) and really haven't gone all too crazy over the game. I pre-ordered it for the shirt which is too large to wear, so it's now another bedtime shirt for the wife. The game, though incredibly short, is fun. I beat it in about 4-5 hours, and most of that time was spent wandering around and looking at the environments. Most of the NPC banter is appropriate and funny, the weapons feel 'right' and the missions are interesting. Also, the title of this game makes me think of Spaceballs.

As for the game: It's 1991, and the Ghostbusters are adding a new member to their team -- you! Well, not really you, but a generic, mute character named "Rookie" (it even says that on his flight suit) who they'll use as a guinea pig for their new, untested equipment. In the meantime, the Gozer exhibit at the museum has stirred up the paranormal baddies. Your first assignment (the tutorial) involves Slimer and another fat, slow ghost creeping around the Ghostbusters HQ's sub-basement. From there you make your way to the Sedgewick Hotel (Slimer's original haunting location). Chaos ensues.

You visit a lot of the old haunts...

The experimental equipment is a blast, no pun intended. There's a Stasis Beam that slows down ghosts, a Slime cannon that shoots 'positively charged' slime that weakens ghosts and neutralizes black slime that can kill you/spawn enemies, and a pulse-type cannon that reminds me of the main Chimera gun in Resistance. You can shoot out a beacon, then all shots will seek to hit that beacon. Add on to that a handful of upgrades for each that stabalize the beams and strengthen their effectiveness, as well as a few upgrades for the trap such as making it possible to slam ghosts into it rather than carefully guide them over and down and you have quite the arsenal.

I didn't really try MP, though I did log into the lobby for it. Looks like there's a Last Man Standing mode, and you can declare your weapon specialty and choose which 'Buster you want to be. I'll have to play around in there to see what it's like.

Disliked
I only have a few gripes with the game.

On a technical standpoint, the cutscenes have really bad lighting. The scenes are far too bright, as if someone is using the default lighting in 3DS Max 2. This is distracting because the rest of the game has brilliant use of lighting and shadow as you play through. Why these were different is beyond me - I mean they're injected right in the middle of the locations and scenarios you're playing, so why does the lighting change? I've read up on it that the cutscenes were done as pre-renders instead of just using in-game engine and cameras to play out. Pity, because this one aspect's difference is glaringly obvious and makes the game look unfinished.

I'd read that Bill Murray essentially "threw out" his script and ad-libbed all his lines. While this works in the movies, it doesn't quite work in video games. Timing is everything for comedy and I felt that a lot of Murray's lines fell flat and came off more as dickish than being the comedy gold he normally produces. I will admit there were a handful of times where what he said was hilarious because of his sarcastic, deadpan delivery, but overall the voice acting from him specifically felt it was lacking.

One thing that is never really explained is how the hell you get money from destroying property. It's fun as all hell to do - shoot the proton beam at the ghost and slam it into everything you can find like tables, chairs, mirrors, light fixtures, etc - and the game tallies up how much damage you're doing, but how does that translate into cash in my pocket? No idea.

On The Fence
There are a few annoying 'this is a game' moments like waves of minor enemies coming at you, but those aren't as annoying as some other reviewers make it sound. Also, failing a mission and reloading (which I only did twice) isn't all that bad. It's a jarring lull in the action but chances are a hasty move got you there to begin with. Also when you use your PKE meter the screen switches to night vision (complete with a view from inside the goggles) while you study the scanner. Get used to how this looks -- it's how you'll play about 75% of the game as you seek out cursed artifacts and hidden ghosts.

Oh, before I forget... I preordered at EB/Gamestop and apparently I also get this DLC dark grey flightsuit from GB2. It said something like 'get it while supplies last' (really? limited supply on DLC?) so I nabbed it before installing the game. Bad move apparently, because GB had to 'repair data' when I went to install it. I had to redownload the flight suit. The option to use it is under the Gameplay Options, but I found all it really does is make you stand out more as a recruit. Nice free DLC, but bland. I wonder if it can be used in MP?

8/10. Worth playing.