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