Last Week's Games: Fire Warrior, Hotline Miami, Shinobi 3, Golden Axe, Takenoko

I’ve missed the last few weeks of this! Sorry about that…

In the last few weeks, I’ve played and beaten a couple of games. One of them was Fire Warrior on the PC, and I’ve posted the review for it here. I have a few additional remarks to make here: Many of you will have noticed by now that I really enjoy games based in the Warhammer / Warhammer 40K universe. However, I rarely make the argument that they’re good games, and Fire Warrior is no exception. A lot of what eventually became first person shooters were being standardised during the period where Fire Warrior was released, and in many respects, the game fell short of the mark.

Wouldn't it be great to order one of
your squad-mates to cover you?

It is also worth remembering that the Tau were in their infancy in the 40K universe when this game was released, and with almost two decades under their belt, they have become quite a distinctive force in their own right, rather than the “new kids on the block,” so to speak. I don’t know how well they work in the most recent edition of Warhammer 40K, but certainly as far as 7^th edition, they relied on their squads working together more than almost any other army in the game. That got me thinking: What if a 40K game was made with Tau as the player characters, but instead of a standard FPS game, it became more of a squad-based game like SOCOM and Star Wars: Republic Commando? A rather odd comparison for me to make, since I’ve played neither, but I understand the general premise of those games and having an FPS game with a team of Fire Warriors with different abilities could be something very special indeed. Could it happen? Let’s hope so…

Get used to the game telling you you're dead
'cause you'll be seeing it a lot!

I also played Hotline Miami on the PC, getting to the end of it. I’ve got a review for that coming out on Friday, but I might as well tell you now, I really enjoyed the game. It takes a certain rhythm to get into it but once you have, you can have a lot of fun with the trial-and-error gameplay – as long as you don’t take it too seriously. There’s a lot to be said for being good at what you do. By the time I reached the end of the game, I was still having fun and wasn’t quite ready to get off my crazy horse quite yet, so I downloaded Hotline Miami 2 and I’m playing my way through that now.

These will go down in one hit if you
know what you're doing...

On the Xbox 360, I’ve been once again getting some enjoyment out of the Sega Megadrive Ultimate Collection. I’ve often spoken about my fondness for Streets of Rage 2, but funnily enough I didn’t even touch that this time. I came back to my old sparring partner Shinobi 3, running, chopping and, er, shuriken-ing my way though the seven stages, and even though some of the platforming is frustratingly difficult, it is always a fun game to play. The furthest I managed was the final level on the flying airship, because as with many platforming games I died to falling off it more than anything else!

The platform sections of Golden Axe
were never great...

I also played Golden Axe with my daughter. This is one of the first games I ever played on the Megadrive, and some of you may remember I beat it several years ago. I had no intention to return to it, but I thought it was a simple-enough game to explain to Jessie, so we gave it a go! It went reasonably well until Jess forgot what button she had to press to continue the game when she died and locked herself out of the game. I managed to reach the end of the game but lost to the final boss.

Everyone loves cute pandas.

Finally, me and Kirsty played Takenoko – a board game where you must grow a garden and feed a hungry panda. Kirsty will play just about anything with cute animals in it, and she managed to win it this time by taking a lot of the panda-feeding cards and scoring points that way. It’s a great little game, about the right balance of luck and skill for us, and I’m sure we’ll come back to it again soon!

Backlog Beatdown: Setting Warriors on Fire with Warhammer 40000: Fire Warrior

Warhammer 40000: Fire Warrior was a game I owned many years ago on the PlayStation 2. I enjoyed it at the time, but I got to a certain point and got stuck, never played it again and then foolishly traded it in. When I saw it was available on GOG, I bought it and I have finally gotten around to beating it…

Near the start of the game in a typical
war-torn 40K battleground...

Fire Warrior is a first-person shooter set in the Warhammer 40000 universe, where you control the titular Fire Warrior – a Tau soldier of the Fire Caste. On your first active mission, you are aiming to rescue an Ethereal from an Imperial governor, but later you get caught up in a plot to unleash the forces of Chaos upon the unsuspecting galaxy once more. Throughout your journey, you engage in a ship battle, make uneasy alliances with the Space Marines, blow up a Titan and confront the forces of Chaos in their rawest form...

The muzzle flare from the Autogun takes up
more or less the whole field of view...

So, is Fire Warrior any good? Sort of. It was entertaining enough. But arguably the most interesting part of the game is comparing it to what was happening with First-Person Shooters at the time. Gaming was in its sixth generation of consoles, and with that came some smatterings of competence in 3D gaming after a wonky start on the previous generation. Controls for FPS games were on their way to being standardised, multiplayer functionality was creeping in (though it was far from usual for the PS2 in the UK, since broadband was only just starting to be used domestically,) and even the Sci-fi games were aiming for the more realistically proportioned arsenal of only two weapons at a time, rather than whatever you could carry. Leading the charge was Microsoft’s Halo: Combat Evolved, and many of the mechanics of that game were borrowed for Fire Warrior, including the limited weapons, and a personal shield that would protect you for a short while and recharge if you could avoid fire for a few seconds. In that respect, Fire Warrior was definitely chasing trends rather than setting them, but Kuju chose the right part of the 40K lore to make the game from – the Tau. At that point, the Tau were new to the 40K universe, having been released not even two years before, so there was no reason to suggest they could not use the shield, or pick up other weapons and use them if they so choose – they had a blank canvas to design the mechanics of the game. It looked like it could potentially be a contender to Microsoft’s sci-fi shooter.

It had multiplayer as well, but let's not pretend
that's worth talking about nearly two decades later...

Well, that didn’t happen, largely because Fire Warrior is nowhere near as good as Halo. The plot fit the 40K lore well enough but was of no surprise to anyone who had been following the universe for any length of time. The shooting was OK at best, but the Imperial Guard (as they were at the time) took far too many hits before going down, and the Space Marines and Chaos forces were brutally hard to deal with. The guns did what they were supposed to do, though with a surprising lack of punch from the Tau weapons, and the Bolter which handled more like a rocket launcher than anything else. The graphics were lacklustre, even for the time, though the sound was handled surprisingly well. And the level design, while functional for the most part, had some wild variations in checkpoint placement and areas of cheap deaths. Additionally, the version I played on PC was not without a few bugs.

With that having been said, I enjoyed the game. I’ve always enjoyed the 40K universe so I’m usually willing to give the flaws in any game that represents it a free pass. It’s short enough that it doesn’t outstay its welcome, and the difficulty of the enemies can make for some truly thrilling battles in the right places. It’s an entertaining game to play, to experience the shooters of the time and their evolution into what we know now – but with Fire Warrior’s contemporaries outdistancing it, and many developments improving quality of life since then, I would struggle to recommend this to all but the most curious of 40K-based video game collectors.

Final Score: 2/5: If you're sure.

Last Week's Games: Baldur's Gate, Doom and Dark Void

 This week I’ve mainly been playing Baldur’s Gate on my laptop. I mentioned last week that I’m enjoying this game a lot more now that I’m in the frame of mind to go around the different areas grinding for Experience Points, but first impressions of the game are a little misleading in this respect, as there is really only one way you can go at the start of the game – the Nashkel Mines is the first major dungeon – and if you don’t go there reasonably quickly, certain party members leave you behind. I wouldn’t want to have to handle the first part of the game without Jaheira’s healing powers! Now that I’m well into the game, having cleared the Cloakwood mines – the second major dungeon – I’m touring round the Southern part of the world map, trying to tie up all my loose ends before I head to Baldur’s Gate itself.

Apparently he gets much
better later on...

The other thing to keep in mind was that while I was initially willing to allow some of my party members to die, I’m building a party around the six I have now that I’m happy with: The main character is a Paladin called Roisin, who I’ve given a two-weapon fighting style. Imoen, of course, is essential for her trap-finding skills and as her main weapon is her bow, she also serves as most of the party’s artillery. I picked up Branwen in Nashkel, and I held on to Jaheira as well – multiple healers in the party give it a little more longevity, especially in the later areas of the game where you need to cast several healing spells to heal a party member completely. Dynaheir is my wizard, and she is at her most useful when her area-of-effect spells flatten a combat encounter before it even starts. Finally, I have Rasaad, a monk who is new to the Enhanced edition of the game I have. He can do a decent amount of damage up close, but doesn’t seem to be able to take much himself – I had to use magic items[1] to bring his Armour Class down[2] to a reasonable level, and even then, he appears to get hit a lot and doesn’t have a particularly high hit dice.[3] Nonetheless, I’m happy with the party I’ve got now and I’ll hopefully see it through to the end!

I mean, I'm assuming this is an updated
version of the Revenant...

Elsewhere, I’ve been playing Doom on the PS4. I’ve had this a while and I’ve just gotten around to playing it; I’m liking it so far! While the graphics and gameplay have obviously been enhanced by increasingly good technology since the 1993 originals I still play from time to time, the fast and frantic game play is still there and makes for some intense, thrilling battles. Hit-scan weapons are thankfully a thing of the past, but it’s a lot harder to dodge projectiles unless you’re really on it with your strafing! I’m not very far into the game yet, but it’s one I will come back to when I need a cathartic shooting spree. I don’t have a PlayStation Plus account though, so you’re unlikely ever to see me on Multiplayer.

Has the same 7th gen problem of having
unnerving eyes...

Finally, I downloaded and played Dark Void on Xbox Games with Gold on the Xbox 360. This is an interesting game that looks like it’s going to be a jetpack-based shoot-em-up, but then the main plot kicks in and it’s a 7^th-gen cover-based shooter with some jetpack elements added later. It’s based just before the World War II, where your plane crashes somewhere over the Bermuda Triangle and you find yourself under attack from strange metal beings called The Watchers. It’s alright; it’s tried to implement verticality into cover-based shooting which was a brave move, and I probably would have liked it a lot more were it not for the fact that I’ve just played through Uncharted 2. I’ve heard that Dark Void was something of a let-down in its potential, but I’ll try to beat it and see for myself!

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[1] Monks can’t usually wear armour.

[2] Baldur’s Gate is based on the second edition of Dungeons and Dragons’ weird THACO – To Hit Armour Class Zero – system, and any enhancement to your armour class goes down rather than up.

[3] D8, I think.

Backlog Beatdown: Being Among Thieves with Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

I played through Uncharted 2: Among Thieves as part of the Nathan Drake Collection on the PS4, so please note that my notes refer to that version of the game and completely ignore the multiplayer functionality on the PS3 release. I felt it had been long enough since my playthrough of the first game to give this one a go, and here’s what I, er, charted…

My hands were sweating in this bit...

Uncharted 2 is one of those rare games that surpasses its predecessor in one way: The story. Mechanically, there’s not much in Among Thieves that wasn’t in Drake’s Fortune; there are a few new weapons here and there, but other than that it’s functionally identical. And on the surface, it appears to carry a similar story – a search for treasure, exploring forgotten tombs, betrayal, car chases, train rides, the discovery of an ancient power best left forgotten, and even a couple of things that weren’t taken from the Indiana Jones franchise![1]

*MAJOR SPOILERS COMING UP IN THE NEXT PARAGRAPH*

In case it wasn't blatantly obvious
where this was going...

But it’s the characters that make the story this time, as they are well written and performed, and really bring the tale to life by developing along the way. Nathan Drake’s dialogue is performed by the always-excellent Nolan North, who improvised a lot of the lines for a more organic performance. The primary antagonist, Lazarevic, is as “tropey” as they come, but builds up a maniacal desperation that makes all the difference. Harry, the double-crosser, betrays Drake early in the plot, and while he won’t admit he was wrong to do this, it becomes increasingly obvious in every encounter you have with him that Harry is in way over his head without his old friend. Chloe, the sultry femme fatale sidekick, is a better Catwoman than most interpretations of Catwoman I’ve seen – ostensibly friendly, but you’re never quite sure of her motivations or whose side she’s on until right at the end. And it would have been far too easy to create a jealous love triangle between Chloe and Elena from the previous game, but this never really happens – the two girls bond over Drake’s insufferable narcissism and lack of forward planning. Elena, for her part, keeps the heroes on the moral high ground when they’re at their lowest point and ready to give up. This does a fine job of keeping the stakes high, which is particularly relevant in those set-pieces where Drake is running from a rapidly-crumbling bridge or train, getting himself into situations which no one should be able to survive – but he does, because the story is presented in a way that gives him something to live for.

*SPOILERS OVER*

A beautiful mess.

Uncharted 2 is absolutely gorgeous for a 7^th-generation game, with particular care gone into the scenery. Considering that you experience comparatively little of the scenery presented to you in the game, a lot of attention to detail went into making the places you visit look alive. The sound design is bang on point, with high praise for the voice / mocap actors in particular, and the gameplay is on par with the first Uncharted game. This brings with it a few niggles – I still don’t know why the grenades are mapped to L1 by default. Gun battles are telegraphed by going into areas littered with strategically placed chest-high walls, and the game has a habit of providing the situational weapons at precisely the point you need them: sniper rifles for long-range battles, rocket launchers for heavily armoured enemies etc. This isn’t really a bad thing, as not having access to these weapons at the point you need them would mean backtracking at best and de-railing[2] the game at worst, but it breaks immersion somewhat!

Ultimately, though, Uncharted 2 is a very competently designed game that is well worth at least one play through. It’s a curious situation for me: I liked it better than the first game purely for the story, but is that an appropriate benchmark for a successful game? Given that, unlike the first game, I’d love to come back and play Uncharted 2 again at some point in the future, I reckon it is.

Final Score: 4/5: Great game.

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[1] Yes, if you’re wondering, I borrowed that joke from Yahtzee Croshaw.

[2] No pun intended!