PopCap Games brings us the latest craze of pestilence and plague comes in the form of brain-munching zombies. This time, it’s not up to you and your trusty twelve-gauge to stop them – you’ve enlisted the zombies’ mortal enemy to defend your home. Garden Plants!!! You’d better hope you have a green thumb if you’re going to make it through this zombie apocalypse…

The idea of Plants vs. Zombies is more than a little hilarious. Basically, by collecting sunshine (via the sun, or SUN-flowers) and planting awesomely destructive green vegetation in your steadily expanding lawn, you can hold back wave after wave of zombie invasion. With each success, you’re awarded some new pack of seeds or other important tool that aid you in your quest to end the un-dead plague.

Cherry Bombs and Potato Mines are certainly fun to use for a bit of fireworks, but Peashooters and their evolutions are the basic artilery for the early stages Sunflowers are crucial for increasing your sun intake, and defensive Walnuts run interference while you build up more defenses. You also improve your chances for survival by collecting coins throughout the level. Your “penny-pinching” will come in handy at the shop, where you can buy a few tricks to have up your sleeve such as a rake to trip up the gangly ghouls, or a machine gun upgrade to pump up your Peashooters.

As your garden grows, later including a pool, your plants develop ever-more-interesting abilities, but these feisty greens aren’t the only things that get tougher as the war over your lawn wages. Some zombies get faster, some can swim, and some even drive vehicles. A handy Almanac records your encounter with each new zombie and plant, including their game plan and tips to beat it. Good strategy can decide your fate from the very beginning; once you have enough seeds, you can only take a few types into battle. If you choose incorrectly, those brain-munchers might just plow right over you. Going into battle prepared is one of the few advantages you have in the war against the undead, so select your weapons carefully. If you get overwhelmed, each lane in your garden has one last line of defense against the zombies, so if they get the better of you all is not lost.As tempting as it is to celebrate once a wave of the undead is negated, your garden doesn’t reset until the end of that level, so be warned.

Even so, the game is pretty fast-paced, as you race to salvage enough sun for that one plant that just might save your house. The rush of adrenaline received from trying to keep your line of offensive defense intact is addicting, if a tad stressful. Of course, if you needed a break from the surviving the undead plague mid-level, there’s absolutely no problem. The game will save itself, so there’s no loss of progress, and then you have time to go play one of the mini games which are just as fun and just as challenging, if not more so, than the levels in the game itself.

The graphics, might I add, are excellent and easy on just about any PC on the market. Those adorably destructive plants and the ridiculously silly infected, not to mention the charming music, with its hint of haunted that adds just the right spice of terror, the game looks as fun as it really is. Every level was thoroughly different from the last, not because of the level design itself, but because of the challenges that come from confronting new enemies every level while at the same time trying to maximize your seed inventory. Exciting action and challenging levels work hand-in-hand to create a really great game.

Plants vs. Zombies: 8 out of 10

Fallout 3 is in it’s own right a fantastic game. Highly addicting and fun to play, seeing the little character nuances that you can bring out of your hero, whoever that may be. The game is epic in it’s own right. As I was reaching the end of the main story, I found myself wanting more. This certainly could not be it for the Capital Wasteland could it? Well, imagine my surprise when I realized that XBOX Live has several bits of downloadable content that not only enhance your character with incredible weapons, but take you to new locales and even have you fight new baddies.

That said, I would like to say that Mothership Zeta was at least a little more interesting.

Sure, you know about the crashed spaceship in the wasteland. Well, you get to see what happens when you get to close too it aside from some radiation poisoning. You end up beamed aboard a ship that is orbiting Earth. You get to fight aliens, and you can get such weapons like the super awesome Alien Disintegrator. There is nothing more satisfying than watching your enemies be reduced into a minuscule pile of goo before your eyes. You also get the chance to unlock some interesting costumes in this particular add on, including a cowboy outfit, and even a Samurai suit!

How can this be? That would be spoiling but the surprise is rather nice.

The action is intense in Mothership Zeta. Fights erupt between you and the aliens at any point and when they do, expect some fierce resistance. Especially from the aliens that are in adaptive force fields.

As far as what I didn’t like, the chapters were too short. Also the corridors of the ship can get a little too repetetive to the point that you end up going in circles quite a bit. Also, for some inexplicable reason, the alien scientists are good. What I mean is that if you kill them, you lose karma. Apparently in this case, the only good alien is an alien that doesn’t shoot at you.

Ultimately, I enjoyed Mothership Zeta but not as much as the other two expansions that I also downloaded which were Point Lookout, and Broken Steel but more on those soon.

Is Mothership Zeta worth your while? Sure. You get some killer weapons and some neat upgrades but be warned, you can expect it to end before you really start enjoying it.

Final Rating out of 10: 7.5

When I fired up Dark Void I had no real notion of what the game was about. I knew there was flying and that the game was a cover-based shooter. With the birth of my son in December, I was glad of an excuse to really sit down and play through a game. The list of unfinished games for both 360 and PC is growing ever so steadily.

But I digress – Dark Void, developed by Airtight Games and published by the good people at Capcom is an experience that has a distinct feel. And that feel is unfinished.Riddled with small annoyances and loose controls, and a story that has more holes than Star Wars (I say that with love), I would have loved to see this game in 6 months or more when it would have been finished. With no singular direction, the game suffers but still manages to pull off a passable 8-10 hour single player experience that has some satisfying moments. However, with a distinct lack of multiplayer

Read on to know the whole story…

Dark Void starts off with a taste of what’s to come by getting you used to the flying mechanic. Now, for those playing on PC as I am, you should be warned that this is a joystick-shooter. If you don’t already have your favorite console controller for PC then you will find the mouse/keyboard controls frustrating. The game was meant to be played with a controller. Anyways, it goes through a short flight tutorial, and then drops you into the shoes of Will (voiced by Nolan North), the game’s main protagonist and introduces Ava (voiced by Polly Walker), the inevitable love interest who has a complicated past and relationship with our hero. A short cut-scene later, you’re in the Void, and robots are trying to kill you.

You pick up a gun and the game shows you how to shoot and survive by hiding behind cover. The ruins of an old civilization provide ample coverage for a soft-skin such as yourself. It was heavily inspired by the likes of Gear of War, but never achieved the satisfying feel of it. Most of the time, I saved ammo by running and shooting in bursts, then just mashing the melee button until the bad guy died. There are only a few ground enemies that this cannot be done to and I took full advantage of it. The shooting was alright, if a little loose. I never felt fully in control of my aiming reticule, even near the end of the game when I was “used to it.” The heavier the action got, the more squirrelly the controls felt. Headshots seemed to be at random, which was frustrating because I am big on saving ammo when I can. The gun upgrade mechanic seemed almost like a throwaway. Each gun only had two upgrades, and you get far fewer points than you have options for upgrading guns. I just upgraded the main rifle (most ammo) and the disintegration gun to max which gave them more ammo and blew stuff up better.

With the annoyances of the ground combat and control, the air battles were fun and crazy. Unlimited ammo and the ability to upgrade your jetpack to shoot missiles was a nice touch that made the combat satisfying. It was at this point of the game that I realized that I didn’t see any options for multiplayer. Playing 8 or 16 person aerial deathmatch or aerial firefight/horde mode would be an incredible amount of fun, taking me back to the days of Starfox 64. The controls were tight and the physics were not too game-y to be ridiculous. This was the best part of the game by far. The lack of multiplayer is an enormous oversight and a downright shame for a game so short. I am hard pressed to say the game merits the $60 price tag for consoles, but the $40 price for PC is much more reasonable. Airtight and Capcom missed a huge opportunity to capitalize on the lack of aerial combat shooters.

With a strong performance by Nolan North (Will, the protagonist) you feel like you’re playing something of a Nathan Drake spin-off. With competent one-liners and an overall interesting take on the anti-hero Will is not really endearing but likable. Ava, voiced by Polly Walker is mostly good but Tesla and the rest of the voice acting crew were greatly overshadowed by North’s work – sometimes to the game’s detriment. The performances were so far apart in quality sometimes that it made you cringe.

The story was somewhat contrived and lacked finesse. There’s only a tiny bit of backstory for Will and Ava, but the rest of the game’s characters are, essentially, red shirts. Tesla seems like he was thrown in just to explain their technology (the jetpack, ships, etc) and there was almost no explanation of how anyone else came to be there. It makes a small effort to explain the “bermuda triangle” disappearances as saying ships and planes fell into the Void.

To get a bit mushy, the game is very pretty for the most part. The character models and scenery were done very well and I think the PhysX were a nice touch. This game, more than others I’ve played, looks better with the extra particles and such that it adds. It adds a bit of grime and dirt to the scenery which makes it look at feel more genuine and real. I actually like the character animations and facial expressions better than certain current games. *coughAssassin’s Creed 2cough*

To top it off, there were times during the game that the music made me stop, reload an earlier save and play through the section again just to hear some of the best music in a video game I’ve heard in a long time. Its no wonder, because Battlestar Galactica composer Bear McCreary was the composer – his liberal use of heavy drums and exciting passages add an almost immesurable ammount of joy to the flying parts. The last battle in particular is one of my favorite musical moments in the game. Also, for those who are patient enough to sit through the credits there is a nice musical treat near the end. McCreary has some interesting things to say about his involvement in Dark Void on his blog. Warning – there are some plot spoilers ahead – Bear McCreary’s Blog.

Overall, the game does a great job of bringing us some good air combat and an incredible music score, however the ground combat and story leave much to be desired. If you have a chance, at least rent the game to hear some decent Nolan North and have a lot of fun flying around shooting things. The game lays the potential for a sequel, however I don’t know if that project will ever get the green light.

Dark Void (PC) Final Score: 6.5

As of Friday (11/20), almost all of the features of first time Publisher and Developer Riot Games, the original DotA creators, are available and live, and I can finally give you the 4-1-1 on what Riot has been up to. They have taken their concept of playing the pivotal role in a battle to new heights and put their money where their mouth is with League of Legends. Oh, and did I mention – they’re giving it away for free. A risky move to take, when some developers and publishers try to bank off of licensed names to catch the consumer unaware for a quick buck this holiday season.

Riot is sure you’ll like the game, and with good reason. For those of you unaware, there are international competitions for the now legendary Defence of the Ancients, a full Warcraft II conversion mod. If you haven’t played DotA, now there is little reason to bother other than nostalgia. Riot has put together, in my opinion, the best free game to be released in 2009.

I was only recently acquainted with Defence of the Ancients, or DotA (pronounced doh-tuh). Being only moderately skilled in RTS games, they are not often on my list of games that I must buy. Outside of Blizzard’s `Crafts (Star and War) and the relentless Command and Conquer entries that feature a story, the rinse and repeat nature of RTS games don’t really grab and hold me for long periods of time. You build a base and kill the enemy in increasingly difficult situations. While challenging, its not the most refreshing of gameplay.

Apparently Riot was thinking the same thing.

League of Legends, or LoL, has a lot of things going for it. A strong community pre-built in through DotA, as well as an influx of new blood through a very long beta process, as well as seeking input from some of DotA’s top players guaranteed that they were asking the right questions of the right people. They kept the game in development until it was presentable to the masses as a polished gem of balanced gameplay and graphics. Riot is trying to create a new term for this type of gameplay called MOBA, or Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. Its probably better than referring to it as “that game like DotA.” I think that this is a catchy name, and with the industry’s love of acronyms that are phonetically said, it will fit right in.

The game begins with a very accessible tutorial, and for those who can be bothered to read, a new players guide is posted on their website. Riot greatly encourages new players to read it, as without it you can be quickly stomped in comparison. I can personally attest to this.

At its core LoL is a hero-based RTS game. When beginning any game, you pick your hero, which is your representation for that game, who has a unique set of abilities that can be earned through leveling throughout the match. Every champion starts at level 1, and can grow to as high as 18 if the match goes long enough. Most do, especially when you’re just beginning. You also select two global abilities that all players have access to based on their summoner level, which is increased through playing real and training matches (more on this later). After this, you pick a page of runes, which are minor enhancements that can be purchased (with in-game currency) at the store.

At launch there are 40 champions, 10 of which are available to free players. To get more champions there are multiple options depending on how you want to proceed.  You can either purchase the heroes piecemeal that you want to play outside of those 10 with either real money (Riot Points) or in-game currency (Influence Points). On real games, you get around 300 experience for a win and 100+ experience if you lose. Currently new champions cost anywhere from 450 to 6500 influence points, so depending on your skill level and what champions you want, you can purchase them relatively quickly for free.

Riot points are roughly 130 = $1 if you buy in $5 increments. However, the more you buy at one time, the less they cost. Here’s the breakdown as of publication:

$5    = 650 ($1 = 130)
$10 = 1380 ($1 = 138)
$20 = 2800 ($1 = 140)
$35 = 5000 ($1 =142 )

The cost of champions in Riot Points is significantly less than influence point, ranging from 260 (~$2) to 975 (~$7). They have a champion bundle available in the store for 3410 (~$24) Riot Points that unlocks 20 champions permanently, and you can get the other twenty unlocked by buying the LoL Collector’s Pack which comes with the $10 Riot points card as well as some other perks.

I don’t want to spend too much time on the store, but the system is so good that I want to really illustrate how fair the system is to those who want to just play versus those who want to pay for convenience. If it affects how fast you level or the experience that you gain per match, your only option is Riot Points. However, all gameplay mechanics and bonuses such as runes, always have an influence points option.

The way that you really will get to customize your advancement is through the PvP.net’s  persistent summoner level that you increase with experience gained from each round played. You gain experience for every round, even if you lose. Also, your game record doesn’t show a total loss count, but a leave count. This fixes two issues mainly – people have no real need to create account after account to go for that “perfect” record. Also, it discourages people disconnecting from the game if they’re losing. Having a high “game left” count is now much worse than losing a round. The foresight and ability for Riot to work around two of Battle.net’s biggest annoyances is one of the more impressive pieces of LoL.

Moving on, the basic gameplay style is that of an RTS. You move and/or attack by right-clicking, and the Q, W, E and R are your four champion-specific powers. T and G are your spells, and B is a return spell that takes you back to your own base. You can also click them if you wish, but I found that learning the keyboard shortcuts made for much faster killing. The map has a number of “lanes” in which minions are automatically sent to fight over. The exact same number of minions are created for each lane for each side. If you just created a game by yourself and watched the minions go at it, there is slight variation in how far each side gets, but its largely even. You, as a champion, are the wild card in this mix. However, the other side has champions, too. Your goals are to defend your minions, destroy the enemy turrets, champions, and eventually their home base.

This is easier said than done, however, as the other side’s champions are unknown to you until the match actually begins. Sometimes your team just picks a mix that is perfectly countered by the other team’s choices. Most of the time the teams end up fairly spread among defensive and offensive champions and it really comes down to how you play. Your skill level affects the outcome of the round more than your champion selection most of the time. However you want to play, there is likely a champion to fit your needs. Each champion (and I played with almost all 40 at one point or another) is truly unique – there are no two alike with just a different character model. They vary in many different ways from their attack type to even if they use mana or not for their powers.Some of the champions use their own health to fuel their skills, allowing you to forsake mana but at times have to decide if that uber skill you’re about to deploy is going to leave you too weak to get away from the inevitable ambush that comes after.

No two rounds I have played are the same, and with the exception of bot games, there is currently a lack of satisfying non-pvp gameplay. Riot plans to add a single player campaign that includes a story to allow newer players a more gradual advancement in skill towards playing with the already affluent pool of “sharks” as they are referred to in the LoL community. However, in essence, LoL is all about PvP play and if you’re coming to the game without an enjoyment of that style of gameplay you may find yourself losing interest quickly. At the time of publication, you cannot create a bot game with opponents that are above Easy difficulty nor pick any champions to play with or against outside of 6 beginner champions. The only way to increase the difficulty is to either shorthand yourself against bots, or to play against other people.

There is a large gap between the bots and other players – the matchmaking system seems to be fair, however at times I did get matched up against people that were WELL above my skill level and summarily got handed my ass with a bow on top. There is a learning curve, and a bit of patience that is needed if you want to really get into LoL for the long haul. You still have the d-bags that are going to harass you about your play style, especially if your team is losing. On more than one occasion I played with people that had choice words about my distinct lack of skill and recommended quite fervently that I never play the game again. I, of course, told them that I would take it under advisement.

The question of graphics and sound design were not left to lesser hands, either – LoL runs on just about anything and still looks great. I never once saw frame-rate take a hit even with all 10 champions on screen plus minions with particle effects and everything. I played it on a mid-high end desktop, decent laptop and even an older laptop with some of the specs lowered. The internet requirement isn’t even that heavy. Obviously high-speed is a must, but you don’t have to be pushing fiber speeds to have a good game.  Sound and music are good, if a little repetitive. I sometimes had my own music playing during matches but that is how I play most RTS style games these days. Or, I guess I should say MOBA’s too.

To wrap things up, I really enjoy League of Legends. It is a game that I can pick up and drop an hour and feel like I did something. The learning curve is tough, and ignoring the jerks and crass people sometimes is tough. But if you can push through to learn a few champions and start to get some wins under your belt, you really do feel accomplished. The tide of battle can turn at any moment and no round is completely lost until your base is destroyed. The excitement you feel in those last minutes before winning or losing is a rush that I have not felt in many games lately. To add in that the game is being given away for FREE… well that gives you absolutely no excuse but to give it a try. I said it earlier and I’ll say it again now – League of Legends is the best free game of 2009. Its also one of the best and addictive games of the year as well. It doesn’t have the epic scale of some of the blockbuster titles coming out now, but LoL will be played for a long time yet. And rightly so.

League of Legends Review: 9.00 out of 10

Not since Marvel Ultimate Alliance have I truly enjoyed a comic licensed game. Then came Batman: Arkham Asylum.

And all is good.

The one-man show that is B:AA absolutely reeks with authenticity. From Kevin Conroy as Batman to Mark Hamil as Joker to Arleen Sorkin as Harley Quinn I was literally thrown back to after-school cartoons where I literally raced home to watch Batman: The Animated Series. I am a bit behind the times only just finishing it, but, being one of my favorite games of 2009, it was worth the wait.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is a very dark game, pulling more from a Frank Miller-esque world than even the the last two Batman movies. Yes they could be dark, especially Dark Knight, but neither come close to Miller’s Dark Knight Returns. You begin the game by returning the infamous Joker to Arkham Asylum. You make it clear to the warden and to Gordon that something isn’t right. Lo and behold, ten minutes later you’re already starting to fight the Joker’s goons after he’s escaped and beginning the crazy ride that is Batman: Arkham Asylum.

I’m not going to delve too much into the story here, because that is one of the best things about this game. Suffice it to say, the story and storytelling include you in their interactions. Think Half-Life 2 camera control in certain parts, and 3rd person storytelling in others. You battle against a full gamut of Batman baddies including Zsas, Bane, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Scarecrow, Killer Croc and, of course, Joker. You match wits against The Riddler performing a somewhat interesting collection game throughout your quest to stop the Joker. The game is very interesting as the riddles are true to form, however if you have a knowledge of the DC comic universe, Batman specifically, you may have an easier time. This was one of the few games where I went back to play the collection part because it was actually interesting and fun.

The gameplay was absolutely phenomenal – there is a saying in life that should be applied to video games: Less is More. B:AA takes a few good concepts, for example free-flow battles, and does them extremely well. I found myself looking for trouble more often than not just to feel like a badass fighting anywhere from six to twenty thugs. The combat just works so WELL. The boss fights were simple, yet satisfying.  The platforming was no-fail in almost every part, so if you fell off a cliff, in true Batman form, you pull out your grapple and save yourself. The game is very forgiving of stupid mistakes out of battle, which makes for a very stress-free platforming experience.

The battle focus primarily resides around two types: stealth and brawl.  The stealth mechanic… well it was a bit heavy-handed. I know Batman is a nina and is practically silent, but when I drop right behind a guy from a few hundred feet up, something is going to move. Whether it be the walkway shivering or a sound, the guy should have at least a clue. Plus, hiding on gargoyles is one of the main escape tactics and it seems a little gamey to me, but I actually find it a bit funny that they are clueless at the beginning, but later on in the game they have some surprises waiting for you on your gargoyle friends. That’s all I will say. The Brawl battles are just all out fistfights that, if you’re quick enough, can link together in one long series of thug-crunching blows. The key is to learn when to defend and when to attack. Practice in the challenge rooms if you’re having trouble, because that is one of the coolest parts of this game. The combat flows so smoothly and is relatively simple to be proficient in. Mastering it takes some time, but the process is so fun anyway that it doesn’t matter.

The visuals in the game are also amazing – I personally enjoyed the big reveals of the cityscape when you’re on a cliff overlooking Arkham near the beginning of the game the most because it gave you such a daunting feeling. The entire island is crawling with thugs and super villains just waiting to punish you. The art and presentation of the game is spot-on with creating exactly the mood and representing the DC Hero’s world. Hell for Batman probably includes 90% of what he has to deal with in this game. The way that Batman’s suit get progressively more torn up as the game goes on is neat, if a little canned. Its not really based on how much you get beat up, but more of a progress meter. You really only get your suit damaged in cut-scenes, and it looks cooler and cooler as you continue on. By the end your suit is in pretty rough shape. It would have been cool if it was a bit more interactive, but it was a cool storytelling device. The look of the villains and thugs were great. I’ve not seen such a sexy Harley Quinn since the comics – they almost went a little anime with her and the uh… well rounded… figure she has up top. Poison Ivy was a beauty to behold, and Croc was an actual terror. Joker looked amazing as well. They all did. Top notch visuals here.

The PhysX were a great addition to the PC version – the way you interacted with the environment’s less obtrusive elements such as smoke or mist, spider webs, and breaking building was amazing. There is a part where you are battling the Scarecrow’s toxins, and the building breaking effects are amazing. The way everything moves makes it feel more like an interactive movie than a game. My wife actually sat down and watched me play this game for a few hours, just enjoying watching it because of this.

The music and ambient sounds are extremely good at setting the mood and the desperate odds that Batman faces. It does a good job of sucking you in and creates a level of immersion that really helped me feel part of the game. So many studios don’t really put the time needed into sound creation and scoring. Eidos and Rocksteady scored a win with me, a musician, on the score on this game. It wasn’t always present, but it was when it needed to be and created the appropriate vibe for the scene.

Overall, B:AA is one of the best games of the year as far as I’m concerned. Its arguably my favorite comic book game of all time as well. Its up there with Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Its done a good job of setting a new bar for comic book games, telling the world that they can be great, and that the public will respond if they are. Apparently, so with the Guiness Book of World Records, who awarded B:AA the ‘Most Critically Acclaimed Superhero Game Ever’ world record. Not too shabby, gents. Not too shabby at all!

Overall I give the game a 9.75 out of 10 – the games small annoyances in stealth and gamey approach can’t be ignored, but the rest of the game is stellar. Best game of ’09 so far for me.

I had the great pleasure of playing a near-final build of indy developer 8monkey Labs’ newest game, Darkest of Days. This game is one of many adopting nVidia’s PhysX technology which really seems to be taking off in regards to dev support. Take the role of Custer’s last stand’s only survivor, Alexander Morris….

Wait, what?

A game that takes historical shooters in a different direction, the effort is not necessarily indicative of the overall game fun-level. The promise is there, though.

The game released on this week, and to give you an idea of what the game is about, read on….

So I am a casual fan of history, knowing that at any given moment most of what we’re taught in school is horribly biased. Knowing what I know now about people and the human condition, I have a slightly more probable idea of how some things went down. There was no good or evil, and everything is morally gray. From a premise standpoint, this is where the idea of Darkest of Days caught me and I was excited to play a game that was trying to tell it like it may have been. Bloody, dark, and with a bit of a sci-fi twist. Its more likely something like this will happen than George Washington never telling a lie.

As I said earlier, you are Alexander Morris, sole survivor of Custer’s last stand. Fortunately, while injured you are rescued by a man in fancy clothes and none too smooth a demeanor.

You step through the portal well into the future, where you’re met by a rough speaking (seriously rough – you don’t want your kids around when you play this if they’re still “innocent.”) companion who you find out is going to be your partner. From here you go through what has now been known as the standard for meshing training and story, which is a short tutorial that assumes you’ve played a FPS before, but not this one. There are the FPS staples: machine guns, grenades, snipes, etc. But there is another mechanic that is introduced but not really explained well. Essentially there are important people in history that shouldn’t die, so you have to just take them out with these special orbs that knock them unconscious. Once you run out of them, though – you have to try and take them down, but not out, with a shot in the knee or shoulder. This is tougher than it sounds, considering most battles you are using a flintlock rifle or German Luger. The PhysX work really is apparent here, as those weapons are inaccurate as all hell, and the farther you shoot, the more actual arc you have to put in your shot. This is over long distances, and later in the game there are some weapons that really show off the cool physics work.

The game looks good. There are some tough frame rate spots that pop up because of the sheer number of people on the battlefield. I honestly was shocked at the sheer numbers I was fighting from time to time. Sadly, most of my compatriots were falling like flies around me but somehow the enemy’s ranks always thinned out eventually. From time to time I got to throw down on the big guns, like the cannons Having actually fired a 12 pound howitzer myself on multiple occasions, it was semi accurate in regards to the feel and look. One issue I took is that one man cannot reload, move, and fire a cannon that fast. But it is a game.

The game places you behind time-accurate weaponry, uniforms, and uses historically accurate troop deployment and movement in the battles, most of the time giving you a good idea how ugly battle truly is. Run, then gun, then hide behind a rock. Your health meter is unfixed, showing up as a darkening of the screen and blood splattering on it a’la Gears of War. It works well because you get shot A LOT. I think the system will do well to help you not feel like you’re continually dying, which always gets frustrating.

Now to jump to a really cool part which I was VERY happy to see, which is the ‘corrections’ that you get to perform on history when battles are changed and history goes awry. You get to apply some heavy force to save certain people from dying. You get weapons from super fast machine guns to auto shotguns to awesome laser guided mortar launchers that lay waste to anything and everything that moves.

Now, for the preview I had to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. Will I pick it up? Probably not.

Sadly, the narrative is told mostly through other people. The protagonist, Alexander Morris, has almost nothing to say and is really just a pawn in what looks to be a big corporate scheme involving time travel paradoxes that make the Terminator series seem completely cogent. The fun I had running around in time-accurate battles waged heavily, but I was just too frustrated at times with problems with the maps, the environment, and being beaten to death by my own allies. There are things you can fix in a month, and then there are things you can’t. If they hit 100% of all the issues I had, I still don’t know if I would truly have fun for more than a few hours. The levels are looong and while its cool to a point to battle it out Frankenau, battles are not nearly as exciting when they are too accurate.

I definitely recommend you rent it through Gamefly or Blockbuster and give it a few days to really soak in the history, as you will definitely find yourself being more curious about history after playing this game.

Enjoy the vids

What, you don’t like my Bond joke?

Ukrainian developer Action Forms and Publishers 1c Company (Russia) and 505 Games (European) have come together to tell us that they’re tired of the same old games. That have been coming out for this generation of gamers. They’re tired of the over-hype and need to focus on unimportant things like tweaking an achievement system or putting in a zombie nazi mode to justify a $60 price tag. Hell, they’re even tired of the $60 price tag and went just over 1/2 that, at $40.

Interestingly, they also incorporated Nvidia’s newly acquired PhysX technology, putting Cryostasis on a short list of games taking advantage of the new technology. Action Forms was able to give a new experience to players through a game that focused almost exclusively on storytelling and creating an atmosphere in which you really experience what the character experienced. An old nuclear icebreaker who’s hit an iceberg (ironic, isn’t it) is the stage, and you are Alexander Nesterov, charged with discovering what went wrong. This is a journey that is, like most journeys, flawed yet worth taking. There are few games recently that can say they really did something new or different. Cryostasis is one of them.

Read on for the full story after the jump…

The setting is bleak. You’ve just fallen through the ice, and landed near a hatch. You can’t crawl out of the hole. The wind is howling like mad outside. So, you open up the frozen-over hatch which causes your PC to freeze up for about 3-5 seconds, then you get to watch the beautiful ice crumble down in slo-motion. I look at my box to check for smoke, because this is the first game its done that on. It speeds up considerably after this and I don’t really worry about it much but it happens again not long after and now I’m worried. A quick search online shows that the game only utilizes a single core and that others are having similar issues and I don’t have to worry about my Quad-Core burning up on me.

Graphically, I have to say you need to take the opportunity to view some of the effects with PhysX on and then turn them off to get a real point of reference. At first I didn’t really see anything to get excited over, but when I turned them off I figured out that I wasn’t excited because the PhysX graphics was presenting to me what I expected to see. It didn’t actually look like a video game in parts – to be fair, let’s say suspending my disbelief was easy because it looked so damn good. In a few places, you have to deal with electricity sparking. In the level called Ties, you have to avoid the water because its electrified. The sparks flying from the console actually were tiny spheres of light that moved from the wall to the floor. I stood and watched to see if it was a cycling patter and I could not discern one. It looked truly random.

My hat is off to Action Forms and Nvidia for creating such a strong graphical package that could do something like this. Aside from the terror-inspiring setting, the rest of the game looks amazing. As you get closer to the core of the ship, the ice on the walls begin to melt which looks amazing. The monsters in the game are freakish and terrifying. My favorite is one that sounds like a siren starting up, which made me jump out of my skin. As someone who gets too into their video games, I was jumping for just about every boo moment. With only the complaint of slowdowns when the action got really hairy I was very impressed visually.

The gameplay was very interesting, as at times it had a very real-time puzzle game feel to it, similar to how I felt with Portal. Essentially you somehow have the ability to use a Mental Echo, which allows you to enter the memory of a corpse (the ones that aren’t trying to kill you) and re-live the last minutes (or seconds) of their life before they came to lie in the spot that you see them. The puzzles range from simple to somewhat challenging. In one, you simply follow the directions that you are given by others in the “flashback.” In others, don’t be afraid to try odd things because once I spent almost a half-hour before trying something I thought was crazy, only to have it work. The shooting mechanics and combat were fair, however that’s not the main focus of the game and I honestly didn’t use it enough to get really good at it. I’m a FPS guy so my intrinsic skills were enough to get me through the combat without too many re-loads. The game offers pretty frequent auto-saves so dying without saving isn’t a huge chore. I was very friendly with my F5 quicksave, though. You get used to it near the end.

Sounds and voicework were good. In certain areas I wanted a bit of music or something, but honestly there were times when silence really set the mood. The sounds of the ship and everything that might or might not have been coming after me were quite enough to keep my blood cold. I keep the subtitles on because that’s how I roll, and there were a lot of times when the subs didn’t match the vocal. Small detail issue but still sometimes I got confused as to what was being said. I imagine that the subs may have been from the Russian version and they got a new set of voices when it was made for the US. Don’t know that for a fact, but its my guess.

The story, the main part of the game was, in and of itself not very interesting if it were presented from A-Z chronologically. A story of a ship’s captain and his first officer disagreeing about how to run the ship, and the captain’s decisions deliver the crew to an early demise, and you are where you are now. However, the way that its told through the Mental Echoes, and a neat tie-in through diary pages depicting an old Russian tale that loosely mirror’s the situation on the boat. You collect them as you move through the ship and the tie ins really only clicked for me near the end. Fortunately you are able to read all the ones you have picked up anytime through the menu. The way the game progresses, fixing the mistakes of the dead crewmembers you come accross, there are a few twists that I think were meant to be bigger bombshells than they ended up being.

However in the end the game was very satisfying and I whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone who really wants to expereience a different sort of game storytelling. For the price, you get a lot more than you do with some games out today. You can purchase it electronically directly from Nvidia’s Online Store. I’m looking forward to more from the trio of Action Forms, 1C, and 505 Games if this is the bar to which they set themselves. Well done, my friends from accross the ocean. Well done and continue to change the way people make and play games.

P.S. If you do pick up Cryostasis, make sure you have one of Nvidia’s 8 series Geforce cards or better so you can enjoy the PhysX features. The 8 and 9 series are relatively inexpensive now – check out newegg.com or tigerdirect.com for some great deals.