Batman Arkham Asylum

Developer: Rocksteady
Year of release: 2009, August
Platform: Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC
Official website: http://www.batmanarkhamasylum.com/start
Date finished: 20 December 2009
Playtime: +-14 hours, spread over 4 weeks

A few months before the games release, I downloaded the demo and was really impressed how polished the demo was. The movies, cutscenes, graphics, animation, combat and the ambiance all are of high quality and perfectly fit the Batman franchise. The only issue that came to my mind was that it felt small; narrow passageways and small rooms. But in overall the demo was impressive.

Another thing that was done well is the moment of release, summer of 2009. In the summer there was no other game being released that could threaten Arkham Asylum in sales. It was the best game to get in Q3, while all the other big titles were aiming for Christmas.

Even though I got Arkham Asylum in the early weeks of release, I still had some other games to finish first. At the time that I started playing Arkham Asylum, 4 weeks ago, Uncharted 2 was also released and I thought I'll quickly finish Arkham Asylum and start with Uncharted 2. Thinking back of it, that was quite an unfair thought.

So I started playing Arkham Asylum and just as in the demo almost everything in the game feels polished. But after 2 hours I stopped playing it, because I thought it sucked. Why? Well, every game that I play, I try to do as much as possible in 1 run. In Arkham Asylum I wanted to solve every riddle question the moment that I got it. I spend 10 to 15 minutes searching through small areas just to find the answer and became quite frustrated when I could not find it. An other thing that got on my nerves was that you can sometimes see the riddle trophy, but you can not reach it. Until later in the game, but at that time I did not know and I spend quite some time looking for a way to get to it. After 2 hours when I got outside for the first time and saw this big area, I was really thinking by my self that it would take a long long time to solve the riddle. So I quite the game out of frustration.


A few days later I gave Arkham Asylum a second chance. In the days that I didn't play I came to the conclusion that I should spend not more than 5 minutes to solve a riddle and otherwise leave them be. So with that thought I started playing again and from that moment the game really started to appeal to me.

In the next play sessions I had hours of fun and I just kept on playing. I was really hooked up in the story. It felt like watching a good movie that makes you forget everything around you.
The story itself is fairly simple; when you bring the Joker back to Arkham Asylum he takes over the place and since you are there it is your duty to stop him. Later in the story you will find out that it was all planned and that the Joker wants to create an army of super goons. One of the doctors in Arkham Asylum holds the key to the 'venom' serum that turns inmates into super strong versions of them self. The Joker needed to get back to Arkham Asylum to attain this serum and to give it to the inmates. It is the amount of detail that is put into the story that makes it so good. Almost every villain of Batman is in the story. Some have a big role while others are just mentioned briefly.

The game is like an action adventure detective game. The action is in the combat, since Joker has taken over Arkham Asylum goons are everywhere and trying to make sure that Batman does not jeopardize Jokers plans. The combat is fairly easy with one main button for attack and one button to counter. But as you level up you can unlock new moves like throws and special finishes, and use the batarang, explosives and the batclaw in combat. If you are facing a few unarmed goons the combat can be very easy, but when there are a lot of enemies with weapons the combat can be quite challenging and you may die once or twice. When you are fighting enemies with fire arms, it is best to take them out by surprise instead of heads on. Once they fire at you, you will take a lot of damage. The enemies with fire arms are often in areas where you can hide and climb on objects from where you can take down the enemy one by one by surprise.

The adventure part is that you often need to find new ways to get to certain places, climb shafts and buildings using your batclaw or blow up walls and ceilings to create new entrances. The detective part is that you need to find clues and trails of people and backtrack them to find out where they have moved to. Finding clues and trails is done in the 'detective' mode. In this mode the clues and trails will light up for Batman to be scanned.

All over Arkham Asylum, there are riddle trophies to be found and riddle question to be solved. Solving riddles can unlock character profiles from friends and villains. The profiles give background information about the characters, their strength, and appearances in the comic. For some villains there are audio tapes to be found. The audio tapes are interviews from the doctors with the villain and give you extra information about the villain and often also about the main story. Excellent voice acting is used for these audio tapes.

At the start I didn't like the riddles, but as I played more I had more feel for them and left the once that I couldn't solve for later. Later on you will find the Riddler maps for each area. On the map the locations that contain a riddle are marked making it much easier for you to solve the riddle. After I had finished the story mode of the game, I toke the time to look for all the riddles with help of the Riddler maps.



When you find the riddle trophies you will unlock new challenges in the challenge mode. There are 2 types of challenges; combat and predator. In the combat challenges you need to defeat enemies and set the highest score. This can be done by creating big combos and by using different moves to defeat enemies. In the predator challenges the enemies are armed with fire arms and you need to take them out by surprise as fast as possible. Each predator challenge has different requirements e.g. certain moves that need to be performed in that challenge. In the Playstation 3 version there are a few special challenges where you can play as the Joker. The Joker really has some funny moves.


The good

• Highly polished, Arkham Asylum is a polished game. Almost everything in the game is good. The cinematic, graphics, animations, combat, ambiance, voice acting, sounds and music are all done very well.
• Scare crow levels, their design are really good. When the scare crow levels start the game turns into a horror game, with some crazy things happening that really play with your mind and turn up the suspense. I was really suprised and amazed with the first scare crow level and the moment when you are the Joker bringing Batman into Arkham Asylum. In the scare crow levels the game changes from a 3rd person action to a side scroller platform game.
  
• Clever level design, Arkham Asylum is not that big at all with the areas, but you often have to visit places multiple times with a different objective. Later in the game, certain areas will be changed by Poison Ivy and her plants. Because of the clever use of the areas the game is quite lengthy.
• Excellent pacing, all the game play types; combat, predator, scare crow platforming, adventuring, playing the detective, follow up perfectly. I never had the feeling that any of the gameplay types were to long, except for solving certain riddles. They mixed the gameplay types well with a good pace. It always feels fresh when you transition to an other gameplay type.

The bad & improvements

• Riddles can kill the pacing; some riddles really killed the pacing for me. With some riddles I spend 15 minutes just to find out that I can not get to them yet and that often got me frustrated. Making someone frustrated about something in your game is like the worst thing that can happen; it completely kills the intended experience of the game. It would have been nice if there would be a signal that would let you know that you can not get to it yet, like Batman saying: 'I need the ... gadget to get there'. That would have saved me from the frustration.
• Bosses could be better, most bosses in Arkham Asylum are fine, but some of them could have been better, especially Killer Croc and the final boss, mutated Joker. For Killer Croc you only need throw your batarang, while with the mutated Joker the goons are the boss and not Joker him self. For Killer Croc it would have been nice if you could really fight him face to face and the same counts for the mutated Joker. When you play as the Joker in challenge mode, he has some awesome and yet funny moves. It would have been nice if he would also do those moves against you in the story mode.

Arkham Asylum is a very well polished game. It is hard to mention any flaws except for riddles killing the pacing. The game plays really well and contains all what you expect from a Batman game. In most cases the game felt like an awesome ride and if you ask me it may have continued much longer. It's good that Arkham Asylum 2 has been announced, cause I'm looking forward to it.

8.8/10

Borderlands DLC: Zombie Island of Dr. Ned

Developer: Gearbox Software
Year of release: 2009, 24th of November
Platform: Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC
Official website: http://www.borderlandsthegame.com/
Date finished: 13 December 2009
Playtime: +-5 hours, played local split screen, character level went up from 37 to 41


It was already a few weeks after I had finished Borderlands, the main game. Since Borderlands was so addictive I always thought if they would release new missions I would definitely play them. On the 24th of November Gearbox Software released the downloadable content package Zombie Island of Dr. Ned.

It was 12th of December and my brother and I finally had some free time. So at last, time to get the Borderlands DLC and play it local split screen! I got the DLC from the PSN store for 7.99 Euro. This seems to be a fair price; the Fallout 3 DLC's are also around this price and also give the same amount of additional game play time, +- 6 hours.
Even when the price was higher, let's say 10 Euro, I still would have gotten the DLC pack. The main game has left such a good impression, that I would not mind paying a little more to get the same level of fun.

After downloading and installing the DLC, we could finally start. In game at an outpost you can teleport to the new area. When you arrive the introduction movie of Zombie Island of Dr. Ned starts. Just like the movies in the main game, they are really fun to watch.

The story goes that the Island has been taken over by the zombies and that Dr. Ned, who claims to be a brother of Dr. Zed, is looking for a cure. Of course later in the story you will find out that Dr. Ned was playing tricks on you and that he is the one who is the cause of all the zombies. Another nice part is that 'Jacobs', one of the weapon manufacture brands, is involved in the story.


The gameplay is the same as in the main game, with some new enemies. In most cases enemies consist of hordes of zombies who charge at you and do melee damage or vomit/spit on you to slow you down. The areas that you will visit are mostly new with one exception, 'Dead Haven' which resembles the 'Old Haven' area except filled with zombies.


The good

• All the good things from the main game are in there, especially the humour.
• The story has improved; the DLC has a much smaller story than the main game, but this time the story stays focussed on the zombies and Dr. Ned, which is good. With sub missions that give more detailed information about the zombies, Dr. Ned and the weapon manufacture 'Jacobs'.
  
• Better weapons in the vending machines, in the main game I stopped cheching the weapon vending machines. They never had anything interesting to sell, but in the DLC it seems that they are slightly tweaked. I have seen some interesting weapons and bought this awesome rocket launcher. In the DLC I do check the weapon vending machines.

The bad & improvements

• Bosses, just like in the main game the bosses in the DLC are not good; to easy and boring with one exception, the pumpkin boss, which was quite good. The other bosses are boring and don't require any tactic to kill. Most of them can be killed by standing at one spot and fire at them without ever being seriously threatened, this also applies for the DLC's final boss.
• To easy, the enemies in the DLC are from level 35 to level 38, while we started the DLC with oure characters at level 37 and finished it at level 41. This made the DLC most of the time a 'walk in the park'. I can't remember dying by the hand of enemies. It would have been better if the enemies would level up with you and that the level difference would be not more than 1, keeping the fights dangerous and exciting. By making the fights more dangerous, it would also add a little more gameplay time. It took us 5 hours to finish the story and all its sub missions.
  
  

Borderlands DLC: Zombie Island of Dr. Ned is a nice add on to a great game. I was glad that I could upgrade and level up my soldier even more. The humour is good and perhaps even better than in the main game, with some hilarious comments of Dr. Ned. The story has improved giving some information on the weapons manufacture 'Jacobs'.
But the flaws are still there; boring bosses and to easy fights which sometimes makes it less exciting.
In overall the gameplay is good and stays addicting in co-op. I look forward to the next DLC.

8.5/10

Borderlands

Developer: Gearbox Software
Year of release: 2009
Platform: Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC
Official website: http://www.borderlandsthegame.com/
Date finished: 11 November 2009
Playtime: +-35 hours, played local split screen and finished the game at level 36.


I heard good stories about Borderlands from my brother and colleagues a few weeks before it was going to be released. 'A FPS with Diablo elements' which sounds awesome, but I was not planning to get Borderlands; I still had Batman Arkham Asylum to play and Uncharted 2 on pre-order. It was a coincidence that a colleague had bought the wrong version, PS3 while he wanted the Xbox360 version. So he sold the game to me for a fair price.

So the first time I started up Borderlands I was really surprised about the looks of the game. It has a unique toony cell shaded look, which looks pretty need if you ask me. In the first ingame movie, in the bus, I could immediately notice that they put some humour into the game.
The way how characters are introduced and the things that are said are often funny.

Shortly after it, you get to choose which class you want to be; soldier, hunter, siren, berserker. Each class has its own favourite weapon and unique skill tree and require a slightly different approach to play. Of course I did some research about each class and to me the soldier is the most all round class so I chose to be a soldier.


The story goes that there is a legendary treasure, called The Vault, on the low populated planet Pandora. You as a treasure hunter are determined to find the vault.
The game starts off in a slightly futuristic dessert area, like in the 'Mad Max' movies. Later in the game you go to grasslands, and snowy planes areas. Each area has its small towns where you can buy and sell items and caves and building areas. There are vehicles that you can drive to move to a certain area and later on you can also teleport to areas.
Each area is populated with creatures; there are small adorable and funny robots called Claptraps, skags (wolf like creatures), insect like creatures, flying dragon like creatures etc and other humanoids that are looking for the vault.

The game is a mission based sand box game. You have different areas and you are free to go where ever you want. Each area has its own mission that you can get from inhabitants and bounty boards. You have the story mission that you have to complete to progress in the story and you have the extra mission which give you experience, money and sometimes weapons and items.
Mission goals are often; looking for and item or person and killing a certain enemy along the way.
A mysterious woman will tell you what your overall story goal is and will contact you whenever you reached a mile stone in the game.


The game plays like a FPS shooter with lots of weapons. There are like 8 types of weapons from assault rifles to pistols to alien weapons. Each type of weapon has its own level, its own brand and often its own special magical ability. This is where you really notice the Diablo element. The special abilities can be improved damage, fire rate, reload speed, accuracy, elemental damage etc even crazy abilities like bullet regeneration. Just like in Diablo there is a weapon rarity that colors from white (normal) to orange (super rare). Some rare weapons have a red phrase that give the weapon some secret special powers. You have to look up on the internet what power each red phrase stands for.

Next to weapons there are also shields, grenade mods, class mods and artifacts that can be bought in the store or found on the fields. Class mods are specific for each class and can be very powerful. As a soldier I had class mods that would regenerate bullets for the entire team and improve my class skills. The weapons and magic items are a important part in the game. As a player you are really looking forward to find new weapons and items that are better than your current ones.

The game also has a experience level up system. You gain experience from killing enemies. You want to go level up to improve your stats, which is automatically done, and to improve yourself in a skill from your skill tree. Your skill tree consists of three parts. Each part is from a certain subtype; as a soldier I had the subtypes infantry, defender and medic. Each subtype has 7 skills, in total 21 skills. You are free to chose in which subtype skill you want to improve. You are free to build up you character how ever you want, just like in Diablo. Something that Diablo does not have; you can spend money to redistribute you skill points. So if you don't like your character build up you can easily change it.


The best part of Borderlands is that you can play the entire campaign in multi player; either 4 player online or 2 player local split screen. I played the entire campaign split screen with my brother, who chose the hunter class. As a soldier I would be the tank; fighting the close enemies heads on, while my brother was snipping from a safe area. Playing with more players will make the game harder, but your reward; rare item drops, will be bigger.


The good

• Items, there are a lot of different weapons, shields, grenade mods, class mods etc. And all these items can have magical abilities, like in Diablo. Every time when you see a weapon box or an enemy dropping an item, you get excited and wonder if it is something better than what you currently have.
• Class and Upgrade system, it is always nice to have different playable classes in a game. Especially when they have there own distinct skills tree that you can upgrade. Another nice thing is that you can chose in which skill direction you want to go. If you want to change your skill direction, you can always spend money to redistribute you skill points.
• Multi player campaign, it is always good when a game has multi player functionality and even better when you can play the entire campaign in multi player. There is nothing better than teaming up with a buddy and share the game experience.
• Humour, the game has quite some moments that turn a smile on your face; character introductions, funny phrases that are said when you land a critical shot or find a nice item, nicely phrased mission texts and dying claptraps.

The bad & improvements

• Story, the story is very thin and uninteresting. It would have been nice if they paid more attention to the story e.g. use more cut scenes to tell the story, to give it more detail and impact on the players.
• Bosses, there are a few story bosses, but they aren't that interesting. They often were only slightly different than any of the regular enemies. It would have been nice if they were more distinct and had more impressive behaviours and require a different approach to defeat. Especially the final boss was really a let down. I was able to kill it by standing behind a rock where I could shoot it, but it could not touch me.
  
• Overpowered class mods, a good example is the soldier class mods that have high ammo regeneration for the entire team. Since I got this class mod I didn't have to spare or look for ammo anymore. I also didn't have to switch weapons anymore to save ammo. All this made the game much easier and killed a part of the initial gameplay.
• Good item drop pacing, I noticed that from level 20 to level 30 I would only find weapons that would sell from 1k to 12k, but in the last 5 levels, 31-36 every weapon I found was often selling from 10k to 50k. The issue I have with this is that during level 20 to level 30 the game became less interesting, because the item rewards were not interesting enough. It is than that you will notice that the missions can get a little repetitive. At the end, last few hours of the game, it gets interesting again because of the good item drops.
  I had rather seen a more steady good item drop, making the game stay at an interesting level from start to finish.
  
  

In overall, Borderlands is a solid FPS that is quite fun to play and really fun in multi player. The fact that there are so many different items to be found can make Borderlands quite addicting. The skill upgrade system is also nicely done and drives you to get more experience to unlock or improve a skill. The humour is well done often putting a smile on your face.
Next to all it's good points the game also has it flaws, but the good points outweigh them.

8.7/10

Policenauts

Developer: Konami
Year of release: 1996 (1994 on NEC PC98)
Platform: Playstation
Official website: to old to have one, translation site: http://policenauts.net/english/
Date finished: 6 October 2009
Playtime: +-15 hours

Policenauts is one of those games that I wanted to play since I read Hideo Kojima's background a few years ago. Having played his Metal Gear Solid and Zone of the Enders series, I just had to try some older games from him. I would have played this game earlier if it wasn't only released in Japan and never translated!

The last few years I had forgotten about this game until I read the kotaku post "Policenauts English Localization Completed". Finally I could play the game in English! Thanks to the people who did the translation project!

The game is a cinematic adventure game with a mature science fiction story line. The first thing that I noticed was the visual style of the game. The game looks like a Japanese animation, anime, from the early '90s, which in my opinion is one of the best looking anime style. The anime style that you see today, with all the big eyes and boobs and cute faces, just isn't my thing. I used to be a big fan of anime, but the visual style of today's anime just isn't as good as before.
Since the game is done in this beautiful '90s anime style it can still match up with today's anime graphical standards in games. It looks much better than the anime cut scenes in SF4, which were horrible. Of course the animation in policenauts isn't as smooth in frame rate as today's anime games.

The gameplay consist of 90% point and click exploring the environment and having conversations with other characters. The other 10% of gameplay consists of rail shooting and reload, like the old lethal enforcers or house of the dead style, and mini games; comparing pictures and quick and steady movements and timing to disable a time bomb, handling security cameras. You can say that the game is 90% story and 10% play. The story plays a big part in this game.

The story is played in the future where mankind has created a colony in space, called 'Beyond' and where earth is called 'Home'. You play as Jonathan Ingram who was one of the first policenauts short for police astronauts. Due to an accident, you have been floating in space for 25 year in a life vessel in a hibernation state. In the life vessel you haven't aged, but everyone around you has. The story starts three years after you have been rescued. You are now a lonely detective on Home. Just this start of the story already got me hooked, it's really a cool sci-fi start.
Your ex-wife who has been living on 'Beyond' comes to your office with a request to look for her husband. After this conversation, she gets killed by a car bomb right in front of your office. To find more clues about her assissination and her husband you travel to Beyond. On Beyond you meet your old policenauts partner and other former policenauts. One of the former policenauts is now the leader of the biggest company on Beyond, the Tokugawa group, which controls almost everything on Beyond. The story evolves to a conspiracy in the Tokugawa group and serious crimes as producing narcotics and trade in human organs. You even visit the moon and fight of armored suits in the story.

The story is told from Jonathan's perspective; you often look through his eyes and occasionally you will know how he thinks of situations that the story gets him into. In most cases you will see an anime drawn image of an environment with some looping animation in there and often a character to interact with. You have to explore the environment by clicking on objects, Jonathan or if there is someone around will tell you very detailed what the object is and does. The cool part is that the game is developed for a mature audience; for some objects they give so much detailed information that I really learned some new interesting things. Since it is a science fiction game there are also objects in the game that are pure fiction, even those have incredible detailed information as if they exist for real. Definitly plus points in my opinion, it really shows that the developers did some deep research on every object that they put in the game.
To progress you need to click on the right objects to get new information. When talking to a person you choose which questions you want to ask which often lead to new questions. The goal is to ask the right questions to get the information that you need to continue the story. Since I always want to do as much as possible in a game, I asked every question that I could choose multiple times, which gave me a lot of background information about the person and the world they are living in. It's not necessary to know al that, but it is interesting and it really shows that the developers wanted to create this massive colony filled with lively people that all have there own personal experience.
Before you talk to someone you can also chose to look at the person first. All the female persons that are in the game are of course beautiful looking and Jonathan can flirt with them. In some cases if you are really persistent you can be a little pervert and touch their boobs.

Next to the great visual style and story, the game also has a nice sound track and great Japanese voice acting. The necessary information that you need to ask for are often supported by nice voice acting and there is lip sync in the animations! Information that isn't necessary is often only shown on screen in text form without any voice support.

Since the game is directed by Hideo Kojima, you also see some homage to movies and other games. Jonathan and his partner really look like the main characters in the Lethal Weapon movies and Myrl from the Metal Gear Solid series plays a role in the game.


The good

• Visual style, the early 90's anime visual style looks good even for today's standard. That visual style has always been a more realistic looking style, than today's anime visual style. I'm more in favor of the detailed realistic style, which makes it timeless.
• Story and setting, I'm a great fan of good sci-fi stories especially when they are ment for a more mature audience. The world where the story is told in has lots of detail and you can get plenty of background information about characters, by having a nice conversation with them, and the sci-fi world. The information is so detailed as if the sci-fi world really exists.
  
• Mini games, the rail shooting, comparing pictures, disabling a time bomb etc are nicely done. I never would have thought that 'comparing pictures' could be done so well in a game that is focused on a more mature audience.
  

The bad and improvements

• Gameplay pacing, the rail shooting gameplay could have been spread more even through the story. At the start and near the end of the game you get quite some rail shooting gameplay scenes, but in between you get it sporadically; after some hours of story you get one rail shooting scene. It would have been better if there was a rail shooting scene between every hour of story gameplay.
• Player feedback, I noticed that in one rail shooting scene; on the speed way shooting on a motorcycle, the player feedback was lacking. In most rail shooting scenes you would get some feedback when you hit the target, visually or a sound, with the motorcycle there wasn't any clear feedback, so I really had no clue if I was hitting the target or not. Also the hints that where given for the motorcycle scene weren't really helpful. I died quite often before I understood what I had to do, which was quite frustrating and could have been prevented with a little more feedback to the player or a slightly better hint.
  
  

It was a long time ago since I played a point and click adventure game. The last game I can remember is the Curse of Monkey Island; that was more than a decade ago. At the start of Policenauts I wasn't really sure if I would like the slow or less active gameplay compared to today's games. But after seeing the visual style and the massive detailed information that is put in the game world, I really did not mind at all. I took my time to explore every object and had long conversations with every character in the game. It felt relaxing and it kept me in the interesting story from start to finish. In overall it was a nice experience and I'll probably play some more of these old point and click games between all the action and fast paced games of today.

8.5/10

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Developer: Naughty Dog
Year of release: 2007
Platform: Playstation 3
Official website: http://www.unchartedthegame.com/
Date finished: 19 September 2009

It was two years ago at a Dutch games convention where I played a demo of Uncharted for the first time. The game already played quite ok back then. I played for around 10 min and what I can remember it was not bad.

That was still a year before I would buy my PS3. Up till last week those were the only 10 min of Uncharted game play experience. A few weeks ago, I visited the game convention in Cologne, where I played a demo of Uncharted 2. Yet again it was nice; it looks great and plays very smooth.
Since Uncharted 2 is one of the most anticipated games for this year, the demo reminded me that I still hadn't played Uncharted 1. I have the game at home for a few months now, but Street Fighter 4 and Red Faction Guerrilla kept me busy.

So after finishing Red Faction, I was thinking to play Batman: Arkham Asylum, but when I saw the release date of Uncharted 2, 13th October, I decided to play Uncharted 1. I'm probably going to pre-order Uncharted 2 and if I do, I have to play the first one before I can start playing part 2.

So last week I made a start and the first thing that directly got my intention was the cinematic. They are all done with the game engine and they look so lively; the character movements and facial expressions are very realistic. Having motion capture in your game can really bring some high quality result.
Next to the lively appearance of the characters the cinematic are clever used to tell the story and the relations between the characters, with great voice work and nice dialogs which really make the characters come alive. Also the positioning of the camera feels professional. All together I had the feeling that I was looking at a Hollywood production.

As for the gameplay, in short, it is a 3rd person action shooter with platforming and puzzle elements.
The shooting works really well, with an excellent cover system. By a simple press of a button you take cover behind the closest wall or object around. Aiming while you are in cover makes you shift out a little, giving your enemies more chance to hit you. The cover feels natural and the animations while in cover are really good looking. In hard mode, which I played on, taking cover is a must.
Also the aiming works well and is very easy; with a stable crosshair you can easily aim and perform headshots with any weapon. As for the weapons, you can only carry 2 guns and grenades. You can take guns and ammo from the enemies that you defeat.
Next to the shooting there is also a melee combat system. You can perform a melee move depending from which side you are approaching the enemy and there is a light combo and heavy combo that you can pull off. As with the cover system and shooting, the melee combat is easy to perform.
All together the cover system, shooting and melee work well and feel really satisfying.

There are also some platforming and puzzle elements in the game. Platforming is often jumping from one ledge to another and climbing up walls. Jumping and climbing works really well, it is only facing the right direction and a little timing that does the trick.
There are a few puzzles in the game. Most of them are interesting and quite easy to solve.

Next to standard shooting, platform and puzzles gameplay there is also a rail shooting car chase, water scooter shooting, run away shooting and some quick time events.

The AI is also done nicely. Enemies will take cover behind objects and react on bullets that are being fired at them, even when they miss. They will throw grenades and charge at you when you stay put at one spot and do not fire.

The gameplay is really well done, the actions are easy to perform and satisfying. Because of this the game plays smooth and you have the feeling that you are always progressing. You never really get stuck anywhere and if you do, the game will give hints so you won't be stuck for a long time.

The pacing in the game is really good, the variation and timing between shooting, platforming, puzzling and cinematic are done so well. During the whole game I never had the feeling that I was bored or that things got repetitive. Another thing that helps is that you never notice any loading times. I guess the levels get loaded when a cinematic is played and a cinematic gets loaded when you are almost nearing the end of a level. It is always that you come to an area, cinematic starts and when the cinematic is over you can directly play. There is never a moment where the menu or a screen comes up where you have to wait until things are loaded in. Even when you die, there is no loading screen. Within a few seconds you are back at the last auto save point. And there seem to be a lot of auto save points. I didn't die much but when I did, I only had to replay less than a minute. This all really keeps the player into the game. Like looking at a very interesting movie, where you can really be sucked in with your full attention.

The game hud is clever made. When you are walking around, platforming or puzzling the hud is not visible at all. Only when you switch to a weapon, you will see the weapon swapping hud pop up for short a moment and when you have a weapon in your hand the weapon and ammo hud will be visible. As for health, when you get hit, the colours turn a little grey the more grey the more health you have lost, but there is no health bar visible at all. You automatically regain healthy when you do not get hit for a short period. I can remember that I and others were impressed by the clever hud in Dead Space, but at that time I did not know that Uncharted also had such a clever hud.

The story of Uncharted is also nice, treasure hunters exploring dungeons and travelling to exotic locations. Looking for clues that lead to the treasure of El Dorado. Taking notes from history, the Spaniards and Germans who where also looking for the treasure. Nice plot twists and building up to a nice climax. The story feels like it is a script from a Hollywood movie.

The good

• Cinematic, good looking, good use of motion capture and facial expression. Interesting dialogs and events. It feels like a Hollywood movie.
• Excellent pacing, good timing and variation between shooting, platforming, puzzling and cinematic. No visible loading times. Lots of auto saves, when you have died, you respawn within a few seconds, replaying only a few minutes.
• Easy to play, simple controls, most actions can be done by a single press of a button. Platforming is interesting and very forgiving. Puzzles are quite easy and hints are given when the player is stuck.
  
• Polished in every way, the game looks awesome even for todays standard 2 years after its release. The animations of the characters are fluent when walking, climbing, jumping etc. Shooting and cover system feels well. Hud is simple and clean. The camera follows you well, the story is good, cinematic are awesome, excellent voice acting and great characters with their own distinctive look and feel and even the music and sound effects are nicely done. Also the 60 treasures that you can find and the things you have to do to get the trophies are well done.

The bad and improvements

• Throw grenades using six-axis, using the six-axis to determine the distance of the throw does not work to well. It requires the player to hold the controller in a certain angle and it takes time, which makes you vulnerable when you are trying to get the distance right. Having the right analog stick to set the distance would have been a better choice.
• Sound effect not being heard when you are not facing the sound source. I heard from a colleague that it is a PS3 issue and not only for Uncharted. Of course when you are standing near a sound source you should always here the sound even when you are not facing towards it.
• Human zombies/monsters near the end, the entire game is quite realistic; your enemies are always human until a certain point. From that point the game goes from a realistic adventure shooter to a horror zombie monster shooter. This breaks the experience a little, because it doesn't really fit in what the game has been till that point. But its only for a short moment after that it turns back to reality.

Uncharted is one of the best games that I have played the last few years. It looks awesome, it plays well, the controls are good and user friendly, the cinematic are high quality and interesting, the pacing is excellent, the story is good...what do you need more?
It is rare to see a game that is so polished. Nothing but praise for Uncharted and I'm really looking forward to part two.

9.6/10.0

Red Faction: Guerrilla

Developer: Volition inc
Year of release: 2009
Platform: Playstation 3, xbox 360, PC
Official website: http://www.redfaction.com/index.php

The Red Faction series has always been praised for the destruction that was possible in the games. I have the very first Red Faction (a fps) game from 2001. I can remember the game was nice, even though I never finished it. But back then the game was famous for its destroyable environment.

Between the first and Guerrilla a second game was released but I never played that one. So how did I get my hands on Guerrilla? Well I had seen some impressive developer's walkthrough videos explaining how they use havok physics to create buildings and the infrastructure on Mars and how they all can be destroyed real time in the game.
Also the first demo that was playable on the PS3, really got my attention. It was a nice demo, showing off all the good parts of the full game. You have your hammer to smash walls and enemies and your explosives to blow up buildings, which all are useful in a level fully pact with enemies, buildings and vehicles. Your goal was to steal a huge mech, called 'walkers' that was stalled in a hangar, guarded by Earth Defence Force soldiers. After reaching the walker, you have to pilot it and make your way through the EDF camp destroying everything in your path. Outside the camp a red faction member with a truck awaits to bring you to a save place. When the walker is loaded on the truck you take place behind the canon that is mounted on the truck. While the truck is moving to a save place you have to keep the EDF away from it. This 'shooting on a moving vehicle scenario' is comparable with the scenes at the end of the MGS games, Resident Evil 5 and Uncharted, but then with more explosions and more destroyable objects. Making it a very enjoyable demo.

Ok, so a good demo wins me over to buy the game. But I didn't play the game until 3 weeks after I bought it. The only thing I had played was the first level which I showed off in the Playlogic studio. Most of my colleagues were really impressed about the level of destruction that was possible. At that time I was still playing Street Fighter 4 a lot. Having said good bye to SF4 I finally started playing Red Faction Guerrilla.

So what is the story? Mars is under control by the EDF and the people who are living on Mars are treated like slaves that have to dig up the valuable resources that can be found on Mars. The Red faction is against the way how the EDF treats the civilians and they make it their goal to clean Mars from EDF's control.
You are Alec Mason, a miner who comes to Mars to visit his brother and to look for work. While helping your brother you find out that he is a member of the Red Faction and when your brother gets killed by the EDF, you are going for revenge and join the Red Faction.

Guerrilla is a 3rd person open world action game. After the first level, when you start your game you will always be spawned at a safehouse. In the safehouse you can buy weapons and fill up your weapons with ammo. You have a map where the missions, guerrilla actions and important targets are marked on. You can place a navigation beacon on the map and in the game arrows will be marked on the roads to lead you. The missions have to be done to progress in the game while the guerrilla actions and important targets are optional side quests that you can do.
An area will be freed from EDF's control when you have completed all the mission of that area. Also a new area on the map will be revealed where new missions, guerrilla actions and important targets are found. In total there are 6 maps, 5 big once and 1 small.

Guerrilla actions are optional side quests that are spread all over the maps, there are 8 different types of guerrilla raids, from destroying EDF properties to racing cars to rescue detained civilians from the EDF. In the game there are more than a 100 of these side quests that you can do, I did almost all of them.
Doing mission and guerrilla actions will reward you with ore ( the money unit in the game), unlock new weapons and boost the moral of the Red Faction and the civilians. When the moral is high enough civilians will join you when they see you fighting the EDF.

The important targets are valuable buildings to the EDF. By destroying them you lessen the control of the EDF in that area.

In the game there are lots of vehicles to transport you to the desired area on the map. You can ride any vehicle that you see by stealing/borrowing it, a la GTA. Next to vehicles for transport there are also assault vehicles like tanks and walkers.

The goal of the game is to fight off the EDF, by completing all the missions.

A pretty long description what the game is all about but how was the gameplay?
The game was very nice. As a 3rd person shooter you have all the standard actions; walk, run, jump, crouch, fire weapons, use melee and taking cover behind objects. The cool thing is that almost every object can be destroyed in the game, except for the ground. You can take cover behind objects but the question is often, how long will the object stand before it gets blown to pieces?
The destroyable environment really brings some unique experience with it. I have never played a game before which had so much things to destroy and because it uses havok physics, the destruction looks realistic. Take a vehicle and drive it right through a building, destroy a big part of the building and after a while it will collapse because of the lack of weight support.
Because of all the destruction, there are different play styles to complete a mission or guerrilla action. In the first part of the game I often took a sturdy vehicle and rammed most of the buildings that had to be destroyed and I tried to kill as many EDF soldiers by driving them over. In the later part of the game, where the mission and guerrilla actions get tougher, I did a more subtle approach; find a good location to shoot down the EDF soldiers and try to sneak in and place remote charges and hammer down EDF soldiers or fire rockets from a save position which the EDF soldiers could barely reach. The choice of play style is all up to you.

The AI of the EDF soldiers is nicely done too. They are often very aggressive, attacking you in large numbers and taking cover a lot. Which makes some mission and guerrilla actions quite difficult.

The difficulty level is quite high in the game. I usually play all games on hard mode but after playing red faction on hard I died quite often, so after a while I switched the game on normal mode. In normal mode I still had the feeling that some mission were in hard mode, but it was really on normal. I often like games that are the on difficult side but I can imagine that some people don't like that and will die a lot even when the game is set on easy.

Next to the story mode, there is also the online multi player and the wrecking crew mode. I won't tell much about these two modes, because I haven't really played them much. But one thing that I found quite strange is that in the online multi player there are certain equipments that you can not get in the story mode, why is that?

The good

• Destruction, almost everything can be destroyed. I have never seen a game before that has implemented a destruction system so well. Technically speaking it is incredible what they have pulled off with Havok physics. It is just amazing that you can walk into any building and go to each floor of it, while you can also destroy it completely. I have also worked with Havok physics and it's not easy to work with lots of physics objects, constraints, vehicles etc and make it all run and stand stable.
  
• Missions and guerrilla actions, there are a great amount of missions and guerrilla actions that you can do, which keeps the game interesting.
• Vehicles, tanks and walkers, each vehicle has its distinct look and feel. The tanks and walkers are just amazing when you are controlling them and causing sweet destruction.
• Different play styles, because of all the destruction you can adapt different play styles and chose the style you like or is suitable for a mission or guerrilla action.
• Weapons and equipment, the giant hammer is the coolest melee weapon I have ever seen in a game. It feels good to sneak up on an EDF soldier and hammer him down. Later on you even get a jet pack to fly around with!
  

The bad and improvements

• Invisible walls, I guess most game have them. Often they are there to prevent the player from falling or dying, but in red faction I have noticed some invisible walls and ceilings at places where you would think that you can easily go to.
• Pacing of new guerrilla actions, on the second map you can already play all the different types of guerrilla actions. On the four maps that are still to come you will not get any new type of guerrilla action. I think it would have been better if they did the pacing a little slower so you have at least one new guerrilla action type on each map.
• Pacing of getting new weapons, on the first two maps you can unlock almost all the weapons. On the four maps that are still to come you will only unlock one weapon and the jet pack. I rather see more weapons that could be unlocked in the last 4 maps. I did all guerrilla actions hoping that I would unlock more equipment and weapons, but in the last 4 maps there wasn't much to unlock. Also weapons that are in the online multiplayer mode should be unlockable in the story mode.
• Difficulty level differs a lot, the difficulty is quite hard even when it is set on normal, I'm fine with that. But some missions and guerrilla actions can be really hard. With most of them you die 0 to 3 times but with some you really die 10+ times as if the difficulty level is set on a much higher level for that mission or action.
• Tanks and walkers appearance, tanks and walkers appear rarely in the game. I've only driven a tank +- 3 times and a walker +- 6 times in the entire game. They are the coolest vehicles to drive in and it would have been nice if I could have driven them more often.
• Safehouse is always safe, when you have the EDF on your heels and you are driving to a safehouse you are instantly safe. Which feels strange because the EDF soldier defenitly saw me going into the safehouse. In GTA you can not go into a safehouse untill you have shaken off your pursuiers.
• Lack of bosses, there are no real bosses in the game. Only at the end of the game there is a boss, which is a normal sized tank. Some nice giant robots, walker tank bosses to end a mission would perfectly fit into the game, too bad there is none.
• Missions and guerrilla actions can end when you are surrounded by the EDF, in some missions and guerrilla actions you have to destroy a certain building or kill a person. When you have done that, the mission directly ends, even though you are surrounded by the EDF. This looks quite strange, at a certain moment you are surrounded, but after the mission or guerrilla action has ended they are all gone. It would have been better if you would also have to reach a safehouse or make sure you have shaken off the EDF as a part of the mission. As a player you will often directly go for the target instead of thinking of how to safely get out of this situation.
• Lack of compelling story, the story of red faction can be told in a few lines. It's very straight forward. Having a little more story e.g. more history about the EDF and the Red faction and how Mars got colonised would have been nice.

Red Faction Guerrilla is a nice game with lots of action and solid gameplay. I really had a great time playing the game. The explosions and the rampage that they cause are unique and never seen before in any other game. I have witnessed new gameplay possibilities e.g. driving a vehicle into a building, pick up people and drive out again through another wall or blowing up a building that is 1000 times the size of you.
With the destroyable environment and realistic physics it will defenitly set the new standard for other games.
But there are quite some improvements that can be done to make it even more fun and more appealing to others.

As for the gameplay time, it took me around +- 30 hours to finish the game with all the guerrilla actions and important targets.

8.4/10

Resume update - 16th August 2009

Kar Ching Chan
Vermeerplantsoen 128
5151WZ Drunen
The Netherlands
+31 (0)6-48731926
karching@hotmail.com
kcchan@playlogicgames.com


Highly motivated, pro active and committed to excellence with team spirit and over two and half years of experience in casual and console games development and over a year of experience in functional software testing and quality assurance. With exceptional interpersonal skills, forward thinking, good decision making and prioritizing skills and always trying to keep the overview. A quick learner combined with a flexible mentality to be efficient and to adapt to any situation.


Accomplishments

• Working on the highly anticipated Sony Eye Pet on the PS3 since the preproduction phase. Creating prototypes and improving design, gameplay production and polishing of the game.
• Created the successful casual advert game ‘Het grote Dr. Oetker Keukenspel’, playable at http://www.oetkerweb.nl/kitchengame/ the game is up and running since the start of 2007. Dr. Oetker uses the game as a new platform to promote their products.
• Being the first person ever who has been contracted by Siemens VDO after an internship, while still having to attend university. Because of my excellent performance at the testing and quality assurance department, Siemens VDO made an exception on their rule ‘not contracting a person who still has to finish its study’.
• Graduate with Honour, Cum Laude from the Avans University, BSc of Information Technology and Multi Media.

Professional Experience

• Game programmer – Playlogic Game Factory September 2007 - Present
  - Working on the Sony Eye Pet project since the preproduction phase. Experience in creating prototypes, improving prototype designs to programming gameplay and polishing the game. Having direct contact with designers, programmers and artists from SCEE on a daily basis.
  - Worked on the postponed Sony Eye X project, creating prototypes and improving prototype designs.
• Game programmer – Fantazm.com November 2006 – June 2007
  - Worked as an intern and freelancer. Creating casual and advergames including the successful game ‘Het grote Dr. Oetker Keukenspel’. Improving game designs, planning the development and programming the games.
  - Created the Game-O-Vision system. An innovative web-based system that traces and stores game- and user data. Developed for managers and marketing to give insight to how the game is being experienced by its players.
• Software test engineer – Siemens VDO August 2005 – November 2006
  - Started as an intern and after it being the first person who got contracted, while still having to attend university. Responsible for designing test specifications and functional testing of new navigation, information and entertainment software to verify and validate the quality of it. My design documents have been used to prove the quality of the Verification & Validation department in cross department meetings.
• Others 2000 – 2007
  - Bartender at a restaurant.
  - Team leader at a market gardening company.

Education

• Avans University September 2003 – June 2007
  - Graduate with Honour, Cum Laude.
  - BSc of Information Technology and Multi Media.
  - Project based semesters; have been project lead and manager in each project.
• D’ Oultremontcollege September 1997 – June 2003
  - VWO, Atheneum level.
  - Natural science and Technology.
• Yu Hua Chinese Schools Foundation 1995 – 2000
  - Chinese (Cantonese) language study.

Skills & Tools

• Languages
  - Fluent vocal and writing; Dutch and English,
  - Fluent vocal; Chinese (Cantonese),
  - Basic; German, French and Japanese.
• Management tools
  - Microsoft Office suit; Word, Excel, Project, Outlook, PowerPoint, Visio, Access, FrontPage,
  - Hansoft Project Management.
• QA tools
  - TechExcel DevTrack,
  - Hansoft Production Management,
  - Change Synergy,
  - Mantis Bug Tracking.
• Version control tools
  - Accurev,
  - Subversion,
  - CVS.
• Multimedia
  - Adobe; Flash, Photoshop, Dreamweaver,
  - Pinnacle Studio,
  - Avid Express Pro,
  - SCEE Nexus animation.
• Programming
  - C++, JAVA, Delphi, Actionscript, LUA, Havok, UML.
• Web scripting
  - HTML, PHP, JAVASCRIPT, XML, CSS.
• Database
  - SQL.

Interests & Hobbies

Play video games and writing personal reviews; http://kcchans.blogspot.com/, designing game concepts, Dungeons & Dragons, sports; soccer, basketball, swimming, play pool, Japanese animation, reading
game production and design books, karaoke, organise trips and events and make sure that everything
goes as planned, socialising and going out with friends and colleagues.

Street Fighter 4

Developer: Capcom
Year of release: 2009
Platform: Playstation 3, xbox 360, PC
Official website: http://www.streetfighter.com

Back in the 90's, Street Fighter was one of the first player vs player fighting games that my brothers and I played. Before we played games like Double Dragon and Battle Toads on the NES, but with the SNES and Street Fighter 2 the player vs player fighting games were the new hype that would last for years to come. With all the different version of Street Fighter, Mortal Combat, King of Fighters, Killer Instinct, Guilty Gear etc I had plenty of fun playing all these games.

To me it all began with Street Fighter, all of my friends who had a SNES also had Street Fighter. Often we would play tournaments among friends, which is one of the nicest things that I can remember from back then. But there comes a time when your friends stop playing, because they don't have the time and commitment anymore to play the game. Or when someone starts winning a lot more than the others (which was often me), people stop playing with you. At that time games didn't support online play yet, so if your friends would stop playing a game eventually you would also do the same, unless you like to play against the AI, but that is nothing compared to fighting a real life person.

After years of 2d fighting games I switched over to 3d fighters, Virtua Fighter, Tekken, Soul Calibur etc. 3d fighters are good in their own way, but to me 2d fighters will always have something special to them. In my experience 3d fighting games have the same fate as there 2d counterpart, after a month of intensive play, people around you lose interest. It was still a few years to come before the fighting games would support online play (except the Sega's Dream Cast which had a version of Street Fighter that did have online play back than).

It was until the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 were released, before fighting games would finally be free of the 'no one to play against problem'. At that time my interest in fighting games had dropped to a point where I would only play the game for a few weeks and never touch it again.

It was the first trailer of SF4 with all the black paint effects being splashed on screen that made me interested again. Everything that was related to SF4 was interesting and all the comments from people around the world were positive. This is going to be it, the revival of Street Fighter.
Interested that I was, I was still skeptical about if the game would have any online support. It took a while before Capcom announced that SF4 would have online play on the consoles. With that being cleared up, this was a game that I had to get.

I pre-orderd the European special edition, which comes with:
- The game
- Ryu an C.Viper figure
- Hint book
- An extra blue-ray disk with an SF4 anime movie

The special edition was a let down tho, the figures are really cheap looking, the hint book is just a few pages with some images and button commands and the anime movie... well let's say as a anime fan the animation is quite horrible. But that aside it is the game that matters.

Street Fighter 4 is awesome. It makes true everything that I had seen and read on the net about SF4. The graphics are colorful and vibrant and the 3d models from the characters look fantastic. The character roster is great with all the most memorable characters playable, except for Deejay who should have been in the game, and 5 new characters.

The gameplay works like a charm and it reminds me a lot of the old Street Fighter games. It has everything in there that I desire from a SF game, it has the super meter to perform EX attacks, EX cancels and supers, it has the vengeance meter to perform Ultra's, Focus attacks to be able to take a hit without physically taking the effect of the hit to counter swiftly. All these moves contribute to different play styles and a deep combat system.

Next to the standard game modes, Arcade, VS and Training there is also the Challenge mode which contains the interesting trial modes. The trial mode consists of different stages. In each stage you have to perform certain attacks to progress. The commands for the attacks are shown and it is up to you to perform these attacks. The last stages are like chained combo's. The trial mode feels like an improved training mode stimulating the player to execute moves to continue. Its something every fighting game should have. For each stage that you pass, you unlock something for that character, artwork, title or colour etc.

And of course the Network Battle Mode. Finally online play for Street Fighter! If SF4 didn't have online play I probably would have doubted to buy the game. Online play for fighting games is the solution to keep the game interested for players for a long period. Online I have met all kinds of players with different play styles, some good, some bad, but it is was always interesting.
And there is the online ranking for the players who play ranked matches. When playing a ranked match you will gain points when you win and lose points when you lose the match. You gain more point when you win from someone who has more points than you and you lose more points when you lose by someone who has lesser points than you, fair you would say, but quite harsh in reality. Knowing the fact that you can only see the amount of points from a player after the match.

I have played ranked matches for the first one and a half month and I ended between the 3500 - 4000 battle points, which was in the top 3500 worldwide on the PS3 at that moment. The main reason why I stopped playing ranked matches was that it took so much time to gain points. Sometimes it took an hour to gain 100 points while you could instantly lose them when you would lose 1 match. So if you would play bad for a few matches you could easily lose 500 points which perhaps took you almost a day to regain. A little to harsh if you ask me. I think the developers could have tweaked it a little better making it less harsh on the losing player. Losing isn't really fun, but also losing a lot of points is like an additional slap in the face.

It was around the time that Capcom did a free downloadable content for SF4 which added a new online mode called Championship mode. In this mode the player has to win a few matches in a row to win the championship. Also a new ranking was introduced which looked at the players grade points. A player receives grade points depending on how high the player has ended in a championship. Winning a championship rewards you a little over 100 points. There are 4 levels of championships, G3, G2, G1 and GS. Players who don't have any grade points start in G3. To win a G3 championship you have to win 3 matches in a row. If you lose the first match you still get 1 point. When you have more than 2000 points you will go to G2. G2 requires 4 wins to win a championship and when losing in the first round you gain nothing. 15000 points to go to G1 and you will lose 5 points when losing in the first round. I'm not sure how many points you need to go to GS, but what I have heard the pro's are in GS.
The Championship mode is much more forgiving than the Ranked match mode. In G3 it rewards the player 1 point when losing in the first round, it isn't much, but it does contribute to a slightly positive feeling. The feeling that might makes you decide to play more championships. Definitely a good design choice.
In Championship mode I currently have 9000+ grade points which makes me a top 5000 player, I used to be in the top 4000, but I haven't played any SF4 the last 3 weeks due to the over hours that I'm making in the studio for Sony's Eye Pet.

btw my main is Abel, one of the new characters. And one of the characters you don't often see people play with online.

The good

• Excellent graphics, vibrant colours, great special effects and good looking and humoristic behaviours of the character models, especially right before getting hit by an Ultra.
• Great use of the camera, whenever an ultra is performed the camera will move to a closer view to give a more detailed action and it makes the Ultra even more impressive.
• Nice game play, with Ultra's, Supers, Focus attacks, EX attacks and of course the special moves from each character. SF4 has a deep combat system which contributes to interesting fights. Some people might say otherwise but to me all characters are well ballanced with perhaps an exception for Sagat, who has always been strong in any SF game.
• Lots of unlockables, new players that can be unlocked, titles, movies, tags, colours.
• Online play, almost every console game should have online play now a days, rpg's might be an exception. Especially the Championship mode is very well done.
  

The bad
It's hard to find anything really bad about SF4, but there could be some improvements

• In the gameplay a player can perform a move called 'cross jump'. The move will make a player jump over the other one, but a well timed cross jump attack can attack some one in the back. The defending player has to press forward instead of backward to block that cross jump attack. Some players use this a lot to confuse the opponent. It can be blocked when you are an experienced player, but still I rather have it not in there, because it feels like a flaw in the combat system to me.
• Online ranked match mode can be less harsh when losing a ranked match. The ranked match mode can be more forgiving by making the losing player lose fewer points than it is now.
• Sometimes it is hard to find someone online with a good connection. Of course it depends on the time of the day, but it can really take minutes before you find someone who should not be laggy. I heard that in this new fighting game BlazBlue they have found a good solution for this.
• The anime movies for the characters in the Arcade mode, could have been animated much better. I just have the feeling that Capcom didn't want to spend to much money on the introduction and ending anime of the characters.
  
• Something that I do miss is a team up, like 2 vs 2 or 3 vs 3 or being able to create an online championship yourself and only invite friends to join.
  

Street Fighter 4 is just an amazing game. It does almost anything right. It's a game that definitely will be played by fans and Capcom also took in account for new players by making the control input detection better and more forgiving, which makes it easier to perform moves.
SF4 is one of those rare games that bring up emotions when playing: excitement, happiness, pride, relief, respect, but also anger, disappointment, arrogance and that all in just a few minutes. I don't often jump out of my seat and raise my hands cheering for myself in my own room, but it sometimes does happen with SF4 when winning a very exciting championship final against a high ranked player.

Usually when I write these personal reviews, I do it because I'm done with the game. For SF4 I'm not really done, I actually wanted to go to G1, but looking at the limited amount of free time it would probably take another 2-3 months before I reach G1. If I didn't have any other games to play it would have been fine to continue with SF4, but since I want to grow to a more producer kind of roll in the game industry, I have to keep track of other good games that are released. Since SF4 was released I haven't really played any other game except RE5 and Sing Star, I was actually almost done with Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops for the PSP, but when I got SF4, I instantly switched over.
It's been a while since I have played a game so serious for so long. I only play MMO games for this long period. SF4 is just that amazing!


9.5/10

Resident Evil 5

Developer: Capcom
Year of release: 2009
Platform: Playstation 3, xbox 360
Official website: http://www.residentevil.com/5/?fbid=U_8iHEMfsz4

RE5 is one of the games that I have been really looking forward to. I really loved RE4 and when I saw some footage of RE5 a few years ago, I was happy to see that they kept the same over the shoulder view as in RE4. Of course hoping that it would be as good or even better than RE4, which is really hard. RE4 had won multiple game of the year awards and was praised for its intense action and the first game to introduce quick time events during movies and in game (even be4 God of War). I played RE4 on the game cube and a year later again on the PS2 and I always thought if they would keep the controls the same and just add a new story, I would definitely like it.

As the release date of RE5 came closer the trailers and footage of the game became more interesting and when the demo was released 2 months before the official release, I just had to play it. And... well.. I had some mixed feelings about the demo. I played the local co-op mode with my brother. The first thing that really bothered me was not being able to move while aiming. I wasn't sure if this was also the case with RE4, at first I thought it was but later on I heard from a colleague that in the original RE4 for the GC and PS2 you could move while aiming, but they removed that in the Wii version and RE5 is probably based on the Wii version of RE4. Even if you couldn't move while aiming in the original RE4, at that time '05, the controls were new and refreshing. In '09 it's only logical that people would say that the controls are outdated.
To me that really was a bad choice. Another thing was the reload of your weapon. When reloading you character will stand still for an amount of time, depending on the reload time of your weapon. It is so annoying that you can't walk while reloading especially when you are reloading a weapon that has a slow reload speed, e.g. the shot guns or sniper rifles. It is a design choice to make the player stand still like a frozen object when reloading and keep the tension in the game, but it feels so outdated. I would have preferred slower walking when reloading or at least a little moveability.

Another small point is the 'special melee action' when an enemy is sulking by a head, arm or feet shot. It's nice to have them, but at start it felt strange that e.g. Chris can only do a right straight punch when the enemy is sulking, but he can't do it when the enemy is normal. It probably felt strange because I was used to playing Dead Space, in which you can hit and stamp your enemies whenever you want. In RE5 I would sometimes run towards an enemy expecting that I could use my 'special melee action', but realized that I first got to make it sulk. It just feels a little strange that you can only trigger melee attacks (except using your knife) when the enemy is sulking.

In overall the controls were just not as good as I had hoped for. You do get used to the controls after an hour but it just doesn't feel right for a game that is from '09.

There is also the limited inventory space for items and weapons that you can carry. I often had to make choices to drop items or ammo, which you can never pick up again because they disappear, for health items.

Enough about the bad. The good, to be able to play RE5 in co-op mode with a friend is the best feature of RE5. It definitely makes the game more fun. I haven't tried playing the game with an AI partner and what I hear from my colleagues who did, it's not bad but not good either. Sucks for those who can't find a friend to play RE5 with. Team work makes RE5 much more fun and very satisfying when teaming up on enemies especially when combining it with the 'special melee attack'.
Capcom used most of the good things from RE4 and kept them in RE5, the weapon upgrade, quick time events, treasures and selling them for money. Although in some cases I thought it was done better in RE4 than in RE5, e.g. putting treasure pieces together to make a more valuable treasure you had that in RE4 but not in RE5 or a sales man in the level where you can buy/sell items and upgrade weapons makes more sense (RE4) instead of buy/sell and upgrade every time you die or start a new chapter (RE5).

The good

• Co-op mode, to be able to play with a friend and team work is probably the best thing in any game and this definitely counts for RE5.
• Kept the good things from RE4: the weapon upgrade, quick time events, treasures and selling them for money.
• Special melee attacks, they look nice and can be chained with your partners attack.

The bad

• Controls, feel out dated and chunky.
• Not able to walk when aiming or reloading.
• Inventory system could have been better.
• Linear and small levels.
  

I guess I had too much expectation for RE5. To be as good as RE4 was back then is something that is very hard to accomplish. In overall RE5 is quite nice to play in co-op mode, it feels very satisfying and fun when teaming up on enemies with a friend.

8.0/10

Metal Gear Online

Developer: Kojima Productions
Year of release: 2008
Platform: Playstation 3
Official website: http://www.konami.jp/mgo/us/hd/

Metal Gear Online comes on the same blue ray disk as Metal Gear Solid 4. I really liked MGS4 so after I had finished MGS4 I started playing MGO. I played it for 2.5 weeks, almost 2-3 hours a day and got to level 6. I'm a big fan of the MG series, but I mixed feelings about MGO.

In most games when you play the online mode, you know that you will get a different game play experience than the single player off line mode. Most games will tell you that when you play online. I have played quite some online games that also have a offline story mode. They usually are slightly different than the offline mode, but with MGO it really feels completely different than MGS4.

MGO is a realistic slow 3rd/1st person shooter. Like other online shooters it has the DM, TDM, CTF and other modes that are often seen in online shooters. The main goal is to kill as many opponents and that is exactly what the MG series did not stand for to me. I have always liked the MG games because it required sneaking and clever thinking to pass by your enemies without being noticed. I would kill my enemies only if it was necessary. Even in MGS4 which can be played as a shooter, I tried to hide and sneak as much as possible and only use guns when I had no other option.

MG to me stands for 'tactical espionage action' games, but MGO isn't that kind of game. MGO does have some resemblance with MGS4, it has the same graphics, controls and weapons. Some of the items that you have in MGS4 are also in MGO, but the most impressive items, the optical camo, the mark 2 and the solid eye, the items which really defined MGS4's sneaking game play can only be used rarely in MGO. You have the Stealth Death Match mode in which everyone has the optical camo, so why would you try sneaking if you can't even see your enemies?
Than there is the Team Sneaking mode which is the mode that comes the closest to MGS4. In this mode there are 3 factions, blue, red and yellow; blue and red are players with standard items and yellow is Snake and the mark2, Snake has all the stealth items. In this mode red and blue have to kill snake an amount of times or be the team that has the most kills when the time is over. Snake and the mark 2 have to stun players and obtain their dog tags. When Snake has collected the amount of dog tags he wins.

MGO is a difficult shooter if you would compare it with other online shooters:

1. The controls. MGS4 wasn't really praised for its controlls and this only gets worse in MGO. The controls are the same as in MGS4, but since MGO is a shooter, you really want good controlls especially for aiming. It really takes time to get used to the controls even when you have played MGS4, any mistake or slowdown with the controls often gets you killed in MGO.
2. The locations/maps. There are 5 maps in MGO, you can get more if you buy the expansion packs. In these 5 maps there are a lot of good camping spots for snipers. So if you walk around recklessly you often get sniped. A good understanding of the maps and its surroundings is important in MGO.
3. The killing. We all know that head shots are usually an instant kill in shooters and MGO is no exception. In MGO it is really important to know the effective range of your weapon. If you are out of the effective range aiming well will be hard and it will require a lot of shots before you have killed the target. It often happens in MGO that you see an enemies' back facing you and you start shooting while moving towards the target, because you couldn't aim perfectly the target has only taken light damage, so the target turns around and kills you with a head shot.
   
4. The kill and be killed ratio. In most shooters it's only about the kills that you make and not about the amount of being killed, which makes death less hard and less important and you can be more reckless. In MGO killing and being killed has almost the same importance; killing gives you 3 points and being killed minus 2 points and you can't have less than 0 points. After each match the ranking is shown and it is ranked with the person with the most points on top. So being killed in MGO does feel pretty painful.

In MGO you have a level up system and a skill system. You gain level up when you have a certain amount points, which you receive when you kill someone and lose when you are being killed. You don't get anything from levelling up, it's only the reputation. You have to maintain the good play to keep your level. If you just went up one level and you are playing very poorly the next match you can drop a level. It also depends on the level of your opponents. If you rank high in a match with high level opponents you will level up quicker, but if you end low in the rankings against opponents with a lower level you will drop level faster and I have read on forums that you can drop multiple levels at once when you play really bad against low level players.

The skill system is something completely different than the level up system. Each character has 4 slots to put skills in. There are different kind of skills; skills for different types of weapons (which give you less recoil, faster reload etc, but not more damage), skills for CQC, faster movement etc. Each skill can level up to level 3 and when a skill levels up it will take more slots. So with the 4 slots that you have you could put 4 level 1 skills in there or 2 level 2 skills etc. The skills level up by using them during play and you can only level up the skills that you have equipped. With the skill system you can specialise your character to be a better sniper or better attacker or other job.


The good:

• Level up system and skill system, I like the way that the levelling up is a reputation only and that the skills will give you a slightly more extra in handling or speed or other things and not in damage. This keeps the game balanced and gives everyone the same opportunities during play.
• It feels really good when you finally get the hang of it. It is the feeling that you get when you have spend so many houres in something difficult and finally seeing some rewarding results.
  

The bad:

• The controls, they are hard to master and feel 'chunky', in MGS4 it was good enough but for a shooter like MGO it's often frustrating. Especially the slow aiming. In the options menu you can set the sensitivity higher so you can look around and aim faster, but setting this on max is still awfully slow compared to other shooters.
• Too hardcore/difficult, I already explained 4 reasons why MGO is difficult especially for starters. Most people that I know who have played MGO only played a few times because it was too difficult.
  
• Gameplay is completely different than other Metal Gear games. MGO is an online shooter and has less to do with 'tactical espionage action'.
  

MGO is really for the hardcore fans of Metal Gear. I have also counted my self as a hardcore fan of the Metal Gear solid games, but MGO just doesn't fit in the series if you ask me. After playing MGO for 2.5 week it does get more enjoyable when you get the hang of it. But the first tries can be so difficult and frustrating that even I who usually likes difficult games was thinking of quitting in the first week. I was quite disappointed the first week and probably would have dropped the game if it wasn't related to 'Metal Gear'. But I'm glad that I didn't drop it and could still enjoy it the 2nd week. The 2nd week went so well that I was quite addicted to the game.
One advice for MGO starters even when you have finished MGS4 on the hardest setting, play against other new MGO players, because the higher level MGO players really are good, without any MGO experience you would be handing your ass over to them, ^_^.

6.9/10