Wednesday, December 31, 2008

The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon Review

The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon Boxshot

The Good

  • Gorgeous visuals and a thrilling score create a vivid fantasy world
  • Convenient local co-op lets second player drop in or out at any time
  • Good variety of elemental powers at your disposal.

The Bad

  • Combat is uninteresting and sometimes tedious
  • Unfocused level design can lead to aimless wandering
  • When playing solo, the AI-controlled teammate can sometimes get stuck
  • Control of the camera is too limited
  • Story borrows too much inspiration from elsewhere.

When he first debuted on the scene just over 10 years ago, Spyro the lovable purple dragon starred in a series of truly excellent platformers on the original PlayStation. But oh, how the fire-breathing have fallen. The first two entries in his current trilogy, The Legend of Spyro, have been marked by mediocrity, and sadly, the conclusion follows suit. It's an unfocused, uninteresting game that, despite its flying heroes, never manages to get off the ground.

Picking up where The Eternal Night left off, Dawn of the Dragon concludes the Legend of Spyro series with an extremely run-of-the-mill tale of our purple hero, accompanied by nemesis-turned-ally Cynder, taking on the Dark Master Malefor. It all makes for a typical wrap-up to a fantasy trilogy. Dawn of the Dragon certainly looks like the climactic chapter of an epic fantasy trilogy, too, and not just any epic fantasy trilogy. Specifically, it takes more than a little visual inspiration from the Lord of the Rings films. This influence is frequent and undeniable, from the initial confrontation with a massive fire-breathing demon of the deep, to a desperate battle against the siege towers of tremendous armies from the ramparts of a pristine city, to the foray into a scorched land dominated by a volcano above which the Dark Master resides. And as Spyro, Elijah Wood has some distinctly Frodo-esque lines of dialogue. While not very original, the visual design, coupled with a gorgeous musical score, is effective at creating the sense that the fate of the world hangs in the balance of Spyro's struggle. Unfortunately, the gameplay falls well short of matching that level of excitement.

The combat in Dawn of the Dragon has you employing a combination of weak and strong melee attacks, an assortment of elemental powers, and the ability to grab smaller enemies in your adorable little jaws and thrash them around. You can also guard against attacks and perform a quick roll to evade them. Despite this variety of moves at your disposal, the combat is never interesting. In the earlier parts of the game, you'll often fight so many weak enemies at once that the screen becomes a cluster of chaos, making it all but impossible to tell when an attack is incoming. Not that you need to be defensive, though, since pure button mashing is enough to defeat these foes. Later on, you'll frequently be waylaid by groups of larger, more powerful enemies. Much too frequently, in fact. These enemies are dull and require no particular skill to defeat, but they can take a long time to wear down, and they kill the game's momentum and make the last few chapters feel like an uphill slog.

The few boss battles look monumental, but they're simple and unimaginative. You avoid the same obvious patterns and exploit the same weaknesses over and over again. And worst of all, there are some so-called elite enemies scattered throughout the game who are wickedly frustrating. When you encounter one for the first time, you're given no clue how to defeat him, and initially, they may seem downright impossible. Even when, through trial and error, you stumble on the trick to beating them, they do so much damage that sometimes one slipup on your part can cost you your life. It's true that fighting elites is always optional, but you'll often earn some useful rewards for defeating them, such as pieces of armor that give Spyro's or Cynder's abilities a bonus, providing an incentive to just suck up the frustration and deal with the chore of fighting them. Lousy content is lousy content, optional or not, and the elites may frustrate and alienate some of the younger players to whom the game appeals.

Both Spyro and Cynder have four elemental powers, and some of them are fun to use for a little while: Cynder's wind power lets you pick up an enemy and fling him into his companions, and Spyro's electricity power can leave some foes stunned and open to attack for a moment. And powering up these abilities over the course of the game can be satisfying. Spyro's fire-breathing ability looks pretty powerful to begin with, but after you use the experience points you've earned to purchase its final upgrade, it's far more impressive. However, because the combat in which you employ these powers is never involving, the powers themselves are redundant, and switching them up isn't enough to keep things interesting.

Dawn of the Dragon departs from the earlier games in the series by letting you take flight at any time. A few presses of the jump button have you take to the air, but this new ability doesn't end up having much of an impact on the overall gameplay. It's useful for covering larger distances, but there are always gusts of wind and other mysterious forces that prevent you from exploiting this freedom, so you'll still have to do a fair amount of platforming. The game sometimes tries to do too much with flight. One sequence in particular has you zooming through the cavernous innards of a giant to strike at its crystalline heart, and like so much of the game, it looks thrilling but just isn't much fun to play. The flight controls are fine for gliding gently across the levels, but they lack the precision that a sequence like this calls for.

It's a good thing you have a way of getting around faster, though, because the level design is often so unfocused that you'll need to spend a good deal of time wandering and searching for where you're supposed to go next. One level requires you to first find one cave, then another, and then another, and while the area isn't enormous, it's large enough that you can spend quite a while looking until you stumble upon your next objective. (According to the manual, your dragonfly companion, Sparx, "is always willing to help Spyro and Cynder find their way when they get lost." No greater lie has ever been told.) Later, you'll soar all over the huge body of the aforementioned giant looking for a number of small crystals you need to destroy, and again, you may spend a good bit of time looking all over the place until you find your next objective. A bit of open-ended exploration can be fun, but levels like these could have benefited from the occasional nudge in the right direction.

Spyro and Cynder can never get too far apart, thanks to a cursed magical chain that binds them together. If you're playing alone, you can switch between them on the fly. The AI-controlled character isn't very useful in combat but fortunately doesn't take any damage either, so you don't need to worry about protecting your companion. And in most cases, the AI character does a fine job of following you around, but there are a few things, like ramps, that the character sometimes gets stuck on and seems incapable of handling, forcing you to switch back and forth to get both dragons into a position from which you can advance freely again. You're better off if you can convince a friend to join you. The ability to have a second player drop in or out of local co-op at any time is convenient, though it's too bad none of the versions offer support for online cooperative play.

On the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Dawn of the Dragon is gorgeous. From the picture-perfect vistas of green grass and rushing rivers under a pristine sky to the foreboding burned lands of the Dark Master Malefor, the vibrant colors and detailed environments create a compelling world that will appeal to younger players and older fantasy fans alike. As you'd expect, the Wii version isn't quite as impressive, but it's no slouch, though the less captivating visuals, combined with a few awkward motion controls, put it a bit behind the other versions. (Blocking is done by lifting the Nunchuk, for instance, and it's mildly distracting to have to always be mindful of how you're holding it so you don't accidentally stop attacking and start guarding.) In all versions, the camera can be frustrating. There are times when you can rotate it around you any way you please, but more often than not, you can only inch it a bit in one direction or the other, which is very limiting and prevents you from getting a good sense of your surroundings.

The excellent score, with its urgent, rousing choral sections and lush orchestrations, creates an emotional pull that, unfortunately, the gameplay doesn't warrant or support. As Spyro, Elijah Wood is a good fit, at least in part because of his familiarity as Frodo and the similarities between that unlikely hero's quest and this one's. Christina Ricci is fine but underused as Cynder; likewise for Gary Oldman as the wise Ignitus. As Malefor, Mark Hamill's voice is processed through so many filters to make it sound supernaturally booming and evil that they may as well have gotten Pee-Wee Herman to play the part for all the difference it makes. Wayne Brady, as Sparx, is forced to utter such painfully unfunny asides that you'll want to reach right into the screen and swat him yourself.

If you've already trudged your way through the first two Legend of Spyro games, you may want to play this one as well, just to see how it all ends. It will take most players around 10 hours to finish Dawn of the Dragon. But while you can sense the visuals and music straining to create a mood of epic fantasy excitement, it's just not enough. This game isn't good enough to redeem the series or to be a compelling stand-alone experience, so if you've avoided the previous entries, there's no need to jump in here.

Call of Duty: World at War Review

Call of Duty: World at War Boxshot

The Good

  • Gritty, exciting story
  • Same excellent multiplayer system
  • Four-player cooperative campaign
  • Bayonets and flamethrowers
  • Nazi Zombies.

The Bad

  • Familiar setting
  • Familiar game mechanics
  • Familiar guns.

Call of Duty: World at War is a lot like its predecessor, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. In most respects, this is a good thing. The guns are tightly tuned, the tone is gritty and mature, and the action is exciting and fast-paced. It boasts the same addictive multiplayer system as Modern Warfare, and even expands the multiplayer possibilities by allowing four players to play through the campaign cooperatively. Like every game in the series before Modern Warfare, this Call of Duty takes place during World War II. World at War does an admirable job of spicing things up, but between the well-worn source material and déjà vu game mechanics, there is a pervasive familiarity to the game. Still, though World at War lacks the freshness that made Modern Warfare such a hit, it nevertheless provides a hearty, filling meal--one that shooter fans are sure to savor.

The most salient difference between World at War and Modern Warfare is the WWII setting. In the campaign, you split time between two soldiers in two offensive theaters: the Russian push out of their homeland and into the heart of Germany, and the American struggle to wrest Pacific islands from the Japanese. Though you'll alternate between them every few levels, the campaign feels like one solid progression, thanks to the adept pacing.

Each soldier's journey begins at a low point. Weaponless and surrounded by the enemy, you get a taste of the despair many soldiers are never rescued from. Though the emotional tone eventually rises toward triumph, you never quite forget the fate you nearly met. The first few levels are a hard scrabble as you and your fellow soldiers try to gain a foothold for your country, while later levels are suffused with a sense of hard-won momentum as you fight bigger battles and push closer to your enemies' capitals. Throughout each level you are accompanied by a superior officer who sets the emotional tone through well-acted dialogue. The vengeful, spitfire Russian pumps up your adrenaline to intoxicating levels, while the grim, determined American provides a sobering influence. This grim sobriety is further enforced by the actual WWII videos, photos, and statistics presented in stylish interchapter cutscenes. The message is, by nature, a conflicted one: Though you may feel like an action hero, you are actually participating in the most horrid of human endeavors. How you ultimately feel about this message will depend on your personal disposition, but suffice to say that the elevated emotional timbre makes for an exciting campaign.

Also exciting? Bayonets and flamethrowers, the two standout new weapons in World at War. You wield both in the American campaign, using them to enthusiastically dispatch enemies in trenches and fend off the aggressive banzai raiders. These raiders snipe from the treetops, or pop out of holes and charge you with merciless determination; this aggression makes the American campaign feel uniquely tense. The Russian campaign is slightly more predictable, but it remains vigorous throughout and ends in a spectacularly satisfying way. Explosions and gunfire will cause enemies to lose limbs and copious amounts of blood, making World at War a sight more violent than Modern Warfare. Still, in between the burning, stabbing, and gibbing, there is a lot of crouching behind cover and picking off enemies with your trusty rifle. This kind of action, and most of the other weapons, will feel familiar to anyone who has played a World War II shooter before. It's a well-tuned and exciting familiarity, but it doesn't make any notable leaps.

World at War does make a leap for the Call of Duty series by offering two-player split-screen and four-player online cooperative campaign play. It's the same campaign as the single-player experience, though the number of enemies increases for every player that joins you. You can turn competitive scoring on and see who can earn the most points by killing enemies or reviving teammates, and this adds a bit of fun to the campaign and lightens to mood (it's hard to feel grim when there are point values popping up all the time). There are also special items called death cards in each level, and collecting these will allow you to enable a cheat for cooperative play (for instance, enemies die by headshots only or headshots cause enemies to explode). These add a little more spice to the pot, but the only tangible incentives are challenges. Completing these tasks (such as kill 100 enemies with pistols or take first 20 times in competitive co-op) will earn you experience points that go toward your multiplayer rank (co-op is not similarly ranked). Cooperative play is fun in its own right, but linking it to the addictive multiplayer ranking system makes it relevant in a whole different way.

In case you missed it last year, the multiplayer system introduced in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is fantastic, and World at War has updated it to fit its WWII setting. The hook is experience points, which you gain by winning matches or completing one of the aforementioned challenges. As you earn these points, you'll rank up and earn access to new weapons, new accessories (like sights and suppressors), and new perks. Perks are special abilities that grant you a wide variety of bonuses, but you can only choose four (one of which is vehicle-specific). This introduces an engaging element of customization: Will you choose to toughen up by increasing your health and bullet damage, or will you go the stealth route and increase your sprint speed while becoming invisible to enemy recon planes? Perks are well balanced, and you have multiple save slots, which enable you to easily switch between your various pretweaked loadouts. This allows you to take full advantage of this deep, engaging system that is just as great this year as it was last year, albeit slightly less novel.

There are, of course, new maps, and the bonuses you earn for kill streaks have been updated (notably, the attack helicopter you earned after seven kills in Modern Warfare is now a pack of nasty attack dogs). There are also a few maps that support tanks, powerful additions that mix things up without being too dominant. Most of the modes remain the same, though some have received slight tweaks and Capture the Flag has returned after a hiatus from Modern Warfare. The most striking new mode is actually a cooperative game called Nazi Zombies, playable when you beat the campaign (or play with someone who has). This absurd game puts up to four players in a house that is being assaulted by the undead. Killing the fiends and repairing the barricades earns you points that you then spend to replenish ammunition, buy new guns, and unlock new areas of the house. Each subsequent wave brings tougher, faster, more numerous enemies, and the game inevitably ends in grisly death. Though the random weapon box, assorted power-ups, and skills of your teammates add some variation, each play-through is similar to the last. Still, it makes for some intense, frantic fun and provides a welcome, if slightly bizarre, change of pace.

By staying largely true to the formula that made Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare so successful, Call of Duty: World at War has ensured a proven level of technical quality, particularly in the multiplayer arena. On the other hand, one of Modern Warfare's strengths was its fresh approach, and by embracing a familiar setting and familiar mechanics, World at War achieves greatness but falls short of excellence. This is only a bad thing if you are expecting this game to top its benchmark predecessor. If, however, you are hoping for an exciting campaign, fun cooperative play, and engaging multiplayer action, then you'll find a lot to be happy about in World at War.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 Review

Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 Boxshot

The Good

  • Simple, easy-to-pick-up gameplay
  • Champions League license with official teams and sponsors
  • New four-player online mode.

The Bad

  • Lack of improvement to core gameplay
  • Dated animation system looks stilted
  • Impoverished and laggy online play
  • Poor presentation and commentary.

UK REVIEW--Although Pro Evolution Soccer fans bought last year's game in droves, it was unfortunately an all-time low for the series on the Xbox 360. Poor graphics, dreadful presentation, and basic online play failed to make the most of the hardware, and it was a step back in gameplay terms. Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 doesn't completely redress the balance, but it's a step in the right direction, with new game modes, an improved editor, and even a Champions League licence. Additionally, this is a more enjoyable game to play thanks to its slower pace, more responsive control system, and simple passing mechanic. Unfortunately these are only small fixes, and though there's a solid game at the core, it's one that still fails to keep up with the times.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 continues the series’ accessible and deep gameplay. A couple of key changes bring the gameplay back toward Pro Evo 6, which should make fans of the series feel right at home. The overall pace has been reduced this year, and the ball feels heavier, both of which mean that it's easier than ever to link passes. The game is also incredibly fluid when you're trying to link together through-balls and crosses, and moving the ball around generally feels more natural and instinctive than before. However, football is an unpredictable game, and this is something that Pro Evo 2009 really struggles to capture. Part of this is down to the animation system, which lets players change direction quickly but looks outdated and overly procedural. Run a player down the wing and you'll see his animation routine repeating over and over, and though a fast player can outrun a slower one, there's no real sense of physical tussling in midfield. This year's players bounce off of goalposts and one another, but famous players such as Rooney and Ronaldinho have none of their other defining physical qualities.

Although the gameplay has merely been given a face-lift, a number of game modes are completely new for this year. At the top of the list is the new Champions League mode, which means that Europe's biggest club tournament is included with some of its key teams and sponsors. This is quite a boon for Konami, who have long failed to secure any official competitions for the series. The Champions League mode is not only given prime position on this year's main menu, but it's also given the full TV-style presentational treatment. You get the same dramatically shot videos, replays, and banner ads that adorn the TV presentation of the competition, and most crucially, Handel’s “Zadok the Priest” features throughout. It's quite a refreshing change from previous games that have had an unofficial feel to them, but it's not perfect; only 13 teams from this year's competition are included in their official capacity. Key squads such as Arsenal and Chelsea are still called "North London" and "London FC," and are listed outside of the official Champions League roster.

The other major addition is the Become a Legend mode, in which you concentrate on an individual player rather than an entire team. You create your own player from scratch, choosing his height, weight, and facial details, even his celebration routines and likelihood of injury. You can also scan your own face if you have an Xbox Live Vision camera, but the game just sticks your face on top of an existing model. This means that you need to adjust the skin tones on both the model and the photo to attain some sort of parity, and even then the results look oddly disjointed. That said, there's an absolute wealth of options to tweak, and it's great to see yourself score a goal in the game.

Ultimately, though, Become a Legend is a novel but rather boring take on the standard game. You spend most of the time running around off the ball, while midfield players will need to constantly chase down attackers while forwards will have to help score goals. Unlike the similar Be a Pro mode in FIFA 09, there's no incentive for actually performing your job on the pitch, given that you're not rewarded for your individual passing and tackling. If your team is scoring goals and winning games, then you'll be able to move to new teams, which means that your AI teammates become stronger along the way. The online version of Legend is much better because it does reward people for making successful passes and tackles, and the score multiplies the longer you hold on to the ball. The downside is that it only offers support for up to four players, and you have to play against an AI opponent.

The lack of official licences is something that Pro Evo fans should be used to by now, so it’s good that the edit mode has become even more extensive. You can manually edit everything from individual players and teams to stadiums and competitions, and if you spend a bit of time, you can update all of your favourite teams and leagues. Seeing "Yorkshire Orange" instead of "Hull City" can make any suspension of disbelief much harder, so it's worth doing. Even better, you can now import your own images and photos via USB memory stick or the Xbox Live Vision camera. This still results in some funny-looking player faces, but it works well on club emblems.

Konami has clearly put some work into presentation this year, and though the results are still far from stylish, they are definitely trying. The menu system has been given a pop art/Gilbert & George overhaul that may look dated, but it certainly differentiates in the world of commercial sports games. The sound is atrocious, with generic music for the menus and what is without doubt the worst commentary yet. The duo of John Champion and Mark Lawrenson have unwisely tried to inject some humour into this year's proceedings, saying things like, "This match will end in defeat for one party, and in a party for the other." Even worse, they make frequent factual inaccuracies, praising defenders who haven't even touched the ball or midfielders who made passes that went straight to the opposing team. We’re also disappointed to see graphical tearing on the Xbox 360 version of the game, something which doesn’t afflict the PS3 version.

Last year's online mode was laggy, simple, and prone to connection dropout, and though it was updated postrelease, it never reached the state that it really should have. This year's game is better, but it's still lacking on both features and performance. The registration process involves separate IDs for both the game and Konami, and even when you get into the online mode, it's a confusing collection of menus and options. Servers are split by language, probably because you can text chat in the lobby before a game, and then each lobby has a maximum player count of 100. You can challenge individual players to matches or pair up automatically with the quick-match option, but getting into an online game still requires much more time and effort than it should. Lag is also a problem, with balls that act erratically and players that transport from one location to another. Strangely, this seemed to affect the standard 1-versus-1 online mode rather than it did the four-player Legends mode.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 is a good game, but it's one that has significantly failed to evolve over the last few years. The new modes add some potential interest for owners of last year’s game, but the Champions League is just flashy dressing for a competition that still doesn't feature all of the official teams, and the Become a Legend mode is neither as feature-packed nor as fun to play as FIFA 09's equivalent. If you love Pro Evolution Soccer's gameplay and simple control system then this year's game is worth checking out, but everyone has a right to demand much more from Konami's increasingly stale series.

Review Gears of war 2

The Good

  • All-new, great-looking environments
  • New weapons, grenades, and melee attacks
  • Excellent new multiplayer modes, especially Horde
  • Drop-in co-op support with independent difficulty
  • Same exciting Gears action you know and love.

The Bad

  • Fiddly controls in vehicular sections
  • Too many unresolved plot strands.

The original Gears of War became an action genre classic thanks to its incredible graphics, cinematic presentation, and solid cover system. The sequel repeats this formula, and though it introduces new weapons, enemies, and environments, it remains an incredible yet familiar experience. The 10-hour campaign is rambunctiously entertaining, with clever set pieces and epic confrontations that punctuate the exhilarating stop-and-pop gunplay. The multiplayer offers more significant upgrades, with four new modes, 10 new maps, and support for up to 10 players instead of eight. These things make for a package with significant longevity, and though Gears of War 2 ultimately refines more than it innovates, it still deserves a place in any action fan's collection.

Gears of War 2 picks up the story six months after the end of the first game. The Locust are so powerful that they can sink entire cities from below, whereas the humans are becoming even more desperate thanks to the spread of a disease called rust lung. With fears that the last city of Jacinto might fall, it's down to Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago to take the fight to the Locust in a desperate last stand against their alien foes. Survival is at the centre of Gears 2, but there's also personal drama, with themes such as family, death, and even love interwoven into the grand plot. This sheds some light on the characters and the universe, and though it ultimately uncovers more questions than it answers, the game has a much grander premise than its predecessor.

In terms of gameplay, Gears 2 is fundamentally the same as the original game, but fans of the series should be able to spot some key refinements. The cover system has been honed so that you cling more accurately to surfaces, and the weapons have received subtle alterations to make them even more balanced than before. The revival system has also been tweaked considerably. Not only can your AI teammates heal you if you're injured, but now you can also tap A to crawl toward them more quickly when you're injured. This makes the game a lot fairer in terms of difficulty and allows for some heart-pounding moments as you race to your teammates to avoid a fatal curb-stomping from the opposition.

Although the assault rifle is still the go-to firearm for the duration of the campaign, there are plenty of other weapons to play with. New to the Gears universe is the flamethrower, which doesn't have a great range but is excellent for dealing with groups of enemies that get a little too close for comfort. Then there are the heavy weapons, which stop you from being able to roadie run but make up for this with their immense power. The mulcher is a high-calibre chain gun that can cut through even the biggest enemies in a single burst, whereas the mortar rains down a shower of explosives from afar. Grenades have also seen improvements; you can stick them to surfaces so they become proximity mines, there's a new model that gives off noxious gas, and the smoke grenade delivers a concussive blast that knocks surrounding players off of their feet. All of these new weapons are great fun to use, and crucially, they're well balanced for use in multiplayer.

The first Gears of War was brutally over-the-top in its violence, and the sequel manages to take this even further. You now have four ways of executing your enemies, all of which are mapped onto the face buttons of the joypad. X performs the standard curb-stomp, B delivers a quicker blow to the back of the head, and Y flips your foe over for repeated punches to the face. Finally, the A button lets you grab the wounded enemy to use as a meat shield, affording you some protection until you decide to finish it off with a neck-break. The signature chainsaw move has been adapted so you cut upward from the crotch if you approach from the rear, and if two players ready their saws, they enter a duel that's won by whoever taps the B button the fastest. These new additions improve on the already gritty and satisfying melee combat of the original Gears of War and make close-quarters combat even more gruesomely rewarding.

Gears of War 2 has a considerably different look from its predecessor. Whereas the first game was characterised by derelict cities and crumbling monuments, a good portion of the sequel takes place in huge outdoor spaces and underground caverns. You'll see fluorescent lights, snow-capped mountains, and enemies so big you'll actually need to get inside them to destroy them. There are also more vehicle sections, and though they can be a bit fiddly to use, these segments are thankfully short and infrequent. The traditional stop-and-pop gunplay still makes up the majority of the campaign, and it's a raucously enjoyable ride that you'll want to play again and again.

Gears of War 2 is best when played with friends, and the entire campaign now features drop-in support and independent difficulty levels for two players. The competitive multiplayer has also been substantially improved and now offers more players, maps, and game modes to select. Warzone, Execution, Assassination, and Annex modes all make a return, along with King of the Hill, which was introduced in the PC version of the game. There are also three new standard multiplayer modes called Submission, Guardian, and Wingman. Submission is a variation on Capture the Flag, but here the flag is a civilian who you carry to the checkpoint using the meat-shield technique. The hostage also carries a gun and is hostile to anyone who comes close, making for a really great twist on the traditional CTF game mode. Guardian is a team-based game with a designated leader; keep the leader alive and everyone else can respawn, but if the leader dies then that privilege is over. Finally, Wingman splits players into teams of two, with the emphasis on working together to kill and revive. You've probably seen these game modes before in other games, but they fit perfectly into Gears of War 2 and add even more variety and longevity to online play. Thankfully, the benefits of being the host online have also been lessened, making the online experience much fairer across the board.

The final multiplayer mode is called Horde, and it's the most addictive and challenging take on Gears yet. It could be described as a cross between single- and multiplayer, in which a team of five COGs take on wave after wave of Locust enemies. As long as one player stays alive at the end of each round, the entire team respawns and the game keeps going, with progressively bigger and more difficult enemies. It's an incredibly tense and exciting game mode, and despite the steep difficulty curve, it's highly rewarding to play with friends. Gears 2 is also accommodating to new players and those without Internet connections, with five training missions and bot support for every multiplayer mode except Horde. The bots are surprisingly good at replicating human players, and they make great practice for people who have never played the game online.

Gears of War 2 includes a total of 10 new multiplayer maps, plus a code to download five remastered maps from the original game. The new maps take inspiration from the locations in the campaign, whereas new environmental effects change some of the maps as you're playing. For example, Hail features razor-sharp rain that gradually kills anyone out in the open. Furthermore, Day One has a huge emergence hole in which a beast can take swipes at any surrounding players. Finally, Avalanche is completely transformed when a snowstorm hits, turning it from a multitiered level into one flat plane. These environmental effects don't feature in every map and game mode, but they definitely liven up standard deathmatch-style multiplayer game types such as Warzone.

The original Gears of War was a spectacular-looking game, and the sequel maintains this high technical and artistic quality. Instead of pushing for increased visual fidelity, the graphics engine adds a couple of other dimensions to the presentation, with walls that crumble under gunfire and dozens of enemies onscreen at once. These new features don't necessarily affect the gameplay, but they look good and help add to the dramatic scale that the designers have chosen. The new organic capabilities of the Unreal Engine make for one particularly memorable level in which you literally have to kill a giant enemy from the inside. Gears of War 2 also has impeccable sound design, with terrific voice acting, meatier weapon effects, and another beautiful cinematic score.

Gears of War 2 has a lot in common with its predecessor, but the new environments, darker storyline, and epic scale certainly have a lot to offer fans. The new weapons, melee attacks, and co-op options make for a campaign that you'll want to complete a number of times, and the new multiplayer modes give the game variety and longevity. Simply put, Gears of War 2 is a superior shooter that no action fan will want to miss out on.

Review FarCry 2

Far Cry 2 Boxshot

The Good

  • Incredible amount of freedom to approach each mission
  • 50 square kilometers of visually stunning African landscape
  • Hefty single-player campaign should take at least 30 hours
  • Diverse reward and upgrade systems feed off each other very well
  • Robust map editor on all three versions.

The Bad

  • Story does very little with politically-charged setting
  • Traveling for long stretches can become tedious.

In Far Cry 2's chaotic world of mercenaries, gunrunners, and armed militias, you'll find yourself dropped into a dizzying web of shady clients and paper-thin alliances. All manner of names and faces are introduced during the course of the storyline, but the real star isn't anyone brandishing a smuggled weapon in search of blood diamonds; it's the daunting and awe-inspiring 50-square kilometers of African landscape that make up the game's open-world setting. Aside from providing the opportunity to soak up an amazing sunset, Far Cry 2's free-roaming terrain brilliantly harmonizes with the first-person combat. The diverse landscape and myriad environmental factors work alongside a wide assortment of weaponry to give you tremendous freedom to approach each mission. Combined with solid multiplayer, Far Cry 2's sheer breadth of action provides you with plenty of reason to stay lost in the African wilderness despite an underwhelming plot and the occasional sense of tedium in navigating from one location to another on the gargantuan map.

Far Cry 2's story is filled with potential. You're a mercenary working for a client who's sent you to an unnamed African nation engulfed in civil war, and your job is to take out a notorious arms dealer known as "The Jackal." He quickly proves to be an elusive figure, so you'll need to begin working for various warring factions that the Jackal has armed so you can trace the supply line back to your target. The two primary organizations at the heart of all this bloodshed are the militaristic UFLL and the revolutionary APR. You'll spend the bulk of the story working for these two groups, getting to know their power structures, and taking on all of the violent tasks they throw your way. Complicating things is the fact that your character has malaria, which means you'll need to occasionally play nice with the more ragtag Underground, the only group with the medical connections necessary to keep your potentially life-threatening symptoms at bay.

Each story mission can be played in multiple ways. There are 12 potential buddies randomly scattered throughout the storyline who you can befriend (nine of whom are available to choose as your silent protagonist), and they're often keen to tack on their own interests to the quests handed out by the UFLL and APR. Instead of just taking out a target, you have the option to earn extra reputation points by working alongside your buddy to first squeeze any remaining assets from the soon-to-be-deceased. This also earns you the ability to increase your level of companionship with that buddy. It's a neat reward, but it doesn't shed much light on their backgrounds. But that's par for the course; the main story is delivered in such a rushed, quick-and-dirty way that you never feel very involved in the game's overarching conflicts. The plot is less Blood Diamond than it is early Grand Theft Auto, a long roster of changing faces that scroll by far too quickly to capitalize on the politically charged setting.

Although disappointing for a single-player campaign that could easily drain more than 30 hours of your time, any shortcomings in the plot are mostly forgivable thanks to Far Cry 2's overall structure. The game is organized in a way that provides a daunting amount of freedom to explore, earn currency, and wreak havoc on the game's landscape and its denizens. It's all laid out in a manner typical of sandbox action games. Pulling out your map reveals a collection of icons that signify available missions and points of interest that you can meander toward at your own leisure. Among these are dozens of side missions that you can take on, with various forms of rewards. Delivering transit papers to trapped refugees earns you malaria medication, destroying rival convoys for gun merchants unlocks new weapons for purchase, and performing assassinations for mysterious voices at the other end of your cell phone rewards you with diamonds. You can also rough up militias stationed in small camps and turn their dwellings into your own safe houses. The side missions can feel a bit repetitive when played through in rapid succession, but they offer a great change of tempo when sprinkled throughout the main narrative. But what's most clever is how their differing rewards intermingle so wonderfully with your needs in progressing through the story: Malaria pills keep your HP and stamina up, diamonds buy you new weapons and ability upgrades, and safe houses provide temporary shelter to stock up and save your game.

The freedom of choice that goes with selecting which mission you want to perform carries over to how you execute them, and that's where Far Cry 2 really shines. There are a variety of factors that affect the way you approach each mission, from the number of people you need to kill, to the landscape, to the weather and time of day. If your job is to take out a key figure hidden deep within a militia camp in the jungle, you'll do well to take a nap at your safe house until nightfall and silently stalk your prey under the cover of darkness. If it's a windy day and you need to take out a bandit outpost in the dry plains, you can start a fire from far away with a flare gun and let the breeze and arid conditions collude to spread the flames toward their camp, finishing off the survivors with a sniper rifle. Need to clear out a bunch of scattered guards? Why not shoot an oil drum near an ammo stockpile and watch as the bullets erupt in every direction like deadly pieces of popcorn? Of course, you can also get up close and personal with pistols and machine guns, but the moments in which elaborately planned assaults succeed are some of the most gratifying points in the game. The whole process of staging an attack only becomes more intricate and rewarding as you slowly upgrade your safe house into a full-blown armory and unlock new weapon and vehicle abilities--all done through the gun shops.

The sheer variety of weapons plays a big role in your ability to craft a personalized approach to each mission. For every situation, there's a weapon ideally suited to delivering mercenary justice. From the AK-47 to the Molotov cocktail and the remote-detonated improvised explosive device, they all feel like weapons that could easily be plucked from the civil wars of Africa. Furthermore, your weapons will cycle through an authentic level of wear and tear, particularly those picked up from ragtag militiamen; secondhand weapons will show dirt, frequently jam, and eventually break, which means that it's best to buy them from the shop. All of the above makes for a uniquely desperate and makeshift style of combat compared to other first-person shooters.

If there's one drawback to the combat, it's that it tends to be a little too forgiving after the first few hours of the game. Your health is divided into several individually regenerative bars like Resistance: Fall of Man, but once it gets low, you can inject yourself with a syrette for added health (though if it's really low, you'll first need to perform a slick self-heal such as yanking bullet shells out of your leg or snapping a broken arm back into place). You can eventually upgrade the amount of ammo and health you have to further tip the odds in your favor, and even have a buddy rescue you whenever you die (though you need to keep an eye on him because he can be permanently killed in a scuffle). Most of the challenge arrives when you're looking at your map in search of the next mission and then get surprised by a bunch of roadside bandits while you're driving one of the game's numerous run-down SUVs or river boats (which exist alongside hang-gliders, trucks, licensed Jeeps, and dune buggies as the types of vehicles you can operate). However, there are still very few moments when you don't feel like an everyman caught in a nasty situation, and that sort of improvised payback is what makes Far Cry 2's combat so engrossing.

Visually, Far Cry 2 is a stunner. Though not as technically amazing as the jungles of Crysis, Far Cry 2's depiction of the sprawling African wilderness makes up for it with environmental diversity and intimidating scale. Several landscapes are represented here: dense forests, rolling plains, arid deserts, craggy badlands, and even shantytowns and hut villages. You'll see trees swaying, the charred remains of a brush fire, and several forms of wildlife running around. It all looks incredible in the transitional period of the day-night cycle when the sun is falling or rising through the horizon and everything is cast in a warm glow. The game also sounds great, with tribal music accompanying you at all times, from a relaxing ambience in calm situations to a rapidly escalating roar of drums in battle. The voice acting during mission briefings feels strangely hurried (as if it's some trick to squeeze more dialogue onto the disc), but that's largely offset by excellent enemy banter during combat.

Adding to Far Cry 2's value is the 16-person online multiplayer. The gameplay modes on display are nothing terribly special (you'll see variations of Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and Territories), but the fighting captures a lot of the appeal of single-player, including vehicles, fire-based weaponry, and a great sense of scale in each map. But what sets the multiplayer apart is that you don't need to settle for the included maps; each version of the game comes with a deep but intuitive map editor capable of letting you create everything from dense urban locales to sprawling forests. And downloading new maps is simply a matter of seeking out featured selections or hitting "download" when a Quick Match search lets you know that you don't have that one yet. Such uninspired gameplay modes are certainly a letdown, but the map editor has great potential to inject loads of lasting appeal into Far Cry 2's online component.

Although the original Far Cry was available only on the PC for the first year and a half of its existence, Far Cry 2 will see an expanded audience with the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 versions all available out of the gate. However, its roots are clearly on display when taking in the differences between the three platforms. Far Cry 2 looks best running on a PC, with clearer textures, better foliage, and less pop-in. The console versions also suffer from the occasional loading hitch when you're driving into a highly populated city. Another key difference is that the PC version lets you save anywhere you want, whereas the 360 and PS3 games only let you use predefined save points. However, the latter difference isn't quite as lopsided as the graphical disparity; saving anywhere gives you more room for experimentation in approaching your missions, but the console versions provide a more clearly defined sense of consequence that adds extra tension to the combat. You'll definitely want to go with the PC version if you've got a system capable of approaching the hardware requirements, but the differences aren't so great that you won't have a blast with either console version (which are virtually indistinguishable from one another).

Overall, Far Cry 2 is a game in which you can quite literally get lost for hours at a time. But that feeling of exploration is precisely what makes the game so much fun; your creativity never feels stifled when approaching a mission, and the game's overall structure of side tasks, friends, rewards, and upgrades is a diverse ecosystem rivaling the landscape itself. No matter whether you're a PC fan whose played through the similarly structured Crysis or a console owner new to the world of open-ended first-person shooters, you won't be disappointed by Far Cry 2.

Review Rise of the Argonauts


The Good

  • Combat is fast-paced and satisfying
  • Superb character-progression system.

The Bad

  • Way too much walking and talking
  • Quality of animation is inconsistent
  • Frame rate drops dramatically for no obvious reason
  • Poor voice acting not helped by sloppy sound design.

Loosely based on the same Greek myth that inspired the 1963 movie Jason and the Argonauts, Rise of the Argonauts is an action-oriented role-playing game in which you assume the role of King Jason of Iolcus and go in search of the legendary Golden Fleece. All manner of monsters stand between you and your prize, and doing battle with them is a lot of fun. The same can't be said for all of the time you have to spend wandering around and talking to other characters, unfortunately, and the wildly inconsistent frame rate makes even the stop-motion special effects in the aforementioned movie look silky smooth by comparison.

Rise of the Argonauts gets off to a shaky start. The assassination of Jason's bride on their wedding day in the intro sequence ensure that the story is instantly compelling, but poor voice acting, awkward camera angles, questionable animation (Jason negotiating stairs is a must-see for all the wrong reasons), and numerous visual quirks waste no time in conspiring against it. Furthermore, there's not much combat early on, so much of your time is spent trying to navigate Jason's labyrinthine palace and conversing with guards who, save for their different-colored uniforms, all look identical. Iolcus, like the handful of other locations you'll visit after acquiring the Argo, affords very few opportunities for exploration, but it still manages to be confusing enough in its design that you need to refer to the crudely drawn map to locate mission objectives in a timely fashion.

The high point of Rise of the Argonauts is undoubtedly the combat; Jason is skilled in the use of swords, spears, and maces, and he carries one of each as well as a shield at all times. The controls are uncomplicated and responsive, and it's good that they're the same no matter which weapon you're wielding, because you're encouraged to switch between them on the fly. None of the enemies are particularly intelligent, but they're varied enough that you need to employ different weapons and strategies to get the better of them. Your spear can be used to keep overly aggressive enemies at a distance, while your mace is a good choice for destroying the shields of enemies attempting to hide behind them, for example. Putting your own indestructible shield to good use is crucial early on, but as you progress you become much more powerful and can spend more time on the offensive.

Interestingly, you need to go into the options menu if you want any kind of heads-up display for your health during combat. By default, you're supposed to look for visual clues such as blood on the clothing of Jason and his allies to know when they're in trouble, but the combat is so fast-paced that this isn't always possible. Adding the HUD makes it much easier to know when Jason's health is low, though it's not always important because, in keeping with his mythological status, he's a tough guy to keep down. When your health drops to zero you don't die; rather, you enter a "state of grace" in which the screen blurs and you have 10 seconds or so to avoid taking any more damage before you regenerate around half of your health. You'll die if you sustain a single hit during that time, but there are very few enemies who can keep up as you frantically run and roll around.

There are a number of ways in which you become a more formidable fighter as the story progresses. You'll be joined by a handful of allies who will fight alongside you two at a time, you'll be able to add more powerful weapons and armor to your arsenal, and you'll learn new abilities by gaining favor with the gods Ares, Apollo, Athena, and Hermes. Each of the four gods has a skill tree composed of around 25 different "aspects" arranged into tiers so that more powerful ones become available only late in the game. The aspects vary a great deal and include both passive abilities and god powers that must be triggered manually in combat. Passive abilities include things like regenerating health anytime you kill an enemy, doing more damage to shields, and making your allies more powerful. God powers, which are fun but rarely needed outside of the most challenging difficulty mode, include temporary effects such as increased damage, explosions, and the ability to turn enemies into stone.

To purchase any given aspect you need to earn enough favor with the appropriate god to unlock it, which can be an interesting challenge in itself. The most obvious way to earn favor with gods is by dedicating to them any deeds you've accomplished. You can do this at shrines scattered throughout the world or, less elegantly, via an option in the pause menu. When you dedicate a deed to one of the gods, you earn an amount of favor proportional to the scale of your accomplishment. Settling a dispute among two traders is unlikely to impress in the same way that lopping off the heads of 25 enemies is, for example. The second way to curry favor with a god is by selecting dialogue choices that are clearly labeled as being appreciated by them. This can make the act of choosing dialogue a mechanical one if you care more about pleasing a specific god than you do about your interaction with whomever you're talking to, but the conversations feel so unnatural anyway that this is as good a way as any to get through them quickly.

It's unfortunate that so much of your time in Rise of the Argonauts is spent in conversation, because much of the dialogue is poorly written and the voice acting is even worse. It's conceivable that one is the victim of the other, but certainly neither deserves any credit for keeping the story compelling. Even on the rare occasions that the script and the actors work well together, poor sound design results in unnatural pauses and in volume levels that compete with background noise or have you reaching for your TV remote. The lack of believable expressions on characters' faces doesn't help matters, nor do the load screens that frequently appear at the most inopportune times--occasionally so quickly after a piece of dialogue that there's some doubt as to whether or not the character talking was even allowed to finish.

To say that Rise of the Argonauts has pacing issues would be an understatement of Olympian proportions; so much of your time is spent running around and talking to people that combat feels like a rare treat rather than a focus of the game. It's a real shame that getting to the end of this adventure is as much a test of patience as it is a test of skill, because the combat gets increasingly satisfying as your arsenal of moves and equipment grows. It's true that only boss encounters will pose any real challenge on the default difficulty setting toward the end, but by then that feels appropriate because you're wielding godlike weapons and powers that can literally call down lightning from the heavens. With a greater emphasis on combat and fewer technical shortcomings, Rise of the Argonauts could have been easy to recommend. As it is, though, this is a great story poorly told.

Sonic Unleashed Review

The Good

  • Looks good.

The Bad

  • Monotonous combat
  • Imprecise platforming
  • Inept camera restricts your view
  • Tons of control issues
  • Horrendous level design.

Every new Sonic release carries a hope that Sega's blue hedgehog will be able to regain the form that made him a star in the early '90s. And most every venture into the third dimension has resulted in various degrees of failure. Sonic Unleashed was supposed to provide the unrelenting speed fans have been clamoring for, and it does finally offer a healthy dose of turbo-charged levels to burn through. Unfortunately, even with Sonic's trademark speed finally on full display, Unleashed lacks one very important element: fun. The imprecise platforming, absentminded camera, and poor level design make Sonic's levels an unplayable mess, while his baffling transformation into lumbering werehog comes with a whole new slew of problems. Put simply, there is no reason to play Sonic Unleashed.

The story begins with Dr. Eggman shooting the world with a giant ray gun. Predictably, the planet breaks apart, but there is an unexpected side effect as well. Innocuous Sonic gets transformed into a giant, mean-looking creature called a werehog. This abomination emerges only when the sun goes down, and the game allows you to play stages during the day and at night to make full use of your dual personalities. Even though there are an equal number of hedgehog and werehog stages, most of your time in Sonic Unleashed will be spent at night, since the arduous combat levels take far longer to complete than the sprint-to-the-finish-line hedgehog races.

The werehog levels are extremely tedious. The levels are evenly divided between platforming and fighting, but both elements offer more frustration than excitement. Even though you can unlock more combos as you progress through the journey, your combat strategy never evolves beyond mindlessly tapping two attack buttons with an occasional jump thrown in for good measure. You're given a shield for when things get too hectic, but it's hardly ever necessary. The enemies are stupid, blithely standing around until you take the fight to them, and their lack of variety becomes oppressively obvious after just a few hours. You’ll be given a few checkpoints in each level, but these are awkwardly placed, so you'll have to repeatedly mash through the same battalion of enemies if you can't properly navigate the woeful platforming sections.

As a werehog you're equipped with stretchable arms and the ability to grab onto ledges. This should come in handy when venturing around these stages, but a few arbitrary restrictions have been tossed in to make even simple navigation annoying. First of all, you can only grab onto certain surfaces. If you mistime a jump, you often won't be able to grab a nearby ledge to save yourself, resulting in a quick death. Second, your arms' stretchiness varies at random, so while it may be possible to grab a ledge from a certain distance at one point, from that same distance later on in the level, you'll find your reach stunted. The camera also hinders your progress. You are given free control over your view when standing in the middle of a large plot of land. But when placed on a precarious walkway where a perfect line of sight is necessary, your camera control will be severely restricted, allowing only slight shifts to either side of your character. Because the punishment system is so immediate and severe (falling in water results in instant death), these miscues will quickly steal away your precious lives, leaving only frustration in their wake.

The Sonic levels don't fare any better than the lousy werehog parts. Your goal is to run as quickly as possible to the finish line, but the camera is rarely able to give you an optimal view and the controls are far too loose to provide the pinpoint accuracy you'll need. These technical problems mean you'll have to memorize stages before you can breeze through them. The game is not responsive enough to allow you to consistently avoid obstacles the first time you encounter them, so you'll find yourself repeatedly plowing headfirst into spikes and falling down countless bottomless pits before you finally know where each obstacle lays ahead of time. Extra lives--something you’re usually happy to see in a game--actually serve as a warning in Sonic Unleashed. Particularly cheap sections are often adorned by these markers, ensuring you can play them repeatedly to memorize their cruel layout and hope luck is on your side.

Even after you commit these stages to memory, though, you'll still die over and over again because of the unresponsive controls. A few levels take place on the water, making you sprint at top speeds to keep from sinking below the surface. Moving laterally while blazing through waves is sluggish, but you'll still have to swerve to and fro to complete the missions. In other stages, you'll have to perform wall jumps to succeed. This ability only works on certain surfaces, but even when you find an ideal place to ricochet from, the finicky timing means you'll try and fail until you do it perfectly. Certain sections require you to slow down and perform precise jumps across tiny platforms. The controls are built for speed, though, so a slight push on the analog stick will send Sonic sprinting to his death. The game also tosses in quicktime events at random moments. Some of these will catapult you to different parts of the level, but other times you'll be hit with an instant death if you can't meet their strict deadlines.

Even the between-stage hub is a total drag. Though the professor is supposed to guide you to the next goal, he does little more than point you in a general direction and send you on your way. You'll have to talk to specific citizens to open some levels, and trying to track down the one person with pertinent information is an out-of-place burden. The level entrances are often hidden in random locations and hunting them down can be maddening. Worse, when you finally find one of these entrances, you'll often be kept from entering it until you collect a certain number of moon and sun pieces from previous levels. Collecting items in platformers is expected, but the loose controls and obstinate camera make searching for missing pieces grueling.

The boss fights follow the theme of the other elements in Sonic Unleashed. These battles are long and tedious, forcing you to play the waiting game for minutes on end until the giant beasts open themselves up for attack. The sheer length of these ordeals makes the fights far more aggravating than they would otherwise be. The attack patterns are easy to learn, so you'll spend more time standing around waiting for them to let their guard down than actually attacking them. Even worse, their attack patterns don't drastically change through the fight, so you'll be repeating the same basic dodge maneuvers until you can finally vanquish these oversized annoyances.

The lone bright spot in this otherwise painful mess are some cheery, bright visuals. The graphics are far from cutting-edge, but the frame rate stays high even when you're sprinting at top speeds, and the levels are pleasantly colorful. The game is at its best when your interaction with it is minimal and you're able to simply admire the view. The camera adjusts for cinematic impact while you tear through loops and grind rails as Sonic, and though you're doing little more than pushing right on the analog stick during these sections, it is entertaining to watch Sonic swoop by. It's sad that Sonic Unleashed is only enjoyable during the moments when you're hardly in control of it.

Pretty pictures aren't enough to make up for the miserable gameplay. Almost nothing else in this game even reaches the level of mediocrity. The Sonic levels are poorly laid out and have unresponsive controls, the werehog portions have monotonous combat and a wonky camera, and even the hub world is so difficult to navigate, you'll spend way too much time searching for the next level. There just isn't any fun to be had in Sonic Unleashed.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

The Last Remnant Review

The Last Remnant Boxshot

The Good

  • A long, epic tale in a fascinating new fantasy world
  • Fun, uniquely strategic battle system
  • Gorgeous musical score
  • Beautiful art design.

The Bad

  • Abysmal frame-rate problems
  • Awful texture pop-in
  • Combat mechanics can be obtuse
  • Losing a long battle means having to repeat huge chunks of gameplay.

When you first begin The Last Remnant, you'll participate in a battle within moments of inserting the game disc, and chances are that you'll be struck by a glaring issue: The frame rate is awful, and the texture pop-in is shockingly bad. It's an issue you'll never quite get used to, considering that it mars the entirety of the experience. What a shame, because this long and fascinating Japanese role-playing game has a way of getting under your skin. It features a rich, original fantasy world, obviously crafted with great care and artistry, and it tells a strong, politically charged tale that will keep you glued to the screen. Although somewhat flawed, the battle system is fun to play around with, particularly in the second half when enormous armies go head to head in some dramatic, bloody showdowns. Had developer Square Enix not rushed an unfinished product to shelves, The Last Remnant could have been an instant classic. But even if the game isn't what it should have been, RPG fans should take this journey in spite of the game's technical defects.

Rush Sykes is the prototypical RPG hero, innocently sulky but totally devoted to his sweet sister Irina. When Irina is kidnapped, Rush hurries to liberate her, but unsurprisingly, it's not the most straightforward of rescues. Rather, Rush finds himself caught in a political struggle centered around powerful magical artifacts called remnants. These objects are both the center of society as well as a great curiosity, heavily researched at the Academy by hosts of scientists, including Rush's own parents. What starts as an upheaval between the pro- and anti-remnant factions explodes into an all-out war when a formidable hulk of a man calling himself the Conqueror appears, apparently able to control any remnant, no matter how large or potent. Political forces clash and hidden powers are unleashed, and though a tenuous peace is eventually achieved, it isn't long before conflict reawakens. The story is epic, even if Rush himself isn't the most interesting leading man. Fortunately, his supporting cast is excellent; the noble David is a charmingly haughty presence, and David's guard Emma makes a strong impression, thanks to some excellent, emphatic voice acting.

Whereas other RPGs tend to center on their protagonist, The Last Remnant eventually focuses on the Conqueror and his secrets. He's a solemn, momentous presence who makes an impact each time he appears, and it's easy to believe that this man may actually be capable of controlling the universe. But though it will take you a good 60 hours or more to unravel all of his secrets, the journey is entertaining, given that The Last Remnant's distinctive fantasy world is so beautifully constructed. Each city you visit is different from the last, yet the overall vision is cohesive, so nothing feels out of place. Landmarks such as the towering, glowing remnant in Elysion are not soon forgotten, and numerous side quests will have you exploring scorching deserts, caves of bubbling lava, and even the land of the dead. Most of these locales are lovely and beautifully lit, the handiwork of a talented team of artists.

It's downright depressing that this inner beauty is so heavily diminished by a totally broken technical framework. The Unreal 3 engine powers The Last Remnant's visuals, but it isn't clear whether the technology wasn't a good fit for the game, or whether the development team simply wasn't capable of using it to manifest its vision. Either way you look at it, the visuals are technically broken, a total embarrassment that intrudes on every single aspect of the gameplay. The frame rate is awful, often pausing for a second or two at a time, and slowing to a crawl anytime anything of significance happens on the screen. This isn't just an annoyance, but a huge detractor to the pace of battles and exploration, which are further broken up by inexplicably long loading times. Cities are divided into tiny areas, and moving from one to the next leads to loading screens that jolt you back to reality every few minutes. Furthermore, though many Unreal 3-powered games suffer from some texture pop-in, you've never seen it to this extent. It can take almost 10 seconds for some textures to load, and that includes everything from ground textures, to character faces, to walls. These drawbacks are somewhat alleviated if you install the game to your hard drive, but it isn't a big enough difference to justify using up such a huge amount of drive space. Either way, we shouldn't have to choose either of these evils.

As bad as these issues are, the game lurking beneath them is outstanding in a variety of ways, starting with the battle system--though you may not see its intricacies at first. Rather than controlling party members during combat, you recruit leaders and soldiers, and group them together into unions of up to five members each. Although each unit has his or her own stats, equipment, and arts (the game's versions of spells and combat skills), you issue union-wide, turn-based commands on the field. Whereas in most RPGs you choose very specific actions, such as casting a particular spell or using a particular item, in The Last Remnant you choose broader commands. These may include healing unions that need it; performing mystic arts (while you can see which arts the units will use, you can't micromanage them on a unit-by-unit basis); or summoning Rush's awe-inspiring, beautifully designed cyclops to assist in battle.

Early in the game, when you don't have a whole lot of unions under your command, you may bemoan the lack of micromanagement that this system entails. The fundamentals are a little confusing too, given that there doesn't always seem to be rhyme or reason to the process that decides which abilities are available to you, and when. Later on, however, you'll have a lot more units under your command, and you'll discover how elaborate battles can become. As units use certain arts, they level up those arts and learn newer ones, all the while improving stats--though it's unclear how some of those stats affect the outcome of your actions. (Units possess such attributes as gluttony; what does that do, anyway?) Thus, grouping units into sensible unions is tantamount, as is grouping them into an appropriate formation. You can get through many standard battles without putting too much thought into these aspects, if you take a lot of side quests and grind your way to power. However, even with a lot of grinding, the biggest battles require care, both before and during combat. As you play, you'll gain a better grasp of your enemies' weaknesses, the pros and cons of each formation, and the best way to develop your individual units through battle commands.

Once you get to the second disc of the Last Remnant's dual DVDs, you'll experience some large, impressive-looking battles. They can also be really challenging, so don't expect to rush to a victory, particularly when dozens of unions are involved. Individual turns can take a while to complete, but you shouldn't just sit back and let them play themselves. The game will throw quick-time events at you that require a rapid button press; performing it correctly may initiate a counterattack, or will improve your units' position in the turn order. This mechanic is nothing new, but it works fine here, though the frame-rate problems are a hindrance because they often disrupt the flow and timing of the event.

These colossal battles are the highlight of the game, not just because they are impressively dramatic, but also because you can see the effects of your union makeup, formations, and in-battle decisions more clearly than in the smaller ones. A morale bar across the top of the screen adjusts during the constant tug of war, based on whether you are attacking an enemy's flank or rear, what status effects are active, and a number of other factors. Location on the battlefield, attack range, and potency of healing items and arts are among the many other dynamics you'll need to consider as you plan out your turn. This thoughtful preparation makes it all the more heartbreaking when you lose a long, well-planned battle. A significant number of late-game skirmishes take a long time to complete, often stringing several tough encounters together without letting you save your game in between. Considering that formations and union setup can require a bit of trial and error, you might lose an hour of progress the first few times you attempt these colossal battles. Thankfully, the combat is fun and addictive, but given the length of these multipart clashes, there is no legitimate reason not to allow saving between stages. Otherwise, you can save almost anywhere, and the ability to skip cutscenes should you need to replay a section is also a welcome convenience.

Outside of combat, a little scavenger named Mr. Diggs will excavate various raw materials that you encounter in dungeons. Along with the monster parts that you forage, these items can be used to upgrade your equipment or create new weapons and accessories. There's not much to the process, and you can customize only Rush's equipment; other units take care of things on their own, using the items you let them keep in the postbattle screen to upgrade their stuff, or sometimes even going so far as to ask if you will give them an inventory item. Considering that characters develop based on the attacks they perform, there is a lot of flexibility--and intangibility--to party progression. As a result, there is a certain amount of replay value here, if only to see how differently battles can play out if you decide to make Rush concentrate solely on mystic arts, or see what happens when the four-armed Torgal focuses on combat skills.

The Last Remnant sounds mostly spectacular. The voice acting isn't always excellent, though it's hard to fault the actors when they're forced to deliver some of the game's awkward dialogue and odd bits of slang. Everything else is of top quality, particularly the excellent symphonic soundtrack. Even after hundreds and hundreds of encounters, the battle music is always rousing, and the triumphant fanfare after every conflict rivals the best of the genre. Every town has its own theme music, and the melodies are terrific in their own right and flawlessly match the city's unique visual design as well.

You may be inclined to give up on The Last Remnant when you first witness its major graphical flaws, but if you can grow to forgive them, you'll find a fun adventure that will draw you into its finely crafted universe in spite of it all. How unfortunate that such a renowned RPG developer has buried a potential classic under a humiliating technical fiasco.

X360