General gaming

General gaming

Syndicate Review: Starbreeze's Latest Excels at Co-Op But Falters in Single-player

Posted: 21 Feb 2012 12:20 AM PST

I actually don't think remakes are an inherently terrible thing. In between the flood of Footloose and Arthur remakes are gems like The Departed or The Thing. At the very least, I no longer bristle at the idea of a remake, whether movie or video game; I prefer to actually check them out and judge each one on its own merits. After all, the last time games saw a revamp/revival of a long-dormant property resulted in the excellent Deus Ex: Human Revolution. And Syndicate has a lot going for it: The cyberpunk aesthetics mesh well with its literal take on corporate warfare, and such factors work in tune with a first-person shooter. And it's from one of the more inventive developers of first-person games, Starbreeze Studios.

Yet, I finally play Syndicate, and my heart sinks a bit. It opens in a generic urban environment where the artists demonstrate a grievous overreliance on bloom lighting. I encounter foes who studied at the "rush straight for the player" school of design. At some point, the cramped corridors and generic aesthetics mean that I actually find myself going back the way I came in an apartment complex... only then to encounter a first-person jumping puzzle. This beginning is a far cry from The Chronicles of Riddick's inventive and neck-breaking dream sequence or the lovingly over-the-top chase of The Darkness.

Rejuvenated 3DS Could Provide a Home For Mid-Tier Games

Posted: 20 Feb 2012 01:45 PM PST

3DS

In what can only be described as a remarkable turnaround, the 3DS has gone from struggling badly enough that it necessitated a steep price drop to breaking a record by reaching 5 million units sold in Japan faster than any other platform. It took 52 weeks to reach that milestone, compared with 56 weeks for the original DS and 58 weeks for the Game Boy Advance before it.

It wasn't all that long ago that much of the talk about 3DS centered about how it was a doomed platform, one destined for failure because it was designed for a market that no longer exists in the size it once did. There were legitimate concerns to be voiced, as platforms like the iPhone and iPad have arguably taken a bite out of the handheld gaming market, but pronouncements of the platform's death before it could even reach the holiday shopping season or see the release of its first big games (Super Mario 3D Land, Mario Kart 7, and Monster Hunter 3G) were clearly premature. Reaching 5 million units sold in Japan is no guarantee the system will continue to sell this well moving forward; it is, however, an encouraging sign for Nintendo, Sony, and third-party developers to see there is demand for portable gaming systems provided the price is right and desirable software is available.

Alan Wake's American Nightmare Review: Good Shooting Paired With a Sloppy Story

Posted: 20 Feb 2012 09:12 AM PST

There's a moment in Alan Wake's American Nightmare where the eponymous protagonist attempts to explain the whole situation -- the presence of The Taken, his doppelganger Mr. Scratch, and a crazy new plot element introduced in this downloadable installment -- to a scientist. Said scientist subsequently dismisses Alan as completely nuts, even in the face of the insanity surrounding them. It's a comical moment both in that it's an amusing bit of dialogue and that it also somewhat reflects just how bizarre and convoluted the premise of Alan Wake is in the first place.

Much like last year's inFamous: Festival of Blood, American Nightmare occupies the "stand-alone downloadable expansion thing" category. Like Festival, its premise hinges on the main character's sidekick. Festival had Zeke tell a tall tale about Cole turning into a vampire in order to get a woman to come home with him, whereas Nightmare starts with Alan's former agent Barry Wheeler falling asleep in a motel while the camera zooms in on the episode of Night Springs (the Twilight Zone analog in Alan's universe) playing in the background. Nightmare puts Alan inside that episode of Night Springs, and it sees him investigating the Arizona town and helping three damsels-in-distress, all while pursuing Mr. Scratch.

Posted by Shri Krishna

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