BioShock 2

As much as I like the great games, as much I am terrified knowing that they will inevitably have a continue. If the first was a success, it is impossible that the second not to be. You can say I'm more cynical than it is required but in the case of BioShock 2, the fact that the team which created it was replaced with a bunch of producers was not a good sign for me (I don't remember seeing a title made in collaboration with 4 studios - 5 if we count the guys from Arkane).



Who played the first BioShock knows that the Bouncer of Big Daddy model is the main character of the game. Yes, I'm talking about that walking diver suit with a huge drill, which when you shoot by mistake you can see that its "eyes" which are glowing red make you scream "I did not mean it! SORRY!"

Well if in BioShock you were a Joe Average dropped from the sky straight into a ruined underwater city called Rapture, this time you are Delta, a Big Daddy prototype from the Alpha series which is resurrected into a Vita Chamber at 8 years after the events from the previous game. And beside the fact that you can use plasmids, a luxury with which your "followers" can not praise, another thing which makes you unique is the fact that you were the first Big Daddy related with success with a Sister (Eleanor) who you have to protect. Sister who now has grown and requires your help through telepathic messages.



8 years were enough for the things to change in the lost paradise of Andrew Ryan. The splicers, the ex residents of the city who have modified their DNA so much that they went crazy, are more dangerous than ever, and as an answer "the powers that be" have created a new Big Daddy model called Rumbler which can face the hyenas which are hunting the ADAM gathered by the Sisters. More, Rapture is now under the control of Sofia Lamb, a lady with an altruistic belief and visibly different than the promoted individualism by Andrew Ryan, belief which finally have sent her straight into prison. Fact which ironically was an advantage in the end.

For a population which passed through a very brutal civil war, the notion of Family sustained by Sofia Lamb and transformed into some religion by "Father" Wales has represented a fundamental change compared to the law of the jungle adopted by Andrew Ryan. That is why the splicers from BioShock 2 will not only kill you because of the ADAM addiction which has transformed them into monsters, but also because they see you as a threat to a community which welcomes them with their arms wide open.

Assassin's Creed 2

With all of its shortcomings (although it was called Director's Cut Edition), the PC version of Assassin's Creed has numbered between the best titles of 2008 and the excellent sales of the game and the feedback received from the community and the critics were enough in order to cool down the guys from Ubisoft who thought that it is a mistake to blindly finance a trilogy. Since then 2 years have past and now Assassin's Creed 2 invites us again to go between the lines of those who consider that "Nothing is true. Everything is allowed".



Assassin's Creed you ran wildly on the Holy Ground, this time you will jump through time with approximately 300 years, landing in the Italian Renaissance in the 15 century. An Italy made out of state-cities, where the banks had something to say, the art and culture were in top, the powerful families were fighting each other with the help of the mercenaries, and conspiracies and crimes for the usurped power were happening daily. More important is that the events from Assassin's Creed 2 go for about 23 years so you won't be in action right from the beginning, but you will slowly transform into a master assassin along with Ezio Auditore da Firenze.

Unlike Ibn-La'Ahad, Ezio is a noble young man who at the beginning of the story lives a careless life with his family, being preoccupied on how to entertain the young ladies from Florence, having no clue about the night activities of his father, Giovanni (who you can follow on the video Assassin's Creed 2: Lineage). This existence is brutally destroyed in the moment the Auditore family is betrayed, and Giovanni is executed with Ezio's two brothers, and he swears to get his revenge.

But wishing somebody death is not enough in order to get this done, especially when you are dealing with the Templar Knights, so Ezio will need the help from anyone who wants to help him, either it is about his uncle Mario or a young artist and inventor named Leonardo da Vinci. Here we are dealing with the main plus of the game - the way the characters and the historical events fit in the story.



I'm saying this because you will meet also Niccolo Machiavelli, Caterina Sforza, Girolamo Savonarola and Lorenzo de' Medici, and are added letters or discoveries related to Dante Alighieri, Marco Polo, Michelangelo, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Henry Ford, Ghandi, Joana D'arc, Hitler, Rasputing or even J.F. Kennedy's assassination. And what is really impressive is the fact that introducing these events and famous names is so natural, that the first reaction you have when you will discover them is "this is so cool" instead of "yea right", thing which can only make the producers happy.

Alpha Protocol

Obsidian Entertainment is through the few studios in which I have trust. For many games you can go on the idea that "I assume from the start that it's going to be ugly", but when you talk about a product designed by Obsidian (or some few other companies), the geek from me can't help from jumping around screaming "Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!".

And from some points of view, Alpha Protocol is a way important RPG (Role Playing Game) for Obsidian then it was Knights of the Old Republic II, Neverwinter Nights 2 or Mask of the Betrayer at their time. On those games they only had to continue with the quality, but at the base it was working with something already set. This time, Chris Avellone and the company are 100% on their own - their own story, own chats and characters, game play decisions and so on. If something is not right, they can't give as a reason "well you know, Wizard of the Coast did not allow us to do it that way because we would have". This time they had full freedom to create a RPG after their appearance and personalities.



Even if some will sustain the contrary, I consider that the RPGs will remain (maybe forever) some niche games. I'm talking here about worthy RPGs, not any title which has experience points and some skills and after that they call it a RPG. If we would be serious for a second, since Dungeons & Dragons we, the gamers have that classical appearance of geeks with dices in hands. On one side this was a marginalization of the gaming passionate, on the other side, the fairies, elves, orcs and wizards with magical sticks which split the mountain in two have become rules. That is why, when the first information about Alpha Protocol have appeared I could not be surprised because I was dealing with a modern and well anchored in reality universe.



It seems that in our days, a terrorist attack destroys a passenger place, the main suspects are the Al Samad members, a group of people with anti American politics. The situation won't be this alarming if in this mess would not be involved some rockets manufactured by the Halbech corporation, the main provider of weapons for the United States and not only. Here you come in, Michael Thorton, recently recruited by the Alpha Protocol organization in order to hunt the responsible for the attack and to discover how some top generation American rockets have landed in the hands of some Islamic extremis.

But before you become the coolest secret agent since Jason Bourne, you will have to choose the difficulty level and the protagonist history. The history determines the way in which the skill points will be placed on the nine branches available, the Freelancer option is the "free one", where you can spread them as you wish.

Just Cause 2

Welcome to Panay, a dictatorial republic populated by different Asian people and led by a guy who is frustrated by his appearance that he builds all sorts of statues of himself in order to compensate. The country of all bananas, filled with military bases.


Rico Rodriguez, the revolutionary maniac from the first game is back. And we are not talking about Che Guevara - Rodriguez is not a romantic fool who runs after hippie things like the nationalization of the transportation means. Sent by the Agency, the international hand of the United States which slaps anyone who turns his back on them, Rico has the ordinary task: to remove the little "Baby" Panay from leading the country and to serve him to his boss.


Saboteur, assassin, pilot, driver, skydiver and sapper - you would say that Rico is handling all the necessary knowledge for systematic breaking of the military enclaves of Panay. But he could not hijack even a school bus if he did not have a pistol with a hook and a James Bond parachute. No, not that kind of parachute.

The athlete qualities of the hero are not uncommon, but the mentioned gadgets allow you to travel relatively fast no matter the place, and the quick travel system is represented by a place which throws you in any previous explored area. This besides the weapon and vehicle delivery service, in exchange of a generous amount of money. Not to mention the 104 air, water and land vehicles which by the way are not hard to pilot - on the contrary, they are really to manipulate even at high speeds, the only impediment in the path for arcade mechanics perfection is represented by the collision system, which is the main reason for the boats to bounce off the smallest obstacles, as unnatural as the cars do.


With all these, the moments in which you will feel his problem are related with some of the 75 racing challenges, because in rest you are not required to travel across landscapes with boats. Although I suggest you not to fear these challenges because many of them are entertaining and innovating. They use not only transporting means but also the skills of the player to control the character in free fall or with the parachute, from going through the tight alleys of the Panay cities and up to exploring the swamps from one corner of the map with a motor boat.

Of course, the races don't represent the central element because only in a movie with Paul Walker and Vin Diesel you could start a coup with a V8 engine in stead of a V4 rocket. So, you will split the approximately 100 hours of game play in missions, working for the Agency.

Metro 2033

The post apocalyptic worlds are certainly part of the most favorite subjects of the computer games manufacturers from the ex soviet space. From that direction came: STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl or Cryostasis, titles with a great atmosphere. With all these, the reputation of the same manufacturers is not so good; their games are running in different technical problems.


In combination, the qualities of the stories and the technical problems have made the players very cautious, and Metro 2033 is not far from this mixed line. As their ex colleagues from GSC, the Ukrainians from 4A Games are inspired from literature for their post apocalyptic shooter: more precisely the novel of the young Russian writer Dmitry Glukhovski.

The action from Metro 2033 takes place into a Moscow which is destroyed by an atomic holocaust, and the survivors have retreat inside the tunnels of the famous metro from the Russian capital and transforming the stations in small communities. From all these unlucky people, Artyom is being remarked (no the football player), a young man who has never seen the outside world, but who discovers that he is somehow immune to the telepathic attacks of the monsters known as Dark Ones.


Thanks to this gift, Artyom is sent to deliver a critical message, but not very clear, into another metro station - Polis - situated in the opposite side of the tunnel network. Obviously, his entire journey is essential for the survival of the whole humanity, and the entire story is said straight from his point of view. Although, Artyom does not speak only between the missions, when being in a mission he is mute in the Half-Life 2 style with Gordon Freeman at power, which spoils pretty much the immersion and any empathy with his mission.

On the other side, the action is filled with semi interactive cinematic sequences, surprisingly placed. I woke up pretty often with the hero taking his destiny in his own virtual hands, so that after that, to retake the control into an extremely hot situation. These unexpected passing ads more to the pushing atmosphere from the underworld, weak illuminated or not illuminated at all, filled with remains and especially with all kinds of scary monsters.


Because Artyom must pass a long maze of tunnels, most of his adventure involves killing different enemies, humans or monsters. The underworld is spread in all sorts of colonies, not all friendly and many bandits are looking for careless "tourists". Some survivors are Nazi, others are communists and Artyom is in the middle of their conflict, a real critic of the two systems which have changed the face of the world in the last decades. Besides the battles with humans, all kind of monsters, zombies and mutants are in the path of our hero. The action becomes extremely hot especially that all the animals are provided with a great speed.

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

The story from Forgotten Sands is placed between Sands of Time and Warrior Within and it is extremely thin. It seems that the price in position of a kid, a little smarter after the events from Sands of Time, hits over the eternal recycled invasion of a weak kingdom, used as a negative catalyst since four games ago. In this case, the kingdom of Malik, his older brother. This theme of brother love, jealousy and loyalty, were explored way better in a pack of other stories, here it exists only by the name. Ironically, even the recent blockbuster from Disney has more alive and clean-cut characters.



The plot spins around a new reckless decision, which this time does not free an army of demons made out of sand (Sands of Time) or some ancient evil entity which represents all the evil of the world (Prince of Persia 2008), but an army of demons made out of sand which are led by an evil entity which represents all the evil from the world. And that's about it related to this good computer games. The character is a djinn with a low-cut neck, and the new mechanics comes under the shape of some powers obtained successively along the adventure.

In fact, this is the strength of Forgotten Sands - the multitude of fireworks the platform gains thanks to the prince's skills. You can freeze the water, evoke platforms or walls, etc. And when all these skills are put together into one single series of jumps you will understand what I am saying when I say that I appreciate this Prince of Persia as being the most interesting one from the platform point of view.

What's fair, there are no special traps or complicated obstacle systems. Besides the elemental skills which alternate the world, nothing substantially new has been introduced, and the difficulty of the security systems is indisputable, especially if you increased the life bar, which allows you to make mistakes without waking back to the checkpoint.

On the other side, the running and jumping sessions' architecture is meticulously executed which is hard to ignore, maybe the only dissatisfaction is that the track is never complicated. It is varied, the learning curve is convenient and you have to excuse to ever staying put: the next platform is always obvious and natural. Even if we don't own the dagger anymore, we still have the ability to play with time, but with this not being the central element of this good computer game, there are no other ways to manipulate this concept.



The problem is that you don't have that excitement like in Sands of Time or Warrior Within, where even on the backtracking parts you were motivated by a part of the story: a new hypothesis in the theory of destiny change, a princess to save (or beat, depending on the moment), an evil vizier in possession of the greatest artifact, etc.

Din's Curse

Along the years, at least two clichés have been created in the world of computer games: the clones of Doom and the clones of Diablo. We are not talking about FPS (First Person Shooter) games here to I will go back in time to Diablo, the series which has defined the hack'n'slash and has killed generations of rodents since 1997.


This recipe, as simple as popular, has inspired Steven Peeler also (ex Ritual Entertainment) to start a small independent studio, Soldak Entertainment. In 2004 we received from them RPG action from Depths of Peril and Kivi's Underworld, and the odyssey continues with Din's Curse.


The god of honor from the land of Alera is mad at you (the hero) because you have wasted your life with all sort of nonsense, so he revives you and ties you to a curse: not to rest until you wash away your sins through good acts. In this case, good acts mean saving a number of cities from evil threats which come from the underground, each city saved improves your reputation. In the end, when Din is declared thanked, you are free from your curse and that's it. From this point of view, the story from Kivi's Underworld seems more enthusiastic, something better than an excuse to send you in caverns to kill monsters (even though this is a good reason too).

The word to describe the game is "random": all sort of root fells like a raining storm, the cities are randomly generated and so are the underground levels which can have nine, eleven or thirteen caverns, depending on your luck. The main missions come from the god Din and other three NPC, whose survival is essential for saving the city. From this point of view, a great trump is the dynamic world. Because the time in Aleria never stops even if you went to the city to sell some objects and fill your stock of potions.

On the contrary, at level 5 you can miss a mission because you did not manage to save a NPC, while at level 8 a riot may happen. Or you can go ahead and clean the level 3 when you suddenly realize that the city is attacked by level 10 Bloodsavage and you must go back fast, or else everything goes down. Also, all kind of characters come and go out of the city so you might run into a merchant in some underground corner.


Different missions can be met even without being accepted, like saving a NPC which is attacked by zombies or killing a boss. As the maximum quest number which can be accepted at the same time is only six, this approach helps to speed up the gameplay and gain a reputation.

Like in Split/Second, we also have to deal with a studio which does not feel the lack of experience in mater of arcade racing, Bizzare Creations. The same brand signs for the Project Gotham Racing series, exclusive for consoles but extremely appreciated for the spectacular gameplay, based on all kinds of stunts. Blur goes along approximately on the same line, but using power ups to eliminate opponents along the track. But unlike Split/Second, Blur takes it more serious all that means races along the Carrier mode, but especially on the online multiplayer side.

Somehow similar with Need for Speed, the single player campaign is organized based on some messages you receive through a fictional social network, each opponent having special requirements you have to meet. The nine chapters correspond to the nine aces of the tracks which you have to challenge in a one on one race after you have met all the requirements, the winner receiving as main reward the opponent's car. The narration stops here, the story teller from the cinematic sequences is offering just a few details about the opponents in that episode and how aggressive the opponents will be.


Just like in Split/Second (the comparison is inevitable); the mail goal is to win the races or at least to end up on the podium with the help of your virtual driving skills and also with the help of the power ups you find on the track. These come in different shapes and with different effects: laser weapons, guided bombs, nitro for increasing the speed, mines of electricity webs which slow you down; the defensive part comes with a shield which makes you immune to any attack for a short time, and the cars can be repaired with the specific power, because there is a damage mode also.

For each won race there is a double system of level-up based on lights and fans. The lights are won both depending on the occupied place on the podium but also for meeting different requirements of the opponent or the fans. The fans are gathering through a spectacular race and by eliminating opponents in different ways, from the simple push in the water to using a bomb while activating nitro and drift at the same time.

Another secondary objective is passing through a series of 12 gates, which ensure at the end additional lights and lots of fans. These gates are activated when taking along the track the gate power up; the same fans can have special requirements in some races, like reaching 178 miles per hour, to hit an opponent with bolts or to push it from a bridge using Nitro.


So you won't work for nothing, more fans means more access to new cars, in the single player campaign the maximum level is limited to 25 ( in multiplayer goes up to 50). The lights are absolutely necessary to unlock opponents in single player; the maximum for an episode is 50. Blur is so a more complicated game than other similar titles, asking from the player for a pretty advanced multitasking: ranking on the podium, eliminating opponents, spectacular driving, meeting the fans and gathering lights.

Jason and The ArgonautsJason spends more time talking but in the same time fighting unlike many RPG (Role Playing Game) games inspired by the Greek Mythology.



Good stuff
- the battle has a fast rhythm and it is satisfying
- the system for character improvement is very well structured

Bad stuff
- way too much to walk and talk
- the animation quality is unsteady
- the frame rate decreases without any specific reason
- the character interpretation is weak and it is not helped by the audio design

Vague based on the same Greek myth which has inspired the movie Jason and The Argonauts in 1963, Rise of The Argonauts is part of the action RPG games category in which you assume the role of King Jason of Iolcus in search of the legendary Golden Wool. All sort of monsters are between you and your prize, and fighting them is very entertaining, like in the other games. You can not say the same thing about the moments when you get lost and when you speak with the other characters, unfortunately, and the inconsistent frame rate makes even the special effects of the stop motion from the movie mentioned above seem much smoother if we had to compare them.

Rise of The Argonauts has a shaky beginning for this kind of games. The assassination of Jason's wife right in the wedding night from the intro sequences lets you know that the story is instantly required, but the weak voice interpretation, the weird angles of the camera, talking animations and numerous visual defects make only too conspire against it and to make it seem bad in the hierarchy of games. More than that, at the beginning you will not see too many battles, so most of the time spent inside Jason's palace talking with his guards which without the color differences you could not differentiate. It all seems identical, Iolcus like the other locations which you will visit after you will get the Argo which allows you some few occasions of exploring but still manages to be pretty confuse by its design, referring to us by the painted map in order to localize objectives, unlike other games with a better system.



The top of this game is the battle, Jason is qualified to use the sword, spear and the mace, but he also can use the shield. The character does not have the option of hitting with two weapons like in other games like Diablo. The commands are not difficult and receptive, and it is good because no matter what weapon you are using, you can change them while fighting. None of your enemies are especially smart, but are pretty various that you will have to use different weapons and strategies to defeat them faster, an aspect which is frequently met in the RPG games.

Universe at War: Earth Assault

2007 was a pretty productive year in terms of strategy, in the sense that I can't say that I missed them. We had Supreme commander, Tiberium Wars and in a happy ending World in Conflict. Of course we can't say that we had something original, because in this group of games you can't do too many things. Each game, except for Tiberium Wars, has brought something to make us say that these guys gave their interest in amazing us. But eventually neither of these games has kept me in front of the computer for more than a few hours. We can say the same about Universe at War; the limit has been reached.



When talking about the story line, the year is insignificant, and the operation theatre is in the same country, which by the way now is in the economic census. Here finally has come The Independence Day in which things go bad, and the specific American heroism is shattered. Nothing escapes the humans from the new race which has descended from above. The aliens are called The Hierarchy; they have buildings with legs, they are red and black and shoot lasers. In only a few days of air visit, there is only one American hero left who you must keep alive in order not to loose the mission. And the scene in which the White House is destroyed could be placed in Top Destructions of the White House. Luckily in the last moment from a vortex an angel appears with a rifle big as the World  Trade Center and begins to clean the hierarchy.

Since I was a child I noticed a ridiculous similarity between a classic RTS and an agricultural campaign. Initially a superior forum sets your objectives. Then, you go and put the men to work and build factories and propaganda centers. Then, the tractors are being build, the harvester and thrashers. Then you must be careful because the thieves may steal petrol from the tanks, pieces, straw bales, irrigation systems and they are urging the staff to steal too.



What is cool in Universe at War is the fact that instead of machineries you have robots. You shoot with lasers and positive or negative energies. What is weird is that you have lots of possibilities, like putting white coats with working glasses to discover better costumes and more performing machines, but these are missing from the campaign. They are present only in the skirmish mode, a very similar mode with the nowadays Risk. But we will talk about that in another article. Following this good classic campaign sample, we suddenly realize that we have played it before somewhere, more precisely in about 10 - 15 games of this genre. I do not say it is good or it's bad, I'm saying it because I don't agree with it.