Fable III

Fable III. The end (we think) of a trilogy. The end (we hope) of Peter Molyneux overselling his games (and inevitably disappointing audiences).

When I fired up Fable III, the first thing that hit me was the quality of the graphics. For an Xbox 360 exclusive, it certainly doesn't push the console to its limits, and it certainly doesn't show off the quality of graphics that are possible on consoles. This probably wasn't helped by the fact that I'd started the game after playing Black Ops (with its semi-realistic graphics) and Red Dead Redemption (with its uniquely awesome graphics).

Yet, despite the graphics engine not exactly pushing the 360's hardware, the frame rate still manages to take massive dives: for me, at least, these did not even occur when the screen was particularly cluttered. Ultimately, the frame rate probably could have been polished up if the game had been in development for another month or two.

And yet for some reason I'm drawn to Fable III's graphics. They're cartoonish and almost childish. Which is odd, because the Fable games usually play out pretty darkly.

This game is no different. After an amazing intro cinematic (in which there is a near-philosophical insight into freedom, captivity, opportunity, and determination), you're almost immediately forced into a difficult decision when your malevolent older brother, King Logan, forces you to choose whether you save the life of a character who seems to like you or save several captured protesters of a demonstration that is currently taking place outside of Bowerstone Castle.

It's a pretty powerful way to start off a game -- your finger neglects to hit one of the two choice buttons ("A" or "X," which is how the game handles most decisions: one button for each option). You know you should save the villagers, but you also don't want to kill the first character you really meet. Making the decision harder is the fact that, the longer you wait, some of the protesters start crying: you can't possibly let them die now. And to make matters even worse, you have this girl telling you that she should die, because the villagers have done nothing wrong. The whole time, you also have your older brother pressuring you into making a decision: "It's your choice, brother, choose now."

Let's just say that this is not the only difficult choice you will be forced to make during the course of Fable III.

I feel pretty confident that I can say the following without too much backlash: you will become King (or Queen) of Albion. What, no spoiler tags!? Uh, yeah, it tells you right on the back of the game box.

The story is a pretty good length -- overall, you can get about 12-16 hours out of it, depending on how many side quests you complete and how much time you spend doing out-of-quest stuff (like getting married, having kids, customizing clothing, et cetera). At times it feels a little protracted: basically, you go into a town or village, help some people, and then promise you'll do something to benefit them. In return, they'll support your coup d'etat and they'll fight alongside you when you eventually get around to seizing the throne. There is very little in the way of plot twists. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it makes for a pretty simplistic and linear game.

Choices you make during the course of the game seem to have little impact on the actual story or the game world. Most of the time, it's just a matter of whether the villagers will like you or fear you. It's a shame, because the mechanic could have been implemented in such a way that it really made you feel like your decisions were shaping the world.

So we have a fairly well paced, revenge-based story. You're gathering support to overthrow your evil brother: a feat that the citizens of Albion are desperate to see through. Okay, that's great. So what happens when you actually become King of Albion? At the coronation, I was literally trembling -- partly due to the fact that this was my character's crowning achievement, my goal was complete, King Logan and his army had been defeated. Oh, it may also have had something to do with the fact that I'd been playing the game for about eight hours straight and I'd been drinking a lot of iced tea and coffee.

The bit where you are the King of Albion felt rather rushed. It was anti-climatic at best -- short and uneventful at worst. It's over quickly, which is a shame because you spend a good 12 hours getting to this climax in the story... and then you find that your reign as king only lasts for a few hours. And then you find out it's not even the climax. You find that the main protagonist (King Logan), isn't even the main protagonist at all. You are forced, whatever outcome you choose, to become a protagonist yourself: because you learn what your brother had known all along. I won't spoil it, but it's a very powerful message on politics, revenge, freedom, determination, and knowledge. And it's all over too quickly.

In the game, combat is pretty easy. Did I say 'pretty easy?' That was an understatement. What I meant was, it's almost a joke. Unless you really care about the achievement "You Can't Bring Me Down" (which requires you to complete Fable III without being knocked out), you won't mind dying. Because it's nearly impossible to die. Actually, it is impossible to die -- you are merely 'knocked out.' And, being knocked out doesn't even hinder your progress. You respawn right where you were almost instantly; your enemies are still standing, with the same amount of health as they had, and they're ready to beat you down again and again and again. It brings literal meaning to the lyrics, "I get knocked down / But I get up again / You're never gonna keep me down."

Rifles and pistols make a return in this game. They're okay, but they're not overly effective. Still, it's always awesome to slash someone (or something) and then immediately pull out your pistol in order to pop a cap into their cranium.

Other than that, there's not really much to say about combat. Magic is pretty cool, but never as useful as just taking a well-crafted piece of metal to somebody's face. When you buy the "Spellweaving" upgrade on the Road to Rule (a pretty cool in-game 'map' that mimics your progress on the 'road' to Bowerstone Castle), you get a second gauntlet that allows you to combine spells -- this is really cool. You can combine fireballs with lightning-ice-storm-things, or with the "Summon Blades Spell" that summons mystic swords that circle around and stab any nearby enemies.

The sound effects are okay: lots of tsings and clashes that you'd expect from a pseudo-medieval game featuring swords and big hammer-axe-things. The pistols and rifles sound rather weak and washed out compared to other sound effects. Additionally, voices are very loud compared to all other sounds, including the music. (I have the music and sound effects at maximum volume, and dialogue set to about 85%.)


SCORING
Story: 7/10 (Well written, some parts feel protracted whilst post-coronation, the story feels short and rushed.)
Voice Acting: 7/10 (The English accents of Bowerstone , the Dweller Camp , and, er, the Royalty are exaggerated, but they can be funny.)
Sound Design: 7/10 (Sound effects are unbalanced in volume and firearms sound drastically underpowered.)
Soundtrack: 8.5/10 (Russell Shaw's great soundtrack captures a mix of baroque and Hollywood sound with a few subtle hints to old Fable themes.)
Replay Value: 5/10 (Unless you really care about getting every achievement, you probably won't want to play it again after you've beaten it the first time.)

FINAL VERDICT: 76/100 - DECENT

(NOTE: final score is not an average)

CLOSING COMMENTS: Even though Fable III is marred with outdated graphics, all-too-frequent frame rate problems, and insultingly easy combat, it never feels like a chore to play. Indeed, when you get to the end of the game, you'll wish that it went on a lot longer. Actually, if the story had been longer, the replay value would have been higher: ultimately, the most interesting part of the game (in which you reign as Albion's king), is also the shortest. If this intriguing segment of large-scale decision making and political discourse had been a lot longer, there would be more of a reason to replay the rest of the game.

Call of Duty: Black Ops: Zombies (Xbox 360)

Hello, everyone. This is a companion review to my previous review of Black Ops. In this segment, I'll be reviewing the new Zombies mode.

Several people, I recall, said quite simply of Black Ops: "If there are no zombies, I'm not buying it." Well, it's a Treyarch addition to the franchise, and, after the success of Nazi Zombies in World at War it was, in my opinion, pretty much inevitable.

Anyway, if you -- like me -- are a bit strapped for cash and couldn't afford the 'Hardened' edition of Black Ops then you only get two maps (for the moment): "Kino der Toten" (Theatre of the Dead) and "Five." I won't bother with a spoiler alert, because I think everybody knows about it by now -- Five is set in the Pentagon.

"Kino der Toten" feels a bit like "Der Riese" with less room for mistakes and less room to run. So in that regard, it feels a little like an interior "Der Riese" crossed with "Verrückt" (except that it's not quite as difficult as the latter).

I neglected to mention that there are now 'crawlers.' Or... nobody really knows what they're called. In-game, they're called 'Abominations,' but online I've heard them referred to as anything from 'Crawlers,' to 'Nova Zombies,' to 'Those Things.' So chances are, if you hear a 12 year old screaming down your headset, "Argh! It's those things!" chances are, he's referring to either Crawler-Zombies... or boobs. (Hey, I was afraid of boobs when I was 12.)

Other than that, it's a rather unremarkable map. There are a couple of big rooms where you can hold off zombies, but to counter that, there are some very narrow corridors (fine, 'hallways') where zombies quite literally jump from the ledge above you.

On the other hand, we have "Five" which is set in the Pentagon. See, no spoiler marks again. It's set in the Pentagon! But, you probably already knew that. (And if you didn't, well, now you do.)

In 'KdT,' you play as one of the four original Zombies crew: Dempsey, Dr. Richtofen, Nikolai, or Takeo. In "Five," you play as one of four historically significant characters -- John F. Kennedy, Robert McNamara (JFK's Secretary of Defense), Richard Nixon (JFK's political rival and successor), and Fidel Castro (Cuban dictator).

"Five" starts you off in a conference room -- a fairly nice area with a few Zombie spawn points, access to a shotgun and an M14. It's also the location of the stupid Table Glitch, which is the bane of my (and other serious Zombie Slayers') existence. It's a good place to hold off for a while, but eventually you'll need to move to get some better weapons.

Outside, lo and behold, is the elevator. This takes you to the DEFCON Room -- so called because it has the levers to raise/lower the DEFense CONdition (you see what the clever clogs US Abbreviation Team did there?). I'm pretty sure that's not how it works in real life ("Mr President! We're under attack from zombies! I'm going to pull the DEFCON 3 lever!"), but then again a Zombie Apocalypse scenario isn't exactly realistic either.

Lowering the DEFCON Level from One to Five (that's how it works in real life: that US Reverse-Numbering Team at it again!) will open up a secret war room full of weapons (like the one seen in the opening cinematic). In order to leave some stuff for you to figure out for yourselves, I won't tell you how to get the Pack-A-Punch or some of the other Easter Eggs/Secrets in the level.

The Presidential Team (as I call it), though, spews out hilarious quotes whilst beheading Zombies with 7.62mm NATO rounds -- I've never laughed so hard as when I had insufficient points to buy a weapon and heard JFK say something along the lines of "What we need is economic reform!" Hearing Richard Nixon blame the entire situation on the 'damn Communists' is also pretty funny.

Overall, "Five" is my favourite of the two maps. It's pretty funny to think that you're playing as a member of the U.S. Government, protecting the woefully unprepared Defense Department from a Zombie Invasion. (I hope the real Pentagon might be more prepared to deal with zombies... but unfortunately, I doubt it.)

It's really fun to finally have modern(ish) weapons to make the undead... un-undead (re-dead?), and the M14 is fantastic for making heads fly. And in both maps, you can get good SMGs like the Kiparis and the Spectre quite early on: they're super-efficient at killing zombies, but can run out of ammo quite quickly. Unfortunately, there are no real good machine guns to replace the Browning M1919 or the MG42 of the previous installment. Additionally, the odds of getting a good weapon from the Magic Box are stacked heavily against you, and Pack-a-Punched weapons seem less powerful than I think they should be.

Finally, what's quite nice is that the design of the maps forces to you to keep moving and keep adapting your strategy, as opposed to "Der Riese," which was awesome but permitted you to camp in a corner until you ran out of ammunition.

SCORING
Story: 10/10 (Nothing in Zombies is without significance; I'm sure Treyarch will fit "Five" in with the story somehow.)
Voice Acting: 10/10 (JFK impersonation is spot-on, dialogue is fantastic.)
Sound Design: 9/10 (Same as those effects found in the main game.)
Soundtrack: 8/10 (Not much music, per se, but there's some creepy ambiance which fits Zombies perfectly.)
Replay Value: 10/10 (Nothing says "fun" like shootin' Zombies with a gun! -- And that is why I don't write poetry.)

FINAL VERDICT: 94/100 - EXCELLENT

(NOTE: final score is not an average)

This review can also be read on the Escapist

Call of Duty: Black Ops (Xbox 360)

You play, for the most part, a kick ass Black Ops soldier, fighting for America, during the Cold War. You are awesome. Truly, truly awesome. You cheat death, you eat Russians for breakfast, and you breathe fire. No, wait. One of those is a lie.

Anyway, my point is that you are the American equivalent of what would happen if you combined Soap, Gaz/Ghost, ANZAC, and an old Chinese voodoo lady with a very, very bad temper. Yes, in short, you are a deadly and lethal death machine of death. And doom.

I'll divide this review into three sections (you can skip to whichever part you're interested in) -- Singleplayer, Multiplayer, and Scoring (where I assign arbitrary numbers to various categories).

SINGLEPLAYER
Remember MewTwo's woefully (and, frankly, insultingly) short and underwhelming campaign? Well, you'll be pleased to know that Black Ops is the opposite.

The story takes place partly in the same location as the main menu. It's a pretty bleak, grim introduction -- without giving too much away, you're being interrogated by an unknown party who wants to know what you and your team were doing during the Cold War.

The game is played in flashbacks -- your interrogator brings up topics that bring back memories in the character you play (Alex Mason). Occasionally, you'll play flashbacks to other characters (who, for the sake of spoilers, will not be named). And, there's an entire section that takes place in World War II -- including some great throwback references to World at War.

Yes, Black Ops campaign truly throws some great twists and turns at you. People and characters you don't expect show up. To be honest, it feels like the campaign took the best parts of Modern Warfare 2 and World at War, and used them as inspiration for an epic singleplayer experience.

There's some new mechanics -- you'll operate a camera and guide a squad of Spec Ops soldiers, who are moving through a zero-visibility blizzard in Russia, from a Blackbird recon plane (and you'll occasionally switch to one of these ground troops in order to play out some action sequences). You'll rappel down walls and smash through doors and windows. You'll have some great stealth-action sequences where you get to play stabby-stabby with your combat knife. Oh, and did I mention you get to blow stuff up with rockets? Yeah, there's quite a bit of stuff to blow up. It's a lot of fun.

The story truly is one of the best campaigns in the history of the Call of Duty franchise. It's cinematic, it's thrilling, and it's intense. That's not to say it's without flaws -- a lot of things are never really explained: how on earth do you get from one location to another, and what's with the game leaping forward, missing out months or years? There are so many enemies, you might feel like there should be an 'assume fetal position' button on the controller. Oh, but that shouldn't be a problem because, for once, a Call of Duty game arms you to the teeth with 50,000,000 bullets at the start of each level. Another thing I noticed, which I thought was kind of cool, is that some combat sequences almost feel reminiscent of 007: NightFire -- that might have just been me, though.

MULTIPLAYER
As with any CoD game, there are some balancing issues. But for those who were worried about a Modern Warfare 2 rehash, fret not!

Treyarch has clearly worked their asses off. All but one or two of the maps are a lot of fun to play on, and they're a lot better designed and a lot more balanced than those found in this year's installment of the Halo franchise. For the most part, weapons and killstreaks are pretty well balanced. And even the perks are pretty sweet.

Black Ops has an insane customization scheme that really lets you play -- for better or for worse -- how you want to play.

You can 'carve' your clan tag into the side of your weapon, you can create your own personal emblem (similar to MewTwo's emblems, only better) which can then be emblazoned onto the side of your weapon. You can go straight to buying red dots, ACOGs, or whatever else you want to stick on the end of your gun -- no more unlocking attachments: if you have the money, you can buy it.

Weapons work similarly -- you unlock them when you reach a certain rank, but you don't get them for free. You have to 'buy them' using points that you win by killing enemies and destroying killstreak rewards, winning matches, completing challenges, and just generally being awesome.

There are 'wager matches' -- where you bet your 'money' against other players in a Free-for-All match -- and the top three players split the pot, er, winnings. There are also 'contracts' -- you buy a contract for a set amount of money, and you have to complete the goal of that contract in 40 minutes of game time (yes, that's time you spend in game, so it doesn't count down while you're in menus). If you complete the contract, you get double your money; if you fail the contract, you lose the money -- these contracts can range from anything from "Win a Match" to "Get 3 Kills Without Dying" to weapons-specific challenges, like "Get 25 Headshots With an M16" or "Kill 3 Players with a Ballistic Knife."

Nuketown is one of the worst maps in Call of Duty history. You're pretty much guaranteed to get spawn-killed at least five times in the first minute of the game.

The MP5K is a rape-machine and, at close to medium range, is pretty much guaranteed to win against anything (except maybe a rocket launcher).

Additionally, even though "Commando" was removed as a perk, it honestly feels like everyone inherently has it. There are quite a few cheap knife kills -- some of it probably down to lag, but also partly due to the fact that everybody's knives work like Halo's Energy Sword.

Finally, there is the FAMAS. It has a ridiculous amount of kick, but it's really too powerful compared to other weapons.

As for killstreaks, well thankfully there is no longer a "Tactical Nuke." In fact, as I said earlier, most of the perks are pretty good. Chopper Gunner is quite hard to get, which is good, and Attack Helicopters are fairly easy to avoid (they now hover in one place, as opposed to flying around the entire map). One of the few cheap killstreak rewards is the "RC-XD" -- a little remote control car that moves too quickly to shoot, and can kill you with ease.

As with the weapons attachments, you can get any killstreak at any time. But you do have to buy them with your in-game points. The low-kill rewards range from 1,000 to 1,600 points -- but if you want something good (like Dogs or Chopper Gunner) then you'd better start saving up: they can cost anywhere from 2,400 to 4,000 points.

Overall, multiplayer is a lot better experience than [i]Modern Warfare 2[/i]. If you had a bitter taste in your mouth from the broken gameplay of MW2, then you'll be pleased to know that Black Ops is a lot cleaner, better paced, and a lot, lot less broken.

SCORING
Story: 8/10 (Epic, cinematic, and beautifully written)
Voice Acting: 7/10 (Mason could have been better, other characters well voiced)
Sound Design: 8/10 (MP5K sounds like airsoft gun; so does M14 reloading)
Soundtrack: 9.5/10 (Sean Murray delivers compelling soundtrack coupling rock and orchestra; clearly influenced by Balfe's MW2 score but with throwbacks to WaW)
Replay Value: 9/10 (Even if you get sick of online multiplayer, Zombies and Dead Ops Arcade will keep you coming back)

FINAL VERDICT: 87/100 - GREAT

(NOTE: final score is not an average)

CLOSING COMMENTS: It's nice to see a serious game tackling the Cold War. Vietnam, especially, is a sore point in American history -- while not a huge part of the game takes place there, Treyarch did a good job of (from what I've learned about the Vietnam War) making you feel badass (as a Spec Ops guy should) while making you feel vulnerable. They make you wonder if you're going to die when you turn that next corner... and as a gamer, it's great to be kept on the edge of your seat with intense action scenes.

This review can also be read on the Escapist.