Dishonored
Are you getting sick of playing games that don’t actually let you play? You know the ones I mean: they funnel you down a narrow path, don’t give you much freedom in what you can do, and rely on cinematic set pieces to drive the spectacle. I am, and that’s why Dishonored is such a refreshing experience. It picks up where games like Deus Ex and BioShock left off, and puts choice back in the hands of the player.
As Corvo Attano, protector to an Empress, players find themselves in Dunwall, a grimy port city whose population is being decimated by a rat-born plague. It’s an industrial setting; a fishing town grown rich off the back of the whale oil that powers the city’s circuits. It’s also a hive of corruption, political machinations and power grabbing, and this all comes to the fore when the Empress is assassinated, and Corvo sets out to avenge her death.
That vengeance can take many forms. Unlike so many video game protagonists, Corvo is not pre-ordained to be a mass murderer. The entire game can be completed without killing a single person, so guards can be avoided or knocked unconscious, and non-lethal options can be found for assassination targets.
Of course, if you want to cut a bloody swathe across Dunwall, that’s catered for too. Just be warned: killing your way to the end of the game has a number of ramifications. More dead bodies means more rats and more guards, and a darker overall conclusion.
If you’re anything like me though, you’ll probably take an approach that’s somewhere in the middle – at least for your first play-through. Whatever you do, the mechanics are highly versatile and each setting has been designed to give players multiple options for achieving any one goal.
By way of example, in one mission Corvo has two targets to take out inside a brothel, but there is, of course, an alternative to killing them. If you can find another guest in the complex and get him to give up the code for his safe, you can then give this code to a character in the Distillery District and he’ll make both your targets disappear. In my first playthrough, I got the code, but went and eliminated both the targets anyway, then took the contents of the safe for myself.
These kind of options make missions much more engaging than if players were simply tasked with the usual 'go here, kill this' objectives. That said, it's actually the moment to moment gameplay choices that make Dishonored so compelling.
What happens, for instance, if you need to get past a 'wall of light'? These electrified gateways are set up throughout the city and will fry anything that’s not authorised to pass through them. You might be able to circumvent it by climbing up onto the rooftops and traversing around, or use the possession power to scurry through a drainage pipe as a rat and get to the other side. On the other hand you could deal with the gate itself by removing the whale oil tank that’s powering it, or hack into the system and reverse it. This last option is perhaps the most entertaining, as it means you’re now able to step through, but any guards who give chase will be instantly incinerated.
The approach you take will at least partly be determined by how you've customised Corvo, and these options are incredibly robust. Each of the game's ten powers can be unlocked in any order (after Blink), and each can be upgraded. Runes hidden throughout the world are the currency for unlocking and upgrading powers, and that hunt is brilliant fun in and of itself. For my first play through, I focused on using and levelling up three core powers: Blink, Dark Vision and Agility.
Blink is a short range teleport that’s useful for moving from cover to cover, getting the jump on enemies and scaling buildings. Dark Vision lets players see enemy movements through walls, and also highlights other important objects in the world. Agility, on the other hand, is a passive power which increases jump height and movement speed, and reduces fall damage. As you can see, I opted for agility and stealth above all else.
To further enhance my cat burglar-like skills, I also spent cash upgrading my boots for quieter movement, and activated perks – via the game's hidden bone charms - to drastically reduce the time it takes to choke an enemy, as well as to increase my movement speed in stealth mode and while carrying corpses.
You may well choose completely different abilities and perks. If you’re combat-focused, whirlwind sends enemies flying and is really effective, as is slow time, which actually freezes time when fully levelled up. While some powers are more useful than others, it's a good selection and great fun to experiment with. They're backed up by more traditional weapons: crossbow, pistol, grenades, spring razor, and so on, and these can all be upgraded too.
Dishonored’s nine missions are all very distinct. You’ll attend a society gala in disguise, scale a bridge, escape from prison, wander through flooded slums and stalk across rooftops. You'll take part in a duel, carry an unconscious man through a gauntlet of enemies and decide whether or not to become a torturer. Each mission is designed as a sandbox, allowing players to utilise whatever approach they want, and if you’re anything like me, you’ll take your time, getting the lay of the land, discovering alternate routes, listening in on conversations, taking on optional objectives, looking for secrets and treasure, and generally just playing.
Players who really take the time to enjoy the experience are rewarded too. The more runes, bone charms and money you find, the more you can augment and upgrade your character, and the more bad-ass you’ll become. In fact, by the last couple of missions I was almost too powerful; able to stalk, choke and kill with ease. Good thing there are hard and extra hard difficulty settings to move on to, which ramp up the perceptiveness of enemies and increase the general challenge.
It’s also worth noting that taking out the actual targets in each mission can often be a bit of a letdown. In almost all cases you’ve got a serious advantage over them – no matter how heavily guarded they are. That’s not much of a deal breaker, however, because Dishonored really is about exploration and experimentation as much as the end goal. This is one of those games in which you’ll save often, reloading again and again to try different approaches, until you get each gameplay vignette just right.
Even though the odds are very much in your favour (on normal difficulty at least), the gameplay evolves nicely alongside the story. New factions and enemy types are introduced, which help shift up the vibe and introduce new challenges. One mission in particular pits Corvo against foes that aren’t so easily outmanoeuvred, and it’s a great touch, even though I’d have loved to see that sub-story pushed a little further.
In fact, that goes for a lot of the game. It’s a fascinating world with a memorable cast, not to mention an interesting overarching tension between mystical pagan magic and industrialisation, but all these elements never really feel like they come to fruition. The experience is still engrossing from start to finish, however.
You may also have some small issues with the controls. Climbing ledges - particularly when getting out of water - sometimes isn't as smooth as it could be. The mechanic for sneaking up on guards and grabbing them from behind can be a little temperamental too - nothing worse than coming up behind a guard and blocking instead of grabbing. It's also a little disappointing that the well-implemented first person perspective doesn't extend to carrying objects, which just hover in space, in stark contrast to wielding weapons, powers and knocking guards out. Oh, and you'll come across a few invisible walls in the play spaces, too, which is a bit of a shame, but probably unavoidable. None of these concerns are deal breakers, as Dishonored is very much a joy to play.
It's also one of the prettiest games of recent years. The art direction is nothing short of incredible, and it's matched with a visual aesthetic that makes the world look like an oil painting in motion. Dishonored isn’t competing on detail; it’s driven by soft textures, intelligent use of colours and contrast, and beautiful lighting. From terraced urban streets to industrial warehouses, menacing fortresses to regal palaces, it’s Victorian England meets City 17 meets whalepunk. The character modelling is superb too, even if the facial animations could be better... and the oddly oversized hands could be smaller.
As is becoming standard, PC owners are in for the biggest visual treat. Dishonored does look excellent on console - I finished it on Xbox 360, then started again on PS3, and thoroughly enjoyed playing on both. You may notice minor frame rate issues and a little tearing, but nothing that will really take away from the gameplay. That said, it's significantly better-looking on a modern PC, so that should be the platform of choice for players who have the option.
The Verdict
It's a shame that Dishonored's story isn't greater than the sum of its decidedly memorable parts, but its gameplay absolutely is. Each mission is built as an elaborate network of choices for players to explore, and the same can be said for Corvo himself. Each player's selection of powers, perks and other upgrades will inform how they see and interact with this world, and no two play-throughs will be exactly the same. Dishonored is a game you'll talk with your friends about, and that you'll want to play multiple times. In this game there are always other paths to be taken and other challenges to conquer, and that's a refreshing thing indeed.
TGC score: 8.5
Resident Evil 6
Undone by its ambitious attempt to pack four game experiences into one, Resident evil 6 suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. At times it very much embraces its old school heritage, pitting its heroes against horrific creatures in the darkest, filthiest locales imaginable. Tension is palpable thanks to production values that reach new heights for the franchise. Yet it simultaneously attempts to be the largest, most action-packed entry in its history, betraying the aforementioned strengths. Lengthy firefights, driving sequences and other ill-conceived ideas grind the game's incredible moments to a halt. The result is something erratic and never sure of itself, delivering brilliance one moment and something far less interesting the next.
At the heart of Resident evil 6 are the game’s four campaigns and seven lead characters. Rather than weaving these characters and stories along a singular campaign, Capcom diffuses them across four individual threads, each with its own beginning and end. This singular choice defines everything about this game, highlighting both its greatest accomplishments and remarkable shortcomings.
Resident Evil 6’s over-the-top world is built piece-by-piece through its four storylines, which cleverly integrate with each other. Questions aren’t necessarily answered until the entire plot emerges through different perspectives, and the realization that the game’s designers deliberately held something back to unleash it during a later campaign makes the effort of pushing through four individual campaigns worth it. It’s remarkable to enter a scene, realize its place in the larger timeline, and get a payoff for something that was merely hinted at during an entirely different character arc. There’s a cumulative narrative effect that occurs here, one that wouldn’t be possible if Capcom chose a different path.
Every storyline in this game, through a combination of great environments, great enemies and a carefully cultivated sense of wide-eyed, B-movie horror, has situations so memorable that they’ll be seared into your brain. It’s hard to forget the first time you’re crushed by the relentless, beastly Ustanak, or watch a creature spew out C-virus gas in a crowded area, turning dozens of trapped human survivors into flesh-eating zombies. These moments come frequently, often serving as vivid, gory reminders of the game’s tense storytelling prowess.
Yet the layered narrative sometimes works against the gameplay. As the campaigns cross paths, the game forces players to replay sequences - including some lengthy encounters that really ought to be played once and only once. There is nothing gained from this repetition, as the only story revelations come from cutscenes and dialogue - not in-game action. A game that thrives on the stacked benefit of multiple perspectives manages to forget how that negatively impacts the actual experience of playing through encounters repeatedly.
That notion of repetition shines light on the most basic element of Resident Evil 6’s biggest shortcomings – it’s actually too big. Each campaign in this game contains moments of sheer excellence, but these are dragged down by the poor design of others. Chris’s spectacular confrontation with a massive snake in a shabby Chinese apartment is preceded and interrupted by lengthy, monotonous gunfights on rooftops and a rather uninteresting fight against a helicopter. Jake and Sherry escape and engage threats by riding motorcycles and snow mobiles, making their thrilling, futile attempts to stop the Nemesis-like Ustanak significantly less rewarding. This mix of highs and lows is not only confusing, it’s downright frustrating.
Early on, different types of gameplay and tones of horror are established for each campaign. When the game’s design works within these core competencies, it is absolutely a great experience. The elimination of Chris’s team by an overwhelming, reptilian threat. Jake and Sherry repeatedly fleeing from the Ustanak. Leon and Helena surviving the ravaged Tall Oaks or uncovering the twisted secrets of an underground laboratory. Ada attempting to solve elaborate, convoluted puzzles in the belly of a submarine. These experiences stand apart from each other while remaining true to the beating heart of the Resident Evil franchise in their own unique way.
Capcom would have done itself a world of good by simply understanding these individual storylines do not exist in a vacuum and don’t need to be the same in terms of volume or length. Rather than trying to force diversity into each campaign through blatantly protracted action sequences, the development teams should have understood the campaigns feel freshest if they maintain a sense of purpose. This is not the first title in the franchise to attempt “non-traditional experiences,” like taking the helm of a vehicle, but by virtue of its scope, it becomes the most excessive offender.
Over the past 15 years, Resident Evil has created its fear through one central tenant - you have guns and possibly allies, but the creatures you face are so powerful that none of these odd-eveners matter. The mutant and militant J’avo creatures more or less throw that out the window. Suddenly you’re engaging in firefights with soldiers that have machine guns, sniper rifles and rocket launchers - plus helicopters and tanks. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen some of these in a Resident Evil game, but it’s never been so pervasive. The implementation of a cover system and move-and-shoot controls add to this overall shift for the franchise, making it less about its core principles and more about trying to be something it’s not.
The game does offer vast improvements in terms of cooperative experience - online or off. Resident Evil 5 was notorious for its vacuous AI partner system. This time, your ally will actually be useful, assisting you when necessary and not taking your resources. That’s not to say the system is perfect. It’s not uncommon for you to issue an order only to have it ignored, or to stand waiting at a door for what feels like an eternity while your partner is seemingly missing in action. Playing with a friend, who can now drop in and out of your game at any time, will solve some of this, but once again exposes the weaknesses of Capcom’s buddy-focused direction for the Resident Evil franchise. Tense or terrifying moments give way to a feeling of safety with the added company. It’s hard to worry about a threat when your buddy is just around the corner to save you.
Other online additions feel superficial, particularly compared to the vast scope of the core campaign. Mercenaries Mode returns, allowing ‘skill points’ earned in its time- and score-based gameplay to be applied to its own unique upgrades, or to the core campaign’s. Tying the two experiences together will certainly provide some incentive to some. Agent Hunt Mode, meanwhile, allows you to take on the role of an enemy in a random online player’s game, but the implementation of enemy combat and camera control is so haphazard there’s little point in indulging.
Some of Capcom’s greatest successes are more immediately noticeable thanks to some incredibly strong world, lighting, and creature design. Outside of the return of the franchise’s iconic zombies, which are a bit faster and more capable than in past iterations, Resident Evil 6 features an all-new roster of monsters. This was a bold move, one that adds a much-needed element of unpredictability to the campaigns. In fact, some of these creations - like the zombie-spawning Lepotitsa, or relentless Rasklapanje - rank among some of the best designs and concepts in the history of the franchise - no small feat for a series famous for the quality of its enemies.
Atmosphere is the essence of the Resident Evil series. A powerful environment, full of detail and depth, pulls you in, creating a sense of history and life while also amplifying the emotional reaction. There’s a reason settings like the Spencer Mansion from the first Resident Evil or Rapture from Bioshock prove so memorable. Those games wouldn’t be nearly as powerful without those locales. In fact much of their experience relies upon them. Resident Evil 6 has no shortage of these types of great set pieces, ranging from cities under siege to dark, vast catacombs to cramped, cluttered high-rises.
These aesthetics mostly succeed thanks to an emphasis on strong lighting effects. Serving as a stark contrast to Resident Evil 5’s sun-soaked locales, this sequel often opts for much darker scenery, pushing the overall visual fidelity through an increased emphasis on shadows and moody illumination. The result is an experience that has an immediate impact on the player, but the increased lighting design does have some unfortunate consequences. Background objects, textures and NPCs often take a noticeable dip in quality, sometimes to the point of distraction. Yet as a whole, Resident Evil has rarely felt so alive.
The Verdict
Evolution and ambition are only natural for a franchise as old as Resident Evil, as is the need to respect a long-lasting legacy and the fans that have come to appreciate it. But in trying to serve all masters, Resident evil 6 loses focus and fails to accurately assess which of its elements are truly worthy of being included. When this game is at its height, it sets new standards for the series in every way. Unfortunately, there are no shortage of lows either, taking what could have been an excellent experience and making it something considerably lesser.
Reviews
TGC score: 9.0
When you’ve managed to create an unexpectedly great first entry for a franchise, it begs the question: What the hell do you do with the sequel? In the case of Borderlands 2 developer Gearbox has decided to largely stick with what worked the first time around, while implementing a host of tweaks that make it an overall superior game. A few relatively minor complaints aside, Borderlands 2 improves not only the narrative, but almost every major game system. If you’ve been itching for a reason to jump back into the world of Pandora, Borderlands 2 provides a more than ample supply.
The hook of Borderlands 2, the very reason that I found myself thinking about it when I worked or tried to fall asleep, is the loot. Guns, ammo, character skins, grenade mods, class mods -- there’s always something just a bit better, something you so desperately didn’t even know you needed until you found it in Borderlands 2. Just like Diablo or a number of other action RPGs, the hunt for loot becomes intoxicating because of the tiny rush you get each time a rare colored item spills out of a chest or is dropped by a recently slain enemy. Every firefight and intense boss battle becomes all the more rewarding, because, though you might die a few times and want to crush something near you in real life, it suddenly feels like everything is going to be OK when you’re blasting away enemies with a newly looted gun.
Guns really do make up the bulk of the loot, and that’s great because you’re going to spend most of your time in Borderlands 2 staring down a gun sight. No matter the quest, at some point something or someone is getting pounded with lead. Thankfully, snappy shooting and lots of environmental hazards combine with each class’s unique ability to turn every skirmish into a playground. You simply have to decide the best -- or most entertaining -- way to kill everyone.
While many guns operate similarly to one another, the stats and augmentations are just complex enough to create a seemingly endless number of combinations, without being so diverse that they’re hard to understand at a glance. You roll in, you kill anything that looks at you the wrong way, and then you walk around and look at items, utilizing the handy on-screen comparison tools to see if you’ve found something at all better than what you’re already holding. It keeps things from dragging, and drives you rapidly onward in the never-ending quest for loot.
Seeing as how Borderlands 2 takes cues from numerous RPGs, I still find myself disappointed with the lack of visual customization options (Borderlands 2 features the ability to reskin your character, but only with blanket skins that change the look of their body and their head). However, when it comes to class skill customization, Borderlands 2 is heading in the right direction. Like the first game, Borderlands 2’s four classes each have a unique ability. Unlike the original, though, a lot of options have been added to the skill trees to make it possible to create much more diverse builds...at least to a point. No matter what, every Commando will be about using turrets, every Gunzerker about raging out and blasting people with two weapons at once, every Siren about using a stun ability called Phase Lock, and every Assassin about temporarily cloaking and unleashing devastating surprise attacks. But how those abilities and characters function can be tailored to your playstyle (and can be changed over and over again for a negligible fee on a whim). For instance your Assassin might be focused on sniping and avoiding damage, while mine could be tailored to get in close and melee enemies while taking it on the chin. On the surface two people’s takes on a class might seem similar, but the new, more filled out skill trees allow you to create a version of a class that better suits your style.
Trying out skills and then reassigning skill points over and over is important in Borderlands 2, especially when you consider that you can play alone or with up to three other people. Grouping in Borderlands 2 makes the combat feel different; enemies get harder and you can use each class’s power to support your allies. The Commando could toss out a turret, drawing enemy fire while the Assassin closes in and pummels enemies to death, for instance. Since loot is shared you need to pick your partners carefully. Playing with strangers or super aggressive friends means you’ll likely find yourself in a race to see who can grab everything the fastest, and that’s really not all that fun. No matter how you feel about Diablo III, making it so each player only sees their own loot is brilliant design, and it’s a shame Borderlands 2 takes it in a route that means people are competing with one another.
If you want to take your character’s customization even further, Borderlands 2’s new Badass Ranking system gives you plenty of ways to work for it. A host of in-game challenges track things like headshots with a specific weapon class, or looting a large number of chests. As you finish each of these tasks for the first time, you’re given a token you can spend on a number of tiny boosts that affect stats like reload speed, recoil reduction and weapon damage. The bonuses per token are really small, but as you earn more than 100 of them, the benefits really start to add up. Best of all, these bonuses benefit every character you create, giving them a bit of a head start (you can turn it off if you don’t want the bonus). It’s another way Borderlands 2 makes you feel consistently rewarded, and it provides plenty of incentive to use weapons or play differently than you otherwise would.
Plot wise, Borderlands 2 is a direct sequel, with a story that picks up shortly after the first. You play one of four new Vault Hunters who’ve come to Pandora to hunt for – you guessed it – vaults. Unfortunately, since the opening of the last vault the planet’s been all but taken over by Hyperion Corporation and its insidious and somewhat charming leader, Handsome Jack. Through a number of events outside of your control, you end up getting wrapped up in a plot to stop Jack, save the world and help out some of the citizens and beloved characters from the first game.
The main story hits on notes you’ve probably encountered in hundreds of other games but, despite being clichéd and more than a little predictable, it’s still far more successful than in the original. Borderlands 2’s campaign narrative actually tells a coherent story, with endearing characters who manage to feel nuanced and real. At times the story can even be touching and heavy, though this is when it starts to feel a bit at odds with Borderlands 2’s overwhelmingly silly sense of humor. Ultimately, though, it’s a yarn worth hearing, one that ropes you in and makes you feel like what you’re doing has purpose – something the original game never really achieved.
The main story’s good, but the best writing in Borderlands 2 comes from the side quests. If you played and enjoyed things like the General Knoxx or Claptrap DLC from the first game, then you’ll be in for a real treat throughout Borderlands 2’s more than 30 hours of game time. Each time the main story starts to slow down, you’re almost always given a number of sidequests to jump into. Mechanically they don’t do anything all that different from typical RPG “kill this” or “collect that” fodder quests, but the writing, presentation, and acting turn them into some of the most memorable content the game has to offer. For instance one mission has you fighting off a “splinter group” of ninja-like bandits who just so happen to live in a sewer, eat pizza and talk like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Another side quest tasks you with collecting body parts for a robot who wants to become human, and his take on humanity, as well as the way he talks, turns into genuine comedy. Not many games manage to make me literally laugh out loud, but Borderlands 2’s mixture of gutter humor and sharp wit did so repeatedly. Even when I had far out-leveled the sidequest content I couldn’t help but return to it, lest I miss out on something awesome.
Similarly to how the sidequests build upon the writing Gearbox became known for with the first game’s DLC, Borderlands 2 also expands upon other parts of the game in smaller, but still significant ways. From more options to how you sort missions, to easy ways to mark and sell loot, to an always present mini-map, the entire interface is simply a lot more user friendly and intuitive.
Sadly, though, little has been done to improve the driving component of the series. Outside of a few quests that require you to use a car, the vehicles feel largely underutilized and not all that valuable outside of getting you to destinations a lot quicker. Borderlands 2 is a shooter first and foremost, but it’d be awesome to see smarter mission design that takes advantage of them in, say, the way Halo does with its vehicle levels. Even so, they offer a change of pace from the rest of the game’s shoot and loot cycle.
If thirty hours of what I’ve described doesn’t seem like enough, Borderlands 2 provides plenty of reasons to play it again and again. All four of the classes are a lot of fun to play, and even after you finish the campaign there’s always the option to try out Vault Hunter Mode, which is essentially a second playthrough where you get to keep your loot and levels. Even after you hit the cap of 50 you can fight the game’s first four-person raid boss. With the promise of DLC on the horizon, which Gearbox did a great job with the first time around, I know I’ll be coming back to Borderlands 2 again.
When it comes to what platform you should play on…well, it doesn’t really matter all that much. Get Borderlands 2 on PS3, 360 or PC and you’ll experience the exact same content. All of them have the same story, the same skill trees and the same minor issues with texture pop-in. During my playthrough bugs would also occasionally pop up. Typically this involved enemies or objects getting stuck in the world, and in one case this resulted in the need to completely restart a boss fight. Since they happen so randomly, though, it’s hard to say whether or not these will occur during your playthrough, or whether they’ll even occur on all platforms. Still, they were more than a little annoying, and really broke me out of the experience sometimes.
The one thing worth pointing out between the various platforms is how cool Borderlands 2 can look if you have an awesome PC. The PC version allows plenty of tweaks to draw distance, frame rate and more. It also allows Nvidia card users to turn on Physx options, which results in a hell of a lot more particles flying around, realistic liquid physics, and a greater sense of destructible environments. Ultimately I don’t feel this is something console gamers will miss, but for those of you with great hardware it’s an additional thing to enjoy. Just be warned: it’s very, very resource intensive.
The Verdict
Borderlands 2 preserves the best parts of the franchise while also making numerous, much needed improvements to areas like narrative and class skill design. Additional visual customization options would make it better, and the occasional technical issue takes away from the experience, but overall this is an excellent shooter no one even remotely curious should overlook. Prepare to level. Prepare to loot. Prepare to get lost in the hilarious, bizarre and wonderful world of Pandora.
Borderlands 2
TGC score: 9.2
