Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising: Hands On

Codemasters recently held a press event for both Colin McRae Dirt 2 and Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising, here in London. I was lucky enough to walk away with a special two mission playable preview disc of the P.C version of Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising and I will be basing this “hands on” preview on this code.

First of all, a bit of history lesson and a few facts about this new title. For the benefit of maybe some of the younger readers here (and those living under a rock), the original Operation Flashpoint Cold War Crisis, was released way, way back in 2001, developed by Bohemia Interactive. After many patches, upgrades, an expansion pack and a rumoured sequel, Bohemia fell out with Codemasters. Bohemia Interactive then went on to produce the critically acclaimed Armed Assault and more recently, not surprisingly Armed Assault II. With both Armed Assault titles, Bohemia basically produced the spiritual successor to Operation Flashpoint and pretty much was a sequel in everything but name. However, as Codemasters still had the rights to the Operation Flashpoint name and franchise, they decided to produce an official, full on sequel of there own and hey presto, we now have Dragon Rising!

In Dragon Rising, Codemasters once again have the action set on an entirely fictional island, this time around on a place named “Skira”, which sounds more like a planet from Doctor Who, than a fictional island, if you ask me.The island is 220km square in size and the really impressive thing is that this is completely loaded into main memory on both console and P.C versions at mission start. It’s entirely possible to walk your virtual soldier from one end of the island to the other in real time, but this will take you something like 9 hours to achieve. This also offers some stunning views as you can see along the length of the island if you go to a high point on the terrain (and of course you have the graphical detail turned up to max).

The basic scenario setup, is that you play a U.S soldier as part of a U.S force that’s tasked with fighting off a Chinese invasion of the island. The setting is near future as opposed to the 1980’s cold war of the original, so modern, very cool weapons, armoured vehicles and aircraft are employed by both sides. I particularly like the TOW anti-tank missile launcher that has a proper full on loading animation and a devastating effect on armour. This brings me nicely onto the subject of realism and Codemasters are keen to point out that this is a realistic military shooter and not a run of the mill FPS where you play a Rambo type character. On normal setting, the game is very challenging with a few hits normally killing you or your squad mates but you have an onscreen HUD and indicators for how injured you or squad mates are. In hardcore mode, there’s no HUD onscreen at all and the only indication of the state of health for you or the squad is through audio clues of actual physical indicators (i.e. you or the other guys may limp or breath heavy etc when wounded). It’s all very authentic stuff and apparently this is a feature that fans of the original Operation Flashpoint were screaming out for. You also only get one save point at the very start of the missions, so if you mess things up, you need to start over again.

On the P.C preview disc I received, there were two playable missions from the full game. The first one called “Dragon Rising” is kind of a tutorial with hints that pop up during play about the major features such as the orders system or using the medical kit etc. The objectives for this mission are to first destroy the enemy radar and then to take out the enemy SAM launchers. The second mission has the player securing a beachhead and protecting and escorting landing AAVPs (basically amphibious APCs) as they move inland. Both missions gave me a very good indication of how the game actually plays. Right from the off when you load a mission, the game oozes atmosphere, with the screen gradually fading from a blurred effect as radio messages can be heard and there’s lots going on in the form of helicopters buzzing around and the sounds of battle in the distance. The graphics look absolutely stunning and the Ego engine ran just fine even on my modest P.C setup. The terrain of the island of Skira has authentically modelled grass and al sorts of fauna and dense wooded areas. The controls were very intuitive, with standard WASD setup for moving around and mouse look for aiming and looking. All the squad controls are accessed via hitting Q and all the standard, expected orders can be found here. You can also give orders via the real time map. In fact, upon initial play, Dragon Rising does remind me a little of the original Ghost Recon game (not Advance Warfighter, but the very 1^st one!), as it really almost feels like you are a soldier in the thick of things. The missions seem quite dynamic and it’s up to you how you how you approach each objective. The combat system feels very realistic and if you get hit, you slowly bleed to death and if you don’t use the medical kit before the red indicator disappears, the screen fades to grey and you die. This also applies to squad mates if they get hit, so you need to give them first aid in these situations.

Despite the realism, there is one design choice that has me scratching my head at this early stage. The game is very much first person and you cannot go 3^rd person by hitting enter like in Armed Assault. However, when you get in a vehicle, you do not seem to be able to move your head around with the mouse, but you can hit enter and go to a 3^rd person view while in the vehicle. I hope that this aspect is very much work in progress as it’s odd that the realism and immersion is broken with this oversight.

The final game will also feature a full multiplayer game, with all the usual modes, plus the option to play the entire campaign cooperatively with three other people, arranged as a squad. The P.C version will also ship with a fully featured mission editor, where the player can also create missions for the Chinese forces as well as the U.S, so expect to see some very interesting user created content for many months (if not years) after the games release this September.

Velvet Assassin Review

Velvet Assassin
PC DVD
Developer: Replay Studios
Publisher: SouthPeak Games
Game website: http://www.velvetassassin.com/

Overview

Velvet Assassin is stealth based, third person perspective action/adventure set during WW2. You play as beautiful British agent Violette Summer, sent behind German lines on a range of missions to kill key targets, sabotage enemy installations and generally be a real nuisance for the Third Reich. The whole narrative of the game is told as flashbacks, with Violette retelling her exploits from a hospital bed, surrounded by German guards. The set up for each mission is portrayed in a photo album, with each picture animated to show a scene from the upcoming mission. The flashback theme is continued in the actual missions, with Violette recounting key events in the past tense.

In the actual missions, you view Violette from a third person perspective with standard keyboard controls for moving back & forward and strafing left and right. The mouse movement controls turning left and right and moving the camera view up and down. All pretty standard stuff. Violette can jump, but only at set points and she can climb up ladders and onto objects such as crates or boxes. Unfortunately, Violette doesn’t have quite the range of moves of Sam Fisher or even Lara Croft and cannot do things like shimmy along ledges etc. You can put Violette into a crouch by holding down the left ctrl key and then hide in the shadows to avoid the guards. Crouching also makes Violettes movements slower, but quiet, so that she can sneak up behind German guards that have their backs to her. In the bottom right of the screen, there is an icon that depicts the silhouette of our agent and when there is a blue outline, you know that Violette is concealed in darkness and cannot be seen. When Violette is close behind an enemy, the screen darkens, the music changes, and pressing the left mouse button, when prompted, initiates a stealth kill with the knife. This initiates a rather stylised and often grisly set animation of our lovely agent robbing the poor German guard of their life.

Throughout the game, various secondary items, not really related to the missions, can be picked up. These have an experience point value. For every 1000 experience points, Violette gets one upgrade point and you can use this to upgrade a number of her key attributes (i.e. stealth ability, shooting, speed), offering an almost RPG “lite” aspect to the gameplay. Violette can also pickup medkits and morphine shots that are sparsely left around the game maps. With both the medkits and morphine, Violette can only pick these up if her health is low or the morphine meter is not full. If the morphine meter is full, pressing the F key slows the whole game and Violette is suddenly wearing a negligee, the same one that she is wearing in the hospital bed at the start, while recounting her exploits. While in this odd “negligee time” mode, Violette moves quicker than normal, while everything else is slowed down, so for a limited amount of time, she can kill German guards with ease. When the morphine meter runs out, everything is back to normal, but you cannot initiate the mode again until the morphine is replenished by finding another pickup of the stuff. This offers a certain tactical element to the game, as you have to be careful about when exactly you use this mode. Likewise, you have a pistol with a silencer that is quicker and generally more efficient at dispatching the guards than with your knife, but you always have a very limited amount of ammunition, so you have to pick and choose when to use it.


The Good Stuff

Graphically, Velvet Assassin is a bit of a stunner, with good character models and animation, and impressive environments. The lighting and real time shadows are particularly impressive with this title, creating a very intense and dramatic feeling as you are sneaking Violette around in the shadows, avoiding the guards and waiting for the right time for the kill. This puts the game (at least visually) on par with the more recent Thief and Splinter Cell titles.

The Bad Stuff

Unfortunately Velvet Assassin is one of those games releases where the bad points far outweigh the good ones. While it’s true that the game is nice to look at, I always say that that great graphics alone do not make a great game and it’s in the gameplay department that this title really falls short of the mark. For starters, the game is very linear, to the point of mind numbing tedium.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with certain game genres being linear by nature (for example arcade based shooters), but stealth action games need to offer variety and choices in the gameplay. With Velvet Assassin the guards always move along the same paths, are always in the same location when you enter an area and always stop for the same intervals on their patrol.

To further demonstrate this, during the first mission you are tasked with placing explosive charges at a gas facility to destroy it. When you finally get to the area, two guards come round a corner with you just out of view, but in earshot and then proceed to have a subtitled argument, where one guard accuses the other of stealing his chocolate. This is amusing the first time you hear it, but when you die and reload from the autosave, you have the same sequence repeated, with the same dialogue. You need to wait for the sequence to finish, so one of the guards can walk past to a point where you can kill him from the shadows.

The game is littered with tedious moments like this and the gameplay is more about trial and error than anything else. The other annoying thing, which adds to the frustration of replaying linear sections over and over again, is the autosave feature, which you have no control over. There is absolutely no manual save. Games that have wretched autosave systems and nothing else annoy me because this is often used as an artificial and lame way of making the game more of a challenge and is used as a poor way of disguising sub standard game and level design, which is the case with Velvet Assassin.

The other part of the game design that baffles and annoys me in equal amounts is the half-hearted inventory system. As mentioned earlier, Violette can pickup medkits and morphine shots, but only if she is injured or the morphine meter is empty. Again this introduces a lame artificial difficulty mechanic. I guess the developers felt the game needed to be a challenge, but completely failed to come up with a logical way of making the gameplay be more tactical. I would rather have had the ability to carry limited supplies of these items in the inventory and had the challenge upped with better German guard A.I or more cunning level design.

Conclusion

I personally found Velvet Assassin a huge disappointment. I love WW2 and stealth action games, but quite frankly this title just does not deliver much enjoyment. It is very much a missed opportunity, as the concept of a stealth based WW2 game with a female British agent has not really been explored before. I’ve only made it to the second mission, but to emphasise the tedium, I don’t think I can really stand to play anymore of this game. In my opinion, it doesn’t even have an engaging story that makes you want to play right through to the end. The other sad thing is that this game completely fails on a gameplay level to even approach the playability of the Thief or Splinter Cell series, which both perfected and pretty much set the standard for the stealth action genre. There’s no nice way to say this, but if you love WW2 action games and stealth games, there are much better, older titles already out there, at a budget price. Save your money and avoid this title.

Score 3 out 10

Men Of War Review

Men Of War
PC DVD
Developer: Best Way
Publisher: 1C/505 Games
Game website: www.menofwargame.com

Overview

Action Man was one of my favourite childhood toys. I would happily play with my collection for hours on end. I loved changing the uniforms, weapons and accessories around and acting out various war scenarios with my friends. Playing Men Of War brings back the feeling of playing with the toys in a very nostalgic way, however the big difference is that the soldiers here come alive onscreen and blow the living crap out of one another!

This is the third game in a series of WW2 strategy games by Russian developer Best Way, having previously done the critically acclaimed Soldiers: Heroes of World War 2 and Faces Of War. On the surface at least, the same basic formula is here for another stint into WW2. You have 24 missions spread over 3 campaigns; one for the Russians, one for the Americans and one for the Germans. You also have all the usual multiplayer options, together with the ability to play any of the 24 main missions co-operatively.

The same small scale, squad based real time strategy is present, together with the direct control system, where the player can move units around with the cursor keys and aim the weapon (or turret when in a tank) with the mouse. It’s still a great system that still works well, two games on. You also still have the ability to equip your soldiers with whatever weapons, ammo, equipment and even helmets that you find dotted around the battlefields, in crates, in vehicles or on the dead bodies of fallen comrades or the enemy.

In terms of differences or improvements over the previous efforts, there are a few worth mentioning. For starters, the squad-based grouping that was first introduced in Faces Of War has been given a good tweak and you can now simply just click on an A.I controlled ally when the “clutching hand” animated icon appears. This is much less fiddly than having to click on a interface icon and then find a sweet spot on an ally to click on to encourage them to join your team. The squad cover system seems to have been improved also and now when you have a team selected and you click near a building or sandbags etc, the soldiers intelligently take cover around the structure.

The Good Stuff

The real gem with Men Of War is the sense of scale within both the environments and the level of destruction. Gunfire, explosions and the sheer tonnage of a tank can lay waste to both property and human life, in abundance. In the heat of the action you get a real sense of being involved in a gritty conflict or one of those old, Sunday afternoon WW2 movies, which I love. The effect is so compelling, at times you feel almost sorry for the for the enemy as the poor little buggers desperately try to hold a position, only for you to blow the hell out of their cover with direct fire from your tank, sending bodies and debris flying into the air. I make the game sound a bit easy, but in fact this is actually a very tough game.

I’m a seasoned strategy gamer, but I found myself switching back to the easy level after a couple of missions and unfortunately, this may put some people off. The good news is that while it is stupidly hard at times, you have so much fun that you quite often don’t mind the challenge.

The Bad Stuff

Unfortunately, the poor path finding from the previous two games is still present and you quite often find your troops taking the longest way round only to get killed, or a tank plough through cover that you were planning to use later during your assault. I can appreciate that having a fully destructible environments presents a challenge for coders, but I thought path finding had progressed beyond this poor level.

In terms of the overall quality of the game, this is probably one of the worst titles in recent memory for voice acting, which is a real shame as the production values in other areas of the game are quite high. I have noticed that this is a common problem with games developed in Eastern Europe, but I do wonder if Best Way simply ran out of budget for this, as the quality really is poor.

Conclusion

I liked Men Of War, but it has to be said that there is nothing much original about the game or the setting as it is yet another WW2 real time strategy game. This is not really helped by the choice of settings within the campaigns as you have an interesting one with the airborne invasion of Crete for the Germans, but the Russian and U.S campaigns are settings that have been done to death. It would have been nice to see maybe an operation in Burma with British troops, or maybe resistance/partisan fighters instead of the Russian setting (or hell, maybe even a Japanese campaign?).

If you love WW2 strategy games, like a good challenge and can forgive some of the games shortcomings, then I can highly recommend this title. It’s a fun game that will keep you coming back for more.

Score: 8 out 10

Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition: Game Review

First of all, I just wanted to point out that this review is very much “spoiler free” as I wanted to take into account any Nintendo Wii owning readers that may not have already played the Gamecube or Playstation 2 versions of the game.

Overview

The Resident Evil series of games have been without any doubt, one of the most influential and successful game franchises, spawning a multitude of sequels on various gaming platforms and three big screen movies. If you’re into computer games, it is a fair bet that you have played at least one of the games, or at the very least heard of the series (unless you’ve been under a rock).

The Wii Edition is basically the same game as the Gamecube and subsequent Playstation 2 release, but with the extras from the Playstation 2 version and controls specifically for the Wii (more on this in a bit). The basic plot setup is that it has been 6 years since the tragic events in Racoon City and the Umbrella Corp is now pretty much bankrupt. You initially play the game as Leon S. Kennedy, a former cop, now working as an agent for the U.S government and you have been sent on a special mission somewhere in Europe to find the U.S president’s daughter, who has been kidnapped. The opening of the game is set very nicely with a cutscene, using the very capable game engine, where Leon is being driven to a remote village by a couple of local police. The police drop Leon off near the village and it quickly becomes apparent that there is something not quite right about this place or its inhabitants. I will not say any more than this regarding the plot as I do not want to spoil it, but suffice to say that its very engaging, creepy, exciting and well written stuff.

If you’re new to this version of the game and if you’ve played the earlier titles, the first thing that will make you think “wow”, is the switch from trademark static camera angles of the series, to a fully fledged 3d game engine. You view the action just behind Leon in a third person perspective view and when important events happen, cutscenes kick in using the in-game engine to further the plot, so the transition from playable sections to narrative and vice-versa are seamless. The graphics, while being a step up from the Playstation 2 version are maybe not quite cutting edge compared to newer titles on say X360 or Playstation 3, but they certainly do the job here and you are presented with a chilling, gritty world as a result. Animation and sound are both well done also and there is a slightly haunting, unnerving sound track that plays in sections when you are not in combat, that switches to a more upbeat dramatic piece when the action kicks in.

Resident Evil 4 is still all about survival horror, with you facing off against various nasties (both “human” and other things), with limited ammo, of course! There’s also a fair share of puzzle solving and exploration and the usual finding of notes to put in your journal, which in turn help to further the plot. The main new thing with the transition of the franchise to the Wii is of course the controls and Capcom have done a pretty good job with this. You move Leon around with the analogue stick on the Nunchuck . Holding down the Z button while pushing forward puts you into a run and holding the Z button while pulling back on the analogue turns Leon 180 degrees. Holding down the B button on the Wii Remote puts Leon into a targeting mode where he raises the equipped weapon and a targeting crosshair onscreen moves around as you move the Wii Remote. The only drawback to this system is that you cannot move and aim/fire your weapon at the same time. There are also set sequences where you have to manically wave the Wii Remote to avoid certain hazards (I don’t want to give away any spoilers here!).

The whole system is very well implemented and the use of the Wii Remote for things like the targeting really immerses you nicely into the action. You also, of course have access to the usual stuff like inventory and map via other button presses. The “typewriter” style save system is still present, but this time you do not need to find an accompanying ribbon to use the typewriter to save. I always found the old system rather annoying as I feel that any game save system should be very simple, so this is a welcome change. The other new change is the concept of money and a kind of “shop”. Some enemies leave behind treasure when you kill them and treasure can also be found in some crates and barrels when you smash them. You also find various other valuable items such as gems. Dotted around the maps are a number of rather dodgy merchant guys where you can buy and sell various items. You can also upgrade your weapons firepower, reload time and ammo capacity. I found this system worked quite well as it added an extra tactical level to the game as you only of course have limited inventory space and cash on hand.

The Good Stuff

There is a great deal to like about this game. The visuals and audio are great, the locations, puzzles and combat are varied, the plot is very engaging and well written and the addition of the Wii controls are very well done. The game lasts a decent amount of time with a solid 20 hours plus of adventuring and throughout that time you will be captivated and on the edge of your seat, with sweaty palms and a raised heartbeat!

The Bad Stuff

To be perfectly honest, there isn’t really much about this release to gripe about. Capcom have taken what was already a fantastic game on the Gamecube and Playstation 2 and successfully ported the whole thing over to the Wii. One thing that is slightly disappointing is that while the graphics are still excellent and certainly pushed the Gamecube and Playstation 2 to their limits, they don’t really stretch the significantly greater capabilities of the Wii and I think it would have been nice if they had been overhauled or given a “new lick of paint” to take advantage of the extra power for the Wii Edition of the game. The other minor gripe that I have is the very old and clichéd mechanic of “breaking the crates/barrels” to find stuff. I know its still a mechanic that works in action/adventure games, but it would have been nice to see something a bit different in a title that gets so much right.

Conclusion

Resident Evil 4 is still a great game and is worthy of a purchase even if you have played the original Gamecube or Playstation 2 versions, as the new Wii controls really do enhance the experience. The gun aiming with the Wii Remote does take a bit of time to get used to, but once you do you will be moving around and lining up that next head shot in no time! If you own a Nintendo Wii then you should own this game, its that simple as this game really is that good.

Score: 9 out 10

Star Trek Games: Past, Present & Future. Part 3

The Present Or Lack-of

Well, this is going to be a short paragraph as quite frankly there isn’t really much available at the moment it terms of new Trek games. The only title released recently, is the lacklustre Star Trek: DAC on Xbox Live Arcade for the Microsoft X360 console. This is basically a very poor, blatant tie in with the new Star Trek movie and is not much more than a simple 2d arcade shooter, with the player controlling a very small spaceship in an overhead view. I am quite surprised that Paramount didn’t work with a developer and publisher on a big new game tie-in for the new movie, maybe they didn’t think the movie was going to be the big hit that it was? Given the success of the new movie (which is great by the way!), I’m kind of hoping that this will pave the way for a new era in Trek computer gaming, but there isn’t much on the horizon at present which leads me rather nicely onto the next part of this article:

The Future (and don’t make it so-so)

The only Trek game on the horizon as far as I know (unless Bethesda have something, hush-hush) is the very ambitious Star Trek Online. The game is being published by Atari and is being developed by Cryptic Studios (of Champions Online fame). The game is still a way off yet from release, but this could turn out to be the game that us Trek gamers have been waiting for, for a long, long time. Each player is a starship captain, with an A.I controlled crew and they will embark on a host of adventures based in space while controlling the ship and on away missions on the surface of planets. Along the way, they will encounter, battle and even team up with other player controlled captains. Not much more at present is known about the game play, but I for one am very excited about the potential of this game and I will certainly be signing up for the beta test!

Conclusion

The history of Trek computer games has certainly had its ups and downs. There have been a few great games, a bunch of average ones and some truly dire ones. I haven’t gone in to detail about all the games that have been released and have concentrated on the ones that I thought were worth mentioning in detail, for instance I deliberately ignored the awful Star Trek:Borg and Star Trek Klingon as they were “games” that jumped on the horrible “interactive movie” bandwagon and I don’t even really consider titles like these as real games. Thank god nobody makes these sorts of games anymore!

You may have noticed a certain pattern emerging with the past Trek games and this leads me nicely onto a big gripe that I have. All of the Trek games that have been released so far have jumped on the bandwagon of several gaming genres without bringing anything revolutionary or particularly inventive to the table. As a blunt example: Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Birth of The Federation = Sid Meier’s Civilization, Star Trek: Hidden Evil = Resident Evil (or a bad homage of it!) – anyway, I think you get the picture. Considering that the original Star Trek T.V series was very progressive and forward thinking, it’s a bit sad that most of the Trek games have lacked originality. I just hope that the success of the new Star Trek movie, will bring in a new age of Trek gaming! (Oh - and will somebody please do a Bridge Commander 2?)

Star Trek Games, In Chronological Order:

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (aka Star Ship) - 1982, by Milton Bradley (Vectrex)

Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator – 1983, by SEGA Inc (Atari 8 bit, T-99/4a, Vic-20, Apple II)

Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative – 1985, by Simon & Schuster Interactive (C64 & PC DOS)

Start Trek: The Promethean Prophecy – 1986, by Simon & Schuster Interactive (P.C DOS)

Star Trek: The Rebel Universe – 1987, by Firebird Software (Atari ST)

Star Trek: The Rebel Universe – 1988, by Simon & Schuster Interactive (C64 & PC DOS)

Star Trek: First Contact – 1988, by Simon & Schuster Interactive (Apple II and PC DOS)

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier – 1989, by Mindscape Inc (PC DOS)

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Transinium Challenge – 1989, by Simon and Schuster Interactive (PC DOS)

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Trivia – 1994, (PC DOS)

Star Trek: 25th Anniversary – 1992, by Interplay (PC DOS)

Star Trek: Judgement Rites – 1993, by Interplay (PC DOS)

Star Trek: The Next Generation – 1993, by Absolute Entertainment (NES)

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Echoes From The Past – 1994 (Sega Genesis/Megadrive, SNES)

Star Trek: Generations – Beyond The Nexus – 1994, by Absolute Entertainment (Gamegear, Gameboy)

Star Trek: The Next Generation – A Final Unity – 1995, by Spectrum Holobyte (PC DOS)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Harbinger – 1995, by Viacom New Media (PC DOS)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Crossroads Of Time – 1995, by Playmates Interactive Entertainment (SNES, Sega Genesis/Megadrive)

Star Trek: Klingon – 1996, by Simon & Schuster Interactive (PC Windows)

Star Trek: Borg – 1997, by Simon & Schuster Interactive (PC Windows, Mac)

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy – 1997, by Interplay (PC Windows)

Star Trek: Generations – 1997, by Microprose (PC Windows)

Star Trek Pinball – 1997, by Interplay (PC Windows)

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Klingon Honour Guard – 1998, by Microprose (PC Windows)

Star Trek: Starship Creator – 1998, by Simon & Schuster (PC Windows,Mac)

Star Trek: The Game Show – 1998, by Sound Source Interactive (PC Windows)

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Birth Of The Federation – 1999, by Hasbro Interactive (PC Windows)

Star Trek: Starfleet Command – 1999, by Interplay (PC Windows)

Star Trek: Hidden Evil – 1999, by Activision (PC Windows)

Star Trek: Starship Creator Warp II – 2000, by JoWood Productions (PC Windows)

Star Trek: Starfleet Command Volume II – Empires At War – 2000, by Interplay (PC Windows)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – The Fallen – 2000, by Simon & Schuster Interactive (PC Windows, Mac)

Star Trek: Armada – 2000, by Activision (PC Windows)

Star Trek: Klingon Academy – 2000, by Interplay (PC Windows)

Star Trek: New Worlds – 2000, by Interplay (PC Windows)

Star Trek: Invasion – 2000, by Activision (Playstation)

Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force – 2000, by Activision (PC Windows)

Star Trek: Conquest Online – 2000, by Activision (PC Windows)

Star Trek: Starfleet Command – Orion Pirates – 2001, by Interplay (PC Windows)

Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force Expansion Pack – 2001, by Activision (PC Windows)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Dominion Wars – 2001, by Simon & Schuster Interactive (PC Windows)

Star Trek: Armada II – 2001, by Activision (PC Windows)

Star Trek: Starfleet Command III – 2002, by Activision (PC Windows)

Star Trek: Bridge Commander – 2002, by Activision (PC Windows)

Star Trek: Elite Force II – 2003, by Activision (PC Windows)

Star Trek: Shattered Universe – 2004, by TDK Mediactive Inc (Playstation 2, Xbox)
Star Trek: Legacy – 2006, by Bethesda Softworks (PC Windows, X360)

Star Trek: Tactical Assault – 2006, by Nintendo (DS)

Star Trek Tactical Assault – 2006, by Bethesda Softworks (PSP)

Star Trek: Encounters – 2006, by Bethesda Softworks (Playstation 2)

Star Trek: Conquest – 2007, by Bethesda Softworks (Playstation 2, Wii)

Star Trek: DAC – 2009, (Xbox Live Arcade)

Star Trek Games: Past, Present & Future. Part 2

Star Trek: Hidden Evil was also released by Activision in 1999 and the title was certainly evil (and quite hidden as it pretty much bombed!). The game was in the Next Generation setting with voice acting by Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner, with the plot picking up after the events of the movie Star Trek: Insurrection. The gameplay was pretty much a Resident Evil wannabe, with 3d characters moving around 2d backdrops, with different camera angles for each scene change, simple puzzles and simple combat. This was a truly poor effort, was bug ridden, had poor graphics and presentation and quite frankly wasn’t much fun to play at all.

Star Trek Voyager received it’s first computer game treatment with the release in 2000 of Star Trek: Voyager Elite Force. I was never really a big fan of the Voyager series for a number of reasons, but I actually quite liked this game. Essentially, the title was a by-the-numbers first person shooter, but the production values were high and the gameplay was fun. The game was built using the Quake III Arena engine and offered a very good multiplayer game as well as a single player story. The only real let down was the generic “boss-battles” that for me kind of destroyed the illusion of being in the Star Trek universe, as “boss” enemies are a tried and tested cliché of arcade and console based action games. A year later, Activision released an expansion pack and in 2002 they released Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force II, which was more of the same with a new storyline.

The new millennium also saw the release of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – The Fallen in 2000. I really like this game and it really succeeded where the likes of Hidden Evil had failed so miserably. At its heart, the game was a third-person action/adventure with the player controlling either Sisko, Major Kira or Worf on a variety of missions, facing off against the Dominion. I won’t spoil the story here for those that haven’t played the game, but suffice to say that it’s a well crafted tale that fits in with the action and adventure elements. The game also looked very nice and played well, thanks to the excellent use of the Unreal Tournament engine under the hood.

For me, 2002 was an important year for Trek computer games as the eagerly awaited Star Trek: Bridge Commander was finally released. At the time I knew this was going to be something special as it was developed by the famous Larry Holland and Totally Games, who gave us the excellent X-Wing, TIE Fighter and X-Wing Alliance games. Larry and his team were masters of the space combat genre, so they were the obvious choice as developer for this title and they certainly didn’t disappoint, as I still regard this as the finest Trek game released so far. The set-up is that you are the captain of a Starfleet vessel, having been a first-officer and promoted after your captain is killed in the opening sequence. You look through the eyes of your alter ego, and the bridge is in full 3d, with fully animated bridge crew that talk to you, and you can issue orders to them, etc. You can also take direct control over engineering, weapons, helm or just give orders to the crew. For me, this is what a Trek game should be about, as Bridge Commander perfectly captured the essence of being a Starfleet captain. The story was engaging, the missions varied and the space combat was excellent. The only real criticisms that I had were that the game was very linear and you could only save in-between missions, which are both minor points considering the excellent quality of the game. The rather strange and puzzling fact is that this title was never re-released as a budget title and is now rare and valuable in its original release as a result.

Bethesda Softworks did their take on Trek in 2006 with Star Trek Legacy, released simultaneously on P.C and X360. The game was basically third person starship combat, set in three eras of Trek: Enterprise, Original Series and TNG/DS9/Voyager. You also had the actual voices from all 5 actors who played the 5 captains from all of the T.V shows. On paper, the title certainly looked impressive, but unfortunately the game turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. The visuals and audio were certainly impressive, but the overall gameplay felt a bit too simplistic and I could not help the feeling that this was really a cut down version of the excellent Starfleet Command. The actual combat was fun, but there were no ship system upgrades, crew upgrades and that sort of stuff in between missions (although you could buy new ships). The whole thing felt not much more than a space shooter set in the Trek universe.
One thing I love about P.C games is the whole “mod” community and there have been several released, that improve the quality of Legacy by a significant amount. In particular, the Ultimate Universe mod, which adds things like ship upgrades and the like and turns what was an average Trek game into a pretty decent Trek game!

The final part of this article will be posted on Friday.

Star Trek Games: Past, Present & Future. Part 1

As a small boy, I eagerly watched with glee reruns of the original 60’s Star Trek series, once a week on BBC2. Like most kids, I wanted to be Captain Kirk, boldly going and kicking Klingon butt around the galaxy. I used to play Star Trek with my best friends, using a mixture of official toys and other non-official or even remotely similar toys to act out our own versions of an episode. Deep down, I knew this was probably all just the beginning and sure enough, just around the corner was the wonderful beginning of COMPUTER GAMES!

There have been many Star Trek computer games over the years, covering the original series, the spin-offs and some of the movies, on a whole host of gaming platforms. Some have been good, some bad and some downright awful. In my opinion, the current and previous state of Trek gaming is a bit sad, which is a real shame as this is a very rich and deep franchise that has a lot to offer, which deserves some decent titles.

The Glorious and Not so Glorious Past

The very first Star Trek computer game that I played was Star Trek: The Rebel Universe on my beloved Atari ST. At the time, it was probably the best Star Trek game and totally captured my imagination, but I am probably looking back at it through rose-tinted glasses as looking at the game now it hasn’t aged very well (oh well, this was 1987 after all!). The cute thing about The Rebel Universe was the fact that digitised images of Kirk, Spock, Bones, Sulu, Chekov , Scotty and Uhura were used for both the bridge view and various Enterprise station views. Of course, by today’s standards, this tech is woeful, but at the time it was very cutting edge. The other interesting aspect of this game was that it used speech samples taken directly from one of the actual 60’s episodes, so you had Chekov blurting out “locked on target” and Scotty shouting “captain, she’ll blow up if we keep this speed up” (or something like that). The actual gameplay was very simplistic, but it did afford both combat and exploration. The important thing is that at the time, it did capture the spirit of Star Trek.

Fast forward to 1992 and we now have Trek gaming firmly in the hands of Interplay with Star Trek: 25th Anniversary. Now the fact that this game already had “25th Anniversary” in the title made me feel a bit old back then, so…… anyway moving swiftly on (ahem). In 1992, the “point and click” adventure was all the rage and Interplay blatantly jumped on this bandwagon, to perfection I might add, as 25th Anniversary was a great game. This game worked because it felt exactly like you were immersed in an episode of the 60’s T.V show. The gameplay elements included starship combat, away team missions and puzzle solving, with plot progression via dialogue choices. There was also a fair amount of excellently crafted humour between the central characters, completely matching the style of the T.V show (you still had the comedy double act of Spock and Bones!). Fans of the show lapped this up and the game is still considered a classic even today. A year later, Interplay released the equally good Star Trek: Judgement Rites, which was pretty much more of the same with a new plot.

Next up in 1995, was the very first foray with Picard at the helm, with Star Trek The Next Generation: A Final Unity. This was published by the now long defunct Spectrum Holobyte. At the time, this had a lot of Trek gamers very excited, not just because it was the very first Next Generation title but also because of what was promised in terms of content. As with 25th Anniversary and Judgement Rites the title was meant to be as close to playing and experiencing the T.V show as possible. The game used original, recorded speech from all of the main cast and the actual music from the show. Well, they almost succeeded in terms of emulating the feel of the show and creating a great game. To be fair, at the time it was probably the best Trek game that had been released so far, but looking back on it now I simply cannot help regarding it as a flawed point and click adventure, with very poorly implemented starship combat.

In 1997, we saw the first Trek game to concentrate on starship combat with Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. The player was a cadet at Starfleet Academy and the missions consisted of simulated combat and encounters on a bridge simulator. During the simulator missions, the player took direct control of a Starfleet vessel and various ship stations and systems were accurately portrayed with full functionality that fitted in well with the Trek Universe. The storyline was conveyed to the player via full motion movie style cutscenes, in between the simulator missions, with George Takei reprising his role as Sulu, but now as an Academy instructor. The game was a flop for myself and most fans, as you only ever went out on simulator missions, the “movie” bits were tiresome and the game was very linear without much in the way of actual content. An expansion pack called Chekov’s Lost Missions was later released and in 2000 the formula was repeated with Star Trek: Klingon Academy, but this time with much better graphics and proper (non bridge sim) missions, but alas still with the woeful FMV cutscenes, this time with Christopher Plummer back again in his role as General Chang.

The very first Trek game to embrace the first –person shooter style of gameplay was released in 1998, with Star Trek: The Next Generation – Klingon Honour Guard. The game was built using the excellent Unreal engine and the player was kind of a Klingon “special forces”, engaging various enemies with a variety of cool, familiar looking Klingon weapons. The plot was very good and offered lots of twists, turns, skulduggery and treachery. The developers did a great job in making the player feel like a Klingon warrior and the missions where set in a variety of locales including the outside of a spaceship (using magnetic boots, to stop you floating off in space) and the famous Rura Penthe penal colony from the movie Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. It was a great game, only marred by some annoying bugs and tech glitches with certain P.C setups.

The year 1999 saw the release of a couple Trek games that were very interesting for any Star Trek fans that also enjoyed a bit of strategy:
Star Trek: Starfleet Command was based on the old hexes and cardboard counters board wargame Starfleet Battles. I rushed out to buy the game as soon as it was released and when I fired it up for the first time, I remember thinking “yes, Star Trek gaming has arrived!” This for me, was the first Trek game that truly captured the spirit of being a starship captain in the Trek universe. You were in charge of Starfleet vessel viewed from 3rd person, performing various missions such as escort duty, scanning planets and destroying enemy vessels etc. Doing well in the missions gave you “prestige points” which you could then spend on upgrades, new crew and new ships between missions. It was a great game and the only real criticisms that I have is that you could only move you ship along a 2d flat plane and not go up and down in the z-axis and the game had no real actual plot to speak of. In 2000, Interplay released a follow up: Starfleet Command II: Empires at War, which was more of the same but with more ships, races and upgrades and the “dynaverse” multiplayer system (which was very buggy on initial release). In 2002, Activision updated the series to the Next Generation setting, with the rather excellent Star Trek: Starfleet Command III. This was essentially more of the same, but with better graphics, the Next Generation setting and ship and a proper, well written plot.

The other interesting Trek strategy title released in 1999 was the quite good Star Trek: The Next Generation – Birth Of The Federation. This was the first (and only, sadly) foray into the world of turn-based strategy and borrowed heavily in terms of game play style from the much celebrated Civilization by Sid Meier. The player picked a race to play as (i.e. Federation, Klingon, Romulan etc), with a starting home planet and could build ships, colonise planets, research new technology, engage in diplomacy with other races and of course wage war with other races in starship combat. It was a good game, only really being let down by very poor starship combat and unoriginal gameplay as it was pretty much Trek does Civilization.

Look out for part 2 of this article, which will be posted on Weds!

The Tomorrow War: PC DVD Review

The Tomorrow War

PC DVD & digital download

Developer: CrioLand

Publisher: 1C Company

Game website: http://www.1cpublishing.eu/game/the-tomorrow-war/overview

Overview

Space, the final frontier….

Oops I should stop right there, this isn’t a Star Trek game, I’ve been going through a serious Trek phase since watching the new film (which is great!) and I will be doing a separate blog post on Trek games! Anyway back to the review:

The Tomorrow War is a space sim/action game based on a trilogy of novels by Russian author Alexander Zorich. This fact in itself is somewhat puzzling as 1C are obviously using this as PR for the game, but I cannot actually find the novels, which leads me to believe that the books have not been translated into English (although I could be wrong on this!)

The basic premise is that it’s the 27^th century and mankind has colonised the galaxy. The United Nations protects Earth and one half of the galaxy, but one of the colonies called Concordia has become very powerful and has colonised 30 of the other planets. So the scene is set and inevitably war erupts between the UN and Concordia.

There are basically two sections to the gameplay and I will detail them separately as they do differ in quality. Firstly there are the sections of the game where the player is on a carrier or base in between missions. The player can access various areas of the ship or base via a menu in the top right and they can click on various characters to initiate the dialogue between characters and to start things like mission briefings. You are Andrew Rumey and you start as a cadet pilot on a UN carrier. The between mission sections are reminiscent of games such as Wing Commander or Conflict Freespace and set the scene for the storyline and mission progression.

The second section of the gameplay, which is really the “meat” of The Tomorrow War are the actual missions, where the player controls a variety of fighters, bombers and transports in a wide variety of missions, both in space and in a planet’s atmosphere. One very impressive aspect of this title is the seamless transition between space and planetside without any loading or pausing as such. CrioLand have a very powerful game engine here and I will be very interested to see what they do with it in the future. With the space gameplay, the player can set the game to either arcade style, which gives you a Wing Commander style flight model, or simulation which gives you a more realistic ride with things like Newtonian physics etc. If you’ve played any of the popular space sim/action games that have been released in the last 10 years then this is all familiar, welcoming territory. The Tomorrow War does have some very nice features that I haven’t really seen in other games of this genre such as the fully 3d cockpit that you can look around and the ability to padlock a target, which are features that you more commonly find in a flight sim. All the other usual stuff is here to play with; a variety of main guns and missiles, various autopilot modes such as fly to target, dock, form up etc. The first few missions are essentially training sorties, but it’s a nice surprise that you do not have the usual (and clichéd I might add) “fly through the hoops” style training missions which every other space sim seems to have. In fact the first few missions get you right into the action and even have you navigating through the asteroid rings of Saturn, complete with loads of rocks to smash your ships. There are no bitmap image cheats of the rings, you get the real deal here!

The Good Stuff

Overall, the space sections of the game are quite enjoyable and the combat is quite absorbing. The game is very linear in terms of mission progression in that you simply just go from one mission to the next, but the mission objectives are quite varied and you do get a nice feeling of being involved in something grander in terms of the background of the war. The other plus point of the game is that it’s not too demanding in terms of PC hardware and managed to run quite well on my midrange machine with all the bells and whistles turned on. Admittedly the graphics are not exactly state of the art, but they do the job and I always say it’s better to have a game that runs well than a game that looks beautiful but is a slide show on anything that mere mortals can afford in terms of a P.C rig!

The Bad Stuff

There are three main areas of this game that I will now have good old gripe about that unfortunately prevents this game from being great.

I will start with the worst of bunch and that’s the subject of bugs. I have played many games on P.C (without naming names here) that were released in an atrocious state and to be fair this is not really that bad, but there is a kind of bug that really gets me and that’s gameplay bugs. In The Tomorrow War, one of the later missions has you going through a gate to another area of the galaxy and you immediately appear on the event horizon of a black hole, which is fine (I like a bit of excitement and challenge in my games). However, you soon discover that no matter what you try to do, your ship gets sucked into the black hole and you die, game over. I must have tried this mission about a dozen times before I saw a post on the forum for the game that said you had to change the game settings from sim to arcade to be able to escape the black hole and achieve your objective. This in my opinion is very slack for a modern game and should have been fixed before release. Another issue (which has gotten people’s backs out, for obvious reasons) on the forums is the in mission communication. While you are on a mission, periodically a video screen drops down in the cockpit and you see an image of somebody that is obviously trying to communicate with you (maybe giving mission updates or orders etc), but there is no accompanying speech or subtitles, so you have absolutely no idea what the person is saying to you. I suspect that this is meant to give you clues about what you are supposed to do as I quite often found myself scratching my head during a mission.

The second gripe that I have with this game is the in-between mission sections where the storyline is conveyed to the player via character based cutscenes. I do not have a problem with this game principle and it has worked quite well in other games of this genre, but the execution in The Tomorrow War is so poor, that I really wish they had not bothered and maybe spent more time on the good bits of the game (i.e. the actual missions). The character models and sets are O.K in these sections, but the animation and voice acting is pretty abysmal and quite frankly are not up to the standard that you expect for a 21^st century PC game. Your character “Andrew Rumey”, who is supposed to be the hero of the piece and the saviour of mankind, sounds more like a northern sports centre manager than a hotshot space pilot from the 27^th century! (come on Crioland and 1C, you can do better than this!)

My final gripe is more of a whinge of disappointment than a full on gripe. This game could have been much better and held a lot of promise, but the final product leaves you feeling slightly disappointed with the whole affair. As I mentioned earlier, the game is very linear and this would be fine, but the game teases you with what could be. For example the missions and environments seem very big in scope and you get to fly from space and land on planets in some of the missions, but you never really get the opportunity to just explore, which is real shame because of the wonderful game engine. In one of the missions, you have to fly down to a planets surface and land at a base to deliver something, but then that’s it – you just take off again! It feels like the developer had a much grander original vision for The Tomorrow War, but this became lost somewhere along the line during initial development. I can’t help feeling that CrioLand should have gone more down the Elite route of game design for this one and had more of a freeform space trading style than simply a linear shooter, oh well. A real shame and a lost opportunity…

Conclusion

The Tomorrow War is ultimately a brave attempt at a genre that quite frankly has died a bit and needs new life. Ultimately the game is a disappointment. Not just because of what you really want the game to be, but because of the poor state that the title has been released in for the western market (I do wonder if the original Russian release is better in this respect?). If Crioland fix the major problems with a patch, and you can accept the game for what it is, it’s a fun space based action game, but it is not (unfortunately) the next Elite, or Freelancer even. For me, I will shelve the game until a patch is released. There is good gaming to be had with this title, but unfortunately you have to wade through the poor stuff and issues to get to that goodness….

Score: 7 out 10

Welcome!

Welcome to GamesMortem!

The purpose of this blog is to provide an informative and (hopefully) lighthearted look at old, new and future computer game releases though reviews and general articles.

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