Red Faction

     This game is probably coming up to it's tenth birthday by now, and I still recall how fun it was to play in a destructable environment. Through the magic of Steam I can go back and play it again. With Armageddon coming out I truly wished to see where it all began again. If you ignore the awful audio sync, the blocky graphics and the fact that it doesn't automatically autosave, the game is great fun. For a game with such a great destructable environment, far ahead of it's time, it did have a few bad sides. I still think it's great, though, and quite nostalgic.
     The vehicles are great fun to drive, too. They are a little slow, but they're great to drive. From the submarines to the drilling machines, tanks to cars, theres so much to do and try. Weapons weren't in short supply back then either. The voice acting wasn't too great, though, as characters were never surprised. The autosave thing bugged me a little, as I often forgot to save for some time, died, and had to start 5 or 6 areas back, if not more.
     The guns were fun to use, they often went well with the destructable walls, I especially enjoyed the "heavy machine gun," due to it's high power and bountiful ammo supply. The weapons could have used recoil, though. The sniper rifles didn't have any recoil at all, rather annoyingly. I would still love for a lot of games to have such a great environment, I can just imagine something like Call of Duty or Brink with a destructable environment.


Ingenuity-8

Graphics-4

Story-5

Overall-6

Poll Results!

The results of the poll are in, and Ezio Auditore from Assassin's Creed II won by 3 votes!

Brink

     Just from the adverts, you can see how well this game plays. It's fun to just run about, sliding and climbing buildings, before noting that your being shot at. Brink's rule "Never stop moving" makes perfect sense after playing it. Stop moving, you get shot down before you even spot who's shooting at you. The game is based in the future, upon a giant floating city called the Ark. The Ark, when started, was supposed to be the solution to Global Warming. Soon after it's started the Polar Ice Caps melt and refugee's flood the city, so the builders hastily build a slum-like part to the city. At the present, it's split into two factions, the Security, whom wish to use the Ark to keep people housed and ration everything so it doesn't run out and the Resistance, whom wish to escape the Ark to find outside help for the other people on the Ark.
     The game is like Call of Duty, Mirror's Edge and Team Fortress 2 rolled into one. Call of Duty with the customisation of weapons, Mirror's Edge with it's free running, and Team Fortress 2 with it's classes and objectives. The game plays well, allowing you to customise everything within an inch of it's life. Clothing, skin colour, weaponry and lots, lots more.
     The SMART (Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain) system makes moving so much simpler. Just hold the sprint button and look above things to vault or climb over them, or press the crouch button to slide under things or trip people up. I was a little dissapointed in the story, though. The cinematics could involve more story, and the levels could have some more dialogue of characters talking to each other.
     I do think it's worth playing through. You can play the storyline with other players against other players, seeing as every story mission works with each other. You also get challenge levels, with up to 4 players, to unlock things like sights and other weapon attachments for levels and online play.


Ingeuity-6

Graphics-8

Story-6

Overall-7

Call of Duty

     I found myself surfing around on Steam a few weeks ago when I came across a deal. £19.99 for Call of Duty, Call of Duty: United Offensive and Call of Duty 2. "This is too good to be true," I thought. I had lost the disks for these games so many years ago. They're great games to spend time on, and it was worth every penny. Call of Duty is coming to eight years old, and yet it still makes me feel amazing, just playing it through. It brings back memories of a younger me, getting into shooters and PC gaming for the first time, shooting Nazi germans, charging through Europe, running for cover in Russia.
     The game itself has great gameplay. Despite the old graphics, it is so much more challenging than the new ones, the soldiers are scripted better, the whole game is just... Better. It's of a better time. At least, gamewise. Before the series became an excuse to milk money, before Activision became money hungry, before they stopped making all but 3 or 4 game series.
     The characters are so much nicer, too. They're helpful, theres more of them, they're witty. It makes me long for these better times.

Ingenuity-8

Graphics-5

Story-7

Overall-7