Platform: PC

I have just been plowing through the sequels of nineties FPS’s lately. This time it was back to Castle Wolfenstein for me… although, technically, I am not sure if that castle in the distance is actually the Castle Wolfenstein, you know the one I escaped from (with the plans) back in 1981.

This is the best looking game I have played in awhile. When you devote most of your gaming to the Wii and $5 steam games you forget just how awesome computer graphics are these days. They seemed to have captured every little detail of a war torn 1940’s German village. That is everything except the German accents. These are some of the cheesiest German accents you will hear outside of a corn stock production of The Sound of Music. It’s like they just did a search and replace on the dialogue file swapping “W” with “V.”

However, this game, like Wolfenstein 3-D before it, is all about the shooting. Wolfenstein does a good job with this. The guns feel powerful and do lots of satisfying limb damage when blast away at those damned Nazis. The twist with this game is that you gradually develop supernatural powers that allow you to shield yourself, change time and inflict extra damage. When you engage these powers the world turns bluish green and you are shifted into a sort of H.P. Lovecraft dimensional space complete with floaty monsters and howling wind sounds. This looks neat, but rarely do the powers have anything to do with puzzle solving the way the gravity gun did in Half-Life 2. They are just there to give your player an extra advantage during tougher gun fights. Playing at normal difficulty, I never really felt that overwhelmed by the enemies but, overall, I enjoyed the game play and the shallow story line.

This is essentially the same game as Doom 3 except with the lights turned on and fewer monster closets. What both these games do well is provide tons of satisfying gun-play but with only the barest of story lines to keep you motivated to continue. I think the plot of this one was to find the big button that will win this war, but first find these three lesser (but still challenging) buttons. There is some variety in the form of a few turret and driving missions, but for the most part this is nine hours of pure arcade style run-and-gun action.

The original Duke Nukem 3D was perhaps the best of the first wave of FPS games. I also really liked Rise of the Triad and, of course, Doom but Duke was filled with tasteless humor, pop-culture references and a richly interactive world. For some reason Duke Nukem Forever has only a 53 Meta Critic rating and I can’t for the life of me see why. Sure its was released about 8 years too late and it doesn’t really bring anything new to the genre, but everything that was great about the original game is still here. I felt like there was just about the right amount of variety in game play and I especially liked the levels where I was shrunken to action-figure size and made to navigate through giant jars of mayo and mustard. I guess the only big difference here (outside of the expected technological improvements) is that they have brought the tastelessness more to the forefront of the design—the game opens with you standing in front of a urinal controlling a stream of pee. I’m glad this game finally was released and I hope that the franchise will live on, but, fellas, please just try to release next one sometime this decade so that the references are somewhat more timely.

This is the game that forced me to update my video card last year. I remember playing the first Far Cry and thinking that that was about as close to reality as games could ever get. The sequel leaps and bounds ahead of the original in the looks department. Unfortunately, the game-play does not match the quality level of the visuals. Unlike the first game, Far Cry 2 is a mission-based open-world game alá Grand Theft Auto. Unlike GTA, the missions are all exactly the same: drive to an indicated point on the map; along the way shoot guys at various checkpoints (which you swear you killed last time you drove though there); find the target; kill the target while fending off waves of identical thugs; finally, drive to next mission spot on map and kill the same guards you killed on the way to the last mission… again and again. Far Cry 1 had open levels, but at least they proceeded in a linear fashion that drove a story along. This game has zero story and eventually I just wanted it to end so I could get my $4.99 worth of gaming in and then move on to something else.

I missed out on the original Tomb Raider game in the 90s. I think I downloaded the demo and thought, “This isn’t Doom, or even remotely Doom-like” and then proceeded to erase it from my 450mb hard drive. It wasn’t until I played the franchise reboot Tomb Raider: Legend that I understood what all the hoopla was about. I had to set aside my blood-lust and come to grips with the fact that the game is primarily about platforming and puzzle solving.

Underworld continues that gameplay tradition by pitting Lara Croft against various ancient death machines that all seem to run on elaborate systems of gears and pulleys. You can climb, wall jump, balance on columns, swing from ropes, drag towering structures with your bare hands and numerous other ridiculous actions. This type of reality defying acrobatics is exactly the sort of thing that ruins CGI driven movies but make video games so awesome. You really get to feel like you have superhuman skill even though all you are doing is sinking back in your desk chair, twitching your mouse every few seconds and occasionally hitting the pause button so you can sip your Diet Dr. Pepper.

This game is a couple of years old and I was still blown away by how great the graphics look. I’d say that the jungle settings here look even better than that graphics whore Far Cry 2 ever did. Even more impressive than the visuals is the symphonic score that features tons epic choral arrangements that make “O’ Fortuna” seem like a tin pan alley ukulele number.

Pushing balls around has never been more fun! I have really enjoyed the last few Tomb Raider games like Tomb Raider: Legend and Anniversary. This game takes the standard puzzle solving elements of Tomb Raider—pushing blocks and balls on to pressure plates and the like—but, rather than platforming, puts the emphasis on shooting enemies. In fact, the combat is not dissimilar from Robotron 2084 or other, more recent, twin stick shooters. Run with one stick and aim and shoot with the other. The gun-play is never quite as frantic or enemy-rich as Robotron or Geometry Wars, but it can get pretty challenging at times. There are also time challenges and item bonuses to try to achieve once you’ve played through the game once. I like this top-down, isometric perspective (I would love to see a Nox sequel using a similar engine).

Although it’s a massive 30-40 hour game, New Vegas is really just an stand-alone expansion pack to the wonderful Fallout 3. If there were graphical enhancements or gameplay tweaks, I didn’t notice them. But that’s okay. I liked the way Fallout 3 played and more of the same can’t hurt. This time around I was already well-aquainted with the mechanics so I was able to be more thorough in my exploration of the map. I managed to discover every area and, quite frankly, I’m a bit peeved that there wasn’t an acheivement for that.

The story has you waking up after having been buried and left for dead. The main goal is to find out about the man who shot you. This could be interesting, I suppose, but I was a bit ho-hum about the main plotline. That’s okay though. There are ton of little stories to be had all throughout the game world. Plus you get to run around in your boxer-briefs if you so choose.

I have had this game sitting on my video game to-do list for a long, long time. This is regarded as one of the best cRPG games ever. It is perhaps deserving of that praise simply for sheer imensity of its scale and attention to detail. Unfortunately, like other older RPGs, the game makes no concessions towards more casual players. There are a gazillion magic spells with which to become familiar. Gear and weapons are identified by numerical stats and dice roll probabilties rather than simply saying, “Powerful sword of lightning damage” or something. I must have looked up what THAC0 meant half a dozen times and I still don’t quite get it. At times the game is just plain unfair, like when you walk through an unmarked door only to die instantly from the attacks of magical creature on the other side. It’s like dying until you chance upon a strategy is part of the intended game mechanics. Like the first Baldur’s Gate I found myself having to cheat my way through 2 or 3 of the battles near the end of the game. I may have been able to win those fights (I doubt it), but after 40+ hours of hacking away at this game, I simply wanted it to be over.

During the majority of the first half of the game, when I wasn’t being killed every two minutes, it was really enjoyable and addicting. My OCD tendencies had plenty of ways to be satisfied by the many, many side quests and stories. Combat actually requires real tactical thinking (which is probably I was getting killed all the time), which is an element sadly missing from most modern RPGs and every Japanese console RPG since the dawn of time. I think it’s time for another game in this style but modernize it so you don’t need a degree in advanced nerditude just to understand the manual.

Having whet my appetite for adventure games on the excellent Sam and Max series, I thought it would be a good time to try some more modern PC adventure games. Scratches is an indie game that uses the tried and (not-so) true first-person point-and-click gameplay formula. Myst, Hell Cab, Dragon Lore… I have many fond memories… well, not really fond, but I do remember playing a lot of those types of games from back at the dawn of the CD-ROM era.

Now, I liked this game for reasons I will go into in a bit, but it did serve as a huge reminder as to what really sucked about first-person point-and-click games. First there are the dreaded “hunt the pixel” situations. Scratches isn’t that bad in this respect, but there were two or three times when a puzzle was unsolvable until I found the exact cursor position (see the image to the left – I’m supposed to be picking up that stone). Secondly, a lot of the time there is no indication that a graphical element is important. Rather than saying, “You are in a dark room full of junk, but there is a useful looking crowbar here,” you are supposed to click on every object in the pile of junk and just randomly figure out that you can only pick up the crowbar.

That said, I did like the game. Once the narrative kicks in the game gets very interesting (and believe me it takes a long time of aimless exploring before things start to happen). You slowly learn the dark history of the house via newspaper clippings, diaries and other found texts. And once you are fully versed in the lore, unexplained things start happening. I have never been this creeped out by a game (and I have even played House of the Dead 2), let alone being creeped out by what is, for all intents and purposes, a glorified slideshow. Nonetheless, thanks to an awesome, well-integrated soundtrack the game gets VERY creepy. It’s worth slogging through this one with a walkthrough by your side just to experience those intense moments of horror.

Having been burnt twice by buying the technically challenged Wii versions on Season 1 & 2, I decided to move from the den to the office and play season three on my PC. The visual difference is astounding. This game looks great both in terms of graphic quality and its cartoony art direction. This has been my favorite of the three seasons. In addition to usual humor and wacky characters, there seems to be much more focus on unifying all the episodes under a larger story arc. They’ve also mixed-up the gameplay a bit by giving Max a variety of psychic powers that add to your puzzle solving arsenal. That may have made the game a little easier, but I still felt satisfaction as I progressed through the game’s puzzles. Bring on season four!