Gamma Testing

It's been a long time since I had a game experience more mixed than Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. There's lots to like, some things to hate, a fair amount that's on the border, and even something I hated and then came to like. Playing this game was like riding an emotional roller coaster as I went from mildly interested to mildly annoyed and back again. OK, maybe not really a roller coaster so much as a see-saw in the kiddie playground, but you get my point. There are some thrills to be had, but also some jarring landings.

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is the prequel to a game I never played, nor do you need to have played it. It's a perfectly competent first person shooter set in the Old West, full of two-fisted six-gun action and horse riding and even a lasso or two. You play alternately as Tom and Ray, defending your car repair business from angry public radio listeners who haven't received their tote bags yet. Or rather, Thomas and Ray, two nasty Confederate soldiers who abandon their posts to try and save their farm from the evil Sherman as he marches through Georgia. That doesn't work out too well, and the brothers end up fleeing to the wilds of the West, their preacher little brother William in tow. There they hear tell of lost Aztec gold, both fall in love with the same Mexican seductress, fight various tribes of Indians, and have their pasts come back to haunt them. There's a lot of shooting.

The story is a strong point of Call of Juarez, but it's very uneven. I suppose we're meant to feel some sympathy towards the brothers in the early levels of the game, set during the Civil War. On a purely personal note I find it pretty much impossible to find sympathy for any Confederate soldier, and I don't really know why anyone would feel sorry for them when their “farm” that they've been whining about for two levels turns out to be a ginormous plantation and they think it's equally possible that either the slaves or the Union soldiers are responsible for the damage. Good for the slaves and Union soldiers, I say.

Not only is the story not enticing in those early levels, but the Civil War game play is pretty crappy too. I wanted to put the game down, but this was for review, so I soldiered on. I'm glad I did, because it really hits its stride once Tom and Ray ditch their uniforms, head West, and embrace their outlaw selves. Each level you can choose between the tough Ray, who uses twin pistols and throws dynamite, and the more stealthy Thomas, who specializes in rifles and bows and knives and has a lasso to climb up on things. I found Ray the more interesting of the two to play and the more compelling character – he's definitely the more menacing of the brothers, but I appreciated that he relishes his outlaw role, where as Thomas is a mealy-mouthed, backstabbing cur. But that's just my opinion.

The game play is pretty standard first person shooter fare. The use of period weapons slows things down a bit, which I actually enjoyed. There's a concentration mode that lets you go into slow-motion to target multiple enemies and then hit one button to watch your character blaze away and hit them all – it's pretty satisfying. There's also Showdown mode, which I discuss at length over at Gamma Testing. It does a good job of recreating that iconic, high-noon style gunfight, but it takes some figuring out to move from super-frustrating (which was my first impression) to pretty fun. There's also a pretty solid online multi-player game with several modes that definitely adds some replay value to the overall package.

When the shooting's done and the dust settles, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is an OK game. If you're a fan of the Western genre, you'll probably enjoy it even more. The story is solid and engaging for the most part, although preachy (literally) in a way that both fits the source material and bugs the hell out of me personally. There are some strange decisions – why is there both a place and a character named Juarez? - but it holds together through to the end. If you're jonesing to unleash your inner Man With No Name, then check it out. If you're looking for a finely tuned, fast-paced modern shooter, this might not be your huckleberry.

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is available for the X-Box 360, Playstation 3, and PC.

It's hard to feel guilty when people don't even bother to move out of the way of your tank when it's about to run them over. That's good, because Prototype is a game that clearly doesn't want you to be thinking too much about innocent bystanders, especially if doing so would get in the way of tearing the hell out of anything and everything around you. Still, even I felt a twinge of discomfort while going for the achievement points for running over 500 people with a single tank. In retrospect, this actually works within the convoluted framework of Prototype's story, but at the time it was just one more way of causing mayhem. Prototype's all about the mayhem.

You play as Alex, a scientist who always wears a hoodie for some unexplained reason, and who has been infected by a virus that's quickly turning him into a monster/superhero. And of course you have amnesia. So you've got to find out who did this to you while Manhattan dissolves into a chaos of nasty soldiers and even nastier infected who're constantly attacking each other and you. You get to tear your way through both sides in a blood filled, high speed romp up and down the length of the city as you unlock the secrets of your recent past and search for who's responsible. If the story sounds typical and uninspired, that's because it is – amnesia, virus, shadowy government agency, trust no one, and did I mention amnesia? Blah, blah, blah. We've seen it all before. Protoype's setting and story don't break any new ground and are almost throwaway.

But it's not the why's and therefore's that draw you into Prototype – it's what you do. How do you find out new information from enemies? You absorb them in a bloody, disgusting process that unlocks nifty little quick-cut flashback sequences that simulate you absorbing their memories. How do you race about from one end of the city to another? By running up the sides of building, knocking over pedestrians, and taking great, monstrous leaps that span whole city blocks. And when some soldier, tank, monster, or helicopter gets in your way, just turn your arm into a giant blade or hammer or spiked whip, cover your body in bio-armor, and hurl a truck at it. This game offers pretty much non-stop, furious action as Alex smashes his way through the city.

Not that it doesn't have its subtleties. It's a lot of fun to sneak up behind a soldier, absorb his appearance and then saunter into an army base unnoticed by the guards. It's also cool to glide from rooftop to rooftop while the city below you cries out in fear and chaos. There are scores of mini-missions that break the fourth wall of the story telling, but offer nice variety to the game play. And while the game's main story missions confuse and bore more than they reveal or inspire, they offer some pretty interesting game play variations. There's a ton of options for upgrading your powers, probably too many in fact, but the game remains fun even when you stick to a chosen few that you really enjoy. All that action can get pretty overwhelming at times, with the camera losing sight of Alex and so much going on that it's impossible to tell what's happening. But those moments are the price for an otherwise frenzied but controllable experience that gives players an absolute sense of being the most badass thing on the block. So don't think of those poor pedestrians as people when you run them over in a stolen tank. Think of them as points, if indeed you think of them at all, which isn't something I or this game is encouraging you to do a whole lot of while you play it.

I've written elsewhere about the final boss battle, and in general the last few missions are more challenging than they are fun. I imagine that experiences will vary, and some people might become overwhelmed by the game earlier than I did. But for my money, the sheer excitement of whipping a helicopter, flying up to it, hijacking it, then using its missiles to blow up a giant monster before jumping out of it and slamming into the ground like a human wrecking ball makes the game worth playing. It's dumb, brutal, loud, fast fun. But it's totally fun. Except that final boss.

Most of the time I like my fighting games fast, furious, and full of fireballs (like, say, Street Fighter 4). But when it comes to watching fights, I've lost some interest in the artfully choreographed wire work of kung fu flicks. These days I prefer my bloodsport to be less Bloodsport and more Mixed Martial Arts. I've been watching UFC fights since the first, dreadful, ridiculous pay per few events in the 90's. The sport has come a long way for me since then, ruining my interest in boxing, wrestling, and even martial arts movies along the way. While a dull UFC fight can be as yawn inducing as Steven Seagal's latest flick, a great, exciting, balls to the wall UFC is as exciting as exciting gets. In THQ's new video game version of UFC, almost every fight is that exciting.

With its combination of punches, kicks, grappling, and joint locks, MMA is a complicated sport, and I was wary about how the game would be able to capture that kind of diversity. But UFC: Undisputed rises to the challenge, offering a complicated but intuitive game that matches the sport its emulating. Through combinations of button presses and analog stick movements, you can punch and kick with either leg at three different heights and with three different modifiers. When you're in close your fighter throws knees and elbows. You can grapple the neck in a clinch or shoot for the legs for a take down. Once on the ground, button pressing and swings of the right analog stick make your fighter scramble for better position, rain down blows, or try and submit the opponent with a joint lock. All of this wears away at your fighter's stamina, so it's wise to take short breathers and pick your shots rather than just flail away.

So yeah, the game's complicated. Or, if you prefer, it's deep. There is a lot to learn here and the game rewards time put into learning its intricacies. But the genius of UFC: Undisputed is that it's also fun to play within minutes of picking up the controller. Sure you can work through the game's comprehensive but dull 20 minute tutorial, and you should if you're alone. Having a friend teach you the basics while you fight is almost as effective though, and a whole lot more exciting, and newbies can pick up and enjoy the game almost at once.

The game offers online play, which is one of the biggest draws for many players. The matchmaking is OK, but some players in ranked matches have a habit of disconnecting when they lose, which is lame. Go in looking for a good time and you'll be fine. Competitive players looking to rise up the leader boards of ranked players might be frustrated. I really enjoyed the Career Mode, where you create your own fighter and fight your way up through the UFC roster in your quest to be world champion. Between bouts you have to wisely allocate your training time to strike the balance between improving your skills, cultivating your fans, and making sure you're well-rested for the fight. Some might find this micromanaging annoying, but I had a blast with it. Like most of this game, it rewards the amount of effort and thought you put into it.

UFC: Undisputed is a must have for any UFC/MMA fan who has a PS3 or X-Box 360. If you're not a fan, it's still very much worth checking out, as it stands on its own as a really good fighting game.

That's two weeks in a row where I've spent a significant portion of my free time exploring a city that has recently suffered a massive explosion. Last week it was Bionic Commando, and I was just the guy to traverse the urban wasteland because I had a bionic arm. This week, it's inFamous, and I'm just the guy to explore the city because I'm the one who set off the bomb. Plus it gave me super powers.

InFamous is a super-hero game, or a super-villain (sort of) game, depending on your personal preference. You play as Cole, a bike messenger who sets off a bomb that screws up Empire City and gives you the power to control electricity. Why did you set off the bomb? You have no idea, but given the cadres of villains, FBI agents, and shadowy figures who immediately start pulling your strings, maybe you were set up. The only way to find out for sure is to explore Empire City open world, Grand Theft Auto-style, do a bunch of missions, and shoot lightning at anything that gets in your way. And when you've done all that then yes, inFamous delivers a satisfying conclusion to a solid story full of twists and turns, but really it's all about the lightning powers that get you from here to there.

Well, lightning and parkour. Because Cole can scale buildings like a monkey, leap with ease from ledge to wire to light post, and generally navigate the city via sidewalk or rooftop with equal ease. He can't climb chain link fences for some annoying reason, but pretty much everything else is scalable. And once you unlock the power of grinding along power lines and train tracks at race-car speeds, you'll have a much easier time traversing the length and breadth of Empire City's three islands. Along the way you'll fight bad guys using your basic lightning bolt attack and a host of other powers that unlock and improve over time – lightning grenades, lightning shields, lightning fists, lightning rockets, lightning waves, lightning jumps, lightning – you get the idea. All these special powers drain away Cole's internal battery, but he can suck extra juice from ubiquitous power outlets, lamp posts, cars, and other electrical sources. Each island is held by a different gang of bad guys – Reapers, Dustmen, and The First Sons – who have their own creepy looks and love to shoot the hell out of you. There's always somebody that needs shocking.

There are a host of side missions that you can take on to earn bonus experience and clear sections of the city from gang influence. These range in level of enjoyment – there are a few really tedious ones – but mostly they're quick and fun and make for a nice break from the longer, more challenging Story Missions. The story unfolds through artful and engrossing comic book-style cut scenes and voice over chat with various shadowy figures. There are some really inventive and challenging missions throughout the game, and some solid boss fights, although you'll keep returning to the sewers for some clunky platforming missions that I found dull and annoying. That's the thing about inFamous – it has a ton of little problems and annoyances. Dozens of them in fact. But the game itself is so fun, the story quite compelling, and the moment to moment game play so rewarding, that I ended up overlooking all of its many minor faults.

I've left out one huge aspect of the game – the moral choice system. Throughout the game you're presented with options to be good or bad. The game forces you to commit to one path or the other if you want to get the highest level powers (and you do!), so really once you choose a path there's never any incentive to make anything but the obvious good or evil choice. Good and Evil each have some unique powers, which basically forces you to play through the game twice to see them all. Luckily this game is actually so good you very well might want to play through it twice, but on balance I found the whole moral choice system uninteresting and forced. The people in the city might treat you different and it gives you some different side missions, but the central story remains the same. I'd have liked to see something much more nuanced or nothing at all. But it doesn't get in the way of this otherwise very good game, and the moral choices do offer a few smiles and grimaces here and there. As a PS3 exclusive, there's nothing else out right now to compete with it for your PS3's attention – and it's the most fun I've had with my Playstation in a long time.

A little nostalgia can buy you a lot of leeway. The new version of Capcom's Bionic Commando is the perfect example – it's a sequel to a much beloved classic from 1988. But things have changed since that glorious 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System days, and characters with names like “Rad Spencer” and “Super Joe” don't quite cut it anymore. Nor does the name “Bionic Commando” for that matter. But this sequel is a completer update – from 8 bit side scroller to full on 3D, open world (kinda) third person shooter. It's an update in every way, but it keeps that most important element of the original – you play a guy with a bionic arm that can shoot out Inspector Gadget style and let you swing from things like Spider-man. As long as it gets that right, the game is more than halfway there.

And the game does get that right – the bionic arm in this new Bionic Commando is a lot of fun. In the 3D game world, the arm can attach to just about anything in range, allowing you to swing in long arcs or quickly retract it to zip up walls or slam into enemies. Later in the game you learn to use the arm to pick up things and hurl them hundreds of yards, whip it around to cut down anyone nearby, and uses it to slam foes onto the ground with an earth-shaking thud. Thanks to your magic boots (or something) you can also fall any distance. Your only nemesis (aside from robots and guys with guns) is water – that arm and those boots will sink you right to the bottom. Along with the arm you'll pick up various weapons, some of which are kind of fun, some of which aren't, but none of which come close to the fun of swinging that arm around.

But using that arm is a challenge at first, and there's a definite learning curve. The training area where you're first learning to do those swings was one of the most frustrating moments in the game for me, especially since it was so early on. The physics of the swinging work, I guess, more like real physics and less like I'm used to from gaming. The result is that to cover any distance with that swing, you have to release at just the right moment in the arc, before your momentum heads too far back up. The game displays an arrow when you should swing – and as soon as you see it let go, because waiting until the end means frustration and drowning. But once you get it down, it's totally worth the price of admission – you'll move through the recently-nuked, enemy-filled Ascension City with flailing, seemingly uncontrolled ease and have a blast doing it.

Which brings me back to nostalgia and the question, is it OK for a game to have a crappy, clichéd story? Can it still be a good game? I think so. Bionic Commando is a good, fun game, but man does it have a crappy story to go along with it. It's the kind of typical tale we've seen in games since Escape From New York was in theaters, except this tough guy protagonist (just Spencer, no Rad) isn't likable in the least, nor is anyone else in the game. Everyone just sneers and growls at each other, strange characters come into the plot to serve no purpose at all except as call backs to the last game. The enemies remain weirdly undefined as to their motives and there's some crazy German guy who you have to fight at the end. It's all presented with dull, profanity-laden dialogue that comes off more childish than anything else. It's material you suffer and groan your way through while you wait for the part where you can swing around and throw dudes with your bionic arm to start up again. And when you're done there's online-multiplayer where you can swing around and blow up other players without any fear of plot getting in the way, which is a nice little addition to the mix. That and the mildly haunting piano music over the title screen push this over the edge into definite check it out territory.