Eric Staggs: Writer

Off-Topic –

The demo for Space Marine was released for Xbox360 today. I downloaded the 1.6-gigabyte teaser immediately. I powered it up and was suddenly in another world. Fans of the franchise don’t need me to explain; they know what was needed. Firewarrior, GW’s first foray into first-person shooters was a good game – if you were a fan of the genre. I just pretended I was Imperial Guard not Tau (because Tau are lame). First thing you did was drop the pansy Tau-beamer-gun-thing and pick up a bolter.

Well, Space Marine not only starts you out with a bolt-pistol and chainsword, you also sport a bolter rifle and the trendy “stalker pattern” bolter, as well a mine-laying-grenade-like-blower-upper thing. Finally, armed like a true space marine, you set about slaughtering orks. Lots of orks.

There were moments while playing I found myself talking out loud, saying things like “The Emperor Protects, bitch!” and “Blood for the blood-god!” and “I shall know no fear!” I found myself in awe of the sheer destructive potential of one ceramite-armored Ultramarine and his chainsword. I hurled grenades, unloaded hundreds of bolter rounds, I sniped, I ducked, and I rolled. I killed the ork filth until my armor was shining black with their foul blood.

And I loved it.

Then, I started to think about the game with less testosterone and a more critical eye. I found a bug in the demo; when dropping the cannon from the crane, by lobbing all my grenades into the waiting mob, the orks died and did not trigger certain scripting events. I crane access point never lit up. I had to exit and start over. Which was okay, because I wanted to kill more orks, but had I need 24-hours into a combat drop with my Battle Brothers, I’d have been a little pissed off.

Then I started to listen to the orks voices. They sound like little British men. Little British men who may sell you fish and chips and may or may not give you directions to Big Ben. Now, keep in mind that an ork in the Warhammer 40,000 Universe is nigh on seven feet tall, thickly muscles with tusks long as your hand. They have beady red eyes (like an old roommate I had) and talon-like fingers. They have incredible strength and heal from the most egregious of wounds. They believe red makes vehicles go faster (and it might) and I suspect are cannibals when the going gets… well, less fun. These are brutes! Like great green gorillas with shotguns and rocket launchers! They DO NOT sound like little British men; of this I am absolutely positive.

Worse, the space marines started talking. They sound like slightly larger, yet still small British men. A space marine is a genetically engineered super-soldier, in ancient power armor armed with weapons of esoteric technology and incalculable destructive potential. The space marine has two hearts; his armor pumps him full of morphine or some such crap when wounded. Their blood vessels constrict to minimize blood loss. They have polymer reinforced ribcages and an implanted third lung for Emperor’s sake! They, like the orks, most certainly do not sound like average sized British men.

I think you’ll all agree.

Now, the game is incredibly entertaining. But the voice acting, while well portrayed was not cast well or engineered well at all. Little British men do not don thousand-year-old suits of power armor and stomp across the galaxy vaporizing orks, chaos and anything else that gets in the way. Space Marines do that. Space Marines sound different.

Where was the… I don’t know… the Dude Who Listens To Sound for this game? The bolters sound great! The crack-boom-ding of exploding, bouncing bolter rounds was supremely well crafted. As was the adrenaline inducing sound of the chainsword. The ambient sounds were excellent. I don’t know if there was music, I couldn’t hear it over all the dying orks. But I have to ask, couldn’t they have modulated the Space Marines’ voices just a little? Given the orks a little scratch and growl?

The game was an automatic purchase for me. I buy all GW’s video games, hoping that they would finally make something like Space Marine. It’s going to a spectacular game, but the voices… the voices…

Like thousands of others, I waited with baited breath for the release of the second expansion pack for Fallout 3, called The Pitt. Fallout 3 is perhaps the best game I’ve played in years. When the Anchorage Assault  pack was released, I downloaded it within hours and blasted my way through.

Unfortunately, the same thing happened with The Pitt. Granted, my expectations may have been unusually high for this expansion module. The gossip and rumors I’d been hearing were equating it with the Shivering Isles expansion for Bethesda’s other hit, Oblivion. Sadly, the reality was far different.

I powered up the old Xbox 360 and loaded the game. I used a previously created character, one who had topped out at 20^th level. After a few moments of wandering the wastes, I received the radio call and headed towards the map marker. I met a man named Wehrner who led me to the ruins of Pittsburg.

The morally ambiguous plotline was frustrating, actually. By committing a kidnapping to secure a cure for intense radiation sickness, you begin a brutal revolution that ultimately forces you to blast the child’s parents. In this case, I chose a recently liberated flamer, as I was desperately low on regular ammo, charred “the Cure’s” Ma and Pa. However, first time through, I chose to not kidnap the child, as I realized it would result in a conflagration of serious proportion. The slaves wouldn’t budge and end up attacking your character. Blasting a few slaves, I quickly noticed my Karma was disappearing faster than my ammo.

I reloaded the game, and against my better judgment, I took the baby/cure. So, as it all unravels the slaves get freed and the child/cure has a foster mother who, though worn out and obviously regretting her decision, attempts to take care of the child as best she can.

Before the climax of the plot, you are asked to fiddle around with the usual gather/investigate quests. Most irritating is the much-lauded and greatly anticipated Arena. Three matches and you’ve earned your freedom, are Arena champion, and the plot climax is only moments away. The arena itself is a tiny little room, baked with radiation, and the opponents were one V.A.T.S. click away from being splattered all over the radioactive rocks.

The exploration of the Pitt took longer than the actual quests, of which there were like three.

Of the new weapons available, none are remarkable. The Auto-Axe or Man Opener is cute, but frankly, if I wanted a melee weapon game, I’d play Oblivion. The new rifle, called the Infiltrator, is an automatic assault rifle with a sound suppressor and scope. At full zoom, its accuracy is about as good as a drunk trying to make it into the toilet bowl so his wife doesn’t bitch him out the next morning. That is to say, the rifle has some serious drift and does significantly less damage than the Chinese Assault rifle. It’s basically dead weight.

After some hours scraping through the Pitt, I found an abandoned apartment complex. Suddenly excited for a little of that magic that made Fallout 3 so great, I sat up straight and dove into the Trog infested building. Two floors later, I’d scoured it clean and was once again bored. The ongoing quests of bringing teddy bears to the baby-cure is a little more depressing (if possible) than the rest of The Pitt, and as the residents had not yet chosen to police the corpses from their revolution, I don’t think I’ll be taking my character back there any time soon.

Technically, it was a very nice expansion. The environments were convoluted and messy, true Fallout 3 style. But spending most of your time in a steel mill and surrounding areas felt rather… blah.

Overall, it’s a beautiful expansion, but with not much real game play. Diehard Fallout 3 fans will enjoy, as always, but find themselves craving more. 

I’m a classics geek. I admit it. I’m always picking up books written by ancient greeks and romans to add to my library. I’ve got quite a collection – Xenophon, Thucydides, Plato, Pliny, Cicero, Suetonius, Ovid, Homer, Virgil, et cetera. So, when ever I see a video game set in my favorite historical period, I have to pick it up. 

Rise of the Argonauts was described to me as being somewhere between God of War (which were great games!) and Conan (a hack n’ slash game of exquisite entertainment value).  I’m thinking this is going to be great, though Jason is my least favorite of Greek heroes, I can give it a chance. 

Well, I played it through. There’s actually only about three hours of actual “play.” The rest of the game is desperately long conversations with uninspired (perhaps too well known) characters, loaded with exposition and inopportune options for dialogue. Between running around expansive levels with limits options for action, interaction or combat, and the dreadfully elaborate conversations, I found myself considering turning the game off and returning it, at least for the first two hours. 

Eventually, I started to get the hang of the game, and even enjoyed playing. Like any game in it’s genre, the camera angles aren’t quite right. Once you get used to the action, Jason becomes a much more effective fighter, and incidentally, much more fun to play. Of course, the opponents were either evil monsters from Tarterus or Ionians (an arbitrary selection from the true-life ancient greek sub-cultures), neither appearing as much more than a glowing suit of armor to be hacked at.

The inclusion of the other Argonauts seems superfluous. They serve very little purpose except to distract opponents while you massacre others. While we’re talking about the Argonauts, I feel compelled to comment on the game designers choices for Argonauts. The inclusion of Achilles and Pan, Lycomedes and Medusa, was just awkward. As one friend commented to me “It’s as if one designer was a classics major and the others had seen alot of movies.” 

He’s right. There are moments in the game where the designers knowledge of classics is impressive. And in the rest of the game, they seem to nothing except what they learned from Clash of the Titans. 

Over all, a simple, straight forward game with little to offer a true classics buff, too much talking and limited combat.

I’ll admit I might have been overly skeptical when I first heard the words “afro samurai.” As a long time fan of the samurai film genre and the occasional viewer of anime, I felt it was my obligation to give this movie a fair chance. I loved it. It was violent and convoluted heavy with metaphor and surrealism, highly stylized and, for lack of a better term, very sexy. It had all the components necessary for an instant classic. The juxtaposition of medieval Japanese warrior culture and off the deep-end sci-fi made my mouth water.

That said I was equally skeptical as my wandering through the local GameStop led me to a box labeled Afro Samurai. I narrowed my eyes; I might have scowled as well. I’d heard there was a new film coming out, but an Xbox 360 game? Weren’t they jumping the gun? The little GameStop boy, Seth, noticing my consternation, charged forward with a chipper “Can I help you Sir?”

The video game places love adults. We’ve got the cash, and they don’t need to card us. Suppressing a snicker, I said unto Seth “Why yes! Have you played Afro Samurai for the Xbox 360?”

Seth replied in the negative. But his buddy had… when they bring up their friends, a buddy who played, a cousin who liked it, a sister’s boyfriend who thought it was a great game… you know they are just quoting from the latest issue of Game Informer or whatever rag they have laying around the store.

I listened to his list of fabricated testimonies with feigned interest and the dutiful “uh huh” and “hmmm.” I told him I needed to think on it for a bit, and he left to ponder.

Skeptical though I was, the Bushido would not allow me to pass up this game. I felt honor bound to support such a noble endeavor by a little known studio. Further, I’ll admit, I often pay full price for games that I know will be “B” at best. I had no real reason not to purchase Afro Samurai.

And I’m glad I did.

The opening animation instantly brought to mind the paradox of Zen mysticism, the nothing of existence, and the violence and anger that must stem from the restrictive warrior culture of the samurai.

I was instantly enthralled. Reliving that feeling of excitement and wonder I’d first experienced when I saw the movie, Afro Samurai.  An hour later, when I entered a bosses’ lair and was confronted by three, topless, pole-dancing, sword-wielding ninja women, I knew this was going to be a game I’d enjoy from start to finish.

Technically, it’s not perfect. The camera seems to not track like it should, and I’m finding that often my field of view is obscured. During combat, I’m frantically trying to slide the camera to another angle. Tutorial messages are only onscreen for the briefest of times, and moves tend to subtle, combos blending perfectly into regular attacks. I find myself saying “Did I do that?” Currently I’m stuck trying a combo that will throw my volatile opponents into a big power generator.

Regardless of these minor flaws, this game is everything Prince of Persia should have been. The cell-shading animation style works perfectly for Afro, and the ability to literally slice an opponent in half lands somewhere between Conan and Musashi. Blood is tracked by gallons, and the audio track is not the sensitive. Afro’s alter-ego (played by Samuel L. Jackson) has a mouth that would make a sailor blush. Overall, not for the faint of heart (or those under 18), but a great game.