Film and music articles for Who’s Jack
January 30, 2012
HEY you bloody idiots. Don’t look at this site for words, I mostly put videos here now. Instead head to http://www.whosjack.org for my latest film and music articles. Here’s a list of the recent topics I’ve covered, with embedded ‘links’
etc etc.
Shame review
January 18, 2012
New Year’s Eve review
December 9, 2011
Johnny English Reborn review
October 10, 2011
Battlefield 3 open beta thoughts
October 4, 2011
There are many games out there in which players from across the globe find out who is the best at pointing at someone else and clicking on them. In fact I am a strong believer in the idea that FPS titles are the purest form of adventure game. This autumn only Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 are going to get any attention in a genre that is so saturated with choice that it’s pooling embarrassingly around the ankles of the development community and making everything smell like an underpass.
The fact that some people only want to buy one or both of these titles to hit the multiplayer, shunning the single player campaign altogether, makes me a little sad. It is this focus on online play that has allowed terrible single player experiences like the one tacked on to COD: Black Ops to wriggle through the net unchecked. While I enjoyed the bombast of that game’s narrative, the whole campaign played like an on-rails shooter rather than an involving FPS.
Now the multiplayer elements of the Battlefield franchise make it a very different beast to COD. It has open-ended maps and a much more organic flow to the fight as it ebbs and swells, putting a greater emphasis on teamwork and tactics than lone wolf running and gunning.
The open beta of Battlefield 3, which went live last week, gives players just one map to tackle and the Rush game mode to experience. This involves one team attacking two objectives at a time while the other defends and attempts to whittle down their remaining respawn reserves until a winner is determined. The map consists of three distinct areas: an outdoor park, a dank, multi-layered metro and a car-strewn main road through Paris.
There is no doubting the visual fidelity of these three environments as rendered in the Frostbite 2 engine. I’ve played the beta on both Xbox 360 and PC and the console version looks pretty dashing in spite of the limited hardware. Meanwhile PC gamers will not need an over the top machine to squeeze a sparkling experience out of BF3, which is a pleasant surprise given the amount of emphasis which has been put on its graphical grunt.
In terms of gameplay it feels quite different to the last title in the series which I played: Battlefield 2. Perhaps it is because the lack of vehicles and the size of the metro map in the beta means that it lacks some of the scale of its predecessors, which is certainly going to be addressed in the full release with its compliment of additional arenas. I like the fact that you can pick out enemies at a distance based on the light glinting on their body armour. I like the excellent audio, which gives weight to your weapons as well as your footsteps. It is dynamic and, with headphones on, often exciting and terrifying in equal measure. I also like the fact that the whole thing feels very balanced. Dying is easy, but the penalty is not an excessive time spent waiting to respawn and you quickly learn to take your time and not rush into situations because death awaits the over-eager.
What sticks in my craw like an accidentally swallowed clove at Christmas is the “fucking stupid™” Battlelog system required by EA’s origin service to play Battlefield 3 online. If you haven’t already heard, this means you have to launch the game from a web browser, so you not only have Origin sitting dormant in the background but also this insane, clunky interface that makes it feel like you are playing Farmville, not a cutting-edge FPS. It seems likely that EA is implementing this convoluted system to subvert pirates, but they are clearly missing the point. A crack will arise and illegal downloaders will blaze through the single player campaign if they are not interested in the multiplayer. It is ultimately another way in which paying customers are penalised for no good reason.
To be honest the Battlelog debacle does not really dent the BF3 online experience to the point of no return. Millions will still buy this game and love it for its much needed twist on this increasingly jaded genre. Aside from the experience points, ranks and weapon upgrades, it is the gameplay that counts here and I get the feeling that MW3 is going to look decidedly last-generation in comparison with EA’s latest shooter.
Crazy Stupid Love review
October 3, 2011
Killer Elite review
September 28, 2011
Drive review
September 27, 2011
Dead Island review
September 27, 2011
Zombies have permeated pop culture to such a degree that it’s become a cliché to point this fact out. That’s why if someone were to ask me ‘Who would you kill if you could go back in time?’ I would respond with ‘Danny Boyle. And I’d also want to see if Snickers really were called Marathon Bars like my dad claims.’*
TechLand, the developer behind the Chrome engine that powers Rubbish but Fun™ shooter Sniper: Ghost Warrior, has turned its hand to the shambling animated corpse genre with Dead Island, another game that falls into the Rubbish but Fun™ category, but for very different reasons. It is a co-op first person RPG which relies heavily on melee combat over gunfights, although you do get to dispatch the dead with firearms after a first act in which they are largely absent.
Upon starting a new game you choose from one of four stereotypical characters with almost intentionally abrasive back stories. I chose the rapper because A) I wanted to hear how far the stereotype would be pushed with in-game dialogue and B) Being a blunt weapon specialist seemed like it would be an advantage in a game focused heavily on smashing zombies with blunt things. You get flung out to enjoy the tropical delights of resort-island Banoi, whose beaches are strewn with energy drinks, broken oars and clusters of survivors who want you to do little quests for them.
Dropping in and out of a co-op game going on online is easy enough and there are obviously parts of the game that need four people to tackle in a balanced way. However, while the zombie apocalypse as portrayed in something like Left 4 Dead needs four survivors to fight off the ravenous, running undead enemies, this is not the case with Dead Island. There is very little tension involved when playing with a party and the penalty for dying is minimal, respawning you a few feet from where you left off and taking a small chunk of your cash, which you can easily replenish.
Combat is satisfying if inconsistent. Hits will break bones or sever limbs, depending on whether you have a thick-edge bat or a blade equipped. Headshots do more damage and weapons deteriorate over time, which means you will be spending thousands of dollars at repair stations if you want to hang on to your favourite bommyknocker. The upside is that the game economy is not so much broken as entirely irrelevant. Regular money pickups from corpses and luggage as well as pay-offs for quest completion mean you are never short of cash. Which is lucky, because using the NPC traders is a pain in the arse.
I found that Dead Island makes a lot more ‘sense’ if you actually head out on your own, shunning the multiplayer element. The tension mounts because defeating larger groups of enemies or the stronger zombie variants is much tougher. In addition you will feel far lonelier in the empty streets, acting as the real hero of the piece because every other survivor is too scared to leave their fortified lodging. This is not a game that I can see retaining an enduring fanbase, although sales are probably going to do enough to result in a sequel at some point. There’s a lot that needs fixing, but for solo play a decent amount to be gained from playing Dead Island.
*In reality I would probably have sex with him.
