System Wars The Magazine Fall 2011

8/3/2019 System Wars The Magazine Fall 2011

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V~;l.O~:CO.,iml I ~,;:Wi;,~;CMI~l;: ;,DRCIPREVIEWS AND IM PRESSIO NS Hello Gamespot! 3 > Fina,1Fantasy Type 0 Impression 6 > FIFA 12 Demo Impression 9 > Dark Souls: Prepare To Die

ARTICLES 10 > Honoring Our Past Writers.14> When Developers Fight Garners

Lose.17 > Getting Back Into The Party: GTSREVIEWS

.20 > Catherine

.25 > Dead Island

.29 > Splinter CeU: Conviction

.33 > Disgaea 4

.36 > Infamous 2

.37 > Infamous 2//////////////////////////////////~

STAFF AND CONTR IBUTORS:JYNX (Justin Misner)

Layout and DesignWILLY105

ChiefCHERO KEE JACKEditor

DARKS PIN ES LA Y ER JE THROVEGA SRAVENSMASH S ILVURCROSSTHEGAME21X FABl95

WritersDARKLINKHe Tried

I am Willy105, the apparent once and futureEditor in Chief of System WarsTheMagazine. Ifyou are reading this on a magazine that youare holding. in your hands which you customordered from the Internet, then I applaud you .Because you are awesome Oustso youknow).But, you know what else is awesome? Video-games. It's Fall. meaning the big games oflate 2011 are coming: Zelda, Professor Layton,Rage, Forza4, Dark Soulds, Batman, Kirby,Battlefield 3, Mario Kart 7, Uncharted 3,Modern Warfare 3, and of course the big killerapp for the Xbox 360: Se.sameStreet. I haveno idea how in the world those games aregoing. to stand up to Sesame Street(especially Zelda and Uncharted, weak saucegames), but it will certainly be interesting.But before all of that we have a lot of contentfor you to digest! We review Dead Island,Limbo, and Disgaea 4, we judge how terribleGran Turismo 5 was, we talk about the FIFA12demo, and what happens when game devel-opers fight and how it ruins the game industry.We also pay tribute to our past SWMwriters,and say goodbye to Stevo_The_Gamer whohas recently left this world (and went on va-cation with his family).So, sit back, relax, grab your iPad, laptop,desktop, iPhone, smartphone, Kindle, or yourcustom ordered physical magazine, andenjoy our latest issue! Thisis SYSTEMWARSTHEMAGAZINE!


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BY: SILVURCROSS O I~ ~ I~ ~ ( ~ r ~ ~ O I@ I~ IR 'lJ(JJlrl}!lS[!J~ ~_IlJ\j~1Agito, as it was once called, was first introduced as a mobile game years ago andthen eventually moved to become a PSPtitle. At long last, we've received; wellthe Japanese anyways have gotten a demo of what could be the first real FinalFantasy in a long time. The demo starts off with some impressive pre renderedcutscenes. The cutscenes detail some rather violent events, of what looks to be awar. Some students participating in this war, a crazy academy of sorts and otherthings I don't particularly understand. So far it seems the latest installment ofFinal Fantasy will be a much darker one. Perhaps a welcoming change of pace?Let's just jump straight into the game play then, to begin, it's not turn based. Itsaction based, it reminds you of Crisis Core, but it's a lot more refined than that.To begin, all the characters feel very unique. They all have different moves andplay very differently. The demo only had 7 characters but I believe the final gamewill have 15, so there's lots of variety to choose from. You can have multiple char-acters fighting together (max 3 including yourself), I believe there is a multiplayeroption with friends, however I haven't tried it, nor sure if the demo included it.There is also the option to go solo, this personally is my preferred option, havingparty members controlled by the AI may die and I'd have lost a character fornothing. There is also the option to have "Guest" characters, these characters areshadowy forms of your party members, and even though they do die, they won'thave wasted a party member. You can't switch them out so if they are occupyinga slot you can't remove or switch to them.The character commands are inputted using the face buttons, the Triangle buttonis your normal attack, the Square button is usually your magic, and the Circlebutton is your active command while your X is your defensive spells or moves.Pressing Circle+ Triangle unleashes the summon you have selected prior to themission. In the demo there was Golern and Shiva to pick from.However these summons come with a cost, the life of one party member you usethe command on. Summons don't last forever either, with a span of either theirlife bar depleting or the timer running out. These commands are customizable,and new commands are unlocked as you gain AP and spend them accordingly. APcan also help grow other stats and essentially help your characters grow evenstronger.Magic on the other hand, has its own slew of assortments and management thatyou'll have to keep an eye on. There are different types of magic, they are labeledby MIS (Missile), ROK (Rocket) and so forth. Their properties are different so it'sbest to pay attention to which character has which kind. Magic has its own foof leveling, known as the Alto Crystarium.


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Powering up your magic is crucial, though in the demo, it's locked so I wasn'table to give it much of a shot to try it. From what I do understand is that you'llhave to collect "Phantasms" items which are found by defeating enemies. Buthow you collect them is big, when you defeat an enemy, a special lock on ap-pears on the dead enemy, holding it and waiting for the reticule to flip willallow you to extract the phantasrna, this ability also restores a little bit ofmana. It's an annoying little feature that I wish was better designed. This ismostly due to the lock-on system which auto locks onto an ALIVE target ratherthan the dead target, this makes sense, however to change targets to a deadone, you have to press Down on the D-pad rather than switch between nor-mally with left and right, this makes it a bit more confusing and a bit more te-dious.Speaking of the lock on system, the camera is also a big issue. I understand it'smostly due to the lack of dual analog on the PSP, but there are a lot of timeswhen it's just a real nuisance. The lock on system does a poor job of readjustingthe camera and most of the time you won't be able to see what's going on andcould end up getting killed. It also has trouble catching up with Shiva whenyou're using her, making it difficult to land her attacks. If there is one majorflaw, it's the camera. Hopefully by the final release, Square will have fixed thisup.Other gameplay elements include being able to switch up party members inbattle. Should your controlled character fall in battle, you can easi ly just changeto another and continue where you left off. Having a party of 3 allows youswitch between the 3 as well (provided they aren't guests), this gives a lot ofversatility and allows you to incorporate a lot more different play sty Ie into amission. There are also items as well, but in the demo they only included someHP restore and MP restore, nothing significant or gameplay changing. Duringmissions however, you may receive an "5.0" which flashes at the top, my beliefis that it stands for Special Orders. These special orders add a bonus objectivethat you mayor may not want to complete. They are entirely optional thoughI'm not 100% what the benefit of completing them are. However there is a timelimit in completing these orders and failure to do so means the cost of your life.Another element is the "Overkill" (I totally made that up) attack, basically thereare times when the reticule changes to either Yellow or Red, performing anattack an enemy while this is the case either causes massive damage or killsthem respectively.

Learning how to time your attacks is essential in completing your mission quicklyfor the best grade possible. It doesn't necessary discourage mashing, but i t encour-ages to better time your moves and better learn the enemy's movements, which inlater missions is crucial.In terms of graphics, the game looks very solid for a PSPtitle. Square's been knownfor making some of the best looking handheld games, and this is no exception. It'snot spectacular or had the same impact of WOW like Crisis Core did or looks as solidas Kingdom Hearts but it's still a good looking game. The academy where you begindoesn't offer much exploration as most of the areas are locked out from the demo.But it still provides a feel that this game is quite a big one, lots of NPCs as wellaround, some moving from area to area to give it a more livelier feel to it. Also tomy surprise, there was also a town! Albeit the town was very small, it didn't containmuch but a few narrow alleys and some people including a merchant who sells ac-cessories. Still we went from no towns in Final Fantasy XIII to a small one, slowlySquare's getting there.


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Lastly, how does the soundtrack stack up? If you know me, you'll know that I absolutely loved Final Fantasy XIII's soundtrack, it's onethe huge pluses for the game. So how does Type-O fare? Well, it's incredible. The songs fit quite well with the tone of the missionswhether you were going off into a battlefield with Bahamut in the background blasting away at stuff or in a forest taking down mechthey would make the feel of the battle quite epic. Even while exploring the academy with it's much more peaceful tone you could fethe soundtrack of this game is going to be quite solid.Overall the game is very solid, I've enjoyed the demo quite a bit {put like 10 hours into it}. There's a lot of replayability with tryingcomplete all missions with an 5 grade, using one of the other varied characters, leveling up your magic, gaining new commands anmuch more. There are sidequests to do, places to explore, fantastic music to enjoy and some incredibly difficult missions to fulfill. Thgame has its share of flaws one mainly being the camera and the other being that it can be quite difficult at times, with the camera nmaking it any easier. It also has this "The 3rd Birthday" feel for me, the way the timing attacks work, the interface has the same kindlook, the fact that you have to really abuse the dodge roll. However, while The 3rd Birthday didn't feel like Parasite Eve, Type-O feemore like a Final Fantasy title than XIII was. This just might be the long awaited "true" Final Fantasy game we've all been waiting for.

~I I 'r a l,III~ t "~ ,~

l : l


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The FIFA 12 demo came out on the 13th (XBL) and 14th (PSN) anddespite only being a demo, it's a big deal over here in the UK. ThePES2012 demo was also released around the same time, so it is nowthat the majority of football gamers decide which game they will begetting for the coming season. After playing both, I can confidentlysay that FIFA 12 wiU be the football game to get this year.

Although the demo won't demonstrate the majority of changes in a footballgame (new modes and such), it will show the most important thing: how it plays.The slight changes/improvements in the game are all on display here, and I think FIFA12 is a significant improvement over the last entry. The first big change you will noticeis defending; the game itself acknowledges this, as at the beginning of the demo you'regiven a tutorial that focuses solely on defending. In past games, holding thetackle/pressure button and literally running into an opposing player would tackle them.

You had to time the run and make sure you didn't run past theplayer, but the game would do the hard part, tackling the

..player as soon as you got near them, and would generallymake your player run towards the player you wanted totackle.Defending is now a lot more down to the player. You have torun towards the defender and tap the tackle button whenyou're near them. Thus tackling is all down to timing now, anda badly timed tackle will foul an opposing player, or may evenresult in you running straight past them. This means defend-ing is a lot more dependent on personal skill, and players whocan learn this wil'i find defending much easier than in previousgames. By holding down the light jockey button (X/A) you willrun towards a player and jockey (run alongside them), butyou still have to make the tackle yourself by timing yourpressing of the tackle button. Jockeying was in the previousgame but is more advanced now with the possibility tojockey, sprint whilst jockeying, and lightly jockeying, which iseasier but gives you less control over your movement.The game isn't just about defending, however; the majority ofthe fun comes from scoring goals.


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The problem is, when defending is so much stronger, how much harder will it be to score? It is harder, but that isn't necessarily abad thing. Just like real football, most matches are now won by 1 or 2 goal margins, and although the top players will still thrashothers 10-0 and so on, matches are a lot tighter and more exciting on the whole. But attacking has also had its share of improve-ments, mainly related to passing. It is difficult to notice, but passing has been improved. The game is much more aware of whichplayer you want to pass to. In previous games, if two players were near each other and you increased the power of your pass sothat the player further away from the ball would receive it, often you would just smash it at the player closer to you, which oftenleads to that player miscontrolling and losing the ball.Now the game is much more accurate with its passing. Whenyou're attempting a slick passing move and you need the ball to goto the right player, they should get it; the only way they wouldn't isif you were to make a mistake on your own part. Long passes are alsobetter; switching the ball and crossing is much better; the amount ofpower you have to use to cover a certain distance is consistent, meaningyou'll easily learn how much power you need to cover a certain distance.This may not seem like a big improvement, but for the better players ofthegame every pass makes a difference. At the moment it seems the onlyaspect that hasn't changed much is shooting; you need a little more powerto do the things you could do in FIFA 11, but otherwise it's pretty much thesame. That's not necessarily a bad thing, however, since shooting wasgood in the last game.It's not just the gameplay that's been improved: the audio, graphics andgeneral presentation have all improved too. FIFAgames always have greatmusic during menus, and 12 is no different. They also generally have goodcommentary during the games. Unfortunately, the classic partnership ofAndy Gray and Martin Tyler has been broken up, due to the fact that AndyGray was fired from Sky Sports in real life. He will be missed, but since thepair have commentated for literally every previous FIFA game, in the pastEA have been able to recycle many of the lines already recorded. Now thatthey've been forced to use a new one, every line from at least one com-mentator is new (and is of high quality).The graphics have been improved strongly, with the shadowing and light-ing being a lot better. The game seems darker than before, but also morerealistic; just as in real life, shadows from the stadium make the pitchrather dark. Player detaii is also scarily good now - better than ever. Pitch-es look good, stadiums majestic, and even crowds look decent. FIFA 10 toFIFA 11 wasn't the biggest improvement graphically, with some eventhinking it looked worse - this, however, is different. Other parts of thepresentation have been improved as wel l.

Menus look slicker and are easier to use, and the camera during gameplay is muchbetter, since it is positioned lower. follows the ball rather than being slow, andsnaps around the pitch, making you much closer to the action.I've said a lot about a mere demo, but with football games (and most sport games,for that matter), the improvements we want to see are on the field, which is whywe can tell a lot from just a demo. The game looks like it'll be a solid improvementand a worthy follow-up to FIFA 11. If you're wondering about which game to getthis year, you shouldn't be - FIFA 12 is the football game for this season.


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Dark Souls is the spiritual successor to 2009's Demons Souls, a gameheralded for both its punishing difficulty and its rewarding game-play. Dark Souls looks to take this philosophy of "no pain, no gain" tothe extreme, made clear by the game's tagline, "Prepare to Die".Will players indeed be prepared to die, or will they end up frus-trated and with nothing but bits of broken controllers left in theirhands?Much like Demons Souls, Dark Souls takes place in one of the mostatmospheric yet depressing game worlds around. From what I haveseen, the game is oozing with atmosphere; like a picture book, everyarea tells a story without needing to say a word. The characterdesign looks top-notch, but it can't hold a candle to the enemydesign - every monster is as menacing as the last. And the bossfights? Don't even get me started on those. Never in a series have Ibeen so enthralled with getting to the next boss just to see what in-sanity awaits me next.

With twice the amount of equipment, you can expect DarkSouls to have insane lasting power. The experience of search-ing every corner for a hunk of Bladestone, or finding thoseelusive Crystal Lizards, will likely make a comeback in someway, shape, or form. Expect looking for the best and rarestgear to get you killed many times when you are inches awayfrom obtaining it.Dark Souls promises to take everything Demon's Souls didand ramp it up: twice the number of items, a fully open worldto explore instead of a hub, and, as I'm sure is to the relief ofmany, checkpoints, though we can expect those to be fewand far between. From Software has said that they expectpeople to die hundreds of times before finding the correctway to handle a scenario, and I expect that I will be dying afew hundred times myself while enjoying this game.Prepare to Die! Dark Souls releases on October 4th in Americaand on the 7th in Europe.


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2007System Wars The Magazine has been around since 2007.That's right,

Super Mario Galaxy, Crysis, and Ratchet and Clank Future have just been released (with the latter being another in a long line offlops for the PS3). For a while, I was the only one running the issue, but soon a growing number of artists, writers, and all aroundawesome guys joined the magazine, and made it better than it has ever been before.A lot of them are no longer with us, but that doesn't mean they aren't forgotten. Who could forget Kccp2b, the one and only trueGamespot mob boss ofthe forums? After creating the incredibly successful System Wars Bets (later shut down by Gamespot's legalteam), he joined the magazine and wrote excellent and hilarious articles, such as a fake review of a fake game called Tomb RaiderStar Wars, and writing a rant about Fox News and their coverage of the Mass Effect 'scandal' in the 3rd issue of SWM. He even inter-viewed Gamespot's own Kevin_V by the 4th issue. Unfortunately he has retired from Gamespot, and his whereabouts are un-known.Who could also forget Tsug_Ze_Wind? An excellent and hilarious writer that was around for a very long time in the magazine, whobrought us classics such as Special Weather Report with Tsug_2e_ Wind, where he reported on the latest news of the game indus-try as a weatherman (this feature was the predecessor to our current Last Time on System Wars segment). He quickly became oneof SWM's most iconic and popular writers, from documenting the saga of System Wars Bets, being the first to reveal System Wars:The Game to the public, and the main guy behind our live E3coverage. He retired with a touching farewell letter, giving his resigna-tion once he realized he didn't have enough free time to continue his tradition.

We also had Rocktimusprime, a real life JOUrnalistwho joined our magazine and took on Roger Ebert inhis article Gaming As Art: A Rebuttal, and evaluatedeach new Presidential candidate for the 2008 elec-tion, seeing which one would have the best or worstimpact on the gaming industry with his article Elec-tion 2008: Which Candidate Pushes Gamer's Buttons?He also came up the idea of having weekly Rounduparticles where each SWM member came togetherand discussed the recent events in gaming (serving asa predecessor for Battle Royale).


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Also:- Iron Shop O Q !- User rleviews!- Other Stuff!

TheEndBoss was another excellent writer in this magazine, who wrotemany great things over a great number of issues. He was warning of usthe dangers of 'too much FPS'way back in 2007, with his great article AndNow For Something Different! ...Or Not, where he criticized the industryfor pandering too much to the lowest common denominator, and lettingthemsevles release rehashes of the same games over and over again tosatisfy their demand (good to see that no longer happening *cough*).

We also can't forget our former union leader and spellcheckerDeadman1290. Always on top of things, he hosted the union we used tobase all our operations, and made sure the stuff we wrote didn't read likeit was written by a 10 year old. He even interviewed the contestants forIron Shop '08. I don't think he ever actually retired, he just never cameback, which in that case we have a mountain of old issues for him to spell-check.Let's not forget Penguino726, which brought us a lot of excellent articles,such as Taking Back Gaming, and our greatest article: An Interview withLiz Woolley, a mother who lost her son to an EverQuest addiction thatcost him his desire to live. We also had Brianfoxl, the man who reviewedSystem Wars: The Game and gave us an excellent Shopping List everyissue, telling us what games to buy.Let's also not forget about K_Smoove. A comic genius, he always broughtin the readers to the magazine with his legendary wit and humor. Hejoined relatively late in the magazine's life (along with Brianfoxl) but hemade such a lasting impression that it was like he was there all along. Hewas last seen making weird Youtube videos.

I cannot write about all of our previous members here, but Ido want to talk about our latest retiree, Stevo_The_Gamer, whogave us a goodbye present in his own words:

ts .....


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BY: THE_GA.M.E21XIt has been rumored for months now, but yesterday, in an interview with Turn 10 creative director Dan Greenawalt posted on thedeveloper's website, the rumors were finally confirmed: Forza Motorsport 4 will not feature any vehicles from one of the mostprominent and revered automakers, Porsche. Why? Because the Porsche license is wholly owned by EA,and they have decided notto sublicense it out to Turn 10 this time around. So, a manufacturer that has been a staple of the Forza franchise from the very be-ginning will no longer be a part of it, and that kills me.

While Forza Motorsport 4 will feature RUF, it will not include Porsche cars. As many of you know, since the beginning of the Forzafranchise, the Porsche license has been available only through a sub-licensing deal with EA. In Forza 3, we were able to featuremore than 35 different Porsche models by offering to collaborate with EA. For Forza 4, we were looking forward to adding evenmore Porsche cars, and we were especially looking forward to featuring multiple Porsche experiences in our new Autovista mode.In the end, however, EA couldn't see their way towards collaborating again. - Dan GreenawaltI have been an avid fan of this series ever since I decided to take a chance on a new and unfamiliar racing game called Forza Motor-sport, which I discovered in the pages of the Official Xbox Magazine and found a review of in Electronic Gaming Monthly. Havingbeen a fan of Project Gotham Racing, Need for Speed and other racing games, I figured this "Forza" was worth a shot. I instantlyfell in love with the game and the slrn racing genre altogether. Each subsequent release in the Forza series has reignited that adora-tion and helped to foster a love of cars that still dwells within me to this day.I love cars. I love all makes and models of cars. So, when I heard that Porsche, manufacturer of such amazing vehicles such as the911 and the truly lust-worthy Carrera GT, was not going to be part of Forza 4, I was highly disappointed. Then, when I found outthat the reason why Porsche isn't going to be featured in Forza 4 is little more than a petty licensing squabble, my disappointmentquickly turned to annoyance.I understand the motivations behind EA's refusal to aillow Microsoft and Turn 10 access to the Porsche license; after all, Porsche isvery close to EA, appearing in one of the most famous racing games of the early 2000s, Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed. Thatbeing said, I can't see EA's actions in this case as anything other than petty and childish. Perhaps EA has seen how popular the Forzaseries has become and wants to hold Porsches back from the latest entry in the Forza series (which looks to be the best yet) to pro-mote their own racing games. But, without an official statement from EA, I can only speculate.


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I hate these kinds of practices. I'm glad Microsoft has decided not to playhardball with EA and deny them access to their exclusive Ferrari license,even though I may think that, at least in the short term, that's the onlypossible response to this kind of behavior, as childish as it may be. I canonly hope that EA will change their minds about this licensing nonsense,and allow gamers to buy the Forza 4 they were meant to have, rather thanthe game EA wants us to have.

What really irritates me is that the big losers in this situa-tion will be us, the consumers, who want the best racinggame that developers can deliver. EA isn't hurt, exceptperhaps by the negative press generated by a small butvocal minority of garners who are speaking out againstthis deal. I don't think TUrn 10 will be too hurt over this;Forza 4 will undoubtedly feature a number of awesomecars that will make the absence of Porsche easier tobear. Car lovers and garners alike are the ones hurt byEA's refusal to allow access to the Porsche license, andthat's a problem.I'm not naive enough to think that these faceless corpo-rations care about their individual customers beyondhow much they're willing to shell out for their products,but people interested in racing games are not only Mi-crosoft's customer base, but also yours. Sure, Need forSpeed may not be all of EA's business, but it makes youthink, is this move really going to help EA's businesshere?


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I , I , I , I ~BY: RAVENSMASHGran Turisrno 5 was the title that finally made me want a PS3. With its promise of mass amounts of content, and the franchise'slegacy pushing me forward, I decided to take the plunge and give it a go.I loved it, and played it continuously for those first few weeks with my shiny new system - ploughing my way through the careerand upgrading cars in order to drive faster and better {which was not always successful}. After a while Iventured towards other PS3exclusives, having missed several years worth of great games, and GTSs imply became relegated to the pits in favour of other expe-riences.That all changed a few weeks ago, as I had a sudden urge to get stuck in again - but what I discovered upon my return, was poten-tially the reason why it was neglected for all those months.Gran Turismo S is a fine driving sim; simply driving around the track is an exhilarating experience. Trying to handle a 600HP beast,whilst countering oversteer and lack of traction control, is a joy. As is driving around the many detailed tracks; the game's versionof the Nurburgring is regarded as one of the most accurate representations of the track in gaming, and taking a Mini around the13km circuit in pitch black darkness is fantastic, yet eerily tense at the same time.

However, as a game GT 5 is lacking. Its UI/menu system is in-credibly counter-intuitive, and has put me off of playing thegame for quick sessions. Maybe I'm used to the streamlinedsystem in Forza and other similar games, but even buying acar in GTS takes too long - why Polyphony felt it necessary touse an unskippable animation of your new car appearing{after you've gone through the excellent selection of pre-mium models} is beyond me. Sure, it lasts only a few seconds,but when you want to quickly jump onto the track or fancybuying a few different models? It begins to grind.This ties in with another odd choice: sending prize cars{awarded for completing events, on your birthday, etc.} to a"ticket" which then has to be manually redeemed for the ve-hicle to be added to your garage. Why? I have no idea, but Ido know that I have around 20 cars in this position. It's notgame-breaking, but it is completely unnecessary, and theprospect of sitting there manually selecting each one ANDthen sitting through the unskippable animation ...?As mentioned earlier, the game has a plethora of content,ranging from detailed tracks and gorgeous looking cars, toseasonal/special events that vary up the pace. The back coverof the game boasts "Race over 1000 cars", and it's not jokingaround - there are a LOT of vehicles to choose from.


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But the game really only places emphasis on 200-300 of them, thosebeing the ultra detailed premium models. I cannot fault PolyphonyDigital for the effort put into these cars: everything down to wind-screen wipers and in-car displays is finely tuned. But those standardcars? It rarely feels like they get a look in.The standard models {some of which are just upscaled models fromprevious games} are accessed through the "Used Car Dealership", nodoubt an apt name considering the content. In contrast to the packeddealership which lists models by make, the UCD gives you a selection ofaround 20 cars which randomly updates according to your XP; this es-sential ly makes the majority of cars filler content.Obviously the main focus is on premium models, but to boast 1000 carsand then only focus on a fifth of them? Seems like they've just beenthrown in.That's not to say that the cars are significantly awful, and it is nicehaving them, but going from the fully-realised cockpit of an F40 to theequivalent of a car model in a PS2game is not something to write homeabout, especially when these cars make up the bulk of the vehicle list.The physics are fine, and the few I've used have felt solid; it's just ashame about some of the inconsistent models.On-track action is often disappointing as well. Whilst games like Forza3 have had AI that feels aggressive and actually attempts to race you,GT5's "races" often feel like an overtaking exercise, with the CPU seem-ingly being almost unaware of your presence. It's not completelystupid, but it does tend to feel a bit lifeless on the longer races.But perhaps GT5's biggest issue is one that could've been (and could still eventually be) a positive. It attempts to be a jack of alltrades, combining masses of graphics, content and action in one package, but ultimately feels like a master of none. Inconsistencyis rife, from the aforementioned car models which split up the game, to graphical details on individual tracks.Polyphony Digital have promised to regularly update the game in accordance to fan feedback, and it must be noted that I haven'tspent enough time with it upon my return to fully note all the improvements, but I seriously hope they keep it up. Promises offuture DLCand standard models being converted to premium sound promising.I don't dislike the game, despite my little moan on here - in fact, I recommend it to anyone with a PS3and an interest in cars. It'sjust a few miles away from the the cheque red flag.


19/40

wlhy d id you buy a ?


20/40

BY: JYNXQuirky, bizarre, twisted, with the fresh twist of Japanese pop culture are hallmark to Atlus, From the guys who brought us the Per-sona series comes Catherine Atlus's fi rst foray on the HD consoles this generation.Like the Persona games before, Catherine takes a rather mature stance on lofty issues and hard to approach subjects. This timearound the main conflict revolves around the main character Vincent who isa less than ambitious guy, is confronted by his long timegirlfriend Katherine about getting a bit more serious and tying the knot with marriage. Being the kind of guy he is, Vincent is down-right panicked at the thought of being tied down for the rest of his life. As Vincent struggles with with this new knowledge he en-counters a mysterious woman named Catherine who is in his eyes the ideal woman, Blond hair, provocative clothing, finds every-thing about him amazing, and last but not least she also doesn't want to be tied down. So our uncharismatic hero is caught betweena rock and a hard place decided whether he should stay with his current Girlfriend Katherine, or take a walk on the wild side withCatherine.Unfortunately for Vincent the latter part of "Choosing" whether totake a walk on the wild side seems to have been made without hissober consent. Vincent then struggles to avoid being caught cheat-ing on his girlfriend and also find out what direction he is heading inlife now that this has happened, a plethora of problems are nowheaded Vincents way and his indiscretions are the least of his wor-ries. While all these daytime shenanigans are happening, people arestarting to turn up dead from unknown causes. The rumors is that"Cheating men are cursed by a witch, they will then dream aboutfalling and ifthey hit the bottom they die" Vincent happens to fit thisdescription to a tee and finds himself smack dab in nightmare land.


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Vincent now starts having recurring nightmares where hemust scale this never ending tower of bricks to survive. Get-ting a hang of these controls will take a while, the game does 0a great job in easing you into the controls and giving you tipsthrough the entire game when new elements are introduced.Some may complain the game lacks a bit of variety but withseveral types of challenging blocks and the generally changingtheme of the levels asyou advance seem to be the perfect dif-ficulty curve. Adding too much more would have made thepuzzle elements far too complex and they are already prettydang complex. I will warn you now that you will not find thiseasy in any way shape orform, even the most seasoned puzzlegame veterans are sure to be challenged by some of the com-plex solutions to a few predicaments that are presented,expect to die, and to die alot. The key to being able to blazethrough a challenging level usually lies in the sum of 20 or somissteps, trial and error is the name of the game.

9

I personally found the game to transition very smooth from nightto night, ramping up the difficulty in a grueling manner. Perhapsit's the oldschool gamer in me but I f ound when completing a par-ticularly hard stage that I may have had to walk away from, or toreout some hair over. When the solution finally clicked it was a rush,no other game can match the rush you get when you finally findthat one thing that was eluding you a a few lives ago.Each night in the tower is followed up with a "Boss" of sorts, thesecome in variety of shapes and sizes, to avoid spoiling the supriseI will refrain from saying what each night holds. Each boss stemsfrom Vincents subconscious and the game does a superb job visu-alizing your doubts and insecurities into monstrous entities. Eachboss has there own way of "attacking" you while you ascend thetower from changing the type of bricks you are climbing to flat outremoving them from under your feet. The one issue I have withthis game is that a few of the bosses add a element of "Luck" toyour climb rather than being able to skillfully dodge some attacksthey can outright kill you if your caught in the wrong position. Agood example would be whenever a boss uses a attack vincent isforced to freeze due to the camera focusing on the action, some-times his "Freezing" on certain blocks will spell instant deathwhere it was not intended. Walking onto a spike-trap and beingforced to freeze because the boss is mowing down a set of blocks8 stories below you is less than a exciting experience.If you are lucky enough to survive Vincents nightmare you will betreated to the daily life ofthis poor schmoe, wich does not includehis work because who cares about work right? Vincent will gener-ally wake up, deal with some new life altering issue, and head tothe bar to forget it ever happened. During your time in the baryou will garner clues as to what is really going on and that yournot the only one having crazy dreams.


22/40

Almost everyone in the bar seems to be in the same boat as Vin-cent, you will actually find most of the bar patrons in your night-mares between levels questioning their self worth among otherthings. You can interact with them in and outside of the dreamsbut nobody remembers anything specific about the nightmarewhen they are awake. At most you will get a inkling that you rec-ognize that guy from somewhere. Be sure to make the time totalk to everyone you can, because it appears that without Vin-cents gleaming hope that they might not make it to the bar thenext day and wind up on the news ... dead.Of course there are other things to do at the bar besides gossip-ing with the patrons, you can get stone drunk )This actuallymakes you move faster in your nightmares so there is no down-side to getting hammered and grants you with some interestingtrivia that only the most hardcore Alchaholics would haveknown beforehand) If you didn't get enough block climbingthere is a arcade machine aptly name Rapunzle whereyou ....climb more blocks in the same fashion as the nightmares,the tiwst is that instead of being chased or bricks falling frombelow you you have a limited number of moves. As time passesin the bar you will receive Phone calls and texts from Katherineand Catherine, almost every decision you make through thegame effects where your relationship with the two go. Person-ally I wish we had more control during encounters with the twoladies in Vincents life, we are usually only treated to a animatedcutscene where our alignment causes Vincents inner mono-logues to take a spin in favor of one of the women.While the social aspects of the game don't really live up to thehype, the characters themselves are amazingly deep and wellvoiced to boot. Everyone you encounter is so full of depth youcould almost imagine the story being able to play out with anyof them. The characters are so amazingly deep it gives me chillsto see if Atlus decides to go anywhere else with the series.

Vincent himself has an amazing shift of character through thegame showing how he has grown in the face of adversitygoing from a meek under achiever to becoming a beacon ofshining hope to all those around him the transition is nightand day and blends so well it's hard to pinpoint when he start-ed to evolve as a character.The plot may appear so simple when it begins but slowlyramps up and takes twists and turns that nobody wouldexpect bringing the game to a massive pinacle that I doubtmany would want to pass up.I'm sure to hear alot of silly complaints about this game thatwil l be totally unfounded.-Sex game-Too hard-Puzzles are not for me-I hate anime so I hate this game

Let me tell you the last thing this game advocates is that sexsells, people who say this are just ignorant and uninformed.The game is challenging but is so deep and rewarding whenyou finally surmount the trials you will be proud that you canclimb the hell out of some blocks. The puzzles are not only in-gaging they are fast paced giving a fresh twist to puzzleswhere you sit and find the perfect solution, for the most partthere is never just one way to climb the tower there arealways several ways you can trump the tower. As far aspeople who say they hate anime and anime stories ... 1willcompare the depth of this to some of the best stories I haveever seen in a game, they not only tackle such a iffy topic buttake it on with such style and human character it's hard to notbe drawn in and lost in the world of Catherine.


23/40

With multiple endings, and challenge modes you will find yourself wanting for evenmore than this game hasto offer. If anything thisgame suceeded in making me want more, nothing they do will ever satiate my need to climb the hell out of these block towers andI will be returning to Catherine for years to come.Amazing job Atlus! I ernplore you to come off the Personatracks again and treat uswith another original inspired game like this.How anyone could not recomend this game is beyond me, personally I think everyone should brave the tower and find their ownanswer in Catherine!

I give catherine a perfect score, the minor issuesare nowhere near enough to drag this masterpeice of a game down. 5 Orlando'sout of 5!


24/40

TM

( c o m in g s o o n )2 lO S ick so l sepa a ie l Ii


25/40

BY: JYNXIf you read the last issue of SWM, you are well aware of my disdain forthe terrible marketing faux pas that was Dead Island's reveal trailer.Much like I predicted. the game falls short of delivering even the faintesthint ofthe emotional power that that trailer had going for it. Dead Islandis a romp through an infected resort island; unfortunately for the devel-opers, the design comes off as ifthe team wanted to go in one direction,and then shifted focus a few months before release. I can only imaginethat the developer meetings had to have gone something like this:Designer A: OK, we've got the premise down: you're stuck on an islandby yourself, with thousands of zombies clawing at the doors to eat you.So what we-Designer B: Hold up! I see where you're going with this, but I think weneed a hardcore rapper. "Urban appeal" is all the rage these days.Designer A: ...Wait, what?

Designer B: Oh yeah, and an alcoholic ex-pro football star!Designer A: But we already have a prototype with a man and his FAMILYstuck on the isla ....Designer B: Oh, come on I Get with the times, we need someone to blowzombies away with his fists when he gets angry, all Hulk-style ...whilewe're at it, we need a feminist character as well, and I guess a supersecret spy would be awesome toolDesigner A: ...The design feels disjointed at almost a basic level. The opening cinematichas you watching a character (who mayor may not be hideously disfig-ured, considering people's reactions to seeing him) stumble his sorry selfaround a resort that's more lively than Vegas, getting drunk, meeting ttle4 main characters, who confirm that they are the worst characters on theplanet for their roles, and then vaguely watching some bad stuff go down,but who cares - you go to your room and pass out drunk. This characteris unplayable, and since he is never mentioned in the game, it does seemlike he is potentially the subject offuture OLe. But having your future O L ein the intra? That's just in bad taste if you ask me... '


26/40

Not that we will be seeing the DlC for this character any time soon: Techland has delayed all work on DlC, even the stuff promisedto be released a month after launch, because the state ofthe game is, much like its antagonists, a shambling mess. Not only did theyrelease the wrong version of the game to Steam users, but they literally have yet to even fix the online system for all platforms yet!It wasn't just a few quirks like characters falling through the ground or an improperly-loading quest - oh sure, they had plenty ofthose - but there were also issues with the game eating your save files, showing black screens, and refusing to launch at all. So untilwe see the next patch to fix many of these issues (only a few have been addressed as of this writing,) we won't be seeing any DLCfor the time being.

The game's story is as disjointed as everything else. Many quests have you doing terrible things like escorting a woman away fromher husband before he turns, searching homes whose residents failed to defend against the undead hordes, gathering supplies forstarving civilians who just want to see the next sunrise. However, all this somber and touching content is moot when you talk to theguy beside the quest-giver and he is begging you for 15 bottles of booze, or wants you to collect his loan shark money. It's hard tosee why they even left such content in the game, and it's even harder to feel for the guy who asked you to kill his infected familywhen you slice through his wife with a electrified machete and see her go down with a comical epileptic seizure. Not only that, butyour character's often "witty" remarks don't help much. I approached a man who seemed to have killed his entire family when theyturned, and was sitting in a pool of bloody water ...what does my character squawk?

Logan:Master of Sympathy

"looks like somebody's having a bad day."Really?One could harp on these issues for an eon and never have enough, but the game does havegood points and I think it's about time we had a look at the silver lining to this cloud.The one area Dead Island really shines is in its combat and co-op systems. The base meelecombat is visceral and responsive; I have a few quibbles with it, but I can't deny that I enjoy lop-ping off a zombie's arms to nothing but stumps, just to watch him stumble helplessly towardsme. Nor can I deny that I got a bit of a rush when I kicked a zombie into a pool of water andwatched him drown before he was able to pick himself


27/40

The upgradable weapons feel the part: critical hits result in dramatic ef-fects, so while using an electric machete you might see a zombie startauditioning for the new Thriller remake before crumpling to the ground.Dead Island is fi ne and dandy in single-player ...until you reach the cityand beyond. It then becomes hellishly difficult to hold on to your hard-earned cash when many zombies knock you around like a paper doll. Butadd a friend in at any point of the game, and you're ready to have azombie-head-smashing good time. Much like Left 4 Dead, the gamereally doesn't feel the same alone; the frantic pace lends itself to coop-erative play nicely, and mowing through a horde of zombies is just somuch more fun with someone else to enjoy it with. Balancing issuesplague the multi player, though. Finding yourself 4 or 5 levels behindsomeone who started out at the same level as you is a very real possibil-ity, due to how experience is divided in co-op play (the person who thekilling blow gets more EXP,and Rage mode gives massive EXP boosts inthe right circumstances,) at which point your character is effectivelyuseless.

Purna: Kick em in the head!?

Dead Island is a fun romp, but I can't look past enough of the glaring issues to give it a high rec-ommendation. If you're looking for a frantic zombie smasher to play with some friends onceyou're sick of Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising, then you should give this a glance. But as it stands,both of those games do the frantic hilarious zombie game scenario far better. Dead Island failsbecause it attempts to emulate so many other games, but doesn't really bring anything of itsown to the table. If you have played L4D, Dead Rising, and Borderlands, you have played DeadIsland. Perhaps the team that started developing this game with a serious story and a more de-pressing feel will have a larger voice next time around.I'm waiting for a game that takes zombies seriously, where survival is the goal rather than get-ting the next shiny Zombie Pu 5000. And I'm still waiting because Dead Island is far fromthis game ....


28/40


29/40

BY: JETHROVEGASLadies and gentlemen, boys and girls, l'ved asked you to gathertoday in order to witness an event rather singular in its absurdity. Inthe abscence of any real interest in reviewing super recent games(PTSD,you see) I have decided to drunkenly peruse a mildly olderone, in the interest of accuracy and thoroughness.The name of the game isSplinter Cell: Conviction. Certain membersof the community have been complaining of late that I discussgames without duly considering their merits or discussingtheir fea-tures, and soI will try at hisjuncture to produce awork dedicated todetailed analysis of every significant aspect of the game.The review isdivided into several parts. Don't let this disturb you orsway your focus from the careful commentary.

Part 1: GameplayTofarius and Banatha were bush daschunds ofconsiderable ability. For those of you woefullyunfamilar, a bush daschund is a variety of thebetter-known dog whose chiefest distinctionamong others is its uncanny tendency to annoyand evade its prey by hiding in thick bushes.Often as dogs are walking in the park a rovingbattalion of bush daschunds will surround themand bark direly from the edges of shelteringbushes,often moving with great speed along theedges thereof, seeking to provoke the largerdogs into pursuing them so they may flee andcontinue their foul minstrely from the shadowsof the brush.They are, by and large, bastards and mongrels,though there may be some clever among them(along with the cowards and the rubes and thepants eaters). They will steal a burger from achild sooner than work a day and will betray youat their soonest covenience. Think it not sil ly todislike them.


30/40

Part 3: Story"I mean don't get me wrong, I like butterscotch sometimes.But it isn't the right thing all of the time, I mean, it isn't alrightfor a hamster.""What? Why not?""Because it doesn't taste good with everything-""No, no, no, I mean,why isn't alright for a hamster?""...are you serious?""Yes,of course. Doyou remember my hamster Fiego?""Certainly.""Yes, well I feed him butterscotch daily. Sometimes severaltimes a day.""Are you serious?""Quite.""What, like you give him the candy?""If he pleases.Often I melt it down into a little soup, put it abowl for him, sometimes the maid does it.""Alright, you're havinga laugh on me.""Not at ali.""You really feed your hamster butterscotch?""Absolutely.""Do you yourself like butterscotch?""Oh, but of course. Fiegoturned meonto it when we first start-ed dating."

Part 2: GraphicsAss.What a delicate word, what nicely set letters. One away frompass, another to grass, still more to Crassus, to Parnassus,toMolasses.All of these asses,hidden in words.Doesnoticing them make you an assman?

o ~ o - . . _ _


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PART4: A ReviewI'm sorry gentlemen. We've absolutely failed to secure sane footing here. Overtime I'm certain that a variety of excuses for this article willi surface, but it's largelyirredeemable.It's main point seems to be trolling the audience, there is no commentary of anykind on the aforementioned game or any other, and it seems, on the whole, to beentirely irrelevant to System War's Monthly interests and to society's at large.Had the comedy been inter-mingled with some legitimate criticism it might havehad a stray few shots quality but as it stands the thing folds in on itself like a houseof bricks.Its execution was flat, its presentation was uninsipired, it was overhyped, over-rated, over-mentioned and in general an awful experience.

Like eating jagged shards of porcelain out of 10

Part 5: The game itself, for real this timeOkay, so we jumped in the van, there were seven or eight turkeys on cycles behindus popping off machine pistols like it was casual. The cops were just up the road, Icould see their lights ahead. We'd stolen the gravy recipe maybe six minutes prior.Olsen was already shot, Molgens was dead, Harris and Taipen were freaking the"'* * * ' out, covered in blood, shaking each other. My hands were slick on the wheel,doing ninety in a residential.Just then I remembered my case of Leenore's Anchovies right under my seat.Hey, I'm Leonard Maltin, and I'm here on behalf of Leenore's Anchovies, one of theproudest, most respected companies in the world. When you're caught in a high-speed drug chase like the one you just heard about, you don't want any **** an-chovies to be your hot thing. No baby, no, when you're riding hard you want thebest, baby, goddamn! And if you can't have the best you want a ****ing gunfightand you're gonna' steal the best, because this **** is the real league, AWWWWNAWWWW, YA'LL AIN'T NEVAH' HEARDUH DIS!"


32/40

Part 6: No, seriously, 1 1 m done joking around"TRY MY TURKEY LEGS!TRYMY TURKEY LEGS!"I'm sorry, it's the crack rock.

CONCLUS ONDon't ever trick yourself into thinking that jams and jellies aren't an important part of our community. When children need food,when dogs need car rides, when sandwiches need friendly feelings to make them feel fine, where are you going to turn besidesyour tasty jar of jam?On the other hand, don't suspect that peanut butter doesn't playa role as well. Here, let me tell you a story to explain.Once upon a time there was a city named Panania, and in that city lived men who liked to wear peanut hats (or maybe had peanutheads) and called themself The Jaceurs. Across the canopy (for it was a city in a tree, have I not told you?) lived the Rolleoh's andthey wore curtains of jelly (they might have had jelly wings.). At times they had mild wars and cursed each other memorably.Once an elder member of the Jelly clan came out from his yurt and observed by moonlight across the way his wife passionatelykissing and being kissed by a peanut headed member ofthe Jaceurs, as her jelly veils stirred fitfully about her with the rush of infre-quent breezes. He watched for a long time and then began to weep great strawberry tears as his blueberry wife kissed the peanutbutter man.In his rage and torment he raised up a spear to cast it, but as he did he observed by chance the reflection of the two lovers in thepolished silver of the spear blade. It was then that he realised, as he watched them kissing, colors slightly melting like wax uponthe blade, that they were merely a reflection of his own desire and that peanut butter and jelly people have no sexes and by natureshould inter-mingle. And he realised too that all the jams and jellies and butters were already joined in space and time and that PB& J's were destined to be made and already had been.And he wept no more and kissed his wife across the way, for he was the peanut butter man and the peanut butter man was him.

So , I've been ly ing to you o ffic er ou t o f 10


33/40

BY: JYNXDisgaea 4 is a milestone for the series. While thisis not the franchise's first forray onto a HDsystem, it is the first time the series has sportedHD sprites to replace the PS2-era sprites thatwere a series staple.The game is true to its origins to a tee; if you'veever played a Disgaea game, you've basicallyplayed this one. While 4 does bring in a few newfunctions, building ever further on Disgaea's solidgameplay foundation, the game doesn't really bringa lot to the table aside from its new story and HDgraphics. This isn' t to say that the Disgaea formulaneeded any sweeping changes to begin with, though.Many of the changes compliment the turn based combat, andbring with them new strategies and a overall wellspring of newcontent for those of us who can and will grind to level 9999 onmultiple cha The main story revolves around Valvatores, a former tyrant

who spread fear far and wide across the human world, untilone day he made a promise to never drink human bloodagain. He cast himself down to Hades to become a Prinny in-structor, and subsequently lost all of his power.Valvatores seems perfectly content with his fate, instructingthe ever increasing population of Prinnies (human souls whohave commited grave sins in life, and must work off their"debt" before being reincarnated as humans again) how toproperly act l ike Prinnies."Prinny rule #1: A Prinny must always include the word"Dude" into every sentence ... .dude."His loyal servant Fenrich is determined to make his masterbreak his promise, and rule over the netherworld once again.All the while Fenrich is rejected at every turn, because Valva-tores believes he has retained all of his former powers byeating nothing but sardines.Unfortunately for Valvatores, events are in motion that willforce him into action, overthrowing a corrupt government inthe process.


34/40

But we all know the story is not the main attraction of any Dis-gaea game. The real draw is the battle system, along with theridiculous longevity that the game has to offer outside thestory. The combat mechanics remain perfectly intact: youmove units from your base panel to attack enemies that arestrewn across the map. Characters level up and get stronger asthey go, but the real strength comes from restarting your char-acters from level 1. Those new to the series may think thissounds strange, but reincarnating a character and temporarilyweakening him allows him to become stronger than he couldthe first time around.For example, if Character A is at level 100, his attack stat is at1000 and he is fairly strong. If the player reincarnates him andlevels him to 100 again, he wiU have 1300 attack. Repeat asyousee fit and you can create characters with ungodly power.Eventually you will be walking around as a level 1 character, de-stroying enemies who are hundreds of levels higher than you.Reincarnation isn't the only method of character growth opento you. The Item World returns as well, allowing you to powerup individual items, and through painstaking labor you cancreate some godly weapons for your godly characters. TheCharacter World is also back with a vengance in Disgaea 4. Nothappy with how far your character can move? Upgrade it!Want to learn a skill normally unavailable to your class? Put thecharacter with the desired skill in your group and learn it!

With the sheer amount of skills and abilities you can combineto create an enormous variety of characters, there is no wrongway to play the game. No particular play style is punished, asevery character and class has the potential to become a un-stoppable force. You can fight with teamwork, or power asingle character to unlimited strength.One of the new mechanics in the game is the upgraded"Magichange" system, which allows you to turn monsters intoweapons for your human characters to wield. Not only doesthis give your character the stats ofthe combined monster, butyou also gain additional skills depending on the type of mon-ster, as well as their specific class skill. You can see how this tal-lies up to become such a deep system, but thats not all - youcan wield two Magichange weapons at a time, or even wield aweapon created from a giant monster (created by fusing twomonsters together), increasing the attack range and parama-ters of certain skills.I could sing the praises of the Disgaea system and the newtweaks for ages; you have online network features, reverse pi-rating, tools to create your own maps and share them withothers, the ability to attack other users' worlds ... hell, you caneven remodel your hub world to your liking. There is no doubtthat Disgaea 4 has a phenominal amount of content and cankeep you playing and coming back with real goals for hundredsof hours, if only just to see all the unique skills every characterhas to offer.


35/40

Where the game does fall flat, though, is the network features. They're generally clunky and have no real purpose in the biggerscheme of things, which is a strange fumble for this series. Almost every other system has a purpose, but most ofthe network stuffonly provides you with points to spend on items for the map editor, with any decent items costing far too much to obtain in any re-alistic amount of time. The other network functions, including sending senators to other players' worlds and fighting other users' pi-rates, are automated and dull. It's sad to say, but I feel the network features could have been left out entirely and it wouldn't havemade a difference. If anything the glaring issues with the system are more of a hinderance than a help.Disgaea is created for a specific crowd, and considering 4's steep learning curve (even with the helpful tutorials) and extremelydeep gameplay, NIS doesn't aim to hold anyone's hand in order to get them into the action either. The series is rea I llymade solelyfor its fans, and they don't cut any corners to get new customers because they know exactly who is going to buy this game. Evenwith it's quirky humor and outlandish mechanics, Disgaea 4 is not the game for you if you aren't into strategy games.For the rest of us? Disgaea 4 is a great addition to the series. Although the game is a bit short on new content, the new HD spritesare well worth the purchase, bringing a new coat of paint to a familiar and enjoyable classic.


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BY: DARKSPINESLAYERThe foretold Beast is coming. The foreboding conduit intent on destroying alllife, and Lightning Man Cole McGrath, tumble ever closer toward the battle thatwill inevitably take place between the two. The game opens with an intensefirst encounter with the Beast in which all of Cole's shocking powers aren't upto the task. Beast 1, Cole zip.Never one to take defeat lying down, Cole and associates quickly abscond tothe ass-end of the South as Cole hopes to expand his powers in the city of NewMarais. Cole's quest to get ready for round two isn't without opposition; thecity of New Marais has its own dangers, like flooded neighbourhoods that cangive you a shocking bath, swamp creatures towering over Cole forbodingly, anda zealous militia with a leader who calls to mind the familiar X-Men human-versus-mutant subplots. But Cole is ready to win, no matter the cost.The dull greys of Empire City are tossed aside for a vibrant, almost Caribbeanenvironment that is a joy to romp through, while randomly-placed side objec-tives such as disarming bombs or killing civilians for collectibles give the city amuch more real feeling than before, as it makes you believe the enemies keepup their operations constantly and aren't simply waiting for you to begin thenext story mission. These objectives also provide tantalising temptations forthose playing the opposite side of the Karma scale. The visuals are as sharp asyou've come to expect from the PS3, and while it won't blow any minds in thisregard, the game hides texture pop-in better than most sandbox games whileyou're zipping around New Marais.While the Karma system is as rigid as ever, forcing you down one path or theother if you want to get the cooler powers, and the sticky free-running mechan-ics have only seen marginal improvement, the gameplay is still as fun as everand truly make you feel awesome when you nail that headshock while grindingacross a power line. The mission structure from the first game is intact, butyou'll find yourself frequently distracted as you end up planning to move fromPoint A to Point B, and end up making detours to pick up 7 collectibles and do aside mission along the way. Combined with the compelling story and relatablecharacters, it's easy to get lost for hours. The steel drums and guitar strums ofthe soundtrack go up and down in tempo nicely to give you an equal sense ofatmosphere and exhilaration, regardless of what Cole is up to on screen.So should you follow the electric man to his amazing finale, or should the beastremain in the cage? InFamous 2 delivers a familiar, solid experience thatevolved in reasonable and fun ways from its predecessor, and may make a fewnew fans along the way.


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BY: FARZ_9SThere are many lndie platformers released on a regular basis meaning it's difficult to stand out from the crowd, Limbo however givesgamers good reason to notice it as it is one of the best ones out there.Limbo, developed by Playdead, was released in the summer of 2010 for the PCand 360 whilst it was released in the summer of 2011the PS3 ( hence why I'm reviewing the game now) as a downloadable title for all three systems. The plot is a simple one, a young boysearching for his sister. It sounds fairly innocent but you'll be surprised how violent this game is. The boy is trapped in Limbo, the edgehell which iswhy he faces so many obstacles ahead of him. The game isas much a puzzle game as it is a platformer and you'll have to coplete many in order to guide the nameless boy through safely. You should however expect to die on a large number of occasions .

The game controls great with the abilitymove, jump and an action button thallows you to pull/push/operate things. Tboy moves realistically, you're ablechange his pace and when jumping and faing to your death, his body will crumplevarious ways, it's nice to see the developernave put some effort in the animationsdead children. There are also a numbergruesome ways to die via the enemies youfind in the game but I won't spoil anyyou. Puzzles include simple ones at fi rst bthen get progressively harder involvinsome gravity switching.


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You're just trying to get from A to B for the most part but traps (boulders, spike pits etc), water, archers and giant spiders are among ththings that will kill you. The puzzles are great however and are always linked with platforming, you may workout how to complete a puzzbut actually doing it with the timing of your jumps is another challenge in itself. A good balance of platforming and puzzles means the gamalways feels fresh, tough sections also makes progress satisfying, especially after dying over and over again before completing certapuzzles.As I mentioned before, the game has fantastic animation whether it be the movement of the boy or the things trying to kill you. The gamis black and white and has an artstvle that I really like. Things like the lighting, the music and sound effects, fog, weather changes (suchrain suddenly crashing down) really add to the atmosphere of the game. You can really get absorbed into the world of Limbo, it really ispleasure to look at. Overall the presentation is fantastic and is one of the best aspects of the game.The only problem I have with the game is it's length; it is way too short. The game can be completed in 3-4 hours, the achievements asecret eggs do add some replay value but with the chapter select those shouldn't take too much time. The fact that it costs flO (at leastPSN i t does) means you would like the game to be a little longer but when those 3-4 hours are that fun, you can't have too many complaLimbo is a fantastic platformer, one that plays well, has intelligent puzzle and platforming sections and excellent presentation that createa creepy atmosphere. It may be a little short but you'll enjoy it so much you won't mind and is definitely a game you'll want to completagain.9 / 1 0


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Documents

System Wars The Magazine Fall 2011