Resurrection: Super Monkey Ball

Resurrection is Resolution’s weekly retrospective feature. Jon Beach climbs down a branch of the tree of gaming evolution and reminisces about SUPER MONKEY BALL.

LoveCraft

Resurrection is a regular feature in which we reminisce about a game from way back when. This week Greg Giddens takes a look at RTS legend StarCraft.

StarCraft is a remarkable game, and its most remarkable feature is just how remarkable it is. StarCraft is a standard RTS game, with obvious traits from the WarCraft series and Command & Conquer series. What makes it stand out, however, is its personality, consisting of its interesting races and the serious narrative with a downright hilarious undertone.

StoryCraft

The narrative involves a vast backstory for each race; The Terrans’ (Humans) internal conflicts, and the Protoss’ and Zerg’s rising and vicious war. The game’s specific narrative, however, only touches on this backstory. Instead it concentrates on the meeting of the three races and the mutual understanding between elements of the Protoss leadership and the Terrans regarding the threat that the Zerg represent. Taking you through the perspective of each race, you witness the narrative as a commander in each respective military. Through excellent voice acting in briefings and in-game – as well as cut scenes that pull off an impressive balance between serious story progression and humour – you discover the drive behind each race and glimpse the vastness of the universe Blizzard has created.

StarCraft remained very true to the setup of other RTS titles of the late 1990s, with its resource gathering, base building and unit production feeling identical to other titles. The originality was found in the distinctiveness of each race. Whilst it was common in other RTS titles of the time to have each race using similar units to counter each other, StarCraft had unique units for each race which required different tactics to use successfully. As a result StarCraft was inherently tactical.

The Terrans were highly adaptable; units could deal with multiple situations – close range or long through artillery and nukes – and buildings could be placed freely, with major buildings being able to take off and fly away if things looked hairy. This adaptability made the Terrans ideal for learning the ropes, and the campaign reflected that by having the Terrans as the starting race.

The Zerg had some fairly weak units but they were cheap and quick to build, allowing you to raise a large force very quickly to overwhelm your enemies. This made popular the rush tactic of the same name. Zerg buildings were organic and required being built on land rich in organic mass, limiting their building locations significantly. With the weak but cheap units in mind, the Zerg required a more aggressive set of tactics then the Terrans.

The Protoss were the most difficult race to use thanks to being initially difficult to understand. The reliance on power restricted building placement, and the units were more expensive with more specific roles in battle. As a result tactics – once again – needed to change, with the Protoss requiring more careful flanking and hit and run strategies to be victorious.

MultiCraft

The distinctiveness of each race made StarCraft unique compared to every other RTS out at the time and this originality and strategic quality translated well into multiplayer.

Impressively, despite the unique qualities of each race – they remained balanced. Whilst there wasn’t a counter unit on each side for every unit, through the use of tactics no race could claim an advantage over the others. This impressive quality made StarCraft’s multiplayer highly competitive as well as dynamic, which is why – even today – StarCraft is so popular online and via LAN.

With such strong unique qualities behind it – and such excellent implementation of the standard ones – StarCraft became a huge hit that to this day remains a benchmark RTS title. The strong narrative has spawned several novels and in just a couple of weeks time we’ll see the next chapter in this epic story in the form of the long awaited sequel StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. If the sequel has a fraction of the magic the original had then we are all in for a treat, and I for one am hugely excited.

Resurrection: Samorost 2

Resurrection is a regular trip of nostalgia right here at Resolution Magazine. This week, Lee Bradley drifts off into the world of SAMOROST 2.

INDULGE ME a couple of paragraphs about art history.

The effect of the rise of photography on art was profound. Suddenly, the painters of the 19th Century could not compete in an area where “realism” was the standard of excellence. Slowly, the medium splintered into a thousand different strands.

Rather than strive to objectively recreate reality, new forms of expression emerged. From Impressionism to Expressionism, Cubism and beyond – these methods attempted to reveal the truth, while simultaneously rejecting objective representation. Put simply, there was no point in attempting to compete with the realism of photography, so more symbolic, subjective and surreal techniques flourished.

Videogames have taken the opposite route. Early on, the technology simply didn’t exist to design a precise, mirror-image vision of the world, so surreal and/or expressionistic representations were the standard. Mushroom kingdoms populated by lizard men, haunted corridors roamed by giant mouths, bizarre alien lifeforms – all were created with just a few chunky pixels. Where realism was impossible, suggestion took its place.

But as technology has improved, so has the fidelity of the images. Millions of pounds are now thrown at motion-capturing body movement, faces are scanned and mapped, hair offered its own physics. Environments are extensively scouted, the tiniest details recorded and processed. At the broad tip of the industry, faithful re-creation is the goal.

Yet indie developers have taken a different route still. Either through financial constraint or creative choice – and often both – many independent games have rejected this aesthetic aim. From the abstract neon rush of Leave Home, to the Gaudi-inspired organic environs of Zeno Clash, an altogether more subjective view of the world (and the worlds beyond it) has been preferred.

There are examples that undermine this argument, of course. Flower – a resolutely independent creation – is just about as photorealistic a game as you’ll encounter, while many mainstream titles have gone the expressionist anime or straight-up cartoony route. But the core of the discussion holds true: mainstream, studio-developed AAA titles are obsessed with graphical realism.

Rust and moss

And so we come to Samorost 2, Czech-born designer Jakub Dvorsky’s follow-up to the art school thesis project he released in 2003. Like its predecessor, Samorost 2 flirts with photo-realism in its environments, but does so via the use of digital, photomontage-esque techniques. Visually, it exists outside the approach of anything that has come before, within or without the mainstream. It’s beautifully crafted, utterly unique and strikingly gorgeous. It is art, in the truest sense of the world.

Like all photomontage, the universe of Samorost 2 is one of juxtaposition. Dvorsky’s creation is almost entirely made from wood, rock and metal, eaten away by rust and moss. It melts the binaries of nature and culture as floating islands of gnarled wood drift through space, bound by chunky metal bolts. It’s simultaneously sparse and dead, but also alive, organic. No surprises then that Dvorsky lists Adolf Lachman among his contemporaries.

Meanwhile, the characters of Samorost 2 are hand-drawn and animated in a charming cartoon fashion, their slightest movements wonderfully expressive. The gnome protagonist in particular is utterly loveable, the long nose of his nightcap flopping around carelessly behind him as he skips wide-eyed through the hazardous terrain, filled with a cheerful innocence completely at odds with the danger he faces.

In this deathly, decaying world, little more than insects, invertebrates and robots survive. There is scant vegetation; only moss, hazardous tendrils and dry, petrified, knotted wood. But among the desolation, our little gnome’s fertile pear orchard kickstarts an entire adventure.

Continues…

Resurrection: Rome: Total War

Resurrection is Resolution’s weekly retrospective feature. This week: he came, he saw, he conquered, and Lewis Anderson loved every minute of ROME: TOTAL WAR.

EVER STOP to think why you play videogames? To have a bit of fun? Just to waste some time? A spot of escapism perhaps? Probably a combination of the three. If writing reams of essays through school taught us anything it’s that there are no simple answers to the big questions.

The chance to experience what life might be like as a gangster/soldier/tow truck driver any time we fancy is pretty damn good and makes people say profound and insightful things like: “Once upon a time it was only the very rich or very privileged that could go on great adventures, but now thanks to videogames anyone can have the adventure of a lifetime.”

Quite a cheesy line to use in retrospect. It stinks! But maybe you’ll forgive me since it was said by a proper clever professor from the University of East Anglia in some proper serious television (there would be a link here to the episode of the BBC’s Culture Show that this was featured in, but sadly no such link can be found. The internet has let us down). So it must be true. It’s genuinely crazy to think how it’s possible to become emotionally invested in virtual people, how you can actually care for the characters you meet on one of these “adventures of a lifetime” and change how you play because of it.

Playing, or being played?

Some games do this with a tumultuous plot that grips you tighter with every twist and turn. And then there are some games that don’t. Rome: Total War sits high up there as one of the games that does this best. Apart from the vague ultimate goal of the total control of Rome and the occasional historical interlude, you’re free to expand across the world as you see fit.

Competing with two other Roman families for territory and approval of the senate instils a simple loyalty within you, a loyalty that grows with every new addition to your family. And the same with every subtraction – whether lost through natural causes or in the heat of battle, the death of a character you’ve seen grow over the years actually feels significant.

Whether it’s the grandfather who led that successful foray into France before retiring to a cushy managerial position, or the grandson who on his first crusade into Greece succumbs to the plague, losing a family member feels important. As though a chapter is finishing in a story that was never written, the way you play and what characters you send to fight where can be dictated by how you feel about the characters themselves.

This is the magic of the sandbox. In the absence of a heavily crafted game world, each family member with their history, traits and retinue carries with them a unique past that you’ve actually been part of and a history that can be as elaborate as you want…

Diary of a despot

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears! And anything else you can spare, for the Egyptians will soon spill into our lands. And they won’t come bearing gifts. Unless you interpret gifts to mean a variety of sharp blades. In which case they most definitely will.

Continues…

Resurrection: Red Faction

Resurrection is a our weekly retrospective feature, in which we take a look back at a game gone by. This week, in an article originally published way back in Resolution’s monthly magazine era, Lewis Denby ponders the reasons he became so engrossed in RED FACTION.

SO HERE’S the thing.

There’s a section late on in Red Faction that took my breath away. I’d spent the past ten hours fighting for my life in the depths of cavernous Martian mines, in high-security research facilities and oppressive office blocks. I’d fought guards and soldiers and ferocious mutations. I’d seen hundreds of comrades perish, but I’d survived. I’d escaped. All that was left was to saunter off to safety on one of the vehicles the rebellion had prepared. On the back of an armoured truck, I emerged, blinking, into the strange outdoors. And I looked around.

There’s rock, and there’s fog. In the distance, there’s a collection of mercenaries, mercilessly assassinating anyone who dares to venture too close. Between us is an enormous, gaping void of outer space, thick with dust. The sky is a foreboding terracotta. And all I can think, in spite of Ultor’s evil plans, the mass-scale uprising, the carnage and the chaos, is that I’m so very far away from home. My heart sank. I should never have been so naive as to think this would be my escape. All that lay ahead of me was an inevitable, painful and harrowing death.

In that moment, I became Parker. I was at the centre of the Red Faction. I’d been fighting for our freedom, but now, it looked as though everything was in vain. I shed a tear for my loved ones. And I vowed to fight until the very end.

Unfinished business

This is quite something. Out of all the games to have that effect on me, I never for a second imagined it would be Red Faction, an aged and largely disappointing first-person shooter built on the foundations of half-finished ideas and incomplete technology. And yet here we are, nine years later, that moment fresh as ever in my mind. There’s a lot to be said for emotional charge in videogames, but here it seems wrong, unnatural, unintended. What’s behind it?

Because Red Faction never really did atmosphere. It tried to, sure, but somewhere between the incompetent AI, bland visuals and uninventive storyline, it resolutely failed. It was also a game of unfulfilled promises, a textbook old-school shooter that seemed to forget it aspired to be the genre’s reinvention. Who else remembers their crippling disappointment regarding the much-touted GeoMod technology, which purported to allow players to blast their own ways through levels by destroying the environment? Seemingly, Volition expected us to forgive its inconsistent application early on, and forget it even existed by the time the entirely static later levels rolled around. Red Faction set its sights high, then slipped achingly back to mediocrity. Mediocre games don’t do this to me. What’s going on?

Red Faction starts abominably. Cast into your day job as an oppressed miner on a future Mars, your shift ends in a splatter of spilt blood, as – for seemingly no reason whatsoever – the entire security force starts shooting at you after your friend gets into a minor altercation with one of the guards. It’s a nonsensical opening, glossing over any logic in a dismal attempt to thrust players straight into the action. This is a game that cited the slow-burning unease of Half-Life as a major influence on its heady ambiance. Goodness knows what they were thinking here.

Thus begins a treacherous yet dull sci-fi dungeon crawl, through monotonous underground networks, plagued by badly-planned blueprints and texture issues. The first couple of hours of Red Faction are woeful, but something compelled me, spurred me on, something other than the gradually improving level design. What was it that I found so captivating about this ugly and broken shooter?

Continues…

]]> http://resolution-magazine.co.uk/content/resurrection-red-faction/feed/ 4 http://resolution-magazine.co.uk/content/resurrection-final-fantasy-vii/ http://resolution-magazine.co.uk/content/resurrection-final-fantasy-vii/#comments Fri, 14 May 2010 11:00:44 +0000 Greg Giddens http://resolution-magazine.co.uk/content/?p=5943 Old faithful…

Resurrection: Final Fantasy VII

Resurrection is a regular feature here at Resolution, in which we get all misty-eyed about a classic release. This week, Greg Giddens explains why FINAL FANTASY VII is still at the top of his list.

I PUT it to you that Final Fantasy VII is the finest RPG of all time.

Don’t argue. I’m right, and in your heart you know it to be true. I’m tempted to end the discussion right there as a one-way statement. I feel no need to justify this with proclamations when I know the majority are right behind me in the righteous standing of truth. But for you naysayers out there who are yet to conform, allow me to sway you.

FFVII was revolutionary due to its 3D visuals, narrative themes, and the timing of its release. Taking any series into the realm of 3D can be a rough transition, but FFVII made it seem effortless. Timeless pre-rendered backgrounds shaped the environment and the only real 3D elements were the interactive objects and cast. The blocky characters are starting to show their age now, certainly, but thanks to a lack of unnecessary detail, they have stood the test of time, with only minor pixelation.

The story is just as timeless. The fundamental theme is one of a crisis of identity, an issue many of us deal with at some point in our lives. This makes FFVII’s narrative universally appealing: you can actually relate to the main character on a level far deeper than what many other games – and, in fact, other forms of media – can achieve. That in itself is astonishing, and supremely clever. Square created the perfect protagonist, a deeply human character with doubts and weakness, determination and strength. And the now almost ubiquitous additional option to rename the character cements your bond to him completely.

Through your attachment to protagonist Cloud, you’re drawn to the other characters. Tifa’s strength and independence, as well as her deep sense of loyalty to a friend in need, breeds respect. Barret’s physical presence and well-hidden softness of heart are inspiring. But next to Cloud, the other character who really demands your attention is Aeris, Cloud’s love interest. Aeris carries a heavy burden of knowledge and untapped power, and as you progress through the story you come to appreciate her importance more and more.

Then – and here be spoilers, but heck, it’s a 13-year-old game – the most shocking event occurs. Aeris is killed by the villain of the piece, Sephiroth.

Life after death

Killing off a main character mid-game shocked players to their core. But instead of feeling detached anger at the game for losing an asset you’ve spent 15 plus hours building up, you feel anger and sadness side-by-side with Cloud, fuelling revenge and justice. Aeris’ death was unconventional and achieved a powerful sense of compulsion to continue playing: the compulsion to understand why she died, and punish the one responsible.

Death was certainly not the end for Aeris. As you progressed further, you came to understand her burden, and how she had touched the lives of others. FFVII grieves with you, helping you remember her and miss her, appreciate her and respect her. The bonds FFVII forms between you and the characters is comparable to those formed in life. Each has meaning and scope.

And, of course, the timing of FFVII’s release was hugely significant to its success. JRPGs were a small band of underappreciated titles back in the 1990s, and the Final Fantasy series was known mainly by the older generation of Nintendo gamers. The Playstation format granted FFVII a huge stage on which to perform to the world, and with its aforementioned qualities it put on the show of a lifetime. It introduced several generations to both JRPGs as a genre and the Final Fantasy series. To so many people, FFVII is the game that fuelled weeks of constant joy, and years of replaying.

FFVII is still bold, brilliant, beautiful and flawed. I come back to it time and time again because it represents life in a completely fantasy setting, but in one of the purest and most tangible ways possible.

16-Bit Boy

16-Bit Boy is a monthly column of retro musings. This month, Michael Sterrett’s still reeling about DONKEY KONG COUNTRY 2.

DONKEY KONG Country 2: Diddy Kong’s Quest is a heartbreaking example of the quintessential half-arsed sequel, ranking alongside Exorcist II: The Heretic for sheer brain-scorching awfulness. Such is the egregious disparity between it and the original Donkey Kong Country that it genuinely pains me to even speak its name.

One can only compare it to bumping into a long lost love over whom you have pined for years, only to find that the raven-haired, rosy-cheeked beauty upon whom you dreamt is now a chain-smoking ASBO chav with no teeth and a several illegitimate mongrel kids named Morgan, Keeley and Chayse. Look closely and she’s the same person, but the wretched transformation that has occurred not only renders her unattractive but somehow soils the memory of who she once was.

The glaringly obvious problem at the rotten core of the game is that Diddy Kong is not up to title billing. It would be akin to Scrappy Doo or Bebop from Teenage Ninja Turtles getting their own show. They are annoying background characters at best, and much as you can’t base a nutritious meal around a few condiments and some potato peelings, you certainly can’t centre a game around an annoying sidekick. I mean, could a character like Joey from Friends really carry their own show? Of course n… – Um, wait a minute.

Doing it wrong

Donkey Kong Country is a lovingly crafted, engrossing platformer that welcomed the player into a lushly realised world of leafy forests, underground caverns and snowy mountaintops. It even managed to make my personal bête noire, namely underwater swimming levels, bearable by virtue of the blessed-out background music. And the gorgeous setting sun of the Orang-utan Gang sequence is enough to reduce me to a misty eyed fool.

Yet the chaps over at Rare not only failed to conjure up any of this magic for DKC2, but also took the mellifluous transcendental beauty of the source material and defecated on it from a great height. For that unholy sin I hope that, in the Hell that awaits them, they will have their eyes pecked out every day by Necky the big bird thing at the end of the Monkey Mines levels.

The lesson is simple. When you produce a shoddy and ill-conceived sequel to a work of simple perfection, you are not merely cheating the public; you’re cheating yourself, young man. I’m looking at you, Christopher Leitch, director of Teenwolf Too. Don’t think I can’t see you, Unkle’s disappointing second album Never, Never Land. And if the brutes responsible for hotel-based Golden Girls spin off The Golden Palace think they’re not going straight to bed without any supper, they’ve got another thing coming.

Let’s be honest: Rare have gone on to make some enjoyable games like Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. But some indiscretions are unforgivable. So, to the wretches responsible for the abomination that is Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong’s Quest: hang your heads in shame, and may God have mercy on your souls.

Resurrection: EverQuest

Resurrection is a regular feature in which we reminisce about a game from way back when. This week, Jennifer Allen desperately tries not to re-subscribe to EVERQUEST.

AS IS often the case with addictive substances, I was introduced to EverQuest by a friend. It was the summer of the year 2001 and, having just finished my GCSEs, I had plenty of free time. This meant it was an innocent enough fraternisation at first. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do.

EverQuest was a harsh mistress, you see. Unlike the relative ease of modern MMOs like World of Warcraft, EverQuest made you suffer. Yet it would always give you a reason to keep going. Levelling was frequently a slow and arduous task. My friend had given me a number of items to help me along the way with the promise that, when I reached level 15, I could join his guild. These days you could get to level 15 in an MMO within a couple of days, but in EverQuest, the same task took several weeks.

It didn’t help that it was never clearly obvious as to the best route to level up. There were very few quests scattered around the starting area, the Innothule Swamps. Instead, the game forced you to grind. Basically, that meant killing frogloks, humanoid frog-based creatures with weapons.

From a very early stage, I realised that this game was evil. It’d take a long time to gain just one single yellow bubble of experience out of the five you needed to level up, and if you were killed, you’d lose a significant chunk of hard-earned experience. So not only did I have very little idea of where I needed to go, but I was also being heavily punished if I made a mistake and died. Many would likely find this offputting. But it encouraged me to try even harder. Even if those bastard frogloks did keep ganging up on me.

Safety in numbers

Eventually, I’d gained enough experience and levels to be able to explore other zones, namely Southern Ro and then the Oasis. These areas were much brighter and less foreboding than the dark swamps, but no less dangerous. While there were plenty of enemies that were easy enough to defeat – mostly wolves and orcs – there were also the fearsome sand giants. These could wipe you out within a couple of stomps, and were not to be messed with until hitting at least level 30 – a very distant thought for me at the time.

I spent a long time in Oasis. There was a sense of community to the place. It was located between the Troll, Ogre and Dark Elf starting zones, meaning everyone inevitably ended up there before their eventual advancement to the next area. Joining together in groups didn’t just make the game more enjoyable, it was near essential to progress. Safety in numbers was paramount, otherwise you’d quickly die and – oh look! – there goes a huge chunk of experience.

Worst of all, this was a player versus player server, and the nearby humans were enemies. It wasn’t long before I appreciated how infuriating it was to have to fight against an AI-controlled enemy at the same time as an enemy player. Far too frequently did I lose experience because of an irritating griefer, someone who would lure enemies into my path just to get me killed. EverQuest was not kind to the soloist.

Continues…

Resolution Podcast

WELCOME TO another belated edition of the Resoultion Podcast! It’s a retro special this time, given Resolution’s recent launching of its retro sister-site, B4HD. So join Lewis Denby, J.D. Richardson and Matt Baxter as they get all misty-eyed…

Download it (M4A), listen online here, follow the RSS feed, or subscribe via iTunes. A run-down of events is below, and I’ll try get an MP3 up soon.

00:20 Retro special! When Lewis says “see what we did there,” I really mean “see what Dan did there.”

01:05 Different setup! What were the first games we remember playing? For J.D. it’s Chucky Egg.

02:50 Paint chickens? No idea why Lewis said “paint.”

05:00 Matt’s is Wolfenstein 3D. Hitler in a robot suit!

07:05 For Lewis it was some awful platformer, but the title that really got him into gaming was Quake.

08:20 Game war! Quake vs Duke Nukem 3D!

10:00 “lol fuckin’ nuuh.”

11:30 First PCs. J.D.’s came with Descent, Magic Carpet 2 and Dark Forces. Dark Forces!

13:40 Lewis’ bizarre mid-’90s FPS control setup.

16:45 The Force Unleashed. Lewis thinks it’s terrible. Lewis is right.

18:00 Lewis thinks Rogue Squadron 2 (not the original, as he mistakes it for) is the best Star Wars game. Everyone laughs at him.

18:20 Or Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast. Which everyone agrees with.

19:22 Lewis forgets the name of a great Star Wars game. It’s Knights of the Old Republic! A bit of an odd one to go back to. Matt didn’t even know what it was.

21:02 What was wrong with Rogue Squadron (2), anyway? It reviewed well! J.D. says it didn’t, but it did! He says it reviewed well. It has a 90 average on Metacritic!

21:30 Right: here’s a good retro game. Favourite retro theme tunes, with extended soundbites. We may be infringing copyright at various points here.

29:10 Which is your favourite theme tune, gorgeous readers?

29:56 The sweet sound of a freshly opened beer.

30:03 Games we loved, and now realise are terrible.

32:13 The joys of trying to play simulation games as a child.

34:17 DON’T COPY THAT FLOPPY! Hilariously, probably breaching copyright by playing an anti-copywright-theft song.

36:27 …Which reminds Matt of something that happened to him.

38:15 Evil UbiSoft copy protection. Matt didn’t even know the details! The filthy console gamer.

40:10 Our, um, favourite copy protection methods…

42:10 “Don’t put the stiff thing in the slot.” And the joys of the name “three-and-a-quarter-inch floppy.” And BYE!

Resurrection: Codename: Outbreak

Resurrection is a regular feature in which Resolution remembers a game from way back when. This week, Lewis Denby returns to GSC Game World’s forgotten gem CODENAME: OUTBREAK.

STALKER SITS in something of a land of its own. Its irradiated wilderness and cold, fear-filled bunkers are a world away from almost anything else on the PC, let alone gaming at large. Regardless of the series’ notoriously glitchy nature, you’ve got to hand it to Ukranian developers GSC Game World for creating something so totally unique.

But it’s only when you find yourself returning to a younger GSC that you fully understand how they got to the warped place in which the Stalker series resides. If anything, the team’s original first-person outing – 2001 shooter Codename: Outbreak – is even less restrained than the wildest of Stalker efforts. Throwing singleplayer, co-op and deathmatch into its strange mix, Outbreak still stands as one of the more valiant – if predictably less polished – attempts at something unusual within the action genre.

Unusual to the most ludicrous degree, perhaps, but it’s all part of what gave Codename: Outbreak the weird and wonderful character it still exudes to this day. It’s a game with such a ludicrous script, voiced in such a delightfully silly way, that early on the line “Looks like he’s dead. That’s serious!” is delivered completely and utterly deadpan. You don’t know whether to laugh or to punch it in its alien-encrusted face, but you do know that having the audacity to just drop that in there makes it endearing beyond anything you’ve played in ages.

Smarter than the average

It is, effectively, a first-person shooter about an alien invasion. There’s no surprises there. Set in the near future but still rooted in the early 21st Century, Outbreak presents a world in which a meteor has collided with the Earth, bringing with it a new breed of creatures that bury into the skulls of humanity, turning them into bloodthirsty killers. A new special operations unit is estabilshed by the US military, of which you are a part. And, in and around the zone where the meteor hit, you’ll spend your time blasting at the men these parasitic life forms have enslaved, and increasingly the big bad aliens themselves.

What separates it from the reams of other millennial shooters, then, is the level of complexity Outbreak manages to weave into its uninspired setup. Each of the game’s 14 missions is tackled as a pair – either with an AI buddy backing you up, or a second player providing the same support (oddly, the co-op version of the main game excludes the final mission). Assuming you’re playing on your own, you’re free to switch back and forth between the two characters at will, issuing orders to one another. If one character dies, you default to the second one – there’s no respawning mid-level. You can set waypoints and form plans of action before tackling the more challenging sections. And even before the mission in question has started, you’ve already selected the most appropriate armour type, and made the decision of what time of day to begin at.

Then there’s the smart combination of all-out shooting and careful, sneaky stealth-play. Codename: Outbreak features just one weapon, but it can be tweaked at any point to provide a near-silent laser blast, heavy machinegun fire, a sniper scope with a high-caliber barrel, or an obscenely powerful rocket-propelled grenade.

Continues…