...The Force Unleashed 2 (or Star Wars Episode 3.5.2)

This pre-review is based on the Demo, downloadable now.

The first Force Unleashed for me represented a missed opportunity. Promises of free flowing Jedi-based combat were all but obliterated by overly linear level/gameplay design, and often-rigid combat. Particularly restricting was the emphasis on flashy set pieces and quick-time events, which prevented the basic combat systems ability to tell its own story. The saving grace of the game was, for me, characters and a story which you could care about and become involved in.

My first impressions with the Force Unleashed 2 were that it was simply a much refined version of its predecessor. Whereas the design seemed to be in the face of its limitations in the first, the second game has apparently been tailored to better utilise its peculiarities to create challenging situations. Not a total overhaul, but that was never expected. However the game feels far less bloated than the first.

Visceral Combat

Enemies are far smarter in this outing, utilising their position and sheer numbers in an attempt to overwhelm you. They respond to your attacks, not only tactically, but emotionally: screaming in terror when they are in immediate danger, or taunting you when they are suitably backed up. Your combat powers are well balanced though still feel rigid when you employ the targeting button (an aspect which feels out of place in fights that often find you surrounded). This is not helped by a camera which does not track unless targeting is held, and is not easy to operate in mid-combat. The sheer power of the force does makes you feel unstoppable, but on harder difficulties your complacency means your demise, which creates a need for thought and care on your part. Features like dismembering your enemies are a welcome addition, as is the ability to mind trick a Stormtrooper into diving out a window…he assured me he had no regrets.

Quick Times for Set Pieces

The Demo contains several set pieces of varying interest, the opening diving-escape from the Kamino cloning facility is awe inspiring and fun, but others are less interesting and appear to serve only to pad the level out. The flavour of the month that is the quick-time event returns and once more does little other than indulge whoever animated it: they sucked in the first game, and they still do now. The game will no doubt be stocked to the gunnels with them though…yippee.

Audio Visual Splendour

If you are a graphics whore then get your Vaseline ready cos there is lots here for you. The environments are beautifully rendered (though still painfully linear) with brilliantly convincing weather effects which interact with the characters in them. As I walked inside from a brief trip in the rain I found Starkiller to be peppered with a few rain drops. Longer excursions outside left his clothes sodden and heavy looking. Effects like rain cascading down window panes and arcs of light from your force lightning help give a weight to the world, and the sound tracking pulls out a winner. The blending between action and ambience is seamless, literally beat perfect, and the scoring (I believe a mixture of Williams’ work and original material) lends itself well to describe your situation. Another notable facet is the well employed force-feedback which really helps you to understand the action and anticipate your surroundings.

Wrap Up

Positives:

-                      Refined control and better combat design

-                      Enemies are both more responsive and more challenging

-                      Exceptional Audio-Visual combined with sensitive use of force-feedback

Negative:

-                      Environments still overly-linear

-                      Targeting system seems ill thought out and leaves the camera loose

-                      Quick-time events

In closing, this seems to be shaping up into a much better all-round game than the first Force Unleashed. The storytelling, of which is there is a good chunk even in the demo, remains of good judgement and direction. I only hope that the action heavy nature of the demo is only indicative of the Kamino level, and that we are offered more pensive moments. Whilst this series will likely never become what it could (or should) be, it has at least began the path away from mediocrity. It might actually be worth buying.

...Dino Crisis and the path to a viable 'Reboot'

Onimusha/Dino Crisis not dead

The attached article speaks about the possibility of rebooting two key franchises in Capcom’s portfolio. I would like to focus on a proposition for a good kick up the arse of Dino Crisis in particular.

For those unfamiliar with the Dino Crisis series, it was essentially Resident Evil meets Jurassic Park. I don’t think that is an unfair description. It utilised the largely fixed camera angle of the former and its basic idea of survival horror adding a few interesting features in the form mixing items to create ammo types and new health combinations.

Whilst the story was run of the mill Spec-Ops-infiltrate-remote-facility-to-apprehend-mad-scientist fare; it was actually fairly compelling. This was not least due to the fact that ammo was sparse and going toe-to-toe with dino-foes was unwise. The scarcity of supplies actually intensified the feeling of survival, as if the Spec-Ops agents sent in were for once actually out of their depth. The focus on incapacitating your enemies rather than obliterating them was actually a nice twist on what otherwise would have been a standard run-and-gun tied together with simple puzzles.

Despite having a lot of pros, the game actually managed to bore me to tears. I was actually begging for it to end mid way through for want of running past the same two dinosaurs in the same passage for the thirteenth time, and all just to ferry part A- to destination B (One aspect where the Resident Evil formula didn’t pay off). If there had been a more thoughtful layout to the locations, it would have been possible to make the run and hide mechanic less of a chore and more of the real meat.

The second DC totally abandoned the close-feeling subsistence of the original in favour of a more combat oriented gameplay. This was no bad thing either. You were once again tasked in the role of Spec-Ops agents but this time you were very much in your depth. The potential shallowness of the whole thing was supplanted by the ever popular Greed Factor™.

Killing dinosaurs resulted in brownie points, with consecutive kills and no-damage bonuses adding up to numbers which proved how much of a bad-arse you were. Bullets and Health cost money, which proved the subsistence mechanic had merely shifted from foraging to hunting. You wanted to go out and hunt the dinosaurs out of a lust for even bigger weapons, and more chances to cash in big.

Just like everything in life: somewhere between the Survival Horror Subsistence and Gun Toting Hunt-Mayhem™ lies the perfect recipe for a DC game.

Now to my Proposal…

I always felt that in the spirit of Dino Crisis was the ability to allow players to act out what they wanted to do when they saw Jurassic Park. That is: shoot some Dinosaurs in a pre-historic wilderness whilst waxing chaos-theoretical like Jeff Goldblum.

So I imagine a concept where an offshoot enterprise has spawned off of the dino-importing third energy technology explained in the previous games. Some enterprising people have sectioned off an island space, or national park, where they periodically pinch dinosaurs from yesteryear and slam them into the middle of a big game hunt.  You take the role of a paying customer who enjoys a spot of recreational shooting and the chance to make some apparel out of poor fluffy things. Perhaps you have got enough boleros and are looking for something a bit more water-resistant for those mid-winter nights out?

You pay a nice chunk of cash to spend a weekend on the range, where you get to drink with other blood-thirsty gun owners and revel in the myths and legends of T-Rex killers and men who went out never to return. Then you get to go out in your jeep and make some stories of your own, gun in hand.

The game would involve trekking across this open world, which would be limited only by your own ability to survive in any given area. Killing dinosaurs pays you in a currency that can be exchanged for new weapons, ammo and supplies which enable you to explore deeper into the world and face more challenging enemies. You would also be given a jeep with which to move more swiftly through areas, and serves as a place to store weapons and supplies either purchased or scrounged off of less fortunate customers (The ability to head rescue parties to find missing hunters might also present a nice little side earner). If you then have to keep your jeep fuelled and in good repair, you can create a balance between the gung-ho hunter and savvy survival expert that DC is capable of having.

If the emphasis is on hunting specific species as the main gameplay system, then you can dump the need for the usual sandbox ‘ferry from A-B ‘dross. If you just let the player know what species hang out where, then they can go and tackle them in their own time. The more daring might go after the T-Rex armed with nothing but a pistol and the aforementioned bolero. Others might be less cautious: opting instead to abandon the pistol and try instead to be as appetising as possible before allowing the lizard-king to swallow them whole; in an attempt to choke him to death with the now thrice mentioned bolero.

Now I joke, but imagine the ability to lure the beast you track to its death. One particularly intriguing but underutilised game mechanic in the previous titles was bleeding out. If the player suffered a laceration then a dinosaur could actually track them. It is less compelling in a room-room action shooter than it could be in say: an open world survival shooter where all you have is what you can carry with you (or store surplus in your jeep). Imagine sustaining a leg wound whilst out in the dense jungle and having to hoof it back to the safety of your vehicle; all the while being hunted down by a lithe, cunning, and elusive enemy. If that doesn’t make your heart pound, you suck at being a human.

If you wanted to add a more traditional story element you could include the presence of some Save the Dinosaur™ group who attempt to sabotage the ranch. This could lead to a fairly obvious ‘They made it all go to hell’ plotline, but then, if you wanted to spice it up, you could choose to maliciously show these people the error of their ways. It would be criminal to kill them yourself, but then again you could always clip them and let a dinosaur track their scent…if you were at all that way inclined. Or maybe you could smother them with bacon.

If you combine the idea of hunting and surviving in an open wilderness with the psychology of various Dino varieties you could create a rather compelling game. The possibility of stalking a creature one-on-one, only to discover it was a pack animal leading you to a point of vulnerability to ambush is one that creates its own drama. Isn’t that the point of sandbox anyway: to give you the tools to create your own story?

If any of you out there think this is a great idea, then why not write to Capcom? They said if the right idea comes along they would consider it. Please let them know that Bembo is the man for the job, for a modest fee.