Review: Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising.

On December 20, 2010, In Game People, Game Reviews, By Rick

Jones' decision to headbutt the APC into submission was only going to end one way.

It’s 2001. I am fourteen years old. I really shouldn’t be in the army, but I am. The UH60 Helicopter carrying my squad has just touched down, and I have set foot on the low-resolution landscape of Everon for the first time. We march quickly atop a tree-covered ridgeline, and in the valley below lies the village of Morton.

Half a mile away an enemy rifle crackles, and the soldier beside me crumples to the ground. Whilst my squad returns fire I throw myself onto the earth, panicking, trying to locate the chunky cluster of polygons that resembles the enemy force. As my squad advances the Lieutenant screams at me to return to formation, but I lie still, gibbering as gunfire hisses overhead.

It’s 2009. I am twenty-two years old. I can grow a respectable beard provided I concentrate hard enough. I open my eyes to the dawn, and the island of Skira is revealed before me in all its grassy glory. The mission begins with minimal preamble, and I lead my three-man squad forward, our task to eliminate a series of enemy spotter teams.

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Review: Fifa Manager 10

On December 20, 2010, In Game People, Game Reviews, By Rick

This screenshot will explode in 3 seconds.

Contrary to what you might suspect, FIFA Manager 10 is one of the most astoundingly complex games I’ve ever played. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a problem, as the game mechanics are insufficiently explained, and as a long-time absentee from management simulations, this made it incredibly difficult for me to get into the game.

Ok, let’s get one thing straight from the off, it’s been a very long time since I’ve managed a virtual football team. The last management simulation game I can recall playing was Premier Manager ‘98, and although during the interceding years I have glimpsed the gloriously addictive Football Manager series splashed across my brother’s computer screen, I myself have never had the inclination to go back. Pardon my cynicism, but I don’t find spreadsheets particularly exciting, regardless of how colourful they are.

Nevertheless, as I warily slide FIFA Manager 10 into my DVD drive, I feel a faint tingle of intrigue as I wonder how much the genre has evolved over the past decade. And I can’t help but crack a nostalgic smile as the music from Grandstand blares through my headphones while the game loads.

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Review: ArmA 2

On December 20, 2010, In Game People, Game Reviews, By Rick

A Wild Helicopter Appears! You use Rifle. It's not very effective.

Armed Assault 2 is a tough game to love, but love it I do. Ridiculously lofty in its ambitions and stubbornly determined to present the gritty realities of war, the bizarrely abbreviated ArmA 2 is not a game for the faint of heart or the short of patience. I can honestly say that ArmA 2 contains the most sublime portrayal of warfare I’ve ever experienced in a game. Unfortunately, its potential brilliance is severely hampered by crippling bugs and, in some instances, its own misguided aspirations.

Bohemia Interactive Studios have always been fully committed to developing the most authentic military simulator possible given the limitation that, well, dying in real life is pretty final. The trouble is that they already did this almost a decade ago with Operation Flashpoint and its subsequent expansions. Sometimes I wish BI Studios had left it at that. ArmA, the spiritual sequel to Operation Flashpoint, can rather generously be described as half-baked (and ungenerously described as complete rubbish).

Resultantly it was with some trepidation that I laced my boots, flicked the safety off my rifle and charged into the first mission of ArmA 2, a midnight reconnaissance mission in the civil war ravaged country of Chernarus. Needless to say, charging in was a stupid idea. The village my Special Forces team (named Razor) was ordered to reconnoitre turned out to be infested with jittery-fingered enemy soldiers and I was promptly gunned down from several places at once.

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Review: The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

On December 7, 2010, In Game People, Game Reviews, By Rick

"Look into my eyes" "I can't" "Then you die"

Until I played Assault on Dark Athena, my knowledge of Science Fiction pretty much began and ended with Star Wars. I’ve never had any interest in Doctor Who or Star Trek or any of the camp sixties Sci-Fi television series’ where the costumes are far too tight and the aliens far too plastic. Even as a Literature student War of the Worlds is the furthest I’ve ever dipped my toe into the genre.

So you’ll be unsurprised to hear that I’m not entirely sure what compelled me to play Dark Athena. It certainly wasn’t the presence of Vin Diesel, of whom my only previous experience was his lead role the execrable XXX movie. Nevertheless, since delving into Riddick’s dark world my outlook on both Mr Diesel and the science fiction genre have been significantly altered. My current favourite book is Frank Herbert’s legendary Sci-Fi epic Dune, and I gleefully watched both Riddick films, although I believe developers Starbreeze to have done a better job with the franchise than director David Twohy.

Assault on Dark Athena actually consists of two games. The first of these is a revamped version of the 2004 prison-break extravaganza Escape From Butcher Bay, which I passed on due to scathing reviews of the new Riddick film, for which the game was essentially extended marketing. The other half of the package is the entirely new titular campaign. Following directly on from Butcher Bay,  Assault on Dark Athena is set on the eponymous spaceship where Riddick, a.k.a the most dangerous criminal in the universe, once again finds himself a fugitive, this time hunted by sultry Dark Athena captain Revas and her unsavoury crew of mercenaries.

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Review: The Sims 3

On December 7, 2010, In Game People, Game Reviews, By Rick

Oh my God I've hooked my foot!

The Sims 3 on PC and Mac reports to be a whole new world for your simulated life creations. However, I felt this struggled to feel more than another expansion pack, albeit with smarter graphics and a some interesting new features.

Whenever I used to play The Sims , it always ended the same way; with me torturing and murdering my Sims in some obscurely horrific manner. Frankly, hand-feeding virtual people and guiding them to the toilet is not my idea of fun. However, the objective-based gameplay of the Sims 3 on Mac and PC, and the life of my character Stuart MacGuffin managed to stay my sadistic tendencies, albeit only just.

Stuart MacGuffin was a Scotsman by birth, and had emigrated from the granite townhouses of Aberdeen to the quaint suburbia of Sunset Valley in order to pursue his dream of becoming a professional author. Unbeknownst to Stuart, his every thought and action, nay his very existence was controlled by an exterior force, namely, my mouse hand.

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Review: Conflict: Denied Ops

On December 7, 2010, In Game People, Game Reviews, By Rick

No my dearest, not the face!

Something very odd happened to me while playing Conflict: Denied Ops on PC. I went from looking scornfully down my nose at arguably the most generic shooter I’ve ever played, to cackling gleefully as I blew up countless explosive barrels and killed the same poor soldier for the thousandth time, foam forming at the corners of my mouth. This is in no way a testament to the game’s charm, more to the fact that I was forcefully in the game’s company for so long I inevitably began to enjoy it. That’s right; Denied Ops gave me Stockholm Syndrome.

I hate Conflict: Denied Ops. When I play a game, I want it to feel as little like a game as possible. I want an experience I’ve not had before, to be drawn into the mindset of intriguing, moving characters and a thought-provoking plot. Just for a few hours, I want to forget about the real world and enter an entirely new one that tickles my imagination and tinkers with my emotions.

In every conceivable way, Denied Ops refused me all of those things. Instead it grabbed me from behind, strapped me to a chair and began to beat me about the head with rampant stereotypes. The storyline is a faded collection of scars in the back of my head about globetrotting terrorists, stolen nuclear weapons and some Venezuelan bloke called Ramirez.

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Review: Sid Meier’s Railroads!

On December 7, 2010, In Game People, Game Reviews, By Rick

Chufflebottom's legacy lived on...in my save file.

While entertaining to begin with, Sid Meier’s Railroads on PC was far too simplistic and repetitive to hold my attention for any length of time. After a couple of hours I had seen virtually everything the game had to offer, so I created my own in-game persona in an attempt to rekindle my interest. With that, I present to you Josiah Chufflebottom – Victorian industrialist and railway mogul extraordinaire.

Chufflebottom was an intriguing fellow; a blustering, ruddy-faced entrepreneur with a unique talent for creating railroads. While his competitors in Sid Meier’s Railroads spent years painstakingly designing their railroads and employed hundreds of workers to lay miles of track, all Josiah had to do was state the start and end location of his railroad and it would magically appear across the country, automatically spanning rivers and valleys and weaving through woods and mountains. Even cities bounded aside at the appearance of Josiah’s railroads. ‘My rails are king and the world bends to their will,’ declared Josiah through his handlebar moustache, thumbs thrust under his crimson trouser braces.

Commencing his rail-building venture with a small passenger train between London and Hastings, Chufflebottom quickly gained economic control of the entire south coast of England. Towns moulded themselves around Chufflebottom’s rail system, growing from tiny fishing villages into sprawling metropolises. It didn’t seem to matter how bewildering the layout of his tracks were, or how many trains Josiah would cram onto a single line, they all reached their destinations with ease, mysteriously passing through one another like ghosts if the tracks became too crowded.

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