All posts tagged PC

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Sleeping Dogs Review

September 2, 2012

It’s not often that you can keep a good secret quiet these days. With game previews, screenshots and detailed interviews with developers, we normally know before release whether a game is going to be any good or not. Bad games are quite easy to establish upon release, they are the ones that slip under the radar, the ones that keep everything rather hush hush about the development, so that by the time Ultimate Barbie Paintballing 2012 is released it’s all too late to warn potential buyers off of the product. Good games proudly show off their potential years before release.

 

So it’s interesting therefore that Sleeping Dogs has come along and brutally beaten the rule book, twisting its arm into submission before firing a roundhouse kick into its stubborn cranium. It’s a reboot of the faded into obscurity franchise True Crime, it’s had little or no pre-release publicity, it’s had no hype whatsoever, and it’s quite possibly the best game to have been released in 2012 so far…

A typical drive around Hong Kong…

Sleeping Dogs is developers United Front’s love-letter to Hong Kong action movies, be it action, martial arts or undercover cop dramas. It’s a game that throws all of those genres into the pot, stirs it (with more than a little of Grand Theft Auto influences) and spits out one of the most fun games of the year. 

 

Sleeping Dogs puts you into the (fine looking) figure of Wei Shen, a Hong Kong fighter who has just returned to his home after many years living in America. The start of the game sees Wei being chased but ultimately arrested and thrown in a cell for selling narcotics. While locked up he meets childhood friend Jackie who is the local Triads errand boy. Wei asks if Jackie can get him some work, and before you know it, Wei’s collecting protection money from market stall owners, stealing and selling cars and beating up rival gang members with a tyre iron. So far it all sounds very GTA, especially with a big open world Hong Kong waiting to be explored, but what Wei’s new Triad colleagues don’t know is that Wei is an undercover cop, who has the job of bringing down their criminal organisation from within.

When the guns come out, so do the explosions

So it’s part Infernal Affairs, part GTA, and that’s a good thing. Yes there isn’t too much originality here, but there is a huge urban sandbox to play with that can be travelled on foot and in vehicles, the missions are varied and exciting, and there are a whole host of mini-games, side missions and areas to explore that run parallel to the main story. 

 

Speaking of which, Sleeping Dogs has probably the finest story seen in a videogame since the classic Red Dead Redemption. Playing as a conflicted undercover cop as opposed to just a straight up gangster allows for some terrific situations where Wei’s (and the person controlling him) loyalties are split between his Triad comrades and the police commanders to whom he reports. As you work your way up the Triad ranks, you’ll becomes more valuable as a police asset, contrasting this though is the more and more extreme actions you’ll be forced to take. Add into the mix that Wei becomes rather attached to the criminals ‘brothers’ he’s trying to bring down, suddenly a simple mission becomes all rather murky and ethically intriguing. Think Leo DiCaprio in The Departed (the remake of Infernal Affairs) and you have an idea of who you’re controlling. The story also throws serves at every turning with backstabbing, moles, and hidden agendas all over the place. Don’t let anyone spoil the story for you, it’s great experiencing the well written and superbly voiced narrative firsthand. 

Train your skills to become the master…

But it’s not just the story that’s great, Hong Kong is a playground worth exploring, vast, full of busy roads and streets. There are street gangs to fight, drug busts to make, CCTV cameras to hack, money to be gambled, lock boxes to locate and fight clubs to beat. Most of these will involve fights of some sort, and in a nice swerve away from GTA, a lot of these take place with your fists. Yes there are gun battles to be had, but with a fluid fight system that owes a debt of gratitude to Batman: Arkham City, the fist fights are where the fun is to be had. Combos are begging to be exploited while environments provide ample opportunities to dispatch of enemies in entertaining ways (you can even smash a mans head into a fish tank and then proceed to beat him with a fish…). When the guns come out the fights are a cast of finding cover and popping up to find your target, the similarities are to Uncharted here – once again Sleeping Dogs looks for greatness and helps itself to it. Not particularly original, but when everything fits together so well it’s great fun. 

 

GTA 5 is setting itself up for a release in the next few months (if they ever get around to showing newsworthy information about it to their fans…) but with Sleeping Dogs they have a real contender to their throne. Wei is more entertaining to control than any GTA character has been, his movements through the city more fluid, fights are skilled, cars are better to control – GTA may have the name but Sleeping Dogs has the fun. It may have come out of nowhere, but don’t let that dissuade you. Take a chance, and you’ll discover one of the richest (most mature) game titles you’ve played in a long time. 

Happy families…

CultureSlap Rating:

9/10

 

Sleeping Dogs

Developer: United Front

Xbox 360/Playstation 3/PC

Review: XBox 360

 

This is how they say hello in Hong Kong…

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Games we’re excited about: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

October 9, 2011

Good news fans of RPG’s, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim map has been released indicating a few teasers as to what we can expect when the game is released 11/11/11!

Have a look at the map and see if you can spot anything:

Developers Bethesda have stated that the game’s map will be roughly the size of Oblivion‘s (quite an achievement in itself – especially as Skyrim graphically makes Oblivion look last generation) although thankfully it will contain a wider variety of areas and surprises as move about in the wilderness. There will be a total of five major cities along with nearly 150 dungeons scattered around the map. Of course add to the mix of fighting numerous creatures all over the map – with added random dragon attacks – and you’ve got a game that has Culture Slap salivating and clutching its level 12 broadsword with excitement.

Roll on the 11/11/11!

For more reason to be excited about Skyrim check this out

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Deus Ex Review

August 25, 2011

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC

Developed By: Eidos

Published By: Square Enix

Genre: First Person Shooter

The year is 2027. Human augmentation is now not just a possibility but a reality. In some cases it is a luxury for the rich, but on a basic level it is a revelation for disabled people whose lives have been transformed. Limbs are replaced, strength is enhanced, intelligence is boosted, endurance improved – the possibilities are quite literally limitless. Many embrace this as the next evolutionary step for humans; others however, strictly oppose these ‘improvements’ and will go to extreme lengths to keep the human race ‘pure’. In amongst all of this you are Adam Jensen, a private security officer for Sarif Industries, a leading company that specialises in human augmentations. After you witness and try to stop an attack on your company you are left critically injured and forced to undergo augmentation to survive. But that is just the beginning; the conspiracy that you will be drawn into after this moment is just getting started…

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is the third game in the Deus Ex universe and is a prequel to the original game, a game that many still consider today to be the best game of all time. Developed by Eidos Montreal, this is a breath taking, deep, immersive experience that is guaranteed to be the best game you’ll play this year. Taking on the guise of an RPG FPS, this is more than your average shooting game, this is more than your average linear experience with big explosions (we’re looking at you Call of Duty) this is more than simple upgrade bonuses that do nothing to the game play – this is exceptional. This is Deus Ex.

One of the first things that will strike you when you boot up Deus Ex is just how varied and open the tasks you have are. Missions can be completed in whatever order you wish, although as with many great RPG’s, the order that you tackle missions will impact on your upgrade abilities, meaning that missions will be harder or easier depending on when you choose to do them. With each mission there are different pillars of game play that you can choose to use. Do you love shooting everything that moves? Then great, you can go down that route, upgrade your Adam into a badass and just go kill everything. Fancy yourself as a Solid Snake? Great, then you can go down the stealth option, hiding in the shadows, turning yourself invisible and sneaking past everyone. Like seeing bad guys killed by their own gun turrets? Lovely, you’ll enjoy upgrading yourself so that you can hack into computers and disable security cameras. Feel that everything can be solved if we just talked things through? No worries, you’ll enjoy enhancing your social capabilities and talking to people attempting to persuade them to let you have what you want. Of course, with Deus Ex, the possibility is always there to do all of them at once…

Kneel before Zod!

The world around you is constantly changing as well. Make too much noise and guards will come running towards you. This could be used to your advantage as you turn invisible and sneak to where they came from, or you can choose to take them head on in a gun fight, attaching to cover (the perspective cleverly changing to third person whenever you go into cover) and popping up to take them out. Each level really depends on how you want to conquer it, not down to prescripted events. When playing you get the feeling that this is how games are meant to be played. You get the feeling that this is the future.

 

For those who have played previous Deus Ex titles, this will be heaven in terms of entertainment and plot. But due to the fact that this is a prequel, new fans can now climb aboard the Deus Ex mobile and enjoy the ride for the first time. The plot is satisfyingly epic (taking this reviewer 20 hours to complete the main storyline, but you could double that to get everything else done) and shouldn’t be spoiled in a review. It is safe to say however, that character motivations should always be questioned, and that friends aren’t always who they seem to be. It may seem a little harsh, but I was however left underwhelmed by the graphics. While they may have needed to take a slight hit due to the sheer amount of other things crammed onto the disk, they do feel a little under polished compared to the rest of the game, lip syncing in scenes is particularly annoying (especially as a lot of the game involves talking) and something that surely could have easily been fixed in the four year creation period. Compared to other games coming out soon such as Battlefield 3, Deus Ex begins to feel a little ‘last gen’ in terms of presentation. Thankfully though, the game play is so good that this is the only critique that this review can muster. Everything else is so well balanced, so perfectly judged that if you don’t enjoy this game it says more about you as a person than it does this as a game.

So what are you waiting for? Deus Ex may not be as a big of a name as it was 10 years ago, but do yourself a serious favour and seek this out now. Along with Portal 2, this is evidence that intelligent, serious gaming still exists and in fact is getting better in 2011. Now if only they had a human augmentation to make me better at games…

Verdict:

Delivering a Blade Runner-esque vision, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is easily the best and most ‘real’ version of the future I have ever seen produced in a game. Pretty much faultless in all areas, this is the best game you’ll play this year – no arguments. If you haven’t played this, face it, you don’t really love games at all.

10/10

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L.A Noire Review

May 19, 2011

LA Noire

Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3

Developed By: Team Bondi Pty Ltd

Published By: Rockstar Games

Genre: Action/Adventure

If you ever needed proof that videogames are catching up with cinema – then LA Noire may well be the missing link. Forgetting for a moment just how revolutionary this game may be, and forgetting that it is one of the most intelligent and open games you can play, if nothing else then LA Noire is evidence that high production values don’t have to mask simple game play, and that in fact, they can contribute immensely to an amazing game. Set in LA (well, obviously) you have before you a just about perfect recreation of ’40s LA that – despite a well populated city that feels more alive than anything GTA has managed before – functions merely as the backdrop for LA’s real tale of post-war moral corruption. For in this city, you are Detective Cole Phelps, a man charged with cleaning the streets up – and this means getting your hands very dirty…

It would however, be unfair to go any further without mentioning the faces, the terrifying lifelike faces that are key to your success in this world. For it’s impossible to overstate just how crucial the Motion Scan technology is to the success of LA Noire. Interrogation scenes are where you decipher clues and call people’s bluff. In a normal game this would come down to some educated guess work, yet in LA, every tic, twitch and flicker of the eyes is something to be thought about, pondered and then responded to. And although we’re not quite at the point of photo-realism yet, it’s the expressions that are equally expressive, and it’s this that allows the subtleties of a performance to emerge. Several times in cut scenes and interrogations you will find yourself going ‘I recognise that person’ and it will be here that you realise that you’re caught up in LA Noire, almost as if you were watching a show such as the Wire or Mad Men.

Things are not too open however, and early cases will walk you through simply what to do, giving advice about what to say and whom to talk to. This is good news as it does have the potential to be very overwhelming and confusing from the off. Once these early stages are finished, you’re thrown into the wider world and told to get on with it your own way, things will still follow a pattern though with every case beginning with a crime scene and introduction from your boss who sends you off to the crime scene to investigate witnesses and potential perpetrators.

Investigating scenes is almost something reminiscent of a point and click adventure, boundaries that define where clues can be found are marked via sexy jazz music which gets quieter the further away you are from the good clues worth checking out. Walking past an item that can be looked at will trigger a two-note tune accompanied by a controller vibration – unless of course you’re an original controller owner like me that is vibrationless – doh! It can become tedious at times walking around an area and picking things up, hoping something is important, but the real challenge comes not from finding evidence, but knowing when to deploy it in the conversations that follow.

Although it can seem that you’ll spend most of your time in interrogation and investigation, and indeed you will, there are of course moments of action that change the pace of proceedings. Everything that you’d expect from a Rockstar game is present here from shootouts, chasing people over roofs and through alleys, car chases, and the odd bout of fisticuffs. These are all executed well, but admittedly you can experience them better elsewhere. Last years Red Dead Redemption did ‘hiding behind cover shoot outs’ better, while GTA does the car chases to a better standard as well. It’s also rather frustrating the amount of suspects that decide to run away and have to be chased, while others decide to have a fistfight before talking. These moment’s can been tagged on rather than important and occasionally sap the fun factor from ten.

However, these are small gripes from what is a revolutionary game. It’s hard to see visuals getting any better than this before the next incarnation of games consoles come around, and the general idea is bold and pulled off in style. If you’re a good gamer then there is around 20 hours of story here along with extra side missions to fill in as well. 40’s LA has been exceptionally realised, straddling the glitz and glamour of the movie industry while also exposing the seedy underbelly that more than often ends in death, lies and betrayal. Detective Cole Phelps continues the Rockstar tradition of a lead character that is well realised, rounded and portrayed, while the supporting cast have more personality than possibly any other game out there today. In a gaming world now obsessed with big guns and online thrills in the vein of Call of Duty, it is brave of a studio to practice the idea that the best kind of excitement can come from a single player game, putting away the gun and having a chat. I’m not sure there are many other games studios out there that can mix so many genres together, yet create something so successful and fun to play. For that reason, LA Noire could well be the best game yet this year…

Verdict:

LA Noire is a stylish, atmospheric game that makes searching through a bin fun. A bold move the pays off in dividends, this is old style point and click for a new generation. So get your pencil out, oil the brain and prepare for a case like no other. LA Noire could well be the start of a new blockbuster franchise.

9/10

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