Thankfully, Rayman isn't alone.

It’s quite obvious that Ubisoft set out to not only make a fantastic 2D platforming game, but to make it feel like something that could have come out 20+ years ago; save for the beautiful visuals of course. As far as the story is concerned – bad guys have filled Rayman’s world, some little pink dots with ponytales called Electoons have been captured, there are busty Nymphs to save, plenty of monsters to defeat, shiny things to collect, and red jewels to return to an old skeleton dude. There are a few bits of sub-titled dialogue, but none of it really matters, and often doesn’t even make sense. In other words, there is just enough story for the characters to have a purpose, and everything else weighs on the shoulders of how the game plays.

Thankfully, the game play is exceptional! Simple and responsive controls make this game easy to pick up for anyone who is familiar with the genre. There are a number of abilities standard to 2D platformers that are earned as you progress through the worlds. After a new ability is acquired, the levels that immediately follow are focused on familiarizing you with said ability, so you’re given plenty of opportunity to get the hang of the controls before things get really hairy. And that, they do.

There is no shortage of awesome boss fights, such as this.

In true old school fashion, you have at most 2 hit points. Much of the game is comprised of perfectly timed jumps and avoiding treacherous objects and enemies, so as much as you have to be quick with your moves, you also need to be quite careful. Checkpoints are some times few and far between, and a good portion of the levels (and especially boss fights) rely heavily on trial-and-error. This can prove to be quite frustrating at times, but it’s never reached the point of me wanting to stop playing all together.

One way Rayman: Origins is set apart from similar games of old, is that you can play it entirely with 3 other players. 4 player co-op in an often fast and fantastic 2D platformer might not sound like the ideal way to play, and depending on who you’re playing with, it might not be. But I had a surprising amount of fun and shared quite a few laughs while playing co-op with my wife. Deaths are handled in such a way that it doesn’t prove too detrimental to a player who is in the lead and doing well. Thus, it’s not as frustrating as it you might think.

I likely pay more attention to the music behind the game than most, and this is yet another area Rayman: Origins shines. I’ve actually found myself walking around the house whistling tunes that I heard while playing, and I can’t say this is something that happens often. My wife caught me one time and knew exactly what I had stuck in my head. We shared a laugh, then she went and fired up the console.

It’s a bit disappointing that Rayman: Origins was released during the holiday onslaught, as I feel like it’s been buried in the pile and hasn’t received the attention it deserves. Especially considering Rayman’s presence over the past few years. It’s likely not what people are expecting, and I’m positive it has been overlooked by many who would thoroughly enjoy it.

I’ve owned an Xbox 360 for nearly six years, and for five of those years, there has been at least 2 consoles in the house. Initially, the second console served as a back-up for when the main TV in the living room was occupied. I would remove the hard drive and pop it into the second console, then continue playing elsewhere. It was simply easier than unplugging and moving the entire console. Then, as my wife and daughter grew more inclined to play video games, we found ourselves with an actual need for a second console. It was no longer a back-up console; the two were being used at the same time, in different rooms by different people.

My Xbox 360 consoles; 250GB and 4GB (bottom).

This is Where Things Got a Little Messy

Thankfully, at this point USB storage devices were supported, so we weren’t bound to using the archaic first party 64MB memory units. Since I was the one who typically played on the second console, I would keep my profile and active game saves on the USB stick. So, I was portable, but there were still issues.

• The USB stick couldn’t be removed when the console was running; it would prompt you to re-insert it, even it wasn’t being used.
• If a game had DLC, I would need to re-download it on the second console (if it was relatively small, as it only has 4GB internal storage), or bring the entire hard drive to the second console.
• Most importantly; having only my profile mobile, meant that I was the one who got bumped to the basement. I may sound a bit spoiled here, but I invested a lot of money in a pretty decent home theatre setup, and I like to make use of it.
• For a while, we had my eldest daughter’s account on the USB stick as well, as she would often play in the basement when she got home from school while the living room was occupied. But this became a problem when both of us wanted to play at the same time, as both profiles were in the same place. It resulted in having to constantly move profiles from the USB stick back to the internal HDD.

Enter Cloud Storage

It really is our saviour. It’s as simple as enabling an option in the main console settings, then selecting it as your save destination when prompted, just like any other device. You are given 500MB of storage space, which is enough considering it’s only used for game saves. Data can be moved from the server to your HDD, so you can migrate old games that you’re no longer playing without worrying about running out of space, or having to delete the data.

“But hold on a sec, what about profiles?” Ah, I was hoping someone would ask! Also included in the fall ’11 dashboard update, is a change to “gamertag recovery”. Previously, if you wanted to migrate your profile from one console to another, you would use a USB device as previously stated, or you could “recover” your profile by downloading it. This was a fairly painful process, which took upwards of 20 minutes to complete. Now it’s labeled as “download a profile”, and it takes no longer than a couple of minutes.

Multiple Console Bliss

It really is a beautiful thing when you can log into a console, fire up a game, and continue playing right where you left off, without having to dick around with USB devices or the console’s portable hard drive. It works as well as you would expect, or likely better given the manufacturer’s track record.

Over the holidays, my wife suggested that we move our second console to the bedroom, along with the 40″ LCD TV that was collecting dust in the basement. We live in an old house, and it gets very cold down there during the Winter months. We couldn’t have done this at a better time, as Cloud Storage has made owning multiple Xbox 360s a truly enjoyable and painless experience.

A client of mine wanted to ditch their old phpBB forums in return for the fully integrated goodness of bbPress. The first battle, was figuring out how to get all of the users, topics, and replies over to the WP database. After many failed attempts by clunky forum conversion plugins, I found success with bbConverter. Although, as we quickly discovered, it too has its own flaws; we were left with 40k topics and 120k replies, but many had authors mixed up, were in the wrong place, or no longer belonged to a forum. Not to mention, bbConverter didn’t convert any of the bbCode used by phpBB, and didn’t do anything with file attachments. In short, the converted forums were a bloody mess and hardly useable. After a few days of trying to make the best of the situation, we decided to roll back and stick with phpBB.

Now I was faced with the task of cleaning up the database and removing the bbPress content. Surprisingly, there is no “uninstall” for bbPress, so I knew it was going to be a manual task. After digging through the database, I found that topics and replies are custom post types, which means they’re now part of the wp_posts table, where as all bbPress tables were previously independent, and prefixed with bb_. It’s not as simple as dropping a handful of tables and calling it a day. Topics and replies (and likely forums; I deleted them from WP-Admin as there was less than 20) are mixed in with the main posts, and other custom post types the site uses.

After half an hour of Googling, I found a solution on Stack Exchange. The only thing I had to do, was replace “customposttype” with the actual post type names, and change the table prefix (as it’s not the WP default).

Be sure to backup your database before running the following queries.

DELETE a,b,c FROM wp_posts a
LEFT JOIN wp_term_relationships b ON (a.ID=b.object_id)
LEFT JOIN wp_postmeta c ON (a.ID=c.post_id)
WHERE a.post_type='topic'

DELETE a,b,c FROM wp_posts a
LEFT JOIN wp_term_relationships b ON (a.ID=b.object_id)
LEFT JOIN wp_postmeta c ON (a.ID=c.post_id)
WHERE a.post_type='reply'

Those two queries cleared out the over 160k records found in the _posts table, and the associated data stored in the _postmeta and _term_relationships tables.

The millions who flock to this franchise every November are in it for the multiplayer. There’s no doubt about that. I have dudes on my Xbox friends list who have no achievements in this or the other Modern Warfare games, as there simply are none awarded for multiplayer. I on the other hand, still favour a solid single player campaign over an endless game of “shoot that guy”. I did however, give online multiplayer a go. Mind you, I have my communication preference set to “friends only”, so it was mostly a pleasant experience. More on this later.

When you start the campaign, you’re quickly brought up to speed regarding the events of the first two games. It picks up mere minutes after MW2 left off, with Soap and Price near-death and Makaroz still at large. The battle on American soil rages on, with Russian battleships and submarines filling the New York harbour, and you’re immediately dropped in the middle of the action. The typical campaign formula is in tact, as you fill the boots of soldiers from different factions fighting in different theatres across the globe, simultaneously. By the end, many lives are lost, and a surprising amount of closure is given. I highly doubt we’ll see another game in the Modern Warfare series. How great would a sci-fi Call of Duty game developed by Infinity Ward be? YES PLEASE!

There’s a constant sense of urgency as you play through the campaign, even during some of the slower paced stealth missions with Price by your side. Nearly every chapter contains a highly scripted vehicle or weapon emplacement sequence, that I had a lot of fun with. They were pure chaos, with a ludicrous amount of explosions and near-misses that had me permanently perched on the edge of my couch. Overall, there’s a very clear sense that this war is happening on a grand scale. Where as, many similar games feel like you’re fighting with a handful of allies, against a handful of enemies, and there’s really nothing going on outside of field of vision. This is definitely not the case with MW3. I found myself often hanging back and watching the action unfold around me. There were many memorable moments through-out the campaign, and writing about it now makes me want to revisit the entire single player experience.

Once the credits roll finishes, you’re immediately pointed to Special Ops, which can be played solo or with a friend via split-screen or online co-op. Here, you find the typical timed training mission, along with a slew of other challenges. Some are variations of scenes taken from the campaign, while others are unique to this game mode. There’s a new mode within Special Ops called Survival, which is a wave-based mode, with no zombies. I had fun playing both challenges and Survival, but not enough to entice me to go back to them more than  a couple times.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m not much for this style of multiplayer gaming. It got old years ago, and with only slight improvements since then, it quite simply doesn’t appeal to me any longer. I did however, play some straight-up multiplayer, and I didn’t hate it. It most definitely felt dated, and many of the visuals (specifically player cards that pop-up when you kill someone) made me want to gouge my eyes out, but overall I had fun for the short time I played. By like Special Ops, I’ve felt no urge to go back for more. Similar to how playing Battlefield 3 made me pick up this game, MW3′s multiplayer sparked an urge to play a great online shooter. I’ve since re-purchased Killzone 3 and have been thoroughly enjoying its multiplayer component.

All of this said, I can definitely see the draw in COD’s multiplayer. It’s quick and easy to pick up, yet super deep and expansive in the long run. The amount of unlockables pertaining to player and weapon upgrades is astounding! Clearly, Infinity Ward are aware that people live and breathe their game, and have given us enough to shoot for that you could likely play this game for months on end and not even come close to unlocking everything.

I’m glad I picked up MW3 when I did. I had a much better time with it than I expected, although it definitely feels like it’s time to move on. The game’s engine really needs an overhaul to bring it up to speed with other modern shooters, and something to shake that “been there, done that” feeling that now plagues the Call of Duty franchise.

"Here we go."

The first hour of the Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was unforgettable. Action packed from the get-go, and featuring some absolutely breath-taking scenes which let you know straight away, that you were in for a treat. Uncharted 3 takes a bit longer to get moving, although the first hour does include some pretty sweet battles that are strictly melee. It wasn’t until about three hours in that I finished a scene I instantly wanted to replay, and that certainly wasn’t the last. When it eventually picks up momentum, it rarely slows down.

As usual, Nathan Drake finds himself with a tidbit of information that leads him to all sorts of locations across the globe, while he tries to piece everything together. The four main characters from the previous game all make appearances. Naturally, Drake and Sully spend a good portion of the story working together to traverse ancient temples and solve puzzles. And this time around, we’re given quite a bit of insight into their pasts; how they met, and ended up working together. Early in the game, there are two full chapters where you play as a 15 year-old Drake, which includes an incredible foot-chase, marking one of the most memorable moments in the game.

The gameplay itself, remains virtually untouched. Everything from character movements to the cover system and combat are in line with the previous games. About the only new addition I can recall is the ability to throw-back grenades before they detonate. Although, I did notice that the characters moved quite naturally while walking through buildings and busy streets. They would often quickly skip around corners, or brush their hands along walls, and that sort of thing that you makes it stand out amongst the robotic movements we are accustomed to. Especially young Drake; he seems very distracted and curious as he walks through a bustling Columbia.

The Uncharted games can be fairly difficult, in that you are constantly scrounging for ammo, and enemies can soak up an obscene amount of bullets before dropping. At times, I found myself incredibly frustrated as the difficulty spiked during some of the bigger battles, and couldn’t help be feel like the enemies tactics were a bit on the cheap side. For example, there were numerous times I found myself pinned down by snipers, dudes wielding RPGs, or mounted machine guns. More often than not, grenades would force me out of cover while dudes flanked me on both sides. There was literally no safe place in many situations, and I found myself running around rooms looking for high powered weapons to deal with enemies quickly. Too many times, I felt that I simply lucked out, as opposed to feeling like I actually accomplished something.

This part, was absolutely insane!

As with the previous games, Uncharted 3 is a very decent length; 22 chapters long, to be precise. Completion time will vary, depending on the difficulty and how diligent you are with finding treasures. But definitely don’t expect to blow through the story in an afternoon. I played it while on bed rest after having sinus surgery, and it still took a solid 3 days.

Among Thieves brought competitive and cooperative multiplayer modes to Uncharted, which can naturally be found in Drake’s Deception. In all honesty, I had no desire to give them a go. I had some fun with Uncharted 2′s multiplayer components, but I simply had was not into it this time around. This could have everything to do with me playing Battlefield 3 simultaneously, as its competitive multiplayer had me by the balls. Some games simply don’t need multiplayer, and Uncharted is one of them.

If you’ve played the first two games in the series, you will have a sense of “been there, done that” with Uncharted 3. But rest assured, this is not a bad thing. It doesn’t take any risks, or drive the franchise in exciting new directions. But it delivers an incredibly thrilling action-filled adventure, that won’t soon be forgotten.

Battlefield 3 is very similar to the Bad Company titles, in that it contains a full-fledged single player campaign, but it is massively out-weighed by its multiplayer component. And for fans of the series, this is nothing to complain about. If anything, it just makes me wonder why they even bother with single player campaigns at all. I actually quite enjoyed Bad Company’s story, although it wasn’t good enough to warrant a second play through. Bad Company 2 was weaker in the single player department, and Battlefield 3 is weaker still. While there were some memorable moments, I felt that I was pushing myself to get through it so I could jump into multiplayer. I knew full well that if I started playing online, I wouldn’t get back to single player.

Straight up – the story plays out is very similar to the Call of Duty games. You are put in the shoes of several different operatives representing various factions that are all tied together by a common enemy who is working toward pulling off a catastrophic event that will kill thousands, or possibly even millions of innocent people. Yep, sounds familiar. The story itself is easier to follow than the COD games, full of some decent action sequences, but not nearly as exciting or enjoyable. I felt like for much of the story, I was along for the ride;  typically the last guy to breach a room, riding shotgun in land vehicles, co-pilot in jets, etc. There were many points where I found myself growing tired of waiting for scripted events to play out before being able to proceed. The early chapters are particularly bad for this. Looking back on the campaign now, there were only two chapters that really stood out. One where you’re rolling in a tank and blowing mad amounts of shit up. The other, very close to the end, made me feel like we were back in WWII; sprinting between crumbling rock walls in open farm land, shooting down enemies who are fleeing into the fields.

The amount of dust and water spots on screen at all times drove me crazy.

Visually and technically, Battlefield 3 is pretty remarkable! Everything is incredibly detailed, including character models. Lighting and particle effects (clouds, fog, haze, dust, debris, etc.) actually stood out, they were that good. I feel like this generation of gaming has peaked in terms of graphics capabilities, and most games look pretty fantastic. There aren’t many that really stand out these days, but Battlefield 3 definitely made an impression.

The audio however; sheesh! I was thoroughly looking forward to hearing the tried-and-true Battlefield theme ring out when I first put the game disc in. Only to be disappointed by this heavily degraded electronic noise. The theme is there, if you listen hard enough. Unfortunately, the entire soundtrack suffers the same tragedy. I tend to listen to a game’s soundtrack while I write about it, but here I am listening to the Modern Warfare 3 score (which is really damn good, I might add), and I haven’t even played that game yet.

Battlefield 3′s multiplayer is exactly what I was expecting, and it completely swayed my overall opinion of the game after just a few rounds. If you have spent any time playing the recent Bad Company games online, than you have a good idea of what you’re in for. It’s the same multiplayer Battlefield experience I’ve loved for so many years, but everything has been bumped up a notch or two in terms of refinement. Large scale battles where the tide is ever changing, packed with vehicles, and sheer chaos at every turn. There’s is nothing quite like Battlefield multiplayer, and it’s definitely my cup of tea over the typical run-and-gun variety that so many others seem to favour these days.

The main multiplayer modes are conquest, rush, and team deathmatch. The latter being completely obvious. Conquest is the original Battlefield formula introduced by Battlefield 1942, where teams compete to control points (flags) on the map. Bad Company brought us rush, and like conquest, has been adopted by many other games since. In Rush, one team defends while the other tries to advance. Once an area has been captured, the defending team falls back to a new location, and the attackers proceed forward. It’s extremely intense, and equally satisfying if you’re playing with a group of solid players. Both modes have provided me with hours of enjoyment, and I look forward to sinking many more hours into them with Battlefield 3.

Battlefield 3 comes equipped with a co-op mode, which I admittedly haven’t had a chance to play just yet, and I’m not sure if I will. From what I’ve read, it’s a more scripted experience along the lines of the single player story, with tougher team oriented objectives. Since I didn’t find much enjoyment with the single player end of the game, I don’t have much desire to dive into co-op.

Aside from the weak single player campaign and horrible music, I have a couple other major beefs with this game. EA are always looking for ways to cash in on DLC, and many of their tactics over the years have been shady, to saw the least. It started with charging for unlockable content, but has moved to requiring a unique code to unlock parts of the game. In this case, the multiplayer component in its entirety requires such a code. If you’re purchasing Battlefield 3 used or renting it, you won’t be able to play online unless you purchase the “online pass” for 800 points, which is equivalent to around $10. That’s just dirty.

Then there was the shoddy launch week. With it being 2011 and EA/DICE having so many Battlefield lanuches under their belts, you’d think they’d know how to prepare for a launch by now. Apparently, they’ve learned nothing over the years, and Battlefield 3, like Bad Company 2, Battlefield 1943, Bad Company, etc. before it was virtually unplayable online for the first week or so. This is unacceptable.

Overall, Battlefield 3 is an unbalanced package which leans heavily in favour of its multiplayer component. The fact that the single player campaign is on disc two says a lot. It is most definitely secondary content, and hardly worth the six hours it takes to complete. On the other hand, multiplayer is absolutely top notch, and I wish more people would put down Call of Duty long enough to give it a shot. It has so much more to offer.

Apparently, much has happened since the Asylum was locked back down a couple years ago. Someone thought it would be a good idea to build some massive walls around a chunk of Gotham and let all the criminals and super villains loose within. Naturally, alliances were made. Gangs chose leaders to follow. And things are generally just bad within the compound that is Arkham City. At the beginning of the game, Bruce Wayne is captured and thrown into the city. It’s not long before he breaks loose and has Alfred dispatch his suit via Batwing. No one seems to make the connection between Bruce’s disappearance and Batman showing up, but that hardly matters. Batman is back in action, and quickly starts putting all of the pieces together.

If you buy the game new, a redemption code is included which unlocks four chapters where you play as Catwoman. Her story interweaves with Batman’s nicely, and the game actually kicks off with a nice little scuffle between her and Two-Face. Once the game is complete, you can free roam the city as either Batman or Catwoman, and there are specific (pink) Riddler trophies hidden through-out the city that only she can collect.

I absolutely love this depiction of Catwoman. She is equal parts cute, sexy, and dangerous. And as we’ve seen, loves to get tangled up in Batman’s business. Catwoman’s combat maneuvers are pretty much in line with Batman’s, in that the buttons perform similar moves. She doesn’t have as many gadgets at her disposal, but she can deal with a dozen or more thugs just as well at The Bat. Getting around the city is a little slower though, as she has no cape for gliding. As you would expect, she’s quite acrobatic and can scale a building with the use of her whip and some timed jumps fairly elegantly.

As with the previous game, we see a number of recognizable faces in Arkham City. Both good, and bad. Most notably, The Joker, The Penguin, Mr. Freeze, and Two-Face will stand in Batman’s way, on more than one occasion. There are quite a few others who make appearances in side quests and the Catwoman chapters, which could easily be missed if you simply blow through the main story.

Speaking of which, Arkham City felt a good bit shorter than Arkham Asylum, but there’s certainly a lot more left to do when the day has been saved. The Riddler has littered the city with (what else?) riddles, trophies, and even some side quests that are sure to keep Batman busy for hours on end. There are a number of breakable items (balloons, chattering teeth, security cameras, ceramic penguins, etc.) through-out, which net you small amounts of XP. I made sure to break them as I came across them, but certainly didn’t go out of my way looking for them. I like having additional tasks to do once the main story is complete, but that sort of tediousness is not my cup of tea.

Aside from the main story and side quests, there is an alternate version of the story which allows you to start with your upgrades and XP in tact, but throws tougher enemies at you from the get-go, and disables most of the visual cues during combat. There are also combat and stealth challenges, similar to what we saw in Arkham Asylum.

I must be nearing the 20 hour mark now, and there hasn’t been a moment where I wasn’t enjoying myself. No super tedious mandatory tasks. No overly difficult battles. No infuriating boss fights. Everything is extremely well balanced and the pacing couldn’t be better. Batman: Arkham City is every bit as good as its predecessor, and then some.

Believe it or not, but the car models really do look this good.

When Shift 2: Unleashed (AKA Need for Speed: Shift 2) was released back in March, I rented it hoping for a similar experience to its predecessor, which I quite enjoyed. But an hour into the game, I was ready to call it quits. It lacked the excitement of the previous game and was forcing me to race D and E class cars with no modifications repeatedly. I understand that you need to climb the ladder and gain experience, but how many times are we supposed to start from the ground up and play these boring low class events before it becomes tedious? Hint; we’re already there.

The MotorStorm franchise is a weird one. There’s absolutely nothing “simulation” about it, but it can be a lot of fun at times. Or at least, I had some fun playing the first two games in short bursts. The third game in the series, MotorStorm: Apocalypse is utter shit. Instead of focusing on the fact that you have monster trucks and dirt bikes (and everything in between) racing down mountains and through rain forests, they tried to jam this awful story into it. Tied together with un-skippable cut-scenes featuring awful characters and horrendous voice acting, it was nothing short of an atrocity. To top it off, the first dozen or so races are so insanely easy that it feels like you’re doing time trials. Needless to say, I couldn’t stomach this game for more than a few hours.

So as you can see, my experience with racing games as of late has not been enjoyable. With the onslaught of games on the horizon, I wasn’t counting on playing Forza 4 until I had a chance to get through some of the other “high priority” games.  But when I saw mentions of it on Twitter through-out release day, it got the better of me and I raced (pun intended) out to my local video store to rent a copy. Not even 5 minutes in, I find myself sitting on the edge of my seat, with a smile from ear-to-ear.

"I want to go to there."

When it comes to video games, the first impression is of the utmost importance. That first hour better be a good one, if people you want people to sink another 8, 10, 20+ hours into it. Forget about the first hour, in the first 5 minutes of Forza 4 I had watched an enthralling intro movie (below), raced a Ferrari through the Bernese Alps, and received some bonus credits and cars for importing my Forza 3 profile. That is how you get people stoked on your game.

I’m only a few hours into Forza 4 and just reached driver level 10, but I can see that I’ll need to pick up a copy of this game, as it’s definitely followed in its predecessor’s footsteps and built on the incredible foundation laid by Forza 3. As Rock Band 3 is to rhythm games, Forza 4 could very well be the definitive racing game of this console generation.

"Let's do this."

Through-out GoW 2, we learned that Adam Fenix (Marcus’ father) might still be alive after all these years. GoW 3 starts out with a dream sequence where Marcus recounts his final moments with his father, and the truth continues to unravel through-out the campaign. GoW 3 is said to be the last in the series, and they would have you believe it by how many of the loose ends are tied up, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t the last we see of Marcus Fenix and company. That’s one thing I loved about this game – it truly gives you a sense of closure, while a few minute details are left open for further expansion.

It feels as though the series matured from the first game through the third. At the beginning, we were told of all these horrible things that happened to the human race, without much of an explanation. Aside from the battered cities, we didn’t see the direct impact it had on the people that inhabited the planet, or those remaining to fight for it. That changed in GoW 2 in a big way, and a real human connection was established. GoW 3 continues to strengthen that connection, and we see the impact all of these actions have had on the main characters. This longterm war has taken a toll on everyone. We see them nearing the end of their rope, and we hear the remorse in their voice. It’s not just about shooting monsters in the face anymore.

I do have one major beef with the campaign, and that is the tremendous difficulty spike in the last chapter. I’m all for challenging boss battles, but when you’re stuck on a part for 90 minutes and get the feeling that it’s going to take sheer luck for you to complete it, there’s something wrong. Not to mention, the focus on cover is completely thrown out the window, as you have enemies closing in from all angles. My wife and I were playing co-op on Hardcore, and there were only a couple others points in the campaign that took multiple retries, but none as bad as this. We ended up restarting the chapter with my wife on Casual, and beat it first try.

COG women kick ass!

Everything that I love and expect to see in a Gears of War game is in tact, and much more. The campaign is a decent ten-twelve hour investment, and can be played solo, split-screen co-op, or online co-op with up to four players. There’s a new arcade mode for the campaign, which adds competitive scoring as seen in the mulltiplayer modes. The usual flavours of competitive multiplayer are there. Horde makes a return, and what is essentially the inverse of Horde has been introduced – Beast.

The scoring/ranking system is quite nice, in that it spans the entire game, not just the multiplayer end. You earn XP, badges, medals, and unlock players and weapon skins while playing any of the game modes.

Horde and Beast have a currency system in place, where you earn money for taking down enemies and reviving teammates. Cash is spent on fortifications, player upgrades, ammo, and weapons scattered across the map. Fortifications and player upgrades are tiered, so the more you invest, the bigger your return in the long run. For example, when you start building spike strips in Horde, your strip is levelled up the more you invest in it over time. A level one spike strip is a simple strip on the ground. Level two adds barbed wire. Level three adds lasers, and so on.

Overall, there are a huge amount of unlockables, which shows that Gears of War 3 is built to last. We will most definitely see multiplayer maps added in future, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they released some additional chapters which explore some of those minute details that were left open.

Gears of War 3 as a whole packs one hell of a punch! It delivers a satisfying, emotionally driven campaign that hits all of the right notes. And an awesome multiplayer suite that is sure to keep people playing for years to come.

The scene is post-war Los Angeles, and you start out as a beat cop named Cole Phelps who has returned from the war labelled a hero. Through-out the game, Cole moves up in the ranks through Homicide and Vice, working cases that range from insurance fraud and arson, to full-blown corporate conspiracies. Each desk you work at has its own set of cases, which all tie together – some more tightly than others. Along the way, you find newspapers, which once read (or rather, viewed as a cut-scene) expose the back-story which brings everything together. At first, it’s hard to see any connection between the back-story and the main cases, but things quickly come together during the last quarter of the game.

While most of your time is spent solving cases, you can pick up the radio at any point and lend a hand on the street. From robberies to perverts snapping up-skirt photos, the street crimes are a nice way to liven up the experience if things are moving too slowly, or give you a couple extra hours of gameplay once the main story is complete. In total, I racked up around 20 hours completing the story and all 40 street crimes.

You’ve likely seen footage of L.A. Noire, and were no doubt taken back by the incredibly realistic facial animation and voice acting. This could have been a deal breaker if it wasn’t executed well enough, but thankfully it was. It’s one of those games that you want to put on and show to anyone who will give you a moment of their time. It really is that technically impressive! From the character models and animation, to the historical vehicles and landmarks, LA Noire is one gorgeous game.

When it comes to the core gameplay, I was completely enthralled by the investigation and interrogation aspects. As you arrive on a crime scene, you take a minute to look around, talk to people, then it’s up to you to find any clues that will lead you on your way to putting the pieces together. The evidence you find, and what order you visit locations will determine the questions you’re able to ask during investigations, and ultimately, the outcome of the case. You may have a pretty good idea that someone is guilty, but without presenting the correct evidence, your witness will laugh in your face and likely end up walking. For each question, there is one correct answer. Being able to tell if the person is telling the truth or lying is crucial, and I found that the general rule of thumb, is that if you think the person is lying but you don’t have evidence to back it up, doubt them. If you find yourself really unsure, you can always use an intuition point, which will cross reference the community’s reaction, which often gives you a good idea of the correct answer.

Every game has its issues, and L.A. Noire has a few of its own, albeit minor. I’m not a fan of games with limited controls, and that was definitely a point of frustration for me here. You can only jump when there’s something to jump over, and it happens automatically. Same goes for drawing your weapon – only when the game does it for you. I ran into some problems getting in and out of vehicles with others close by, and the cover system is less than desirable. But I was able to overlook all of these minor gripes given how great the overall experience was.

As I mentioned earlier, I spent about 20 hours going through the story and street crimes. Since the game’s release, there have been 2 additional cases added (which were a pre-order bonus), with promise of at least 2 more on the way in the coming weeks. This is enough to ensure L.A. Noire stays in my possession a little longer, but I doubt I’ll go back and play through the entire game again.

I had extremely high expectations for L.A. Noire, and they were met, without a doubt.