Wasabisoft

COVERED IN THIS ISSUE OF GYSTaPO:  FEAR 2, Ace Combat 6, Brothers In Arms: Hell’s Highway, Sid Meier’s Pirates!, and Dawn Of War 2.  Let us begin.

Firstly, some background:  I have an extremely short attention span when it comes to MOST GAMES.  Anyone who knows me will attest to this fact.  Even World of Warcraft, an admittedly great all-around game, has (historically) only ever occupied me for perhaps two months at a stretch, tops.  Although I will say that I’ve broken that barrier in the last couple of days… I’ve even managed to hold myself to three chars on a single server!  Hooray for me!

SO:  when a game DOES manage to pull me back to its bosom for any length of time, I view it as a sign of something positive.  In general, I’m not fixated upon any one facet of a game (Presentation, Graphics, Sound, Gameplay, and Lasting Appeal, to quote the set used by IGN… for some reason.  I’ve never even been to the fucking site before just now) and I will DEFINATELY not be awarding numerical scores for any kind of catagory system.  Fuck scores for games anyways; I’ve enjoyed plenty of games that some jackass reviewer gave a 4 out of 10 (or whatever the fuck system they’ve conned themselves into believing is legitimate) simply because I found something fun in them.  Earth Defense Force 2017, for one.  No no no, I have a different purpose for this stuff; that purpose being to get you to try the games metioned at least ONCE.  The fact that I even mention a game in one of these (hopefully not too infrequent) articles counts as an endorsement on my part; if I feel there’s something really outrageously wrong with a game listed here, I’ll be sure to let you know what that something is.

All that being said, these will NOT be comprehensive reviews by any stretch of the imagination.  Hell, I plan on including at least one relatively old game in each issue if I can possibly do so.  Once again, my goal here is to bring to your attention a game I feel is deserving of your time, if only briefly.  Do you have Gamefly (or something similar) yet?  If not, just fucking get it.  I’ll SEND you one of the myriad One Free Month coupons I’ve got horded in my TV console.  Gamefly is a beautiful thing because it allows possibly A.D.D. individuals like myself to blow through games at a fairly quick and inexpensive rate.  It serves to enable the PLAY IT ONCE philosophy I so heartily endorse.  I believe strongly in pre-screening a game before I purchase it;  Gamefly allows me to both preview newer games AND sample games I’d never pay exorbitant fees to Blockbuster to play.  So… yeah.  On with the useful stuff.

FEAR 2:  Loads of fun.  I enjoyed the hell out of the first FEAR game, in part because I could sympathize with the main character: the spooky ghost chick.  Yes, she’s actively trying to kill the protagonist.  Yes, she’s a bit quick to destroy your teammates.  Yes, she has a really unnerving habit of flashing in and out of your field of view, causing you to drop your Kool-ade.  A LOT.  But she’s been through a really rough childhood and I feel that she’s pretty much justified in splattering random living humans across the walls and/or ceiling with psychic fury.  Plus I consider this game to be a departure from the Survival Horror genre by simple expedient of the protagonist’s ability to acquire massive amounts of firepower and a regenerating Bullettime power.  So even WHEN creepy shit starts going down in the fucking elementary school you just HAD to take a shortcut through, you are startled and, yes, creeped out, but you are ALSO secure in the knowledge that no matter WHAT comes after you one can always hit the slow-motion, evaluate the threat, and blow its fucking head off.  AGAIN, in the case of headless non-corporeal beasties.  Conclusion: play it first, get through the main campaign (which is what you should be playing this game for anyways), TRY the multiplayer, and if the multi does it for you, go ahead and buy it.  I’m prejudiced, but only the addition of Creepy Dead Girl Mode would make the multi feel worthwhile to me.

Ace Combat 6:  Yeah, released in ’07, but tons of goddamn fun all the same.  I threw this game in the Gamefly queue after hearing it mentioned in the same breath as HAWX over at Penny Arcade.  Specifically, if memory serves, it was described as “designed for single-player campaigns, and much harder than HAWX, which was obviously designed for multiplayer”.  Such things make me interested for some reason.  Had I been able to attend the Air Force Academy, I would have opted (against the grain, apparently) to be a ground attack pilot… taking out radar, critical infrastructure, supply lines, etc. holds great appeal for me.  Ace Combat 6 allows me to do just this; in fact, I can kit out my wingman for an entirely anti-air role and grab the F-117 Nighthawk (or F-15E Strike Eagle, the F-117 just has greater aesthetic appeal) and perform NOTHING BUT ground attack missions for nearly the entire game.  Rather like being Luke Skywalker gunning for the Death Star’s thermal exhaust port and having the Millenium Falcon guarding your back… but without the 80′s haircut.  And the incredible dorkyness.  Conclusion: IF you like flight sims at all, THEN buy this.  The sheer number of aircraft and weapon choices can give the campaign itself replay value, let alone the incredibly interesting multi modes.

Brothers In Arms: Hell’s Highway:  This game was not terribly well received by the majority of people I’ve met (all of whom generally fall into either the Call of Duty/Halo camp or the Rainbow Six camp) because, I imagine, it’s not CoD, Halo or R6.  I understand.  Please stop hyperventilating and LISTEN.  The game does deemphasize the role of the player as badass killing machine; it does so in order to drive the squad based tactics system.  I ADORE the ability to check the basic layout of an area, plot suppression/flushing/flanking maneuvers, and dispatch my fire teams to implement such WHILE STILL BEING SHOT AT.  There is a special kind of joy in my heart that I can only get by slaughtering an entire company of Nazis while firing not a single shot of my own.  I feel a deep resonance between this game’s playstyle and ACTUAL combat, as opposed to gun-and-run or cover-sniping tactics employed in pretty much every other FPS ever.  If it’s any consolation, the writing and voice acting is hella cliche, grandad.  Conclusion: this game is about using your fire teams to kill enemies, NOT your own l33t fragging abilities.  If the thought of being the de facto weakest member of your team (from a lethality perspective) bothers you, move on.  If not, this game is only like 15 bucks through Gamefly.

Sid Meier’s Pirates!:  Here’s the oldie for today, and it remains awesome in spite of the passage of time.  Pirates! is one of those games I keep installed on the Lappy not only because the XBox version is teh suck but also because I always like having it as a potential game choice when bored.  I enjoy especially the ship battles, the need to not only broadside the crap out of your target but also take into account wind speed and direction and what type of damage you want to deal out.  If you’re just looking to sink the bastard, that’s fine, but there are times you may want to take the ship alive so you can loot the cargo holds (the most reliable source of pirate booty in the Carribbean outside of Tortuga)… and if you want to steal the ship itself, you’ll REALLY want to avoid doing damage to the sails, as well.  As with all Sid Meier games, there’s a lot of strategery to supplement the combat; indeed, the strategic aspect is the entire reason you engage in combat in the first place.  As, to be honest, I feel it should be.  Conclusion: you’ll have a real hard time trying to find this game for SALE anywhere anymore, so just acquire a copy through “legitimate means” and write Sid a nice thank you note.  I know you’ve got the hard drive space, just fucking do it.

Dawn Of War 2:  oh, delightful.  I wasted hours and hours playing the original Dawn of War, and the Risk-esque territory strategy aspect of DoW:  Dark Crusade made this one of my favorite games of all time.  DoW 2 keeps this overarching strategic goal system and adds a bit of RPG flair to the RTS portion.  Admittedly, I was a touch disappointed by the near-complete removal of the building aspect of the RTS; plotting infrastructure needs and erecting base defenses has always been my strongest point.  This is pretty much gone from DoW 2.  However, given the “these few elite squads against the innumerable alien hordes” RPG dynamic, I can definately see that base management would get in the way of the action.  This game is NOT for people who win RTS’s by amassing a huge mixed group of units and ploughing a swathe of destruction directly across the map and headlong into the enemy HQ.  This is a game for, again, people who have a basic concept of small-unit tactics and are able to use a few groups of differing weapon types to destroy an enemy’s cover advantage.  I would have enjoyed this concept immensely even WITHOUT the ability to use level-up points to buy new perks and abilities for your squad leaders.  Conclusion: if you are an RTS fan, go directly out right this very moment and buy this damn game.  I’m pretty sure you can purchase and download it online, too, if you don’t feel like leaving the house.  Even hardcore engineer types like myself will find much glee to be had in being deprived of their normal environment of choice.

And finally:  the acronym for this type of article DOES, in fact, sound exactly like “Gestapo” when spoken aloud.  I did not do this on purpose;  the title came first, I typed out the acronym “GYSTPO” for the hell of it (and to create a tag for this article type), realized it sounded close, and added in the “a” to make it (GYSTaPO) more obvious.  I think it’s a kickass title, and quite hilarious to me given my philospohical proclivities.  Watch this be the one thing I’m under fire for during my political campaigning days.  Ah, irony.