Preview: Dark Void - PC, PS3, 360

Among the sea of demo's being flaunted by gaming companies, there was one which caught my eye named 'Dark Void'. With touches of steampunk, contemporary sci-fi and classical 1950's science fiction poster art, I was eager to try this demo out and see what it offered.

Taking place in the relative modern world where the games protagonist, William Augustus Grey, crashes into the Bermuda Triangle, he's thus being transported into an alternate dimension known as the Void. Coming across other humans called Survivors, Will fights the alien race known as the Watchers in an effort to return home to Earth.

On a concept level, this game is fantastic. It has alot of potential both storywise and of depth and player interaction with the world. And the demo was alot of fun to play too, I admit. But it was also deeply flawed. Graphics was a huge drawback. First off it uses the latest Unreal engine. Bad, bad choice in my opinion. The Unreal engine is very limited to small enclosed environments. Perfect for FPS, but for this... no way. See most of the games action takes place in the sky over vast expanses with your rocketpack and also on foot for the shooting sequences. Something a better graphics engine like Cryengine 2, Capcoms (who are also the game's distributors btw) MT Framework engine or Codemasters Ego engine could handle alot better. Unreal engine, as good as it is, is just too clunky for this type of game. And from reading other reviews and user comments on the game, it appears the glitches that were apparent in the demo weren't fixed up much.

Audiowise, brilliant! No complaints there. Controls are a bit stiff but you get used to it. Though it's nothing like it at all, the gameplay is vaguely reminiscent of Namco's 'Prop Cycle' and Shiny Entertainment's 'MDK', but a bit more repetitive and not as much fun. Hmmm... Overall, like I said, great concept for a game (there's even talk of a film adaptation in the works, which I think is a better medium for this type of thing) but I think it has fallen a bit short in a few key departments and I can't see a game like this having a huge replayability factor in it. Anyhoo, that's my 2 cents...

Try it and see what you think.

Dark Void Website

Dark Void Fileplanet Exclusive Demo

-Captain No-Beard P-|

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PC Review: Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising

It has been almost 5 years since the last Operation Flashpoint game was released, but luckily for us, Codemasters have taken up the challenge and delivered us a brand new edition to the series, known as Dragon Rising. Standing in the shadow of the enormous hype generated by Infinity Wards, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and Electronic Arts upcoming Battlefield: Bad Company 2, we explore if Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising stands a chance in this war of super powers.

First point to clarify, is that Dragon Rising is not like the prior mentioned games, a bit of a black sheep in the family, it decided to stray off the path into its own category. As all the prequels were, Dragon Rising is known as a tactical simulator shooter, but unfortunately being released on October the 6^th, just before Modern Warfare 2, it will be put in the same cage match regardless of game type.

Being a military tactical shooter means that realism becomes a strong factor, one shot can kill you, losing your head from several football field lengths is possible, and turning up the difficulty setting will remove luxuries such as checkpoints, HUD (Heads Up Display) and cross hairs; which may already make some gamers turn away – the game definitely is not for the beginner. Although the game does provide several difficulty levels, even the easiest difficulty can have you replaying a mission several times. This is due to weapons damage and AI of enemies remaining the same throughout the difficulty ranges; only player aids, such as HUD, are removed in the more difficult categories.

An interesting point to the game is the story. Even though it is fictional, it is not so unlikely. With China becoming a booming industrious country, its requirements for oil grows exponentially. And with the current oil shortage our world faces, the oil shortage does not help the situation; you could say it puts fuel to the fire, or maybe you couldn't say that? Anyway, oil has become the most sort after commodity with a large well found on a fictional island called, Skira. The conflict starts when China lays claim to this island, when in-fact it was initially Russian soil due to some technicality in history. A stand off ensues and the US are called to intervene. The situation turns to boiling point when an uprising occurs in China and they are left without a governing body, and the next event sees China invading Skira.

As with previous releases of Operation Flashpoint, you will play in an open world environment as different arms of the military. Some missions are carried in darkness using Spec-Ops soldiers, fully equipped to carry out stealth operations. Their arsenal includes military technology such as, night vision, thermal scopes and silenced weapons. Whereas other missions will have you leading a company of Marines using brute force to advance your way to designations. No suppression needed here as you tear up the country side with loud machine guns, explosives and artillery support, all fully at your disposal.

The maps are definitely spacious and allow you to play your own style. You can decide to roam which ever direction you wish to ultimately achieve success in your mission. As discussed in Gameolios Podcast: Episode 1, the spacious environments are quite reminiscent of the original Ghost Recons and force the player to be on high alert at all times. The visuals are also very neat considering the large scale maps. Some aspects have been done exceptionally well, for example sitting back and watching an artillery strike hitting your designated target, with thick pillowing smoke looking amazing, and as you travel further away from your ground zero target you can still see the smoke smouldering in the distance which makes for a great affect.

The single player campaign has a fair playability, allowing the player to do bonus side missions as well as the main mission. There is also replay value, if you decide to approach the missions with a fresh new tactic or path. On average, the player can expect about a week or less to finish the single player campaign. The single player campaign also offers co-op allowing you and 3 friends to tackle the missions, in similar fashion to the Ghost Recon series.

It is unfortunate to mention the flaws as I do believe this game is quite good and deserves better, but there are just too many flaws to let it go unnoticed, and some of these flaws will cause real frustrations. One of the first annoyances is equipping your squad with gear; this is non existent. The player is provided with a screen to view all squad members and the gear they have been equipped with, but no alterations can be made. This becomes a further annoyance in co-op when one rifleman squad member receives a thermal scope and the other rifleman receive no scope at all. I guess the recession has hit everyone including budget cuts in the military.

The next major flaw is bugs – the game has a serious infestation of them, and with no save points in the large missions, bugs cause the mission to fail half the time. These include squad members climbing over a small wall and suddenly breaking both their legs (possibly budget cuts saw milk taken off the cafeteria breakfast menu). Another bug is salvaging equipment from a dead enemy, quite often becoming stuck on the screen to retrieve the items. Your medic can be utterly useless when giving commands to heal players, with him occasionally deciding to wander off in another direction, and in a worst case scenario, drawing a near by enemy platoon to your location.

One of the most constant frustrations is AI; commanding your squad in a line formation somehow can still lead to one of your soldiers deciding to walk right in front of your line of fire. The ultimate frustration is when you manage to set off a chain of bugs – climb a wall and break your legs, so you decide to call for the medic who runs off to bring enemies to finish you off. As you attempt to fight the enemies your medic dragged over, another of your squad members makes the decision to take the easy way out, and suicides in front of your line of fire. You would not believe how likely this scenario can be in-game.

There is not much to say about the music in this game. As all its predecessors, there is no in-game music, but only the subtle sounds of trees moving in the wind. Gunshots and explosions are delivered like thunder, and shots fired from a distance have a distinct realistic sound. What's more, the whistle and snap sounds can help you determine if you are being shot at or bullets are just whizzing past close-by. One annoyance was the strange choice of intro music, but this may very well be more of a personal opinion.

In saying all that, the game is still great and we should see patches out to rectify most of the bugs. Definitely one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game is getting three friends together and making your way through the co-op mode. We should hopefully also see some expansions out in the near future, delivering us more missions. But for now, if you have grown tired of Call of Duty: Modern Ware 2 and need a filler till Bad Company 2, then give Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising a go.

7/10

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Review: Crank to the Center of the Earth - PC

I happen to come across this little beauty among my travels, I feel I should tell you about it before I get too sucked in by the gameplay.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth, or 'Crank to the Centre of the Earth' (as its been translated by Google,) is an exploratory game whereby you play an archaeologist who is on the search for 40 relics in the one map as he journeys deeper and deeper into the caverns below. This game is a real successor to Pitfall 2 on the C64. Exceptionally fun to play and a bit of an 'underground' hit with the Indie gaming community at the moment, no pun intended. Get your hands on it now!

8/10

Crank to the Centre of the Earth Website (Translated)

-Captain No-Beard P-)

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Podcast: Episode One for One-Oh is here!

Getting back into the first podcast of the year for Gameolio, Rich and Dan drink a glass of chillax and went on to fight the heat and ramble some more about the finer parts of their gaming life.

Much was discussed and not a whole lot was resolved. Join the fun as we work through Christmas gameplay, World of Warcraft, Halo 3: ODST, Rez, online play and guild life plus more!

Richie touches briefly upon the R18+ classification debate, to be expanded upon next episode. More here: Sick of Games Being Banned?

Both iTunes link and direct download are available. If you would like to support our show please leave a review and rating at the iTunes page as it will help gain us more listeners and in turn be able to provide more content. We will also be reading out reviews at the end of each show as they become available. Thank you for your support!

Right click to save a copy onto your hard disk (MP3 / 22MB filesize)

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Review: Pixel Force Left 4 Dead - PC

The Left 4 Dead franchise is a pretty successful one of late. The initial game created a huge stir, the sequel created an even bigger one (on many levels and for all the wrong reasons) and I wouldn't be surprised if Valve released another version before the world exploded in 2012. Let's face it, L4D is a simple concept executed well.

That said, what would've this game been like had it been released during the golden 8-bit era? Would it have been well received at the time? Despite the noticeable difference to todays graphics, sound and gameplay, would it still have rated highly? And how would it have been executed given that FPS were not of the norm until the mid 90's?

Well wonder no more. Developer Eric Ruth of Mega Man Rocks fame and many other great indie titles has created what could possibly be 8-bit(esque) magic. Pixel Force: Left 4 Dead is everything you would imagine it to be on a NES and more, even down to the music chip emulated soundtrack. And with a nice difficulty curve to match. It might be of note that Pixel Force: Left 4 Dead was also created on the Game Maker program (v8 is the current one, link is below). And yes, Valve are aware of the games existence. It would be interesting to know what they thought of it...

I think the game is both enjoyable and hilarious. Not as great as his Mega Man Rocks remake, but it still gets two thumbs up from me! Well done Eric!

8/10

Pixel Force: Left 4 Dead Website

Game Maker Website

-Captain No-Beard P-)

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Video: Resident Evil 5, Gold Edition - It's near!

Due for release in the near future, a new trailer has surfaced for the gold edition of the epic Resident Evil 5. It promises more action, more Jill Valentine, more questionable costumes and naturally more Wesker.

• Two new episodes: Lost in Nightmares, Desperate Escape
• The Mercenaries Reunion
• New costumes
• Releasing late February to March 2010

Resident Evil 5 Gold, Official Website

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Sick of Games Being Banned? The Government Wants To Hear From You

Are you sick of having games such as Left 4 Dead 2 or Grand Theft Auto 4 edited for release in Australia? Do you object to games being refused classification and effectively banned from sale? Do you think Australia should have an R18+ classification for videogames? If the answer is yes, then now is the time to speak up, my friend, because the government is listening.

As most Australian gamers know, the highest rating a videogame can receive in this country is an MA15+, meaning that a game that is deemed not suitable for a 15-year-old to play without their parents supervision is Refused Classification (RC) and cannot be legally sold in Australian stores.

This despite the fact that there already exists a higher rating for films (R18+) and that a large majority of gamers are in their 20s and 30s. In short, games are no longer for kids, but our ratings system is incapable of reflecting this.

Following the release of their discussion paper on an R18+ classification for electronic entertainment, the Commonwealth Government is looking to gauge public opinion on the matter by calling for submissions from all Australians to argue for or against a higher age limit being introduced. This is where you come in.

To have your say, go to this link where you can find both the original discussion paper, as well as a submission template to fill out (they’ve made it very easy) and email back. It shouldn’t take you more than 5 minutes.

If you have more to say there is also a comment section in which you can speak your mind. Of course, coherence and tact is of the utmost importance when commenting.

I found it most disheartening, though sadly not surprising, to hear that Senator Michael Atkinson – admittedly the biggest and quite possibly only roadblock in the R18 debate – received death threats from gamers furious at his unwillingness to even consider a higher rating for videogames. This is not helpful. We need to break down the stereotype that all gamers are illiterate and bloodthirsty shut-ins and this is a good place to start.

This doesn't help.

So, Gamers unite! If you have ever bitched on a message board about the state of videogaming in this country (as I certainly have) then now is the time to take that sentiment and do something constructive with it.

While it is true that there can be no guarantee that anything will change, it must be acknowledged that this is the closest we have ever come to having the voices of adult gamers heard by the highest authority in this country and if we squander this opportunity now by sitting on our hands, we may not see it come around again for a very long time.

http://www.ag.gov.au/gamesclassification

Posted with respect to the work of Luke Plunkett at kotaku.com

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Commentary: Polybius

Its not often you hear about stories of videogames involved in urban myths. But for anyone who doesn't know of it yet, Polybius is probably the most intriguing of any such story to come out of the woodwork. So old is this legend and yet so scarce in details, one wonders if there may be an element of truth to it or not.

It all began in 1981 in the local arcades in Oregon, USA. There, they were fitted out with a new game named Polybius, which was more or less a Tempest clone, designed with a vector display that would put out psychedelic and subliminal imagery of varying shapes, colours and words. The implications of what came next is mind boggling.

Queues used to form behind the machine as kids played it. Polybius was the newest hit on the streets of Oregon and a highly addictive one at that. But it also came equipped with some dire side-effects on most who did play it. Intense stress, amnesia, insomnia, nightmares and night-terrors, even reports of suicide attempts were part in parcel to the whole mystery. It all pretty much lead to one source. Polybius. Sometimes the machine would have added 'Poltergeist' moments; switching on and off randomly, giving free credits or even talk. Further to these claims, the mystery is multiplied by reports of men in black who would come to visit the arcade to record data & statistics off the machines on a regular basis. Which just makes it all the more convoluted as to where the machine had infact come from and what its real purpose was. The company name on the title screen was Sinnesloschen, which is German for 'Sense Deletion'. After 4-6 weeks of its initial appearance, the machines were pulled from the arcades never to be seen again. Very weird...

Ofcourse many have claimed to have debunked the myth. Others maintain its validity. Though nobody has uploaded a ROM of it from the motherboards, much like the apparent one above, a few gaming devs have gone so far as to recreate, based on the memory and various accounts (true or otherwise) of the game itself. In reality I guess we'll never really know, though it is a fascinating legend all the same. And the fact that the US government do actively get involved in many videogames and probably have done so since their inception, it's difficult to say. I did play the fake version of the game. As bland as it is to play, I can report so far that it does strain your eyes after a while.

As to the other side-effects, well... i'll let you know in a weeks time. ;)

Polybius Game

-Captain No-Beard P-)

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Review: Saira - PC

Game developer Nicklas 'Nifflas' Nygren has really done it again. After a short hiatus working on a series of commercial games for the Wii after his huge success with Knytt Stories, it looks like the maestro hasn't lost his deft touch with his latest release: Saira

Saira is a minimalist puzzle platformer in which the player can explore different worlds within a galaxy in a non-linear fashion. Saira's main goal in the game is to explore said worlds searching for parts needed for a teleportation device she's constructing. The reason being, Saira's friend Bobo was accidentally teleported to another world on an unknown area of the galaxy and it's up to her to get back to him.

This game has taken a whole paradigm shift with the graphics. Gone are the old (but still cool) 8-bit images, all is now replaced with next-gen effects and silky smooth animation. The music and sound effects are brilliant as always, so too are the gameplay elements. The level of difficulty is just right. All of these elements, fitting in place into a nice neat little package that will please any fan of Nifflas' works.

The last thing that has changed significantly is that this is the first title among his collection that is no longer freeware. One play of the demo will show you that the effort in this game does deserve an element of monetary compensation for this piece of work. I just hope this game gets as much cult status as his previous titles did towards the number of contributions of user-made levels. Saira is one title I'm more than happy to leave installed forever on my machine till the world explodes. Utterly enjoyable.

9/10

Official Website: Saira

-Captain No-Beard P-)

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Review: Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles - Wii

By Davesto


Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles is a much-anticipated sequel to Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles.  Is it worth the wait?

Story-wise, it covers Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil Code: Veronica, the two most popular titles in the series. It also threw in an in-between story after Code: Veronica and before Resident Evil 4 - so spunky hunky Jack Krauser became a playable character for the first time. Of course that really annoying Wesker face and his monotone voice over continued to haunt players during several parts of the game.  Capcom said that The Darkside Chronicles would have stronger story telling as compared to The Umbrella Chronicles. Well the result was the continuous reeks and screams of used-to-be great characters like Claire Redfield and Steve Burnside. In the Resident Evil 2 part, Claire kept on making comments like “Ew that’s horrible”, “What are they doing?”, “I don’t want to be their food!” etc. etc. every two seconds. Meanwhile in the Code: Veronica part, it became Steve Burnside who did that with Claire and kept on saying “Be careful!”, “Watch your steps!” etc. etc. That really annoys the hell out of you. One thing about The Umbrella Chronicles that was good was that the silence kept the tension up unless it is really necessary for the characters to talk. I mean continuously asking you to be aware and be careful around the corners doesn’t really help because you are on a freaking rail shooter - that is you have minimal control over where to go!

Also the extended cut scenes in between action really drive you mad. For this, I am not saying the well-done ones that you can skip after watching it for the first time, but the in-game ones that you can’t skip and have no choice but to wait for them to finish talking for six hours (an exaggeration of course, but not by much!). This is especially true for games like this that you have to replay stages again and again to improve your weapons and ammunition. A lot of the time you just want to shoot the characters on screen (which you can) and kill them (which they won’t).

In terms of gameplay, there were a number of changes. For example, you are no longer sharing one life bar with your partner.  Each character has his or her life bar and if either die, the game is over. So inventory management became more strategic with more focus on the survival element. Health does not replenish immediately if you pick up a herb, but you need to press + to use it. This also brings more strategic value to the game - this in fact made the game a lot more suitable for two players as the AI versions of your partner are usually just standing there making comments, getting attacked or just eating an ice-cream instead of helping you. Also now, you can change your equipment during the action, as there are stages that you have to have an empty equipment slot to pick up stage specific weapons to clear the stage. This also reminds players of certain Resident Evil bosses, which is a nice touch.  In terms of enemies, all the enemies from Resident Evil 2 and Code: Veronica are back, and so are the bosses. However, I don’t know whether Capcom is doing this to increase sales or not, even on normal mode you can just cruise through the game very easily without much dying. Considering the game has around twenty levels to be cleared, we pretty much did it and finished it quickly on normal mode, as compared to the harder curve we experienced with The Umbrella Chronicles. It could be, that with all the extensive playing of the previous game, we honed our skills already or maybe it is just washed down in terms of difficulty. So if you are a seasoned player, I would recommend to start on hard mode, because normal mode is just not as fulfilling for experienced players. After you finished the hard mode, there will be a very hard mode for you to get professional with the game. Back to the bosses, some of them are still quite annoying with their regeneration – yes you killed them but they will come back to life fully healed (which is understandable because of their nature in the original story). But it became quite frustrating when you almost killed it but then you have to use one specific weapon with limited ammo to deal the last blow and they usually dodge it and regenerate to almost half of its life bar.

The Umbrella Chronicles commands a staggering stock of weaponry that you can play around with and upgrade them. Comparing to that the number of weapons in The Darkside Chronicles is just disappointing. Also now each of them requires lots of gold to upgrade so that you have to replay boring levels again and again to earn that money.  You can shoot the environment for more gold coins hidden here and there so you will end up just shooting the environment brainlessly to get more gold and the enemies, which you are supposed to kill, became a nuisance during the process. And this became more important part of the game after you finished it for the first time because there are two extra levels you will need to massively improve strong weapons like the magnum so that you can finished the last boss quickly to unlock them for a different ending to the game. But the fact is, the levels became so boring with the endless slow walking and extended talking that you just get really sick of them very quickly.

In terms of presentation, you cannot argue that it is one of the best looking games on the Wii. Electronic Arts thought they did a good job with Dead Space: Extraction, but they still have a long way to learn from Capcom by just looking at The Umbrella Chronicles and The Darkside Chronicles. You cannot deny the fact that Capcom really knows how to get the best out of a machine – from Resident Evil Zero, 1 and 4 on the Nintendo GameCube to the Chronicles series on the Wii. Oh one nice touch to the game was the inclusion of the Tofu mode in The Darkside Chronicles to play homage to the Tofu mode in the original Resident Evil 2. But you are not playing as Tofu anymore instead fighting against hoards of Tofus, which was extremely entertaining.

The Darkside Chronicles has all the potential to become one of the best games on Wii, but then unnecessary changes to the gameplay really make it fall short of becoming a token must have game on the platform. If you like The Umbrella Chronicles, you will still play this but then go back to The Umbrella Chronicles because you do get a lot more value from that game than The Darkside Chronicles.

5/10

- Davesto

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