Review: God Of War 3 (PS3)

Very rarely am I sucked into the hype machine, often remaining sceptical or decidedly unimpressed unless something awe-inspiring happens. Be that extraordinary visuals, a captivating story, or simply, a game in which through sheer polish and exemplary development becomes something much greater than it ever was before.

With God Of War 3 I was unimpressed from the very beginning. The initial teaser trailers didn’t look particularly great from a graphical point of view, and the gameplay seemed to be more of the same, something I never really took to when playing the first game some five years ago. My hands-on with the E3 demo both at the Eurogamer Expo and on PSN, completely failed to change my mind.

The final game, however, is a different beast altogether, delivered with such finesse and a sense of grandeur that it can only be described as one of the most intense, and visually alluring games yet to come out of a Western development studio. GoW3 is not only one of the most graphically impressive videogames I have ever seen, blending in both great art and benchmark technology. But it’s also the first time I have thoroughly enjoyed a God Of War title, being one of the most epic thrill-rides to grace the current generation of videogames consoles. It isn’t a perfect game however, and suffers from at least one gameplay quirk that threatens to break an otherwise awesomely fun, massively epic adventure.

This particular issue has to do with the control scheme, or more specifically, with how the game has you double jumping into a glide when leaping of the edge of a platform or ledge. More on this later on in the review but suffice to say that it isn’t enough to bring down the game, especially after a few hours of play in which you should have the mechanic mostly oiled down to a tee.

Other than that reasonably minor issue - seeing as you spend most of your time fighting hordes of Zeus’s minions rather than attempting to become the Greek equivalent of Lara Croft - the rest of God Of War 3 provides players with a solid and absolutely epic experience. One which presents you with more enemies and larger than life set pieces. If you thought the scenery destroying, screen-filling bosses of Bayonetta were impressive, think again, as God OF War 3 ups the ante even further along into chaos.


The beginning of the game alone is focused purely on a huge boss battle between a giant stone Titan (Gaia) and the ocean god Poseidon, with Ktatos having to jump back and forth between Mount Olympus, which the Titan is climbing, and Gaia, where the main battle takes place. All through this encounter you have to fend off waves of Zeus’s minions, before having to scale up the giant Titan to begin the final assault against the ravenous ocean god. All of this plays out like a blood soaked version of Shadow Of The Colossus, featuring huge characters making up what can only be described as an actual level itself, along with some of the most intense and downright impressive QTE action sequences in the entire game.

It’s a pretty incredible opening, which not only showcases the enormous sense of scale and epic gravitas the game provides, but also its insanely good looking graphical prowess, which stands right up there against both Uncharted 2 and Killzone 2 for one of the best looking games this generation. Indeed GoW3’s recipe for success is not only making things look great, but also making every large encounter feeling very much like one giant endgame.


In terms of actual gameplay, not much has changed from the demo we played both at Eurogamer last year and the PSN download we locked horns with last month. However, the execution is far slicker, and the visual upgrade creates a smoother more responsive game outshining the demo in every single way. Whereas the demo ran mostly at 30fps during any combat or action scenes, the final game hits 60fps for the majority of its encounters, and only drops down to the 30fpos mark in the biggest of battles. In most heavy scenes through the game, 45fps is commonplace, and is still smooth enough to keep the controls responsive and the visuals suitably polished.

Like in the first two GoW games, the combat still hinges on you mixing various moves and specials together, changing weapons to deal with different enemy types and varying boss encounters, whilst having to dodge and counter numerous attacks and obstacles. But you now have the ability to change weapons on the fly, integrating different moves from different weapons all into the same combination attack. In addition a few new moves have been added making it easier and more enjoyable to take on the increased amount of enemies at any one time.

Whereas before there would have been a dozen or so enemies, now comes two or three times that, followed up with some of the largest bosses to feature in the series so far. At the same time the game gives you all the tools you need to deal with such adversaries. Which is a good thing too; as there are bloody loads of them to deal with, many of which are twice your size and capable of slicing you to pieces given the chance.


Thankfully, having the ability to change weapons mid-combo effectively allows you to take down larger foes without taking a massively long time to do so. For example, Kratos can use the Cestus Gauntlets to break through an enemies shield, before switching back to his trademark Blades of Chaos to finish them off with some prolonged combos and special attacks. You can of course, simply, just continue to use the Gauntlets for the entire battle, seeing as they are so powerful, but you then run the risk of being overwhelmed by many weaker enemies as a result.

This change makes the game feel far more varied as a result, especially when it throws at you bosses or creatures, which require specific weapons in order to defeat them. You will find that the game transcends its initial button bashing nature by making you think about what you’re doing, and how you go about doing it. It makes a great change from the grating nature of continuously pounding the ‘square’ and ‘triangle’ buttons in the hope of success, whilst also allowing you to experiment beyond using basic magic or shooting the odd arrow here and there.

Special weapons also have regenerative abilities now. Whereas in GoW 2 they would expire after a certain amount of usage, they now occupy the yellow bar below your health meter, which refills itself within a few seconds or so of you not using a special weapon. This means that weapons such as the Bow of Apollo, can be used continuously through the game, and can always be counted on for additional support knowing that it will regenerate a few seconds after being used. Occasionally you will find that it is pretty easy to exploit this trait by simply firing off ten shots or so, dodging any attacks while the yellow bar fills up for a few seconds, before once again repeating the process. This even works on bosses, though not all, and attempting to kill them this way takes ages compared to using the multitude of weapons at your disposal. However, it does make things easier for less confident players without compromising the challenge and integrity of the game.


To top off the game’s already polished combat system, GoW3 also speeds up the previously slow heavy attacks, now allowing them to be used in combos as a starter, or even mid way through. Using them in all situations is no longer a death sentence, but now becomes just another way of dealing with the increasing amounts of enemies being thrown your way. The result is that the overall game is far more fluid than any of the previous instalments, something more akin in some ways to Japanese style hack’n’slash titles like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry without loosing its trademark feel in the process.

Of course, GoW3 isn’t about all the gut wrenching and killing that comes with being a fallen god with a taste for revenge. There are a number of slower, more sedate parts throughout the game, with lesser amounts of enemies and more controlled aggression directed your way. These sections are home to the series trademark puzzle solving elements in addition to upgrading your skills through finding abilities, as well as gaining new weapons and magic.

Unlike GoW2, the puzzles in GoW3 are smaller in size and are altogether much simpler. They rely on the same box-pushing, lever pulling scenarios present in the last game, but are at the same time slightly easier to figure out, with solutions being down to common sense logic rather than anything cryptic or obscure. They also seem to span across one or two large rooms at the most compared to the long and sprawling puzzles laid out in the second game.


I didn’t find any of these to be problematic, instead feeling that they made the whole experience a far more interesting one. You could say that they made the sense of adventure surrounding the Greek mythology and architecture quite captivating at times, whilst also breaking up the button mashing nature inherent in other parts of the game. For once, during an action-based game, I actually really enjoyed and appreciated these thinking man’s moments, with only a few times in which I remained stumped – even then it was only for a few short minutes.

In addition to throwing a puzzle or two at you, the game also features some rather frustrating platforming sections, let down by the overly picky jumping system. Basically, most of the jumps in these platform sections need almost complete precision in order to be tackled successfully, relying on both your timing of the glide and double jump moves, while also giving you no leeway for any mistakes.

Jumping and gliding in itself isn’t particularly difficult. However, in GoW3 you seemingly can only perform the higher jump when there is solid ground below you, and not as you are throwing yourself off a ledge in order to leap across any pitfalls below. At the same time, having you glide by holding down the ‘cross’ button in the same button press required for the double jump feels particularly unnatural, being different from pretty much every game released that relied on such a technique.

This aspect of the game does much to potentially spoil the experience, and I often found myself frustrated at my repeated failed attempts to progress in these sections. Had the jumping and gliding mechanics been a little easier or more conventional in their execution then I wouldn’t have has many problems, and these parts of the game would have been another highlight. As it stands, they serve only to disappoint and take away some of the finely polished nature of the rest of the game.


The rest of the game doesn’t suffer from these problems, and is of course pretty awesome as a result. In my humble opinion it could well be described as the western equivalent to Platinum Games Bayonetta. GoW3 has all the tried and tested gameplay of its prequels down to a fine art, an art made even finer by the changes to the combat system and the epic scale of pretty much most things in the game. Everything from the boss encounters to the puzzles are extremely well done. And if it weren’t for that stupid jumping mechanic, there wouldn’t be much left to criticise at all, except for the fact that Kratos, as a lead character, is nothing more than a rancid, vile jock, who is in desperate need to be put out of his misery.

Even though I haven’t played through all of God of War 1&2, I would have at least expected his character to have developed from the mindless rage he displayed in the last two games. Instead, we simply see more of the same, with only a small glimmer of redemption later in the game. Even then, his anger and rage still shine through more than any other trait, making it hard to feel anything for him, except maybe disgust or distain.


Visually, God of War 3 succeeds on two levels, both artistically and technically. The art design whilst being a mixture of dark and uninviting colours, is never drab or unappealing, and in some scenes has a distinctly hand painted look residing over it. The backgrounds are a perfect example of this, in which the lush, hand-painted sky and distant horizon blends in perfectly with the painted textures of the environments and characters.

Technically, God of War 3 stops short of perfection, but still manages to define just what we should be expecting from these current-gen gaming consoles. Textures are incredibly detailed, clean, and extremely clear. And whilst they aren’t all as detailed as the ones found in Uncharted 2, they represent the art style chosen for the game almost perfectly. The lighting and showing system is another showstopper. It’s all completely dynamic, reacting with everything from the characters and the environments. Shadows move and lighting is cut off when something passes through it; Kratos’s weapons, when used, casts a short lasting glow which lights up the surrounding environments and enemies, with metallic objects reflecting the light back out into their surroundings.

The Anti-Aliasing on show is also something which needs to be seen to be believed. There’s no doubt in my mind that Santa Monica Studio’s implementation is the most accomplished form of AA in any console game to date. Much of GoW3 has very little, to next to no jaggies whatsoever, sans on a few distant background objects and scenery. Everything remains nice and sharp despite the high levels of AA on offer, and the areas which do suffer from jaggies, have much smoother edges than in other games which have little in the way of AA.


For me though, the real triumph isn’t the glossy visuals, the epic scale, or even the gameplay, but how they all come together to form a complete package which in the face of a few small flaws, easily stands up there with Uncharted 2 and Killzone 2 as one of the defining titles on Sony’s machine. From the moment I laid eyes on that opening battle scene between the Titan and the giant God fighting it out over Mount Olympus, I was convinced. Then, just a few hours later, most of the things that I was unsure about from playing the last two games had been alleviated. Almost completely, with the exception of the game’s platform sections being the only blemish on an otherwise superbly crafted experience.

God Of War 3 might not be wholly original, or particularly different from previous instalments, but it is a far more polished affair, and one which does enough to rise above from being just a great game, becoming instead a genre defining one. It is a title which I was expecting nothing more than a rehash of previous games, and although arguably that is exactly what it is, it’s done with so much flair and attention to detail that it certainly doesn’t always feel that way. In that respect, God Of War 3 is exemplary, blending an established formula with some new found refinement and polish, both of which go a long way to making this pinnacle of the genre.

VERDICT: 9/10

Review: Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)

Final Fantasy XIII is very much a game of two halves. Had I written this review with only 10 hours of play put into the game I would advise anyone who liked the traditional JRPG that it was not worth those 10 hours. The main reason being that Final Fantasy XIII is no longer an RPG at all. As it turns out in the end, this does not make it a bad game, just a very different one to its twelve predecessors.

Final Fantasy XIII feels like an oversimplified and streamlined version of previous instalments. The battle system and levelling system are taught through needlessly long tutorials that drive the point home through repeatedly meaningless battle encounters. For 25 hours of the game you are prevented from having a full party or changing your playable characters that feels like an attempt by Square to make Final Fantasy XIII approachable to those who have avoided the series before. There are no towns to get lost in, or sub characters with whom to take on additional quests or learn more about the worlds of Pulse and Cocoon.

The game play is extremely linear and results in the 6 playable characters running from one end of the level to the other, only stopping for cut scenes or for battles. This and the battle system make it very fast paced but also makes it exceptionally repetitive and dare I say boring. Final Fantasy has always had an amount of linearity demanded by the story, but this is usually hidden through a sense of openness in the world maps. Final Fantasy XIII has no open world and suffers for it, the player has no choice in where the characters visit and this removes the sense of involvement, leaving the player feeling rather apathetic to the entire experience.


This is a shame because the characters feel like they are well developed, each with their own history and personality traits. The characters are of a diverse age, and balance off each other well, which helps to add familiarity to an otherwise unfamiliar territory for RPG fans. The story is not original but thanks to the characters remains captivating.

The game looks absolutely stunning. The colours are intense and bright, the two different worlds of Pulse and Cocoon seem huge and well designed, Pulse is wild and overgrown whilst Cocoon seems controlled and modern. The attention to detail is fantastic, so there's always something to catch your eye, and it feels like every single aspect of the world has been considered and individually designed.


The battle system is the gem in the game. You only have control of one character, the party leader, who is non-negotiable for half the game. You can select role-specific abilities for the leader to use each turn based upon a number of time bars which refill over time. Some abilities such as magic spells will require two sections of the active time bar where as a basic attack requires one.

I have neglected to mention one feature called the auto battle displayed on the battle menu system that appears to be another method of control over how the game is played. Its design is to increase the speed of battle and to aid new players and its usefulness decreases as the player gains familiarity with the game. However I believe the game would function better with its removal, at the sacrifice of the fast paced action. To me players should be able to make mistakes and spend time considering their actions rather than hammering on the X or A button repeatedly for hours on end. However by having this feature included you are able to concentrate much more on the other aspect of the battle system.

The majority of skill required is all in setting up Paradigms where you assign class role to each of the characters that you can freely change during battle to suit the situation. It is reminiscent of Final Fantasy XII's innovative Gambit system because it allows you to automate the behaviour of your party without having to control each individual character’s turn, and this once again allows battles to be fast paced and fluid affairs.


There are 6 roles in total. They are Commando- specialist in physical damage, Sentinel- defender or tank, Medic- akin to a white mage, Ravager- closest to a black mage although can deal in physical as well as magic damage, and finally the less commonly used Synergist- providing party with positive status effects (buffs) and Saboteur- weakens enemies through status changes (debuffs). To do the most damage and in some cases succeed in battles you must knock the enemy into a staggered state.

A staggered state leaves the enemy with weakened defense, attack speed and power, and is achieved through any combination of attacks, defense and debuffs. To achieve this state different paradigms and roles are needed throughout the course of most battles (all battles later in the game) which adds a real quality of strategy and challenge to the game. A star rating at the end encourages players to repeat the battles to achieve higher ratings and rarer item drops (used to upgrade equipment).

As you work your way through your enemies, you earn crystogen points that can be used on the Crystarium. The Crystarium allows you to progress your characters in both stats and new abilities and is set up in a manner akin to Final Fantasy X Sphere Grid system. It is well designed but still exhibits a certain amount of control as you follow a path through the various enhancements. However further into the game the game trusts you with more freedom in choosing your development’s direction and resembles more of a net like structure than a dictated course.


Halfway through the game the experience completely changed for me. On my arrival in Pulse it seemed that the developers had had a change of heart and turned back to the tried and tested formula of an open map, freedom of movement and side quests. At this point the paradigm system became complete with the party size consistently set at 3 people and the ability to teach all characters anyone of the six classes the player would like. For the first time the whole party could be changed which also increased the amount of control I felt I had over the game.

For me, if the whole of the game had been like the last half, I would have awarded this game 10/10. As the game stands I felt like it was a mediocre experience that I will remember as an astoundingly detailed and great looking game, but with a lack of depth and involvement I have come to expect from a Final Fantasy game. Despite this I respect what the developers have tried to achieve with Final Fantasy XIII as an attempt at revitalising the somewhat dying Japanese RPG genre and appreciate the development of a great battle system I hope to see refreshed and reused in future Final Fantasy games.

VERDICT: 7/10

Mary Antieul, Contributor

Review: Sonic Classic Collection (DS)

If you’re anything like us here at IQGamer, you’ll be eager to get your hands on Sonic 4 later this summer. In the mean time, SEGA have treated us to a little reminder of how good Sonic games used to be. This time, on the Nintendo DS.

Developed by the Australian branch of SEGA’s Creative Assembly, Sonic Classic Collection is a compilation of Sonic’s main Mega Drive titles and includes the ability to play through Sonic 2 and 3 with Knuckles, just like the old “lock on” feature that came courtesy of Sonic & Knuckles. It would have been nice if SEGA had included Sonic Spinball and Sonic 3D, but you can’t have everything. We won’t even mention Knuckles’ Chaotix…

Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic 2, Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles have been nicely represented on Nintendo’s handheld system, but don’t expect much else other than the games themselves. There’s some artwork to look through and a credit sequence to watch, but that’s about all. This really is a barebones collection, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing if all you want to do is play through these old classics for the umpteenth time.

For the most past, the games have been nicely emulated for the DS, and the slightly squashed resolution isn’t really an issue. However, there is some nasty slow down at points and particularly when the action heats up. Should Sonic loose his ring collection when a few enemies are on screen, the action slows down to a nasty pace. The same annoying slow down is evident during a few boss fights too. It’s not too a big deal, but better emulation can be found elsewhere and we weren’t expecting this in a retail version of the games.

A handy save and load function has been implemented for all the games, with the exception of Sonic 3 that retains it’s own save function. It’s not a case of saving your game and loading it from where you left off though, rather at the beginning of the act you last played. Its better than nothing, but other emulators do enable you to play on from anywhere, which would have been ideal.

There really isn't anything new we can say about these classic titles, suffice to say that all the games play exactly as you’ll remember them, and nothing has been added or taken away for this collection. What was great back in the nineties retains all of its charm on the DS and the games are as playable as ever. They work really well on Nintendo’s handheld system and the save function, however limited, works well enough for on-the-go gaming.

Sonic Classic Collection is a nostalgic indulgence that’s worth picking up if you’re a fan of the series. It may not be much else besides a compilation of four games, but there’s not much else that can be done with these titles that hasn’t been done time and time again. Emulation issues aside, this is a reminder of what made Sonic great and makes us hopeful for the upcoming sequel this summer.

VERDICT: 7/10

Review: Mega Man 10 (Wii)

Mega Man 10 is a throwback to the 8bit games of old, built around the constant repetition of learning enemy attack patterns and level layouts, merciless in its difficulty, and utterly unforgiving to anyone devoid of such prior experience. It harks back to the days where the term ‘hardcore’ referred to as many gamers as today’s mainstream generation, and in which steep learning curves, and the desire to be the best at the game was everything. In short, it could be described as the perfect title to describe what it means to be a ‘hardcore’ gamer, whilst also showing how far removed today’s games have become.

Available for a pretty reasonable £7 on PSN, XBL and Wii Ware, Mega Man 10 is a brand new, rip-roaring, blast from the past platform shooter, based on the same highly-loved design blueprint so finely crafted in the NES classic, Mega Man 2. It follows on from last years 8bit inspired Mega Man 9, continuing in the same style as that title, whilst providing additional extras to extend replay value and keep an air of freshness about the proceedings. It’s also bloody hard, so much so, that many gamers of today just won’t be prepared to face what awaits them. At least there’s an Easy Mode, which although is no cakewalk, provides a reasonable challenge in which to enjoy the game without wanting to throw your controller at the TV screen.


Going through Mega Man 2 for the first time, after opening up the packaging with all the wonderment in the world, as you did when you were still only knee high, was an extremely exciting, and often infuriating experience, despite the fact that most games back then required quick reactions and exemplary gaming skills to play properly. It was a tough trial and error type of gaming, something that coming from the likes of Super Mario Bros, I was completely unused to, but in which I learned to persevere and gain precious enjoyment from.

Fast forward some twenty years or so, and I can barely make it through the first stage of that very same game without dying dozens of times, or without screaming out at how unfair the god damn game is. A little strange then that only a few years after going back to Mega Man 2, that I was blasting my way though most of Ikaruga on the GameCube relishing the challenge. I guess that my opinion of shumps differs radically to what a good platform shooter should consist of, or maybe I’ve just been made a little too soft by the games of today. So when it came to actually buying Mega Man 10 for review, I was somewhat apprehensive as to whether I could garner any enjoyment at all from the game. It turns out my fears were misplaced, as although incredibly tough at times, MM 10 is a vastly enjoyable ride, full of satisfaction when you finally blast your way past ‘that’ initially impossible to beat stage.

Right off the bat you can tell that the level designs and methods of creating a tough, but fair challenge are straight out of Mega Man 2, the most popular title in the series. You are yet again presented with a choice of eight Robot Masters to defeat. Selecting each one takes you to the game’s one of eight selectable levels, after which you are faced with some predetermined end stages. All of these last levels are incredibly tough, much tougher than any of the ones before, requiring both skill and patience to persevere, and maybe a bit of luck too. After finishing a level you are given the option to buy extra lives and other upgrades at a post-level shop, along with the ability to save your progress, including any lives or power ups that you’ve bought. This does make the game a bit easier, and at least means that you don’t have to start over when you lose all your lives, just from the begging of the next level you choose to do.

Like in Mega Man 2, our main hero, Mega Man, is equipped with only his trusty triple shot arm-mounted Mega Buster, and his cool robot dog companion, Rush. Rush has special abilities to help you, such as transforming into the springboard-like Rush Coil mode, and later, the aerial based, Rush Jet mode, available after clearing four stages of the game. There’s no slide option from the likes of Mega Man 3, or the ability to charge up his Mega Buster shots as found in Mega Man 4 either. It’s strictly back to the basics, which tightly held together the highly rated second game. It also means that you have to rely more on raw skill than fancy abilities to get through the game, increasing challenge, but also keeping things straightforward.


However, after beating each of the individual stage bosses, the Robot Masters, you do actually unlock a new weapon, which can help you defeat the boss of another stage. Which stage of course, is a mystery, and it’s only after playing through a variety of stages first, can you see which new weapon works best against which boss. At first I didn’t use any of these powered up additions, instead resorting solely using my Mega Buster, making the task at hand much more difficult. Although, after trying out one of these upgrades I found some of the later bosses much easier to take down, and the overall battles far more rewarding to play through. This is something that Mega Man 10 thoroughly gives you credit for, skill, strategy and extremely quick reflexes, perfectly representing the majority of games from the 8bit era.

For those of you who miss the extra depth afforded by the additional moves Mega Man 3&4 provided, Capcom have included Proto Man as an additional character to play as right off the bat. Playing as this alternative hero adds much replay value to the title, allowing you to go through the entire game again in what seems like a fresh experience, with a greater amount of strategy and challenge.

Proto Man, for those who aren’t versed in Mega Man lore, is actually Mega Man’s brother, created by Dr Light, and first appearing in Mega Man 3 as Break Man, one of the stage bosses found in that title. Proto Man, like Mega Man in the later games in the series, has the ability to both slide along the ground, and use charging shots from his arm-cannon. He also carries along with him a shield, which protects against small shots and certain projectiles, whilst using individual items to simulate Mega Man’s Rush Coil and Jet Rush. In order to keep the game’s difficulty balanced, Proto Man can only fire two shots at one time, instead of three, and is receptive to twice as much damage as Mega Man, at the same time being knocked back twice as far when hit.

In addition to the two fully playable characters, Mega Man 10 also has a few modes to keep you occupied after completing the main game. These consist of a Time Attack Mode, in which players work their way through any unlocked stages, posting their times to an online leader board, and a Challenge Mode, containing 88 different challenges ranging from defeating end bosses without getting hit, to finishing a stage in a certain time. Most of these are unlocked as you play through the game on Normal difficulty, but the ones which are not, can still be unlocked by finishing the game on any of the three, Easy, Normal or Hard Difficulty levels. Suffice to say, the Challenge Mode will certainly provide hardcore gamers with a reason to keep playing Mega Man 10, especially when doing so increases your overall rating at the end. Again it all goes back to having something to show off to the online community, or simply to prove that you’ve still got what it takes.


Visually, you know what to expect from Mega Man 10. The game is done in the same 8bit inspired design as with Mega Man 9, accurately resembling the look and style of the classic NES instalments, right down to the sprite limitations and limited screen movement. There’s also the option of switching on Legacy Mode too, which basically adds sprite flicker to areas of the screen with various overlapping graphics. The style is definitely basic, but charming all the same, and is most representative of the Mega Man character as a whole.

Personally, I would have preferred to see a sequel developed with 16bit graphics and sensibilities in mind, rather than another 8bit instalment. However after giving the game a chance, I have to say that that the NES style does no harm, and only helps enhance that nostalgic feeling when playing through the game.

Another cool touch, this time outside of the actual game itself, is that Capcom have seen fit to create brand new artwork for the title, a parody of the god-awful package art donning those original NES classics, acknowledging the many failed attempts at Americanising the design of the character through much of the late eighties and early nineties. You might have noticed this odd looking piece of artwork used right at the beginning of the review, and is cause for much hilarity at IQGamer, especially as it hardly represents the game or it’s characters accurately in anyway. Good times, and great to see Capcom is having as much fun indulging with it's history, as we are remembering all those horrid cases from yesteryear.

One thing I wasn’t initially so pleased about though, is the resolution Mega Man 10 is rendered in.

Sadly the Wii version of MM 10 doesn’t display in 240p, instead being displayed in either upscalled 480i/p modes, resulting in either a mildly pixelated image, or a slightly blurry one. The 480i mode at least has flicker reduction to prevent the usual interlacing flicker from becoming too noticeable, though 240p would have provided a sharper more stable option, whilst being authentic to how the game would have originally looked. Despite this, the game still looks great for what it is, and I didn’t find the resolution issues a hindrance to my enjoyment of the title, instead being drawn in to the look and feel of what was in offer.


Along with the authentic 8bit graphics, you also have NES inspired theme tunes, sound effects and music. Much of the music is incredibly catchy, and perfectly suits the tone of the game. At many points during the game the high tempo beats, and eclectic electronica, served only to heighten the tension felt whilst trying to blast my way through to the end. It’s particularly nice to have such an effort made to producing these kinds of sounds. Although basic and repetitive at times, there creation is an art form long since lost with the advent of CD-based midi soundtracks.

Overall Mega Man 10 is an awesome retro-styled return for the titular blue hero, packed full of challenging and addicting gameplay that will certainly separate the unsuspecting casual player from the hardcore. It’s a throwback to the pure unrelenting simplicity of the past, and one which works so well today, as it has done some twenty years before. Sure, you could argue that some of the ways the game creates its infuriating challenge is decidedly cheap – for example when the game respawns downed enemies because you’ve moved the screen forwards a little, only for you to return and realise you have to kill them all again – but that’s just part of the limitations of the old NES hardware, and part of the charm in playing a brand new 8bit instalment of a much loved franchise.

My time with Mega Man 10 has been an exciting, fun, and frustrating one, a solid learning experience towards honing back in that skill and determination needed in conquering such a title. At the same time reaffirming what it takes to be a hardcore gamer, and reminding us all that sometimes simple games can be more involving than the latest 40 hour blockbuster. It certainly won’t be to everyone’s tastes, and I’d recommend anyone new to the franchise to download the demo on PSN and XBL first, as the challenge and impact is pretty intense straight on in. However I do feel that most should be able to enjoy the moderate challenge on Easy Mode, and will quickly get used to the cheap, rinse and repeat nature of the game.


As a sequel to Mega Man 9, and the entire legacy cast down by the NES series as a whole, Mega Man 10 is a complete success. It’s perhaps only held back by being yet another sequel based on the design left by Mega Man 2, a title whose blueprint is in danger of becoming slightly worn out. But still, it’s a highly fun, challenging experience, in which fans of the franchise, and aging hardcore gamers won’t want to miss. And for those waiting for a true 16bit Super NES style sequel? I’d say, show your support by purchasing Mega Man 10, as Capcom are currently mulling over taking these retro updates in such a direction.

VERDICT: 8/10

Review: Heavy Rain (PS3)

There are a few games out there that aspire to becoming art, trying out new things in the aim of being seen as ‘different’ or ‘serious’, whilst at the same time there are games which are developed and made solely for our entertainment, as games, different due to the sheer imagination and creative brilliance of the team behind it, pushing boundaries in order to deliver something unique and fulfilling to gamers everywhere. These are the ones also considered by many to have entered the world of art, rather than just the confines of being innovative videogames.

Heavy Rain for me at least, is one that belongs in the former. A game which cries out to be recognised as more than just a videogame, as an interactive tale, a computer generated drama going beyond the shackles and conventions of the modern day videogame, a title which so desperately wants to be seen as some else, but in which by trying too hard, may perhaps not be seen as neither. Certainly whilst you could argue that all games are a form of art – they all have designs, inspirations, and are trying to tell us something, or make us react to them in some way – Heavy Rain definitely seems like it’s deliberately trying to step into those realms, rather than achieve this kind of status simply through original game design and a individualistic look.

Saying that, the game takes it’s blueprint firmly from those old early nineties laserdisc games, such as Dragon’s Lair or Space ace, along with a whole host of Mega CD FMV games, basically boiling down to a series of interactive cut-scenes and some set-pieces. There are parts in which you can walk around freely in the scene, examining and picking up various objects whilst looking for clues to find the killer, or to simply make progress by moving on the story. The ideas here are not wholly original, taking inspiration from newer games in the same genre. But where Heavy Rain does decide to do something different is to attempt to create a tightly directed narrative, whilst allowing the player to change fundamental parts of how it all plays out - or at least that is what your are meant to be able to do, being a tad too restrictive through the whole endeavour.


The game centres around four characters whose individual stories are all connected in some way to each other through the murder case surrounding the origami killer. You’ve got Ethan Mars, an architect constantly troubled by the death of one of his sons, now in turmoil due to losing a second to the origami killer; Scott Shelby, a private detective looking into the murder personally for the victims of the killer; Norman Jayden, an FBI profiler and relapsing drug addict; and finally Madison Paige, a photojournalist suffering from insomnia. Each of the characters stories may cross each other at some point in the game, depending on what you do and what the game wants you to know, whilst at least one of those is left almost completely redundant at the end of the experience.

Most of these characters are written with every cliché in the book, taken from various detective thrillers, horrors, and a few generic Hollywood cop movies. It’s hard to talk about why one of the characters is so much more interesting than the rest without breaking any spoilers on the story, suffice to say, that they make up the most interesting and sometimes involving parts of the game, though not the most exhilarating. Having said that, the story and overall narrative of the game does try – and occasionally succeeds – into drawing you in, making you actively question each of the characters motivations, their desires, and just how they fit into the piece of the puzzle that is Heavy Rain. At one point I thought that one of the main character’s plotline might be integral into how the endgame would eventually play out, a gelling factor into combining all four stories cohesively together. I however was very wrong, and it’s this character that in my opinion get the short end of the stick, especially when so much of what they do helps form the partially immersive experience the game provides on a few occasions, without it stumbling along the way.


This immersive experience is almost exclusively provided by the memorable musical score in conjunction with the unique controls the game presents you with. Heavy Rain effectively plays like an interactive movie, moving players through the game scene by scene, each time presenting choices for them to make, along with two distinct plays styles. The first has you walking around your environment interacting with various objects, talking to people, and picking up clues to further progress the story; the second sees you taking challenges and fights using the QTE style on screen prompts system found in games such as Shenmue and God Of War. However the system found in Heavy Rain is far more advanced, expanded upon with multiple button presses and use of the right analogue stick.

On screen prompts tell you which of the four face buttons or four shoulder buttons and triggers to press, in addition to moving or rolling around the right analogue stick, varying the speed and complexity at which these movements occur. Sometimes you will find yourself holding down all manner of combinations, whilst at the same frantically pushing down on another button struggling to complete the QTE, whilst feeling the sense of frustration shown by the character on screen.


These moments are utterly brilliant, and serve to completely connect you into the game world, and provide an almost tangible link between your actions and your characters. It’s cleaver stuff indeed, even though the game tends to re-use and repeat the same types of encounters all the way through diluting its impact the further on you go. However when you are presented something new, which uses this same system, it works to regain your attention sucking you back in, such as having the icons on screen shake and become semi transparent when your character is stressed or under pressure on screen, making the choice that much harder for you, or when using the method of making you button presses and holds more difficult to do when tackling a completely new obstacles which stand in your way.

Even with these revitalising moments there are still issues with the control scheme, and how the game uses it; far too often does it try out the same tricks but in a different skin. In addition with sections in which the player is free to move around and select which objects he or she wishes to interact with, the game almost always actively controls what it wants you to do, and in what order to do it. It’s only in the last third of the game does the experience fee up a little, making you decide which things to look at or investigate, the outcome being different if you miss out something, or choose not to do it. At the same time even in these scenarios, objects that you have interacted with in one scene are often ignored completely in another, leaving you with an illusion of choice and realism, whilst at other times the game will direct you to look at particular items without giving off a reaction when you eventually do. These items can be looked at over and over, but not once did the character I was controlling react to their presence. It seems that items used in this manner are simply to help the player in guessing who the origami killer is, and eventually influence their choices later on in the game.


Outside the QTE’s, the game will often present you with a number of choices in the form of options with regards to either speech or an action on screen. It also allows you to select and hear your characters thoughts, though this is largely superficial and only on one or two occasions did selecting my thoughts change what dialogue options that were available. In fact the choices you make during the first half of the game have virtually no impact outside the scene they are selected, minus a few cosmetic or superficial changes and dialogue inclusions. It’s not until the latter parts of the game – around the last third – that your choices begin to seriously impact the game’s conclusion, and start to branch off the story in different directions; characters can die for example; parts of the story may never come to light, and the killer might never be revealed. Quite why the game couldn’t have allowed for noticeable choices to be made whilst working to the different conclusions is beyond me. There was many times in which things could have played out differently without needing lots of new scenes or characters, which then arrive and end up going nowhere.

In the end, the much vaunted feature of choices and freedom amounted to very little until the end of the game, in which case the stage had been set and the journey had largely been directed tightly up to this point. This is done mainly to set up the narrative for the obligatory plot twist, which when it hits, has all the subtlety and refinement of a Steven Segal detective flick. The thing that I’m getting at, is that sometimes it’s the not the end that is all that important, but how you get there and what you do along the way.


This is perhaps the biggest issue I have with Heavy Rain, for a game so dependant on story and cinematics to succeed, it fails to put together an intriguing and concisely delivered narrative to the player, leaving many questions unanswered, and numerous gaping plot holes left wide open. Plenty of potentially interested leads and side stories are left on the sidelines, simply used to justify the twist near the end of the game and steer the narrative in one particular direction. At the same time the game becomes a cliché of various thrillers made in the last fifteen years of so, borrowing heavily from at least three films in particular - which ones I won’t say as that would certainly spoil the story.

Heavy Rain goes from presenting us with a fairly grounded thriller, to a Hollywood b-movie fantasy, taking away from what we believed to be a much more serious affair, which certainly, if director David Cage wanted us to cry, and feel with the characters, that’s not the approach needed for the player to fully believe what’s going on. At least near the end, the game actually allows you to make some real and meaningful choices, some of which will have one or more of the main characters die, the failure to reveal who is the origami killer, and of course to either save or not save your son. Other more subtle outcomes are present, such as what happens to one of the secondary characters if you choose to save her, or not.


Voice acting and dialogue throughout most of Heavy Rain is surprisingly poor for a game with such high production values, and for one which strongly aspires to be something else, a movie or, as Mr Cage would put it, an interactive drama. In scenes in which the player has no control, the voice acting ranges from very good to laughably bad, heading down the depth to Shemue-esque levels of cheese and ridiculousness. At other times the dialogue in combination with the characters, story and gameplay sequences can combine together to form a truly compelling experience. I found that the gameplay kept on sucking me back in despite the problems with the clichéd script and wooden acting.

Another area holding up the game in terms of believability and connection with the player is the game’s beautiful visuals. Heavy Rain is easily one of the best-looking games this generation, creating a lovingly crafted stylised realism through the use of art design and technology. It’s not as polished or as technically proficient as say, Uncharted 2, Crysis, or even Killzone 2, but it does feature some intricately crafted modelling work for both the characters and environments, finished off with superbly detailed textures, dynamic shadows which cast themselves from the characters onto the environments, and some trademark bloom via the use of HDR effects. It’s really quite stunning to behold, sometimes let down by occasional screen tearing, with a few bouts of slowdown, and some texture pop in when the game zooms in on various items.

Animation and motion capture work is also exemplary. Movements are incredibly realistic, and at times frightfully faithful to how you’d expect these characters to move and tussle in real life. The illusion is only broken when certain walking or running animations are repeated, or when two sets of motion capture work aren’t blended as well as they should have been.

You will also notice that the game’s collision detection occasionally falters; at one point my character was supposed to be cleaning out another’s lacerated wounds on their arm, but instead they appeared to be touching the bed sheets, whilst the other character was still reacting as if I was touching them. When these things happen they are not only laugh out loud funny, but also in turn only harm the stellar work the game does to draw you in to the experience.


It’s hard not to be critical when talking about the experience Heavy Rain provides. On one hand it’s a game which attempts to redefine the boundaries of creating an emotional connection between the player and the virtual world, through a compelling veil of choices and plot points, with a uniquely successful control system. On the other hand, it also takes so much inspiration from tired and tested movie formulas, that it becomes a simple cliché of what has been done before, at the same time trying to be cleaver and push the user into a thrill ride that doesn’t always make sense, stretching believability to the point of making the game seem like a cheap Saturday Night DTV spectacular.

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy my time with Quantic Dream’s interactive drama, as there were various points which had me utterly hooked, compelling me to play on, and gripping me in a way only a few games have ever done. The controls for me, stood out as a way of really immersing you in a world in which, although a little too disjointed, had the desired effect of creating tension, panic, and the sense of struggling against potential failure. I would argue that the story, voice acting, and delivery is far from the most involving I’ve seen in a game, and the central question that Heavy Rain asks of you: “How far would you go to save someone you love”, becomes at times something more like “How far will it actually let me go”, reflecting the smoke and mirrors method of delivering choices to the player for most of the game.

Most of the game’s issues seem to be the same as with those of Fahrenheit, a title which starts off relatively grounded, before descending into the realms of stupidity with paranormal activity and bizarre hallucinations, and whilst Heavy Rain doesn’t go that far down that road, it does try to turn an interesting little thriller into a Hollywood blockbuster.


Despite all these criticisms, David Cage’s stab at creating a compelling interactive movie is well worth a go, if only to sample the potential for something which at times is so involving and quite unique. It may not be to everyone’s taste, with some people being absolutely captivated by the overdone story filled with plot holes and unexplained situations; or with some like me, who feel that the heavy handed direction and lack of freedom – until the end, along with the mundane voice acting, ultimately subdues a potentially ground breaking experience.

I’m all for developers trying out new things, taking risks and attempting to find other ways of interacting with the user, even if in some cases they don’t turn out as you’d expect them to be. That’s why Heavy Rain deserves at least one solid play through, because although it does fail in many ways both as a film and as a game, it does at least try very hard to make the two work together, whilst providing scope for the player to tell their own story.


Heavy Rain may not live up to all the hype, but it will certainly be remembered for trying to at least bring something new to the table, even if the end result is what could be described as flawed genius, let down by a sense of a self serving nature, perhaps attempting to create a work deliberately recognised as an art piece, rather than just a game, which through it’s unique design and original way of thinking, transcends being referred to as just a videogame, and into something more along the lines of a contemporary art form.

VERDICT: 7/10