Castlevania: Lords of Shadows is occasionally beautiful,
occasionally exciting, and occasionally rewarding. However, to fully
enjoy its best parts, you must endure a handful of drab settings and
boring stealth puzzles along the way. At times, it's enough to make you
want to put the controller down. But stick around until the end, and
you'll enjoy a satisfying reward of eye-catching boss fights and a
satisfying conclusion that ultimately diminishes the negative impact of
the game's earlier issues. Lords of Shadow 2's story should resonate
with anyone with a continuing interest in the series' narrative, and
even though the ending won't hit newcomers as hard, the occasionally
fantastic environments and monsters create a worthwhile experience that
stands tall on its own by the end of the tale.
You're in a
tough position at the start of Lords of Shadow 2. You, Dracula, awake
from centuries of rest in a cathedral, smack in the middle of a modern
metropolis. Your archnemesis from the first game, Zobek, is your first
real contact. Despite your hatred for the traitor, you enter into an
agreement with him. Help Zobek defeat Satan so that he may conquer the
earth in his place, and he'll free you from immortality once and for
all. To do this, you must take on Satan's devoted acolytes, who've
implanted themselves into key positions in society.
This
all comes after a rousing prologue, which sees Dracula at full strength
battling righteous warriors in and around his unholy castle. For all
the excitement offered there, the true start to Lords of Shadow 2's plot
with Zobek is relatively deflating. Your motivation, to hunt someone
else's enemies, doesn't inspire much excitement. Plus, you're
immediately thrust into one of the most bland and uninspiring settings
to be found: an industrial scientific complex replete with sheet metal,
red pipes, and security guards. Memories of the first game in the series
are filled with fantastic vistas and monumental architecture; apart
from the prologue, Lords of Shadow 2 frustratingly avoids them early on.
It would be one thing if the boring start to the central
plot quickly gave way to combat, which is the real reason worth playing
Lords of Shadow 2, but instead you're forced into tedious and
questionable stealth missions almost immediately after your reunion with
Zobek. It's not inherently bad, but Lords of Shadow 2's stealth puzzles
offer no room for creativity and unnecessarily slow the pacing while
offering little in return. The prologue teaches you that this is a game
about dark castles, fearless knights, and heavy combat, then it hits the
snooze button. Unfortunately, it's throwaway content that gets in the
way of the good stuff periodically throughout the game, but thankfully,
it doesn't dominate the experience.
Lords of Shadow 2
eventually returns to what it does best: gothic action adventure.
Throughout the story, Dracula finds himself back in time, though it's
not immediately clear whether this is actual or imagined, but it brings
the game back to its roots. Combat and fantastic environments take
center stage, and with the game's new free-moving camera and an emphasis
on exploration, both aspects feel fresh and new. Thanks to the flexible
vantage, you're able to dash and leap during battle with greater
accuracy than before. Throw in multiple new and diverse skill sets, and
Dracula accurately feels like a powerful evolution of his former self,
Lords of Shadow's Gabriel Belmont. This time around, there are a few new
tools to play with, including a new weapon class that's capable of
breaking down fortified enemy defenses, but the biggest changes (apart
from the camera system) are the skill mastery system and the
weapon-dependent move lists.
In
Lords of Shadow 2, you learn skills for each weapon--shadow whip, void
sword, and chaos claws--independently. Skills are learned by spending
experience points granted during combat, and each has a gauge that fills
with use. Once the gauge is full, this experience can be transferred
into the given weapon, increasing its mastery level and effectiveness.
The fragmentation of the move lists delays your effectiveness in battle
somewhat, but it also allows you to focus on customization, opening the
game up to different types of combat strategies.
When you
aren't fighting, you spend quite a lot of time exploring and clambering
about your environment. By default, your objective is often highlighted
on the map, but unlike in the linear Lords of Shadow, it's up to you to
find your way there. It's usually clear where to go; hint-like swarms
of bats tip you off to handholds for climbing and ledges for leaping.
However, unlike in the first game, there are many alternate paths to
explore in search of treasure. While not game-changing, the openness
feels appropriate given the wide world around you. Apart from some
occasionally frustrating pathfinding inadequacies, it's the map that
ultimately stands in your way. Unlike older, exploration-heavy
Castlevania games, Lords of Shadow 2 employs a map that is only ever
displayed on a piece-by-piece basis. Plus, the "world map" is just an
illustration with names and numbers attached. It doesn't hurt the
moment-to-moment poking around, but it doesn't entice you to backtrack
either. If you can't easily see things you've missed, or more
importantly, places you haven't been, returning to previous locales
becomes an unappealing prospect.
Of
course, there's also the fact that halfway through the game, the
narrative and frequency of impressive set pieces begin to steamroll
ahead, and the last thing you want to do is look back. Zobek eventually
takes a sideline to Dracula's ambitions, and you begin to understand why
you're going to such great lengths to thwart Satan. With the emphasis
on Dracula and the memories of his family, you feel compelled to move
ahead. In this way, Lords of Shadow 2 is a late bloomer. It takes a
while for the story to show its true colors, but it eventually blossoms
into an engaging tale filled a few clever surprises that should thrill
anyone who's familiar with the series.
Much of the latter
half takes place amidst sublime examples of gothic architecture, with
nearby storms raging as you hop along rooftops, adding to the drama.
Boss fights become a much more frequent occurrence, pitting you against
gruesome monstrosities befitting of Castlevania's legacy. Their
appearances can be quite striking, bringing to mind some of the best
designs from film director Guillermo del Toro's work. They're evil,
expertly crafted, and offer a variety of challenges that test your
abilities with every weapon in many different ways. They require fast
reflexes and deep knowledge of your move list, and the creativity on
display is nothing short of captivating.
It's a pleasing
change of pace after slogging through boring environments, waiting for
things to happen, and you finally get a chance to take advantage of the
time spent buffing up your skills in combat. The contrast between the
two halves of the game is hard to ignore, and even though you have to
force your way through mediocrity to get to the good stuff, the
conclusion and the last hours leading up to it justify the time spent
steeped in boredom and frustration.
Lords
of Shadow 2 should have been a much shorter game. Still, though the
game's stealth sections and drab modern settings represent the worst
elements of the three-part saga, the tail end of the game contains the
best of every aspect that the series is currently known for. It's the
stuff you expect Castlevania to be made of, and after contending with
forced stealth gameplay and a weak narrative at the start, it feels good
to be home. Even better, the final act wraps up the Lords of Shadow
trilogy with authority, and the game's final moments leave you both
gasping for air and sighing in relief. It may not strike newcomers to
the Lords of Shadow tale with such force, but it's nonetheless a
surprising and fulfilling conclusion to Lords of Shadow 2's distinct
plot. Regardless of your experience with the saga, if you have the
patience to get through the rough start, you'll discover a much better
game waiting for you on the other side.
Nine years is a long time to wait for a proper port, even for a game as celebrated as Resident Evil 4.
Its release on the GameCube in 2005 ushered in a new era for the
franchise, as well as a different perspective and play style that its
sequels quickly inherited. Capcom capitalized on its immense success,
porting the game to multiple platforms, and the game was graciously
welcomed by the succeeding console generation on the PlayStation 3 and
Xbox 360. Though nine years is indeed a lot of time for a second PC
port, there is a reason it may be warranted. Resident Evil 4 has been
available on the PC since 2007, but its release was less than stellar
compared to its console brethren. The horror it unleashed was more on a
technical level, given the lack of mouse controls and the option to
adjust visual settings. Dubbed Resident Evil 4 Ultimate HD Edition, the
game has returned in an attempt to set past wrongs right. The game has
received substantial upgrades, and may be the best version yet released,
even if "ultimate" might not be the right word.
Resident
Evil 4 has returned to the PC with a fresh purpose. Unlike the original
port, this latest edition comes complete with a host of welcome
enhancements. The game has been adjusted for widescreen and 1080p
resolution fixed at 60 frames per second. There is also native keyboard
and mouse support with options for custom key binding, anti-aliasing, a
bevy of high-resolution textures, and greatly reduced loading times.
Resident Evil 4 HD contains the original game, complete with all prior
additional content, including the Separate Ways side campaign.
The
story of Resident Evil 4 is nearly common knowledge at this point.
Ashley Graham, the daughter of the president of the United States, has
been abducted, and series veteran Leon S. Kennedy has been dispatched to
a remote, undisclosed village in Spain to recover her. There, he
discovers that the religious cult responsible for the kidnapping has
unleashed an ancient, mind-controlling parasite called Las Plagas onto
the Spanish countryside. The game differs from its predecessors,
detaching itself from the series' staple enemies, zombies, and favoring
multifaceted foes that display cunning and a dark intelligence. As Leon
progresses, enemies grow more grotesque, shedding their humanity and
replacing it with a cold, insectoid carapace.
Leon
travels across varied and fascinating environments as he searches for
the missing Ashley. Adhering to the franchise's history of creepy
atmosphere and dark locales, Resident Evil 4 features misty forests,
rundown houses, musty caverns, a labyrinthine castle, and military
facilities. Enemy types vary greatly and include pitchfork-wielding
farmers, chanting cultists, and horrifying genetically engineered
monstrosities that can force even the most stalwart players to turn
heel. But Leon isn't alone against the infected horde. He is joined by a
cast of interesting characters, some newly met and others appearing out
of his history, teasing past romantic entanglements and bitter
rivalries. The dialogue and some later sequences get goofy at times, but
the story's somber overtones keep things intense, from the slow trek
through creeping fog, all the way to the explosive finale.
The
main attraction of Resident Evil 4 HD is the graphical upgrades, and
what Capcom has done to breathe new life into its aging thriller is
impressive, mostly. Leon and his assortment of allies and foes have
never looked shaper or better defined. The wide-screen support with
high-resolution textures running at a crisp, smooth 60 frames per second
should be enough to get even the hearts of most veteran Resident Evil 4
fans pumping with adrenaline once again. And, yes, it all performs
beautifully. Trees and shadows are imbued with realistic grace, text
featured in menus and passing notes is clean, and even the fine-stitched
lettering on Leon's alternate Raccoon City Police uniform is easily
legible. However, the new textures have an unintentionally negative side
effect.
One of the reasons behind Resident Evil 4's
launch into stardom was the game's unequivocal attention to detail.
Capcom took special care in crafting a realistic and believable world
with a gloomy ambiance. While Resident Evil 4 HD boasts high-quality
textures, they aren't universal, meaning the original textures that have
lingered since 2005 stand out more than ever, ironically making the
game feel more aged than ever. In the game, you may stumble across a
stone wall composed of realistic cracks and earthy green moss. But in
the same area, you could find a wooden box leaning up against the wall
that still retains the archaic textures, resulting in a blurry, brown
object strikingly out of place.
It
can get distracting, considering it's difficult not to notice a stark
contrast between a building and the ground it stands upon. Many of the
new skins feel too clean, scrubbing away rotten wood and rust, robbing
the game of its dingy flavor. Castle walls look sharp, and research
laboratories feel uninviting and sterile, but the caverns between them
look muddy, with textures that are warped and stretched. Texture
glitches also pop up from time to time, and measure in intensity from
flickering to, on a rare occasion, getting replaced by what appeared to
be the image designated for text, because the enemies turned black and
were covered in lettering. The game lets you switch back to original
textures if you like, but the heavy pixelation may not offer abatement.
Benefiting
from the graphical overhaul are all but one of the cutscenes during
Leon's campaign, which play out in real time. Capcom gave far less
attention to Separate Ways, which still includes low-quality full-motion
video cutscenes that look even worse due to the game's higher
resolution. There is also a grievous error that occurs following nearly
every video. As the game transitions from the clip back to gameplay,
there is a strong chance the screen will turn bright green for up to
five seconds.
This passing annoyance quickly treads into
frustrating territory. The game occasionally challenges you to complete a
quick-time event between scenes. This transition alone, which takes you
from a blurry clip, to sudden action, and onto the following clip,
oscillates with enough force to threaten whiplash. Being asked to press a
pair of buttons between the scenes comes as a jolt, and the lag
produced may decrease the amount of time allowed to complete the move,
ending in failure. In one such moment, I missed my cue and had to try
again. Except the second time, the green screen overlapped the brisk
moment of gameplay and cleared only after it was too late. To continue
my game, I had to press the appropriate buttons right as the green
screen appeared.
The
loudest complaint befalling the original port of Resident Evil 4 to the
PC was the lack of mouse support. The squirrely, nauseating
user-created aim mods that followed only exacerbated the issue. During
that time, PC users had to either get used to it or opt to play the game
using a controller. Though aiming with the mouse is finally possible,
it is far from perfect. When you're fighting at close range, the laser
sight has a chance to twitch, making fights against advancing ganados
more strenuous than necessary. At long distance, aiming a weapon's laser
pointer has a slippery, unnatural feel, making shots difficult and
unnecessarily taxing on your ammo supply. There is also a short, but
noticeable, delay between holding out the knife and being able to look
around.
Like before, your best chance is to equip
yourself with a gamepad. The most preferable choice is the Xbox 360
controller, since the game has been updated to support it; gone is the
need to memorize the cryptic numbered buttons from the old PC port,
because the game includes appropriate onscreen graphics for the device.
When you have a gamepad in hand, the controls are roughly comparable to
the GameCube experience. The camera floats behind the protagonist's
shoulder, creating a third-person view. When an enemy is spotted, the
game requires you to first hold your aim, while the camera flies down
closer, enlarging your field of vision. Combat favors strategy, offering
different ways to dispatch enemies based on the current situation.
Going gung ho and blasting away may leave you scrambling for ammunition,
and the optional knife does only so much against tougher foes later
down the line.
When you look at Titanfall, it's easy to see the
familiar. Most of the weapons, grenades, and abilities fill well-worn
niches. Many of the environments are like the grimy villages and
industrial complexes that have hosted countless online battles in dozens
of other games. The competitive modes are bog standard. And yet, when
you play Titanfall, it's impossible to shake the feeling that you're
playing something special.
The key is mobility.
Titanfall gives you the ability to leap, climb, and wall-run your way
around the map, and these simple actions create an exhilarating array of
possibilities. No longer constrained by corridors and stairwells, you
and your foes engage in high-flying, freewheeling combat in which the
sheer joy of movement makes the familiar feel fresh and vibrant. This
novel brand of warfare is enough to heartily recommend the game, but
that's not all that this multiplayer-only shooter does well. You also
clash with your foes in lumbering battle mechs called titans. These
powerful brutes fuel a weightier, more tactical type of combat that
intertwines beautifully with the light-footed action, and herein lies
Titanfall's triumph: two distinct kinds of combat blending seamlessly
together to create chaotic and dynamic battlefields unlike anything
you've ever experienced.
So
how does this mobility work? As a jump kit-equipped pilot, the stunts
you can perform all stem from two abilities: the double jump and the
wall run. The first one is self-explanatory and allows you to surmount
shipping containers and leap into second story windows with ease. The
second one is dependent on the angle of your approach. If you run
straight at a wall and leap into it, you're stuck trying to double jump
your way to a window or a roof. If, however, you come at a wall from an
acute angle, you automatically start running along that wall
horizontally. Once you start wall running, your double jump capability
resets, and then the fun begins.
If you spot an
enemy down an alley, you can wall run straight at him, bouncing back
and forth between parallel walls to make yourself a tougher target. If
you're trying to cross a courtyard, then double jump off the rooftop,
wall run along a billboard, and double jump again to another rooftop.
And how did you get on the roof in the first place? Perhaps by wall
jumping upwards, back and forth between two buildings, or perhaps by
leaping out of a top floor window and double jumping back on to the
roof. Though the moves you can eventually perform are complex, the root
of every maneuver is those two simple abilities. A solid tutorial puts
you through the initial paces, and though it might take a few matches to
get a good sense of how your pilot sticks to walls, it's easy to start
chaining together impressive feats very early on.
This
makes simply moving around the map both a continual pleasure and a
constant challenge, as you gleefully try to exploit every billboard,
building, and zipline to your advantage. The 15 maps are all rich with
opportunities for creative locomotion. Titanfall takes place on distant
colonies in the space-faring future, where the polished steel of
well-established settlements contrasts with the rusty metal of frontier
outposts. Dense urban areas play host to daring rooftop acrobatics,
while a corporate enclave provides curving architectural lines for
pilots to exploit. Many buildings have open interior spaces as well, so
weaving in and out of windows and changing elevation rapidly is par for
the course. It's always empowering to learn the maps in a competitive
shooter, but this satisfaction is heightened in Titanfall because your
expanded mobility means there is so much more to learn.
It
also means that your enemies can come at you from almost any direction.
Pilots move at a brisk clip, so there's a lot of potential for quick
flanking runs and rapid pursuits. They are also fairly fragile,
succumbing to a few well-placed shots much like their military-shooter
counterparts. This encourages you to be even more aware of your
surroundings and to take advantage of one of the more disruptive
maneuvers in the game: the wall hang. At almost any time you're running
along or jumping onto a wall, you can stop and hang, take aim, and fire.
Being able to switch quickly from wall running to guns blazing helps
ensure that a mobile pilot is not a vulnerable pilot, and the potential
for ambushing players by hanging in unexpected places is nearly endless.
Fortunately,
one of the tactical abilities allows you to temporarily see your
enemies' skeletons through walls and spot any potential ambushes. The
other two--turning nearly invisible and boosting speed and
regeneration--round out a trio of powers that have been extensively
utilized by other games and aren't initially very exciting. But like so
much in Titanfall, these familiar abilities take on new life because the
extensive player mobility allows you to employ them in new ways.