Video Game Review #126: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Crossroads of Time

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Crossroads of Time

Super Nintendo

We are up to video game review #126 now, and for the most part I have been handing out pretty good scores to the games I have reviewed. I am easy to please. I tend to enjoy nearly everything I play. I am not an overly critical person. I have not been keeping track of review scores (maybe I should start, though), but it is very rare that I give out anything below a C-. It's happened maybe five times, if that. While it is a very rare occasion, it is about to happen here.

I wanted to like this game. Truly, I did. I am a big fan of Deep Space Nine. I am hard pressed to say which series I like more, but DS9 is right up there neck and neck with The Next Generation. The good news is that this game gives you a decent, believable story line which feels as if it could be its own episode on the show. Unfortunately that is about the only good thing it has going for it. 

I'd played this game before as a teenager, and I vaguely remember my time with it. I remembered it being difficult, mainly. I remember disarming bombs in the cargo bay. I remembered running around the Promenade. I remembered a stage where you have to fend off the Borg. That's about it.

When I started playing this, those memories started to come back fast. And they weren't good ones. First of all, the game's controls are incredibly sloppy and difficult to manage. This game requires a lot of fast, precise action. You have to jump across chasms and climb up ledges - that kind of thing. But the way your character handles makes this VERY difficult to accomplish. Ben Sisko is very stiff and wooden. You have to line up every jump perfectly, down to the last pixel, or risk falling to your death. I can't tell you how many times I had to gently tap the controller to get Sisko lined up at the edge of a chasm so he could jump up to the ledge above him.... only to have him go over the edge completely. Other times you line up a running jump perfectly (or so you think) only to have Sisko not grab on to the ledge he was supposed to. Again, you go falling to your death. It is very frustrating.

It wouldn't be so bad if the game picked up right where you died. But no, oftentimes the game takes you back several screens or even to the very beginning of the stage itself. You end up having to replay long, tedious segments of game that you have already been through before. So many times this game that made me want to chuck my controller through the TV screen. I get mad just thinking about it.

Combat is not very exciting either. Your main enemies consist of Cardassians or Bajorans with phasers. The problem is, they just stand there and never react until it is too late. The only time I ever got hurt by one of them was when I wasn't paying attention and ran DIRECTLY into them. There are a few of them early in the game, however, that are positioned directly above ledges that you have to pull yourself up on to. They punch you and smack you before you even have the chance to recover after jumping up. A few times they knocked me right back over the ledge and to my death. I never stood a chance. Very annoying. But outside of that, enemies are really not a problem to deal with at all. Until you get to the game's final stage and have to deal with the obnoxious turret guns.

One of the game's more memorable stages is a flashback stage that takes place aboard the Saratoga during the battle of Wolf-359. It is a fun stage in theory. You have a time limit to find Jake, secure the codes you need (which will help you in the present day), and escape the ship before it is destroyed. You can only hit the Borg with your phasers twice before they adapt and can no longer be defeated. It is very puzzle-like as well, in the sense that you have to explore this ship, find items, bring items to different characters, and also navigate the Borg enemies with only two shots in your phaser. But in keeping in line with the rest of the game, it is very frustrating as well. The time limit stinks. You have to time your run almost perfectly or you have no chance. Items can be obscured and hard to find, particularly the piece you need to fix your data pad. If you kill two Borg and waste your two shots, you can encounter other Borg that block your path and make it impossible to proceed. Then you have to start over again. The whole thing is trial and error and will probably take you at least twenty attempts before you find the right way to make it through. I gave up after about 5 and followed an online guide!

When you aren't exploring the game's stages, you are aboard Deep Space Nine. These stages are pretty uninspired too. They mainly consist of running around and talking to people in the correct order until you can advance the game's story line. The only real break you get from the side scrolling stages is early in the game when you have to guide the runabout through the wormhole. I remember this being a very challenging stage as a teenager. The runabout controls just like Sisko, herky-jerky and out of control. But somehow I managed to beat it on my first try as an adult. This is followed by a generic shoot out in the middle of an asteroid field where you have to take down a fleeing Bajoran vessel.

So the game is unfairly difficult. It controls like crap. It is not very fun to play. What does it do well? As I mentioned, the story line is decent. It tells the tale of a group of renegade Bajorans who are looking to steal the Orb of the Prophets and destroy the station. As you play you uncover a conspiracy that the Cardassians may be privately fueling this insurrection so they can take back Bajor. Good stuff. The game's graphics are also pretty decent. The station looks like the station. The characters look like the characters. The animations can be a bit goofy, however. Sisko's animation always has him running at a dead sprint, even when he is just exploring the station or inching forward to line up a jump at the edge of a platform.

The game gives fairly equal representation to the game's characters. Mainly you control Sisko, but occasionally you get to control the others as well. Kira is the pilot during the runabout stages. Bashir leads an assault investigation on the station. Odo sneaks over to the Cardassian vessel to help Benjamin beam aboard. I won't give any credit to the Odo portion of the game though. It is SO stupid. All you do is turn into a rat and sneak through the ventilation ducts until you find and secure Sisko's beam in point. He can't even attack the Cardassians in his humanoid form. It's a waste of an opportunity to give a unique character his chance to shine. And it is over and done with in about two minutes.

Oh, and the game's music? It stinks. Well, I mean - it is not terrible. But it doesn't really feel very Deep Space Nine-y. It is very frantic sounding. Except for the main theme, in which they attempt to recreate the show's title song. But that, I can safely say, does stink. The sound effects? Meh. The phaser sounds fine. Everything else is average at best.

It only took me one night, but when I did beat this game I was able to breathe a big sigh of relief. The main reason being that I would never have to play it ever again in my life! I didn't like it. Like I said, I wanted to. But I just couldn't. It is not any fun. Why would I like a game that is no fun, even if I did like the source material? It has a few moments of not being a complete failure. But that's it. I am probably going to trade my copy of the game in to a used game store or something. Just in case I get it in my head in 15 years that I should come back and play this game again. Don't, future Dan. You didn't have a good time now, and you won't in the future. Best to just get rid of it now.

My advice to you? Unless you are a diehard DS9 fan you should stay away. Even then you may not (and probably won't) like this.

Overall:

D-

Video Game Review #125: Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

PlayStation 4

When I first got my PlayStation 4 my wife asked me if I was going to play "the Uncharted game with the female main character." I didn't know what she was talking about. The Uncharted games starred Nate Drake. I assumed she meant Tomb Raider. But no, she persisted. It was an Uncharted game - she was sure of it.

I investigated, and sure enough there existed an Uncharted game that I had never even heard of before. This one starred Chloe Frazer (last seen in Uncharted 2 and 3) in her own standalone game. I placed this title in my GameFly queue, albeit further down on my list. After a few months the game crept itself up on my queue and finally got sent out to me. But - GASP - it wouldn't play in my PS4. I had to send it back, and my replacement copy almost didn't work either. It was like some cosmic force was trying to keep me from playing the game. But I cleaned the shiznit out of that disc. I didn't want to have to send this one back too and basically lose a full 2 weeks off of my subscription. At last, my PS4 recognized the game.

I initially wasn't too excited to dive back into Uncharted so soon after finishing Uncharted 4, but once I started playing the game I became hooked. While almost all of the gameplay mechanics are the same as in Uncharted 4, it was the game's protagonist that kept me interested. I had always liked Chloe from her previous appearances in the series. But was she interesting enough to carry her own stand alone game? The answer was a resounding yes!

The game doesn't give you too many plot details right off the bat. All you know is that you are playing as Chloe, and you are in India. The game starts off with Chloe hiding out in a bustling outside market. She chats up a small girl, who helps her sneak into the back of a military truck. You get off the truck in a war zone and soon meet up with Nadine Ross, one of the villains in Uncharted 4. But Nadine is not the enemy here. It turns out you are working with her to find an ancient artifact called the Tusk of Ganesh.

As usual with Uncharted games, you have to race against an evil faction who is also after the same artifact. How these things can go undiscovered for hundreds or thousands of years but then have multiple groups converging on them at the exact same time is always irritating to me, but it is what it is. Gotta have someone to fight against as you explore, right?

I had read that this was more of an open world game than past Uncharted titles, but that isn't necessarily the truth. Most stages follow the usual linear chapter by chapter Uncharted approach. One of the chapters is very large and expansive, though. It is a bit like a sandbox stage. You have a map of the area with several destinations on it. It is up to you how you want to proceed and in what order you want to visit each destination. There are also several optional relics to pick up. If you collect them all, you gain an artifact that chimes in and shakes your controller whenever you are near a hidden treasure. It is a useful item to have, especially if you are a collectible hunter.

Graphically, the game is beautiful. Uncharted has never been a slouch in the looks department, and The Lost Legacy is no exception. In fact, there is something about the locales in this game that seem even more visually appealing than other games in the series. We have seen old ruins and rainforests aplenty in Uncharted, but India's for some reason seem especially lush and satisfying.

What sets this title apart (for me) from past Uncharteds is how "to the point" it is. That has been my main complaint about other Uncharted games. Too many long cutscenes, too much listening to useless banter between the characters, too many long chats about boring historical stuff. There are some cutscenes in this game, sure. But you are not going to be sitting around twiddling your thumbs for twenty minutes at a time like you did in the past. It doesn't take you an absurdly long time until you can use your gun either. I just feel there is a better balance between action and storyline in this one. Gone are the "filler" stages where you simply run along chatting with your sidekick as you climb walls and boost your partner up to high ledges. There is banter in the game, but it is takes place at more opportune times.

Additionally I feel as if the tone of the game is better suited to my own personal interests. Other Uncharted games had too much "bro" humor going on between Drake and whoever his sidekick happened to be at the time. Not to mention all the slapstick stuff where Nate was always getting beat up or falling/breaking through things or tumbling down hills. This one has a more serious, personal feel. It is fascinating to watch Chloe and Nadine's relationship evolve into a genuine friendship as the game goes on. They have many personal, heartfelt conversations - the likes of which you haven't seen in past Uncharted games. I won't spoil it, but one of my favorite moments of the game is a scene involving elephants. It invoked memories of the famous giraffe scene from the Last of Us. At the same time, the game doesn't sacrifice everything Uncharted holds dear. There is some humor. The characters do talk of course about historical stuff as they explore. Sam from Uncharted 4 joins the action about 70% of the way through the game and things start to feel more like a normal Uncharted game. But still, as I said I do feel as if the story line, character development, and overall tone of the game is much deeper than past entries in the series.

Don't expect the game to last too horribly long. I think I beat it in two or three days, which is pretty fast for an Uncharted game. If I remember correctly this game was initially supposed to be just DLC for Uncharted 4, but eventually became so big that they made it into its own standalone game. I wish the experience lasted just a little bit longer.

I had my doubts about whether or not Uncharted could flourish without Nake Drake at the helm. Turns out I had nothing to worry about. Not only is Chloe Frazer more than capable of handling her own game, but I feel as if the game actually benefited from Nate Drake's absence. I got to play a game that contained Uncharted's trademark graphics, action, and high flying excitement. But I also got to approach this action through the eyes of a different character. It was a very refreshing change. I would recommend Uncharted: The Lost Legacy to any fan of the Uncharted series. I might question paying full price for a game so short, but if you can get it for a good deal you will find that it is well worth it.

Overall:

A-

If you liked this review, please check out my following reviews:

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

Tomb Raider Legend

Far Cry Classic

Video Game Review #124: Ratchet & Clank

Ratchet & Clank

PlayStation 4

I have been a big fan of the Ratchet and Clank series since the mid 2000s. I've played nearly every version of the game that has hit the shelves, with the exception of Deadlocked and a few of the minor PS3 era titles.

The formula of the games, while fun, has been losing some of its magic to me for quite some time now. You run, you shoot, you collect bolts, you buy and upgrade new weapons. Rinse and repeat. Each game has its own slightly amusing story line, complete with pre and mid-level story sequences. It is clear that the makers of the game are trying to make you laugh and keep you entertained when you aren't fighting, but to be honest I always found these scenes to be a bit of a chore to sit through. A necessary evil that I must endure before moving on to wreak havoc and distraction on a new alien world.

That said, I oddly enjoyed the Ratchet and Clank movie that came out a few years back. Perhaps without the distraction of, you know, actually playing the game I was able to focus more on the story of the film and enjoy it for what it was: a fun, if not too horribly memorable kid's movie.

I only mention the movie because it ties in directly to this game. Ratchet and Clank for the PlayStation 4 is essentially a remake of the original Ratchet and Clank for PlayStation 2, but with added content from the movie thrown in. The back of the game's box sums it up well. "A game based on a movie based on a game." Confused? Well, you shouldn't be. It is not that hard to figure out!

When I first heard news of this game coming out, I was a little bit excited. I enjoyed the movie. I wanted to see how the game would look on a PS4. The formula of the game looked like it was going to be unchanged, but it had been a while since I had played a Ratchet and Clank game, so I was willing to overlook that.

When I started the game up, fun memories of the series came rushing back to me. It was indeed true that, as far as gameplay goes, not much had changed in the series. But I was willing to overlook that and just focus on having a good time. And this game definitely was a lot of fun.

Since this is my first review of a Ratchet and Clank game, I will break down how it works. You play as a Lombax named Ratchet. Ratchet is a mechanic and a wannabe space exploring galactic hero. He investigates a nearby crash site where he finds Clank. Clank is a little robot who was created in a weapons processing facility. But he is a "defect" that is unwanted. He flees the facility, enemies in hot pursuit, and that is how he ends up crashing near Ratchet. The two immediately hit it off, team up, and become space exploring galactic heroes, just like Ratchet had always dreamed of becoming.

Gameplay takes place from a behind the back perspective. The name of the game is guns, explosions, and non-stop action. You start with a basic weak weapon that fires in a straight line. You quickly begin adding new weapons to your arsenal. There are bombs that you toss, heat seeking missiles, a "Pixelator" that acts like a shotgun and breaks your enemy into 8 bit looking pixeled characters, a flamethrower, a disco ball that distracts your enemies while you go ape on them... there are many other weapons to collect as well, but there are too many to describe them all.

A typical level takes place on an alien world. There are different branches you can take on the world map, each one leading to a new mission objective. You have to fight your way to the objective, taking on hordes of enemies at a time. Action is often quite hectic on the screen. As you fight on and advance, you are going to be smashing lots of boxes in the process. These boxes contain things like ammo, health, and bolts. Bolts you collect to buy ammo and new weapons. There is a collectible substance in the game called Raritanium that you can use to upgrade these weapons to more powerful levels.

That really is the name of the game. Run, explore, shoot. There are some atypical action levels thrown in to keep things fresh. In some you have to fly a spaceship and dogfight with smaller alien ships. In others Clank breaks away from Ratchet and has to solve puzzles in order to help you advance the plot. Some levels contain hover board races you must complete to gain bolts and keep the story line moving. There are some small interesting gameplay variations as well. You gain a jetpack (which I don't recall seeing in the original Ratchet and Clank) which you can use to fly around some levels. There is a grindrail, which IS seen in other Ratchet and Clank titles, that basically acts as an on-rails segment where you have to jump from rail to rail, avoiding objects and swatting enemies out of your way. Don't get me started on the hacking mini game, though. It sucks ass.

It shouldn't take you too long to complete this game. I beat it in less than a week, and that was only playing sparingly off and on again. I did find the game to be slightly more challenging than past Ratchet and Clank games. I don't know if that is because it is indeed more difficult, or because I am just out of practice since I haven't played one of these in so long. Even with the added challenge level I still beat the game pretty quickly. Spoiler alert (not really): the boss battles where you have to fly around on the jetpack are the WORST!

There isn't anything particularly new or groundbreaking about this game, especially if you have played Ratchet and Clank games in the past. It looks really good. It sounds really good. Technically it is a very impressive game. It is a lot of fun, but very simple at the same time. Which isn't a bad thing. Smash, collect, smash, collect, explore, shoot, jump, shoot, repeat, jump, smash, collect. It is a fun trip down memory lane with the remixed old levels as well.

Is it worth full price to buy this game? Not really. Especially if you already own the original Ratchet and Clank game. And especially if you can beat it in a couple of days like me. But if you can find it cheap (or borrow it from a friend, which is what I did!) that would be the way to go. It's a fun, solid game. A nice throwback to a classic and winning formula. I could think of worse ways to spend time. It is not the best nor the longest game in the universe but it is a fun time. That's really all I can say about it.

Overall:

B

If you liked this review: please check out the following reviews:

Contra

Banjo-Kazooie

God of War

Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus

Sly Cooper and the Thievius Racoonus

Video Game Review #123: Prey

Prey

PlayStation 4

At my place of work we have several community bookshelves where people put old magazines, newspapers, and books that they no longer need. I am always on the lookout for old Game Informer magazines. These things are the Holy Grail of the shared bookshelf community. About 5 or 6 months ago, long before I got my PlayStation 4, I picked up one of these Game Informers. An interesting looking game called Prey was the cover story.

I had never heard of Prey before reading about it in the magazine. But I have to say, it caught my attention. The subject material was right up my alley. Abandoned space station with a horror setting? Aliens? First person perspective? I was all over it. I knew eventually I was going to be getting a PlayStation 4. I added this to my mental list of games to check out once I did get the system. I do this all of the time but often I forget about the game and never play it, especially if it is something I had never really heard of before. But for some reason Prey stuck with me. When I did get a PlayStation 4, I made sure it was one of the first titles in my GameFly queue.

The storyline of Prey is... unique. Even after playing through the game I am not sure I can clearly say I understood what I had witnessed. So I'll just give you a basic recap. Your name is Morgan Yu. You control your character as you are led from your apartment, via helicopter, to a testing facility where you have to undergo a question and answer survey and take some basic physical tests. In the middle of your session, an alien appears and kills the scientists around you. Your character blacks out. You wake up aboard an enormous space station called Telos 1. You quickly discover that your life as you knew it was a fake. Your apartment, the testing, even the helicopter ride was just a simulation. You explore the space station, looking for answers.

You find that the space station has been overrun by aliens, the same ones that interrupted your testing simulation. These aliens are especially dangerous because they are shape shifters and can take the shape of anything in the environment. You walk past an innocent looking mop bucket and bam it turns into an alien that attacks you. See that apple which you assume is going to give you a health boost? Nope, it's an alien. You never know what is real and what is not. This is an effective way of creating drama and tension as you play. The game is dark, slower paced, and it doesn't give you an abundance of weapons to work with. In fact, you start out with only a rather ineffective wrench that you use to bash away at your alien attackers. So you really feel as if you are walking on eggshells as you play.

The more you explore the station, the more you begin to discover about your past. Turns out that your previous self (before you lost your memory and entered the simulation) had left a series of notes and clues to guide you on your way. I won't say any more. Not because I don't want to spoil you, which I don't, but also because I don't really understand where the story takes you. Things get a bit overly convoluted as the game goes on and I had a hard time following along with what was reality and what was not. Maybe that is the point of the game. I don't know. But I like clear answers, and this game failed to satisfy me in that regard.

When I first started playing, the first thing I noticed about the game was of course its great graphics. I am new to the PlayStation 4, so basically anything that looks better than a PS3 game is going to impress me. Prey definitely did that. Sharp textures, detailed environments. Prey looks really nice. The makers of the game did a terrific job creating an appropriate sense of atmosphere in this game. Telos 1 is a very believable setting. All of the game's environments look like they have been lived in. Nothing looks sterile, bland, or uniform. It is the little touches that do it. Random clutter on people's desks. Notes written on the wall. Empty food and beverage containers sitting around. Toys and other personal effects sitting out all over the place.

Gameplay takes place from a first person perspective. As you play you gain weapons such as a handgun, shotgun, and a GLOO gun - an interesting weapon that encases and incapacitates your enemies in a hard substance. That being said, Prey is not just a mindless shooter. In fact, if you go through this game thinking you are playing Doom or Wolfenstein you are going to get your butt kicked. You can't just blast everything in sight. Weapons and ammunition are scarce. It is hard to dodge enemy attacks. Your character is quite fragile and will not win a war of attrition if you are battling it out all the time. You have to pick and choose your battles. Try to sneak by your enemies, or run past them hoping you can lose them in the game's corridors. 

It took me a while to realize this. Enemies can feel overpowered, especially toward the beginning of the game. I had to adapt my usual strategy of shoot first think later. In fact there were a few areas that were designated on my map as active quests that I had to skip and come back to later because I simply was not strong enough to face the enemies I was encountering. It definitely added to the sense of helplessness and horror as I played. But at the same time it also made the early part of the game seem like a chore to play for me.

Once I got used to the game's mechanics, however, Prey really began to take off.  The more of the station I got to explore and the more of the story line that opened up to me, the more invested I became. I took each tough objective as a personal challenge for me to take on. This made each encounter that I passed extremely satisfying.

In addition to the cat and mouse gameplay style, Prey offers a few other innovations that set it aside from the pack. The game has RPG like elements, such as the ability to earn Neuromods that you can use to level up your character and your equipment. When you get deeper into the game you can begin using these Neuromods to modify your character and give him some of the same abilities that the aliens have. Also, the game has a pretty cool crafting system. Normally I am not a big fan of crafting, but Prey really makes it work. Throughout the game you pick up lots of seemingly useless junk like banana peels and used cigars. I questioned just WHY I was picking these things up, especially when I started to run out of inventory space. But then the game introduced to me the Recycler. Throw all the items you don't want or need in the Recycler, and it spits out minerals and resources you can use to craft new items like health packs and ammunition. I actually had a really fun time scavenging for items to toss in the Recycler. For once the crafting system in a video game didn't seem like a complete chore for me.

There are many, many quests to undergo on Telos 1, and you can undertake multiple quests at a time. Many of these are optional and many are story related. Feel free to take them on in any order you want. The decisions you make during these quests affect how the game plays out. For example - use the Neuromods to give yourself too many alien abilities and you begin to lose your humanity. Drones and human-friendly turrets will start to turn on you. The ending changes too. Use the Neuromods to simply enhance your human attributes and those things don't happen. Additionally, if you are a jerk when completing quests and you choose all the evil options this affects how the story plays out as well. For example, I decided to kill a man who got stuck in a cargo pod out in space and this took away several side missions that I would have had access to if I had simply saved the man. This also affected the ending of the game as that decision turned out to be a major one.

Telos 1 is enormous and I had a fun time exploring it. No two areas are alike. You've got the main lobby, the cargo bay, multiple science labs, an arboretum, crew quarters, a dining hall, a kitchen, a med bay - so on and so forth. There are even several points in the game where you have to don a spacesuit and go outside the station to explore. One complaint I have is that there is too much backtracking. You'll find yourself revisiting old areas once you gain weapons, keys, pass codes, and abilities later in the game that allow you access to secrets you could not get at before. Normally I would not complain about this, as it is a common feature in many games. However, the load times are extraordinarily long. Painfully long, in fact. Each segment of the station is broken up into areas that require you to sit through excessively long loading scenes when you attempt to access them. If you have to backtrack through three or four areas, expect to spend most of that time twiddling your thumbs as you stare at a loading screen. It is very, very annoying.

If I had to compare this game to other games I have played in the past, those games would be Bioshock, Dishonored, and Thief. The setting and story line of the game were much more interesting than Dishonored or Thief, which I only mildly enjoyed. I wouldn't say I enjoyed this as much as Bioshock, however. That game had a much more satisfying combat system. And Rapture had slightly more personality than Telos 1. But the parallels are definitely there.

All in all I found this to be a very fun and immersive game. It started out a bit too slow for my tastes, but the deeper I got into the game the better it became. Telos 1 is a fantastic setting and I really enjoyed exploring it and discovering all of its nuances. It is not a perfect game. The combat system could have used some tweaking. The story line fell apart toward the end for me. And the load times... don't even get me started. But I liked this a lot. If you are a fan of first person shooters, survival horror, or RPGs, I would recommend this for you. If you like all three of those genres, then I say hey you need to play this ASAP. 

Overall:

B

If you enjoyed this review, check out my review for other games similar to Prey.

Dishonored

Thief

Resident Evil: Director's Cut

Alien Trilogy

Resident Evil: Revelations