Recent reviews by Preacher

As the Assassin's Creed franchise begins to expand to encompass the entirety of human existence, spanning great swaths of time to give small playgrounds of unique cultures and people, the gameplay itself has managed to keep itself surprisingly similar to previous iterations. In fact, playing an assassin's creed game is a bit like trying a new word processing software. You know they all basically do the same thing as the other ones, but some things are easier and some features are more cumbersome than the others. You're not going to be surprised, it's not that kind of thing, for as different as the Vikings were from the Greeks and Spartan it feels kind of like the same thing. If you like it, you like it. If not, it's easily passed by.

Vikings are cool so I feel like I got something out of it, but not much more than that.

What can I say? This is a good game. It's surprisingly workmanlike in how it does everything that it should. The visuals are great, really nailing the aesthetic of the Aliens universe. The co-op is fun, works, but it's not really innovative on its own. It's fine though so long as you aren't expecting something to play feeling totally new. The progression is fun, with a nice system for balancing your abilities and modifications.

I cut my online shooter teeth on the original Rainbow Six on PC. Back in the day most shooters were fast paced arcade reflex games that had very little to do with what we know as the modern military shooters of today. Rainbow Six hit the scene with a splash. The level of realism that Red Storm Entertainment put into these games was unprecedented. And I for one loved it. I loved the tactical feel and the unforgiving damage model in the game. I loved it so much that when the now famous Counter-Strike mod released for Half-life I found it to be too simple.

When the next Rainbow Six game released, Rogue Spear, I found myself even more in love with the game as you could play the singleplayer campaign entirely in multiplayer. I spent so much time in multiplayer that I took part of my gamer tag from my favorite map in that game, the titular '747' map which I loved most of all. The series had fully taken me into it's grip.

The next game, Raven Shield, I also enjoyed but I found that the series was doing somethings as concessions to other shooters at the time. In previous games you could plan out your assault and have your operators' A.I. fight independantly. That mode was gone. They put arms and weapons in front of the screen and a few other things to make the game more like other shooters on the PC. I found this game to be the most accessible. I played it a lot but not as much as Rogue Spear.

Then there was a long break from Rainbow Six for awhile. It eventually returned in Rainbow Six Vegas. I tried to play it but found it a weaker experience gameplay-wise for all the concessions it made for consoles. I realize though that the consolification of Rainbow Six probably saved the series from falling into a niche PC experience. I didn't care for the game though.

Now we have Rainbow Six Siege, a game with next to no singleplayer. I worried that this would diminish the game from the ones I loved. But Rainbow Six Siege captures, to my mind, the spirit of the Rainbow Six franchise which is tight, realistic, tactical combat. R6 Siege does this by applying a realistic damage model to the environments and this changes the game like nothing else. I found myself shooting at a target who ducks behind a wall and at first wait for them to pop out before realizing tht in most games a wall (any kind of wall) is hard cover. But in R6 that particular wall is soft cover, it being a standard suburban house wall whihc affords all the cover that dry wall can afford which is none. So I shoot and bang, the kill message pops up with a new kind of satisfaction that I have not felt in a game before.

R6 Siege takes it even further by building the destruction into the gameplay. Certain weapons will only make holes in the wall to see through, others make passible holes in the wall that allow for more tactical approaches to situations. IT=t's a lot of fun.

The fact that the game focuses on multiplayer makes sense. This is really where this shines best for the series. A single player would be nice but really not necessary as the main mechanic of destructible environments has been in other games but has never really been as useful as it is in the multiplayer of R6 Siege. I think for fans of Rainbow Six this game is a return to form for the series.

Review of Nosgoth: The best AvP game ever made.

When I first heard of Nosgoth I was skeptical. A fan of the Legancy of Kain series I felt disappointed that the rich story driven franchise would be continued only in the husk of a free-to-play online multiplayer game. “But play the game and show your support for the franchise,” said no one important. “Forget that,” I said and walked away Charlie Brown style –head down and resigned to a world without more Kane and Raziel.

Then the game released and we were hit with a slew of advertising. The characters, the action and the art looked not even remotely similar to what I remembered in those classic LoK games. This was clearly a shameless cash-in if ever I saw one, and my blood boiled with impotent rage.

So I played it.

I played it out of spite. I played it to try to spot the loosest thread they used to tie the game into the greater narrative of the franchise. You know what I found? A barebones continuity to the world of Kain but a fantastic multiplayer game. The game is one of those truly rare asymmetrical multiplayer games, where each side isn’t just a reskinning of the other side’s classes. The human classes are all one form or another of ranged attacks while the vampires are all melee dealers. It’s ranged versus melee, and it does it in the most interesting ways.

In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s there we a few games that tried asymmetrical multiplayer. Games like Command & Conquer: Renegade, Splinter Cell and Giants: Citizen Kabuto. But my personal favorite was Aliens vs. Predator, where the melee dealing xenomorphs fought the range dealing humans and predators sat between the two. I’ve played every iteration of AvP multiplayer and Nosgoth is hands down the best AvP multiplayer game ever made.

Each vampire class has a different unique system for delivering that melee damage. The melee dealers are mobile. Whether it’s flying, cloaking, bull rushing or pouncing the vampires all have unique ways to take out their enemies. Though all can climb walls they are vulnerable when exposed, or when trying to heal. They can only heal by draining the blood of an enemy’s corpse, an animation that locks the vampire in place for a few tense seconds. Luckily they can drag enemy corpses away to a secluded spot to regenerate. That said a resourceful human can easily kill an injured vampire who is dragging a corpse away. The different classes of vampire really shine over what’s been done with AvP because where that license has limited options for gameplay (i.e. no flying xenomorphs) Nosgoth is free to explore the possibilities more.

The humans all have unique weapons which deliver their damage in unique ways too. All the weapons have specific uses, they are better at certain things and have specific disadvantages. The weapons are powerful and all can take out a reckless vampire easily. That said, the humans probably have to rely on each other more than the vampires because the vampires have many ways to incapacitate a lone human. Also the humans heal at health stations, where they too have a brief locked moment of animation while they heal. The humans have to really watch each other’s backs.

I don’t know where the progression or unlocks or all the purchasing boosters comes into play but if gameplay is king then Nosgoth has the crown. It should come as no surprise that the developer of this game went on to create the aptly lauded Rocket League game because they clearly understand something about gameplay and how to make it great.

I would recommend Nosgoth to anyone who wants to see a different online multiplayer experience. Or maybe an older multiplayer experience done even better.

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood is an interactive experience that tells the story of a love affair between a man and his lead pipe during the years before WWII. After an early meet cute the two are never separated and they overcome all obstacles together. The lead pipe lifts the man to new heights and opens doors of opportunity for him. It's a familiar story but set against the backdrop of Nazis who - for some reason - want to separate the two it does have some great moments. That said, like many romance stories, the protagonist is kind of a blank slate and for the life of me I can't see what the lead pipe sees in him and why it chooses to be with him. Outside of its comment on the blind nature of love, The Old Blood doesn't really say much but it's a fun ride and well worth the time to see how much a man and a pipe love each other.

Singularity is a fantastic singleplayer FPS. In the tradition of all the B-tier shooters in the 90's this game, like Bioshock, takes solid shooting mechanics, wraps in a unique gameplay twist and presents an interesting setting for the game to unfold.

The setting is an abandoned Russian facility that did experiments on a mysterious substance that affects time. That's the gameplay hook, you explore by dilating time and the age of objects around you. You can make enemies decay right in front of you. It's a fun experience.

Unfortunate for the developer Raven, Activision sent this solid gem to die at retail with no advertising support and so the game was religated to obscurity. I'm sure the multiplayer is dead at this point but the singleplayer alone is worth the price of admission.